Haircut day
Today Mark and “the lads” got haircuts. The barber shop at the Marina attaches numbers to the length of the haircuts with 1 being the shortest.
As you can see, they tried to save on remembering large numbers. They don’t look too happy about it.
Mark has shown us what happens when occupants of the boat have long hair (Molly and Kendall both have long hair). First, it gets caught on things. The clips that hold the sunshade and the bimini (the cover over the cockpit) are natural hair magnets. They not only attract the hair, they grab it and pluck it.
Second, the boat has a natural circulation of anything that falls on the floor. It eventually gets washed into the bilge and into the strainers that cover the drains to the pumps that push any bilge water to the sea. One example is the shower. It is in the same room as the head (toilet) much like a camper. When a person showers, the water (and hair) goes into the bilge and gets pumped into the sea. Long haired people leave a trail behind in the bilge pump strainers.
These three skin-heads will not leave a trail at least until we at sea for several weeks.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Day minus 6
Pacific Puddle Jump
No work on the boat today. The sailing magazine Latitude 38 sponsored a lunch where they presented the Pacific Puddle Jumpers with a flag for their boats. The Tahiti tourist agency was a co-sponsor and gave several talks about French Polynesia. One of the most interesting talks was by an agent who arranges the entry and exit visas along with all of the relevant official permissions and documents. I think he had unanimous acceptance from all of the non-EEC boat owners.
We had a chance to meet many of the other boat crews including Ray and Peggy Wilson from Long Beach, Ca. Their boat is Sol Searcher.
Terry is from Vancouver, BC is currently looking for crew (anyone interested?) for his 50” Southwind III. He is planning to single hand it if he cannot find anyone to help. I get the sense he is a very experienced sailor.
Gar and Nicole Duke are from Sausilito and their boat is Dreamweaver.
No work on the boat today. The sailing magazine Latitude 38 sponsored a lunch where they presented the Pacific Puddle Jumpers with a flag for their boats. The Tahiti tourist agency was a co-sponsor and gave several talks about French Polynesia. One of the most interesting talks was by an agent who arranges the entry and exit visas along with all of the relevant official permissions and documents. I think he had unanimous acceptance from all of the non-EEC boat owners.
We had a chance to meet many of the other boat crews including Ray and Peggy Wilson from Long Beach, Ca. Their boat is Sol Searcher.
Terry is from Vancouver, BC is currently looking for crew (anyone interested?) for his 50” Southwind III. He is planning to single hand it if he cannot find anyone to help. I get the sense he is a very experienced sailor.
Gar and Nicole Duke are from Sausilito and their boat is Dreamweaver.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Day minus 7
Most of the people who will read this blog are sailing neophytes like me. A trans-ocean passage on a small sailboat is not something they have a lot of experience with. Pardon the explanation is you already know this.
It seems to me so far that there are two parts to a cruise - the part at sea (which I have yet to do) and the part in port - which has occupied the last 10 of my days. It may seem obvious but much of the time in port is spent preparing for the time at sea. Boats are constantly under attack from their natural element - the ocean. Mechanically, they must withstand enormous forces and sometimes the sea wins. Chemically they are slowly being eaten by corrosion and here the sea always wins. Today we spent the day ministering to Star in both areas.
The boats in the PV marina are moored pretty close together. A few days ago, our neighbor lost control when docking and hit the side of Star just above the deck. The impact bent the stanchion (one of the stainless steel poles that support the lifelines). To repair it means taking down the sunshade, removing the lifelines, removing the stanchion and sending it to a shop to be bent back to its original form. The sunshade has a coating of salt from its month-long exposure so that had to be removed before it could be folded up and put away.
You can see where this is going.
We spent the day washing down all of the above-deck surfaces of star with Simple Green, brushes and sponges. (“Swab those decks, mateys”) Remember what I said about corrosion? You could almost hear Star breathing a sigh of relief as clean water washed off the saline enemy.
We still have to get the stanchion back and replace all the rigging that attaches to it, but we are one step closer to going to sea
It seems to me so far that there are two parts to a cruise - the part at sea (which I have yet to do) and the part in port - which has occupied the last 10 of my days. It may seem obvious but much of the time in port is spent preparing for the time at sea. Boats are constantly under attack from their natural element - the ocean. Mechanically, they must withstand enormous forces and sometimes the sea wins. Chemically they are slowly being eaten by corrosion and here the sea always wins. Today we spent the day ministering to Star in both areas.
The boats in the PV marina are moored pretty close together. A few days ago, our neighbor lost control when docking and hit the side of Star just above the deck. The impact bent the stanchion (one of the stainless steel poles that support the lifelines). To repair it means taking down the sunshade, removing the lifelines, removing the stanchion and sending it to a shop to be bent back to its original form. The sunshade has a coating of salt from its month-long exposure so that had to be removed before it could be folded up and put away.
