Monday, August 29, 2016

This loop is now complete: 2013 to 2016

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Passage to Neah Bay: arrived!

Sea temperature: 51.8deg

I'm anchored in Neah Bay!

All is very well onboard.

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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Passage to Neah Bay: day 23

Sea temperature: 60.8deg

All is well aboard.

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Saturday, July 23, 2016

Passage to Neah Bay: day 20

Sea temperature: 55.3deg
Barometric pressure: 1022

All is well onboard.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Passage to Neah Bay: day 16

2016-07-16 7:00PM UTC, 46°09'N 154°36'W # noon
2016-07-17 7:00PM UTC, 47°16'N 152°07'W # noon
2016-07-17 11:10PM UTC, 47°14'N 151°46'W # Jibed - Yay!
2016-07-18 7:00PM UTC, 47°53'N 149°39'W # noon
2016-07-19 7:00PM UTC, 47°48'N 146°07'W # noon

Sea temperature: 53.5deg
Barometric pressure: 1026 (center high pressure 1040)

I'm now around the top of the high on the final leg into Neah Bay.

However, backing up and starting again from after my last blog post...

I mentioned the fog in my last post. Fog has ended up appearing every evening for the following four days, and has stayed around for two afternoons as well - its very foggy out here.

In the morning of the 16th, my 13th day on the passage, I was doing my checks after a sleep cycle at 12:30am and noticed that there was an AIS contact, with our closest point of approach (CPA) in 60min. My alarm goes off when the time to CPA, TCPA, is 45min or less. The initial CPA was close, less than 0.5nm and seemed to be jumping around. At 45min the CPA was still indicating a close approach, within 0.5nm, where the solution was jumping around to show the closest point being 0.5nm ahead of me, then behind, then 0.1 ahead, then 0.0, etc. This is bad, and indicated that I was on a collision course with a freighter. The CPA normally jumps around like this, but what you want to see is a steady set of solutions where the CPA is, for example, 2.5 in front, or behind, or to a side, and then have all the following solutions be close to that one and always on the same side. Anyway, I adjusted my course while 45min away, the new CPA showed the freighter passing 1.5nm ahead of me. I stayed up and 'watched' it pass. I say 'watched' it pass, as there was dense fog, and even at 1.3nm I could not see anything, not even a hint of its deck lights. AIS is wonderful! If I hadn't had AIS and had not altered course the chances are likely that I would have continued and not noticed anything. Freighters have professional crews, excellent radars, and of course receive AIS. As I also transmit AIS, their AIS alarm would have gone off when we were around 8nm apart - my signal is not as strong as theirs, being the recreational AIS version. Even without my AIS transmission, if they were actually paying attention at that time of the morning, they could easily have avoided me with their radar. However I much prefer seeing the situation myself from far away and altering course to avoid it. I've altered course twice now to avoid close encounters with freighters, and had one alter course on me when they must have felt our CPA was too close. Its a large ocean, but its not empty.

That same afternoon, just after the sun had appeared from behind the fog at 6pm PDT (around 3pm local time), I was sitting in the cockpit looking around when I heard the sound of a whale close by. I jumped up and looked around, and there was a large whale close by. It finished its breath and dove. Then surfaced, breathed and dove again. And then a third time and disappeared for a while. I thought that might be the last time I saw it, but it returned - again within a few hundred feet of the boat, appearing slightly behind and then approaching a little closer for each breath. It stayed around for about 1/2 hour and it was an amazing experience. It seemed to move off, and later I saw a whale on the horizon when it rose and breathed its plume of mist into the air. A little after that, it returned and stayed close to Luckness again for about 20min, then left again. After another hour or so, it returned a final time, and then left and I have not seen him/her again. I have pictures - if any of them turn out I'll post them when I get to the internet. I have friends on two other boats who left Hawaii at around the same time that I did. Dennis on s/v Pamela saw a whale and had a very similar experience 4-5 days ago. Colin & Wendy on s/v Bangorang left after both of us, and they had a similar experience yesterday. Its amazing that these whales take time out of their day to hang around with us yachties for a while. This is a huge ocean, and if the whales wanted to avoid us they very easily could. I have seen a lot of dolphins approach Luckness, and hang around, enjoying themselves. After watching dolphins interact a few times, you end up realizing that they are curious about us, they're friendly and are having a good time. I hadn't thought of whales this way until now - but the fact that they approached all three vessels and hung around, in my mind, shows a real sense of curiosity and friendliness on their behalf.

By 2pm on the next day, day 13, I was starting to get close to the high. The final plan I decided on was to sail a constant apparent wind angle, on starboard beam, and let Luckness sail the wind as it veered around, and this ended up working really well. As the winds veered around I went from NE to E to SE to S at which point I jibed and started heading NNE, NE, and finally East. The wind had slowed to 5-7 by the time I jibed as I was very close to the high, but I kept moving the whole time and was able to sail around the top of the high, cool.

After passing by the high the next part of this passage had me exiting the high pressure system and passing through a region of higher wind to its East. This started yesterday and continues today and tomorrow. The winds yesterday were quite strong, 28-32 knots with large waves developing. Luckily I have been able to put the wind behind me and I'm sailing at an apparent wind angle of 120, port side, and the ride has been boisterous but ok. Today the wind has been falling all day and the same is expected tomorrow.

After I exit the higher NW winds, there is short light wind region followed by what looks like WSW 10-12 knots for three days. I'm hoping those winds end up a little higher than forecast as I will be sailing close to dead downwind toward Neah Bay and a little more wind would speed things up.

The ball bearing-less turning block for the monitor control lines is holding up well. I started greasing it with SuperLube a few days ago, and that's working better than the SailKote - not a slam on SailKote, its just that a little grease is a better approach to this problem. The block is turning pretty freely and I expect it to survive the passage. My backup plans are still available of course.

I've currently sailed 2040nm since leaving Hawaii, and have roughly 830nm to go.

All is well onboard.

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Friday, July 15, 2016

Passage to Neah Bay: day 12

2016-07-12 7:00PM UTC, 40°31'N 162°26'W # noon
2016-07-13 7:00PM UTC, 41°32'N 159°54'W # noon
2016-07-14 7:00PM UTC, 42°47'N 158°37'W # noon
2016-07-15 7:00PM UTC, 44°21'N 156°46'W # noon

Sea temperature: 57.2deg
Barometric pressure: 1028 (center high pressure 1036)

I've started to relax into this passage. After starting, there was a period of initial shock for me to be back at sea, on passage, yet again. It took until around day 9 for me to relax into the passage - normally the initial adjustment period is only a day or two.

I closed my last blog post by mentioning how far there was to go and how long it might take if I average 5 knots, and then mentioned that I was hoping to move faster than 5 knots on some of the remaining days. I should have mentioned that I also expected to move slower than 5 knots from time to time as well.

By 9:30pm on day 8, the day I last posted, the wind had fallen to 5 knots and the boat speed was less than 2. There are times when this is just fine. If the seas are calm Luckess will happily sail for days in such wind, maintaining steerage, making slow progress. However this was not the case, the seas were not calm and the sails were not happy - as the boat rolled back and forth the sails would slat and bang back and forth. As this light wind was exactly what the forecast said would happen I didn't let this go on very long before reducing sail and starting to wait it out. By 2:30am the next morning a light wind, 7-8kts, had filled in, which I noticed after one of my one hour sleep cycles. I raised the sails and started sailing slowly again - then went back to sleep. At 3:30am the wind was back to 4kts and the sails were not happy again, so I reduced sail and started to drift again. By 6:15am the wind had returned in the direction I expected, I jibed and started sailing. The situation was that I was initially approaching the high, with the wind on my starboard side, and then the high moved away and a low from the NW came down and I rode its southern edge for a while, the jibe was my transitioning from moving toward the high to moving away from it. It makes sense if you draw a picture...I hope.

This was around the time I started to relax into the passage. The morning was colder, cloudy and a little rainy, but the cloud was patchy - some blue sky, some dark cloud, some light puffy clouds with the sun rays shining through and lighting up patches of the ocean - it looked quite majestic and amazing. I keep seeing different but quite beautiful sea/cloud/sky-scapes, each day.

By the next day, July 13th, at 11:30pm I lost the wind again, and again, this was perfectly forecast by the GFS weather model. As the low moved out of the area it left behind a little light wind chaos as often happens behind a low (or a front.) The next low was scheduled to appear around the afternoon of the 15th, with a light wind filling in before it arrived. This also happened exactly as forecast. By 12:40am on the 14th a little wind from the original direction that had fallen earlier returned, and I rode it for 1/2 hour before lowering my sails again. By 4:30am more wind had arrived, from the proper direction, I again jibed and started sailing - and still am.

The next weather feature I will encounter is the high itself. I'm currently sailing at a heading of around 40-50deg, beam reach, starboard side, in 18-20 knots of wind, with a fully reefed main, staysail and a little bit of genoa, doing between 6.5 and 7 knots. I had more genoa out earlier and was going 7-7.5 knots, but the present speed is just fine and its easier on me as well as the sails/rig/lines/etc. I have learned that, almost every single time that I report the current conditions in a blog report, that shortly after doing so the conditions will change...

