Paige, James, Pat and myself went up to Seattle last week and met up with Chad aboard the Oyster 82 Darling. I haven’t been to Seattle that I remember (I am sure I went as a kid) but unfortunately there was no time to hang around as we had a delivery to do so we went from the airport to the boat. Most pictures below are by Paige Brooks.

Before leaving the dock it was time for a safety briefing to orientate everyone to where safety equipment was and what we expected in a emergency situation.

In the lock to get out to the ocean from Lake Union no wiggle room!

Paige and I on Puget Sound with boats racing the monday night series behind.

This is the nav station on the boat.

On watch somewhere along the coast.

Chad with his catch.

Chad having filleted his tuna on the swim platform.

Whale spotting

Humpback whale waving hello with fishing vessel behind.

Another humpback whale – there were quite a few. It was great to see wildlife again as it has been very sterile the last few years I have been out there.

Fresh tuna served courtesy of Paige and Chad.

The galley aboard the boat where Chad and Paige made many delicous things.

We did a lot of  motoring downwind in light air sometimes with the jib and only a few hours with the main.

I will miss the open ocean…

Our last roll call as we approach the golden gate bridge with less than 50 miles to go. We are starting to see a lot of sea birds and clumps of kelp are going by. It has been a good trip and all the crew I got from the Pac Cup website have worked out really well. For one I know it is a lifetime experience that won’t be repeated, for another it is the start of his offshore career and for the other I think he will continue to look to do a trip like this every few years.

There is always a feeling of accomplishment no matter how many times you cross an ocean when you get to the destination with the boat intact, everyone in one piece and happy. This was my sixth crossing and definantly the most benign with the most amount of sleep and the least time spent motoring. I think the crew got what they wanted out of the trip including some spinnaker sailing for about 7 hours on Sunday in pretty perfect conditions. We had to catch Green Buffalo so we crept up nice and steadily so as not to cause a stampede! It is touch and go as to whether Ed or I will win the bottle of wine if we average 7 knots from here he has it by 45 minutes!

Through out these trips as I explained to my crew you go through differentmental states about the distance to go and the distance you have come. At some point you just get into a rhythm and really it doesn’t matter how much longer you are out there unless it is really miserable conditions. I was very much looking forward to being on land for more than 5 days until it dawned on me on Saturday night that I only had 4 (potentially 3) nights left as boat captain on the ocean for what is likely to be almost 20months. I will leave San Francisco on the 12th September and not come back till January 2012 and I leave the UK for South Georgia on the 18th November. While on this delivery I was sent an email with the dates – it will take 10 days from London to get to King Edward Point as I go by sea from the Falklands.

So stay tuned. The next few weeks of posts will be about my adventures trying to enjoy everything the US has to offer before heading to Europe. Then you will hear all about my training for going south and last but not least there will be a 13 months of posts from South Georgia.

So now time to enjoy my last partial night at sea hopefully there will be some stars out though I can’t hope for a moon. It is likely however, that we will be bucking the tide coming in the gate under a cloak of fog listening intently to VTS for incoming and outgoing traffic into the bay. Thanks for reading.

205 miles to the South Tower of the Golden Gate the breeze is up to 20 gusting 25. It has been like sailing in the UK today all gray, cloudy and rainy. Seas are coming from behind and from the north so we have a little cross sea. The compass we resealed is leaking again into the aft bunk! Oh well it is only one more night. Dinner was jazzed up noodle with carrots, pesto, onion and chicken breast.

Starting to see lots of signs of civilization in shipping traffic and when it wasn’t cloudy this morning lots of airplane contrails. We have pulled 6 miles ahead of Green Buffalo and were able to talk to them on VHF instead of SSB. We are under one reef and the number 4 and they have a full main and the working jib. Looks like it is going to get light about 70 miles ahead so it might come down to who has the most horsepower in their engine to displacement.

