Susan, Sequoia, and Todd go sailing

We’re currently 89 nautical miles west of the Golden Gate and if all goes well (knock on wood) by tomorrow evening (Sunday) we’ll be land ho’s tied up in slip B-30 at Emery Cove!

In case you’ve been following our position, and have noticed that it hasn’t been updated in the last couple days, fret not! The winlink database is just down right now.

What started out as a fun game of leap-frog with the Pacific High has turned into a frustrating game of tag! Just when we think we might be far enough from the high to get some more favorable winds, the darn thing moves closer to us. What’s a crew to do? We’ve been sailing as close to the wind as possible, which means we’re beating into the wind. But luckily it isn’t too uncomfortable.

We have just about 730 miles to go to the Golden Gate! If all goes well, that means just about another week at sea. While we’ve had a great passage so far, I think we’re all feeling ready for hot showers and a little more variety in our diets (rather than just a different flavor of ramen). Not to mention that we can’t wait to see our friends and family back home.

Luckily we still have plenty of margarita makings on board, and our nightly conversations with our buddies on other boats remain a highlight of our days. For tonight’s net, Capn Fairwinds has prepared a fake weather report. Imagine a computerized voice saying something along the lines of “the sailing is great everywhere, except where you are, where it will suck”. (I guess it’s funnier if you’ve heard to the forecasts on the VHF. To us, it’s hilarious!)

Miles down: 2262
Miles to go: About 730
Beer remaining: 50? (we lost track a while ago)

The last few days of this passage have been just about perfect! We’ve had calm seas and nice wind during the day. At night, the wind dies off, so we just drop our sails and sleep. It was frustrating at first not to be moving, but then we started to look at it as being just like anchoring for the night. I’m thrilled to report that not only have I stopped taking pills for sea sickness, but I’ve even been able to read without feeling queasy!

We think these next couple days will be the “crux move” of this journey. We are flirting with the edges of the Pacific High, and it’s anyone’s guess whether we’ll manage to scoot around or get caught for a while with no wind. Thanks to all of you psychics out there who helped push the High south- it worked! We’re optimistic that even if we do get stuck, it will be for just a day or two; and it’s more fun to hang out here than to sail north, only to have to sail south again near the Pacific Coast, where we’re likely to have gale conditions.

Today was a shower day- I’ve declared that we will bathe every 3 days whether we need to or not! With the sun and light winds, it is quite a pleasure.

Other excitement lately: we’ve seen a couple of tankers pass about 5 miles away from us. We also had a small bird (a storm petrel, I think) fly into the cabin and land in the sink! Ron scooped it up and set it free. These petrels love to hang around our boat at night; they seem to be attracted to the light. In fact, Capn Ornithology went out on deck with a headlamp on, and a bird flew right at his forehead. Todd managed to get his hand up and fend the bird off, sparing the poor creature from certain death on the rocky precipice that is Todd’s brow.

But our biggest news is that Ron caught an albacore tuna yesterday! I had been debating about what to make for lunch: pasta or rice to go with the (as yet uncaught) fish. Ron said not to count on fish for menu planning. After an hour or so I decided to go ahead with the pasta, and just after I’d dug out the pot, I heard the handline knock. “Fish on!” I yelled. Ron let the fish run just a bit, then brought it in steadily. We all crowded around the cockpit to catch a glimpse of it as he reeled it in, and were so excited when we saw that it was a tuna! Ron landed it and killed it quickly. “Pasta’s off, rice is on!” I yelled. The fish was maybe a ten pounder so it fed us all for two days. Ron’s already declared that tomorrow is another fishing day, and I’ve been thinking of how I might scrape together a fish curry. I love yelling “Fish on!” in a high, quavering voice, so I kinda hope he gets a lot of strikes before ultimately getting one to the boat. We’ll just have to be careful about eating too much tuna because of the mercury levels. After we hit Hilo, Todd and I joked that we had eaten so much sushi, that when it got hot outside, we grew taller! But seriously, I’ve been told the symptoms of mercury overload are irritability, forgetfulness, and… damn it! I can’t remember what else!

