A Good Run

We're on the home stretch now: 270 miles at 5 knots takes us 54 hours to
the Strait of Juan de Fuca entrance. 5 knots is the speed we get motoring at an economical pace. And motoring is about what we can expect for the next 54 hours according to the weather forecast.

By my reckoning of engine hours, we have 3.5 days of fuel for the 2.25 days remaining. If we believe the fuel gauge, we have 4.5 days of fuel. I've been fairly conservative, so the gauge is probably right. I guess we'll know when we refuel.

The plan is to refuel in Seku, just the other side of Neah Bay. From there it's another 28 hours to Shilshole. I anticipate arriving at Shilshole on Tuesday some time in the afternoon, give or take. Sorry if that's too fuzzy to schedule a marching band for our arrival.

If we arrive late Quijote and I will spend the night in a transient slip at Shilshole. Otherwise we will head through the locks. If anyone following our progress would be interested in joining us for a ride through the locks to Lake Union you can contact me at: rgmercer@myiridium.net

The storm that blew through yesterday carried us for a good run. The wind was a little stronger than forecasted, but the seas were not as bigs they were in the first leg when we had similar wind. It lasted pretty much all day and then quieted down overnight. When another watch started the engine, we knew it was done.

Having implied that the weather won't be helping us much for the rest of this trip, the wind has decided to kick it up a notch just to prove me wrong. What a lovely surprise: a quiet sunset on gentle water. It's so nice to be able to shut the engine off for a few hours. Let's see how long it lasts.

Weather Forecasting

Weather forecasting has come along way in recent years. Forecasts are created using mathematical models that keep getting better with each generation of meteorologists. The forecasts predict what the weather conditions will be anywhere in the world and are offered free to download as a grid for an area of interest. Software tools make it easy to collect and evaluate that data.

Imagine what the ideal tool for a trip like this would look like. It would be an app on your iPad or phone that displays a map of the Pacific Ocean and creates an ideal path through the weather. We don't want to navigate through weather that's too stormy or too calm. We want wind at an angle, not on the bow or the stern. We want the tool to have offshore access to the weather data it needs.

That's essentially what we have. If we tell the app the coordinates of the area of interest, it will download by satellite a grid of weather data over that area. If we provide start and stop points and the time of departure, it will calculate the optimum path through the weather that was downloaded.

As we advance the time in the app we can watch the weather evolve and see our boat icon follow its path through that weather. It's useful to see the wind speed and direction at every point on our path. With weather systems and boat moving independently, it helps establish exactly where we'll be with respect to a system as we proceed.

Of course the result is only as good as the forecast and the expected response of the boat. Keeping track of the boat's performance will help us fine tune it's parameters in the software. Updating the forecast periodically will give us an updated path and a sense of how chaotic or stable the forecasts are. Stable forecasts give us confidence that they're accurate forecasts.

This ability to download weather data at sea by satellite and use that data to create computer generated routes on an iPad wasn't available when I started the Quijote South Pacific Semi-circumnavigation effort. It's one of those areas that has evolved, forcing us to evolve along with it to keep up with the technology.

To give you a sense of how quickly the technology has improved, Quijote was built in 2007 and was originally fitted with an integrated weather fax for downloading weather forecasts and charts.

Fueling Quijote

It's another night, another watch. There should be less than a week remaining. Mark is talking about stopping for fuel in the Strait. I'm not convinced we'll need to, but that depends on how much we burn between here and there.

The fuel tank is still reading full, which means we haven't started using the lower tank yet. That's kind of curious because my calculations have us with 40 gallons remaining (multiplying burn rate by engine hours), but that lower tank is about 62 gallons as I understand it. So something's funny. It shouldn't be reading full. The gas gauge is wrong perhaps. Or maybe the burn rate is lower than I think it is. I'm more inclined to believe the latter as we have been very conservative with the engine RPM's.

The size of the disparity has me anxious though. I don't want to run out of gas with a meter telling me I have a full tank. I guess that's why we keep track of burn rates and engine hours. At some point I have to stop believing the gauge. I'm not quite there yet.

The Doldrums

The boat is restless. The crew is anxious. The swell is obnoxious. The sails are lifeless. The motoring seems endless. Thankfully this watch is not.

Just enough of a good thing

Tonight is a weird one. The sounds are all wrong. Maybe it's just the water. And the wind. I'm behind the dodger, so I can't speak for the feel, but the wind has more of a quiet moan to it than its usual pitched wind in the rigging sound.