This is my last full night in the ocean for a long time and I am looking to enjoying it except my foulies decided to give up the ghost so I might get into Oliviers which he left aboard!

When I came up on deck yesterday at 11:45am we were socked in a fog bank with 15 knots of wind dead behind. Then the fog cleared but it stayed cloudy and it was time to hoist the spinnaker and give the crew a break from the boredom of the engine. The mood lifted when I yelled down to everyone to get up if they wanted a kite up. We changed to 3 hours on 3 hours off for the period the spinnaker was up. I taught Charlie how to wool the kite and I realised it was a good thing we were putting the kite up because it was still full of grass cuttings from the lawn at Kanehoe YC and still a little damp from when it had been washed.

So we crept up slowly on Green Buffalo making sure not to spook them and cause them to stampede! At roll call we were 60 miles south of them at 38 06 and 4 miles aft of them. Coyote is 60 miles directly on our stern so there is no chance of them catching us.

As the wind went forward we doused the kite making sure to keep it dry and went back to a more relaxed 1.5 on 4.5 off and the very familiar droning sound of the engine. So we are now under 300 miles to the dock at RYC and the crew is looking forward to it. The only other thing to report is that I got to wash my hair again yesterday – it really does make you feel more human!

Looking like Ed could be getting the bottle of red wine as we might be closer to his ETA then mine at the bridge! We could always throw a bucket over to slow us down..

Sorry Dee with the spinnaker going up it looks like an early morning arrival at the dock. Don’t worry I don’t expect to see you till a more reasonable time by which time we won’t be so smelly aboard!

Position is 38 10N 128 35W

Many jerries of fuel to be used!

Well we did that days ago it seems and are still motor sailing. Yesterday it cleared into a warm sunny day and after a beautiful sunset I thought we might get a night full of stars. 45 minutes into my first night watch the stars had been replaced with a blanket of cloud and when I came up for my second watch we were in damp dense fog.

Yesterday morning the wind shifted to the west which was not predicted by the grib files. I am not sure why I am surprised as the GRIB files haven’t made sense this whole trip! We keep on getting enticing wind reports from the boats ahead at roll call but by the time we get there there is nothing! I am pretty glad I loaded up with fuel at this point. We could actually motor all the way to the dock!

This is the first delivery back that I have done roll call and I have to say it is good for a few laughs each evening. Last night JP got on from Recividist asking if anyone was putting up their spinnakers. I said we didn’t have any left after the race but he should be totally fine seeing as he doublehanded over with his fiancee. He mentioned several times about wanting to get home – I thought come back to me when you have done 9000 miles in 2.5 months! He did the race over but was with his fiancee so basically that is like having all the comforts of home

The next laugh was when green buffalo asked if we had caught up with them yet. We have closed the gap and have been daily. Then he mentioned that Coyote, Buffalo and Rhum Boogie are all in the same harbor and it was a race to the showers. Well that is like putting a red flag to a bull with me I said well you have water line length (Buffalo is 40 feet and Coyote 42 feet) and your engine has more horsepower. He mentioned we had larger sail area to displacement – he has a point…. however, he has an autopilot and has hand steered only 3 hours of the trip so far where as we have hand steered 100% of the way. Anyways he said – I didn’t realise it was a race to the dock – at which point Doug off Delicate Balance said – are there more than two boats on the water! So now it is game on. My crew want to see the spinnaker so in the interest of education and to stop the ringing in our ears from the engine we might have a go for a few hours this afternoon with the big mother.

We have also decided there should be a delivery race back from these trips and the handicap should be decided by fuel used, number crew, autopilot hours, customer satisfaction (i.e. crew grading the skipper), water line length, fish caught etc. You get bonus points for rescuing sea creatures and demerits for needing outside assistance like Deception requiring a battery from Hula Girl.

Also we want to pass the Farallones at sun up on the 11th as there is no point in getting in in the middle of the night on the 10th/11th.

Position today is 38 10N 132 11W we have green buffalo off to port and coyote off to starboard so we are going to head them both off at the pass!

