SV Pisces

Post-Cruising Adventures

2011-07-12T13:01:00.001-07:00

Interested in what we are up to now?

Here's a blog for our new boat, MOROSAURUS, Moore 24 hull #60, the classic speedster:
http://morosaurus.blogspot.com/

And for miscellaneous oceanography and weather related blog posts visit NAVIGUESS. I will be leaving this week for a research cruise from Charleston S.C. to Capetown S.A. and will most likely be posting updates while underway:
http://naviguess.blogspot.com/

Reflections on Selling the Cruising Dream

2011-04-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in our last post, the process of selling Pisces turned out to be pretty difficult. Not that it took very long, in the end she was only on the market for two months, and half of that time we were not actively advertising. Instead it was difficult as it required a huge time and mental commitment, showing and discussing Pisces with many interested parties, responding to emails, phone calls, questions, concerns, lowball offers, diatribes and the like.

It was an interesting window into the mentality of many would-be cruisers, and at times I wished I could tell people what we had learned through our own experiences, however as the 'seller' that advice had no place and would have fallen on deaf ears. What follows is a brief selection of things that stood out to us through the process of selling Pisces. This is certainly not to say that we were any different when we were boat shopping, in fact almost all of these things are things that we did ourselves. However, now with the benefit of a modicum of experience, we feel a bit entitled to point them out as unnecessary, overly obsessive, or just funny.

1) If you ask the seller something about the build or quality of the boat, please don't act surprised or distrustful when they tell you it's a great boat. We had one interaction that went along the lines of Buyer: 'Is the hull cored?' Me: 'No, it's solid fiberglass, we've replaced thru-hulls and I know that for a fact.' Buyer: 'Am I just supposed to take your word on that?' (repeat for 20 minutes).

2) I know that you are reading the Pardey's and that somewhere deep down you envision cruising as you vs. the sea in an epic battle of cunning and resolve. We did the same thing. But, cruising turns out to not be like that...not at all, and that's a very good thing. I would rank one of Pisces' greatest weaknesses as a cruising boat the fact that she has such small portlights, as it makes her a bit cave-like below. This would be tantamount to sacrilege to many who are planning their first cruise. If you must continue reading cruising books, I highly recommend Beth Leonards and Evan Starzinger as a counterpart to the uber-traditional approach.

3) If you were buying a house (which is in many ways what you are doing) you would not bypass the living room and go straight to the crawl space the first time you saw it. There's a time and a place for going through every nook and cranny of the boat, but the first time you see it isn't that time. Go, walk the deck, imagine how the boat would sail, sit in the cockpit and see if it would be comfortable for hours on end. Go below, imagine cooking a meal, sit at the settee and imagine reading or having friends over for dinner. Lie down in the berths and make sure they are big enough for you and your partner. At this point you ought to have a much better sense of whether this boat fits your basic needs and desires in a cruising boat, and you will know whether it makes sense to start looking at the details. The seller will be completely willing to show you the boat multiple times. It shows that you are seriously considering buying, which makes sellers very happy.

4) The winches are not going to rip out of the deck.

5) Don't do any major projects (unless they impact the basic functioning of the boat) right after you purchase the boat. Sail the boat, go anchor out for the weekends, and generally spend as much time onboard as you can. If the boat has been actively sailed recently there's a good chance that the previous owners learned a thing or two during their time, and the boat might be set up the way it is for a very good reason that you just don't see yet. West Marine gives new boat owners a discount for the first month of boat ownership, this is not altruism.

6) You probably won't do exactly the cruise you think you are going to do. We met very very few people who ended up going where they thought they would when they thought they would. And that's really the joy of cruising. If you like the Sea of Cortez and want to stay there for two seasons, do it! Questions like 'oh, so you've never taken Pisces offshore?' show that you've probably never been out in the Pacific in the middle of the night on a sailboat. We've done an offshore passage, and we've done 'coastal cruising' and found them to not be that significantly different other than the duration involved. Also, sorry if we couldn't hold back a snicker when you said you were going to go from Seattle to the Carribbean and then cross the Pacific. We weren't sure if this betrayed a shocking lack of geographical knowledge, or if you haven't realized how long a few inches on the map takes at 5kts. I'm sure you are going to have a lovely trip, it just probably won't be that one.

7) People in Seattle are really into the idea of composting toilets. I recommend referencing point number 5 above.

8) There are projects and there are Projects. Little 'p' projects are things that might make the boat better, or cost less than a few thousand dollars (scale appropriately for the size boat you are looking at). Big 'P' Projects are ones that are going to cost a lot of money, time, and/or suffering. Try to separate things into these types of categories, it will help you gain some perspective on what you are really looking at as you shop for boats. We had a potential buyer tell us: 'I'm sorry, but I'm looking for a boat that is more ready to sail.' Yes of course, the thousands of miles she's sailed in the last two years do not sufficiently demonstrate her readiness for sailing.

9) Don't act so bummed out! You are shopping for a cruising boat, a luxury item that shows you have disposable cash and are working towards a dream. There are plenty of good boats out there, and the reality is that almost any boat you can afford will end up being fine. If you can relax a little bit and let your expectations match the reality of the experience and your pocketbook, you will no doubt be able to find the perfect sailing ship to take you off into the sunset.

That about sums up the random thoughts we had during the process of selling Pisces. If you'd like more 'reflections on cruising' I highly recommend this blog post from our good friends on s/v Hello World.

Enough of the past, onto the future. In the short term, we are still sailing (actually I think I'm probably sailing almost the same amount now as when we were cruising). I am racing in the very competitive J24 fleet on Tuesday nights, and Julia and I are sailing together on Friday nights on a Moore 24, as well as sailing in frequent weekend regattas. As the weather improves we also plan on inviting ourselves out on our friends' boats as often as possible.

And of course, we are also starting to look for our next boat (by starting I mean that I'm ready to pull out the checkbook and Julia is acting as a voice of restraint and wisdom). Our goals are to get something that can be dry-sailed (left on a trailer), is fast, can be used for camper-style cruising, ocean capable so that we can potentially enter some of the coastal races, and will be a return to the no-systems-no-stress 'hey it's nice out lets go sailing' approach that isn't always there with a big boat. Did I also mention it has to be fast fast fast? There are some great boats that fulfill the above criteria, but the boat that seems to do it all in the minimum size and cost package is the Moore 24, a classic Santa Cruz Ultra Light. We'll see how the next few months play out, but I'm picturing us with a sweet van pulling around our even sweeter Moore 24.

In the longer term, we would like to go cruising again at some point, however I doubt that we will do an open ended cruise again. What seems more likely, and appealing, to us would be to take one year and do a trip to New Zealand through the South Pacific or something similar. I've realized that I'm too much of a type-A personality to truly enjoy slow passages, so speed would be of primary importance for our next boat. I also like sleeping, so we would bring crew for the longer passages. I want to sail the boat hard, go fast, and then be there and be done. I've got some ideas kicking around in my head on what the new 'perfect cruising boat' looks like, although I'm sure if and when it comes time to make that next big boat purchase it will have evolved into something completely different.

Thanks again to everyone for following the blog and keeping in contact with us! We will let you know as soon as we move onto our next blog documenting our portable speed machine.

Pisces is Sold!

2011-04-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

After a difficult couple months, with one extended false start with some potential buyers, Pisces is now sold. We didn't use a broker, so the process required a ton of time and energy talking with people. It was also an interesting window into the mentality and thought processes of many potential future cruisers, and we have some thoughts coming from that which we will share in a blog post soon.

In the meantime, Pisces has been sold to Roland, who spent time sailing the Med years ago, and currently owns a Contessa 26 (now for sale!) on SF Bay. Roland is excited to start cruising the NW, and eventually ports South, and we know he and Pisces will have some great adventures. She will also be sporting a new name on her transom (as much as a double ender can have a transom): Rollin' Coaster.

So keep an eye out for a familiar looking Jason 35, with a new name!

We will probably be phasing out updates to this blog, however we will most likely be starting a new blog documenting our next boat adventure and when that gets started we'll add the link here. You can also check out a side project of mine, starting to connect some of my school work with ocean sailing and weather routing: naviguess.blogspot.com

Pisces is for sale

2011-02-01T08:40:00.000-08:00

Updated: See below for a link to an additional photo gallery as well as a chapter from Ferenc Mate's 'Best Boats to Build or Buy' on the Jason 35.

Pisces is a Jason 35 sailboat, built on Bainbridge Island WA by Miller Marine, and then finished by the Fisher family and launched in the late 90's. Although the hull was built in 1979, she is essentially a much newer boat, having not launched until 1998, with all of her deck hardware (including the Mast & Boom) from that same time period. She is currently at Shilshole Marina in Seattle WA.

We have owned her for about 4 years, in which time we repowered her with a great Beta Marine Engine, and added a ton of cruising gear including a Monitor windvane, liferaft, EPIRB, and Fatty Knees dinghy. In the time we've owned her we've sailed her 3500+ miles, through a wide variety of weather between SF and Puerto Vallarta MX. Pisces is a great boat, and is really ready to head back out cruising as soon as her next owners want.

We are selling as we are now in school/work mode for the foreseeable future, and would like to simplify and do a bit of local racing on something smaller. We hope to see Pisces out getting used for what she was designed, built, and equipped for!

Our spec sheet with photos and full details is still a work in progress, but can be downloaded by clicking the link below. Beyond that, please email us (email address on the right sidebar of the blog) if you have any questions.

Asking Price: SOLD

Click Here for Spec Sheet.

Click Here for Additional Photos.

Click Here for "Best Boats" Chapter on Jason 35.

Big Time Changes

2011-01-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

Well, not a whole lot of time to talk about it, but there are even more big changes afoot for us. Most prominently, we are in the process of finalizing a rental house close to the UW (where Julia works and I am attending grad school).

As part of this we will be putting Pisces up for sale shortly! I know, shocker, and it seems a bit surreal to us. We still are planning (and scheming) to do a whole lot of sailing, and something small, fast, and trailerable is certainly in our near future. However, right now Pisces is at the top of her game, ready to go cruising anywhere, and we don't want to watch a slow deterioration as she becomes a full-fledged liveaboard.

More info on all fronts will follow sooner or later, but in the meantime if you have an interest in a great cruising boat, drop us an email and we'll get you all the info!

Armchair (Extreme) Sailing

2010-12-06T09:09:00.000-08:00

Great new sailing movie documenting the 2008-9 Vendee Globe, available on iTunes.

Adios Mexico

2010-11-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

It's snowing today.

Frecklebelly

2010-09-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

This weekend we sailed a regatta onboard a Moore 24, Frecklebelly Madtom. We were really holding down the bottom of the fleet, but had a great time nonetheless. Saturday was a light wind day and we only got in two races, that night we went out and partied with the NW Moore 24 fleet, a really great group of people. Sunday we had much better breeze to about 20kts at times, and we got in 4 races.

Julia did foredeck both days and has some really outstanding bruises.

Click here for a pic. (of sailing not Julia's bruises)

Decision Chart

2010-09-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

We found this Decision Chart in the book Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson while delivering Coyote home. It proved invaluable taped above the nav station and we recommend a copy be kept aboard every boat.

Click photo for full size image:

Day 16: And, we're done.

2010-08-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

Our primary goals in doing this delivery were to gain some offshore experience while learning from a more experienced skipper. This trip accomplished both of those goals for us, and we are so grateful we had the opportunity to sail onboard Coyote with Steve.

Coyote was a great boat for the trip, stable, sturdy, and very weatherly. In fact our route (sort of under the high) would not have been possible in a boat that didn't go to weather like a freight train. We could easily knock off 6-8kts at 30 degrees or so to the apparent wind, this opened up huge options in routing. It was a great experience to spend some time at sea in a more modern design than Pisces (even though Coyote is from '85, it's a very very different type of boat) and develop a real comparison point for our own thinking about boats.

Steve was a great skipper, and Julia and I both learned quite a bit from him on this (his 4th) trip. We hand-steered probably 80% of the time, and even had several very nice long spinnaker runs (including a memorable one under the Golden Gate to end our trip).

We were very lucky in our weather conditions, as they were quite moderate given the potential this trip has. Further, we had steady winds almost the entire time, while boats even one day ahead of us had to motor for days on end. We called it our own 'private Coyote wind' and it served us very well.

Finally, we were also quite happy to find that all of the coastal cruising we have done left us very well prepared for our first offshore passage. We found that the conditions were well within our comfort zone, and that we were capable of contributing to the running of the boat in a variety of useful ways beyond just standing watch. It was gratifying to see how far our skills and confidence have developed in the past several years, and to see those skills put to use alongside other more experienced sailors.

In the end the trip took 16 days to the hour. During that time we sailed 2300 NM, in order to cover a 2070 NM great-circle distance. We motored for probably about 28 hours total, with the longest single stretch being around 18 hours. We were close-hauled for the majority of the time, but we also had some nice spinnaker reaching conditions as we left the East side of the high. We had squalls almost the entire trip, practically until we were within VHF range of the California coast. We didn't see much sea life, and we didn't see all that much trash. We did see many rainbows, and one moonbow. In the end, we are so glad we chose to do this trip, as it has energized both of us for future offshore sailing, and in particular future offshore racing!

I would highly recommend doing a similar trip to any aspiring cruiser, as you can learn so much from the accomplished group of sailors involved in races like the Pac Cup. Many of these sailors have sailed their entire life, and covered tens of thousands of offshore miles in all conditions.

We've uploaded all our photos to a gallery at: http://svpisces.smugmug.com/Sailing/Pacific-Cup-Delivery-2010/
This gallery may expand over the next month or so as we gather additional photos from the rest of the crew.

Here's a list of some things that I felt worked particularly well onboard Coyote:

Expedition/NavMonPC:
Coyote had an interesting system of integrated electronics, and while this is something we decided not to bother with on Pisces, it was quite handy (and pretty fun). The two most interesting pieces of this were Expedition and NavMonPC.

Expedition is a pro grade routing software that uses your boat's polars (theoretical speeds at a variety of wind angles and strength) to optimize your route given the weather forecast (via GRIB files). Expedition called our slightly unusual route right off the bat, and it proved to work very well for Coyote.

NavMonPC is a free piece of software written by Paul Elliott from the boat Valis. When integrated with the boat's wind instruments and GPS it keeps a log of wind speed direction, boat speed, and other important data points. With a big crew, it was very helpful to be able to take a look at the history for the last watch and get a real sense of what the wind and boat had been doing, rather than just relying on the 'it's getting sorta more windy I guess' you might get from the watch going off. And, it'll also serve as an AIS display. Very cool.

Bunk Fans:
When we asked the crew from the race what the most valuable piece of personal gear they had was, it was unanimous that personal clip on fans were the MVP. Coyote didn't have the best ventilation (especially going to windward where we needed to button everything up tight), and for the first several days sleeping would have been almost impossible without bunk fans.

Numbering System:
Everyone on the boat had a number (1-5) and a corresponding cubby, complete with water bottle, travel mug, and spork. Having your own kit meant that there was no doubt who had not cleaned their stuff or had left it laying around. Julia also appreciated the de-personalization aspect, and suggested we have longer 'prison-style' numbers, such as: 51798.

Paper Products:
Every meal onboard was served on paper plates/bowls, using paper towels. All of which were discarded over the side (only when appropriately far offshore). While I wouldn't necessarily take this approach with a small crew, with 5 people onboard this was critical to keeping dishes down to a minimum.

Frozen Food:
While Julia ended up cooking almost the whole time (a story for another time), Steve & Connie had a good plan that they used for the trip over. They pre-cooked all their meals, and froze them ahead of time. The galley freezer was then loaded, and they loaded two additional coolers with food & dry ice in the sail locker. Using this technique, items from the coolers were still frozen after over a week, at which point they could be transferred into the galley.

Big Thermos:
In the galley there was a big, catering-style, thermos. The type you self-serve coffee out of at a less-than-fancy coffee shop. If a kettle of water was put in the thermos in the evening, it was still hot in the morning. This allowed people to dispense hot water easily without using the oven everytime. Good for individual cups of coffee, tea, oatmeal, hot chocolate, etc.

Designated 'Wet' Zone:
The v-berth on coyote was covered in a tarp, with line strung for clothes hangers. This was the designated wet-zone, and all foul weather gear and lifejackets were stored here. Crucial in keeping the salt water out of bunks, etc. The only improvement I would make would be to have a zone near the companionway where lifejackets and tethers could be kept. We didn't have any fire-drills, but if we did I think having the lifejackets on the way to the deck would help ensure that no one would come running up without their safety gear.

Anti-bacterial wipes:
As a substitute for a shower, they are actually pretty good. Connie & Steve did some testing beforehand and found a brand without much scent. Once or twice a day coming off watch you could use these to clean up, get salt off, and keep the smells to a minimum. Very helpful.

Overlapping Watches:
The way the watch schedule was structured meant that you came on and relieved one person, and joined someone else whose watch was half over. An hour and a half (or so) later that person left, and a new person joined you. This meant that someone was always relatively fresh, and someone always knew what had been going on with the boat for the last hour or two. Also, it meant that you could look forward to the new person coming on watch as a change of company:)

After some celebratory beers on the dock at the Richmond Yacht Club, we are now in the San Francisco Bay Area, doing a quick visit with friends and family, and in a few days we are headed back to Seattle to rejoin Pisces and get our land-life up and running with school and work.

