Syzygy Sailing

We left La Cruz on March 31st to sail south to Tenacatita, a little over a hundred miles down the coast, for a brief respite from the bustle of La Cruz. Jon had flown out for his spring break vacation from teaching, and was looking for a legitimate cruising experience, and Karen had read about a “jungle river adventure” to be found at Tenacatita, so that sealed the deal.

The wind was very light during the entire passage; the sail south was slow. I recollect sailing half the time, motoring half the time. We try to sail whenever there is sufficient wind to fill the sails, which puts us at a boat speed of about 2 knots. 2 knots is a fairly leisurely walking pace, so you can imagine how long it can take. We were in no rush, though–so 2 knots it was.

The anchorage at Tenacatita was tranquil and relaxing. There was a dolphin that lived in the anchorage, affectionately named “nacho” for a notch missing in his dorsal fin. Nacho was most interested in the boat 300 feet away from us, I think because it had a little dog that would run around the deck following the dolphin. Karen wanted to swim with Nacho–she has a lifelong dream to swim with dolphins–so she jumped in the water and started making various sounds intended to attract the attention (and affections) of Nacho over to our boat. The sounds succeeded . . . in making us laugh! I think Nacho sensed her need, because he stayed just far enough away–sometimes coming within 15 feet but no closer–during our entire stay in the anchorage.

At night, the phosphorescence was spectacular. One night we swam in it. Swimming through liquid light, making light by moving, little dots of light dripping off your hands and arms. Your whole body illuminated like some sort of superhero, like your body itself is radiating the light. It struck me as extra-terrestrial–not something that I knew existed on this earth.

The day after we arrived we serviced the outboard for the dinghy (finally), then packed up the dinghy for a day of travelling up some river through the jungle. It was a cool scene. Not, I must admit, a very impressive jungle–I think that experience is still to come–but it was fun travelling through this dark, narrow corridor of a river, barely wide enough for the dinghy in places, with a ceiling of vines and leaves overhead. At the end of the river we found a lake, which happened to be next to a town on the beach, which happened to be overrun by mexican tourists for the Easter holiday. We sat at a little food place next to the lake and spent the day like that, sitting there.

I have a good story about our first beach landing. There’s a hotel just up the beach from where we were anchored; Jon needed to arrange for some sequence of transportation back to Guadalajara to catch his flight. We took the dinghy in. There were small waves breaking on the beach, and it was fun to run in there surfing on a little wave until it got shallow then quick turn off the engine and raise it up and then jump out and drag the dinghy up on the beach. The waves seemed small and the trip into the beach was easy, so we were goaded into a sense of complacency. Trying to get back out, we were not so lucky. It’s all in the timing, I’m sure, but we did not spend much time trying to wait for a good window. Essentially, we dragged the dinghy into the water and went for it. As a result, we provided wild entertainment for a boat in the anchorage that happened to be watching this scene unfold. We got repeatedly thrashed by waves breaking on us, swamping the dinghy with seawater, and nearly flipping the dinghy end for end. I think we went weathered about 4 waves that had our number. Jon was up in the bow trying to hold it down as these waves lifted us to the vertical–on the last wave he was propelled vertically out of the bow straight into the air and crash landed back into the bottom of the dinghy. Unfortunately, the amusing part of the story would be the video and pictures that we didn’t take. On our way back to the anchorage we were hailed by the boat that watched it all unfold. They said they were sure we weren’t going to make it through the last wave, that we completely disappeared and then came launching vertically out of the white surf like a rocket. It was a hell of a fun time, that’s for sure.

(post dated–this post generally refers to events on 3/29 and 3/30)

At midnight Karen grabs my foot and gives it a shake. I take off my eye mask and take out the earphones I’m wearing which along with my I-Pod and Sarah McLachlan, had me asleep in minutes three hours earlier despite the noise of the engine.  I was surprised at how much louder the engine sounds at night versus during the day.  I suppose the new soundproofing in the engine room was doing something, but I couldn’t tell.  I stumble around for about 10 minutes, getting dressed slowly and wobbly.  I can’t find my headlamp or my sailing knife.  I want some light and so switch on a light in the cabin, and quickly move the switch to the red light setting that is supposed to preserve your night vision.  The cabin now resembles a submarine on high alert.  I half expect Gene Hackman to barrel down the companionway yelling “down ladder!”  I imagine us on high alert.  Matt is up, walking around and off-handedly comments that he and Karen stopped using the red lights.  They don’t really provide enough light to do anything, which I quickly found to be true, and your eyes adjust fast enough when you are up on deck. High alert deflates immediately.  The engine continues to groan away as we travel through unfortunately light winds for our passage.  I plop down at the nav station to look at the log book and the AIS chart on the computer.  My night watch is about to start.

