Syzygy Sailing

The AIS tracking feature has been a big hit as we’ve travelled down the coast of california, especially with concerned family.  However, once we leave the country we will be out of range of the shore-based AIS stations, and we won’t show up on the map except maybe in very popular international ports.

At the request of family and friends, we purchased a SPOT tracking device.  It cost $50 (after mail-in rebate), plus a $100/year subscription fee.  For our purposes, each time we press the “check in/ok” button on this little jobby, it communicates our position to one of their satellites, and then it shows up as a pin on our SPOT map, which I added to the sidebar and also to our “Current Location” page (a bigger version).  We plan on pressing the button about once a day; that will be our daily position report.  Supposedly it will have coverage in MOST places, including the coast of Mexico.  However! Important note that THE SPOT WILL NOT SHOW OUR POSITION WHILE WE CROSS THE PACIFIC, SO DON’T WORRY!

I have mixed feelings about this SPOT jobby.  The box it came in was hugely wasteful, with extra stupid pieces of cardboard, the website interface to get it working is terrible, their widget that I put up on our site messed everything up until I did some extra html coding, and even using the damn thing is extremely counter-intuitive.  It’s hard to tell when you’ve successfully turned it on, turned it off, or sent a signal, which is not so cool when you’re out in the middle of the ocean trying to figure out whether it worked to upload a checkpoint or not.  I anticipate it to be buggy, so mom please don’t worry if it malfunctions on us and you stop getting position reports.

So, to be clear: the lack of a daily check/in is not a cause for concern.  It probably means that we’re either having too much fun and forgot to press the button, or else that the piece-of-crap thing busted on us and is no longer working.

(fyi, the pins that you see on land in San Diego are a result of my initial testing right after we bought the SPOT, on foot and by bus; we left the boat in the marina)

The last priority projects have been checked off the list, the tools and food have been stowed.  We are waiting for one item in Monday’s mail, and we still have to fill up on fuel and water and do a hundred other little things that need to get done when you’re about to sail away for a long time, but those are just details, not the kind of thing that will hold us back for too long.

Starting Tuesday, we look for a weather window.  If the current predictions hold true, then Tuesday could end up being ideal for departure.  If the weather isn’t adequate, we will sail circles in the bay until we can leave.

About the weather: this time of year is generally shitty sailing weather.  Low-pressure systems form out in the middle of the pacific and head east, sometimes reaching the coast before they dissipate, and they bring with them bad weather.  When they approach the coast, the wind picks up and shifts around such that it comes out of the south south-west–which happens to be exactly where we’re trying to go.  If the storm is large, the wind produces large waves as well.  Sailing upwind in stormy weather, heavy wind, and large swell is to be avoided if possible.

So we’re looking for a at least a three-day window in which none of these low-pressure systems are headed into our region.  If we have three good days, we can head out, get a ways down the coast, and duck back into a harbor before the weather deteriorates.

We consult a few different weather sites: magicseaweed is a convenient portal to view the GRIB files, which give animated predictions for what the wind direction and strength will be (and swell height, period, also).  My navigation software can download this GRIP data and overlay it on the sailing charts.  I will trust the predictions for maybe three days out, after that I get rapidly skeptical and pay less attention to the predictions.  Anything past five days is probably useless, though if it shows some good weather I can’t help but get a little excited.  Check out magicseaweed–look for the squiggly line along the coast that is San Francisco Bay–and you’ll be looking at the same material we’re looking at each day.  Remember we’re looking for at least a three day stretch where the wind is not predicted to be strong out of the south/southwest.

After we pass under the gate, we’ll turn south, head offshore about five miles, then set a course to stay roughly parallel the coast.  We’ll keep going for as long as we feel awake, alert, healthy, and happy–that may be as little as one day or as long as a week.

I have a road-trip analogy: when you’re driving across the country, you make best use of wakefulness, as long as it lasts, to put some miles under the tires.  If you feel good and happy, you keep going.  As soon as you start to feel tired, you stop for the night.  For a few hours before that happens you’ve been paying attention to potential stopping spots–rest areas, campgrounds, backroads, state parks, etc–so that you can stop somewhere as soon as you need to.

That’s is more or less our approach as we sail down the coast.  The goal is to get south to better weather relatively quickly, within the parameters of staying happy and safe while we’re doing it.  As long as all the crew are awake, alert, well-rested, enjoying themselves etc, we’ll continue to take advantage of whatever weather window we have.  I have a list of harbors that are potential stops; at every point we’ll be within a day’s sail of a harbor on the list.  When we need a break, or if conditions are predicted to deteriorate, we’ll head in to the nearest harbor on the list and stay for however long we feel like.