We continue to plod eastwards with less and less need for the engine which is nice. Today started with dismal weather but it has now cleared to blue seas and 50% cloud cover. The nights are colder with little moonlight and for the last three no stars as it is low visibility lots of cloud cover and the occasional shower. I am now wearing my fleecy undergarments. We are in the benign part of the trip where lots of reading gets done as well as sleeping and day dreaming. Some of the crew might actually start to enjoy it!

When you skipper these trips you are not only the person in charge of navigation, weather routing, provisioning, crew hirer but are also a phychologist and last but not least the biggest thing you are responsible for the safety or the boat and crew.

When I first started to do this the responsibility seemed to weigh on my shoulders a lot more. Maybe it is because I have come to these trips more prepared and are more aware of what can go wrong so I try to sort the problems out before they become a large issue or maybe it is because I am just more mature.

Either way I was trying to explain to Luke the other night about the sleeplessness of being skipper. When I am off watch my body is constantly alert very very rarely do I go into a deep sleep. I pretty much know what is going on around me at all times. I might be asleep but somehow my mind will register conversations going on around me and I will wake up if it is something that I need to sort out. The other night the guys on deck were reading down the compass number on the B and G and the guys down below were reading off the VHF COG and they were wondering why things were different. The heading I had given them was meant to be gaining latitude not losing it. The number on the port B and G read latitude so they should be able to figure out pretty easily if they are gaining latitude or not. It had been fine on my watch when I left deck 2 hours before so what was different. My mind decided I should get up and check to see if there was anything different stored in the aft bunk next to the gyro compass. I got out of my bunk and low and behold a tool kit had been moved when food was being accessed and it was nicely stored next to the compass. Upon removal the compass changed and the heading worked fine.

Every time the engine gets turned on or off or the rpms are changed I wake up (not fully eyes open) register this change feel the motion of the boat and decide whether I need to fully wake up or not. All this means that I need more sleep than the rest of the crew because what I am getting is not the same quality however, with the many little jobs this doesn’t happen. When I am off watch I might be downloading weather/emails, sorting out a boat job (like today resaling the main fine tune cleat so it doesn’t leak into the aft bunk), organising the food and putting out the days lunch, making dinner, bailing out the bilge, cleaning the head, participating in roll call the list goes on…

So the other night Luke turned on the engine then turned it off then called down and woke me for watch then turned on the engine then called down because I hadn’t got up. I was motified as being late on watch is the worse sin to commit on a boat and doing it as skipper shows a bad example. So I thought about why I had been late and it came down to this. I was asleep then woke when the engine was first turned on and mentally said to myself the wind has just died it is nothing to worry about. Then the engine was turned off and I felt the heel of the boat and woke and again told myself wind has got up go back to sleep then a few minutes later luke calls down I respond ok but don’t immediately sit upright (that is my mistake), I lay there for a few minutes not fully awake and then the engine goes back on and I think ‘nothing to worry about wind has died go back to sleep’ except I was meant to be on watch! Oh well I was up 8 minutes late so I got up 8 minutes early for my next one and it all works out in the end!

The sleep thing is a funny thing. The watch system we have right now of 1.5 on and 4.5 off is luxurious. The one my brother and I did round britain was 3 on 3 off. Oddly the more exhausted him and I became the more our minds started to play with us. Several times in the two last legs we would crawl into our bunks and sleep soundly for 45 minutes to an hour and then get up and start getting dressed. The person on deck would call down and say ‘what you doing up’ – ‘coming on watch’ – ‘you have another 1.5 hours off’ – ‘well why didn’t you tell me earlier’ – ‘well I thought you were using the head or something’ – ‘go back to sleep’!

Anyways we are under 700 miles to go and are at 38 10N 137 29W. See those of you in CA this time next week.

Lots of dried food stored aft..

