Архив постов: March 2024

Still bobbing along – day 18

March 22, 2024

Last night we suddenly received a VHF test on the radio. Frank had never heard of this before. The next thing, we hear Kariwa, Kariwa, Kariwa on the radio. It was the captain – yes, the captain, at 2am – of the car carrier passing within a few miles of us. He asked if we had any problems because his mate had called him after receiving the same test signal on VHF. They thought it may be us sending a distress signal. After all the formalities, he and Frank had a half hour conversation about shipping. He was from Estonia and his deck officers were Russian. The rest of the crew were from India. He was en route Chile to Japan to pick up 5000 vehicles. The sea was (and still is) quite rough, 7ft on the beam. We are having to hang on while trying to move round the boat. Needless to say, I will not be cooking tonight, so, out come the frozen dinners I made before we left.

We had a bit of a moon last night, a waxing crescent moon so it comes up and goes down in almost the same place and is only visible for a couple of hours. After having total darkness recently, it seemed very bright out there.

I am still busy with my knitting, it has been slow going. Frank is trying to edit video but its hard concentrating on the screen while the boat is moving around like this.

Day 19

Conditions are still the same. I managed to have a shower and wash my hair, was a bit of a struggle but its done now. The drinks fridge in the pilot house had cans rolling around making a noise so I have restocked it. We do not have alcohol at all on passage, so when I say drinks, I mean 7up, Coke, Fresca etc. for Frank. I drink only water. I did put some beer in the fridge in the galley in preparation for arrival in Nuku Hiva.

Its a desert out here

March 11, 2024

We are on day 14 since we left Panama and day 9 since Galapagos. For the first few days out of Galapagos we had a nu bar of birds flying sround, they would come and take a perch at night and poop all over the deck. In the last 5 days we have seen a bird only briefly and he did not stay the night. We have not seen dolphins or anything else either. Its only us.

The Sea state is a bit weird this morning, not more rough than recently but must be the angle because the boat is quite jerky, enough to make me seasick.

The cycle and routine continues as normal, I keep watch from 8 till midnight and Frank from Midnight till 4am. Yesterday we set the clocks back an hour, we selected San Francisco as your time zone but guess what? Yesterday was the day for daylight saving in USA so this morning we were back where we started. We are now on the time zone of Adamstown, Pitcairn. The only place we could find in this zone. Tomorrow we change another hour.

Frank caught and landed a huge Wahoo the other day. He managed to get it into the cockpit but it smashed the plastic tub as it dropped in. We packed 10 meals from that fish, so all in all a good day.

Being a Sunday, we had a hot breakfast. I decided to make omelette and I don’t know why I do this, the appropriately sized pan is one of this copper infused (supposedly) non stick pans but let me tell you, the eggs stick to it like sh.t to a blanket. I am tempted to have an oopsie moment and drop the piece of junk overboard. We had scrambled eggs, not omelettes.

I am knitting a baby hoody because knitting is a hobby of mine. Problem is that at night I can’t knit because the garment is small and finicky and I can’t see it. During the day its a great way to pass the time.

And away we go

March 7, 2024

We left our dock in the marina just before midday to move over to the fuel dock. We had planned to take on 1800 gallons of diesel, 750 of which would go into the ATL fuel bladders. There is a 300 gallon bladder on the foredeck, and 3 x 150 gallon bladders in the aft cockpit. Frank decided to go for the 150gallon bladders because the lazaret would be inaccessible while the bladders were full so we would be able to empty the centre bladder early in the voyage. It took over 2 hours to load all the diesel.

Also, we could not leave the marina before high tide at 16:30. The tide would be 16ft and we would need all of that in order to get out over the sand bank that had developed near the entrance to the marina. Captain Paul of Striker fishing had kindly offered to go ahead of us in his SportFisher boat to check the depth and to tow us if we got stuck. Fortunately we managed to get out without any issues and waved goodbye to Captain Paul, Filipe and everybody else in Buenaventura.

