Tsunami warning

We checked our email this morning to get the weather and mail. We soon realized that we had quite a few messages waiting for us. The six warnings for the tsunami was a bit disconcerting, but we also realized that we have quite a few people keeping an eye out for us and we appreciate everyone's concern.
We considered heading out to sea (where tsunami's are harmless), but decided to anchor out here in the atoll. We thought that the open atoll should be safe from any breaking waves, and the surge (the main danger) would not be too bad. We think that the tsunami only caused about two feet of surge here, barely noticeable.

The day was a bit stressfull, and we did not get our jobs done, but all is well here on Masquerade. Thanks again to everyone who showed concern and provided information for us.

R&R stop

Repairs and Rest on Johnston Atoll. We made a slight detour to make landfall at Johnston Atoll, this used to be run by the AirForce, but is now a wildlife refuge. We will take a few days to fix a few things and to wait for a weather system to blow through. This will also give us a good tack down to the Marshall Islands. We have now completed 4000 miles and have about 1400 left to go.

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We are all fine and making good progress, the last few days we have averaged around 130 miles despite having to jybe several times a day. Being a sailboat, we do not always go exactly the direction we want to go. The direction of the wind and waves affects what course we sail. It is slow and uncomfortable to sail directly down wind, which is the direction we currently need to go. This means that we sail to one side or the other of our desired course. This is longer but faster and less rolling for the boat.

We chafed through some lines to the monitor and had to swap in a replacement. We also broke our whisker pole. I was able to cut of the bent end and rebuild it, but now it a few feet shorter than it was. It is still usable, but we may need to reef the genoa when we pole it out.

We are now 28 days out and have about 1700 miles to go.

3000 miles sailed

Still making good progress.
Still having breakages/wear and tear.
Still fixing problems as they come up.
Winds are picking up again, hoping for a nice uneventful day.

Half way there!!!

Early this morning we passed the halfway point to Kwajalien! 2650 miles done and 2650 miles to go.
We had to have a small celebratation drink to mark the occasion. This also coincided with the time of time of the Amigo net (a net on the SSB radio for boats cruising Mexico) so we got to share the event with our friends back on the mainland.
We have been underway for 21 days, and have been averaging about 120 miles a day. Our longest day was 151 miles and our shortest was 102 nautical miles. Our longest day was actually made with the least amount of sail and the most wind!

We are now getting tradewinds a little more like we expected. The winds have been about 25 or so and fairly consistent. The waves are smaller and the sailing is much more pleasant. We still have to be careful for the sneaker waves that occasionally come and splash water into the cockpit, but it is nice to sit outside on watch. Of course there has been nothing to see for quite a while.

2400 miles sailed

We have been making good progress west. We are currently planning on skipping Hawaii and heading straight to the Marshalls. The winds and waves are subsiding some so we are a bit more comfortable. We had a few rough days and took a few large waves broadside which was a bit startling and these forced some water inside through the closed hatches making a wet mess below. Luckily the laptop was put away or it would have been soaked in salt water!
We are doing fine, getting caught up on our sleep, and trying to avoid new bruises.

2400 miles sailed

We have been making good progress west. We are currently planning on skipping Hawaii and heading straight to the Marshalls. The winds and waves are subsiding some so we are a bit more comfortable. We had a few rough days and took a few large waves broadside which was a bit startling and these forced some water inside through the closed hatches making a wet mess below. Luckily the laptop was put away or it would have been soaked in salt water!
We are doing fine, getting caught up on our sleep, and trying to avoid new bruises.

Too much wind!

We have a moderate El Nino occuring this year, so we are supposed to see enhanced tradewinds. However we are also being affected by a surface trough and are seeing higher winds than expected or forecast. For the last 2 3 days or so we have had winds 35kn and up. Last night we were seeing 45 and gusts to 50. The wind by itself is not bad, it is the waves that build up. And build up they did. We saw some 20ft swells roll under us. It got pretty rough and quite noisy inside the boat and out.
Happily this morning things have settled down a bit. The winds are back down to around 35 and the swells are a bit more regularly spaced. Hopefully things will mellow out a bit more, and we can get some pleasant sailing in.
Marty is out of commission once again. The tube that attaches the rudder to the steering gear is made to be sacrificial. If you get too much pressure on the rudder the tube breaks, not the important parts. This happened last night . We probably got hit on the side by a wave and off it went. We had the rudder attached by a safety line so we did not loose any parts. I have a spare tube, so I can fix it. Once conditions are smoother I will take a look, not sure if I can reach what I need from on the boat though. It might have to wait till we see a dock or we can launch the dinghy.

Anyway, not much fun the last few days but we are fine (though tired and bruised) and still making progress.

Found the tradewinds!

We are now getting the NE winds that we have been expecting. Yesterday we had nice sailing all day.
We are now sailing wing on wing, which means that the headsail is to one side and the main is to the otherside. This allows sailing directly downwind. The only drawback to this tactic is that the boat tends to roll a bit as the sails do not have as much steadying influence as they do when both working on the same side.
Life is tradeoffs.

Where are my tradewinds?

We are where we are supposed to be, now where is the wind?

Last night around 2AM (of course) we hit a squall or some type of front and get rain and winds 35k+. Down went all the sails except for the staysail and we still went 5.5-6 knots. This lasted for several cold dark hours. Felt like being back in the pacific NW.

This morning after the sun comes up the wind dies than backs to the NW. Northwest? We should have NE winds. Nice downwind sailing is what we were told! Hopefully the wind veers and we can head more west and less south.

We did get some NE winds yesterday and spent all day sailing wing on wing with a poled out Genoa. So not all bad winds. Good thing we had the pole down before the winds kicked up though.

Marty is alive and well!

Marty is nickname for our monitor windvane, and he is the helmsman for most of our sailing. We like him because he uses no electricity and he does not hate the HAM radio (like the auto pilot does).

I was able to make repairs using some scrap sheetmetal, a bolt, and a bunch of JB Weld, thanks to a good drill and a Tap & Die set. The monitor had failed just at sunset, this gave me something to keep my mind occupied all night thinking of how to make a repair. It is important to have a good tool kit, spare parts and some raw materials (skills at problem solving also help).

The monitor has a good manual which came in handy since I had to partially disassemble it to make repairs. It was a good thing that we had the rebuild kit also. While taking apart the offending piece, 3 dozen tiny delron bearings all made a run to escape. The tiny bouncing balls, were aided by the boat lurching at inappropriate times. I managed to capture all but one from their hiding places in the cushions, clothes, catbed, and corners of the floor. The one elusive ball, meant that I had to dig out the rebuild kit to obtain a full set of bearings. After allowing the epoxy to set and reassembled the windvane, we tested it out and has steered about 70 miles so far. Yeah!

BTW Marty received his moniker because we bought him used as a salvage from a boat (Spirit Healer) that sank in a hurricane. The hurricane was named Marty.

Masquerade is heading mostly west now. We are getting better and more consistent winds. We have been averaging over 120 miles a day (I will calculate this out later) so we are doing well. We are both healthy and happy though tired. We hope that the ride gets a bit smoother as we are rolling more than we would like.

Current position as of 11am pst 2/1/2010
18'10N 118'00W