Papeete to San Francisco pictures

Today I sorted through the pictures from the Papeete to San Francisco passages, selected a few and added them to the blog entries made during the trip.

There are some nice ones showing the size of the "squalls" on the radar. They were more like miniature storm systems. The radar scale (radius of the area displayed) in the left window of the display is 24nm, so top to bottom or left edge to right edge is 48nm. One picture shows a system that is over 50 miles long and maybe 10 miles wide. Another covers most of the radar display which means several thousand square miles of ocean! I have been asked several times if we couldn't have sailed around the squalls; I think the pictures show why that wasn't an option.

There are also a few sunsets (of course), as well as a picture of the skiff we almost hit while passing through tsunami debris.

You can flip back through the older entries with a click right here, then scroll down to the Papeete departure or wherever you see a picture.

Hawaii to San Francisco

Home for ten days now, rested and busy unloading New Morning. Finally getting around to a passage summary.

Total miles sailed: 2,468nm
Rhumb line: 2,081nm
Days on passage: 14.75

Best day: 187nm
Worst day: 144nm

Average day: 167nm
Average speed: 7.0kts

Hours motoring: 172hrs (7.2 days!)
Fuel consumption: 1.4gph

This was the slowest passage I've ever had on New Morning. The first five days, as we made our northing, the true wind speed was consistently in the high teens and low twenties, but with lots of squalls. The squalls covered large areas (e.g., 2,000 square miles) and were impossible to get around. I'll post some pictures of the radar soon to give you an idea. We frequently found ourselves with either too little sail area in anticipation of a big blast from a squall, or too little wind after a squall had passed (depending on which side).

Once we reached the high, it was improbably large. The high stretched from about 38N all the way into Canada. The usual strategy of going over "the top" of the high was not an option. We motored across the high at about 39N, expecting to find strong winds on the other side. But when we emerged from the high, we first had 36hrs of "winter" weather with cooler winds from the NE and lots of rain and squalls. We made poor progress due to the constant squalls which shifted the wind back and forth from a true direction of 35-120 degrees.

Once the "winter weather" was over we had about 12hrs of really delightful sailing before the wind went light and shifted all the way to the west. An odd little low pressure area was hanging off the coast of Oregon and shifted the wind to the west, forcing us to start motoring again. At this point fuel was getting low so for two days we cut the engine back to 1800rpm which gave us 6kts but burned only 1gph and gave us our poorest day of just 144nm.

Eventually the low dissipated (about 24-36hrs after NOAA had forecast) and we had plenty of breeze the last 24hrs as the water temperature dropped all the way to 52F and it became very cold. We had 20+ kts the last day and 30-35kts for the final four hours before we reached the Farallone Islands. Once we passed the SF pilot buoy the breeze began to fade entirely and we actually had to motor down the ship channel before picking up a light southerly breeze that carried us through the Golden Gate.

Although most people consider a 15 day passage from Hawaii to San Francisco to be fairly fast, we have to give most of the credit to Yanmar and large fuel tanks on New Morning.

What a greeting!

Our final few hours of sailing into San Francisco brought even stronger winds of 30-35kts, just aft the beam for about 4hrs. The winds abated as we approached the San Francisco pilot buoy and we had to actually motor in the ship channel until we picked up a light southerly breeze. But then the big greeting!

With cell service, we got several messages that the space shuttle would be flying over on the back of a modified 747, the way they used to transport it from Edwards AFB to Florida. Sure enough, right around Mile Rock, it flew over us from roughly north to south. But the show wasn't over. They flew back east over San Francisco, then flew fairly low, right between the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, and finally banked to the south and turned directly overhead of New Morning. We probably had the optimal view of the whole fly by. Really a spectacular greeting!

We proceeded on through the bridge and to our waiting friends and family at the St. Francis YC. What a finish to a tiring trip.

Home stretch

It has been blowing 25-30kts just aft the beam since midnight with seas right on the beam that roll us around. About every 90 seconds we get whacked by a wave that sends water flying across the deck to splatter on the windshield of the dodger. With just a double reefed main we're making 7-8kts. It is stunningly clear and terrifically cold. The diesel heater is keeping the cabin toasty warm while I type.

We're about 60 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. Looking out across the bow, the mast, forestay, shrouds, lifelines, etc. are silhouetted against a glow on the horizon from the lights of the bay area.

I am looking forward to dawn, a little less wind and a hot cup of coffee.

ETA: 11:30am

One more day

The winds continue to bedevil us. The low off of Portland that has bent the wind to the west did not dissipate as scheduled by NOAA. We were able to sail for a few hours last night, but then had to resume motoring. This morning it's been back and forth. At the moment we've just resumed sailing and the sun is threatening to appear.

The big news today is dolphins! We've had at least two visitations by pods of dolphins this morning. Maybe 6-10 dolphins around the boat, criss crossing in front the bow, racing from astern to the bow and generally cavorting around New Morning. They look smaller than the dolphins in the Caribbean, but larger than the porpoises we've seen in and around the bay. In any case it's a really nice greeting as we approach the coast.

We have about 174 miles to go as of noon so the new ETA is noon on Friday, at the dock.

Waiting for the wind

The sun came out for awhile today which was a nice break from the gray on gray (a far less interesting version of Fifty Shades!) as we waited for the wind to clock back to the NW or N and build enough to allow us to sail. At 2am it's still just 8kts from the WNW and the double reefed main is still slatting so we're plodding along at 1800RPM to conserve fuel, making about 6kts. The forecast is for the wind to build a bit by the morning so we can start sailing (getting very low on fuel) and then build to a full 24kts by this time Friday morning. Then it's supposed to die off again as we pass the Farallone Islands, enter the ship channel and approach the Golden Gate. So we need to save some fuel for the home stretch.

Definitely more ship traffic in the last 24hrs. Probably half a dozen ships crossed our radar screen, all of them no closer than about 15 miles. Currently being approached by one that says it's destination is Vancouver (so why so far out here?) that is supposed to pass within 4.5nm.

We finished the last of the chocolate chip cookies so we must be getting close to San Francisco! I broke out of the "defrost, heat and eat" paradigm today and cooked myself a grilled cheese sandwich with some nice multigrain bread Fay bought in Honolulu and aged cheddar cheese from New Zealand that we bought in Moorea. Looking forward to Fay's pasta casserole tomorrow night.

Earlier tonight as the sun set it revealed the waxing crescent moon which produced a nice reflection off the water for an hour or two before the moon set as well, revealing a star filled sky. The sky remained clear until about half an hour ago when the overcast spread quickly after Paul went off watch and now I am immersed in darkness. No moon, no stars, just darkness with a little bio luminescence in the water, stirred up by the prop and trailing in our wake. The water temperature continues to drop, now at 61F and leaving New Morning is covered with a thick layer of condensation. The forecast says the water temp will drop to 50F, but that seems colder than the usual temperatures off the coast at this time of year so I'm a little skeptical. In any case it's cold and damp on deck, but the Espar heater keeps the cabin toasty warm.

ETA: Friday morning 9-10am

The culprit

As we continue motoring east at 6kts, with 8kts of wind now on our starboard quarter (i.e., WSW) I've been trying to understand what has happened to our wind. Wind from the SW in our area is usually associated with a low pressure system, but we've been dealing with a massive high pressure system.

I downloaded the current NOAA surface analysis, as well as the 24hr and 48hr forecasts. There it is. A weak low pressure area sitting off the coast of Portland. It protrudes from the coast and into the high like a pot belly hanging over a belt. The wind follows the curve of the belly and we get a WSW wind. Fortunately it is labeled as "DSIPT" which is NOAA speak for dissipating, though we view it more as disappointing. It is gone on the 48hr forecast which is why the GRIBs forecast that we'll have a weak sailing breeze by about midnight which builds tomorrow and into a very brisk breeze (20-25) by Thursday night as the high is compressed by a low to the west.

Is this beginning to sound like your nightly news weatherman, but without the spiffy graphics, loud sports coat and bad jokes? So be it, we'll be obsessed with the weather until we arrive.

The surface forecasts also show what is behind us and it's a good thing we didn't depart a week later. There is a very deep low pressure system currently about 1,400 miles to the west which is producing gale force winds (35-40kts with 20' seas) where we were located just six days ago, and storm force winds just to the west of that (50kts with 30' seas). We will be happy to be arriving soon.

ETA: Friday morning between 9-noon (remember, it's an estimate)

From great sailing to slow motoring

Last night and much of yesterday was really pleasant sailing. Overall, the wind has made a huge shift from ENE to WNW, while we are trying to travel East. ENE was lousy as it forced us to the south. But as the wind shifted we had about 18hrs of really nice sailing with the wind from the North and NW. A light wind of 8-12kts from the perfect direction with relatively calm seas and the sun shining. Really great.

