The Minnow

Grand Cayman to Florida

2009-07-19T13:40:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to ~~Texas~~ Florida, Day 39)

Friday, July 17, 2009

by Mike

We made it! They opened the 17^th Street bridge for us at 12:00 noon. We parked at the marina shortly after.

Fishing Report:

Another barracuda.

Grand Cayman to Florida

2009-07-19T13:37:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to ~~Texas~~ Florida, Day 38)

Thursday, July 16, 2009

by Mike

Today we planned eight, or maybe nine dives, all wreck dives except for the first one. We entered the waters west of the Florida Keys before sunup and anchored at our first dive spot around 6:30. We slept until 8:00, waiting for good light for diving.

Our first dive was at 50-65 feet in a flat area a east of the Dry Tortugas. The bottom was full of coral and full of fish. There weren’t any coral structures, just a lot of coral growing in the sand.

Preparing for our second we drove around the spot on the map that had the wreck symbol until we saw a structure on out fish finder. Then we anchored and headed downward. There was a very strong current so we pulled ourselves forward to the anchor chain on a rope and then headed to the bottom holding on to the chain. The current was weaker at the bottom (75 feet) but still required constant hard swimming to keep from losing ground. The wreck was a small boat. There were two large (400 pounds?) groupers hanging around the wreck.

For our third dive we repeated the anchoring process. The current was not quite as strong, but still moving fast enough that we held onto the anchor chain for the descent. At 30 feet we passed a thermal cline into cold water. The visibility went to less than 10 feet at that point. We went to the bottom (70 feet) and swam looking for a wreck for 20 minute and gave up.

Our next wreck spot was in 65 feet of water. We never saw a structure on the fish finder, but we did see some nice structures and what appeared to be a steep wall on the way there so we anchored and dived there. This was a nice place with a good, but small, wall. The upper part was 25-35 feet and the lower part went down to 60 feet. Slight current and good visibility made this dive very enjoyable.

Our next wreck spot was in 16 feet of water. The water was so murky we skipped it. And we looked for two more in that same area and skipped both of them, due to no structure and murky water. We decided to head south, away from the Florida Bay and toward the Gulf of Mexico, hoping to have better visibility.

For our fifth dive we found some structures at 65 feet on the fish finder next to a wreck spot on the map. The current was manageable. The water was warm and clear until we hit 30 feet. Then it turned cold and visibility reduced to about 15 feet. We both swam around at 50+ feet for more than 30 minutes looking for anything. Neither of us saw anything except sand and a few jellyfish at the surface. Very barren.

We found some very well-defined structures on the fish finder for our sixth dive. In the water we found no wreck. However, we found some wonderful coral structures teeming with fish. Probably the biggest concentration of fish I have ever seen. Thousands of them, and dozens of different kinds. We spent about an hour at 30-45 feet enjoying the dive.

It was 7:30 when we finished our sixth dive and we were tired. Six dives and five tanks of air each. We relaxed and headed for Fort Lauderdale.

Fine Dining:

I’ve found that diving creates a lot of hunger. After the first dive was French toast – lots of it – and fried eggs, too. The second dive was capped by a banana covered with peanut butter. And we finished off a bag of chips ahoy, too (it was already open, so we didn’t eat the entire thing, just most of it). After the third dive Bob made tuna sandwiches. We had a fairly long break after the fourth dive. That allowed time for crackers and cheese, an apple, and cereal. And I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, since we ran out of chips ahoy.

Then an odd thing happened. Nothing was eaten between dives five and six. I guess the stomach can only hold so much.

Grand Cayman to Florida

2009-07-19T13:36:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to ~~Texas~~ Florida, Day 37)

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

by Mike

Staying 12 miles away from Cuban soil, we started rounding the western tip of Cuba early this morning. We should enter the waters near Florida in the morning.

Fishing Report:

The Gulf Stream produced! Bob caught a barracuda. I caught some seaweed.

Fine Dining:

Cooked more fish. Mackerel. Still good!

Grand Cayman to Florida

2009-07-15T02:27:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to ~~Texas~~ Florida, Day 36)

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

by Mike

Some rain showers early this morning cooled things off. I actually put a towel over my legs to keep warm while I was reading.

We made good time from Grand Cayman overnight but a head current started increasing this morning, reaching more than two knots in the afternoon. It feels better to be going 8.5 knots than 6.5 knots.

The cruise ship business seems to be in good order. In addition to the numerous cargo ships we have passed, or been passed by, we have seen several cruise ships.

Fishing Report:

Fishing conditions south of Cuba are sad. No fish today. After we round the tip of Cuba tonight we’ll enter the Gulf Stream. That should change our luck!

Grand Cayman to Florida

2009-07-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to ~~Texas~~ Florida, Day 35)

Monday, July 13, 2009

by Mike

I took Elizabeth and Fullerton to the airport at 6:00 this morning. Back to civilization for them and now I’m stuck with Bob. It sure was nice having them along for as long as they could stand us.

After that we got fuel, picked up laundry, turned in the rental car, and checked out with customs. We also removed 59’ 9” of broken stainless steel hanging from the mast and lashed it to the side of the boat. It was good to get it out of the way. We would drop it in deep water later.

We unhooked and drove about 30 minutes to the northwest corner of the island and hooked up to a mooring ball there for a parting dive. We were looking for a wall to dive, hopefully with a light current. The depth at the mooring ball was 50 feet. The depth when the boat strung out behind the mooring ball was 79 feet. That was encouraging.

We both planned to follow the mooring ball to the bottom. However, once we got below the surface it was so clear and the current was light so we just went straight down. The coral formations were spectacular.

Swimming along at 60 feet we could go over straight drop offs of coral, and swim straight down the face of coral, surrounded by fish. It reminded me of the IMAX videos of airplanes flying over the cliffs in the Grand Canyon. There was coral as far down as we could see.

There was a natural temptation to go over the cliff edges and swim down to see what’s there. Problem is, the wall goes down … and down … and down. Within a hundred yards the depth is 700 feet, and just past there it is a few thousand feet.

I spent about 20 minutes between 60 and 95 feet and then spent the rest of the dive at 50 feet or less. There was plenty to see everywhere. When I got low air I spent a long time on the mooring rope at 15 feet, safety-stopping just in case. Bob did the same.

After the dive we took off for the west tip of Cuba. We dropped the front stay in 702 feet of water.

Our tour of the gulf coast of Texas will have to wait. We have decided to take the Minnow to Florida. We think some of the needed repairs will be easier to do there, so our next destination is Fort Lauderdale. We want to get the front stay fixed. And there’s the air conditioner issue.

Oh, and for all of you who are enjoying telling us that it is 102 in Oklahoma, a few questions:

(1) How many of you were in 102 degrees when you sent the emails or text messages telling us it was 102?

(2) What was the temperature in your office when you typed your message?

(3) How many minutes have you spent in 102 degrees this summer?

Okay, I feel better … but it’s still ~~hot~~ warm here!

Grand Cayman

2009-07-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 34)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

by Mike

When we got to Grand Cayman they assigned us a mooring ball where we were to tie up the boat. That was easy for us. It was also nice because it parked the Minnow right around some coral. There were dive boat mooring balls all around us. That meant we could scuba dive right off the back of the boat without moving.

Elizabeth and I got underwater about 9:15. Conditions couldn’t have been better. Visibility was great, the current was so small it was hard to detect, and huge numbers and varieties of fish were everywhere. Most of our dive we were 15-25 feet underwater. Our dive lasted more than two hours, and we still had air left. Bob and Fullerton enjoyed the diving, too. Fullerton even let go of the rope!

After lunch (mackerel again!) we went again. We explored slightly different areas and saw even more fish. There were lots of valleys and crannies in the coral where we could swim and look up at the fish on the bottom of the coral formations. For easy diving with lots of things to see, it couldn’t have been better.

After diving we drove around the island. Four years ago the place was a mess from hurricane damage. Now it’s rebuilt and looks in better shape than it was before.

Panama to Grand Cayman

2009-07-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 33)

Saturday, July 11, 2009

by Mike

“… again,” he said. And then Bob went back upstairs. Hmm. It was 1:50am.

I knew there were words preceding that, I just had no idea what they might have been. I sat up and decided to get out of bed and go see what he was talking about. I stretched, yawned, and stumbled upstairs and it began to make sense. “The front stay broke again,” he must have said.

The front stay was loose alright. It was flopping around banging into things. Part of the 60-fot furler was in the water – maybe 20 feet. And it was slowly continuing down. The bowsprit, furling drum, and assorted cables were dragging along in the water.

Our first action was getting the sails down and minimizing the motion of the boat. Then we roped the furler with some rolling hitches and stopped its descent. By then we had a fairly good idea of what happened. The stay (stainless steel guy wire) had broken in two and the furler was sliding off of it. The bottom eight feet of the furler and stay were hooked to the tangle of bowsprit and cables that were dragging in the water.

The biggest challenge was lowering the furler off of the stay and then successfully capturing and controlling the bottom end of a flailing, loose 60-foot stainless steel cable. Hopefully before it beat us or the boat into submission.

We wrapped ropes and halyards around the mast and the upper part of the stay to help minimize the stay’s movement once it was free. Bob lowered the furler into the water and jettisoned it when it was free of the boat. I grabbed the bottom of the stay and managed to get vise-grips on it.

With it temporarily under control (three pairs of vice-grips on it by now) we considered our options. When hanging down at the mast, it was broken off about five feet above the deck. It wasn’t a braided or twisted cable – it turned out to be a solid rod and very slippery. The sea was too rough (and it was too dark) to climb the mast and remove it safely. We needed a way to attach to the bottom of it to control it for about 12 hours.

We ended up drilling a small hole in the stay. With a small bolt in the hole, we tied ropes tightly around it. Then we wrapped the broken stay around the furled solent and tied it off firmly.

From there it was just a matter of getting tangled bowsprit mess out of the water, disassembled, and the cables tied off out of the way.

We arrived in Georgetown, Grand Cayman late in the afternoon. We got checked in with customs and ate supper off the boat at a local spot called Breezes. The island looked deserted. All the shops were closed, and most restaurants were closed … on a Saturday night! There were no cruise boats in town. That would change.

Fishing Report:

Morning twilight was just beginning when we finished our repair work and headed back north toward Grand Cayman. Naturally I put the fishing lines out, as I do every morning. Fullerton asked why we were fishing since we had a freezer full of fish. Elizabeth was properly greedy and said to catch more! Bob and I just understood: when you’re sailing, you’re supposed to fish.

Oh … no luck today.

Panama to Grand Cayman

2009-07-14T11:09:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 32)

Friday, July 10, 2009

by Mike

We sailed along nicely today making good speed, 8-9 knots most of the day, which should allow us to arrive in Grand Cayman sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Fine Dining and Fishing Report:

Succumbing to a desire for eggs, fried, this morning, I started some bacon and just got the eggs into the pan when a fishing pole started making noise. I ran outside and tightened the drag and turned the boat to the right from 50 degrees off the wind to 30 degrees off the wind to slow us down. Reeling in a fish while the boat is moving at nine knots is a lot of work. Even for a small fish.

Then I went back to tend the eggs and bacon, allowing the boat to slow. Back at the fishing pole I noticed that the boat speed was down to eight knots and there was a lot of line out. I turned more into the wind and eventually slowed the boat down to seven knots. That was about as slow as I could get without some sail and rope work, so I started reeling. In between cooking and eating, that is.

About 25 minutes later I had a 51” king mackerel and a full tummy. I tried to weigh it, but it bottomed out our 50-pound scale before I got the tail off the deck. I winched it up on the steps by the tail and started hacking into it. We ended up with several gallons of white-meat steaks.

We had blackened mackerel for lunch. Then, due to popularity of the dish (demands of the female), we had blackened mackerel for supper.

Panama to Grand Cayman

2009-07-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 31)

Thursday, July 9, 2009

by Mike

Everyone got up feeling good today after a calm night at anchor. We waited until shortly after nine for the customs people to arrive at the boat. This time it didn’t take long. We found out that customs clearing was not required if we were staying less than 24 hours. We weren’t.

So we loaded up the dinghy with some junk and ourselves and headed to shore. We walked, picture took, ate some local cuisine (crab something, it was good!), and shopped the local grocery store. We picked up crackers, cookies, different cookies, and some bread.

We filled our scuba tanks and other misc. things and then headed north a few miles to a reef with good anchorage. The good anchorage part was appealing since the wind was topping 30 knots occasionally.

We parked in less than 25 feet of water in the sand near the reef with 100 feet of anchor chain out. A scope of better than 4-to-1. When we were diving I looked at the anchor and watched as the chain was pulled tight. It raised the chain out of the sand within a few feet of the anchor. It was a good visual reminder that 6-to-1 (some say 8-to-1) is a good scope for a windy anchorage. In this case we had someone on the boat at all times, so it wasn’t as critical.

It was a good place for diving. The strong wind was creating a strong surface current. But just below the surface it was nice. The fish here reminded us somewhat of the fish around the Florida Keys, but I didn’t think they were quite as colorful. We saw a couple of sharks, lots of rays, and large varieties of fish in the coral formations.

The diving was so good we refilled the tanks and Bob, Elizabeth and I went again. The sun was an hour-and-a-half from setting. It was still bright on the boat, but it didn’t light the underwater world as well as it had earlier. That was interesting to me. It was another enjoyable dive. We explored some different coral structures and swam around the same ones as earlier. It’s hard to get tired of that.

After eating and battening down we took off northward into the wind and waves. To Cayman!

Fine Arts

It was quiet on the boat after the last dive. Elizabeth requested some music. Rock and roll. Bob inquired of her graduating year and then played the top songs of 1977 for her pleasure. Many of those songs were painful reminders of what we were forced to listen to back then. Occasionally there was a good one, but seldom. After this agonizing review, I have re-convinced myself that society suffered from disco.

In three hours we endured top hits from 1977 and 1970 and 1971. Elizabeth knew all the words.

Fine Dining:

In an effort to enjoy the calm before the waves, we relaxed after our last dive. Tanks were refilled, cigars were puffed, junk was stowed, everyone showered. I grilled chicken and made some garlic red potatoes to go along with the green beans. We were all clean and pretty, tired and hungry, and it was good.

Fishing Report:

Another day of catch and release. Elizabeth caught a nice 20-inch Spanish mackerel on the way to the dive site. Apparently she reeled too slow. The back half of the fish was shredded with some nasty-looking teeth marks. She was excited and wanted to eat it. The good meat was missing. We told her to catch another one and reel fast!

Panama to Grand Cayman

2009-07-10T03:36:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 30)

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

by Mike

We had a rough sea today. Starting with big swells from the west and significant wind waves from the east, creating very confused seas, the wind clocked (or backed?) around in front of us becoming from the west. This created big swells with good-sized wind waves on top of them. When they combined just right, they got as big as 15 feet. Mostly we were in seas of 8-12 feet.

Elizabeth and Fullerton were both stricken by either “jetlag” (as Serge likes to call it) or “sleeping sickness” since they both repeatedly assured us that they were not seasick. Elizabeth logged north of 20 hours of sleep in 24 and Fullerton wasn’t far behind. I’m pretty sure neither of them smiled the entire day either.

The thing that caused them the most grief was the unsteadiness of the boat. It wasn’t rough in the sense of hard banging or jolts. It was an unpredictable motion, which made it a good idea to grab a handhold when walking around.

We got to Providencia, a Columbian Island in the middle of the ocean, and anchored after midnight.

Fishing Report:

Caught one tuna fish, skipjack, which is lousy eating. It was a good day for catch and release.

Panama to Grand Cayman

2009-07-10T03:13:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 29)

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

by Mike

On the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal there is a new marina called Shelter Bay Marina. We stayed there overnight. It’s very nice. There are lots of buildings around there left over from the US presence. Most are run down.

We spent the morning biking and walking around the area and filled up with diesel. There are thick forests around. Could be rain forests, I guess. Since it was raining.

I was walking down a trail in a forest with a canopy high over my head. It wasn’t thick enough to make it dark, but it was nice and shady. The mosquitoes liked it there, too. When I was pretty deep in, I could hear the rain increase. And then it started pouring. Except there was nothing but a light, misty sprinkle on me. I suppose that the tall trees have evolved to the point that they capture most of the rain for themselves.

When I got back to the boat I asked if it had rained hard, just to make sure I wasn’t hearing things. It had.

We left around noon for the Rio Chagres. This is the river that forms the lake that is used in the Panama Canal. We went to the mouth of it and drove up it. The thick forests were nice to look into as we went along the shore. We anchored up the river a few miles and got out the kayaks. Elizabeth and I paddled upstream and then the rain began. It poured. It felt good.

Two interesting animals were there. One we saw and one we heard. The howling monkey sounds like I would expect a lion or jaguar to sound. Once the rain started, they started howling. The roars echoed through the trees. They would be really scary if you were in the woods close to one. They are loud. And they sound mean.

We went up a small creek feeding the river and saw a lizard walking on water. It was on a leaf near one bank and ran upright on its back feet to the other bank. It looked like a cartoon character.

Fullerton and Bob hopped in when we got back. Bob stayed in his kayak kayaked to the mouth of the river, where we picked him up and headed out to sea. We raised the sails and headed north in some stiff wind.

Panama Canal

2009-07-08T03:20:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 28)

Monday, July 6, 2009

by Mike

We got up bright and early at 4:00 to get ready for the three line handlers, which would arrive promptly at 4:30. After some phone calls to and from our agent, and so forth, they showed up at 5:15. We left at 5:16 and hurried to arrive at Buoy 6 to meet our adviser at 5:30. We drove around in circles near buoy 6 until he showed up at 6:35.

We had drive a couple of miles to the first lock and were eager to get started. The advisor advised us that we would wait until 8:40 to enter the lock. We were allowed to enter the first lock around 9:30, a mere five hours of waiting and 30 minutes of doing since we got up.

Apparently when the US ran the canal, things were well regulated and run on a pretty good schedule. Not so much now. It’s frustrating to deal with people that have such little regard for pre-agreed times. It must be a nightmare for ships and shipping companies to spend weeks pressing for time and then get to Panama and wait. For a day, and then maybe another day. Why not make it three?

The lock system itself is impressive. It was completed in 1914 by the United States. It was used in WWI and WWII. While there have been repairs and upgrades to several things in the Panama Canal, the locks are the same as they were in 1913. They are 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long. For a long time they were the world’s largest concrete structures. They have functioned flawlessly for nearly 100 years. That’s a lot better than most sidewalks.

It was amazing to see ships 103 feet wide and 966 feet long so neatly placed in the locks by tug boats. Once in the locks, they are tied front and rear on each side with strong cables to locomotives. The locomotives follow the ships through the locks and keep them from hitting the sides. This takes skill, practice, attention, working together. It also requires straight walls.

The walls are 1000 feet long and 100+ feet tall. They look to be a perfectly straight. And they must be perfectly straight to allow a 966-foot, multi-story-tall ship to drive in, go down (or up) 30 feet, and drive out without hitting a side. All with only three and one-half feet (3.5’) of clearance on each side. That is some serious concrete work.

There are a number of horizontal gashes on the concrete side walls of the locks. Some are a few feet long and some are 30 feet or longer. We were speculating that during hectic times in WWII maybe a locomotive would go down, resulting in the ship pressing against a wall. And perhaps a young crew would be saying “I don’t care just get this thing moving … fast!” thinking of the admiral’s orders. Maybe that’s how some of the gashes got there.

We tried not to leave a mark with the Minnow.

Some history on the canal is interesting:

· The canal was first proposed to the Spanish King Charles in 1534.

· In 1856 the Panama Railway crossed the Isthmus of Panama.

· In 1879 Columbia (Panama was then a state of Columbia) granted a French Company the authority to build (and operate for profit) the Panama Canal.

· In 1889 the French Company ran out of money after spending 1.4 billion francs, and incurring 20,000 deaths. Fiscal mismanagement and corruption contributed.

· In 1894 a Second French Company tried again and soon went bankrupt.

· In 1903 Panama seceded from Columbia, the US promptly recognized the new government, and a canal treaty was signed. This treaty gave the US the equivalent of absolute sovereignty over the Canal Zone.

· In 1914 the Panama Canal opened for traffic. It was completed below the estimated cost of $400 million and earlier than projected.

· In 1999 the Panama Canal was turned over to Panama.

In Panama

2009-07-08T02:58:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 26-27)

Saturday/Sunday, July 4-5, 2009

by Mike

We stayed parked at the Flamenco Marina Saturday and Sunday waiting for our turn in the canal. Elizabeth got here Saturday night. We planned to go scuba diving Sunday, since we had to wait until Monday to go through the canal.

