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| Somehow the video did not turn out X-rated |
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Carlie Simon
The complete bloody experience of Carl's tattoo can be viewed here or you can go to the video link on the right side of the page.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Confessions of a Calendar Girl: Hiva Oa edition!
Leslie:
Hiva Oa, notably, the town of Atuona, was really good to us, which is why we stayed longer than we expected too! Again, pictures will be added when we stop slacking!
June 12- dinner out. Raleigh eats all the granola bars!
Here's a good idea. Don't leave Raleigh alone ever in Ventura or Mexico, then, after a 21 day passage, leave him alone in the middle of the night and forget to hide the tuperware of granola bars, while you go enjoy pizza and poisson cru (raw fish and veg marinated in lime and coconut milk). Raleigh does not know the subtlties of wrappers, so he got quite a bit of extra roughage. Fortunately, his colorful poops over the next few days weren't too messy.
June 13- movie night with kaja and Jean Paul
Kaja, from maine, has been cruising since 1993 and has been everywhere. In brazil she met Frenchman Jean Paul, who renamed his boat after her, kajananas. We invited them over to watch the sailboat racing classic from the 80s (90s?) staring jennifer gray and matthew modine, Wind. I'm glad we are not racers!
June 14- pamplemoose party
Sandra, the local agent/angel to boaters, gave us some of this delicious local version of grapefruit. Sweet and grassy, we flip out and froth at the sight of any tree bursting with this fruit.
June 15- moved Debbie
We had supposedly been in the way of the shipping boat that comes every thursday, so we moved but it didn't come til Tuesday and we missed it anyway. Allegedly it is a town event. Poo. I think this is also the day don and I walked about 4 miles to Taha'a. Hitchhiking is very normal here (it's usually how we get to and from town), but nobody picked us up for a long time. I blame don's werewolfy good looks. Finally a family stopped and took us the rest of the way, about a 5 min drive. There is a church that looks like an old new England stone church, but up close you can see that the stones are volcanic rock. We had a crappy map that led us up a road to an ancient ceremonial site. There was no sign indicating distance, so we almost gave up, but pushed on just enough to finally get there. There were many stone walls/foundations, but the tiki were seemingly way up in the jungle, beyond some amazingly massive vine-entwined trees (I think the sacred banyan tree?). It was getting late and the mosquitoes were hungry, so we cut our Indiana jones adventure short. Fortunately a couple picked us up right away and drove us all the way to the port.
June 16- Raleigh is legit!
Our fears of ral being stuck on the boat in the marquesas were averted! He spent a danger-filled afternoon on shore playing fetch (fell into a hole and scraped his nose), watching the locals fish (nearly swallowed a hook going after a baited line), and strolling with carl (had to be thrown onto the shoulder after wandering repeatedly into the middle of the road.) We think he's learned an important lesson: freedom has a price.
June 17- atuona
A big day out in atuona. Don and carl got picked up early in the morning to go see sandra's husband david's workshop. He makes stringed instruments out of breadfruit trees, heart cedar, hibiscus wood, and other local flora. Lee, Andy, ral and I went for a hike and saw many jungle chickens, goats, horses, and grumpy dogs who barked at ral.
Later we all went to sandra's to use her wifi, then don went with David to meet the mayor and help show the town how to use their new audio equipment. This is a good example of why I love don.
June 18- little island
We took a break from our dirty, sharky, rocky anchorage and spent some time at the picturesque island of Tahuata, only an hour away.
June 19- frisbee on the beach!
The water was warm and clear, great for swimming, and the sandy beach was nearly people-free. Raleigh enjoyed playing frisbee, but was not so into us playing in the waves or swimming away from him.
June 20- dinner on Eden
We'd met Adam and eve briefly in San Jose, and knew we'd be doing the crossing around the same time, and ending up in the same area. Luckily we met up on Tahuata and invited ourselves for dinner on their aptly named power boat, Eden. While we may have been uncouth in our desire to see their boat, we are good guests! We brought over a fresh baked loaf of bread, cous cous salad, and a sort of margarita punch made with tequila from Tequila, Mexico, simple syrup and limes picked onshore that day. The boat...talk about lavish! It was nicer than the nicest apartment I've ever been in. Cream leather seats, lots of nice West Elm-y pillows, tatami floors, shiny kitchen with a regular sized stove and fridge/freezer, computerized everything, an indoor cockpit like Captain Kirk's, the ability to watch The Sopranos while steering, washer and dryer, second freezer, princess bed in a real bedroom, spiral staircase, covered porch-like transom, and a seemingly loose attitude towards fresh water; water pouring down the drain as they washed their hands and dishes! We use buckets of sea water and squirts from a 28oz spritz bottle of fresh water, so all of us gasped in awe at this. Envy much? I'd give up apples entirely to get into that Eden! Dinner was great, raleigh, andy and carl
feasted on chicken, and we all, except for ral, enjoyed eve's fresh green bean salad and adam's great chocolate cake. Not to mention all the wine and the board game...I forget the name.
Lots of fun! And, Eve gave us the much missed treat of magazines! Hope to see them again one day.
June 21- Raleigh surfs
Slowly but surely, R dog braves the waves! He only gets rolled a few times!
June 22- swimming with rays and a shark.
Andy and carl wake up early to swim with manta rays (you know, what killed croc hunter Steve Irwin). Carl sees a shark swimming below him and nearly kills himself getting back on the boat!
June 23- back to atuona
Back on shore, Lisa, Don and I attack Andy's hair with scissors, while the nice Aussie family on Connect 4 laughs with/at us. Lisa and i give each other trims, while don hacks at his own hair, as usual. Later, we start watching season 2 of true blood on the projector.
June 24- music fest! Rum n coconuts!
Don and carl head to town early with david to help set up the music fest. R dog and I walk to town later and get swarmed by children. Raleigh is a crowd favorite! The music fest is not what I expected (guys on electric guitar and keyboard playing island Muzak), but the atmosphere is fun, like a small fair or a big family cookout with tents of food and drink for sale. We buy coconuts from a linebacker of a guy in drag (seemingly not a shocker here) and spike them with a bit of Tahitian rum. The mayor, a big, friendly, heavily tattooed man, treats us to a few orders of grilled meat and french fries. Kids run around playing in the field all night long, and the lovely Connect 4 australian family hangs with us. We are glad we came back for this!
June 25- music fest 2, beers with david's band and Sandra
Day 2 of the fest. David's band plays an upbeat sort of reggae-influenced rock. No one, however dances at all, save for later when too highly inebriated guys cut loose. I let 2 little kids try out our digital point and shoot, and they take awesome pictures! There will likely be a whole post slide show devoted to them. We really enjoyed sitting in the grass with david's band, Sandra, and her friends, sipping the local beer, Hinano, making shandies with beer, 7up and lime (not bad), and discussing life on the island, how david and sandra met, and of course, cannibalism. I'd always understood it to be a war thing between tribes (mainly via Herman Melville's "Typee"), but Sandra and her friend believed it was a hunger issue in the old days. Are you sure that's chicken on the grill?
June 26- Negro head rock, dinner out! Pizza! Mahi mahi! Green beans!
David and his friend Jack, or Sako (his marquesian name) drive us to a bay on the other side of the island, with a famous and distinctive rock jutting out of the water. We jump off the pier and the rocks, and, lets just say that carl is a "natural". A post is soon to come with some colorful photos illustrating this.
Later we have a farewell dinner with ourselves at the pizza place (I'm the one who always orders the fish, whenever possible), and Raleigh gets a banana from the owner himself.
June 27- carl gets tatted! Fruits galore!
David comes to pick us up with a giant tattoo artist named Axle riding shotgun. Carl's tattoo decision is only 1 1/2 days in the making, but how can you back out of a marquesian tat from a 275 lb man named Axle? Carl grins and bears it well, and now has a life long memory of his trip. The zigzags represent the cliffs of hiva ou, and with the anchor he fulfills our pact. Donny's the last one! Man up don!
June 28- leaving atuona
The boys shove us off at 2am for the next island, Ou Pou. We are excited for the next leg of our adventure!
Hiva Oa, notably, the town of Atuona, was really good to us, which is why we stayed longer than we expected too! Again, pictures will be added when we stop slacking!
June 12- dinner out. Raleigh eats all the granola bars!
Here's a good idea. Don't leave Raleigh alone ever in Ventura or Mexico, then, after a 21 day passage, leave him alone in the middle of the night and forget to hide the tuperware of granola bars, while you go enjoy pizza and poisson cru (raw fish and veg marinated in lime and coconut milk). Raleigh does not know the subtlties of wrappers, so he got quite a bit of extra roughage. Fortunately, his colorful poops over the next few days weren't too messy.