Miles sailed: 1524
Miles to go: 1343+
Beer remaining: 90 or so

After all of our sightseeing and surfing, we were ready to set sail for San Francisco on Saturday, July 3. But then Todd scrutinized the weather and decided it would be better to wait a day, to let a low pressure system pass through the North Pacific ahead of us. And since our spot on the Aloha Dock of the Hawaii Yacht Club gave us front row seats for the fireworks on the 4th, well, we decided we might as well stay til the 5th.

So last Monday morning we hit the Wailana Coffee House for all-you-can-eat pancakes (including Capn Sugar High’s favorite coconut syrup!) with our buddies on Isis. I was a little embarrassed to order a third plate of pancakes when Ron and Todd had stopped at two, but I’d spent the last month on Oahu porking up for the return trip and wasn’t about to hold back on our last morning in port!

After showering and cooking up 3 DiGiorno frozen pizzas (dinner and lunch for a couple days), we hit the fuel dock for a little bit of diesel and then were on our way! We had great sailing out of the Ala Wai and around the west side of Oahu. Things got a little rough that night in the channel between Oahu and Kauai, but since then it has been pretty much ideal conditions, with plenty of sunshine. And today has been the best day yet: the wind on the beam and the small, well-organized swell have made for a smooth ride. Hooray! The guys even managed to reduce our beer stock by upwards of a dozen.

To get back to SF, we have to sail north, up around the North Pacific high. Our friend Rick has been sending us weather updates, letting us know the high’s position. Unfortunately right now it is pretty far north, so we invite those of you with psychic abilities to envision it moving south. (Those of you without such abilities, well, how about you start saving your pocket change so you can buy us burritos?)

Rick has also been giving us important news updates. A couple days ago Todd came up into the cockpit and announced, “Rick told us who is in the World Cup finals.” Excited to know, I asked “Oh, who?!” Capn Total Recall scratched his large forehead and mumbled, “Uh, I don’t remember.” Hoping to give his thought process a helpful push, I offered, “Well it is either Spain or Germany and either Uruguay or the Netherlands.” Todd shook his head. “Nah, none of those. It was something like Peru or Chile or one of those countries.” I was left wondering which was more appalling- his short term memory, or his failure to understand the concept of “semi-finals”.

I will give him this though: he learned from our provisioning mistakes of the last passage. This time, we’ve got plenty of easily-prepared (but somewhat disgusting) foods like Chef Boyardee ravioli and Hormel chili. Our mainstay is ramen; we even did taste-tests of the many brands available in the Japanese stores of Honolulu. Sequoia made up a ramen chart with star-ratings and comments about each brand, and she ruled out one of them based on the amount of sodium it contained (astronomical as opposed to sky-high!).

Todd also bought a ridiculous amount of Pringles, much to Ron’s both joy and misery. When he signed on, Ron thought this would be a great opportunity to lose weight. But a tube of Pringles is never far from reach, and they tempt Ron with their siren call. We’ll hear Ron yell, “Oh, damn!” and the next thing you know, he’s elbow-deep in sour cream and onion.

Miles sailed: 987
Miles to go: Depends on where the high is (think SOUTH!)
Beers remaining: About 105 (yes, he bought more this time)

Because I’d suffered from seasickness on the passage to Hawaii, we hatched a plan: I would fly home with Sequoia, and our friend Captain Ron would fly in to help Todd bring the boat back. (And no, this is not the Captain Ron from the movie… but there are some eerie similarities!)

But then I got to thinking, and no good can ever come from that. With a third person on board, it wouldn’t matter so much if I were seasick; I wouldn’t need to do anything, because Ron and Todd could handle everything without me. Besides, it was kind of exciting to think of getting ready for another passage, especially one that would culminate in bringing Sugata back under the Golden Gate.

