Daily updates describing the voyage of the yacht Aldebaran



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7 May
Just to bring you up to date, the crew spent the day yesterday in the city of Loreto about 20 miles north of Puerto Escondido where the yacht is (went up there and back by road – I don’t know how).  They apparently talked to Grant on the radio a couple of times the day before as well.

 

They have sailed some way south today heading back to La Paz by Sunday, and have now obviously anchored in a little bay for the night (a really pretty little bay looking at the photos on Google Earth).


8 May
Talked to Andrew today.  They have come a long way down the coast today, 6 or 7 hours sailing although 4 hours or so was motoring as there was not much wind.  They are close to La Paz and will get in there tomorrow.

 

Currently overnighting in a little bay on the Island La Parfida.



 

Everyone is well and looking forward to starting out over the Pacific shortly – looking forward to it with some healthy trepidation that is, which is natural.


9 May
Just saw Andrew on facebook.  The crew arrived safely in La Paz, met up with Lauren (Lary's other daughter) and are enjoying a beer and each other's company in town.
Lary
11 May
Just to bring you up to date, we had a good chat with Andrew on Skype this morning and then again on the radio this afternoon.

 

They are in La Paz as everyone is probably aware.  Have spent today looking at grocery and provision prices and trying to find a place to copy some documents – they did find one but the owners didn’t know how to use it – apparently they eventually worked it out.  They found a good coffee café today and a bar where they could skype from, but it proved a bit marginal with the call dropping out a number of times.  The refrigeration unit is now due on Friday so all going well they will finally be on their way by early next week. 



 

Andrew says it is very hot and apparently gets really hot in the summer, but everyone does like Las Paz.  When talking on the radio a short while ago apparently a pleasant wind had come up which was cooling things done a bit.  They may or may not call in to Cabo san Lucas on their way out as they don’t really like the place, so will only call there to top up fuel and water if necessary.

 

We discussed radio contacts and aerials again today.  I’m happy that their long distance HF aerial is working pretty well now and with the improvements I’ve done here we had the best contact yet today.  I must admit that my aerial additions here have brought about some comments from the neighbours and friends that the house is starting to look like a clandestine radio station with wires in all directions, but it is working reasonably well and will only be needed for a couple of months.  I expect that I can reduce its footprint a bit when the yacht gets closer.



 

The crew are keeping busy finishing off all the little things that need attention that have surfaced during their extensive sailing around the Sea of Cortez so that’s good.

 

We talked a lot today but that’s about the gist of the conversations.


13 May
Had a long talk with Andrew on the radio today.  They have been working around the yacht today and have started taking the refrigeration unit out in readiness for the arrival of the new unit tomorrow (hopefully).  They are likely to go and visit a friend on the other side of the peninsula sometime over the weekend and all going well could leave for the Pacific by Wednesday – just tentative at this stage.

 

I brought up the Mexican navy visit again just to find out what actually happened.  That day the navy boat arrived in the bay they were anchored in along with a number of other yachts.  They wondered whether the boat might be looking for them so turned on the vhf radio and were being called by the navy boat.  The Mexicans said they needed to board them to clear up the emergency issue from the previous day.  Apparently it was then a bit comical as the Mexicans launched a small dinghy from a very precarious looking winch arm and then spent some time trying to start their outboard motor.  When it finally fired up there was a large quantity of exhaust smoke emitted and finally they were on their way.  They boarded the yacht and checked them out, then filled out a lot of paperwork to complete the episode and departed.  They were apparently very pleasant and polite, but the yachties felt sorry for the Mexicans having to operate with such poor equipment.  They had certainly been thorough with handling the emergency though.



 

All on board are happy and well, but say they need to tidy up and clean the yacht a bit before departing – I think those were Lisa’s comments.

 

We are unlikely to have radio contact for the next couple of days.


