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Dear F&F,
June 8-10, 2009

The fact that I am happy to be motoring for my night shift 2 nights in a row says less about my passion for sailing but more about my weariness with \”video\” games. I described how tedious it is to keep the spinnaker flying in light air. We have had our wind disappear the past 2 nights. It gives me a welcome break from staring at the screens and turning the little knob. I did that duty during my noon to 4:00 p.m. watch. The first hour I feel like a spaz & struggle to find the \”sweet spot\”, where the boat\’s speed is fairly steady & the chute is full all the time. The second hour I get in the groove. Although I am not as skilled as the guys at helming in light air, I am overall making the boat go in the right direction without collapsing the chute. They each often listen to music with earphones. I am not (yet) able to maintain steering concentration listen to music. It takes my complete attention. I am just beginning to be able to have a casual conversation & do a decent job. By the third hour I am twitchy, bored and looking at my watch too often. By the fourth hour I can be in true pain. My body does not like to stay still. I have come up with several creative places to position myself as I play the video game with the remote control, but I am really DONE by the fourth hour. It is tedious, repetitive and seems more like work than fun. Scott tried to correct me when I mentioned \”my shift\”. He said it is \”my watch\”. But I said no, I am not simply watching. I am constantly working, so for me it feels like a shift where I \”put in my time\”. The guys seem to have endless patience for it. I get weary much sooner. If the wind is steady & stronger, then it is easier to keep her moving and is way more fun. Mid to heavy air requires a different kind of attention. I don\’t mind it as much. But we have had a lot of light air and more is predicted over the next few days. The swell has been on the beam (side) instead of the stern (back) so we are not able to surf & get any additional speed from the push of the waves. Just rolly polly, lumpy bumpy feeling as we are rocked from left to right, up and down.

From 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. we had a pretty good day of medium than light wind sailing. Scott blessedly came up to spell me at 3:00 pm. I hadn\’t eaten much lunch so I made us an early dinner, leaving Mike\’s burgers out for him to cook when he got up. Scott then got on the Pan Pacific Radio Network to check in as he does daily at 4:00 p.m. Lucky for me, Mike came up & took over the watch so I could really be off. Since Scott & I have switched our watch positions I am getting more rest. It has been much better over the past 24 hours. Also getting the guys to cover for me so that I can do my cooking duty while it is my watch time, helps me really get to be off when I am supposed to. Such a relief. I was really running myself ragged & didn\’t realize exactly what was wrong.

When on motoring watch, I go outside every 20 minutes to make sure the auto pilot is steering the correct course, monitor our Speed Over Ground, look at the engine rpms & gauges to make sure all is well there, keep an eye out for ships & hopefully give the boys a peaceful 4 hours.

Skye turned 24 today, June 10. When did that happen? Happy Birthday to You!!! Aren\’t we still 24???

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,
June 3-4, 2009

I struggled to keep the spinnaker flying in light & shifty air during my 8:00 p.m. to midnight shift. Poor Mike had what even he, Mr. Sunny in All Circumstances, called the \”watch from heck\” midnight to 4:00 a.m. Keeping the boat sailing downwind in light air is a real challenge. That is when we really pay for our \”payload\”. We are weighted down with all the comforts of home. \”Miss Piggy\” can gittey-up with 14+ knots of wind, but under 10 we just park.

Imagine a video game: the goal is to keep the wind angle between 90 to 100 degrees (on this trip to our left or port side). You must also watch the wind speed: if it is 12 or higher you can steer the boat to the right (which in our course in these conditions is more the direction we would like to go). If the wind is light you have to quickly steer the boat left or else the spinnaker will flop like a giant noisy tablecloth. If you \”lose it\”, meaning that the spinnaker is hanging limp & not moving you along, you must steer right quickly to get the wind to fill it back up, yet not gybe the boat (have the boom cross over to the other side). If I lost some of you there, don\’t worry – there will not be a quiz. It is too cumbersome to explain every single sailing term in plain English. I am hoping over time & repetition you will catch on. But I do try my best to assume most of you don\’t know Sailor Speak.

