The route/Goodbye FHLB

The next leg begins on January 10th and will be starting from Santa Cruz, Tenerife and (hopefully) ending in Barbados, roughly 2800 nautical miles to the west. I'm hoping to make the crossing in about 20 days.

This is the general route we will take to the Caribbean

The transatlantic route distance calculator


Today is going to be my last day at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas after 20 years there. Thanks to everyone that showed up yesterday for my send-off party. I really appreciated seeing so many of the people I've worked alongside for so long take the time out of their busy end-of-year-crunch schedules to wish me well... or maybe they were just there for the cake :-)
Either way, I wish all the best to all of you; you are an awesome team and the Bank has a very bright future because of each and every one of you. Thanks for all the great memories!

Homeward bound

I flew out of the north Tenerife airport (TFN) to Madrid on a 7pm flight. Slept on a metal bench in the chilly Madrid airport from midnight until 4am (comfort rating = 3). Caught an early flight to Barcelona, then boarded my American Airlines flight to JFK and then Dallas.

Santa Cruz

Shortly after I took the picture of the full moon in the last posting, dolphins joined us to guide us the last mile into port. It was too dark to get a picture but we knew they were there as they frequently jumped clear of the water and made their presence felt.
We found an empty spot on the quay to tie up and everyone crashed until daybreak.
The day was filled with boat maintenance and doing laundry. There were three washing machines and one dryer in the marina so very quickly our boat looked like a tornado hit a pile of laundry. Every lifeline and flat surface around the boat was filled with drying laundry. Fortunately it was a very dry and sunny day in Santa Cruz so things dried quickly.
I managed to get a few more trips up the mast to resolve the twisted gennaker halyard and replace the frayed spinnaker halyard that I used (but in retrospect shouldn't have) when we couldn't use the gennaker halyard.
After some confusing efforts to find the fuel dock (there is not one here) we eventually found out that fuel delivery is arranged through marina staff (but not those in the office) for a truck to deliver it quay-side. The marina dock personnel could only be reached via VHF channel 9, and only in Spanish. I never could figure out where they had an office. Once again, Carlos "QSTOM" to the rescue with his Spanish skills.
I discussed with Antoine about making the big trip across and he is seriously considering it. He's a gem: very quiet, fantastic cook, the right amount of assertiveness to help make decisions, an absolutely amazing artist, and a real talent for blues guitar.
I had a flight to catch so I made a dash to the aeropuerto leaving the final details of boat cleanup to the very capable crew. Fortunately I was one of the winners at Texas Hold'em the prior night where we played for bathroom cleanup duties so I only feel a little guilty that I bailed early.
Carlos is a certified "neat-nik" so I have zero worries that the boat will be much cleaner than if the task were left to me.
I hope (and truly suspect I will) run across all their paths again. It's been a great start to this adventure and has generated quite a few lasting memories.
The next leg begins January 10; I'll be in SantaCruz on the 6th to begin preparations and provisioning.

Arrival

Now arriving in Santa Cruz, Tenerife under a full moon.

past halfway

We're progressing towards Tenerife at a little over 7 knots at the moment. We struggled overnight with a twisted gennaker halyard so have been under main and genoa since. I tried to resolve the halyard problem once we had daylight but managed to make it worse not better. I'll have to resolve it by going up the mast when we are in port tomorrow. I wish this mast had steps on it as that would be much easier. Carlos "the grinder" probably wishes so much more than I :-)

night watch

Just completing the night watch rotation here at 6:45am local time. Currently making 7+ knots on a course of 175 degrees (Magnetic). Approaching near Islas Selvagens which by chart notations appears to be a marine preserve of some type.