We got stuck waiting at the dock most of the day. We were waiting for different Panama people for different things. Central Americans have no problem being a few hours late on almost everything. A few hours late for an agreed meeting time seems to be normal. For them, that is.

Finally in the afternoon we took off to scuba dive near Taboga Island. It was low visibility with a strong current, but it was still fun. Due to the current, we went down the anchor chain. It was funny trying to get neutrally buoyant. We were hanging onto the chain and were horizontal to the surface … like human flags.

We got back to the dock after dark and waited until morning.

To Panama

2009-07-07T07:41:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 25)

Friday, July 3, 2009

by Mike

A little rain this morning. A little sun. Fullerton spent time some outside with a kite this morning. He says he does this for therapy and relaxation. Usually it seems to fluster and frustrate him, and entertain us. I’m pretty sure his blood pressure goes up after most episodes of kite almost-flying. But it’s sure fun for everyone else on the boat. Today his kite flew! Fullerton was walking on tiptoes the rest of the day.

We neared Balboa, Panama in heavy rain. I actually got chilled as we stood in 35-knotswinds and pouring rain and tried to locate other boats or buoys through wet glasses and blowing rain. We avoided them all and parked in light wind and sprinkles at 2:30.

Saturday, July 4, 2009, Mexico to Panama (condensed version)

2009-07-04T10:18:00.001-07:00

by Bob

Here are a bunch of pictures: http://crusto.com/panama

Panama! I think there is a song about that. Or maybe that was Ipanema. The Minnow is in Flamenco Marina outside the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. We hope to go through the canal on Monday.

I'll backtrack. After Socorro we did get to Acapulco. At our next port someone told us that 28 people were gunned down in drugger fights while we were. But we didn't notice anything unusual, except that there wasn't much business at the Acapulco marina.

We headed out of Acapulco for some favorable winds to Cost Rica. But the winds ended up not being so favorable. In fact, we were motoring directly into 30-35 knots winds and their associated waves for a day or two. Then Mike broke the boat.

I was sleeping, and he woke me up. After the mental haze cleared a bit, I noticed that the forestay was flopping around. The forestay is the cable that holds the big sail in front, and it holds the mast forward. Luckily we have two of them, and the other one was in good shape and holding the mast. A shackle had broken or come loose, turning loose the bowsprit and breaking a metal piece, which turned loose the forestay.

We headed for the nearest port, Huatulco, had the broken piece welded, got diesel, replaced the radome (the stay broke it when it was flopping around), got a battery, fixed a few other things, and headed out again in one day. That was pretty good, I thought.

Some other people at Huatulco expected Mike and I to sink the boat when we crossed the gulf of Tehuantepec. I guess they didn't have access to weather forecasts. But I will admit that Mike and I don't appear to be competent sailors. Or competent at anything.

The wind and waves were good all the way to Costa Rica, although we had to motor a good part of the trip.

In Costa Rica we docked for a day, played around, picked up an unsuspecting passenger (Fullerton), got diesel, and headed out the next day for Isla del Cocos, or Cocos Island, or something like that. It's a couple hundred miles off the coast of Costa Rica, a nature preserve. They claim it's the largest uninhabited island in the world, but I don't think they considered places like Kiska Island or Amchitka Island.

On the way to Isla del Cocos, we caught a giant Pacific Blue Marlin. It was 115 inches (29,210,000,000 angstroms) long, maybe 400 or 600 lbs. I'm not sure how long it took to bring it in, but it was daylight when I started reeling it in, and dark when we finally got in onto the boat. We had 80 lb test line, and the hook pretty much fell out of the fish's mouth when we had it on the boat. It was pretty exciting.

At Cocos we dived there three times, hiked and kayaked, and then headed northeast to Panama. There are a lot of sharks there. They're mostly white-tipped sharks, but we saw a few hammerheads. There are lots of birds around the island, too. There is supposed to be a lot of treasure there, too. But we couldn't even find a geocache, let alone treasure.

We had a pleasant down-wind ride to Panama, complete with dolphin escorts much of the time. Fullerton took on some kite therapy in a futile attempt to regain some sanity.

Shortly before we got to the entry of the Panama Canal, there was a big thunderstorm with wind, lightning, heavy rain -- just like home. We couldn't see very well, but we missed that big ship coming out of the canal channel by at least a hundred yards due to our inept seamanship and superior luck.

We are now docked. We only have to repair one rudder, because the bums at Webasto wouldn't send us parts we need for air conditioner repair. Some electrical parts in the air conditioner control box caught on fire. This happened just two weeks after the air conditioner was "repaired" by a Webasto service center.

We didn't realize it until I noticed some black smoke stains on the metal control box down in the engine room. (Of course, the air conditioner wouldn't run, but that is not unusual for this air conditioner.)

So I tried to order parts. They said we had to order from a dealer. I asked for a referral to a dealer who had them in stock and could ship them to us, and they gave me Thomas Marine in Miami. Those guys were real jerks, and after a dozen or more phone calls and emails to Thomas Marine and Webasto, we still can't get parts. The moral of this story is that if you buy Webasto, don't catch it on fire.

To Panama

2009-07-03T04:35:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 24)

Thursday, July 2, 2009

by Mike

We continued toward Panama. With the depth showing 4750 feet we stopped the boat in light wind. Bob and I decided to go for a swim. Bob did a flip off the front and I dived off the bowsprit. The water felt great. The stings were probably from jellyfish, although we never saw them. Our swim didn’t last long.

Fishing Report:

We fished all day. Got one little non-keeper.

Fine Arts:

Franz Liszt made a piano transcription of Beethoven’s nine symphonies. They were both good piano players, and good composers, and Liszt was an extra-good player. And he did a really, really good job putting these symphonies in piano form. I’d guess his piano playing experience and ability contributed to the complexities of these transcriptions. For example, in some cases, the thumb and pinkie get two notes each. Not something you see every day (except in jazz).

We have the sheet music of the transcription for symphonies 1-5 on the boat and Bob and I have at them occasionally. They go very slowly when we play them. I mean extremely slow. Liszt not only got all the moving parts going at the same time, he also used different parts of the keyboard almost at the same time to create some great effects. Every now and then, when Bob and I are tackling a section of one of these, it sounds extra good. But it’s pretty seldom. They are just too hard to play (for us).

Today we both played a little of them. It was sad. I turned on Gardiner’s symphonic performance of the finale of Beethoven’s third – a simple theme and variation – and told Bob to play along and keep up (note that Gardiner likes a fast tempo, haha). It prompted us to dig into the Minnow’s music vault and bring out a Russian performance of these transcriptions. We wanted to listen to how these transcriptions were meant to sound. They sound incredible.

It was dark by then, and nice and cool outside. We started with the finale of the third and then sat outside and listened to the entire piano performance of the fifth. Then we listened to Karajan’s symphonic version of the fifth (60s version – it has a little more pep than the 70s version). Although we were able to criticize many details of each performance (and we did), they were both, uhm, magnificent. The only place that the piano transcription comes up short is when Beethoven gets all the instruments whipped into a frenzy in the forth movement. Even then, the ability of Liszt to create some amazing sounds, such as the building arpeggio sections that recur during the movement, from a single keyboard played by a single person, is amazing.

BUT, what’s the problem with fancy piano players and rhythm? They get moving and in a good groove, everyone’s listening and following along, they play the really fast parts perfectly with flawless accuracy. Then, the music building up to a big climax, they ruin the moment by adding a noticeable pause. They get so good and high on themselves that they forget to tap their foot! And then they claim its “artistic.” But every listener has to restart the foot-tapping each time they lose the beat. I can abide a ritard at the end of a phrase, and an occasional birds-eye. They’re written in the music. But not these random gaps in the music.

Personally, I think the habit starts when they’re learning to play. A lot of climactic chords use lots of fingers. As a beginner it’s common to take an extra split second to line up and stretch all the fingers. Then Chopin and all his romantic buddies showed up and made it socially acceptable, calling it “rubato.” Then “habit” becomes “art” and that’s the end of high-quality rhythm.

It’s one thing to play Debussy and company in herky-jerky fashion. It’s not that good anyway, so not much is lost. But for the sake of all that is proper, play Beethoven like Beethoven intended. With a beat. Beethoven even dedicated a movement of a symphony to the metronome!

Fortunately, for the artistic advancement of mankind, someone invented the snare drum. We got back on track with John Phillips Sousa and Benny Goodman. And kept on track with John Williams, Led Zeppelin, and Hannah Montana. Even tribal rain dances and rap have a beat … they just aren’t interesting since they don’t have a melody, and lots of people prefer them to Chopin.

Fine Dining:

Fullerton treated breakfast this morning. Eggs, bacon, biscuits, and gravy. The gravy was tasty and the bacon and eggs were great. The biscuits … as far as I know, no one broke a tooth on them, but there were some close calls. It’s easy for me to write this since he probably won’t read it until he’s off the boat.

To Panama

2009-07-02T05:17:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 23)

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

by Mike

Not much happened today. A few minor repairs and some cleaning. Quite a bit of reading. Several Beethoven symphonies, and a few by Brahms. Brahms did good symphonies, but Beethoven’s are better.

We are heading on a straight line toward the corner of Panama. Then we’ll follow the coast around to Balboa, where the Panama canal is. It looks like we’ll get there some time Friday.

Fishing Report:

Fullerton cleaned the reels and did some work on the lures and stuff. Bob made a big ruckus, slowing the boat, reeling and reeling, adjusting the drag. “You gotta play the fish!” He reeled in a bunch of plastic.

No fish.

Cocos Island

2009-07-01T03:41:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 22)

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

by Mike

It was cloudy and sprinkling first thing, with some blustery wind. But it cleared soon into a nice day. Mostly cloudy with a comfortable breeze.

That weather worked good for dinghy diving. We did two dives today. This place is packed with fish. Lots of fish. Most of them are tropical and colorful. Hundreds and hundreds of them. More than that even. We also saw moray eels, starfish, weird-looking growths that are probably animals, lobsters, big turtles, and sharks. Many of the sharks lay in the sand here.

On our first dive I went in first to check the anchor, which Bob and Fullerton were weighing, or considering, or fighting over, or something. The anchor was laying on top of the sand, but the rope was zigzagged and tangled around enough rocks that is wasn’t going anywhere. When Bob got in the water he dropped one of his weights. It landed a few feet from a four-foot white-tipped shark lying in the sand. It swam away when we approached. But it was still scary!

After diving, Bob and I took off on kayaks. Bob went to shore to hike (walk) and I went along shore to look (paddle).

Late in the afternoon we took off. Next stop Panama, gateway to the Atlantic.

Fine Dining:

There was a French-toast-eating frenzy that occurred this morning.

Fishing report:

Fullerton did some repair work on fishing gear as we sailed away from the island. There’s a no-fishing zone that extends for 12 miles from Cocos Island. This is one no-fishing zone that I think is a good idea.

Cocos Island

2009-06-30T05:23:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 21)

Monday, June 29, 2009

by Mike

More rain this morning. We headed directly into a headwind. That’s the Minnow’s most common travel condition. Into a raining headwind.

We got to Cocos Island at 1:00 in the afternoon and it was sunny and nice! Perfect conditions for island exploration and diving. We did both.

Costa Rica

2009-06-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 20)

Sunday, June 28, 2009

by Mike

It’s been raining a lot on the way to Cocos Island. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 96% of the time. Of course, part of the time it’s only sprinking, but that still counts as rain.

Fishing Report:

We started out the day with a 15-pound dolphin. It was raining too hard to clean it, so we practiced our catch and release techniques. Next Fullerton brought in a 10-pound dolphin. This time we were in light rain so we killed it and cleaned it.

Late in the afternoon Bob slowed the engines and started reeling in a good one. So good, in fact, that it started jumping out of the water. It was some sort of bill fish and looked just like they used to on Wide World of Sports. Bob kept after it for a long time. Luckily we had the sails down at the time and could stop quickly, or it wouldn’t have been on long.

“Bob quit screwing around and catch that thing,” I said after about an hour. It was getting dark.

Thirty minutes later Fullerton had the spotlight pointed to the end of the pole and we all were wearing headlights, Bob was playing the fish (or playing with the fish), and I was trying to follow the fish around with the boat.

“Turn 40 degrees left and back up,” Bob would say, “now thirty right. This fish is fast. Now forward!” I couldn’t see the line in the dark, so I was just driving blindly. Kind of like driving a minivan?

Thirty minutes later the fish was up near the boat, tired out, but still much stronger than any of us. After lots of effort (lots of failures) I finally got a sailing rope tied around its tail. We winched it up on the steps. Then we rejoiced, puffed our chests out, took pictures, touched the fish, and measured it.

It measured 115” long (9 feet, 7 inches). A blue marlin. A beast!

Then we let it go. It twitched a couple of times and then swam off like nothing was wrong. Catch and release. That’s what fishermen do.

Fine Dining:

We ate the dolphin. The actual name of the dish was “Sautéed Mahi-mahi in spices ala New Orleans.” The potatoes went down good with the fried fish!

Fine Arts:

In the lull between catching fish I treated Bob and Fullerton to some fine art. I hooked my electric guitar into the ship-wide stereo and started wailing. It was great!

One problem was some electronic noise, kind of like feedback only high-pitched and constant and loud. Fullerton thought it sounded like a carbon monoxide detector going off. I thought it added to the experience. After 20 minutes my fingers got sore and I ended the performance.

They were still sitting there, outside, when the big fish bit.

Costa Rica

2009-06-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 19)

Saturday, June 27, 2009

by Mike

We spent the morning and afternoon cleaning, getting more diesel and diet cokes, and exploring a bit. Fullerton showed up with a rental car and took us for a ride. Bob and I were good enough to earn a McDonald’s drive-thru in Liberia.

We had gotten enough stuff done, and explored enough that at 4:00 we took off for Cocos Island. About 30 minutes into our voyage we looked back and saw the marina and harbor in deluge of rain. We thought, “wow, that was luck, what good timing.” About 30 minutes later we were rushing to shut all the windows and hatches as the deluge caught us. We thought, “wow, it’s nice to get the entire boat rinsed off so well.”

We’re about 1.75 days from Cocos Island. It’s supposed to be really good scuba diving there. We’re looking forward to diving and exploring the island when we get there.

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-28T04:37:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 18)

Friday, June 26, 2009

by Mike

We pulled into Costa Rica at 4:30 in the afternoon. We parked at Marina Papagayo, “Costa Rica’s first and only luxury marina - the jewel of the Pacific American Coastline” according to their website. It is a nice place, but it’s still under construction. The people there are nice and willing to help. Wendy was especially helpful!

We hired an agent to help. They cost too much and weren’t the greatest. By 6:30 we had completed most of the customs and immigration junk.

After we got rid of everyone we unfurled the gennaker, revealing a messed up furler. This meant that we couldn’t refurl the gennaker (as we suspected) so we took the sail down, folded it, stuffed it in a sail bag, and stowed it. We will continue “gennakerless.”

Wireless internet in the marina let us catch up on normal email. It also let us waste time reading old news (olds?). Word was that Fullerton was in the country, but we didn’t see him.

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-26T03:26:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 17)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

by Mike

Nothing noteworthy to report today. We motor-sailed our way toward Costa Rica against a current of .75 to 1.5 knots. It was hot outside and cool inside. Finished another book and started yet another. Nothing broke!

Lots of porpoises swam around the boat during the afternoon and evening. They were fun to watch.

Fishing report:

Some bites, no fish.

Fine arts:

Bob broke out his IPod to settle some sort of debate. The debate was left unsettled but we did listen to a variety of music for a few hours.

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-25T04:26:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 16)

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

by Mike

Good conditions continued overnight. Early this morning the oil plug came out of the right engine while it was running, draining it into the bilge. Luckily, Bob heard the beeping of it and shut it down quickly. Unluckily, this made a really messy mess.

After he went to bed, I attacked the clean-up and refill. Figuring to get full credit for an oil change (and deservedly so, it was a mess) I opted to change the filter, too. It’s stuck down at the bottom of the most forward (hardest to get to) part of the motor. It’s way worse than I can describe.

We got about 13 miles from shore hunting for the most favorable current. It got hotter, the closer we got to land. Good thing the air conditioner works. Looks like we might make Costa Rica on Friday. Reports are in: Fullerton is already there waiting on us.

Fishing report:

Right in the middle of changing the oil filter I heard a reel start zinging. I actually had to think about it for a moment. I was oily, greasy, sweaty, and crammed horizontally in a cranny a little smaller than I comfortably fit. But a fish is a fish. So I backed my way out of the corner, climbed out of the engine compartment, walked across to the other side of the boat, and dutifully cranked the drag down, quieting the reel. Then I returned to the engine for awhile.

Twenty minutes later I came up for air and checked. The pole was still bent. I reeled it in. And I caught a fish! It was an eight-pounder. A skipjack tuna. I let it go and got back to finishing the oil business.

Late in afternoon I started reeling in a fish. It seemed big. I put the motor in idle, reeled a bit, the fish ran a bit. The fight was over in only five minutes, when I reeled in a fishless lure. Blah. Looking at the lure I noticed the hook was bent. Not just any hook, this is a very large stainless steel hook. The same kind of hook that brought in a 9’10” sailfish in these very waters two years ago. “Hookbender” won this round. I don’t know what kind of fish “hookbender” is, but he is now part of Minnow lore.

We caught our first dolphin today also. It was kind of small, maybe 2-3 pounds. It’s in the refrig now. The fishing drought has ended!

Fine Dining:

Started the morning cooking, and eating, sticky buns. And fried eggs. Continued with pasta for lunch. Feeling frisky, I mixed Kroger’s noodles with Albertson’s marinara sauce. Worked great!

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-24T05:23:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 15)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

by Mike

We went faster today. First, the wind was finally not directly opposing us. This was a big improvement. Also, the waves were negligible, except for a large swell from the storm, now hundreds of miles away but still making its existence known. Choppy waves slow the boat down. Large swells don’t. Finally, we were not going against a two-knot head current. In fact, for much of the day, we had a current moving us along slightly faster!

The result was SOG (speed over ground) of 8-9 knots for most of the day. That compares with 3-4 knots for most of the three previous days on the water. The ride is also much more relaxing. One more thing … nothing broke.

Fishing report:

It started out as a good fishing day. I put the first line out and within 10 seconds had a bite. The reel screamed and took out about 50 feet of line in seconds. Then it quit. An hour later, when I was bike riding, the other pole started screaming. Then quit. Might need sharper hooks?

Late in the day we noticed that one of the poles had no line left on it. Probably lost a big one. Anyway, no fish boated today, but more action than we’ve had in several days.

Spending time outside by the poles would probably help our success rate, but it’s a lot nicer inside with the shade and air conditioning.

Fine Dining:

I finally broke out some chicken and fried it today for lunch. It really hit the spot. I don’t know I was needing (wanting), meat (protein) or grease (fat), but it was sure good.

The evening meal consisted of a huge baked potato loaded with butter, sour cream, salt, pepper, cheese and ketchup.

2009-06-23T05:48:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 14)

Monday, June 22, 2009

by Mike

We spent the morning and afternoon at dock today. It rained lightly most of the morning and quit around noon for three hours. Then it started again.

We put up a new radome and now have radar again. Repaired the chafed rope holding a radar reflector so now it might not fall. Painted some marks on the anchor chain so we can see how deep it is in the water. Fixed the generator so we can run the air conditioner. Repaired the lifelines so we might not fall overboard. Remounted the teak seat in the front right of the boat so we can sit there and relax. Replaced the halyard clip so the rope wouldn’t flail around in the wind. Ate a bunch of cake for energy.

We also got 4 large trash bags of laundry done.

At 6:30 the welders showed up and welded the broken ¾” aluminum. Then we reassembled the front end of the boat and filled up with diesel.

By 9:00pm we were heading out to sea. And at 10:00 we put up the sails and were sailing at 9-10 knots in smooth waters with a nice quartering wind under the stars.

Fine Dining:

Bacon, eggs (over easy), and tuna-fish sandwich. And we ran out of cake!

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-21T19:10:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 13)

Sunday, June 21, 2009

by Mike

Today I got up at 4:00am. I got semi-functional at 4:10. Bob went to bed at 4:15. It was rough with a 20 knot headwind and big waves coming right at us. And it was raining, of course. It was too rough to do much of anything comfortably, so I plugged in a movie. Then I sat, reclining on two pillows letting them absorb some of the banging and slamming.

The movie, some football movie with James Caan, wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad. About an hour into it I heard a huge “BOOM” behind me (toward the front of the boat) that sounded like some sort of major impact. Maybe like a car wreck really close. But I felt nothing. It was followed by a secondary noise (toward the back of the boat) which reminded me of glass breaking. Or something breaking.

