Back to the Daily Grind

I am back at work for the first time in three weeks.  What a strange feeling.  It only took about two hours to get through all the emails; now to try and do some work.

Being on the boat for 12 days and being in Hawaii for 6 days was incredible.  I am not sure I would want to take three weeks off work again, though.  It is a lot to catch up from.  For sure a week or two break again someday would be good! 

We got back to our condo last night around 9 pm and tried to find things in our bags (ipods, camera, cell phone chargers, etc; we'd shoved everything in haphazardly).  Luckily Matt had left us a note for ourselves to turn the hot water heater off vacation mode or that would have been a cold surprise this morning. 

It was tough to get to sleep last night and tough to wake up this morning as it is three hours later here than in Hawaii.  This is the first time I have worn jeans in three weeks and the first time I have worn shoes other than flip flops for two weeks at least.  Feels weird. 

I was running around this morning trying to find my purse with my work ID badge and ended up leaving the gifts I'd bought for my bosses.  I haven't seen them yet today.  My coworker who sits next to me is out this week and the chatty girl who used to sit on my other side had her last day while I was gone and has been replaced but someone quiet.  It seems eerily quiet, especially after all the activity and running around of the past week. 

I hope to download photos in the next few days and maybe post some summary thoughts on the experience.

ame restaurant for dinner! Tonight is the incredible luau at Kaneohe yacht club.

I'm really enjoying being on land. Yesterday was no boat, no yacht club. Just chilling and being tourists. Though we did see another crew member at the s

One More Day

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 50minutes ago, or at 4 p.m.Hawaii Time]
 

Less than 175 miles left.  Should be done in ~24 hrs.

Getting Closer

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 15 hours ago, or at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time yesterday]

We're getting close now, less than 400 miles.  Of course, one starts to reminisce towards the end of such a big adventure…

Things I won't miss

• The aroma of a small boat after 10 days with 7 people living on it
• Sitting.  Sitting.  And more sitting.
• Trying to sleep while things clank, creak, groan, pop and clatter (that is, the boat, not my joints)
• Wearing the same clothes for days on end
• Being on watch from 1am to 4am every night
• Listening to the buzz of the single sideband while spending 20 minutes trying to send and receive 10 emails.
• Not being able to stand, walk, sit, sleep, do ANYTHING, without being braced against the rocking of the boat

Things I will miss

• Being able to see the milky way and galaxies of stars
• The sound of water rushing past the hull
• Not having to go to meetings
• No phone to answer
• Not knowing what day it is and its not really mattering
• Not having to deal with anyone other than the 6 people on the boat with me or anything other than sailing the boat and keeping its systems running

Things I am looking forward to on land

• A real bed and pillows
• Sleeping in
• Walking upright without holding on to anything
• Long, hot showers and clean hair
• The bruises fading
• Spending time with my husband versus seeing each other for a few minutes when our shifts overlap
• Interacting with someone other than the 6 people on the boat with me
• French fries
• Massage Friday on the beach at Turtle Bay
• A drink with ice in it.  And rum.
  

Friday Evening

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 1 hour ago, or at 6 p.m. Pacific Time today]

Less than 500 miles to go.  Flying the #4 spinnaker with no mishaps in beautiful weather.  So far only one slightly sunburned person--took off his shoes and forgot to put sunscreen on them!
      It has been nice enough to open a hatch and get some air flowing through here.  Helps with the smell and the heat.

Matt made French toast this morning.  It was good but very time consuming as he could only do enough for one person at a time and he made his own last.  He was VERY hungry by the time he got to eat.   I think tomorrow will be back to simple fare, maybe Kruztease crumb cake.  If we have only one left, we may not.  Maybe I need to take inventory.  We have bacon, sausage and some eggs for sure.

