Cadence of the Sea

Cadence of the Sea has moved!

2012-02-09T19:19:00.000-08:00

Cadence of the Sea has moved! This page has been retired, please come visit at www.cadenceofthesea.com for a far spiffier and up to date page.

Six Days To the Tuamotus...

2010-10-10T18:54:00.000-07:00

We sailed from Tahuata on a lovely beam wind, the evening fast falling around. As I sat there enjoying my passage-christening cup of wine I imagined how Cadence might look from the island behind us, as she sailed off into the sunset, growing smaller and smaller, until her sails merged with the falling star, and in a final flash of orange she disappeared. The extra 200 miles we had to cover didn't seem bad at all. In fact, I was secretly looking forward to the extra days. Secretly, because we had cut it too close. John's departure date was looming, and a nasty spell of inclement or excessively calm weather would threaten to leave us with little or no wiggle room, a fact which brought him little happiness. We had broken the cardinal rules of cruising, “Never have a schedule.”

The wind was light and the sun strong, and the miles slowly but steadily ticked by. As we sailed into the the week, we marveled at how simple it could be, blowing with the wind, with the windvane doing all of the steering, and us just along for the ride. What few sail changes we made were welcome moments of activity. We saw only lights from a few fishing boats far off in the night, though nary a fish took interest in our lures, and other than a few occasional birds we seemed to be totally alone. While John voraciously devoured the last three books in our library, I pittled about doing small jobs and played the uke, and one night we spent some inspired time writing a song titled, “We have A.D.D.” We never finished it.

Sixty or so miles from our destination, the wind died altogether. Bobbing about on the sea, we took turns jumping overboard into 15000 feet of water, with all sail set. Pure, endless blue... Overnight we made a few miles in light puffs, but come morning, with 40 miles to go, we opted to run the motor. With only had 10 gallons of gas left in the tank, we had exactly enough gas, theoretically, to get us there. Wanting a buffer, I took 2 mixed (2-stroke oil and gas) gallons of outboard gas and dumped it in the tank, reasoning that a teeny bit of outboard oil diluted into 12 gallons of fuel couldn't hurt. This, however, was a bad idea. Three hours later, we were happily puttering when the motor abruptly quit. I diagnosed it as a carburetor problem, removed the carb, disassembled and cleaned it, to no avail. Convinced it had to be the carb, I installed the a used spare we had and vavoom! We were back in business.

But I had merely remedied the symptom, not the problem. Three hours later, like clockwork, the motor died, with Rangiroa just on the horizon. I once again removed the carb, cleaned it obsessively, reinstalled it, and we were up and running, but our faith in the reliability of the motor was shot. The outboard oil seemed to be concentrating inside the carb and gumming it up. There was no wind so we couldn't chance a run at the pass with its fast currents until we had a reliable means of propulsion, so we hove-to (parked) and drifted for the night with Tiputa pass a mere four miles away, taunting us.

With the morning sun came a gentle breeze and we raised the genoa for a shot at the pass. We wouldn't be breaking any speed records, but the wind was enough to maneuver should the motor quit, and it would give us a happy little boost through the pass. We would have preferred to leave the motor off altogether, but we weren't willing to bet the wind would last. Currents in atoll passes are notoriously strong because of the large volume of water flowing in and out of the enclosed lagoon with every tide, often through one or two major outlets. When we arrived at the pass there was a very strong ebb tide resisting our entry. We estimated slack tide (zero current) to be three or more hours away, but with nothing better to do, we opted to give the pass a try.

There was a veritable river flowing out of the island at 6 knots and our progress was slow, at best. For a long while, we stood still in the middle of the pass. At times we would slide down a wave and watch the land to either side of us move backwards. Finally giving the engine all the throttle we could safely give it, we were able to reach a blistering speed of 0.1 knot. It took us an hour to navigate the ½ mile pass, but the engine was a trooper and before long we dropped anchor into the clearest turquoise water I'd ever seen and watched the chain pay out along the bottom, 40 feet below. With the dinghy deployed in short order, we mounted the outboard and puttered ashore, and like every good voyage this one ended at a plate of cheeseburgers and a cold beer. (Or two.)

