Circling the runway

We are still in a holding pattern. Its not a bad place to be stuck, in the middle of the most beautiful blue sky and ocean. The trades winds are gently taking us toward Hawaii but our sails are reefed n and we are limping along at 5 knots. There will be a weather briefing tonight at 8:00 and we should know then if we are allowed to continue on. At our current rate, we wont be making landfall until Tuesday morning anyhow. So unless Darby decides to stick around longer than expected, we will be taking shower and drinking mai tais on Tuesday.
It has gotten hot here and we are going to try and rig some shade on deck for the watch crew. Its also hard to sleep below during the day, so by th time we get to land I suspect this crew will be all tuckered out and sun kissed.
In the meantime, its great sailing weather and life is good.

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Darby blarby

Welp, no evidence of any tropical storm that we can see out here 495 miles away from the Islands. Actually the closer we have gotten, the calmer the conditions. Currently we are cruising at a conservative 6 knots with a reefed main and jib. We could easily be carrying more canvas but we are not racing as fast as we can towards Hawaii and planning on letting the storm pass until we enter the 120 mile safety zone. The strong winds are not the only concern, its the sea state that can last a few days after the storm passes. And big swell in Hawaii means BIG SWELL. This place invented the big swell. So we are playing it by ear and getting all weather info we can. Fortunately we are a very slow boat, so there is no rush, even if we wanted.
In other news, the night sky tonight is marked as one of my all time favorites. Kathy and I dimmed the instrument lights and were speechless. It was so dark we couldnt see the front of the boat as we sailed into sheer blackness. There is nothing to hit out here in the middle of the ocean, so on night watches you basically just stare into the night and make sure the wind doesnt shift too rapidly. Is become warmer as we head south and we no longer need our foulies. Once this dumb storm gets out of our way, we will be able to see land again. Its going to be weird to stand on terra firma again. My body is so used to lurching and being thrown around.

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These cookies are making me thirsty

N25.36 W148.45 We've have been redirected by the race committee to a way point that is 100 miles away from the storm. All boats that are close enough to get to Hawaii by Saturday are safe to cross in front of Darby, all other boats still racing will proceed with caution and head toward Hawaii Sunday morning. This will make our eta into Hawaii Wednesday morning. The communication boat "Rapture" has been giving us regular weather updates.
The crew is a little tired after a rocky night SLOWLY bobbing around in the ocean. The moon was incredible and the stars were twinkling. We woke up this morning with a beautiful sunrise and very mild conditions. We are headed to the way point and will catch up on sleep and start counting down the days till mai tais. We are safe and in the cockpit making Seinfeld jokes per usual. All is well. Hawaii is far.

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Darnit Darby!!!

Ok friends and family. Thank you for your concern for us and looking out as tropical Storm Darby is messing up our Mai Tai plans. Rest assured that we are taking precautions. The Pacific Cup staff has been in great communication with all boats and we are receiving regular weather updates. Currently Shadowside is slowing down. We have put double reef in the mainsail and shortened the jib. This will make us slow down and also ready us for any nasty squalls during the night that Darby is spitting our way. There will be more info on the Pac Cup website, but know that all boats are taking precautions and we will resume the race as soon as it is safe to do so. Shadowside might be the ONLY full keeled battle ax of a bat in the entire fleet. All of the reasons we are the slowest boat in the race, also make us the safest in storm conditions. Everyone on board has sailed and trained for storms just like this. We are prepared and will stay safe. I will update the blog twice a day so you will know how we are doing. As of now, we just ate quesadillas and im going to take a nap...so everything is groovy out here in the deep blue.
In other news...Mom, why do you need an "alias" who is carol?

Ciao

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Lad's Birthday Shadowside Pac Cup Limerick

There was a young sailor named Lad
Who wanted the best to be had.
His crew must be limber--
So soon he found Kimber--
Which made all the other boats mad!

Alejandro was loyal and true,
Add to that he could cook and could crew.
He signed up on the ketch,
Found how quick she could fetch,
And away to the galley he flew.

Kathy preferred to just drive.
When asleep, was she dead or alive?
She woke up at the wheel
And steadied the heel
Through numerous Shadowside jibes.

This crew drove her fast through the ocean.
Not distressed, not at all, by her motion.
She rocked them to sleep
With the minimum creak
All happy that Lad had the notion.

