Friday, August 27, 2010

The Dark Side

We are buying a trawler--closing is next week.  Details, photos, etc, to follow!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Pac Cup Start Photos

just saw these online...

http://albums.phanfare.com/isolated/g1wXS0Ff/1/4739777#imageID=104127920

this one is us and there are lots more of our start.  I think the photographer is friends with the Cirrus crew as he has lots of photos of them!  They are really nice folks.

The Boat is Back in Town

I can't believe I forgot to update my blog with the news that THE BOAT IS BACK.  The deliver skipper pulled Tiki J into Encinal Yacht Club in Alameda last Wednesday night.  I think it was around 8 local time.  He unloaded his gear and did some cleaning before bringing her over to Coyote Point mid day Friday.  I finally got down there to get some stuff off her on Tuesday night.  I took four big bags (a huge Ikea bag and some boat tote bags) of Tupperware and towels to wash, canned food to stow somewhere as Earthquake / emergency food, stuff that doesn't need to be on the boat now that the race is over, stuff in general...  The smell that came out of the washing machine when it started to fill with water with the towels in there was... interesting...  Oddly enough they didn't seem to smell before I put them in there.  One was very mildewed and they were all damp but I was not expecting the smell.  The mildewed one did not come clean at all.  I'll give it one more shot with bleach and see what happens.  Some of the food in the Tupperware that was supposed to not need refrigeration got a little FUNKY.  The heat and humidity can take its toll on even "shelf stable" items.  The dishwasher seemed to get out all the smells so I don't have to trash any of my Tupperware.

The boat is still a bit of a mess.  It really isn't bad considering the thousands of miles she has sailed since July 6!  But definitely needs a good scrub.  Like I said, I unloaded a lot but I did not even touch the fridge.  There was quite a lot of food in there that we need to get out before it, too, gets funkified.  I invited another one of the crew to help himself and hopefully he will, otherwise maybe we can get that cleaned out this weekend.  The refrigerator is ON so the food should be OK as long as it is still in date.

The delivery skipper had trouble with the autopilot but I think that is the only thing on the fix list!  One thing doesn't seem too bad.  Though there may be other things I am forgetting about / don't know about.

Scott gave a presentation about the race at our yacht club membership meeting on Tuesday.  He asked if people knew how long it took us to get to Hawaii.  He made the EXCELLENT point that yes it took us 12 1/2 days to SAIL there but it really took us 22 months as that is how long it took us to go from his buying the boat to being ready to go.  It is definitely a commitment and a process. 

I do recommend the trip to anyone who is considering it.  Honestly, WHATEVER adventure you are thinking of--be it going camping at that place near your house, sailing to Hawaii, cruising the Caribbean, Climbing Mt Everest... go do it!  What are you waiting for?  I sure don't want to be one of those people that puts everything off until I am retired and then I find out I have cancer or whatever and never get to live my dreams.  I hope to emulate many of the amazing people I have had the privilege of knowing through my yacht club, too many of whom have died since I have known them; people who sucked all the marrow out of life (to paraphrase Thoreau).

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Tiki J Return

Thanks Neophyte for asking about the return.  Tiki J is about halfway back and can be tracked here.  you then have to select the boats to track.  There aren't that many boats so it is kind of neat to select them all and see the lines going all over the place.  Looks like Pegasus had to turn around and go back to Hawaii.  Interestingly the delivery skipper is doing a lot better sticking with Coyote than we managed to do on the race!

Pac Cup Summary Thoughts

I just noticed in my "back to work" post I mentioned that I would post summary thoughts on the Pac Cup experience and I haven't yet.  I have a feeling that this is a post I will come back to later to edit or add to as I spend more time thinking about this.

The 2010 Pac Cup started for us right after the 2008 Pac Cup ended.  I know I have said before; my husband, Matt, and our friend Scott did the 2008 Pac Cup with a group of guys.  Once they got to Hawaii they immediately told me and Scott's wife, Kim, that the only thing that would have made the trip better would have been if Kim and I were on the trip.  So we soon agreed that we would do the race again in 2010 with the four of us and maybe two other people.  By the end of September of 2008 Kim had found a J-42 in San Diego and Scott quickly purchased it and had it delivered to San Mateo.  Then the work began.

