Today was such a fun day.  You have all become an integral part of our journey.  We sat together in the cockpit and read all of the comments out loud. (Liz did the reading, she is delightfully expressive.)  After each comment, someone would say “who is that” and then we would hear a story or two about you.  We would reflect on each comment and the reader’s perspective.  Are they a worrier?  Are they funny?  Is this a typical comment?  Much laughter ensued and it brought us all closer. A personal comment would bring a slight mist to the eye of the recipient, while we all quietly reflected and waited. You can imagine the pregnant pause as we reflected on the notion of each one of our names being mentioned in prayer at our church.  We are so moved by your spirit of love and care.

I forgot to mention that last night Cam really nailed the steering.  It was hard to keep the boat on course, but a groove existed and if you were very adroit at the wheel movements you could reduce rudder-induced drag and just let the boat fly down the waves.The feeling when that happens is similar to the first time you catch a good wave as a kid on a boogie board and just feel that lift.  He grinned the whole watch.

Also, my generous and always fun son Matt spotted me for half of the hand steering of my 8:00am-noon solo watch.  Thanks Matty J, I owe you.

After my post today about singing in the cockpit the weather got very squally and all watches were in full “foulies”. Matt took advantage of the “free shower’, of course.  His happy engagement with the world is contagious. Every one of us is very happy in our foul weather gear.  There is no bad weather, just bad gear. The much anticipated wind shift from SW to NE happened almost exactly as predicted by Bill and the good folks at Commander’s Weather, so we jibed at about 6:30 and finally got on port tack.  Except for a brief  stint in the shipping lanes, we had not been on port tack since we sailed past Castle Hill and waved to our loved ones.  You all know what happened next: all of the doodads which were happily resting on the downhill side of the boat now got promoted to the uphill side of the boat, where they could resume projectiling at us, their most favorite game.  Luckily we are a savvy crew and, mostly, stow in anticipation of this.

The wind, which was to have come from the N or NE, is now coming from the ENE, which is kind of where we are trying to go.  Oh my gosh, nature is in on this.  I promise, exactly as I typed the last line, the bow lifted and crashed into a wave, with an abrupt THUD that probably awoke anyone ahead of the mast.  More zigging.  Oh well, we have had five wondrous and spectacular days of 20-35 knot winds abaft of the beam, and they cannot take that away.

I have to go suit up for the 11:00pm-2:00am watch. I relish the opportunity.  Sleep well, we love you.

Here are more photos from Friday, June 12th: Cam, Liz, Jackie and Matt enjoy views of flying fish from the rail; Dana drives through some wild waves; Matt practices with the sextant. We have been dodging rain all day, but a break from the sun and breeze has given the crew a little perk. Stay tuned for more photos and posts.

Liz

Laughter and joy in the cockpit!  Selfies on the bow!  Youngsters will be posting pics soon!  All this because we finally had a break in the weather.  Winds have moderated to 26 knots, seas have subsided, massively,  and by comparison we feel like we are in Nantucket Sound. FINALLY some favorable current.  Now doing a very comfortable 10 knots speed over ground.  Still double reef in the main. Last night was work.  Every good port is earned, and we did some earning.  Winds stayed in the high 20s and low thirties until about noon, with highest observed wind speed at 37.7 knots.  Squalls passed late night and morning, rain and distant lightning.  We all felt safe and secure, but the hand steering is a workout and the auto pilot just cannot steer through the high seas.  We are so delighted to have slightly settled conditions, if only for a while.

We pulled 6 casseroles out of the Yeti cooler and packed them in the ship’s freezer, having made room.  Last night we had Jackie’s wonderful Kale, Chicken and couscous.  Lunch today was turkey and avocado sandwiches.  Matt is at the helm, singing “hooked on a feeling”.   Liz gave our very first Ted talk, on the origin of the earth and it’s crust.  Well prepared and well delivered.  Happy Sunday to all, keep the comments coming!

MJ

Last night was a marvelous night for Moondance.  The stellar conditions of 25-30 knots from the SW continued, and we were broad reaching, surfing the waves, having a joyous time.  The importance of wind direction cannot be overstated.  If we were beating towards the wind life on board would be miserable.