June 13- movie night with kaja and Jean Paul
Kaja, from maine, has been cruising since 1993 and has been everywhere. In brazil she met Frenchman Jean Paul, who renamed his boat after her, kajananas. We invited them over to watch the sailboat racing classic from the 80s (90s?) staring jennifer gray and matthew modine, Wind. I'm glad we are not racers!
June 14- pamplemoose party
Sandra, the local agent/angel to boaters, gave us some of this delicious local version of grapefruit. Sweet and grassy, we flip out and froth at the sight of any tree bursting with this fruit.
June 15- moved Debbie
We had supposedly been in the way of the shipping boat that comes every thursday, so we moved but it didn't come til Tuesday and we missed it anyway. Allegedly it is a town event. Poo. I think this is also the day don and I walked about 4 miles to Taha'a. Hitchhiking is very normal here (it's usually how we get to and from town), but nobody picked us up for a long time. I blame don's werewolfy good looks. Finally a family stopped and took us the rest of the way, about a 5 min drive. There is a church that looks like an old new England stone church, but up close you can see that the stones are volcanic rock. We had a crappy map that led us up a road to an ancient ceremonial site. There was no sign indicating distance, so we almost gave up, but pushed on just enough to finally get there. There were many stone walls/foundations, but the tiki were seemingly way up in the jungle, beyond some amazingly massive vine-entwined trees (I think the sacred banyan tree?). It was getting late and the mosquitoes were hungry, so we cut our Indiana jones adventure short. Fortunately a couple picked us up right away and drove us all the way to the port.
June 16- Raleigh is legit!
Our fears of ral being stuck on the boat in the marquesas were averted! He spent a danger-filled afternoon on shore playing fetch (fell into a hole and scraped his nose), watching the locals fish (nearly swallowed a hook going after a baited line), and strolling with carl (had to be thrown onto the shoulder after wandering repeatedly into the middle of the road.) We think he's learned an important lesson: freedom has a price.
June 17- atuona
A big day out in atuona. Don and carl got picked up early in the morning to go see sandra's husband david's workshop. He makes stringed instruments out of breadfruit trees, heart cedar, hibiscus wood, and other local flora. Lee, Andy, ral and I went for a hike and saw many jungle chickens, goats, horses, and grumpy dogs who barked at ral.
Later we all went to sandra's to use her wifi, then don went with David to meet the mayor and help show the town how to use their new audio equipment. This is a good example of why I love don.
June 18- little island
We took a break from our dirty, sharky, rocky anchorage and spent some time at the picturesque island of Tahuata, only an hour away.
June 19- frisbee on the beach!
The water was warm and clear, great for swimming, and the sandy beach was nearly people-free. Raleigh enjoyed playing frisbee, but was not so into us playing in the waves or swimming away from him.
June 20- dinner on Eden
We'd met Adam and eve briefly in San Jose, and knew we'd be doing the crossing around the same time, and ending up in the same area. Luckily we met up on Tahuata and invited ourselves for dinner on their aptly named power boat, Eden. While we may have been uncouth in our desire to see their boat, we are good guests! We brought over a fresh baked loaf of bread, cous cous salad, and a sort of margarita punch made with tequila from Tequila, Mexico, simple syrup and limes picked onshore that day. The boat...talk about lavish! It was nicer than the nicest apartment I've ever been in. Cream leather seats, lots of nice West Elm-y pillows, tatami floors, shiny kitchen with a regular sized stove and fridge/freezer, computerized everything, an indoor cockpit like Captain Kirk's, the ability to watch The Sopranos while steering, washer and dryer, second freezer, princess bed in a real bedroom, spiral staircase, covered porch-like transom, and a seemingly loose attitude towards fresh water; water pouring down the drain as they washed their hands and dishes! We use buckets of sea water and squirts from a 28oz spritz bottle of fresh water, so all of us gasped in awe at this. Envy much? I'd give up apples entirely to get into that Eden! Dinner was great, raleigh, andy and carl
feasted on chicken, and we all, except for ral, enjoyed eve's fresh green bean salad and adam's great chocolate cake. Not to mention all the wine and the board game...I forget the name.
Lots of fun! And, Eve gave us the much missed treat of magazines! Hope to see them again one day.
June 21- Raleigh surfs
Slowly but surely, R dog braves the waves! He only gets rolled a few times!
June 22- swimming with rays and a shark.
Andy and carl wake up early to swim with manta rays (you know, what killed croc hunter Steve Irwin). Carl sees a shark swimming below him and nearly kills himself getting back on the boat!
June 23- back to atuona
Back on shore, Lisa, Don and I attack Andy's hair with scissors, while the nice Aussie family on Connect 4 laughs with/at us. Lisa and i give each other trims, while don hacks at his own hair, as usual. Later, we start watching season 2 of true blood on the projector.
June 24- music fest! Rum n coconuts!
Don and carl head to town early with david to help set up the music fest. R dog and I walk to town later and get swarmed by children. Raleigh is a crowd favorite! The music fest is not what I expected (guys on electric guitar and keyboard playing island Muzak), but the atmosphere is fun, like a small fair or a big family cookout with tents of food and drink for sale. We buy coconuts from a linebacker of a guy in drag (seemingly not a shocker here) and spike them with a bit of Tahitian rum. The mayor, a big, friendly, heavily tattooed man, treats us to a few orders of grilled meat and french fries. Kids run around playing in the field all night long, and the lovely Connect 4 australian family hangs with us. We are glad we came back for this!
June 25- music fest 2, beers with david's band and Sandra
Day 2 of the fest. David's band plays an upbeat sort of reggae-influenced rock. No one, however dances at all, save for later when too highly inebriated guys cut loose. I let 2 little kids try out our digital point and shoot, and they take awesome pictures! There will likely be a whole post slide show devoted to them. We really enjoyed sitting in the grass with david's band, Sandra, and her friends, sipping the local beer, Hinano, making shandies with beer, 7up and lime (not bad), and discussing life on the island, how david and sandra met, and of course, cannibalism. I'd always understood it to be a war thing between tribes (mainly via Herman Melville's "Typee"), but Sandra and her friend believed it was a hunger issue in the old days. Are you sure that's chicken on the grill?
June 26- Negro head rock, dinner out! Pizza! Mahi mahi! Green beans!
David and his friend Jack, or Sako (his marquesian name) drive us to a bay on the other side of the island, with a famous and distinctive rock jutting out of the water. We jump off the pier and the rocks, and, lets just say that carl is a "natural". A post is soon to come with some colorful photos illustrating this.
Later we have a farewell dinner with ourselves at the pizza place (I'm the one who always orders the fish, whenever possible), and Raleigh gets a banana from the owner himself.
June 27- carl gets tatted! Fruits galore!
David comes to pick us up with a giant tattoo artist named Axle riding shotgun. Carl's tattoo decision is only 1 1/2 days in the making, but how can you back out of a marquesian tat from a 275 lb man named Axle? Carl grins and bears it well, and now has a life long memory of his trip. The zigzags represent the cliffs of hiva ou, and with the anchor he fulfills our pact. Donny's the last one! Man up don!
June 28- leaving atuona
The boys shove us off at 2am for the next island, Ou Pou. We are excited for the next leg of our adventure!
Confessions of a calendar girl: The Crossing
Confessions of a calendar girl
Leslie:
If Andy and Lisa's rollicking tales of life at sea weren't enough to make you quit your job and stowaway on the first boat you see, here are the Pacific crossing highlights from Aldebbie's social calendar.
May 20- San Jose to cabo, cabo passage; scary windy swelly
After fixing our leaky water tank in San Jose, we anger the fuel dock guys at cabo by sitting there for 3 hours while we run off on last minute errands. Oh well, we paid for fuel and water, calmete hombres!
Right out of the gate, mid-pop from the Henkell champagne bottle, we are met with nasty weather. Andy, Carl and Leslie begin to turn a nice shade of sea green. Family "iron stomach" Fierro have no problems.
May 21- lovely day
Although maybe not according to Andy's tummy.
May 22- overcast rolly, but nice
This passage business ain't so bad! Although at some point in the night/morning we bust a shackle on the preventer, but it's an easy fix for Don. "Guys, don't over-tighten the preventer! What's your heading?"
May 23- overcast, ripped a sail
Ripped a reef point on the main (a reef is a way of making the main sail smaller when you have a lot of wind). Andy and I spend about 4 hours passing a needle back and forth through the thick sail, sail tape and patch. It's not so pretty, but it works!
May 24- banana muffins
Banana coconut chocolate muffins, to be precise! Mmm! Lisa wins for best galley slave ever!
May 25- Raleigh's pee and poo explosion!
