August 30 , 2008
Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Gary’s Journal and Reflections on The Second Attempt of the 2008 Pacific Puddle Jump aboard SV Grace:

This is an addendum to the Blog Log that was written by Dorothy while Gary was underway from Puerto Vallarta to Tahiti, April 10-June 2, 2008.  The following are Gary’s words & thoughts. There are additional photos on the Photos Page.

Part 1 - Part 2

April 10

My second attempt to sail to Tahiti began on April 10, 2008 at 15:30 as I kissed Dorothy goodbye at Marina Vallarta.  Captain Geoff was at the helm as Bill & I assisted with dock lines in preparation for a short trip to the fuel dock and then into Banderas Bay.  Winds were light and we were forced to motor until the evening breeze picked up.  Two humpback whales gave us a send off from Banderas Bay breaching for our enjoyment while we started to acquire our sea legs. 

The following days evolved into a pattern, as the wind was cooperative much of the time and the seas were mostly accommodating.  We settled into a shipboard routine of watches, meals, sleeping and doing our daily check-in via SSB with the Pacific Puddle Jump Net at 0000 Z.

April 16

April 16th was my birthday and it was definitely a different kind of birthday – low key, no surprise party, no dinner at a fancy restaurant, BUT Dorothy did surprise me with a bottle of Port Townsend Porter (which she had given to Geoff to hide in the frig before we left.)  It sure tasted good as I shared it with Bill & Geoff.  I called Dorothy on the SAT phone and thought of that as part of my birthday present.

April 17

The next day brought some excitement.  The moon was up at the beginning of my watch and winds and seas were moderate.  Watch was boring, which was good – that meant there weren’t any problems!  I had my iPod Nano and started listening to the audio book, Bringing Down The House.  The sun was coming up later each day as we moved westward; watches were still based on Puerto Vallarta time because we didn’t change the clock when we went through a time zone.  The spinnaker went up in the morning as winds were light, but we left it up too long as the winds continued to build.  The boat was almost knocked down as the boom hit the water when we had difficulty dropping the sail.  Eventually, we got the jib out with a pole on it.  The winds built to the 20’s and the seas increased.  Dinner was horrible and I wasn’t able to eat the beef from Carne del Mundo.  Not a great way to end the day!

April 18

Moderate winds today in the morning that died as the day went on.  Ride was rolly as we had 6’-8’ seas on our starboard quarter and captain was intent on speed so the chute went up when the speed dropped.  We had already mended the spinnaker sock after yesterday’s mishap when the sock stuffer line had released and spinnaker reopened so quickly that the sock got friction burns.  Not much wildlife to see, only a few boobies and some other very small, swift birds.

April 19

While sleeping, I was having a bad dream that things were crashing all around and it struck me funny later on how “outside” things can be incorporated into one’s dream, as at 12:15 I was abruptly awoken by loud crashing and banging above deck.  At first I thought we had run into something or we had tangled our rig with another boat.  I jumped out of my berth and scrambled up into the cockpit to find the cause.  Bill was at the helm and Geoff was running around.  Apparently what had happened was the towing generator had fouled the wind vane after being swept to the port side of the boat by a large quarter wave.  Bill lost control of the boat after the Monitor went crazy and the boat did an accidental jibe in 20 kts of wind!  We had to disengage the Monitor, regain control of the boat, clear the fouled Monitor, and get the towing generator out of the water so it wouldn’t happen again.  Normally this wouldn’t have been too difficult, the dog collar would be slipped on the generator line stopping the generator’s prop from spinning and then it would be pulled out of the water.  This couldn’t be done as a knot had been tied in the gen’s line and the collar wouldn’t go over it.  Eventually the collar was cut to enlarge the opening and we finally were able to pull up the generator.  The generator had to be removed, the line repaired, rewired, and relocated to the port side of the boat.  In the future, we needed to be very aware of what direction the swells were coming from so that the towing generator could be located on the proper side of the boat.  The wind vane was also repaired before it could be utilized again. Another issue that came to light later with the Monitor was that at certain points of sail, the paddle could become fouled under the wind generator's support structure. This happened to me during night watch as the boat went crazy for no apparent reason. After I finally realized what had happened, I had to go to astern to clear the paddle from the supports before I could re-engage the Monitor. .

April 20

Another accidental jibe today!  Wind was building; Bill and I asked  the skipper to reef the main as we were getting overpowered.  He said “no” and that he wanted to keep up as much speed as we could.  Not five minutes later the boat rounded up and before we could get control, it jibed with a loud bang as the boom crashed through the cockpit to the other side!