So I was left with the choice: easy flight back and a month lazing around on solid ground, or four weeks at sea with two under-washed, over-liquored men. Oh, how I agonized over the decision! Logically, it made no sense to subject myself to another passage. But emotionally, well, it was more complicated. (more…)

We have been having so much fun learning how to surf! Sequoia really took to it and hopes to keep it up back home in California. But it’s easy to have romantic notions in the Waikiki sunshine. I told her to try it out in the cold water before she invests in a board!

On her last day surfing at Waikiki (she flew home on June 22), she convinced us to buy a waterproof disposable camera. We shot off half of it, and were going to take more pics the next time we surfed. Unfortunately, Todd had the camera in his pocket, and somehow it got a huge crack and filled with water. We were so disappointed, but decided to see if anyone could get any images off of it.

Long’s Drugs wouldn’t develop the film because the salt water could damage their chemicals; Ritz Camera said the same thing, but pointed us to a local place called Rainbow Photo. Rainbow dried the film with a hair dryer (in the dark), then developed it. Sure, there are a few water spots on it, but we think it gives the shots a whole live-action, funky 70’s look that is pretty groovy!

So the photos survived surfing with Todd, and I guess the same is true for my back… but I’m still sporting some groovy colors of my own. Capn Longboard and I were side by side when a big wave came; I started paddling for it and he tried to bail because he saw me going for it. Unfortunately the wave caught his board and shot it right into my back. He sure felt awful about it, and let me tell you, I’m riding the sympathy wave all the way to the beach! The bruise is starting to fade, but I figure some strategically-placed purple eyeshadow will keep the ride going.

See all our surfing pics here:

20100620Surfing

We had a great sail from Hilo over to Oahu, with plenty of wind. On the way we saw Hawaiian spinner dolphins, and the full arc of a rainbow over the Pacific! We went much faster than we had planned, so we arrived in the middle of the night. Luckily we had no problems coming into the Ala Wai Harbor. We’re currently rafted up at the Hawaii Yacht Club and are thoroughly enjoying the tourist life!

Sequoia flew in with my mom on Weds, June 2. Her sunny disposition brings so much life and happiness to the boat! And she motivates us to get off the boat and do more things, like swinging on banyan trees.

Toro has a Boggle-like game on his iPod. He held the high score of 71 for a while, but in Mexico I scored an 87, and he’s been gunning for me ever since. Well, Koiya waltzed into town and posted a 93! Capn Big Fat Faker adopted a disappointed tone of voice, and shaking his head, asked me, “Did you hear about Sequoia’s Boggle score? Isn’t that a bummer?” But Koiya called him out. “You were all excited when I told you!” she exclaimed. “You said, ‘Your mama is gonna be so mad!’” Oh, busted! (more…)

We spent just less than a week in Hilo, and while we scheduled our days around eating, we also managed to do a few boat projects and some touristy stuff too.

Radio Bay is kind of an interesting place to tie up, because it is connected to the commercial port of Hilo. There are no finger docks, so you use your dinghy to go the 10 feet or so to the dock. As it’s so little a distance, you don’t need an outboard; you just pull yourself along using the web of docklines. The port is a secure area, so to go in and out we had to call the security people, who came by with a pickup truck to drive us through. The bathroom situation was also unique, as the stalls had no doors! This led Capn Privy to engage in all sorts of strategizing to get private-time on the toilet.

In terms of boat projects, we did a basic clean-up and I put a new zinc on the propeller. Capn Sail Rite pulled out his sewing machine and repaired our spinnaker, which we’d torn on the way over (due to the combination of an early morning squall and our laziness). We put off the more tedious tasks for later…. (more…)

It’s hard to believe we’ve been in Hilo for less than a week; it seems like we’ve been here for twice that. After the simple routine of days at sea, sleepy Hilo is a wonderland of diversion, conversation, and culinary delights!

