DAY 22 - The Visitor...

At about 2 PM yesterday the wind slackened and became more erratic. With occasional adjustment of full sails I kept the boat moving more or less toward Vancouver Island at 4.5-5 kt. As nightfall approached I was contending with 90 degree oscillations in wind direction. I would find myself headed for San Francisco, harden the sails, then 15 minutes later heading for southern Alaska which meant loosening of the sails.

I baked a loaf of bread which in spite of my best efforts came out heavy and doughy. For the rising I heated the oven to warm then put the dough pan inside with a hot water bottle on the floor of the oven to keep it warm. Ron Beach got me fresh flour and yeast for this passage so I'll try that next time. If that works out I'll deep six the Tahiti flour and yeast.

I had trouble hearing Richard at the 7.30 session, but I heard enough to learned that he was becalmed. I could hear Ryan, much further away, very clearly. I turned off the Toshiba laptop and unplugged the 12-19 V power adaptor and got a significant reduction in noise to the point where I could speak with him.

I think that a lot of the noise that I am picking up on the HF the radio comes from the boat itself. One evening I'll switc off everything, including the C120 chart plotter and the wind charger and see the effects. Having said that, Richard says that we are getting too close to each other (about 300 nm) to get good reception at the 8297.0 KHz that we are using. (I will leave it to Richard to suggest an alternative.) Richard had been told by Don of Summer Passage not to expect wind for 4 or 5 days. I pointed out that the 48 hour surface pressure prediction forecast a Low of 1006 mb at 45N, 140W, and that it looked to me that he would be getting good SE winds. He noted this. In any case, he reckons that he has enough fuel to motor in the rest of the way if he has to.

Ryan on Sonrisa is moving exceptionally well. They got a big boost from a Low bringing near-gale winds and he says that the Endeavor 37 is a good downwind boat. He was just shy of Lat 40 poised to begin his swing east. I tried to send an email to his parents letting them know that all was OK but the message bounced. I'll sort that out with Ryan later.

While I was tacking the boat in the dark later I noticed something black strike the headsail which was illuminated by the deck light. I was too busy to investigate but figured it was a flying fish. Later in the cockpit I noticed a small dark bird, the kind I see darting around all over the ocean. He would try to fly out of the cockpit with no success, but I could see that his long narrow wings were intact. I've learned that ailing birds are best left alone so I tried to shield him from my activities. With luck he would be gone in the morning.

At 10 PM it was all over with the sailing. I was not prepared to play hide 'n seek with the wind at night. It's too tiring, too hard on the rig, and too risky for me. I dropped all sail and went to sleep.

In the morning I found the vaunted Pacific Ocean sleeping like a kitten. (Watch those claws!) The ocean was as calm as I have seen it. The wind speed was less than 3 kt and there was a slight drizzle. I was not too concerned because the grib file had predicted this and the latest one promised good winds later in the day which would last at least 24 hours. It would be a good day for an engine run and it was required since the capacity on the house bank was below my 700 a/h trigger point. This would be only my 3rd engine run in 22 days at sea.

I had a more detailed search of the cockpit and found my little visitor crouched between the Zodiac and seat. I prepared a plastic food basket lined with a tea towel. My plan was to put him in the container and lift him up to give him a chance to fly. If he could not fly then we would both have a problem. I would probably put him inside the cabin. I picked him up and put him in the without a struggle. I then held the basket up and outside of the rail to give him a chance to fly. He seemed very alert but made no attempt to fly. I put him in the port quarter berth next to the cockpit window with a thin cloth over the basket.

I then fired up the engine and ran it for 1 hr 50 minutes. There must be a whopping counter current in this area because there was a measured and consistent divergence between the heading of the boat and the actual course, which was 20 degrees to the north. The boat was moving at 5 kt with the engine at 1200 rpm.

During this time I did some fuel consumption calculations. We had left Tahiti with full tank and it it took 7.4 gallons (28 liters) of diesel to fill up the tank again in Honolulu. During this time we had run the engine 14.3 hours. This represented consumption of 1.96 liters (let's call it 2) or .52 gallons per hour. This confirmed earlier calculations that the 140 liters of diesel in the tanks will give me approximately 70 hours of motoring, for a range of 350 nm. The 20 liters of reserve will give me another 10 hours and 50 miles. That's it: 400 nm tops, though I suspect that I could increase that by turning a switch and taking the load of the 160-amp alternator off of the engine.

At the beginning of the run the alternator was charging 147 amps into the 4 gel house batteries. (The 50-amp alternator does its own thing with the little used starter bank.) At the end of the run 71 amps were going in. The calculated amp hours went from 689 to 860. And because the starter bank is on its own independent switch the chart plotter and gas sniffer no longer drop out due to a voltage drop when I start the engine. It is a great power system that Bruce and his Seapower group put in this boat in Opua.

At the end of the engine run I was 703 nm from Cape Flattery, and .5 nm short of Lat 44N.

I was not able to get my usual trio of weather faxes out of Honolulu. The reception was so bad from there and Kodiak that I could not even recognize the fax signals. Fortunately the reception from Pt Reyes (S.F.) was excellent. That station provides something that Honolulu does not: a 96-hr surface chart. The forecast (for 16 June, 1200 UTC) shows a pair of deep Lows. One is of 982 mb at 52N 155W and the other is of 980 mb at 45N 170W. These are whoppers that will turn that section of the Pacific into a cauldron. Fortunately Richard and I should be well clear of that but Ryan was at 39.14N 153.33W last night and I will warn him because there will be high winds south to 30N and east to 135W.

At 11.15 AM I sensed enough wind to have a go at sailing with the jib only. Soon Pachuca was sailing at 3.5 kt on course 022.

At noon we were at 44.01N and 140.27W. We had a noon-noon distance of 46 nm and were 703 nm from Cape Flattery.