KEEP CALM AND CRUISE ON .....

 

KEEP CALM AND CRUISE ON …. Nov 13, 2015

Our first night went very well, although pulling out in the dark and not being able to get visual orientation ON ANYTHING is very discombobulating!  Thank heaven for radar and AIS …..

We carried on through the night, according to our crew schedule of 2 people on for 3 hour shifts, and awoke to a beautiful sunny, calm day !!!   Ed and I had the sunrise watch which was amazing …..

 

 

 I will never tire of these beautiful skies ......

Listening to the radio chatter, we heard that some of the boats are fishing en route  …. AND catching !!! 

THE SMALL CREW landed 4 fish pretty much “all at once” – one of which was a 46# yellowtail. 

COLIBRI caught 2 skipjack tuna !  

DAYBREAK has caught a bunch AND they are willing to share !!  That’s MY kinda fishing !!!  J  A nice bottle of wine … some home baked chocolate chip cookies in trade for a fillet of skipjack !!  Works for me ….  We will do our “exchange” when we get in to Santa Maria.

 

The day is Friday the 13th  … its sunny and warm’ish (20’) ….

Seas are very calm….

and the crew of SL have mellowed out listening to Chris Botti on his sax !!!

And we carry on into another night ....

 

Second Nite of our 66 hour journey ….

Seas were fairly benign but we did have a little “excitement” around 10pm when Cam asked Ed to cover up the controls at the flybridge.  Ed assumed (as would most) that prior to putting the covers over the instruments, one turns the units OFF.  Unfortunately, the system upstairs is not independent of the system in the pilot house; they are integral and when the controls get turned off upstairs, the turn off the systems in the pilot house.  YIKES !!

Black screens inside …. TOTAL BLACKNESS outside and 5 boats following us …. Although with no autopilot, we did a 180’ turn and we were now facing 5 boats !!!  Cam rebooted the system and reinitiated our route and got us turned around while I radioed the boats to let them know we were having issues …. Which they had already figured out as our lights were pirouetting around in the dark.  They scattered to give us lots of room and within 10 minutes we were back on track and running.  It was a little heart stopping, to say the least because in the darkness, there is NO visual frame of reference … the only thing we have are radar signatures on the screen … and those were in the process of rebooting … leaving us with NOTHING BUT DARKNESS .....

Luckily everyone looks out for each other and we run with plenty of space between us (especially at night) …. AND a lesson learned for all of us …. Instructions to crew must be very clear because what’s intuitive to some is not intuitive others  and never turn anything off without asking first !!! 

I did exactly the same thing when we first bought SL !  We were tied to the dock at the time however … “exactly the same, but way, way different” !!!  Easy mistake to make .....

Sunrise was again, magnificent !!

 

Down 2 crew …. Saturday

Chris took a while to get her sea legs (scopolamine patches take 12 hours to get into your system) but once that kicked in she was "fine, but not 100%".   Then Ed went down and Christine joined him … they are thinking it was more of a stomach flu or “tourista” as their symptoms were more flu-like.  NOT a fun trip down so far, for them.

 

 

 

Cam and I ran shifts through the night on Saturday night ....

3 hours on .... 3 hours off ...

 

This has been a loooooooong run (certainly the longest WE have done) and getting in to Bahai Santa Maria tomorrow and being anchored will help with the motion sickness.  We will likely spend 3 days there as the weather may keep us from carrying on until Wed or Thursday.

Northern Ranger and another boat, ALAMO, pulled into Turtle Bay and I think will be staying put until the weather passes.  They go a bit slower and cannot outrun this storm. 

We arrived at  Santa Maria mid afternoon  on Sunday.  Bahai Santa Maria is an enormous bay just north of Magdalena Bay …. We dropped anchor and were immediately visited by Jerome from DAYBREAK, bringing us 2 large fillets of fresh tuna!! As promised, we exchanged a batch of cookies and a bottle of wine !!! 

Fresh tuna on the BBQ for dinner … delicious !!!

As it turns out, NORTHERN RANGER and ALAMO left Turtle Bay almost immediately.  They were not wanting to be stuck for a number of days and be that far behind the group.  They arrived in Santa Maria about 4am !

 

Monday in Bahai Santa Maria

We are safely tucked into Bahai Santa Maria but sadly can’t get off the boat because the winds are too wild to run the tenders !!   Winds have gotten up to 31kn and we are swinging around at anchor like a spinning top.  But the Ultra anchor is holding tight !!!

COLIBRI opted to move around to Mag Bay .... and it was apparently quite choppy !

NO KIDDING ......

  We will hold up here until the weather simmers down.... forecast for tomorrow.