Immediately I went outside to see what I could see. Well, immediately after pausing the movie, that is … it was at a good part. I didn’t see anything except rain in the pitch black. Then I grabbed an overboard beacon and a headlamp and put on a nighttime harness. I clipped into the safety webbing and headed forward. When I got to the front, I saw he front stay flying around loose and it had already caused some damage. I slowed the engines and went back inside and told Bob that he might want to start getting awake, we had some things to do (“happy father’s day, now get outa bed you lazy muttonhead!”).

The front stay is a 60-foot-long guy-wire that goes from the top of the mast to the tip of the bowsprit, (the pointy thing out front). It has a large sail (gennaker) furled around it. It holds the mast forward and we fly the gennaker from it in good sailing conditions. At the bottom of the stay is a drum that spools a rope used for furling and unfurling.

The stay had wrapped around the right spreader, about 30 feet up, and the bottom was held in a general area of the right front by the furling rope and a cable attached to the bottom right hull of the boat. Still attached to it were the eight-foot bowsprit and the 20-foot cable, along with substantial hardware and connections. It was heavy and swinging around wildly as the boat crashed into the waves.

I turned the boat sideways to the wind to settle the motion of the boat some and to use the wind to help keep the swinging mass away from the boat and doing more damage. Then I went forward for a better inspection of the situation, clipping and unclipping my harness along the way. It was windy, dark, and still raining. The gennaker had unfurled about 15 feet and was catching a lot of wind. It looked to be slowly unfurling more, not a good thing.

I took the left spinnaker tack (rope) from the front left of the boat and tied the end of it to the furling cage. Winching it in, it pulled the bottom of the mess back towards the middle of the boat over the trampoline where we could work on it.

By then Bob was up and silently observing the mess. We tied the bottom of the stay off with four different ropes and then removed the extra cabling and the bowsprit. This got rid of a lot of weight and thereby reduced the inertia of the swinging stay immensely. Then we turned the boat downwind to help get the stay off the spreader above. This accomplished, we tightening and loosening the four ropes, along with the furling rope, and managed to refurl the sail around the stay. That was a big help.

From there we ran ropes through the front cleats and back to winches. We were able to pull these ropes tight which pulled the end of the stay somewhat tight. Two hours after the “BOOM” we had things in good enough shape to limp on to the next town.

Some fine detective work later revealed that a shackle connecting a cable to front bottom part of the left hull had broken or come loose. This let the bowsprit be ripped upwards and to the right, which tore the bowsprit off where it was welded to a crossbeam. The stay, bowsprit, and cables tore off the top of the radome, killing our radar. It also tore off a radar reflector, broke a lifeline, and stetched and sprung two more lifelines. The gennaker furler may have some damage; we won’t be able to check it until we get the other things fixed.

While we’re at Huatulco, we’ll try to get the bowsprit mount welded and we’ll also try to fix a few other things, get some laundry done, and fill up with diesel. With luck, maybe we can be back sailing late tomorrow.

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-21T07:14:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 12)

Saturday, June 20, 2009

by Mike

There was no sailing today. Lots’ or rain, direct headwind of 25-35 knots, and big, choppy waves to go along with it kept our sails down and both our motors running.

The forecast showed winds of 7 knots from the front right, but this was one of the days that they didn’t get it quite right. In addition to the crappy wind and rain and waves, we had a head-current of up to two knots. That really hurts when the boat speed is five knots. Yes, that means we made the progress that a person makes at a comfortable walk, about three miles an hour.

And this was with both motors running at high speed and a rough ride. A very rough ride. It’s exactly the kind of situation where we would have opted to stay in Acapulco to ride out the storm, had we known the weather. But we didn’t, so I blame the weather, Bob, and anyone reading this blog that didn’t tell us about it.

OK I feel better now.

Fine Dining:

At what seemed like a tiny lull in the wind and waves when we got really close to shore, I decided to take the opportunity to cook. I chose eggs, over-easy. We ate eggs, scrambled.

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-20T04:34:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 11)

Friday, June 19, 2009

by Mike

We got to Acapulco around 8:00am this morning. Much of the city is built high on the rocks and cliffs. The view from the water is beautiful. As we were pulling into the bay area, there were lots of different sized fishing boats heading out.

We had arranged for an “agent” to facilitate the customs process for us. We wanted to get in and out as fast as possible. All we wanted was to fill up with diesel and leave. Our first communication with our “agent” was to anchor in the harbor and wait. Luckily we were slow at that and before we got anchored we got our next instructions – tie up at the fuel dock and wait until 9:15 when he would meet us there.

We tied up at the fuel dock at 8:45 and waited. And waited. We couldn’t get diesel until our agent got the paperwork done. 9:15 came and went as we waited. We waited until 9:30, just sitting. We waited until 10:00. We waited until 10:30. We weren’t able to do anything but wait.

At 10:50am six “official” people came aboard the Minnow and made themselves at home in our living room. They did some paperwork. And then they started talking. And talking. In Spanish. And talking and laughing. Lots of stories with animated gestures. We could tell things were slow for them. I would have offered them Cokes and cookies, but that might have prolonged their visit for who knows how long.

Finally, at 11:30 they began the process of getting up and they slowly meandered their way to the dock. Our agent assured us that he would be back “in one hour. I’ll be back at 1:30” with our permission-to-go paperwork. Bob informed him that one hour was 12:30. Bob informed him several times. And he got lots of nods and assurances back from the agent, “one hour.”

We ate lunch at the restaurant, filled up with diesel, and were able to wait some more. 12:30 came and went. 1:00 and we still waited. Sigh.

We got untied and moving by 1:30.

Fishing Report:

We fished a few hours late in the afternoon. Didn’t get a bite. It looks like these waters must be fished out.

Fine Dining:

I ordered a cheeseburger at the restaurant. It was good, but not as good as yesterdays.

Some pictures

2009-06-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 10)

Thursday, June 18, 2009

by Mike

What a difference a day makes. Today, the weather was great. Gentle wind with nice slow swells. Very nice.

Fine Arts:

One of the hard crossword puzzles that Bob started, and I tried to finish, asked as a hint “Rossini opera.” Eight letters with the first three T A N. “Tancredi” I said triumphantly, not remembering if it was spelled Tancredi or Tancreti. Bob mentioned that the only T A N opera that came to his mind was Tannhauser. I mentioned that that was Wagner. He mentioned that he knew that but was going to try to make it fit anyway.

This led to a couple of hours of Rossini overtures played on the boat-wide stereo. We agreed La Scala was pretty lousy. I told him La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie?) was my favorite Rossini overture. We both liked William Tell, but weren’t sure if it counted since it was from TV.

Fishing Report:

Fished all day. Didn’t get a bite. Again. We put the fishing poles into storage.

No, not because we were giving up on fishing! Because we didn’t want to get hassled by the Mexicans for fishing in their waters tomorrow.

Fine Dining:

good weather = smooth sailing = lots of french toast and huge cheeseburger = smile

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 9)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

by Mike

The rain started about 1:30am. That’s when the windows were shut and the heat started to set in. Along with rain squalls comes wind. Bob turned, adjusted sails, and contended with squalls and changing wind for two hours. When I got up and 3:30 he was in the process of taking down all the sails and we began motoring with two engines into a stiff headwind. Probably we would get through the rain and wind in a few hours and then would be back to easy sailing again.

The big waves from yesterday had turned into a substantial swell from the left. The headwind (20+ knots) was making a new set of “wind waves” from directly ahead. Motoring into this with no sails was rough. The constant splashing combined with the rain made it wet, too. Wet enough to keep all the windows shut. Which made it hot.

Luckily we have an air conditioner. Unluckily, it was blowing hot air, not cold. So it stayed hot. And rough.

The headwind and occasional rain continued all morning. And all afternoon. In the late afternoon the wind shifted to the right and put up some sails and turned off the motor. We sailed fast. We were doing more than 8 knots (40 degrees off the wind, with our mainsail at the second reef and our solent at 75%). It was still rough, but better with some sail up.

After sundown, twenty hours after it began, it started to ease. Turns out we were just north of a low pressure that was expected to dissipate, but when we got new weather this evening it had strengthened and is forecast as a possible tropical cyclone tomorrow. It’s behind us going the other way now, so no worries about it for us. The worries are the low that is forming south of Acapulco. We might end up in Acapulco for a few days to let that one pass.

Fine Arts:

None.

Fishing Report:

Didn’t fish. Too wet, too bouncy, too hot (that’s not what fishermen do).

Fine Dining:

The closest I got to fine food was the Chef-boy-ardee (is that named after R. D. Mercer?) ravioli I microwaved late in the day.

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 8)

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

by Mike

Today I’ll give you a snapshot of life on the Minnow. Or sailing with Bob (see above).

In the living room we have a “nav station” where a lot of electronic and electrical stuff is. It has our VHF radio, HF radio, and satphone for communicating with people who not on the Minnow.

When we talk to other boats we sit there. When we connect our computers to the satphone to get weather or send/receive email, we sit there. Sometimes when we read we sit there.

There’s a nice table and a comfortable chair there, too. And our boat-wide stereo and DVD player. And TV.

It’s where we drive the boat from most of the time. It has a GPS/chartplotter with a big electronic map display. A control for the autopilot is there, along with instruments indicating wind speed and direction, depth, speed, water temperature, air temperature, barometric reading, and time (yes, a clock).

The autopilot steers the boat virtually 24 hours every day. There are two steering wheels outside, but they rarely get touched, except when we’re docking or anchoring. The autopilot steers the boat on a straight line, or I follows the wind in “wind vane” mode. Most of the time, when we are using sails we use “wind vane” mode, so when the wind shifts the boat turns and the sails don’t flap or tangle or jibe. The autopilot beeps when the boat has turned very much as a result of a wind direction change so we don’t go in circles, or to Japan. When this happens, it beeps until a button is pushed, acknowledging the change in direction, or until the wind changes back (can be a long time).

Typically, the person sitting at the nav station presses the button, stopping the annoying beeping. If no one is near the nav station, someone gets up and stops the beeping. When Bob is at the nav station, it works something like this:

“BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP,” the autopilot asks for a button push.

“Bob?” I say from across the room, laying down reading a book.

“BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP,” it’s louder right next to Bob.

“Hey, you want me to get that?” I try again. Bob is in his own world.

“BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP,” we’ve turned 20 degrees right and this thing won’t stop its racket until the button is mashed.

“I’ll get that.” I sit up slowly, delaying a bit longer, hoping Bob will snap out of his trance.

“BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…”

I walk up behind Bob and silence the noise with a simple touch.

“Oh,” he says, now staring at the button in a stupor, “want me to get that?”

A snapshot of life on the Minnow. It’s not pretty.

Fine Arts:

For lots of years many of us have been in the habit of listening to books-on-tape while we drive. Before going hiking in Nepal last fall, I put several audio books on my MP3 player and got in the habit of listening to them anytime I was walking. I continued this habit while deer hunting, bike riding, lawn mowing, and lots of other things.

Now it’s become a habit while sailing. It’s nice to be able to keep busy AND stay wrapped up in a story. On the Minnow, it’s not uncommon for Bob and me both to be walking around with ear-buds in our ears, doing whatever we do. It cuts down on meaningless chatter, too. Not that we talked much before.

But, there’s always a price to pay. It has cut back on our boat-wide enjoyment of the fine arts.

Fishing Report:

Changed lures. No bites. We were going fast today, most of the day between 9 and 10 knots, which is too fast for good fishing. But I took action anyway. I put new line on one of the reels so we could let the lure out farther. Take action. That’s what fishermen do.

Fine Dining:

When there’s enough wind to push a sailboat 9-10 knots, there’s enough wind to make some pretty big waves. So I opted for ready-to-eat meals. Banana bread, leftover fish, oreos, chips and salsa, breadmaker bread (good for the gums), cheese, chips ahoy, and bologna. It was a good day for eating.

huh?

2009-06-16T20:53:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
8:42 p.m.
by Bob

Location: 17°46'N 107°05W
Water temperature: 91 (Is this right? That's what Raymarine claims.)
Air temperature: 85
Sky condition: Dark
Weather: Light Snow
Wind: 9 knots
Boat speed: 8 knots (with one motor)

The night before last about 2:00 a.m. I was tooling along, minding my own business, and I noticed something come up on the radar.
The return looked like a big ship, but it didn't have an AIS (identification signal) like most ships do now. It looked like it was
headed toward us from 15 miles away.

A little later, I could make out some lights on the horizon. They kept getting closer. It was going about 13 knots. We were going a
blinding 6 knots. They seemed to be coming right at us, from the right. I think that's starboard. I couldn't tell whether they would
pass in front of, behind of, or over the top of us.

About two miles out, I got a radio call in Spanish asking for the vessel at our latitude and longitude in Spanish. I wasn't 100%
sure of the numbers, since I lost track in my translation after about the 4th or 5th digit, but since we were the only two boats for
hundreds of square miles, I guessed they wanted to talk to me.

I replied with the time-honored naval greeting, "Hablo Ingles?" It turned out the other boat was a Mexican Navy Warship, trying to
get by us without resorting to artillery. I offered to turn left or right, and speed up or slow down. They requested a left turn or
reduced speed, and I gave them both.

When they passed us I could see it was a BIG ship, even though I could only make out the outline. After I slowed down and turned,
Mike woke up and wandered outside, a little incoherent. He probably still thinks it was a UFO.

Yesterday morning we arrived at Isla Socorro, about 300 miles off the coast of Mexico. There is a naval garrison there. I called on
the radio for Socorro and Capitania and etc. on three different channels to get clearance into Mexico and/or Socorro, but nobody
answered.

Finally we got the dinghy out, threw in a bicycle, and I headed for shore with our papers, hoping to find aduanes and migracion, or
at least a naval officer who could make us legal.

I had do duck under a big 2" rope going about 200 yards across the harbor, holding a barge in position while they unloaded it. When
I got close to the dock, I saw several men with M16 rifles getting into a small boat. I waved to them, they waved back, and they
followed me under the rope and out to the Minnow.

We've never had machine guns on the boat before. Too bad I had taken the skeet off the boat in Oregon. The officer completed our
paperwork while the other guys stood guard. Mike fed everybody Coke Zeros and Chips Ahoy.

We asked a few questions. There is an airport on the island. There are 347 people there in the naval garrison. The Island and
surrounding is a nature preserve. The scuba diving is no good because of low visibility. He has been stationed there for a year. We
were not allowed to go onto the island.

After we were officially cleared, Mike and I broke out the scuba gear. The naval officer was correct. The visibility was lousy near
the bottom (60 feet down). Nearer the surface, visibility was 75 feet or so, but down below it was more like 8 feet because of all
the silt. So we cleaned the bottom of the boat.

As we left, the water was pretty smooth. There must have been some swells, though, because there were some huge waves smashing into
the rocks on shore. There were a couple of places where the water splashed up 30 or 40 feet. There was a big blowhole where water
shot up even higher. It looked a little dangerous for kayaking, so we headed out into open water.

We are now headed to Acapulco for diesel, or possibly Guatemala or Christchurch. This navigational business is confusing.

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 7)

Monday, June 15, 2009

by Mike

Land Ho Ho Ho!

Before sunup Isla Socorro was visible as a shadow in the distance. A low cloud layer obscured whatever mountain tops would have been seen. As we got closer, a ragged shore became noticeable. Isla Socorro, or “Help Island” is a rough place. A quarter mile (1320 feet) from shore the depth was more than 2200 feet. Heading around the west side of the island to the south side, to a sheltered bay, “Bahia Braithwaite,” there were no beaches, no sand, only ragged, rough rocks.

The bay was edged by these igneous rocks. At a depth of 55 feet, there was not much width for dragging or error. We wondered how our anchor would hold, expecting the bottom to be rocky like everything else. I dropped the anchor and it held.

After trying to hail the harbormaster, or “Capitan del Puerto,” for a few minutes and getting no reply, Bob headed to shore in the dinghy with a backpack full of paperwork and a bicycle. Before he got there a boatload of six uniforms were headed for the Minnow so he turned back and met them at the boat.

Bob pulled up to the left stairs and the Mexican boat pulled up to the right ones where I was waiting to take and tie off their painter to our cleat. It was kind of wavy so I helped them onboard.

The first man had a handgun in a holster on his belt. Pearl handled, probably a revolver. But I’m not a gun nut so I don’t know any more than that. It looked well worn. Wondered if that meant worn out and lousy, or worn in and reliable and accurate. Didn’t matter. However, when I see people carrying guns for purposes other than hunting animals, it makes me uneasy.

The next three guys handed their M16s back and forth as I helped them aboard. (Bob told me what kind of guns they were after they left, does that make Bob a gun nut?) One stationed himself at the front of the boat and the other two at the back corners of the boat. All three stood erect and were posed looking out from the boat, as if protecting it from attack. From the water?

It was hot. Bob and the first guy were sitting in the living room. The first guy was doing paperwork. Bob was watching. After a few minutes I offered everyone a Coke. Everyone knew the name Coke. And everyone took one with a smile and a “thank you,” except for the guy up front, who took one with a serious look and a “gracias.” After the Coke, the guys on the back relaxed, slinging their guns over their backs and laughing with each other. The guy on the front continued to stand erect, gun in two hands in a semi-ready position.

By now Bob and the first guy were playing some version of “Do You Know This Word” and Bob was cheating using a Spanish Dictionary. Also by now I had tried to make conversation with the other five (“Do you speak English?” … “No”) with no luck. So I opened a new bag of Chips Ahoy cookies. Even thought they didn’t speak English, they all seemed to know the word “cookie.” Got five thank-you’s and a gracias out of the cookies, too.

They eventually left. They were all extra nice, except for the serious one who wasn’t bad, just serious. But the guns were still scary.

Fine Arts:

There was no other place around the island we knew of to anchor the boat. So after the Mexican boat left we donned scuba gear and went down to explore the artistic beauty of the undersea world of Bahia Braithwaite. We followed the anchor chain to the bottom – there was some sand amongst the rocks there – and found that visibility was less than 10 feet. We gave each other the thumbs up (meaning go to the surface) and did some other pointing and gesturing (I took it to mean “meet at the boat” since that’s what I meant).

We proceeded to use the entire contents of our tanks cleaning the barnacles and growth off the bottom of the boat. About an hour and a half. And yes, that’s the closest we got to fine art on this particular day.

Fishing Report:

No luck. Didn’t get a blasted bite before the island. Didn’t get a danged bite after the island. Going to change lures tomorrow. That’s what fishermen do.

Fine Dining:

Although I started the day baking a quality loaf of banana bread, the highlight of the day was the post-diving plate of nachos. Cheesed up and salsa covered.

2009-06-15T04:13:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 6)

Sunday, June 14, 2009

by Mike

Today was “change the engine fuel filter” day. One of the few things I like doing worse that diesel fuel filter replacing is diesel engine oil changing. A few weeks ago I told Bob if he changed the oil, I’d change the fuel filters. That was when I was in Oklahoma, far from the reality of the engine rooms on the Minnow.

So I decided to bite the bullet and use the smooth sailing today for the messy task. We have three diesel engines on board. One in the right engine room attached to a propeller and two in the left engine room, one for a propeller and the other that runs a generator.

When a diesel filter is taken out and replaced with a new one it lets air in the fuel system. For some reason, the motor won’t run until all the air is bled out of the fuel lines. This involves loosening nuts and connectors and injectors while pumping diesel through the system, using first a hand pump and eventually the starter. It’s messy. It’s in cramped, uncomfortable quarters. And it puts me in a foul mood.

Getting out of the shower 15 minutes later I was in a pretty good mood, knowing it will be awhile before I have to do that again.

Fishing Report:

We caught a few flying fish on different parts of the boat overnight. They fly up in the air and the boat catches them. One time one flew in the living room window, which is about eight feet above the water.

None on rod and reel. Not even a bite!

Fine Arts:

We listened to some selections from Bob’s IPod today. Some of the noteworthy selections were War Pigs, The Messiah, a Haydn choral work that I can’t remember the name of, some Primus songs that I don’t want to know the name of, and Choctaw Bingo, one of my favs.

Fine Dining:

Blackened tuna steaks again today. It might take awhile to get tired of them.

2009-06-15T04:11:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 6)

Sunday, June 14, 2009

by Mike

Getting out of the shower 15 minutes later I was in a pretty good mood, knowing it will be awhile before I have to do that again.

Fishing Report:

None on rod and reel. Not even a bite!

Fine Arts:

Fine Dining:

Blackened tuna steaks again today. It might take awhile to get tired of them.

2009-06-14T16:41:00.001-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 5)

Saturday, June 13, 2009

by Mike

We continued sailing directly downwind today. The wind has picked up and we are going faster now. With several days of consistent wind, the waves have turned into a fairly large swell from behind. It gives the boat a little more motion, but it’s still a good ride.

