All posts by ZekeTheSailor

5. Panama to Tahiti

Next Boat…

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I spent an hour or two today sitting atop the pilot house (where it was shady), watching our wake streaming out behind — a continuous river disappearing into the sea. A continuous river stretching some 5,000 miles astern, back home…

Thoughts of “back home” are often about food, and usually a comfy sofa, either in front of a favorite TV show, or overlooking the ocean from our Maine cottage. But this time my thoughts meandered to another favorite topic: boats. What kind of boat will scratch my sailing itch after this adventure…?

Thoughts begin with my little trimaran, sitting in a barn 2/3rds built. If I completed this project, and took it a step further to outfit it thoroughly for backpacker-type cruising, it could satisfy my desire to sail over the horizon — e.g., to Downeast Maine. A huge plus for this boat is cost. Even with complete cruising gear it would be the least expensive option by far. But it has its drawbacks. I’d want a little autopilot, so I don’t have to steer 100% of the time. So I need a battery, and a way to charge the battery. And a little boat like that has no good way to carry a dinghy for getting ashore. I could lash a small kayak on the cross-beams. Ugly, but workable. And potentially the biggest drawback: it would accommodate me only — not a boat for cruising with Hallie.

To get a boat for cruising together, we should have a reasonable galley, and an enclosed (at least by a curtain) head. There’s a big trade-off between interior space and my thought that I’d like to have a trimaran. Trimarans have exciting sailing qualities but very little space. There are some nice ones in the 30 – 35 foot range that probably have enough inside so that the two of us could be reasonably comfortable.

But…only the two of us. What about sailing with friends? If we go a little bigger we could have a “guest room” and be able to accommodate another couple. Probably not a trimaran at this point, as its size would get unwieldy and its expense would be exorbitant. Maybe a catamaran? Hey, maybe like the one I’m on right now?

But if we go that big/expensive, maybe we should be thinking about living aboard. We could migrate along the Intracoastal Waterway, which I found quite enticing on the way south. Living aboard changes the equation in big ways Sailing qualities have to take a back seat to space and comfort. Maybe it wouldn’t even be a sailboat at all. We saw some nice “trawlers” on the ICW that seemed like ideal vessels for that environment, where one has to motor most of the time anyway.

Boats are always a compromise. Whatever we do, I will lust after other boats that can do the other things better. I’ll just have to keep contemplating this question that has no right answer, and kick it around with Hallie a few times…over the next 15,000 miles…

5. Panama to Tahiti

Trade Winds at Last!

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Finally we seem to have the expected trade winds. For the past 24 hours they’ve been blowing 13 knots. We’d prefer another five knots, but we’re happy to be sailing once again. We have just the spinnaker up, which makes for very easy going. Just set it and forget it, so to speak.

In fact, this is the first day that I’ve felt rather bored. Last night a line that controls our hydro generator broke, and I thought I might be repairing that this morning. But Bill had already fixed it during his watch. (Pretty impressive, hanging off the back of the boat alone at night…) This morning we had a problem with our electronics, where some of the wind and speed information wasn’t getting displayed. But a “reboot” of the system set that right. There’s not much route planning/strategizing to be done, assuming the trade winds will continue. I wasn’t planning to do any cooking/baking today. So not much on the agenda.

We entertained ourselves for a while with ideas about getting more sail flying, since our spinnaker isn’t terribly big, and we could use more power. We drop the mainsail when we fly the spinnaker, because the main blocks the spinnaker’s wind, and we go just as fast with it down. But there’s a big gap between the bottom of the spinnaker and the deck — could we come up with a way to capture the wind that must escape there…? First we put up our storm jib. We knew it wouldn’t be very big, but we’d never flown it before, so this was a chance to learn something. It was good to go through the exercise of rigging it, in case we ever actually need it, but it’s so tiny it didn’t make any discernible difference in our speed. So we brought that down and tried flying our small spinnaker “under” the bigger one. This didn’t seem to catch much wind, and it interfered a little with the big spinnaker; we judged the net difference to be zero. Then we tried pulling the small spinnaker aft, close to the mast, inside the furled jibs, and off to one side. This actually seemed to work. That is, it increased our speed by half a knot. Not pretty, since it was rubbing up against the headstay and the big spinnaker sheet and sometimes other things, and had the potential for getting fouled and making a mess. We brought it down for the night. I doubt it will go back up unless we get back into the racing mind-set, which we lost when everyone started motoring (and the boats ahead of us motor faster than we do).