One nickname for a spinnaker is \”kite\”. Another is \”chute\” (as in parachute). If you imagine us trying to fly a giant kite it is quite an accurate way to visualize spinnaker sailing. Ours is a teal green & dark blue rocket-type pattern. When I say \”steer\” the boat: I mean turn a one-inch diameter plastic knob of our auto-pilot. One unit is located outside at our helm, the second control unit is inside at the navigation station. Usually we turn it left or right a click or two at a time. Each click is one degree. Sailing this way takes full concentration. You have to wait to even go to the bathroom until you get enough wind to keep the kite flying that long. The goal of the person on watch driving the boat is to #1 Make sure the boat moves as quietly & comfortably so that the off-watch crew can sleep. #2 Go as fast as possible in the right direction, but this is generally second to #1.

So you are at your video game screen(s). You are watching the wind angle indicator: try to keep it at about 100 degrees to port. You watch the \”Speed Over Ground indicator\” (SOG): this tells us (by GPS calculation) how fast we are actually making way over the earth. We go up & down and rock right & left with the waves – that doesn\’t count. Only forward motion counts. Sometimes we get to surf down a wave & we get bonus Speed Over the Ground, which is more than we can get out of the sails alone. If there is current or swell in the Wrong direction, we go slower. Why am I explaining all this? Because I am going to be out here for a minimum of another 10 days and this is what we do on watch, so I want you to understand. The two video screens plus the one control knob are not ergonomically placed for vision, reach or bodily comfort. We have a remote. Note to self: get it out to try tomorrow.

We have not had to steer downwind this much for this long before so this is somewhat of a new discovery. We experimented with the automated feature on the auto-pilot to steer according to the wind. But it does not work with big beam swells, which we have had. So even though we are using the auto-pilot & NOT steering by hand with the wheel, we are making minute (pronounce my-noot) adjustments that enable us to make progress despite the light conditions. If I want to sit, I must perch on the edge of the helm seat with my feet through the wheel braced against the helm in a jockey-like position. Mostly I stand. If I get achy from being in an awkward position for a long time
I strap my 12 volt heating pad around my back, it helps.

There is a point, which is less than 8 knots of apparent wind for our boat, that it is simply impossible to keep the kite flying. The kite sags, flaps & you slow wayyyy down. You must go wake up another crew to help you \”sock the chute\” (put the kite in its condom), lower the whole thing down, stow it or at least secure it and start motoring. This is how our day began today at 3:30 a.m. Mike had come to assist us at 3:00 a.m. but we were so tired and asleep that we didn\’t exactly leap into action. The poor guy continued to beat the dead horse and was wrung out. Scott heard the chute flapping and not flying properly so he got up half an hour early to help him take it down. I blissfully slept through that part.

I was so worn out after my 8:00 p.m. to midnight shift, \”playing the video game\” non-stop that I showered, then curled up in the salon to sleep during the first part my off time. The interior of our boat can be noisy in the cabins. Since Scott & I have the \”downhill\” cabin on this trip we get more waves slapping the hull & spanking the bridge deck. It is quieter up in the salon. If I rearrange the cushions a bit, it is a great place to sleep. At 3:00 a.m. after Mike reported to Scott that he was really struggling to keep the kite flying, I moved down to our cabin and fell back asleep until dawn. I felt rested by then, such a relief! It was the first time I got 4 hours of sleep. Before then I had no more than 2 hours, once or twice per day over the previous 3 days.

Due to a build-up of fatigue, yesterday during the day was tough for me. I was moody, over-tired yet could not sleep. I was cranky that I didn\’t have privacy with Scott. Yet, it is such a help to have Mike and he is such a sweet, nice guy that it was not at all personal toward him. It felt both too crowded onboard and yet I was lonely. Seasickness continues to plague me with any attempts at reading or writing email. Blessedly I can read my book lying down which I finally figured out was the best thing to do with myself when I was not sleeping during my daytime \”off-watches\”. It was a good thing I could not write because in my mind the subject line for this post was: Purgatory & Beyond. What a difference 4 luxurious hours of sleep makes! Today was an entirely different and much, much better day.