Raleigh's first experience on an overnight watch, and a rolly, windy one at that! He was too scared and too desperate to make it to the bow, so he used our foot towels as a last resort. He was very ashamed of himself, but he soon got into the daily habit of constituting himself on the bow, with moral support from carl!
May 26- Grodnick
This is what we call our jenniker sail, because though it seems nothing more than a beautiful, light and airy bit of balloon, it's really going places, just like carl!
May 27- carl gets a tuna!
A ten pound yellowtail, delicious sushi right off the freshly slain corpse, but even better seared as tuna steaks with wasabi, soy and an asiany slaw!
May 28- olive oil bread
Lisa taught me and Andy how to make this versatile and delicious bread recipe, though Andy cannot stomach the galley during passage, so lee and I alternate making bread every day for the ravenous beast-boys, who act like a day without bread would destroy them!
May 29- still motoring going rolling along
No wind affects the crew's sanity and sentence structure.
May 30- hot hot hot
It was hot!
May 31- bird on the mast
A booby stayed on our mast for a few days, pooping on our Grodnick, which made the other Grodnick mad and wish for an air rifle. Lee and don named the booby "Titswiggle" because they are 10 years old.
June 1- another fish! Totally legit fish! Big!
This 20 pound, blue-hued beauty may have maybe perhaps kind of been on the no-no species list, though carl squinted and swore the fin had a little yellow in it! At any rate, he tasted marvelous filleted and served with coconut rice. Later that night, bioluminescent dolphins congratulated us with an amazing laser light show around the bow!
June 2- rain
Rain on our parade, a gloomy day and a wet dinner of sadsacks and yummy leftovers.
June 3- sun
Hooray.
June 4- whale
50 yards off. I didn't see it. Are we there yet?
June 5- equator day 0* 129*
Woke up at midnight to take a group photo. What a mess!
June 6- champagne + dunks + haircuts = shellbacks!
More Henkell champ, jumps in the sea after we hove to, Raleigh dunked, hairs snipped! Don and Andy finally shave those horrific beards!
June 7- waves!
Big ones! Nothing Debbie can't handle though.
June 8- foccacia! Mmm!
The same bread recipe as the olive oil bread, with sundried tomatoes, parsley, pepper, basil and thyme.
June 9- fat lip bread!
The humidity makes the bread rise quick and pout over the side of the pan. Still delicious though.
June 10- one more night!
The rock'n n rolliest yet! We get there a bit earlier, so we head the wrong way for an hour and then turn around so we'll get there at first light.
June 11- Marquesas Eureka!
It's raining but nobody cares! We muscle our way into a fairly crowded anchorage at tahuata bay on hiva ou, and put up our tarps as a full rainbow stretches itself like a Cheshire grin across the breakwater. In town, which is only like 3 blocks long, we buy baguettes and orangina, then walk to gauguin's grave. It smells like fruit and flowers everywhere.
If the passage sounds like a relative walk in park, here is a word cloud of notes from our overnight logbook to add another dimension of mood:
Vomit feel like vomit no vomit need sleep slam! Slammy stupid wind why why? Just get to 270*! engine started wind sucks sailing this way sux Line islands or bust genniker line chaffing effed up Ghost whale wind light and shifty can't find headlamp This sux as mutter I love trivial pursuit nice sunrise gps speed f**ked fuel gauge broke storm sail reefed let out reef more right, less left midnight cowboy was x-rated? Wind freckle swell annoy slower slammier ruff as bro big splashier waves lots of spray land!
(pictures to come someday when we get our act together!)
Leslie:
If Andy and Lisa's rollicking tales of life at sea weren't enough to make you quit your job and stowaway on the first boat you see, here are the Pacific crossing highlights from Aldebbie's social calendar.
May 20- San Jose to cabo, cabo passage; scary windy swelly
After fixing our leaky water tank in San Jose, we anger the fuel dock guys at cabo by sitting there for 3 hours while we run off on last minute errands. Oh well, we paid for fuel and water, calmete hombres!
Right out of the gate, mid-pop from the Henkell champagne bottle, we are met with nasty weather. Andy, Carl and Leslie begin to turn a nice shade of sea green. Family "iron stomach" Fierro have no problems.
May 21- lovely day
Although maybe not according to Andy's tummy.
May 22- overcast rolly, but nice
This passage business ain't so bad! Although at some point in the night/morning we bust a shackle on the preventer, but it's an easy fix for Don. "Guys, don't over-tighten the preventer! What's your heading?"
May 23- overcast, ripped a sail
Ripped a reef point on the main (a reef is a way of making the main sail smaller when you have a lot of wind). Andy and I spend about 4 hours passing a needle back and forth through the thick sail, sail tape and patch. It's not so pretty, but it works!
May 24- banana muffins
Banana coconut chocolate muffins, to be precise! Mmm! Lisa wins for best galley slave ever!
May 25- Raleigh's pee and poo explosion!
Raleigh's first experience on an overnight watch, and a rolly, windy one at that! He was too scared and too desperate to make it to the bow, so he used our foot towels as a last resort. He was very ashamed of himself, but he soon got into the daily habit of constituting himself on the bow, with moral support from carl!
May 26- Grodnick
This is what we call our jenniker sail, because though it seems nothing more than a beautiful, light and airy bit of balloon, it's really going places, just like carl!
May 27- carl gets a tuna!
A ten pound yellowtail, delicious sushi right off the freshly slain corpse, but even better seared as tuna steaks with wasabi, soy and an asiany slaw!
May 28- olive oil bread
Lisa taught me and Andy how to make this versatile and delicious bread recipe, though Andy cannot stomach the galley during passage, so lee and I alternate making bread every day for the ravenous beast-boys, who act like a day without bread would destroy them!
May 29- still motoring going rolling along
No wind affects the crew's sanity and sentence structure.
May 30- hot hot hot
It was hot!
May 31- bird on the mast
A booby stayed on our mast for a few days, pooping on our Grodnick, which made the other Grodnick mad and wish for an air rifle. Lee and don named the booby "Titswiggle" because they are 10 years old.
June 1- another fish! Totally legit fish! Big!
This 20 pound, blue-hued beauty may have maybe perhaps kind of been on the no-no species list, though carl squinted and swore the fin had a little yellow in it! At any rate, he tasted marvelous filleted and served with coconut rice. Later that night, bioluminescent dolphins congratulated us with an amazing laser light show around the bow!
June 2- rain
Rain on our parade, a gloomy day and a wet dinner of sadsacks and yummy leftovers.
June 3- sun
Hooray.
June 4- whale
50 yards off. I didn't see it. Are we there yet?
June 5- equator day 0* 129*
Woke up at midnight to take a group photo. What a mess!
June 6- champagne + dunks + haircuts = shellbacks!
More Henkell champ, jumps in the sea after we hove to, Raleigh dunked, hairs snipped! Don and Andy finally shave those horrific beards!
June 7- waves!
Big ones! Nothing Debbie can't handle though.
June 8- foccacia! Mmm!
The same bread recipe as the olive oil bread, with sundried tomatoes, parsley, pepper, basil and thyme.
June 9- fat lip bread!
The humidity makes the bread rise quick and pout over the side of the pan. Still delicious though.
June 10- one more night!
The rock'n n rolliest yet! We get there a bit earlier, so we head the wrong way for an hour and then turn around so we'll get there at first light.
June 11- Marquesas Eureka!
It's raining but nobody cares! We muscle our way into a fairly crowded anchorage at tahuata bay on hiva ou, and put up our tarps as a full rainbow stretches itself like a Cheshire grin across the breakwater. In town, which is only like 3 blocks long, we buy baguettes and orangina, then walk to gauguin's grave. It smells like fruit and flowers everywhere.
If the passage sounds like a relative walk in park, here is a word cloud of notes from our overnight logbook to add another dimension of mood:
Vomit feel like vomit no vomit need sleep slam! Slammy stupid wind why why? Just get to 270*! engine started wind sucks sailing this way sux Line islands or bust genniker line chaffing effed up Ghost whale wind light and shifty can't find headlamp This sux as mutter I love trivial pursuit nice sunrise gps speed f**ked fuel gauge broke storm sail reefed let out reef more right, less left midnight cowboy was x-rated? Wind freckle swell annoy slower slammier ruff as bro big splashier waves lots of spray land!
(pictures to come someday when we get our act together!)
Monday, June 27, 2011
This Heading sucks, you should change it - The passage , part 2
HE PASSAGE, PART TWO, THE CROSSING
First things First this is going to be my perspective and I have left quite a lot out as others want to fill you in on those things.