You can see where this is going.
We spent the day washing down all of the above-deck surfaces of star with Simple Green, brushes and sponges. (“Swab those decks, mateys”) Remember what I said about corrosion? You could almost hear Star breathing a sigh of relief as clean water washed off the saline enemy.
We still have to get the stanchion back and replace all the rigging that attaches to it, but we are one step closer to going to sea
Day minus 8
The "ham" in me
I am running out of pictures to post.
This one is from last week but it shows the cabin of the Star with Carly, Pat, Ryan, Andy and Mark. Star has a 14’ wide beam but the designers put in a lot of storage so the cabin is not as wide as Dave’s boat which only has a 12’ beam. Nonetheless, it is comfortable and the four of us should be comfortable on the crossings. Mark has designed a watch schedule that has all of us awake from 10 AM to 6 PM. The first watch, which will probably be me and Kurt, will be from 6 PM until 2 AM. The second watch by Mark and Andy will be from 2 AM to 10 AM. During the 8 hours, at least one person will be on deck and they will do a binoculars look around every 20 minutes. They will also be required to respond to radio communications during the watch.
Yesterday evening I received a fax of my general license ham radio “certificate of successful completion”. I had taken and passed this test in early February but could not get the license because at that time the rules required that I also pass a 5 word-per-minute Morse code test. I found I could do about 3 words a minute but got brain lock when it went faster. This requirement was abandoned by the FCC on February 24 - yesterday - so with the certificate, $15 and the proper form I was able to upgrade my technician license to a general license. This is a huge benefit for Star since it will allow us to use the lower frequencies (the famous 20 meter band) that bounce off the ionosphere and can give radio communication for thousands of miles. This is definitely a good thing when the boat is thousands of miles from shore.
The rest of the day was spent washing the boat and putting away extra gear in preparation for the trip. We still have a few more maintenance items to complete and Mark now expects that we will leave on or about March 8.
I am running out of pictures to post.
This one is from last week but it shows the cabin of the Star with Carly, Pat, Ryan, Andy and Mark. Star has a 14’ wide beam but the designers put in a lot of storage so the cabin is not as wide as Dave’s boat which only has a 12’ beam. Nonetheless, it is comfortable and the four of us should be comfortable on the crossings. Mark has designed a watch schedule that has all of us awake from 10 AM to 6 PM. The first watch, which will probably be me and Kurt, will be from 6 PM until 2 AM. The second watch by Mark and Andy will be from 2 AM to 10 AM. During the 8 hours, at least one person will be on deck and they will do a binoculars look around every 20 minutes. They will also be required to respond to radio communications during the watch.
Yesterday evening I received a fax of my general license ham radio “certificate of successful completion”. I had taken and passed this test in early February but could not get the license because at that time the rules required that I also pass a 5 word-per-minute Morse code test. I found I could do about 3 words a minute but got brain lock when it went faster. This requirement was abandoned by the FCC on February 24 - yesterday - so with the certificate, $15 and the proper form I was able to upgrade my technician license to a general license. This is a huge benefit for Star since it will allow us to use the lower frequencies (the famous 20 meter band) that bounce off the ionosphere and can give radio communication for thousands of miles. This is definitely a good thing when the boat is thousands of miles from shore.
The rest of the day was spent washing the boat and putting away extra gear in preparation for the trip. We still have a few more maintenance items to complete and Mark now expects that we will leave on or about March 8.
Day minus 9
Still in a hotel
Today was the day I was to check out of the Villa del Palmar (VdP), Flamingos in Nuevo Vallarta and move back into town to the VdP, Vallarta so I got up early and went to the gym to use the great facilities one more time. The gym was well equipped with new exercise machines plus it was well lit, air conditioned and had US television news.
The move to the other hotel took most of the morning and I got to Star in time to listen to Bob Becker explain the ins and outs of a computer navigation program he gave to Mark. This has a map a bit like Google Earth. You put in the starting coordinates and the end coordinates and it plots a great circle route and than reduces it to waypoints on a Mercator projection marine chart. I had done this manually at Mark’s request but my result is no where near as cool as seeing the result on a satellite image that can be rotated and zoomed. I suspect we will use this all the way across.
We got a call on the radio from Robin and Michelle from Warrior a 50 foot boat that Mark had met several times along his travel Southward. They were arriving in PV and wanted to say hello. Both are from Australia but spent the last few years living in Santa Cruz while working and teaching at Stanford. Robin’s speciality is nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and Michelle did her post-doc in applied linguistics studying how people learn languages. They are interesting people but they will not be on the jump. they are sailing South and will likely go through the canal.
