Messages from the deep blue sea! From Irena and Leona

Writing this Day 9, 11:30 am and doing so because we have had a few challenges with the computer air mail program resulting in it being difficult to post messages. We think we have this all sorted out right now, thanks to the great problem solving ability of Irena and Cress.

The Spinnaker is flying! Yesterday was the first day after 4.5 attempts. The problem, was not the sail, it was in the deployment. Very difficult to describe, but imagine a 60 foot sock around a large lightweight sail, a bucket on the top, and a huge sail bag on the bottom. Anyway, the rope mechanism to bring the spinnaker sock up and down was all twisted and had to be re-configured. Cress and Paul have been doing a fantastic job of running the boat and all the sails etc. They have been managing
the strategy associated with our course in relation to the weather reports.

For Leona and I cooking has been a tremendous pleasure for both of us, and we are enjoying being creative - and the guys are enjoying the results. Fun. We basically bought all the meat and had it packaged as stewing portions, but I think we only had "stew" once - a beef stew we had on the second or third night! So, you can imagine the diversity - from saurkraut and pork to chicken curry to a full turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing (that was in honor of Leona's birthday a couple
of days ago). The guys still talk about the beef stew - so I guess we will have to do that one again. Might have had something to do with that being the first dinner after eating very little while we managed our sea sickness.

We are enjoying our watches most of the time and the happy hours are excellent. Every evening we all convene in the cockpit at about 5 pm. and share a cocktail or glass of wine together. Last night we had a "half way" party and we dressed up, sang songs, and ate and drank to our hearts content. The wind and waves cooperated nicely for that! Leona and I had made up a list of songs on one of our night watches a couple of days before, so we had no shortage of tunes to sing. We went through the list,
top to bottom, and added a few as they came to mind, and at the very least, got one full verse and chorus sung between all of us. We even managed a few "round" songs, which were the most fun. Al came dressed in a pirate costume, complete with Guatemala belt a wooden gun (from his grandpa) and a pirate patch :) - only Al could pack like that!

The weather is warm and is staying cloudy, which is actually good, otherwise, it would be way too hot. So we are thankful for that. Between cooking, our watches and sleeping, we have barely had any time to read. We are just loving it all. The company, the sailing and the all around experience is just wonderful. Jordan and Paul are also having a great time, although Jordan has had a persistent cough for the duration. Cress's dad - Don - has stepped in and taken over a few watches for Jordan. Don is
having a wonderful time as well - "how could I be such a lucky parent" is what he said last night.

Lunch time soon. Time to prepare a bean salad!
Signing off with warm greetings to all.
Irena and Leona

Day 5 and 6

All well today for everyone on board. We started the day when the whole crew got up for the 3:00 am watch to sing happy birthday to Leona! Wow, what a crazy way to wake up at sea! We finished the day with a turkey dinner no less - life at sea is a terrible hardship.

Absolutely blissful sailing today as well. We have been sailing along all day today under the clearest blue skies you have ever seen. Trade winds at our backs, sails hung out 'wing on wing', we spent the day hanging around on deck and in the cockpit reading, chatting and taking in the view. Breathtaking. Lovely day.

Almost put our spinnaker up today, but the winds got up over 12 knots and I chickened out. It is the worlds biggest sail, and I don't think, from the look of it, anybody has ever had the courage to put it up before. Ayhhhhhhhhhhhhhh tomorrow is another day.

We set our watches ahead this morning as we have covered enough distance west to move an hour. Paul proved it today when he got out the sextant and shot a noon sight. Local noon, the two or three seconds in the day when the sun can be seen in the sextant to stop rising, hold still for a moment and then begin to decend, was 1150 hours - one hour west of PDST.

Tomorrow or the next day should see us half way. It's hard to believe, and it will be over all too soon at this rate.

All well. Am looking forward to a peaceful night in my birth, aside from my 12 to 3 am watch, and another perfect sailing day tomorrow.

Cheers
Captain Cresswell

(no subject)

Day three, and we are settling in. Finally, we have a chance to dry out the boat and our cloths after the first two days of sailing on the wind. It was quite like Niagara Falls down in the cabin those first two nights. Really, with water pouring below down the leaky hatches, there was water everywhere. I still can't believe it, but I didn't notice the boat came with vents in the hatches that don't seal, so every wave that came aboard, ran down the deck, tripped into the hatch vent and went straight
below. What were they thinking! Poor Al and Leona, they bore the brunt of it, stationed as they were in the main cabin. But now, all that is all behind us. This morning, as the winds went aft we poled out the genoa to starboard, strapped the boom and main sail down to port and have been running wing and wing dead downwind all this glorious afternoon in the sun. The decks have dried, and our spirits have risen. We have shed the foul weather gear and hang about in the cockpit in shorts and smiles.
This is the perfect sailing we hear about, the perfect downwind sled ride the rest of the way to Hawaii, we hope!

Courage comes to mind as I think back those first couple of days and nights. As you can imagine, the prospect of sailing for 2100 miles to Hawaii is daunting. It is made quite a bit worse by the water pouring in, by the sea sickness, by the dark and cold and the howl of the wind. I remember the look of focused, determination on Irena's face, as she went about the grim business of cleaning up the bile, feeling pretty sick herself. Hard to say which is worse: To be on your knees like me, in the dark,
bellowing into a plastic bowl on the cabin floor, or to be the one cleaning up after those that failed to find a suitable container! Neither is easy or much fun. All of us, though, carried on as we needed to do to get the job done, to sail the boat, to feed ourselves, to sleep and get dressed and go back up on deck to stand watch without complaint. What troopers we are! Good on us.

