Author: kerri

Dear F&F,
June 12, 2009

After my eloquent but self-righteous piece \”Quitting is Not An Option\” Mother Nature decided to test and humble me. Getting off easy during the past few night shifts by motoring, the day shifts have been more trying than ever. Just when I think \”I\’ve got it\” something changes and new rules come into play. Rules that I am not aware of, only frustrated by. Due to my ignorance the chute hangs limply in the sky and the boat stalls in the trench of every swell. It is a 1 1/2 ounce chute, I believe that is per square yard. It is 800 square feet, a huge triangle with rounded edges. Too heavy to fly well in light air, but we have no alternative. We went for sturdy, durable. Not thinking heavy & slow as in these conditions.

I am beat. I am discouraged. I review my options: shorten my shifts if the guys will agree. Four hours is just too long for me, still in drivers training. I can\’t believe they actually go to sleep while I am at the helm. Don\’t they know you\’re not supposed to let the kids drive the school bus?! I keep listening, watching & learning from my capable coaches. I pray for more wind, yet don\’t wish to tempt Neptune into blowing our doors off. A light air, slow passage is far preferred to strong wind. Things break more when it blows too hard. Already the top section of our mainsail track has fallen off. We can\’t hoist it all the way up, which is a factor in our slow speed. When Scott emailed the mast company they offered to give us a new aluminum replacement under warranty. Our breaking one is plastic. Isn\’t that sweet, we have to pay for the shipping of course. But jeez, can\’t they just build it right the first time?!

The term \”fair weather sailor\” was coined with good reason. It is what every sailor longs for: just the right amount of wind from the proper direction to speed them along on the desired path.

I am a Gross Motor Girl (physical therapy lingo – means large movements). I am not patient at the tedious auto pilot adjustments. The steady hand of the dentist and skilled marine electrician are experts at squeezing speed out of mere puffs of wind. I jag left when I should go right, always behind the curve. Rarely able to stay in a smooth groove. (ASIDE FROM SCOTT�.She\’s being way too hard on herself, she\’s doing great!!!!)

I am not terribly seasick or uncomfortable, yet I am despondent. The scales tilted greatly today from Adventure to Ordeal. My slowest marathon was finished in just over 5 hours. I climbed & descended Mount Whitney in 24 hours. The bike rides to San Diego were completed in 2 days. This is our 13th day at sea, with at least another 4 ahead of us. It would be dramatic of me to call the trip grueling. But today I am void of joy. The feeling \”weary\” keeps cropping up. I am weary of the constant motion. I am weary of the incessant noises under sail and the pervasive stench under power. I am certainly weary of playing the video game and my attitude towards taking up the baton & putting in my time is quite grim. I want to snap myself out of this funk, but no longer have the energy. (ASIDE FROM SCOTT: This is the LONGEST sail (uniterupted) that we are likely to EVER do and NOT by a little).

I indulged in a rare pity party after reading 2 of Linda\’s treasured \”Just Because\” cards. My beloved friend lovingly prepared these along with comic clippings, entertaining newspaper articles and other tidbits to bring her love & laughter to my endless world of water. How appropriate that one card has a dragon sticker on the envelope. She wrote: \”Thar be dragons here.\” Don\’t you know it girlfriend! The demons in my head make my heart ache. I held a butterfly bookmark to my cheek and wept. Tears brimming up & spilling over. No sound. No sobs. So saturated in this salty world that it came oozing out my eyes, streaming down my face. Scott would hold me if I asked. But I do not wish to burden him. He is really enjoying himself, Mike and the radio chit chat. There is nothing he can do for me. My mood is within my own hands.

Usually my tolerance of the blues is pretty low. I find a way to buoy my spirits somehow. Today I don\’t yet see the way out. I am down here alone, hiding my pain. It is bad enough that I feel this way, I certainly have no desire to share my dark hour.

My next shift is only 2 hours – now there is a happy thought. And I defrosted pre-made chicken mole so the boys can be independent for dinner. I\’m not exactly inspired to \”fry it up in a pan\” if you know what I mean.

I had beets for lunch and macadamia nuts for breakfast. Some yogurt & bread too, so I\’m not going to wither away, but my appetite is down. I am very sorry to not sustain the inspirational tone. I am human. I am female. There is a reason they say \”Man the helm\”. No woman in her right mind could bear to play this incessant steering game for hours on end!

I came for the diving. Gotta hang on until we get there. They say life is a journey, enjoy the ride. I wish I could. Whoever it was that said that was not seasick and sleep deprived. I have had my moments of feeling ok. Had a few smiles creep across my face, but then again, too few to mention. I cannot stop this bus & get off. Quitting is not an option, too bad.