Today was the day I was to check out of the Villa del Palmar (VdP), Flamingos in Nuevo Vallarta and move back into town to the VdP, Vallarta so I got up early and went to the gym to use the great facilities one more time. The gym was well equipped with new exercise machines plus it was well lit, air conditioned and had US television news.
The move to the other hotel took most of the morning and I got to Star in time to listen to Bob Becker explain the ins and outs of a computer navigation program he gave to Mark. This has a map a bit like Google Earth. You put in the starting coordinates and the end coordinates and it plots a great circle route and than reduces it to waypoints on a Mercator projection marine chart. I had done this manually at Mark’s request but my result is no where near as cool as seeing the result on a satellite image that can be rotated and zoomed. I suspect we will use this all the way across.
We got a call on the radio from Robin and Michelle from Warrior a 50 foot boat that Mark had met several times along his travel Southward. They were arriving in PV and wanted to say hello. Both are from Australia but spent the last few years living in Santa Cruz while working and teaching at Stanford. Robin’s speciality is nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and Michelle did her post-doc in applied linguistics studying how people learn languages. They are interesting people but they will not be on the jump. they are sailing South and will likely go through the canal.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Day minus 10
Puddle Jump meetings
Every Friday, the Puddle Jump (PJ) meets at Paradise Marina for lectures and discussions relating to the trip. This week there was an hour on weather and a second hour on marine electrical systems. Afterward, several members had lunch to continue the discussions on navigation and radio communication.
There is a lot of sharing of knowledge, experience, tools, help with each other’s boat problems and equipment. One boat had all the detail charts of four of our destinations and allowed us to make copies for our own use.
I learned, much to my surprise, that I could upgrade my ham license right here in PV. All I need is a copy of my “certificate of completion” and on Sunday I can go to the ham radio test session and upgrade. This will make a huge difference in Southern Star’s ability to communicate while at sea.
As you might expect, I took several pages of notes.
Every Friday, the Puddle Jump (PJ) meets at Paradise Marina for lectures and discussions relating to the trip. This week there was an hour on weather and a second hour on marine electrical systems. Afterward, several members had lunch to continue the discussions on navigation and radio communication.
There is a lot of sharing of knowledge, experience, tools, help with each other’s boat problems and equipment. One boat had all the detail charts of four of our destinations and allowed us to make copies for our own use.
I learned, much to my surprise, that I could upgrade my ham license right here in PV. All I need is a copy of my “certificate of completion” and on Sunday I can go to the ham radio test session and upgrade. This will make a huge difference in Southern Star’s ability to communicate while at sea.
As you might expect, I took several pages of notes.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Day minus 11
The Irish
I had to attend the member’s meeting so I stayed around the hotel until after lunch.
Mark was working with “the lads” as he calls them so I walked about 2 miles up the beach to the small town of Bucarias in search of the makings for sushi. The hotel told me that a market called Palacio China (China Palace) carried oriental foods. It was very hot and by the time I got there I was dripping. The market was a dud so I decided to look for an Internet cafe.
Suddenly the clouds parted and I was standing in front of the Shamrock - an Irish pub. What a crazy world. the best part was they also had free wireless Internet.
After a black and tan, I felt a lot better.
I had to take a picture of Hugh the proprietor standing in front of the map of Ireland. Of course he also had the famous Irish toast over the door. The most surprising thing was the picture of Dirty Nelly’s and Bunratty Castle on another wall. He confirmed that every Irishman knows of Dirty Nelly’s even though it is in such an obscure location. Of course the Raychem Ireland crowd knew it as it was only a few miles from the Raychem site.
I had to attend the member’s meeting so I stayed around the hotel until after lunch.
Mark was working with “the lads” as he calls them so I walked about 2 miles up the beach to the small town of Bucarias in search of the makings for sushi. The hotel told me that a market called Palacio China (China Palace) carried oriental foods. It was very hot and by the time I got there I was dripping. The market was a dud so I decided to look for an Internet cafe.
Suddenly the clouds parted and I was standing in front of the Shamrock - an Irish pub. What a crazy world. the best part was they also had free wireless Internet.
After a black and tan, I felt a lot better.
I had to take a picture of Hugh the proprietor standing in front of the map of Ireland. Of course he also had the famous Irish toast over the door. The most surprising thing was the picture of Dirty Nelly’s and Bunratty Castle on another wall. He confirmed that every Irishman knows of Dirty Nelly’s even though it is in such an obscure location. Of course the Raychem Ireland crowd knew it as it was only a few miles from the Raychem site.
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