I've had my first fog of the trip. Last night, after a beautiful and warm (relatively speaking) afternoon, the sun set and the blue sky started to almost immediately develop a low layer of what looked like cloud. As the sunset turned to dusk the cloud started to descend and by dark there was a heavy dense fog from horizon to horizon. It was pretty amazing watching it happen - I could look around in a 360 degree circle watching the cloud approach the horizon until it touched and I had fog. That lasted all night and into morning, when the sun has again come out making this afternoon another of long series of (patchy) blue sky afternoons. Energy has not been a problem at all on this trip - my battery bank has been fully charged at some point during the day, every day since leaving Hawaii.

I've currently sailed 1510nm with approximately 1350nm to go - so I'm over half way there now. Yay! It looks like am going to have two days of good sailing, perhaps 36 hours of lighter stuff with the possibility of a little drifting as I hit the top of the high, depending on how close I end up to it, and then a few days of good sailing again. At that point the projected icon for Luckness in LuckGrib falls off my last weather forecast, both off its Eastern edge and at the extreme of its time. I'll download new weather as this blog report goes out and try to get a view of what I might encounter beyond my last forecast region and Neah Bay.

Not wanting to leave the blog post solely to sailing and weather topics - I've added a new food to my diet, a cold weather food. Before leaving Hawaii I bought a few loaves of Oroweat, a long life bread that seems to last forever, and I am now enjoying some cheese on toast everyday - yum! So tasty. The cheese is from NZ, a 2 year old Tasty cheddar. Actually, its name is Tasty Cheese, with Tasty being a category just like Edam, Brie, Blue, etc. When you shop for cheese in NZ, you can buy some Tasty, or something else, which made my decisions pretty easy. If you know Tillamook 2 year white vintage cheddar, that's very close. The Cheese on Toast is toasted under the grill in my oven, which is perfect for both toasting the bread as well as getting a good bubble going with the cheese. Of course just after pulling it out of the oven I shake a little Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce on top, doing that immediately so that the sauce soaks into the cheese. Oh, so good! Feel free to 'sail along with Craig' by having a little cheese on toast yourselves.

All is well onboard.

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Monday, July 11, 2016

Passage to Neah Bay: day 8

2016-07-08 7:00PM UTC, 32°34'N 162°29'W # noon
2016-07-09 7:00PM UTC, 34°41'N 162°59'W # noon
2016-07-10 7:00PM UTC, 37°07'N 162°50'W # noon
2016-07-11 7:00PM UTC, 39°23'N 163°11'W # noon

Sea temperature: 68deg (at Hanalei the sea was 82.)
Barometric pressure: 1029.

Today is the day that I leave behind the steady trade winds and start to have to navigate my way through the fickle winds close to the Pacific high. There has been some wonderful sailing over the last few days - days where I would hardly touch anything, just let Luckness sail, mile after mile. There was an occasional small tweak to the Monitor trim line to adjust my angle to the wind, or attempts to put out more sail, which were mainly reversed fairly quickly when a squall rolled through. The winds have generally been in the range low to upper teens, perfect sailing wind. This afternoon has been warm and sunny, with the wind lightening into the 6-8 range, with the seas also calming significantly.

As you would imagine, I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment. I've used some of this time to review my logbook for my previous passage from Hawaii to Neah Bay, from July 14 to August 4th, 2012. Reading my record of that passage, it was initially in much less wind, mid to high teens rather than low to mid 20's. The seas were much more comfortable, and most notable to me at the present, is that on the last passage I encountered very few squalls. In the log, I mention a few times that there was a rain cloud on the horizon and how it altered the wind speed and direction - like this was an unusual event. I had heard of 'squalls' by that time and how sailors disliked them, but I had encountered very few. On my trip from Mexico to Hawaii in 2012, I don't think there were any squalls? When my current passage and the previous one are combined, I have quite a lot more experience with squalls now, much more than I would have chosen. The previous few days have been mainly squall free during the afternoon, and then the evenings, overnight and pre-dawn have seen squall after squall roll by. Luckily there was enough wind that I could sail with a sail combination suitable for the squall wind, and still make good progress in-between the stronger winds.

Today is the first day in the last few, where I had what looked like squalls on the horizon during the morning and early afternoon. However, these squalls have now changed - they are more like rain clouds now than squalls, the winds generated have been very mild with little change in direction (and those two go together or course.) I like this new trend, and hope it continues, although I think the price I am paying for the reduced squall/rain cloud intensity is that the sea water is growing much colder - and as a result the air is cooling down as well. My theory is that colder = less evaporation = less energy released into the upper atmosphere = less intense squall.

As I mentioned, the winds have been falling today, and they are starting to change direction due to the shape and location of the high. What has been a fairly constant ENE/E wind is now forecast to veer (move clockwise) over the rest of today and tomorrow. My plan is to let Luckness run, with the wind on her beam, with my direction changing from N through NE and then East. At the point where I am traveling South of East, I'll jibe and start heading NW. Then as the wind continues to veer, I will sail NNW, N, NNE, NE, etc. That sequence is currently forecast to continue until Wednesday evening, when things sort of fall apart - but by then I'll have a couple of new forecasts and will figure out how I want to proceed from where I end up.

The new Monitor line I installed looks good, the Monitor is steering well. Sweet. Unfortunately the day after I replaced that line, the Monitor control line turning block, a twin block mounted on the cockpit coaming, started to shed the ball bearings from its top block. Its a little disconcerting to see ball bearings rolling around the cockpit. After a little thought, I dug out a spare block which I could mount to the top of this pair, running the monitor control line through it. I'll do this if and when needed. It turns out that the block is working pretty well without any ball bearings. The block frame is some sort of high strength metal and the block itself is made from some sort of tough composite/plastic material. The bearing-less block is continuing to turn, as long as I lubricate it with SailKote, a dry lubricant spray, a couple of times a day. So plan A, with regard to this breakage, is to do nothing but keep it clean and lubricated, until the block starts to look like its going to fail, which may not happen before I arrive in Neah Bay. Plan B and C involve various lashings and the spare block, and both would work fine if necessary. I probably should have been pouring a cup of fresh water through this block while on passage, every day. Oops. I'll look after the next one a little better.

There appears to be either a hurricane or a tropical storm developing between Hawaii and Mexico - this is the third or fourth of this years series. I was exchanging email with a friend a couple of days ago, he will have left Hawaii on Sunday to start his passage to Neah Bay. He, Colin, mentioned that at the time the GFS model was forecasting this latest storm hitting the islands sometime around the 15 or 16? Of course the storms track may change, it may miss the islands. In 2012 I left Hanalei on July 14th with no hurricanes or storms to worry about. I'm glad that this year I left when I did, as its nice to be so far north of the islands as these storms develop. I'm also glad that I did not stop in French Polynesia this year - I imagine that stop would have been at least two weeks. Sailing across the equator and ITCZ to see tropical storms approaching my planned destination at around the same time I was planning to approach them is a sensation I'd like to avoid... I also hope that the race fleets that are sailing between the mainland and Hawaii are OK. The single handed Transpac runs this year - that fleet left San Francisco on July 2nd, headed to Hanalei. There is also the Pacific Cup and possibly a third race fleet out there? I wish them all the best.

I've currently sailed 1080nm with approximately 1780nm to go. If I can sail at an average of 5kts, there are around 15 more days. I hope to move a little faster on some of those days!

All is well onboard.

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Thursday, July 7, 2016

Passage to Neah Bay: day 4

2016-07-03 8:30PM UTC, 22°13.24'N 159°30.69'W
2016-07-04 7:00PM UTC, 23°43'N 159°59'W # noon
2016-07-05 7:00PM UTC, 25°53'N 160°40'W # noon
2016-07-06 7:00PM UTC, 28°05'N 161°13'W # noon
2016-07-07 7:00PM UTC, 30°23'N 161°47'W # noon
2016-07-08 1:00AM UTC, 30°51'N 161°58'W

Here it is, day 4 of my final passage this season, the passage to Neah Bay. I've sailed just over 500nm, with approximately 2400nm to go. The mileage remaining will depend heavily on the shape and position of the high as I sail around it, or through it, as the case may be.

The start to this passage was quite boisterous - the wind was 20-25kts with 2-3m seas. Once I was out in the open ocean again I understood why the Hanalei anchorage had been so rolly and uncomfortable - I was surprised there wasn't a larger swell entering the bay. Hanalei was doing a very good job of reducing the swell from the outside, but the swell that did make its way in was making life aboard Luckness a little tiring. Now, its not like Luckness is currently steady by any means, she's rolling quite dramatically at times, but at least I'm making my way towards a calm anchorage, the one at Neah Bay. Something like 20 more days of this and I will be able to sleep calmly through the night - that doesn't seem too far away?

The first day had excellent wind, as we sailors say, when there is lots of wind to move our boats along. Excellent wind for sailing, however also excellent wind for generating large waves and helping to push the water onboard when a wave crest hits the side of the boat. It was quite a wet first three days - typical of this type of sailing, which is currently upwind, with an apparent wind angle of 60-70.

The barometric pressure in Hanalei was 1016 when I left and has now increased to 1025. The GFS weather model is currently forecasting a center high pressure of 1033, so I am clearly approaching the high. The wind has been decreasing, which is a trend which will likely continue until I get around the high and onto the final leg heading East to Neah Bay.

