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!