The water temperature has started rising. From 67 in Long Beach to mid 70s. It should to go up to the mid 80s sometime in the next few days. On the ocean, the air temperature normally reflects the water temperature. That means it’s going to get hot soon. It’ll feel great for a couple of days. Then I’ll have to start griping about it.

Fishing Report:

Got to yell “fish on!” a few times, including one that was on the hook for 10 minutes but broke the line, but nothing boated.

Fine Arts:

Lots of piano and guitar with headphones. Nothing to write home about. Is this considered writing home?

Fine Dining:

Today I attempted to make bread in the breadmaker. Twice. Three hours later there was some of what my Mom would call “hard tack.” There was also some dry flour. The entire loaf – uh, finished mess, it didn’t merit the name loaf – was less than an inch tall. Not enough water (I thought I remembered the amounts).

The second time I read the directions and painstakingly measured the ingredients. Then I started the three-hour process. About 30 minutes later I noticed the stirring paddle in the sink. Blah. I put the paddle in and restarted the machine. The loaf, yes it could be considered a loaf, ended up concave on the top, but edible. The ¾” crust is kind of hard on the teeth. Would be good for teething, though. Amy, are you reading this?

Sunday, June 14, 2009, by Bob

2009-06-14T10:47:00.001-07:00

Sunday, June 14, 2009, by Bob
2:06 a.m.

Wind: from the northwest at 20 knots
Waves: medium big
Water temperature: 78.9°F
Air temperature: 69.6°F
Sky clear, except for half a moon.

We are 200 miles north of Isla Socorro, and should arrive there Monday morning. Isla Socorro is an island about 300 miles off the
coast of Mexico, southwest of the tip of the Baja Peninsula. It's a nature preserve. We have no good reason to go there, which is
the best reason.

We have man overboard beacons on the boat. They are small plastic things about 2 inches square. If you carry one with you when you
fall off the boat, it sets off an alarm and marks your position on the GPS. That way, if Mike falls off I can snooze for a while
before I get up and go looking for him -- his position will be marked on the GPS. As long as it's not windy and there is no current,
it should be fine to wait a couple hours before I start the search.

Yesterday morning I was in the shower. I didn't have any hot water because we had not run the right engine or the generator for a
while. So I soaped up and was scrubbing, and had turned off the water for a bit because it was cold.

Then the man overboard alarm went off. I rinsed some soap off my face so I could see, and hollered for Mike. No answer. I went up to
the living room and hollered. No answer. I went outside and hollered. He was cleaning a fish on the steps, and the engine was
blocking the beacon signal. I went downstairs and rinsed. It was an albacore tuna -- the second 16 pound one in two days.

Today I got up and Mike was reeling in a BIG fish. But the line broke. Later today I reeled in a fish about 2/3 of the way to the
boat. It got off. Still later, I had one on for a few seconds when I was reeling in the lure. It got away. Tonight I was sitting
outside, and a fish jumped onto the boat at my feet. Finally I caught one! Who needs hooks?

Birds were flying around the boat this afternoon catching small fish. The birds (and probably the fish) go really fast, zipping down
in between the waves. It looks like a lot of fun. But not much fun for the fish.

Mike's been playing the guitar. I've been playing the piano an hour or two a day. I'm trying to learn Liszt's transcription of
Beethoven's 5th symphony. Liszt's hands were bigger than mine. We may have to extend the trip into a couple of circumnavigations
before I can learn it all.

We haven't seen a single pleasure boat since we left the U.S. We've been staying pretty far off the coast, even outside the shipping
lanes. I like it out here.

Yesterday I fixed the saltwater washdown pump. It had seaweed clogging up the intake hose, and then the pump threw a breaker. I
think that's because one of the motor brushes was a little corroded and wouldn't slide into the rotor to make good contact. Either
way, we now have a new pump. The pump is in the anchor locker, not a large space. I unhooked one of the hoses with pressure on it,
and it doused me thoroughly with seawater. I was stuck right next to it and couldn't even turn around. It was pretty funny.

2009-06-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 4)

Tuesday, June 12, 2009

by Mike

We have decided to stop and explore Isla Socorro. This will add about 80 miles to our journey. It should also check us in with Mexican customs, making it easier for us to stop and get fuel if we want to. Which means that we might use the motor more often to go faster.

We started with a little more wind this morning. It’s coming from right behind us which means we have one sail off to the left and one off to the right (that’s called goosewinged). No fancy sailing tricks or anything. The wind is just plain blowing us across the water. In this setup we can go about 40-45% of the wind speed. If the wind is coming from the side we can go 50-60% of the wind speed (using fancy sailing tricks and stuff).

Going directly downwind is usually avoided by most sailors, especially monohull drivers. A monohull uses a heavy weight at the bottom of the boat (in the keel) to keep from tipping over when the wind pushes on the sails. In light wind a typical monohull will lean over maybe 10 degrees. In medium wind it will tilt 15-25 degrees. When the wind is coming directly from behind, with the sails goosewinged, a monohull will alternatively lean to the left and then back to the right as the driver or autopilot try to keep it in a straight line. Even in a light wind, this is a tiresome ride. And in a medium wind it gets downright unpleasant.

A catamaran, or multihull, uses a wide base to keep from tipping over when the wind pushes on the sails. In a light or medium wind, The Minnow doesn’t tilt at all. It has 43,000 pounds holding both hulls down firmly on the water. In a heavy wind from the side it might tilt a degree or two, but it’s not noticeable. When the wind is coming directly behind, goosewinged, it will yaw back and forth slightly and slowly as the autopilot continually corrects the course (we almost never steer by hand). There is no discernable tilt either way.

Going downwind in The Minnow is relaxing. The swells creep up from behind and disappear underneath the boat. In a 17-knot wind with the boat moving at 8 knots, the air moving over the boat is a gentle 9-knot breeze. A mild back and forth motion occurs every 8-10 seconds;

left ……… then right ……… left again ……… almost like the boat is alive and breathing easily. Great reading conditions – but can be a slight challenge staying awake.

Fishing Report:

Ho hum … another day, another tuna. This time a nine-pounder. We think it was a bigeye, but it might have been a yellowfin.

Fine Arts:

The sky after sunset was brilliant. Bob took a picture.

Fine Dining:

Feeling it was time to get back to food basics, I started the day with bacon and eggs. And Coke Zero. And then iced tea. And then another Coke Zero. Sometimes I have a drinking problem in the wee hours of the morning. Eventually I turned back to salad, fruit, and tuna sashimi. Oh, and I cleaned up the leftover oatmeal cookies. For the sake of my health.

Friday night we ate in style. Chef salad, baked potatoes, and tuna ala New Orleans. All on paper plates. And unlimited iced tea served in plastic. Style!

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 3)

Tuesday, June 11, 2009

by Mike

Our second full day on the ocean featured small waves, light winds, nice temperatures (60s), and partly cloudy skies. Same as yesterday.

Fishing Report:

One bite. One fish. Sixteen-pound albacore tuna. Same as yesterday.

This could be habit-forming.

Fine Arts:

We have been mostly “art free” on the boat so far. No movies. Almost all of the music on the boat has been played by Bob and me. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count as art. Does reading books count as art?

Fine Dining:

It’s been cold when I get up in the morning (before dawn). Makes me want to cook something in the oven. Today it was cookies. In order to make them healthy, I added lots of oatmeal. They were “fine.” Also “fine” was the sashimi for lunch. All the chilled raw tuna chunks we could eat along with all the wasabi we could eat.

I’m still eating salads and fruit, too. To be a health nut (see oatmeal above). I like the salads but looking forward to the day we run out of fruit. My luck we’ll run out of salad stuff and the fruit will last the entire trip.

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 2)

Tuesday, June 10, 2009

by Mike

Our first full day on the ocean featured small waves, light winds, nice temperatures (60s), and partly cloudy skies. Very comfortable.

We are staying about 30-50 miles off shore as we go south. There were quite a few ships (maybe 25?) passing us going both ways. Most are closer to shore than us. Didn’t see any smaller boats.

To get to Costa Rica without stopping for fuel we have to sail (without running a motor) several days. The light wind is predicted to lessen in the next few days. That means we’re sailing kind of slow so we can use the motor in the weaker winds. If we happen to run out of diesel we can stop in Acapulco or somewhere and get fuel. But we prefer to skip those stops since they might take an extra day or two for customs.

Fishing Report:

The water temperature is 68 degrees. I think that’s kind of cold for dolphin fish, but it seems like there should be some other kinds of fish out there. All morning no bites. Afternoon, no bites. Finally in the evening Bob reeled in a 16-pound albacore tuna.

Fine Arts:

Nothing special today. More guitar wailing. Aida on the stereo. Bob dragged out the piano late and started on some of our new piano books.

Fine Dining:

Our first day away from drive-thrus and we survived! The menu included cinnamon rolls, salads, French bread, apples, bananas, and cookies. Boring until Bob caught a fish. Then we had blackened tuna steaks. Fresh and tasty!

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-11T12:16:00.001-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 2)

Tuesday, June 10, 2009

by Mike

Our first full day on the ocean featured small waves, light winds, nice temperatures (60s), and partly cloudy skies. Very comfortable.

We are staying about 30-50 miles off shore as we go south. There were quite a few ships (maybe 25?) passing us going both ways. Most are closer to shore than us. Didn’t see any smaller boats.

Fishing Report:

Fine Arts:

Nothing special today. More guitar wailing. Aida on the stereo. Bob dragged out the piano late and started on some of our new piano books.

Fine Dining:

Long Beach to Cost Rica

2009-06-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

Long Beach to Cost Rica

Sailing with Dummies (California to Texas, Day 1)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

by Mike

Bob and I finished up shopping, piddling, and repairing stuff around noon today and headed for the fuel dock. We topped off the fuel tanks and filled about 15 five-gallon jugs with extra diesel. We untied the dock lines, put all the bumpers and ropes away, and headed out to sea.

Leaving the Long Beach area we had to weave around some ships at anchor and quite a few oil platforms. I didn’t realize there were so many oil platforms off the shore of California. We were motoring into the wind. By 2:00pm we were still motoring but had the sails up.

After a couple of hours we neared Catalina Island. There was a big cruise ship there; I think it was Carnival. Who knew Carnival went to Catalina Island? Doesn’t seem like much of a destination to me. Close to the island we had about 30 minutes of cellular service. As soon as the ship (and the town) disappeared around the corner of the island, so did our cell service. Most likely, that will be our last cell service until Costa Rica – which means no pictures for this here blog until then.

Just past Catalina Island the wind improved and we sped from 6-7 knots with a motor to over 10 knots with sails only. San Clemente Island screwed up the wind some and we slowed to 9 knots. In case you forgot, a knot (nautical mile per hour) is a little faster than a regular mph (statute mile per hour). For example, 7 knots = 8 mph.

Fishing Report:

The fishing poles were still in good order after months of storage. Some of the fishing hooks were not. A couple of the great big fishing hooks had rusted so badly that the tip was as blunt as a fork tine, and the barb was essentially rusted away. I replaced the bad hooks with new ones and we fished from mid-afternoon until dark. No bites.

Fine Arts:

On a trip like this it’s helpful to keep in touch with some of the finer things in life. Like fine music and fine art. For the first time in my boating experience I brought a guitar with me. Electric. I also brought headphones and an electronic effects box. Today I played. When you combine enough electronic distortion with my imagination, I’m pretty good!

Bob thinks it’s pretty good that I used headphones.

Fine Dining:

It’s hard to top McDonald’s for breakfast and Jack in the Box for lunch. But Bob offered to build (I prefer the term cook but Bob was in charge) a sandwich for supper. It was good. Mmm. I was just finishing up when Bob mentioned that he was trying to use up the old meat. Hmm.

Taking the Minnow to Texas

2009-06-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

Bob failed to mention that he took the boat to Long Beach and left it parked at the Alamitos Bay Marina for most of a month.

Today the Minnow will head south through Panama for a journey to Texas. It should take about a month. Bob and I have spent a few days repairing and provisioning and are finally ready to go. We'll pick up Fullerton (he's a slow learner) in Costa Rica and head onto Panama.

Nothing interesting to report at this time. Although there almost was. When I raised Bob up the mast this morning for inspection, I had a real hankering to leave him there for a day or two.

May 19, 2009, San Luis to Ventura

2009-05-20T10:07:00.001-07:00

I took off before sunrise and motored to Ventura. In the afternoon I put out the gennaker with a 5-10 knot apparent wind. The swells were just right for the boat to surf down (with engines plus a sail), and it would hit 12 knots regularly.

The water temperature got up to the low sixties, almost 10 degrees up!

I called ahead to the Marina and they said they'd leave a key in the dock box. But they didn't. So I climbed over the gate a few times. It's a pretty fancy place, and it's not too easy to climb over, so I was expecting to be accosted by security or someone who would get me a key, but nobody noticed.

May 18, 2009, Monterey to San Luis Harbor

2009-05-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

I got up at 5:30 to get an early start to San Luis Bay. There were a lot of boats leaving in the fog besides me. It's a good thing those other guys are careful.

There visibility was about 200-250 yards. I could see about one minute head. That sounds bad, but one minute visibility is about 2-3 miles in an airplane instrument approach, and quite a bit better at cruise speed.

I turned the corner south and found a direct headwind blowing around 15-20 knots, enough to slow progress down significantly.

9:12 a.m.
2 miles NW of Point Sur
Boat Speed: 7.3 knots over the ground.
True Wind: 21 knots from the south
Water Temperature: 56.3°
Outside Air Temperature: 61°
Inside Air Temperature: 61°
Fog is lifting -- I can almost see the sun.

Later on in the day the fog lifted and the wind shifted. I got to sail for a few hours, 10 knots or so.

In the evening I was motoring by Diablo Canyon, which has a nuclear power plant on the seashore. On the map there is a yellow marker in the middle of a red circle, labeled "Security Area." I looked it up on the NOAA chart, and it referred some regulation elsewhere. So I looked it up on the Coast Pilot, and it referred me elsewhere.

So I decided that it would be stupid to put a yellow buoy in the middle of a restricted area, and headed by the power plant outside the yellow buoy. After I had passed the plant, Diablo Canyon Security called me on the radio and said I was too close. They asked me to turn a little west. But I was going southeast, and west would have turned me closer to the plant. So I told them I could turn directly away from the plant. That made us both happy.

Then they asked me a some questions (how many people on board, vessel type and length, destination, 7th grade math teacher, etc.) and told me to monitor the radio in case they needed anything else.

I think if they want people out of their security zone, they should pay attention and warn boats away before they get in it. They should also explain it on the nautical chart. But I guess it's not that important. There's not much a pleasure boat smaller than a destroyer could do to damage a nuclear power plant.

I anchored in the dark in San Luis Harbor and kayaked over to the pier, found a ladder, and walked into the grocery store for some bread. I arrived at 9:07. The closed at 9:00. So I walked around town for a while. I wanted to blame Diablo Canyon Security for making me late, but they only cost me a minute or less.

May 17, 2009, Half Moon Bay to Monterey, by Bob

2009-05-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

I took off from Half Moon Bay and had almost no wind and few waves until I got close to Monterey. Then the fog came in and the wind started blowing from 20-30 knots.

I noticed one sailboat coming from the sheltered harbor into the wind. They somehow lost the rope that holds the back end of the jib (the jib sheet), and the job was blowing out in front of the boat.

I came into the Monterey Marina, a tight fit for my driving ability, and tied up to the dock with no mishaps. I met Jack Van Valkenburgh there. We were talking to each other on the cell phone, each trying to figure out where the other was ("do you see this?"), and were were only 50 yards apart the whole time.

Jack took me by his FBO, the Monterey Jet Center. It is REALLY nice. Then he took me on a scenic motor tour around the area, and by his new house (which is also REALLY nice). He and Amy fed me a nice meal and came by to see the boat.

May 16, 2009, Berkeley to Half Moon Bay, by Bob

2009-05-18T09:30:00.001-07:00

On the way out of Berkeley I decided to take a shortcut to the Farallon Islands, a small group of islands about 25 miles outside the Golden Gate Bridge. I made a detour to go by downtown San Francisco and Alcatraz, then headed through the Golden Gate.

Being Saturday, there were a lot of boats on the water. The waves were a little rough going out, because it was the wrong time of day to be going out and I was motoring directly into the wind and waves. It was fun.

When I got close to the Farallon Islands, I joined a sailboat race. I wasn't actually in the race, since I was using a motor to go faster and more directly into the wind that I could using sails alone. There were a few dozen sailboats in a race around Southeast Farallon Island. I passed several on the way out, cut across on the near side of the island after looking at some seals, a whole bunch of birds, three people, and some rocks.

Then I put the sail up and rejoined the race. Since they were headed back to San Francisco Bay and I was headed to Los Angeles, our paths diverged. I came into Half Moon Bay and anchored for the night.

At Half Moon Bay there are some nice boats, some fishing boats, some nice and some "well used," and a few crusty live-aboard boats anchored in the harbor that look like they couldn't go very far, on top of the water anyway.

May 15, 2009, Sausalito to Berkeley, by Bob

2009-05-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

I waited for the fog to lift a bit and then motored to Berkeley Marina. Leo and Nadia Le Bon came out. We visited, kayaked, and etc. They had me over for a very nice dinner.

I biked into town to Fedex to pick up some plumbing parts. I replaced my plumbing artwork in the shower with a regular faucet, and replaced the hot water tank pressure relief valve. At least the shower didn't leak after my repairs.

May 14, 2009, Rockport to Sausalito, by Bob

2009-05-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

I got up and was moving by 4:30. In the morning! After sleeping!! Those are definitely not my normal hours.

I motored until the wind improved, and around 11:00 I started sailing. I made good time. The wind gradually increased, then slacked off after it hit 35 knots for a few minutes. I was going downwind, so the apparent wind wasn't that high, and the true wind was 25-30 knots most of the time.

3:45 p.m.
Wind 24 knots from the northwest
Sailing with main and gennaker
Water speed: 8-10 knots
Speed over ground: 9-11 knots
Water temperature: 51.8°
Air temperature: 52°
Sunny and foggy (at the same time!)

I got to Point Reyes and took down the sails. The plan was to anchor at Drake's Bay, where Sir Francis Drake stayed, and visit the Farallon Islands the next day. I drove into the bay whey I had intended to anchor, and the wind was blowing 35 knots. It was also cold and foggy.

I had 2-3 hours of daylight left daylight left, so I decided to go on to the next anchorge, Bolinas Bay. It was windy, but only 25 knots, and foggy and cold. So I decided to go on to the next anchorage, Bonita Point. I pulled around the point and it was pretty nice. It was still foggy and cold, but the wind was down between 10 and 20 knots. I was getting ready to drop the anchor and I saw the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge under the fog layer, about 2 miles away.

I couldn't resist, so I made a turnabout (nautical term?) and motored under the bridge to Sausalito. I anchored in calm wind, clear sky, and 10 or 15 degrees warmer air.

Crescent City to Cape Vizcaino, 5/13/2009, by Bob

2009-05-14T09:28:00.001-07:00

At 5:52 pm
Wind: 4 knots from the north
Air temperature: 56°
Water temperature: 52.1°
Broken high clouds (I think a seismic wave broke the clouds)

I started out this morning before the sun came up so I could get far enough to make Drake's Bay tomorrow night. It all depends on wind and current.

I passed Cape Mendocino today. The Cape is supposed to be the dividing point between northern and southern weather systems, separating cool, cloudy, rainy weather from cool, coudy, rainy weather. It's supposed to be windy at the Cape, too. It was only blowing 15-20 knots there, but was windier than the rest of the area.

I anchored near Rockport in a place not very sheltered. But the waves weren't very big, and the boat was still there the next morning.

I poured the last of the Midway diesel (last summer) from the jugs into the boat fuel tanks. All the jugs had water and crud in the bottom. Hopefully I didn't get that into the boat's tank, and if I did, hopefully it won't clock the fuel filters until Mike is here to bleed the fuel lines because he likes the smell diesel in the morning.

Coos Bay, Oregon to Crescent City, California

2009-05-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

May 12, Doce de Mayo and Melinda's Birthday
by Bob

I got up at 5:30 and started undocking. When I parked the afternoon before, I got right in the middle of a long side-tie area. I noticed right away that two boats had come in in the night and parked close to me. They obviously did not know what kind of driver I am.

But the wind was favorable for undocking and I got away without damaging either of my neighbors. I was doing the morning exercise of coiling and stashing dock lines, and untieing and stashing bumpers. This takes a little longer than it sounds like. I was in the midst of a stashing frenzy when a Coast Guard boat called to tell me about the bar conditions.