The water too is different. It's more subdued than it usually is. Gone is the charging river, playful water gig. Waves roll by the boat and rustle like dry leaves in autumn.

I can tell you now what the difference is. We've spent many days beating into the wind. Tonight is the first in a long time that I've come on watch to find the wind coming from behind us. The wind and the waves are working with us rather than against us. It's a nice change, even if it doesn't last long.

Low pressure systems are parading across the north Pacific above us. Wind rotates around them in a counter clockwise direction. the low to our northwest delivers wind from the south. We're glad to have it. As long as we don't get too much of a good thing.

On Schedule

Ship's time is still on Honolulu time, two hours behind Seattle. Ship's time is by consent of the crew. It's a small nugget of autonomy, choosing when you want your sun to rise and set. Our sun is rising around 4 am, so we may elect to make the change to Seattle time before we arrive. The time doesn't impact us much otherwise, except to determine when we start and stop our watches.

Heading east makes the sun rise earlier and heading north makes it colder. I'm wearing gloves for the first time since leaving Seattle in Aug 2019. We must be making progress!

Our two year semi-circumnavigation loop turned out to be smaller than expected, but Quijote is returning around the time we had originally planned. We're a few months early perhaps. There was no French Polynesia, Tonga, Fiji, or New Zealand, but we're on schedule!

ETA?

I'll guess a week into May. Mark is guessing ten days. He's a little more optimistic than I am. I suppose he has grounds to be. He has more experience and the forecast for next week looks favorable. We'll see. My relative pessimism is based solely on my experience that anything challenging takes longer than expected. I present the first week as exhibit A.

Danny is building a big pot of soup for dinner tonight out of canned goods and leftovers. Rice, pasta, protein, anything is fair game. I'll be eating mine with pilot crackers that Kay left onboard last year. They still look okay. Or as okay as they were then.

Mark made grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the soup so I was spared the experience of pilot crackers. I tried one and they're actually not bad. Not some WWII ration that you'd expect them to be.

Luck is a Pendulum

Luck has turned in our favor. We've had several days of favorable wind. We made good progress to the north yesterday. Now we're clocking with the wind to gain more easting as the low pressure systems north of us pass through. Those (scary big) systems have so far been far enough away for us to be removed from discomfort while close enough to provide favorable wind. We've been consulting with the weather guys to be sure that they are seeing what we see. Observations are agreeing with predictions, so that's another point of confidence. As the wind continues to turn, our plan is to continue turning to the east until tomorrow and then head back northeast for several days. That should get us where we want to go without getting too close to the low pressure system that has already turned the corner and is making its way north.

As all pendulums do, the luck pendulum took a swing back again yesterday morning when the mainsail furling gears jammed. An hour or two of fighting with it left us with substantially diminished capability. The mainsail is in a third reef position for the duration of the passage. That will be fine for the majority of conditions we face. When the time comes to furl the sail in all the way, we can muscle it in. We hope.

The mainsail provides sail area in downwind conditions. It provides stability and balance in upwind conditions. We'll just have to live with less of both. Sailing (as in life) is all about making do with less than you want.

On a medical note, I tried to cut the end of my finger off yesterday. Thankfully the nail limited the depth of the laceration, so it looks worse than it is. If I can keep it clean and dry it should heal up quickly.

It was one of those cases of series interruptions. Stowing hoses interrupted whatever else I was working on. Cutting off the hose barb on the end of the hose interrupted the stowing. Laceration, cleaning, and bandaging the finger interrupted that. Then while applying iodine, the boat lurched and sent me flying across the bathroom. I didn't have far to fly, but I crashed into the wall and spread iodine all over the white walls, counter top and sink. Suddenly the project became about preventing the iodine from staining everything the color of rust. To heck with the finger.

So there I was, finger bleeding into a paper towel, furiously scrubbing the bathroom. Eventually the damage was contained, the finger bandaged and hoses stowed. I climbed up on deck into the sunshine to enjoy the sailing and ponder: what was it I was working on before being sidetracked by those hoses?

Sailing Fast

I'm on 2 to 6 tonight. A squall passed through a few minutes ago, accompanied by driving rain that gave Quijote a good wash down. There's nothing wrong with removing a layer of salt off the boat. Here comes another. I have the throttle dialed back to about 3/4 of what it usually is. We're motoring into the wind, waiting for it to shift back off our nose. There is no reason to burn a lot of fuel doing that. The wind shift will overtake us; we won't overtake it.

