Category Archives: 4. Key West to Panama

4. Key West to Panama

Baking Bread…? Part 2

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(Continued from Part 1)

I’m hungry, so I investigate what we have left in the snack locker. Seeing no cashews or Snickers bars, I choose Saltines and peanut butter.

I’m tired. The last hour of this middle-of-the-night watch can seem interminable. It’s 0147. Crap, the last hour hasn’t even begun.

The ship has passed, and no new ones approaching. The wind has been steady for a while at about 17 knots. We’re doing fine with no reef. A big cloud is approaching, however — blotting out a patch of stars; registering deeper darkness than the ambient moon-set-three-hours-ago-sky. It’s 0158.

At this point of my watch I don’t want to do anything. I’m just hanging out until I can go back to sleep. I hope the wind doesn’t change. I hope no more ships appear. I just want an hour and two minutes to pass uneventfully. I have to force myself to stand up and go out to the cockpit and scan the horizon. Then I put away the peanut butter and crackers.. I check the charge level of our batteries. Our hydro-generator chafed through the line that holds it down, so it is out of commission tonight. So our batteries are getting somewhat low, but the silver lining is that I don’t have to listen to the annoying hum of the generator. Our wind generator is doing well, but it can’t keep up with our usage. It’s 0217.

My eyes are burning. I close them. Just for a minute. I wish I dared to close them longer. How do single-handed sailors survive? Earlier today we sailed past a huge floating drum/float/buoy. It was big enough that it would have done tremendous damage if we had hit it. We didn’t see it until it was already alongside. At night, no chance of seeing such a hazard. All small boats on the ocean are taking a calculated risk. It’s 0228.

Orion is about to set, soon to be followed by the Milky Way. The infinity of stars is amazing. I wish my eyes were sharper, so I could see more of them. An airplane blinks a trail northward. The North Star is lower in the sky each night, marking our progress south. I stare upward trying to keep my eyes open, and am rewarded with a shooting star — a good one, that leaves a trail glowing in the sky for a second before it is gone. It’s 0237.

I close my eyes…and jerk awake! How long was I asleep? Only for a second, I think. Time to make my way to the cockpit for another look around. No ships. No wind change. No big devoid-of-stars cloud patches. I’m on the home stretch now…counting down the remaining minutes until 0255, when I will wake Tim, brief him on the conditions, and go right to sleep.

4. Key West to Panama

Baking Bread…? Part 1

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Not much fresh food left. I decided to start a batch of bread. I had the thought that I might do the baking during my night watch, between 2300 and 0300. That way I wouldn’t interfere with the cook preparing dinner, and I’d be heating the galley at the coolest part of the day, and it would provide a diversion for me on what seemed, at sunset, like it might be a rather boring time.

At 2300 when I replace Bill on watch, I am in my usual just-woke-up-after-too-little-sleep fog. Bill asks if I want to shake out the reef in the mainsail, since the wind has gone very light. Also he points out an unusual vibration/sound that he can’t identify. I go into the galley in search of the source of the sound, and find water on the floor. A quick check below the floorboards shows water there, but not a lot, so the water is coming from above, not below. Setting the water question aside, I check the fridge and freezer as potential noise sources. Nope. Venturing into Tim’s sleeping area, I find it. He’s got his wall-mounted fan running on high speed. Mystery #1 solved.

I taste the water on the galley floor — it is fresh, not salt. And I notice that our filtered drinking water spigot has a small but constant stream running from it. Yikes! A check of the starboard water tank shows that it is nearly empty. The port one is full. The stream of water explains the empty starboard tank. But the stream runs into the sink, so why there is fresh water on the floor remains a mystery to be investigated in the morning.

What about shaking out the reef? Bill is still waiting before going below. It starts to rain. Oh well, yes, the wind is very light; let’s do it now while two of us are awake. We do it, and Bill heads to bed. The noise of the winches plus our deck light has woken Tim. He asks if the starboard rudder is okay — a new concern he came up with earlier to explain water in our engine room. Assured that there is nothing going on with the rudder, he goes back to sleep.

The rain stops and the wind comes back. We’re moving along very nicely now. Eight and a half knots through the water, but only 6.5 over the ground. Two knots of current against us? That seems like too much for out here. It seems like we always have current against us. Is that real, or is it that our through-the-water boat speed is over-reading? (We know that it over-reads, and we compensate for that; but maybe we’re not compensating enough?) Maybe both are factors.

Our navigation system shows three ships nearby. One is already clear of us, headed north. The other two are overtaking us, one on each side. This requires my attention, to be sure we are clear of both of them. By the time the second one has safely passed, there is a new “blip” headed our way from the south.

The wind is now blowing 20 knots. Maybe the reef should go back in the mainsail. Or is this just a passing cloud with a little wind of its own? I’ll wait, and watch both the wind and the approaching ship.

I decide the bread can wait until morning.

4. Key West to Panama

More Answers to Questions from Team Rock!

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Greetings from 17 degrees North latitude, 83 degrees West Longitude!

More Answers to Questions 6-10…

6. What kinds of personal conflicts have you experienced onboard?
The three of us have gotten along remarkably well. As Bill suggests, we have a “common enemy” (engine problems, etc.) that brings us together. But I don’t think we need a common enemy to get along well. It can be challenging to live in a small space, with little sleep (when at sea), and still be considerate of others, but so far, so good..

7. Have you seen any sea animals yet?
Very few. Many people saw manatees when we were in Key West, but I always seemed to come along just after they swam away. One dolphin paid a visit this morning. We have flying fish now, which are fun to watch. Sometimes they seem to glide endlessly, just above water. We caught two fish that were mackerel-like, but bigger than what I’ve seen in Maine.

8. How old were you when you first went sailing, bought “No Regrets,” and decided to sail around the world?
I learned to sail when I was 13, when I joined the Sea Explorer Scouts (related to the Boy Scouts). My father had been a sailor, and he was very supportive of my sailing (he bought boats that I could use!). When I was in college I crewed on a boat crossing the Atlantic. Later Hallie and I bought our own cruising boat, left our jobs, sold our cars, sold our condo, and for a year we sailed across the Atlantic and back. I thought maybe that would be enough to satisfy my urge to cross oceans, but the idea of sailing around the world has always hung around. I was 59 when Hallie made a comment about my getting too old to do a circumnavigation. That spurred me into action, and my partners and I bought “No Regrets” a few months later (nearly two years ago now), and signed up for the Blue Planet Odyssey.

9. What places do you look forward to visiting most?
I tend to get more excited about the passages (between places) than about the places themselves. I think that is rather unusual; for many sailors the boat is the means of visiting cool places more than a means of crossing an ocean. But I find the Panama Canal intriguing, and the idea that we will cross from one ocean to another via a man-made “ditch” definitely has my interest. The Galapagos Islands are high on my list, due to their abundant and varied wildlife. French Polynesia is up there due to its classically beautiful, romantic allure. Australia has always seemed like a cool place. I’ve been there, but only on a business trip, so I saw the sights of Sydney only.

10. Is the saying, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning” true?
Hmm. It is true enough that the saying sticks around and sailors notice the red skies. But like most weather predictions, it is often wrong. At sea we get weather forecasts via the SSB (single sideband) radio, along with our email (that I’m using now to send these answers to Hallie, so she can post them. The forecasts include both a textual description of the general weather patterns, and charts that show the predicted wind direction and strength. These, too, are often wrong, but they are probably more useful than relying on sayings.

THANKS for the thoughtful questions! Keep them coming!