But even a broad reach can get rough.  Wind over water creates waves.  The double reef shrinks down the main sail by another 25-30%, which keeps the boat under control in the windy conditions.  We are broad reaching now at 10 knots under double reefed main, which means we have enough wind to push the boat at hull speed even with a smaller sail.  And yes, we clip on (attach by harness and tether to the boat while on deck) during any reef: single, double, or triple.  Our waves are not big by ocean standards, just regular waves.

Waves mixed with current get confused and come erratically from all directions.  So life belowdecks gets interesting.  It is as if the boat were in a snow globe in the hands of a menacing three-year old, who occasionally gives it an unexpected shake.  This typically happens when you are trying to pee.  The boat also cants at 10-25 degrees and somehow gravity is doubled.  I once read of a cruising couple who ended their journey toned and fit, a product of the constant isometrics of just moving about.

Nausea returned today at 2-3 on the Matt scale (1-10, 10 being really bad) for some of the crew.  The hot afternoon sun drove me below, where things are stuffy and shut up tight because sno-globe kid also throws giant buckets of saltwater on the decks.  The saltwater we do not want inside, as cotton drenched with saltwater will never dry.  The salt has a party and keeps inviting moisture.

In any event my nausea is back down to .5.  I am firmly wedged in my bunk with double gravity holding me in place.  I am having the thrill of my life and wouldn’t trade places for anything.  But I thought you should know, in case you ever consider a trip such as this.

I am encouraging other crew to post so you can hear from them.  I am not sure I really understand blogging.  I think it is supposed to be short and two-way, which this isn’t.  But I read and enjoy every single comment, so thanks.

The wave surfing Tom wrote of so eloquently was stupendous, thrilling.  He is a brilliant economics teacher, and as such knows a good story with numbers close enough gets the point across.  I, like Matt and Mary, am an engineer at heart, so I must set the record straight on the record: 18.7 knots.

You should have seen Jackie last night in the galley.  The aforementioned conditions tend to randomly throw things out of the drying rack and dish cabinet, as they are located on the uphill side of the galley.  We were chatting when she suddenly lunged to her right and caught a falling scrub brush, by its handle.  Moments later she was drying and stowing plates when the kid gave a shake and three plates came out.  She caught ’em all, one two three, and flashed that Jackie grin.

Kudos to Dana for (1) noticing the errant pull of the second reef and (2) teaching me, finally, how to properly steer in heavy following seas.  Nice to have talented sailors on board.

Hot off the presses, Bill just told me his best guess for arrival in Horta, the Azores, is a week from tomorrow.  Glad the watermaker is working so well!

Rest well and don’t worry.

MJ

Hi Everyone,  Tom here.  Liz and I had an easy 2am-5am watch today.  We started with winds of 25-30kts out of the west. Liz saw a number of shooting stars, one of which lasted for 2-3 seconds!  Winds moderated down to 15-20, but the skies darkened.  We donned foul weather jackets in anticipation of storms, but all we got was a few sprinkles.  Michael and Dana relieved us at 5am.

The morning started to shape up like one that sailors dream about.  The sun came out and winds picked up to 25-30 kts with a nice following sea.  I am reminded of the old US Army commercial that said “we do more before 9am than most people do all week.”   Well, I think we have that beat.  Dana was in a driving groove and really had the boat moving and gave some us some great driving tips.  Michael then broke Matt’s speed record from yesterday with a recording of 17.6 kts.  Dana broke that a few minutes later with 17.8 kts.  Not to be outdone Michael then achieved 18.2 kts!!  Dana exclaimed “this is the best time I have ever had sailing!!”  Michael had a grin that was absolutely ear to ear.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.  Bill popped his head up and said “sorry to take away the punchbowl just when the party is getting started” but we should put in a second reef.  Seas were building and we were seeing gusts up to 34kts. We got everyone on deck and Michael carefully explained what every crew member needed to do.  Bill steered the boat upwind and we took in the reef under some pretty heavy conditions. Just as we were all congratulating ourselves, Dana alertly noticed that the second lowest mainsail car was bearing an unduly heavy load.  Left unchecked this could put the sail under heavy strain and possibly cause damage.  We all repeated the procedure and fixed the potential problem.  Excellent teamwork by everyone on the crew and a great call by Bill.  The boat is now appropriately powered and we are coasting along comfortably.  All this before breakfast!  Speaking of which, time to go eat.

Thanks for all the good wishes.  Keep them coming.

