Double Takedown.

We were feeling a little sad in the fishing department as we headed into our pizza night dinner last night. In the afternoon, we had hooked a fish on the trolling rod, and I fought it for 40 minutes. It ran over a dozen times, which means it was BIG, bigger than any 25 pound salmon I’ve ever caught. We had the chute down and the engines running to help maneuver Sophie and ease pressure on the fishing line. At one point we even had Sophie going in reverse before we realized that we had forgotten to pull in our meat lines, and, well, you know what happens when you back up a sailboat over any type of line in the water, including meat lines. One of the lines got caught in the propeller and was destroyed along with the elaborate meat line alarm system we had spent hours perfecting.(No damage to the prop, though). Five minutes later the fish got off the hook. So we put the chute back up and continued on our way, fish-sad and a little tired.

Pizza night dinner got off to a great start a couple of hours later. Jenna and I were about to go on watch, so the kids, Jenna and I each had our pizzas in front of us (mine was a thin crust prosciutto, onion and red pepper). Jenna was about to put Rich’s pizza in the oven when we heard a loud

wwwwwiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

coming from the reel of the trolling rod. Fish on! It was Rich’s turn to fight, so he grabbed the pole, Dan and I dropped the chute, and Jenna started the engines. I shouted to Dan “Hey, please pull in the meat line!” so we wouldn’t repeat the mistake from the afternoon. Dan went over to the meat line, took a look at it, then shouted back “Um, I think there’s something on it.”

Two fish on at the same time!

Dan pulled in the meat line hand-over-hand. This one consisted of 25 feet of 250 pound test line, so it wasn’t going to break. As the fish neared the boat, we saw a flash of green and assumed it was a mahi mahi. We quickly netted the fish and realized it was a beautiful 18 pound yellowfin tuna. Dan whacked that fish, assigned Hazel to hold the net to make sure our new tuna friend didn’t go back into the water, and then we ran over to the other transom to help Rich land a 20 pound yellowfin tuna! What a great passage memory for Rich, and what a tremendous outcome for the boat. Two fish at the same time! 38 pounds of tuna in 10 minutes! Back in Puget Sound, we call that a

Double Takedown.

All of this was happening as the sun was setting. We secured the fish to the boat and then raised the spinnaker to continue on our way. Once the chute was up I realized that the wind had finally started shifting to the east as forecast. That meant our 36 hour spinnaker run had finally come to an end. We dropped the chute and then raised the code zero and main. By the time we were done it was dark and everyone was exhausted. The boys finally had their pizza and then carved up the fish. We produced 16 dinner-sized vacuum sealed bags of 1 hour old better-than-sashimi-grade yellowfin tuna for our freezer and meal plan for the next couple of days. And to have all of this cap off the longest downwind spinnaker run of our lives in 90 degree sunshine made it a really good day.

Dan was especially proud of his meat line takedown. We had lost 4-5 fish on the meat lines due to either bad lures or no alarm since we started the trip. So Dan designed a special new lure, and boy did it work. He calls it “the Four Hook Surprise”*, and it has now become a permanent addition to Sophie’e fishing arsenal. I also think it would make a good name for a band some day.

From a sailing perspective, we are doing great. Our current position is 08.08 n 125.04 w. We did 146 miles since yesterday, and that included stopping to fish for well over an hour. We crossed the official halfway mark on our trip last night and are only 1344 miles to Hiva Oa. Right now we have the spinnaker and main up and are sailing at 6+ knots on a course of 198 magnetic in 2 foot seas and 10 knots of wind. And it’s getting even warmer.

We spoke with the weather router this morning, and she said the ITCZ is currently more south than usual, running in a band from 05 n to the equator. At this pace we will enter it tomorrow. Her advice was to motor on a straight north-south line through the zone to get past whatever thunderstorms are there. Then we should start picking up a light 10-12 knot ESE breeze on the other side at the equator. At that point we should sail on a rhumb line course straight for Hiva Oa.