On our long passage, one day ran into the next, and we were often unclear as to whether something had happened yesterday or the day before, or maybe even 3 days ago? Instead of “Monday” or “Thursday”, we’d say, “the day we showered” or “the day you made tuna salad”. And as our lives were dominated by the weather, we now think of the sequence of the passage in these terms:

- The first 3 days, after we cleared Cabo (the sea sick days)
- The remainder of the first week, when it was sunny (the blissful days)
- The first period of strong winds, big seas, and complete cloud cover (the hellish days)
- The few days when things calmed down, and we got sunshine (the respite)
- The second period of rough weather (no longer remarkable enough to be called anything)
- The last day at sea and the morning we tied up in Radio Bay

We lived in this strange zone of altered time. We ate when we were hungry (not often) and slept when we were tired (quite a bit). Indeed, the hour on the clock grew increasingly meaningless as we travelled west, with the sun setting after 10pm. We looked forward to making landfall (or rather, to a lack of motion!), but “arrival” was such an abstract concept. We didn’t know exactly when it would happen or what it would be like, so it seemed unreal. As the miles ticked down, we cognitively understood that there was an island 135, then 70, then 28 miles ahead, but we saw nothing but sea and clouds. Maybe there would be nothing there when the GPS read 0 miles to go?

In Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana wrote of homecoming after a long voyage at sea. He said that “home” was something sailors dreamed of and yearned for every day, but then as they neared their home port, they felt oddly unaffected. Though we were only out for a few weeks, we went through this as well. You’d think we’d be ecstatic as we came within a day of landfall, but we just felt numb. Capn Amnesia, who just a couple days before had been nauseous and swearing in frustration at the big seas, actually broke down and cried- real tears!- in sadness that the journey was ending! I think the strange emptiness we felt was the start of forgetting. Our “time without time” was ending, and we were going back to civilization and the complexities of life in port.

Even while we were making the passage, our recollections of it were hazy, and with each day back on land our memories grow foggier. A week from now, I expect we’ll be left with only a vague mood, just like you might pause for a moment in the afternoon and suddenly recall that, that very morning, you’d awoken from a strange, fantastic dream, the details of which have been lost to you. But the dream conjured an emotion that washes over you again, an unnameable mix of joy, melancholy, and nostalgia….

This could explain why sailors cannot be trusted to accurately recall the details of their journeys. Here at Radio Bay, we’re in the company of a handful of other boats that have just made the same crossing. Almost all have ripped sails (one boat shredded 5 sails on the way over!), some lost parts of their rigging, one blew out their engine, and all have a long list of things to fix before the next passage. Before we set out, we’d all been told that this was “the easiest passage in the world”, and then we got out there and were battered and baffled. At first we thought we’d been lied to, but as one man noted, “It’s like childbirth. If you remembered it accurately, you would never do it twice.” Crossing oceans, like bearing children, makes liars of us all.

It’s comforting to compare wounds and trade stories with the other crews. It was particularly rewarding to hear from Harry on Rhiannon, who just completed a circumnavigation, that indeed, it was quite rough out there. And it’s been great to spend time with Dennis and Grover of Shamaness, who were our main radio buddies on the way over. For the first few days, no one asked, “So what do you do for work?” or “Where are you from?”. We could talk of nothing but the passage, sharing our personal editions of the same story.

So what will we remember of the passage? The dolphins and the flying fish. The whales, and the albatross. The sapphire blue water. The freedom of being surrounded by nothing but ocean, suspended in time.

And we’re in Hilo too! Tied up in Radio Bay on Monday morning. A hot shower, sushi lunch, and living on a stable surface… does life get any better?!

Will try to post more details and photos soon, but right now our priority is eating. I think I’m down to just 10 pounds more than my weight as given on my driver’s license. Time to pack some junk back into the trunk!

Total Miles: Over 2800
Sailing Time: Something like 22 days, 13 hours. A 5.1 knot moving average which is super fast for us!
Beer Remaining: I’m not sure, but it’s rapidly disappearing!