As I said, today began for Scott at 3:30 a.m. I was up at 5:00 a.m., although not due to take over until 8:00 a.m. I knew it was a chance for Scott & I to have the boat to ourselves while Mike was still sleeping. No, I was not THAT well rested, but it was great to have our tea & watch the sunrise & feel peaceful. Motoring is soooo much less work than sailing. We do not have enough fuel to motor all the way to the Marquesas. We hope that the expected trade winds will return soon. But the prediction is for light air today & tomorrow. For me it was a welcome day of feeling better. When I feel lousy (either seasick or overly tired) I am such a Negative Nellie. When I am rested & not sick, I am a real trooper & can-do gal. Pretty normal I guess. The guys are, well, what can I say…GUYS! They are so fine sometimes I want to just smack them. But thank God they are fine & as long as I keep a regular stream of food heading their way they are very happy campers. It is great for Scott to have Mike to be a new set of sailor eyes on our boat underway. They have tackled several small projects & at 3 a.m. this morning I discovered one we never imagined we would tackle underway.

When I came downstairs to our cabin, Scott asked me for a blanket. It was downright cold the first 3 nights, for me anyway. Mike I think would have to go to Antartica to get cold. Scott is somewhere in between. He just wanted something over his legs, he has not been getting under the sheet. Anyway, I went into the linen cabinet, grabbed a light blanket & felt it was damp. I pawed around the locker: this is supposed to be a dry area, but it was WET. Ugh! I made a mental note to report the problem later, covered Scott\’s legs & conked out.

Mike, usually an early riser, took full advantage of his off time to recover from his tough night shift. Later that morning, I showed him the wet area. There are 2 cabinets: linens low, cameras above. I emptied both and we discovered dampness coming from up on the deck, trickling down inside the cabinets. YUCK! No wonder I felt my sheets were always a bit damp. Any drop of sea water will keep things feeling wet forever plus cause mildew. We had more than a drop, we had a problem. Mike jumped in with screwdriver, chisel and a can-do attitude while taking out the cosmetic interior cabinet ceiling liner. This covers things that are screwed through the fiberglass deck. Scott got a headache, felt nauseous & whined. He wanted to play electronics with Mike, not discover our boat leaks! Me, I was thrilled. I have been fighting mildew smell and dampness in that area for quite a while. I have been concerned about Scott\’s cameras & indeed, the waist pack he hikes with was full of mildew. I gave Scott 2 aspirin, a tall glass of Gatorade and he quickly got with the program.

When you have to empty cabinets on a boat, it looks like the place exploded. We fit so much into each and every locker that when it comes out and is sprawling all over the place it is a big mess. Fortunately the lack of wind continued all day and the sea was calm so we were able to work on this project without being too concerned about things blowing out of the cockpit or any of us being overly focused on keeping the boat going. One engine at 2000 rpms does a fine job of that. Bonus – when motoring you can go exactly the direction you want. No need to play the video game since there is no wind & the sails are down. Scott rolled up the main sail when he came up since it was not helping us. We still rotated our watches throughout the day, but the boat just keeps plugging along as she should.

We ran the watermaker a lot. Scott blasted the hose on the suspicious area while Mike observed from inside and discovered what WE HOPE is the culprit. It is always possible that there could be more than one culprit… While I scrubbed things with vinegar, did loads of laundry & aired things out in the sun, the guys went to work on filling the hole. It was a very small screw hole, but any leak is unacceptable. Custom readouts on our electronic chart plotter are dandy, but this was a live ability issue. These are the reasons that wives jump ship and return to land. Because in a house you are less likely to open the linen closet and grab a wet blanket! All this took most of the day. Mike did the 2-part epoxy application (the product is called \”Splash Zone\” – how appropriate!) Scott applied mildew retardant to the interior of the lockers. By sunset we had put it all back together.

I have so much more to tell you but it is beyond the end of my short shift & am eager to shower & get to sleep as I have a blessed 8 hours off tonight! Whoo hoo! Getting up for the 4:00 a.m. shift is easy since it starts to get light by 4:30 a.m. Short shifts mean we have 2, two hour shifts: 4:00-6:00 pm & 6:00-8:00 pm. This rotates the schedule every day each one of us has the toughest shift (midnight – 4:00 a.m.) only once every 3 days. We were all game to try it this way & any of us can bring up the schedule for review and alteration as needed. It is fair, but not ideal. Harder to get our sleep patterns in a routine. I keep the watch schedule written out & posted since it is not something that you can easily memorize.

Going to sign off for now. More Sea Talk tomorrow. Stay tuned, I am behind on telling you about whales, dolphins, squid, flying fish & the mola mola (sun fish).

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