Month: July 2018

Week Four
It’s more of a philosophical than practical entry from me this week (you get a lot of time to think and reflect on a journey such as this). We experienced what’s known as being ‘becalmed’ earlier in the week. I’d known about it, knew what it meant, and even looked forward to it because it would allow me to move around more freely after the turbulence that had restricted mobility. What I hadn’t bargained on was how demoralising it was. It was quiet, almost flat calm, there was no wind and no movement forward – well so little as to be negligible in my view. I spend a fair bit of time while on watch, looking at the screens in front of me with the various ETA and TTG (time to go) predictions and had got used to seeing 24th or 25th July as the expected arrival date. To see it displayed as the middle of August, or beginning of September as we moved slowly, or in some instances stopped altogether, was dispiriting to say the least. The course line went from a neat ‘as the seabird flies’ straight line to a higgledy piggledy wiggle. We have to use the engine sparingly to save fuel, and the sails, protesting at the lack of wind began clanging and flapping and banging above – these the only noises breaking the eerie silence outside. After a while it felt akin to being stuck in a traffic jam whilst the outside of the vehicle was being pounded with sticks. When I asked Paul if this state could go on for a prolonged period, he said it was all just part and parcel of a sea passage – or words to that effect (at least he didn’t tell me worse things happen ;-)). I took it as a ‘yes’ anyway, so I went to bed thinking we might be at sea for weeks longer, and I have to admit that the prospect didn’t cheer me. That’s not to say I’ve been discontented – far from it. I think impatience is a more apt word for the trait that had made me so despondent. The fact that my wine supply was running low had nothing to do with it; it’s simply that I’m eager to get there, and the windless calm had impeded our progress.
The following morning (Tuesday 17th), after talking more about it with Paul, I realised the situation wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I’d forgotten that we’d covered so many miles in the early stages of the trip, that in the overall scheme of things we were still on track to arrive during the third week of July. The wind was predicted to return, and we’d probably only lose half a day or a day at most. For the rest of that day we made little progress but I felt reassured and more positive. It got me thinking about the difference in our attitudes and how our optimist/pessimist outlooks have a bearing on how we deal with certain situations. I’ve watched Paul fix pretty much every breakage, overcome each difficulty and think through problems with logic and patience until he finds a solution. I, on the other hand, tend to give up at the first hurdle or assume something is unachievable and don’t bother trying. My reaction to the technical problems we’ve been having is a case in point. The iPad hadn’t been performing as it should since it fell from Paul’s lap onto concrete while we were in Japan. A repair at the Apple Store hasn’t lived up to expectations and it soon became apparent that merely touching it would cause screens to appear or disappear randomly, while emails would vanish with an unprompted swipe of a screen. I found this infuriating and saw it as another ‘thing’ stacked up to make life difficult – along with the facts that most of our phone chargers stopped working and the clock broke. Small irritations I know but frustrating nonetheless. Paul got round these problem by taking screenshots and setting up a system whereby we can transfer text via notepad on the laptop when we send emails, took the clock apart and fixed it and as for the chargers: I should have known there would be bag of (new) spare ones on board. I’m still disgruntled about the emails though.
So we were indeed, as in Coleridge’s poem ‘as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean’ with no birds, sea life or other vessels nearby. I thought about the beginning of Jonathan Raban’s book ‘Passage to Juneau’ where he ponders ‘the peculiar attraction that draws people to put themselves afloat in the deep, dark, indifferent, cold and frightening sea’. I had asked Paul this question recently, although not in such lofty language. He hardly needed to consider his answer. This ocean passage is something he has always wanted and intended to do. Despite the lack of whales, he told me a few days ago that he is making the most of every part of it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’ve watched him working out the weather and wind predictions, study charts, plan routes and much more, relishing the challenges they present. Clearly for him, it’s the ‘getting there’ part that appeals: the knowledge that his skills and expertise will transport us over 4,000 miles across a vast, potentially dangerous expanse of water. For me, lacking those skills but not the desire to do the trip, it’s more about destinations. It’s hard to beat the thrill of anticipation and sense of privilege when you arrive at a place by boat, especially after long passages. Watching the coastline of a new town, city or country get closer and knowing you’ll be exploring new environs in a few hours by merely stepping off the deck just doesn’t compare with all the hassles involved with arriving by plane. Remembering this was enough to chase away any remaining blues about our stationary state, and sure enough we were speeding along again by mid morning on Wednesday.