Friday Morning

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 25 minutes ago, or  at 10:20 a.m. Pacific Time today]

We just put a spinnaker up for the first time since the death of 5S. We needed a day of mourning to recover from that tragedy.  Since we had no spinnaker up all day yesterday we had a very uneventful day.  The sun was shining, the sea was blue.  It was starting to look more like the brochure the travel agent sold us with.
     We are shooting for arriving Monday at 12:10 pm (Pacific Time).  Less than 13 days is Scott's goal. :)

Day Nine Wrap Up

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 1 hour ago, or 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time today]

My 7-10 shift last night was beautiful.  We are well off the coast of California but still running on California time and it is light until past 10 pm.  The last hour of my shift the sun was starting to wane and coloring the fluffy white clouds in shades of yellow, orange and pink.  It was spectacular and I hope some of the photos will do it justice.
      Before I went off watch the skipper and our tactician were discussing the merits of the #5 spinnaker we were flying.  It had been a last minute purchase and had turned out to be excellent for the conditions.  They decided to fly it as late into the night as they could, until it got too windy or conditions otherwise got too bad to keep carrying it.
      I went below and was resting in my bunk, thinking about the sounds the water made against the hull and all the creaks and groans and clicks and clacks the boat has developed in the past nine days.  The next thing I knew it was an hour later and the sounds I was hearing were mass chaos on deck.  I tried to ignore it but finally got up in time to help John drag a wet and shredded #5 spinnaker down the companionway hatch.  The crew in the cockpit had to cut a line free from it to get it down to us.  There was much discussion about what this line might be wrapped around underwater that was keeping us from pulling it free.  John and I got the remnants of 5S back in its turtle and I went back to bed.

On my next watch I got the story that they'd called some off watch crew up to douse the spinnaker and somehow through a series of unfortunate events the spinnaker halyard was released too early and the spinnaker went down in flames and died a glorious death.  We were able to free the line from around the prop / shaft this morning.  Brad suggested we make it into bracelets to have mementos of our dearly departed 5S.

Unrelated notes:
1. I've lost my pillow
2. One crew member's shoes have been banned from the cabin
3. We are rationing baby wipes
4. We have plenty of TP

Day Nine: Wednesday

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 9 hours ago, or 4:30 p.m. Alaska Time on Wednesday]

We've had great weather today and good sailing.  We are having to jibe back and forth a bit and are not able to head straight to Hawaii due to the wind angle but we are making progress and hope the second half of our journey will go by faster than the first.  It is getting a little ripe down below but bearable.  We lost our dressing room to someone getting slammed into the door off a wave and breaking a hinge, so now our only place to "bathe" with baby wipes or change clothes is in the tiny aft head.  Unless you don't mind flashing everyone.
      We had a great halfway dinner last night; crab cakes, filet mignon, twice baked potatoes and asparagus with chocolate cake for dessert.  We also had lots of goodies that people had given us to open at halfway.  John's wife Dondi gave us some reading material--I think a National Enquirer and some "newspapers" of that nature.  People are spending a lot more time in the bathroom since those were put in there.  It makes a nice diversion if you are trying to avoid helping jibe the spinnaker or washing the dishes.

Halfway

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 45 minutes ago, at about 8:30 a.m. Alaska Time]

We hit the halfway mark at 2:00 pm yesterday.  What a great feeling.  Every moment from now on puts us that much closer to Hawaii.  We saw some stars last night and are hoping for sunshine today.  We had our small spinnaker up yesterday, switched to jib last night and now have a big spinnaker up.  We are on our way.  RIght now less than 900 miles!

Hot Bunking / Tuesday

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 15 minutes ago, at about 10 a.m. Alaska Time]

One of the interesting parts of this experience is "hot bunking."  We have more people on board than we have bunks for them to sleep in.  This is not an issue as 3 of the 7 are always up on deck "on watch" while the 4 off watch each have a bunk.  When an off watch person comes up to relieve an on watch person the person going down takes over the bunk from the person going up.  There is something really primitive about crawling into a berth that is still warm from the person who just got out of it.  Still warm, perhaps slightly smelly and at this point in the race (after a week) usually a little damp.  Whether the damp is from a leaky hatch, wet clothes, sweat or…who knows.  One nice thing is most of us brought our own pillows, which you have to remember to stash somewhere when you get up and retrieve when you go back down.  In this way at least you know the puddle of drool under your head is your own.
     There is also the aspect of some bunks being more preferable than others.  I'm sure different people have different opinions on this, which is a good thing.  The bunk I hate because it is too wide may be a favorite of one of the big guys.  As it is I am always looking ahead to see which bunks the rotation is going to land me in during the course of the day.  I've had a couple of good days where I am bouncing back and forth with one other person who is in one of the bunks I prefer, so I know I will have several hours of sleep or at least rest in one of the two spots I find most comfortable.  I know my luck will run out and I will be back in the crappy bunk where I have to try and brace myself in place with my feet and shoulders to keep from getting rolled all over.
   