Day 15: The end is nigh

2010-08-11T03:18:00.001-07:00

We are really close now. It's weird to finish a watch and think, 'only one more of those watches for this trip.'

Last night we passed through Gale Alley, whose name is self-explanatory and well-deserved. We had only the smallest taste of what it can offer, but it was certainly a humbling reminder of the power of the sea. We only were seeing mid-20's, with the occasional burst higher, but the seas really stacked up and were a bit confused. Lots of spray, water on deck, cold wind, and dark. We spent the night under double-reefed main and 90% jib, knocking down solid 9's on the speedo.

This morning conditions have eased a bit, although the sea state remains confused. Steve and Julia were chomping at the bit to pile on more sail, so up went the heavy spinnaker. We are really making great time, although the driver has to work pretty hard on the wheel. Being close to home adds another level of excitement.

We can now hear the Coast Guard on VHF channel 16, there are many more birds, and we even saw some kelp floating by this morning. Definitely closing with land.

Most likely this will be the last blog post from onboard. This will probably end up being posted sometime early morning on Wed, and at this clip we should be nearing the Golden Gate by mid-day on Wednesday for a total trip time of right around 16 days. We will definitely write a final 'end-of-trip' post sometime soon, but it'll probably take a little while to get to that. First we have to shower, do a huge amount of laundry, have a drink (or several), eat a bunch of good food, and sleep.

Lat 38 02.558' N, Long 125 32.060' W
Wind: 18 kts NNW
Seas: 2-3 m mixed
Speed: 7 kts
Dist to Go: 142 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 14: Two weeks before the mast

2010-08-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

We are screaming along, starting to daydream about never ending showers, big fresh meals, and full nights of sleep. The sailing continues to be good, and I think we can officially say that we have left the Pacific High in the dust. We flew the spinnaker for about 12 hours yesterday, only dousing it when the wind moved forward in the late evening. Since then we've been flying along under the 135% jib and main, finding that we are still encountering squalls, although they are almost all wind and no rain at this point. Temperature is down, and it looks and feels like Northern California ocean.

Since last week we have sailed 1970 NM, almost all of that distance covered under sail, and most of it upwind. No complaints at all here, we've had great sailing in our own 'private Coyote wind' and conditions have been very moderate for the most part. Boats even a day ahead of us have had to do much more motoring.

Yesterday and today have been shower days, as we still have plenty of water. It's a bit tricky trying to shave and take a shower in the forward head as we beat upwind at 8 kts in 22 kts of wind, but it proved well worth it, with warm water even. Makes a world of difference. Things are still a bit stinky onboard, but we are fighting the good fight.

It's very exciting to start to zoom in on the navigation software, and to start seeing familiar details like the Farallon islands. All signs point to a Wednesday arrival, we are hoping for sometime during the day so that we can enjoy the sail under the gate and down the city front. I'm sure it's going to be an amazing feeling.

Towards the beginning of the trip we would all sleep lightly, then we started to sleep better but still wake easily, then there was a period where we would tend to wake up a half hour before our shifts ready to go, now we are all sleeping heavily and have to be shaken bodily to rouse us for our watches. Two more 12:30-3:30AM shifts for me!

Last night I guess Julia and I were driving a bit crazy, as first Rick then Steve came up to see 'if everything was ok.' Didn't seem too bad to us topside, reaching with full sails in 24 kts of wind, hitting the occasional high 9 and even 10 kts. I guess the crashing and banging down below didn't seem like it was worth it to the off watch. We are seeing the finish line in sight and the temptation to push hard is high.

Having done this trip has really changed our perspective on distances. While in the Sea of Cortez we would feel like a 200 mile trip was a big event and we would plan and watch the weather so carefully. Now a trip like that sounds much easier. All the same, having those experiences first have been a huge help in readying us for this passage.

All is well onboard Coyote and the daytime routine is well underway.

Lat 38 11.921' N, Long 129 08.672' W
Wind: 17kts N
Seas: 2 m N
Speed: 7.2 kts
Dist. to Go: 315 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 13: Running for the barn

2010-08-09T03:22:00.001-07:00

Today is a momentous day, as we have finally made enough progress north, and we are now heading on a course more or less directly (depends on who is driving at any given time) towards the Golden Gate.

Yesterday we had a great run under the spinnaker, dousing at sunset just to be cautious. Steve set the jib up off a block on the end of the boom which allowed us to keep decent speed through the night, and before dawn he and Rick relaunched the spinnaker. The sailing is absolutely great right now, enough breeze to keep us moving through the water at 8+ kts, light seas. It's also amazing to look at the last few hours of wind speed and direction, it is absolutely rock solid, with almost no shifts at all. It's a bit foggy, but it is not as cold as it has been. All in all we are very happy.

Today Coyote (and Steve) passed the 4000 NM mark for the roundtrip. That's all in the span of about a month! Very impressive, and neither Coyote nor Steve seem phased at all by the fact that they have been at sea for the entire month minus a few days partying in Hawaii.

Already talk has turned to 2012 and Steve & Rick's possible plans. Just to make it clear, Julia and I are highly available for the race portion of this trip (hint hint:). We figure it's a great sign if we can still be underway and have interest in doing something like this again. Often you don't start having fond feelings about things like this until well afterwards when the memory isn't quite so sharp.

Our current goal is to catch up with some of the boats ahead of us. I think we have the advantage in that Steve is crazy enough to still want to fly the spinnaker even though the race is long over. Many of the other boats on the net don't seem to have the energy for it, and we've been slowly picking up miles on people. Steve wants a drag race under the gate.

We got word that the satellite tracking site has been taken off-line. Don't worry, we're still out here.

Lat 38 00.026' N, Long 132 35.255' W
Wind: 13 kts NW
Seas: 1 m NW
Speed: 7 kts
Dist to go: 478 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 12: Groundhog day

2010-08-08T03:16:00.001-07:00

We thought for a while that we had broken free from the high, but it apparently is not going to be that easy. Instead the wind continues to gradually become more stable, through many cycles of ups and downs. Last night Julia and I had some amazing sailing, with about 15 kts of wind making 8.5kts through smooth seas, later it died out and the next watch had to motor for a few hours.

During last night's roll call it sounded as if the bigger boats (generally in a position N and E of us) were all in the solid coastal breeze and making great time. You can probably actually see the split in the fleet via the satellite tracker.

Even with the fluky winds we are making decent progress, and Wednesday still seems like a likely arrival date.

Shipping traffic is increasing, and already today we've passed freighters bound to Manzanillo, LA, and Panama. We have AIS onboard which picks up signals broadcast from freighters, this allows us to see all sorts of handy information such as the name of the ship, it's heading, speed, destination, size, and more.

Really not all that much to report, every time the wind comes up we are hopeful that we have finally broken completely free of the high and we can start knocking down the big miles towards home. We're still chipping away.

News report, Steve just called for the spinnaker to go up, should be exciting not to be close-hauled for a bit!

Lat 37 19.779' N, Long 135 48.090' W
Wind: 9kts N
Seas: 1-2 m N
Speed: 6.5kts
Dist to go: 635 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 11: The high continues the chase

2010-08-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

As a quick note on our 'days' for each blog post, it is the number of days that has already elapsed up to this point. We left mid-day on the 26th, so the 27th would be Day 1, etc. Also, I tend to write these blog posts around noon, but they often are not posted until 3AM or so when we have a decent SSB radio connection, which I'm sure helps muddle the waters.

It definitely feels like Northern California waters now. Grey seas and skies, low cloud cover with occasional fog and drizzle. Cold as well, and everyone has dug out their foulies. We are still trying to get out ahead of the high, at which point we should have glorious winds speeding us along to the Golden Gate. In the meantime we continue to tend the autopilot, trying to take advantages of shifts while not killing ourselves resetting every single sail trim control every 15 minutes as the wind wanders 40 degrees and varies in strength. No discernible rhythm to the wind at this point. A lull might be a lift or a header, gusts come before fog, during fog, after fog, or not at all.

We continue to make some mileage, but still trying our best to conserve fuel. We are doing a good job of it, as we've only motored about 12 hours out of the last 50 or so, but we want to be careful as there's a possibility that the winds will die as we get close in to the coast, which would be bad for morale. Drifting within sight of SF...

Julia and I talked this morning and both agree that the heavier weather early in the trip was much more fun, and made the time go by quickly. It was very liberating to be on a boat with such an experienced skipper, it gave us a bit of a sounding board to say 'okay, you're not concerned, so we won't be either.' Already we've got more ideas brewing for the long term dream 'next boat.'

Currently there is a conference under way at the barometer. If we keep tapping it insistently, perhaps it will drop a bit more.

There have been bets placed onboard on arrival date, but the general consensus throughout the boat and fleet is that we will arrive on or before Wednesday the 11th. We'll see, we need to find our wind first.

Lat 36 53.641' N, Long 138 49.367' W
Wind:6 kt NNE
Seas: 1.5 meter N
Speed: 6kt (motorsailing)
Dist to go: 783 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 10: Run from the High

2010-08-06T03:12:00.001-07:00

We had a good day of sailing yesterday, but by late evening the wind had dropped and we had to start motorsailing. Really it is more like sailing interspersed with motoring...sail, trim, furl jib, motor,unfurl jib, sail, and repeat indefinitely. It's hard sailing as you have to constantly work to keep the boat moving and moving in the right direction. Unfortunately the GRIBS show the high continuing to move East along with us for at least a few more days. So, we are trying hard to break free. When we do find wind we expect we will have some fast sailing.

In some ways this is the hardest part of the trip yet. We are all over-rested, it feels like we are entering the home stretch, but we are moving so slow...Julia and Steve are convinced that they saw a submarine last night, based upon it showing Amber lights and appearing and disappearing from the AIS (which shows surrounding vessels). In fact, they tried hailing 'submarine near the position of...' on VHF, which probably was hilarious to any other ships in hailing distance. Let's see, Rick dropped a pudding behind the stove, and while trying to reach behind the stove went sliding across the boat during a gust. It's the little things that makes the day go by.

Yesterday we saw a sailboat on the horizon, but no luck getting a VHF response. We thought they might be part of the returning Pacific Cup fleet, but at evening roll call there were no boats that close to us.

We continue to eat well thanks to Julia's heroic efforts in the galley. Pulled pork for dinner and Egg McMuffins this morning for breakfast. Today Steve and I are playing around trying to get the weatherfax working so that we can receive weather forecast charts over the SSB radio. So far so good.

Lat 36 45.353' N, Long 141 17.229' W
Wind: 6 kts NE
Seas: 1 m NE
Speed: 4.5kt (motorsailing)
Dist to Go: 897 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 9: Halfway!

2010-08-05T03:13:00.001-07:00

Try as we might to keep our route in the wind, we seem to have found the Pacific high yesterday. As Don Anderson would say 'Nooooo wind!' The calm seas, and lack of breeze created a bit of a vacation like atmosphere on the boat. Laundry was done in the cockpit, quick rinse off showers had, and we had a steak, corn, coleslaw and brownie feast for dinner.

The downside to the lack of wind is that we've been forced to motor for the past 20 something hours. It's easy, but boring, however the real concern is conserving fuel. The GRIBS from last night were not terribly encouraging, as they showed the high moving east along with us, keeping us out of the wind until perhaps the 7th. However, this morning we have found a good breeze, and while it is taking us a bit further South than we would like, it's great to be making some miles without the engine.

At about 11AM we hit the official halfway mark, 1035 miles made good to SF, 1035 miles to go! Even with the light winds we are hopeful that we have already passed the halfway mark in terms of days. We've sailed 1266 miles to get here, so we will be saving a few hundred on this next 'half.' Also, Expedition seems to think that although the next several days might be a bit slow, once we find the breeze we will start knocking down some big fast days. Steve says Coyote can hit 10kts on a reach, so we are hopeful we will start putting up some 200 mile days as we near SF.

Other than that, nothing much to report. We saw a cargo ship today, some more Albatross, and some Storm Petrels. Everyone seems happy, and we have plenty of good food to see us through.

Lat 36 43.082' N, Long 143 55.987' W
Wind: 8 kts NE
Seas: .5 meter NE
Speed: 6 kts
Dist to Go: 1027 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 8: Tack! and Tack back!

2010-08-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

We seem to have found the edge of the high. The big talk on the evening HF radio net last night was when to tack. Essentially you can either go North, or East. You need to go East to get to SF, however, you don't want to have to go North once you get close to the coast, as the conditions can build in that zone. So, last night at 3AM when we had a big wind shift (meaning we were sailing towards Tokyo) Julia and I tacked the boat. Very strange. everything that was high is now low, our left legs feel funny from bearing all our weight while at the helm for the last week, and we have to find a whole new set of brace points and handholds below.

Since last night the winds have been light and fluky, we've motored a bit, tacked back, changed up to the 135% sail, and now we are motoring slowly again. Roughly NE in direction. Unlike some boats we are not super loaded up with fuel, so we are trying to be slow and conserve what we have until we reach the coastal winds. Hopefully we will reach them within a day or so.

It's strange to look at our chart and see that we are essentially in the middle of the ocean, as our little patch of sea that is visible looks pretty much exactly the same as any other patch of sea. There could be a spot of land just over the horizon, but instead we are in one of the most remote parts of the planet.

We have been seeing some Albatross, and lots of rainbows. Squalls persist, but they are losing their punch.

In other exciting news, we ought to reach our halfway point tomorrow if everything continues at this pace.

Lat 36 24.314' N, Long 146 22.508' W
Wind: 8 kts ESE
Seas: 1 meter E
Speed: 5 kts
Dist to go: 1142 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 7: There is only starboard tack

2010-08-02T17:05:00.000-07:00

We have now officially been close hauled on starboard tack for 7 straight days (minus a few hours here and there of close reaching). We've found all sorts of fun new leaks on Coyote (don't worry, all above the water line, these are the types that just make things wet and uncomfortable). Last night at about midnight I woke up and we were flying through a squall and Steve was running around in the semi-darkness of the cabin with underwater epoxy in desperation trying to stop leaks around the cabin windows. He's also taking to sleeping in his seaboots as his bunk is wet.

Right now we've gone 994 nm, and over 800 of that has actually been towards SF. Really we're making great time. In a day or two when we tack over we will be heading more directly towards the coast, and I would expect the miles to just start falling away.

I'm really enjoying Steve's sailing style, which is to push quite hard. It can be the middle of the night, black, wet, spray everywhere, squalls everywhere, the boat is heeled over 30 degrees, and someone will say 'do you want me to put a reef in?' and Steve will seem surprised and say something like 'uh, I guess you could, but this sail combo should be good up to 40kts." I guess that's what a lifetime of racing on SF bay does to you. Really though, I like it, it's fun to stay a bit in race mode, and go for a speedy trip.

I think Julia and I were both very well prepared mentally for this trip, and have found the conditions (while not always comfortable or easy) to be well within our expectations for the trip. I think some of the other crew was not so well prepared, and they seem a bit worn down by the constant pounding and upwind work. To them, exiting into the calm of the high would be a welcome respite, whereas to Steve running out of wind sounds miserable.

Not a whole lot of sleep last night, Julia and I took long shifts to try and let the old guys sleep:) So, this will have to remain brief as I'm off watch and looking forward to my bunk. Next big milestone will be our halfway mark!

Lat 34 43.278' N, Long 147 43.897' W
Wind: 17 kts E
Seas: 2.5 meter E
Speed: 7kts
Dist to go: 1235 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 6: Northward!

2010-08-01T18:03:00.000-07:00

Day 6 is in the books. I guess a bunch happened, although really everything seems structured by the routine of our watches.

Last night was a real pounding wet night. Squalls and more squalls, don't they know we are already at 32 degrees?! The squalls now don't have as much rain, but they do have more wind, we are seeing 30 kt apparent pretty frequently.

This morning we dropped the mainsail to the second reef, and Steve and I repaired a mainsail slide that had broken a few days ago. It was a couple slides above the first reef, and it being broken had caused the slide below it to start tearing free of the fabric. Because of this we hadn't been using the first reef, instead driving like we thought we were in the Volvo ocean race with water sweeping the length of the boat all night. Again, fun driving but not so popular with the off watch. Another instance when my time learning from Joe at Leading Edge Sails proved useful!

Expedition says to tack tomorrow, Commanders weather tells us to keep going until we reach at least 38 degrees, which will be another few days.

Cherry pie for breakfast, Julia informs us that she is driving a course of 370 degrees...which could explain a lot.

Lat 32 16.639' N, Long 148 51.133' W
Wind: 15 kts NE
Seas: 2 meter NE
Speed: 6.5 kt N
Dist to go: 1330 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 5: Life onboard

2010-07-31T16:22:00.001-07:00

Not too much activity to report from day 5, we are still heading NNE, and we've just crossed latitude 30 N. Wind speeds are up and down, light squalls in the night still, but less rain. Temperature is also dropping, so we are all starting to dig warmer clothes out of sea bags.