17 May
The yachties have spent a couple of days with friends in Pescadero, on the other side of the Baja Peninsula (a lovely spot that they didn’t want to leave).  Yesterday, back in La Paz, Don and Andrew worked all day removing the old refrigeraton unit and fitting the new one (they looked tired this morning on Skype).  They are now running only the freezer off the motor (only need to run it an hour or two a day to keep it cold) and the new refrigeration unit off their 12 volt power.  They tested it overnight and it is cold, 35F, this morning, which is colder than they need, so that’s good.  Lisa has been out today getting provisions, including fruit and veges, and they hope to leave La Paz later today or in the morning.  Probably a brief stop at Cabo to refuel and then into the wide blue yonder towards the Marquesas islands.
18 May
Short email from Leslie this morning that they are packed with all necessary provisions and just about ready to go.  Passage is estimated to take 20 - 30 days. 
 
So they're finally off to the Marquesas!
Lary
The yacht left La Paz about 3 hours ago and they turned SPOT on for a bit over an hour after leaving the harbour  

Yesterday Leslie updated their blog site with a description of the swarm of bees that visited them in Paradise Harbour some weeks ago.  Andrew described it to me at the time but I didn’t say much if anything about it at the time as they were going to put it on their blog, but it didn’t happen until now.  Leslie has done really well typing up the amount of info on the story as she has from her cellphone, but the part I remember hearing from Andrew at the time was the carnage their wind turbine created.  The turbine blade spins at quite a high speed and apparently some of the swarm flew into it.  Andrew said it sounded just like a machine gun firing as the blade decimated lots of bees.  The rear of the yacht was apparently covered in bee body parts!!  You can see Leslie’s blog entry here http://braincloud2011.blogspot.com/


19 May
Received an email about an hour ago from Andrew saying they were stopped to take on fuel and water near Cabo.  I assume they are at the marina on the south west side of Cabo san Lucas as I don’t see any other place they could berth at a jetty in the area.
I’ve just talked to Andrew.  They are in San Jose Del Cabo which is about 25 miles NE of Cabo.  They have filled up fuel and water and are staying the night in the marina and leaving tomorrow morning.  They had a good trip down from La Paz with a southerly swell and southerly wind but pleasant sailing.

 

All are well on board


21 May
I have not talked to Andrew for a couple of days as radio contact has been poor and we can’t hear each other.  However I did get an email form Andrew about 6 hours ago (that would be about 8am in Cabo), saying ‘Everything is OK, leaving now’. 

 

He reported in to the maritime net last night saying they had not moved yesterday as they had stayed to fix a small leak in one of their fresh water tanks.  Andrew had told me just before they left La Paz that he had vacuumed and cleaned out the bilges ready for departure and had discovered a small water leak which they would look at fixing while going down the coast.  Obviously they needed yesterday in harbour to fix it.



 

They supposedly have left but we need the first SPOT update to confirm that, when they send it.

 

There was a short update on their blog site yesterday updating their planned route, if you haven’t seen it.


Just talked to Andrew on the radio – good copy today.  Their location is 22 42N, 110 16W If you copy that location and paste it into Google Earth it will show you where they are.

 

They have filled up with fuel and water and got away this morning at the time he emailed me.  They have been getting very confused seas with 8 foot waves coming from the south and north causing it to be quite jumbled and rough.  The weather maps don’t show that but I’m sure it will settle down when they get further out to sea.  Andrew says he is seasick, which is normal when they start out but hopefully will be ok in a day or so.  All the others are ok but a bit quiet he says, probably just coping with the emotions of finally leaving and the unpleasant seas.  They’ll all settle down in a day or so.  We will talk again tomorrow, subject to the conditions of course.



 

They have been busy and haven’t turned Spot on today but will soon if they remember.


22 May
I did not talk to Andrew today as the band conditions were not good, noisy and some interference from close stations, however he did call in to the Seafarers net and gave their position as 21 18N, 111 31W

 

They did turn their Spot locator on earlier today so they have traveled a further 70 km (44 miles) in the last 6 hours


23 May
The crew put up a Spot location a few hours ago 

They travelled 205 km (130 miles) in the previous 17 hours – that’s good going.  Only 4300 km (2700km) to go to the Marquesas Islands!