April 21

We reached the halfway point today and saw our first rain shower; it continued to rain off and on all night and was the first rain I’d seen in eight months!  Each day when we checked-in, I plotted the positions of the 2 or 3 closest boats on the chart plotter; today we caught and passed SV Our Country Home which made the captain happy as he was intent on passing someone. He hit a roadblock with Sailmail as he was over his limit and got kicked off. Sailmail is a computer program working with a Pactor modem, which interfaces with the SSB and allows one to get email and attachments via SSB radio.  There is a daily and weekly limit; the captain had been downloading GRIB (an attachment) files daily and had been given a warning for exceeding the limit. This warning was ignored and we were booted off the system the next day. After a phone call to the States, privileges were reinstated. 

Later in the afternoon we noticed that there was something wrong with the gooseneck on the main boom.  The gooseneck is a flexible coupling between the boom and mast, which enables it to move from side-to-side and up and down, it is a critical connection between the two like a universal joint.  Upon closer inspection, we discovered that the pin was bent, probably from our last accidental jibe.  We would be in big trouble if that ever let loose under a load! 

We disassembled the gooseneck, removing the section attached to the boom with the pin.  This was difficult as the screws were corroded in place - requiring that they be drilled out or removed with heat & an impact driver. The damage was then assessed and we had to come up with a fix.  It took us a couple hours to get the gooseneck apart as we were underway and the boat was rolling in the swells without the main to stabilize it.  Finally we were able to jury-rig a repair and reassembled the joint.  However, this isn’t the end of the story!

April 24

No wind, motored all day.  S/V Grace doesn’t have an autopilot, so we had to hand steer the entire time we motored.  I wasn’t aware of this before we left and was quite surprised as I find hand steering for hours at a time tedious.

April 25

We were a couple degrees north of the equator and the GRIB file had lied to the captain; it had shown that there would be wind and there was NONE!  A GRIB file is a graphical representation of raw wind data that is generated by NOAA’s weather satellites.  The data is not necessarily reliable as it’s raw data and a weather specialist hasn’t analyzed it.  There is some prediction inherent in it, but experts caution folks that there are errors, they not reliable and should only be used in conjunction with bona fide weather predictions.  GRIB files were the only weather information utilized on board Grace.  Therefore we motored again all day, definitely a pain without an autopilot. 

Watches were changed and now they were Geoff 8:00 p.m.-midnight, me -midnight – 4:00 a.m., Bill 4:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.  Neither Geoff nor Bill seemed to like the middle watch, but it didn’t bother me except that I didn’t get to see a sunrise or sunset.  It was OK though, as I liked the alone time.  There were no set watches during the day.

During my midnight-4:00 a.m. watch, I noticed nav lights off my port beam and thought it might be SV Our Country Home as I knew they were east of us.  I tried hailing them several times on the VHF, to no avail.  However a few minutes later, I was hailed by a voice with a heavy Australian accent.  The nav lights belonged to an Australian livestock freighter deadheading back to Australia from Manzanillo on Mexico’s west coast.  (Deadheading means the boat was returning to its homeport without a return cargo.)  I spent the next several minutes chatting with the gentleman while we were both in the middle of the Pacific Ocean just a few degrees north of the Equator…quite enjoyable.  

April 26

I awoke to the sound of the motor and light winds.  This was “Crossing Day” as we would cross the Equator sometime in the afternoon.  We saw a small group of dolphins ¼ nm off our port bow – Neptune’s helpers checking us out!  The Equator crossing was at 15:12, N 00°00.000, W 130°45.531.  We paid homage to the Sea Gods with a sacrifice of champagne, a photo, and signing of the cork.  Now we were officially Shellbacks!

April 27

Slow boat day as there was no wind and we motored, again hand steering for hours!
 
The gooseneck fitting required more attention as the nut had backed off and the bolt was moving around.  Bill and Geoff tried to “engineer” it.  I finally told them about Jimmy Buffet and his song with the line, “A tattoo was a permanent reminder of a temporary situation.”  In this case, the fix was a “temporary fix for a temporary problem!”  What I meant was we were only 2 or 3 days from the Marquesas so the fix had to only last for 2 or 3 days, not all the way to New Zealand.  We could do a “permanent fix” at anchor in the Marquesas, not while drifting at sea. We stopped motoring and just drifted while work continued, as  the captain didn’t want to use any more fuel.  I did manage to get in a deck shower in the rain before nightfall. 

April 28

My night watch started with 3 or 4 dolphins playing around the boat for almost an hour.  It was very dark but I could see them underwater as they swam - leaving trails in the water due to the bioluminescence.  They were swimming very slowly and occasionally would come up near the boat and I could hear them breathing…inhaling and exhaling.  It was a very magical moment; it felt like they were putting on a show for me by sticking by the boat and keeping me company.

We were sailing along with only the staysail making 1-1.5 nm/hour.  Rainsqualls came up and the wind increased to 22 knots, however it averaged 14-16 kts with much rain.  The boat’s speed increased to 3.5 kts with the Monitor steering - doing a good job using only the staysail.