A river bar is where a river goes into the ocean. It's not a sand bar, a drinking bar, a chinup bar, sushi bar, or a pry bar. If swells from the ocean meat a current going the opposite direction, the wavelength gets shorter and the waves get steeper and taller. Sometimes the waves break.

Since I was going out at the ebb tide, when the river current into the ocean is at its best, the bar was rough. The Coast Guard said there were 8-foot steep waves. By the time I was finished talking to the Coast Guard boat, I didn't have time to stash ropes and bumpers. So I turned around and backtracked until everything was clear off the front of the boat, and then went out into the ocean. I be those Coast Guard guys were wondering why I was going back and forth.

I ran the motors all day, and put a sail up part of the time, and I eventually made it to California! I anchored at Crescent City, near the redwoods. But I didn't see any big trees.

Crescent City has a good-size harbor with a smaller inner harbor. Inside the inner harbor is a marina. But half or more of the docks are broken, sunk, or missing. They still have plenty of dock space for the generally small fishing boats. There are not many pleasure craft there.

I talked to them about docking the Minnow, and they said they don't have their transient dock any more. It was destroyed in a seismic wave. I think "seismic wave" is the new term for tsunami which is the new term for tidal wave. At any rate, a wave from the 1964 Alaska earthquake wiped out their marina, and they haven't gotten around to fixing all of it yet.

May 11, 2009, Newport to Coos Bay, by Bob

2009-05-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

This morning I got up at 6:00 and took off as soon as I got everything organized -- clothes on, teeth brushed, marina keycard turned in, trash dumped, electric cable packed away, boat untied, engines on, electronics on, etc.

I was in a hurry, stashing the dock lines and the bumpers, while I was motoring out the channel, and the "Newport Tower" called and asked how many people on the boat and what my intentions were. I went inside and said something only partially incoherent, and then tried to keep the boat in the channel with the rough bar warning. I got the stuff packed away before I hit the rough bar, and then I headed south.

I was going almost directly into the wind all day except for the last 30 minutes or so. With one engine, the wind, and the waves, the boat was going about 5.5 or 6 knots through the water, with a half knot current pushing me along.

I decided to check out the bad engine. It worked fine. I guess it had been smoking because the transmission had been slipping and wouldn't put enough load on the engine. About the time I added the second engine, the current increased to about 1.5 knots. I ran both engines and was going between 9 and 10 knots most of the time. That was much better!

I got to Coos Bay about 5:30. I am actually at the Charleston Marina, a few miles from the town of Coos Bay, but in the bay of Coos. There are a lot of fishing boats here. Some smell pretty bad, and some look like they might not be floating much longer. But people are still using them.

At 9:00 p.m., wind is variable at 3 knots, water temperature is 57.5 degrees, air temperature in the low 50's, but feels like -273C. It's supposed to get into the low 40's tonight.

I haven't had fast internet for a while, so pictures will have to wait for a bit.

May 8-10, 2009, Newport, Oregon, by Bob

2009-05-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

I rented a fine automobile from a local establishment in Newport. They have a fleet of four cars. I drove to Astoria, flew the PC12 to Seattle, and picked up Melinda and Josh (baby daughter and boyfriend). I flew Melinda and Josh off to Astoria, after a detour by Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens. They drove the rental car back to Newport. I flew to Newport. I was confused by that time, so I drank a chocolate milkshake. I am not lactose intolerant, but Melinda was intolerant of my lactose.

The next day we headed out in the Minnow to scuba dive. Melinda opted out, saying something about intelligence that I didn't quite comprehend. The water temperature was a balmy 55 degrees, but we wore wet suits anyway. We even flew the dive flag. The visibility was 4-6 feet near the surface, but on the bottom (30 feet or so) it was about 6 inches. So I came up and looked over the bottom of the boat. I think Mike's been running over a lot of rocks and logs, because there are a couple of scratches.

After I got out of the water and showered, the Coast Guard called and said we were anchored in a dangerous place and needed to move. They said they were sending about a boat to assist us. I told them thanks, that we'd get out of there, and that we didn't need assistance. We were gone before the boat arrived.

I put the minnow on autopilot toward Japan while Josh and I thrashed about trying to figure out, organize, and untangle some ropes to raise the sail. It was pretty windy so we were using the second reef, raising the main sail only half way.

About the time we were done, around 4 miles offshore, a Coast Guard helicopter buzzed us really low. It came around again and we took some pictures. After it left, I noticed that I had left the radio on channel 22, where we were talking to them earlier, instead of channel 16, the channel "hailing frequency" they use to call you on. So the people in the helicopter were probably trying to call us on the radio while we were taking pictures of them. Oops.

We sailed back to Newport, drove around, saw a seal fighting an octopus, kayaked, and ate at place with metal utensils.

The next day we played a bit and then I flew Josh and Melinda back to Seattle. When I got back to Newport, there was a 400-foot ceiling, which is 200 feet higher than the minimums. I landed, then called FSS to cancel the IFR flight plan. They told me to standby. Someone else was talking to FSS trying to get clearance, but they couldn't get clearance because I hadn't cancelled, and I couldn't cancel because they were ahead of me. I finally called them on the phone and cancelled, about the time they figured out what was going on and called me back on the radio.

May 7, 2009, Astoria to Newport, by Bob

2009-05-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

When we were on the Columbia, the left engine was putting out a LOT of black smoke, and wouldn't run at full RPMs. The left transmission was messed up, too. It wouldn't go into forward gear very well.

Mike and I got back from flight training, and the transmission was rebuilt! Lasse the mechanic said he couldn't fix the smoking engine. Cliff the air-conditioner / heater repairman was there, too. He replaced the logic board in the controller, but couldn't make it work. He's only had three months and several hundred dollars on this, so we shouldn't expect miracles.

After waiting a few days in Astoria for the weather (and waves) to improve, I took off for Newport on Thursday. Mike had jumped ship a few days earlier.

I had planned to take off about 5:30 a.m. so I could make it to Newport at a reasonable time (i.e. daylight), but they were forecasting 12-foot breaking waves at the mouth of the Columbia at 4:15 or 4:45. So I forced myself to sleep in to the civilized hour of 6:00 and got to the "Columbia Bar" about 7:00.

The waves were fairly big, but they were spaced far enough part so the boat wasn't smashing into the waves. It was just riding on top. Then I had a favorable wind and an unfavorable current to Newport, Oregon. Or maybe it was Rhode Island.

I arrived at the marina between 9:00 and 10:00, somewhere between dusk and dark. I managed to fit underneath the Highway 101 bridge and park the boat without any permanent damage to the dock, which we can't say about The Dalles.

To Astoria

2009-04-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
by Mike

With an early start we hoped to make Astoria before dark. But not too early. They won’t raise the Interstate 5 bridge between 6:30am and 9:00am. We wanted to get there about 9:00, and we did. The bridgetender got the bridge raised for us shortly after 9:00, stopping some pretty heavy traffic. We sped through and continued down the river.

It rained most of the day, which made watching out for other boats and floating logs more work and less pleasure. However, the scenery along the banks of the Columbia is very nice. And passing ships and barges never ceased to be interesting.

We parked at Astoria around 7:00pm. The Minnow will stay here for a few days. While it’s parked here we hope to get the transmission and a few other things fixed on it.

Daily Cuisine:
Today was our junkiest eating day so far. We had leftover yellow cake and also about 15 cupcakes. These were all gone by midday. I made brownies later in the afternoon so we wouldn’t starve.

Some pictures of the Columbia River:

From The Dalles

2009-04-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies
Monday, April 27, 2009
by Mike

At 3:15 in the afternoon the wind blew from the northwest. Not too strong, but steady. It was cloudy and chilly. No rain, luckily. It was time to leave The Dalles.

We had called ahead and arranged for the Hood River Bridge to be raised for us at 6:00. We estimated that we should leave by 3:30 to get there by 6:00 (but that depended on the wind and current). The left transmission would still not go forward, so we untied the dock lines and backed the Minnow into the Columbia River.

The current was with us and the wind was against us. Still, we made it to the Hood River Bridge just before 6:00 and the operator was there to stop traffic and raise it for us.The Bonneville Lock was almost three hours ahead. Our plan was to anchor above the Lock, but we were making good time so we opted to continue on.

We entered the Bonneville Lock in twilight. The wind died and the echo was strong. After I finished a rip-roaring rendition of “In the Mood” the operator came out and yelled down to us from the railing above: “I used to play that in high school.” He then told us that his favorite march was “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Bob proceeded to play him a spirited version of “Stars and Stripes.”

When we left 30 minutes later it was dark. We went on for about an hour and then anchored for the night.

Daily Cuisine:
We ate good today. Meredith sprung for breakfast at the pancake house. Ken Patchett invited us to eat lunch at Google.

Additional Important Information:
Uncle Meredith is known in The Dalles as “Van” Valkenburgh. Every time I called him Meredith it confused people. They all call him “Van.” It confused Meredith when Ken from Google told him to park down by the white “vans.”

Even though he’s a lawyer he was a great host. He fed us a lot of times. He chauffeured us around town. He took us on a historic, narrated, scenic motor tour of The Dalles. He introduced us to some really interesting and nice people. And (yes this is the truth) he was on time or early every single time we met. Honest!

To The Dalles

2009-04-27T17:18:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Seattle to The Dalles Edition)
Saturday, April 25, 2009
by Mike

Another early start. The anchor was raised at 5:15 and we were off. At a SOG (speed over ground) of two knots. That sure wouldn’t get us to The Dalles by sundown. The Dalles was about 80 nautical miles ahead. At two knots it would take 40 hours. We started zigzagging and cutting corners to stay more in the shallow water with less current and we able to increase our SOG to 5-6 knots most of the time.

Midday we arrived at the Bonneville Locks. At a lock is where the water level changes. When a boat is going upstream they drain the lock to let the boat float in. The Bonneville Lock is 680 feet long and 85 feet wide. When the boat (or boats) is in, they close the doors and let water in from upstream. That raises the level in the lock and the boat rises vertically. In Bonneville the Minnow was raised about 64 feet in the lock, which was the level of the river upstream. Then they opened the other end of the lock and we drove out and continued up the river.

One interesting thing about locks is the echo. We think it’s important to play a baritone when in a lock. It works best when the water is really low. Sometimes the lock operators have comments about it. This time the operator was polite and ignored us. The time from entering the lock to leaving it was about 30 minutes. You can see more about our experiences in locks here: the red boat

As the day went on, the wind increased. We put a sail up and went faster. Then the wind increased and we reefed (pulled half of it in) the sail. We were going even faster. Then the wind increased even more and we took down the sail. With this big increase in SOG we ended up getting to The Dalles way before dark.

Between Hood River and The Dalles the wind was more than 30 knots with gusts of more than 40 knots. That’s where there were lots of wind surfers. Even though the water was in the lower 50s, there were lots of them skimming around the river like water bugs.

When we got there Meredith was at the dock watching us park. He had watched us coming down the river from the highway and met us there. That was a nice reception.

Daily Cuisine: Later that night Julie, Marilyn, Meredith, Bob, and I had a surprising evening. We went to Cousins to eat. It was quite an evening – one to write down on the calendar. The surprise? Meredith paid.

Up the Columbia River

2009-04-27T17:18:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Seattle to The Dalles Edition)
Friday, April 24, 2009
by Mike

We started early this morning. Our goal was to get as far upriver as possible. That would hopefully allow us to get to The Dalles before dark on Saturday.

The Columbia is about four miles wide at Astoria. Within a couple of miles we found that the Columbia was only about one mile wide. The current was faster, too.

Generally we found that the further upstream we went the narrower the river got. The narrower the river got, the faster the current got. The faster the current got, the slower our boat went.

It was after dark when we got to the bridges at Vancouver, WA. One was a railroad bridge and the other was Interstate 5. The railroad bridge had to be swung open for us to pass. Interstate 5 bridge had to be raised for us to go under it. After we got past the railroad bridge they had to stop traffic on Interstate 5 between Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA. Then they raised the bridge for us. I’m sure a lot of Friday nighters were not too happy about that.

We went a few more miles upstream and anchored for the night. It looked likely we would make The Dalles before dark on Saturday.

Daily Cuisine:
Breakfast was fried eggs, toast, and cinnamon rolls. It was cold enough I wanted to have the oven and the stove burning. The rest of the day we consumed bologna sandwiches, chips, salsa, salad, crackers, cheese, and some other things. I suspect Weight Watchers would not approve.

Waiting for Bob in Astoria

2009-04-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Seattle to The Dalles Edition)
Thursday, April 23, 2009
by Mike

Bob was due in Astoria sometime in the afternoon. That left time to tend to some maintenance and repairs. There were a number of things I wanted to get done, but most importantly I was determined to try to locate the pesky water leak on the left side of the boat. I found the leak at the bottom of the left rear bedroom on the bottom of the water heater. It took several episodes of gymnastics, but I finally got the culprit removed and then replaced.

Nothing much else interesting (oil changes, belt replacements, watermaker testing, etc.).

Bob agreed to scuba dive when he got there to check the bottom of the boat. He was in the 52-degree water for no more than 15 minutes (everything checked out ok). An hour later in Subway he mentioned that he must have really gotten cold since he was still shivering. Glad it wasn’t me … I hate cold water.

We plan to head upriver early tomorrow.

Daily Cuisine:
Bob was still eating at around midnight. He must’ve really been cold. (haha)

The Columbia Bar

2009-04-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Seattle to The Dalles Edition)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
by Mike

Today I got up early to head toward the Columbia River. In order to get to the Columbia River, I first had to cross the Columbia Bar. The Columbia Bar is a system of bars and shoals at the mouth of the Columbia River. Since 1792, approximately 2,000 large ships have sunk in and around the Columbia Bar.

The nearby United States Coast Guard station at Cape Disappointment, Washington is renowned for operating in some of the roughest sea conditions in the world and is also home to the National Motor Lifeboat School. It is the only school for rough weather and surf rescue operation in the United States and is respected internationally as a center of excellence for heavy boat operations. Approximately 16 bar pilots, earning about $180,000/year, guide ships across the bar, often approaching the ships by helicopter.

I decided to go it alone. But I wanted to do it in the easiest of conditions; therefore, I took off around 5:30am so I could cross the bar between 11:00am and noon. That’s when I thought it would be the calmest. High tide and not much current. The NOAA forecast called for the worst conditions to be at 3:15am and 3:30pm. Those were the times to definitely not be on the bar.

It was cloudy with no fog. Visibility was about 6 miles. Not bad. The wind was finally favorable so I even raised a sail. With all the plans complete I spent most the morning reading a book. About 30 minutes from the channel I began to make final preparations. I put on foulies over my three layers since I would be outside at the steering wheel during the crossing. Made sure everything in the boat was tied down, in case the water got rough. Checked the latest weather forecast on the radio and on the internet. No change.

Then I went outside to double check the outdoor chartplotters and set them up as needed. The right chartplotter was dead. The left chartplotter was stuck on a starting screen. The channel was 15 minutes ahead. I lowered the sail and proceeded on slowed engines and the channel became 25 minutes ahead. It turned out that I needed 20 of that to get things right.

After lots of tries, including completely removing the chartplotter and refitting all the connections, I gave up on the right chartplotter. I was just about to turn around and head back out to sea to buy more time, but didn’t like the thought of that. With time ticking away my desired crossing time might pass. Five minutes before entering the channel the left chartplotter finally booted up and was running. I switched control of the engines to the left helm and relaxed a bit.

The channel begins a few miles out (about 30 boat-minutes) from the Columbia Bar itself. There were two ships coming out as I approached the bar. Other traffic on the bar was a good sign. The swell from the northwest had grown throughout the morning and was now probably more than eight feet. Wind speed was 25 knots from the same direction so the wind waves were just mixed in. As I turned northeast into the channel it got rough. The period of the swell was short.

Continuing toward the bar the swell lessened and the ride got better. Both of the ships were out of the way so I could concentrate on watching the water. It looked normal to me. Crossing the area that is reputed to be the worst the ride improved to almost smooth. I thought, “this is it?”

I was getting distracted with the scenery, which is very pretty, when I noticed birds everywhere. Hundreds of them were in the water and in the air. Then the ride went from smooth to rough. The boat was tipping all different directions and started yawing back and forth. Then it took a strong swing to the left, stayed that way for a few seconds, and then headed back in the original direction.

That was it. That was my Columbia Bar crossing. It lasted about 20 seconds. Then the birds were gone and the water was even smoother.

I parked the Minnow at the Astoria Marina. Bob is flying in tomorrow and then we’ll head up to The Dalles to see Uncle Meredith.

Daily Cuisine: Today was breakfast on the boat and McDonald’s for a late lunch. Supper was off the boat too, so it doesn’t really count.

Fog

2009-04-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Seattle to The Dalles Edition)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
by Mike

The fog continued all night and all morning. And all day. Water temperature was high 40s. Air temperature was mid 40s – until late afternoon when it broke into the 50s.

I left Puget Sound through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and arrived in the Pacific Ocean proper around 2:00am. Giving Cape Flattery a wide berth, I turned left and headed down the west coast of the United States. I stayed about 8-10 miles off the coast of Washington. It was just outside of cell-phone range which cut me off from the world. That was nice for a change.

The fog limited visibility to about a quarter mile most of the time. By late afternoon I was near Grays Harbor, where I planned to stop and anchor for the night. It is kind of scary entering a new harbor in the fog. Also, Grays Harbor bar (the sand bar in the ocean) can be tricky sometimes where the tide meets the out-flowing current of water from rivers and does strange things in the changing depths. The weather reports forecast it to be “light-to-moderate” conditions on the bar.

I relied on GPS and radar to keep me in the right spot. And to keep me from running into buoys. Or other boats. It was desirable to keep the speed of the boat fairly fast to ensure good maneuverability in case a strange current appeared. So I had to trust the GPS and radar.

The channel leading into the harbor is marked with several buoys. Green on the left and red on the right (when returning to the harbor). The charts showed where the buoys were, and the GPS chartplotter showed where the Minnow was. I sat outside and peered into the fog hoping to see a buoy. Sure enough at about a quarter mile the shadowy image of a buoy started to appear. Luckily it was right where the chartplotter said it should be.

The rest of the buoys showed themselves as I continued down the channel. It was interesting that sometimes the buoys would disappear into the fog for a few moments, even when they were as close as 100 yards away. The buoys also have bells that ring as they bob in the water. They sound eerie in the fog. Probably they sound the same in sunshine, but it seemed like they sounded eerie. Hmm.

The anchor was set and I laid down for a nap around 6:30pm; I was tired. The fog made it really comfy and easy to drift off. About 7:15 I awoke with the sensation of sun shining in my eyes. That sure made me wonder where I was. I got up and, sure enough, the fog had lifted and the last hour of the day was sunny. After 24 hours of nothing but fog, it was nice to see the shore.

Daily Cuisine:
There’s still a water leak still hiding on the left side of the boat. That is the side that feeds the kitchen. So, with no water in the kitchen to wash dishes, I opted mainly for easy to eat food. It’s a nice way to justify being lazy. Some items from today’s menu were pop-tarts, popcorn, crackers, cheese, potato chips, tostito chips (and salsa), bologna sandwich (extra thick) and the rest of the oatmeal cookies. I’m pretty sure I gained weight today.

2009-04-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Seattle to The Dalles Edition)
Monday, April 20, 2009
by Mike

This morning I didn’t even mind the cold. Well, okay, I minded it some. But I was more focused on getting last minute things done in order to take off. I was excited!

Checking around the boat, I found that the left water tank was empty and the left water pump was running. That’s 400 liters (more than 100 gallons) of water gone. A counter on a bilge pump on the left side of the boat showed 18. That means that it took 18 cycles of the bilge pump to empty the 100+ gallons that leaked into left side of the boat. I still don’t know where the leak is, but I turned off the pump and refilled the tank.

Eventually I got around to driving away from the dock. The wind was light, but it’s a tight fit so I was kind of tense about not banging the 43,000 pounds of the Minnow into other boats. Things started out well, I was edging my way forward with small bursts from the left and right engines. Then the left transmission refused to go forward. This was not good.

In order to steer the Minnow at slow speeds it’s necessary to use the left and right engines independently. Sometimes forward and sometimes reverse. It’s actually easy to spin the boat in 360 degree circles in the same place. To spin to the right, just put the left engine forward and the right one in reverse and it spins right around. To make a sharp right turn, do the above and stop the spin after 90 degrees.

Out of the parking place the boat needed make a sharp right turn. With no forward on the left engine I was forced to use Plan B. Plan B was a 46-point-turn. It’s not fast and it’s not pretty. Using the rudder and right engine back and forth a bunch of times, I eventually got the boat to turn “rightish.” The Minnow left the dock without touching another boat. Whew! (this took about 20 minutes)

Once the Minnow has some forward speed, it’s simple to steer using the rudder. So once clear of the marina and in open water it was simple to drive. My worries should have been over. Except that I needed to pull into the next dock area to fill up with diesel. It took two laborious tries, but 1.5 hours later I was back in the open water heading for openness of Puget Sound.

