avionbianca   Blog for s/v Avion

Eat, Sleep, Sail

Return Day 2 21:00 Boat Time (1944 Miles to Golden Gate Bridge)

This is a completely different animal than the downwind race; this is much harder! I read a book about the Great Divide Ride from Canada to Mexico paralleling the Continental Divide call Eat, Sleep, Ride. I rode that route on my mountain bike and though we are a mere 24 Hours into this adventure I do believe it is going to test my will far greater than that ride. I can go into great detail as to why but you all will be spared my embellished verbosity because it is just too damn difficult to do anything other than Eat, Sleep, Sail.

Return Day 3 15:00 Boat Time (1859 Miles to Golden Gate Bridge)

We are calling PDT Boat time because we have two times, what the boat says and what we have been living the past 2 weeks; Hawaii time. We ran into a small squall this morning right at the end of my watch. Our schedule is 4 on and 6 off and our skipper David has Lindi replacing me on my on watch. Not sure why David picked that combination, so that we are not on watch together, but I think he was concerned about Lindi still wanting to marry me at the end of this adventure! So being the kind considerate future husband I suggested to her that she ware her rain jacket when she replaces me topside rather than deprive her of the opportunity to take a shower. I have to say that I am totally amazed how well she is handling this difficult bash. She calls herself Wrong Way Lindi because all of her deliveries have been bashes.

So let me explain why this is so difficult. A bash is a sailors term for slogging upwind. The first week or more of this delivery will be just that. If you are following us on Yellow Brick Road by following the link off of Pacific Cup Web site, you will see that we are heading North by Northwest; across the trade winds. The plan is to sail as high on starboard tack, as comfortable as we can, until the wind dies. At that point we will be on the Western edge of the Pacific High. If everything holds to form we will then motor east across the high, then cross the synoptic winds that parallel the California Coast and then into San Francisco Bay. We approximately have 14 days of fuel so every day we do not run the engine we are putting fuel in the bank since we are planning 21 days for the trip. Our rule is not to run the engine until we are unable to sail at 4 knots. So far we only had to run the engine this morning for about 15 minutes when the squall came through and temporarily killed the trade winds. The engine alarm promptly came on. By this time I was in bed with Lindi and Nico on watch. Liindi took the helm and Nico tore into the engine to determine why the heat sensor alarm was sounding. During this process the winds came up so Lindi had to deal with the changing weather conditions and helping Nico with starting and stopping the engine when necessary. Juan did put on his pants just in case he was needed and went back to sleep. Nico with David’s help managed to determine the issue with the engine so we hope it is resolved for the next time we drop below 4 knots.

The difficulty comes from the heat, the constant motion and the perpetual list of 30 degrees to port. It has taken me almost 2 days to get acclimated. First off I was nauseous because of the heat and the motion. This is very unusual for me; I have never been seasick with all of the sailing I have done, which is substantial considering I went cruising for 4 years. The motion is completely different going against the waves then with the waves; thus the reason they say fair winds and following seas. We are experiencing fair winds, 12 to 15 knots with fairly small waves 4 to 6 feet with the occasional 10 footer that throws us around like a cork in a stream. You never know when that is going to hit so you pray that it doesn’t happen while using the head. Bracing against the 30 degree list is starting to take its toll on my legs and arms. The mountain bike riding helps with the legs but I can see where my arms are going to have some difficult adjusting thus the reason why so much sleep. The fatigue is amazing and explains why the blog postings will be short and sweet and not as often. I will try and keep up but you will understand when they are spread out more than they were during the race.

I did have a sighting of a really big fish yesterday. It was bigger than a dolphin but smaller than a baby whale. II knew it wasn’t a mammal because when it surfaced there was no spout. I didn’t see a prominent dorsal fin so we are not sure what it was, Nico thinks Shark, David thought Blue Marlin, Juan was just glad there wasn’t a fishing line out!

I will leave with a positive note. The good news is that we are making better progress than we had expected. We were planning for an average of 100 miles made good each day and our first 24 hours was made 125 miles. We all are getting plenty of rest, plenty to eat, plenty to drink and are all in good spirits, especially Lindi. Like I said she is amazing.