This morning I had a plate of lox and bagels in one hand, jumping to ease the mainsheet with the other hand as a squall jumped up the wind speed pouring water down the windward rail and into the cockpit. A slightly strange blend of civilization and wilderness.

Electrical charging seems to be working fine, so we are adhering to this 'if it isn't broke don't fix it' rule.

Julia and I share a night watch which is fun, we get to sail the boat as hard as we want, trimming and easing through the gusts, no doubt annoying the hell out of the off-watch. We each have about 10 hours of watches a day, meaning we hand steer the boat for 5 hours a day. Great practice, in the end we'll probably get the equivalent to a whole season's worth of beer can racing. At some point we'll have to do the downwind portion of this trip to round out our driving ability.

Exciting news, we just recovered a glass fishing float. It's green, about 16" in diameter. People say they were used as floats on Japanese fishing nets long ago, and they are definitely prized finds.

Lat 30 07.040' N, Long 149 52.714' W
Wind:16 kts
Seas: 1-2 meters E, & SE
Speed: 6 kts
Dist to go: 1437 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 4: Julia does all the work

2010-07-30T23:41:00.001-07:00

If you have been following the satellite tracker you may have noticed that we are now heading a bit more North than our previous course. Last night we spoke on the SSB to Green Buffalo (Cal 40 also doing the return trip) who has something like 15 Pacific Cups/Returns (about 75k miles!) who recommended that we start making some Northing now, rather than have to fight it out later. This is also what Expedition has been telling us, but we've been ignoring it. A bit harder to ignore the voice of experience from Green Buffalo.

It's been an eventful 24 hours. Julia dove on the propeller to see if it had snagged some debris as it was making a strange noise. Swimming under a 42 foot sailboat, over a mile of water beneath, and 400+ miles from the nearest land...little spooky. We also changed jibs down to the 90% which is a smaller sail that handles the wind we are seeing much better. The boat is much easier to drive in this configuration (although some unnamed members of the crew seem to enjoy driving the boat like a submarine, through every wave rather than over). Also, we have been having some strangeness with our battery charging, which is very concerning as this is a potential 'turn-around' type problem. Luckily however Steve spent some time on the sat phone with his electrical guy, who made some suggestions involving tightening all connections, and so far so good today.

I think we were all a bit tired going into last night, from the squalls and rough going before, but last night we made great miles and the motion allowed for some good sleep. Today we see on the GPS that we have made good over 500 miles towards SF, about 1/4 of the way. Actual miles sailed are right at 555 NM.

Oh, and Julia made us apple pie for breakfast, in addition to all the other things she's been doing, meaning that she definitely is getting the most valuable crew award for today.

Lat 27 58.230' N, Long 151 14.158' W
Wind:15 kts E
Seas:1-2 meter E
Speed: 6.3kts
Dist to Go: 1554 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 3: Squalls Squalls Squalls

2010-07-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

We've had a good run over the last 24 hours, making good about 135 miles towards SF. We've only had to motor for an hour or so (which is good because we have been having some weirdness with our prop, possibly something on the shaft), mainly because we've been in what seems like a never ending series of squalls. If you've never experienced a squall before, basically they start late night, and bring an uptick in winds, sea state, and a huge amount of rain. Luckily for us, they also tend to lift us towards our destination (allowing us to sail more directly for SF).

Last night was a long night as we were launching off of the squall induced chop landing sometimes not-so-gracefully with a boat shuddering pound. These are also wet conditions, and I think we've all been getting some 'rain' over our berths. So, we are all definitely a bit more tired today, although spirits are high and we're looking forward to a fancy lunch from Julia using the Mahi Mahi we caught yesterday evening.

Steve's new saying is 'Those are my clean pants!" as he continually tries to change into clean dry clothes, only to end up soaked as water pours into the cockpit.

I had a great time in the middle of the night last night driving in 25kts of wind and rain listening to Jah Warrior Shelter Hi-Fi remix album on the iPod.

Lat 26 06.963'N, Long 153 19.8' W
Wind: 15kts E
Seas: 1-2 M E
Speed: 6kts
Dist to Go: 1708 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 2: Charging

2010-07-28T16:27:00.001-07:00

Day 2 is drawing to a close, and we continue to romp along. Winds have remained fairly consistent, however we have had a few hours here and there of light winds primarily on the back side of squalls.

In the middle of the night I woke up to Coyote absolutely charging along, with Rick and Steve (both members of the San Francisco Singlehanded Sailing Society) driving us at a consistent 8 kts upwind through 20 kt rain squalls.

We've been lifted so we are now sailing direct for SF (in fact we are sailing for a point a bit south of SF at the moment). The general plan is still to stay on this tack for a week or so, and then flop over for a final tack into the bay. In a way, this is sort of a modified clipper ship route, staying South and East of the high. The routing software had a strange moment last night when it told us to turn around and sail SW for two days, only to then turn back around. Didn't seem like the best idea, so we held our course and with today's new GRIB (weather file) everything appears to be back to a more sane course.

Sailing with 5 people is great, so much rest, and it's nice to know that everyone on board is a good sailor and more than competent to deal with anything that might come up. John made us peaches, cream, and shortcake for breakfast. Not too shabby.

Lat 24 32.084' N, Long 155 12.353' W
Wind: 13 kts ESE
Seas: 1 meter E
Speed: 6.3kts
Dist to go: 1850 NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Day 1: Coyote takes off

2010-07-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

We are about 22 hours into our trip, and Coyote has been storming along in very nice conditions. Winds have been holding steady at about 13-17kts true and we have been making a course good of about 020 degrees. Coyote is a great boat for this type of sailing, quick upwind, very stable and solid, and easy to drive. In fact, we haven't yet turned the autopilot on for more than a few seconds at a time, as the boat is so easy and fun to drive. It's also amazing how much easier it is to do this with 5 people (as opposed to 2). It's nice to have someone else on watch with you, you get so much more sleep when off watch, and you know there are plenty of other good sailors to share the work if something needs doing.

Cabin interior is a bit warm and humid, as we took a few waves over the cabintop that found every possible means into the boat. I had one off watch in the early evening where I was woken up about three times by water dripping into my bunk, but Steve managed to plug the offending vent from above, and things are starting to dry out.

Expedition (routing software) has us taking a slightly unusual course. Instead of heading up and over or through the high, we will stay on our current course, close-hauled for about 6 more days, and then tack onto port tack to close with the coast. If winds are strong along the California coast we may need to ease off and head for the Santa Barbara area, but delivery North from there will be a simple and quick trip once the weather conditions are correct.

All in all we are having a good time, and finding it easy to settle into the rhythm of Coyote.

Lat 23 14.980' N, Long 156 53.203' W
Wind: 14kts ENE
Seas: 1 meter ENE
Speed: 6.1kts
DTG: 1969NM

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Have you heard this one?

2010-07-23T18:41:00.001-07:00

So, there's a republican, a Buddhist, and a kiwi on a boat in the
middle of the ocean and the republican says...

We'll have to let you know the punchline in a few weeks.

Pac Cup Delivery

2010-07-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

Julia and I are flying out to Hawaii tomorrow to take part in a delivery of the boat Coyote from Kaneohe Oahu to San Francisco. Coyote had a great race, taking a close 3rd in Division B of this year's Pacific Cup race. The skipper Steve Hill and the rest of the crew have a lot of great experience (including 4 combined trips between SF and Hawaii), and we're excited to take part in this trip which should be a great learning experience and adventure.

Plans are (weather permitting) to leave Hawaii on Monday July 26th. Time of the trip is highly weather dependent, but we would guess somewhere between 2 and 3 weeks. While we are underway there are a variety of options for you to keep track of us and keep in touch.

Satellite Tracker. Boats in the Pacific Cup carry a satellite transponder onboard that updates every hour, allowing you to follow us via the webpage and see our location, heading, speed, etc. Go to the website, and click on division B on the left side, and then click on Coyote to highlight us. We are about 90% sure this tracker will continue to be operative during the return delivery, but don't worry if it isn't, it's still a pretty experimental piece of technology. The website is: http://www.ionearth.com/2010/pacific-cup/ (Note: I have found that sometimes this website doesn't fully load and you have to keep reloading the page a time or two to get it to work, so you may encounter that problem as well).

Our Blog. We may be updating the blog while underway, not sure yet, it'll depend on our motivation and access to email airtime.

Coyote's Blog. Coyote also has a website and blog that I believe Steve will be updating occasionally. At the very least you can read the reports from their trip over: http://sailcoyote.com/

Shilshole!

2010-07-07T22:43:00.000-07:00

Well, Pisces is now home in her new slip here at Shilshole. We are on J-Dock, which Jason & Christy have assured us is where all the cool kids hang out, come by and say hello!

My cousin Peter has convinced us that Shilshole actually is named this because of shilshul (a uh...digestive ailment that visitors to Israel sometimes encounter).

We had a great sail today, averaging over 7 kts for about four hours wing-on-wing with current and about 15 kts of wind helping us along.

Now we need to buy a car, bikes, cell phones, insurance, and some clothes that don't look like they've been baked in the sun while being washed in salt water for the last two years.

Northwest Pisces!

2010-07-04T12:50:00.001-07:00

Captain Julia (with help from the roving crew of Hello World) graciously took charge of unloading Pisces from YachtPath in Victoria, allowing me to stay an extra few days in SF to race onboard the Express 27 Peaches in the 2010 SF NOOD regatta (4th place). All was well with Pisces from her transit, in fact I ended up with more scrapes and bruises from the weekend of racing than she did on her 10 day trip North.

Pisces is in there somewhere.

Traffic quiz: Does an overtaking plane have right-of-way?

We spent a few days at the municipal marina in Victoria, right in front of the Empress Hotel and Parliamentary building, until we were more or less kicked out (in a very friendly Canadian way) because the docks were all full to capacity for Canada Day. We had a pretty straightforward motor-boat trip up to Bedwell Harbour in the Gulf Islands, with a bit of a reminder on why we need to pay attention to currents up here.

We spent several days at Bedwell Harbour, hiking and exploring in the dinghy, it's absolutely beautiful up here, and the lush forest is a nice change and counterpoint from the desert of Mexico. Also Canada apparently still has bald eagles, one of which we saw while we were enjoying a pint of local microbrew.

We would have loved to stay in the Gulf Islands for months, but we are trying to get back to Seattle within a week, so we decided to head into the San Juan Islands rather than further North. We had a great sail, got checked through U.S. Customs ("How do you know Julia?" "She's my wife." long pause "Oh."), and are now anchored at Friday Harbor.

These guys woke us up this morning...with cannon fire...at 6AM! I have a feeling this town takes the Fourth of July very seriously.

Already we've seen some amazing boats here in the NW, this beauty is anchored here in Friday Harbor.

Some miscellaneous strange things about being here: it's cold (we are wearing our warmest gear, although the locals are in shorts and t-shirts), things freeze in the fridge, the days are long (still light in the sky at 10PM), anchorages are everywhere, anchorages are deep, everything is green.

Photos!

2010-06-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

Check out this season's photos on our online gallery (Link).

Last season's gallery is here.

Culture Shock

2010-06-20T21:09:00.001-07:00

Our day on Friday:
1) Load Pisces onboard Liberian flagged freighter.
2) Ride panga ashore with Mexican fisherman.
3) Bus to San Jose del Cabo.
4) Fly to SFO.
5) BART to Walnut Creek.
6) Drive to Garden Sculpture show.
7) Drinks and appetizers among thousand-dollar statutes and pastel-wearing art aficionados.

Rule #12

2010-06-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

We are now in Marina Palmira, in order to have access to water for cleaning the boat and hopefully getting a head start on 'Seattle-proofing' our boat (aka hosing water all over to see where we might need to reseal fittings). Our YachtPath boat is through the Panama Canal, and we should be shipping in about a week.

Unfortunately, being in the marina just got a whole lot less fun, as marina regulation #12 and the related #21 are sure to impinge on our high-flying lifestyle.

12. It is prohibited the music in a high level and scandalous celebrations.

21. Out of consideration for families, it is prohibited the prostitution in marina facilities.

Damn.

Cultural Immersion

2010-05-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

In another truly 'once-in-a-lifetime' sort of happening we (along with the crew of Hello World and Sarah from Monkey Nutz) headed over to the Deportivo Corona to watch some sweet Lucha Libre action. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint: beer by the bag, hot dogs, overweight dudes in spandex sequins and masks. A good time for the whole family.

The view from the bleachers.

Those onboard the sailing vessel Pisces have allegiance to only one luchador: La Parka. The above video (from some other higher-budget event) will help you understand.

And that's why you never stop to argue with the ref.

Cooking with cans

2010-05-28T09:09:00.000-07:00

If you're one of the many cruisers who for whatever reason do not have a fridge/freezer onboard (like us), after about a week away from a market meals become a test of creativity.

Here's my current favorite recipe that requires only two fresh ingredients: garlic and onion.

Chicken Cacciatore with barely any fresh ingredients:
(many thanks to Shawn from Tao for making this for us last year, and providing the recipe for this new favorite on Pisces)

-Chop and saute a couple cloves of garlic and a medium onion in a pot
-Add: 1 can diced tomatoes (not drained), 2 cans chicken and 1 or 2 can mushrooms (drained)
-Spices: A generous splash of white wine, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, any other Italian herbs you have
-Add: Green olives
-Simmer until rice is done.

This makes enough for dinner and then lunch the next day.

If anyone else has a particularly good recipe for cans and long lasting veggies (onions, garlic, potatoes, cabbage etc.etc.) please leave a comment with the recipe!

For the young at heart

2010-05-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

Today I got an email from my mother-in-law informing me that I had received my AARP membership card in the mail. According to their website I am now eligible for a 20% discount at Denny's, AND I can join their online interactive workshop for inspirational tips on how write my memoir.

30 is apparently the new 50.

Thanks AARP!

Stingray Shuffle Proves Fallible

2010-05-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

One of the oft-repeated pieces of cruiser advice is to always do the 'stingray shuffle' when you are walking in shallow water. Stingrays nestle down into the sand becoming invisible, just waiting to be stepped on by the unsuspecting swimmer. By shuffling your feet along the bottom you are supposedly able to clear your path of any hiding stingrays. Unfortunately, it turns out this is not 100% effective. Take the case where you happen to shuffle up on a stingray whose barb is pointed at you, and instead of shuffling into his body (sending him gliding safely off) you bump his business end sending him lashing away.

Well, that's how our lovely hike ended today, after we decided to avoid about a half-mile of scrambling over rocky hills by wading through several hundred yards of crystal-clear warm chest-deep water. I managed to shuffle right into the sharp end of a stingray, who flicked his barb, cutting me on the side of my middle-toe (not exactly sure how he managed that). The pain was shocking, and it literally knocked me off my feet, soaking the backpack I had been carrying on my head. It was really remarkable how much pain those little guys inflict, and as I stumbled out of the water, my whole body was shaking and I could barely put any weight on my foot. All this within the span of about 60 seconds. I was able to limp along another hundred yards or so, until Julia was able to get back with the dinghy and rush me back to Pisces. At this point my whole leg was aching, and my upper leg had begun twitching periodically. Oh yeah, most of my toe turned a nice color purple too. That was encouraging.

We got back to the boat and realized that although we were well prepared with medicine, we had slacked a bit on staying organized with the 'how-to' guides. Thankfully we were able to dig out "The Waterlover's Guide to Marine Medicine' by Paul G. Gill, Jr., M.D. It's really a great book, and following the treatment guidelines in it we were able to quickly get the pain down to a manageable amount and get everything cleaned up. One of the nice things about this particular book is that in addition to the clear step-by-step guides to treating everything from Bristleworm Rash to Toothache is that Dr. Gill doesn't hesitate to sprinkle in some nice descriptive adjectives ('stings cause immediate, agonizing, pulsating, or burning pain') as well as a good helping of anecdotes to help lighten the treatment-crisis mood. Take this one prefacing the section on stingrays:

'While exploring Chesapeake Bay, Captain John Smith hopped out of a boat barefoot onto a stingray, which had the temerity to stick its dart into his leg. It was a foolish act on the part of the fish, for Smith was no common man. Instead of trying to get clear of it, Smith held it to the bottom with his foot, drew his hanger, hacked the fish to pieces and ate several collops raw. - from Horace Beck, Folklore and the Sea

Nice. So not only am I in agonizing, pulsating, pain, but now I get to read about this guy killing and eating the offending stingray and compare that to my reaction which was basically to yelp loudly while getting knocked on my ass. Anyway, so far everything looks fine, the swelling seems to be going down quickly, the pain is very manageable now, and the purple color is quickly receding. It'll probably be a swimming-free few days for me though while I let my toe (and pride) recover.

Ballandra Bliss

2010-05-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

After some of the best snorkeling we've ever done at Muertos we decided to take advantage of the Easterly breeze and head through the Cerralvo channel and see where we ended up. We had a beautiful day of sailing, got to fly our new-to-us drifter wing on wing with the new-to-us/loaner pole (thanks Estrella-pictures coming when we have internet!)