There has been a pretty steady supply of squalls since I left. This afternoon has been squall free, as were the previous two afternoons, however the evenings, nights and mornings have seen many squalls roll through. My sail plan is currently underpowered for the conditions, fully reefed main, staysail and some genoa, in 15kts of wind, but its easy, as when the squalls roll through I do not need to adjust anything. I am losing some mileage and gaining convenience - an easy choice at the moment. Depending on your point of view, I have either really learned patience and am sailing with less sail than I used to in an effort to reduce breakages and wear, or alternatively I have become timid and am carrying less sail than I used to in the same conditions, in an effort to reduce breakages and wear. This started when I was around 15 days out of New Zealand in perhaps the most remote ocean I have ever been in, and I started to make much more of an effort to reduce the forces on the rig, rigging, sails, lines - in an effort that nothing break. Friends on other sailboats I was in contact with, on their own passages, were reporting their breakages to me. I have been lucky this trip, so far.

However, despite my effort, I had my first breakage since leaving New Zealand. I was sitting in the cockpit yesterday, looking around at the ocean, passing the time, as I do, when I heard a snap, or slap. I looked around, thinking that was weird - you learn to classify the sounds your hear as the familiar sounds, the ones you can ignore, and the unusual sounds, the ones you need to investigate. That sound needed to be investigated. The Monitor fin was swaying back and forth in the wind, the wheel seemed to be turning, nothing else seemed out of place - and then after a few moments I realized one of the Monitor self steering control lines had snapped and the boat was no longer being steered by anybody or anything, she was slowly turning into the wind. I moved myself to the wheel to hand steer and after a little cursing turned on the autopilot to let that steer and started to see what had gone wrong. The control lines have three areas of chafe. Two of the areas were much worse than the third, and I had added dyneema chafe sleeve to those areas which had solved the problem nicely, I thought. However the third, fairly minor chafe area had gotten worse in an area I hadn't been inspecting, in the area the line enters the leg of the monitor and goes down to the pendulum - that part of the line had worn through and finally snapped. It was 3/16" Amsteel, a 12 strand dyneema. Drat. I replaced the control line, while underway. It was fairly easy. As the winds and waves at the time were pretty active, by the end of the process I was completely drenched - many waves had taken the opportunity, with me exposed by the stern, to come aboard. In the past I thought I had fixed the Monitor control line problem in a clever way, with the dyneema chafe sleeve - I will now consider these lines to be sacrificial, and simply replace them before every long passage - its an easy replacement and I have something like 100' of the 1/4" Amsteel line I replace them with (I used larger line as there was no chafe sleeve added this time.)

I'm making steady progress towards my destination. The next four or five days will be interesting, for me anyway, as I start to enter the area of the high, and I'll find out if I end up motoring out of it, waiting for more wind to arrive, or getting lucky and being able to sail the whole way. How exciting! Stay tuned!

All is well onboard.

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Sunday, July 3, 2016

Passage to Neah Bay: about to start

I arrived in Hawaii on Monday June 19th, and now, two weeks later, I'm ready to start the trip back to Neah Bay. This has been a quick stopover.

The climate average data suggests that early July is a good time to leave Hawaii for the trip back to the mainland - this appears to be the time with the lowest probability of encountering a gale on my trip back. Of course climate data is the average of many years and decades of actual weather, and what I you will encounter on any given trip may vary widely from these long term averages. However, I feel like I'm ready to leave, and that's what I'm doing.

The trip to Neah Bay from where I am is roughly 3000nm, which should take somewhere over three weeks to complete. The last time I sailed this passage, I finished it in 21 days. I would be surprised if I was able to sail it any faster this time.

The big weather feature on this passage is the North Pacific High. The cliche is that in the summer, a large high pressure system develops and parks itself to the NE of Hawaii and just sits there. As winds circulate clockwise around the high, this generates the trade winds in Hawaii, and as I travel North the wind will generally be on my beam or behind, giving me a beautiful sail all the way to Neah Bay. The reality is quite different from this cliche however. The high is constantly being pushed around by the lows that move across the North Pacific, and the high will grow, shrink, move, morph into long ridges, spit into two, become stronger and weaker, join other highs which come in from the West and so on.

Leaving Hawaii, it is hard not to have 4 or 5 days of trade wind sailing - wind from between the E and NE - and make good progress North or slightly West of North, depending on the comfort level I choose. At that point you start to approach the region where you are probably close to the high and need to take its shape, size and position into account. There are several problems with this. A first problem is that weather forecasts are really only good for 3 or 4 days - so you can leave with a good high resolution forecast and a plan, but by the time you start to approach the high the actual situation may have changed. A second problem is that at the speeds I travel, compared to the size of the high and the speed it travels, it is difficult to plan any sort of tactical move to take advantage of movement you see in the high.

It looks at the moment like the high may initially stay to the NE of me and that I will have good sailing until Sunday July 10th - a week of good sailing. At that point the forecast is at 192 hours and is strongly into the region where what you are seeing is pretty random. Yesterdays forecast for this time region was quite different, the day before that was quite different again.

If I can get a week of good sailing, with a possibility of it continuing for the reminder of my passage, and do so at a time when the climate averages are suggesting there should be no strong weather systems in the area - that's pretty good!

I'm still at anchor and plan to leave in the next few hours. All well here!

Monday, June 27, 2016

Anchored in Hanalei

2016-06-24 11:15PM UTC, 19°47'N 155°02'W # sailing
2016-06-25 5:22AM UTC, 20°21'N 155°09'W
2016-06-25 2:28PM UTC, 21°02'N 155°41'W
2016-06-26 12:37AM UTC, 21°27'N 156°35'W
2016-06-26 8:24AM UTC, 21°49'N 157°24'W
2016-06-26 4:00PM UTC, 22°10'N 158°16'W
2016-06-26 10:00PM UTC, 22°20'N 158°55'W
2016-06-27 2:45AM UTC, 22°25.44'N 159°25.23'W
2016-06-27 5:15AM UTC, 22°12.68'N 159°30.15'W # anchored

I just moved from Radio Bay, Hilo to Hanalei, Kauai. This was my final boat movement while in Hawaii, the next time I leave anchor will be at the start of my passage to Neah Bay.

The passage from Radio Bay to Hanalei was very nice - downwind for all of it once I had sailed far enough north of the big island to have a clear run toward Kauai. The winds were moderate throughout, although stronger toward the middle and end than at the beginning.

I left Radio Bay at noon on Friday and arrived at 7pm on Sunday, making the trip 2 days and 7 hours long. The distance was around 330nm, making an average speed of 6 knots - pretty quick.

I hesitate calling this trip a passage after my previous one, but it meets my criteria. I consider any trip that spans a single night an 'overnight sail'. I call any trip that is two nights or more a passage, which this was. When sailing an overnight trip, you can behave differently than on a multiple night journey. You can almost stay awake for the entire trip if its a single overnight, when there are multiple nights involved you need to get into a sleep pattern - two nights is long enough to fall into the passage category. I know others who call a single overnight trip a passage as well. I don't know if there is an official definition of what is and isn't.

Leaving the name of this last trip behind - Hanalei is as beautiful as I remembered. The anchorage is more rolly than I recall, and that seems to be the way my memory works - good points are accentuated and any bad points are slowly forgotten. There were times during my previous passage where I swore to myself that 'this is the last time!', that once I returned to the Pacific Northwest I would only coastal cruise from there on. Now, having had several good nights of sleep and a little time to mellow out those memories, I'm already starting to wonder when I leave for my next blue water cruise. But that may be getting ahead of myself - I'm looking forward to my next passage which will return me to the Pacific Northwest, and I'm also looking forward to a few years of coastal cruising while I explore that area.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Passage to Hawaii: Finished!

2016-06-19 10:00PM UTC, 18°46'N 153°40'W # noon
2016-06-20 8:00PM UTC, 19°43.9'N 155°03.2'W # anchored. Yay!

I arrived at Radio Bay, Hilo, and anchored at 10am. That makes the passage 49 days and 20 hours - call it 50 days.

At 4am this morning, after the wind had been falling since 10pm, Luckness was moving at 2.5kts and the sails were not happy - there was a swell which was rolling the boat causing the sails to constantly lose the wind and then fill again, bang, bang, bang. I started motoring at 4am and continued to anchor. The wind became complete calm and then a west 5 knot breeze filled in, from land.

After anchoring, I shut down the boat, cleaned up a little and took my dinghy to the beach and walked around to the Customs office. It was locked, although its posted hours were 6am to 2pm. After some investigation it turns out that in June Customs is closed Sat/Sun/Mon and has reduced hours the other days. I'll check in tomorrow morning.

I've spent the day cleaning up Luckness' interior - after 50 days with all the hatches and portlights closed, and so with almost no air circulation in the cabin, mildew starts to grow on all the surfaces. I've taken care of that problem now and she is looking good inside again. I'll start on the outside over the next few weeks.

I'll likely stay in Hilo for a few days, then I will start my sail to Hanalei, Kauai. I may stop in Kan'ohae on the north side of Oahu, I'll make that call as I'm traveling. Its three days to Hanalei, Kan'ohae is on the way, and is two days away.