Good radio signals tonight, probably the best we have had yet.  An hour ago they were at location 20 00N, 113 25W.  They have travelled a further 109 km (68 miles) in the 13 hours since their Spot location this morning.  They have not covered as much distance as the wave direction is quite variable.  The wave height has reduced to only 4 feet but is now westerly and even swinging around to the north at times.  All the weather forecasts say it should be southerly!  Andrew is still suffering from sea sickness but only at night now so he eats and drinks well early in the day so is keeping up his strength and slowly improving.  Leslie and Carl have been a bit squeamish but are almost right now.  Lisa and Don are fine.

The extra day in port before they left was to fix the fresh water tank leak which turned out to be two tanks needed fixing.  They now have 3 good tanks on board; the two main ones are full and in the bottom of the boat, but the third one is high up on the port side and driving them all batty, as the water in it slops and bangs around with the swell, so they are using that one first to get rid of the noise. 

Andrew admitted that they were all a bit scared of what was ahead when they left but have settled down now and are enjoying the trip.

Conditions permitting, we will talk again tomorrow night.


24 May
Good contact with Andrew today.  They had a pleasant day sailing but tonight it is awful.  The sea is only 5 feet and from the NW but short duration jumbled waves and the wind is varying from 2 to 10 knots from the North – sounds ideal but apparently the waves are causing the boat to bounce around and the boom to crash around a bit.  They are sailing NW (not where they really want to go) with only the foresail up to try and smooth out the conditions.  They expect it will be smooth again by daybreak.  Their current location is 18 46N, 115 14W. 

 

Last night the preventer rope which holds the boom down to the deck and limits its movement broke, but they had a backup already on it and were able to fix it today.  Today they ripped the mainsail so Leslie and Andrew got busy and stitched the rip up today.  Small incidents just to keep them all busy!!  Their current location is 18 46N, 115 14W. 



 

They are going to try and remember to turn SPOT on twice a day in future (notice I said try and remember).  We need to be aware that there is no satellite coverage for SPOT in the mid Pacific so in another week or two we could get a lot less bearings from that source.  Fortunately radio signals are getting stronger as they get closer.

 

Andrew has kept food and water down for the past 24 hours so hopefully he is ok again – everyone else is fine.



 

I passed on the fact that we had made contact with you Rosemary and put you one the ‘Family list’, and I passed over radio plans from you, Grant, for the 25th.  Andrew says he will be listening with interest and hope it works.

 

That’s about all I can remember from the discussion today.


25 May
Had a reasonable contact with Andrew today but conditions were not as good as yesterday.  Their current location is 18 10N, 117 15W.  They have now travelled 1000 km with 3,700 to go!

 

The sea did improve during the day but is awful again tonight, so they must be getting used to it by now, but are heading west again rather than SW.  Andrew has kept food and water down for over two days now, still feels a bit squeamish but much better.  Everyone else is fine, except Lisa who is a bit frustrated, having dropped dinner all over the floor tonight in the rough seas!  With 100s of miles of sea between them and everything else, they are currently within 10 miles of another yacht, which has a couple on board heading from Mexico to Hawaii.



 

I decided when they left the Mexican coast, I would record progress using every location received, both from Spot and by radio, as the information would be rapidly lost otherwise.  I attach the current progress chart for those who may be interested.


26 May
Radio signals were reasonable today and we had a long chat.  They are now at location 17 15W, 119 11W travelling at 7 knots with a NW wind and small 6’ sea.  They’ve had a good day with comfortable travelling and done 135 miles in the past 24 hours, that’s about 5.3 knots average.

 

They have never really seen the sun since leaving Cabo, overcast all the time but no rain.  There has been a small amount of sea life around, a couple of dolphins one day but not a lot else.  A lot of birdlife though and one large bird with blue feet (they don’t know what it is and call it a blue foot booby – I have checked on the internet and that is exactly what it is called) spent 14 hours perched on their bow overnight and flew off next day.



 

They wanted to know the NBA results so I looked those up and passed them over.

