ALICE MARTIN
 Sunday August 20, 2006 @ 09:42 PM GMT-08:00
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| 08/20 2200 PDT |
Wind: NE 8.5 kt | Temp:66° | 
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Position 37 56:040N 134 46:271W
A slow day. Gentle breezes from the east. We got a little further south and less east than we would have liked. Oh well.
Right now we are charging batteries and heading 072 with some help from the wind.
Today's big accomplishment was getting the diesel out of the small tank, into a Jerry Jug and then into the big tank. Yeah, Rudy. There was only 2.5 gallon to be transferred as we used ran using the small tank one of those light air days early in the trip.
Irwin spent more time tightening various hoses in the fuel system--still mystified by the air bubbles that accumulate while the engine is sitting unused.
Found a small hole in the foot of the main and patched it. The 80 jib, still looks good, but the 155 and main are getting tired.
Hope you had a good weekend.
I am cooking up the last of the rudy's 4th tuna in fajitas for lunch today. Seems that i spend a good part of my watch thinking about what i will cook next- at least it keeps my mind off the topic that seems to be consuming everyone else-"when will we get there?" We have had pretty good weather so far and if we make it back on friday or saturday- that is only a few days longer than the anticipated 3 week trip. (It will be 3 weeks on thursday). GIven the wierd high movements and our lack of ample fuel to just power on through- i think that Hooligan is doing fine and the crew is still getting along well!
Happy Sunday!
lots of love Jaye
We celebrated our 2000 miles logged yesterday and today we are about 600 miles out from SF. We are still battling the highs- great winds from northerly directions for part of the day- but no wind and easterlies other times. Consistent winds have evaded us for the betterpart of our easterly leg. The seas have built some swell to them now- Alice thinks it is the gales occurring north of us. We sailed part of the night- and motored for 5 hours- then had 6 hours of 5-6knot sailing toward our destination again. Rudy found a small fuel leak last night- we were hoping it was the cause of the engine needing to be bled to start- but after repairing it- the same old not starting happened. We will be transferring some more of the jerry cans to the tank today too as it is fairly calm - thus good weather for such activity.
Position 38 26.896N 136 55.971W
Making good progress under sail 11-12 knots from the North. We are even going the right direction. Seas 2-3 ft, but building. Warm, partially cloudy.
Jaye out did herself at lunch for our 2000 mile celebration. Fried tuna, squash, cole slaw and even dessert. Oven still not working, so she turned the lemon cake into pancakes with blueberry and apple sauce. Yummy.
Rudy earned his keep today. He noticed that two of the upper slugs that keep the mainsail attached at the mast had come off the sail. Shortly after, we turned on the engine, took the sail down and he tied them back on with the spectra string Stan left behind. Thank you, Rudy and Stan.
Weather forecasts continue to change, but except for the wind moving north, our weather has changed very little. Not sure how long we get to enjoy this, but so far so good.
Hope all is well at home! See you in about a week.
Alice
Ian,
I got Ian's reply to a previous blog. Thanks for the bungee tip from Green Buffalo.
Rudy spent his "free time" doing maintenance today. Most importantly, he re-did the connections to the solenoid in the propane system and that fixed the problem with the propane sensor system shutting down the stove.
He also got to add a new fastener to the board head is mounted on. All our vigorous pumping pulled it right off its mounting box. At least, it is still flowing!!
We had winds from 9 - 12 knots today that were more northerly than we've seen, so we have been making good headway in the right direction.
Rudy got another small tuna last night--just as we were finishing the last of the other one, so lunch was an artistically arranged sashimi and miso soup.
I'm trying to get through the weather books that are on board in a way that I will still remember the contents when I've put them down. Slow going, but relevant!
nuf for now
Rebooted and heard from skymate. Seems I need to upgrade software to "fix" my GPS readings, so...don't be too concerned if skymate position isn't accurate. Software upgrades will not happen out here!
Current postion: 39 15.310N 141 49.710W
Today has been gray and cloudy with some light rain. Still not very cold, wearing foulies on top of shorts and a long sleeve shirt. We motored most of the night in flat seas and 3 knots of breeze. Jaye found the wind on her watch (6-9AM). Unfortunately, it was from due east. It has moved a bit south and we are moving nicely with a COG of 045.