It felt great to be out on the salt water with fresh air. Few concerns and few boundaries. One of the first things I noticed, as I was coiling dock lines and putting up bumpers, was a big, grey, majestic ship. It looked like it was sitting still in the water. There were lots of soldiers lined up on deck. As I was finishing up the lines and bumpers I noticed it was getting bigger.

I rushed inside, hoping I hadn’t missed a radio call from the Navy ship, and checked its bearing and speed. Then I veered off 30 degrees to the right to give it plenty of space. It was going 14.1 knots. I was going 7.5 knots. Before long it passed me. I waved and took some pictures. After it passed me it veered 40 degrees to the right and gained speed. Oops.

Other than a friendly encounter with the huge, high-speed ferry boat, the rest of my sailing was uneventful (the ferry boat was nice enough to make a turn to avoid me, thank you very much). My plans were to make Neah Bay for and overnight anchorage. It was a beautiful sunny day in Puget Sound. Other than being cold, I couldn’t have asked for better conditions. Unless I would have asked for favorable winds.

Question: If I’m in a sailboat traveling from one place to another without the use of sails or wind, am I sailing?

The sun was bright ahead and I was expecting a gorgeous sunset. About an hour before dark I “sailed” into a fog bank. With Neah Bay two hours ahead I thought about struggling to anchor in an unknown harbor in the fog in the dark.

I opted to continue through the night. It felt great to “sail” (solely under diesel power) into the Pacific. Even in the fog in the dark, it felt great. Maybe tomorrow I will raise a sail.

Daily Cuisine:
Some people say the first day at sea makes them queasy. Some expect to be seasick for a day or two. For some reason I find myself wanting to eat a lot. Always health-conscious, I opted to begin with oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies (rather than chocolate-chip cookies). As usual (Barb taught me this) most of the cookie dough was eaten prior to cooking. I must admit that I enjoyed the extra few degrees the oven brought to the inside temperature. Still ravenous from being at sea, I continued with potato salad, apple, bagel with cream cheese, banana (with peanut butter), cheese and crackers, popcorn, ravioli, and several diet colas.

Taking the Minnow out of Mothballs

2009-04-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Seattle to The Dalles Edition)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
by Mike

The Minnow sat wintering for eight months in the same parking spot. In Port Everett Marina, just north of Seattle. Shortly after arrival here, Josh and Melinda did a superb job removing perishables and gave her a thorough cleaning, inside and out. Then she sat, unoccupied. For eight months.

Friday I headed to Seattle to begin southward with the Minnow. When I got to the dock, I was pleasantly surprised to see a clean boat. The dock lines were all reasonably tight, and everything looked to be in good shape. The worst I could see was where moss, algae, mildew, and stuff like that had found some homes here and there.

There were several things to do to get the Minnow ready to go. I started with some simple things … checked the bilge pump counters, looked for leaks, got the shore power going, defrosted the freezer, turned on the fresh water pumps. Bob visited Melinda, and the Minnow, in January and reported that the fresh water pumps didn’t work. They still didn’t work. I decided to tackle the fresh water system in the morning.

Saturday morning I woke up cold. It was 59 degrees in the living room (I slept in the living room since it was about 10 degrees warmer than the bedrooms) and 41 outside. Heck with trying to plumb in frigid conditions – I got in the car, set the temperature to “oven” and tried to find a Walmart or a bookstore. After close to an hour, I found a Borders. It didn’t open until 10:00a. It was only 7:45, but I was warm!

It was late morning when I returned to the Minnow with groceries and a book. I proceeded to attack the fresh water system. By early evening both left and right water systems were working.

I’d enjoyed a plumbing festival that included several thrilling trips to marine suppliers and resulted in plenty of rewarding nicks and cuts on my hands. I had replaced both water pumps, replaced fuses, reset breakers, drained water, cleaned up after spraying leaks, removed and temporarily capped both showers and probably some other things. As it turns out, it was an unusually cold winter in Washington. Thus, the freeze damage.

Sunday morning was almost as cold and Saturday. It featured the discovery of more water leaks, more parts needed, more “isometric plumbing” and late in the day, the detection of a locked up transmission shifter. By Sunday evening I was getting eager to leave and get out on the water. This boat fixing is for the birds. Monday morning the Minnow will go to sea!

Daily Cuisine: In preparation for sailing I decided to “carb up.” That’s just an excuse to eat a lot, which I did. Pizza. Melinda took me to Lombardi’s and let me feed her for her taxi services.

2008-09-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Wednesday-Tuesday, August 7- September 2, 2008

by Mike

Wednesday I got up early and took off in the rain, motoring toward Canada. Prince Rupert Canada. It was fairly rough during the morning, with 15-foot waves from the side. These got smaller as the wind decreased. By mid-afternoon the wind picked up and was coming almost directly from Price Rupert. That was a condition I was getting familiar with. Eventually, I docked at a fishing dock in Prince Rupert and slept peacefully that night.

The next day Bob showed up with Cathy, Melinda, Josh, and Patty. I invited them all to go with me. Patty was the only taker. Apparently not enough time had passed since Bob, Cathy, Melinda, and Josh had spent time with me on a boat. It takes time for a person’s memory to fade a proper amount. Just ask Serge.

Friday morning we woke up to sunshine! Patty informed me that she was Ta’Veran, and thereby responsible for the good weather. Very similar to Fullerton claiming to be Methodist, if you asked me. In any case, I rejoiced at the good weather and we took off headed south.

For the next 36 hours we sailed (actually we primarily motored, although a sail was up most of the time) south through Hecate Strait, through Queen Charlotte Sound, and into Queen Charlotte Strait, where we anchored for the night. It a nice trip. We saw whales several times and could see the shorelines and mountains. Very nice. But it was not to be completed without a sizeable disaster.

After lunch on Friday we were still zigzagging through a bunch of islands south of Prince Rupert. I decided to get the Scrabble game out and prepare to administer a sound thrashing to my wife. Naturally she was scared. And I, while confident, behaved very humbly. We got the board out on the table. We settled a slight disagreement over who would keep score (I always have to keep score – it’s not fair!). Then we discovered that the tiles had mold on them. Blah!

Patty put the tiles in some soap and water to soak them. In order to make sure the mold died, I added some bleach. A couple of hours later Patty started to rinse off the tiles so we could play. But we couldn’t play. The letters had come off the tiles. Double blah! And to top it all off, Patty blamed me for adding bleach (of course, it’s obvious to everyone else that she left them in the soap too long). Women!

We anchored Saturday evening in a Mitchell Bay on Malcolm Island in Queen Charlotte Strait in British Columbia in Canada and dined on grilled steak and lots of trimmings. We also slept well that night since the previous night we were on the water using the tag-team watch system.

Sunday took us through Johnstone Strait and down the Campbell River. The Campbell River has some impressive currents. Sometimes they were with us. Sometimes not. The most impressive currents we encountered were rounding a corner to the left, just north of the town, Campbell River. We had more 7-8 knots of current pushing us along. Up ahead we could see rough water, even though there was little wind. The current was changing.

As we got closer to the rough water we could see large, flat calm places, maybe 100-200 yards in diameter. And next to them would be larger areas whipped into a frenzy with whitecaps. Along the borders of these calm and rough areas were occasional waves of pretty good size. The areas were constantly moving and changing from calm to rough and so forth. These conditions were visible for nearly a mile. There were some jet-skis and small boats that came out at high speed and jumped the waves that were created by the conditions.

Entering these waters was kind of unsettling. Our speed over ground was 16-18 knots. Our speed through the water was 9-10 knots. We got even more unsettled when we started noticed huge whirlpools here and there. By now I was hand-steering the boat, trying to avoid anything that looked unfriendly. I definitely wanted to avoid the whirlpools. I estimated the diameter of several of them at 3-4 times the boat length. The center of them might have gone 10-15 feet down. They sure materialized quickly, but they didn’t last long. And yes, one materialized right in front of us.

Going into the whirlpool was uneventful. Just a strong turning sensation. Going out of the whirlpool was not as ordinary. The momentum of the turning boat came to an abrupt halt as we exited the rotating water. This was translated into a huge jolt on the boat which knocked several things on the floor. Things that had stayed in place in rough 15-foot seas. The small boats and jet-skis were still zipping around like mosquitos, darting back and forth and jumping every wave they could find.

A few minutes later we were back to normal water. Soon, our speed over ground was down to 14 knots. And within four hours we had a head current and were traveling along below 8 knots. We made it to False Bay on Lasqueti Island that night.

Monday morning we headed home to the US of A. Early in the afternoon we arrived at Point Roberts to check in with US Customs and Border Homeland Security Patrol (or whatever their name is this week). They have a special customs dock to tie up to. It was kind of windy, blowing 45 degrees off the dock at 15-20 knots. There were some boats already tied up and in the way. It was Labor Day (or Memorial Day, I get them mixed up) and there were lots of boats going in and out of the bottleneck by the customs dock. I thought to myself, “this is going to take some work to get parked there without some property damage.”

Somehow I got the boat backed in and over to the open spot at the same time a guy was walking by with a sandwich in his hand. He slowed and made eye contact, which meant to me that he was offering to help. So I tossed him the rope from the back of the boat and he responded by wrapping it around the cleat, one-handed. I got the front rope ashore and the boat was somewhat secure. What a relief. Parked within two minutes, and no damage. Until this lady came to the side of the boat and begged “can you move your boat back, my husband needs more room to park there.”

Twenty minutes and lots of rope wrestling later I had the boat tied up a few feet further back. Being a holiday the Customs people were thick. There were several on the dock, with dogs, and more up on shore. They sent Patty and I up to a building to “check in” while they searched our boat with dogs. Thirty minutes later we were untying ropes, headed south again. We cleaned up the dog prints on the kitchen counter later.

We spent our last night at anchor in an inlet on the south end of Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington.

Tuesday morning we motored in calm waters to Everett, a suburb of Seattle. We parked the Minnow there for awhile.

2008-08-26T21:59:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Thursday-Tuesday, August 21-26, 2008

by Mike

There’s a good reason sailors recommend ending their Alaskan sailing in July. It’s shown up over the last few days. We had great weather for Glacier Bay – light winds and sun – and before that good a day here and there. But since then we have had rain, fog, and wind every day. Fall is coming in Alaska.

Since we left Gustavus we stopped in Hoonah for a night and did laundry and waited for the weather to clear. It rained all day and all night while we were there. We left the next morning, heading south down Chatham Strait. Motoring. Most of the time we couldn’t see any shore due to the fog and rain. We anchored the first night a Chaik Bay and the second night at Noyes Island.

Sunday we motored into Craig. Craig is the largest town on Prince of Wales Island. Fullerton packed his stuff and took off on a float plane for Ketchikan and on to Oklahoma from there. I filled up the boat with diesel and parked at the local dock.

Monday I made a quick dash south to Security Cove. It was intended to be a quick dash, but head winds of 25-35 knots and waves that got as high as 10-12 feet made my average speed little more than 4 knots. So I anchored in Security Cove and checked the weather forecast. The gap in the weather that I was hoping for didn’t materialize. In fact, the forecast had worsened.

So I stayed at anchor all day Tuesday, waiting to leave on Wednesday. It rained heavily all day. The wind came up around noon and ranged from 30-45 knots. I was concerned about the anchor dragging and stayed in foul-weather gear all afternoon. The rain was still cold.

At one point the harness holding the anchor chain broke. This caused the boat to yaw back and forth, putting a lot more strain on the anchor and the chain. It took me about 20 minutes to get another harness on. Even at anchor, it’s challenging to work outside in 40+ knots of wind and rain.

I sure was relieved to see the wind decline to 20-30 knots in the evening. Good thing I didn’t venture outside the cove today. Fall might already be here in Alaska.

2008-08-24T11:08:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

by Mike

Another sunny day greeted us as we headed up Muir Inlet. It is a several hour trip each way up and back the inlet. There were patches of floating ice here and there that we had to avoid. We saw several glaciers along the way. None of them were remarkable, but the mountains surrounding them were remarkable.

On the way out we anchored near McBride Glacier and took the dinghy ashore. We walked around on the wet much below the glacier. It’s not sand, it’s more like a fine grey powder. Dirty. Lightweight kind of like talcum powder.

We anchored near the dock at Gustavus. We didn’t know what was there so we took the dinghy to the dock and walked toward town. And walked. And walked some more. Finally someone picked us up and drove us into “town.” It was about 8:15 and everything closed at 8:00. So we walked and walked and walked back to the docks.

Daily Cuisine:

Fullerton cooked ham and eggs and biscuits for breakfast. We had major-big chef salads for a late lunch. Supper was uneventful.

2008-08-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

by Mike

No rain today! The sun started teasing us early in the day and came out for good in the afternoon. We could see the Fairweather Mountains about 50 miles away.

We weaved our way through miles and miles of ice on the way to Johns Hopkins inlet. Along the way we saw Reid Glacier, Lamplugh Glacier, Toyatte Glacier, Hoonah Glacier, Gilman Glacier, and finally Johns Hopkins Glacier. None were spectacular but all were interesting to see. Some of them were putting ice into the sea and some of them ended pretty far above the water and the ice melted before it hit the sea.

Next we headed up Tarr Inlet. There wasn’t as much ice to dodge, and weren’t as many glaciers along the way. At the end of the inlet were Pacific Glacier (dirty and ugly) and Margerie Glacier (pretty and blue). A 966-foot Holland America cruise boat got there about the same time we did. They hovered next to the bigger ugly glacier while we hovered next to the pretty one.

There were lots of cracking noises while we waited for ice to break off. Lots of huge chunks of ice broke off. They were spectacular as they cracked and fell away into the water, splashing and making big waves. One especially big chunk came off. It was maybe 60 feet high and 20-30 feet wide. Fullerton got some good pictures of it. It’s hard to tell from the pictures how big it actually was. It was enormous.

We went to North Sandy Cove to anchor for the night in preparation for our last day in Glacier Bay. Although we have seen a total of only three other private boats so far, we are required to leave tomorrow to make room for more boats to come here (the guy pressured us to minimize our days – the girl told us they were not busy at all, with only maybe ten private boats expected (25 maximum private boats per day)).

Daily Cuisine:

Cinnamon rolls, sloppy joes, and fried rockfish got us through the day.

2008-08-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Monday, August 18, 2008

by Mike

The rain had stopped by the time we raised the anchor and took off for Glacier Bay, but it was still cloudy and foggy. The good news was that we could clean off the windows and look out for ice from the inside.

Once we got outside the cove we encountered a 5-knot current. Against us. That sure slowed us down. Luckily it only lasted a short time. Within a half hour it was down to two knots against us. By the time we got near Bartlett Cove, there was no notice able current.

The Ranger Station at Bartlett Cove is the place to check in to enter Glacier Bay. We called them on the radio and they said to come to the office to do the paperwork. Another boat called and had their permit onboard, and they told them to come to the office to do paperwork. A third boat showed up at the office without calling on the radio. All three boats got in “trouble” for not following proper procedures. The guy must have said “federal regulation” at least 20 times. He advised me that the latest published Coast Pilot is out of date. Hmm.

After nearly an hour in his office we started to leave and I asked for a copy of our permit. He said I didn’t need one. I politely advised him that it was a “federal regulation” that we have a copy of the permit onboard at all times while in glacier bay. He mumbled something about “processing” and told us to go on without it. This guy was a joke.

Needless to say, Fullerton and I were not impressed with our welcome to Glacier Bay. But once we got done with the guy trying to act tough, everyone else was really nice. We met Will Smith (a white guy from Fayetteville, not the actor) and Amanda, who both wanted to know where Melinda was. They came on board to look around and told us lots of helpful information about Glacier Bay (although they were not helpful with any fishing tips). Will Smith even went with us to the fuel dock and personally witnessed some of my boat-docking prowess.

We ate lunch in the lodge restaurant and met some more people, all very nice. We even stumbled onto some good local fishing information. (Not from any park workers – they all seemed to frown on fishing. They all acknowledged that fishing was permitted, but they looked down their nose at us as they condescended that information.)

We pulled out of Bartlett Cove and headed deeper into Glacier Bay. We saw lots of whales, but mainly off in the distance. We explored a place called Tidal Inlet.

The second time we anchored, the shore looked awfully close. Fullerton said he wanted to do the “orange test.” I had no idea what he was talking about. As it turns out, the Minnow has dozens of oranges and he’s the only one that eats an occasional orange. They are sitting in a laundry basket outside in the cockpit. Fullerton walked back and grabbed an orange from the basket. Then he studied the orange and polished it in his hands. Finally he threw the orange toward the shore as far as he could. It floated in the water a lot closer to the boat than to the shore. He was satisfied. Turns out we were about 200 yards from shore. Things are larger than they appear in Alaska.

In the middle of Tidal Inlet we turned off the engines and floated for a few minutes. There was no wind. We looked at the shore and both guessed how far away it was. It looked close. It looked about 30-40 yards away. Being veterans of Alaska distance-guessing, we guessed 200 yards. Then we looked on the chartplotter and found out it was 600 yards away. That’s six football fields. Things are larger than they appear in Alaska.

We left Tidal Inlet and went to anchor at Blue Mouse Cove. I have no idea how it got the name. But it was sure cold enough to turn a mouse blue.

Daily Cuisine:

Breakfast was bacon, eggs, and grits. The lodge served Fullerton steak and served me deluxe nachos.

2008-08-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Sunday, August 17, 2008

by Mike

The day started with a beautiful sunrise. This, plus Fullerton’s heater, plus using the oven to cook croissants, brought the indoor temperature up to the mid 60s by 8:00am. What a glorious Sunday morning. Fullerton took full credit for it. He said he has a “temple” set up in his bedroom that he uses to bring good weather. After days of almost constant rain I asked him “what happened for the last four days?” He told me it was a Methodist temple.

Around 10:00am the clouds removed the sunlight. Around 10:15am the rain started. It rained all day and all night. I asked Fullerton about his temple again.

We were getting close to land again, after spending two nights at sea. We headed to Inian Cove to anchor for the night. Once we got the anchor set we fished. Because of the cold wind, the rain, and the darkness (and no bites) the fishing lasted only a few minutes. Then we ate and movie-watched.

Daily Cuisine:

Grilled halibut made a good lunch. By supper we were feeling Mexican-food-deprived, so we had burritos.

2008-08-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Saturday, August 16, 2008

by Mike

Saturday began with rain. It was light rain, but steady rain. The wind was light and the waves were small. We motored with the solent up occasionally. But often we had a light wind directly against us.

Fullerton started cleaning metal parts in the bathrooms, showers, and kitchen last night. He took them off and spent solo time one each of them. When he was done, they were shiny. Just like when they were new! Maybe he’ll teach Bob how to do that.

Mid-afternoon the rain stopped. In late afternoon, the sun poked through the clouds a bit. And by early evening it was sunny. It got up to 75 degrees inside with the sun shining through the windows. It was nice. Fullerton thought he was going to have a heat stroke.

We ended the day watching a 007 movie.

Daily Cuisine:

Bacon, eggs, biscuits. That’s a good way to start any day. After that we ate leftovers and junk food throughout the day.

Photos from the Minnow, in living color.

2008-08-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

An alleged halibut -- 46 lbs!

Friday was Fullerton's Birthday!

2008-08-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Friday, August 15, 2008

by Mike

The rain continued all night. We took off mid-morning after checking the weather. The rain gets tiresome after a few days. But the part of the weather we cared about was the wind, and therefore the waves.

A storm just passed south of the area a day ago, bringing gale-force winds to the area, which cause uncomfortably big waves. By Sunday night another storm should be coming through, doing the same thing. We took off this morning (in the rain). We’re headed across the Gulf of Alaska to Glacier Bay. It’s a 380-mile trip that should get us there in two days on Sunday afternoon.

Much more important than that was the fact that Fullerton turned 64 today! It rained his entire birthday. But that didn’t stop him from getting a happy-birthday cake.

We did all the birthday celebrating early in the day since it was going to get bumpy when we got to the Gulf of Alaska. To top off the festivities, we enjoyed cigars outside (in the rain) as we rounded the corner directly into 25-knot winds (and rain) directly against us and waves crashing into the bow.

It was rough. Welcome to the Gulf of Alaska!

Daily Cuisine:

Along with his strawberry happy-birthday cake we had chef salad, chicken, rice, and banana bread (yes, Serge, we have too many bananas again).