As we sailed into the sunset, the sea was quite lumpy with 6ft following seas. Kariwa was very heavy and heaved up and over the swells quite comfortably. The lumpy seas continued through the night and in to the morning and eventually settled around midday on Monday.

Getting ready for the Pacific crossing

March 2, 2024

We arrived back to the boat after a month away. All was well. Everything still worked. That is always a good thing.

We set about taking stock of everything on board and trying to decide what was still needed. Food, filters, and other spares. Frank set about ordering parts, and I made lists of what we needed to provision. We had a rental car and so were able to easily get to the shops, near and far. One of the things we needed was propane. We had to drive to Aguadulce, just over an hour North of Buenaventura. It was quite a scenic drive through farming country. There were a number of fruit vendors on the roadside, and a few dairy farms were offering milk, yogurt, artisanal cheese and related products. Once we arrived at the Panagas station, it took less than 10 minutes to get filled, pay and be on our way.

After numerous trips to the grocery shops, I figured we had enough dry goods to last a good few months. I started cooking meals to freeze.

I chopped up pineapples, paw paws, watermelon and froze them to be used in smoothies.

I decanted 2l milk into smaller 500ml bottles and froze them.

I made egg bites and froze them.

I cooked Irish stew, boboti, chicken with spaghetti, savory mince.

I made rusks. Rusks are a South African dry (cake, cookie, biscuit) packed with All Bran Flakes, raisins, sunflower seeds and then dehydrated. The recipe I have is for a double sized batch so it uses 2 bricks of butter, a whole bag of flour, 2 cups of sunflower seeds so it is not cheap and takes a lot of effort. Imagine my horror when I realized I had forgotten to add baking powder to make the All Purpose flour into Self Raising. The rusks are like little bricks but we have to eat them so into the coffee they go! I subsequently made another batch but made extra sure I had remembered everything. I can’t wait to finish the bricks so we can start eating the pukker rusks.

I made ginger biscuits. My recipe is nice and gingery but I always add an extra teaspoon of ginger.

I cooked beetroot.

I made picked red onion and beetroot.

Amongst all the cooking, I also took time to remove the labels from all the tins, and write the contents on the top and side of each tin. A big job, we have a LOT of tins.

I also removed everything that was in a box, from the box, wrote baking/cooking instructions on the plastic bag, and packed them into baskets.

And I consolidated jars or other containers. I don’t know how but we had 2 open jars of mustard, 2 open jars of Mayonnaise and a couple of other things.

We changed engine oil and filters on all the engines. Checked coolant, fan belts, fastenings, hydraulics, switches, connectors.

We rushed out at the last minute to get a spare alternator. And one last visit to the supermarket.

Frank installed the new navigation computer which packed up just before we went to South Africa, he spent a good couple of days trying to get the system up and running, with latest software charts. His perseverance paid off because within days of our departure, he got the system up and running. Well done Captain. Oh, and of course the touch screen on the Microsoft computer packed up at the last minute. Frank managed to get a new one sent out and installed on time. I think tech is his A game.

The day before departure, he discovered a problem with the hydraulic switches in the pilot house. After a bit of to and fro with Yachttech, we found a blown 5amp fuse, Easy fix… not so fast. The next morning the switches were again not working. It didn’t take long to sort it out, it was related to the fuse box.

Also on the day before departure while doing our last minute mad dash to the shops, Frank discovered a South African Butchers shop in Coronado. Fancy that. Unfortunately they were sold out of biltong and boerewors, but he bought their entire stock of droewors. Droewors is a thin sausage made from dried meat. It lasts long and is a great protein snack.

It is Sunday morning and we are ready. The marina held a little farewell for one of the long term boats but we declined to party with them on Saturday night. We hope they understand.

All that is left, is to get over to the fuel dock and load up 1800 gallons of diesel and then head out.

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