Raban’s book promises to be of practical use to us as well as an enlightening read about the sea in general and the area we’re heading for in particular. I’ve made notes of the places he visited on his journey in the late 90s so that we can compare changes and look for landmarks he describes. The subtitle of his book is ‘A Sea and Its Meanings’. For me, writing about the sea and often struggling to find words to describe its state, it has been interesting to read the adjectives he chooses (lumpy, bouncy, wavelets, wave-trough to name but a few), and fascinating to learn that the motion of a ship in a seaway has six components, which are known as the six degrees of freedom. These are; pitch, roll, sway, heave, surge and yaw. I could identify with his claim that his boat took every one on the menu at the same time during one heavy weather period -that is the state I term bucking bronco and it should surely be the seventh degree on the list. I think for the duration of the passage (about a week left as I type) I shall adopt the philosophy of an elderly French wheat farmer whom Raban meets on his travels. On the subject of weather predictions and forecasts, he tells Raban, ‘I expect nothing. So I am never disappointed’.
Aside from all the introspection, life onboard carries on pleasantly enough with the daily pastimes of watches, Scrabble (7 games in a row for me now), cooking, reading, writing, listening to music and sleeping. Meals last week included Spanish Tortilla made with potatoes, onions and eggs with the last of the fresh salad, a Spinach and Courgette Risotto (packet mix) with roasted mediterranean vegetables, and Spaghetti with meat-free bolognese sauce. I also managed to put together a ’roast’ dinner (breast of chicken for Paul, nutroast for me) complete with stuffing and gravy and fresh vegetables. We had this on a night when the motion allowed for meals on plates as opposed to high-sided bowls. Yesterday (the 19th) we added two hours to the clock to bring us in line with the Alaskan time zone. It wasn’t a straightforward action, due to confusion arising from daylight saving time and for a while, time was literally all over the place as I altered my iPhone clock from one zone to another. It was a most disconcerting feeling, especially while trying to check the times in the UK and Italy at the same time. It made me realise how much of a factor the ‘time’ is for me, even out here where it doesn’t matter as much. Years of keeping to time-regulated routines for work and home life are hard habits to break it seems.
I’ve ventured outside a couple of times to help Paul with the sails. Once, he had to go halfway up the mast while I stood poised below to pull the mainsail as he unjammed it. It made me dizzy looking up at him, and even more so when the boat heeled from side-to-side and he only had one hand gripping the mast! The second time was to steer head to wind so that he could put a reef in the main sail. Even with a coat, scarf, leggings etc it was perishing cold out there. I was glad to get back inside to thaw my hands. It will be nice to be in the cockpit, or stand on the deck again…once the weather warms up. Maybe next week sometime, and maybe we’ll even see some whales. But I’m expecting nothing! 🙂
Kathy

Day 31, Fri 20th July. 51-39N, 145-58W. Daily Run: 121 NM. Weather: 8-12 Knots ESE, Sunny and cold, 680 NM to go
The barometer is reading 1034mb which is as high as I have ever seen it go, this is because of the pacific high. We are crossing it to the north right now, and despite the wide spacing of the 4mb isobars here, indicating low wind, we are seeing around 10 knots most of the time and a very calm sea. Consequently it’s lovely sailing, we are gliding along at around 5-6 knots with a full set of sails up. This morning we hit a pocket of still air and drifted north for an hour, I started the engine to push us on a bit, in the hope wind would arrive, and also to get some hot water made for the shower, then just an hour later the wind returned and we have had a lovely calm sail since.
Yesterday I repaired the homocidal genoa sheet car/block. It used a special bolt/screw to keep it all together, basically it is a piece of studding 1” long and maybe 1/4” diameter, with an imperial thread, and no head, but a hex recess in the end for an allen key, I suppose thinking about it, it’s a very long grub screw. This had somehow left the block and fled overboard. My skills don’t extend to fabricating one of these, but I did find a bolt I could cut down to size, and once fitted I filled the head down so it wouldn’t chafe the sheet, that’s the theory anyway. However fitting it all back together presented another problem, as the base of the car , a substantial steel moulding had been bent by the forces acting on it so that the holes no longer aligned for the steel rod that the block is fixed to. Out came the heavy tools to bash it back to shape, and now it’s all together and should be good for some time. I will replace it as soon as I can though.
That was about the total of my activities yesterday, I have given up trying to understand the weather forecasts, The detail on the current situation is always quite accurate when I download the forecasts, but never what they said it would be 12 hours prior. I just tend to go for the bigger picture now, we will follow this high, heading mostly easterly now. And as we go east the wind should veer , we gan gybe, and head directly to the North of Vancouver Island, we may well be becalmed for a day or two over the next few days, but by early next week we should be on the home run proper, hopefully this is our last Friday at sea.