The good news is we have our spinnaker up and it seems to be going okay.  Nothing else has broken!  That is pretty good considering the carnage in the fleet.  Listening to roll call it is one gear failure after another.  We are especially saddened to have lost two of our competitors from Division B.  We were going after the Tiki Challenge trophy against Tiki Blue and they are long since back at SF with an electrical problem.  We were in close competition with Bequia, trading back positions 4 and 5 in the division, and they have been forced to retire with rudder issues.
      We are oh so close to the halfway point and busting in to our halfway food and goodies!  Hopefully within the next few hours we will be at 1035 nm to go.  It is still not terribly warm but hopefully as we work our way south it will get nicer.

Monday?

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 2 hours ago, at about 1 p.m. Alaska Time]

Is it Monday?  I just "washed" my hair with a "no rinse shampoo cap."  I guess when it dries I will see if it is still greasy.  I have one more of the caps for later this week if this one did any good.
     We tried to pole out the jib so we could go deeper downwind and we broke the pole within about 20 mins.  At least we have two.  Good times.

Good on you to overrunning cup!

Sunday [reported Monday at about 9:40 a.m. Alaska Time]

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 20 minutes ago]

So far I think we are being shortchanged on the Pacific Cup Experience. Other than one afternoon of sunshine and one night of stars, this feels like a never ending ocean race off San Francisco Bay.  Sunday we covered some good ground; just hoping the skies clear so we can enjoy the "sailing to HAWAII" part.  We put up our smallest, heaviest spinnaker briefly last evening and pretty soon we not only took it down but also put a reef in our main as there was so much wind.  Again, we are hoping the wind will shift behind us so we can enjoy the downwind run for which this race is known!!

Good Sunday morning! [at 11:15 a.m. Alaska Time?]

[Sent to Moristotle for posting less about an hour ago]

After a beautiful sunny afternoon yesterday, we are back to feeling like we are in the San Francisco Bay.  Cold, wet and windy.  Actually it isn't that cold but since everyone put on shorts and tee shirts during the heat wave yesterday, it SEEMS cold.  We are all having a good time but we would like the sun and warmth to come back and also we'd like the wind to clock around so we can fly the spinnaker.  This IS supposed to be a downwind race!  At least our next waypoint is Hawaii.  Presently 1416 nm to go.
     Our SSB has been taken over by the laptop and we can't get control back to do the required daily check-in.  We were lucky today that there was another Pacific Cup boat within VHF radio distance and they were able to get our position from us to then relay to Valis, the communication boat. 
     News flash!  I took a break there and Brad tried one more thing, WD-4 [WD-40? --Moristotle] on the cable connections, and we are back in business!  The penalty for missing a check-in is one hour, so we are glad to have the SSB fixed.  We can now fully enjoy our banana nut and blueberry muffins without the pall of concern over whether we can check in tomorrow.

Picture of Latest Position Posting (July 11)

[Courtesy of Moristotle]

4 a.m. Position Posting on ionearth.com (Sunday, July 11)

# Tiki J
Class:	Division B
Miles to Finish:	1498.7nm
Latitude:	N 35°27.596'
Longitude:	W 134°4.256'
Speed:	7.8 KTS
CoG(t)	237° SW
Boat:	J/42
LOA:	ft
Time Reported:	Jul 11 4:00:00 AM EDT

[Courtesy of Moristotle]

Last Night (Friday)

[Sent to Moristotle for posting 2 hours ago]

Last night was absolutely beautiful.  The overcast skies had cleared as the day ended and the night sky was full of stars.  There was no moon and the Milky Way was on spectacular display.  We had great wind and we steered by picking some stars in the direction we were headed and keeping the boat lined up with the selected stars.  We even saw some shooting stars.  They were so bright it was like a flare going off.  They only lasted an instant and made you wonder if you'd really even seen them.

Everyone is well and we are having a great time.

4 a.m. Position Posting on ionearth.com

# Tiki J
Class:	Division B
Miles to Finish:	1696.4nm
Latitude:	N 36°53.673'
Longitude:	W 130°23.594'
Speed:	7.4 KTS
CoG(t)	239° SW
Boat:	J/42
LOA:	ft
Time Reported:	Jul 10 4:00:00 AM EDT

Friday

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 2 hours ago]

Vince caught a big albacore tuna and made poke. We will have that as an appetizer before our beef stroganoff dinner.  We have the spinnaker up for now but may have to change back to keep going the correct direction.