Before I even arrived, we had started talking about sailing a day or two north to San Blas.  However, the weather seemed to be less than ideal to the north, so Karen found a entry in the cruising guide that talked about a fine anchorage to the south that had some snorkeling and a fantastic sounding dinghy river trip.  South it was.  Next came talk of who was going to take what watch.  I knew this conversation was coming.  And i knew exactly what I wanted.  The night shift.  Wake me up at midnight or 1 am and send me out.  I wanted this for a number of reasons.  One, I feel, (it’s not just a feeling, I definitely am) behind in this obscure scale of mine that measures “personal discomfort” investment into the boat.  I don’t have much of this.  Matt has, well it’s somewhat amazing he hasn’t collapsed under the weight of how much he has endured.  Second, I wanted to experience as much of the cruising experience as possible.  Taking the night watch fit nicely there.  Finally, it just seemed the nice thing to do, to let Matt and Karen sleep together through the night.

After examining where we were on the AIS, I head up on deck.  Matt joins me and says we should put up the main sail and the drifter.  I’m super excited that we’ll actually be sailing on my watch, at least to start, instead of motoring.  It feels so much more pure.  After Matt helps me put up the sail, he heads off to bed, and I’m left alone on the night watch.  An alarm is set to ring every 23 minutes.  After two iterations of the alarm, I’m starting to get tired, and so lie down in the cockpit, realizing that I’ll be sleeping during some of this watch.  I’m looking directly up at the stars, and soon I’m dozing off, 1/2 awake, 1/2 asleep, dully waiting for the alarm to go off.  It does, I go through the watch routine, and quickly get back to lying down.  This time I’m out quickly.  Thirty minutes later Matt is in the companionway reaching out to the cockpit to hit my feet saying “Dude, you slept through the alarm.  You can’t do that.  Put the alarm closer to your head.”

On the night watch, there is one main responsibility.  Make sure the boat doesn’t hit anything.  Two lesser responsibilities are to 1) sail the boat well so you get to your destination faster. 2) control the boat so that it is easier for others to sleep.  Matt and Karen’s system they developed uses a watch that goes off at set intervals.  Pretty much all cruisers have an alarm set for certain intervals.  Matt and Karen have the watch set for 23 minutes.  So every 23 minutes, it’s the job of whoever is on watch to stand up, or wake up if necessary, look all around the horizon for other boats or land, and make sure you aren’t about to hit either of those.  It’s fascinating what you can see at night on the horizon.  All night we were in sight of shore so lights from there abounded.  At various times, other boats were on the horizon.  It’s enjoyable to spot lights on the horizon and watch over the next hour or two as they slowly move in relationship to the boat.  Of course if they are moving that slowly, it’s probably another sailboat.  The fast lights are the ones to worry about.  The cargo ships.

Matt disappears back down the companionway, leaving me alone fuming at myself.  My first night watch and I’ve made a HUGE mistake.  Damn it.  Not how I wanted to start.  Not the impression I wanted to make on Matt and Karen that I was a competent addition to the sailing team.  I am furious at myself and embarrassed.  Sure, the likelihood that at the exact interval I fell asleep 1) another boat would be just over the horizon that I couldn’t see on the last sweep, 2) wasn’t on the AIS that would alert me to boats further out, 3) was headed on a collision course with us and 4)  did not veer off that collision course because they of course don’t want to hit us…. yes the likelihood of all that happening is low.  Doesn’t matter.  Sleeping through a watch interval is way out of line.  I was not happy with myself.

