In a Fog of Exhaustion

Distance: 128/296

Experienced passage makers told us that the first three to four days are rough. The body takes time to adjust to the sound, the movement, the altered schedules due to watch, and the physical exertion of the sail itself. But they reassured that by after those initial days the sheer exhaustion starts to fade.

Pretty please let this be true. We went from doldrums to strong winds and a complete washing machine sea that left the entire crew exhausted and cranky beyond words... though actually there were quite a few unpleasant words. Even had the seas been relatively stable, the middle of the night watches and constant leak of energy would have had us all stretched thin. But the banging around and associated sound and movement, the whistling whine of the sails and generator, it just took their toll.

We added to our troubles by deciding that we didn't like the reefing system. What seems perfectly reasonable during a coastal cruise or even crossing the Sea of Cortez looks just wrong when you calculate the results of maintaining a particular set up for twenty straight days. A knot in a jack line that rubs the sail becomes a possible source of chafe and sail destruction rather than just an aesthetic nuisance. The bulging of the bottom of the sail and the consequent stretch on the sail cover while reefed looked simply horrible when we calculated what the battens at that odd angle would do if left there for two weeks. So we basically rerigged a good fraction of it, reducing points of chafe and wear and reorganizing how the sail lies when the reefs are hauled in. We're still not 100% satisfied, but it is better and unless we think of something further, the best we can do until the next doldrums hit.

Oddly, it wasn't like we didn't look at ourselves, the engines, the sails, the rig, and say, "Hmm... what is that going to do during our three week passage?" We did. Yet, here we are exhausted to the point of collapse with certain bits of our boat that just scream to be modified in ways you would have thought we could have known... but just didn't. It's just that I find this experience very similar in basic nature to riding across country. The common question, "How do you prepare for XYZ? ..." to which the only real answer is, "You do XYZ." The last months, we've looked at our boat in a way we never looked at it before as we prepared her for this journey. We look at her today after just a few days out, and our eyes are opened again. I can only imagine the extent to which our perspective on her systems will evolve over the coming weeks and months. And too, this experience reinforces why salty sailors look at folks new to the scene like they are crazy mad. Without the experience, you do not know what you do not know and no volume of reading of blogs or books is going to really help out that much. Unlike riding across country, however, people's lives are at risk in this little boat. Salties must wonder how any n00bs ever make it during those first few years and passages.

We will make it, however. The kids are stepping up to their responsibilities admirably. Jaime in particular is a fine crew member, and I would recommend her to anyone considering a delivery or passage. She might complain a bit, but she does her jobs with good will, handles the helm like a pro, and pitches in whenever something needs to get done. Aeron is game to try, but we are finding that the weather helm is just too much for her to handle. Mera times her watches to the second and spends a good fraction of her free time just watching movies, but she's adapting. Historically, she has always had the strongest sea sickness, and I believe she is feeling ill, but trying to avoid complaining.

We are largely hand steering the boat the entire way to baby the auto-pilot. It's not that we have any reason to believe that there is something wrong with it, but we have heard far too many stories about auto-pilots dying to believe ours would last over weeks of constant strain. We use the auto-pilot almost exclusively when helm wants to go get something, visit the head, or check the horizon or radar with full concentration. We have the luxury of short watches so hand steering is not the incredible drain it might otherwise be. However, I am embarrassed by how much better a sailor the auto-pilot is than I am a substantial fraction of the time. I feel like our Machine Overlords have extended their clawed finger towards Don Quixote and are giggling. The only consolation is that it gives us an excuse for Loose Pointer's gradually increasing lead. They have a wind vane, the lazy pikers. However, there is absolutely no getting around the fact that the only reason we don't have a wind vane is that they suck on catamarans. Yes, point in the monohull column on this one.

~ Toast (April 20, 12:00 UTC)
18 11.34N 114 01.76W

No Wind Woes

Remember how we have been fielding questions for nearly a year about "What will you do in big seas? Big wind?" Well, never mind. The real question is what to do when there is no wind.

Here it is, Launch Date, when our plan was to head out from San Jose del Cabo. We're checked out of Mexico in every way possible. We're stocked to the rafters with rapidly rotting produce. We're outfitted, packed up, stowed, stuffed, fueled, braced, rested, and ready. And... there's no wind. In fact, there is no wind today. No wind tomorrow. No wind till Monday maybe.