Then the wind continued to shift until it was almost directly behind us, causing the apparent wind to decline to almost nothing and forcing us to motor again. At the same time the sky became overcast. So we're now motoring along with the wind almost directly behind us while rolling in a NW swell which causes the sail to slat (or more accurately slam) back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. We've double reefed the main so that there is not much sail area, but if we take it down entirely to stop the slatting, then we'll roll really badly, so we endure the slatting and hope it doesn't break anything in the process.

We're motoring slowly so that we get better mileage. At just 1800rpm, rather than our usual 2300, we make about 6kts versus our usual 7kts, but we burn only 1gph versus our usual 1.5gph. 85% of the speed for 66% of the fuel is a good trade off when we're low on fuel and trying to avoid arriving in the middle of the night.

During the really nice sailing yesterday, while the sun was shining, we took our last shower in the cockpit. The hot shower water in the bright sun felt great, but the moment I turned off the water - zing - very crisp air - where is my towel!

Not too much to report now. It's absolutely pitch black on deck. There is a thick overcast so the sky is simply black, not a hint of light. I'm using the masthead tricolor light even though we're sailing because it provides much better long distance visibility if anyone is looking our way. I don't think a big ship really cares if we're sailing or motoring, more important to just be seen. A couple of ships have passed far behind us, no close encounters. As I write, another ship is passing to the north of us, but won't come any closer than 17 miles. Also no tsunami debris. We did see one fishing float, but those are pretty common everywhere, just bobbing along.

It's pretty cold in the cockpit at night and we're both bundled up with lots of wool and Patagonia products. Yesterday we began using New Morning's diesel fueled heater to heat the aft cabin and the salon. In the tropics we used it for hot shower water, but this is the first time since we departed Maine in 2008 that we've used it to heat the interior of the boat.

The forecast is that tomorrow the wind will shift back to the NW and begin to build so we'll be able to resume sailing. By Thursday evening we're supposed to have 20-22kts for our final dash into San Francisco. That should make for some exciting, and chilly sailing.

ETA: Friday morning

Direction of the wind

The readers who are sailors should skip this entry.

I realized that I make many references to wind direction and these may not make much sense to the non-sailors, so here is a brief explanation.

First, I usually refer to the true wind. This is the wind as it is actually blowing as perceived from a non-moving position and is different from the apparent wind which is as perceived from the boat in motion. So imagine a car driving down the road directly into a 10mph wind at 50mph (I know - impossibly slow). The driver rolls down the window and perceives the wind blowing at 60mph, while someone standing on the side of the road (perhaps out of gas) perceives the wind blowing at 10mph. The same thing happens on the boat where the sailors perspective is called the "apparent" wind and the wind as perceived by someone on land is the "true" wind. I almost always refer to the true wind.

Then there are wind direction references which are relative to the boat. These are usually a number from 0-180, where 0 is the bow and 180 is the stern. There are also references relative to the "beam" of the boat. The "beam" is the widest spot of the boat, a point perpendicular to the long axis of the boat, or at 90 degrees. So if the wind is forward of the beam, it's in the range of 0-89, on the beam is 90, and aft the beam is 91-180. Generally speaking, forward of the beam is more difficult and less comfortable, aft the beam is faster and more enjoyable. So if the wind is at 45 (hard on the wind or beating), that's not as nice as if it is as at 120 (broad reaching). On the beam or "beam reaching" is the fastest point of sail.

Then there is the wind direction relative to compass, also known as the wind rose or compass rose. These are classical definitions dating back hundreds or thousands of years. You probably remember from high school geometry (who could forget?) that a circle is divided into 360 degrees. For sailors, the compass is first divided into the cardinal points of north, east, south and west, each 90 degrees. Then these are divided by the ordinal points at 45 degrees, and finally the half winds are inserted between the ordinal points at 22.5 degrees.

And finally, the wind is named for the direction it blows from, while the travel of the boat refers to the direction it is going to. So a boat on a course of 090 with an east wind has the wind on the bow (not good).

What we've experienced in the last 24hrs is a shift in the wind from ENE, east north east or 67.5 degrees, to WNW, west north west or 292.5 degrees. In our case, both were poor directions for the wind as we are attempting to travel east (or 090).

You should now be thoroughly confused. Just read this again 4-5 times and I'm sure it will all make perfect sense. Below is the complete table of directions with the degrees, abbreviation, and full name traveling around the rose in a clockwise direction.

0 - N - North
22.5 - NNE - North Northeast
45 - NE Northeast
67.5 - ENE - East Northeast
90 - E - East
112.5 - ESE - East Southeast
135 - SE - Southeast
157.5 - SSE - South Southeast
180 - S - South
202.5 - SSW - South Southwest
225 - SW - Southwest
247.5 - WSW - West Southwest
270 - W - West
292.5 - WNW - West northwest
315 - NW - Northwest
337.5 - NNW - North northwest

Embracing slow

The skies improved yesterday morning while we slowly motored north under rainy skies. Then the wind backed and a light breeze filled in, enabling us to begin sailing (so much quieter). We had smooth, though slow sailing through the afternoon and evening until about midnight at which time the breeze had really dropped and we began motoring slowly again. A few weak squalls have appeared on the radar and while I've been able to begin sailing again, the wind is shifting south and I think those squalls are again at work, though they look much smaller that the last two nights and the small increase in wind speed to 11kts is a good tradeoff for the shift in direction to the south.

In any case the 36hrs of lousy weather and squalls pushed us south and slowed us down. So now we have an "embracing slow" strategy. The distance to travel is too far to arrive at a reasonable time on Thursday night, and too little to arrive on Friday morning. Since we do not want to arrive in the middle of the night, we will sail slow (not a problem with such light wind), and then motor slow when/if the wind backs as the forecasts suggest. Then the forecast has a proper San Francisco greeting with 15-20kts the last day or so when we'll pretty much have no choice but to be sailing fairly fast. We'll check the forecast again in the morning to see if this scenario is still valid. The advantage at this point is that motoring slowly for 150 miles or so will stretch out our fuel (better mileage) which will help us in case the forecast shifts and there are even more light winds.

Last night and yesterday we had two interesting encounters with ships.

The first was a ship that was overtaking us from directly astern, right on our same course. It was a 900' Panamax (largest ship that can go through the canal) container ship. They didn't respond to my first call, but did respond to my second call. The voice sounded like a slightly bored Russian and after a brief discussion he assured me that he could see us and would alter course to starboard to avoid us. Later, when he drew to within six miles and had not altered course, I called again. Again he assured me he would alter course, not to worry. To our surprise, a few minutes later he called us back, asked us to switch to another channel and said he wanted to ask some questions. He turned out to be quite interested in what such a "little" boat was doing out here, how many were on board, where we were going, etc, etc. And he was indeed Russian. We ended up having an extended chat about his boat, his trip, our boat, our trip, his experiences on a Russian training ship (so he was probably an officer), his trips to Oakland and taking the "metro" to San Francisco, etc. etc. He did change course to starboard, and then turned on a whole bunch of his lights as he went by, quite a show!

The second ship was during the day and on our exact opposite course, a 1,000'+ container ship coming straight at us at 20kts. Paul was on watch and contacted the ship which responded that they could not see us on radar or visually. Paul followed regarding what they would do, and they failed to respond. He tried again and no response. It was at the watch change so when I came up we decided to take evasive action, dropped the sails, started the engine and turned away from the ship. It ended up crossing us about a mile and a half to our port side; at which time they came on the radio and told us they could see us! Didn't that warm our hearts. It was clear the guy was interested in strictly a CYA communication as he gave some information that he obviously put into his log. Paul was quite miffed and took notes so that he could complain to the company (MSC) and the international authorities, when we arrive. Had Paul not been paying close attention and taken evasive action the encounter would have been much closer.

This final 900 miles has turned out to be a real challenge with each 100 miles of progress requiring a different approach. Not just a matter of setting the sails and following the course to our destination. So we're grinding it out and adapting to each change in the weather. 525 miles to go.

ETA: Friday morning

Slowly, very slowly

The forecast as shown in the GRIBs, and our reality, continue to have little in common. It's been winter on New Morning with overcast skies heavy with rain clouds and cold at night.

Last night was another night of squalls. One particularly nasty one hit 27kts before I finally rolled up the jib and started fore reaching to calm things down. It continued with 23-25 for another half hour. I waited out the next two squalls going very slowly while they hit us with 20-25kts from the ESE. Better to slowly sail towards California than quickly sail towards Ecuador. Then the sky opened up and the stars came out, but it blew a steady 20kts from the ESE. All the while the GRIBs were forecasting 10kts from the NE.