This passage went very, very well. The weather window I chose leaving New Zealand worked out extremely well. The initial passage, from NZ to the turn north was plagued with light wind and it was a bit of a struggle to keep moving at times - but at that time of year and in that part of the ocean, it could well have been quite a miserable sail - strong winds, gales, winds well ahead of my beam, etc. If I was to sail this same passage every year for the rest of my life, it would be different each time.

I'm looking forward to relaxing for a while. I hope to organize internet for myself tomorrow (Tuesday), or perhaps the next day.

Yay! I'm in Hawaii! One more long passage to go, and then I can look forward to some coastal cruising for a while.

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Saturday, June 18, 2016

Passage to Hawaii: day 48

2016-06-14 10:00PM UTC, 10°15'N 146°58'W # noon
2016-06-15 10:00PM UTC, 12°07'N 148°10'W # noon
2016-06-16 10:00PM UTC, 13°53'N 149°30'W # noon
2016-06-17 10:00PM UTC, 15°31'N 150°56'W # noon
2016-06-18 10:00PM UTC, 17°07'N 152°08'W # noon

Sea temperature: 80deg

My noon to noon runs for the previous five days, working backwards, have been: 119nm, 129nm, 131nm, 133nm, 161nm. I believe the 161nm run is my fastest day ever. It was run with fully reefed main and a staysail, in what may have been a squash zone, on the northern edge of the ITCZ.

I'm now in an area of wind which has been very consistent, backing and veering by around 10 degrees and falling in strength slowly. The clouds have been quite varied, with what I think of as typical trade wind fluffies floating by, as well as area rain, well defined ridges, scattered rain, squalls, high wispies, sun dogs. But the wind is getting me there.

Today is Saturday, I'm writing this at 2pm. Tomorrow is Sunday, and then on Monday and I'll be there. Yay! I've been trying to hold an average of just over 5kts these last few days and have been very close. Today the average started to fall, so I rolled out a scrap of Genoa for the first time since the ITCZ craziness - now my speed is back in the range I want. I'm hoping to arrive Monday morning. If I arrive before 2:30pm it will have been a 49 day (+ some hours) passage, after 2:30pm and its a 50 day passage.

Nothing much else to report. The sailing has been good, if bumpy. There have been frequent splashes into the cockpit, I had one absolutely drench me yesterday. Oh well, at least the water is warm.

I haven't seen another boat visually, or on AIS, since June 3rd, over two weeks ago, and that was a fishing boat. As Hilo is a common port of entry for Hawaii and all routes to Hilo, well, Hilo, I expect that I may start seeing other boats as I approach.

All is well aboard.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Passage to Hawaii: day 43

2016-06-09 10:00PM UTC, 02°28'N 144°35'W # noon
2016-06-10 10:00PM UTC, 03°58'N 143°51'W # noon
2016-06-11 10:00PM UTC, 05°31'N 144°29'W # noon
2016-06-12 10:00PM UTC, 06°48'N 144°41'W # noon
2016-06-13 10:00PM UTC, 07°58'N 145°33'W # noon

Sea temperature: 82deg

My noon to noon runs for the previous five days, working backwards, have been: 87nm, 78nm, 100nm, 100nm, 122nm,

I had some nice sailing in SE/SSE wind for three days, heading generally N. It was beautiful sailing - I hardly touched the sail trim or monitor the whole time. It was squall free and I ran with my full genoa the entire time - wonderful. At the end of that run, I was at the edge of the ITCZ and it was decision time.

At the time, I was heading NE in SSE wind, at around 5pm, looking ahead at a solid wall of black cloud. Looking at the gribs, if I continued in this direction I would end up in a large area of calms the next morning - following whatever that night would have held. Instead I jibed I started heading WNW, as the forecast showed a very narrow of calms over that way, and north. I ran like that all night, got a new weather forecast at 5am and discovered there were now calms forecast ahead of me as well. At that point the wind had veered around to E, so I jibed and headed north until the wind ran out. It looked like about 60nm of calms, with the wind not descending from the N to where I was for 36 hours. This is when I started motoring, the first time this passage, 10am on the 11th.

I motored for 10 hours and found 6-7 knots of NNE and started sailing slowly at around NW to NNW. I had my first big squall at 5am the next morning. It caught me by surprise as I was in a sleep cycle. I sorted that out, and kept watch while the squall passed. Afterwards there was much lighter NW wind which really never went away. I downloaded a new weather forecast and discovered the light air I was in was forecast to last until 8pm. If I motored 30nm north it looked like there would be 9kts of NE wind. I tried to sail until noon, tacking back and forth, making very litle progress, got fed up and started motoring. By 1:30pm I found more than enough wind to sail again, NNE 12, and started sailing close hauled at around 300 degrees, WNW.

This is when the chaos started. It was massive squall after squall with much more wind than forecast between them. I was sailing with fully reefed main, staysail and double reefed genoa and needing to reef the genoa further for each squall. By 6pm I saw that the squalls were not stopping and that I needed a sail plan I could sail with all night, so rolled away the genoa and sailed with fully reefed main and staysail, at 2.5 - 3 kts. Shortly after doing this the first of the final 5 squalls hit, one after another with maybe 15min between them, and by the time the second squall had hit twilight had faded to night and I could no longer see them coming. It was a little crazy - but with the new sail plan I could now just ride the squalls out - Luckness would speed up and roll more in the squalls, but the sails, rig and boat were fine. I was sailing close to the wind as I didn't want to lose the easting I had worked so hard to achieve. The fourth squall was the worst, with apparent winds in the mid 30's, the others had apparent winds of 25-28. Overnight the wind increased into the 20-23 knot range and backed to the E, so I'm now running downwind with the same sail plan, doing 5.5-6 towards my destination. Yay!

At 2pm I was hit with another squall, 2:45pm another large one and there are more on the horizon as I write this.

The forecast I have to work with now is from yesterday - the radio has been having a hard time connecting with all the rain/cloud around. I'll update the forecast tonight. It currently shows that this wind will continue for the next few days, at which point I sail off the edge of the forecast area. I do hope that is true, I'm a little fed up with the whole ITCZ thing.

I've crossed through the ITCZ only twice. Now I realize how lucky I was the first time. A friend was sailing his Pacific Seacraft 37, s/v Pamela, across the ITCZ a few weeks ago and simply sailed across, no fuss - although sailors are known, at times, to minimize these things. Looking at my forecasts, if I had been, I think, 5 days earlier I may have done the same thing. I just happened to hit it at a bad time, and timing these things is something you sacrifice when you do this passage as one long trip rather than having a stop in the middle. With a stop you can plan a little for your departure weather again, I had to just accept what I got.

I think I'm almost through the ITCZ now, and will soon be in the trade winds. Even with the current squalls I'm making good progress with the wind I have. With luck, I'll have a more or less straight run into Hilo.

All is well aboard.

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Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Passage to Hawaii: day 38

2016-06-04 10:00PM UTC, 06°28'S 144°00'W # noon
2016-06-05 10:00PM UTC, 04°18'S 144°36'W # noon
2016-06-06 10:00PM UTC, 02°33'S 145°39'W # noon
2016-06-07 10:00PM UTC, 01°05'S 144°53'W # noon
2016-06-08 10:00PM UTC, 00°28'N 144°15'W # noon
2016-06-09 2:00AM UTC, 00°44'N 144°19'W

Sea temperature: 82deg

My noon to noon runs for the previous five days, working backwards, have been: 101nm, 100nm, 123nm, 135nm and 114nm.

Shortly after my posting the last blog entry, another mild squall arrived and sent me heading almost due W. As the squall died off, rather than the wind falling off to calms, the wind gradually weakened and veered around, leaving me heading N in 12-16 kts of wind - sweet! Generally, I headed north in nice wind, until it backed around to the NE which sent me to the NW, then the wind veered back to the SE, sending me NE, at which point the wind became mainly easterly again, and weakened - which is where I am now, with a 7-9kt breeze, heading N or NNW.

I crossed the equator this morning, very early - yay! This happened as I was sleeping, again. Both times I've crossed the equator now I've slept through it.

At this point, I've traveled 4200nm with roughly 1400nm to go. The next challenge for me is to get into the tradewinds which are forecast to start at around 6 degrees N by the time I get to them. In order to get to the tradewinds, I need to cross the ITCZ, the CZ part of that name is the important part, signifying a convergence zone. At the moment the winds approaching the ITCZ from the south are pretty weak and the northern winds are forecast to increase - I think this may work in my favor, but the forecasts have been changing daily in this region.

The wind for the rest of today and early tomorrow looks decent, and then it gets a little patchy. I'll try to download a more detailed weather forecast to see if I can find a path through to the northern winds.

The winds above the ITCZ look nice - E or ENE of 15-20, and from my location that would mean I may have a broad reach into Hilo. The challenge is going to be sailing between where I am and the northern tradewinds. I could just motor through of course, so its not like I'm going to be stuck by any means, but it would be nice to sail through.

All well onboard.