The mainsail is restless and slapping off and on. It's as tired of inactivity as much as we are. We keep it partially rolled out, even when it's not configured to provide lift because it helps calm the boat motion. Waves drive a lot of lateral and rolling motion that the mainsail and the keel help dampen.

We had a really good day of sailing today. It actually started last night. My watch started with light wind, but mid-way through it started to pick up. I let out some sail and slowed the engine. The boat speed climbed. I did it again. Each time increased our speed. Eventually the engine was shut down and we had full canvas up, flying along at 7 knots in a 10 knot wind. That held for most of the day. When the wind speed climbed again and we started pushing 8 knots, we put in a reef. It was nice to have a fast sunny day for a change.

Adventuring

Where yesterday was a relaxing book club kind of day, today was definitely a work day. I worked the early evening (6-10) and middle morning (6-9) shifts last night. In between I slept like the dead for eight hours and woke to relieve Mark.

After that watch I motivated to do some toilet maintenance. There is a rubber valve on most marine toilets that allows liquid and material to be pushed out of the boat without allowing water to come back in the boat. The so called joker valve is a rather clever device that stretches open for passage from one direction and closes shut when trying to pass from the other direction. It's only shortcoming is that because it's made out of rubber it doesn't last very long or withstand much abuse. When the toilet bowl starts to fill by itself, it's time to replace the joker valve. I've replaced Quijote's many times.

We've been motoring again today to get us beyond these doldrums. As long as the seas and winds are mellow, we took the opportunity to transfer the remaining fuel and water tied to the deck into the ship's tanks. We calculate having about 85 gallons of diesel remaining of the 140 we started with. That's enough for six days of motoring. If we have ten days of sailing, we'll need about sixteen days of provisions to get to the next outpost. Ideally that would be home. As our quartermaster tells it we can make our provisions last that long. So we have 16 days of provisions and fuel as long as ten of those days demand no fuel. Will that be enough to get us home? It's hard to predict. Our luck will have to be better than it has been lately. Then again things could be going a la lot worse. We're still in the game and having the adventure of a lifetime.

Bobbing

We've encountered a fair amount of light air the last few days. We call it bobbing. All we can find it seems is wind that won't help us or no wind at all.

That storm we were advised to steer clear of is still building to the north of us, but it's an open question whether we'll be impacted by it. We ran east, away from it, and now it's predicted to be weaker than initially forecasted. Owing to our caution and pessimistic forecasting, that leaves us too far away, perhaps, to have any contact with it, for good or bad.

So we bob, drift, or charge off in the wrong direction. We're sailing northwest at the moment under grey skies at 3 knots. At least we're moving. In the right direction? Sort of. Okay, not really.

A Day in the Life of Quijote Crew

It's a beautiful morning. A pleasant wind is blowing, just enough to fill the sails and move the boat at a moderate pace. The sun is out and the temperature is perfect for a cool morning in T-shirt and shorts.

We should have the wind vane steering because it uses no power and isn't as noisy as the electric auto helm. But Mark was up here alone at the beginning of his watch when the winds were light and variable. The wind vane was having a tough time, so rather than fight with it, he powered up the auto helm.

A few hours later I've switched back to the wind vane. Our desired course is east, but the best we can do in this wind is southeast, so we live with it and press on. Then the wind starts backing: rotating counterclockwise, blowing from the north, then the northwest. That's great for our intended direction, but we know what's coming and see the grey smear in the horizon. Having no choice, we sail into the squall and are pummeled by rain and sturdy winds in the upper teens. The wind then goes light and fluky, turning the wind vane, and thus the boat, in circles.

After bobbing in place for half an hour, listening to the sails flap, I furl the genoa, fire up the engine, and vacate the scene.

Our weather router has given us waypoints to shoot for that will serve our objectives: finding favorable wind and avoiding the storm to our north. We decide it's worth investing fuel to reach the first of those waypoints and set off, running through the night to arrive before dawn.

We don't expect to see any different conditions at this waypoint. It's just a steppingstone to the next and then the next after that. A couple of days from now we'll be in a place where the winds will shift to the north which will allow us to make a turn as well. The reason for the intermediate waypoints is to give us a place to shoot for at 8 AM every morning.