The squalls continue this morning, but without as much vigor. None the less they cause 40-60 degree shifts in the wind. It's been impossible to tell where the real gradient wind actually is because the wind seems to always be a function of the nearest squall. As soon as one has passed, another appears. It's impossible to get into any kind of groove and sail the boat so we are making very slow progress.

And as insult to injury, there is a .3-.5kt current that alternates pushing us either west or south. Doesn't sound like much, but it's 6-12nm / day which is like losing 1-1.5hrs of progress each day

Then this morning's forecast showed that our "southern strategy" (worked for Nixon!), was not going to work because the wind was going to die out entirely. Previously the forecast had shown that the wind would clock dramatically to the WNW so taking the ENE wind to the south, then turning up when it backed would give us good speed. But now the model says the wind will die entirely if we head that way. The GRIBs say that right now we should have 8kts from 20 degrees magnetic when in fact the wind is blowing from 70 degrees magnetic. That's the difference between sailing to San Francisco and sailing to Ecuador. So we motor slowiy north.

I have no explanation for the winter weather. The surface analysis shows nothing but white space and two isobars between our current position and California. No fronts, no nothing. So where do we get two days of rain clouds and squalls? NOAA, your funding is in question. The only explanation for the wind at 70 versus 20 is that the high is further east than the NOAA computer models think it is, hence the wind is still bending around the SE corner of the high, rather than blowing north/south on it's east side.

All we can do is cope with what we've got and try to move towards San Francisco while using our remaining fuel as judiciously as possible and sailing when the breeze will let us make progress towards home. We remain ever optimistic that the wind will eventually match the GRIBs and we'll be able to point the bow towards California. At this point we've made a decision to motor slowly NE to take some time off the clock so that we don't arrive at 2am.

ETA: Friday morning

Squalls continue

We had squalls all last night. The morning came with a thick overcast and rain. The squalls cleared out in the late morning and by 2pm we were sailing. Very nice to shut off the motor. But we could see thick dark clouds on the horizon and now we're again immersed in squalls. At the moment we're beating into 18-20 of true wind and headed for South America.

The forecast is that tomorrow the wind will back (i.e., shift from ENE to NW) and we'll turn north.

ETA: Thursday night.

Squally night

Pitch black squally night. And unlike in the tropics, these squalls don't show up on the radar. The squalls jump the wind from 10 to 20 and turn us towards Mexico, churning up the sea in the process. We have to get past the high and into a more northerly flow.

ETA: Late Thursday, looking like Friday morning.

Farmers, fisherman and sailors

What do they have in common? They all complain about the weather. Mea culpa. It's either too much wind, or too little, or from the wrong direction, or the sea state is too rough, or…

Right now it's too little wind. We've been motoring for three days and it looks like we'll motor for another three days. We've been mostly motor sailing, meaning we have the sails up while motoring. It's normal to have a reefed main up to help stabilize the boat, but we've also had the jib up a lot of the time. We trim the sails, and tweak our course, to get as much push out of the wind as possible in addition to the motor. Yesterday's noon-noon distance was 187nm which means our efforts produced a good push out of the wind, even though it never blew over 7-8kts.

There is no going over the top of the high as I wrote a few day ago, not this trip. The high is stretched out along a 1,000 mile SW/NE axis from just to the NW of us to north of British Columbia. We are nipping across the southern edge of the high, encountering light headwinds (i.e., from the east) in the process. We could go further north to avoid the light head winds, but it's just more miles and at best a sum zero trade off with motoring into the wind. And we're using the headwinds to push us along also, changing course by a bit to have the wind hit the main at a good angle and help us, or at least not hurt us. At least that's our theory. And Paul and I are very good at inventing theories!

There are no wind waves, but we've had a variety of fairly large swells. Looking out over the ocean is like looking out over blue undulating sand dunes, except that the dunes are constantly in motion. We climb up a dune, then slide down the other side. The swells come from different directions so sometimes they conspire to present an unusual shape or slope and New Morning obliging traverses whatever we encounter.

We're managing our engine speed to stretch out the fuel consumption. We sailed 4,000 miles from the Galapagos to Tahiti and only used 100 gallons of fuel because we had reliable trade winds. On this trip I think we'll probably use virtually all of New Morning's 280 gallons of fuel; we may end up motoring over 1,100 miles on this trip. Not our first choice, but as long as we safely reach our destination then it's a good passage.

There have been a pair of albatrosses around the boat for the last day. I'm pretty sure they're albatrosses as they have a huge wing span. They swoop and glide over the waves and rarely flap their wings. They fly right on the surface of the water, their wing tips can't miss the water by more than a few inches and they go for a long time without a single flap, gliding up and down and in and out of the waves. Unlike the Ancient Mariner we will do the birds no harm, and though we are as a painted ship on a painted ocean, our water maker keeps us well stocked in fresh water.

Which is good because we need to wash down the mountain of cookies and brownies that Fay and Caitlin made for us! Last night (two nights ago as you read this) we had a near tragedy. I discovered ants (how / why we have ants on a sailboat at sea is another story) had invaded the cookie box! Horrors! I meticulously removed the offenders from each cookie and brownie, placed the deserts in a new container and killed the offending insects. Now we keep the cookie box on top of the stove where the ants never visit.

You may recall our near miss with the upside down skiff two days ago. Fortunately yesterday we saw very little floating debris, virtually none. So with luck we are past those hazards.

The water temperature continues to fall, and with it the air temperature. I was actually cold in my bunk this evening when I got up at midnight. When I grabbed the stainless hand rails on the companionway they felt cold to the touch. I got out the blue tape and covered up most of the dorade vent which was blasting cold air into the aft cabin. Then I dug out the heavy blanket that Fay had set aside for us. I checked the engine room temperature and found in that it was only 93 degrees despite running full time for three days; it used to be that hot in French Polynesia when the engine wasn't even running. But alas, seeking further validation I checked the galley thermometer and it still read 74 degrees! Apparently there is a wide gap between "cooler" and "cold".

But it really is cooler. There are no more squalls, just puffy cumulus clouds which made for a nice sunset. Not the towering thunderheads that plagued us for the first five days (see farmers, fisherman and sailors above).

Tonight is a moonless night, totally clear with a zillion stars, the milky way, etc. Stars that reach right down to the horizon in every direction. But it feels a bit like visiting an observatory as the night air is cold and the 13kts of apparent wind (generated by the boat motoring through the night) adds a wind chill. It could be well down into the 60's! But don't worry, Paul has brought all his ski clothes and I have expedition pants and Patagonia shirts and jackets. And like wimps we hide under the hard dodger out of the wind. If all else fails we'll turn on the heater inside the boat and Paul will make more tea.

Less than a 1,000 miles to San Francisco, and actually almost the same, just 60 miles further, to Seattle. That's an oddity that we explored earlier today. How could we be right at the latitude of San Francisco, yet equidistant to Seattle which is pretty much the same longitude as SF? It's the deceptive Mercator projection. In reality the distance between the lines of longitude narrows dramatically as you approach the poles so while we would have to traverse the same amount of longitudinal difference, the actual distance is much less and offsets the required travel in latitude.

Ok, I can see I'm losing you so let me cut to the chase. Seattle and San Diego are essentially equidistant from Honolulu (about 2,300 miles), and San Francisco is about 200 miles closer at roughly 2,100 miles. Isn't geography fun?

ETA: Thursday afternoon, September 20th (remember, estimated, not scheduled)

Half way

The wind continues to tease us. Our choice is to either sail at 6kts, or motor sail at 8kts. That may not sound like much, but it's 50miles / day and would easily add another day, maybe two depending on arrival time, to the overall trip. I'm a total believer in Steve Dashew's thesis (cruising sailor, author, yacht designer) that the safest passage is a fast passage, so we're motor sailing. We keep trying to sail every six hours or so, but so far we're about 2kts short of the wind we need to be able to sail at 7kts.

In any case we passed the half way point today. Paul and I celebrated in the late afternoon by splitting a beer in the aft end of the cockpit while basking in the sun. Our latitude is now north of San Francisco, the water temperature has dropped further and it's definitely chilly on the night watches.

We're in the "garbage patch" and we've seen a collection of stuff. Some of it is clearly tsunami debris, other is just junk. We see lots of little bits of white styrofoam and larger pieces of what looks like insulation, usually with a lot of marine growth. Then there are a lot of black and pink balls. The pink/orange ones look like fishing floats, but we can't figure out what the black ones would be. They are maybe 18" - 24" in diameter and lots of them. My favorite so far is a tub we saw this afternoon. It looked like a plastic, terra cotta colored tub about 3' long and a couple of feet deep, sitting up high on the water just floating along. Amazing that it could float this far and never fill with water.

