Cruising With Soggy Paws 2010

Enroute to Easter Island - Day 9

2010-03-10T17:54:00.000-08:00

We covered another 140 miles in the last 24 hours. 725 miles to go.

The wind has been blowing 'briskly' all day, about 15-20 knots. But the direction is now almost on our beam (this is better than before). We are no longer beating to windward, but now just trying to keep from rolling our guts out. We have learned that too little sail is as bad (or worse) than too much sail on this point of sail. Too little sail and we roll. Too much sail and we go so fast we get scared :p We like to to keep our speed between 6 and 7 knots.

With the wind up, the seas have gotten bigger. Janet, our autopilot has been working hard to keep us on track. With the big waves slewing us around, she has to work extra hard. I hope she keeps it up!

But it was a nice sunny day all day.

Still have seen no other ships, or other signs of life. But I did see one bird today.
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At 3/11/2010 1:14 AM (utc) our position was 16°38.57'S 102°41.77'W

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Enroute to Easter Island - Day 8

2010-03-09T16:48:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty good day. We had some fun dealing with too little wind and then too much wind back and forth over several hours. I spent a lot of time cranking the genoa in and out today. The wind got so light (and the sea was so sloppy) that we ran the engine for an hour twice today.

We saw rain clouds going across our bow several times today, and tried vainly to catch them--we could REALLY use a fresh water rinse at this point. (Even our salt crystals have salt crystals!).

But a few hours ago all that cleared away and the wind settled down at 12-13 knots, and the sun came out, and we've been having a pretty good sail. We anticipate another nice sunset, and hopefully an uneventful night.

The forecast (GRIB files) shows that we should expect some fairly strong winds for about 24 hours, starting late tonight or early tomorrow. We are not looking forward to that! But after that, the winds look nice for sailing right on in to Easter Island.

The trade winds peter out at about 20°-25° South latitude, and Easter Island is at 27°S. So we have a couple of hundred miles to cover in the 'variables'. Our friends on Visions ended up in this area with no wind for 24 hours, and then having to motor the last 100 miles into light headwinds. We are hoping our forecast holds and we'll be able to sail right on in.

We still haven't seen hardly any life out here... only one freighter, a few birds, and no whales or dolphins. We do see lots of flying fish, and quite a few have ended up on deck in the night--I almost got hit in the head by one one night (our dodger deflected it). "We're a long way from Kansas, Toto."
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At 3/10/2010 12:42 AM (utc) our position was 14°31.21'S 101°23.31'W

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We Passed the Halfway Mark!!

2010-03-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

At 0630 local time this morning, we reached 945 miles to go. We are finally half way to Easter Island.

We had a pretty good night. The wind was up and down, but within manageable ranges, and the seas were not too bad. The wind direction has eased to just barely forward of the beam, which is much better than close hauled!

The stars last night were just awesome!! It was brilliantly clear until about midnight, and we could see everything.

It has started to get quite a bit cooler here. This morning's air temp is 73 degrees F, and the water temp is down to 74.5 (they were both 80 in the Galapagos). It would be delightful if we didn't also have 20 knots of wind blowing across the deck. I've had to put long pants on and a jacket for my night watches.

We are now talking regularly to 5 or 6 boats on passage... one boat is Windy Too, 3 guys from Newfoundland, enroute from Galapagos to the Marquesas. We met them at Puerto Lucia Yacht Club in August. Another boat is Aliisa, they are a 32 footer, completing a 6 year circumnavigation in Australia. They are enroute from Lima, Peru to Easter Island. And of course, our friends on Infini, about 200 miles ahead of us, and Visions of Johanna, at Easter already.

We can still talk to some of the boats with better antennas 1000 miles away in the Galapagos, but the bulk of the Panama Pacific Net, where we have been participants and a Net Controller for the last year, is fading into the ether.

It's still early for the bulk of the boats making the Galapagos to Marquesas run. Though the World ARC boats were supposed to leave a couple of days ago. I think most people target arriving 1 Apr or later, because it's still officially typhoon season in French Poly until Mar 30. Most of our friends from Ecuador and Panama are either enroute to the Galapagos, or in the Galapagos still touring the Galapagos and getting ready to leave soon for the Marquesas.
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At 3/9/2010 3:00 PM (utc) our position was 13°45.18'S 100°56.44'W

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Enroute to Easter Island - Day 7

2010-03-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

Last night we had a terrible night. Just about sunset, the wind came up really strong--eventually reaching 20-25 knots. And with the wind came the seas--we had big steep seas on our beam again, and were rolling like crazy, as well as banging into a pretty good wave train coming off our port bow. We tried everything to make it more comfortable--heading changes and sail reduction. We finally gave up and rolled the genoa all the way in and basically rolled and banged all night. Neither one of us got much sleep.