Loose Pointer has pretty much decided to stay on dock for another day. They have two adults and a 15 year old, but the teen is untrained. It'll take him awhile before they will all feel comfortable with him taking watch. They plan to leave Sunday evening or Monday morning. This is probably the most prudent, seamanlike thing to do. Imagine leaves La Paz today and has at least a day before the Pacific conditions are relevant. They'll ride the tail end of a norther down the coast and just about the time they round the corner, there might be wind.

Don Quixote may leave today despite the strong probability that we will go nowhere fast. Why? Well it seems a bit insane on the surface, but at this point, we're tempted to get off shore for both emotional and practical reasons. Emotionally, we're ready. This holding pattern is somewhat depressing. We're out of patience, out of Mexican cash, and wondering what to do about extending provisioning if we stay on the dock. We'll just spend more money, in other words. On a practical note, if we motor for one day (which requires we load yet another 10 gal of fuel -- fortunately we have the extra containers), we'll be far enough off shore to avoid the local traffic. There we can just bob around for another day or two waiting for the wind to show up. The advantage is that the entire family will be in slow, gentle Pacific swell. We can acclimate our bodies, do school, and begin to get into passage rhythm. And we would have the luxury of doing this in very mild conditions.

And then... as Dean forever notes... the weather forecasts are often wrong.

So the family sat at the salon this morning and debated our options. Mera asked some good questions about food stores. Jaime said she was good with any plan as long as she could sleep until her official watch started. Aeron agreed as long as she could dash over to the tienda to spend her last 15 pesos. So off we go into ... well not much beyonder.

Breaking Us In

Written: April 14, 2011

I have itemized many reasons why I believe that La Paz is an outstanding location from which to stage a Puddle Jump, and to this list I would like to add another: the trip from La Paz to the tip of Cabo is a good one to reacclimatize the crew to ocean movement before heading offshore. Even if you are a jumper who has not -- as we have -- taken a year off, the preparation phase of a puddle jump takes months. During that time, it is very difficult for most boats to spend significant amounts of time at anchor or in big sea. In fact, many boats spend that time in a marina or quiet anchorage piling in the provisions and fixing, installing, upgrading, and replacing.

It's been a year since the Conger family has rolled around on the open sea. Even in our hey day, we spent a lot of time in quiet anchorages or inner coastal waters where sea and swell were minimal. Our bodies are decidedly not accustomed to the movement of Don Quixote on even the most minimal of windy days. So the trip from La Paz around to San Jose del Cabo has served at least this purpose: We're getting acclimated to motion.

Either the meclizine (an anti-nausea drug that must be started at least a day before you put out to sea) or pure exhaustion knocked us all flat the first time. I vote for the later. Our final day in La Paz was full of last minute errands, emotional good byes, and a check list of "last day to dos" that just seemed to go on and on. We locked the cat in one of the cabins so at least we didn't have to deal with that nightmare∑ again. However, I did have a moment where we thought we'd left without one of the children∑ again. In any case, we put down hook, had a fruit drink (parental version laced with rum), and then fell into a coma. Fortunately, the conditions were benign. I'm not sure a full-fledged 40 knot cormuel would have woken any of us up that first night.

The second day was a very long motor from Los Bobos to Bahia de Los Muertos. I'm sure that our first anchorage has another name, but it is situated behind a momentous, bird-poop covered rock which generates a veritable cloud of the small annoying Mexican flies known as bobos. The trip was about 55 nautical miles (1 NM = 1.15 M = 1.85 KM). Motoring along on one engine, that took us about 10 hours. The seas were flat to the point of absurdity, so school was relatively easy. We did some boat chores, had a nice meal, and still fell into bed exhausted. Even a mild day at sea with a grinding motor is tiring.

The third day took us to Los Frailes, approximately 48 NM miles farther south along the inner Baja coastline. This day was almost a pure repeat of the prior one with a lot of motoring, a lot of school, and a lot of sailor boredom. We almost didn't bother with sails. Just to break the monotony, we invited Loose Pointer over for a chili rellenos dinner. When they arrived, Aeron acted like she hadn't seen new people in a decade with exclamations of happiness and relief. Bit of an actress that child. Though, I can sympathize. Even after two days, good friends in our salon was a welcome diversion and pleasure.