Then finally the big news today was mid-morning when I was below sorting through the weather and our routing choices. I had been at the computer for awhile and Paul was asleep when it occurred to me that I should go up top and take a look around. I popped my head up out of the companionway for a quick look around and about 50yds in front of us was a fiberglass skiff, maybe 25' - 30' long, floating upside down. I ran back to the helm and made a quick right turn to avoid it. Then I grabbed the little Olympus camera and got a picture as it went by which I will post later. Had we hit it, I doubt it would have done anything more than cosmetic damage, but it probably would have scared the hell out of us.

A cold front arrived in the late afternoon and is sitting just to the NW. Paul dug out his weather book and we explored the dynamics of fronts and what the possible implications would be for us. All we could figure out is that there might be some rain. We're obsessed with weather, but we're not very good weatherman.

The high is stretched out on a SW/NE axis and absolutely huge, stretching far into Canada. We are not really going around the top of it as much as cutting across the lower edge. Our arcing route, which should be beginning to take shape in the position reports, takes us up to 40N (a bit north of Mendocino) before we turn directly for San Francisco. We think of it as going around something, but in reality there is nothing but water for over a 1,000 miles in every direction. I realized today that we were about equidistant from Anchorage, Hawaii and San Francisco; we're essentially in the middle of the NE Pacific. But soon we will be much closer to San Francisco.

As we're getting closer, with "only" 1,142 miles to go as I write, I'm going to start reporting an ETA each day. Keep in mind that ETA stands for Estimated Time of Arrival; emphasis on estimated. This is quite different than a scheduled time of arrival. Our mileage can and will vary. I'll start out vague and narrow it down as we get closer.

So my first ETA is the afternoon of Thursday the 20th. It turns out the timing will be particularly important due to the currents in/out of the bay. At 6pm on the 20th the current will be at maximum ebb and a full 4kts! So hopefully we can make good progress the next few days and arrive by mid-afternoon so we avoid the big ebb.

On watch, off watch

The wind has been teasing us, blowing a steady 6-8kts when we need at least 9-12 to go sailing. Occasionally it puffs up and we give sailing a try, but then it fades away and we have to start the motor again. We got in a few hours of nice sailing, but mostly we're motoring. We're not actually in the high yet. There is a ridge running SW to NE from the high and we're chasing the high up the ridge. We move 30 miles and it moves 25 miles. But the forecast is that it will both stop moving and weaken a bit, at which time we'll overtake it and then soon thereafter we'll pop out into the cold winds and currents from the north.

We're almost through with our "northing". As of 1am our latitude is about the same as Santa Cruz, we're just 1,000 nautical miles to the west. We'll probably get as far north as Ft. Bragg or Mendocino, before we turn directly to San Francisco.

For readers who are not sailors, a brief explanation of nautical miles. A nautical mile is 1 minute of latitude (60 minutes in a degree) so the circumference of the planet is 360x60 = 21,600nm. And 1 nm = 1.15 statute miles. So 1,000nm is 1,150 nautical miles and when we're sailing at 8kts, we're actually going 9.2mph - wow, feel the speed! About the same speed as a really slow cyclist, but we don't have to peddle.

So back to on watch, off watch. That's life onboard New Morning. Obsessed with weather and either on watch or off watch. I get a little outside news via email, but we're generally focused right here and now, oblivious to the mayhem in the middle east, latest Obama/Romney accusations (what happened to solutions?), or even the iPhone 5 announcement (they did, didn't they?). Here is my daily cycle of watches.

7am - noon. If all went well I was sound asleep and Paul woke me about 6:45. It's just after sunrise and I get an update from Paul on what transpired during his watch, then orient myself to the current sailing / weather conditions and sail configuration. Paul heads off to sleep and I'm alone. I spend a half hour or so in the cockpit getting fully acclimated. About 7:45 I start up the computer for some email. I send a position report (what you see on "Where's New Morning"), and then I request, and then receive, one or more weather forecasts. I review the weather and what it means to our routing (where to point the boat) and anticipated sailing conditions. But of course it's a forecast, our mileage can and does vary! Somewhere in there I make an 8am entry in the log book and I pop my head up a few times to check the radar and look around to make sure all is well in the ocean and with the sails. By 8:30 or 9:00 I'm finished and back in the cockpit. About 9:30 - 10:00 I prepare some breakfast, eat it in the cockpit and then wash my dishes (conditions permitting). Another log entry at 10:00. Then about an hour or hour and a half of sitting in the cockpit, sailing and hopefully enjoying the morning (or maybe just weaving through squalls). By 11:30 I'm anticipating waking up Paul so that I can go off watch at noon. I wake up Paul about 11:45, update him on the weather, routing, sailing conditions, systems status and any trivia which may fall out of my head that I feel compelled to communicate. I make the noon log entry and calculate our noon-to-noon distance traveled. I may linger past 12:30 to chat for awhile, but probably head off to sleep.

Sometimes I get up mid afternoon during my "off watch" and eat some lunch, or take a shower, or have an early dinner or sit in the cockpit and chat with Paul.

5pm - 9pm This is the sunset watch. Depending on my hunger, what I ate in the afternoon and the sailing conditions I may have dinner sometime during this watch; usually two out of three nights. I might listen to music or the audio version of the Economist if conditions are benign. I may write some email, then make another position report and log entry at 8pm. I put on some warmer clothes as the sun goes down and anticipate waking Paul so I can go back to sleep. I wake Paul at 8:45, update him on what transpired during my watch and I'm in my bunk by 9:15.

Midnight - 3am Paul wakes me about 11:45 and I reluctantly put on some warmer clothes and get myself into the cockpit. I get the update and Paul heads off to sleep. I use this watch to write the blog entry (like this!) and reply to any email that came in during the sunset watch. This helps keep me awake, assuming I don't have to make half a dozen sail changes which definitely keeps me awake. I make the 2am log entry and then listen to a few Fresh Air podcasts to keep me awake until 2:45 when I can wake Paul. Paul is up on deck by 3am and I'm back in the rack by 3:15.

And round and round we go. When the conditions are rough there is little or no recreational activity as everything is focused on sailing and coping with the weather.

So life is simple. On watch = sailing. Off watch = sleeping (or attempting to do so if conditions are rough). On watch, off watch. On watch, off watch...

Nice day

Writing about 1am Wednesday morning. Yesterday was a nice day as we approached the high. The wind dropped and the squalls pretty much ended. From maybe 3am on Tuesday morning until about 5pm we sailed in 8-14kts of breeze on flat seas under sunny skies while making a steady 7-8kts over the ground, very pleasant.

In fact it was so nice Paul and I both took showers at the back of the cockpit, something we won't be able to do much longer. The water temperature has been slowing dropping, from 77-78 in Hawaii down to 75 tonight. But sometime in the next few days it will take a big drop. One of the forecasts shows it dropping to the mid 40's before rising later to the mid-50's. That is going to be a real shock. We were still barefoot in shorts and t-shirts today, but when the water drops below 50 we'll be bundled up in a big way.

Today we got a routing recommendation and forecast from Commander's Weather. Then we cross checked it with the routing module in MaxSea, our navigation software. The two routes were very similar and take us up to about 39N before turning directly to San Francisco which is at roughly 38N. We expect to be motoring for a couple of days, then emerge into a breeze from the north northeast, or preferably north northwest, with a southerly setting current. The slight additional distance higher than the latitude of San Francisco (we could go as high as 40N) will compensate for the southerly setting current and give us a more comfortable sailing angle in case the winds come more from the NNE.

Tonight the water is even flatter than when I went off watch at 9pm. A star / planet rose about 12:15am. It looked kind of reddish, and still does, so we were speculating it could be Mars, but we really have no idea. In any case it was bright enough and the water flat enough that it's reflection shimmered all the way to the horizon. Even now as it has risen about the horizon there is still a reflection on the water.

Whack-a-Squall

It's 2:30am on Tuesday morning. While I wrote earlier that the squalls had thinned out, they did not go away entirely. The last 24hrs they were very active as we played a game of "whack-a-squall". Similar to the "whack-a-mole" game, the squalls appear on the radar at random times and locations. One minutes the screen is blank and it's smooth sailing, the next it looks like pimples on a 13year old. Then they morph, grow, shift and generally flow with the direction of the wind. And occasionally they make a direct hit on us and we get a fresh water rinse.

