Last Minute Projects

Tao's nearly ready to push off

This whole month has been filled with tasks as we have slowly worked toward setting sail south. It started with ear appointments, sewing machine repairs, standing rigging replacement, bending sails, Kona visit with Dave, Toni and Ty and even a quick Honolulu visit with Grandma. It continued with Morning Star solar charge controller installation, sewing and installing a new galley strap and above fridge pocket, restringing our food hammock, searching for seeds to sprout underway (you can’t have them mailed from the mainland), and a large amount of time has gone into wedding planning up to launching our wedding website and sending out invitations. We found new favorite mediums and spent days shaping foam and attaching industrial strength Velcro: to cover Sunny’s corners atop the dodger, to hang Chris’ soda charger along the cabin wall for easy access and storage, and to create plugs for inconveniently placed spaces where our dodger attaches to our cabin top. Then came the last minute shipping frenzy when first our back up camera died (it might have had something to do with a drink getting spilled on it) and soon after the local propane store would not fill our two severely rusted 2.5-gal propane tanks (and of course no one on the island carries that size tank). Ebay with 2-day shipping came to the rescue. Shawn’s continual provisioning at every store in town led to requirement of creative storage, including finding a secret bilge space area just the right size for an entire case of bottled Kona brewery beer, adding two new hanging bins in the V-berth, and three new plastic bins (created by cutting the top off of collapsible 5-gal water jugs for bomber flexible storage containers) filled with cans. We thought we had filled every space as we left Berkeley and then again as we left Mexico. Still, with reorganization, we found more space under the navigation station, below the galley sink, below the new refrigerator, in the V-berth after moving water jugs aft to the quarter berth, in Grizzly's food area, and even Grizzly's shelf became available space for storage.

Chris and his first engine mount (the original?!)

While Shawn toured CostCo and each grocery in town, Chris had some solid Yannie time. Favorite project medium switched to using Lanocote and WD-40 while hanging upside-down in the lazarette. Chris replaced the engine zincs, then attacked a lingering project by replacing the aft engine motor mounts, which went well enough that he chose to replace the forward two as well (holding the engine up with our 5:1 pulley). This success was followed by engine alignment, and finally engine governor idle control lubrication as Yannie recently does not want to turn off. While in the lazarette he decided to repack the shaft packing nut in preparation for motor time. While awaiting our new propane tanks, one of the fishermen that we see nearly daily, Randy, offered a propane tank for the interim and practically forced us to take some beautiful ahi tuna fish as he had too many. So much aloha, mahalo! Nearly ready to go, we celebrated Chris’ birthday with a “Matrix Marathon” at BY Kona director, Mark’s pad (we only made it through the first 2 of the three but also had wonderful food and even some hot tub time in there as well). Tying up loose ends, we threw together two boxes full of gear that didn’t have to be aboard, but we weren’t ready to give/throw away, and mailed them back to mainland along with a cleaned organized and filled backup hard drive and even squeezed in attending the BY Kona annual potluck between final runs to the post office and stores.

And now we are playing the weather game. Safe in harbor, we check the weather forecasts and try to decide on the right moment to untie from the dock and get underway. One more “channel” to cross, we carefully watch the forecasts for the South Point of the Big Island, looking (in vain?) for a weather window. South Point is infamous for being rough, with winds and seas running into land in the middle of the ocean, creating swirling washing machine along with a constant promontory effect. The later days of each forecast tends to look a little milder and then intensify as they get closer. It is like pushing off from the raft put in and running the biggest rapid right off the bat. We are trying to set ourselves up for success to time our crossing of the intense 50 or so miles off of South Point. Another sail boat, Scotch Power, has pushed off for the same destination a day before us and hopefully we'll get fills regarding their conditions along the way. Until then, we continue to run final checks retying everything down, testing the HF radio connection, downloading gribs, adding e-mail addresses to our white list, updating the blog, and checking the weather yet again. So we wait, and sleep, and cook, and prepare, and maybe we’ll push off later today.

Boat Projects and Birthdays

Things have been crazy, and ever so slowly over the past 3 weeks since splashing, we have been chipping away at our to-do-before-leaving list as the huge Hawaiian green sea turtles swim around our boat and cheer us on. First, we reinstalled the deck hardware and running rigging, installed the refurbished engine temperature gauge, and closed off the old water tank access hatches (the ones that we found leaking just before our passage to Hawaii). Then we moved on to the following larger boat projects:

HAM exam: After way more hours of study than necessary, we are proud to report that Shawn passed both her Technician and General HAM exams and is now anxiously awaiting a call sign so we can get a new batch of boat cards printed (can you believe we are out of our original ones?!). After 2-weeks waiting, her call sign is just up on the FCC website, welcome WH6DYA (in other words Whiskey-Hotel-six-Delta-Yankee-Alpha)!