Tierra del Diego or bust

Well, it didn't take long for our routing plans to be thwarted. The weather forecasters told us to head east ASAP. They apparently didn't want us going anywhere near the low pressure system we were planning on riding to the NE. The weather routing program I'm using made the predicted wind speeds look manageable yesterday, but updated data changed that. The low we were heading toward looks pretty serious.

It's good that they want to protect us from getting beat up by that storm, but it leaves us dithering again just north of Hawaii. The wind is such that we can't even head east very well. We have to go southeast. Our present course will take us to Tierra del Fuego. It's an interesting choice between TdF and a Gale.

The forecasters insist the wind will turn toward a more favorable direction later in the week. By turning east as we have, we're essentially killing time while we wait. If I'm losing as much south as I gain going east, I'm not motivated to sail very fast.

In other news the bilge problem has been resolved. It turns out the watermaker leaks while it's operating. That water flows into the bilge and in rough weather hides in the hull compartments under the floor boards. The water reappears in rough weather making it look like the boat is leaking somewhere. Now that we've pumped the bilge dry, water doesn't reappear when the weather gets rough.

Mark was the first to recognize this scenario. Brilliant!

Looking for a Way Home

Anybody following the Garmin tracker lately (https://share.garmin.com/SVQuijote) might wonder where we're going. For a while we were heading NW, then SE, now NE. What the heck is going on? Well... sailing is seldom about taking the direct route. The problem in our case is the weather. It's generating winds that are coming from precisely the place we want to sail to: our northeast. With winds from the northeast our starboard tack takes us westward and our port tack takes us southward. neither are taking is where we want to go.

The normal solution for doing this passage is to go NNW to get around a stationary high that parks itself north of Hawaii, then follow the wind into Puget Sound. The weather guys tell us that high is off in Lala Land somewhere, leaving chaos in its absenice.

It's no small problem. We need to get to a place where the wind is more favorable and we have limited fuel to do it. Our strategy now is to motor northeast for three days toward a place where a low pressure system is building. Or will be. We'll use its winds to push us further northeast.

Fingers crossed. Weather prediction is not very accurate beyond three days, but our little boat is so slow and this ocean is vast. We have no choice but to rely on a forecast four or five days ahead and hope for the best. If the forecast is accurate we'll be in good shape.

Packing

It was a work day today. Danny noticed that the propane locker was being pushed open. Further investigation revealed the locker was full of water and the tanks were floating around inside, one upside down, the other on its side. We pulled the sails down and drifted so there was less water rolling down the deck while we worked on the problem. The tanks have never been very secure. It's just not a good design for keeping them anchored in place. I've tried several avenues to strap them down or wedge them in with varying degrees of success depending on the sea state.

The last effort to secure them resulted in Kay's rubber boots, empty water bags, and a large towel packed around them to keep them in place. Unfortunately the towel didn't stay put and covered the drain hole for the locker. That combined with a hatch cover that wasn't well sealed resulted in the locker full of water.

We resolved the problem by repacking the locker and using silicone sealant as a temporary hatch seal. The problem will need more attention after the trip.

The next order of business, as long as the sails were down, was to transfer fuel from the jugs tied to the deck into the ship's fuel tank. That was a nasty job. We considered pouring the diesel though a filter funnel that's designed to exclude water, but decided the wind would spray fuel all over us if we tried that, so we used a siphon pump purchased for the purpose. That did the job, but with the motion of the boat sloshing the jugs and the transferring of hoses we ended up with the deck and ourselves covered in diesel anyway. We had very little wastage though so it was probably the right decision.

Water as precious as it is made cleaning up a challenge, but we managed with damp rags and dish soap. A hot shower will have to wait.

After dinner I settled in for a short nap before my 2-6am shift. The air in my room was hot and stuffy from the engine running next door so I opened the window over my head to let in some sweet fresh air. It felt delicious. I thought to myself that I should close the window in case it rains, but if it did, maybe the rain would wake me and I could close it then.

Half an hour later I was woken with a bucket load of sea water that was expertly launched from the ocean, through the hatch and into my head. Maybe it rimmed down the deck on its way, but regardless: my hair, body, pillow, sleeping bag, mattress were all soaked. Before I could get the window closed, three more entered, the last a direct shot to the kisser. Some evil sea monster was having his fun.