As we meandered our way through the Lorenzo Channel we spied a boat beating towards us, and it turned out to be our friends on Hello World, headed toward Ballandra for a weekend of fun with their friend Casey who flew in for a visit from Ohio! So we took the opportunity to have a quick photo session of each other's boats, and headed into the anchorage for a long overdue reunion.

When we've been at Ballandra before, it's been on the rolly side, but the Easterly winds combined with the evening Southerlies make this the perfect anchorage, and we've been taking advantage of the ideal conditions to hike ashore, sail Pesky, and snorkel right off the boat. Sadly Hello World had to head back into La Paz today to return Casey to Ohio, and so we're left with the anchorage all to ourselves!

Lat 24 19' N, Long 110 20' W

Last Chance!

2010-05-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, this is officially your last chance to visit the good ship Pisces here in Mexico. We'll be here through the end of the month, hanging in the general vicinity of La Paz, enjoying white sand beaches, sun, water so clear you can see 30+ feet in it, snorkeling, hiking, fishing...doesn't get much better than this.

Drop us an email and we'll give you the full details on how to book your last minute vacation in paradise.

Stowaways!

2010-05-11T12:34:00.001-07:00

We completed the crossing from Mazatlan to Muertos last night, arriving at about midnight after a 41hr trip covering 200nm. We had a great time, with some of the best flat-water sailing (and a bit of motoring) that we've had in the last two years. Only slight hiccup was a failed raw-water impeller (that keeps cooling water flowing for the engine). We love Alpha-Beta (our Beta Marine Engine) but have had a few minor problems with the raw water system including impellers failing at a bit higher than normal rates (this one had <40 hrs on it) and a failed raw water pump (that was quickly replaced under warranty).

About halfway across we started picking up stowaway birds, first a small robin type bird, looking a bit bedraggled, and then a boobie looking more lazy than anything else. We drew the line when two other boobies started circling and looking interested in joining, and kept it down to two passengers who rode with us for most of a full day until we dropped anchor. The boobie in particular wouldn't be moved from his selected perch, even when I started gently shoving his tail feathers.

I was reading in the sea-berth off watch when I felt that weird vibe that someone was watching me...

Lat 23 59' N, Long 109 50' W

Exploring Mazatlan Cont...

2010-05-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

Exploring Mazatlan

2010-05-07T15:59:00.001-07:00

The streets are lined with colorful buildings and secret gardens.

The Old Harbor where we are anchored shares the channel with the commercial port. Here's me and Pesky sharing the road with Carnival Splendor.

The view from the top: Mazatlan as seen from the lighthouse that guards the entrance to the harbor.

The bar entrance doesn't leave much room for wiggling around in the channel, at least for vessels of this size.

Pisces nestled into the anchorage. Note the La Paz ferry on the far side, they've been loading semi trucks all day and just steamed out.

Mazatlan Anchorage Smells Like

2010-05-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

We are in Mazatlan, after a primarily motor-boat trip up from Mantanchen (on a side note, how do you spell the name of that bay? every different guide book seems to have it different...Matachen, Mantachen, Mantanchen, etc.).

Pretty uneventful trip of about 125 nautical miles, calm seas, clear skies, and now we are in the anchorage here at Mazatlan...if you've ever been here before then you know exactly the scent that is floating downwind to us. We'll probably be here for a few days, then back over to Baja where we can swim and try to avoid sewage treatment plants.

Today's sunrise, about 20 miles out of Mazatlan.

Lat 23 11' N, Long 106 25' W

Matanchen Bay

2010-05-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we made the 55 mile hop from Punta Mita to Matanchen Bay, arriving a couple of hours before sunset. I have a soft spot for Matanchen Bay, despite the mediocre reviews it receives from the cruising guides. It's large wide open bay (a plus for me, a definite negative if it happens to be blowing from the South), and every time we've come here a pod of dolphins has come by to check us out. Oh and there are plenty of palm trees, which makes me feel like I'm really livin' the cruisin' life.

Tuba music wafts gently from the palapas under the palm trees

San Blas is the more protected anchorage just around the corner, up in an estuary. However, we decided to give the bar crossing a miss yesterday when we went up to take a look at the conditions and watched waves breaking across the entrance. We'd recently watched this video of another cruiser attempting to cross the bar, and were motivated to take the conservative approach and head towards the wide open Matanchen.

This is all anchorage. Just my style.

Lat 21 31' N, Long 105 14' W

Right Trip, Wrong Time

2010-04-30T10:51:00.001-07:00

The outcome of our trip has for both of us been a very positive one. Being out there enabled us to see with clarity that sailing to Hawaii this summer is not what we want to be doing, and we wrestled mightily before leaving to try and find some insight about what was the right decision for us.

Being unable to find the decision that sat right with us, we resorted to hashing out the pros and cons in order to find the most “logical” decision about how to get us, and Pisces, up to Seattle this fall. I looked with envy at other cruisers who made decisive decisions about their plans for the summer and moved forward with shipping or trucking, or bashing up the coast or heading offshore, while we walked endlessly around La Cruz, trying to figure out the path that was right for us.

So we headed offshore in order to save money, get offshore experience, and to add a large notch to our sailing experience. It seemed logical, but neither of us were particularly excited about the trip, it just seemed like the rational next step in our cruising experience. Once offshore a few things became starkly obvious; most importantly was that we were keen to do an offshore trip at some point in our lives, but this summer wasn't the right time and our reasons for undertaking the trip weren't the right ones to get us through the passage. Finally having clarity about what we wanted was fantastic! Suddenly we were able to commit to shipping with confidence, with no lingering doubts about making the right decision.

I am sure that an offshore passage will be in our future at some point and when it is, we will both be 100% enthusiastic about making it, and we will both know the time is right for the trip. Until then, sailing will continue to be a large part of who we are and what we like to do, and we will explore and sail together wherever we are.

Back in Banderas Bay it's taken a few days to get everything organized and ready to move towards the new plan, but I am optimistic that as of today we are back in the country legally, have everything lined up for Pisces to be loaded on a freighter via YachtPath in late May/early June from La Paz to Victoria BC, and even have a liveaboard slip waiting for us at Shilshole Marina in Seattle! Completing these administrative tasks has involved many cruising adventures such as frantically catching a water-taxi to the nearest bank to slip in just before closing time, and rowing Pesky through a surf break to find the elusive internet cafe in Punta Minta that has a working fax machine.

Our new drifter, doing it's job perfectly as we drift along.

Lat 20 46' N, Long 105 31' W

Always Tack on a Lift

2010-04-25T05:57:00.000-07:00

Alternate Blog Title: 'I've made a huge mistake.' - GOB BLUTH

If you are a fan of Arrested Development you know just the voice to read the above line in, as sun sets on our third day out, and we finally look at each other and break down how we've each been feeling inside. The realization we've come to is that this is not the time or the place for us to try our hand at long distance passagemaking. Acceptance of this reality is how we find ourselves here at 4:15AM, doing about 4.2kts (close hauled as we have been the last 70 something hours) headed back towards Mexico.

Let me start by saying that we are both really happy, and this decision sits much better than any of the quasi-decisions we've kicked around over the last month or so. Pisces is sailing great, we are having a great time, and are looking forward to the several days it will take for us to close back with land. So this is certainly not a story of regret, we are feeling great!

Unless you happen to have been in the La Cruz area over the last several weeks, we realize that you probably have no background on our thought process, so I'll try to give you the extremely brief synopsis of many a long evening spent walking around the marina and town trying to reason out what we should do. Essentially our options fell into two main camps: 1) Offshore to Hawaii and back or 2) Ship/Truck. The offshore route had several big things going for it, including (apparent lack of) cost, the opportunity to gain experience at offshore cruising, and the general bad-ass factor of pulling into the Puget Sound after 6000 something offshore miles. The shipping method had its own advantages, including the fact that it maximizes the fun value for our last several months, allowing us time to go back into the Sea of Cortez and then spend some additional time exploring the NW before starting 'real life.' There were many nuances to the arguments but essentially that is how it broke down, do we do the thing that is way out of our comfort zone but a major achievement, or do the thing that we know we enjoy?

Looking back at it, I think we both wanted to do the shipping option, but felt we ought to do the offshore option. The boat is ready, we have the time, and it's the right time of year to do it...sounds like the perfect combination right? Actually wrong. One of the lessons we've learned is that its not enough for the external factors alone to be in line, all the internal factors have to be there too. Are you excited about your destination? Do you feel 100% committed to the passage? Questions like that need to be discussed in a completely honest manner, because they are critical to the success of your passage.

As the first several days of our passage progressed, we both indepently and then jointly came to the conclusion that our own answers to the internal questions were frequently 'no.' What we really wanted was to get a bit of offshore time (say 10-14 days ideally) so that we'd have a sense of whether it was something we would want to do more of later down the line, and then to spend the rest of our summer exploring, hiking, snorkeling, etc.

Another important turning point for us was a day or two in when we realized that there was no way in hell...and I repeat, no way in hell, we were going to sail to Hawaii and then turn around in one months time and sail back to Seattle. We know people who have done this passage, and another of our friends perfectly sums them up as being 'total Vikings.' Since we were sure we would not be doing the return trip the financial picture of the different options changed, with Hawaii becoming the most expensive of all the options (due to the need to hire a delivery skipper or ship from Hawaii to Seattle). Not to mention how strange it would feel to hand over the keys to your home, vehicle, family member, etc to three random people to go bash through the North Pacific for a month...

As we closed with the Socorros Islands we knew it was really decision time, given the way the winds shift, and the distances involved, we would soon be passing a point of no return, where it just would not be that feasible to get back to Mexico without battling contrary winds the whole way. Together we came to the conclusion that we could be totally happy with the 5 days to a week that this shakedown sail will give us, combined with the shipping option. We've had the opportunity to get back out into bluewater with Pisces, shake her and us down again, and yet we still get to do the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Northwest, it feels ideal.

So, in a nutshell that's the story of how we find ourselves doing either the world's shortest passage to Hawaii or the world's longest passage between La Cruz and Punta de Mita (depends on your perspective):) Currently we are aiming as far North as the winds will allow, which at times is Mazatlan, and at times Banderas Bay. No matter where we make landfall we will most likely try to make it over to Baja relatively quickly, as we want to revisit some of our favorite anchorages before our time in Mexico is up.

Lat 19 46' N, Long 108 11' W

Day 2: This is a downwind trip right?

2010-04-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

24-hr Distance: 73 NM
Wind: 15-25 NW
Seas: 6-10 NW
Sky: Partially cloudy
Distance To Go: 2654 NM
Position: Lat 19 27' N, Long 108 03' W

Well, we didn't have the best 24-hr run yesterday, primarily because we ended up heaving to (stopping the boat) for most of the night. We've been beating in to a pretty fresh breeze, and seas that are being churned up by weather systems to the North of us. Morale is a bit low on board today. It's not easy going.

We ended up hove to last night because we were both having a bit of a re-evaluation as in 'why are we out here doing this?' We did decide to no matter what try and give it the full 4 days that people say it takes to fully adjust. Heaving to made it much easier for us both to recover some sleep with a highly improved motion. We are reserving the right to make this trip into a circumnavigation of the Socorros, followed by turning tail and running back to good old Mexico!

Really at this point I think our mood's are highly weather dependent. If the sailing gets easier, we'll undoubtedly become more cheery. As it is right now that, it's all we can do to keep down some water and a minimum of food. Currently we spend a good bit of time lying horizontal staring at the ceiling or trying to sleep. The most valuable things aboard (aside from sailing gear) are our earplugs and sleeping eye mask to block out light.

In good news however we are more or less headed due West now under jib alone, and we are hoping that the wind continues to clock so we can start easing the sheets a bit to ease our motion and the nerves.

Tons of dead flying fish on deck today. However too windy/rolly to attempt a clean up, so we continue on like some sort of fish funeral barge.

La Cruz to Hilo! Day 1!

2010-04-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that our blog has been a bit neglected over the past month or so. It's not that things haven't been happening, it's that we have been deep in the throes of trying to decide how to get Pisces from La Cruz Mexico to Seattle USA. The primary options we were considering were shipping (expensive but easy and fast), bashing up the coast (cheap but hard), and sailing out to Hawaii first (cheap but scary).

It was an extremely hard decision, and we're still trying to take deep breaths and convince ourselves that this was the best choice, but we decided to give the offshore route a try. Primary considerations for us are that Pisces is totally ready for it, and when else will we have the boat, the time, and the desire to do something like this?

So here we are, sailing to Hawaii!! Last night we saw what is likely to be our last sight of land until we have reached Hawaii, a trip of about 2800 nautical miles!

So here it is: Day 1!

24-hr Distance: 104 NM
Wind: 10-20 W
Seas: 3-8 WNW
Sky: Overcast
Distance To Go: 2717 NM

We have been close hauled since leaving Banderas Bay, sailing at a decent clip with the Jib, Staysail, and one reef in the main. Our course has been towards the SW, and we are hoping that in the next day or so the wind will start to clock around, lifting us towards the direct route, and then allowing us to actually start the fabled downwind sailing! In the meantime things are good aboard, we are trying hard to just live in this moment, and certainly not think about how early in this long trip we are! Stomachs are also a bit on edge, so we'll keep this blog and computer time short.

We've got some dead squid and flying fish on deck, but we can't be bothered to clean them up in the current conditions. Pisces though is doing great, sailing along in the groove with Brutus (the Monitor windvane) firmly in control of the helm.

Drop us an email, we've got some..ahem...time on our hands and would love to hear from you.

MVT (Most Valuable Tool)

2010-04-10T15:06:00.000-07:00

RIP

Alarmed Bags

2010-03-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

As we were sitting on the plane at SFO yesterday waiting to take off for PV Jacob looked out the window at the bags being loaded onto the plane and pointed out one of our duffel bags going into the plane, ripped open with our stuff exploding out of it.

Luckily all of our bags and all of our stuff made it back to PV just fine, but every bag had been opened and inspected. We were carrying a large selection of boat parts and supplies and I'm sure that the dense metal parts set off all sorts of alarms.

Here's a partial list of what we brought back:

welding rod
galley water pumps
engine fresh water pump
gas canisters for PDFs
whisker pole end fittings
o-rings/clevis pins/bolts/nuts
2 stainless metal lengths
lanocote (lambs grease)
spray on water repellent
about 100 books

No wonder customs inspected our bags!

We are very happy to be back on Pisces in La Cruz, she's looking great, and we're keen to start getting ready for the next leg!

Geeky Stuff I'm Into

2010-03-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post a quick blog update on a couple of geeky boat things that I'm into right now.

1) Oceanography & Seamanship
Want to know exactly how many lbs of force it'll take to straighten your anchor rode? The optimal lookout configuration when searching for a MOB? How about the influence of vessel loading on stability? This book is great as it combines all the standard 'how to sail around the world' topics with the underlying science.

2) Antal Low Friction Rings
I spend a lot of time in chandleries staring at the blocks. Unfortunately, the prices are so high, I almost never get to actually purchase one (let alone a set!). So, I think you'll understand my excitement when I found these ring-leads. The idea (becoming increasingly common on the larger offshore racers) is that for many applications you don't actually need a block, a simple ring fairlead is fine. The advantages are huge: you save weight (not that Pisces really cares about this one), you get massive strength, there's nothing to break, and you save cost. We've ordered a few of these to play around with in a variety of different applications, and we'll keep you posted. But really, you can get a 'block' with a safe working load well over 5000lbs for under $20, how can that not be useful?!

And the destination is....

2010-03-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

We've spent the last few weeks on the "2010 Extravaganza Tour of US Cities," seeing friends and family and going to campus visits at potential graduate schools. Yes, this fall we will both be returning to school, Jacob for a PhD in Physical Oceanography and me for a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy.

In the course of our '10 Extravaganza Tour we've been on 7 flights (to date) and visited San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Oxnard, Santa Barbara and San Diego. We are now professionals at navigating the early morning rental car scene at the airport, and explaining our cruising experience to professors in one peppy sentence.

Pisces and a third of Tao crew reunite in Orinda

Fancy crew get together in the Mission

Drinks at the Ramp with Rochelle, upholding an after-work tradition

After all this travel, we're happy to announce our new destination for the foreseeable future.....

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

We hope you all come visit us!

We'll be back in La Cruz on Pisces in a week, and will return to more regular boat and cruising blogs soon.

We (Heart) Marina Living

2010-02-21T07:23:00.000-08:00

Flat water, unlimited electricity, daily showers, (decent) internet, reckless disregard for the weather?! That's right, marina living!

Just a quick update to let you know we are happily ensconced in Marina La Cruz, which is without a doubt the most luxurious place we have been our whole time cruising. Also the current home of many of the boats prepping for this years Pacific crossing, which makes it a pretty interesting place to meet people.

One of the more interesting things I've seen in a while is a 35lb CQR whose shank was bent into a banana shape during the brief put powerful 'wind event' here several weeks ago. For those who aren't familiar with the anchors, we're talking an approximately 3" x 1" thick piece of forged steel, bent into a curve!

