Saltbreaker

Anyone who knows us well enough knows that we rarely know where we’re going next let alone when. This is particularly true when it comes to travel. Those same people are about to have their minds blown. October 24th at 10:00h we’ll be leaving San Diego for Mexico, and on November 4th we’ll be in Cabo San Lucas. Why such specific times? We’ve decided to enter a cruisers rally called the Baja Ha Ha . When we originally decided on our September departure date we…

My head is swimming through the swells in front of me and all I can think is, “At least we didn’t get those jalapeño burgers.” That had been Nick’s half-joking lunch suggestion. Big, greasy, cheesy, jalapeño burgers, maybe with a tall beer to wash them down; the meal that had been Alex’s unraveling on our last sail. I had commented that it would be a funny idea up until the point when we barfed. He seemed to think even then it still would be. Scrambling…

We’ve caught a lot of flack recently from family and friends who are concerned our blog seems to indicate that our boat is falling apart. This concern is understandable from most, but old salts know that time spent on a boat can be measured in repairs. The combination of the sun’s constant UV bombardment and the sea’s corrosive salinity are enough to break everything but our fiberglass hull down to their most basic elements. Therefore, the true measure of a boatowner isn’t how long he…

Half moon bay (from the previous post) was the first of what will be several practice trips before we head out for real. This trip and I imagine all upcoming practice trips included things we practiced intentionally and others accidentally. Learning to sail in shifts (and overnight) for example — intentional. Sailing into a harbor because your engine won’t start — accidental. Puking up a jalapeño burger — accidentally intentional. On one hand, it was hardly accidental (jalapeños?! no wonder it came back up), but…

Having recently taken a marine diesel repair course, I figured it was about time to do some much needed maintenance on our backup propulsion source. The class I took was great, if only because the teacher, Hans, drilled into us the knowledge that diesels are incredibly difficult to break, giving me the confidence to poke around and get my hands dirty. In preparation for a weekend sail to Half Moon Bay, I put some time into the engine; replacing fuel and oil filters, bleeding the…

September 19th is international talk like a pirate day. It will also be our first full day at sea. We’ve finalized our departure date and (while the details may change) the plan will involve a cast-off party on Saturday, September 17th ( Francis Chichester ‘s 110th birthday) , followed by our actual departure Sunday, September 18th. The goal had been to leave in May, a date that we chose based off the requirement of making it to New Zealand before tropical storm season in the…

I’ve spent the past three months reading about every medical procedure with a chance of appearing at sea. From treatment of shock, to reducing broken bones, to injections and IVs. I sit, reading, and intermittently wondering what my face must look like to anyone watching, as my eyes widen inexplicably in terror, or I start rubbing my lower lip like mad. I slip from intense interest, eyebrows furrowed, to concealed panic, my page-turning finger rapidly scratching the paper. The likelihood of us needing to perform…

“Last chance, you guys going to put a coin down there or anything?” Panic. 3 Weeks ago, we brought our boat over to Svendsens boat yard in Alameda to unstep (remove) our mast, replace the rigging (cables holding the mast up), and restep (reinstall the mast). This project, we estimated, would take about a week… maybe 10 days, and so we’ve learned to triple any time estimates in relation to boatwork. Tradition dictates that when you restep your mast, you should place a gold coin…

With the recent stories of pirating off the coast of Somalia growing more intense, we’ve been thinking a lot about what we’d do in a situation like that, should it ever come to it. Last week, we arrived at a conclusion. We are planning on each learning some key phrases in Somali that should help resolve the situation. Like, for instance, after they scream at us while boarding our boat we might hold up our hands and respond with, “No, we’re pirating you .” Or,…