No more wobblies!

No more wobblies!

DAY 18: Tuesday April 26, 2011
Position: 18 degrees 38 minutes North, 137 degrees 02 minutes West
About 1000 miles to go…

More about being halfway there… Someone told us that when we reached halfway point we would be the furthest point from land of any passage - we wonder if this is true? Of all the resources we have onboard, one of our favorites is a blow-up globe. It's remarkably correct for gag gift (Jane gave it to Tim & crew as part of their xmas package the year they were sailing the boat from Maryland to the Virgin Islands). Tim has tracked his entire voyage since he purchased Midnight Blue on the globe in silver sharpie pen. It's pretty cool to think about the long line he will draw once we reach Hawaii! Anyhow, we pondered the idea that we were probably as far from land as we and most travelers ever could be on earth. A scary and at the same time impressive thought. It looked as though it might be true, based on the globe!

A few other thoughts about long passages on a sailboat. We've had people comment to us that the experience sounds similar to giving birth and being a new parent… We can certainly see the similarities - sleep deprivation, and how easily you forget the painful parts. We sailors so easily forget the hard sailing and bad weather parts, especially once we reach port. We've experienced this phenomenon several times already this trip! In the first few days, with strong NW winds, beating to windward, taking waves continuously over the bow, Tim said "If it's like this the whole way to Hawaii we're selling the boat!" As recently as yesterday, we were writing things in the log like "this sucks!" But in between, when the sun is shining and we get on a perfectly comfortable beam reach, these things get crossed out of the log, and (almost) erased from our memory of the trip. A nice meal (like easter brunch with French toast made from homemade cinnamon raisin pecan bread), a hot shower, and a little nap and we're good as new! For the meantime anyhow.

We celebrated Easter with a special brunch (which almost didn't happen when the bowl of egg mixture capsized on the counter due to large swells passing under the boat - what a mess). We also opened up our "hampers" baskets of goodies- meant for Christmas, but not delivered to us until the night before we left by our friends JP & Katya (thanks!). The crew voted to forgo the mimosas and save the champagne for our arrival in Hilo. It's too hard to juggle glasses and a plate of food, while gripping the seat to keep from sliding around when the swells hit the boat. We're all really ready for some solid ground (or a calm sea) with no more "wobblies"!

A final note for today - yesterday we caught a beautiful Mahi - Jane caught and cleaned it and we made ceviche for lunch and then tim cooked us some filets for dinner (no easy task given the sailing conditions!). We're going to gag Tim, because every time he comments about how smooth the boat is sailing, we get hit with a big set of waves, and the sails start flogging!

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Halfway there despite fluky winds

Halfway there!

DAY 14: Friday April 22, 2011
Position: 20 degrees 50 minutes North, 130 degrees 12 minutes West
About 1400 miles to go…

It's been a pretty tiring bunch of days. The weather cooperated and we had a lovely Passover seder, followed by a few sleepless nights. At first we were super excited to have hit the NE tradewinds, only to find that they would die in the early hours each night, making it really difficult to keep a course while sailing. The flogging sails aren't good for letting anyone sleeping, and it is bad for the sails and morale when neither of our automatic steering systems will work! To top it off, it's been COLD and overcast for three full days and nights. We've ended up motoring bits when the wind dies, that also allows us to charge up the batteries and make some water with our NEW watermaker! This morning the sun finally broke through and we had a beautiful rainbow, leading us to Hawaii…

Two days ago we caught our first fish! Lori's lucky lure came through and she had a hit before she could even let the line out all the way… we were so surprised we didn't know what was happening at first. It was a beautiful little yellowfin tuna. Just enough for three massive tuna steaks for dinner and a bunch of yummy sashimi to eat raw right away! Today we're fishing for mahi, no bites yet though. We've been eating pretty well past few days, starting with the morale boosting brownies, then fresh fish, and
Lori made yummy pizza yesterday! We're planning our next feast for Easter Sunday already.

On the boat equipment front, we've been able to find a work around for our AIS ship tracking equipment, and were able to track the one ship we've seen in the last ten days the other night. They didn't answer our calls on the VHF and passed within 3 miles of us, so it was relief to be able to get their bearing and closest point of approach from the AIS. The windvane continues to make more noise than we think it should, but it's been working ok. The latest job for Tim (Aka Mr Fixit, 'boga' man) was the head (toilet) which he has spent three days rebuilding, one part at a time, all the while making sure it was usable so we didn't have to go to plan B (the bucket). This on top of no sleep. Oh the joys of cruising. Fixing things in exotic locales!