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Friday, June 3, 2016

Passage to Hawaii: day 33

2016-05-30 10:00PM UTC, 13°34'S 143°38'W # noon
2016-05-31 10:04PM UTC, 12°05'S 144°00'W # noon
2016-06-01 10:00PM UTC, 10°49'S 143°40'W # noon
2016-06-02 10:00PM UTC, 09°35'S 143°35'W # noon
2016-06-03 10:00PM UTC, 08°22'S 143°52'W # noon
2016-06-04 1:02AM UTC, 08°14'S 143°53'W

Sea temperature: 86deg

My noon to noon runs for the previous five days, working backwards, have been: 75nm, 74nm, 79nm, 91nm, 80nm. The wind has been rather light and squally...

This is part of the passage is shaping up to be a very frustrating. Not quite there yet, but the frustration potential is pretty high.

Today has been pretty typical. Starting last night, I was in 'squall alley', with huge squalls to each side of me, reefed down, doing 3kts generally N or NNW with the wind 6-8. The squalls managed to not hit me, but by 10:30pm I was drifting, with no wind - no moon, quite dark. By just after midnight I had 9 knots of apparent wind and I was going N, trying not to lose any more of my easting. I ran slowly all night between 3 and 4 knots. At 8:30am a massive squall was bearing down on me, so I reefed to M2SG2 and 10min later my apparent wind went from 8 to 24 in about 30 seconds. That lasted for about 1/2 hour and I was luckily traveling north, where I wanted to go. Toward the end of the squall, it started raining, which was nice. By 9:20 there was a dead calm and I reduced sail. I drifted until 10:25 when the wind started to pickup again and I started to sail again.

The same again happened at 11:20am, although no rain this time.

At 2pm a squall just missed me. I was sailing in 5-7 knots, when 1/2 hour after the squall had passed on the wind suddenly picked up to 10-12. Yay! I said to myself. The GFS forecast was forecasting 10.5 knots where I was, the whole area to my east was free of squalls and I thought this was the real wind appearing. 1/2 hour later it faded to 4-5 and by 2:45pm I was drifting again. Just now, 3:30pm, some wind arrived and I'm sailing at 3 knots again, NNW.

The forecast is for increasing winds overnight, from 10 to 11. I'll believe it when I see it.

At some point over the past five days I've spend at least a few hours drifting, otherwise sailing slowly, generally between 3 and 4.

I updated my forecast a little while ago, its a bit of a mess. If I could park and start this trip again in around two weeks that might be a good idea. There are sailable winds forecast until monday afternoon when it goes to 5.5 kts. Then it turns light SE until wednesday. If I make fast enough progress to be across the equator by then, I'll have south winds of around 6 knots (traveling N in that wind? not so easy...) and those south winds last through the forecast.

The big feature I need to get past is the ITCZ, inter-tropical convergence zone. Depending on the winds, above and below the ITCZ, the convergence is weaker or stronger. I'm seeing NE winds above the ITCZ and south winds below - this must be setting up a massive convergence. Think lots of rain, tons of squalls, fickle winds for that whole period. Hopefully once I get above it the wind will become more typical and be a little trade-windy.

Its frustrating, but all well onboard.

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Sunday, May 29, 2016

Passage to Hawaii: day 28

Sea temperature: 85deg

All well onboard.

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Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Passage to Hawaii: day 23

2016-05-20 10:00PM UTC, 30°53'S 148°05'W # noon
2016-05-21 10:00PM UTC, 29°12'S 146°23'W # noon
2016-05-22 10:00PM UTC, 27°39'S 145°15'W # noon
2016-05-23 10:00PM UTC, 26°03'S 144°06'W # noon
2016-05-24 10:00PM UTC, 23°45'S 143°40'W # noon

Sea temperature: 74deg

My noon to noon runs for the previous four day, working backward, have been: 140nm, 114nm, 110nm, 134nm. Nothing dramatically fast or slow.

I jibed a few days ago, as the wind backed around from W to SW, S, SE. As soon as I was heading west rather than E or NE I jibed and headed back in the proper direction. I have been downloading small weather forecast files, so I don't have a very good idea of what the overall weather picture looks like, but it appears there is a large high to my south and that I started sailing up its eastern edge and am now sailing along on top of it, headed north. I expect that for the majority of the time remaining in this passage, the wind will continue coming over my starboard side, as it is now.

At this point in the the passage, the goal is to head north to the Tuamotus, those atolls I enjoyed so much when I visited them in 2014, pass straight through without stopping and then from there continue north to the equator, cross it, and then head more or less directly to Hilo, Hawaii. I say "more or less" as there will be some strategy required, depending on what the weather looks like at the time. I'm roughly half way to my destination.

At the moment, the forecast looks good for several days. I'm sailing north in east winds or around 15 knots, so sailing slightly upwind but nothing too awful yet. Once I'm through the Tuamotus I can fall off a little if needed, as I have ended up pretty far east. I'm currently planning on transiting through the atolls north starting around 144°30, and that point is a little over three days away. The weather looks steady for that period, and then it kind of falls apart and there is a mixture of north, west, south and calms for a bit - there may be a front rolling through, although that is far enough ahead in the forecast that it lacks any real accuracy.

Last night, at around 6pm, an hour after the sun had set and hours before the moon was going to rise I was reading in the cockpit when I heard a whale blow very close by. The whale surfaced again to my port side, maybe a few hundred feet away, then behind me, then port side again. For a while he (she?) followed in my wake, a few hundred feet back. Now, I like whales, love seeing them in the wild, but I was getting a little nervous and was happy when it headed off never to be seen again. Majestic, but I prefer to admire from afar. A little later some dolphins arrived, and kept me company for 10 or 20 minutes. Half an hour after they left I was in the cockpit checking my instruments and chart plotter, seeing where I was going and how fast I was headed there, when a flying fish flew into the cockpit nailing me in the back. Fish stink all over my coat. It was certainly a good night for wildlife, as this was my first sighting of whales or dolphins on this passage. In the morning I found 8 flying fish on the side decks, Luckness is a pretty good fishing boat, she has good luck.

This is now my longest passage. My previous longest was Hawaii to Neah Bay in 21 days, 2012. I have at least three weeks left before arriving in Hawaii.

All is well here.

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Friday, May 20, 2016

Passage to Tahiti: day 19

2016-05-17 10:00PM UTC, 33°52'S 151°43'W # noon
2016-05-19 8:00AM UTC, 32°57'S 149°38'W # reduced sail, drifting in no wind
2016-05-19 10:00PM UTC, 32°42'S 149°28'W # noon
2016-05-20 5:00PM UTC, 31°18'S 148°22'W

Yesterday's noon to noon run was: 52nm, for the 18th it was 91nm, the 17th was 110nm.

The wind has been light these last few days, as you can see from my noon to noon runs. Its improved at the moment, and looks pretty good through the 7 day forecast period, some more light wind areas and some ok wind. I am in the area they call the variables - I'm looking forward to the steady trade winds, far north of me.

Yesterday I drifted for 7 hours over night, as the wend fell to the point that my spinnaker wouldn't even fly. I reset my alarm timer to 90min and had my best sleep of the passage that night, which was nice. I still haven't motored. I would rather save what diesel I have in case I really were to need it along the way somewhere.

My SSB radio is having a hard time connecting to the sailmail stations, it may need some attention. Unfortunately I'm not able to get at the part I want to look at - my antenna feed connection to my backstay - as its high and I need flat water to get up there.

I always warn that if this blog stops receiving updates that nobody should worry. Please keep that in mind, as there is more of a possibility of that happening now than in the past. Also, this passage may last longer than you would expect from a passage to Tahiti... I'm in the final stages of my decision of whether or not to carry on to Hawaii, and am leaning toward doing that. I'll post if that's the case, or in the case of the radio stopping working, if there is a 30 day or longer gap in posts, that is what I'm doing!

All is well here.

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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Passage to Tahiti: day 16

2016-05-14 10:00PM UTC, 35°34'S 157°59'W # noon
2016-05-15 10:00PM UTC, 34°56'S 155°36'W # noon
2016-05-16 10:00PM UTC, 33°47'S 153°56'W # noon
2016-05-17 7:00PM UTC, 33°53'S 152°00'W

Yesterday's noon to noon run was: 107nm, for the 15th it was 123nm, the 14th was 149nm.

One of the things that you try to plan around when heading East from New Zealand is the position of the high pressure systems. In the southern hemisphere, highs circulate counter-clockwise. If you are heading east, you would like wind from the North, West or South, not coming from the direction you are going. In order to achieve this, you need to be below the high pressure systems, as that is where the west wind is. However, there is actually not that much control we have over this as high pressure systems can be large enough that being south of them would not be practical. Also, generally the later in the season you wait the more northerly the highs migrate.

The normal pattern is also that there is a low which follows the high, and the low is followed by another high.

I have had some good luck with this passage and have been riding to the south of a high for the last little while, with wind behind me, generally making good progress. The high has now pretty much moved to my east and the low that follows is approaching. The pressure where I am as fallen from 1021 to 1012 currently. Highs are generally warm with blue skies, lows are generally colder with heavy cloud - I have that now as well.

The weather forecast shows my having north winds where I am, however I am experiencing NE wind, which is moving me well to the east but also a little to the south. As the low moves over me, the winds will back around and come from the N, the NW, W, SW, S, etc. I hope that the winds will start backing tomorrow, which will allow me to make progress north again.