I had a dozen or so books on my iPad that I wanted to read, but my iPad got a salt water shower the day before we left Galapagos, and it died. So I’ve been reading the PAPER books that we have on board. I’m on the last of the three novels. Next I’ll have to decide whether to start reading reference manuals or switch to electronic books that Tim has on his extra laptop.

One thousand miles to go to Hiva Oa.

5. Panama to Tahiti

Team Rock Questions/Answers

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Here is another set of questions posed by the Team Rock! 7th graders, and my attempts to answer them.

In Science class we are learning about adaptations and evolution, especially with Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos! It’s funny how you mentioned them in your blog, what a coincidence! Have you seen any finches with noticeably different beaks? What do you think about their evolution?

I’m afraid all the finches look pretty much the same to me, other than the coloring if males/females. Many of the finches I’ve seen have been in the towns, often hanging around restaurants. Do you think their beaks will eventually adapt to foraging human-food…?

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Has there been any recent droughts that affected the large finches?

I don’t know. I will relate one thing I learned, though, that impressed me about the impact of climate change. Back 30 years ago (I think, I may be off with the years) there was a very strong “El Nino” year — where the usual ocean currents are disrupted, and with them the weather. Our guide on one of our tours said that in this one year 90% of the coral around the Galapagos died off. He attributes this to the ocean currents. One day the waters would be cold, brought north by the Humboldt Current. The next day the water would be warm, from the Panama Current. Coral can live in both temperatures, but he said that he believes the constant switching back and forth killed the coral.

This year is a strange one, in that we are now in the rainy season, but there has been almost no rain. There was a lot of talk about this among locals, though no one seems to know why or what the impact might be.

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Were the iguanas mean?

For the most part the iguanas ignored people, and while the tourists didn’t ignore them, we never touched them or tried to scare them. I did have one “spit” at me once though.

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Would you ever find yourself wanting to return to the Galapagos Islands?

I did not fall in love with the Galapagos. But I probably would if we were free to explore the remote areas. What a great cruising ground! But as I’ve reported, it is increasingly “protected” from tourists. So I doubt I will go back.

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Were you able to touch any of the animals on the islands?

There was a strong local ethic of not touching animals, and we almost always adhered to that. I did touch the back of a sea turtle that was swimming with me. He didn’t care; maybe he (she?) even liked it.

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What was your favorite part of being in the Galapagos?

Three things come to mind. First, the sea lions were a hoot — very entertaining. But that got old quickly as they “invaded” our boat. Second, visiting the island of Isabela (going by ferry and spending the night there in a little hotel) was fun. The town was smaller and life seemed more relaxed, and it was fun to explore a little on my own. But the winner has to be snorkeling around Kicker Rock, where both the cliffs above and the cliffs underwater were incredible.

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How many different species of finches did you see? What was the most unique species you saw?
Sorry — I don’t know!

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We are learning about Darwin’s finches and I would like to know if you saw any of the birds dying or fighting for food?

This is not apparent. The birds all looked healthy and “happy.” I think the competition that leads to some birds having advantages over others happens over many thousands of years, and would be very difficult to detect at any one moment in time.

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What your favorite place you have been so far?

Hard to choose one. Some of the places in the San Blas islands were interesting and fun. The Panama Canal was a cool experience. Parts of the Galapagos were unique and wondrous. And another favorite is right where I am now — in the middle of the ocean, where there is nothing around by more ocean, and the night sky is amazing in its brilliance and its vastness!