This is the price of admission to this magic kingdom, the kingdom of being at sea on a day such as this. Being willing to get past our initial fears, past our sea sickness until we get our sea legs - this is the price to be paid for what is really worthwhile at sea as in life. If we can bring ourselves to make the jump into the feared and the challenging, we live a better day in the sun.

We are now about 550 miles from San Francisco, and 1600 miles to go to Hawaii. Lots of room for adventure yet!
Out for now
Captain Cresswell

Sail tomorrow with the tide

2230 Wednesday July 22, Alameda, CA.

 

What have we forgotten? What will it be like to be sailing again for the horizon until land disappears behind us? What lies for us over the 2100 miles as we sail to Hawaii. How will we feel sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge tomorrow?

 

We sail with tide at 7 am. This is the beginning of a very big sail – The first leg of our sail to Hawaii marks just the beginning. We will all be up with the sun, making final preparations, each of us arranging our gear, doing the final stowing of provisions and checking the ships gear. There won’t be one amongst us who wont be feeling some trepidation mixed with excitement over what the next two to three weeks holds. But none of us would trade places with anyone on the planet!

 

Earlier tonight, as the sun was setting over the Grand Marina, the champagne flowed as we thanked Poseidon and toasted those that sailed aboard this boat before us. We were, you see, renaming her and being careful not to offend the gods of the sea. We were careful not to offend. We each spoke over the toast, saying thanks for other’s safe passages before us, and asking the same for ours. We were remembering those we love who are not with us for this trip, and saying a few words about what it means to each of us to be on this journey.

 

And we are ready. The boat is ready. Our families are ready. And we are ready as a crew of friends and family to share this journey together. After the de-naming words were spoken, we opened another bottle, and toasted to her new name, Conversations II. We crowded over the transom and spilled champagne over her new name in blue. Others in the marina must have thought we were nuts, but there are enough sailors here, to know this is serious business!

 

And now, the lights are going out over each of our bunks. As each of us close out this our last day ashore, I think we are all wondering how much we will sleep tonight and what tomorrow will bring.  What will tomorrow bring? I for one, can’t wait to find out!

 

Cresswell

Love at first sight "Conversations II"

Of course we wanted her on first sight. To look at her at the dock, how could we say but yes to her beauty and her mute proposal of nuptials? Simply in her form and fashion there was a promise in her silent whisper “You will love me”.

And so we did. The very next day, I was drowning in the whirlwind of making arrangements to make her ours. It was an intense time. Within a week we had commissioned and completed a professional boat survey, taken her out of the water to check below the waterline, and labored many hours aboard her looking her over from stem to stern. Great sums of savings then changed hands in a blur of escrow paperwork, registered tonnage certificates and insurance. Then, finally I had my first sail. Not the timid sea trial of the pre-purchase survey with her ex-owner onboard, (how could she have every been owned by another!) but the first real sail, in a real blow, with enough sea room and wind to let her run as she can. Enough wind to blow clear the cobwebs of paperwork and to start breaking some gear. It was everything promised ….

……….As the breeze built, and the sun shone that day over the Golden Gate Bridge that day, we set off from the dock. I whispered a silent prayer “Now prove to me, my beauty, that you are what you say you are.” Even in the early morning’s faint whispers, before the real wind came up for the day, I saw she was, indeed, easily driven. She was well balanced, almost sailing herself, needing only the lightest touch on her helm. Then as the day built with the heat of the summer sun, the winds crowded in cold in from the Pacific, bracing, refreshing, and STRONG! I thought, “Now this will test our mettle”

Even In those first few moments, she reminded me what I had forgotten, but so longed for. She reminded me what it is like to be sailing on the wind in a fast boat that hunts with each puff for those few extra boat lengths to weather. She reminded me what it is like sail off the wind in a boat with a strong back and a big, powerful rig. For as the day built, I could feel her only waiting for me to turn her loose and then….. oh gawd…. there she went. So responsive, I could not help but whoop for joy to surf along under the press of her great main sail and jib drawing in the spray. Even though I feared I was holding her so hard to lee her steering cables would fail, she only went faster. And to my enduring exhilaration, we roared along, her bow wave back at the shrouds, chasing down wave after wave…….

Yup, this is the right place.
This is where we are going to post our daily blogs during our sailboat passage to Hawaii from San Francisco in our 'new to us' boat "Conversations II", weather and radio permitting. You see, at sea, we can only send email over the ham radio, which isn't always that easy. Maybe the weather will get nasty and we will get busy, or a wave will come down the companionway and drown out our electrics and radios, or maybe we will get so caught up in the beauty of it all, we will just forget! But it is my commitment to do my best to stay in touch with you.

We are leaving next week around about Thursday or Friday (July 24 or 25) from San Francisco. The boat is an Oyster Lightwave 48. She is fast and comfortable with room for 10. This will be the first leg of the very long delivery home to Singapore. After our first stop at Hawaii, I'll be heading off across the Pacific sometime in September.

Let me introduce the crew for this first leg. First there is my darling partner Irena. She is the one who found the boat thanks to her legendary tenacity. She is taking time off from work with her other crew at Microsoft to sail to Hawaii. I hear the guys and gals back at the office are pretty jealous! Then there is my dear old Dad. Don, is pushing 80 and is not one to be left out of an adventure! (We promise to return him safe and sound Mom! Then there is Paul, my life long sailing buddy, and Jordon his pre-teen son. Finally, dear Al and Leona, long time friends from our formative mid life crisis years at Haven.ca, will be with us on their first ever offshore passage (though Al has shivered his way up the wild coast of west Vancouver Island with us in our last boat).

So that's the line up. You will be able to follow our daily position at http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/reporter_list.php which has a very cool 'goole-earth-like' picture of our track. Make bets on how many sea miles we sail every day. Have a lottery on when we will actually arrive in Hawaii. Read our post to learn how well we are really getting along! Bring pop corn!

Cress