But this morning, the wind was down and we got a nice light rain to help wash the salt off the boat. For the first 2-3 hours, the seas were really confused... the washing machine again. But with the overcast, we needed to charge the batteries anyway, so we motored for a couple of hours. By late morning, the sun was out, the wind was steady, the seas were fine, and we were having a great sail. This continued all day, and was capped off by a beautiful sunset.

Now, about 8pm, the wind is still steady and the seas not bad. Hope this continues all night!!

We have 'only' 1006 nautical miles to go! Tomorrow morning we should reach our halfway point of 945 miles. Current ETA Easter Island is March 16. The forecast looks pretty good for the next week all the way into Easter Island.
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At 3/9/2010 1:49 AM (utc) our position was 12°39.91'S 100°13.60'W

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Enroute to Easter Island - Day 6

2010-03-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

We have 750 miles behind us and 1140 miles to go. ETA Easter Island sometime Mar 15 or 16.

Today has been a pretty fast day, with good winds all day, and they are starting to swing a little more east. So we've been making 6.5 knots all day with a double reefed main, staysail, and only about a third of the genoa out. The wind has been up and down between 12 and 18 knots all day.

Just before dark, the wind piped up to 20+ knots (in gusts). We now have the genoa reefed in to 'scrap' size again and we are still going 6.5-7knots. It feels like we're rocketing along. The relative wind is about 70 degrees off our port bow, so we've been able to ease the sheets a little.

Infini, about 165 miles ahead of us, said they'd been through some very windy conditions today, and it had just started to ease for them. We are hoping ours will die down through the night (it is supposed to).

We saw a ship today. They weren't transmitting on the AIS, so Dave called them the old way "Ship at 9 degrees 44 minutes south..." The ship finally answered after several calls. They are enroute from Long Beach California to the Straits of Magellan, with cargo for Brazil. When I drew a great circle line on the chart (using the charting program), it bisected our course right about where we saw the ship. I put a mark on our electronic chart to pass on to others making this passage to be especially alert in this area.

I baked oatmeal cookies today when the wind moderated a little. Something for the long night watches. I studied some more French. I spent a lot of time adjusting sails as the wind went up and down... trying to keep us moving as fast as possible but as comfortably as possible. Dave fixed a few minor things around the boat and read up on Charlie's Charts of French Polynesia (the best French Poly guidebook we have).
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At 3/8/2010 2:09 AM (utc) our position was 10°43.45'S 099°09.45'W

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Enroute to Easter Island - Day 5

2010-03-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

Today was much better. We are finally out of 'the box'!! (Yay)

The wind started moderating during the night last night. Leery of being caught with too much sail up during the night, we were slow to add more genoa, and so had our slowest noon-to-noon day yet--only 121 miles (NM). That is only an average of 5 knots over 24 hours. That's pretty slow for us. Our average speed overall as of noon was 5.6 knots.

But once dawn came, we pulled out more sail, and have been doing between 5.5 and 6.5 knots all day. The wind has stayed pretty steady at around 15 knots all day. We have only done one cycle of 'the wind has died, pull out more sail, the wind is back, reef it back in'. We have a HUGE genoa... at 120%, it is almost double the size of the 95% yankee that the CSY's originally came with. With 15-20 knots of wind, trying to trim the sail properly (and roller reef it in and out) is REALLY hard. I'm getting my muscles back--I will look like a linebacker by fall!!

The weather has been beautiful--even when the wind was blowing too hard. Sunny trade-wind conditions. The temps have dropped from about 80 in the Galapagos to 76 right now (just after sunset). Now that the wind has moderated a little, we are really enjoying the sail.

With the ride getting more comfortable, we've actually been doing something other than just hanging on. This morning I spent several hours working on my French lessons. Dave has no French, and no desire to learn. So I guess I'm "it" in French Polynesia. Fortunately, I had French in high school and college, and used my French last time around the Caribbean, as well as a little bit in Europe this fall. I still need to do some heavy 'brushing up', but at least I've got a leg up.

We also spent some time today with the guidebooks, trying to map out our short term plans for French Polynesia, and our longer term plans for what route we plan to take to Hawaii, and where exactly we want to go for 2011. (Watch our 'Cruising Plans' page on our website for updates, once we figure it out).

Our friends on Visions of Johanna arrived at Easter Island sometime today. And Infini continues to increase their lead on us--they are now 160 miles ahead of us. (Guess we should stop calling their Westsail 42 a 'WetSnail', huh?) You can see their blog at svinfini.blogspot.com. Another boat we know has just left Lima, Peru for Easter Island. They have about the same distance we do, but have a better wind angle.

We've been keeping in touch with everyone via a twice a day schedule on the SSB radio.

We are about 1/3 the way there... only 1285 miles to go!! (Current ETA Mar 15 or 16)
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At 3/7/2010 12:56 AM (utc) our position was 08°39.83'S 097°43.61'W

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Enroute to Easter Island - Day 4

2010-03-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

We got out of the washing machine yesterday evening. We think it was an area of counter-current, making the seas steep and confused. All of a sudden, without any change in the wind, things smoothed out a little.