We are taking the opportunity to work on boat projects and see friends before we come back to the states for a whirlwind west coast visit in March (confirmed stops include Seattle, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara, hopefully more coming soon!).

An accidental passage from San Blas to La Cruz

2010-02-14T09:43:00.001-08:00

Earlier in the week we hunkered down in the San Blas estuary waiting for the second weather trough to arrive, by all the marine weather forecasts we were due to be on the receiving end of another 1,500 mile trough/low with winds forecast up into the 80 knot range. After getting caught by surprise by the first trough we were very prepared this time: second anchor shackled on the foredeck ready for use, dinghy up on deck and lashed down etc. Fortunately for the entire coastal region, the strong weather didn't materialize and we barely got an hour of showers.

The next day we decided to take advantage of the favorable high tide in the morning to head out of the estuary and San Blas bar entrance. Our original goal was to head around to Mantanchen Bay, a mere 5 miles out of the estuary. After a leisurely morning we exited the bar around 10:30am; the day was so lovely that we decided to continue another 20 miles south to the next bay, a reportedly fair weather anchorage. The wind freshened as we made our way south and it became evident that the anchorage was not going to be a safe or comfortable anchorage in the current conditions. So after a quick assessment we decided to head straight for Punta Mita, another 30 miles south.

This was not a small decision, as this put our total passage up around 55 miles, which is a far cry from our original goal of a 5 mile jaunt around the corner. We would also have to make a night entrance into both Banderas Bay and the Punta Mita anchorage. Entering any harbor at night is something that we have carefully avoided until now, and this decision meant that we had to navigate through a reportedly rocky area, pass between the headland of Punta Mita and the Tres Marietas (a small island group) and then navigate into the Punta Mita anchorage.

We made great time, flying along with our jib easily making 6 knots and for some time were up over 7 knots. Jacob checked the GPS and noted that during this passage we made a new top speed for this season of 9 knots. We approached the Tres Marietas around 8pm and carefully entered Banderas Bay using our radar, GPS and depth sounder. We stayed .5 miles off of the Tres Marietas in order to avoid the reported rocks, and stayed well clear of Punta Mita. Using a GPS waypoint we navigated into the Punta Mita anchorage, and dropped our anchor around 10:30pm.

The following day we headed another 10 miles into Banderas Bay to the anchorage in La Cruz. It was a beautiful sail with whales all over the bay and dolphins playing around Pisces after our anchor was down. We had dinner with John and Naomi on Renova, who we are thrilled to have seen again before they leave for the Galapagos. Banderas Bay is beautiful, we're looking forward to spend a few weeks here, exploring the bay and doing some boat projects.

Lat 20 45' N, Long 105 22' W

Saint Blaise

2010-02-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

Although delayed due to the aforementioned weather, the big fiesta in honor of Saint Blaise was rescheduled for this past Saturday. A quick trip to Wikipedia informs me that Saint Blaise is often the patron saint of wool combers, and that he is known to intervene in cases of throat illness 'especially for fish-bones stuck in the throat.'

We watched as the estuary filled up with pangas filled with fishermen and their families, and somehow (against everyone's warnings) we ended up in a huge waterfight. We were manning 5 gallon buckets, which were effective, but slow on the reload. We ended up totally soaked, and managed to get quite a bit of water below as we forgot to close a porthole or two, but it was really good fun.

A short while later a panga zipped by carrying Dan and Lisa from Rumiko. They quickly turned around, and picked us up for the ride. Later that night we saw the most insane fireworks display we've ever seen...think 100 foot tall rickety tower of fireworks, sparks flying everywhere into the crowd, smoke, noise, and not a firetruck in sight.

The blessing of the fleet.

Future captains, these guys were more at home on the water than most of the yatistas we've met.

(firework photos stolen from Rumiko's blog, thanks guys!)

Today we took in a bit of history, visiting the remains of the city's fort and original church. Built in the late 1700s, the stone arches of the church are still standing.

Los Cocodrilos

2010-02-05T18:14:00.000-08:00

We had several days of torrential rain here in San Blas after the big winds died down. We were able to take advantage of the heavy rain by filling one of our water tanks (~70 gallons). First we rigged up the mainsail cover upside down on the foredeck leading to the deck fill, but the real winner was raising the main, leaving a fold at the bottom, raising the boom with the topping lift, and clamping a hose into the fold at the mast. At times the hose sprayed fresh rainwater as though it was connected to a tap.

Jungle tour via panga

Yes, the above is a crocodile fence. On one side are crocodiles, on the other side? Us...swimming.

You can't see it in this photo, but this guy's head is only about a meter from the edge of a road. If you happened to step off the shoulder into the bushes you would be in for a 3 meter long surprise.

Photos from Isla Isabela

2010-02-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to Naomi from SV Renova for sharing her photos from our day of hiking.

Isabela to San Blas

2010-02-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

Isla Isabela was absolutely incredible, and I would say probably a highlight of our time cruising. The anchorages are marginal, deep water, rock bottom, wrap around swells, big surge exploding against the rock cliffs, and the high probability of losing an anchor in a crevice or around a rock pinnacle. Even despite the relative discomfort at anchor, the island itself made the visit worthwhile. Isabela is a breeding ground for Frigates and Boobies (we saw the brown, yellow, and of course blue footed varieties). The trees above are full of the giant Frigates, the males showing off their red necks, the females eyeing us warily from their head-height nests, and the down covered chicks braying at us to regurgitate some food for them. The ground below is covered with Boobies, who scoop out a small indentation to lay their eggs. We spoke to some graduate students from the University of Mexico City who are spending 6 weeks at Isabela camping and studying the birds, and they said that they have tracked a 19 year old Boobie who is still breeding on the island.

We ended up spending one full day at Isabela, and halfway through the second night the increasing roll as well as the forecast for building SE winds (which would make the 'anchorage' completely untenable) helped us decide to head for the mainland. We left the anchorage at 3AM, had a fast sail all day, and made it to outside the entrance to the San Blas Estuary at about 3PM. We knew it was a pretty ripping tidal swing that day, and as we approached the harbor bar we could see the occasional wave breaking across the entrance, add that to the occasional 8 foot depth reading on our depth sounder, and we quickly decided to bail out to Mantachen Bay for the evening. We had a beautiful evening in the large bay that with its palm trees, humidity, and lush jungle seems more like Hawaii than the Baja Mexico we have come to know.

Yesterday we entered the San Blas Estuary on a rising tide, helped along by the flood current, as well as some excellent GPS waypoints put together by the extremely helpful folks on Third Day. By last night we were extremely glad we had come into this tight little river anchorage, as the heavy rain of the day gave way to heavy wind conditions. We took one gust that was reported to be 47 knots, right on the beam, as the swift current was holding our bow South. So, instead of jumping into bed we were up on the foredeck in full foulies, prepping the second bow anchor, putting on an extra snubber, rolling up the dodger, and generally battening down the hatches. It's hard to explain just how thankful we were to be in a good holding anchorage with no fetch and no chop. Even though back at home the giant Rocna we bought seemed like overkill, I would say that already in two months of being back cruising it has easily earned it's keep. Today we hear that a Shrimper dragged onto the beach last night, and the Capitania del Puerto has closed the port, so no boats leaving today.

We haven't yet been ashore, but we are excited to go explore today. San Blas was the first official Pacific port of New Spain, and is the 'San Blas' in Longfellow's �The Bells of San Blas�, these days it is home to a fleet of Shrimpers that for a boat geek are just absolutely incredible in their rusted glory. Today is the fiesta de San Blas, celebrations include the parade of the statue from the church onto a shrimper down the estuary out to the harbor bar for the blessing of the rock and port, a panga parade and waterfight, and a huge 'fireworks tower' in the center square tonight. We're not sure what effect the torrential rain and high winds of the last few days will have on the planned party, but we'll find out and let you know.

Lat 21 32' N, Long 105 18' W

Day Three passage to Isla Isabela

2010-01-30T08:20:00.000-08:00

We are currently 19 miles away from our waypoint at Isla Isabela. It's been a fantastic run with some great sailing and a full moon to light the way. I had a bird who decided to keep me company during my watch from 3am until dawn, he perched on the radar and chirped throughout the night. This morning while we were both on deck having coffee and listening to the nets for weather we saw two whales breaching not far from the boat, and we've been able to see land since the sun rose this morning.

Lat 22 03' N, Long 106 08' W

Southern Crossing

2010-01-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

We are currently about halfway between Muertos and Isla Isabella, a trip of about 260 nautical miles. We've had mixed conditions, with some great sailing, and also some motoring. Currently we are completely surrounded by water, no land or other boats in sight. However, Renova is only a few miles ahead of us, so we get to have the occasional VHF chat when we are bored.

We're excited about Isla Isabella, a breeding ground for Frigates and Boobies. If this pace holds we will be there before sunset tomorrow, if not we will heave to a bit offshore and make it into the anchorage Sunday morning.

So far, all our 'comfort' items (including autopilot while motoring, dodger, new lee cloth, and laptop tie-down) are all paying big dividends, as we are quite comfortable and decently well rested.

I also think that this is as far South as Pisces has ever been, as we've now cleared Cabo San Lucas.

Lat 22 58' N, Long 107 51' W

Escape Velocity!

2010-01-27T07:25:00.000-08:00

Apparently the escape velocity from La Paz is right about 6kts. Thanks to a nice current bump through the Cerralvo channel we actually managed to exceed this speed for a good long while and make a quick, uneventful motorboat trip to Muertos.

We are here today hanging out with Renova, relaxing, and planning on trying our aim on some spearfishing. Tomorrow all systems look like a go for a crossing, currently aiming for Isla Isabela, about 70 miles outside of Banderas Bay.

Lat 23 59' N, Long 109 50' W

Feeling a bit pinned down

2010-01-21T08:21:00.000-08:00

This year has been quite unusual with a quick succession of lows coming down the Pacific coast. Unfortunately for us these lows started just as we found ourselves mentally and physically ready to make our next push over to mainland and South. We are practicing our patience (along with pretty much every sailor within 500 miles), but I would characterize our success as only mixed (as evidenced by our finding it possible to get in arguments over the concept of 'implication' and the role of 'intent' in communication and culpability).

Every morning we listen to two nets and get 9 weather emails...it's not really helping.

A big piece of the puzzle is what your tolerance level is. 20 knots (above) would be okay, but this is supposedly going to be accompanied by 7-10ft seas at 5 seconds (nasty). Also, ask another couple weather sources and the above 20kts is really 30kts...

Come on Pacific High! We're all rooting for you!

Quick Trip to the Islands

2010-01-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

We had a great few nights out at Isla Partida and Espiritu Santo, with frigate birds, boobies, sea turtles, and one morning the carcasses of about a thousand bugs that had clustered around our portholes in droves...and died. We also re-learned the piece of wisdom that it doesn't pay to be a small fish...chased from below by bigger fish, but also hunted from above by birds, not the greatest odds.

Unfortunately we are having an administrative problem with the minutes on our satellite phone (I know, serves me right for posting about how much we like this thing) and we need internet access to resolve this...so, we are back in La Paz for a day or two. We're not too upset about this, as it gives us the opportunity to eat some more arrachera and wait out the hopefully final bit of the current weather systems.

Dorado number two. This one was at the time a bit unwanted as it hit our hand line right as I finished cleaning the decks from the first dorado. However, the crew of Raven and China Girl graciously offered to assist, and the two fish fed all six of us two full meals (and then some!).

Cardonicito on Isla Partida

On the morning of my birthday we awoke to find that we had the anchorage completely to ourselves. Cruising the Sea of Cortez this time of year is great, as Caleta Partida will be packed later in the season.

On a random side note, we returned to La Paz, scoped out a good place to anchor, dropped and set the hook, and fired up the GPS to set a waypoint, only to find that we are literally 7 feet from where we anchored last year.

Lat 24 09' N, Long 110 20' W

And we're off!

2010-01-17T08:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had a fantastic sail with Raven and the crew of China Girl up to Isla Espiritu Santo.

On the way Jacob set both our fishing rod and our handline with the two new lures we picked up in La Paz. Before we knew it the rod was whizzing and just when we were sitting down to take a breather after the first fish I looked back and our handline was jumping! Two beautiful large dorado, our first dorado catch. There is so much fish that after dinner for 6 people there is still half of the catch left!

Our plan is to explore the islands and wait out the series of storm systems that are barreling down the West coast. This is a great way to wait for a weather window for the crossing, as soon as we got anchored yesterday we jumped in the water and today we're off for a hike.

To see a satellite photo of our current location just type in our lat and long into google maps or google earth:

Lat 24 32 N Long 110 24 W

First Annual La Paz Hot Dog Crawl 2010

2010-01-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

Pre-game at Club Cruceros. The crew of China Girl was smart enough to use their status as non-meat-eaters to beg off the crawl.

Round 1: The Radio Shack Hot Dog

Location: Near Radio Shack
Pisces' Rank: 3
Highlights: Probably the best steamed bun of the whole bunch.
Cost: 13 pesos.

Round 1.5: Elote (What were we thinking?)
Location: Towards the Malecon from Radio Shack
Highlights: Buttery corn with crema and queso
Cost: 12 pesos

Round 2: The downtown dog
Location: 1 Block N of the Municipal Market
Pisces' Rank: 5
Highlights: First bacon wrapped dog of the night.
Cost: 12 pesos.

Enjoying round 2 (as a disclaimer, we shared dogs for rounds 2-5, we didn't eat 5 dogs each...).

The view while we ate round 2...very different standard of beauty here.

Round 3: The Tres Amigos
Location: Sidestreet
Pisces' Rank: 4
Highlights: Also bacon wrapped, this dog was miniature, and somehow these guys had made the hot dog cart experience even more shady.
Cost: 12 pesos.

Round 4: The Waterfront
Location: On the Malecon near La Fuente
Pisces' Rank: 2
Highlights: Most popular stand, a bit expensive, but I guess you pay for the waterfront location?
Cost: 15 pesos.

Round 5: The Wildcard
Location: North on the Malecon, across from the giant shell statue, next to an empty lot.
Pisces' Rank: 1
Highlights: The Hot Dog Especial. Bacon wrapped hot dog, sliced down the center, with ham and melted cheese, onion, tomato, carnitas, salsa picante, avocado, mustard, crema, ketchup. Far and away winner of the night.
Cost: 20 pesos.

Best dog in La Paz.

So far we all feel fine, although we recognize that we were seriously tempting fate to hit 6 separate street-food stands in one night. If you need more photos of hot dogs check out Renova's blog where we would bet there is more coming soon.

Wandering the streets of La Paz

2010-01-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

HF Radio vs. Sat Phone

2010-01-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

A recent post on another cruisers blog stuck with me, and left me feeling the need to present an alternate viewpoint on the Ham/SSB vs. sat phone debate.

We use an Iridium satellite phone with a third-party email service, and we also have a stand-alone Sony HF Radio Receiver.

1) Cost
A lot of times the reasons given for preferring HF radio over sat phone is the cost: "Aren't minutes like super expensive?!" Yes, the minutes are very expensive, but it's not so simple. Looking quickly at Landfall navigation I see a complete Icom M-802 HF radio/email setup for ~$4800. Now, I don't know much about radios, but to give the benefit of the doubt, I'll go with other people's numbers and assume that it would cost more like $3500 to get a complete radio & email package assuming you do the installation.
Buying a brand new Iridium phone (again at Landfall), plus the data package (to connect to your computer) and 500 minutes would cost you right around $2500.

We use UUPlus.com for our sat phone email service and data compression. This costs us $350/year, but saves air-time. They also provide some peripheral weather services that are handy. We check email almost every day (using wifi when in port, and sat phone when not) and seem to be averaging <500 minutes per year. This includes the occasional phone conversation.

For two years of sat phone:
Purchase + 1000 minutes of airtime: ~$3200
Two years of UUPlus: $700
Total: $3900

For two years of HF radio/email:
Purchase: $3500
Email service for two years (if you don't have a Ham license): $500
Total: $4000 (SSB) or $3500 (Ham)

So essentially, even if you use sat phone minutes at a very good clip, for the first two years the costs are very similar. I would characterize the radio approach as more economical in the long term, but certainly not wildly different than a sat phone. For many of us, with time horizons on our cruising plans, the sat phone will not prove to be significantly more expensive than the SSB.

2) Installation
HF radio...a bunch. Sat phone...none. For us, this was a major factor as we had a long list of 'must do' items, and time was precious.

3) Safety
The radio gives you the advantage of being able to get in touch with other cruisers. So, if you go aground and need some help getting off, or lose your engine, you can count on at least being able to talk with fellow cruisers. On the other hand, we have the onboard email addresses of plenty of other cruisers. If we felt we needed assistance in one of these non-critical emergencies we could email them and ask them to coordinate assistance via a net.

In a true emergency we feel the sat phone would be far and away superior to the HF radio, primarily because you can keep it in your ditch bag. We also keep the Coast Guard's search and rescue center number programmed in.

4) Voice
I don't really know all that much about getting a radio patch to a landline, but with the sat phone you can always just dial the number. We've used this feature several times, and never had any issues with signal quality or connection. The sound can be a bit 'tinny' but hey, you're sending your voice to a satellite and back!