I am looking forward to seeing how much speed we can get out of Sophie running on just one engine @ 2200 RPM and the mainsail up. Back home we normally motor Sophie with both engines running @2800 RPM for a speed of 8-9 knots. If our speed on one engine at this reduced power level is in the neighborhood of 6-6.5 knots, then we could have enough diesel to go over 1,000 miles in this configuration. We’ll play around with this tomorrow.

From a food perspective, last night’s pizza night was a huge success, and we’ll use the remaining dough for a pizza lunch tomorrow. We had some Trader Joe’s frozen croissants for breakfast (which helped free up freezer space for fish.) My guess is that fish is on the menu tonight, which will then be followed by a double feature family movie night.

* offshore use only

Unbelievable.

Some of you may have had the pleasure of seeing Sophie participate in Seattle’s Downtown Sailing Series sailboat race on a warm summer Thursday night with a northerly breeze blowing. The racer class would start at 7:00 PM and head a couple of miles downwind towards a turning mark right in front of Seattle’s downtown skyline. Sophie would start with the cruising class at 7:05, and despite having 40 happy souls on board, with the spinnaker up on a downwind sail Sophie would catch up to the racing class by the time we hit the downtown turning mark.

Well, that’s pretty much exactly what we are doing right now, but instead of carrying 40 happy souls we have 2 tons of diesel and water, 12 weeks of food, 20 shelf-feet of books and school supplies, and 300 bottles of wine and booze. (Well, maybe that last part is the same.)

And instead of turning at the downtown mark after 2 miles, we have been heading straight downwind at the same course and speed under just the spinnaker for the last 30 hours. It’s as if we started the Thursday night race on the first leg, never stopped, and made it past Portland by the next day.

Our noontime position is 10.28 n 124.42 w, and we are sailing at 6-7 knts on a course of 204 magnetic in 2 foot seas. We have covered 170 miles in the last 24 hours. During this 30 hour run we’ve adjusted the sheets once and our course once. Otherwise, we are simply hanging out in the 90 degree sunshine.

From an overall progress perspective, we are 1487 miles from Hiva Oa and expect to hit the 1420 mile halfway point tonight. Jenna and the kids baked an apple pie to celebrate. We also expect that our second half of the trip will be faster than the first half because we haven’t used our engines yet. We are 1397 miles from San Diego and 355 miles from our weather router’s waypoint of 05 n 127 w.

Like I said, this is unbelievable!

For dinner last night Rich and Dan prepared an “Ahi trio” — seared Ahi in a red pepper sauce, seared Ahi terryaki, and lime Ahi ceviche — accompanied by the last of our fresh kale salad mix and brown basmati rice. Tonight will be pizza night, and we’ve all spent the day watching the pizza dough Jenna made during her midnight watch rise in our warm cabin.

Not much else going on. I went up the 3 times yesterday to fix a set screw that came loose from the mainsail track (again!). When we get to the Marquesas I plan to reset all of the mast track set screws with Loctite.

Everyone is sleeping well. Jenna and hazel are napping right now, Leo is in his room reading, and the boys are up top hanging out.

Finally, I’ve been reading “Moby Dick” this week, and came across the following passage:

“Round the World! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point where we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us.”

I don’t know, it seems quite nice out here right now.

Water Play

Our position at noon today is 12.44 n 122.58 w, which means we have sailed 136 miles in the last 24 hours. Our pace slowed down a bit due to a fish stop (we dropped the chute so Dan could land a 5 lb Ahi on the trolling line) and the fact that during our sunset discussion of whether or not we should drop the chute for the evening in 20 knts true wind speed, we looked up and saw something resembling a big squall coming right at us. Chute dropped, main up, westerly course of 240-250 at 5 knts in a 12 knt breeze for a warm, starlit evening cruise. There was no squall, but everyone slept quite well. Right now we have the chute back up and are sailing at 6 knots on a 215 deg course in 14 knots of wind. At this pace we will hit the halfway mark to Hiva Oa (1420 nautical miles) late tomorrow night.

But enough about sailing.

Last night’s dinner was pan seared line-caught Ahi tuna on a bed of organic baby spinach, ruby red grapefruit, avacado, and roasted pistachios. I had just re-read Joshua Slocum’s “Sailing Alone Around the World”, and it turns out he used that recipe off the coast of Brazil, so we thought we’d give it a shot. It was delicious.