So far we have seen one fishing boat--our first night out of the Galapagos, 2 seagulls, and a lot of flying fish. No other boats, no marine mammals. It's a big empty ocean out here.

Today our focus has been to keep the boat moving at a reasonable pace, and stay dry. We want to sail at around 5.5-6 knots, but it's a struggle. The wind has been up and down all day. We get everything trimmed up just right and we're humming along at 5.8 knots, and then the wind comes up a few knots, and we start tearing along at 6.5. Faster is usually better, but in this case, it means we bash harder into the waves.

The waves, though not crazy like yesterday, are still big and still pretty much on our beam. Every now and then one breaks over us, and water washes down the deck and over everything. Occasinally when the wind comes up, we heel so far over that we bury the lee rail in the water. We have our cockpit enclosure to thank for staying mostly dry. But we've got so much foamy water on the lee rail that we have a salty mist in the cockpit, and everything is coated in salt.

We have kept 2 reefs in the main, and the staysail up, and use the roller furling genoa to slow us down or speed us up. Most of the day it has been blowing close to 20 knots, so we've varied between a 'scrap' and a 'bedsheet'. Right now our genny is only out about 8-10 feet. It isn't shaped very well when we've got it rolled in so much, but we don't care.

The forecast for the next few days is pretty much the same. The GRIB files say the wind should drop off a few knots from today's 20 knots, but not change direction much. So we'll be hard on the wind for a few more days.

With only Dave and I aboard, we are doing 3 hour watches through the night. This gives us each about 5-6 hours of night-time off-watch sleep, and we supplement that with a nap during the day, and cat naps during our watches. On Soggy Paws, we are permitted 15-minutes at a time while on watch, to cat-nap, read, or whatever. We use a kitchen timer loud enough to wake us up. After a couple of days of night watches, you get pretty efficient at sleeping in 15 minute segments, poking your head up to check on things, and then going back to sleep again. Or read... or work on the computer.
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At 3/6/2010 2:07 AM (utc) our position was 07°05.05'S 096°27.39'W

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All is Well

2010-03-05T17:35:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie... we are fine, sailing 5.5 knots 215 degrees
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At 3/6/2010 1:30 AM (utc) our position was 07°02.47'S 096°25.29'W

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Sailing South in A Washing Machine

2010-03-04T18:13:00.000-08:00

Galapagos to Easter Island - Day 3 - 1568 Miles (about 11 days) to Go

We are in, or almost in, Jimmy Cornell's dreaded 'box'. This is an area that Jimmy Cornell, in World Cruising Routes, says that many sailors have reported bad weather and uncomfortable conditions. In the edition of his book that we have, the 'box' is 3°S-8°S, 90°W-95°W. However, in the latest edition of World Cruising Routes, the 'box' has been repositioned to 3°S-8°S and 95°-105°W.

We are currently at almost exactly 5°S 95°W. After a reasonable night last night, early this morning we sailed out of a nice moonlit sky into a 100% overcast, and the seas have just gotten awful. Not big so much as confused and steep. The wind is only a little higher--and pretty much the same direction--as we've had for the past two days, but the seas are something else. It's like being in a washing machine.

We have one wave train coming directly from the side--about an 8' swell with a 4-5 second period... tall steep seas. We have another wave train, coming right on our nose--4' and not so steep. The wind is about 15-18 kts, and we are down to a double-reefed main and just the staysail. We took a second reef in the mainsail yesterday evening, after our friends ahead of us reported 20-25 kts. It never got that high during the night for us, but we were still glad we'd reefed down.

About mid morning, we rolled in the scrap of genoa that we'd left out all night, mainly because the heel from the sails, combined with the steep waves coming from the side, were really rolling us around.

So we spent a few hours wallowing along pleasantly, 20° off our desired course, only making about 5 knots. However, with the 100% overcast, we needed to run the engine to charge the batteries anyway, so we cranked up Mr. Perkins at 1pm and have been motorsailing for the last 2 hours. With the engine on, we've been able to turn up just a little, so we're now going along our desired course (about 211°), and going slightly into the big steep swell, so we're not rolling so much. As long as we don't get going too fast, it's not too uncomfortable. We are hoping to just get ourselves further south as soon as possible.

We think that around 8°S, we'll be almost out of the 'box' and start seeing the wind go further east, which should let us ease our sheets a little. Unfortunately, we have a day or two before we reach that point. :P

In contrast, our friends on Visions of Johanna (vofj.blogspot.com) have reached an area of calm just north of Easter. They expect to have to motor pretty much all day today and tomorrow and arrive at Easter Island Saturday morning.