The passage will be a little more work for the next week or more than it has been, but I have been waiting for a break in the beautiful sailing I have had - it lasted much longer than I had any expectation for.

All is well here.

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Friday, May 13, 2016

Passage to Tahiti: day 12

2016-05-11 10:00PM UTC, 36°35'S 167°09'W # noon
2016-05-12 10:00PM UTC, 36°20'S 163°52'W # noon
2016-05-13 5:00AM UTC, 36°09'S 163°00'W
2016-05-13 10:00PM UTC, 36°01'S 160°59'W

Today's noon to noon run, from noon yesterday to noon today, was 141nm. The previous day was 159, and the day before that was 124. I have been making better progress these last few days.

I'm currently riding the bottom of a high which is giving me steady NW winds. Right now the wind is around 14 knots, moving me along at 6.5 kts. I'm heading East, more or less.

It looks like tomorrow, Saturday, I will have good wind to sail in, possibly Sunday as well. Then there is a light day preceding a large low that may sweep through the area. I haven't yet updated my weather forecast, and once I do that may all change of course. Yesterday's forecast was the first of the series which showed the low that is expected on around Tuesday being so large - in the previous forecasts the low was not as deep and stayed much further South. GFS, the weather model I'm using has a tendency to inflate the weather forecast the further you get from its start, so I would not be surprised to see the large low end up not being as deep or as large. I'll deal with whatever comes along of course - lows tend to be colder than riding the bottom of a high such as I'm doing now, given a choice I prefer to stay warm!

If the weather is agreeable, I'll start turning more North on Sunday - I should have almost made all the Easting that is required for this passage by then.

There is not much to report from out here. There have been no AIS contacts for over a week - that was a Fijian fishing boat, 151' long.

All is well.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Passage to Tahiti: day 9

2016-05-11 2:00AM UTC, 36°28'S 169°18'W

Today's noon-to-noon distance was 83nm, yesterday's was 99nm. This continues to be a slow passage although it is interspersed with some glorious sailing.

Yesterday before noon the wind had been falling steadily after a fun ride the previous evening. At noon I raised the spinnaker again, and this time it stayed up for 24 hours. Overnight last night was glorious. The wind was something like 6-9 from the N or NNW and depending on its speed I would steer a little into it, putting the apparent wind at around 60deg in order to increase the apparent wind speed, increasing boats speed to around 5kts. Then as the wind picked up and the boat speed started hovering just under 6 knots, I would steer down a little, decreasing the apparent wind angle to be around the beam, slowing the boat to mid 4 knots, ready for sleep again with room for the wind to increase. By noon today the wind was starting to increase to around 10-12 and I lowered the spinnaker and have been sailing with the genoa and main since, doing 5 to 6. The seas are very settled, with no wind waves to speak of, certainly no white caps and only a low long swell. Its warm, the sun is out - this is very enjoyable sailing.

The weather models have been struggling to figure out what is going on in this area, its a difficult area of relatively high pressure over a large area. As I was trying to figure out whether or not to jibe just before dark last night, I was looking at the previous days forecast, which called for south winds where I was. The most recent forecast I had at the time was calling or west winds, and the actual winds were north. I am hoping that the forecast for the next few days proves accurate as I hope to have some medium strength winds from the north backing to NW over a period of three days, which will help move me toward my destination.

All is well onboard.

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Sunday, May 8, 2016

Passage to Tahiti: day 7

2016-05-06 10:00PM UTC, 37°14'S 176°37'W # noon
2016-05-07 2:33AM UTC, 37°21'S 176°21'W # jibed to 100
2016-05-07 10:00PM UTC, 37°31'S 175°17'W # noon, spin+m1
2016-05-08 10:00PM UTC, 37°29'S 173°19'W # noon
2016-05-09 4:21AM UTC, 37°27'S 172°32'W

Today's noon to noon distance was 93nm. Yesterdays was 65nm. Tomorrow's is going to be better as I'm finally sailing in 12-15 knots of wind, port beam, heading East at 5-6 knots.

I spent hours traveling at around 1 knot yesterday and the day before, with the spinnaker up but not filling. Surprisingly, my Monitor self steering wind vane continued to steer and there was enough movement to retain steerage. I hate it when the boat slowly moves in circles without steerage, but luckily that hasn't happened yet this trip.

Today I have had mainly high cloud, with a few rain clouds floating by creating localized squall winds. I'm sailing conservatively with a double reefed main, staysail and double reefed genoa - but still moving well so I'm happy - this setup is good for a wide range of wind conditions, if it gets too light tonight I can easily unfurl some genoa.

Tomorrow looks like the wind is starting to change in front of a high I expect in the area the day after, but if the forecasts hold, I'll be able to sail tomorrow - I may slow down dramatically again the following day.

All is well aboard.

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Friday, May 6, 2016

Passage to Tahiti: day 5

2016-05-05 6:23PM UTC, 37°31'S 179°11'W # jibed
2016-05-05 10:00PM UTC, 37°30'S 178°44'W # noon
2016-05-06 5:55AM UTC, 37°25'S 177°54'W
2016-05-06 6:18PM UTC, 37°14'S 176°48'W

Today's noon to noon distance was 103nm. Yesterdays was 121nm. Tomorrow's is going to be a much smaller number!

Yesterday I had some wind and I used it to make my way towards my destination - that being the entire point of being out here. Today 1/3 of the day was making my way further south in hopes that I could find a little wind. By 4pm I decided that doing a tactical move at 2 knots was pointless, so I jibed and started heading east again. I had my spinnaker up at the time, as there is only 6-7 knots of wind, and like a chicken I snuffed the spinnaker, jibed the boat and re-raised it. That takes quite a while! I am not quite as fast as some racing teams I have seen, taking roughly 15 minutes to accomplish the snuff/jibe/raise. Although to be fair, 5 minutes of that was me trying to steer Luckness's stern through the wind with the GPS speed showing 0.0. I still haven't motored - its all sailing so far. Some of it very slow...

When I left I was expecting to be becalmed at points in time, but preferred to get out what I thought would be 300 or 400 miles and bob around waiting for wind than to wait longer in NZ. I've actually gone a little more than 480nm, and spent 1 1/2 hours bobing around today. I had the spinnaker up doing around 1.8 knots when the wind fell even further and I slowed below 1. With the swell pattern and my direction the boat was rolling and as a result the spinnaker was filling and spilling the wind as the boat went through its roll motion. I ended up lowing the sail and decided to wait for wind to arrive. The thing is, when you start that, you don't know how long you'll have to wait. The GRIBs were showing 9 knots of wind where I was, so I couldn't rely in them to tell me when wind would arrive - they were saying it should have been here. After an hour, no wind. Luckily after an hour and a half some wind arrived, I raised the spinnaker again and rocked off at 2 knots. Its been a slow day.

It looks like tomorrow is also going to be slow. The next day and a half after tomorrow look like they will bring some wind, then it vanishes again and then it may be back for a while, with the GRIB forecasts showing high teens/low 20's, all from behind me or sightly forward of the beam. It will be nice to start making some faster progress.

Today has been sunny and warm-ish. All is well aboard.

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Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Passage to Tahiti: day 3

2016-05-05 4:00AM UTC, 36°23'S 179°51'E

Since leaving NZ the weather has given me a nice gentle start. Today is the roughest it has been, and that is perhaps 14 knots of WNW wind and a 1.5m sea - still very gentle. It has started to cool down, which is a trend that is bound to continue until I make the turn north, heading to the tropics. However, that turn is likely not for at least 10 days.

I am currently heading generally SE, sailing downwind on a broad reach, or a bit deeper. From reading the weather forecasts and seeing my predicted positions in it, I have a plan on how to navigate the highs and light wind that are ahead of me. The plan may not work out of course, but I might as well make a plan as it helps pass the day if nothing else. I hope what happens is that I continue heading SE all night and then tomorrow jibe and head generally east. For the rest of the forecast there are currently West winds down by latitude 37 or below. There are light days and more medium days, so I hope that with a mixture of Genoa and Spinnaker, on and off, I can jibe my way East until the weather changes and I have to adjust my plan.

I've started re-reading the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. I haven't read this series for over 15 years - its such a pleasure to read.

All is well onboard.

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Monday, May 2, 2016

Passage to Tahiti: day 1

I left New Zealand yesterday, motoring out of the bay of islands in a flat calm. 3 1/2 hours later I found some wind and have been sailing slowly ever since.

I saw the nurse who had been treating my fingers last week, and she thought that they had healed well enough for me to leave. I saw her on Wednesday and left on the following Monday (NZ Monday, North America Sunday.)

The weather window that I have left on looks like its going to be on the light side. There is an unusual pattern established where there is a big high east of the country which seems to head east and then come back and join with the high that is following it. As a result, the weather in this area looks light for the length of the forecast - which I'll take, as a gentle few days will be welcome. I may end up drifting for periods of this trip due to lack of wind, but I wanted to get away and there is nothing wrong with a light wind sail in gentle seas.