In a month or two, when we find ourselves in hot weather with clear warm water and white sand beaches, then we toast the trip, throw a party, and get lazy.

I’m in the passenger seat of the car writing this post right now, as Karen and I drive down to Bakersfield to drop off the car . . .  tomorrow we catch the train back up to Emeryville. . . things are happening quickly now

Tonight Jim and Jeanne took all for of us (Pete, Ray, Karen, and myself) out to dinner.  Jim and Jeanne have a Valiant 40 just down the dock from us, and have from the beginning been supportive fans.  I get the feeling that they believe in us, they think we have been doing the right things, they think we’re ready to do this trip.  Their vote of confidence feels pretty fantastic.  So I thank them both for tonight’s dinner, and for their ongoing friendship.

Last night we had an informal departure party at a bar in San Francisco with a sizable crew of friends.  It was uplifting and encouraging to feel the support of so many good people who want to see us succeed, who wish us well and are excited for us.  I am grateful for such friends in my life.  To be surrounded last night by rational, sensible people that were giving us the “thumbs up, good for you, we think you’re doing the right thing” . . . well it was powerfully nice.

I would like to point out that such support is rare.  Most people who hear about our trip are not particularly encouraging, thinking either that we are being irresponsible (fiscally and morally), or unsafe.  I understand why people believe those things–their reasoning is sound–so I don’t get angry and I don’t  defend myself (I feel good about my choices).  But it sure is wonderful to be with people that don’t give us a hard time, but instead a rather great time!  So thanks to you all!  And thanks also to all of you who read this blog and are excited for us!

We intend to be ready to leave by February 7th, and then picking the first weather window after that would be acceptable for sallying forth into the ocean.  This is more or less the worse time of year to be sailing off the coast of California, so we intend to take a very careful look at the weather before we rush out to get bashed by unforgivingly cold wind and waves.

I have started experimenting with doing a “video journal”, uploaded to our youtube channel, which you can view by clicking on the video thumbnail in the sidebar (or by visiting the “videos” page).  I am not yet comfortable in front of the camera, and I’m still trying to remember to look directly at the camera lens while filming myself instead of at the screen (which results in me looking like my eyes are malformed in some awkward way).  But I think it is a valuable tool for me to capture some more candid and vulnerable moments that will make the trip more real for people who read this blog, and I will simply learn to deal with the constant feeling of looking like an idiot in the footage.

Today was the first day of sunshine in about three weeks, the second day it hasn’t rained.  The past week has been an exercise in tolerating the supremely unpleasant feeling of cold water dripping down my neck while stuffed upside down in the tightest spots of our cockpit lockers, blinding trying to snake wiring in the darkness for a dozen different electronic things mounted on the stern.

One of those things was our AIS transponder, which is a system that transmits our position, speed, and heading out into the void, and receives the same information from other ships that are doing the same.  When I plug the usb cable from the AIS into this very computer, all of those ships show up on my navigation software, complete with names, sizes, and sometimes even a picture (I uploaded our picture to the website).  Although the system is not dependent on the internet, various stations on shore pick up the AIS signals, and a couple of internet sites collect that information and plop it on a map.  Which means that when we happen to be close enough to a shore station, we will show up on the internet site in real-time.  You can spy on us at this very moment (if I happen to have the AIS turned on, that is.  It takes a little bit of power, so don’t count on it.)  The AIS provides a significant measure of safety against collisions with container ships–glad to have it.

My icebox somehow sprung a leak, which I discovered after spending two rainy days building elaborate storage shelves for said icebox.  It was a low moment–the icebox is my baby, my pride, I built the system from scratch, and it hurt me deep for it to be malfunctioning right before we are supposed to start our trip, broken in a way I did not comprehend, and without the proper tools aboard to fix it after we depart.  After a day of bumming about I kicked it into a higher gear, started staying up working on shit till midnight each night, contacted Kollman on his refrigeration forum for some advice, and developed a workable plan.  The icebox is back to working now (a video should be available for viewing on youtube in an hour or so), even though it probably still has a small leak, but I have obtained the tools I need so that I can fix it wherever we are, and that confidence has buoyed my spirits.  I feel somewhat ashamed to have reached a point where such a thing as a fridge could have such an impact on me, but it was just one more thing, a punch in the gut, when I didn’t need it.  A fridge is nothing in the scheme of things, but the symbolism couldn’t be ignored.  But I’m over it now.