Later in the night, the alarm goes off.  It is strapped to the band on my headlamp now, directly next to my ear, and so it wakes me immediately.  I get up and start to go through the routine I began to do at every alarm.  I rapidly check our compass heading and speed.  I then spend longer than necessary gazing in a slow 360 degrees off into the distance, looking for lights.  Each time I see lights, I get our binoculars (Thanks mom and dad!!!) and using the internal compass of them, note the heading to the lights and try to discern where it’s going.  If I see a red light, it means I’m looking at the port side of the other boat.  If I see green, I’m looking at the starboard side.  You can also tell things by the location and height of the white lights from a boat, but I’m not as sure about those. Need to learn that.  Next I slide down the companionway, moving as quietly as possible past the quarterberth where Matt and Karen are sleeping, generally with the door open to increase airflow and keep it cooler in the cabin.  I  have a seat at the nav station and take a look at the awesomest part of the night watch routine: checking the AIS transponder which is linked into the navigation software MacEnc, on the computer.  Matt has discussed his love for it in the past, and I have to back up that opinion 100%.  After checking the AIS both for ships and to ensure we are headed in the correct direction, I head back up on deck and do a quick scan of the horizon.  Finally, I look at our sails and see if they need adjustment.  Then it’s back to reading, writing or sleeping.

At 2:30 am on the second night, I watched us thread the needle between two 900 foot long cargo ships doing 14-18 knots.  I had seen the two ships when they were 20 miles away on the computer, long before I would be able to see them on the horizon.  Nonetheless, as soon as I saw them on the computer headed straight for us, I excitedly hopped up on deck, grabbed the binoculars, and stared out into space to where the boats should be.  I was met with nothing but blackness.   A black sky with foreboding moon and a glistening, flat, black sea.  An hour later however, I could see lights.  Lots of lights.  High, towering lights.  That still seemed to be coming straight for us.  The AIS, though, showed their actual heading, and ours.  We would pass the first to our starboard, by a mere mile.  The other, five minutes later, passed to port by even less, about 1/2 a mile.  I didn’t sleep at all for that hour, and gained an enormous appreciation for the additional safety the AIS brought us.  I saw them when they were over an hour away and knew their exact heading relative to us.  If we didn’t the AIS, they would have been twenty minutes or less away on an uncertain course that would have looked extremely troubling.  With the AIS, we didn’t have to divert our course, and I felt no danger to the boat, though I did anxiously watch the AIS and the horizon for the entire hour.  I certainly was too excited to sleep, this being only my second night watch.  But I felt confidently safe.  Without the AIS, I would have had to hail the vessel, not always possible, and try and figure out a way by both ships.  I can envision this being a confusing hail, with both boats so close, heading in the same direction and with the approximate same speed.  With the AIS, there was minimal concern.  The rest of the night passed uneventful.  My second night watch slowly winding down, I finished most of the novel I was reading, enjoying the near full moon as it arced lazily across the sky.  My first real introduction to cruising.  I think I’m going to like it.

Today it is Matt’s birthday and also, in no small conincidence, it is Karen’s birthday as well.  They are also gearing up to be heading across the vast Pacific in about a week or so.  Good luck guys, and Happy Birthday!!!

(post dated–this post generally refers to events on 3/26 and 3/27)

Shuttle bus to Denver airport. Wait two hours. Flight to Dallas. Wait five hours. Flight to Gaudalajara. Taxi to bus station. Wait two hours. Bus to Puerto Vallarta. Taxi to La Cruz de Juanacaxtle. 1 mile walk with 125 pounds of luggage to marina office. Wait three hours. Dinghy ride to anchorage. 30 hours of traveling later: home. On my sailboat.

I met Matt and Karen in Mexico for my spring break. After a tumultuous year with many unexpected turns, I got to join the trip for a short week. It was an emotional reunion for me to get back on the boat. Two months ago, I watched on a computer Syzygy’s AIS track as it sailed out underneath the Golden Gate Bridge without me. While I don’t regret the life choices I made and the experiences I’ve been through over the past year, it was certainly tough to watch the trip begin without me.