5) Weather
The radio nets are a very important source of weather information. You can receive some of the transcriptions of the weather nets via email using saildocs, and you can get a stand-alone all-band receiver ($150) that lets you listen in to the nets. We have been playing around with clipping our antenna to the backstay, and we've been getting great reception.

6) Doomsday scenario
Uh really? Are you serious? If the satellites go out the last thing I want to be doing between taking celestial fixes is talking to someone in a bunker in Montana on Ham radio.

All in all I really don't think that either of the approaches is far and away superior to the other. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, and how you weight those will depend on what equipment is already on the boat, and your own communication needs.

For us using the Iridium phone for email and the occasional phone conversation, combined with a cheap HF radio receiver for weather, has been ideal, and we wouldn't do it differently if we were outfitting again.

How to Build a Dodger in a bunch of Easy Steps

2010-01-11T08:15:00.001-08:00

When we purchased Pisces she had a dodger, that while functional, did questionable things to the aesthetics of the beautiful Jason 35 design. After some negotiations, Julia agreed to the removal of the dodger in return for keeping the deck box.

One of the design issues for a dodger on a boat such as the Jason, where the companionway entrance has a high bridgedeck (a great offshore design feature), is that you need a tall dodger to allow clearance to the companionway. As seen above this doesn't always look so nice.

We sailed Pisces sans-dodger for over 2500 miles, and while this was fine, we recognized the effect that wind and sun exposure had on our energy and comfort levels while on watch. This season we are all about increasing comfort and convenience onboard, so a dodger was high on our list. So high on our list that when we arrived in La Paz we contacted Doug from Snug Harbor Sails to have him make a dodger. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for our pocketbook) he was extremely busy, and couldn't make a dodger for us in the timeframe we needed.

So, project background aside, here's how we built our own removable, foldable, spray dodger while at anchor for under $250.

Step 1: Design and experiment
The major problem for a do-it-yourself dodger is the need for a frame to support the fabric. You could get this frame made out of stainless, but then you're going to spend so much money that you might think twice about making the rest of it yourself. We have sailed on a friends boat in New Zealand that has a wood frame, which works.

We were very interested in a creative framemaking method from Yves Gelinas, inventor of the Cape Horn windvane. Yves sailed an Alberg 30, Jean de Sud, around the world via the capes and made an amazing movie of his experience. One of the many improvements he made to his boat was building a dodger with a frame made by inserting bicycle inner tubes inside of fire hose. When inflated, the inner tubes causes the fire hose to be quite rigid, and they can be used instead of stainless.

We always thought that was pretty awesome, so we wanted to give it a shot.

Well, putting aside how hard it is to explain to the guy in the bike store in a foreign language what exactly you are trying to do and why you don't know what size bike tube you want...we had mixed success. Our finding was that if you make an arch out of a single inner tube (cut the inner tube, and hose clamp in PVC caps to seal the ends) it makes a decently strong arch that will rebound to its original shape. However, if your boat is large enough that you need multiple sections connected, it doesn't work so well. We couldn't get enough pressure to keep an arch across two sections of inner tube. And that includes exploding a few inner tubes and inadvertently shooting a PVC end cap halfway across the anchorage.

Step 2: Path of least resistance.
So the inner tube and fire hose was a bit of a bust....who would have thought?
Luckily for us our boom gallows are situated right at the end of the cabintop, and provide a natural attachment point for a spray dodger. If you aren't so lucky to have something there, I would seriously consider the possibility of adding a boom gallows in this location and building a dodger similar to ours. All in all the cost would still probably be equivalent to paying someone to make a dodger, and it has the advantage of adding boom gallows which are very nice to have.

We did quite a bit of looking at other peoples' dodgers in this time, trying to figure out how they are put together, and what made them look ok. What was most surprising is how crappy the majority of dodgers look, this gave us hope that we would be able to pull off something that would not stand out as particularly crazy.

Step 3: Build.
We were able to purchase gray sunbrella which we like as light colors stand out less and help keep heat down.

We started with the front panel, and did some mock ups trying to get the height right so we could get in and out of the companionway, and still easily see over it when standing, etc. We did a lot of measuring and careful re-measuring. Once we had this piece roughly cut (extra fabric on the deck side) we measured and cut the triangular side panels. We then hemmed the top of the front piece and the side panels together, using nylon webbing in the hems to increase strength when we tension the dodger.

At that point we were able to put the grommets in the upper corners of the front piece. This was a big step, as it allowed us to get real tension on this piece for the first time. It is important to have this tension prior to doing some of the further cutting/measurements.

Hard to get enough tension without grommets.

Next we finished the hemming for the side panels. The goal of the side panels is to create a little cocoon of wind protection if you are sitting in the front corner of the cockpit, but at the same time you have to be sure not to interfere with the winch handle and getting in and out of the cockpit. Lots of measuring again, and then hemming. At this point the dodger is getting a bit heavier and hard to maneuver through the sewing machine.

Once the side panels are done, the next thing to do is to work on the bottom of the front panel. This will probably be the most complex hem, as it has to follow the curve of the deck and make allowances for things like the companionway hatch, lines, etc. We worked from the outside inwards, and just did each little piece individually. On the longer flat runs we did an extra-wide hem of several inches creating a hollow tube. Our original plan was to put short lengths of chain or some other weight in these pockets to hold it firm to the deck, but so far we haven't really needed to do this, we might add them later. We also leathered anywhere that seemed like it would be prone to chafe.

Starting to measure for the cabintop hem.

Finished hem with leather and weight pockets.

At this point you pretty much have a dodger, and the difference it makes in the comfort in your cockpit is huge. We found ourselves spending more time outside hanging out, and we notice that the protection from the dodger actually extends a few feet aft of the dodger itself, as it deflects wind away. The temptation at this point will also be to not put windows in, as it is hard to imagine cutting away most of the fabric you just put together.

Not too crazy!

For window material we used cheap vinyl because it was on hand and cheap. We also wanted something that can be rolled and stored without worry. The technique we used to put the windows in was to measure and cut the shape you want, and then baste and sew the window material to the inside of the dodger fabric. You then measure in an inch from the stitch line you just made, and cut the fabric at this new line. The fabric then gets hemmed over to a half-inch hem, and sewn down again. In the end the window material is then held by two rows of stitches.

Measure measure, take below, measure measure, mark, baste, hem, sew, take back up, repeat indefinitely.

This technique has the advantage of letting you get the window in the exact shape and position you want. The disadvantage is that when you go to create window covers, you have the pieces of sunbrella you just cut out, but they are 1" too small in all dimensions. You can add material to them, but it's a pain and at this point in the project you don't want to do any more sewing.

As a cover for our windows we used a big piece of raw linen. It was very inexpensive, lets in some light to the cockpit, and is a very lightweight material that is not prone to flogging in the wind.

Our goal was to create a spray dodger that would keep us a bit more protected from the elements, and also to have it pass the 'two boat length test'. That is, to have it not look crazy from two boat lengths away. So far so good. We think it looks a lot better than many professional dodgers, and the wind protection it offers is substantial. In order to take it down you simply untie a few lines and roll it up on the cabintop or take it below.

Side flaps deployed.

Side flaps retracted.

I would estimate we spent 60 hours total, including our experiments with bicycle inner tubes, and hiking around La Paz for materials. Total cost was probably about $250, most of that because Sunbrella is quite expensive here. If we did it in the US I would have expected to spend maybe 40 hours and spend half that amount.

Gallery of 'interesting dodgers':

The Vampire: Hide from the sun.

How to do it for $50.

The Singlehander: Dodger for One.

Hey, we're still here!

2010-01-07T11:10:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the blog silencio over the past several weeks. We've been heads down working on our grad school applications, which are now done and submitted.

Jacob's career goal.

Julia's next small business.

We've also had time to do some great boat projects that we anticipate will make our passages much more comfortable. Top of the list is the dodger (full on how-to-build-your-own-only-slightly-crazy-dodger post to come soon), followed by the resurrection of our Raytheon autopilot, and finished off by some shade canopies for the cockpit.

In between boat work and applications we have also met some interesting new people, and we highly recommend you check out their blogs (added to our sailing blogs sidebar). One of the great things about cruising is the diversity of the people you meet, and we've had some interesting dinners with people from a wide-range of backgrounds such as: former sociology professor (who also worked at Reed College where we both went to school!), ocean engineer, software developer, carpenter, project manager, baker, and environmental consultants.

Currently we are in Marina Palmira, where we plan to spend about a week doing some further boat projects, and watching the weather. After that we head South!

Some people fill their blogs with photos of sunsets...we do provisioning photos.

Yum...nothing says cruising in paradise like cock brand canned cheese.

Damn, this blog post might just ruin our search keywords.

Christmas in La Paz

2009-12-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

People in La Paz take their Christmas celebrations very seriously. City streets downtown have been closed all week to make room for stalls selling Christmas gifts and decorations and in the supermarket entire aisles are dedicated to Christmas chocolates and shiny toys.

We've been having a great time out at anchor, generally working in the mornings on our graduate applications and in the afternoons heading into town or working on boat projects. Our biggest project at the moment is our dodger. It's still in the works, but once we get it finalized we'll post more info and photos.

This afternoon I'm going to attempt to roast a 5lb prime rib in our boat-sized stove, this will be the first time I've ever cooked prime rib, let alone on a boat, so I'm going to open the wine early and hope for the best!

Merry Christmas!

Back in La Paz

2009-12-15T16:36:00.000-08:00

After a quick stop in Escondido to see how Noah is living (think lots of fiberglass and hot dogs and sleeping in the back of a pickup truck with Virgil his dog and his new engine) we had a great sail down to La Paz. Conditions were pretty ideal, with between 5-15 knots behind us the whole way, and a clear night with some of the most amazing meteors (apparently the Geminids) we have ever seen.

We are currently anchored in La Paz, where we plan on staying through the next little bit as we work on graduate school applications.

Hot Dog Mixtos: Hot Dog, steamed bun, onion, tomato, bacon, carnitas, mustard, crema, pepper, and more all served in a family's carport.

Round Dos, sampling the competition.

Sunrise in Escondido

Lat 24 09' N, Long 110 20' W

San Carlos to Isla Carmen

2009-12-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

It's a bit hard for us to believe that it's already been over three weeks since we arrived back to Pisces. At that point she was covered in about a centimeter of yard dust & dirt, had no sails or halyards on, and was missing a rudder. We were fortunate that Pisces had weathered the summer well and we did not find any unexpected problems.

For the past several days there has been a constant barometric contour running down the middle of the Sea of Cortez, bringing steady wind from the North & Northwest. Yesterday, after a last minute filling of our water tanks, we said goodbye to San Carlos, and we headed back out to do some sailing!

It didn't take long to find the wind, and fairly quickly Pisces was flying downwind under jib alone making an easy 6-7 knots. The seastate was a bit confused, with 3-6 ft chop at about a 4 second period. It wasn't always the most comfortable sailing we've done, but it was incredible to have Pisces back underway, Brutus (the windvane) steering, and everything back to how it should be. Even better was that the wind held steady between 15-20 from the NW all night, allowing us to reel off an easy 135 mile or so day. At about 3AM we decided that by beam reaching a bit West towards Baja we could tuck in to Salinas on Isla Carmen, and then go visit with Noah & Chris in Escondido. So, at about 10AM this morning (mainland time, we're still pretty confused on the time zones down here) we anchored under sail, the only boat in this huge anchorage.

Our current plan (weather permitting) is to spend tonight here on Isla Carmen, tomorrow in Escondido (Noah promises he's going to take us to the best hot dog stand in the world -- or at least Loreto), and then leave Sunday morning for the sail to La Paz.

Lat 26 00' N, Long 111 07' W

Giving Pisces some loving

2009-12-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

We've been happily at anchor for a few days and punching through our list of projects to accomplish on Pisces. Some of our projects are routine maintenance such as servicing the winches, tuning the rig and removing rust from our propane tanks but my favorite projects are the ones where we are actively improving on systems that were in place last season to make things better and more convenient this season. I think of this latter group as giving Pisces some loving attention.

These loving projects include things such as: re-designing the dinghy lifting process and hoist, rebuilding the galley pumps so both salt and freshwater pumps are fully functional, creating chafe protection between the mast and boom gallows and making changes to our cupboard latching system so they positively latch (this last project has been "in the works" for a couple of years now and I'm optimistic that we've finally found a lasting solution).

I've also started provisioning for this season and spent a super fun morning re-discovering the joys of shopping in the massive super-mercado in Guaymas.

Splash

2009-12-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

We're in the water!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T14:22:00.000-08:00

We trust everyone at home is gorging themselves on the traditional Thanksgiving meal, we miss you and would love to eat ourselves into a food coma with you today! Instead we are celebrating by paying someone else to sand the bottom paint off Pisces, thereby saving us hours of standing in a cloud of toxic copper-based paint dust, it's well worth the cost.

Equally as exciting as having the bottom sanded is that we are in the home stretch of our monster rudder/skeg project. Here is a bit of a recap of the steps we undertook to rebuild the skeg:

1) Grind...grind...grind...angle grinder with 24 grit disks...lots of disks...

2) Have a brief freakout about how much fiberglass we took off of the hull of the boat.

3) Apply 6 layers of medium weight fiberglass cloth with epoxy.

4) 2 coats of unthickened epoxy to fill the final weave.

5) Dry fit the rudder, mark hole positions.

6) Drill out all thru-bolt hulls oversize (3/4") and fill with chopped fiberglass and epoxy.

7) Patch small hole where we got too enthusiastic with an orbital sander.

8) Re-fit rudder, drill bolt holes.

9) Apply 3 layers of epoxy barrier coat (generously donated by a fellow cruiser!).

10) Go to local bar, check internet and write this blog.

11) Put rudder in place, seal bolts with 4200.

Most of the last week has required a Tyvek suit.

Fitting the rudder. Alignment turned out to not be much of an issue, everything is smooth and no play in the system.

Grey is the epoxy-based barrier coat, you can also see the patches on the rudder where we did exploratory surgery this summer.

That's all for now, today we are going to dinghy out to Tao, grill some arrachera and enjoy being on the water. Miss you all!

Mosquitos like birds

2009-11-22T18:46:00.000-08:00

As most boat projects tend to, this one has cascaded a bit, and what was originally a rudder repair has now also turned into a rudder skeg rebuild. (For those of you who don't know, a rudder skeg is the bit at the bottom of the hull where the rudder attaches).

As we mentioned in a previous post, we decided to have IdaSailor Marine make our new heel fitting before we came back down to Pisces. We raved a bit in the previous post, so I'll be brief, but IdaSailor did a fantastic job. There was a slight hiccup in the production schedule, but Joel at IdaSailor was completely on top of it, and went way out of his way to ensure that we had the piece in our hands before we were in Mexico. I think that in some ways this is a better testament to their great customer service than if everything had gone completely smoothly, there was a slight problem, but they were all over it and made it right. On top of the great customer service, the fitting is a real piece of art, and we've already gotten a lot of interest in it around the boat yard.

While the advantage of having this piece built ahead of time was that it supposedly minimizes boat yard time, the disadvantage is that we didn't have access to the boat for accurate measurements, so we more or less guessed at sizing (we had very rough estimates, but that's it).

As it turned out, I ended up spending about 15 hours in the last week with an angle grinder, full tyvek suit, respirator, standing three feet deep in a hole (I know the guy if you need a hole dug in the Mexican desert), grinding the hell out of our rudder skeg. We got everything in the right shape, and have been doing some serious fiberglassing work to make our new shape permanent and watertight. So far so good, we've got 6 layers of medium weight glass & epoxy on, and will be putting some finishing coats on tomorrow or the next day. Everything is looking great, and in the end will definitely be a big improvement on what it was before, but this project has definitely been huge, perhaps the biggest one we've done yet. You know you're in trouble when a day laborer comes by and tells you 'mucho trabajo'!

We managed to get the rudder in place in about a day, progress!

Home sweet home, notice the new skeg look.

Fiberglass goes on, it's a bit of a complicated shape, we've been alternating wraps around the bottom and around the back.

Fitting is now at the machine shop getting the lower strap shortened and bolt holes drilled.

View of the boatyard from the road, note the cow on the left.

Back at it!

2009-11-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

We've been at Pisces for two days now, and everything is going smoothly, and we are happy that Pisces seems to have weathered the summer incredibly well. The batteries (wet cells) didn't even need to be topped off!

We spent yesterday making the interior livable, and today we did some fiberglass work on the rudder, got the yard to dig a hole, dry fit the rudder, and even managed to get some other miscellaneous tasks taken care of.

Here's a picture for proof:

More to come soon, we're having a goodbye dinner tonight for Jeff & Claire who drove us and all our stuff to Mexico in an air cooled 78 HP 1981 VW Vanagon...way to take one (actually a whole bunch) for the team!

Last minute shopping

2009-11-11T17:14:00.000-08:00

We are headed back to Pisces in the morning, almost everything is packed, and we managed to get a few last minute purchases in...including our new anchor.

We've included Tao's new primary anchor in the photo for comparison purposes.