Thankfully, because the room is warm, it should dry out relatively quickly. Between the piles of baggage, the wet places, and the boat movement, it made finding a spot to sleep on challenging. Like a dog circling the mat before lying down, I moved bags, spread things out to dry, and wedged myself into a spot that wouldn't go flying.

Like the propane tank, security was found by packing in.

Bilge Business

We're scurrying around Quijote like mice trying to figure out why the bilge keeps filling up with water. We had to pump it three times last night. Everything we check comes up dry. All the through hull points look fine. In the marina the bilge doesn't fill with water. Somehow rough water works its way into the boat and we haven't been able to figure out how. We reconfigured the shower sump as a bilge pump so we don't have to do manual pumping. Quijote has an automatic electric emergency bilge pump, but it only activates when the water gets deeper.

The water maker leaks copiously in operation, so the current working theory is that water is finding its way into the boat through it. It doesn't help that the water maker is below water line. Testing is underway. Unfortunately the sea state is mild, so we are not taking on water no matter what we do. Maybe that's a good thing.

It's a hot, sticky day on day two out of Oahu. I didn't get much sleep last night. The waves and the bilge water wouldn't let me. Tonight.

So far on this segment we've done a lot of motor sailing. Kauai Channel was a chaotic mess with swell coming in one direction, wind injecting from another, and current messing with both. It was unfun. Mark called it the maelstrom. The strategy was to put as much of it behind us as quickly as possible. To do that we employed sails and engine and powered through the night.

We woke (if you can call that sleep) to a much friendlier state of affairs. The sun is out, the seas are calm, and the bilge is staying dry. We hope.

Videos by popular demand

A night time freeloader visits Quijote:
https://youtu.be/hL3s6GiE8OA

Genny doing her thing:
https://youtu.be/fiETJm5amGM



Sent from my iPad

Photos

 We docked around 7am this morning Honolulu time. That was late enough that the marina office opened up shortly thereafter and we were able to get keys to the showers.  Heavenly bliss that hot shower.

Then breakfast at the Mariott: exceptional eggs benny, followed by several hours of boat work.  The crew scrubbed the top sides while I changed the engine oil and fan belt.  Then off to Waikiki, we three, for a few days of relaxation before we get to work and do it all over again: reprovision, refuel, recharge and relaunch; this time north to Puget Sound, homeward bound.

I confess I might do some Quijote puttering tomorrow. It's the very best kind of puttering and since rumor has it tomorrow is Easter, what else are we going to do? go to church? (Snort) Yea right.

With good bandwidth I can finally send a few images taken during this first leg.

Quijote Crew Ready to Depart

La Paz Sends us off with Fanfare

The left image is a weather chart showing doldrums in blue and our path in white crosses to avoid them. The chart on the right shows our path through the jibe with more data points.

The dodger gets torn out by leaning on it too hard. The fragile, UV damaged stitching can't hold out. Rod sets to work with a hand repair, pushing the sturdy needle though thick Naugahyde with a pawl.

It ain't pretty, but it'll hold.

Rock Formations off Cabo Saint Lucas

Danny Wins the Battle Against a Dorado 

It Doesn't Take Much Sail to Go Fast in 26 to 30 knots wind. We saw gusts to 35 and seas 30 feet from trough to crest.

Looking for Attention? Take Off Your Shirt and Put a Dead Fish in your Mouth. This one Found our Deck in the Middle of the Night and was quite dead before its encounter with Danny.

Motoring in

Finally a warm, sunny day. Now I feel like we're gong to Hawaii! It just hasn't felt like it until today. The weather has been more Pacific Northwestern than tropical. We were so inspired by the weather, we broke out the cocoanut rum and pineapple juice. Yummy!

We passed the 3000 (nautical) mile threshold today. A milestone. Except for charging the batteries, it has all been under sail power. We have a few hundred miles remaining which should take us 45 hours or so. Mark prefers motoring those final miles rather than sailing for various reasons, but I think primarily because he wants to nail down our arrival time more accurately for a meeting with boarder control. I don't know that it matters much, but arriving a day later on a Sunday might complicate formalities. Avoiding complications is good. So is saving 45 gallons of fuel, but whatever.

Danny found a package of tortilla mix in the pantry, so it's burritos for dinner tonight. Now if we can just translate these directions from Spanish.

It will be good to replenish our food stores to save us from meals that demand... creativity. Oatmeal and canned salmon for dinner anyone?