Getting the boat ready for the race took every bit of the almost two years we had to spend on it.  Not that we were frantically working on it every minute and that there weren't periods of time when no work occurred.  We had lots of good times along the way, including some GREAT cruises with just me and Matt or with all six of us (me, Matt, Scott, Kim and S&K's two young boys).  Spending New Year's weekend in 2009 at Encinal Yacht Club's guest dock with the six of us aboard was great fun.   We were usually working on projects as time allowed and keeping the to do list up to date.  There were times when it seemed like we were adding new projects to the list as fast as we were checking off completed projects, especially as we hit the crunch time shortly before the race.  And you have read about our major issues with the refrigeration and forward water tank that occurred pretty much "at the last minute."   With crew member Vince's help, and towards the end (the weekend before we left) with all the help of Kim's family who were in town from VA and TX, we got everything done. 

Really after all those months of prep and build up the race itself was kind of anticlimactic!  Almost two years of prep for a race that took a little less than 13 days.  I could get out the calculator and be precise, but I'll ballpark that it was almost two months of prep for each day we were at sea.  Most of the actual race was pretty boring and uneventful.  The first week, as I have said, was like a never ending OYRA race right off the coast here in Northern California.  Gray, dull, skies and sea, cold, wet, people vaguely nauseated and not really hungry.  Um hmm, not so much fun in my book.  Seriously the only reason I do this stuff is to have fun so it was kind of a let down.

So it finally got nice and we had some spectacular clear nights (actually some of these may have even been during the crappy part) where we could see zillions of stars, the Milky Way, planets, satellites, etc.  Stuff you can't see from where we live on land.  Maybe out in the middle of nowhere away from cities and light pollution.  THAT was cool.  Whales, dolphins, flying fish, squids on the deck, Cool.  Beautiful colors in the sky as the sun was setting, Cool.  The couple of nice sunny days we had towards the end, pretty cool. 

The downside of it finally getting hot was of course that the smell level ramped up down below.  Really this wasn't THAT bad other than stinky feet but at that point I hadn't had a shower for over a week and was tired of being in cramped quarters with my six other shipmates.  Well of course I was thrilled to be in cramped quarters with my beloved cutie pie hubbie, but the OTHER five people.  LOL.  I am really more of a loner so the forced intimacy was a bit much for me after awhile. 

Also Matt and I are pretty much neat nicks.  Yes crap occasionally piles up around our house just like at everyone else's house but we really like to keep things put away and to put them in the same place all the time.  This is tough with seven people in the middle of the ocean.  I was trying not to let it bother me but by the end I'd be muttering to myself in my head "HOW HARD IS IT TO NEST THE NESTING POTS WHEN YOU PUT THEM AWAY???? OMFG"  Obviously I have issues!  And really we kept a pretty tidy ship under the circumstances but it was still tough for me.

So obviously the actual race wasn't so much my "cup of tea."  It was nice to actually GO on the trip after working so hard to get the boat ready for it (I helped prep the boat the guys went on in 2008).  But now that I have done the race I can honestly say I enjoyed the prep more than the voyage.  And I enjoyed the vacation in Hawaii more than the voyage.  So next time I want to go to Hawaii I will fly there.  :)  And when I finally get to go cruising I think I will start with (and maybe stick to) places I can get to without looooong passages.  Though hopefully the passages will be with just me and Matt so if the pots aren't nested I know who to talk to. 

I hear from a lot of other Pac Cup participants that they learn a lot about themselves on the trip or find that they can handle tougher situations than they thought or stuff like that.  Honestly I had the challenging situations on the boat in trips that happened leading up to the Pac Cup and the race itself seemed pretty benign to me.  Granted I did not drive the boat after the first week or so as the better drivers seemed to prefer not having me drive my zig zagging course.  :)  As for learning about myself, I learned a long time ago that I am not a particularly introspective person and I shouldn't pretend to be.  I'd say the extent of my introspection on the trip was me reminding myself that if someone was irritating me that was MY issue that I needed to deal with.  Looking up at a zillion stars does not cause me to ponder the meaning of life, the origins of the universe, my small place in the world... anything like that.  I am more of a "ah, stars" or "sigh, I used to know the name of that constellation" type person.  To each his own!

I am going to leave this for now to perhaps come back to later...

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Pac Cup Photos

Ok, I am taking the easy way out and posting a link to the photos on Kodak Gallery instead of trying to paste them all in here.  I spent a bunch of time last night adding captions and it looks like the captions did not save.  I was also trying to rotate the photos all right side up and do not think that saved either. Sigh.  The first three that have captions were taken and captioned by my dad.

this is the link

Note added August 4: I see now the captions did save for photos 60 on and bouyed by this I just went in and rotated the sideways photos and I think that saved.  Hopefully soon I will add captions back to photos 4-59 now that I know there is a CHANCE they will be saved!