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 26, 1996 -- Day 18

Fri. 96-04-26 - Day 18 - 4° 56' N  126° 28' W  Log: 1,553nm

Up at 1730Z; had a bowl of granola with milk. Reading some more of Silent Treatment. We have a visitor this afternoon -- a white-tipped shark about 4' long, cruising lazily behind the boat.

Lottery: John: 10 miles off; Dave: 14 miles.  Day's run: 85 miles.  1:3.

John cooked up refried beans and some sausage we bought in Puerto Vallarta, but I really didn't like either. Unfortunately, there's some sausage left. Also coleslaw.

The shark left us after a couple of hours. We must have been going too slow for it. We motored about 4 hours this afternoon, as well as 2 this morning, and finally got a light breeze in late PM. Still squally, but the only rain we got today had no wind with it -- bummer.

On my second night watch, I caught a 34" long Wahoo on a small purple/white hoochie. It seemed so small, I eventually let it go, after having spent 15 minutes looking through the fish book to identify it. It's hard to recognize a fish in the dark. The moon had set and it was overcast, so it was hard to get a good look at him. Although quite long, it was so skinny, I couldn't believe we'd get a meal out of it -- ~2.5" in diameter, I think. Later I realized we could have had a nice meal of it, with pasta to fill us up if he wasn't big enough. I guess I just wasn't in a killing mood.

Finished reading Silent Treatment on my night watch, and read some more of the South Pacific Handbook. Silent Treatment was pretty good -- too bad he staged a climax chase scene in the boiler room, as the same was done in the other book of his I had read lately.

20 Years Ago Today -- April 25, 1996 -- Day 17

Thurs. 96-04-25 - Day 17 - 6° 18' N  126° 19' W  Log: 1,495nm

Warm and humid. Weather's relatively pleasant. Winds generally 5 - 8 knots NE - E, with ~15 near squalls, which is where we make most of our mileage. Haven't seen wind yet over 25 knots and it only lasts 1 - 2 minutes at the leading edge of a squall, then settles down to 15 or maybe 20.  1,324 miles to Nuku Hiva.

I cooked spaghetti with a canned sauce and garlic bread for supper, with fruit cocktail for dessert. Getting low on oranges, despite having brought about 50 of them. Most kept well with 10% moldy right away. Vegetables are virtually gone. There's one meal of chopped cabbage in the fridge and a bit of jicama left.

My second night watch was completely done in foul weather jacket and pants. It's tough to dress for the squalls as the rain and wind are cold, but inside the suit is hot and humid.

Lottery: John: 24.5 off GPS position. Dave: 26 off.  John: 2:1.

CDs:

• Miles Davis: Round Midnight
• Oscar Peterson: We Get Requests (John liked this one)

20 Years Ago Today -- April 24, 1996 -- Day 16

Wed. 96-04-24 - Day 16 - 7° 21' N  125° 45' W  Log: 1,430nm

We're now past 1/2 way to the Marquesas and deep into the horror of the doldrums. Our strong NE trades faded into unpredictable SE winds for most of the day. Drizzle a lot of the time, with a few downpours in squalls.

I spent the day in the cockpit and now have dishpan body. My hands and feet are especially shriveled. Basically, a downer of a day. Decided to try 2 hour watches tonight -- afterward we both agreed it didn't work for us. I couldn't keep my eyes open for one hour at a time, so we'll be going back to our usual 4 + 3 + 3 + 4 system again. [We didn't run formal watches during the day, as we were both up much of the time and alternated cooking and chores as needed.]

John baked a couple more loaves of white (Booby) bread which were ready in early evening -- yummy, with more sugar than the recipe called for.

For supper, John sauteed some weiners and served them with mashed potatoes (from a box) -- a welcome warm meal for me, as I had been soggy in the cockpit for many hours, and was chilled. The cabin -- closed up against the rain -- is very warm and humid, so John was hot when he relieved cold Dave.

Night watch was actually pleasant, as we didn't get hit by any squalls. Slow going between squalls, though, and we're probably only averaging 2 - 3 knots.

Lottery: New rules: guess our 1900Z position (lat/long). Closest to the GPS position wins. My guess: 7° 25.5' N, 125° 37.9'W, was derived solely from the DR log + 5 miles guesstimated West setting current. I was 8 miles out, and much closer than John, who was 32 miles off.  1:1

No CDs.

20 Years Ago Today -- April 23, 1996 -- Day 15

Tues. 96-04-23 - Day 15 - 8° 56' N  124° 53' W  Log: 1,334nm

Up at 1700Z. John ran the engine for 1.5 hours early this morning to charge batteries -- it wouldn't be at all necessary if we could get the trolling generator to behave. John put it out using an old halyard instead of his special rope this morning. It's slowly kinking up as well. The only solution I can think of is trying wire rope.

Great sailing in NE trades until late afternoon, when we met our first rain squall. Maybe 25 knots of wind, tops, where we had been sailing in high teens to 20 already. Night gave us distant lightning and a number of squalls -- all on John's watch.

No CDs. This is the edge of the doldrums. We're grumpy so no contest today.