All other systems are running fine, we are getting more sunshine now and the batteries are getting their full charge before midday.
Paul Collister

Day 30, Thur 19th July. 51-27N, 149-14W. Daily Run: 117 NM. Weather: 10-15 Knots ESE, Sunny and cold, 802 NM to go
The forecast had the winds slowly picking up a little to ten knots or so then dying, however yesterday they quickly picked up to ten knots, and we were soon making great progress, I had a sleep late afternoon and while asleep they climbed up to 15-20 knots, I woke to find the boat heeling a lot and given that we had the full main up and the genoa was fully unfurled, we were way over canvassed.
I tried to get the genoa in but the force of the wind was too great, even using the winch on the furling line. So we went up closer to the wind and I let the sail flap more to take the strain off the forestay/furler. It was then I noticed that the block (pulley) on the genoa track had come loose again and was flying around up and down the sheet. Also because of this the angle that the sheet led onto the winch was all wrong, it was approaching the winch from above, not at right angles, making it very hard to use the winch. In trying to get the sheet a little looser, the wind caught it and several metres flew out. This was quite worrying now as I had a steel block, the size of a fist, acting like an angry one too, flying around just near me and the cockpit. On top of that the sheet was acting like a circus mans whip, with hoops flying back and forward down the side of the coachroof. All in all quite a dangerous situation, and one that certainly ‘could have had your eye out’ 😉 . Kathy pointed out later that it had smashed it’s way through the plastic window on the spray dodger making quite a mess. I managed to catch the block on one fly by and brought it down to the winch, I then had to get it around the winch and onto the safe part of the sheet, where I was able to get Kathy to remove it, I still had to deal with the massive genoa flapping like crazy and the flailing sheet. On top of this I noticed the steel pin that holds the block to the track was on the side deck heading for the scupper (Drain over the side), I really didn’t want to lose this, but couldn’t go near it with the sheet so dangerous. With the sail so far out now, I was able to winch it in and when it was starting to come under control, I could see the pin was just halfway out of the scupper, so I jumped forward and grabbed it just in time. The genoa was then almost fully furled, I ran out of furling line again, this always happens when I use the winch. Then we went head to wind and dropped the main enough to allow one reef in, back up with the main, staysail out and then off we went into the night to enjoy a great sail for the next 12 hours . The whole exercise, that could have turned out quite nasty, really does emphasise the point of always reefing early. The genoa doesn’t come much further aft than the mast, but this is a cutter rig, I think on a Bermudan sloop rig the same genoa would be more like 140%, either way, in 20 knots of wind, the forces it creates are quite something.
During the night the wind dropped a little to around 10-15 knots, and continues to drop slowly, however it was meant to veer and has not changed direction at all, this means we are having to go further north than I first planed, we are now further north than our destination, but that’s ok, as it takes us above the centre of the high pressure, so we should make up for the extra distance by having better winds.
We tried to put the clocks forward an hour today, but we couldn’t find a time zone that fitted our location, eventually I realised that we should be in Anchorage Alaska time zone, as this is about how far west we are. The problem I hadn’t anticipated is that somewhere between Japan and here, Daylight savings time kicked in. They don’t have this in Malaysia or Japan, so we have been on ‘Winter time’ up until now. So to go onto Alaska local time meant putting the clock forward by two hours. hence this blog is being written 2 hours early and our daily run is for a 22 hour day. I’m also struggling to fit lunch in having just finished breakfast 😉 I think we need one more time shift of an hour to get us onto PDT.
Supplies are getting perilously low on board now, Kathy is not going to have any wine to declare to customs on arrival (she does have some emergency Saki) and I’m down to my last two bags of mini kit-hats, before I move onto rationing the Orios.
Now it’s back on deck to shake out the reef and repair the broken sheet block.