NOTE: One of the reasons we left from Cabo was the angle and height it gave us. I had watched a lot of the boats go from Puerto Vallata and Acapulco the months before and noticed most of them headed west for a week before they dropped south west. This seemed to be because the winds were further out west. On talking with a few of these boats over the radio while on passage and once we got to the Marquesas it became apparent that the worst sailing was the week near the Mexican coast. We managed to miss this and hence sailed a way faster trip than if we had left from other parts of Mexico. So thank you to all the puddle jumpers that provided us with that information. It was a great help.
On May 21st at 2200 UTC(universal time coordinated, Greenwich Mean Time, Zulu time) we left Cabo San Lucas for the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia.
The next 5 days were arguably(at the time in my mind there was no arguing, it definitely was) the most miserable 5 days of my life. I felt like I had the worst hangover ever(for those who don't drink think food poising or a really bad case of the flu) that involved me throwing up for three days and not really eating. The real beauty of this is you also need to combine it with a fear that I have never experienced before, a sense of feeling trapped because you really can't turn back and the fact you have to work and do your chores or else it puts too much pressure on everyone else an then the whole boat fails. Hence, MISERY. And misery certainly does love company and I had plenty of that. Leslie and Carl both felt similar feelings of sickness only to a lesser degree and after a week of having every meal she made end up either burning her and/or on the floor, Lisa was right down there with me. The only person who seemed to be enjoying himself was Donald and that only served to sprinkle more hate on the cake full of hate that was baking inside of me. We did however pull ourselves together after 5 or 6 days and when I look back on it I am really proud of all of us for getting through that. It also needs to be said that for all his egotistical behavior and moraly superior attitude we would probably not have gotten through that first week without Don. He was in his element and kept us safe and up beat when all I wanted to do was tell him to FUCK OFF(I am sorry for this language but no other word seems to do it justice). It also amazes me that neither him nor his sister ever showed any signs of sickness and were quite comfortable chatting and hanging out while I was throwing up over the side. I am not sure where they got this ability but it sure was handy on this trip.
the second week got a little bit better. The main reason was because it seemed that we had finally learned how to use our sails and the sail direction to our advantage. We no longer looked for the safest option(this I learnt can be deceiving and the safe option can very quickly turn into the dangerous option) but for the one that best suited the conditions. We finally put up our Genniker(this is a big sail that is an in-between of a spinaker(the big colorful one you see in races) and the genoa which is smaller and tighter) which allowed us to sail down wind so much better and with a lot less banging of our boom. It also righted the boat and kept it relatively level as opposed to the 15 to 20 degrees of heel we had spent most of our time at in the previous week. The seas mellowed a little and we got our confidence up to sail at night with the bigger sails. This all combined to make the second week rather pleasant. Some of us were sleeping better(Carl probably had the most trouble here and that came into play in week three), Lisa was having a better time in the kitchen and the boat seemed to be settling into life with us as her crew.
At the end of week two we hit the ITCZ(Inter Tropical Convergence Zone -better known as the Doldrums). What a useless little part of the world this is. This is the area in the middle of the world where the southern and northern trade winds and currents boarder as they make their turn to circle back into their respective hemispheres. What then this creates is a bunch of useless space for sailors and boaters alike where there are few currents or winds and what currents there are work against the winds. the weather patterns also form to create these little systems called squalls which tend to last a very short time(the ones we had never lasted more than a couple of hours and most were about a half hour) but are very very nasty. These little storms hounded us for 3 days but in talking with others we got off pretty lightly.
This week was also the week we got introduced to the wonder that is weather. The sunsets were amazing. The few nights we had that there were no clouds in the sky was ridiculous. So many stars all over the skyline including to the horizon and so very bright. Carl had a little program on his phone which allowed him to point his phone at the sky and it would tell him what the stars were. It was also cool to watch the main northern hemisphere stars fall off for good and the new southern hemisphere stars arrive. I have also developed a new love for clouds. It was rad seeing the different formations and figuring out what weather came with what type of clouds. It is different in the ocean than what happens on land but it is hard for me to describe. Anywaise I like it.
And that was week two which closed with us being 164 Nauical miles from the equator.
Week three opened up with us passing through the equator. We did this at 05:41 on June 6 UTC time(this was the middle of the night for us). We got up for some pictures then continued our regular watches. The next morning we pulled the boat up(we hove to properly for the first time) had some champagne, cut our hair and jumped in the water. Everyone went in including the dog, and it was one of those things i will never forget. As we were still moving a little(when hove too you are still moving a little) we put a line out to hold onto and one of the things Don, carl and I did was to put on a face mask and look at the bottom of the boat. We did this to see if it needed any attention. It didn't but then I looked down and let the boat drag me along looking out into the ocean. I thought this would be scary as I have looked into the blue nothingness before but only when diving or snorkeling. I think the comparison when doing this near shallower water makes the deep, deep water scary. Doing it this time it was more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. The water colour was a blue like nothing I had seen before and you could see forever. It was just one of those really cool experiences.
Anyway off we went after that and the next 5 and a half days were the fastest we sailed all trip. Really rolly but fast. We just put our heads down and charged for the Marquesas. The picture below is what we found when we got there. We were very happy.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE.
- Leaving Mexico
- the first 5 days. Obviously
- the washing machine effect. This was the first 5 days, a day or two in the doldrums and the last 5 days where the boat goes up and down and side to side all at once all day. This was pretty sweet.
- the bird that perched itself on our mast for 2 days and left its body weight in poo on our Genniker.
- The big fish that stole all our hooks and line.
- The ITCZ, That pace sucks. I always envisioned the Doldrums to be perfectly flat with no wind when in reality the swell is always there and this is what makes them so crap. With no wind to push on the sails to stabilize the boat you spend hours or even days in this vicious side to side motion. we had an engine so we could power out of it in a few days but it must have really sucked back in the day when boats didn't have engines.
- the constant lack of sleep. You keep surprisingly busy when you are on a passage. I guess that makes sense when it takes two of you, 2 hours to do the dishes and this happens twice a day. We also didn't have any automatic way to steer the boat so someone always has to be on the wheel. The main reason for our lack of time to do anything was sleep, or lack there of. I calculated that I personally had 11 hours a day of freetime. Those 11 hours are split up in 4 or 5 patches of which 3 hours is the longest opportunity you get at one time. For the first week, of those 11 hours I reckon I slept for about 2 hours per day. The next week it went up to 3-4 hours per day and the last week I think I peaked at 5 hours per day. I was so tired after the first few days tat the rest of those 11 hours were spent trying to sleep. I was to tired to do anything else. However the ocean conspired against me and provided a number of reason not to sleep, including: The constant pitching and rolling never let you relax as you are always bracing against it. A number of times I woke up and my arms and legs we so sore I could barley get up. The creaking of fiberglass and loud bangs of something falling or a door that was left open smashing against the wall. The worrying about things that haven't happened yet(I am really good at this), The waterboarding you get in the middle cabin when rain or a wave hit an open window(close the windows you say, well I say don't jump to conclusions before you know the whole story and read the next reason), the stifling heat and humidity when all the windows are closed(see now what do you do smarty?) And then there was the banging(as explained below)
- the last 5 days sucked. For two main reasons.
1) The course we chose exposed us to the swell a little more than we liked which then created the odd slap of water against the side. Outside it seemed like nothing, inside those odd slaps seemed like the end of the world. I think every night in those last 5 Lisa and i wore woken up by a loud bang and in our sleep deprived states tried to figure out where the hole in the hull would be and what we were going to use to fix it. There never was a hole but that stuff was a little scary. By that stage though you resign yourself to whatever happens will happen and you will deal with it when it does and you go back to what little amount of sleep you have left.
2) The course also created this judder effect. It is hard to describe. What happens is a part of a wave hits the bow of the boat and then a second later another part of the same wave hits the stern. I don't really have a good analogy for this but I am sure there is one. It creates a motion that I really thought was going to crack open the boat down the middle. Not a pleasant feeling.
WHAT I DID LIKE
- The Tuna Carl caught(he will tell you more)
- The cloud formations. I really like clouds now.
- The sunrises(as seen below)
- the sunsets(as seen below)
- The Dolphins, This needs more explaining as we had lots of dolphins during the day but we have had that the whole trip. Its the ones at night combined with the phospheresents that were truly amazing. I am pretty sure someone else willat this one.
- The sleepy whales of which we sore three and the last one was about 50 feet away. Whales are cool.
- The satisfaction of the second week and how good sailing it was. The sail(GENNIKER) and the scene below were typical
- Seeing things break or go wrong and just dealing with them.
- The Equator was really cool. I think this meant more to me than making landfall. I remember it a lot better
- swimming at the equator
- Learning as much as we did about sailing and starting to really be comfortable in what we are doing.
- The pacific seafarers net. Big thank you to all involved in that.