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Looking for the elusive NE Tradewinds

DAY 8: Sunday April 17, 2011
Position: 19 degrees 14 minutes North, 120 degrees 11 minutes West
About 1970 miles to go?

We've been making good progress - lots of wind out here. More than we were hoping for at times. On Thursday we hove-to for a bit to make it more comfortable for dinner, it was probably blowing 25-30 at times, and we've seen seas up to 10 feet. We've been making lots of sail changes, shortening sail to keep the boat more comfortable at times (we've used the storm jib a bunch), and then today, getting out the spinnaker to keep moving in light winds. It seems to pick up in the afternoons then backs off overnight, and today was down to only 5 knots at times; right now it's back up to a gusty 15-20. We're still getting winds from the N/NW, and hoping to be in the NE tradewinds any day now?.It should be a more comfortable sail once we have the wind on the quarter (more behind us). Meals have been pretty basic so far, except for our day/night at anchor, when Lori baked banana bread and made pasta salad, and we grilled some of our steaks. Tomorrow night is the Jewish celebration of Passover, so Jane has a special meal planned.

As we were getting ready to pull anchor at Isla Benedicto, four humpback whales appeared in the anchorage, really close to the boat! 3 adults and one baby it looked like. Quite a site. They kept surfacing and swimming around us for about 15 minutes. Shortly after, several dolphins swam through the bay and then as we were stowing the anchor, we saw two big black and white things in the water - Manta Rays! They looked huge, at least 10 feet wing tip to tip. We watched them for a bit then decided it was time to head towards Hawaii.

Before leaving San Benedicto Tim gave the girls fishing lure making lessons, though as of yet the fishing has been fairly poor!! Unfortunately we found out that our "lucky lure" appeared quite attractive to Brown Booby birds and we had to carefully release a pretty freaked out bird before calling it quits for the day! Luckily Jane had enough foresight to provision well!

We must be close to changing time zones as the sun has been setting around 9 PM or so, and the first sign of its reappearance isn't until close to 9 AM! In the wee hours of this morning the nearly full moon appeared to be a pale green!! The full moon makes for a beautiful night watch but hard to see the stars. 4 days now and no sign of other life! We haven't seen another ship since a trawler on the day we left San Benedicto (Tuesday). No ships, no planes and hardly any birds out here (with the exception of a few Storm Petrels and some flying fish)? just a lot of very blue water, and some pretty chilly winds? no one would have thought that on a voyage from hot Mexico to tropical Hawaii we would be all decked out in long johns and fleece!!!!!!! Thank goodness for smartwool socks, says jane!

Another reminder, while we don't get around to the blog every day, Jane has been checking in on the Pacific Seafarers net each night, and our position (S/V Midnight Blue, call sign KF7OHO) should be posted on www.pacsea.org daily.

blog post 3

DAY 3 -- Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Position: 19 degrees 18 minutes North, 110 degrees 48 minutes West
347 Miles out of Mexico, 2508 miles to go to Hilo, Hawaii

After some tearful goodbyes, we finally sailed out of Punta Mita on Saturday afternoon. Or we should say we sailed around Punta Mita for a few hours... and then kicked off our stowaway (Jason, Tim's best surf buddy, who had paddled out and ended up jumping on and helping with final preparations - thanks much!!), and THEN sailed away to the West. We've had a good shakedown, as the winds were honking 20-30 knots steady for the first 36 hours, and we were taking seas over the bow continually. We almost lost an anchor line (who knows how long we towed that sea anchor!) and our boat hook overboard, but luckily caught both in time. We had our first wildlife visitor -- an beautiful dove that was really tired landed on deck. It finally calmed down during the day on Monday. Monday we had a call on the VHF from a passing cargo ship heading to Mexico to pick up iron ore to deliver to China -- the captain was Iranian and called us "our heroes on the little sailboat off our port." We think that crew was stir crazy after voyaging from China to reach Mexico!

