Saturday June 18
Position N 26 08.156 W 121 22.475 450 NM from Ensenada.
Hello Friends and Family,
Just after writing to you on Thursday afternoon the winds piped up. I made several sail reductions finally setting a storm jib alone as night approached. I took a conservative approach because I wanted to avoid foredeck work at night in heavy weather. The seas also built and by reducing sail I reduced speed and made for a more comfortable ride. Winds rose to mid to high 20’s and stayed that way until this morning. Anxious to get my speed back up as things moderated I added sail and had a comfortable ride at 6 plus Kn after spending 36 hours at 3.5.
I am now in winds in the high teens and making decent speed. Skies have cleared and it is beautiful in the Pacific! I have had no traffic in at least 24 hours so I am on my own and out of the shipping lanes. It is hard to imagine what is going on near the coast, I passed dozens of ships including 2 large container ships sitting dead in the water only 6 miles apart 100 miles out to sea. I also passed all manner of ships bound for Asia, South America, Panama Canal traffic and of course lots of ships heading to LA. I contacted the container ship Ever Lissom that crossed 3.5 miles behind me, I wanted to be sure they saw me and of course the officer said he had me on AIS. He was surprised I asked, doesn’t everyone have AIS? This ship is of the same class as the one that blocked the Suez Canal and was also stuck in the Chesapeake for a month. They are enormous, think of the Empire State Building on its side and easily 30 stories tall! It is amazing that they can be accommodated in any port.
I attempted to make a hot meal late last night, I spilled the soup 3 times before getting it to the stove then once on the stove. My stove is gimbaled and swinging to the stops. That is cooking on a small boat in rough weather! What I didn’t spill was a joy.
The weather routing computers are telling me to steer further North to stay in moderate winds. They are anticipating the winds will be lighter closer to the rhumb line. In my case I am not sure it is worth adding a significant amount of mileage for the added speed? On the other hand going slow is a bummer and I anticipate that I will have plenty of that crossing the convergence zone.
Unfortunately I am restricted to using the programs that are provided by Iridum with my satellite communications system. They are terrible and don’t even allow me to send email to BCC addresses. If you are annoyed by this I understand just let me know and I will delete your address from my email list. Because of the very slow transmission speed it is not practical for me to send individual emails.
Last if you have any questions about my boat or gear for those that get a kick out of that let me know. I could wax poetically about self steering gear!
Ben Lindner, S/V DAWN
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