Okay, don't worry, that's actually a dinghy anchor.

Rudder Update

2009-10-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I'm quite surprised that even after extensive polling not a single person recommended that I replace the rudder. I mean, even among some seriously big-thinking boat work type people the unanimous opinion was to at most sleeve the inside with some stainless rod. For example, Noah on Scheherazade seemed of the opinion that even sleeving with a solid rod was potentially a waste of time...and this is coming from a guy who is about to move his engine to a new spot halfway across his boat.

Being the type to not be satisfied with unanimity across a broad swath of experienced people, here's the steps we undertook.

1) Drill more holes. Maybe under that next little piece of fiberglass the answer to what to do will become crystal clear. We drilled a (ahem) moderate amount of inspection holes, primarily to ensure that the lower weld where the shaft attaches to the skeleton was not compromised. Everything looked really good and solid, and interestingly, it turns out that the lower pintle of shaft was not in fact continuous with the upper shaft. They were joined via the skeleton plate.

2) Excavate the fiberglass plug in the lower shaft. To keep water out of the lower shaft it had been filled (to a length greater than about 18") with solid epoxy. In order to inspect (or sleeve) the shaft we needed to be able to get most of this out. We spent a whole lot of quality time with big drill bits, drill extensions, and a massive screwdriver-as-chisel.

3) Get a quote on a new one. We called a few places for quotes on a new rudder, and ended up having the pleasure to work a bit with Joel and his whole crew over at IdaSailor Marine. These guys really know their stuff, are friendly and easy to get in touch with, follow-up on what they say they will (!), and generally provide a level of customer service that I have rarely (or never) gotten within a marine industry. We didn't end up buying a rudder through them, but we are getting the heel fitting fabricated (more to come on that topic) by them. I really can't say enough good things about these folks, go buy something from them :)

4) At a certain point we decided that whatever objective sense of reality we had started with had disappeared during the hours spent staring at the damn thing, so we decided to take the rudder to a 'prominent' local boatyard. We borrowed Chips' styling Jeep Comanche (thanks again!) and drove the rudder over to them. The foreman took a look, and pronounced it 'pretty light corrosion' and said that if we put a solid rod in and welded it in place it would be totally fine. He quoted us an upper range price of $150 to put the rod in and weld it in place, including the need to put the rod on the lathe to get the fit right. We went, had a cup of coffee, decided to go for it, brought the rudder back, unloaded it, filled out the paper work, and then...'okay, it'll be a minimum of $200 plus materials.' WTF? Price of steel just go up in the last 30 minutes? He then told us that the materials would cost $5/lb of stainless. When we saw that he was going to use a piece of leftover prop shaft we were done for. The prop shaft would have been fine, but it was ridiculous in our opinion to jack up the price, and on top of it charge us market rate for materials that were probably left over from the last job. We took the rudder and bailed out.
Luckily Chips and Mike had hooked us up with an amazing machinist closer to home. He welded in a solid rod of 316, and also welded up some of the larger pitting on the outer shaft, for less cost than the (original) boatyard quote. He also threw in two stories, one about killing someone's tame pet fish in Mexico, and the other about being swept out to sea off Pt. Bonita.

5) So here we are, rudder is awaiting some fiberglass (to be completed in the next week or so), and a burly heel fitting on order from IdaSailor. We are starting to actually be the smallest bit optimistic that we might not have to languish in the work yard for too long...

Turn left...turn left!

2009-10-17T11:09:00.001-07:00

Not your average...

2009-10-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

That's my wife on a Friday evening after working a full day...her idea to grab the dremel and start in on the rudder...I'm a very lucky guy.

My current pain

2009-10-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

Well, we got off to a strong start with the rudder 'repair'. First stroke of inspiration was to use a commonly available stud-finder with metal mode to non-intrusively map out the inner structure of the rudder skeleton. It turned out that Pisces' rudder had a nice big wing-shaped section of stainless steel attached to the rudder shaft. We confirmed this with one test hole, and also confirmed that the foam was nice and dry inside the rudder. Awesome, a little epoxy and some fiberglass tape and everything should be as good as new.

So, we set up some makeshift saw horses, got the epoxy ready, and...crap...noticed that there was good bit of corrosion on the lower end of the rudder shaft. This is a potentially huge problem, as it can progress quickly (or slowly) and lead to significant weakening of the rudder shaft...which is bad.

Here's a list right now of our thought process. It's helpful for me to just get it written down.

Technical details:
- Shaft is 1 1/2" Nominal Sched 80 304 stainless (wall thickness ~.2")
- Surface corrosion (estimate less than 10% penetration) covers a several square inch area, primarily low on the shaft.
- Deeper corrosion/pitting (estimate less than 25% penetration) in groups, some in the area around where the shaft enters the fiberglass body of the rudder and some more randomly distributed on the exposed shaft.

Thoughts on possible causes:
- Not galvanic corrosion, as this piece is in contact with no other metals.
- I don't think it's stray current corrosion, as I haven't seen any other undue corrosion/problems with paint or anodes.
- Could have been caused during the time period when Pisces sat in Oxnard seeing very little use. At this point the shaft probably sat in one particular orientation for long periods of time without use/water flow.
- Could have been due to improper polishing/prep of the shaft by builder.

Thoughts on Outcome:
Really everything falls in one of two categories, fix or replace. Fixing is very tempting as the rudder is extremely well built in every other way, and fixing would also be the simplest and cheapest thing to do. On the other hand, if the shaft breaks we are in some real serious trouble. Here are some random thoughts/brainstorm ideas on the fix/replace options:

Fix
- As shaft is hollow, could insert solid stainless rod inside that would fit snugly and extend up past the end of the area affected by corrosion. This would perhaps give a bit of extra strength in addition to the shaft wall.
- Looking into epoxy/ceramic materials such as Belzona. These apparently are used by the Navy and merchant ships to resurface/repair shafts as well as to inhibit future corrosion. This is probably also pretty expensive for what it is.
- We still need to get a lower gudgeon/rudder shoe fitting made. It's possible that we could somehow find an option that kills two birds with one piece of bronze. For instance, we could potentially move to a more traditional gudgeon/pintle set by strapping the pintle onto the rudder, thereby removing load from that section of the shaft. Or, we could cut off most/all of the corroded shaft, insert a pin up into the remaining good shaft, and use this as the pintle.
- Could do some combination of the above, most likely would be Belzona or similar coating combined with internal shaft for extra strength.
- Seems also possible to me that since we will have a new gudgeon with the ability to add a sacrificial zinc, that it's not unreasonable to think that the corrosion would be significantly slowed/stopped from here on forward. (or am I just engaging in some seriously wishful thinking?)

Replace
- We got a couple quotes from rudder manufacturers, and it's not outlandishly expensive to get a new one built...I mean don't get me wrong, it's not cheap, but it wouldn't break the bank right now. We don't have the time to do it ourselves, at this point it's all we can do to get up in the morning, go to work, etc. We want to get through with what we have to do, and then get back out cruising.
- Plus of a new rudder is that it's new, no corrosion.
- One downside is that I don't think a new rudder would be built as well overall, for instance the metal skeleton inside would be substantially smaller, and the glass would be much thinner.
- Also, a bit of a logistical problem as we have to ship the thing across the country, then have them ship the other one back to somewhere depending on how long it takes (Tucson?). Also, although the manufacturers seemed to think they could get it done quickly, this is definitely the option most likely to cause delays in our cruising plans.
- If we are going to go through with the trouble of doing a whole rebuild, I'd like to take the opportunity to significantly improve some pieces of the rudder. For example having a solid shaft would open up some superior tiller attachment options, etc. Problem is I get quickly bogged down in trying to deal with these new options, and suddenly the job is even bigger than 'just' getting a new rudder built.

Alright, that's my current pain. Take a look at some photos (click to enlarge), and tell me what I should do :)

Gear! (aka spending like drunken sailors)

2009-10-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

A while back I promised to write a post on gear, what worked and what didn't work in our first season cruising. Well, that idea got lost in the shuffle as we quickly fell back into work and other 'real-life' type responsibilities. Now though we are starting to get ready to head back to Pisces, and as part of that preparation we are buying a whole bunch of fun new stuff. So, rather than talk about all the gear on Pisces that worked well, I thought I'd talk a little bit about a brief selection of gear that we are excited about replacing or adding for this second season of cruising.

Anchors!
I am currently deep in anchor obsession mode (ask Julia). Last season we used a 45lb CQR and a 45lb Bruce, with 300 ft of 5/16" High-Test Chain. The setup worked great, and we never dragged, really it's plenty big for our boat.

But here's what I'm thinking...if a 45lb anchor works great...then a 60lb anchor would work greater! I talked to a guy the other day with a 60lb anchor on a 37' boat who called it his '60lb sleeping pill.'

I am pining for a 55lb Rocna anchor. These anchors have have been getting consistently great reviews...and it's bigger! We would most likely sell our 45lb CQR and keep the Bruce as a secondary anchor.

There are a couple complications to this lovely plan, not the least of which is that our current windlass (a vertical style older Lewmar Ocean) is pretty much maxed out with the current ground tackle, and has some major problems such as no manual mode. If the purchase of a new anchor also necessitates the purchase of a new windlass, things get very pricey very quickly. When we left Pisces in June we wrote ourselves a note along the lines of "No matter what, buy a new windlass, don't try to back out, do it!!" Now that we've spent a little time looking at the prices of windlasses we are seriously considering creative ways to justify backing out of purchasing a new one.

On a more technical note, I've learned some interesting things about the load ratings of various pieces of the anchoring system that might prove helpful to someone else.
- BBB Chain has a Working Load Limit (WLL) of 1/4 of its Breaking Load Limit (BLL).
- High-Test Chain (Grade 43) in the U.S. has a WLL of 1/3 of its BLL.
- Shackles generally have a WLL of 1/6 of their BLL.

So, in order to compare the pieces of the anchoring system you need to do a bit of normalizing. For instance, our 5/16" HT chain has a WLL of 3900 lbs, and therefore a BLL of 11,700lbs. Our shackles (3/8") have a WLL of 2000lbs, however they have a 6-1 safety factor and therefore a BLL of 12,000lbs. On the other hand 3/8" Proof Coil chain has a WLL of 2,650lbs and therefore a BLL of 10,600 lbs.

However, please go verify the above for yourself, and let me know if you find a flaw in my numbers! (Also, if the above isn't geeky enough for you then check out: http://alain.fraysse.free.fr/sail/rode/rode.htm for an in-depth discussion of anchoring physics)

Boat Cards!
Okay, so now that I've driven almost everyone to give up on reading this post...we are making boat cards so that we can more easily exchange info with the variety of people we meet along the way. As it was, we ended up writing our information on the backs of other people's cards (particularly Tao's cards) and feeling like everyone was way more organized than we were. We're using VistaPrint for our cards.

Outboard Engine!
Having a hard dinghy is awesome, and rowing is awesome too. Probably 90% of the time it was totally fine, but there were some instances where, due to wind/chop or sheer distance, rowing was enough of a pain to keep us boat bound. Yesterday we bought an awesome little used Mercury 2.5hp. We're hoping that this will expand our dinghy horizons a bit, without meaning that we get too lazy about rowing.

Fancy Jib Halyard!
Pisces is rigged almost exclusively with Sta-Set line that, while being durable and reasonably priced, can be a bit stretchy. This has been particularly problematic on our jib halyard. As the wind picks up we have been making frequent trips to the mast to tighten up the halyard and keep the jib shape looking good. We're going to swap the current halyard out with something fancy like T900, and hopefully we won't have to adjust the halyard tension every time the wind kicks up another 5 knots.

Gratuitous wood boat photos:

The Big Buy

2009-09-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

The official hurricane season is coming to an end and we are gearing up (literally and figuratively) to head back to Pisces. We are having another round of The Big Buy, looking at our lists of spares and projects and spending a lot of time online pricing boat parts and other miscellany.

Our list always makes me giggle, it's a hodge-podge of marine spare parts and "life on the boat" items. Here's an excerpt:

Spare Y-Valve for head
Slippers
Star Book
Halyard Shackle
#4 Grommets
More shorts
Trader Joes multi-spice seasoning
120' T900 line
2 rebuild kits for galley pumps

You get the idea. Luckily it's on a computer, so therefore easily sortable and understandable. But it still makes me giggle just a little.

Yesterday we waved a very sad goodbye to the human crew of Tao who spent a few days with us here in the Bay, talking non-stop about all things life, love and sailing. They are heading back to Mexico, but on a slightly different schedule and agenda than we are, so we may see each other less. However, after popping my head out of the cockpit in Los Frailes last season to see them sailing past our stern was so exciting that I can't wait for our next reunion in some remote anchorage when we all least expect it!

In the meantime, the next weeks will be filled with The Big Buy, seeing our family and friends and gathering up everything to head back down to Pisces.

Jason 35 Google Group/Forum creation

2009-09-19T13:14:00.001-07:00

Today I started a Jason 35 google group. This group is intended for people who are either current owners, past owners, or interested in Jason 35 sailboats. The Jason 35 was designed by Ted Brewer and built by Miller Marine up in Bainbridge, Washington. When we started looking at our Jason 35, we couldn't find a lot of information on the internet about them, so hope that this forum will be a space for people to meet other Jason 35 owners, ask questions, get information about gear, and find solutions.

This is the first time I've started a group so I'm not sure if this will work out, and please let me know if you have any suggestions.

http://groups.google.com/group/jason-35-sailboats

Thanks!
-Julia

Pacific NW

2009-09-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

We are currently up in the Pacific NW, visiting friends in Seattle and Portland. This weekend we are getting all geeky about boats at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival.

Julia is enjoying the opportunity to point out crusty old guys who have crazy beards: 'Look at that guy's beard, he's making you look like a total rookie!'

Pisces is ok, and Jazz Cup racing!

2009-09-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

Great news, Pisces looks to be safe & sound! Our friend Adam from Estrella trekked through the mud at Marina Seca to check inside of Pisces and pump out any water there might be. When he arrived he found that Pisces had already been opened up by the Marina staff, and the interior was dry. A huge relief.

We have been extremely impressed by the professionalism of the Marina Seca staff during all this. They sent out a great email to all boat-owners detailing the damage done to the yard, and reassuring everyone that all owners of damaged boats had already been notified. They had six crews working hard to contain the damage, including going boat to boat, opening them, and pumping out any water. Word is they have even ordered 300 padlocks to replace those locks which they are cutting off, and in the meantime the yard is continuing to maintain the good security they are known for. A huge thank you to Marina Seca!

Even though we were a bit preoccupied with worry about Pisces, we spent this past weekend racing onboard Fancy in the Jazz Cup 2009, a 27 mile race from Treasure Island to Benicia. We had a great time, took 5th in our division, drank a bit too much tequila (after the race), and spent the next day bashing our way home in various states of disarray.

How did we end up on foredeck?

My 70's look.

Best wind of the day was in the last mile or so. We managed to douse just in time, after watching some 50+ footers getting worked as the wind built and moved forward of the beam.

Jimena/Marina Seca update

2009-09-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

We've been getting emails and photos from friends who are down there and friends of friends.

Adam from SV Estrella sent these pics today, thankfully Pisces is still standing:
http://spunt.aigc.net/gallery/Jimenedrystoragefriendsboats

We also got these photos from another friend who documented the damage in general:
SV BlueMoon Pics

Send good thoughts to Pisces

2009-09-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Jimena wreaked havoc on San Carlos & Guaymas, right where Pisces is. Information is hard to come by, as San Carlos has apparently lost most of its infrastructure. Initial reports say 22+ inches of rain, causing massive flooding.

Marina Seca sits right next to an arroyo, which apparently flooded into most of the yard and offices. A friend who is down there reports that initially things look generally positive for boats on hurricane posts but that the work yard and trailer yard are a disaster.

We will update as we hear more, or we recommend checking in with our friends on Estrella who will undoubtedly be reporting more first-hand information: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/estrella/.

Food on a boat: the good, the bad and the moldy

2009-08-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

Refrigeration/Ice Box:

We do have a fridge on Pisces, but it is the original fridge and we decided early on that we didn't want to spend the money to replace it or to be constantly fixing it underway, so we deliberately excluded it from our electrical budget and assumed that the area would be used as an ice box. The few places that we had easy access to blocks of ice (United States and La Paz) we stocked the fridge with up to six blocks and those lasted over a week (closer to two weeks in colder California). During those times we bought more fresh meat and cheese than normal, and were meat gluttons for a few days. We never kept the meat on ice longer than 3 or 4 days (it probably would be ok, but we were usually so excited to have fresh meat that we used it up quickly). In towns where block ice was unavailable we tossed in a couple bags of cubed ice but used it mostly for putting into our drinks, as it never really lowered the temperature of the ice box/fridge at all.

Ruining a fridge-load of food:

Our fridge shares a wall with our engine. Somewhere along the way down Pacific side of Baja we had a stretch where we motored for a while to beat a nasty storm system. When we were comfortably tucked into a protected anchorage I opened the fridge to whip up dinner and was assailed with the sights and smells of sour melted butter and cheese all over the fresh veggies, meat and beer with plastic bag remnants of our blocks of ice pathetically deflated at the bottom of the box and a slight green tinge all over everything. After this I realized the wisdom of turning the fridge on whenever the engine is running: 1. the food doesn't spoil and 2. it's "free" electricity and therefore won't deplete our energy budget.