The fresh water rinse is nice, the rest of the experience is not. The squalls are local areas or low pressure. Our "normal" wind we also call the "gradient" wind because it's speed is determined by the slope of the high pressure mountain I described yesterday. But the squalls are a local low pressure (not a low that is 1,000 miles away) so the slope is very steep which accelerates the wind. Additionally, it bends to the left (counter clockwise) in the process. So every squall presents us with a cycle that includes a couple of changes in wind direction and a couple of changes in wind speed. This necessitates changes in the sail configuration and course, basically a lot of activity just to cope with the squall that doesn't add anything to our overall progress. Sometimes the wind really jumps, like from 12 to 28, in just a minute or two which creates a lot of scrambling around to reduce sail area and course. At 76.5F, the water has not cooled much since we departed Hawaii. But soon it will drop at least 20 degrees to the mid 50's and the squalls will be gone.

When the weather was nice for a few hours on Sunday Paul and I were both able to take a shower on deck at the back of the cockpit which was a refreshing break. We hope to get another in a day or two when motoring in the high.

Tonight the moon rise was straight out of Hollywood. It was almost a caricature of the moon, something from the set of One From the Heart or a Broadway play back drop. The pale yellow moon rose right up from the ocean, leaning at about 45 degrees with a cloud nestled in the arc. It's a sight we rarely see on land because we're not usually up and outside at 3am!

The Big Picture

First, the squalls have thinned out, the sun has come out, the wind has come down (12-16), and the seas have gone down. Much more pleasant! Time to reflect a bit on the big picture of sailing to San Francisco from Hawaii. As I mentioned in a previous entry, it's all governed by the North Pacific High. Specifically, the high pressure system which sits in the north Pacific. So first a little primer for those who are as obsessed with weather as I have become. If you already know about the weather systems in the north Pacific, you probably should skip most of this.

A high pressure area is like the top of mountain with a blower on the top from which flows wind. The wind flows down the sides of the high pressure mountain to a low pressure area, just like water. In the process (in the northern hemisphere), it turns to the right (Coriolis effect). So effectively the winds in the north Pacific flow in a clockwise direction around the high. The winds in turn push the water and create the currents to the currents that also flow in a clockwise direction around the high (this is why California gets a cold current from Alaska and Japan gets a warm current from the equator).

Now if you imagine that the high is in the middle of the eastern Pacific (say 1,000 miles west of California), then the wind is flowing down the coast of California, turns right towards Hawaii, turns right again towards Japan, right again across the Gulf of Alaska and another right to return again to the coast of California. A big circle.

We can't sail into the wind, and it's uncomfortable to sail close to the wind for extended periods of time. Our comfort zone is with the true wind about 75 degrees from the bow. Departing from Hawaii, the wind blows a little north of east (think 2:30 on a clock), so we struggle to sail a little bit east of north (maybe 12:30 on the clock). But California is NE (1:30 on the clock), how do we ever get there?

The solution is the circle. Roughly speaking, we sail up the western side to the top of the circle, then across the top so that the wind is helping us. The middle of the circle, or center of the high, has no wind so we actually need to get above it. However in our case we're happy to motor through the center and cut the corner a bit. In any case, this means we travel a lot further than the straight line from Hawaii to San Francisco. I'll be happy if we sail "only" 400 miles further. But the real problem is that the high is moving, shrinking, expanding and sometimes even splitting into two.

At the moment, we're sailing north, trying to go a little bit east (towards San Francisco) and every thing is pushing us west. The wind is from the east (our right) and the boat's hull and keel converts that push to go north, but not perfectly. We have a certain amount of leeway so that even if we're pointed north by northeast, we might actually be traveling north. And then the current is also from the east. The very water we are in is moving to the west so again our actual travel has a more westerly component than where the boat is pointed. And finally, as insult to injury, the squalls bend the wind to the north, forcing us to actually sail west of north at times, away from our goal. So for the first week or so of the trip, all the natural elements are trying to push us west, away from our goal which is to the east. Once we get to the top of the high, the winds will shift to the north or north west and the winds and currents will be pushing us south. So we need to go far enough north that we'll be able to be pushed south and still arrive in San Francisco, not Los Angeles (Hi Caitlin!).

San Francisco's latitude is about 38 degrees north. The high is expected to be centered at about 43N when we reach that area (it's a forecast and it's constantly moving) so we'll probably travel to at least 40N when crossing the high. Then when we emerge from the eastern side of the high we'll have the wind from the north north west and we'll be able to sail a straight line to San Francisco. But it's a little early to start chilling the champagne.

That said, since earlier today the sailing has been quite pleasant and we're making good speed, if not actually a great direction (barely east of north right now). But we'll take nice sailing that is even close to our goal. As Fay would say, "this was in the brochure".

I'm wearing socks

And long pants. The first time I've worn socks and long pants on watch since 2008. It's cold. OK, colder, the real cold is still to come. But it's cold enough that last night I felt chilled by the end of my watch.

For the last 24hrs we've been weaving through squalls. The first night started well enough, but by 3am the squalls came in and the game was on. By mid-morning we had the staysail up as there was a lot of wind. Lying in my bunk at 2pm in the afternoon I awoke to see about 16kts and the boat felt very underpowered. While I debated getting up to drop the staysail, the wind rose from 16 to 30 and blew 25-30 for the next 45 minutes. So I decided we'd keep the staysail.

Before the trip from Tahiti to Hawaii, the staysail had only been out of the bag once, back in 2008 between Bermuda and the BVIs. Now it gets regular use. We're really not rigged for this north/south sailing. If this was a regular thing I'd have the staysail on a furler so that we could switch easily from the jib to the staysail as conditions warranted. But today it's a trip to the foredeck to drop and flake the staysail, then stow it in it's turtle (a zippered bag lashed to the deck). Running up and back to the foredeck is one thing on a fully crewed racing boat, but not so popular for a short handed cruising boat.

So we stuck with the staysail tonight and we've been underpowered most of the time. The squalls have not packed as much wind, only one has brought wind in the 25kt range. In between the squalls we've had 12-15kts. We would have been OK with the jib and would have had some nice sailing when instead we had to motor because we were just underpowered with the main double reefed plus the staysail. I'm writing about 1:30am and the squalls seem to have dissipated for now. I don't want to wake Paul, since sleep is more important than a couple of extra knots of speed, but maybe we'll drop the staysail at the watch change at 3am and put up the jib so we can sail faster and avoid motoring.

The moon made a brief appearance as it rose, then ducked behind the cloud cover and is not doing much to light up a very dark sky.

Update 8am: Wore foul weather pants for the first time since 2008. Staysail down. Speed up.

We're off the dock

It took three attempts to get the reef lines sorted out, but we're finally happy with the way they are rigged. We've taken our leave of Honolulu, departing from Oahu through the "back door" around the west end if the island to avoid the strong winds, waves and current in the Molokai channel. It adds about 80 miles to the trip overall, but better to get off to a good start that pounding into waves in 25kts of wind.

The wind followed us around the west end of the island for awhile, but now we're motoring. We expect to motor for a couple of hours, then we'll put our nose out into the trade winds and settle down for a few days of sailing as close to the wind as we can tolerate. Don't be surprised if we're not even able to go due north in the first day or so.

We're on our way!

Tentative departure

We got the sails back onto New Morning yesterday. North completely rebuilt the head, tack and clew on the main and the head on the jib. There were also a number of smaller repairs on both sails. Paul and I rigged all the reefing lines in the afternoon and we're ready to depart this morning, pending verification that we got everything rigged properly. The reefing lines are a real challenge to rig on the dock when we can't raise the sail to check our work.

This morning we'll depart the dock and raise the main in the lee of Honolulu to verify our work and potentially make whatever corrections can be made on the water as necessary. If all goes well we will head west around the leeward side of Oahu.  The local winds are blowing very strong this week and while departing to the west adds about 80nm to our trip, it's preferable to beginning our trip by pounding into the current and wind in the channel between Molokai and Oahu.

2081

That's the rhumb line distance from Honolulu to the Golden Gate Bridge.

This last weekend was a big regatta weekend and the North Sails team were all supporting boats racing from Maui to Honolulu on Labor Day. They were all back in the loft today so we dropped by and found they are doing a great job getting our sails repaired and healthy after 4 1/2 years of cruising and tropical sun. We expect to get the sails back tomorrow (Wednesday) and to take a test sail in the afternoon to see that everything is rigged correctly. If all goes well we plan to depart on Thursday morning.

The trades are blowing strong right now and the pass between Molokai and Oahu is very rough with true winds from 25-30 and big waves. The locals have counseled us to depart to the west and sail around the leeward end of Oahu. It adds roughly an additional 40nm to the trip and pushes us a little further west, but probably makes more sense than spending our first 12 hrs bashing to weather in 25kts against steep seas in the channel.