Solar Farm: Step one to getting Tao reorganized for sailing was to get the solar panels back in action to support daily power usage. This would have been quick except we decided to enlarge our solar farm. We now have 80-watt Big Daddy and 85-watt Hit Girl (if you’ve ever seen the hilarious movie KickAss you’ll understand those names) attached to the stern arch and our original Sunny (50-watts) has a new space on top of the dodger. Post wiring, we are power rich! Now we have plenty of energy for our newly wired Waeco refrigerator and integrated VHS/AIS systems to run as much as we would like. That is if we hadn’t crossed a wire and blown a 5 amp fuse (which needed to be upgraded to 20 amps anyway) or if our solar regulator hadn’t decided to quit. Right now we have our 10 amp max back up installed and a sweet replacement is headed our way via Priority Mail.

Sewing projects: Several sewing projects are lingering around the boat including, courtesy flags, a hanging bin in the reorganized refrigerator compartment (complete with the original teak door that had been removed for Grizzly’s litter box to fit), and additional flaps for the dodger in two areas that water can get through. However, our sewing machine, Elna 5000, had different plans. After the beginning of the work, she suddenly refused to pick up stitches anymore without a visit to the doctor’s office. After calling all available sewing machine repair numbers around the Big Island we now know that every technician on the island lives in Hilo (the other side) and the only two shops that offer repairs Kona side send the sewing machines to Hilo weekly or have a technician visit once a month. Luckily, the technician was scheduled to visit a week later and his diagnosis was a huge relief. Elna just needed cleaning and retiming, though he did chastise us (which we deserved since we hadn’t had her serviced since we purchased her in 2004) that she needed to be serviced more than twice a year if living in the salty environment of a sailboat (sorry, not gonna happen). We are grateful to have her back in service and Shawn is slowly moving forward with these projects.

Q: What is missing?
A: Starboard upper!!

Standing Rigging: Tao’s standing rigging was replaced by her previous owner in 2000, and in 2004 we replaced her backstay in order to insulate it for use with our HF radio. It is generally recommended to change rigging every 10 years or so, but some people claim that properly cared for rigging can last more like 20 years. Our 12-yr old rig was solid for our sail across to Hawaii, and upon examination it looked to be in great condition. However, problem areas don’t tend to be easily visible. To allay our worries, we decided to re-rig before heading out again. For the past week, Chris has been methodically climbing the mast and removing then replacing one stay at a time with only one minor puncture wound inflicted in his left knuckle and only one stainless piece requiring rescuing after being dropped into the water. We are happy to report that the old rigging, once removed, has no visible problems, and the new rigging, solid and shiny, just awaits tuning.

As if that wasn’t enough to keep us busy… Shawn has been teaching two yoga classes a week at Bikram Yoga Kona and we have been trying to practice 4 times a week- not such an easy feat without a vehicle. Chris finally went to see a doctor about his right ear (which has been bothering him since his last dive just before we hauled out). It turns out that, likely due to Chris’ growing up surfing and kayaking in cold waters, his ear canals are very constricted- no problem for hearing, but increasing his risk of ear infections. So, 2 weeks of strong antibiotics and steroid drips and two more appointments later, we await a special ear plug delivery before pushing off. In addition (yes, there is more), we have been spending numerous hours working via Skype with a wedding planner in Mexico in an attempt to make that event happen before another 10-years pass us by (more details to come on that once decisions have been made). Oh, and we took a day off from “working” to celebrate Shawn’s birthday by taking a yoga class, then hiking to a beautiful white sand beach called Makalawena (from Kua Bay side), stuffing ourselves with delicious Kenichi sushi rolls- rolled by Kenichi himself, and ending the celebration by turning a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream into a decadent milk shake. Over the next week we will chip away at the remaining items to move our way toward our ultimate improved sailing machine for the next leg of our journey. And then comes provisioning…

Surf and friends early April 2011

Goodbye San Blas and Hello Mexican Riviera; not a lot of wind and nice swells always rolling in at anchor. After finishing the building and installation of the dodger frame, sailing Fatty around the estuary and hiking over the protective dunes to see the ocean, on Tuesday March 29th we finally exited San Blas Estuary. Much less exciting exiting than our entrance had been, we motored out early while the tide was at its highest and after briefly attempting to sail on the nonexistent breeze, continued to motor the 5-nm to Mantenchen Bay. Although happy that there was no swell running to exit the estuary, as we hopped in the surf-mobile for Chris to show Shawn around the bay, the “longest right” in Mexico was sadly not going off.

