20 Years Ago Today -- April 27, 1996 -- Day 19

Sat. 96-04-27 - Day 19 - 3° 53' N  126° 48' W  Log: 1,609nm

Up at 1700Z. Fixed myself some eggs for breakfast. At mid-morning, it appears likely that we are truly in the SE trade winds, and through the doldrums -- hurray! Sunny, puffy cumulus clouds and steady 10 knots of wind from SE. Ah, paradise.

Daytime cabin temperature is still mid-eighties (~30°C). Nighttime watch is shorts and t-shirt mostly. Humidity down from the high values in the doldrums. John and I are both happpy.

Lottery: Dave: 12 miles off. John: 43! 3:2. I took a sun sight at 18:30 to help me -- it was close.

I baked bread today, using Ardmachree's white bread recipe, although I used 20% whole wheat flour in order to empty a container. Made two handsome loaves, plus I attempted cinnamon rolls, which weren't great -- not nearly enough sugar in the cinnamon layer. Hang on... let me sample the loaf... well, not that great. Looks good, and rose better than the Boobie bread, but not as nice a flavour. Maybe the whole wheat flour is to blame. Fun!

I also made supper -- tuna, mushroom and cheese pasta (re-run), and used the end of the cabbage for coleslaw. No more fresh veggies, except onion.

Great, peaceful sunset. We listened to Milestones together. CDs:

• Miles Davis: Milestones, Doo Bop, 7 Steps to Heaven
• Los Del Rio: Macarena
• Stanley Clarke: East River Drive
• Chick Corea: Elektric Band

Started reading a horror book: Dark Channel by Ray Garton. Long time since I've read a horror book.

We moved our watches, as we're getting west, and the sun is rising and setting much later. My watches: 0400 - 0800; 1100 - 1400Z. I took sun and moon sights in late PM, but the sun shot was off by 42 miles. Ouch!

Stats on our doldrum crossing:

• From April 23 @2100Z -- 8° 50' N to April 27 @ 1600Z -- 4° 07' N.
• Width: 4°40' = 280 nautical miles.
• Took us 91 hours = 3.07 knots average.
• We motored less than 10 hours, half solely or partly for electrical power requirements -- too slow for trolling generator at times.

My early pre-dawn watches on the last two nights had the same phenomenon: I could discern light in the SE from over the horizon. Nothing on RADAR, but I concluded there must be a fish boat there. This morning, John saw a 150' fish boat (tuna?) chug past in the distance from that direction, so I guess I wasn't hallucinating after all.

When it's clear, the night watches on this trip have been fascinating, as we learn some stars and constellations, and watch as the sky changes as we move further south and west. The Southern Cross was visible from Puerto Vallarta, but is now quite high in the sky, and the North Star is very low -- neither of us have seen it for about a week.

Still kicking myself for letting that wahoo go last night! I've really become quite interested in fishing for food, ever since sailing aboard Cabezon.

There are interesting bioluminescent flashes happening tonight, as the boat and trolling generator (the halyard is working out fine) disturb some sea life or other. The flashes seem to be about 8' across.

I'm feeling quite happy today, no doubt because we're back in the kinder, gentler trades -- sun, pretty fluffy clouds, stars, > 1/2 moon -- it's great. We're beam reaching on a course of 210° magnetic, starting a great circle course to Hiva Oa, Marquesas. I'm happy despite having nicked my finger, scalded my hand (fiddling with the oven while boiling water on the stove), and sweated through a hot day in the galley.

Next trip, bring: video camera, at least 2 35mm cameras/bodies, and a flash. I've love to shoot some 1000ASA colour or 1600ASA B&W in the moonlight. Neeed a lens that can focus <<6', unlike the 70-210mm zoom I brought (and nothing else). Also a camera mount and shutter release would be good. Mount is absolute necessity for good video.

20 Years Ago Today -- April 11, 1996 -- Day 3

Thurs. 96-04-11 - Day 3 - 20° 32' N  107° 46' W  Log: 140nm

Up at 1600Z (~11:00 local). Still not completely over that slight nauseous feeling. I made fried eggs with cheese in a tortilla for my breakfast.

Mostly high cloud today. Water is a deep beautiful blue today. Yesterday's was similar, but more grey (gun-metal). I saw a number of schools of flying fish jump out of the water, and once saw the pursuing tuna follow them into the air.

Very light winds since late morning, but still making some headway under sail alone. Motored 1.5 hours in late PM to charge batteries, but wind still very light afterwards. Sailed at 1 knot or less until about local midnight, with no steerage at all for 1/2 hour. In early hours, wind shifted to light W - WNW and we got some OK sailing in after that.

John cooked beef, fried sort of like tampiqueña for supper. Overnight watch was so quiet I heard lots of dolphins breathing on the surface, and saw the silhouettes of two in the bioluminescence beside the boat.

20 Years Ago Today -- April 9, 1996 -- Day 1

Here's the start of a series of posts quoting from my travel log from 20 years ago.  I'll attempt to post them on the day, 20 years later.  They describe the roughly 3000 nautical mile sailing passage starting from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and making landfall at Hiva Oa, Marquesas, French Polynesia.  I'll try to post some pictures along the way, though much of the passage went with few photos (the days before digital cameras).

This was a double-handed passage aboard a Valiant 32 named Vahevala, based out of Washington state.

Tuesday, 96-04-09  Day 1 -- Leaving Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Up at 07:30. Quick breakfast, then Skipper John and I went to Los Pinos to buy vegetables and fruit [having stocked up on more durable produce in the previous days]. The selection was more limited than I had expected, but we bought N$70 worth.

Returned to the boat by bus and then walked over to Commercial at Plaza Marina to finish our provisioning. We each bought a CD of the single Macarena, by Los Del Rio, which has been a very common sound throughout our stay in Mexico. Bought meat, a bit more fruit and bread, then returned by cab to the boat. Total less than N$300.

John checked us out with port captain and immigration and received the Zarpa - a beautiful certficate saying you've left legally. I had one last shower and wrapped the fruit in aluminum foil.

I dragged John to Joe's Fish Taco for lunch before we left, and had one last Mexican lunch. I mailed 8 postcards and a letter to the Bluewater Cruising Association.

We left the dock at 14:00 CDT (1900Z) and were waved off by a few friends. Hopefully we'll run into them again in Polynesia.  We played the Loggins & Messina song 'Vahevala' on the stereo as we left the harbour, then played Macarana in Banderas Bay.

We had nice wind all afternoon in Banderas Bay, but from the West, of course. The wind went light at sunset and died after dark, so we started to motor west.

John heated a can of Chorizo (spiced pork) and one of frijoles which made a nice Mexican supper. Unfortunately, it didn't agree with me and after about 6 hours of feeling ill, I barfed it all back up. [This was the only time in a year of sailing that I threw up at sea... must have been nerves and greasy food, a bad combination in the first few days of a passage.]

I had 20:00 - 24:00 and 03:00 - 06:00 watches. Great phosphorescent dolphin activity a couple of times in the night, with them leaping out of the water near our bow. Three amazing meteorites too.