We are getting 10 day forecast GRIB files, covering the area down to 40°S and out to 160°W, and don't see any terrible weather brewing up between us and Easter Island. (Though anyone who trusts a forecast more than 2-3 days out, especially on this uninhabited patch of ocean, is foolish). But we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Our noon-to-noon run ending at noon today was 138 miles, averaging 5.75 knots. At that speed, we have 11.36 days to go. So we'll probably make Easter sometime 15-17 March. If the wind veers more East, we should pick up speed and may shorten that by a day or so.
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At 3/4/2010 9:29 PM (utc) our position was 05°00.15'S 094°47.43'W

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Enroute to Easter Island - Day 2

2010-03-03T17:47:00.000-08:00

We had an uneventful day... the wind was up and down between 10-15 kts at about 145 degrees. Mostly nice sunny skies.

We have a reef in the main and the genoa rolled in a little. We've been averaging about 6 knots, not quite tracking down 212 degrees as we should be, but averaging a COG of about 225 degrees. The wind should swing more east as we get further south, and we expect to be able to curve right on into Easter Island sometime around the 15th of March.

No fish to report... since we are hard on the wind, we are heeled pretty good (leaning over, for you landlubbers), and have some pretty big seas, and it's a little challenging doing anything but sitting in the cockpit reading. Our freezer is stuffed so full, we wouldn't have any place to put any fish anyway.

We are chagrined to find out that our friends on Infini are going a little faster than us, so they are now just over 113 miles ahead of us. And Visions of Johanna are 2 days from Easter Island. We are still doing twice a day radio contacts with them.

Anyway, we are fine. 1677 miles to go.
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At 3/4/2010 1:37 AM (utc) our position was 03°32.81'S 093°34.31'W

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Enroute to Easter Island - Day 1

2010-03-02T13:42:00.000-08:00

We are finally on our way, the leg we've been talking about and worrying about for years... months... days. 1900 miles, 13 days, hard on the wind for half the trip.

I can remember sitting in the Melbourne Yacht Club bar on a Friday evening in late 2006, talking about 'going to Easter Island'. It seemed like a far-off possibility. Now we are enroute! How exciting!

We didn't leave yesterday as planned, because we were still doing 'preparation' at 3:30 pm, and still had an hour or two's worth of stuff to do. The sea breeze was also blowing pretty briskly. Dave insisted that we have an early dinner, get a good night's sleep, and get going in the morning calm. Though I really wanted to get going RIGHT NOW, I couldn't argue too much with his logic.

Our friends on Infini had pulled out of the harbor at noon, though, thinking we were nearly ready to leave as well. So they were 102 miles ahead of us this morning at 8am. I think we are slightly faster than they are (a Westsail 42), so we should slowly catch up with them.

We motorsailed out of the harbor at 7:45 am, and turned the engine off as soon as we got clear of Isabela, around 10:30am. We hope to make the rest of the trip strictly under sail.

Right now, at 1330 local time, we are sailing close hauled at about 6.5 knots, making good a course between 225 and 235 degrees. The direct course to Easter is more like 212, but as we get further south, the wind will go more East, and we should be able to make Easter with no problem.

This old CSY was built for this kind of sailing, and is doing beautifully. The ride isn't that uncomfortable and the weather is just fantastic--sunny with a fairly steady wind at 10-15 knots.
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At 3/2/2010 9:26 PM (utc) our position was 01°29.67'S 091°34.31'W

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Underway For Easter!!

2010-03-02T06:37:00.000-08:00

Finally got underway this morning at 0730 Galapagos time... 1890 miles to go!

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Planning to Leave for Easter Tomorrow

2010-02-28T11:02:00.001-08:00

The Pacific Ocean is still sloshing back and forth a little--we are still seeing weird currents in the anchorage. But all reports from all our friends in the Pacific indicate that fortunately--this time--it was a relative non-event.

We are lucky, and we are very thankful.

We had a great evening last night with our friends on Beaujolais, another CSY who arrived in the anchorage at the same time as the tsunami. We warned them not to come in, and they hung out outside, hoping to warn us of anything 'big' before it happened. After an hour when things settled down, they anchored right behind us, hoping for a little help from Dave on their refrigeration.

While Sue from Infini and Janice from Beaujolais and I went to town for some internet and provisions, the guys worked on Beaujolais to diagnose the problem. It turned out that they have a 'broken rod end cap' (or something like that) in their Tecumseh compressor. They need a new one shipped from Ft. Lauderdale--and they need a good refer mechanic to clean their system of all the metal bits. We think we've got them lined up with a good guy in Santa Cruz. We'll leave them our cell phone sim card as well--they'll be here awhile waiting for parts.

In the afternoon, our agent, Bolivar, showed up to say hello. We weren't sure why he flew over from San Cristobal, but it turned out he had some business with the sale of a fishing boat here, and was also trying to straighten out some port captain problems (more in another post about that). But he did stop by with a huge hunk of yellowfin tuna for each boat. So we pigged out on sushi last night.