As the wind and rain died down, I noticed a trio of boobies had found the boat in the dark and were attempting to land on the masthead.  It was funny seeing them trying that with the masthead moving back and forth as well as keeping the next bird from taking the perch away from them.  This went on for 15 or 20 minutes with them getting frustrated, flying away, only to return and try again!  It was great entertainment! 

In the afternoon the wind came up and we started sailing really well and then WHAM!  We were hit by strong wind and then rain, what a downpour. It came down so hard; the winds were 25+kts.  The towing generator was in danger of being fouled again due to the extreme movement of the boat. The storm lasted for about four hours with the winds decreasing to 10-12kts and the rain ceased. 

April 29

Sailing now at nice pace with sunny skies, white clouds.  Saw a frigate bird today, first one since we left Puerto Vallarta!

Very tired today, not sure why.  For the first time, I’m wishing we were at the destination. Twenty days, approximately 2200 miles. No music, no real showers, tired of sitting on the hard cockpit seats.  Took a snooze and afterwards got the word from Geoff – one email every other day, not larger than 750 Bytes.  We have a band width problem with so many GRIB files being downloaded.

”Charge!” that what it looked like as the 60+ dolphins raced to intercept us and try to see which one is going to get the choice spot in the bow wave.  They were lined up twelve deep off both sides!

During watch, more speed, no reefs in the sails yet.  Geoff says the boat can handle it.  WHAM, almost lost control. Rain.  Bill said it was a “wild ride up front in his bunk, he could have sold tickets!”

April 30

So today we get to change our clocks.  It will be nice not having the sun come up at 0900.  Of course we have to change sea watches too, but not by the same amount - too much stress on our systems?!?  Geoff also decided that after the next port we are going on rotating shifts; that was the proposal to begin with, but he turned it down because he didn’t like it.
 
Came on watch as  the captain was reefing the sails for the nearby squalls.  OK, I like this caution!  1½ hours later and he’s up saying “shake them out, nearby squall doesn’t matter.”  Fifteen minutes later, WHAM out of the blue, he’s back up and accuses me of not anticipating the event and not reacting quickly enough.  On and on, it got nasty!!!

May 1

I get up and Geoff’s not speaking.  That’s nice, as I do not feel like talking to him.  I neat up, have breakfast and sit down to read….thinking about jumping ship at our first port. Yes, really!

There’s a yell “Oh, damn” and a pause and then “All hands on deck!”  All this to much banging and clanging.  I grab my jacket and PFD with tether, (Yes, I’m a good boy. The reason I say that is Dorothy is ALWAYS reminding me to put on my PFD!) and am up on deck.  First thing I see is the whisker pole bent about sixty degrees.  It then snaps in half and the two halves start flogging around wildly.  To tell the truth, I was not looking forward to going out on the foredeck in the heavy rain to try to grab them.  By this time, Bill was up on deck too; it took us a while, but we finally got things under control. 

Afterwards we were sitting in the cockpit talking.  Bill said to Geoff, “I thought the whisker pole looked a little small in diameter when we were putting it up.  It even looked like it was bending a little.”

He responded, “I knew it was too small and thought it would probably break.”

I have to say I was rather surprised, shocked and angry that a skipper would put in place a critical piece of hardware, like a whisker pole, knowing it was too small & likely to break.  With the large pieces flailing around, someone could have been seriously injured or worse!

May 2

In the late morning we got the call to drop the staysail, as something was wrong.  The inner stay for the staysail was loose.  Upon inspecting the T-fitting, it was noted that it was broken.  Luckily, there was a spare and the fix was made.

Sailing along in choppy seas and close to making landfall, I was thinking that if things didn’t change with the sails slating, we were going to break something.  Sure enough, we did!  The lower mainsheet block let go with a bang; the boom went crashing out as the sheet ran out.  We quickly found a snatch block, secured it to the traveler and pulled the boom in.  Another thing broken that did not have to be if proper care had been taken. 

Made landfall in Nuku Hiva, the Marquesas at 2:40 local time.  We dropped the anchor in a harbor already holding 25-30 boats.  I was immediately captivated by the lushness of the islands as they reminded me of the Hawaiian Islands.

Paul & Gina of SV Solace greeted us with cold beers and later brought us a homemade lemon meringue pie.  We thoroughly enjoyed both!  That evening at the Yacht Club there was a get-together that we joined and had fun talking to everyone & hearing their stories. 

I had mixed feelings about landfall as I enjoyed parts of being underway, but it was also nice seeing the verdant tropical paradise of the Marquesas.  I knew I also now had an escape valve.


Part 1 - Part 2

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Last updated on September 2, 2008