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"No one will ever believe you"

Bill Murray walks into a diner, takes a fry off a guys plate and says "no one will ever believe you". That's the theme of tonight's blog. Shadowside is perfectly balance right now. We have her rigged with a reefed main and jib and the wind is directly aft of us propelling us down waves at great speed. Squalls have been blowing through and we even reached 9.5 over ground! We have a little more than 700 miles yet to go and a small storm to the south of us we are keeping our eyes on. Alejandro and I dragged our legs off the starboard side of the bow today and let our feet get hit by waves. We giggled every time they got us. The water was blue and perfect and I got hit by a flying fish. We are still currently last in our division, but we re hoping that because we are sailing one of the slowest heaviest boats in the fleet, that we will still rank on corrected tie. The faster boats are cruising ahead of us, but if we keep chugging along, we still have a shot to rank. Regardless, we are having fun and enjoying some great sailing. Jorge is doing 90% of the steering now, as he actually is more accurate than we are. The wind vane is a remarkable piece if technology. It uses the wind to transfer energy to direct and steer a rudder hung off the transom of the boat. t uses zero electricity and can steer 24/7 forever. We love Jogre. He allows us to eat lunch and attend to other things, like, well, sitting in the cockpit and talking about what other movies has Sally Field been in recently.

Ok folks, I hope everything is good out there in the real world. I know we are excited to be able to talk to our loved ones soon, but also reluctant to enter back into the real world. We have zero idea what is happening outside of this boat. Our lives revolve around wind, waves and gps coordinates. Oh, and Bill Murray came aboard and stole a fry.

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If this isn't nice I dont know what is

Today was great. The sun came out with blue sky, and the Big P was a deep crystal azure. The winds were favorable 20knts and we sailed the entire day wing n wing clogging along t 7-8 knot. Jorge did his job and kept us on course, while we talked about movies and conspiracy theories and traveling in Tokyo. Did you know we didn't actually ever land on the moon AND that octopus are smarter than a 5th grader?
Today was captain Lad's bday, which we somehow overlooked his wife's hints to alert us. We were able to gather some items together and have a nice time out in the cockpit just before sunset. The moon and stars also appeared. Kathy and I watched the full bright moon dip and dive behind clouds in a dramatic fashion. Mars is visible too. This is the Pacific Ocean night sky I've been waiting for! A squall blew through and knocked Kathy and I out of our moon daze, Winds picked up to 33 knots and we had full main and headsail flying. It was a hairy few minutes but the boat and crew are fine. The squalls will be occurring with regularity the closer we get to Hawaii. Did I mention Hawaii is far? Its is the most remote chain of islands ON EARTH I am told. Farther away from land than any other islands. We sre more than halfway, and can see the finish line approaching here in just a few days. Stay tuned in. And for those of you leaving comments, we love them but cannot respond back. But keep cheering us on and saying hi, we love it.
I'm going to go back on my 2am watch now and look at the night sky in the middle of the ocean. If this isn't nice....

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Best Day Ever

I think we are figuring out sail trim on a ketch; George, the windvane auto pilot is treating us really well (he even steer us through squalls); and we are still on course. The sun came out today, there may be stars tonight! So far we have had only one clear night, and a few nights where the moon peeks through dramatic clouds creating spots of light on the ocean.

Thanks again for all the encouragement, especially from you office bound ones. There's no place else any of us would rather be. All systems continue to be highly functional and if there is any "breakdown" the crew is so skilled we get the thing problem solved and fixed within about a half an hour. We hot wired the engine to get it started. We recarpentered a bunk shelf this afternoon.

We have cleaned everything on the boat but ourselves; it's been a bit cloudy until today, when we started sailing without our foulies, even when it's raining. And we love the rain! Shadowside handles high winds (25 to 30 knots is the most we encountered) like a champ, with a real easy, rolling motion.

Tonight or tommorow, sun showers!

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Favorite Bill Murray movie

7/19 Our halfway party was dinner with ribs, chips, and champagne. We toasted to a 1000 miles of sweet sailing and 1000 more to the finish. Hawaii is really far away. The weather continues to be overcast and a few squalls have blown through, but nothing too dramatic. We have all gotten into our watch routines and can shorten sails at a moments notice. Jorge, our Hydrovane self steering system is my favorite thing on the boat. Alejandro and Kathy like to hand steer on their watch. I prefer to snack. Living in a small sailboat with strangers you run the gamut of conversation topics. We have gone through all "best of" or "favorite fill in the blank" questions. I wouldn't want to be with a different bunch of rag tag crew. Kathy is hysterical with crazy travel and sailing stories and ALejandro continues to be the international man of mystery and is our go to guy when we need any help with anything. Captain is calm and good humored even when we accidentally gibe the main violently. We are looking out for j and having fun.
Shadowside is chugging along on a 255 COG at 7.0 knots over ground. She is a sturdy, heavy boat and I feel really safe when the wind picks up. The seas have been 10-12 rollers that toss the boat 30 degrees to port and then back to starboard, sometimes so steeply that my stomach drops. The rest of the fleet seems to be much farther North than us, but we are making good time and might even rank!