We've been relying heavily on the Raymarine Autohelm ever since the first few days of really windy weather, when Sally Sailomat was steering. Rudy has just finished some adjustments and Sally is back on duty. Hope she can do as well as "Auto", it will save us quite a bit of power.
We voted on 3:00 PM PDT as our main meal time and just finished chili and cornbread. The oven worked for brownies, but hasn't lit again, so the cornbread was baked in a skillet--good stuff!
Hope all is well back home. Hope to be there in about a week.
alice
Great day of sailing mostly in the right direction.
We're at 38 54.834N 143 21.946W. Skymate seems to be making up its own positions. So don't be worried by them.
KYC is planning to keep in touch with us until we arrive, so our positions on Pacificcup.org should continue and be correct.
Contessa was still out there last night, but we may be the last ones reporting in this evening.
The point forecasts and KYC both say we should be seeing NW winds, but so far we are seeing NE. Going south faster than Irwin wants, but we're still North of SF, so its fine with me.
I'm going to reboot skymate this evening, hoping to get the position thing fixed. If you don't get a blog tomorrow, call skymate, cause we're still here.
Thanks for following along. More tomorrow.
Alice
Today has been rainy and cloudy with 12-16 knots of wind from the NE. We are still sailing with speeds varying from about 4-6 knots.. The sun just appeared and many of the clouds are rolling away now- enough warmth that Rudy and i are thinking of boat showers.
Last night Irwin finally made ham radio contact with some good friends of ours in the Sierras. It was great to hear their voices loud and clear way out here!
Irwin spent more time this afternoon working on the fuel pump and bleeding the engine, Rudy is doing some repairs and troubleshooting of the propane system. Alice wants everyone to know not to send any email tonight between 11-12 midnight as she will be rebooting the system in the hopes of cleaning out the "bugs" we are having with skymate.
Our GPS will be showing that we are a thousand miles from SF today- so we are making progress. Thanks for your emails and news (what we get of it anyway) as it is great getting mail!
be well and appreciate life
love jaye
Yeah- today we have lots of wind - even out of the north so we were actually heading right for SF a few hours, but then it clocked around to easterly again- started out grey, rainy, but sunny now...We had to reduce sail this am after Rudy arose at 11. Took down the big jenny and our speed went from a sloggy 5 knots up to almost 7 with reefed main and 80% jib.
Since early this am we have been sailing on our ears- a port tack- the stove keeps getting stuck against the wall as it swings too high and jams there. To accomplish the mex tuna soup for lunch-i had to hold the stove from swinging w/my knee while chopping and preping the contents- what acrobatics! So much for the biscuits i had envisioned during my 6am-9am watch!!!
Alice wins the prize for the wettest watch today- and a small wave managed to make it's way past the hatch onto her bunk as well...the perils of the quarterberth, but as for other leaks: looks like our caulking paid off.
that's all folks!
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Monday August 14, 2006 @ 06:24 PM GMT-08:00
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| day 12 w/1200 miles to go- Cont.pt 2 |
Lat:41.1432° Lon:-149.6640°
Wind: ENE 10.5 kt | Temp:64° | 
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Thus, we've basically been sailing toward SF for the last two days-this makes us feel like we are actully making progress (though our rip roaring speed is usually 4-6 knots -sometimes less. These days are so pleasant- comfortable and relaxing even. We are all reading and getting enough rest- especially now w/ Rudy's new watch system!
Sounds like there are only 2 paccup boats still out now.