Paul Collister

Day 29, Wed 18th July. 50-37N, 151-55W. Daily Run: 68 NM. Weather: 5-10 Knots SE, Sunny and cold, 911 NM to go
The wind was meant to pick up a little in the night but it didn’t. So we spent the last 24 hours basically drifting around, in roughly a north easterly direction. The sea was very calm, but otherwise it was quite grey and cold. The Pacific high has taken a dislike to us and seems to be heading north and will park itself right between us and our destination in a few days time. The picture I didn’t send yesterday shows this. I forgot to attach the picture, but after I retried to send it the server told me it was too large to send over the link. I spent some time reducing it’s size to about 40K, but the server said it was still 100K, I think that might be due to mime encoding? So this morning the sun is shining, the sea is very calm, and while I sat in the cockpit drinking my morning coffee the wind just picked up, strangely from the SE, which isn’t in the forecast at all, so as soon as I finished my coffee, back up went the main, down with the spinnaker pole (Sounds like a revolutionary chant), and out with the genoa. We are close reaching now making 5-6 knots in an ENE direction. I’m going a little north of the high, and will review if we can sail through it over the next couple of days, we have a choice of drifting slowly through, which could take 3-4 days, or going right up north to Alaska, possibly to Kodiak, then following the coast all the way down to Seattle, that’s quite appealing.
The calm weather is allowing me to do a few jobs, when I came to lower the mainsail yesterday, on account of there being no wind, but enough swell to have the main slopping in and out, I found it jammed halfway down. I think I already mentioned my repair to the slide on the mainsail headboard, and how it only affected putting the sail up, well think again Paul. The lack of a slide at the top had caused the next slide to jam in the track. So up the mast I went. Kathy wasn’t happy with this, I wasn’t mad either as with the mainsail still being halfway up I had to climb the mast from the forward/bow side, which isn’t as easy to get onto, and has many obstacles like the spiniker pole, radar reflector and radar itself. Still it was ok until some large swell came along while I was at the top of the sail. All I can say is my grip reflexes work well. With a bit of jiggling at the top of the sail, and Kathy tugging at the bottom, the sail suddenly came free and fell down the mast into the boom bag. 
Later I repaired the slide, and this time I filed the metal headboard slot so it was a round edge where the slide attaches and hopefully this will stop it cutting the tape that secures it to the slide. I also replaced my patches on the batten pockets that had worn through, they seem to have stopped any more damage to the mainsail, along with the water pipe insulation tubes I have stuck onto the shrouds. So all in all, the boat is back to fully functional again.
Today is lovely and sunny, we are pushing along in a calm sea making good speed towards Canada, and I have said to Kathy that if we get becalmed, as likely, in the high, then we can make good use of the time to clean the boat, get the decks brilliant white, the stainless shiny and I might do some varnishing, the boat needs some attention. I’m not sure Kathy is fully onboard (no pun intended) with this plan yet.
Two weeks ago we stopped taking forecasts from Japan and moved over to Honolulu, now we have moved to PT Reyes, California, who produce excellent surface pressure charts and forecasts for this area.
The distance to go has moved down a lot, and is now close to 910 NM, this is mostly due to changing our destination to the top of Vancouver Island, Canada.
Paul Collister

Day 28, Tue 17th July. 50-16N, 153-38W. Daily Run: 33 NM. Weather: 0-3 Knots N, becalmed, grey skies. 1188 NM to go
The Pacific high has moved a little north and split into two separate highs, and although we are near the top of the eastern high, a ridge has formed right where we are and has caused the winds to drop to next to nothing. Once we get past the ridge which will take a day or two, we have decent winds for another couple of days, but by then the high will have moved further north and we will be faced with crossing through the centre of it, which again means no wind. Once past the high, we can expect strong winds from the North/Northwest, maybe 25 knots and big waves, which will send us tearing on down to Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Sound. I have attached a picture with the cross showing our location at the time.
As a result of the above, we spent most of last night drifting around with no specific direction. Fortunately the current is east going so for many hours we drifted towards California. Around 5 AM the wind picked up to 5 knots and we were able to get back on our NE course for a few hours, but it has since dropped back to zilch, hence our dismal daily run of 33 miles.
The sea is very calm, so at least the sails aren’t flogging themselves to death. We can’t motor out of this situation as we don’t have the fuel. We may have 24-48 hours of fuel left, but that won’t get us through all the expected calms so there isn’t much point. Also it’s no big deal just drifting around. I deliberately used most of the fuel in the calms we experienced off Japan, as I wanted to get us away from the typhoon area just as quickly as possible. Here we have little to worry about in the way of storms at this time of year. Also the fuel is better used for heating, it’s quite cold out here.
Kathy is keen to get to our destination now, but I’m thinking I probably won’t sail the N Pacific again, so what’s the rush. She did take advantage of the calm to bake another couple of wonderful loaves, and after a bit of drama over whether or not the proving was working, it’s not like Malaysia where you can just leave the bread out to prove, they turned out to be the best yet. Each morning we have fresh coffee made in our cafetiere and toast using the freshly baked bread, quite civilised really.