Though you couldn't tell it from my expression, these burgers were good.

To the Tuamotus and Onward

2010-07-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all, apologies for infrequent updates. Been in Rangiroa for 5 weeks now, in the Tuamotus, the next island chain down. The internet is spotty and rarely lets me on blogger, and really doesn't like picture uploading. Sailing to Tahiti tomorrow and will definitely write and add some pictures with the presumably good internet there. And I'll explain why we've been here 5 weeks. In the meantime, here's an old post blogger wouldn't let me publish:

Since I arrived here in French Poly seven weeks ago, life has been a blur of blue days, warm water, foreign languages, bad wine, fragrant burn piles on pack-dirt paths, and a parade of five-minute friends and double-cheeseburgers galore. John and I spent a couple of weeks taking hikes along verdant trails in the Marquesas, and hopping from anchorage to anchorage in a futile attempt at even scraping the surface of the beautiful island chain. The people are amazingly friendly and warm and the land is beautiful, a hiker's paradise. We spent some time in Nuka Hiva where we anchored overnight in nearby Daniel's Bay and took a hike inland through a deep valley to one of the taller waterfalls in the world. It was so dry it barely even trickled but the fresh water pools at its base were a refreshing change of pace from the salt water baths we were growing accustomed to. John was attacked by a killer territorial crayfish the size of his toe, but we wisely appeased him and his kind with an offering of trail mix and tobacco while we made our getaway.

Moving along, we made the overnight passage southwest against the wind to Hiva Oa, stayed a few nights in two different anchorages, and then moved on to Tahuata, just across a small channel to the south. This, and I think John would agree, was our favorite stop in our limited tour of the Marquesas. The water was finally clear enough to snorkel in and explore the fledgling coral reefs, and the anchorages were simply beautiful. Going ashore in one small town (less than 100 people perhaps), they saw us walking by and opened the little market for us. When John gave a child a lollipop, her mother asked if we wanted some pompelmousse, and the locals proceeded to load us up with the Polynesian treat (think large grapefruit, but sweet like an orange, not bitter, absolutely delicious), as well as some strange small fruit and a whole bunch of the best bananas you ever had. One of the hardest things about cruising here seems to be simply coming up with meaningful ways to repay your host's kindness.

I was particularly struck by the first-world status of the nation. People live on isolated islands in small villages, but have satellite TV and drive sweet new off-road vehicles with air-conditioning. One young Marquesan man I met had served in the military in France for a few years, then moved to Tahiti. After a few years of working in the hustle and bustle of Papeete, he came home to the Marquesas and now makes his living as an ornamental carver. “Here,” he said, “I never have to wake up to an alarm.”

Alas, the clock was ticking for us, and soon it was time to move on. We stowed the loose items on board, raised anchor and set off on the 400 mile passage with a six-pack of coke, 4 pompelmousse and a few extra cans of sardines. An hour or two out, we looked at the chart to set a course. “Hey John, bad news. Turns out it's 600 miles.” The infectious chill-out islanditus had gotten the best of us, and we hadn't even checked the chart. “Should've got some more coke.”