2008-08-17T08:34:00.002-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

by Mike

We spent the night anchored near Bligh Island. That’s near where the Exxon Valdez crashed. Everything seems normal there now. Lots of sea otters, birds, fish, etc. seem to be doing fine. The wind and waves outside Prince William Sound were big and rough so we decided to head generally toward Cordova to have a look. Everyone says Cordova is a nice place to see.

We stopped to fish along the way. We anchored the boat in 110 feet of water. It was raining so we fished mainly from inside – we dropped our halibut lines to the bottom, and went inside the boat to stay dry. Halibut fishing is like catfishing. Drop a line and wait. Commercial halibut fishermen drop a long, 1500-foot line with hooks and bait every 18 feet. Then they leave it on a buoy and come back later to bring the fish in.

After a couple of hours one of the poles was bent a little bit. Figuring it to be hung up on bottom I started pulling on it. I decided to reel it in to check the bait. To get the dead fish heads to the bottom we use a 3-pound weight. Reeling in that the bait plus the weight bends the pole a lot anyway. It seemed a little heavier than normal so I was hopeful we might have something.

It takes awhile to reel in 110 feet of line with weight on it. Eventually we noticed a big fish coming up through the water. It looked like it might be dead, until it hit the surface. I remembered reading that halibut start thrashing when they hit the surface and that was certainly the case here.

When we finally got the thing on the boat (tied around a tail with a sailing rope and winched up the stairs) we let it die for a long time. Then we weighed it and cleaned it. It weighed 47 pounds and the filets from it weighed 15 pounds.

We fished a couple of more hours with no more bites and then motored to Simpson Bay for the night. It rained all the way there. It rained more when we got there.

Fishing Report:

See above.

Daily Cuisine:

We ate halibut!

2008-08-17T08:34:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Thursday, August 14, 2008

by Mike

It was raining this morning when we pulled in the anchor and headed to Cordova.

It rained all the way to Cordova.

When we got to Cordova it was still raining.

We docked at the Cordova marina in the rain. After we docked and got the boat tied up good, we went inside and dried off.

The rain continued.

By early afternoon the rain had picked up a bit. Fullerton and I gathered and bagged dirty laundry, put on wet rain gear, and hiked (in the rain) in search of a laundr-o-mat. We ate out, watched an NFL preseason game, did the laundry, and stopped by the library for internet and email.

It was still raining at midnight.

Fishing Report:

Are you serious? It rained too much to be outside fishing!

Daily Cuisine:

We ate at a local Japanese restaurant. I ate a halibut sandwich and Fullerton had Chinese cashew chicken.

2008-08-14T17:31:00.001-07:00

Sailing with Dummies (Alaska to Seattle Edition)

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

by Mike

The weather was perfect when I got to the Prince William Sound area yesterday. It was sunny and clear and I could see mountains, glaciers, islands, icebergs, boats, and other airplanes. I flew around the area awhile, sightseeing before I landed in Valdez. Fullerton and Bob showed up at the marina a few hours later.

This morning the clouds were forming. A low passing south of the area is bringing a few days of rain and high winds. Bob took off this morning in the plane, before the bad weather set in. Fullerton and I took off this morning in the boat, in search of shelter and fish.

Since we are “marking time” in Prince William Sound for a couple days to avoid the rougher weather outside the sound (winds up to 40 knots and 13-foot waves) we decided to go fishing. It rained most of the afternoon and evening. Visibility was limited and being outside was wet.

Fishing Report:

We caught lots of cod, rockfish and other oddballs by jigging on the bottom. We cleaned the good ones and used their remains for bait and chum. We had halibut rigs on the bottom most of the time, but caught no halibut.

Daily Cuisine:

After a local breakfast (including reindeer sausage, which was horrible) we were relegated to “boat food.” Lunch was a pretty darned good salad, if I do say so myself. For supper we had grilled rockfish, bell peppers, and onions along with baked potatoes. “Boat food” is tough.

Herring Bay, Columbia Glacier, Valdez, Spokane, 8/11/08, by Bob

2008-08-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

In Herring Bay we took the dinghy over to something that looked like a ladder going up a creek. It turned out to be a metal fish tunnel that looked like a ladder from a distance. The salmon can swim up the tunnel to spawn in the Solf Lake above.

We took of toward Columbia Glacier. There were icebergs! We managed to miss the big ones and got as close as I was willing to go. Then we went to Valdez where we found a wayward but inept fisherman, Mike.

The next morning, I took the plane and headed nonstop to Spokane. It was warm there. Mike Webster and Mike Fullerton headed out to the deep blue sea, or at least to Prince William Sound, where they allegedly caught a big halibut.

Mike, Cathy, Melinda, Josh, and I took off from Oahu on June 12. Cathy bailed out at Midway. Mike left at Adak. Mike Fullerton hopped on at Dutch Harbor. Melinda and Josh took off at Cold Bay. Mike returned at Valdez, where I finally left the Minnow. For a while.

From Hawaii to Midway to Attu to Valdez, I covered about 6,084 statute miles, 5,287 nautical miles, 48,670 furlongs, or 97,920,000,000,000,000 angstroms. I have spent two nights on dry land after 60 days on the boat, and have come to realize that an airplane goes faster than a sailboat.

Auk Bay, Bainbridge Glacier, Ice Bay, Herring Bay, August 10, 2008, by Bob

2008-08-11T00:44:00.001-07:00

This morning I kayaked and Fullerton took out the dinghy. He spotted a black bear and her cub on the beach. I spotted a sea gull.

We took off and found Bainbridge Glacier. It looked like it was just behind a small sand dune, so we anchored and took the dinghy to shore to see the glacier.

We started to anchor near the river that runs into the ocean, but the depth finder kept jumping from 150 to 30 to 139 to 27, etc. I think the real depth was over 100 feet, but the depth finder was picking up a layer between the fresh glacier water with lots of silt and the cleaner ocean water of a different temperature. But if it was rocks, it might not be a good place to anchor. So we moved up the shoreline a bit.

The glacier turned out to be a few hundred yards back from the shoreline, not a few dozen feet like I expected. Things are larger than they appear. We went to the ice and looked around a bit. There's a pretty strong river coming out from underneath the glacier.
Glaciers are fun.

We decided that someone should be able to find gold or emeralds or diamonds in the newly unearthed earth of receding glaciers. After all, this land is newly exposed. Nobody has even picked up the multitude of large gold nuggets laying around.

After Bainbridge Glacier we went through the narrow, scenic Bainbridge Passage and headed for Icy Bay and a couple of glaciers there that calve icebergs into the ocean. There was a lot of ice in the bay. Maybe that's why it has its name. We threaded our way through big chunks of ice until we could see some glaciers, but I chickened out 2 or 3 miles short of the glaciers when the ice got thicker. There were a few icebergs larger than the boat. A lot of the ice chunks were not really icebergs, but were big enough to do some damage if we hit them very fast.

I hand-steered, zig-zagging through the ice for about an hour in and an hour out. I was pretty cold going in, and toasty warm by the time we left Icy Bay. It was well worth it.

We are now anchored in the back of Herring Bay. It's a really pretty place. I had planned to dive here, but there are tons of unfriendly jellyfish. I took out the kayak this evening.

It is 11:25 pm. Water temperature is 55 degrees (we're near a waterfall). Air temperature is 52. Indoors it's 62. Wind is light and variable. Water is calm with occasional ripples. Sky is dark.

Northwestern Fiord, Auk Bay, Saturday, August 10, 2008, by Bob

2008-08-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

We got up bright and early this morning after a GPS alarm went off about 6:00 am. We took off for Northwestern Fiord.

In Harris Bay, the entrance, there were several fishing boats, probably out of Seward. We used the binoculars to watch someone catch
a fish, and it was a salmon. So we stopped and Fullerton caught a couple of big salmon. We let them go because we were too lazy to
clean them. I caught none.

We went through a gap in a glacial moraine to enter Northwestern Fiord. There were scattered small pieces of ice. For about six
miles, there were more and more ice pieces until we came to a mass of ice packed in front of a couple of glaciers. I don't know what
these are named, but they're on the way to Northwestern Glacier.

We motored very slowly in the ice, because I get nervous when hard things bang against the hull of the boat. Most of the ice was 3
feet in diameter or smaller. We got close to the packed ice, but stopped because I was chicken. We probably could have motored on
through it, but I was worried about propeller damage and blocked engine cooling and sea monsters.

There was a current flowing downstream. The packed is was not moving with the current, which explains how it got packed.

So I broke out a kayak and headed across the ice. It was thin enough that it would sink under the kayak when I went across it. There
was a trail through the ice behind the kayak, just like an icebreaker. It was pretty hard to turn to avoid the big pieces, and
occasionally I'd run into a piece of ice that didn't budge under the mass of me and a kayak.

As I approached the glaciers, I realized something that Chrysler has been telling for years: "Things are larger then they appear."
Those two smaller glaciers are huge! They're pretty noisy, too. I really enjoyed watching pieces of ice fall off, some larger than
the Minnow.

When I got close to the glacier, I remember the rule Doug Fesler mentioned, to keep a distance of three times the height of the
glacier. I was doing some mental ciphering trying to figure out what angle has a tangent of 3 or 1/3 so I could tell when to stop. I
guessed 20 degrees (it's really 18.5), when a piece of ice broke off the glacier and sent a small wave my direction. Actually, the
wave went every direction, but my direction was the one I was concerned with. I took it as a hint and didn't get any closer.

We probably could have continued three miles to Northwestern Glacier, but I was chicken because of all the ice. So we turned around.
There had been no other boats inside Northwestern Fiord, which was really cool. On our way out we met three boats coming in, a
fishing boat, a pleasure boat, and possibly a small tour boat.

We came to Beehive Island. We took a slow drift around the island. Fullerton fished (caught a cod) and I looked at the island. There
were a lot of seagulls and a few other birds. We accumulated a lot of flies. I mentioned that we should try to keep them outside.

Next, we had several-hour trip to the mouth of Prince William Sound. At least I think it's the mouth. I'm not sure where the sound
starts. While Fullerton slept, I mounted a tactical offensive on the flies. When Fullerton regained consciousness, he was astounded
at the carnage -- dozens of fly carcasses and pieces of fly swatter scattered all over the cockpit. I thought I showed considerable
restraint by not using the shotgun.

We pulled into the back of Auk Bay to anchor. I went kayaking and followed a black bear strolling around the bay.

Shuyak, Kenai Peninsula, 8/8/2008 10:30 PM, by Bob

2008-08-09T00:33:00.000-07:00

I went kayaking this morning in Big Bay and wandered around on an island. Surprisingly, Fullerton didn't take off in the boat and
dump me. I must have returned sooner than he expected.

We threaded our way out of Big Bay, headed northeast, passed the Barren Islands to the Kenai Peninsula. We sailed until the wind
died.

On the way to the Barren Islands we started seeing some humpback whales. Then, in the distance, there were a whole bunch of whale
spouts. We eventually caught up with them. About 15 or 20 humpack whales were just goofing off, barely moving. When we got close, I
slowed down. Then I put the engines in idle. Then I put the engines in reverse. The whales weren't moving -- they were just floating
around, probably sunbathing. We were right there with them for quite a while, close enough that their spouting put some spray on my
camera lens.

Fullerton, the world renown technological genius, videoed the whales. But it was only later that he figured out that the red light
meant it was recording, not stopped. So we got some cool video of the boat deck. I took some whale pictures. Fullerton vowed to
enter the 21st century.

On the Kenai Peninsula there are glaciers, mountains, a lot of birds (including some new ones for the trip), and a couple of really
cool narrow passes.

We are now anchored off Ragged Island in Morning Cove, Kenai Fjords National Park. There are lots of birds here in the back of the
cove -- sea gulls, puffins, and some small diving birds of some sort. We're anchored deeper and closer to shore than I'd prefer, but
there's not supposed to be any wind.

I got an email today from Cheryl from the Alaska Volcano Observatory about using some of our photos. She mentioned that Kasatochi
erupted yesterday, complete with a 40,000' ash plume. Melinda, Josh, and I climbed to the rim of that volcano three weeks ago.

Raspberry, Afognak, Shuyak, 8-7-08, by Bob

2008-08-08T18:38:00.001-07:00

This morning about 20 sea otters same to see us off. We came around to Foul Bay where I dived and Fullerton took the Dinghy out for
a ride. I went down to about 90 feet. There were plants, starfish, jellyfish (friendly), and various other forms of life from the
outer solar system. A sea otter came up to about 10 feet from Fullerton in the dinghy. They had a long discussion on the state of
the world and the proper colors of socks.

After leaving Foul Bay we got to sail for the first time in days. We ended up in Big Bay at Shuyak Island. It's a good place to
kayak -- nice calm water and lots of islands. But it's a little hard to get into the bay. There was a lot of kelp across the mouth,
which is generally attached to rocks at some depth. Near the kelp it got shallower. We got into the bay along the north edge, then
followed the chart.

There was a lodge with a boat near where we anchored, but we didn't see any people running around. I kayaked and Fullerton took out
the dinghy.

Kodiak, Stripe Rock, Afognak Island, August 6, by Bob

2008-08-07T00:36:00.003-07:00

This morning we ran some more errands, and took off for parts unknown. We went under a bridge, which is unusual in the Minnow. Our
mast is about 79 feet above the water, and the interstate bridge standard clearance is 65 feet or so. This bridge had 110 foot
clearance, but from underneath it looked like we would never make it. But there weren't any loud noises as we went through, other
than a couple of people on shore also amazed that we made it under.

We headed to Stripe Rock, a couple of rocks off Afognak Island where I scuba dived. On the way, Fullerton fished. I made fun of him
for not catching any. We slowed down the boat to do some proper trolling with a plate-type downrigger, but no luck.

There are a lot of boats in Kodiak. There weren't many southwest of town, but we saw 15 or 20 boats today when we left to the
northeast. For several days before we got to Old Harbor, we didn't see any other boats, didn't see them on radar, and didn't even
hear any on the radio.

When I dived at Stripe Rock, As soon as I went in the water, besides noticing how cold it was, I saw small minnows everywhere. They
were maybe 1/4 inch long. Maybe only 5 mm. But there must have been at least 546,261 in my immediate vicinity.

The bottom had huge rocks and canyons and cliffs underwater. I followed the anchor chain to the anchor. Just before I got to the
anchor, the chain went up about 20 feet on a big rock and then down again. I think the charts call this a foul bottom. My kids had
those when they were babies.

Along the deep side of Stripe Rock there was a vertical wall from 70 feet deep to about 30 feet. It had all kinds of things growing
on its side -- lots of strange plants, white cauliflower, several kinds of starfish, and regular fish were swimming around. I took a
lot of photos, but then I noticed the camera case was fogged over and everything was blurry. So I just looked around.

When I came up, I stopped at different levels for safety stops, and swam toward the boat. The safety stops aren't really required at
those depths, but they make me feel better. I had swam toward the Stripe Rock on the bottom. During the time I was down, a tidal
current had developed on the surface. Pushing me away from the boat. It was just enough to get me some more exercise on the way
back. This was the best place I've dived in Alaska. A guy at the dive shop in Kodiak recommended it.

After Stripe Rock we took Afognak Strait during the height of the current against us. That's the way real sailors do it -- with both
engines. For a while we had 5.4 knots against us. We eventually came out of the strait and anchored between Whale and Raspberry
Islands. There were four sea otters around the boat, offering advice, while we anchored.

Fullerton broke out some fishing lures I was making fun of earlier because they claim to have an electronic device that emits
signals at the brain frequency of a fish. I said that was designed to catch fishermen, not fish. Then he caught about 20 cod on one
of them. I caught none.

In case you missed it, you can track the progress (or lack thereof) of The Minnow at:

http://www.charthorizon.com/m/cz/map?vessels=Minnow&history=2008_-_latest

We are making a little progess. We are now closer to Washington (state) than Attu Island.

Kodiak, August 5, 2008, by Bob

2008-08-07T00:36:00.001-07:00

We got an early start out of Old Harbor, because there is a narrow pass that is pretty shallow (~7 feet) and we wanted to make it at
high tide, or close to it. The tide there changes 8 or 9 feet, mostly up. From there we motored kind of fast to the town of Kodiak,
because of a direct headwind and because we wanted to do some important sailor stuff in town -- fuel, laundry, groceries, trash,
etc.

We got there, filled up with diesel, tied up to the dock, rented a car, filled scuba tanks and had one repaired, dumped our trash,
did laundry, picked up our glasses at Fedex, and most importantly, we hit the McDonalds drive thru. For some reason, Fullerton still
wanted to eat dinner at a restaurant after McDonalds.

Kodiak was kind of a culture shock for me. I had not seen a town big enough for Walmart of McDonalds since Honolulu almost two
months ago.

Three Saints Bay, Puffin Island, Old Harbor, 8/4/2008, by Bob

2008-08-05T00:50:00.001-07:00

This morning we woke up to rain, fog, and a direct headwind. We departed Kaguyak Bay for a bumpy ride to Puffin Island, which had
more sea gulls than puffins. There were hundreds of seals on the rocks. We followed the coast for a while, then went into Three
Saints Bay. Three Saints Bay is a very pretty place.

There used to be a town in Three Saints Bay called Nunamiut. I walked around the site for a while, but the only thing I could see
were some depressions where the buildings probably were, and some posts on the beach that used to hold a dock or a pier.

Then I scuba dived. There were lots of jellyfish, star fish, some sea cucumbers with spikes, a few fish, and lots of seaweed. When I
got out of the water, my lips were burning. One of those impudent jellyfish stung me! I doused my mouth with vinegar and got a
little vinegar in my eye which burned worse than the jellyfish. My lips didn't swell or turn red, they just burned. My forehead was
affected a little bit. these were the only parts of my body not covered by rubber. But I did get some decent jellyfish photos.

We headed to the head of the bay and Fullerton made a valiant yet unfruitful attempt at outwitting scaled aquatic animals. Satisfied
that the salmon population was safe secure,

After Three Saints Bay we tooled into Old Harbor, a booming city of about 200 people. After we anchored, we walked around town, took
photos of the Russian style church, and met a couple of other boaters, Jill and Doug. They had some long rowboats instead of kayaks.
I mentioned that I had read a book about a couple of people who rowed those. Jill asked if it was "Rowing to Latitudes." It was. She
wrote it!

It was Jill Fredston and Doug Fesler. She also wrote a couple of books on snow and avalanches. They are also two of the country's
top avalanche experts. I'm not sure what the odds are of meeting them in Old Harbor, Alaska, but it must be something slightly less
than 50-50. We checked out each others' boats and swapped books. They also showed us some good places to visit on our trip east.
They're really nice people.

Photos!

2008-08-04T11:22:00.001-07:00

Some Aleutian pictures! In fact, there are a lot. I haven't had a chance for captions, but they're organized by island. The date and
latitude / longitude are inside the .jpg files. If you need to know how to access that, please contact the computer guru, Jerry
Webster, at 918 373 0777.

http://xpda.com/aleutians/

Whether, 8/4/2008 9:49 am, by Bob

2008-08-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

We are near Kodiak, 56°34'N, 53°37'W
Outside temperature: a balmy 52 degrees
Inside temperature: 62
Water temperature: 52.5
Light rain
Visibility 1/2 mile, fog
Wind out of the northeast at 15 knots

Yesterday we saw three boats, the first in three days.

Tugidak, Sitkinak, Kodiak, August 3, 2008, by Bob

2008-08-04T11:01:00.001-07:00

We got to Tugidak in the morning and anchored. I slept. There is a large beach (on the east side, anyway), and a shallow slope. We
were over a half mile from land anchored in 13 feet of water. And there is a large tide there. Even though the swells weren't that
big, there was a pretty good surf on the beach. Around noon we headed out toward the other trinity island, Sitkinak. We drove around
it to Kaguyak Bay on Kodak.

Kaduyak was a small village first reported in 1868. In 1964 it was wiped out by a tsunami generated by the big earthquake and has
not been rebuilt.

I scuba dived near the mouth of the bay. When I jumped in the water, I was fiddling around with the camera and then I noticed that
the knife in my hand was not in my hand any longer. So I went down to the bottom and looked around until I found it. Visibility was
only 10 or 15 feet. I was thinking that I should have dived in one of the many places we had anchored with crystal clear water.

There were lots of big starfish with lots of legs. There were a lot of jellyfish, too, but they were friendly. I saw a big (about 4
feet) skate on the bottom. It looked like a boxy stingray. A couple of starfish got on top of the anchor chain, and one even came up
with the chain when we left. We let it go.

We went a couple of miles to the head of the bay. There were a lot of crab pots. Fullerton decided we should get a crab out and
leave some cash inside, but it was too heavy to pull up. We went to shore and saw some bear manure but no village.