In terms of nature, Jenna saw a sea turtle this morning, and Rich found a flying fish alive and flapping on the floor of our galley. It apparently flew in over the dinghy and SUPS, through the aft cockpit, and onto the cabin floor. We assume it was surprised and bummed at the result of its leap.

Finally, we invented a new game/washing routine for the kids that they call “Water Play”. Leo and Hazel put on swim shorts and safety harnesses, clip in to the safety shackle near the windlass, and then bounce on the trampolines while I squirt them with 78 degree seawater from the deck hose. After a half hour of this, I switch to fresh water and shampoo the kids’ hair. They have an absolute blast! We have clean kids without heating up the cabins! I can’t imagine why I never thought of this during our summer cruises in Puget Sound and the San Juans, and I can’t wait to share this new fun activity with all of our cruising friends when we return.

Trade Wind Sailing

Jenna just said that this is what she dreamed it would be like.

We are currently sailing straight downwind at 7-8 knts on a course of 214 degrees under our cheerful Pt. Townsend Sails spinnaker with no main on a direct line to the Marquesas. The temperature is in the high 80’s, and we are all looking forward to our lunch of freshly-caught bluefin tuna. At this current course and speed we will be in Nuku Hiva in 10 days, although we will probably slow down a bit before then.

Our current position is 14.10 n 121.10 w, which means we made 153 miles in our last 14 hours. The lower daily total is mainly due to course changes and a reduction in wind speed. Last night while Jenna and I were on watch, the wind died down a bit and shifted back to the north, so we decided to gybe and make some westing. That didn’t work out to well, so we gybed back and headed at 6-7 knots on a 170 course under full main and jib until dawn.

Dan, Rich and I proceeded to put the chute up at that point, but it turns out the snuffer line was twisted up inside the bag and it took us over an hour to sort it out. Part of this involved Dan and Rich taking the chute into the “living room” and untangling it, and Rich reminded me that untangling spinnakers in living rooms is apparently an old Utzschneider tradition.

Did I mention lately that these guys are splendid crew?

Anyway, after we got the chute up and the main down, Rich looked aft at our meat lines (two 50 ft. lengths of 125 lb test line attached to the boat with shock cords and designed to haul in fish 24×7)and asked “Is that a fish?”. It turns out we had been dragging a 4 lb bluefin tuna for the last several hours, and this fish will soon be our lunch. In fact there were tuna and flying fish jumping all around us, so I put the trolling pole back in the water and within 2 minutes we had a hit. All of this is taking place while the boat is sailing 8 knots downwind under a chute with a crew that was a little tired from sail wrestling after their night watches, so we decided to maintain boat speed while trying to land the fish. We lost that fish but not the leader, and now that we have a more rested crew we have decided to drop the spinnaker the next time we get a hit on the pole in order to give us a better chance to stop the boat, land the fish and fill our freezer. We also have designated Leo the boat CMO (Chief Meatline Officer) and his job is to check the lines every 15 minutes.

Right now Dan and Rich are napping; Jenna, Leo, Hazel, and I are up top under the bimini wearing full SPF clothes and sunhats as Jenna reads aloud a chapter from Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States (Children’s Edition)” as part of our home schooling curriculum. Sophie is pretty much steering herself, and is as happy to be in the warm weather as we are. Our fuel and water tanks are full, the genset/solar/windmills/washing machine/autopilot are all working quite well, and the crew is happy. The grownups are all showered, and we will do the kids on deck after lunch. The big decision after that will be where to take the afternoon nap.

Southing!

Our current position is 16.37 n 120.27 w. That places us about 1000 miles north of the equator and 1000 miles from our departure point in San Diego. We feel good about hitting the 1000 mile milestone after our first week, especially given our couple of days of slow going early on. Hiva Oa is only 1900 miles away!

We made 168 miles in the last 24 hours for an average speed of exactly 7 knots. We still have that 20-25 knt breeze coming from the NNE. Last night there was a NW swell that combined with 8 ft. waves from the NNE to mess things up a bit, so we decided to take it easy and sailed with 2 reefs in the main and a full jib throughout the night. Right now the swell seems to have disappeared and the waves are down to 6 ft, so we are running since sunrise with a full main and jib at 7-9 knots with a very comfortable motion.