Arrival in the Marquesas

2010-06-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

As the days rolled into weeks, time became a blur. What day of the week it was was lost to us. We were a long way from home, but our arrival seemed theoretical, like it would never actually happen. John finally shook his nasty cough, which I neglected to mention, sounded horrible. If it weren't for his stoic nonchalance about it, I would have started writing a eulogy and considering what to tell his parents after his makeshift burial at sea. “Sorry, the the freezer simply isn't big enough... But I saved his head...” Though he sounded like he was dying, we always got a laugh out our running joke: “Adventure of a lifetime, eh bro?”, as we sat there getting bashed about, trying to muster the motivation to rise and cook a proper meal, or change this or that sail.
The doldrums are famous for their light and variable winds, and their squalls (short-lived turbulent storms). They were anything but dull for us. A couple of good squalls gave us a bit of much needed action in our adventure, and lightning storms on the horizon kept us relatively vigilant. Fortunately for us the winds cooperated, and before we knew it, we were pounding to windward in the southern trades, hours out from the equator.
Navy seamen and merchant marines have long celebrated a sailor's first crossing of the equator, his transformation from a 'polywog' to a 'shellback' (I think that's correct...), with various degrees of fanfare and hazing. Modern small-boat sailors often come up with elaborate rituals of their own, with costumes of neptune, mermaids, etc. constructed from random materials at hand, and probably booze a'plenty. We slept through the crossing altogether. But it was great. The last 600 miles were a hard beat into the wind, with boat motion a'plenty. A mysterious leak from somewhere up forward became progressively worse, and bad drainage forward (a thousand curses to the builder!) meant that the path of least resistance to the main bilge, and pumps, was over the cabin floor. Accordingly, we lowered our standards and even learned to accept with tolerance the not-so-occasional drips from new-sprung leaks onto our backs, faces, etc. “Adventure of a lifetime, bro.”At sunset, on the 23rd day, John called to me down below: “Hey, I think I see land.” Sure as sugar, there it was. Come morning the winds were light and we were ghosting into Nuka Hiva, with visions of cheese and baguettes and maybe a good burger tantalizing us... We had a good laugh when, looking at the circa 1890 chart I said “Hey, they've got the chief's house marked on here.” John's taste-buds did the translating: “They've got a cheese house!?”
Cheese or not, we were soon gorging ourselves on Marquesan goat in curry with fried breadfruit and banana with the bay stretched out before us, and it was heavenly and surreal. “Well, here we are. We finally went and did it.”

A desparate flight from Jacket-land

2010-05-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

We departed from the Morro Bay fuel dock at 3:30pm, with a long road ahead of us. John was patiently chomping at the bit and ready to go, and I had finally completed my mental checklist of 'must-do's' and was easing into the idea that we were finally, finally leaving on this adventure that had been so long in the making. The forecast called for 11' seas and 20 knots, diminishing over the next few days. There was another swirly low-pressure system off the coast of Canada headed our way and we knew it was now or never: with a potential storm four days out, we could skip south and out of its way if our luck held. If not, well, time to cowboy-up and see what Cadence can do.

Despite the 'professional' opinion of a naysayer or two on the dock, we set off . The California coast was soon out of sight. It was rolly and cold, but the wind was good and we made good progress southward, every mile taking us farther from the looming threat from up north. Before we knew it, we were hundreds of miles from land, past the point of no return, and were settling into a routine of napping and watch-standing. Any weather disturbance to the north was farther and farther away and we grew increasingly confident that we were in the clear, but dared not say so much aloud...

Cadence has a windvane, a wind and water-powered auto-pilot, but I hadn't got it working right in the past, so we installed an electronic autopilot before leaving, for the redundancy. It worked great for a while, and we happily let it keep steering. Gradually though, the belt would slip on the wheel more and more, and not suprisingly, 1200 miles from nowhere, the steering belt broke. It was a sad moment, and the threat of hand-steering for 1600 more miles seemed real. As John put it, “Well, the honeymoon's over.”

As it's said, “Necessity is the mother of all invention.” Hand steering was strictly unacceptable, so I finally resolved to making the windvane work, no matter what. Sure enough, after thinking for an hour or so, this time with a pressing urgency I hadn't felt before, it all seemed so clear. John took the wheel, I switched this and that around on the windvane, and VOILA! We were on our way again, and I felt simultaneously self-satisfied, and exceedingly dumb for not having figured it out sooner. Emphasis, on the exceedingly dumb part. For a week afterward I had P.T.S.D., sometimes imagining I was hearing the electronic grinding motor sound of the broken autopilot struggling to steer, though our quiet windvane continued to happily steer without complaint or malfunction, all the way to Polynesia.