August 2, 2008, Lighthouse Rocks, Aghiyuk, Kateekuk, Chowiet, Suklik, Chirikof, by Bob

2008-08-03T08:58:00.001-07:00

Just about sunup we came to Lighthouse Rocks. Lighthouse Rocks are about 45 miles southeast of the Alaska Peninsula and more than 25
miles from the the nearest island. The main rock is 500 feet long and 90 feet high. The Navtech Eletronic charts show Lighthouse
Rocks about 0.3 miles north of where they really are. The paper charts are correct. In case you find youreslf in the area,
Lighthouse Rocks are at 55°46.6N, 157°24.5W.

Lighthouse Rocks had hundreds of thousands of common murres, a black and white seabird. There were also a bunch of Steller sea
lions. We didn't see a lighhouse. The big rock is spectacular, coming out of the ocean with vertical (almost) cliffs on three sides,
a hole through the center, and a huge cloud of birds flying around it.

I was pretty nervous about getting too close, because the charts were a little flaky, and even on the paper chart there was almost
no depth information. But we got within a few hundred feet and the depth was more than 100 feet except for the east side.

Some of the sea lions were high up on the rock, maybe 30 feet, in places that looked impossible for them to climb. Birds covered
almost every flat surface. Other than birds, sea lions, and moss, the Lighthouse Rock is bare. If there ever was a light house
there, I didn't see a trace.

From Lighthouse Rocks we headed northeast to the Semidi Islands. These are a group of small islands about 30 miles from the Alaska
Peninsula. We met a fog bank on the way, and by the time we got to Aghiyuk Island we had less than 1/4 mile visibility. The chart on
our chart plotter was about 1/3 mile off for the Semidi Islands, too. I think they were trying to trick us into ramming a rock.

There were a lot of murres on Aghiyuk, and some cliffs a few hundred feet tall. We went to the next island south, Kateekuk, and went
out in the dinghy. There were puffins, murres, ducks, guillemots, auklets, seagulls, harbor seals, and lots of strange rock
formations.

We went out into the thick fog again and found our way to Chowiet Island. We went into a couple of coves to anchor, but the water
was too deep too close to shore. We did see a tree, though. Only one on all the islands.

Next, when we were motoring along near Suklik Island, I saw some birds off to the right, standing up in the water. I turned left a
little and was taking their picture when Fullerton said there was something up ahead in the water and told me to turn right. I
figured out that those birds and what he saw must have been a shallow rock, and put the engines in reverse and stopped real quick.
Then I saw that my rock was really a couple of logs in the water -- one for the birds, and one for Fullerton.

Some really cool rocks were sticking up out of the water at Suklik. There were a lot of birds there murres, fulmars, and some etc.

The fog was burning off when we headed for Chirikof Island a few hours away. I slept and Fullerton fished unsuccessfully. We got to
the island about 30 minutes before sunset. We planned to go to shore and check it out.

When I reversed the motors while lowering the anchor (is weighing anchor coming in or going out?), a fish hit on the fishing pole. I
grabbed the pole. It was a big fish. It swam under the boat. The fishing like was wrapped around the prop. We're using the other
engine now. It was too dark by the time we finished the fun-filled anchoring activities, so we headed out to Tugidak Island, just
southwest of Kodiak.

Bird Island, Simeonof, August 1, 2008, by Bob

2008-08-02T01:43:00.001-07:00

This morning I woke up to Stars and Stripes. I cannot believe that Fullerton is capable of operating an iPod. We took off in the
dinghy for a motor tour of the area. Across Otter Strait we could see some whale spouts.

The wind had changed directions overnight, and it was not possible to land and stay dry on our side of the island. So we took off in
the boat for the whales. Humpbacks were feeding. Whales are big.

Then we headed to Simeonof Island. We tooled into Simeonof Harbor. The Coast Pilot calls the entrance into Simeonof Harbor
"tortuous." It was shallow with some kelp, but wasn't too bad. We anchored in 14 feet of water and kayaked around. There were sea
otters and lots of jellyfish. Some birds, too. One duck had about 15 ducklings following it.

There is an old house there, half collapsed. Someone used to raise cattle there. There were corrals and some fence remains.

We passed by Koniuji Island, and are now headed on an overnight trip to the Semidi Islands. Last night when I downloaded the
weather, it showed some wind suitable for sailing. Instead, the wind is blowing directly from the Semidi Islands. I downloaded the
weather tonight, and the forecast now matches the wind. And we are motoring.

At 12:36 pm, we are at 55 27N 158 21W. It is 65F inside and 53F outside. Water temperature is 54.1F -- the highest since we hit
Alaska! Wind is 12 knots from the northeast.

Bird Island, Thursday, July 31, 2008, by Bob

2008-08-01T00:56:00.001-07:00

We are at Bird Island in the Shumagin Islands, more specifically 54°48.9N 159°44.2W next to Otter Strait. It is 10:35 pm, the Big
Lebowski is on, the temperature outside is 55, inside 69, water temperature 48, wind 9 knots out of the northwest, and we are out of
brownies. Melinda has shirked her responsibilities and took off for Seattle, France, and parts unknown.

I was a little nervous coming into this island. On the charts for this location there is a single sounding of 240 feet for an area
of about 25 square miles. There are no depths shown near shore. The Coast Pilot has this warning: "Many areas adjacent to the
Shumagin Islands are unsurveyed and may present unknown hazards to navigation."

So we came in slowly. We didn't sink, although there is a wrecked schooner in the cove next door. We ended up in a great anchorage,
complete with rocky islands, birds, and alien spacecraft.

There is a bug in the Raymarine chart plotter and the tide prediction for Nagai Island is all messed up. Either that or there is a
daily tsunami here. The tide does change 11 feet here, according to my computer.

This morning we took off and had some weather suitable for sailing -- wind and sunshine both! We made over 10 knots for a couple
hours. Then the wind changed directions, died, came up, died, etc. I put the gennaker in and out 5 times today.

Some humpback whales were jumping out of the water when we go close to Bird Island. One of them breached close to the boat, but he
missed us. Whales are big.

King Cove, Cold Bay, Iliasik, 7/30/08, by Bob

2008-07-31T03:07:00.002-07:00

We took off early, got fuel at the Peter Pan cannery in King Cove, and headed for Cold Bay so Josh and Melinda could rejoin the real
world.

Cold Bay has a nice airport with a 10,000 paved runway, but no boat dock or harbor. There is only a large pier with puffins that the
ferry uses, and a hovercraft landing with an old school bus. Around 80 people live there.

We anchored near the pier. Fullerton took a bicycle and me to shore in the dinghy. As I was taking off, a guy drove up and asked
what planet we came from. I had to think. I asked if they got a lot of sailboats in there. He said we were the first he'd seen in 18
years. I followed him to a guy with with pickups for rent and rented one.

I got some photos ready to upload to the web while Josh and Melinda packed and transported their bags to shore. It was a wet, wavy
ride. They used a lot of trash bags. Then we drove around a while. We saw a brown bear with a limp. Their flight was late. Fullerton
and I took off. I'm not sure whether they made it out of Cold Bay. But it's a nice town, so it should be OK if they're trapped.

Fullerton and I motor-sailed to Inner Iliasik Island and anchored for the night. In the process of anchoring, my glassed jumped off
my face and into the deep blue sea. Fullerton already had lost a pair of his glasses. Since he is an optometrist, he called his
office and ordered up a pair apiece to be delivered somewhere to our east such as Kodiak.

We watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High tonight, a how-brow art film. A boat, the Notorious, was passing behind us and called up on
the radio to talk for a bit. He had heard about our trip. Another boat, the Rainier, is anchored not far from us. They are headed
for the Pavlof Islands according to the AIS.

The weather was nice today! It was clear and 58 degrees, and the water temperature is a balmy 50. It's 2:00 am and the outside
temperature is 52.

Amagat, King Cove, 7/29/08 by Bob

2008-07-31T03:07:00.001-07:00

In the morning we headed landed at Amagat Island for frolicking, fun, and games. I kayaked in, and the other three took the dinghy.
They wisely left the dinghy where I suggested.

Melinda and I climbed up the hill and sat on the ridge. Puffins flew over us almost constantly. Some of the puffins would go really
fast, and some would come over slow with feet down, kind of like landing gear.

Then I went up and Melinda went down. On the top of the island some gulls had nests and chicks. They got excited and flew over and
yelled at me. They were not nearly as nice as the puffins, particularly when they deficated on my head.

Melinda lost a contact, so I was going to go get one on the boat for her. We got to the dinghy and noticed that (a) the tide came
in, and (b) the waves had gotten big enough to swamp the boat. It was completely full of water. Melinda and I managed to get ride of
3/4 of the water from the dinghy, and took an interesting ride to the boat where we hoisted it and drained the rest of the water. In
the process of all this, Melinda got my feet wet.

The night before, the plastic piece that holds the dinghy drain plug broke and we (the Kiwi) lost the plug. Fullerton built another
one. It worked very well in keeping the water inside the dinghy.

Melinda and I went back to the island and took more puffin pictures. We may even have one or two that look decent. Josh got some
good video. Fullerton did some serious beachcombing.

We headed for King Cove. Wind is weird around these islands. We took off with 25-30 knot winds. By the time the sails were up, the
wind was 15-18. So I took down the solent and put up the gennaker. A while later, the wind was around 5 knots. So we dropped the
sails and motored. I took a nap for a few minutes. When I woke up, the wind was around 30 knots again. Within a few minutes, it was
25 knots but had shifted 90 degrees. It's hard to sail with changes like that.

We got to King Cove around 10:00. I thought it would be too late to park at the dock, and planned to go back out to anchor
somewhere. But they called on the radio and directed us to their new floating dock. We eventually tied up after some excellent boat
driving in a 20+ knot wind. I took an evening bicycle tour through King Cove and its suburbs (population 800+).

Unimak, Amagat, 7/28/08, by Bob

2008-07-31T03:06:00.004-07:00

We took off for Morzhovoi Bay. We went to some big lagoons at the back of the bay. We wandered around in the kayaks and dinghy.
There were some otters, seals, eagles, acrobatic salmon, and an old cabin. I had to do some portaging in the kayak.

Then we headed back out to Littlejohn Lagoon. It was really pretty, and had some bear tracks on the beach. No bears, though.

The water was a nice warm 48 degrees, so I went scuba diving. I checked the bottom of the boat, and saw a bunch of halibut on the
bottom of the ocean. It wasn't too bad with the wet suit, gloves, hood, and boots.

We went to Amagat Island to anchor for the night. There were thousands of puffins flying around, sitting in the water, and sitting
on the shore. There are two types of puffins -- white-bellied and black-bellied puffins. Some people use the coloquial terms horned
and tufted tuffins. We took out the dinghy in the middle of the birds. I think they liked it.

Unimak, 7/27/08, by Bob

2008-07-31T03:06:00.003-07:00

We woke up to a view of Shishaldin Volcano and Isanotski Peaks. Shishaldin is a 9,372 feet high volcano. It's shaped like Mount
Fuji, and had a little steam coming out the top. Isanotski looks like the "after" photo of Shishaldin. It's a similar volcano with
its top blown off, and a really rough north side similar to Mount St. Helens. It's got some impressive icefalls down the side that
blew out.

We rounded Cape Pankof headed for False Pass and found a big shipwreck on the shore. It was steel, but pretty old. Big sections of
the hull were rusted clear through. It's name "Oduna" was next to the anchor chains.

Just around the cape there were mobs of dozens seagulls packed in tight bunches, apparently on top of schools of fish.

In the evening we made it to the thriving metropolis of False Pass. It's village at a narrow pass that separates Unimak Island from
the Alaska Peninsula. They call it False Pass because the north side is too shallow for a lot of ships. But there were quite a few
boats/ships coming through the pass. I wasn't sure whether we could have made it when I was thinking about coming in from the north,
but apparently we would have had no trouble.

We anchored along the shoreline near Kenmore Head. A couple of fishing boats were anchored not too far away. I think they had a
better spot, but we didn't blow away.

7/30/2008 by Melinda the Captain

2008-07-31T03:06:00.001-07:00

Final Update!!

We're on our merry way to Cold Bay where Josh and I will frightfully leave the Minnow in Bob's and Mike's hands.

We had an excellent couple of days full of sunshine, volcanoes, and puffins. We saw a steaming unknown volcano and an old, blasted
volcano. They were very pretty.

Yesterday was the ultimate adventure. We stopped at Amagat Island where we were bombarded by puffins in a foggy, windy madness. Bob
and I climbed to the top of a ridge and hid in the grass. Puffins barely missed our heads, zooming around at hypersonic speeds in
hypersonic winds. We spent 1+ hour trying to take a decent photo of a puffin. All of us have spent countless hours trying to take a
decent photograph of the quick little buggers since we arrived to Alaska. They're really shy.

The fog eventually blew off and we continued playing around on the little island in the sun.

But then tragedy struck and the wind blew out one of my contacts, which isn't all that big of a deal except it was my dominant eye
for taking any sort of photographs. Tragedy! So I asked my father for the kayak or a dinghy ride and we walked back to our landing
pad (which I'll point out here, was my father's choice of landing where he also warned about 8 foot tides).

What we found was a dinghy with seawater filled to the brim. We didn't have any buckets for bailing but we did have one kayak pump
and some waterproof gloves that I later found out weren't so waterproof.

We continued bailing as waves washed over us and back into the dinghy. Bob used the kayak pump, pumping water "accidentally" back
into the dinghy and in my face. We hurriedly pushed off once we had the water level low enough (it was too heavy to lift to empty,
plus too much swell) and set out with the paddles. The largest set of the waves washed over us as we frantically paddled around
rocks. I think we could've flipped if we really wanted to. Maybe I would've earned the $100 to push Bob into the water.

We finally started the motor and got back to the boat. I was drenched in my last pair of dry (not clean) clothes, which isn't a bad
way to end a trip.

I baked a lemon cake with chocolate pudding as a treat. The treat disappeared in less than 12 hours so I baked brownies a couple of
hours ago. Less than half the pan is left.

Everyone had a night of "Animal House" watching and computer geeking. Josh and I packed. Then something strange happened... Josh
went into the shower and 15 minutes later, a completely different person appeared. Josh was no where to be seen, which is pretty
impressive seeing how most people don't last even as long as he did around Bob. Now there's this clean-shaven guy running around in
bright yellow pants with long hair who speaks with a funny accent.

7/26/2008 by Melinda the Captain

2008-07-27T02:04:00.005-07:00

We're motor-sailing! We're on our way to Unimak Island, our very, very last big island of the Aleutian Chain…

We've had oodles and noodles of fun during the past few days. It all started at Fort Glenn where we tried to go through a pass
leading to Dutch Harbor. For once we timed the tides correctly and had no trouble going through. It was really neat coming in since
the Okmok volcano had turned the sky entirely black. The seas were calm. We took lots of photos. There were cows grazing – covered
in ash of course.

The ash started falling on us even though we were a good distance away. We accumulated enough ash in 30 minutes that it took over
five hours to wash it off.

It's day five since Okmok and I've finally stopped finding any in my eyes and ears.

We turned around after our dousing and tried Plan B: rip tides and passes at wrong tides.

So we retraced our sailtracks and motored through some really fun rip tides. They were much bigger than any other riptides I'd seen.
It reminded me much of Bob's bass boat driving on Grand Lake during the Fourth of July, but more acrobatic.

We survived.

The passes were no trouble at all as long as we paid attention.

We arrived at Dutch Harbor and found gazillions of fishing vessels and bald eagles. The sun broke out and we gained a new deckhand,
Mike (not the previous Mike, but a new one). He came bearing gifts of 2,000 metric tons of fruit and a heater. As expected, he was
readily accepted aboard.

We did a full day's worth of sight-seeing and grocery shopping and were soon back on the sea again.

The next day proved to be pretty spectacular once again. We found a cave!

But not just any cave… it had a huge opening towards the sea, two separate openings inside, and a skylight of an opening in the
middle. There were many, many common murres nesting on the cave walls, along with a random puffin or two. The two separate openings
cut through the rock to the other side of the hillside/mountain. Birds flew in, played in the water above the skylight, and then
flew over our heads to the sea. Meanwhile, waves crashed against the walls as Mike, Josh, Bob, and I thrashed around in the dinghy,
taking photos and holding on for dear life in case of a cave implosion.

It was really, really fun. We finally came out of the cave and went around the corner of the hillside/mountain. We found a new
opening to the cave, sped up, ducked our heads, and actually made it through to the other side! I think it was some sort of worm
hole.

We got back to the boat and continued motoring along just in time to spot 10-15 humpback whales feeding by Jackass Point (don't
worry, I got Bob's photo next to it).

We anchored at Tigalda Island last night, surrounded by rocks and seaweed teeming with wildlife. We ate fruit.

This morning everyone went for a kayak and saw countless sea otters, harbor seals, tufted puffins, glaucous-winged gulls, rock
sandpipers, red foxes, and cormorants. We ate fruit.

Now, we're watching "Battle of Britain" and eating fruit.

The end.

Tagalda, Aiktak, Ugamak, Unimak, 7/26/08, by Bob

2008-07-27T02:04:00.003-07:00

This morning we all kayaked. There were seals, sea otters, tons of puffins and other birds, foxes, and a few rhinocerus. I walked up
a hill. The place we anchored looked surreal with the rocks sticking up and masses of birds flying around.

Fullerton fished for crabs with panty hose and some meat, but he didn't catch any. I'm not going into details.

When we left we took the boat out to the sea lions and took pictures of them. Then we headed to Unimak Island via Aiktak and Ugamak.

Unimak Island is 58 miles long. It's separated from the Alaska Peninsula by less than a half mile of water. We plan to go through
that half mile in a day or two. It's got one town (False Pass, 54 people) and a half dozen or so volcanos. None are erupting, so
far. Shishaldin Volcano is over 9000 feet high.

We are anchored at Promontory Cove in 16 feet of water, the shallowest we've been since we got to the Aleutians. The wind is 6 knots
from the northeast. The outside air temparture is 51. The inside air temperature is 62. It's cloudy, but no rain or fog.

The water temperature is a balmy 50! That's the warmest we've seen for weeks. Yesterday and most of today the water temperature was
43 and 44. Maybe it's because we're in a relatively shallow bay with the rivers running into it. Or maybe we're past all the large
openings to the Bering Sea, and we're getting some warm water from down south as it runs west between Kodiak Island and the Alaska
Peninsula. Or maybe our thermometer broke.

The outdoor sensor started reading over 100 degrees after we hosed down the boat. Then it fixed itself tonight. It must have gotten
a little damp.

Unalaska, Unalga, Baby Islands, Akutan, Akun, Avatanak, Tigalda, 7/25/08, by Bob

2008-07-27T02:04:00.001-07:00

We headed out of Dutch Harbor with Josh at the top of the mast taking videos. He talked his way down after we hit a couple of small
waves. Our mast is 79 feet high, so it moves a bit with the waves. We were docked near a NOAA ship that was taller than our mast.

We had great weather, except for a little fog here and there. We left Unalaska Island to the east and passed Unalga Island on the
north. There were a lot of birds there. But when we got to Baby Islands just east of Unalga, there were several times as many birds.
There were thousands of puffins and other birds. The Baby Islands is a group of 5 islands, none longer than a mile.

From there we headed along the south side of Akutan Island. At Battery Point we found some big sea caves. We anchored and took the
dinghy into some caves, tunnels, etc. One of the tunnels we went through in the dinghy was over 100 yards long. One of the caves had
a collapsed roof, so it was actually a big hole in the mountain.

We found some humpback whales feeding near the east end of Akutan. They would splash the water sideways with their tails. They can
sure make a big splash!

We passed the south end of Akun Island with a lot of puffins, other birds, and rock formations. From there we went to Basalt Rock.
It's a really cool rock made out of basalt columns, except the columns are at all different angles.

Then we followed the north side of Avatanak Island to Tigalda Island and anchored near the northeast end of Tigalda. We anchored
close to a lot of big rocks or small islets. We could hear Sea Lions hollering on a rock about a mile away.

Dutch Harbor, July 24, 2008, by Bob

2008-07-27T02:03:00.002-07:00

I radioed Dutch Harbor when we were about an hour out, and they said that we could not only get fuel, but they had a place for us on
a dock. So we got some diesel and tied up to the dock with no major damage. They have a nice floating dock. We tracked down Mike
Fullerton at the hotel and suckered him into getting on the boat.

We drove around, bought some groceries, downloaded some email, dumped some trash, ate some food -- did everything but laundry. They
don't have a laundromat in Dutch Harbor.

Since we had access to water taps, we decided to hose the ash off the boat before we left. But it took about three times longer than
I expected, even with two hoses in operation. So we delayed leaving until the next morning.