- The satisfaction of completing a trip like that. Puts things into perspective and really made me see just how possible things are if you only try.
- Having my dad and mum to talk to on the radio and provide us with useful information and basketball scores(it was the NBA finals)
- landfall
-Seeing all of us bicker and fight and suffer but still come through and do what needed to be done. I think we all still like each other. At least I know I do.
Andy
First things First this is going to be my perspective and I have left quite a lot out as others want to fill you in on those things.
NOTE: One of the reasons we left from Cabo was the angle and height it gave us. I had watched a lot of the boats go from Puerto Vallata and Acapulco the months before and noticed most of them headed west for a week before they dropped south west. This seemed to be because the winds were further out west. On talking with a few of these boats over the radio while on passage and once we got to the Marquesas it became apparent that the worst sailing was the week near the Mexican coast. We managed to miss this and hence sailed a way faster trip than if we had left from other parts of Mexico. So thank you to all the puddle jumpers that provided us with that information. It was a great help.
On May 21st at 2200 UTC(universal time coordinated, Greenwich Mean Time, Zulu time) we left Cabo San Lucas for the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia.
The next 5 days were arguably(at the time in my mind there was no arguing, it definitely was) the most miserable 5 days of my life. I felt like I had the worst hangover ever(for those who don't drink think food poising or a really bad case of the flu) that involved me throwing up for three days and not really eating. The real beauty of this is you also need to combine it with a fear that I have never experienced before, a sense of feeling trapped because you really can't turn back and the fact you have to work and do your chores or else it puts too much pressure on everyone else an then the whole boat fails. Hence, MISERY. And misery certainly does love company and I had plenty of that. Leslie and Carl both felt similar feelings of sickness only to a lesser degree and after a week of having every meal she made end up either burning her and/or on the floor, Lisa was right down there with me. The only person who seemed to be enjoying himself was Donald and that only served to sprinkle more hate on the cake full of hate that was baking inside of me. We did however pull ourselves together after 5 or 6 days and when I look back on it I am really proud of all of us for getting through that. It also needs to be said that for all his egotistical behavior and moraly superior attitude we would probably not have gotten through that first week without Don. He was in his element and kept us safe and up beat when all I wanted to do was tell him to FUCK OFF(I am sorry for this language but no other word seems to do it justice). It also amazes me that neither him nor his sister ever showed any signs of sickness and were quite comfortable chatting and hanging out while I was throwing up over the side. I am not sure where they got this ability but it sure was handy on this trip.
the second week got a little bit better. The main reason was because it seemed that we had finally learned how to use our sails and the sail direction to our advantage. We no longer looked for the safest option(this I learnt can be deceiving and the safe option can very quickly turn into the dangerous option) but for the one that best suited the conditions. We finally put up our Genniker(this is a big sail that is an in-between of a spinaker(the big colorful one you see in races) and the genoa which is smaller and tighter) which allowed us to sail down wind so much better and with a lot less banging of our boom. It also righted the boat and kept it relatively level as opposed to the 15 to 20 degrees of heel we had spent most of our time at in the previous week. The seas mellowed a little and we got our confidence up to sail at night with the bigger sails. This all combined to make the second week rather pleasant. Some of us were sleeping better(Carl probably had the most trouble here and that came into play in week three), Lisa was having a better time in the kitchen and the boat seemed to be settling into life with us as her crew.
At the end of week two we hit the ITCZ(Inter Tropical Convergence Zone -better known as the Doldrums). What a useless little part of the world this is. This is the area in the middle of the world where the southern and northern trade winds and currents boarder as they make their turn to circle back into their respective hemispheres. What then this creates is a bunch of useless space for sailors and boaters alike where there are few currents or winds and what currents there are work against the winds. the weather patterns also form to create these little systems called squalls which tend to last a very short time(the ones we had never lasted more than a couple of hours and most were about a half hour) but are very very nasty. These little storms hounded us for 3 days but in talking with others we got off pretty lightly.
This week was also the week we got introduced to the wonder that is weather. The sunsets were amazing. The few nights we had that there were no clouds in the sky was ridiculous. So many stars all over the skyline including to the horizon and so very bright. Carl had a little program on his phone which allowed him to point his phone at the sky and it would tell him what the stars were. It was also cool to watch the main northern hemisphere stars fall off for good and the new southern hemisphere stars arrive. I have also developed a new love for clouds. It was rad seeing the different formations and figuring out what weather came with what type of clouds. It is different in the ocean than what happens on land but it is hard for me to describe. Anywaise I like it.
And that was week two which closed with us being 164 Nauical miles from the equator.
Week three opened up with us passing through the equator. We did this at 05:41 on June 6 UTC time(this was the middle of the night for us). We got up for some pictures then continued our regular watches. The next morning we pulled the boat up(we hove to properly for the first time) had some champagne, cut our hair and jumped in the water. Everyone went in including the dog, and it was one of those things i will never forget. As we were still moving a little(when hove too you are still moving a little) we put a line out to hold onto and one of the things Don, carl and I did was to put on a face mask and look at the bottom of the boat. We did this to see if it needed any attention. It didn't but then I looked down and let the boat drag me along looking out into the ocean. I thought this would be scary as I have looked into the blue nothingness before but only when diving or snorkeling. I think the comparison when doing this near shallower water makes the deep, deep water scary. Doing it this time it was more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. The water colour was a blue like nothing I had seen before and you could see forever. It was just one of those really cool experiences.
Anyway off we went after that and the next 5 and a half days were the fastest we sailed all trip. Really rolly but fast. We just put our heads down and charged for the Marquesas. The picture below is what we found when we got there. We were very happy.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE.
- Leaving Mexico
- the first 5 days. Obviously
- the washing machine effect. This was the first 5 days, a day or two in the doldrums and the last 5 days where the boat goes up and down and side to side all at once all day. This was pretty sweet.
- the bird that perched itself on our mast for 2 days and left its body weight in poo on our Genniker.
- The big fish that stole all our hooks and line.
- The ITCZ, That pace sucks. I always envisioned the Doldrums to be perfectly flat with no wind when in reality the swell is always there and this is what makes them so crap. With no wind to push on the sails to stabilize the boat you spend hours or even days in this vicious side to side motion. we had an engine so we could power out of it in a few days but it must have really sucked back in the day when boats didn't have engines.
- the constant lack of sleep. You keep surprisingly busy when you are on a passage. I guess that makes sense when it takes two of you, 2 hours to do the dishes and this happens twice a day. We also didn't have any automatic way to steer the boat so someone always has to be on the wheel. The main reason for our lack of time to do anything was sleep, or lack there of. I calculated that I personally had 11 hours a day of freetime. Those 11 hours are split up in 4 or 5 patches of which 3 hours is the longest opportunity you get at one time. For the first week, of those 11 hours I reckon I slept for about 2 hours per day. The next week it went up to 3-4 hours per day and the last week I think I peaked at 5 hours per day. I was so tired after the first few days tat the rest of those 11 hours were spent trying to sleep. I was to tired to do anything else. However the ocean conspired against me and provided a number of reason not to sleep, including: The constant pitching and rolling never let you relax as you are always bracing against it. A number of times I woke up and my arms and legs we so sore I could barley get up. The creaking of fiberglass and loud bangs of something falling or a door that was left open smashing against the wall. The worrying about things that haven't happened yet(I am really good at this), The waterboarding you get in the middle cabin when rain or a wave hit an open window(close the windows you say, well I say don't jump to conclusions before you know the whole story and read the next reason), the stifling heat and humidity when all the windows are closed(see now what do you do smarty?) And then there was the banging(as explained below)
- the last 5 days sucked. For two main reasons.
1) The course we chose exposed us to the swell a little more than we liked which then created the odd slap of water against the side. Outside it seemed like nothing, inside those odd slaps seemed like the end of the world. I think every night in those last 5 Lisa and i wore woken up by a loud bang and in our sleep deprived states tried to figure out where the hole in the hull would be and what we were going to use to fix it. There never was a hole but that stuff was a little scary. By that stage though you resign yourself to whatever happens will happen and you will deal with it when it does and you go back to what little amount of sleep you have left.
2) The course also created this judder effect. It is hard to describe. What happens is a part of a wave hits the bow of the boat and then a second later another part of the same wave hits the stern. I don't really have a good analogy for this but I am sure there is one. It creates a motion that I really thought was going to crack open the boat down the middle. Not a pleasant feeling.
WHAT I DID LIKE
- The Tuna Carl caught(he will tell you more)
- The cloud formations. I really like clouds now.
- The sunrises(as seen below)
- the sunsets(as seen below)
- The Dolphins, This needs more explaining as we had lots of dolphins during the day but we have had that the whole trip. Its the ones at night combined with the phospheresents that were truly amazing. I am pretty sure someone else willat this one.