Paul Collister

Day 27, Mon 16th July. 49-46N, 155-12W. Daily Run: 110 NM. Weather: 0-6 Knots N, Calm and dry. 1252 NM to go
We are not becalmed, but if the wind drops anymore we will be, right now the wind has dropped to about 3-6 knots, and we are drifting along making about 4-5 knots, which is not bad considering how still it feels. Right now the sea is very calm, and predicted to get calmer. A calm sea helps a lot as the sails stay filled and power us along nicely. I have taken the reef out of the mainsail, so for the first time on this passage we have the whole sail out. Normally at this point I would fire up the engine to push us along a little, but fuel supplies mean that’s not an option. Later on today I will put 20 litres of my reserve 40 Litres into the main tank, mostly to use as heating fuel.
My idea to fix the wind vane chain with fishing line was modified when I realised that monel wire would do a better job, and I have plenty of that. Monel is a metal, I’m not sure which one, or what compound, but it doesn’t corrode or react with other metals much. I mostly use it for tying off shackle pins so they won’t vibrate loose, particularly on the anchor chain attachments. The repair worked a treat and we have been back on the wind vane for 24 hours and it’s coping very well, despite the lack of wind.
The iPad is acting like it’s possessed now, using it is a race against the invisible finger that keeps pressing buttons before you. Receiving an email requires me to do a screen capture of it immediately, before the phantom finger sends it off somewhere like the deleted folder. We have a backup system for emails, but that is on the android phone that caught fire. A third backup on the old iPad is an option, but that has about 1/3rd of the screen not accepting input, so you have to constantly keep rotating it to get the letters you need to work on the keyboard displayed on the working segment of the screen. It’s too old to have airdrop, so we can’t compose them on the mac and send them over as we did before. For some reason I didn’t put the iridium software on my iPhone, which is a shame. Kathy isn’t very impressed with the rate of failure on the handheld devices. I tried to explain it’s a harsh environment out here, but that didn’t wash.
I had another chat on the Ham Radio last night to Albert, a VE7 guy in Vancouver, he seemed to be copying our signal without problem, I told him we were sailing to Canada, close to Vancouver from Japan. He said “Wow, thats a long way, that must be taking a week to do” If only! The nice thing was he told us it’s really hot 30 deg C in Vancouver. He then tried to tell me about dealing with such heat, and the problems, I didn’t mention I have just had a couple of years in Malaysia, and 30 deg is no big deal.
The block on the Dutchman I use to tension it broke, or at least the clam cleats that are part of it. I have affected a repair that works, but I don’t have spare clam cleats of the right size. Nothing else is broken so all in all the boats in great shape. A few ships passed us by, all cargo ships plying there way between USA/Mexico and China/Hong Kong.
We are now about 3/4 of the way to our destination, we were getting estimates of 7-9 days before the wind dropped, more like 12 days now, but I’m hoping the wind will pick up a little as we head north of the high, and as the high moves south. We might even get some sunshine in a day or two. I have predicted that next weekend will be our last at sea for a while.
Paul Collister

Day 25, Sun 15th July. 49-15N, 157-49W. Daily Run: 137 NM. Weather: 10-20 Knots W, Cold to go
A bit of a blow in the night, but mostly lightish winds, 8-12 knots from astern. I spent a fair bit of the last 24 hours keeping the mainsail happy, with gybing back and forth as the wind wobbled around. Looking at the charts, it’s hopefully straightforward now, we just follow the high pressure system around to the mainland. At the moment, it looks like the ‘high’ is staying quite far north, so we need to go further north to benefit from it and not get stalled near it’s centre. This means we approach Seattle from the North and as such I think we willl make landfall in Canada. Right now I’m looking at Bull Harbour as our first stop, an Indian Reserve that is well sheltered and has a dock and moorings available.
The main event for me was doing a gybe this morning, I hadn’t payed enough attention to the genoa, which wasn’t furled properly from some point in the night. It’s impossible to see the genoa from the cockpit when the main is up, and impossible at night as it’s so dark, but the end result was that as I went to let the genoa out some after the gybe, it wrapped around itself tying a knot in itself around the foresatay. Much as a spinnaker does all the time. This is a terrible situation, as it means the sail is sort of out, and flapping a lot, but not doing any good. eventually you have to take a knife to the sail if you can’t unwrap it. Pulling on the furling line or the sheets tends to make the situation worse, the best way I believe to fix this is to reverse the sequence of events that caused it, so you need to take the sail back through the wind, and hope for a gust to undo the knot. All the time the wind is flapping the sail and tightening the knot. Annoyingly for me, I had to undo the preventer and dutchman I had just set up after the gybe to get the main back safely to midships, get the autohelm running, start the engine and take the boat through a series of turns into the wind to try and coax the sail out. I was about to give up, as everything I was trying seemed not to work, when suddenly the sail started to unravel, then with a whack, it was out and full of wind. So then back to the planed course, sails trimmed, auto helm on, preventer back on, dutchman re-tensioned and away we go. The whole procedure took nearly an hour, however it only felt like 15 minutes to me.