No we aren’t drinking out here… but I always find that the day after a halfway party everyone is on a downer because they realise they have to do what they have done all over again. I have taught myself to mentally deal with it in a different way. For a start I see this trip as two seperate trips. The one from south to north and the one from west to east. If you look at it in that way then the day after the half way party you are starting a new trip which ends in getting home. The first part of the west east trip is a few days of motoring which we have now been doing for 36 hours so far. The second part is a reach home in cold wet conditions ending in the sight of the golden gate bridge.

Tonight we are jazzing up the rice a roni with a can of chicken breast and a jar of artichoke hearts. Without a refridgerator it gets hard to keep the dried starchy food interesting. Everyone starts to miss fresh veg even if they aren’t that big of a veg fan on land. I have my standard things that I crave it is always fresh sqeezed OJ, a chocolate milkshake, ice cream and a fillet mignon steak meal from Izzy’s!

Yesterday was a day of housekeeping we cleaned out the head, the cooler box and had a shower each cleaning our hair etc. I have learnt over the last 19 years of offshore how to have a complete bath using a liter of water including shaving my legs, under the arms and shampoo and conditioning of hair. I don’t do the salt water thing as I really do hate getting salt water on me. Charlie blissfully filled up several buckets with salt water and poured it over himself just like Olivier at the end of the race. Luke is being a typical student and is not having a shower and Ed is going for the fresh water in a bucket shaving his face type.

BTW Ed’s ETA is 10th at 10:12pm to be exact. So it looks like I am the pessimistic one either that or realistic having spent many years taking our ETA and then adding 12 hours to it and invariably it works out.

Our position is 37 57N 142 26W only 20 degrees to go to the east. Still not halfway east though as Hawaii is at 157W and SF is at 122W.

So this evening we had a little party at the same time as roll call. We are over half way now and have turned to CA motoring across the high on a heading just north of the golden gate. We are slowly working our way up to 38N only another 15 miles to go. Seeing as we have enough fuel range for 715 miles there aren’t any worries about running out of fuel.

So this evening we had a little party at the
We had a tapas evening with grilled eggplant, salami, cheese, crackers, balsalmic vinegar and oil, serrano ham, pita chips, flat bread with olive tapanade. This was washed down with crystal geyser lemonade. We put the engine into idle for the hour and let it cool down as it has been going since early this morning. The evenings meal was caramalised onion with hard salami chunks, browned corn added into mac and cheese. So as you can see we went all out for the party.

We filled up the tank for our overnight motoring and everyone has put in their ETA’s for going under the golden gate bridge as we have only 1075 miles to go.

Charlie – 10th August 11am
Luke – 10th August 8pm
Ashley – 11th August 9:30am
Ed – (has an hour and 50 minutes to put it in the ballet so check the blog tomorrow to see if he is a glass half full or empty type of guy!)

We also changed our clocks to PST so it is now 10pm and I am on watch in 2 hours.

So we are at the point that you seem to come to in every Pacific delivery. Do you suck it up and keep on heading to Alaska or Russia to get up to the ‘right’ latitude or do you go east towards California which is really where you want to go? Every time I have to basically strap myself in my bunk and resist the urge for just another day and never regret the decision.

Roll call has been full of discussion with people on the SSB literally pleading for the fleets ‘blessings’ for them to start heading east. The crew as always at this point in the trip is wanting to head east as they are seeing bearings of NNW and didn’t sign up for a trip to Alaska. The way I see it is there are several options but first you need to know where I am coming from.

I want to get home the quickest way possible. I am not into hanging around out here. My mother is in SF on the 13th and it would be great to see her. Charlie’s wife’s birthday is on the 13th and he would love to get there for it (though the jury is out as to whether after how ever many years of marriage it is she wants to see him!). By the end of this trip I would have clocked up over 8000 miles since May 31st on 30 foot boats and as the guy said on the radio from the tanker – that is the smallest boat I have seen in the middle of the pacific! I also did 2500 miles on an icebreaker in the southern ocean so this year hasbeen a lot about water. Also I get paid by the trip not the day so the quicker I do it the higher the profit but then again there is the fact that my clients are my friends and I don’t want to blemish my record of returning boats with no damage in better condition than when I got them. I can’t blame the sailing for it but my boyfriend dumped me by email last week so you can see where I am coming from. Home sounds good right about now.

