Air temp: 69 degrees
Humidity: 80% Barometer: 1022 mb and down 1
Speed: 5 knots Course: 090 degrees True
Noon to noon distance made in nautical miles for the last 24 hours: 66 miles
Point of Sail: Dead Down wind with poled out Genoa on port and poled out staysail on starboard
Wind speed: West 7-10 knots
Swells: West 3-4 ft.
Noon Latitude: 41 deg 30′ N (Same latitude as Eureka Ca, but 900 miles west of it)
Noon Longitude: 142 deg 50′ W
Camanoe’s fish count since Maui: Flying fish – 7 Squid – 0 Mahi Mahi – 1
Breakfast today: Cubed taters with garlic, onion, and BBQ sauce
Lunch today: Leftover spaghetti
Dinner tonight: Chicken and polenta with red sauce
Last night was slow. I dropped the sails around midnight and drifted until the morning. Around 0800 the wind and swells veered around to the west and we have been running dead downwind with the genoa poled out to the port and the staysail poled out to starboard. Since then we have been scooting along.
Since yesterday afternoon I have seen three container ships off in the distance. I attempted to contact each one on the VHF. I called them on Ch. 16,13,12, and 9 with no response. I can’t believe all of them were running without a VHF on. I suspect they didn’t want to make contact in case I had an emergency. It would mean they would have to slow down and divert course. Either that or they just didn’t want to talk.
I’ve spent most of the day brushing up on my sextant and its use. Celestial navigation is one of those things you have to do everyday or you forget it. Fortunately, after a couple of hours of studying, it has started to come back to me. I admire all those who have gone before me on boats before the days of GPS and chart plotters. I suspect, at least 50% of ocean voyagers these days don’t even carry a sextant or any of the publications needed to use one. I can’t imagine the level of anxiety the pre-GPS cruisers had. They would spend 30 days at sea, hoping their compass was accurate, all the time relying on their celestial navigation skills with no way to check its accuracy. Maybe on my next ocean passage I will do it with out the assistance of a GPS.
-CAPT
The Capt' and SME 