- The sleepy whales of which we sore three and the last one was about 50 feet away. Whales are cool.
- The satisfaction of the second week and how good sailing it was. The sail(GENNIKER) and the scene below were typical
- Seeing things break or go wrong and just dealing with them.
- The Equator was really cool. I think this meant more to me than making landfall. I remember it a lot better
- swimming at the equator
- Learning as much as we did about sailing and starting to really be comfortable in what we are doing.
- The pacific seafarers net. Big thank you to all involved in that.
- The satisfaction of completing a trip like that. Puts things into perspective and really made me see just how possible things are if you only try.
- Having my dad and mum to talk to on the radio and provide us with useful information and basketball scores(it was the NBA finals)
- landfall
-Seeing all of us bicker and fight and suffer but still come through and do what needed to be done. I think we all still like each other. At least I know I do.
Andy
Sunday, June 26, 2011
provisioning
so following andy's lead i will also expound on the topic of getting the boat ready to go. how about the shopping list? as you may or may not know, we were anticipating about 24 days of sailing, then you have to add 50% for unforseen delays and another 20% for an "oh shit" scenario. as i hate math, i provisioned for 60 days. that's a lot of food for 5 people (3 meals a day x 60 days= a lot of food). "how does one even go about making a list? where to start?", you may ask. well, i started with breakfast. so our breakfast options were cereal with dried fruit, oats with honey nuts and dried fruit, or eggs (with pancakes and french toast thrown in from time to time- weather depending). so i needed enough cereal, eggs and oats to make each one 20 times. and i pretty much did the same thing for lunches- tuna salad wraps/sammy, salmon salad wraps/sammy, pb and j, and pasta salad. for dinners i came up with about 13 different options and went from there. i also needed to figure out things like tp, paper towel, flour and other bread making ingredients plus i've kind of become the water person as well. so when i started all my lists we had 2 tanks totaling 200 gallons. based on my math that was enough for about 30 days. that wasn't enough. we needed for 41 days (that's 24 days plus 50% padding, and 20% "oh shit"). as andy told you, we ended up fixing our 3rd tank (75 gallons) so we left cabo with 275gallons in the tanks, 20 gallons in store bought jugs and another 20 gallons in jerry cans. so as far as food and water were concerned, i felt ok. oh, and since we only took a little over 21 days, we've still plenty of food and water!
so back to food shopping. thankfully we still had the rental car from our road trip to see josh and christine or i would have been doing hundreds of trips on the bus! this list was spread across a few markets: ley, walmart, soriano's, sam's club, city club and chedruai. lelsie and i had done a bunch of price comparisons and then i organized my list by location- bargain hunters! we then spent 2 days running around all the shops, schlepping things back to the dock, removing cardboard & labels and last of all, finding a place to put it all. so here it is, in no particular order:
whole tomatoes, canned (30oz)- 15
corn, canned (14.5 oz)- 10
crabmeat, canned- 10
steel wool- 2
dish soap- 2
baby wipes (4 pk of 100)- 1
multigrain cheerios (1# bag)-6
jam- 3 (strawberry, fig, blueberry)
toilet paper- 40 rolls
ramen- 30 pks
tomatoes, roma (varying ripeness)- 30
nopales- 1kg
garlic- 6
limes- 12
lemon- 12
ginger- 1/4#
banana- 10
avocados (varying ripeness)- 25
peppers, bell- 4
peppers, poblano- 4
peppers, serrano- 4
beans, white (dry)- 500g
peas, can- 15
olives, can- 10
pineapple in juice (like the holy grail in sugar obsessed mexico)- 4 (i bought all they had)
tropical fruit in juice- 4 (same story)
vegetable boullion- 2 box (10 pc each)
soyaki- 2 (this little gem was my "go to" when we were taking big swells on the beam. just toss it in with the ramen, add an egg, top w peanuts- yum!)
thai peanut marinade- 1
onion, white- 15
onion, red- 4
onion, green- 5 bunch
shallots, large- 5
carrot- 2kg
potatoes- 25
cabbage- 2 head
apple- 10
pineapple- 2
cilantro- 1 bunch
caulliflour- 1head
broccoli- 1 head
beans, fava (dry)- 500g
split pea, yellow - 500g
split pea, green- 500kg
spinach, frozen- 2 bag
string beans, frozen- 1 bag
peanut butter- 10 jars (i bought ALL the skippy natural i could find in la paz)
beans, black (dry)- 1kg
beans, flor de mayo (dry)- 500g
tuna, tin- 45
salmon, tin- 34
spicy tuna, tin- 11
bran flakes (1 kg box)- 4 ( i cleaned out sam's club)
prunes- 1kg
raisins- 3 (1kg bag)
honey- 2 (2kg ea)
salditas (saltines)- 150-200 packets (i forget how many were in each box)
granola bars, nature valley fruit & nut- 3 (28 pc/box)
tostadas- 2 (3pk)
rice- 15#
oats- 1.5 kg
paper towel- 16
juice, jumex individual juice box, multipack- 1 (40 pc)
shammies- 1 pk (15pc)- they suck btw
lentils, green- 5kg
wine, white (for cooking) - 2 (we made a "no drinking on passage" pact)
peanut candy- 1 box (delicious peanut butter "marzipan style" little treats)
chupa chup mini lollipops- 1 bag (150 pc)
tootsie rolls- 1 bag (60 pc)
lunettas (mexican m & m's- vegan)- 2 box (40 pc/box)
almonds- 1 kg
lettuce, romaine- 1 head
cracketts (mexican ritz)- 2 box (8 rolls/box)
gatorade powder- 1 can (2.4 kg)
garbage bags- 1 (210 pc/box)
bread, multi grain and whole wheat- 10 loaves
soymilk- 36 (1L ea)
eggs- 22 doz
coconut milk- 12
tortillas, corn- 3 bag
tortillas, flour- 3 bag
chocolate chips- 1 canister ( i found choc chips in exactly 1 place- sam's club in a plastic canister)
coconut, shredded- 1 canister (it was next to the choc chips, so i figured "why not?"- everyone loves when i put it in pancakes)
water, 5 gallon jug- 3
water, 10 L jug- 2
butter- 2#
flour, white ap- 4 (1kg)
flour, ww ap - 1 (1kg)- i would have loved to do more whole wheat, but everything i read said i would def get weevils if i did.
oil, vegetable- 2L
oil, olive- 1 gal
nutella- 1 small jar
beans, garbonzo (dry)- 500g
yeast- 1#
mayo- 1 (BIG jar)
ketchup-1 (standard size- we're more of a hot sauce group)
mustard, spicy - 1 (standard)
evaporated milk- 8 cans
potatoes, sweet- 5
chopped clams, can- 2
mushrooms- 1 kg
potato chips- 4 bags
champagne- 3 bottles (1 for leaving, 1 for the equator, and 1 for when we finished the crossing)
beer, tecate- 24 cans (for any time AFTER we dropped anchor)
ok, well that's it. if you found it long list to read, imagine writing it, going to 4or 5 different supermarkets & pricing all this out, then buying it, re-working it when they don't have what they had a few days ago, unloading it from the car, re-packing it for the boat, stowing it and making a map of it all. it was hard work but we got it all done, with a little wine to help us along at times! thanks for reading!
lisa
so back to food shopping. thankfully we still had the rental car from our road trip to see josh and christine or i would have been doing hundreds of trips on the bus! this list was spread across a few markets: ley, walmart, soriano's, sam's club, city club and chedruai. lelsie and i had done a bunch of price comparisons and then i organized my list by location- bargain hunters! we then spent 2 days running around all the shops, schlepping things back to the dock, removing cardboard & labels and last of all, finding a place to put it all. so here it is, in no particular order:
whole tomatoes, canned (30oz)- 15
corn, canned (14.5 oz)- 10
crabmeat, canned- 10
steel wool- 2
dish soap- 2
baby wipes (4 pk of 100)- 1
multigrain cheerios (1# bag)-6
jam- 3 (strawberry, fig, blueberry)
toilet paper- 40 rolls
ramen- 30 pks
tomatoes, roma (varying ripeness)- 30
nopales- 1kg
garlic- 6
limes- 12
lemon- 12
ginger- 1/4#
banana- 10
avocados (varying ripeness)- 25
peppers, bell- 4
peppers, poblano- 4
peppers, serrano- 4
beans, white (dry)- 500g
peas, can- 15
olives, can- 10
pineapple in juice (like the holy grail in sugar obsessed mexico)- 4 (i bought all they had)
tropical fruit in juice- 4 (same story)
vegetable boullion- 2 box (10 pc each)
soyaki- 2 (this little gem was my "go to" when we were taking big swells on the beam. just toss it in with the ramen, add an egg, top w peanuts- yum!)