Before arriving, there was some trepidation on my part of what it would be like. Would I not mind bobbing around and rocking back and forth in an anchorage? Would I crave the convenience of living on land with its easy access to a multitude of things like: showers, restaurants, home depots. In contrast to living on land, many things about living on a sailboat are simply hard to do. It requires a ten-fold increase in time to accomplish the simplest of tasks, such as if I wanted to make a quick trip to the store to get more orange juice. Would I fit into the systems and dynamic that Karen and Matt have created aboard the sailboat? Would I like long distance sailing? Finally, would I get seasick? I’ve never been out on an ocean in a sailboat. And with the oceans bigger, longer swells, it was distinctly possible that my body would not be fond of me messing with its balance and equilibrium.

As it turned out, I didn’t mind the rolling. Though I did nearly fall off the dinghy the first time I stepped aboard from the dinghy to the Syzygy. I also bumped my head a number of times the first day. I also had a pot of boiling coffee go flying onto the floor after the boat rocked back and forth a bit. I later stepped through an open hatch, landing on my butt on deck and my right leg dangling into the kitchen. So it takes some getting used to.

Part of the 125 pounds worth of luggage I was carrying included many of my things for when I join in June. It also included a bunch of games for Matt and Karen to pass the time on passage. It also included what I hope will soon be one of the most used pieces of gear on the boat: a bunch of scuba gear. My friends Dave and Pat Martin generously loaned me their scuba gear. By generously I mean that five days before I was to leave, I called them up (they live in Tennessee) and inquired about having them send me some of the gear. You could say I am a procrastinator. At any rate, both were prolific divers back in the day. They lent me so much gear I wasn’t able to pack it all down there….I was already at 125 pounds. But I did manage to bring down what I think is the most important part, which is the regulators and the dive computers. I say ‘I think’ because Karen, Matt and I all don’t know how to scuba dive. I was certified once 15 years ago and haven’t dove since. However, we’re planning on going to some of the best scuba diving in the world. How could we not have some scuba gear aboard? Matt has some learn-to-dive CD’s and I’m going to buy a couple of books. We’ll learn a bunch and figure out the rest. Pretty much just like everything else in this adventure.

I’m glad to be back at the sailboat. I already wish I could stay longer. We’re planning on sailing overnight down south to Tenacatita. There’s a jungle river trip we can take in the dinghy. There’s tacos to be eaten. There’s relaxing to be done. A little work on the boat here and there. Fun everywhere!

We have been anchored a half mile outside of La Cruz for just over a week now, and it has felt like approximately 3 days. The time passes effortlessly unnoticed. For the first week we spent a lot of energy getting accustomed to the scene and taking care of business. Finding groceries, doing laundry, picking up parts for broken items, etc. Most days we dinghy into the marina, sometimes before lunch (more often after).   We’re anchored towards the back of the pack (there are about 30 boats out there with us), so it takes about 20 minutes of fighting with the outboard to get us into the marina.  We tie up next to the boat of newly acquired friends and then walk a half mile around the marina and into la cruz.  Three times now we have caught the bus towards puerto vallarta–a slow local bus that immediately turns the trip into a full-day affair.  We have eaten most of our dinners in town–the food is usually cheap and often it doesn’t make sense to return to the boat to make a meal.  We now plan only one task for each day–getting groceries is definitely a full-day affair; doing laundry ended up being a two-day affair.  I have experienced “mexican time” in the past, but each time I return it takes time to adjust.

We’ve made many new friends. There was a potluck on the roof of the yacht club, a couple dinners at friend’s boats, dinners on our boat. There was a swap meet this past weekend.  Many of the friends we met through their blogs before we even arrived to the area.  It was very cool to meet Diane, Evan, and Maia aboard Ceilyadh; we’ve been following their progress down the coast for months.  I spent nearly a full-day slacklining with Maia and a few of her friends.  We had Mike and Hyo from Io aboard for dinner last night, and I laughed to the point of tears over some of their stories.  Our friends Louis and Laura from Cirque are in the area–they’ve been cruising this part of Mexico for years now and were our inspiration for heading to La Cruz.  I learned how to sail while racing on board Cirque up in the bay, and they just won their division of the banderas bay regatta for a second year in a row.  Last night we had dinner with Mark on Wendaway (previously SolMate), who we met in San Carlos years ago when we first bought our boat; both the food and conversation was excellent and I will remember it as a special evening.  Raptordance (Bill and Mary) are also in the area; Raptordance is a Valiant 50 and Bill was one of the founders of the yahoo Valiant owner’s forum that has been such a helpful resource for me.  Wally Bryant from Stella Blue is anchored near us in the bay; he was up in the bay area with us while we were fixing up our boat.  His detailed blog is incredible and his advice in fixing up Syzygy was, and continues to be, top-notch.  It has been great to finally spend time with him over a few beers instead of email.  This place is full of cruisers who are doing the same thing we are, and it’s good to be able to bond over similar experiences.