**********
Please immediately read June 13 to know I got over the blues and am fine. Just thought you\’d enjoy my articulate angst.
Cindy at Sea, Day 13

Dear F&F,
June 11, 2009
Passage Report – Day #12

We have had no wind in about 24 hours. Zippity doo dah. Nada. Nyet. So onward we motor to the Marquesas. Scott desperately seeks weather reports that show when & where the next breath of air will appear, but it does not look hopeful. The good thing about motoring is we don\’t have to play the dreaded video game. Motoring is MUCH lower maintenance than sailing. We only do about a 20 minute check to make sure the auto pilot is actually steering the course we told it to, check the engine gauges to make sure nothing is overheating.

The bad thing about motoring is WE overheat. It isn\’t godawful, but certainly not as lovely as when we have wind. The second bad thing is the constant smell of diesel fumes. I\’m sure we all suffering from a degree of carbon monoxide poisoning by now. If you shut the windows to keep out the smell then you really feel stuffy inside. So it is just zippy. We still have about 1100 miles to go. If we average 6 knots it will take us another week. I hope the wind picks up. I will happily play the dang video game instead of having to be hot & smell the stinkin\’ diesel anymore.

Meanwhile it is 1:00 a.m. & I am cooking beets. Or rather I am TRYING to cook beets. These are big boys, softball size. The pressure cooker book said: put in pot with 2 1/2 cups water, salt & cook on high pressure for 10 minutes. Did that: hard as rocks. Added another cup of water, resealed, brought up to pressure for another 10 minutes. Let sit additional 5 minutes with flame off but still under pressure: slightly less hard than rocks. Repeat. This is my 3rd go. For some reason the jiggle valve isn\’t jiggling right this time & it looks like all the steam is escaping around the lid edge. Hmmmm. Oh well. I have nothing but time on my hands, so they can take all night but by golly I WILL have cooked beets!

Dinner last night was steak & potatoes. I used my plain yogurt to mash them. The russets with an inch of dirt are holding up really well in the guest cabin closet. Nice & dark & dry. Potatoes like that. It was a hot day to cook such a heavy meal, but I\’d already defrosted the meat, so just went for it.
Mike has a \”poolish\” (yeast starter for bread) going & is going to make bread again on his next shift. A poolish is just 1 cup flour with some water & yeast that you let brew overnight. We polished off his last Artisenal loaf in a day. Such crunchy crust & great yeasty flavor with plenty of holes to catch the butter or jam. YUM! I should have bought a lot more flour. Today\’s loaf will be part whole wheat, I can\’t wait.

I\’ve taken the Linda suggested eggs out of the freezer. Pre-scrambled & vacuum bagged. Will see if the boys manage to do as instructed: cut open the vacuum bags, microwave in 30 second increments until hot & eat. Sounds easy enough, right? My best chance to get a good 4 hours sleep is when Scott relieves me at 4:00 a.m. I will have the cabin to myself from 4:00-8:00 a.m. Maybe longer since sometimes he stays up with Mike for a while. We set our clocks back one hour. The Marquesas is 2 1/2 hrs earlier than California. We put ourselves on California time when we left the Galapagos. But it is nice on the 4:00-8:00 a.m. shift to have the sunrise a bit earlier. As we keep heading almost due west the sun has been rising later every day. We\’ll move our clocks another hour back in about 3-4 days so will arrive more or less on local time. It\’s the only place I know that has a half hour time zone compared to everywhere else. It is half an hour less than Hawaii time. Time is so arbitrary onboard. We need it to know who\’s on duty when. But mostly we go by our stomachs, sleep opportunities, sunrise, sunset, etc. I got pretty good sleep during the day, so am pretty perky tonight even without any caffeine. Just had yogurt & cookies. Great nocturnal snack. The cookies I found in the Galapagos are crispy & coconut flavored. I love them. They are kind of biscuit like so do well with a semi-delicate stomach. I still have to take my seasick meds 45 minutes before sitting at the computer or I am toast. I hope there aren\’t long term side effects from the stugeron stuff. More importantly, I hope I can find it elsewhere. The bottle that sailor friend Sandy gave me in Mazatlan is lasting a long time, since I cut each pill in half or 1/3. Apparently it is not sold in the US, but I haven\’t investigated if you can get it in the US with a prescription, or it just is not available at all.