Take Out

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 2 minutes ago]

Can you please order us some take out? 2ea Big Mac's, no onion, fries and Cokes?

The wind has picked up and we are slowly starting our turn south. It is still cold out. We saw a few whales yesterday. It was amazing to hear them calling each other. Right out of the sound track from a movie.

Matt

Most Recent Position Posting on ionearth.com

# Tiki J
Class:	Division B
Miles to Finish:	1816.2nm
Latitude:	N 37°43.039'
Longitude:	W 128°6.384'
Speed:	6.2 KTS
CoG(t)	260° W
Boat:	J/42
LOA:	ft
Time Reported:	Jul 09 10:00:00 AM EDT

[Courtesy of Moristotle; my own post of Wednesday explains how to get these readings.]

Last Night

[Sent to Moristotle for posting about 15 minutes ago]

The wind has picked up.  We should start moving now.  Our strategy is to find the best wind possible and head for Hawaii!

Last night was awesome, we had another whale sighting.  This one breached in front of us to our right, perpendicular to our course.  I heard the sound of it breaking through the surface and knew it was huge.  Seeing it confirmed just how large it was.  It turned and paralleled our course, breeching several more times. Truly amazing.

On my 1-4am watch we started to see winds over 10 and even over 15.  We were hitting boat speeds in the 8+ range for the first time since the start.  Feeling good!

Day Three

[Sent to Moristotle for posting at 9:15 p.m. Eastern Time yesterday]

We could use a little wind out here, it is super light and we are barely making way to where we hope to pick up some wind that will get us going in the correct direction (i.e. Hawaii).  We just passed a boat we have been tailing for ≈24 hours and it appeared they were just drifting without much control of what direction they were headed.  We at least have steerage!

Everyone on the boat is doing well.  Nobody has been seasick lately.  We are eating well; we had scrambled eggs, biscuits and bacon for breakfast.  It has warmed up and Vince is up on watch in his shorts.  We are getting to where people are able to really sleep when they are off watch, though the downside to that is that they are harder to wake up when it is their turn to come up!

Children's Hour

[Sent at 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time yesterday]

Every night at 5, people get on the SSB radio and chat.  The topic right now is sea life sightings.  I thought it was cool that I saw a couple of whales breach fairly close to the boat but other folks are reporting having to alter course to avoid hitting a whale, or better yet the one boat that was escorted by 6 whales for over half an hour!  Someone else had a huge group ("thousands") of dolphins following them for hours.  That one may be children's hour hyperbole.

The coolest thing for me about my whale sighting was that I was alone in the cockpit at the time, enjoying the beauty of the day and the sound of the boat cutting through the water, as I attempted to hold the course determined by the navigator.  It was kind of tough because I was looking around too much!  It is just spectacular out here.

Day Two Begins

We are just starting Day Two, twenty-four hours after we started the race.  It is beautiful out here.  It might seem strange to call overcast skies beautiful, but compared to the rough conditions we were expecting it seems pretty nice.  We could use a little more wind but at least there is some, and the seas are mild.  So far so good!  Vince made pancakes and sausage for breakfast even!

Day One

Hey All,

We got an early start from the marina to the race course yesterday and were up in the city very early.  Since we had time to kill we tied up to the St Francis guest dock and visited with the other Pac Cup boats that were there, including our friend Edda's boyfriend's boat.  Edda was supposed to go with him in the double handed division but after a few races in it (it is a Mini Trans At, I forget the length, maybe 25 feet; the operative word is MINI) she decided to take a 747.  Anyway, we had a great start but where we are now there is not much wind as the trough has moved farther west than normal.  We hope to be out into some wind by Thursday.  Everyone is well.  One person had some seasickness but seems much better so far this morning.

Love from Matt and Jennifer
(relayed by Moristotle)

Underway!

Forecast

About to get ready to head to the marina!  Forecast looks light, then not so much.

Last Day

Today was our last day of prep.  My heart sank when I got to the boat this morning as it seemed like a mess compared to how it looked when I had last seen it yesterday.  I had to remind myself that the rest of the crew has endured a tough end to the day with the water tank issue and I needed to be understanding and suck it up and deal with it.  Once I started straightening I quickly found it wasn't as bad as it looked at first. 