Our good friends Pete and Ray are going to sail south with us for a month or so.  They are experienced sailors, and it brings me comfort to have them aboard for this first part of the trip.  Pete arrived yesterday, with my new chainplates in tow (his backpack was 80lbs–as weighed in at the airport), and has already finished fixing the windlass and started in on another project–which for boat work is light-speed fast.

Even though the shrouds aren’t even connected to the boat at the moment and the mast would fall over (literally) if we tried to leave the marina right now, I feel pretty optimistic that we will be ready to leave next week.  That’s saying a lot.  We’ve worked hard to be able to do it and we deserve it.  However, deserving it means nothing when you’re talking about a boat, and honestly I will be astonished if we aren’t delayed for some unforeseen reason, and that will be fine too.  But we are almost ready.

I don’t have the energy or passion for a well-written update this time, but I know there are at least a few people out there who are curious about us.  Full disclosure: I just finished reading an idiotic book and drinking a cup of jonny walker following a full 10 hours of stupid fiberglassing so my mood is shitty.

-We moved out of our studio apartment over the holidays, while four friends visited and slept in our living room.  Our guests were perfectly fine with the furniture and bed disappearing from underneath them (no kidding).  Jon and Rishona came out to see the boat, work a bit, and meet us, because they are planning on joining us in the south pacific this summer, if all goes according to plan.  Gary and Anna came out to california because they are awesome.

-We moved onto the boat, though half of the boat is intermittently unlivable (and I mean 1/4″ fiberglass dust snow all over everything toxic air to breathe unlivable).  Our belongings get shuttled around on an hourly basis like all those tiles in that hand held game where there is a grid of jumbled number tiles that you have to move around to put them in order but there’s only one blank space to use so you have to move all of the other tiles that you don’t want out of the way to move the number you want into place and it turns out that that process is difficult enough that they invented a game around it.  Fully 10% of my waking hours are occupied by moving the same stuff back and forth and around and around.

-As reported in the previous post, the knees of the boat came unbonded from the hull, a situation which justifies me giving a big middle finger to the fucking assholes who built this supposedly indestructible boat.  The bomber reputation of the Valiant 40 is bullshit.  Glassing the knees to the hull is second in importance only to actually having a hull in the first place, and the peons that glassed my knees to my hull did a shitty ass job of it and now I’m busting my ass to fix something that should have been included in the first 2,000 dollars of the much higher price of this boat.

-We were planning on leaving January 14th, and our good friends Pete and Ray bought plane tickets to fly out and join us (the only reason for the very specific jan 14th date) and help us sail down the coast for a month.   Since it’s down to just Karen and I and a busted boat, I am incredibly grateful to have their experienced assistance to do the first (wet cold worst) month.  Well, now that the boat is sucking a big fat one, I mailed Pete one of the chainplates that needs to be replaced and he’s making a new set for me.  How’s that for a friend, right?  I screw up their plans and as an apology he gets a hunk of metal in the mail to duplicate 8 times over for me and they don’t even give me a hard time for it?  Damn good friends, that’s for sure.  (I even called him this morning and greeted him with a “so I have this windlass, and the threads on the shaft are crossed . . .”)   I owe them big.   So now Pete and Ray changed their flights and we’re planning on leaving February 7th now.  All I have to do is rebuild the boat before then, no biggie.

-Karen is being much more productively outspoken about our current situation in her booming blog, so please visit her site to get cheered up after reading this post.

I’m actually not all that bummed out as I sound, I’m just super exhausted and it just started raining and all I can think of is how many places it is undoubtedly leaking into the boat this very moment.  A-we need to catch a break and B-we need to get the hell of out of this place, prontospeed.

A brief glimpse into what working on the boat has been like for us the past few weeks:

Excellent question!  We’re leaving in January (worst weather off the coast of California is in January) and heading south down the coast to Mexico.  Then we will cross the pacific.  Maybe in March or April?  At this point we’re open to suggestions and easily influenced.

I have illustrated our basic plan on the diagram below, which admittedly is little better than a napkin sketch.

So that’s my cheat sheet, to help me keep it all straight in my head.  “How do you know where to stop?”  is another excellent question.  I chose the stopping points on the map above largely from information gleaned from Louis and Laura, a fantastic couple who we are lucky to count among our friends.  I used to race on the bay with Louis and Laura until they sailed their boat Cirque down the coast; they have been cruising all over the coast of Mexico since then (i.e. good people to ask for advice).

On their recommendation, Karen and I visited Waypoint in Oakland, a store which specializes in charts and navigation-related boating information (the owners also have a winery in the warehouse next to the store–very cool).  We purchased two chart books and a cruising guide, and each night since then we have been spending a little time planning.