This picture is of the primary instrument we use other than the chart plotter (electronic map) to tell us at a glance our current status. In the upper left we have the lat/long which we use to transfer our current position to the paper chart. The paper chart is mostly used as backup in case of an electrical failure but also has some other benefits of additional notes and a broad view of the area.
In the upper right, DTW, means distance to waypoint. A waypoint is the current point you're steering towards.
In the lower right, BTW, means bearing to waypoint. This is the direction we should be steering to get to the next waypoint.
Bottom left, COG and SOG, are course and speed over ground, respectively; the course we are actually on including current drift, side slip, etc., and the speed are we actually obtaining including current and tidal effects.

So long Madeira

Madeira

Made it to Madeira as the sun was setting. Unfortunately the marina was packed full. Diverted around to a commercial dock where they keep the day charter cats for whale watching cruises. A nice quiet night here as there are no people on any of the boats and we are 100ft from the center of the downtown Christmas lights, etc. This is a bustling little city that takes the holiday festivities very seriously.

Lighthouse

An awesome lighthouse, São Lourenço, on the point off Madeira:

Dolphins

The dolphins I ordered showed up once again.

Goodbye Porto Santo

We are off to Madeira; so long Porto Santo!

Utopia

I spent an hour with Miguel who has been building his boat, Utopia, for the last nine years.

It's an absolutely stunning project. He plans to set sail starting in a year, initially to the US then to Antarctica.

Morning

Just took a mile walk into town to pay homage to Christovão Colombo. He had a house here once that is now preserved as a museum.
Here's a pic of the courtyard and house:

Solid ground

Had an upwind battle but we overcame and landed in Porto Santo harbor at 4:00pm. Checked in with customs and climbed the closest mountain to get a view. Edit the sun went down.
Here are a few pics from along the way:

land ho!

Spotted the peak(s) of land an hour ago from 20 miles out. ETA Porto Santo 1600 local time; 2 hours to go!

Friday morning

39 miles from Porto Santo. After an afternoon yesterday of no wind which caused us to motor, the wind filled in shortly after midnight. The wind is from the SSW, so we are close hauled and not quite able to make our desired heading. We'll have to tack eventually if we don't have a wind shift.
Seas are a bit jumbled now due to the windshift. We still have a long period swell from our stern but now have additional waves coming from our beam. This causes a bit of an odd motion.
Here's a view out by breakfast window:

wind

Found a little wind this morning, from a good direction even! Currently making 8 knots directly toward Porto Santo.

Red skies

Red skies at night, sailor's delight. Red skies in the morning...

update

The wind has freshened a bit. We're gliding along nicely at 7 knots on course 255M in light winds. Distance to Porto Santo is 222NM.

update

We are about 2/3's of the way across to Porto Santo. We are slowly getting educated on the challenges of gennaker sailing. Can't wait to read the "solutions" chapter :-)
For the last 4 hours we've gone with dual head sails (gennaker/genoa) as winds have been very light and Porto Santo is dead downwind.
As I was receiving an update when coming onto my watch in the wee hours, Antoine reported the wind as "not glorious". Definitely an understatement but struck me as funny at the time.
The last two days have been pretty consistent 10-20 knot winds prior to this lull. The latest weather report shows it filling in later today. Let's hope that is true. ETA Porto Santo 5pm Friday.

night watch

I just saw an orange half moon sink into the ocean a bit before midnight. The stars are out in full force once again. Saw a UFO, actually two of them. They were points of light flashing at about 4 times per second red and white lights. They tracked across the sky at about 4 seconds per degree and went from the northeast to the southwest. My only guess is that they were planes at a very high altitude and that the rapid blinking was an effect created by the atmosphere. Also of note, many stars appear to be "twinkling" tonight.
There's been no land in sight the whole day; saw the sun and moon both rise and set on the water.
Expect to arrive in Porto Santo early on Friday.

The Rock

As we depart from Gibraltar, the "rock" is shrouded in clouds once again.

Tanger

The lights of Tanger, Morocco (the chart spells it Tanger but I thought it was spelled Tangier)

The Straits of Gibraltar

Dramatic skies and a playful pod of dolphins entertained us as we dodged ships and tacked twice across the channel.