This morning the wind eventually faded off to almost nothing and I lowered my Staysail and furled my Genoa and raised my Spinnaker (spin-drifter.) At first it just sat there lifeless, as there was no wind at all, but then a few whisps of wind arrived and I stared moving. I love this sail! I've been able to move along nicely in wind that would otherwise leave me wallowing. It looks like this trip I will be using the Spinnaker quite a lot, at least as far as I can see in the forecast, these things sometimes change. I'm currently moving at 4.5 to 5 knots in 5 to 7 knots of apparent wind, on my port side beam.

For a change, I'm going to be reporting my positions in a LuckGrib friendly manner. If you have a copy of my app, you should be able to copy/paste the following text into the 'create point' editor window. First step would be to create a vessel called Luckness, then paste the following into the position report field and press 'return':

2016-05-01 11:00PM UTC, 35°14.33'S 174°06.15'E
2016-05-02 4:50AM UTC, 35°10.3'S 174°23.6'E
2016-05-02 7:16PM UTC, 35°25'S 175°25'E
2016-05-02 10:02PM UTC, 35°28'S 175°34'E
2016-05-03 4:00AM UTC, 35°38'S 175°59'E

All is well. There are many miles to go!

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Monday, April 11, 2016

Departure Delay

Signing off, for now,
   The single handed single hander.


of time and the city

The other evening I watched the film 'Of Time & The City' by epic director Terence Davies. It's more of a sequence of memories than a film and contains some amazing footage of 1950 & 60's Liverpool life interspersed with poetry and humorous musings from the man himself. I'd encourage anyone to go see it. The film made me realise just how fascinating a city Liverpool is (much to the disgust of my Mancunian other half). Built on the spoils of the slave trade it's impressive buildings largely stand in decaying grandeur now and after the 'slum' clearances of the 50's - arguably still going on there today - they mingle with brutalist tower blocks and uninspired shopping centres. Plenty of new investment seems to be taking hold again there now, particularly around the wonderful docks, but let's just hope those buildings and all that lovely open waterfront remains available to everyone, not just those that can afford a river side latte. Here are a few shots from my last trip there.

Film, Kodak Portra shot on the Contax 645

Liverpool copyright Katharine Peachey (1 of 5).jpg
Liverpool scenes copyright Katharine Peachey.jpg
Liverpool's eclectic architecture copyright Katharine Peachey.jpg
Liverpool on film copyright Katharine Peachey.jpg
Liverpool copyright Katharine Peachey (5 of 5).jpg


Get the details on rhabdomyolysis.

Dermatomyositis is a connective tissue disorder. It has the potential to lead to rhabdomyolysis. One of the things that is related to this condition is polymyositis -- itself a potential rhabdomyolysis cause.

Various symptoms can show up in a person with dermatomyositis. One of the possibilities is a skin rash. A particular type of muscular weakness may also affect the patient, and pain may show up along with it. The pain that people with this condition feel can vary from being minor to severe. Difficulty swallowing may also result in a patient with dermatomyositis.

In some instances, deterioration of the muscle may lead to temporary paralyzation of the patient. Another symptom that might be noted is known as Gottron's sign. This appears on the skin and may seem like psoriasis. In cases of this condition that involve children, calcium deposits can develop in the individual's skin.

There are different potential underlying medical reasons for dermatomyositis, although its particular cause is not known. Infection by certain viruses may end up leading to it -- an example of this is the Epstein-Barr virus. It may also be autoimmune in nature, and in some cases even occurs along with other autoimmune disorders -- for instance, lupus. This, however, is not a complete list of possible medical reasons.

A doctor may use various things to make a determination when looking for a possible case of dermatomyositis. There are other medical conditions that may also need to be ruled out -- or diagnosed if one of them is in fact the issue being faced. Blood tests may be used in confirmation of a diagnosis, as can electromyography and muscle biopsy. A muscle biopsy is the only one of these that can provide findings specifically characteristic of dermatomyositis.

Once diagnosed with this condition, the doctor may inform the patient of a particular treatment method. No cure for dermatomyositis is known, but treatment can be given by way of medication that suppresses the person's immune system. Options are also available for relief of the symptoms. There are various medications which may be useful for this. Additionally, exercise therapy might be prescribed.

More on rhabdomyolysis

You can keep reading for additional details about rhabdomyolysis, including information particularly related to other possible medical causes.


charlie 189

Looking for quick read? Here are some of our favourite short stories

The perfect way to spend an hour

There’s a big world enclosed within the confines of a short story. For most of us, it’s our first brush with serious writing from serious authors, our entry to the beautiful world of fiction and its vast riches. They offer us a small slice of the life of the characters but leave us guessing about the befores and afters; at other times, they’re like little trailers that throw light on the bigger film that makes their lives. They could be about life-changing encounters between two weirdos, they could be about the flat everyday that goes nowhere. Some say a short story doesn’t have the bandwidth to navigate the complex spaces that a longer novel would allow, but we know there’s much that a clever pen is capable of. Here, the Vogue team picks its favourites.

“I don’t read a lot of short stories, but my favourite from high school is ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ by F Scott Fitzgerald. It’s a story of a girl trying to a fit in by making a drastic change to her appearance, which eventually backfires. It’s as relevant socially now as it was in the 1920s. I think it should be made into a movie starring millennials.” —Jolie Wernette-Horn, creative director

“From ‘Matilda’ to ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, Roald Dahl has given kids all over the world some fantastic books. But if you haven’t read his pieces for adults, you’re really missing out. One short story by the writer that still keeps me up at night sometimes is ‘The Way Up to Heaven’, a quick but deeply unsettling story about a wealthy New York couple. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything as deliciously disturbing as this.” —Nitya Chablani, digital features editor

“I never usually pick up short stories but a colleague recently recommended Junot Diaz’s This Is How You Lose Her. I love how Diaz manages to capture the nuances of relationships.” —Priyanka Khanna, associate fashion features director

“Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, writes a bizarre and hilarious book of short stories called The Acid House. The stories run fast, the characters edgy and seething with the humiliation of their own miseries, and the humour unapologetically black. Best served with a side of bourbon and Scottish hip hop.” —Ankita Chandra, associate photo editor

“‘The Grownup’ by Gillian Flynn. I’ve always loved a good ghost story, and this was definitely one of the most twisted ones I have read.” —Neharika Manjani, fashion features writer

“‘A Temporary Matter’ by Jhumpa Lahiri, a part of her anthology Interpreter of Maladies, is the story of a young married couple that discovers intimacy over dark evenings brought about by a power cut. The return of light, though, ironically, also shines the light on what’s wrong with their marriage, something that a forced confinement can’t resolve—despite the temporary closeness it would have forged.” —Renuka Joshi Modi, managing editor

“‘The Little Prince’ by Francois de Saint-Exupery, because it always awakens the feeling of vulnerability and curiosity of a child in me.” —Fabio Immediato, senior fashion editor

“Love and happiness are seemingly clichéd topics that we can spend hours discussing but never quite understand. And to a 14-year-old girl who spent more time with her head buried in fantastical fairy tales and lofty romances, Guy de Maupassant’s ‘Happiness’, a simple story of two people and their uncomplicated love, was a strange breath of fresh air. Set in the rugged island of the then sparsely populated Corsica, a coarse backdrop for a delicate romance, Maupassant’s poetic writing (“a happiness so complete, made of so little”) turns a school-mandated short story into the stuff that a romantic masquerading as a cynic dreams of.” —Chandni Sehgal, senior copy editor

Image: Shutterstock

“I don’t like short stories; the only ones I have liked are ‘Nine Stories’ by JD Salinger, which, as the title suggests, has nine short stories about the members of his beloved fictional Glass family. What happens to child prodigies when they grow up? This set of stories addresses depression, death, humour, spirituality with an honesty and lightness that only Salinger can. It’s too hard to pick one from nine but it would be a tie between ‘Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut’, ‘Down at the Dinghy’ and ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’. —Rujuta Vaidya, fashion writer

“I was introduced to short stories through Tagore’s literature. ‘The Postmaster’ was the first Tagore story I read, in eighth grade. His words had the ability to take you back to simpler times and revel in the lives of his characters. Ratan and the postmaster’s relationship served a platter of emotional revelations.” —Shweta Chaudhri, photo assistant

“If you’re the sort who looks at clouds, damp walls, melting candles and puddles and discerns patterns, shapes, faces and animals in their ambiguous forms, you would have remembered ‘Face on the Wall’ by EV Lucas with the same clarity that I do. It was a weird little story with an end I won’t reveal.” —Shalini Shah, copy chief

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FORT RUCKER, Ala. (March 21, 2014) -- The chill of winter is fading fast and many people are eager to hit the water, and Fort Rucker Aquatics is offering spring lifeguard courses for a job opportunity with high responsibility.

Fort Rucker Aquatics is offering lifeguard courses now through March 30 for people interested in learning a skill that they can take with them beyond the installation, according to Carolyn Hacker, assistant aquatics manager.

"A lifeguard isn't there just to look good, they're usually the first line of defense when it comes to the safety of patrons at the swimming facilities on Fort Rucker," she said. "It only takes seconds for a person to go under the water and drown, and lifeguards are there to prevent those kinds of mishaps from happening -- not only in the water, but around the water, as well."

