"At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much." -Robin Lee Graham
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Goodbye, for now!
Nautical miles covered: 3,957
Total transit time: 33 days, 19 hours and 30 minutes
Dry pieces of clothing, pillows, blankets and bedding left aboard: 0
Items containing mold and/or moldy smell: Every damn one of them
So, this is the end of this chapter. We hope one day to continue this blog during another grand adventure as we sail off into nothingness towards another far off island.
Thanks to everybody who took an interest in our journey. Your support and well-wishing means the world.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Thoughts near the end...
Lately, I've been finding myself daydreaming pretty often about being out in the middle of nowhere, sailing peacefully along, just Jonny and I. I tell you, cruising is an addiction. It gets in your head and will always be there. I regret not taking the long trip home with the guys. At the time, I wanted to wash my hands of the situation forever. Yet, these past thirty-something days, I've had time to think about what happened.
I shouldn't let a couple bad experiences ruin an amazing way to see the world. Sure, sailing long distance can be gut-wrenchingly scary at times, or dreadfully monotonous at others. But, just like that old saying, "nothing easily obtained is worth fighting for," it is that journey that makes the payoff so great. When you walk on land for the first time in weeks, realizing that it was you, your partner(s), and vessel alone that got you there...that is a feeling beyond words. Additionally, I cannot even begin to describe the comraderie and goodwill of all the people we were so lucky to meet on our trip. That in itself is worth the seemingly endless days at sea.
I still want to see Mexico and the South Pacific by boat. Of course, that is easy for me to say...I'm not the one who just spent 34 days on the ocean, longing for home and trying to stay positive. We will have to see what the future holds for Shenanigans, Jon and I. For now, I think we will return to our role as "productive" members of society. I know Jon will suffer from my affliction as well: memories of an albatross eyeing us as it lazily glides by on the same puff of air that we ride, the sunshine illuminating monstrous towering cumulus, thousands of miles of open ocean surrounding us, warm rain, freedom.
I'm off to daydream a bit more.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sail Mail I got from Jonathan Today
Monday, July 18, 2011
July 18th
-Matt
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
Slow but steady
Two nights ago as we were outside under the stars watching a movie, Matt spotted a moon bow! We have also passed two sailboats and 3 cargo ships all going in the opposite direction. Hum, maybe we're going the wrong way????
So we press on in sight of land fall.
--Jon
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Google changes blog format...
If you are not sure how to do this, just click on the "Location" at the very bottom of each post, and a new tab in your browser with the coordinates in Google maps should pop up. I'm pretty bummed out that this has been discontinued, as I thought it was pretty cool to be able to see the progress as it is being made across the ocean. Also, that's why we wanted to even use Google Blogger in the first place, as it was a free format that allowed others to see that progress. Oh well...if we ever do something like this again, I think we'll use Sailblogs.com, which plots locations automatically to Google Earth.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
To Sail or to Motor?
We thought we had discarded all of our condiments when we cleaned out the fridge but after some searching, I was fortunate enough to find some unopened mayo, hooray! This find along with some bread that has kept this long meant we had tuna sandwiches for breakfast, a nice change of pace from repeated meals.
The moon is getting brighter and brighter and closer and closer to being full every night. After your eyes adjust you can see well without any other source of light. The last few nights have been cloudy, when the moon peeks out from behind the clouds, its energizing and helps to get you through the nighttime watch shifts.
More than halfway home and getting closer.
--Sean
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Saturday, July 9, 2011
(no subject)
-Matthew
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Monday, July 4, 2011
Happy Independence Day!
The ocean surface was so smooth on watch last night. I could see the reflections of individual stars. Smooth enough to even see a reflection of the big dipper constellation on the waters surface. I've only seen lakes with water this glass like and smooth. After the rough seas we had leaving Hawaii, its a drastic change of sea state to the ocean so docile and calm. Though this is an interesting new way to see the pacific, where did all the wind go? Sailing without wind is like trying to use facebook without internet.
--Sean
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Sunday, July 3, 2011
Confortable Sailing
We are losing our stable wind now only able to sail for few hours then fire up the motor for a few and back to sailing. Hopefully we only have 200 miles give or take a few before we can find a wind shift the will carry us in the direction of Channel Islands. It will be a comforting feeling when we start heading in the direction of home.
Yesterday was Sean's B-Day. He asked us to shorten a few afternoon shifts so that he can have the sunrise shift in the morning. Also we baked him a huge brownie!
--Jon
Yesterday was my birthday, and I started the day with watching the sunrise during the 4am-7am watch shift, I was rocking just my board shorts almost to the end of the shift and then got hit with a squall in the last few minutes. Was an excellent way to start my 27th birthday. We took turns watching some movies on my laptop, the only nice thing about motoring is that we have power to charge all of our electronics. We all shared one giant brownie for my birthday and had birthday pasta with chicken to share for dinner. I am now the eldest sailor on this vessel. I did miss talking to all my family and friends on my birthday, I didn't get one email, phone call, text message, or facebook update.. ha, I'll check later.
We are all up most of the day, chatting, reading, hanging out, cleaning up the boat and taking turns at the helm before we all scramble to sleep as much as we can between shifts at night. 3 hour watch shifts give us all 6 hours of downtime between turns at the helm, this seems to be working well so far, and the times rotate daily so you are never on the same watch schedule 2 days in a row and each of us gets their chance for the sunrise, sunset, middle of the nights shifts. Tonight I am on from 1-4 am, which means I will get to stargaze for hours and probably see a handful of shooting stars. Its a peaceful time to think and take in all that is happening. Shenanigans seems so insignificant compared to all the ocean before us, and even more so when you look up at night and compare our spot on this world to all the distant and far off suns.
We had to throw out some food that had spoiled in the fridge, so no more butter, cheese, or fresh non canned chicken.. You will be missed. I will now appreciate the comfort foods even more upon our return. The good part is now we don't have to worry about trying to run the icebox so much and keep an eye on the batteries and solar panels.
Ta ta for now!
--Sean
Read the above
--Matt
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Friday, July 1, 2011
First few days out
Day 1. We set sail for the mainland.... not really knowing whether we're going north or south but we just wanted to get going and keep watching the weather while we go, we made it about 100 miles north our first day but beating up wind all day and night wasn't fun for anyone but we figured we'd try to suck it up and see how long we can do it.
Day 2. After beating up wind we decided to see what its like on the other tack so we decided to go south, same situation though beating up wind healed over wasn't fun at all but we sucked it up for another 100 miles until we looked at the chart plotter and realized we pretty much ate 60 miles back tracking so we felt pretty dumb but it was funny.... kind of haha.
Day 3. Day 3 went well, we still haven't eaten a real meal yet because we still weren't used to the rocking so much but I did manage to make some bean burritos so we got some sustenance's in us, after some crew deliberation we finally decided to sail north. We tacked over and headed north...... again haha.
Day 4. so we like this tack allot more cause it's a beam reach most the time and we're sailing at around 5-7 knots depending on the wind but its really comfortable, pretty much the only exciting thing that happened was we caught a Mahi Mahi, trying to filet it while on the bow was very interesting, Sean and I hacked at it and after some what fighting we got it filleted. John was going to be kind and bring in the second hand line so we didn't catch another fish, one is enough for us all to eat, but he was too late. We already had another Mahi Mahi on the other line. It was small and we didn't need two fish so we let it go, but we will be having fish tacos soon! John made some pasta that night so we're starting to eat some more each day.
That's pretty much it for now we apologize for not keeping you up dated but we'll be up dating more often bye for now from the crew of Shenanigans.
-Matthew