All accounts seem to indicate that Easter, Pitcairn, and French Polynesia are OK. The weather here looks good for going (though, in a 15 day passage, who knows what the REST of the trip weather will look like!!). So we are headed out tomorrow...1,900 miles. We expect to make approximately 150 miles per day. We'll be off the internet except for our sailmail email. We WILL be posting daily updates here, and you can track our progress here: http://shiptrak.org/?callsign=KN4TH&filter=30

For those of you looking for Easter Island on a map, here's a lat/long: 27°03 S 109°25 W

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Wondering about Easter Island

2010-02-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

We were planning to leave Monday for Easter Island. And in fact we have friends who are already enroute.

At the internet cafe at 1pm local time today, we searched for information, but only found the President of Chile's warning/fears about EI getting hit. Have not heard anything more since the.

We are wondering whether to get underway on Monday as planned.

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Tsunami Pics from Yahoo UK

2010-02-27T11:08:00.000-08:00

Tsunami Alert!!

2010-02-27T09:45:00.001-08:00

Whoo, thanks to Debi Ball who emailed me this morning about the earthquake in Chile and the possible tsunami. She didn't give any details, but it helped to know what was happening when all the water started draining out of the basin we are anchored in.

It was crazy for a half hour, and is still a little strange here 2 hours later.

The water receded about 5' in 5 minutes, and then came back in in another 5 minutes. And the cycle repeated itself a few times over the next hour. It was really strange seeing the rocks grow out of the water, and the current was really really strong, about 6-8 knots, in an out, with some eddies thrown in. We were actually scared to death. As we saw the water receding, we were also getting worried that we might end up on the bottom at some point. Fortunately we started out in about 15 feet of water, so even with a 5' drop we still had plenty of water under our keel.

We got the engine going and ready to get underway, but the current was so crazy it would have been suicidal to get underway in those conditions. We also had a boat coming in from offshore, and they hung around outside watching for any big waves.

On the morning radio net, we heard that the port captains in the other Galapagos ports had rousted all the boats in the early morning hours and made them go to sea. They were all milling around outside in deep water this morning. The same in Panama and the boats along the Central American coast that we talked to every day on the radio.

We keep watch on VHF 69 (a nice quiet frequency) to be able to talk to our friends, but didn't have Ch16 on. So we are not sure if our Port Captain tried to tell us to leave. There are no other bigger boats in the harbor here this morning, but that's not unusual for a Saturday morning (they are all in Santa Cruz normally on Saturday changing passengers). The two fishing boats tied to the big yellow mooring ball are still there, however.

Anyway, we are safe. Hopefully there are no more earthquakes in Chile (or anywhere else nearby).

(2 Hours later... we are still seeing the water in the 'basin' sloshing about. But still no problems. The town at Puerto Villamil was evacuated to the hills, so when we went ashore to send some emails, we found nobody there! But the townspeople are coming back now, so I guess we're out of the woods).

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The Last Mojito

2010-02-23T05:30:00.000-08:00

Or... hello old friends, goodbye new friends...

Our friends on s/v Infini, whom we last cruised with in the Bay Islands of Honduras in early 2008, have FINALLY caught up with us, after 2 years. Hello old friends!

It is so nice to see Mike and Sue again. They have shared our dream of going to Easter Island, for the last 3 years. We have been planning for months to meet in the Galapagos and sail to Easter Island together. They ran into some late electrical issues in Panama, so we've been waiting here in the Galapagos for them. Now that they are here, we plan to leave together in about a week for Easter Island... 2000 miles... 15 days.

Our new friends on s/v Visions of Johanna... Bill, Johanna, and Gram, whom we have now shared 4 anchorages together over the last 5 weeks, are FINALLY (6 weeks later than planned) pulling anchor early tomorrow morning, heading for Easter Island.

Sue on Infini brought a big bundle of fresh mint from the market on Santa Cruz, so we have had Mojitos for the last two nights at Happy Hour. Last night a 'Hello Happy Hour' for Infini and tonight a 'Goodbye Happy Hour' for Visions. Bill on Visions is a primo 'Mojito Maker', and we've all had a great time sharing stories and planning information for Easter Island and French Polynesia.

We did another 'fuel caper' today (in the rain)... 9 plastic jugs of diesel, in the dinghy, up the dock, into a taxi, to the 'gasolinera', back to the dock, back in the dinghy, back to Visions, and into their tank. This is the ONLY way for any boat on the island to fuel. There is no fuel dock here. While we envy Visions' nice boat and nice systems, we don't envy their 2-3 gallons of diesel a day consumption (they have a generator and no solar panels). To contrast, we have used 1.2 gallons of diesel (for making water) and a couple of pints of gasoline in 2 weeks.

We also did a 'propane caper' in the last few days... You can't fill American tanks from the Ecuadorean fill system...there is no standardization in the connection (anywhere in the world)... and there is no fill system on Isabela anyway.