The Pacific high (about which you'll be hearing quite a bit) dictates the winds for the trip to San Francisco. Unfortunately right now, and for the foreseeable future, it is positioned well north and to the west. Since the winds blow clockwise around the high, this sets up a lot of adverse winds for the trip. At the moment it looks like we could be facing easterly winds (i.e. coming from where we want to go) as far north as 40 degrees. San Francisco is about 38N. Not too much we can do about it except watch it closely and adjust our route to take advantage of whatever we're offered. Delaying our departure by a few days doesn't guarantee that the high will move into a better position. At some point we will probably motor for a few days through the high itself, assuming it shifts south a bit and we go north of the latitude of San Francisco.

Despite the shorter rhumb line distance than the trip from Tahiti, I suspect we'll end up sailing a similar distance and with luck we'll have a similar time of roughly 14 days. We'll review the weather thoroughly again tomorrow night before we actually depart.

Passage Summary

Total miles sailed: 2,482nm
Rhumb line: 2,368nm

Days on passage: 13.75

Best day: 196nm
Worst day: 157nm

Average day: 181nm
Average speed: 7.5kts

Hours motoring: 95hrs
Average speed while motoring: 7.1kts (too much time against an adverse current)
Fuel consumption: 1.6gph

Average speed while sailing: 7.7kts

The true wind was mostly just forward of the beam with some short periods when it came aft the beam. The sea state was generally very reasonable punctuated with some periods of very confused seas as we transitioned across currents and weather patterns.

Tied up

We are tied up at the Waikiki Yacht Club. Passage summary later. Aloha!

Almost there

I had a rather naive notion that somehow once we were east of the big island we'd have an easy ride into Honolulu. Ha!

First, the dead zone in the lee of the big island turned out to be much smaller than on the charts. We carried 20-25kts of SE wind much farther past the big island than we expected. Finally the wind died and we motored for about two hours where the weather forecast had suggested we would motor for ten hours . Then the wind filled in from the NE at 15-18 and we had good ride though the seas were a crossed up combination of the the big swell that wrapped around the south end of the big island, and the swells coming through the pass between the big island and Maui. When the two swells and New Morning met up the water would really fly and New Morning would usually take a pretty big roll.

But while we seemed to be moving briskly, our SOG (speed over the ground) was too low. I eventually discovered that there is a current which circulates counter clockwise as a sort of counter current to the larger Pacific current flow. So it flows down from Kauai, turns east to the big island, then eventually north to Molokai and west past Oahu back to Kauai. We were in the portion running east and the current really slowed us down for about five hours. Eventually we got to where the current was pushing us north, so it was helping us.

As the sun began to set, with a large area of squalls to the west, the breeze began to build. By 7pm we had a steady 20-25, gusting to 28. New Morning was blasting along, but it had the feel of impending disaster. About 7:45 I asked Dan to come on deck and help me set the staysail. That went smoothly and was a good choice as the breeze continued to build. With the double reefed main and staysail we were making a steady 8-9kts without too much drama. From 8:30 - 11pm we had 26-30kts, gusting to 33; a lot of breeze! New Morning carried it well, blasting along and throwing tons of water into the air and across the decks in the process.

Wouldn't one sail configuration for 12hrs be boring? Between 11pm and midnight the breeze started dropping and by midnight we were down to 12kts from well aft. We gave up and started the motor and by 12:30 had only 8kts of breeze from almost dead astern, nothing that we could sail with. So now we're motoring along with a slatting main trying to consume the remaining 40 miles to Honolulu as quickly as possible, while also being prepared for another blast of wind as we cross the channel between Molokai and Oahu.

All the while we've had an almost full moon lighting the sky. The first half of the night it was an almost entirely clear sky the moon lit New Morning beautifully. Now we have almost total cloud cover, but the moon still provides a soft backlight. And with a few squalls beginning to appear on the radar, it looks like the last 35 miles may provide some further entertainment this evening.

Home stretch

The squalls disappeared about 5am. We've got mostly sunny skies, but there are big thunderheads on the horizon all around.



We're now 150 miles from Honolulu. We're west of the big island, but it's shrouded in clouds and haze so we can't see it yet. There is supposed to be a dead spot in the lee of the big island, but we've still got 25kts of breeze, no shortage of wind here.



At some point we'll adjust our speed to time our arrival with sunrise, but right now the waves are quite steep with a short period and are creating a cork screw motion so this is not a good place to go any slower. Coming down a wave about 10 minutes ago we were doing 11.5kts. Reminds me of finishing TransPac.

Squalls again

Last night's squalls continued until about noon, then things cleared up and the afternoon sail was very pleasant. The early evening was also nice with the almost full moon illuminating cotton ball clouds. But by midnight the squalls were back, the moon and stars were gone and the wind was more unpredictable than ever. So this will again be short.



For the last three hours the wind has cycled from 12-30 and shifted 40 degrees in as little as 30 seconds, accompanied by some impressive blasts of rain. The aft half of the cockpit cushions are again drenched as the wind went aft for five minutes and blew rain in under the dodger. I've given up trying to adjust the sails. The main is double reefed and so is the jib. We wallow when the wind is 15, but we're ok when it's 25. It's pretty much impossible to react quickly enough to have the correct sail area for each wind. I'm looking forward to reaching the lee side of the big island.



Yesterday's noon to noon run was 186nm. We are now only about 40 miles from the big island and less than 200 from Honolulu. As you can see, the continuously unsettled weather dominates life onboard and I'm unable to write of much else.

Squall

I had composed in my mind a whole blog entry on weather and why so many of these entries go on and on about weather. But I've spent the last hour and a half coping with a very large squall that totally pre-empted my time. Seems to be the story of this passage, never more than a few hours without a weather change. So this will be short.

Our noon to noon yesterday was 180nm. We had a squally morning, then a good afternoon. We actually decided to slow down this afternoon, we shortened sail, since our ETA was about 1am on Thursday and I don't want to enter the marina at night. The early evening was also nice with a brilliant moon and fairly clear sky. But a large squally area on the radar about 30 miles away slowly came to dominate the rest of the evening. Dan is now coping with the squalls and I'm ready for some sleep. The weather discussion will wait until tomorrow.

We may be able to see the big island by late tomorrow afternoon if there isn't too much cloud cover. About 370nm to go. We plan to motor through the lee of the big island (it creates a very large wind shadow) so we'll adjust our motoring speed to time our arrival in Honolulu for first light.

While dealing with the squall there was a spectacular moon set as the moon dipped below the cloud cover for about 20 minutes before dropping into the ocean. Nice.

Boat in a Bubble

For the last 4-5 days we've been the boat in a bubble - a bubble of unsettled weather aka ITCZ. The problem was that as we moved north, so did our bubble of unsettled weather with squalls, then no wind, then squalls, etc. The NOAA surface analysis confirmed what we were experiencing and showed the ITCZ bending all the way to 12N. But yesterday evening we escaped.

Yesterday morning we were motor sailing in clear skies, scorching sun and a light breeze from the south. Our noon to noon run improved to 176 miles. By early afternoon we had about 8kts from NNE, nothing we could sail with (at least not towards our destination), but enough to boost our motoring speed a little. Then about 5pm the wind suddenly spiked to 18, but still from much further north than expected. We started sailing uncomfortably close to the wind into choppy confused seas. Within an hour the radar screen was covered with squalls and from 6pm - midnight there was a continual series of squalls and the wind varied from 18-24. Now at 2am we may have passed the last squall. The wind has moved further to the east to be just forward of the beam and dropped to a more comfortable 16-18kts. But the squalls have left behind a horribly lumpy sea so we are lurching around a bit and occasionally we abruptly either fall off a wave or slam into one; neither of which is comfortable.

The cloud cover is partially broken and allowed me to see the moon set. Now some stars are mixed in with the clouds where earlier it was just blackness.

It feels like the home stretch as we have less than 600 miles to Oahu. I'm anticipating two days of close reaching in 15-20 which should produce good speed. We still have to negotiate the wind shadow to the west of the big island which will probably necessitate some motoring again, then the final reach into Honolulu.

Dry

When I went off watch last night at 3am, the cockpit was soaking wet. The cushions were wet, the towels were wet, the deck was wet, and water has accumulated on the ledge where I store my glasses and the VHF microphone. You get the idea, it was wet. Tropical downpour fresh rain water wet.

When I got up at 7am, it was dry. Bone dry. The water was just gone. In the short period between sunrise and 7am, everything had dried out. There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was already blazing down. The poor squid and flying fish that had landed on the deck during the night were already dried and stiff.

All day long it was like sailing through a desert of rolling hills, but the hills were made of water. We had a swell from the NE, another from the SE and then just some random stuff. The swells were still pretty good sized, as much as 2.5 - 3m, but they had a long period and thus a fairly gentle roll. None the less they were rolling us around, some current was pushing us back and in general the sea state was slowing us down. Our noon to noon run was only 159nm, one of our poorest days in a long time. And this despite motoring at a higher RPM than usual and burning more fuel in the process.