All is quiet as the 8-11 watch digs in.  Off-watchers sleeping or reading.  Big news today, our noon-noon distance traveled was 210 nautical miles.  That, as Bill Murray said, was a pretty good day.  Had great veggie cassarole for dinner then Jackie baked homemade banana bread, for breakfast.  Smells great in here.  Winds calmed down to 15-17, seas also calmer.  Night all.

Hello World,

This is Matt. We’ve been sailing for ~53 hours and have had a lot of fun. I personally have learned how to use a sextant! After much trial and error (time is something I have plenty of) I have successfully located our position using the sun, sextant, a watch, and books! My location was within 15 miles of the GPS. For anyone curious/wanting to waste time, I highly recommend going on a wikipedia tangent to research celestial navigation, sextants, and spherical geometry.

In other news, Jackie cooked her first meal from scratch today (with my help). We made banana pancakes using 3/4 cup flour, 1.75 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, ground flax seeds, 1 egg, and milk (Vermont maple syrup on top of course). Unfortunately several crew members were sleeping so I had to eat most of the pancakes. Don’t worry, we brought way too much cereal.

While we didn’t listen to any Jack Johnson in the galley (kitchen on boat), we do pretend it’s the weekend every day here in paradise. It’s been great weather, kind of calm seas, and I got to see glow in the dark dolphins!

As my last comment I regretfully admit we have not caught any fish. We did almost catch a few birds… Apparently a trolling lure looks pretty appetizing to birds out here. We had to abandon fishing for a while until the shearwaters  lost interest.

Hope all is well on land!

-Matt Johnson

 

Thank you all for the wonderful comments!  I had a nudge from Mary for more frequent postings, so will endeavor to do so.  Also will post more pictures, though we also need data capacity for weather files etc.  On that note, it is unbelievably reassuring to have our good friend Bill on board.  He just walked us through weather and routing for the next few days.  He is an amazing weather/routing expert, having logged 400,000 ocean miles.   He is Zen-like in front of an otherwise confusing array of isobar and pressure systems. We expect more of the same (weather, and Zen), winds 15-20 knots from WSW.  Might get a few squalls today. (Nothing to worry about!). We are staying south of the Great Circle route (shortest course) to avoid a low pressure system.

Last night Matt set a Moondance high, recording 17.3 knots (!) of boatspeed surfing down a wave, in 25-30 knots of wind.  Whoops of delight from the cockpit. Imagine a 22 ton boat surfing like that! She is not much in light air, but she plays the ocean like a fine instrument.The winds diminished to 12-13 knots but then rebuilt to 18-20, where they are now.  The slender crescent moon arose at 2:30 am at precisely the right place for the 2-5 am watch (Cam and I) to steer by. Perfect.

Stomachs are settling nicely. more laughter and more people joining in the conversation.  Matt is engineering his way through celestial navigation, eagerly teaching any who will listen. He just this minute retracted a pair of brass dividers from the Nav station and said “ohhh, Yea!.”

Just had lunch: turkey and swiss sandwiches along with fresh salad with lime juice, olive oil and salt and pepper.  Jackie is a happy maestro in the galley, her domain. I came off watch at 5 am so slept through breakfast.  Bad move, as Jackie made fluffy pancakes, to rave reviews.

Time moves remarkably quickly on board.  Have not even picked up one of the several books I brought.  Spent a few hours fiddling with the watermaker, which gave us a mild fright (not for safety, just comfort).  All lined out now, turning mountains of seawater into gallons of precious fresh water, the wonders of reverse osmosis.(aside, it just this minute occurred to me that this term could describe the anti-learning process of kids ignoring a teacher while texting in class)

Last night was stifling in the forward cabin.  Temperature on deck is a breezy 70 or so, but the Gulf Stream waters here are 78 degrees, so it can get stuffy below.  We have AC but prefer to use the generator for charging batteries, refrigeration (food, not humans) and making water.  As the winds calmed I asked Cam to go forward and open the hatches for the sleepers: ahh,  fresh air. Of course, at 6 am, after I had settled in to my berth in the forward cabin, a rouge wave doused Bill and Tom. Someone woke spluttering  and said an unkind word, I think at the Ocean, not me.  Come to think of it, I think that is the single unkind word I have heard on this voyage, a real testament to the quality of people on board. Lucky me.

We love your comments!  Thank you all so much for your support!

MJ