So we cobbled together a 'pigtail' that connects one of their tanks to one of our tanks, and procured a local 32-lb tank, and filled our tanks via gravity feed. Gram on Visions did most of the filling... he hoisted the local tank on their dinghy davit, and drained into our tanks on their stern. For $10 in propane and a little capital investment in the pigtail, we filled 3 of their small tanks and topped off 2 of our 20-lb tanks. 2/3 of the pigtail will be reusable when we need to do the same thing, but with a differnt end fitting, in French Polynesia.

It sounds easy... 'procuring a tank'. But you guys wouldn't believe how much effort went into THAT. Where the tanks are is out of town... we have no transportation... we can't do a deposit... etc. Finally Luis at Danielitas (the local grocery store) got us a tank. But it took about 3 days and 4-5 phone calls to make it happen. (you guys back there in the U.S. don't think about all these things, do you??? You think we are hanging out sipping Margaritas all the time... but instead we are spending all our time 'procuring' stuff)

We are now good for 5-6 months worth of cooking, with our 2 20-lb tanks.

Anyway, Goodbye, Visions!! We hope to see you in Easter or French Poly!!

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Galapagos Pengiun!

2010-02-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

These little guys live in the rocks a couple hundred yards ahead of us. They are only about 12-15 inches tall. They swim around the anchorage in pairs, looking for fish. They make an "awk" sound when they come up. I think that means "no fish here"!

They are fast and shy--so hard to get a picture. But I finally got a good one of a pengiun swimming by.

We are Whole Again!

2010-02-17T05:13:00.000-08:00

The parts we had made in Quito (thanks again, Rick!) came in on schedule, with only a minor delay on our end.

Dave called the shipping place promptly at 2pm and asked (in his best Spanish) whether there was a package there for him. The lady said 'yes' and he told her he'd come to pick it up. Well, because yours truly hadn't had lunch yet, he didn't actually get ashore until about 2:45. The office was closed. Why didn't she tell him that he needed to be there before 2:30?

He waited around until 4:45 and they still hadn't re-opened. So he gave up and went in early yesterday morning. But the entire 'air freight' shipping from Quito only cost $4.

The pieces are beautiful--nicely made shiny stainless steel.

In about an hour we had the first one installed--the easy one, on the backstay. We had lunch and then solicited help from our friends on Visions of Johanna--we needed a little muscle to get the forestay one on. Dave also replaced one at the bottom of the forestay with a spare that he already had. He has re-tuned the rig and we are now 'good to go'.

We still have some projects that we are working on--and we are waiting for Infini to catch up. They are in San Cristobal now, and will do the same routine we did--daysail to Santa Cruz, a few days there, and a daysail to Isabela. We are hoping to go out for a 'sea trial' on the day they come this way from Santa Cruz, and meet them.

Other maintenance issues we've been attending to... more leak chasing. We are happy to report that all the leaks we stopped before the Galapagos passage, mainly around the mast and the big windows, are nice and dry. Now we are down to minor deck fittings that need to be pulled up and re-bedded. We just had a big rain yesterday, and those didn't leak, so we're feeling quite dry.

Dave also tightened up the packing around the rudder post. It doesn't leak at anchor, but was leaking quite a bit with the movement underway. (one reason for the 'sea trial' in a few days, to make sure he's got the leak solved).

I've been doing some sewing--Sunbrella covers for our diesel jugs, a Chilean flag, and some screens. There are flies here. I made a 'drop screen' for the companionway hatch, but it's not holding up. I used regular window screening we bought at the hardware store here--a flimsy fiberglass kind, and it just isn't up to the coming and going. After only 10 days of use it has holes and is starting to rip. So I'll have to re-make that one out of some other screening I have.

There are now 3 cruisers in Isabela, and 2 that we know of in San Cristobal, and a couple on their way. The World Cruising Rally, about 25-30 boats, is supposed to set sail any day now from mainland Ecuador to San Cristobal, so it should get pretty crowded around here. Time for us to get going!! (C'mon Infini!)

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I got published

2010-02-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

Hey, I just found out that I'm published on the Women & Cruising website. Check the article out here: Women & Cruising

Toggle Update

2010-02-13T05:15:00.000-08:00

Thanks so much to all of you who wrote us with offers of help and advice with our toggle. The big problem with buying it in the U.S. and shipping it down is:

1-As best we can tell, it is an odd size and not available off-the-shelf from any rigging manufacturer we checked. It is longer than normal for the pin size it uses, and both dimensions are critical to us.

2-Shipping into Ecuador is not really an option unless you have lots of time. I know that UPS and FedEx will quote you 2-3 day delivery to Ecuador. What they don't tell you is that that time frame refers to 'arrival in Ecuadorean Customs'. The officials here sit on the incoming shipments for 2-3 weeks before releasing them--even super-high priority overnight shipments. No amount of whining, pleading, or muscle seems to do any good. Even the Ecuadorean Navy stated that they could not help. And when they release it from Customs, there is a duty... sometimes as much as 80% (ie $250 item, $75 shipping, $200 duty = yikes!!)