If you’re following our progress on SPOT, you can see that we’ve been heading almost due south for the last 2 days. With the wind coming from the NNE, it places Sophie in a position to sail in that direction on a broad reach, Sophie’s fastest and most comfortable wind angle. In other words, we are “southing”, sailing easily and quickly while getting warmer and warmer. The temperature is now 72 degrees in the shade in the aft cockpit, and everyone is down to t-shirts and shorts (or sundresses, in Hazel’s case). We are surrounded by flying fish and birds, so you know what’s for dinner tonight …

The wave action is actually pushing us west by about a mile an hour, so we are slowly making some westward progress to the Marquesas while on this course. We spoke with our weather routers this morning, and they said that our current wind and sea state will prevail for the next 36 hours and will then transition to 10-15 knts from the E or ESE. So we’ll continue southing for another day and a half and then switch to our spinnaker and head downwind on a much more westerly course to our final destination.

Making progress …

We did 182 miles in our first 24 hour stretch in the trade winds, all on a port tack under reefed main and jib. Our noontime position is 19.24.69 n 120.04.5 w. We made 182 miles in the 24 hour period, our best run yet. The ICTZ begins at 11 n right now, so at this rate we will be there in three days. We’ve gone 828 nm since San Diego, and our goal is to make that 1000 by tomorrow to wrap up our first full week of sailing. We feel pretty good about our current pace and that we are making up for our light air days earlier in the week. We haven’t run our engines yet, so we have plenty of fuel to get us through the flat water in the ITCZ.

++++ Fish Break ++++ As I am typing this, we got our first hit on the trolling rod. Dan and I ran out there, a large fish was running with the line REALLY FAST while we were sailing at 10 knots, but we lost him. The good news is there are actually fish out here!

Anyway, it was pretty rough this morning with a 25-30 knot northerly with 8 foot seas and a NW swell. We had a single reef in the main overnight, and as Dan and I put in a second reef this morning, the beautiful new cover on our brand new second reef line got caught between two mast cars and completely separated, exposing 15 feet of the line’s spectra core and jamming up some of the reef blocks. Bummer (my fault). We went out on the boom and tied off the reefed sail with two new ropes to relieve the pressure on the damaged line, then went back out there later and replaced the entire reef line with a spare halyard. It was my first time crawling out the boom while inside the sail cover, and I must say it was kind of fun.

Current conditions are sunshine, 20-25 knt northerly, and boat speed between 7 and 9 knots with a comfortable motion. Jenna’s chicken enchiladas last night were a hit, and Dan is about to make sausage bread.

We’re getting there …

Our new position is 22.26.2 n 120.17.8 west, which means we covered 162 miles in the last 24 hours. We’ve been tacking downwind to do so, and as the wind continues to shift over to the NNE (030-050), where it is supposed to stay for the next 5 days, we think we will be able to sail on a broad reach course directly towards the new waypoint the weather routers gave us (05.00 n 127.00 w). It’s blowing 12-20 right now, with a small running swell. Sophie is sailing quite comfortably with a full main and jib, and Rich got her up to 11.6 knots at one point this morning. If this pattern continues, tomorrow could be even better.

The sky is gray and overcast, just like you-know-where.

The kids are getting their sea legs, and we’ve had a couple of good home schooling days. Hazel’s reading is measurably improving every day, and Leo has kicked off a big “Kid’s Guide to Sophie” writing project that he is quite excited about. I promised him that when he’s done and if he puts the appropriate effort into it, I will post his document on the Lagoon cruisers website.

Rich and Dan are great crew, and my favorite time of day is when Jenna and I pull a watch together at night. We are doing a rotating 2-on-at-a-time watch schedule at nights along with a more flexible arrangement during daylight hours based on who is awake and not teaching.