The warm weather is wonderful.  It feels fantastic to be able to wear only shorts, all day long and into the evening.  I’m getting a tan for the first time in years.

Most boats that are doing the puddle jump–crossing the pacific to the marquesas–are leaving within the next week or so, or have left already.  We’ll definitely be one of the last boats to head out; we’re ok with that.  We need the time to relax and recover, and finish getting the boat ready.

Honestly, I’m still finding it hard to relax–I have been so long out of practice.  I have had difficulty sleeping–I’m thinking that it’s mostly the hotter temperatures, to which I haven’t yet acclimatized (but I love that it is hot, don’t get me wrong).  Then I wake up and feel as if I should be getting stuff done, working on the boat, running errands, etc, and unfortunately there is still a lot of that to be done.  We want to depart for the south pacific in about three weeks and there are items to fix and improve from our trip down the coast, so half of the days we’ve been here I’ve been working on something.  Each day I feel a little less pressure, but there hasn’t been a dramatic release of stress and responsibility as I had expected.  I feel that it will take a while to adapt to the changes, to become accustomed to having free time.  We have no hard deadlines anymore, we can do what we want when we want, and surprisingly the absence of such deliberate planning has been difficult to get used to.  Time, we’ll give it time and see how it feels.

The truth is that the mere absence of boat work does not in itself cause happiness–it has taken me a few weeks to recognize this.  I have the time now to again participate in other activities: reading, thinking, socializing, exercising, etc, and these other activities in life bring me my joy and fulfillment–just as soon as I again remember how to let them happen.

some images and video between Ensenada and La Cruz

(post dated–this post refers to events on 3/7)

Before leaving Ensenada I pulled in a weatherfax over the SSB (our shortwave, long distance radio) and noticed that we would be heading out into a developing low pressure system with a cold front moving over our position–i.e. a small storm.  The wind speeds were predicted at 25-35 knots and seas 12-18 feet–these sort of conditions are fairly substantial when you’re offshore in the dark, but not the sort of thing that need be dangerous if you’re prepared for it.  So Karen and I discussed the forecast and decided that we were game for it.  Personally, I was interested in testing our mettle.  Also, I thought it would be good to get our first storm experience under our belt, as a confidence-building exercise.  And really as far as storms go it was a small one, not too crazy.

As it approached, the wind shifted around from behind us–where it is convenient for the wind to come from—to directly ahead of us–not so convenient (though expected).  Still keen on making forward progress, however, we started beating into the wind.  For the first five hours or so of windward sailing we were ecstatic to discover that it was our most comfortable point of sail so far: the wind waves had not yet built, so were were sailing smoothly into the wind with a following sea.

As the winds increased, we progressively decreased sail area.  We had been sailing for hours with a full main and full jib.  First we took one reef in the main, then took two reefs in the main, then switched down from the jib to the staysail.  With the staysail and double-reefed main we beat upwind in increasingly shitty conditions for a number of hours. Here’s a really crappy little picture I just drew and took a picture of to illustrate:

This is the position we found ourselves in–beating upwind in the darkest night with double-reefed main and staysail–when the worst of the storm came upon us.  The “worst of the storm” involved 30 knots of wind, an immense quantity of driving blinding rain, occasional ambiguously located flashes of lightning, and reasonably sized obnoxiously pounding wind waves.