thai peanut marinade- 1
onion, white- 15
onion, red- 4
onion, green- 5 bunch
shallots, large- 5
carrot- 2kg
potatoes- 25
cabbage- 2 head
apple- 10
pineapple- 2
cilantro- 1 bunch
caulliflour- 1head
broccoli- 1 head
beans, fava (dry)- 500g
split pea, yellow - 500g
split pea, green- 500kg
spinach, frozen- 2 bag
string beans, frozen- 1 bag
peanut butter- 10 jars (i bought ALL the skippy natural i could find in la paz)
beans, black (dry)- 1kg
beans, flor de mayo (dry)- 500g
tuna, tin- 45
salmon, tin- 34
spicy tuna, tin- 11
bran flakes (1 kg box)- 4 ( i cleaned out sam's club)
prunes- 1kg
raisins- 3 (1kg bag)
honey- 2 (2kg ea)
salditas (saltines)- 150-200 packets (i forget how many were in each box)
granola bars, nature valley fruit & nut- 3 (28 pc/box)
tostadas- 2 (3pk)
rice- 15#
oats- 1.5 kg
paper towel- 16
juice, jumex individual juice box, multipack- 1 (40 pc)
shammies- 1 pk (15pc)- they suck btw
lentils, green- 5kg
wine, white (for cooking) - 2 (we made a "no drinking on passage" pact)
peanut candy- 1 box (delicious peanut butter "marzipan style" little treats)
chupa chup mini lollipops- 1 bag (150 pc)
tootsie rolls- 1 bag (60 pc)
lunettas (mexican m & m's- vegan)- 2 box (40 pc/box)
almonds- 1 kg
lettuce, romaine- 1 head
cracketts (mexican ritz)- 2 box (8 rolls/box)
gatorade powder- 1 can (2.4 kg)
garbage bags- 1 (210 pc/box)
bread, multi grain and whole wheat- 10 loaves
soymilk- 36 (1L ea)
eggs- 22 doz
coconut milk- 12
tortillas, corn- 3 bag
tortillas, flour- 3 bag
chocolate chips- 1 canister ( i found choc chips in exactly 1 place- sam's club in a plastic canister)
coconut, shredded- 1 canister (it was next to the choc chips, so i figured "why not?"- everyone loves when i put it in pancakes)
water, 5 gallon jug- 3
water, 10 L jug- 2
butter- 2#
flour, white ap- 4 (1kg)
flour, ww ap - 1 (1kg)- i would have loved to do more whole wheat, but everything i read said i would def get weevils if i did.
oil, vegetable- 2L
oil, olive- 1 gal
nutella- 1 small jar
beans, garbonzo (dry)- 500g
yeast- 1#
mayo- 1 (BIG jar)
ketchup-1 (standard size- we're more of a hot sauce group)
mustard, spicy - 1 (standard)
evaporated milk- 8 cans
potatoes, sweet- 5
chopped clams, can- 2
mushrooms- 1 kg
potato chips- 4 bags
champagne- 3 bottles (1 for leaving, 1 for the equator, and 1 for when we finished the crossing)
beer, tecate- 24 cans (for any time AFTER we dropped anchor)
ok, well that's it. if you found it long list to read, imagine writing it, going to 4or 5 different supermarkets & pricing all this out, then buying it, re-working it when they don't have what they had a few days ago, unloading it from the car, re-packing it for the boat, stowing it and making a map of it all. it was hard work but we got it all done, with a little wine to help us along at times! thanks for reading!
lisa
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Getting Ready
THE PASSAGE, PART 1, PREPARATION
I know this is late and it has taken us a long time to get any information out after our passage but we were tired after the passage and hence laziness ruled over productivity. Now you may get bombarded with blogs(I doubt it but that is our intention as of right now) with the creative and original thought that you would expect of people who have spent three weeks in the most uncomfortable surroundings your little city dweller minds could think of(have you figured out this trip has given me a bit of a superiority complex, some people my say 'enhanced' my superiority complex but I would say listen to me not them as I am obviously better).
Our passage started in La Paz around the 9th of May. Between the 9th and 18th of May we busied ourselves in La Paz getting the boat ready for passage. We did take 2 days off and go and visit josh and Christine in Pescadero.
Christene and Josh's little abode
but I still count that as working for the passage. We managed to finally come to a suitable arrangement for doing work. We had quite a big list of chores to do and decided to divide these up from the start and let everyone do their share when the wanted. This seemed to work very nicely and everything was done by the time we were ready to leave(the list of chores will be posted in separate blog under the name 'LIST OF CHORES').
Now a little about La Paz. Ever since we had bought the boat we have heard about La Paz. It is revered in the sailing community the way the the Emerald city is reviled by the inhabitants of Oz. It is the Promised Land. We met so many people on our travels that only wanted to get to La Paz and then all would be well. It ended up being pretty funny as we just kept running into people with this mentality. So naturally being the cynical group that we are we spent a good 2 months just ripping on La Paz. Small knowing smiles would appear whenever we met someone else who 'just wanted to get to La Paz' and inevitably that conversation would provide a good days worth of humor for the boat. It got so bad that I developed this uncontrollable need to go to la Paz and see what this place really is about(when I started this trip I had no desire to go to La Paz and when we passed it with out going there on our way through Mexico I never once thought it was a shame we didn't go). And so after much thought and deliberation we changed our plans due to refrigeration issues and forsake our chance at Guatemala, El salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, The Galapagos and Easter Island and instead ended up in La Paz(yes refrigeration was that big a deal to us and it was probably the best decision of the trip so far). and this is what we found
Wouldn't you know it La Paz is the Promise Land. This was by far my favorite city in Mexico. It is super safe and very friendly. It has everything you need, a downtown with a good dose of charm and a Mexican downtown that provided just the right amount of intimidation and discomfort that a non spanish speaking white person would want. And then there is the sailing community which is naturally huge and obviously brings in large amounts of money to the town. It covers every form of boater in every financial bracket. This makes for endless interesting meetings and conversations as well as a certain recklessness in the boating attitude culminating in the numerous boats that manage to become 'involved' in accidents and are in need of repair. I always thought we were in the 'very good chance of damaging the boat' bracket, but after La Paz I wouldn't even put us in the 'average chance of damaging the boat bracket'. Then you have the sunsets which are like the picture below every night we were there. There are numerous places you can sit and have a drink or something to eat to watch these and they are fantastic.
So that is La Paz. And we were lucky to be able to provision here and get the boat ready. It made our lives easy and a lot more enjoyable than what it could have been at a lot of the other places. After a fun filled month hanging around La Paz and the bottom of the Sea of Cortez we had our refrigeration fixed(and it is great) the boat chores done and the boat stocked with food and parts and we were ready to go. Our original plan had been to leave La Paz on the 14th, stop in Cabo on the 16th and be on our way to the Marquesas. The reality was a little different.
A lot of what I am about to talk of next was censored when it first happened. The reason for this was that we didn't really want anyone to worry and we have a few members of our family's that are following us quite closely that would worry. Its funny when the roles are reversed and you started sheltering your parents from things you don't think they can handle. Maybe it is just preparing us for when we have our own kids. Now that it is all said and done I can give you a few more details. We left La Paz on the 18th of May(4 days late because we couldn't get our shit sorted)) about half way through our trip to Cabo, Don informed me that he had noticed the starboard water tank was leaking. He had known about it for a while and chose to censor it from the rest of the crew to see how it would play out. I only found out because I was in the habit of checking it too. When I probed some more it became apparent we were going to lose half our water supply about 3 hours after leaving Cabo. This was a concern. So we stopped at a the closest marina which ended up being 14 miles short of Cabo. Here we set about dealing to the minor problem which had presented itself on our trip from La Paz to Cabo(which takes about a day and a half). We commenced these positions for the next 2 days.
Two days later we had managed to fix our tank and in the process fix the third water tank we had originally left as we didn't need it. So we went from having half our water supply in a tank we knew would be good to having all our supply plus half as much again in 1 tank we new would be good, one tank we were pretty positive would be good and one tank we had no idea about. So for a few days it was a little sketchy as to what would be reliable and what wouldn't(you can never really trust a fix on the boat till about a month later, from what we have found and then it is just as likely to fail as anything else on a boat which is pretty much everything on our boat).