At the helm

Gib

Made it into Gibraltar just as the tail end of the storm that we've been in since yesterday overtook us.

Slept very hard from 10:30am until 1pm. Went up to get a shower in the marina; apparently they haven't heard that hot water is valued by the yachting community. On the plus side I was extremely conserative on water use.
The "rock" remains shrouded in cloud, 60 degrees and raining.

AIS

AIS is a really cool technology. It's a bit like the transponders used on aircraft. We have AIS class B onboard which means that we both receive others info as well as transmit our own.
All the blue polygons are AIS targets. The purple shading is the radar overlay. White is water and Orange is land.

There is so much shipping traffic here that it's like an extremely slow game of frogger. Each "jump" takes 20 minutes, hour after hour after hour.

Had trouble staying awake but managed to avoid hitting anything or worse yet having anything hit us.

stuck in heavy traffic

We have sailed all day with increasing wind strength as the day progressed. Started out with full main and gennaker. I eventually got concerned with the amount of stress on the gennaker and so we furled that and used the full genoa instead. Later we reefed down the main to the first reef, then second, then third while balancing the same in the roller-reefed genny. Late in the evening we were low on battery power so started the starboard engine as previously we had an indicator that the port engine might might not be providing sufficient charge. We are now in the Straits of Gibraltar and traffic is heavy.

We are now in the Straits of Gibraltar and tragic is heavy. Here's a picture of our radar and AIS targets:

Sailing

It's 9 AM we are finally sailing! Full main is up and gennaker is out. Engines are off. Peace and quiet finally.
Course 273M
Winds are 15 knots true, 7.5 apparent.
Cloudy/overcast skies. 1 ft waves with no swell.

Log update

6:56am on Saturday, Dec 3rd and all is well. 7 miles off Cabo de Gata, Spain. Heading 271M making 6 knots on the starboard engine. Still very dark out. No sunrise evident in the east. No wind yet but the weather report shows it's coming in the next few hours. Slight mist/rain in the air.

Pump out

Saw Larry's boat getting pump out service (sewage). Apparently they can't be troubled to use the onshore facilities.
As I walked by I noticed it smelled like roses :-)

On to Gibraltar

Headed out at 5:30pm today. No wind so motoring along at 6 knots.
Saw a crescent moon and Venus. Flat seas and very quiet other than the hum of the port engine. Saw beautiful phosphorescence streaming in the bow wake. It reminded me of the northern lights but in the sea instead of the sky. Brilliant green in color.
The wind isn't supposed to pickup until around 10am so it should be a quiet night. Watch schedule is 2 hours on, 2 off (2 at a time for this first night).


-Greg

Larry's boat

Larry Ellison's boat (of Oracle fame) is here on Cartagena:

Larry's boat

Larry Ellison's boat (of Oracle fame) is here on Cartagena:

BlaBlaCar

The bus got me to Plaza España at 9:10. Fortunately the car waited for me with help from Carlos relaying my proximity to Juan the BlaBlaCar driver as the bus wound through morning rush hour traffic.

Missed connection

Made it through customs in 5 minutes but my baggage didn't arrive until 45 minutes later. They had already closed my connecting flight :-(
Carlos called 2 minutes later and was on the case. Qstom Travel to the rescue!
He found a BlaBlaCar leaving for Murcia at 9am.
I found a bus to take me to Plaza España where the car is leaving from.

Morning in Barcelona

Next leg

Heading off for the next leg- Cartagena to Tenerife. Here's my reading material for the flight:

stormy in Canet

For those that wondered why I pressed so hard to leave Canet in the wee hours of the night, here's a picture of what the harbor entrance looked like the next day; 30 knots of wind made the traversing the harbor entrance untenable.
This pic was sent to me by the boat owner and is taken from inside the harbor.