The next day, we sailed off our anchor (engines running just in case) out of Frailes and south around the corner to San Jose Del Cabo. Some power greater than us turned on the wind switch. >ZooM!< We started the day running in front of a 20 knot mini-norther in 3 foot seas. Now the rolling started to get to the family. Mera went down first, absolutely green. Aeron protested that she was absolutely fine until suddenly she wasn't. We looked around, startled to realize we hadn't heard her voice in at least 15 minutes, and I found her dead asleep in her cabin. Sleep is the first refuge of a body that is feeling mall de mer. Jaime held out pretty well, though studying took a back seat to just keeping breakfast where it belonged. I got sleepy, and DrC was∑ of course∑ just fine. It would be annoying were it not so useful having at least one person who doesn't vomit at the first sign of waves.

Pulling into the marina at Puerto San Jose del Cabo, the family uttered a sign of heartfelt relief. At least for now, we have stopped moving. We will spend two days in the marina checking out of Mexico, loading fresh bananas, and bathing. We will celebrate running water with our last land-based showers for at least a month, probably closer to six months. And most importantly,this is the last chance before we depart to get a full, quiet, still night of deep rest. Even if it it's only for a night, I'll take it.

Communication Plan for the Passage

Jaime at the Mast
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

A brief message from your author to let you know that even though we'll be transiting the Pacific, this blog will continue with its endlessly narcissistic accounts of the adventures of the cast and crew of s/v Don Quixote. To make sure that you don't miss any of this scintillating content, the following outlines our communication plan from April to October 2011.

Blog

Articles will appear through the next six months more or less on the same publishing schedule (twice weekly) to which you've become accustomed. However, there will now be three categories of articles:

* On the Go – We can post blog entries even from the high seas over our SSB radio/email connection. While we are passage making, I'll try to post at least a position update on a daily basis along with more extensive weekly reports on what we're doing and how we feel about it. When anchored in the islands, I'll continue with weekly articles about our experience. Unfortunately, due to bandwidth constraints, I will be unable to post pictures to most of these Coconut Milk Run articles until well after the fact. I will let you know when we get places where I can engage in wholesale uploads of images.

* Retrospective – In November 2010, I participated in NaNoWriMo. Actually, I participated in December as well though technically that's not the way NaNoWriMo works. I just kept writing until I hit 50,000 words. The result was roughly 50 articles, 30 of which I actually believe are worth editing into readability. I've queued the ones I like best to post once a week for the next six months. The articles speak to boat issues as well as our time in Mexico and New Zealand. Of course, I intended to prep these with pictures... but life intervened. More picturelessness. However, you can always head over to Flickr to browse for photos of that time frame.

* Ship Log – In February, we recommenced posting our captain's log. Historically, this is about as exciting a read as watching paint dry. Position and weather reports, equipment maintenance notes, provisioning status. *yawn* Just because it's an important part of being a sailor, doesn't make it very interesting. When the original log was stolen in New Zealand, we were incredibly glad I'd typed it up and posted it online. And oddly enough, very salty friends of ours over the years have told us they appreciate that highly factual window into our experiences as we travelled the coastline of North and South America. Perhaps, the details found there will prove interesting to cruisers considering a Puddle Jump in future years.

Comments and Replies

Sadly, we will not be able to regularly receive or respond to comments during the next few months. My sincere regrets and apologies for that. I enjoy the suggestions, support and input. Unfortunately, bandwidth is at a premium for this journey. Most places do not have connectivity, and those that do cost a fortune. However, sometimes we need your help. I've asked in the past for assistance and the reading/cruising community has come through with valuable information and even physical aid. We have arranged a shore-bound contact who will regularly read our blogs and the responses – both on the blog and on my Facebook account. Be assured that if I ask for ideas, information, or aid, this contact will relay your responses to us even if we're in the middle of nowhere.

Twitter

My original thinking was to the Twitter feed into two accounts so that the position reports would go somewhere else. Then I decided that was too complicated. It'll all spam toastfloats. The GPS points will duplicate content we post to YOTREPS. Our family and land-based emergency contacts relied on our SPOT tracking in the past, but unfortunately the SPOT doesn't have coverage in the middle of the Pacific.

Snail Mail

Really? You want to send packages? I don't think so. Let's not even pretend that's going to happen.

* * *

I think that about covers it. Please reply immediately if you have any questions. We'll be heading out in just another few days so this is your last chance to let me know we're insane.