We got to Cabo the afternoon of the 21st and pulled into the fuel dock to fill up on fuel and water(we didn't do this at the marina we stayed in because we found out the fuel was unreliable and the water undrinkable). Upon completing this process we found our water line from our tanks to the sinks were leaking rather bad and our main water filter had finally clogged up enough that it would no longer let any water through. So now we have lots of water(supposedly) but no way of getting it to the taps. The next two hours saw Carl running back and forth between the boat and marine stores trying to find a filter and fittings to fix our leak. Don losing any kind of hand to eye coordination he might have possessed in the past and cutting his hands three times in the space of three minutes(one was a real bleeder too) which then relegated him to expressing his opinion about what to do while I did it. While this is going on the girls are dealing with the guy on the fuel dock is getting more and more pissed because we have been sitting at his dock for 3 hours not really doing anything(if only he knew, we tried to tell him but it was Cabo so he didn't care , he just wanted us to leave so his fuel dock could look a little more attractive to people with some real money, can't really blame him there). We eventually eliminated the filter as we could find no replacement, plugged the leak and put everything back together.
So off we went with 275 gallons(yes we know this is a lot) of crapy tasting water spread across one good water tank and two suspect water tanks. A suspect water line. Two lame looking tiny water filters and a ridiculous amount of plumbing parts that we are not even sure will fix a problem if we have one.
And so starts part 2. The crossing.
I know this is late and it has taken us a long time to get any information out after our passage but we were tired after the passage and hence laziness ruled over productivity. Now you may get bombarded with blogs(I doubt it but that is our intention as of right now) with the creative and original thought that you would expect of people who have spent three weeks in the most uncomfortable surroundings your little city dweller minds could think of(have you figured out this trip has given me a bit of a superiority complex, some people my say 'enhanced' my superiority complex but I would say listen to me not them as I am obviously better).
Our passage started in La Paz around the 9th of May. Between the 9th and 18th of May we busied ourselves in La Paz getting the boat ready for passage. We did take 2 days off and go and visit josh and Christine in Pescadero.
Christene and Josh's little abode
but I still count that as working for the passage. We managed to finally come to a suitable arrangement for doing work. We had quite a big list of chores to do and decided to divide these up from the start and let everyone do their share when the wanted. This seemed to work very nicely and everything was done by the time we were ready to leave(the list of chores will be posted in separate blog under the name 'LIST OF CHORES').
Now a little about La Paz. Ever since we had bought the boat we have heard about La Paz. It is revered in the sailing community the way the the Emerald city is reviled by the inhabitants of Oz. It is the Promised Land. We met so many people on our travels that only wanted to get to La Paz and then all would be well. It ended up being pretty funny as we just kept running into people with this mentality. So naturally being the cynical group that we are we spent a good 2 months just ripping on La Paz. Small knowing smiles would appear whenever we met someone else who 'just wanted to get to La Paz' and inevitably that conversation would provide a good days worth of humor for the boat. It got so bad that I developed this uncontrollable need to go to la Paz and see what this place really is about(when I started this trip I had no desire to go to La Paz and when we passed it with out going there on our way through Mexico I never once thought it was a shame we didn't go). And so after much thought and deliberation we changed our plans due to refrigeration issues and forsake our chance at Guatemala, El salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, The Galapagos and Easter Island and instead ended up in La Paz(yes refrigeration was that big a deal to us and it was probably the best decision of the trip so far). and this is what we found
Wouldn't you know it La Paz is the Promise Land. This was by far my favorite city in Mexico. It is super safe and very friendly. It has everything you need, a downtown with a good dose of charm and a Mexican downtown that provided just the right amount of intimidation and discomfort that a non spanish speaking white person would want. And then there is the sailing community which is naturally huge and obviously brings in large amounts of money to the town. It covers every form of boater in every financial bracket. This makes for endless interesting meetings and conversations as well as a certain recklessness in the boating attitude culminating in the numerous boats that manage to become 'involved' in accidents and are in need of repair. I always thought we were in the 'very good chance of damaging the boat' bracket, but after La Paz I wouldn't even put us in the 'average chance of damaging the boat bracket'. Then you have the sunsets which are like the picture below every night we were there. There are numerous places you can sit and have a drink or something to eat to watch these and they are fantastic.
So that is La Paz. And we were lucky to be able to provision here and get the boat ready. It made our lives easy and a lot more enjoyable than what it could have been at a lot of the other places. After a fun filled month hanging around La Paz and the bottom of the Sea of Cortez we had our refrigeration fixed(and it is great) the boat chores done and the boat stocked with food and parts and we were ready to go. Our original plan had been to leave La Paz on the 14th, stop in Cabo on the 16th and be on our way to the Marquesas. The reality was a little different.
A lot of what I am about to talk of next was censored when it first happened. The reason for this was that we didn't really want anyone to worry and we have a few members of our family's that are following us quite closely that would worry. Its funny when the roles are reversed and you started sheltering your parents from things you don't think they can handle. Maybe it is just preparing us for when we have our own kids. Now that it is all said and done I can give you a few more details. We left La Paz on the 18th of May(4 days late because we couldn't get our shit sorted)) about half way through our trip to Cabo, Don informed me that he had noticed the starboard water tank was leaking. He had known about it for a while and chose to censor it from the rest of the crew to see how it would play out. I only found out because I was in the habit of checking it too. When I probed some more it became apparent we were going to lose half our water supply about 3 hours after leaving Cabo. This was a concern. So we stopped at a the closest marina which ended up being 14 miles short of Cabo. Here we set about dealing to the minor problem which had presented itself on our trip from La Paz to Cabo(which takes about a day and a half). We commenced these positions for the next 2 days.
Two days later we had managed to fix our tank and in the process fix the third water tank we had originally left as we didn't need it. So we went from having half our water supply in a tank we knew would be good to having all our supply plus half as much again in 1 tank we new would be good, one tank we were pretty positive would be good and one tank we had no idea about. So for a few days it was a little sketchy as to what would be reliable and what wouldn't(you can never really trust a fix on the boat till about a month later, from what we have found and then it is just as likely to fail as anything else on a boat which is pretty much everything on our boat).
We got to Cabo the afternoon of the 21st and pulled into the fuel dock to fill up on fuel and water(we didn't do this at the marina we stayed in because we found out the fuel was unreliable and the water undrinkable). Upon completing this process we found our water line from our tanks to the sinks were leaking rather bad and our main water filter had finally clogged up enough that it would no longer let any water through. So now we have lots of water(supposedly) but no way of getting it to the taps. The next two hours saw Carl running back and forth between the boat and marine stores trying to find a filter and fittings to fix our leak. Don losing any kind of hand to eye coordination he might have possessed in the past and cutting his hands three times in the space of three minutes(one was a real bleeder too) which then relegated him to expressing his opinion about what to do while I did it. While this is going on the girls are dealing with the guy on the fuel dock is getting more and more pissed because we have been sitting at his dock for 3 hours not really doing anything(if only he knew, we tried to tell him but it was Cabo so he didn't care , he just wanted us to leave so his fuel dock could look a little more attractive to people with some real money, can't really blame him there). We eventually eliminated the filter as we could find no replacement, plugged the leak and put everything back together.
So off we went with 275 gallons(yes we know this is a lot) of crapy tasting water spread across one good water tank and two suspect water tanks. A suspect water line. Two lame looking tiny water filters and a ridiculous amount of plumbing parts that we are not even sure will fix a problem if we have one.
And so starts part 2. The crossing.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Slanted Enchanted
So we would like to extend a huge thanks to Anette and Graham (andy's parents) for taking our rambling radio communiqués and turning them into intelligible blog posts.
There is a lot to talk about and I'm sure well over 200 photos worth posting but for the moment we will simply post our overnight shift schedule and a conversation we had regarding eachother's ridiculous habits. "Helm" is when you are actually steering (we have no autopilot) and "watch" is...well....pretty much the subject of the audio.
Click here for the audio
Helm Watch
6:00 Don
7:00 Leslie Don
8:00 Carl Les
9:00 Andy Carl
10:00 Lisa Andy
11:00 Don Lisa
12:00 Les Don
1:00 Carl Les
2:00 Andy Carl
3:00 Don Andy
4:00 Les Don
5:00 Carl Les
6:00 Andy Carl
There is a lot to talk about and I'm sure well over 200 photos worth posting but for the moment we will simply post our overnight shift schedule and a conversation we had regarding eachother's ridiculous habits. "Helm" is when you are actually steering (we have no autopilot) and "watch" is...well....pretty much the subject of the audio.
Click here for the audio
Helm Watch
6:00 Don
7:00 Leslie Don
8:00 Carl Les
9:00 Andy Carl
10:00 Lisa Andy
11:00 Don Lisa
12:00 Les Don
1:00 Carl Les
2:00 Andy Carl
3:00 Don Andy
4:00 Les Don
5:00 Carl Les
6:00 Andy Carl
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