Midnight Blue is doing great, but her crew is very tired. Lori was seasick the first two days, but feels almost all better now. Jane only had minor seasickness, and Tim's just adjusting to his offshore no-sleep routine. Today, we pulled into Isla Benedicto (part of the Islas Revillagigedos, otherwise know as the Socorros -- the Galapagos of Mexico). It's an awesome sight -- an old cinder cone volcanic island - very imposing and inhospitable looking. We almost didn't stop, until we got on the net and got a waypoint for a good anchorage here from another boat that had been here before. Today we'll rest and recuperate, then plan to set sail again tomorrow after a good nights sleep. A few equipment failures so far - stopped a leak through our propane locker, our new AIS ship tracker won't work meaning we're back to visual observation to determine the type and course of approaching ships (and so of course we've had lots of ships crossing our path from all directions making night watches more interesting!), and our water pump seems to be getting airlocks a lot. We'll get those sorted out and luckily they're not show-stoppers.

Jane has started checking in on the Pacific Seafarers ham net which is on the SSB on 14300 USB at 10:25 pm Central time... we heard a rumor that you can listen to it online, and they post our daily position online (not sure but I think it's www.pacsea.net).

Adios Mexico!

Adios Mexico….. we are finally provisioned and ready to go.  Departure sometime today (tim says even if we only sail to the Marieta Islands (5 miles away) we have to leave Punta Mita TODAY!  Here's the boat, ready to leave the slip in La Cruz.

Lori got to see lots of our part of Mexico in her short time here…  In addition to hanging out in Punta Mita and getting to know the locals, she walked to Sayulita (about 10 miles), did a 30k bike ride in the mountains near San Pancho, went all over PV with us to provision and got to see two marinas (La Cruz and Paradise Marina) and saw a baby humpback whale in the bay!  Not bad for two weeks.  Here is Lori’s biking crew… they called her “chica fuerte” (strong chick)!

Lori and I did the provisioning in record time.  Rented a car on Tuesday and raced around Puerto Vallarta hitting the specialty grocery store (where I even found Matzohs!  so we will have Passover onboard…  was starting to think I would have to make matzoh from the matzoh meal I have onboard!), then the Costco and Walmart. Here’s a photo of the cheese Lori wanted to buy, but I wouldn’t let her (nothing else would have fit in our fridge!!).

Filled up the boat with goodies and non-perishables.  Then on Thursday we hit the *Mega* local Mexican supermercardo and got lots of produce.  We skipped the corn, but no one else seemed to mind the guy standing on top of the pile.  Hopefully all the good tips on how to store veggies and fruit work out and things will last for a while.  Tim’s freaked out at how heavy the boat is, but I feel good knowing we’ll have lots of yummy stuff to eat over the next month, and hopefully we’ll catch some tuna or mahi to supplement.

Lori was onshore one of our last days in Punta Mita and got a couple of surf photos.  We got some fun waves yesterday and the week before.  Finally, after a slow surf season, the waves are filling in just as we leave!

Well, that's it from Punta Mita.  Our next post will be from somewhere underway.  Here is a link to a map that you can use to track us on when we post our position (latitude and longitude) on future blog posts.
www.nhc.noaa.gov/EPAC_Track_chart.pdf

Preparing to leave Mexico!

After 4-5 years in the Puerto Vallarta area of Mexico, we have decided to take Midnight Blue back out to sea and do some more cruising.  Here we are (Jane, Tim & Lori) in La Cruz Marina, outside Puerto Vallarta Mexico, preparing to sail to Hawaii.... 

It's been a few very busy months, adding equipment to the boat and getting our lives organized to sail away from Mexico for awhile. We’ve completed lots of major boat projects: installing new hydrovane self-steering, a watermaker, and new rigging for the boat, as well as tons of other projects.  To give you an idea of how much fun Tim was having here's a photo of him replacing the leaky fuel line going to our diesel tank -- he calls it doing 'boga' - his own form of boat yoga. 

We're approaching departure day (although we still haven't set an exact day).   Our friend/crew Lori arrived last week, in time to enjoy Mexico a bit before we depart.  We’re thinking we'll leave towards the end of this week...  but just heard about a new swell supposed to hit then, so may have to delay and surf a bit first (not to mention we have to finishing provisioning, which I haven't quite started yet).  Last night was our our *good-bye* party with all our friends in Punta Mita, and tomorrow we will sail down to Paradise marina in Nuevo Vallarta to provision and clear out.  It'll be hard to leave all the wonderful friends here in Mexico, but we're thinking we'll be back after a bit of cruising!