Maps of the sea are called “charts”.  Together with a compass, the chart is the foundation for navigation: it is used to figure out where you are, where you’re going, and how to get there.  Old-school charts (still readily available) are huge pieces of paper that you roll up and stuff in tubes to store, and then can never use because you can never flatten the damn things out again.  A “chartbook” contains the same charts cut up into conveniently sized 16″ x 22″ sheets and spiral bound.

The two chartbooks we purchased at Waypoint are titled “Southern California” and “Mexico to Panama“.  While sailing, one of these chartbooks will be open to the page for our location and we’ll plot our progress on it.

The charts are necessary for figuring out the route from port to port, but they don’t give information about where to go once you actually arrive.  Some of the things we need to know about each port are
1) are there any obstacles and dangers while trying to enter the harbor that aren’t marked on the charts?
2) can we anchor?  if so, where?  if we can’t anchor, what marina do we go to and how much does it cost per night for a slip?
3) where is the dinghy dock or beach (the convenient spot to tie up the dinghy while going about your business on land) and how much does it cost?
4) where is the fuel dock, if we need more diesel? 
5) where is the harbormaster’s office, so we can take care of any necessary paperwork?

The “cruising guide” is the source for this information.  The cruising guide consists of mostly text, with rudimentary charts of each harbor (sometimes hand-drawn).  I chose the “Mexico Boating Guide” by Rains; “Charley’s Charts” is another popular one.

And since I love maps and navigation, for extra credit I’m printing out 11″x17″ aerial photos from google maps of some of the anchorages in Mexico for which we have no detailed charts.  It’s amazing how much information you can glean from the aerial photo–you can see where the sailboats are anchored, and you can see where it’s shallow because the water changes color.  Also, it feels much more real and exciting when you can see other sailboats anchored out in the same spot where we will be.

Armed with these resources, we have been working out way down the coast, examining each port on the list we gleaned from Louis and Laura, looking at the charts and locating the anchorage, discussing the merits of whether to stop or skip each possible harbor down the coast.  Most of the harbors get relegated to the “backup list”, to be used in an emergency, or if we get too exhausted and need to duck in for a rest.  Some harbors–like Marina Del Rey and Ensenada on the map above–get the special nod as ideal places to resupply food or diesel.  Others are unavoidable: Turtle Bay for example is pretty much the only protected harbor between Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas.

So we have the charts and the cruising guide and we know where we’re going to start and where we might visit, and that’s enough for now!

It’s Halloween night, and I found myself sitting with Karen at a table in the common area of our building complex, making large To Do lists for the next few months and planning the details of how to dispose of our worldly belongings and cancel all our accounts and memberships and subscriptions and plans.  I was walking back to our apartment and it dawned on me that most other people were busy spending the night socially i.e. dressing up, drinking, partying, scaring people, trickortreating, whatever, while we were sitting in a large dark quiet room alone with big pieces of paper and magic markers and highlighters and lots of old partially completed to do lists, and then I had the thought: that would have been me a few years ago i.e. out partying and doing halloween stuff but now I’m the type that is planning a monstrous cruising trip without even remembering what day it is.  And also I thought: maybe that’s what people who really sail across oceans would be like when they planned their trip.

Anyway, Karen and I started looking at where we will go in January.  Sure, we’re headed south, then across the pacific, that’s the general plan, but honestly up until this point I haven’t even looked at a map to decide what ports we might hit on our way down the coast. No clue.  So to buy a map and look at aerial photos on google maps and make a list of the spots we can duck into if the going gets rough–well that means we’re getting to a whole new stage of this adventure.  That’s a different kind of preparation than sanding the deck or mounting solar panels (both of which also happened today).  For one, it is a lot more fun to point at the map and say “let’s go there”.  For two, we’re at the point where I’m actively doing all those things that one needs to do in order to  depart from one’s former life start anew disembark cut ties and set out.

And also it means that hey!, we really think it’s going to happen, just like that point in the matrix when mr anderson shows up and is about to put the smackdown on keanu reeves, who wants to run, but then starts to feel all badass and the computer guy back on the mothership says “what’s happening??” and lawrence fishburne says all matter-of-factly “He’s Starting To Believe” with incredible articulation of his words and then keanu reeves doesn’t run to the phone booth to escape but turns around and looks all cocky and then gets totally caught up in this wicked gunbattle with mr anderson but wasn’t truthfully ready to come into his own as “the One” and so gets his ass royally kicked and nearly dies via punching to the stomach followed by being hit by a train before barely escaping.  Moral I guess being that in the end (after the beat down) neo sails around the world!  Metaphorically.