Beating upwind is not an advisable thing to do in a storm, unless you are trying to deliberately subject yourself and your boat to the strongest forces possible.  You can sit there and say that we should have changed things sooner, before we found ourselves in the situation of being over-canvassed beating upwind in a storm that is.  Three weeks ago I probably would have said the same thing–but I have learned some things since then.  One of those things is that if something is working well enough, then leave it well enough alone.  Too often I fall victim to experimenting with sail changes and modifications, only to find myself needing to change everything back–and exhausting myself in the process.  When there are only two of you, and sleep becomes a high priority, you must eschew the textbook sailing setup for one that is working well-enough to leave well-enough-alone.  So even though beating upwind in the storm was not ideal, we were still “fine”–fine in the sense that I judged neither us nor the boat to be in any immediate danger.  So, despite the increasing ridiculousness of beating upwind in those conditions, I still found myself wondering whether we should bother taking any measures to alter our situation.

Well eventually of course conditions deteriorated to the point where we needed to modify our situation.  Ahhh now the tricky part is what to change and how to do it, in the middle of the storm, isn’t it?  Trying to get something accomplished in those conditions–i.e. two steps shy of “worst conditions imaginable”–is touch and go.  If you mess something up with the sail, it will promptly flog itself to pieces before you have a chance to save it.  If you make an honest mistake with steering, you’re liable to find yourself on your ass, which in a boat means “knocked down”, which means getting your mast to touch the water–not cool.  Basically, you don’t have many chances to get it right.  Whatever you do, you want to pull it off right the first time.

We decided that we should heave to, and we also decided that we should get it right this time.  The last time we tried to heave to while experimenting in the dark prior to entering san diego, I was dissatisfied with our setup.  Specifically, I was annoyed that we were unable to completely stall the boat.

This time it worked out perfectly fine for us.  We hove to under double-reefed main and staysail, the motion of the boat became relatively calm, and we slept the night away (in turns).  The boat still fore-reached at about a knot, so I still want to work on that a bit, but as it turns out the hove-to position was still stable and calm, so perhaps I was being a bit perfectionist about it before.  If we ever experience a real storm we’ll see.

Perhaps that was an anticlimactic conclusion to our storm story, sorry about that, but we were safe and fine so that’s a good ending right?

We arrived mid-day yesterday after a 9 day 1200 miles passage from Ensenada.  There are many stories to tell, which I will need a few days to write up and post–there are a lot of things occupying our time now that we are back among people again (like showers and food and laundry, etc).  Some brief notes: it was extremely challenging, and is now extremely satisfying to have accomplished.  We certainly hadn’t planned on staying out for so long or going so far before stopping, but we were both of the mindset to keep going as long as we were feeling ok, and were continued to feel ok all the way down here to banderas bay . . .

The second day out from Ensenada we experienced our first storm–a small one, perfect for practicing.  You’ll hear that story in another post.

We had a lot of wind and big seas almost the entire time.  Like 20-30 knots of wind and 10-15 foot seas, for all but the last few days.  This was good, in the sense that we reeled off 150 mile days and got south fast.  But wind and seas like that make the experience tiring and challenging.

And I should emphasize that it was really challenging.  It was hard not because of any technical difficulties, but simply because of discomfort and frustration and lack of sleep.  At times the discomfort of the boat motion and frustration of seemingly easy tasks was overwhelming.  I now well understand the expression “mouth of a sailor”, because at times I swore harder and louder than ever before.  At one point I had a teapot jump off the stove and spill water all over my head WHILE I was finishing mopping up two bowls of cereal from the floor.  That’s just one of dozens of comically ridiculous things that happened, all of which elicit an emotionally explosive need to simultaneously cry, scream, and laugh.  “Too ridiculous to have just happened” went through my head often.  I started thinking of our boat as a funhouse; it was laughable to be down below when everything was going every which way, things flying all over the place, etc, which was most of the time.  It got better.  We became more efficient with the watches and the sail changes, and more accustomed to the funhouse nature of being down below.  It got sunny and warm shortly after passing Cabo, and that was a big turning point.  By the end we were sleeping 6 hours at a stretch and drinking beers, and it was feeling good.   Now that we’re at anchor having successfully made that monster passage, it feels really good indeed!

So, I will post some more entries with specific stories from the trip.  Our priorities are sleep, relaxation, food, drink–the basic essentials of comfort really.  Eventually we’ll get around to such motivated tasks as laundry and writing emails etc, but there’s no reason to rush these things!

fyi we’re planning on sitting right here where we are for about a month.