 

As I really only hear Andrew’s comments on everything I asked yesterday if they could all have a comment for me today on the trip and here is what I received:



 

Carl – Seems like all I do is helm, eat, and sleep

Don – I didn’t think it was going to take this long

Leslie – Patching sails is easy when Andy is around to help

Lisa – I’d give anyone $50 to bring me a whole-wheat everything bagel from Brooklyn Bagels

Andrew – This is a long way to go for a croissant of questionable quality

 

We did the normal weather report and discussed looking out for hurricanes, but there is nothing anywhere that is likely to affect them in the next week to 10 days and that’s as far as weather predictions give, so all is looking good.



 

That’s about all for today


27 May
Short contact with the boat-people today as conditions were not very good and it was hard to transfer information, however they are all fine and now at location 16 37N, 121 08W.  They currently have a NW wind of 15 knots, a northerly sea of 6’ and 50% cloud cover, so have actually seen a bit of blue sky today.  They are making good progress and will have been on the water for one week by tomorrow morning and have done 1000 miles which is 1/3 of the distance, so going well.  The doldrums could slow them up a little but time will tell.

 

Yesterday they had a brief chat with Grant who was flying from San Fran to Beijing but conditions between them were not very good either.



 

Andrew also had a chat on the radio this afternoon with a yacht called Galactic which is also going to the Marquesas and is about a week ahead, so he was interested in what conditions they were experiencing


28 May
Just talked to Andrew.  Radio conditions not good again today, so we just passed on the basics.  They did forget to turn Spot on this morning, but have now turned it on so we should see a location from that shortly.  He gave me their location as 15 06N, 122 38W, which means they have traveled a further 234 km in the past 24 hours.  They are currently doing 6 knots.

 

I passed over to them a few comments from their blog and also the NBA final teams which they had asked for. 



 

They are all ok and doing well.


29 May
Had an average contact with Andrew today before the seafarers net, got over quite a lot of info but a lot of repetition to get it all.  However, Annette and I are going to be away for 5 days next weekend so I was worried about abandoning the crew for that long.  We have a reasonably modern car and an older van (more a people carrier, quite nicely laid out and furnished but nothing like the modern equivalent).  We’ve had it from new and it’s about 19 years old – sooo useful but worth nothing so we keep it.  When the boys were at school we used it to go on holiday all the time, plenty of room for surf boards, wave skis, mum’s sewing machine, etc, and I always used my transmitter in it to keep awake while the others slept as we travelled overnight (so that a day’s surfing wasn’t wasted).  I haven’t used the radio in it for 12 to 15 years but thought that might work next weekend, so after talking to Andrew this afternoon I put the radio in the van, found the power cord and the aerial and went up on a hill nearby away from any power lines, and low and behold Andrew was booming in.  We had a great chat, the best ever, and clarified some of the topics I wasn’t quite sure about from earlier.  I could even hear the others comments in the background.  So, guess where we’ll be at sked time tomorrow?  No computer up there but I can check the weather and seas here before I go, and it does solve my quandary about next weekend – we’re travelling in the van!  That story was longer than planned so I hope I didn’t bore anyone, and I’ll now be able to dismantle some of the aerial farm that has grown around the house trying to improve signals.

 

The crew are tired today as they had a busy night.  The seas had dropped and gone NW and they had a near tail wind (NE) but found that they had to fly their big mainsail to keep the boat moving and stable.  If they use a smaller sail then the boom keeps banging around and they don’t think that is good for it.  They have been practising with a smaller sail during the day to try and get the hang of it.  They hope to get more sleep tonight.  The seas are due to go southerly and rise a bit for the next few days so that will slow them down a bit.  They are going to keep above 7ºN for a while yet as there is little or no wind below that (the doldrums) and then go straight south using a bit of motor where feasible to get across the windless bit.  There is another boat a few days ahead of them so they discuss weather conditions with them daily and that helps clarify the weather ahead.