I’m back on the electric autohelm now as the chain I repaired on the Monitor self steering vane packed in last night, We went wildly off course and almost gybed, however the main auto helm was able to take over, despite using loads of power. So thats a job for today, I have a cunning plan, that involves making a chain link out of fishing line.
While on deck this morning I found the other half of the shackle I found yesterday. So that’s nice, when whatever it was holding together flies apart I will have a shackle to put back in it.
Kathy is now 5 games in the lead on scrabble, but I intend to put a stop to her runaway success today!
The boat has been rolling badly for a few days now, so Kathy has postponed the bread making. I’m counting the chocolate bars alongside the days left, I’m not panicking yet, I presume they have chocolate in Canada.
Paul Collister.

Day 25, Sat 14th July. 48-34N, 161-06W. Daily Run: 155 NM. Weather: 15 Knots W, Cold but Sunny. 1494 NM to go
A great sail over the last 24 hours, the winds picked up to 25 knots and we were flying, of course the waves followed suit and now the wind has dropped back to 15 knots, the waves are still up there. We managed a good daily run of 155 miles, using just the main with one reef and the staysail for most of the run.
The iPad is playing up now, the screen repair I had done in Osaka seems to have failed as the device is generating random screen touches when you hold it. It’s ok if you keep it flat on a surface, but that’s a pain itself a with all the rolling, it keeps changing orientation like that. Sadly a sequence of keystrokes it generated went along the lines of select inbox, delete all, select trash, delete all. Un f** ing believable. I watched it delete all our emails in a split second. To be fair to the shop, they did say that the frame was distorted when I dropped it and they couldn’t guarantee the repair. I’m not buying a new one, not unless Apple are going to take care of my pension plan, seeing as they are taking all my pension funds in keeping their devices going. I gather the iPhone 7 onwards is waterproof, but probably not drop proof. I managed to read the latest emails, and I compose the blog on my MacBook and then airdrop it to the iPad for transmission, so lets hope that works, otherwise blog posts might get thin on the ground.
In other new, my morning inspection of the boat revealed a shackle pin sitting on the side deck. This means there is a shackle that has parted somewhere on the boat, but I can’t find it. I expect it will let me know where it is at some point 🙁
The wind vane has been steering us now for several days, it’s doing a good job, and worked well during the very strong winds last night.
For the radio hams out there, I heard a W2/7 New York old timer in California calling for DX (long distance or rare contacts) last night on 20m, I gave him a shout and had a nice chat, lots of QSB on my signal but he was strong. I think I have problems with my rig here though as he complained of awful audio and I can see the lights on the display dim terribly when I talk, so I think the supply wiring needs attention. Still it was good to know the SSB works at some level. I heard quite a lot of west coast hams in the afternoon.
We are making a steady 7 knots now, and the TTG (Time to go) display is moving between 7 and 9 days for ETA, which is nice.
This morning sw the end of Kathy’s bread, it made wonderful toast, and now we need the sea to calm down so she can bake some more. It’s one of the things we are really looking forward to in the USA and Canada, some real, sugar free, decent heavy brown/wholemeal bread. something that is hard to get in Asia.
The only job I have on today is to put some anti chafe on the starboard shrouds then do a gybe to starboard, I got some onto the port shrouds yesterday and it seems to work well. however my temporary patches seem to be wearing thin now. I remember reading that if you plan to sail your boat back to the UK/Europe from the Caribbean after doing the milk run, as they call it, you should allow about £1000 for wear and tear. This journey is twice that distance, so I presume I should expect to pay a fair bit. So far I think a few hundred pounds in a sail loft should sort out the batten pockets, and a few hundred pounds more for all the sheets and other lines that have chafed. A new iPad could come under wear and tear I suppose?
The recent days have blurred into each other now, today follows the same pattern, with bigger winds expected tonight. However we can see we are on the home strait now, I’m hoping it’s fairly straightforward for the next 1500 miles.