On my way to the boat I had stopped to pick up some dry ice at an ice wholesaler.  I ended up going to the grocery store tonight for a bit more as there was still some empty space in the cooler that I thought it was better to fill.  The price at the grocery store was about 50% more but really for the convenience factor it seemed worth it.  The ice place was out of the way, has odd hours and was all in all a bit on the strange side.  Next time I will know. 

Well, I have to be at the boat in less than 9 hours so I am going to cut this short and get to the photos:

Murphy's Law

Matt and I went to the store for all the perishables.  For whatever reason we decided to use the self checkout.  We scanned, bagged, scanned, bagged.  The scale kept getting annoyed and telling us we hadn't bagged something or there was an "unexpected item in the bagging area."  We had so many bags (we brought four HUGE tote bags plus needed to use the grocery stores bags) that we have to move bags off the scale, which of course caused the recorded voice to scold us.  The customer service girl standing there kept having to override the machine.  So we were finally down to one last item.  Our total was $298.10 and we weren't sure if the last thing would put us over $300.  Matt scanned it, the machine made the normal beep sound but the price didn't come up.  We asked the customer service girl to come over and see what was up and she said the machine was frozen up and we'd have to start over.  Matt and I looked at each other and our faces fell.  Matt said, nicely, "we have to start over, oh boy" and she looked at me, looked at Matt, looked at our bags and bags of food and said since she knew what total we were up to she'd just ring it up as miscellaneous and scan the last item.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

Ha ha, you probably thought that was the "Murphy's Law" story.  Not quite.  So when we got home I texted the boat owners and told them the story.  Kim responded with something along the lines of, "I've got a better story.  The forward water tank failed."  So the boat is supposed to have two 50 gal H2O tanks but the original owner replaced one with a huge battery bank.  He had the forward 24 gal holding tank repurposed (in the factory!) as a water tank and the forward head was plumbed to go overboard at all times.  A few months ago we had the head plumbed to the 24 gal tank to use it as a holding tank as J boats intended and had a custom 35 gal water tank built just aft of it.  This is the tank that "failed" today.  Kim was not clear on the details of what went wrong.  I got the impression it was catastrophic and not fixable.  Last time I talked to Kim she was on her way to get some big water jugs so we would still be able to take enough water.  We are REALLY glad this happened today and not after we left.  That could have been a race ender right there.  Tiki Blue has something similar happen on the race last year but I they were able to make it to Kaneohe Bay without having to use their emergency water.

I keep promising pictures; tomorrow is the day.  I will take a bunch after we get the perishables stowed.

Bon Voyage Party

Here is our club manager Carly with Tiki J crewmember Vince in the background. Vince's son Shem and one of Shem's friends provided entertainment.  I took a lot more pictures later when everone was there but they are all pretty dark so I won't post any today.

More Prep

I finally have SOME pictures, more to come.  Our Bon Voyage Party at our yacht club is tomorrow night so I will try to get some pictures of that, plus more of the boat.

The all important item being brought down!  You would not believe how much debate there was around how much TP we needed.  Come to find out Mr. "I only need four squares per poop" (love you man, :) YKWYA) relies on baby wipes for the rest of the job.  We have LOTS of baby wipes aboard!

We got a second spinnaker pole.  We are still working out how we are going to rig it but we are close!  We plan to do dual pole jibes.  Hopefully figuring out how to use the set-up won't be too difficult! 

We had to buy new cowls for the dorades after losing one on the Spinnaker Cup return. Aren't they pretty?

We also had to rerun the roller furling line so we could use the eyes and block it used to run through for our second foreguy for that second spinnaker pole.  We managed to find three of these at one local West Marine and we have two more on order, due in today. 

We had to finish installing the latching handles for the reefer lid.  They turned out pretty well.  The latching part JUST clears when we open and close the lid.

Last pictures for today show how we have some of our food stored.  The cupboard on the left has dinner and lunch food and the cupboard on the right (behind the oven mitt in the first photo) has breakfast food.  This space held the microwave, which we decided not to bring.  We gained a bit more space by sawing out the false bottom.  We then had to come up with something to go across the front to hold everything in.  I came across this eagle creek bag at the Container Store.  Not only does it hold things in the cupboard but we can also stick stuff in it.  So far it is the home to the lighters for the stove and the all important kitchen timer.

I am at the point now that I need to relax and not freak out that I need to go buy more food or clothes or ...whatever.  I need to trust in all the planning we have done and believe that WE WILL BE FINE.  We are going to have plenty of food., water, baby wipes, TP, sunscreen, ETC!