As we transition Sophie into becoming a warm water long distance cruiser, we know we have to do some things differently. One is to pay more attention to temperature and ventilation throughout the boat. For example, I was going on watch last night at 2:00 AM, pressed the button on the espresso machine for a shot, and all of the AC power throughout the boat immediately went out. No AC power on Sophie means no coffee, no drinking water, and ultimately no movies or personal electronics … in other words, the end of civilization. 🙂 I eventually got over my panic, poked around a bit, and figured out that we had overheated the inverter (the machine that converts the battery’s DC power into AC power) by placing a box of fishing gear in front of the inverter locker’s air vent. Another heat problem involved our Raymarine navigation electronics. For months our Raymarine autopilot intermittently flashed a “SeaTalk connection lost” message while underway. We assumed it was loose cabling and kept tightening all of the connections, but Dan discovered it was caused by the Raymarine network hub overheating inside the unvented plastic splash protection box we built for it five years ago! This usually happened when the Raymarine’s nextdoor neighbor, our diesel generator, was running. These sorts of heating problems simply never happened when cruising the 48 degree F waters of Puget Sound, but it looks like they have become part of our lives from now on.

We also have to pay closer attention to sail trim. We chafed a small hole in one of the mainsail batten covers yesterday and need to constantly make sure that sail doesn’t touch the shrouds while underway. We can repair it for the time being with sail tape, but I am really bummed this happened and need to be more careful moving forward.

Dinner last night involved organic chicken breasts in a Trader Joe’s Marsala sauce with basmati rice and an organic kale nut salad. Tonight we will have chicken enchiladas. Unless, of course, we land a fish.

What a difference a day makes!

We did 153 nm in the last 24 hours, with most of it coming after midnight.

We think we have a shot at a 200 nm day today given the weather forecast along our current boat speed over 8 knots, including a 5 hour run this morning with an average speed over 9 knots. We are currently at 24.45.647 n 118.45.053 w at a heading of 196m and have 14 knots of apparent wind on our starboard aft quarter. We are currently sailing with full main and jib in bright sunshine through beautiful blue seas. Trade winds rock!

We spent most of last night with a reef in the main and at one point Jenna had to take in a reef in the jib when the apparent wind hit 28 knots during our second squall of the evening. We also came within 6 nm of two different freighters. For dinner I made a lemon pepper roast pork loin on a bed of root vegetables with a braised kale mix on the side. I’m told it was pretty good.

We woke up this morning to find 3 squid on deck, used two of them as bait but still haven’t caught any fish yet.

Everyone is doing great, and Sophie really likes this.

Last night the Pacific was more quiet than I’ve ever seen Lake Washington. Our position at noon today is 27.18.01 n 118.53.927 w. That’s a rock’in and rollin’ 76.1 nm in 24 hours. We basically sat in glass-like water looking at stars for most of the night. They were beautiful stars, and even though we are still keeping the two-on-at-a time schedule at night, everyone had a good night’s sleep. We’ve also done four loads of laundry and multiple boat projects.

Currently we are sailing at 4-5 knots SOG in 7 knots of apparent wind on a course of 143 magnetic. We’re basically back on the rhumbline, and we hope to make up for our slow day starting tonight. Wind forecast is for 10-15 building tonight then 15-20 on Friday and Saturday building to 20-25 with gusts to 30 on Sunday and Monday, all from the WNW then NW then NE. This is the wind we had coming down off Oregon in September, and Sophie cruised comfortably at average speeds over 10 knots with 2 reefs in the main and half the jib up. Can we do it again? We’ll see.

It’s also warmer, with a cockpit temperature reading of 66 degrees. All-in-all we are off to a good start.

Another good day, with a much calmer night last night. At noon today our position is 28.34.065 n 118.51.374 w. We’re sailing with the chute and no main straight downwind on our rhumb line at 3-4 knots. We made 147 miles over a 24 hour period and would have broken 150 if we hadn’t wrapped the chute around the forestay. It took an hour to unravel, but its back up with no tears. Then the wind died. We are now in mid 60’s sunshine, running the genset, doing laundry and hanging out.

Best of all, we’ve ditched our Seattle clothes for shorts and sunhats. Jenna is making lasagne for dinner. We hope to see more dolphins again after the sun goes down. They leave torpedo wakes of phosphorescence directly under the trampolines, a site that’s pretty remarkable, even for dolphin sightings.