 

It does appear that SPOT has run out of satellite coverage, it was due to in the mid Pacific, so I will set up a web page on one of our websites to give progress info and provide a link to it from their blog (if I can work out how to do that).  They are currently at 13 46N, 124 05W in an 8’ NW sea and with a NE wind which picked up a bit yesterday.  They have travelled 218 km in the past 23 hours.  The weather is still overcast

 

Everyone on board is fine including Raleigh but the comment was ‘this ocean sailing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and we’re almost over it already’  I told them that that was a bit early as they haven’t reached half way yet!  Carl is the keen fisherman (the only one I gather) and puts out lures everyday.  They think there must be some largish fish getting them as the lures frequently disappear, however yesterday Carl caught a yellow fin tune, not a big one, but plenty for some sashimi (I’m jealous as I love that stuff) each and a good size steak each for dinner.  Tonight they had Vegetable Korma with beans, which I’m told was delicious.  Lisa has obviously got used to her galley and the comments on food are very positive, mind you they would need to be or they might be cooking for themselves.  I don’t envy Lisa that job, especially in rough seas.  However she hasn’t tipped dinner all over the floor again, so she’s coping.



 

I think that’s about all for tonight, more tomorrow.


30 May
Good chat with the yacht today – up the hill again, even Annette came this time to have a chat with Andrew and Lisa.  They had a good mellow day today.  It was fine and sunny and the sea relatively calm.  They took the opportunity to play with a few of the smaller sails to work out how they should be operating them.  All quite tired though from a couple of nights of hard work.

 

Their current position is 12 06N, 124 46W travelling with a speed of 5 knots.  The wind is northerly at 10 knots and the sea northerly at 3’.  Cloud cover about 60%.  We discussed weather and it looks in the predictions that the width of the no-wind area in the doldrums will reduce significantly in a couple of days and stay small for up to a week, so they will probably go straight south mid this week and get through that calm area as fast as possible..



 

We discussed where they might land in The Marquesas Islands as there are two possibilities, and we will research that a bit in the next week.  We brought up the subject of food, and they had leftovers from last night’s vege korma for dinner tonight.  Breakfast is typically egg sandwiches made with Lisa’s oat bread, lunch is variable for everyone, we know about dinner, but then apparently Lisa makes up night packs for those on watch, consisting of a sandwich, raisins, granola bar, and some form of candy, to keep them going through the night.

 

Some words of wisdom from the crew today:

Carl – Spinnaker pole, hell yeah!

Don – Leslie made her first loaf of bread today

Lisa – Only wants to sail under a genoa

Andy – I don’t understand what these little birds are doing so far out to sea!

Raleigh – Don’t tell me when I have to pee and poo.

 

That’s about it for today



 

Now that Spot is out of range, I have set up a webpage to show the yacht location and the trip statistics (distance, speed, etc) and added a link to it on the yacht blog  http://braincloud2011.blogspot.com/  You will find it on the right near the top, under location.  I will endeavour to update the data on a daily basis.  The direct link to the new webpage is www.angnz.com/aldebaran if you prefer to make a note of that.

 

31 May
The crew have had a peaceful day today with really hot calm weather.  They had a good wind first thing this morning and then ran out of wind completely until about 3pm.  They now have a NE wind of 10 knots.  The seas are from the north and only 3’ high.  They are currently travelling at 6 knots.  Their location is 10 38N, 126 06W.

 

During the seafarers net, Dan’s grandpa, Gene, called in, looking for me.  His signal was very strong here but he couldn’t hear me, however he could hear Andrew, so we moved frequency and they had a little chat.  Gene did have some difficulty recording the info that Andrew was trying to pass over to him (but considering he says he is 99 years old, he is amazing).  Actually Gene talked with Andrew for some time thinking he was just some yacht in the Pacific who had picked up the call, when he eventually twigged on to the fact that he was actually talking with Andrew on the yacht he was looking for, he was so excited.  Great stuff.   I passed over the Friday sked time to Andrew who passed it on to Gene, so Friday evening at 0200 UTC is all set up Dan and Ann.



 

This evening they had Noodle broth for dinner.  Lisa came on (her voice was really clear over the radio) and described what was in it, including potato, onion, tomato, beans, peas and various herbs.  It sounded delicious but had far too many things in it to just be a broth, sounds more like a hearty soup to me.  Both Lisa and Leslie made bread again today, the favoured honey oat bread.  It makes Andrew at least, really happy as he loves fresh bread.

 

Carl slept through all of this as he is on watch tonight.  They have two sharing the watch, rotating with 2 hours on and 2 hours off.



 

They expect to be about halfway by later tomorrow.


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