Every day we took our noon position on a GPS and noted it in the log, 138 miles, 126 miles, 151 miles for the day, inching ever further from the coast of the Americas. From time to time, measuring the distance to the closest land provided entertainment. Scanning the horizon periodically for ships, it was always easy to imagine land was just over there, beyond some clouds. Sea birds were a common sight, and after the first week we frequently saw flying fish skimming the waves, dodging a toothy death chasing them from below, and found some less fortunate ones on deck every morning. The ocean certainly was no deserted expanse of nothingness, on the contrary, it was teeming with life a thousand miles from land.
But it was certainly not man's realm out there. We only saw four signs of man the whole time, all ships, and not even a single plane overhead. Two ships were in the distance as we passed L.A., two hundred miles off the coast, and two were sighted off the Mexico coast. One afternoon we were surprised to be hailed on the VHF radio by an Israeli ship 9 miles away, headed to Panama. Scanning the horizon, he thought he saw a weird cloud which turned out to be our sails. “What are you doing out here?” he asked.

Most of our days were spent sleeping, or trying to sleep, changing sails, scanning the horizon, daydreaming, cooking, etc. For the first 10 days we were always cold and wet, but suddenly and without comment, we were both lounging in shorts, getting thoroughly sunburned like a couple of tourists. John read voraciously while I tinkered with the boat, fixed things, and dreamed up new ways to rig this or that line or stop that block (pulley) from chafing or rattling. When it got hot, a mounted fan from a computer and a spring clamp and 12v cord from another appliance made a good birthday present for John. Meanwhile, he whipped up some tasty Indian food, and some burritos for Cinco de Mayo. My guitars, sadly, remained stored in the bow thanks to my having affected a minor break in my finger the first day out, but I've learned a few songs I can play on John's ukelele with two happy digits, and we're working on a song about attention deficit disorder, “A.D.D”, which may become an anthem... I like chocolate.

As the days rolled into weeks, our farmer-tans faded and we had the boat dialed-in. We learned that night-watches are best done inside, and that “there's nothing much out there anyways, so let's just watch a movie”. (Kids, don't try this at home.) Some days were nice downwind days with easy boat motion, and others not so much, but gradually we stopped cursing whatever gods-may-be when the boat slammed us against the counter, and just accepted it. “This is pretty much 'the deal' for a while...” A good sign you're getting attuned to the sea is when you find that instead of stepping across the cabin to pick up something on the other side, you just patiently wait for the boat to hurl you over there. No use fighting it, eh?

More to come...

Last Night On Land for a Bit

2010-04-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

Mmmmm. Hamburger and fries. Might be a while. The quiet little town of Morro Bay is eerily calm, but through the cold night air we hear the roar of surf more than a mile of, bashing itself against the iconic 600' Morro Rock. For the last two days it blew 30 to 45 knots almost incessantly, and the seas went from nada to 20 feet, closely spaced, in no time. A neighbor here at the yacht club dock left his dinghy on the dock and went to town. The ~60 pound little boat blew right off the dock and went upstream aways to commune with some sharp rocks. The weather out there was bumpin, to say the least, and I'm not sad to have missed the party. Tomorrow morning, however, we're outta here. Cadence is loaded to the hilt with supplies, gear, and admittedly a lot of junk we probably don't need. But there wasn't time to sort it out, so in the boat with all of it. Plenty of time to trim down over the next month...

Got lot's of books, computer movies, instruments, etc., to keep us busy. 65 gallons of water, and a watermaker which, in theory, will work in emergencies. Lots of sail options, good old-fashioned hank-ons to keep us on our toes, and 50gb + of music to sort through. John doesn't know it yet but if we run out of food, he's getting eaten first, he's bigger. I think we'll do just fine. Hopefully, if we get far enough south we can minimize the impact of the next weather system from up North, but if that doesn't pan out, we could have a wild ride about five days from now. But she's a good boat and can take it, miserable though we may be. And besides, the forecast doesn't call for anything of the sort yet. Fingers crossed!

Average time for this crossing is between 21 and 28 days. Probably a lot to write about after that, so the next post/s upon arrival should be fun. Take care, love you all, don't worry about us, and can't wait to talk when we get there.

Luego,

Dane