Sail: All plain sail, reaching. Just after noon, up went the #1,
Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 131
Miles this leg: 5,076
Avg. Miles this leg: 124
Miles since departure: 22,050
We are nearing the top of the trades. Winds are veering more into the south and becoming lighter, which makes for a very comfortable, cruise-ship type ride. Things set on the counter aren’t immediately flung to the floor. I can ...
Motorboatin’ in the inner sounds gave us a chance to play with the camera exposure. Photo by James Austrums.
After our stressful night in Reine, the wind had eased off enough to let us get off the dock around 0900 the next morning. I had only gotten about 4 very fitful hours of sleep, but knew I could relax and nap once in open water. The gusts in the valleys were still touching 35 knots, but the lulls between them were longer and came more often. We removed all the extra dock lines we’d added prior, then made our ...
Early this afternoon Mo and I crossed the line at 152W and are now plying home waters–which is to say, the North Pacific–for the first time since we crossed to the south on November 20th of last year. Six months we have been in southern latitudes; alien, tempestuous, frigid, alluring, rich and wild ...
Wind has veered into the SE and lightened up a bit. Finally Aeolus’ idea of a practical joke aligns with mine. This is grand. Full sail; wind abeam; speeds consistently over 7 knots, and I can move about the deck, even to the mast, without getting a face and chest full ...
Jeanneau Owners in 2016 on the beach at Pirate’s Bight on Norman Island
If ever there was a year not to go to the British Virgin Islands (BVI), this year is it. Or is it? Yes, the BVI got trounced by Hurricane Irma back in September. Yes, there was a huge number of boats lost. And yes, many of the areas best known resorts such as The Bitter End Yacht Club and Peter Island Resort and Spa, have been forced to close their doors and sit out the season until repairs are made. Despite all this, the British Virgin ...
Sail: #2, one reef; Main, one reef, reaching/close reaching
Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 135
Miles this leg: 4,647
Avg. Miles this leg: 122
Miles since departure: 21,754
Two bits of news:
One, overnight we had a guest, a juvenile boobie (possibly redfooted). He attached himself to the dorade vent grab-bar above the pilot house at about sundown and went head-under-wing asleep. He was so invested in his snoozing that he never budged the ...
With a race that spans more than 45,000 nautical miles, there are many opportunities for snatching victory or having victory snatched from you and it comes down to consistency. Consistency when the wind is up and the boats are hitting blazing speeds, and consistency when the last puff fades within spitting distance of the finish line and steely nerves come into play. Those teams that are able to play at peak performance no matter what hand they are dealt are the ones that come out on top and there was no better example of this than the incredible performance turned ...
Totem cruises the Sea of Cortez; in about three weeks, we hauls at the Cabrales shipyard in Puerto Peñasco, a small harbor surrounded by the Sonora desert. Typically, boats can go a few years between haulouts. So why now – didn’t we just do this in Grenada, six or seven months ago? Yes, we did, and had an unpleasant surprise. This is the backstory, and what we’ll do about it in Peñasco.
At the time we hauled out in Grenada Totem had gotten nearly three years out of the bottom paint applied in Thailand. That’s a good lifespan for ablative! ...
On May 23rd Garmin shut down the old way of distributing ActiveCaptain (AC) data and turned on the new ActiveCaptain Community (ACC) servers. All the mobile apps, charting programs and MFDs programmed to work with AC stopped updating — and, in some cases, stopped showing AC points of interest (POIs) altogether — unless they had been newly modified for ACC. In the table below I’ve tried to show what’s going on, but you’ll see that the number of products currently able to display and edit ACC POIs is pretty small. Hopefully, more blue checks will soon be added, and that’s ...
For the most part, the boating season here on the Chesapeake Bay is pretty much toast. Oh, there are still a few boats running around and of course the diehard racers are still out there but for all practical purposes the season is over. Last week however, we had a nice stretch of indian summer with unseasonably warm temps in the mid-seventies, clear blue skies, and plenty of sunshine. This, along with the fall foliage being just about at its peak, served up the perfect conditions to head out onto ...
Sail: #2 jib full; main one reef, close reaching (double reefs in the afternoon)
Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 137
Miles this leg: 4,512
Avg. Miles this leg: 122
Miles since departure: 21,619
Aeolus is a trickster god, it should be admitted. On the 28th day, he created the The Trade Winds, saying, “Blow trade will these winds. Now go forth and multiply.” And they do blow trade. But ...
Trust me, this was way sketchier than it looks in the video! That breakwater isn’t far off Isbjorn’s bow…
“In the high latitudes, you’ll have a long stretch with no wind, and you kind of feel comfortable with it. But you really have to keep the ship in shape all the time and be prepared for the weather, and never let your guard down. And it’s so easy to let your guard down.”
-Maik Brotzmann, from Tuesday’s ‘On the Wind’ podcast episode.
I’ll say I’m pretty relaxed being at sea again after the other night, which was a reminder that ...
We are nearing the top of the trades. Winds are veering more into the south and becoming lighter, which makes for a very comfortable, cruise-ship type ride. Things set on the counter aren’t immediately flung to the floor. I can ...
Early this afternoon Mo and I crossed the line at 152W and are now plying home waters–which is to say, the North Pacific–for the first time since we crossed to the south on November 20th of last year. Six months we have been in southern latitudes; alien, tempestuous, frigid, alluring, rich and wild ...
Wind has veered into the SE and lightened up a bit. Finally Aeolus’ idea of a practical joke aligns with mine. This is grand. Full sail; wind abeam; speeds consistently over 7 knots, and I can move about the deck, even to the mast, without getting a face and chest full ...
Two bits of news:
Aeolus is a trickster god, it should be admitted. On the 28th day, he created the The Trade Winds, saying, “Blow trade will these winds. Now go forth and multiply.” And they do blow trade. But ...