Paul Collister

Day 24, Fri 13th July. 48-12N, 164-50W. Daily Run: 130 NM. Weather: 10 Knots W, Cold & Grey. 1644 NM to go
The wind subsided a bit overnight, now it’s more gentle at around 10 knots, we have changed course to head east as that looks best from a long and short term perspective. Taking the rhumb line (direct route on the chart, but further than the great circle route), will get us better winds I hope.
Other than that, not a lot has happened, all systems trundling along just fine, with the exception of the block/car for the port Genoa sheet, which I found in bits this morning when I had a look around. I think it has rattled itself apart, with one of the pins heading over the side. I have cobbled together a repair which should be good. I’m learning a lot about equipping a boat for long offshore passages, despite the fact I probably won’t ever do one this long again. We We are getting low on diesel now, the heater uses a fair bit, we have 50 litres (ish) in the tank, and 40 on deck. So we are rationing the heating, and not running the engine unless essential. In retrospect I would have liked to have loaded another 60 litres on board in Japan, but it’s too late for that now. I intend to fit a fuel flow rate meter at some point so I can monitor usage better and work out the optimum revs for speed/consumption. We should be fine, just less lounging around in the cabin in t-shirts and shorts 😉
We adjusted the clocks again today, having travelled another 15 degrees East. We are now on Honolulu time, which is 10 hours before GMT/UTC. Our daily run would have been 136 NM before that change, which isn’t too bad.
If you have read Kathy’s blog entry yesterday, you will see she has modestly pointed out her slim victory in scrabble.
Paul Collister

Week Three (plus one day)
A series of notable events occurred during the course of this week. One of these is that this is the longest period either of us has been at sea at any one time. Our Atlantic crossing way back in 2006 took us three weeks. We’re on our 23rd day of this passage now, which leads me neatly on to one of the other events: the international dateline. On the afternoon of Sunday 8th July we crossed this ‘time border’ created by man long ago, and it’s confused me ever since. One minute it was 2pm on Sunday, and the next it was 4pm on Saturday 7th July, so we’d effectively sailed into yesterday. Suddenly all the time differences I’d committed to memory were altered; since we’re now in the Western hemisphere we’re 12 hours behind the UK, on the delightfully-named Pago Pago time zone (New Caledonia). As someone keen to get to Seattle as quickly as possible, this was a bit demoralising to say the least. I had to write Sunday 8th July twice in my journal and wait a whole day before I could cross Sunday off the calendar! I’m trying to consign this confusion neatly into the past now and concentrate on the future time changes (there are four more hours to add on before we reach Seattle). It’s a hard life out here on the Pacific 😉
Anyway, this week has also seen us pass the halfway mark and at the time of writing we’re almost two thirds of the way across. After a couple of days of slow progress with little wind and arduous side-to-side rocking, we’re making up for the lost miles by racing along at speeds of 8 – 10 knots; quite exhilarating if a little hard on mobility. The weather is best described as being grey, or grey and white, or light grey and dark grey. The few times I’ve poked my head up out of the cabin hatch, meerkat-style, I’ve been confronted with the image of a high, grey wall of water, white or grey skies and sometimes a sheet of thin drizzly rain. It’s been cold too; cold enough to have the heating on most of the time and to clad up in thermals under a duvet and blankets (well that’s mainly me but I’m always cold outside of the Tropics). This has meant that unlike the Atlantic crossing, I haven’t been up in the cockpit enjoying the sunrises and sunsets, or the phases of the moon, and watching for sea life on a flat calm sea. We did see a shark go gliding past last Friday on the last calm day before the cold and the high waves arrived – a slow-moving black and grey fin slicing the surface just a few feet away from us.
Paul reports daily on the progress of our journey and its details. I spend a good deal of time reading or listening to books on Audible so there really isn’t much for me to report on, especially as the cold is confining me to barracks. People have asked about food and meals so I thought I’d write a bit on that subject – without pictures. I don’t want to turn it into an extended ‘this is what we had for dinner’ social media post 🙂
So far there has been only one evening when it was too bouncy for me to make any dinner. I’d made a couple of attempts to get into the galley but felt too nervous to tackle hot pans after struggling to stay upright. Paul stepped in and managed to cook omelettes while the side-on waves did their utmost to throw things and people onto the floor. We still have a plethora of food on board, although we had our last fresh mixed salad a few days ago. I could have bought more tomatoes in fact because they kept surprisingly well, as did the iceberg and romaine lettuce and peppers. All fresh produce was stored in the fridge which is fairly spacious fortunately. We still have potatoes, carrots, onions, apples and oranges which have all kept well. I was a lot more regimented regarding meals and provisioning for the Atlantic. My instructions then were to allow for 3 or 4 weeks and to consider that the fridge and cooker might break down. We were also recommended to make meal plans for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Experience revealed that we really didn’t need three meals because we weren’t doing enough to justify that amount of food. This time, I merely wrote down a few ideas for easy to prepare evening meals and stocked up with pasta, ready made sauces, rice and noodles – as well as tins of tuna, baked beans, tomatoes, soups, peas, eggs, and ready-made curries to name but a few of the staples. We have a camping stove in case the cooker breaks and if the fridge breaks…well placing things safely outside will probably do the job of keeping things fresh: it’s that cold out there!