Scott & Cindy

Dear F&F,
June 5-7, 2009

I continue to be sleep challenged. Last night I had the 8:00 pm to midnight watch. I was nice & drowsy by the end. Took a hot shower & hopped into bed. One hour later I am awakened by Scott snoring. I moved up to the salon with a book in hopes of being able to nod off up there. Nope. The eyelids just did not get heavy again. I stayed awake reading until Mike\’s shift was over and Scott got up to relieve him. Yippee – the cabin was all mine and I slept great for 4 hours. Scott and I are switching our watches so that he will be On as I go Off, thus our cabin will be mine for those 4 hours. We\’ll see how that goes. It works out conveniently to switch tonight on are \”dog watches\” which are 2 hours each. Having 4 hours sleep is the magic number. Two per day is just not enough. On four I feel quite fine. I totally understand the separate bedrooms for sleeping concept. For safety reasons, I think having a 3rd crew on the long passages is a good idea, but on shorter ones, I will try to remember to make up the guest bed and use it for myself when off. Mostly we\’ve let it become the \”garage\” overflow when it\’s just the two of us. But we are managing fine with Mike in there, so should be able to keep it as a sleeping cabin for me when needed.

I have written lots more in my head, but computer is THE WORST for bringing on seasickness & mostly I am fine, so I just can\’t write like I wish I could. I try to go stretch my body & lie down during my off time, even if I can\’t sleep. I am trying to do stretches, but it isn\’t the same as taking a walk or a swim. I am looking forward to both of those activities! My ankles are sore since I stand a lot & the joints are constantly in motion with the undulations of the boat.

I braised ribs in the pressure cooker the other night. I bought them pre-marinated in Costa Rica. They came out great. Nice to have scalding oil contained in a pot with a locking lid! Last night was hot dogs. Tonight will be chicken quesadillas. The guys seem content. I often skip the heavier dinners that I feed them and just have yogurt with granola later on my watch. Mike baked English Muffin Bread that was dee-licious! I baked \”plantain muffins\” that came out really well. Just a little different flavor than regular bananas.

Hopefully we will reach the halfway mark today. It is pretty good conditions today. We are going about 8 knots with the spinnaker. The swell is not too big, so not surfing fast, so overall the noise onboard is a bit less. The guys are having a blast. I am doing fine and it is nice to see Scott have a buddy. Mike is sweet to me too.

We are closely watching a piece of track at the top of the mast that is pulling away from the force of the sail up day in day out. We hope to avoid sending Scott or Mike up there while underway. Nothing on a boat lasts very long. We\’ve had a partially \”reefed main\” since day three with the mainsail track coming away from the top of the mast.

Friday we saw a ship. That is very rare out in the open ocean, far offshore. The AIS showed the name to be \”Keifuku Maru 2\”, a Japanese fishing vessel. It was daytime & they were easily seen. Scott hailed them intermittently for an hour without response. It was hard to tell if they were adjusting their course to avoid us even though they did not communicate with us. They appeared to turn every which way, in circles even. Finally someone did respond from their boat. In a thick Japanese accent they greeted us. They sounded as surprised to see a sailboat out here as we were to see their ship. He asked if we needed anything and we said not. Later we kicked ourselves for not asking for some sushi! He now definitively turned his ship to avoid us and wished us a Bon Voyage. Never a dull moment.

Scott & Cindy

Dear F&F,
May 31 – June 3, 2009

I am writing on Tuesday June 2nd. We are so busy you would not believe it. Day #1 Sunday we had 5 sail changes. Monday Day #2 we flew the spinnaker all day & night but 2 things broke, the after guy line and the water tow generator. Mike was on watch when he noticed the spinnaker flying up too high. The line that holds it down & toward the windward side had chafed through completely. We have a safety line on it, so there was no noise or panic. I scurried to the cabin where Scott was reading & gave him the report: \”The after guy has broken\”. He looked at me unbelieving. His past experience has been that this is a rather catastrophic event. I told him what Mike had observed & he came up to see for himself. Scott was quite pleased that his \”belts & suspenders\” rigging made this a no worry fix. In no time, he and Mike re-tied the after guy line & lead it to prevent recurring chafe. Chafe is a sailor\’s nemesis & we are discovering all the places that need to be checked frequently or re-rigged to avoid lines wearing through like this.