The courses encompass a total of 32 hours and are available as weekday courses or weekend courses. Weekday course durations are eight days within two weeks, and run Monday through Thursday from 4-8 p.m. and require participants to attend both weeks during the course. Weekend course durations are two weekends long, and run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.

The Spring Break weekday course runs March 24-27, and weekend course days are March 22-23, and March 29-30.

American Red Cross certification requires that people be at least 15 years of age to become a certified lifeguard, and each course will begin with a prerequisite swim evaluation to make sure that each individual can perform the duties necessary, according to Hacker.

"Lifeguarding, Waterfront and Water Park course requires that people are able to swim 550 meters non-stop, utilizing two strokes -- freestyle and breaststroke," she said. "It requires some degree of physical fitness."

The prerequisite swim also consists of a two-minute tread, timed brick retrieval and underwater swim retrieving three items, five yards apart.

"This is a good opportunity for those seeking summer jobs, and a lot of times, lifeguarding is the first job that a lot of high school students get. It's a huge responsibility for them," said the assistant aquatics manager. "The training that is required for lifeguarding is right there below the training required for (emergency medical technicians)."

Hacker said the responsibilities that come with lifeguarding often give people a sense of pride in what they do, and it's a job where people learn to work well together because teamwork is essential.

"When lifeguarding, you don't work solo, you work with other members on your team," she said. "When responding to an emergency, lifeguards may get the person out of the water by themselves, but they are part of a chain and they are just the first step -- the first responder to saving a person's life in that situation."

Although Fort Rucker allows lifeguards to start at 15 years of age, the installation requires that lifeguards at certain stations be at least 16 years old due to visibility limitations. Regardless of age, Hacker said that safety is the first and most important aspect.

"We're pretty strict on how many guards are posted at our facilities," she said. "A lot of times you get people who aren't familiar with water and that doesn't mix well, but that's why we want to offer the safest (swimming) facilities possible."


High Paying Jobs in Perkasie, PA | Glassdoor
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  • City Overview

Perkasie Jobs Overview

Job Openings
Unemployment Rate
Median Base Salary

Perkasie has the 2775th largest population in the United States. The population grew by 0.6% from 2010 to 2015, which was faster than the national average. Perkasie is part of the Philadelphia metro area. Unemployment in the Philadelphia area is 5%, which is higher than the national average, and is getting better. Philadelphia has the 8th largest local economy in the US, and a high cost of living. The average pay for jobs in Perkasie is above average at $52,550, and the median cost of a home in Perkasie is $439,200, which is above the national average. 48% of workers in Perkasie hold a bachelors degree or higher (above average), and 94% of workers have a high school degree (above average). Driving to work is especially common in Perkasie. 81% of Perkasie workers drive to work alone, 3% take public transit, 7% carpool, and 7% walk. People in Perkasie spend an average of 36 minutes commuting to work, which is longer than the national average of 26 minutes.


Exam FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions about IQCP Exam

How is the IQCP exam administered?

The IQCP exam is a closed book, test conducted online with a remote proctor ensuring test security and a stressless test environment for test takers around the world.

Who proctors the test and how does that work online?

Proctoring is provided by company ProctorU (for a video of how it works check out ProctorU now or read How it Works).

What are the technical requirements for online proctoring?

See the ProctorU Technical Requirements

Will the exams be available in non-English languages?

The exam is available in English only.

What happens after I’ve taken the exam?

You will receive your results within two to six weeks of the exam date.

Candidates who pass the exam can apply for IQCP certification.

Candidates who do not pass the exam will be able to re-take it later.

What is the pass point of the exam?

The passing score or cut score for the exam is 500, on a scale that ranges from 300 to 600 points.

How is the exam scored, and why use scaled scores instead of raw scores?

The scoring is based on the number of items answered correctly out of the total number of scored items, and there is a raw score passing point (the cut score) that determines whether a candidate has passed or failed. The passing score (or cut score) for the IQCP examination was established by a panel of subject matter experts using a psychometrically sound, legally defensible, criterion-referenced process. During this process, committee members discussed the minimum level of competency required to pass the examination.

Setting a cut score based on general standards that are applicable primarily to training and education (i.e., 80%) would not be considered psychometrically sound nor would it be legally defensible.

Testing professionals realize that candidates need feedback about their performance. From a candidate perspective, the number of correct items would be the simplest to interpret, but it also opens up the potential for scores to be misinterpreted.

First, the IQCP examination is a criterion reference test. This means that there is a single cut score indicating the minimum competency needed for passing. It does not matter by how much a candidate passes or fails.

Second, to ensure that the examinations are relevant, and to maintain test security, examination forms are updated on a regular basis. As a result, over time candidates receive different sets of test items. Statistical adjustments are made to ensure equivalency of scores across forms. We then scale scores so that the scale is the same regardless of which form of the examination a candidate takes. Many programs use scaled scores, including the USA ACT® and SAT® examinations, licensure examinations for most medical and legal professions, and many certification and licensure examinations, such as professional certifications offered by HRCI, ASQ and others.

Since candidates still need some type of feedback to help understand proficiency across the content areas, a breakdown by domain is provided to each candidate who did not pass. This information is intended to assist the candidate in preparing for exam retake.

It is important to note that the raw score and cut score cannot be determined by looking at the summary feedback that indicates percent of domain passed.  As in most examinations, whether certification and licensure or education, a number of field test items are distributed throughout the examination for analysis. Some domains may have more field test items than others. These items are not scored and do not contribute to the final score.  If a percentage for a domain is 17%, that is 17% of the scored items in that domain, not of the total number of items on the examination.


Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Time to Put Away Childish Things

For Will's 18th birthday, all he wanted was clothes, or money for clothes so he could be a new man going to college in the fall. I tried to explain to him that the best clothes for New Orleans in August are probably gauze bandages or a bathing suit, but he isn't listening to me anymore.

Typically frugal, I made him divest himself of old clothes that no longer worked, either to donate or trash based on condition. There was a third pile for clothes he might want to wear when he comes home for break -- if he comes home for break -- and needs something warm or different to bide his time.  He went through all diligently piling up clothes or putting away spares. And then from the depths of his closet, he brought out a wooden chest he'd had forever.

One of our neighbors makes jewelry and collects stones. Vic was at some point many years ago trying to dislodge a large couch stuck in his doorway. My husband happened to be walking by and helped him move it. Since then, Vic has been a friend but also like a tooth fairy. He drops off baked goods and he gives me tomatoes from his garden. Vic gave Will some rocks immediately after the couch incident. One was a showy crystal and the other a flat piece that sort of shimmered like shale.

An interesting coincidence these gifts of rocks because as a kid I shared a love of rocks with my Grandpa Fred. I would walk around telling everyone, "I'm going to be a paleontologist."

Will put the rocks away and then some time later he bought a wooden box at a tag sale that became a kind of treasure chest. In it he stashed the crystal and the flat rock. He put marbles he got with my mom. Feathers, coins, a $2 bill my Uncle David gave him.  All his little treasures.

He hid this wooden chest away in the back of his closet, which of course I found immediately while doing laundry. But it stayed there for years. Until this year. This year, he decided he didn't need it anymore. The box was just taking up space in his closet.

Now the box is sitting in our guestroom. I emptied its contents including the rocks and other treasures. Now an empty box, it's still a treasure to me. It's a reminder of Will's childhood.

It's a reminder to me of believing wholeheartedly in a world of magical rocks and found feathers and coins from a distant land. Yes, it is time for Will to put away childish things. But I'm keeping the box for that day when he wants to remember rocks and feathers and magic. Or maybe I'm just not ready to put it away.
1 Corinthians 13:11


Sincerity in Service since 1922

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Tour Groups

For over thirty-five years, Conley Funeral Home has been welcoming students of all ages for educational tours and teaching programs at local schools, churches and at the funeral home itself. The following pictures give you a "camera's eye view" of just a few of these gatherings.

Over the years, we've learned that kids cope better with a loss when they're familiar with the funeral home and when they know what's going on with customs like visitation, funerals, burial, and cremation. Many young people on our tours were recently bereaved, facing serious illness in their family or unexpectedly faced a sudden death within the same year. Students always have the choice of not coming or stepping out of the group with their teacher if they become overwhelmed. In retrospect, children tell us the tour really helped them understand things better. Most found also, that their friends were more understanding because everyone shared this experience.

2nd Grade: The second-grade tour is brief and focuses on comfort and knowing what to do at the funeral home, including, being a pall bearer.

6th Grade: The sixth-grade tour takes the kids further into understanding grief and funeral customs. We visit the school to get acquainted with the classes, answer questions and explain that the funeral is "first aid for grief". When the sixth grade comes to tour the funeral home, we show them caskets, vaults and monuments, explain funeral arrangements and choices such as different music, creative memories and the basic facts of burial and cremation.

We also support religious education in area churches by providing special tours for church classes. Here we help pastors and youth leaders as their students grapple with the spiritual questions that surround death and grief.

We proud of our history of partnering with various hospice classes so that we can work better hand in hand when serving the needs of the same family.

In addition, we have also been invited to speak at high school classes at Kaneland, Batavia and Central Schools (among others) If you would like more information, just call or drop us a line through this website or at info@conleycare.com.