Through the day it just got hotter and hotter. It was impossible to walk on the deck without shoes. The fresh water out of the faucet was easily 100F. And there was just the barest breath of wind. The sea was almost glassy, and actually was glassy for about two hours. The lack of wind and thus salt spray, plus no rain, allowed us to open up the boat for the first time since we departed. We opened the hatches and let the air flow through the cabins; we opened up the dodger window and let the air move through the cockpit. It was a nice day. Finally in the late afternoon a few clouds began to appear on the horizon so I took a shower at the back of the cockpit around 6pm because it might be the last outdoor shower for awhile.

It's now about 8:30pm and a gentle breeze of 5-7kts has definitely begun to fill in from the east. This is a welcome development because it has stopped the monotonous and damaging slatting of the main sail, back and forth, back and forth on each roll of the boat. The forecast is that we'll go through another band of rain, possibly later this evening or in the morning, then emerge into the trades with 17-23 from the NE which will put the wind pretty much on our beam as we sail the final 600 miles to Honolulu. So we've cleaned up a bit, closed most of the hatches and generally prepared for a few days of brisk sailing until we reach the lee of the big island when things will lighten up again. We expect to reach Honolulu and the Waikiki YC early Thursday morning.

Nice sunset tonight as the sun lowered into the heavy clouds way off on the horizon. The half moon is overhead and there are some stars playing hide and seek with the scattered clouds.

Wet

We've been motoring for the last 24hrs, but during the squalls we've tried to opportunistically sail to take advantage of the big winds, usually sustaining 20-30kts for an hour or so. This netted a noon to noon run yesterday of 184 miles. But for the last 12hrs or so the squalls have had no big wind, just lots and lots of rain. In between the heavy rain in the squalls is lighter rain and no wind so that New Morning is now pretty much salt free. We've also now encountered the equatorial counter current which runs west to east, pushing us away from Hawaii at over 1kt. I'm anticipating the combination of counter current and no wind means that today's run will show a very slow 24hrs.

As I mentioned yesterday, Fay confirmed that the only place to get the main repaired was in Honolulu at North Sails. That changed our destination from Kona to Honolulu. Then I spent a lot of time studying the forecasts this morning and found that we were traveling in our own ITCZ weather system. As we moved north, it moved north. The NE trades were always a couple of days out of reach, most recently at 13N, far north of their usual location.

After using MaxSea to work out the course alternatives, it became clear that we should abandon the plan to go north until we reached the trades and instead turn towards Honolulu immediately. If the forecasts are reasonably accurate we should hit the trades earlier and still have a good sailing angle for the last 700 miles, though we'll probably need to motor a few hours when we're in the lee of the big island. So we turned this morning and now have about 930 miles to Oahu, including an estimated 240 miles of motoring before we reach the NE trades. This is so much more motoring that we anticipated, but New Morning has plenty of fuel so it's not a problem, just less enjoyable than sailing.

With lots of cloud cover this is another black night, though I do see a morning star poking through the clouds near the horizon, but I don't know if it's Mars or Venus. In either case it is very bright.

Two nights

What a difference a day makes.

On Wednesday afternoon the wind started to drop and move slightly aft. Through the late afternoon and all night the wind slowly dropped and moved aft. The sky was absolutely clear and as darkness fell the roughly half moon was sparklingly brilliant on relatively calm seas. Once the moon had set the canopy of stars extended right down to the horizon. We had a beautiful sail all through the night with dazzling stars. On more than one occasion I thought I saw a ship's lights, only to realize it was a star. A few shooting stars added to the display. Shortly after sunrise the wind had become so light that we were forced to turn on the motor. But the seas were calm and it gave me a chance to take a shower in the cockpit, wipe away the salt, rinse the salt out of some clothes and spread them to dry in the sun.

Then yesterday afternoon (Thursday) the sky grew cloudy, the seas confused and the radar turned red with storm cells and squalls. When the first squall hit the wind jumped from 11kts and almost behind us to 28kts on the beam. With the double reefed main it was not a problem and we got a good ride for about 45 minutes. After that squall I could see a few holes in the cloud cover and look up at towering thunderheads all around. As evening fell the sky had a soft back light from the moon, but there were no stars to be seen. More squalls, some measuring 30 miles long and 10 miles wide, passed through rinsing New Morning with more freshwater until the moon had gone down and the soft glow extinguished. Now the wind is gone entirely, there is a light rain failing and the seas whipped up by the squalls are rolling us around as we motor through the night.

Sailors used to call the area around the equator the doldrums, but this has been upgraded to the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ. Bigger name, same lousy weather. We had expected to pass through the ITCZ from roughly 5N - 8N, only 180miles, roughly a day or so of unsettled conditions as we would transition from the SE trades (which were really East for us) to the NE trades that would carry us to Hawaii. But this is weather and it never seems to be "normal". The squally weather began about 4N and the NE trades are at about 11N, over 400 miles of "unsettled" weather.

And I've just learned that we're going to need to go to Honolulu, not Kona, to get the main repaired. More on that after I adjust the route.

Change "S" to "N"

Last night was very squally and the squalls packed a punch. We'd have 15kts and within 3-4 minutes it would be 33kts. Very difficult to set sails for those conditions. We had the second reef in the main, too little at 15kts, but in the squalls (steady 25-30) we would roll up the jib and sail with just the main for 30 minutes while the squall passed by, then unroll the jib. After midnight the squalls ended, but the wind was fairly erratic until early morning; we'd have 20 minutes of 16kts, then 20 minutes of 24kts; too many sail changes. It finally settled down to a more manageable 18-23kts and that has continued through today.

At the same time the wind direction has varied from 070T to 120T which is a pretty big range. The seas are somewhat confused with waves from the ENE on top of a swell from the SE. As long as we keep the boat speed up New Morning moves well through the seas, though there is a fair amount of water flying from time to time when New Morning, the NE waves and the SE swell all try to occupy the same space at the same time. Through it all we have made 191nm each of our last two days, essentially an 8kt average.

The forecast for the current time period is 13 at 095T when in fact we have 18 at 095T. This what the cruisers refer to as "GRIBs + 5". The GRIBs (gridded binaries - digital forecast we receive from NOAA) always seem to be about 5kts below the actual wind. This is a pretty big bias error, but manageable as it seems to be fairly consistent.

We expect more squalls tonight and should reach the ITCZ tomorrow night. When it gets too light and variable we'll motor for a day or so until we reach the NE trades at about 7-8 degrees north. And did I mention it was HOT? The sun is very nearly directly overhead so the solar panels are very happy, but the crew is baking. For entertainment we've seen three Korean fishing boats, although only one would acknowledge our radio call. Lots of flying fish, but none land on the deck, unlike our passage to the Marquesas when we had a dozen or so flying fish and squid on the deck each morning.

Earlier today, just before 9am, we crossed the equator. There was no sign saying "Now Leaving the Southern Hemisphere - We Hope You Enjoyed Your Visit", I just saw the plotter change "S" to "N" on our latitude. It's nice to be back in the Northern Hemisphere.

Rough ride, but fast

After a very fast first day, then the clew failure we had a very slow second day with light winds and several stops (fore reaching) to lash and secure the main below the 1st reef. Once that was all sorted out, the wind filled from the east and we've had 20-29kts of true wind roughly on the beam. We also have 2.5m seas on the beam so there is a lot of boat motion and flying salt water as we charge forward. We're gotten one good squall rinse, but we were coated in salt again within a couple of hours. We're hoping for a few fresh water rinses in the ITCZ.

We've had two reefs and the staysail for the last 24hrs. We're a little underpowered at the low end, but just fine when the breeze is over 21kts. The wind is ramping up and down very quickly, sometimes we'll have 10 minutes of 18-20, then 10 minutes of 24-26. We're not racing and are short handed so we don't attempt to make constant sail changes to optimize our speed. Overall we've averaged 184 miles / day for the last 4 1/2 days, and that includes a few hours spent stopped while we secured the main and sorted out a problem with a reefing line. So we're making good time and at this pace we'll be in Hawaii next Tuesday the 28th.

The wind generator loves the big breeze and this would be no fun without the hard dodger. It's nice to be sitting on watch, have a big wave smack the boat and then hear and see the water run across the deck, splatter over the windows and rain down on the top of the dodger while not fearing that we'll get doused as well.

The sky has been mostly clear the last two nights with a spectacular array of stars. The waxing moon is climbing a little each night and kept me company last night for a few hours after sunset, reflecting off the waves and white caps.

Saturday

Today was a bit of everything. From 3am to about 1pm we went through several lines of squalls. We never actually got enough rain to wash off the boat (which would have been welcome), but we got wind from every direction and speed.