The water tow generator was a heartbreaker for Scott. He was very keen to have this as a second \”alternative power source\” to the solar panels. It has been overcast quite a bit so we have had to run the generator more. Our auto-pilot & fridge/freezers take a fair amount of power. Add the occasional microwave, computers, lights, water desalinator, water heaters, etc. and we need to run the generator about 1-2 hours 2x/day. No problem since we have plenty of fuel onboard & hope to sail, and not need the engines, the entire trip. The water tow generator is a propeller connected to a cable that we drag in the water behind us that is connected to an alternator that helps charge our batteries. It worked like a champ for 2 hours then it seemed the alternator overheated and died. Great concept, but we will have to get different components. Sadly, it is offline for the rest of this trip.

I had the 4:00-8:00 a.m. watch which is great since it begins to get light at 4:30 a.m. I had some drizzle & watched for squalls on the radar, but it blew away ahead of us & we didn\’t get doused. Actually a fresh water rinse once in a while would be great. During my watches I have not had time to write at all. The way we are sailing the boat is \”high maintenance\” (with the spinnaker). We are using the auto pilot, but must make frequent adjustments to our heading to keep the boat from getting out of control & going in the desired direction. Going fast! Mike holds the speed record so far: 16 knots briefly surfing down a wave. Yesterday\’s 24 hr run was 221.5 miles so we are cooking right along. We just to down sized the headsail from the chute to the gennaker. Going steady 11+ knots now.

Scott, Mike and I are getting along great. Mike is a sweetheart. It is so great to have a third person.
I really don\’t know how 2 people do it. Scott has been in radio contact with a monohull, \”Giselle\”, that departed from the Galapagos the same day as us, just hubby & wife from the U.K. They seem to be doing fine. We are so glad to have the extra hands on deck, especially when things break.

We are doing a rotating watch schedule, so that each of us has the deepest darkest night shift (me tonight) only once every third night. I actually love to be ON more than off, since I have not yet reached the point of fatigue to sleep very well when off watch. I just try to close my eyes, breathe, stretch & relax, but actual sleep has been no more than 2 hours at a time so far. I\’ve tried a couple different sleep medications but they don\’t conk me out. My brain will eventually get tired enough that it will finally give it up. I am just much more sensitive to the boat\’s motion & noises than the guys.
I am borderline seasick every time I read or write more than 15 minutes so I don\’t get very far with email. Taking the stugeron helps, but trying to use the computer pushes me over the edge. If I don\’t try to read or write I am fine.

Today Day #3 the gennaker sail tore. This is the in-between sized sail, smaller than the spinnaker and larger than our genoa. It is made out of Kevlar which we were told was strong enough to fly in up to 40 knots of wind. We only had 15-20 knots of wind, going along great when the tear was noticed. Bummer. This is a sail we plan to use much of the time for this passage. We rolled it up, put out the smaller genoa to keep us moving & dragged the huge sail into the cockpit / house. Scott went down the stairs in our hallway & I stayed up in the salon. We use all our might to unroll it in this awkward space. We can\’t do it outside because the wind would have if flapping out of control all over the place. Stolnitz & Stolnitz Mobile Sail Repair persevere & are able to patch the 8 inch horizontal rip with \”sticky back tape\”. Scott then hand stitches the stress points to make sure it is really secure. Meanwhile, the wind & sea conditions are such that we are going almost as fast in the right direction with the genoa, so we leave the repaired gennaker stuffed under the cockpit table overnight. As I write, the wind is lessening & in the morning we are surely going to want to hoist the gennaker. Even if we go to the spinnaker we need to hoist the gennaker in order to roll it up neatly for stowage.

Overall things are going just great. We are making good speed & the boat is pretty comfortable. We hope the swell will shift to be more behind us, right now it is still a bit to our left side (sailors call this a \”beam sea\”). The boat rocks more left & right when we have a beam sea. When the swell is behind us, we actually surf down the waves which is really fun, fast and more comfortable.

We are eating well. Cooking & cleaning up afterwards keeps me busy. I was glad I cooked that batch of chicken mole ahead, because it was \”boisterous\” at dinner time tonight & I didn\’t feel like using the stove while getting tossed around the galley. I just steamed some broccoli to go with the chicken & rice dish so it was an easy meal. Every other morning we have eggs or cereal. Thanks to Alberta for sending the thermometer with Mike, my first batch of yogurt using it came out the best ever. Tonight I am brewing a second batch with my own yogurt as the starter (vs store bought plain yogurt). If I can keep it going with my own starter, I will always be able to make fresh yogurt. YUM!
We are still eating the frozen bread & we\’ve been pretty busy with all the above, but we are looking forward to Mike baking bread soon.

Our third day, we set our \”record\” for a daily run�….231 miles!

Scott & Cindy