The bread in Japan, though marginally better than the loaves in Malaysia, wasn’t up to much taste-wise but it did keep for a long period, and when you just want some toast or a sandwich, it served its purpose. We bought (and still have) lots of chilled longlife naan breads and pitta breads, along with some pizza bases which are great heated up with some pizza topping and mixed herbs for lunch. Those are all fine but don’t cut it when you fancy some toast and Marmite. Once you start thinking of freshly-cooked bread, nothing else will do so I finally made some yesterday using the tried and trusted Jamie Oliver recipe. I embarked on it with one trepidation considering the rocky conditions. Apart from one spillage at the crucial runny stage, I managed to produce dough for two loaves, but as we’re still cautious about using too much gas with two weeks to go, I couldn’t let the oven heat up too much before baking. I’ve made better but they were pure luxury after so long making do with sugary doughy white slices.
We tend to keep to a 7 o’clock evening meal time and as Paul has pointed out, it becomes something to look forward to in the long days on board. I enjoy having the luxury of time to prepare and plan, and since I can’t contribute fully to the sailing tasks (it just doesn’t work for me), I’m happy having the galley as my domain on passage. I tend to let conditions dictate the type of meal we’ll have but even with my mostly vegan diet, I’m pleased with the variety of dishes we’ve had so far. Paul will mainly have what I have, with the odd addition of chicken breast (vacuum-packed), ham, tuna or meat-based sauces. Obviously he’ll be catching fish galore soon so that will be his meals sorted each night ;-). For the first week our dinners consisted of various salads with tuna, tofu, cheese, new potatoes; home made vegetable soup; stir fries and fresh ratatouille. All these we had with with baguettes which were crisped up in the oven and the last of the more wholesome bread.
During the second week I made a roasted vegetable tart using puff pastry, with new potatoes and baked beans; Spanish rice with tortilla wraps (Paul had tuna fillets with those), tofu and vegetable curry with leftover Spanish rice, soy burgers in tomato sauce with fried onions, peas, mushrooms and mashed potatoes; and homemade carrot and coriander soup. One night neither of us felt like eating due to the rough conditions, and another night we had pot noodles, which are tricky to prepare when it’s as if you’re wearing roller skates so, unsurprisingly, some of the contents ended up on the floor. I will often start preparing things in the afternoon, or when there’s a lull in the rocking. Doing things gradually is more manageable – not as daunting as trying to do everything within an hour. One afternoon I made some wholewheat pastry and used it for making vegan cornish-style pasties. These were handy for ‘grab’ snacks instead of sandwiches. It can be hard work getting stuff out of the fridge during extreme side-to-side rolling to create a sandwich. You need more than one pair of hands to stop spread, knives, cheese, jars etc from slipping and rolling around. Pasties, hard boiled eggs and slices of pizza bread are ideal to grab when you’re peckish and it’s rough (along with chocolate, cereal bars, biscuits, and crisps of course).
The boat has lots of storage space for things such as cans, bottles, packets and tins and they are duly stowed all over the place. To ensure we don’t forget what is where, I’ve made an inventory (written in a notebook, the old-fashioned way) which I try to remember to annotate whenever I move anything. Now that we are over halfway there, looking at what is still in the cupboards and lockers, I’m certain we won’t have to do a ‘big shop’ for the first couple of weeks after we arrive. My main concern at the moment is that I got my wine calculations wrong and it looks as if I will have to ration myself until we reach Seattle or Canada.
Apart from that, all is well as we hurtle towards our destination (it would have been nice to have found hot water bottles in Japan, though). I’m reading quite a few books about America at the moment, including the one Paul recently finished by Jonathan Raban which has some interesting passages about the area we’re going to. I’ll include some of them in next week’s blog. One last notable event – I’ve beaten Paul in the last four games of Scrabble :-).
Kathy