Mid-morning we hove to (essentially stopped the boat) and Dan and I climbed up on top of the dodger and house to tie up the dangling sail remaining from yesterday's clew ring failure. We were well tethered and it took us about 20 minutes to lace a line around the sail and through the reef grommets all along the foot of the sail. Then the next squall line appeared and we were off again.

After that squall line things went light (10kts from the NE) so we took the opportunity to motor sail for two hours and charge the batteries. By 2pm the batteries were in good shape and we were beating into a strong NE wind. All afternoon we were pretty close to hard on the wind (true wind angle of 50-60) with 15-20kts of true wind (20-25kts apparent), hammering into very confused seas created by the waves from the NE wind meeting the prevailing SE swell. While always having the first reef in the main probably cost us a little speed at times, it saved us a lot of putting in a reef and taking out a reef since the conditions were quite variable today. Our noon to noon run was still 181nm, not bad considering the variable winds and half an hour spent hove to.

The skies are now almost entirely clear and we're beating into a 15kt NE breeze which is supposed to shift a little south by morning. Dinner was flank steak with rice and black beans, pre-prepared by Fay and only needed to be heated up in the microwave. Today wasn't a good day for broiling.

It's getting warmer and warmer. At 6pm as I write this entry, it is 86 degrees in the salon and the water temp is up to 83. I'm looking forward to the cool of the evening; there should be a full sky of stars tonight.

Day one - 195.6nm

Today we completed our first full day at sea with good news and bad news. The good news was that from 2pm yesterday (first entry) to 2pm today we covered 195.6nm; New Morning has just been flying along on a broad reach in 17-22kts of true wind. The bad news is that shortly after the watch change at noon the clew pulled out of the main sail.

I was taking a shower when I heard a loud "bang", followed shortly by Dan knocking on the door of the aft head. We had 19kts of true wind at about 120 degrees at the time that the clew clew pulled out, not an excessive amount of wind. We immediately shortened the main to the first reef and continued on.

Now we have a lot of sail hanging below the boom which is primarily a cosmetic issue, but we'd like to tidy it up. We expect the winds to ease a bit within the next few days and when it does we'll heave to, roll up the extra sail and lace it up into the reef grommets.

Fast start

We're off to a fast start. We departed the marina about 11:50am and spent the next 40 minutes or so winding around Tahiti to the pass. As we went out the pass our friend Richard was bringing the Pilot boat back in and we got a big toot of his horn and waves from the crew.

Out of the pass we had light and variable winds for about half an hour, then as we began to get some distance from the island we picked 15kts on the beam. This afternoon we sailed out to Marlon Brando's island (Tetiaroa), roughly 30 miles, then turned north. We averaged over 8 knots all afternoon. Now we expect to be heading due north for at least the next week.

Departing today

Departing Tahiti today at about 11:30am local time. Follow us on "Where's New Morning".

In the Marina

Today we moved from Cook's Bay on Moorea to Marina Taina in Papeete. The sail to Papeete was much better than expected. On Saturday when I took the ferry to Papeete the seas were very confused and rough between Moorea and Tahiti. Today we had 8-11kts of wind from the NNE which put the true wind about 70-90 degrees on our port bow so we made a very pleasant 6.5-8.0kts in 2m seas after we cleared Moorea and had a steady breeze.

At the marina we topped up the fuel tanks and secured a nice side tie on the south side of the marina so the gentle northerly breeze is holding us off the dock.

Tomorrow Dan arrives, my crew for the trip to Hawaii. We'll wash down New Morning, put away the dinghy, and make final preparations for a departure on Thursday or Saturday.

Fresh shrimp and stingrays

 Yesterday we moved from Cook's Bay to Opunohu Bay, about a one hour slow motor boat ride from anchorage to anchorage.  This morning Fay and Caitlin took the dinghy up to the end of the bay and bought fresh shrimp at the shrimp farm; only open on Wednesdays from 10-2.  They had cleaned about half the shrimp before we departed for the NW corner of the island to snorkel with the stingrays.

We offered the shrimp heads to the stingrays and they were a hit, the rays were practically climbing up into the boat to claim them!  We enjoyed petting the rays but stopped short of feeding them by hand as they have very strong jaws for crushing crustaceans and didn't want our fingers confused with shrimp heads!  And of course the feeding stingrays also attracted a few black tip reef sharks.  After we had distributed all the shrimp heads we had to wait a few minutes for the stingrays to disperse a bit so we could enter the water without landing on top of one of them.

We then kicked out towards the reef and spent an hour snorkeling.  While everyone seems to come for the stingrays, the snorkeling is excellent among the coral bommies with a good collection of reef fish, including bat fish, moorish idols, box fish and the usual collection of trigger fish.  We were a little surprised to see a few reef sharks weaving in and out of the coral, far away from their usual spot near the stingrays.  Coming back to the dinghy we saw a large (roughly 2') titan triggerfish whipping through the coral at high speed; a rare sight.

Tonight's dinner is shrimp scampi on a bed of tagliatelle with a bottle of Taft St. Sauvignon Blanc; a real treat!

New Morning is for Sale!

New Morning has been the primary focus of our lives for more than eight years. Beginning in 2004 we spent four years planning, designing and then building our ideal cruising yacht. Since 2008 we’ve sailed over 11,000 miles, visited countless anchorages and watched hundreds of sunsets from Maine, across the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, and finally across the Pacific via the Galapagos to French Polynesia. We have had an incredible adventure and now other adventures off the water are tugging at us for attention.

New Morning has been our home for the majority of the last four years so it is with very mixed emotions that we’ve made the decision to sell her. But she is designed for ocean cruising, not sailing on our home waters of San Francisco Bay. In keeping with our desire to work with only the best, we have selected Terri Watson at KKMI in Pt. Richmond, California to offer New Morning. She is also listed on Yachtworld. We believe New Morning provides the discriminating cruising couple with unparalleled safety and performance on passage coupled with an elegant and comfortable home when at anchor. Contact Terri Watson for a first hand look and we think you’ll agree.

Back in Moorea

After an extended period in Les iles sous le vent (aka the leeward islands) of Raiatea, Bora Bora and Tahaa we are now back in Moorea. We also have a guest onboard and another guest coming next week. We're moving back and forth between Cook's Bay and Opunohu Bay for a change of scenery and access to either Sylesie's patisserie, or the great snorkeling near the northwest corner of the island.

The weather has been much more unsettled this year with longer periods of rain and a steady series of lows passing to the south. Yesterday was flat calm, absolutely glassy, as a huge low to the south pushed back on the trade winds. We took advantage of the conditions to make the long trip by dinghy to the northwest corner of Moorea, across from the Intercontinental Resort, and snorkel with the sting rays and black tip reef sharks.

Then when the area became too crowded with hotel guests on jet skis, tour boats, kayaks and even paddle boats, we swam out towards the reef and enjoyed the tropical fish in the coral. This photo shows a bit of everything with two sharks, a sting ray, and even a remora tucked under the shark in the foreground. All these fish were in about 5'-6' of water as you can tell from the reflections off the surface.

Today that big low has not only pushed back the trades, we have about 15kts of wind out of the west which is fairly unusual. As the low passes the wind will back into the southwest, then the south and finally the south west trades are forecast to return Thursday or Friday.

Our current guest will leave on Saturday as our next guest arrives. Then in about two weeks, Dan (whom we met in the Marquesas) will arrive and a few days later Fay will return to San Francisco. Dan will be my crew for the Hawaii leg of the trip to San Francisco..

2HP of Freedom

Fay's most recent article, entitled "My Two HPs of Freedom", where she extolls the virtues of our 2hp outboard, is in the current issue of Cruising World.

On New Morning we have two Yamaha 2cycle engines, a 15hp and a 2hp. We've both favor the 2hp whenever it can be used since we can put it on and off the dinghy with such ease, it seems to barely use any gas at all and who would want to steal a 2hp outboard? It's amazing how often the 2hp is the right engine. Of course we use the 15hp whenever we have more than the two of us or have a long trip to make in open water. But for going between boats and when the dingy dock is not too far, the 2hp is our outboard of choice!

Updates & another article

I'm very behind on blog entries but promise to catch up soon.

In the meantime I've added a new section on Safety to About New Morning. I also finally wrote the section on Lighting.

And most importantly, Fay's latest article was published this month in Cruising World. We don't have access to the print version and it's not on the web site yet, but emails from several people have complimented her on the piece which was originally titled "My 2hp of Freedom", though we're not sure what final title the editors used. Once it's available online we'll post it here as well.

On the Hard!

CNI came through!

They fixed the trailer and hauled us out as promised. New Morning is now safely stored on land in a one piece cradle. And a few extra months in the water doesn't seem to have done her bottom any harm as she cleaned up very nicely.

Thank you to Karin and everyone at CNI!