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Mind the nachos!

We re all wondering when the sun is going to come out. Its been cloudy and overcast for days and nights now. Every so often the sun or moon will show themselves and we are washed in a brilliant light across the sea. But, even in the absence of the sun and stars, The Big P (Pacific Ocean) is so beautiful. We are currently on a down wind slot running with the main alone until watch change and we will set the jib u for wing on wing which should give us an extra knot of speed. Even while typing this in the nav station, I am being flung side to side with the pitch of each wave. These last few days we have all gotten a fair amount of bruises. Alejandro made nachos for lunch yesterday and they we amazing. While we were chowing down, and probably because we were cowing down, we jibed. "Mind the nachos!" I yelled. Cause, when as sea, you need to watch out for precious resources.

We are halfway and are going to celebrate today! We are also working on posting some pictures, but its been low priority cause we are exhausted from this washing machine of a course we have been on for 24 hours. Ocean sailing is exhausting and at times down right hrd. BUT BUT BUT...then you go sit in the cockpit and watch the waves and move cross the sea with only the wind, literally in the middle of nowhere. Its serene, sublime and surreal, and worth every bruise and lost hour of sleep.

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Adventures at Sea

It's wonderful to be on a boat where everything works! And if it breaks, Kimber, Alejandro,or Lad can fix it. I'm halfway decent at downwind driving, so I can keep the boat steady while they do what they need to do to set up the spinnaker, wing out the jib, trouble shoot one of two auto steering machines, or write blog posts. Lad makes navigation look easy (since the system was set up by Bill Myers, it is easy!) and we are on course for the partys in Kaneohe. Lad is great at team building and making sure we all get plenty of rest, food, and hydration, and that Shadowside is organized and clean. We are all loving sailing on a ketch--it track so well down wind, the motion is really comfortable (Kimber just said she hates the galley. That may be for any galley under way, so she's strapping in right now to the West Marine kitchen strap.) Fortunately, Alejandro is a chef so we have had iron chef meals from the great provisions organized by Donna. I do want to note that we made such good time the first day because Kimber and Alejandro were all over making the appropriate sail adjustments as conditions changed--reefing, furling, raising and lowering sails as needed in bumpy conditions. Thanks so much for all your comments. We love our ground crew! This is a dream come true for all of us, and it's great to listen to each other's stories on night watch and get to know each other. Cheers, Kathy

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Day 6 and no flying fish

1:17am on 7/16. Our position is currently N 31.26 W 133.35. We are cruising along on a beam reach at 7.2 knots COG 251. Its been overcast and mild temperatures as we head toward the half way point. The moon tonight would occasionally make an appearance and shine a brilliant light on the otherwise black sea. Ill be excited when the clouds part and we have some sunshine and stars. We changed sail configuration a few times today to adapt to some shifty wind. We didn't fly the kite today and instead chose to continue with our downwind set of wing and wing. Shadowside is a heavy boat and takes the waves like a champ. She has a very sea kindly motion and all the crew are always excited for off watch hours to fall fast asleep, even in the middle of the day we sleep like babies. There is a radio hour everyday at 5:00 where all the boats in the fleet an check in and hear undated info and get the latest standings. Regrettably three boats have left our division which leaves only 4 boats to compete against. We are still listed at last place but not by a big margin AND these standings do not account for corrected time. So we have a chance of winning some accolades at the awards ceremony. The crew just keeps chugging along with our watch schedules and reminding each other to drink water and eat some snacks. I wouldn't want to be with a better group of people. Everyone is working together, and given that we are living in a space as big as most of your home kitchens, we are keeping our good humor and rallying together when we need to quickly respond to something happening on deck.
Kathy heard there was a revolution happening in Turkey, but other than that, we are oblivious to what is taking place on land. Our world revolves around the wind, waves and what to eat for dinner.

Until the next witching hour.
Kimber signing off

p.s. Respond to the blog. We really love hearing from you.

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