So that being said what is the best way to get home safely, with no damage and fast. It really comes down to a compromise. I have a lot of fuel 70g to be precise, a boat that does 5 knots in 10 knots of wind, grib files, a barometer (which although not reading the right mb shows me trends) and boats all around reporting to me daily with wind direction and speed.

From PassageWeather.com (North Pacific > California to Hawaii)

I don’t see the grib files as being all that helpful as one of the boats north and east of us said they are finding it hard to find a correlation between what they are seeing on the water and the grib files. The pressure is rising and the wind speed dropping so we are getting closer to the high and that is what roll call is also telling us.

My options are as follows:
1) Turn now and head east looking for the northerly that is being reported at 144 and hope that lifts me enough to get to 38N before I get to the compressed winds on the coast. IF it doesn’t than I will be beating into a northerly from the south on the coast causing postential damage to the baot and making life uncomfortable for the crew. The upside to this is potentially no motoring as I should be in more wind.

2) Play the shifts going onto starboard tack if we are losing latitude on port tack and work our way east in the band of pressure on the south part of the high. Motor when necessary on a heading that will get me to 38N by 144W (as that is where according to roll call everyone is seeing northerly winds)

3) Motor into 10 knots of wind on the nose and go exactly where I want to – actually I don’t see is as that much of an option on this boat but it would be on a larger one. On this one I would just be ‘pissing fuel into the wind’ and not really getting anywhere and would have a crew mutiny as it isn’t much fun motoring for days on end.

Last night at 1:30 HST we tacked onto port after almost 9 days on starboard. Although a benign 15 knots things went flying across the cabin as we have been living life on the other slant and things that were stowed fine have to be found a new home. We carried that tack until 4:30am HST this morning when we were losing latitude and so we tacked back to starboard. We will keep playing this game working our way east motoring when our speed drops below 5knots. We will motor not direct at SF but to 38N 144W and then reassess when we get roll call information.

Now to the title of the blog and what it has to do with anything out here. The options are like this:

1) Having been married for many years and at some points in the marriage you have compromised and gone in a direction you don’t want to (i.e. North and NNW) you decide that the grass is greener on the other side and you get a young mistress. So you head off east with this mistress and it is all really great you feel younger and life seems to be good. Life seems to get even better for you as you get lifted (looks like you are getting away with it and your wife hasn’t found out yet) but then eventually you get caught by your long suffering wife and divorce proceedings start (you get to the compressed air on the coast and are below SF). Your mistress now starts to become very high maintenance in fact a lot more maintenance than your ex wife to be was so combining that with the divorce proceedings you lose half you assets at least and get pretty beaten up (you end up beating up the california coast in big seas and lots of wind).

2) Having been married for many years you have learnt to compromise and at some points in your marriage it is like having a young mistress and you head off east not losing any latitude and life is really good. But every now and again you get a header (you lose to the south on port tack) but because you realise you have a great wife you tack and head back in the direction you don’t really want to go because life without her and retirement without her doesn’t look that great. Every now and again you decide between the two of you to spend some of the hard earned cash you have saved up and both go in the direction you want to go in (right at the Golden gate with the motor on full speed ahead) and life is a holiday. But remember retirement accounts are finite (only 70g fuel) and you can get too much of a good thing (get really bored by the sound of the engine!).

We are now starting to feel the chill at 37N and are starting to wear socks and sea boots but there are at least 9 days left of sailing and with the sun high in the sky it is sure to be pleasant during the day.

It is now time for me to get some sleep as the engine purrs away we are at 37 35N 146 20W heading for 38N 144W.