Note: This is "by design" I think, because there is a big government push to "buy Ecuadorean", and we do understand the reasoning. It is hard for the local businesses to compete with American quality and economies of scale, even with their inexpensive labor rate. And, without the Customs barrier, it would be much easier to get something shipped in from the U.S. than locate the business that produces a similar item in Ecuador, and get it to where you are. The road system here is atrocious--much quicker to fly it in from Miami than bus it from Quito in many cases. But they will never get out of the third world if they don't manufacture their own goods.

That said, we have again generously contributed to the local economy.

Due to the efforts of a friend, Rick Nelson, in Quito, our needed parts were fabricated in Quito, of better quality stainless steel than the originals. Rick started out as an acquiantance--he's an Ecuadorean/American living in Quito, with aspirations of going sailing some day. He contacted us by email a number o fmonths ago to see if we or any other boats were looking for crew to the Galapagos. We have since met him a couple of times, once in Quito and once in Bahia. We haven't been successful in finding him a ride to the Galapagos. But he graciously jumped in with both feet when we called and asked for help.

Rick ended up driving all over Quito with our part and specs, and finding a manufacturing company to make us 2 toggles and 2 pins in 2 days. They were finished yesterday, and Rick personally picked them up and put them on an air freight flight to us yesterday afternoon. We should have the parts in hand by Monday, and be 'good as new' (or better) by Tuesday.

Meanwhile, we've filled our last few days trying to help our friends on Visions of Johanna get their new propeller hub from England. This is a saga all of its own, and best handled by reading THEIR blog at http://vofj.blogspot.com

But we did call a few of our bachelor friends to see if any of them could break loose and fly the part down from Miami. We almost had a free trip to the Galapagos for Dave's USNA roommate, Jim Neale. But Visions had another friend step up at the last minute, and he will be flying down from Vermont with the parts (and a couple of ours, as well--nothing like West Marine overnight shipping).

At a low point in their ordeal, Bill on Visions looked over his plan for this year--which started out an ambitious schedule, and is now running about a month behind--and almost decided to abandon his Pacific crossing this year. "Not enough time to do what we want." Fortunately, a good night's sleep and an alternate solution has him smiling again and reading up on Easter Island. They hope to finally be underway for Easter by late next week, and we hope to be close behind them.

On another front, our friends on Infini finally made it out of Balboa and are 2/3 the way to the Galapagos. Right now they are in the ITCZ and weren't having a fun time this morning when we talked by radio. But I'm sure they'll get here eventually. http://svinfini.blogspot.com

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Our Broken Toggle

2010-02-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

Or... let's all sing the same old song "Working on boats in exotic places..."

In an inspection of our rigging yesterday, Dave found a key component of the rigging broken. It is called a 'toggle', and it connects the backstay to the mast. It is a machined stainless steel part that is very important to keeping the mast up. It would have been a disaster for this to break at sea. And we can't even move out of the harbor here without locating a replacement part. For now, we have a couple of extra halyards helping to hold the rig up.

Needless to say, there is no West Marine in Isla Isabela. And even West Marine wouldn't have this part in stock. So we've been brainstorming several ideas to try to get a replacement. Here are some of the options we've thought thru

1. Have it made locally in Isabela or Santa Cruz. Problem: Need the correct stainless steel bar stock, not likely to be off-the-shelf here

2. Have a friend in Panama, headed this way soon, try to get it made in Panama. Problem: timing issues

3. Gram from Visions of Johanna, anchored next to us, is flying to England to get a new Autoprop (theirs has a manufacturing defect and they need an immediate replacement--due to logistics of shipping stuff into Ecuador, they have opted to go get the replacement vs trying to have it shipped here). Problem: he will only be on the ground in England for a couple of days, probably not enough time to get his own stuff done, much less get parts for us fabricated.

4. Get someone in England to get it fabbed and get it to Gram before he leaves. We have contacted another CSY owner in England, and he said he'd check with his rigger.

5. Have a guy we met in Quito get it fabricated there, with Gram dropping off the old part and bringing back the new part. We met a really nice guy who lives and works in Quito. He is checking with a couple of machine shops to see if they have the right stock and if they can get it done in time. This is our current most likely prospect.

Dave thought he had spares, but it turns out the spares he had don't fit the two big toggles holding the headstay and the backstay. So whatever we'll do, we'll try to get 2 made, and use the unbroken one currently on our headstay as a spare.

Don't Name Your Boat Odle

2010-02-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

Since sitting in this nice quiet anchorage, and getting ready for a big passage, we have been participating daily in the Panama Pacific Net every day.