Rudy just caught our third fish as i was typing this blog- another blue fin tuna- about 7-8 lbs. We are getting the killing routine down now- no more blood all over the cockpit! Of course, murphy's law of fishing is that you will always catch something good when the cook has already prepared dinner- and sure enough i prepared the sweet potato curry, raita, sambal and all the other condiments this afternoon so i would be ready to go on watch. Oh well- Yum!Tuna tomorrow will taste just as good and still fresher than we could buy!!
we love you all
jaye
Last night we made the executive decision to leave up the big 150 jib for the night since the winds had been light (5-12knots) all day. Of course, then on Alice's watch at midnight, the wind got high enough to be right at the border of the big sail (necessitating Rudy and i getting suited up to go change it, then deciding it would be ok for the time being. Then the wind dropped to almost nothing- requiring Rudy to motor for his watch- then found enough wind for us to sail since 6am this morning. The light wind allows our motion to be a slight rocking at a slight heal- very nice for getting chores done- Alice did alot of cleaning- me cooking, Irwin and Rudy repaired things that had been wanting our attention. Today has been a great day to get things done. As we sail around the south edge of this high, our winds have been light and variable from the north to east north east so we have been close hauled on one tack or the other.
we could start to feel the cool crisp air of the more northerly latitudes. Yes, we are actually north of SF for the last few days as we suspect we will catch the coastal northerlies when we get closer and sail south on them. We've all started to wear our warmer clothes on watch and use our covers at night now...so we must be getting nearer to home!
Rudy proposed a new watch schedule this morning which we are now trying. We split the day into two sections and the watches are more teams than individuals. Irwin and i will do the 6-12's (2-3hrs watches or 3-2hrs) and the Rudy and Alice team will do the 12 - 6's. This way i will be on for the cooking stilland irwin will be on for engine startings and radio nets. The engine is still mysteriously not starting without bleeding- although this afternoon irwin caulked some spots where air caught be getting sucked in. Maybe that will do it...we'll let you know more tomorrow.
Be well, enjoy- we are! love from the hooligan team
Rudy caught us the tuna he had been promising. Therefore, we pigged out on sushi, sashimi, miso soup, soba noodle salad and delicious brownies for dessert. Then after out feast in the cockpit- we had sailed all day and it was nearing sunset- we needed to turn on the engine to charge the batteries. As we revved up- spinner dolphins discovered us. They must have sent the word near and far- as we could see them jumping airborne all around as we looked back into the sunset. They stayed to play inour bow wake for over a half hour as we all tried to capture the moment on film. How spectacular! Bet Marine World doesn't have any shows tha top this! It was difficult to decide where to focus:the gorgeous swirly sunset or watching through the crystal clear blue water 8-10 dolphins bodies gracefully taking turns surfing under the bow and hearing them exhale as they surfaced just in front of the bow to jump in the air sometimes two or three in unison and then cycle back for another turn! As we stood out on deck moving at 6 knots accross the relatively calm "pond"
Hi All
It's 4:30 pm on sunday - warm and sunny wirth a slight breeze. We are motoring as our "new" theory in sailing around the edge of the high involves sailing as long as we have wind then motoring until we find it again. We sailed in light south easterlies all night..but it calmed down this afternoon. Today we finally got to one type of halfway- our mileage behind us equalled out mileage to the golden gate: 1325 miles each way!!! We still have alot of tacking and uncertain winds ahead, so who knows how many more miles we will actually sail. We all agreed yesterday that our journey will be much closer to 30 than 21 days, sowe may as well enjoy it and that we are!
Yesterday, we had two celebrations and the pacific ocean spirits sent us a third. I made chocolate brownies to commemorate our first 1000 miles (a bit late- but conditions below were unconducive to baking the previous day unless of course i was up for cleaning the oven-which i wasn't). Secondly, Rudy
I can see now why Bill wanted to name his yacht Pacific High. We've been playing at the southern edge of the 2nd High in our path home: seas are calm, dolphins abound and we have the perfect 10 - 12 knots for full sails and almost hull speed.
The direction hasn't been the best but improving. For the last 24 hours, we have been doing 020 - 050 M and when this takes us too high and the wind drops we've been motoring for pure VMG to the Golden Gate.
Fortunately, this high is moving west and we are moving east, so each time we hit these pleasant breezes the wind is just a little more from the north.
At the moment the engine is going, frig is charging and guys are looking into our little engine problem. We've had to bleed the fuel to start the engine since we used the small tank. Not sure what's different. Jaye is doing her part by holding the table securely on the settee.
greetings from the dissapating high.
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