Creative food preservation:

As a result of the irregular cooling schedule of the fridge/ice box, we were often without the means to keep things cold for any length of time. I picked up some great tricks for preserving fresh food, and invented a few methods along the way. The primary breakthrough for me was that in general food stays good longer than I previously thought, particularly if it's never been refrigerated.

Fruit and veggies: Fruit and veggies will last a couple of weeks in a cool(ish) dark place where they don't get thrown around too much and if it has never been refrigerated. Onions, limes, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbages, oranges and jicama were long term staples on Pisces, and lasted up to 8 weeks.

Cheese: Cheese will keep indefinitely if stored in an airtight sealed container filled with olive oil.

Our good friends on Catspaw treated us to a fantastic taco feast one night in Muertos when none of us had been able to provision for weeks. Their fresh grated cheese was from a cheese block stored in olive oil five months previously. We stored mild cheddar (which turns into sharp cheddar as it ages in the olive oil), jack and feta (with added peppercorns and herbs) in glass jars in the bilge on Pisces for the remained of our trip.

Eggs: I bought non-refrigerated eggs (difficult to find and expensive in the US, but a standard in Mexican markets), and turned them every couple of days to keep the shell moist internally. We always ran out of eggs before they went bad. The longest time I kept eggs like this was 8 weeks (then we ran out). By the end I was cracking the eggs in a separate bowl from the rest of the ingredients just to make sure they were ok, but they were fine every time.

Condiments: Ketchup, mustard, mayo, peanut butter or jam lasted without refrigeration if we made sure that we used a clean knife every time we used a condiment. The condiments never went off or moldy.

Sour Cream: Thanks again goes to Catspaw for introducing us to the joys of sour cream. It's possible to buy small half cartons of cream in Mexico that do not need refrigerating before opening. To make sour cream, Catspaw recommended adding limes until sufficiently sour. When our limes ran out I substituted white vinegar, which did the trick perfectly.

Provisioning:

Our first few large provisioning trips were MASSIVE! Over time I developed a feel for the things we liked to eat while on passage and at anchor; definitely a different set of menus.

A few items emerged as clear favorites: canned corn (I always ran out), onions and garlic (went through about one onion and one head of garlic a day), flour (always ran short and had to borrow from Tao).

In addition to the staples, I splurge on our provisioning trips for special tasty items that I can throw into a meal with no fresh food to make it more interesting.

Special tasty item examples: olives, jalapenos, bacon bits, fancy pasta sauces, hearts of palm, fancy crackers, canned asparagus, miso soup, pesto, fancy dips for crackers or veggies.

Canned and non-fresh food staples: pasta, rice, sugar, beans, canned soup (especially concentrates ie mushroom soup makes a great base for special pasta sauce), evaporated milk, oatmeal, canned meats (beef and chicken), canned veggies (especially peas, mushrooms, tomatoes), basic pasta sauces, condiments, curry sauces and powders.

Meat: Cooking without fresh meat can be a bit of a drag and in general I liked the canned meat we bought in the US over the canned meat in Mexico. Trader Joes has some great canned beef, and Costco has good canned chicken. Salami was a big favorite of ours on the boat, it goes well in pasta, on pizza, on sandwiches and as part of a cheese, pickle and cracker plate.

Fresh bread items: With flour, yeast, evaporated milk, eggs and cheese the world of bread products is wide open. Bread items that I made included: regular bread (oven and pressure cooker), onion bread, naan-imitation, muffins, pancakes, cakes, pizza dough, corn and flour tortillas.

A splash of fresh herb: I picked a stalk of basil off a plant that we came across at an anchorage and nurtured it in a small container with water for the rest of the trip. It grew roots and was happy growing new leaves. A few fresh basil leaves added to a plate will make any meal taste brighter.

It was an adventure to provision in Mexico primarily because my Spanish is minimal so a lot of the time I made an educated guess about the contents of a can. I had basics covered (ie I knew I was buying canned chicken) but wasn't sure what type of spices or veggies would be included.

Overall the range of food options is comparable to the United States, with a little variety added in the translation. Jacob and I are pretty relaxed eaters, so we enjoyed the dinner adventure involved in making dinner with canned surprise.

Items for next season:

Right before we left I found canned brie cheese. This was great, and will become a regular item on Pisces.
Items that I plan to bring back from the US: Trader Joes canned meats, salamis, dried herbs and seasoning mixes.
Pressure cooker meat and veggies: I hope to have a pressure cooking extravaganza with our friends on Plume (a Nor'Sea 27, also back in the Bay Area for hurricane season) to can some fresh meat. We had some delicious meals on Plume in Mexico using their homemade meatballs that they canned before they left.

Two Jasons for sail in Seattle

2009-08-07T09:59:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to let you know that there are two Jason 35s currently for sale in Seattle. I think you can find them both on Seattle craigslist.

The two boats have both cruised quite extensively, one to the South Pacific, and the other up to Alaska, so they should be well-shaken down.

Here's a photo of "Swallow" taken from craigslist, looks like a beauty with a new paint job:

Actually, we got interested in buying Swallow (pre Pisces of course) when we stumbled upon their 'for sale' website several years ago. Unfortunately for us, by the time we emailed about the boat, an offer had already been accepted and surveys were underway...

Our photos are in a slideshow!

2009-06-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

Here's our first attempt at gathering our photos together from the trip.

Pisces slideshow

RIP Van

2009-06-10T14:46:00.001-07:00

The van is dead, killed by the desert.

We don't even want to think about this thing (sold on craigslist in LA in under 12 hours)...but, in more positive news we are back in the San Francisco area, seeing friends and family.

Living in a van down by the marina!

2009-05-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

Cutting the rudder off. Tools used (in increasing order of desperation): Angle Grinder, Hacksaw (x2), Jigsaw, Hand Blade

An extremely bad idea on how to drop a rudder, jack the trailer up on wooden blocks like a game of Jenga.

Our sweet new ride, alongside the mother ship.

Pisces' home for the next few months.

Marina Seca San Carlos is a popular choice, we've certainly been impressed by their professionalism.

We now live in a van...

Long way from home

2009-05-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

It's hot here, and there are clouds of mosquitos, and fire ants that attack, and cows roaming loose outside the boat yard. And, today we found a small, but important, crack in our rudder.Most likely it will be a relative simple fix, however, as all boats owners will understand, getting to a point where we can have enough access to fix the rudder is a huge job in itself.

The crack is in the leading edge of the rudder, through to the shaft, in between the hull and the rudder (with a clearance of ~1/4"). To take it off, we need to remove the tiller head fitting (done), remove the below deck autopilot arm (done), remove the prop, pull the prop shaft, and (drum roll) cut the fiberglass heel fitting off (http://svpisces.blogspot.com/2008/10/boatyard-forensics.html), and then lift or tilt the boat forward to get enough clearance below to pull the rudder off.

Then we need to get the rudder back to the Bay Area so that we can work on it this summer.

Still all in all, we are extremely lucky to have found this crack here and now.

Haul out pictures

2009-05-21T15:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we made the transition from Marina San Carlos to Marina Seca work yard in preparation for heading into dry storage on Monday. It's been an adventure already, there are bloodthirsty mozzies here who seem to love my back, and around 1am last night we had a wild thunder storm. Talk about feeling vulnerable, sitting in the work yard up on stands with 500 masts around...

As work yards go it's good and the crew there was really professional and organized in transporting Pisces. Shawn and Chris came along for the short ride to Marina Seca for moral support, they rode the tractor with Jacob, I rode on Pisces. Gotta love Mexico.

At the launch ramp.
It's a busy time here, they hauled 2 boats at once

On the road

Turning into Marina Seca

Our current To-Do's

2009-05-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

Here's our current list of To-Do's to prep Pisces for dry storage. It's in a rough order, but we've been skipping around a bit.

Shop
Check Insurance
Laundry
Talk to yards/marina
Spray Key switch with WD40
Change engine oil
Find Impeller Vane (one missing piece still in cooling system)
Change out coolant (50/50)
Remove Tri-color
Remove Blocks
Add extra biocide?
Clean off anchor chain/locker
Get rid of some books
Slack rigging
Wash down running rigging
Pull Halyards
Remove Mainsheet
Remove Running Backs
Remove Sails
Clean Sails
Remove Windvane
Cover Boomgallows
Wash down boat
Remove solar panel
Cover winches
Clean Pesky
Top-up battery fluids
Clean/oil fishing rod/reel
Lash down anchors
Empty water tanks
Sort out air circulation
Go through for disposables
Grease Turnbuckles
Clean all clothes, large bags
Spices low in boat
Lube Galley Pumps
Dispose of Perishables
Oil Tools
Pack spares for preservation
Inventory Spares
Disconnect antenna leads
CD/DVD's low in boat
Check temp sensitive medicines
Remove spray paint/propane accelerants
Wipe lockers with vinegar/bleach
Clean entire interior (all lockers)
Alum foil in hatches/portholes (using car windshield reflector material)
Inventory Medical Supplies
Remove dry cell batteries
Go through purchase list and take measurements
Haul Out (Wed. 20th AM)
Plug all gaps (companionway)
Lock cockpit lockers
Foil on engine instruments
Foil the compass/instruments
Take off tiller-head fitting
Freshwater flush of engine
Antifreeze flush engine
Air-out fridge
Liferaft stored below(?)
Mineral oil in manual gusher
Prep Bottom (letting it dry this summer)
Close all thru-hulls (except cockpit drains)
Steelwool/Nylon Pads Thru hulls/vents
Inspect Rudder
Tape cover all thru hulls
Open all lockers
Rinse/empty holding tank
Vaseline/S.G. portholes/hatches
Oil in head
Stack cushions
Cockroach Poison on interior surfaces
Remove electronics, put in oven
Check/Grease all Deck Fill O-Rings
Flares?
Towel around mast step

Any Questions?

2009-05-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

We are currently in San Carlos, Sonora, having made the crossing of the Sea of Cortez in approximately 30 hours from Bahia Concepcion. The crossing itself was a mixed bag, we had great fast fun sailing, and then we got to sit in the leftover sloppy cross-seas when the fun sailing wind went away after dark. We reverted to our cup-a-noodles dinners (Julia observed that c.o.n. are a great sailing food not only because they are easy to make but also because 'it's not too bad to throw them up'...yeah it was that sort of night). We put too much faith in the weather forecasters (again) and tried to shape our course based on expected windshifts, which never materialized, meaning we ended up beating upwind for almost the entire time. We saw dorados plowing through the water in hot pursuit of flying fish. And, when we finally fired up Alpha Beta to do some motoring we noticed there was no cooling water in the exhaust, necessitating an impeller replacement in the aforementioned sloppy seas...

But, the thing which was the most strange about this particular passage, was that it was our last for the season. We are here in San Carlos (in a marina, with electricity, and water, and internet, and showers!) about to put Pisces away for a summer of dry storage. We have very mixed emotions about it, the experience up to this point has been the hardest, scariest, most intensely rewarding thing we've ever done, collectively and individually. We've both learned a huge amount about who we are, how we fit together, how people fit with nature, how other people are living, and how we might want to live in the future. We have also been pushed pushed pushed just up to our limit (and some times a bit beyond it), and we are both incredibly excited about thing slow afternoons at coffee shops with internet and newspapers, not getting up once during the night, cold everything, running water, friends & family, chinese food, indian food, pizza, hamburgers, milkshakes, frozen yogurt, etc.

We will post a few more blogs in the coming weeks, we'll post our list of to-do's so you can get a sense of how hard we will be working to prepare Pisces for the heat and winds of hurricane season, and we'll probably write a bit more of a wrap-up for the season. But now, we'd be interested if you as a reader have any questions!! An old salt wanting to know whether we use monel or stainless steel seizing wire? A landlubber wanting to know why some sails are white and some are not? Can't wrap your head around how we managed to spend the last 5 months on a boat doing ___ ? Ask away via comment or email and we'll let you know while it's all fresh.

And, to end this blog off, here's a blog post from Julia written yesterday while sailing that failed to upload due to technical problems:

We left Bahia Concepion this morning, following the fog out of the bay.

We are currently about 20 miles out of the bay barreling towards San Carlos at 5.7 kts. The wind is from the East and we are having a great sail with jib, staysail and single reefed main. The fishing line was out for a while earlier, but attracted too much attention from some nosy boobies and sea gulls, so we hauled it in not wanting to catch a bird on the line.

We can already hear the port traffic to the marinas and port captains of Guaymas and San Carlos as vessels clear in and out.

Hot, freshwater shower here we come!

Lat 27 11' N, Long 111 41' W

Cruising, the Dream Days

2009-05-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago we had one of those days that makes everything else worthwhile, the kind of day that you dream of when you decide to go cruising.

The day started with a dinghy exploration of the North side of Coyote Bay in Bahia Concepcion. With the crew of Tao we dinghied out to a small reef to do some snorkeling. As soon as we dove into the 10-20 foot deep water we realized the bottom was scattered with clams, both the small butter clams and the larger chocolata clams this region is famous for. With an hour of easy diving we had enough for dinner.

After snorkeling we headed to Santispac beach to try and arrange a ride to Mulege for the following day. After walking around the beach and talking to a couple of the locals we looked out and noticed some huge fins only a few hundred yards offshore. Turns out that there are a couple of very large whale sharks currently calling Bahia Concepcion home! We jumped in the dinghy, and slowly paddled out to within a few yards of one, who was at least 25 feet in length. After a mild bit of coaxing, persuasion, and exhortation we all donned our snorkeling gear and jumped in the water to snorkel with this gentle giant. He seemed unconcerned by us, and would let us get quite close, within a few feet. It was an amazing experience, especially given the general turbidity of the water, to see coming out of the darkness the gaping mouth which was probably 4 feet across!

Pilot fish on his head, thanks Shawn for the photo!

That evening we had a dinner of linguine with sun-dried tomato alfredo sauce, fresh clams steamed in a garlic, butter, and white wine sauce, fresh bread, and a couple bottles of great wine. The moon was almost full, and the anchorage was completely calm and the water was like glass reflecting the stars.

Lat 26 42' N, Long 111 53' W

It's a...photo montage!

2009-05-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

Pisces sailing between Isla San Francisco and Isla San Jose.

Isla San Jose, we spent a good bit of time here shuttling around either side of this sandspit according to weather.

Dead puffers are ubiquitous on the beaches around here.

Mangrove expedition on Isla San Jose

Bahia Salinas on Isla Carmen, an abandoned salt flat operation.

And when we say abandoned we mean abandoned...not sure exactly what the back-story is on this truck...

Isla Los Coronados, a great anchorage, this photo is from halfway up our climb of the 1000' cinder cone.

La Ramada, the first time we've had an anchorage completely to ourselves!

Punta Pulpito, with Tao.

Sunset over our current home, Bahia Concepcion.

Lat 26 45' N, Long 111 54' W

Swine Flu and Scurvy

2009-05-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

You might think that after getting your boat prepped with every safety gadget known to mankind, reading every account of sailing through a hurricane ever written, and learning how to speak like a pirate you would be living a life of luxury on your cruise...turns out you also get to worry about other fun stuff that is completely out of your control, like 'drug cartels', and 'anarchy', and now 'swine flu'.

Despite our currently being in Mexico (insert shocked gasp here), you probably know much more about swine flu than we do, simply because you have access to the internet. The information we do have comes from concerned emails from our parents, rumors being spread on the SSB nets, and the occasionally overheard VHF conversation. You end up with 'information' such as 'everything in Mexico is closed.' It's not terribly reassuring to actually be here but be without any real source of information, add to that the fact that you need to take the US news sources with a grain of salt, and it's impossible for us to tell what is really going on.

Actually we are probably among the safest group of people right now, just due to our isolation. We left La Paz on April 2nd, and have not been in a single village since then. More than that, we've only had close contact with 6 other people, 4 of whom also left La Paz at the same time as us. One nice thing about our isolation is that we didn't spend a single dollar during the month of April (no opportunity). One not so nice thing is that we ran out of fresh veggies long ago (except things like cabbage, onions, and potatoes), so we are probably at much higher risk of getting scurvy than swine flu.

On a more serious note, we want to reassure you all that we are being careful, we've made some changes to our plans to avoid some of the population centers that we had wanted to visit, and we'll be keeping an eye on the situation prior to heading in to San Carlos to haul Pisces out for the summer. And if the isolation isn't enough on it's own, we also have a decent stash of anti-viral medicine.

In the meantime we have been hanging out having a great time, sailing Pesky, whale watching from the deck of our boat while at anchor, reading a ton of books, doing the most amazing snorkeling we have ever done, drinking our stash of Waiheke Island wine (it would probably go bad if we left it in the heat of the summer right?), and sharing dinners with Shawn & Chris on Tao talking about what we are all going to do with the rest of our lives.

Lat 26 31' N, Long 111 27' W