This is a sleepy little net--hard to keep going during the off season, because everyone has either left to go across the Pacific, transited through the Panama Canal to the Caribbean side (which has it's own net), or are sitting in Balboa Panama, or Golfito, Costa Rica (both are 'black holes'), or have stashed their boat in Ecuador and are off traveling.

But it's almost Pacific Crossing Time, so boats are starting to move. There's a whole slug of boats waiting out Tehuantapeckers and Papagayos (areas of strong winds on the Pacific coast of Central America), trying to come south and see a little of Central America before they 'jump' into the Pacific. There are a bunch of boats in Bahia and Balboa, also getting ready to go. So the net is starting to perk up from 4-5 check-ins to 10 or so. In March, there will be 30 or so boats out moving around every day.

Yesterday I was 'net control' and two new boats checked in from Nicaragua... Fugue and Odyle. They are far away and light (hard to hear) anyway, but when you hear a boat named so screwily, as a net controller, you just have to work through it.

"I heard something like 'Oh-dul', could you please come back and spell that phonetically?" Because they were hard to hear, and kind of new, so they weren't good at phonetics, it took several times before we really got it. (Odyle, as they pronounced it, rhymes with yodel--could someone have really named their boat that?)

On this sleepy little net, many of the net controllers don't listen on the net when it's not their day for net control. So these guys will have to repeat that every time they check in for the next week or so. And on every other net they ever check in on.

Sheesh, can you imagine?

The same day, we had a boat named Fugue. (pronounced Few-zshshz) Another sheesh.

But we are one to talk, I guess. We have had to spell our boat name for net controllers, too. And people tend to remember the Paws part, but not the Soggy parts. We often get called Salty Paws, and even once, Slappy Paws.

(For those of you not familiar with boat radio 'nets'... A net is a gathering of boats in a semi-organized fashion at a particular time of day on a particular frequency. In the harbors where boats tend to congregate, we have VHF nets daily to pass information among boats in the harbor. The VHF is limited range, though--good only for 20 miles or so. So most cruising areas also have HF nets, where boats can talk with each other across longer distances. The Panama Pacific Net covers a pretty wide area--we are currently handling check ins for boats from southern Mexico to Peru, and out to the Galapagos, and into the Pacific for a couple of hundred miles beyond the Galapagos.

A 'net control' is one person designated to run the net for a half hour or so... asking for 'check ins' or 'traffic' and letting the boats come in one by one to call their friends or share weather information or ask questions about the next port they plan to go to.

There is another net that we will pick up once we get a little further west, called the Pacific Seafarer's Net. It covers the whole Pacific Ocean!)
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At 1/27/2010 1:45 PM (utc) our position was 00°57.95'S 090°57.73'W

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Rain? Rain!!

2010-02-07T05:25:00.000-08:00

After sitting in dry coastal Ecuador for nearly a year, what a blessing it is to finally get some real rain.

It has been raining now for the past 24 hours, off and on. It's not the heavy downpour that we are used to in Florida, but a nice, steady, drizzle.

Though we are no longer stressed about water, because of our hefty watermaker, it is still nice to finally have abundant water. It has literally been more than a year since we have experienced rain like this.

Dave spent most of the afternoon out playing in the rain--scrubbing down the decks, the cockpit, and the dinghy. We have filled our water tanks, and captured some extra in buckets to do laundry with.

OK, now we're ready for it to stop.
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At 1/27/2010 1:45 PM (utc) our position was 00°57.95'S 090°57.73'W

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Sitting on the Sidewalk with my Computer

2010-02-04T13:12:00.001-08:00

One of the 'joys' of 3rd world living is that nothing is ever on a schedule. At least not on OUR schedule.

In spite of being in South America for over a year, we still have yet to get used to their mid-day break. Every place in town closes down about 12:30, and stays closed until 2 or 3pm. The best (cheapest, fastest, and with A/C) internet place in town is closed between 12:30 and 3pm. It is 2:45, Dave came into town on an errand, and I want to snatch some internet while he's in town.

I know EasyNet will be closed until 3pm, so I stop at the other internet place--one that is a little more expensive, not air conditioned--but open more often. The sign says 'Open', the windows are open, but the door is locked and nobody is there. Hmmm. Another internet place on the way, that usually has a big 'Internet' sign out front, is also closed.

Well, it IS a hot, sleepy day, and there are almost no tourists in town right now. The town gets busy Mon-Tue-Wed when the live-aboard tour boats stop here. But the last one left at noon today, and there won't be another until next Monday.

So up I go to EasyNet, hoping maybe someone will be there. I can hear the A/C running, but the sign says closed and the door is locked.

So now I am sitting on the sidewalk in the shade, the ants running around my feet, and wondering when they might open. It's now 3:05 pm.

Stupid Gringo that I am...I will sit here and swelter instead of taking a siesta, like everyone else in town.
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At 1/27/2010 1:45 PM (utc) our position was 00°57.95'S 090°57.73'W

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