A quick swim in the clear water later, the breezes came up and we weighed anchor for a beautiful sail southward along the coast on the afternoon sea breezes. As the light winds vanished, around 1700 we decided to exercise Yannie in order to make Chacala by sunset. We reached the anchorage- full of sailboats heading north, and decided to set a bow-n-stern at the pole position just off the little village. Heading back to the outside edge of the anchorage, we prepped the stern anchor (it had been awhile for us to set two anchor) and agreed upon a plan: we motored forward onto anchor, let out 200-ft of chain in 20-ft of water. With the chain locked Rocky set, Tao swung around and we then backed down until we were perpendicular to the swell at which point we chucked out the stern anchor. Pulling in nearly 100-ft of chain on our front anchor we let out rhode for our stern anchor. Happy with our spot, we stayed two nights. While there, we took our surf mobile around the corner and got in the water to surf Chacalas wave (though very small) and also met the circumnavigators on Mantarua, the only other boat that stayed in the anchorage. We gave only a momentary thought to trading our 33-ft NorWest for their 41-ft Cheoy Lee…

Thursday the 31st we sailed out of Chacala on the afternoon sea breeze and again motored the last hour to our planned roadstead anchorage at Sayulita. Renowned for its surf and being a cute jungle town we thought we might stay a few days. However, even with settled conditions and a bow-n-stern anchor set, it was an uncomfortable anchorage. On top of that, the surf waves were tiny and overflowing with hopeful surfers. So, instead, we dinghied into shore, had great street tacos and perused the scene checking all the surf shops for a possible board to buy for Shawn. After motoring around the corner of the bay to check for possible secret surf spots and finding none, we pulled Ruby aboard and weighed our double anchors to motor out in search of the afternoon sea breeze. It finally filled in around 1400 and the sails went up as we checked the shoreline for possible surf breaks and were visited by a few whales. We had a slow but pleasant sail around Punta de Mita into Banderas Bay and set Rocky as the sun dipped behind the peninsula that provides protection from NW weather as well as creates several great surf breaks.

With pre-scheduled appointments in La Cruz April 3rd, we only spent 1 full day at Punta Mita for Chris to get his surf fix before buckling down for the next few days to get some balls rolling on projects that are waiting to get done before our May crossing. We just made our noon appointment (it was only 1000 our time with time zone change and spring forward). Several busy days ensued though we still can’t figure out why people spend so long anchored here. It is quite uncomfortable every afternoon as the breezes suck onto shore with 20-30 knots and wind waves to boot. However we met with and got estimates from two women to sew our dodger cover and started the process of selling our surf mobile on the morning VHF net (yes, it is sad).

On the fun side, we managed to have a couple dinners with Di and Andrew of Saviah who were staying in the marina feverishly finishing tasks before crossing to the Marquesas and we even met a couple more young cruisers also about to jump. In our wanders, we stumbled across a young couple and introduced ourselves to the Lauren’s of Piko at the dock in Marina La Cruz, and admired their new stern arch and solar farm. They mentioned that another fun young couple was anchored out and we should stop an introduce ourselves. Turns out Britannia was right next to us in the anchorage, so on our motor out we stopped by and were easily enticed aboard to share their relaxation from provisioning with Coronitas, amazing margaritas and shared stories. It is refreshing to meet other crusiers that are in the same stage of life and therefore facing the same life questions as we are. It turns out they had gotten two surf boards stolen in Mantenchen Bay the same night Seahor was stolen, small world...

After 3-nights, we hurried out of La Cruz’s uncomfortable anchorage to enjoy some surf and sun at our favorite surf/sail locale thus far- Punta de Mita. Also, for the second year, fellow Canyons river mama Whizzy came to Punta de Mita to unwind from a long hard winter in Idaho working at her yurt by surrendering to the ocean on a surf board, and this year Bruce joined her. At the same time, a dozen or so boats poised to head across the Pacific were waiting for the wind to fill in to pull up their anchors. As the swell bumped up we enjoyed a few surf sessions and Shawn’s birthday with Whiz and Bruce staying at Villa Las Olas on shore and Amanda and Krister on Britannia awaiting the perfect not-Friday weather window to push off for the Marquesas.

Our “herd mentality” clicked in as we watched neighbors weigh anchor and listened on the radio nets to boat after boat departing for the South Pacific and even two for Hawaii. Everyone else is leaving now, what are we doing? Are we too late? No, we just have to be careful during NE Pacific hurricane season which doesn’t officially start until June 1st. Breathe. In a perfect world, we would be ready for a May 1 departure. Unfortunately getting our canvas sewn for the dodger cannot be done until May 15. When it comes down to it, we would rather cross dodger-less without risking a hurricane than having to weather big storms with a dodger. But it sure would be great to have both a completed dodger and no hurricanes. The final decision is yet to be made. What we have decided to do is to completely relax for the rest of Whiz’s visit spending each day with her in the surf, having discussions about life, and eating well.

Every day the Eeyore and Ruby surf-mobile is employed carrying anywhere between one and four surfers and boards multiple times per day. Chris is loving his 5’10” quadfin fish and eagerly awaits more forecast swell for later this week. Shawn is practicing post-falling-evasive-maneuvers in an attempt to avoid any further surfboard-to-face contact (X-rays show no breaks only a deviated septum). And princess Grizzly is annoyed that a hinge broke aboard and therefore her favorite hiding spot is currently out of commission but she is surviving in all of her alternative hiding spots. We’re all immensely enjoying our time in Mexico and expect the preparation pace will pick up quite soon, commonly heard here, maybe mañana.