A healthy skepticism

I was talking to my dad this morning and mentioned the Earth weather link I posted yesterday. He said he'd seen the website before but wasn't sure the data was real (truly current).  For those that know my skeptic nature, this is where that comes from :-)
So here's 10 seconds of video from the Earth weather website:


And here's a clip of current weather of the North Atlantic from the weather service I subscribe to (PredictWind):


You be the judge.

World wind map

Check out this awesome website

Click anywhere on the map to see the current wind anywhere on earth (displayed in the lower lefthand corner). It's interesting to see the Azores high pressure system that is almost permanently parked there. This will be an area with a bit of a challenge on the return trip. In the meantime, once clear of the Straits of Gibraltar, the wind should be from aft of the beam most of the time until on the return trip from the U.S. back towards the Med.

The next leg...

Gearing up now for the next leg of the trip.



So the next leg is from Cartagena, Spain, where the boat currently sits, to Santa Cruz, Tenerife. Hopefully with stops at Gibraltar, Porto Santo, & Madeira. http://tinyurl.com/js4zgqc

I've been ordering (Amazon to the rescue!) a bunch of minor items to repair a few things and to make the boat more comfortable. First off, I ordered new LED bulbs for the steaming light.

Here's a pic of the package & bulb:






This bulb looks identical to the (incorrect) bulb that was in the steaming light that I wrote about previously being a problem. Once again, there are absolutely no markings on this bulb; this includes any stamping on the base indicating wattage. I'll need to mark these bulbs with a marker so they don't get confused with the bulbs that are currently on the boat. The only way I can differentiate is to connect them to a power source to determine which contacts produce light.


Other items recently purchased:

New flag halyards for the starboard & port spreaders. The current halyards are the exact same type of line as that used for the lazy jacks. This makes it very difficult to figure out which line to adjust without trial and error. Seems like it would be a 50/50 chance on selecting the right one but my luck hasn't proven out to match the theoretical probability :-)

16 gauge tinned wire and heatshrink connectors. Remember to "just say no" to solid wire on a boat (use stranded wire only) and preferably use tinned wire as a salty environment can degrade copper over time.   Solid wire can break due to the vibrations experienced on a boat.

A waterproof LED flashlight for each helm station. I'll attach each with a lanyard to a location by the port and starboard wheels. When it's extremely dark out it can be difficult to see the engine controls. Generally if I'm on watch I have my headlamp available (with a red LED) but in an emergency it can be really handy to have a bright light readily available.






Sodium Metabisulfite This chemical is used to "pickle" the watermaker. Anytime the watermaker is to be left idle for more than a week it's best to leave it in a state that will prevent the growth of bacteria or other things that could harm the membrane. Mix 1/4 cup with two gallons of (fresh)water and draw it into the system under low pressure. Then cap the system off.
When preparing to use it again, flush the system thoroughly before sending new water into the storage tanks. The watermaker has a spigot at the sink to facilitate a taste test.






A laser rescue light.  These are now sometimes kept onboard instead of or in addition to conventional flares.  The Cornell rally requires flares be aboard but also recommends a "laser flare". Tests show the green laser to be much more visible than the red version. I assume that's also why they cost twice as much (about $200 vs. $100). I figure having the minimum requirement of conventional flares augmented with a laser flare is a conservative approach. This will be held in our ditch bag. I'm certain that I would rather use a laser signal if I were in a liferaft than a conventional flare; this makes me recall the last scene in All is Lost.  This laser servers two purposes. One, the obvious, to signal a rescue craft. Secondly though, whenever the laser light hits a reflective surface (reflective tape for instance), it becomes very visible. This can be invaluable for finding a person in a life vest amongst the waves and also to find navigational buoys that have reflective tape on them.

Carlos has taken on the task of acquiring parachute flares, handheld flares and smoke cartridges as I can't carry those on board a plane.


Towels. I learned a lesson on the first leg, you can never have enough towels. Every time someone came in from the helm while it was raining or with lots of spray, there was water all over. There's no hanging locker on this boat so this wet gear usually ends up in the salon and makes a real mess of things when there are no dry towels to mop the water up with.