Aeriagnie is home in Marina Del Rey

We arrived back safely in Marina Del Rey Monday, September 8th, at 9:00a.m. and scrambled to settle her in so we could get to the airport, (Joe), get to our own boat, (Aleks), and get to work, (Cecile). The leg from Santa Barbara to Marina Del Rey included some rain from the tropical storm further south–the sies were dark with clouds particularly toward the mountains north of Los Angeles. This trip included so much unusual weather and sea conditions.

Further inspection of Aeriagnie revealed that nothing had broken and there wasn’t any chafe! That along with no one getting hurt makes this one good successful trip! We are glad to be back and look forward to sharing pictures and stories! Aleks and Cecile are putting together a presentation about the gale and the boat and the sailing through that weather. We will post the date!

Now, for the next trip….

Point “C” and returning home

‘Just came around Point Conception earlier this morning with lots of help–‘had up to 45 knots of wind with some pretty strong following seas to fortify the push toward Santa Barbara where we’ll be fueling to get the rest of the way to Marina Del Rey. Luckily, we didn’t hit a Fin Whale when we were jybing near the point this morning. We had just finished the jyb when it surfaced for air. Then, the dolphins arrived by the hundreds and hung around the bow for a while. This was wonderful and on the heels of a gorgeous moonlit night last night with the 20 to 35 knot winds and mostly clear skies we sailed under. This is a very magical ending to an awesome adventure of 24 days out on the Pacific Ocean.

Point “C”

We are having several cargo ships come through as we near Point Conception. Since we are not in the shipping lanes and under sail, we actually have some rights and have had a few of these behemoths change their course to avoid running us over. What’s of concern is that the captain on the bridge didn’t seem to know we were there until we called them on the VHF calling out their MMSI number. Two ships particularly needed to change course to avoid hitting us and hadn’t seen us until we hailed them.  😐    They were coming from the south and the north. 

Motoring to Point Conception

The 30+kt winds finally gave up in the early morning hours, the big swells have become smaller and the current wind is less than 8 kts–we are motoring and grateful that we carefully monitored our fuel useage over the past 2500+ nautical miles. We are wondering how the Erikson 32 “Thelonious” fared in the gale–Christian Williams from California Yacht Club and hope he is okay.
We still have some food–however, the can opener is getting more useage and proving to be useful. We have been making more water with the R.O. device and are tidying up the boat a bit. So much got wet in the stormy weather over the past 5 days. Dolphins have been fun to watch and our trusty Albatross continues to hang with us now for over 700 miles. He’s a very big bird. We are tired but relieved to get through that gale. We are now wondering how our sea legs are going to act on the dock when we arrive in Santa Barbara Sunday. We’ll probably be falling down. It will have been 22 days on the boat at sea by then. What an awesome trip!

Gladly exiting a full gale

So we’ve been pretty busy keeping things going and driving the boat through the big gale down the west coast-it moved over us just north of San Francisco Monday. We are still getting periods of 30 to 38 knots of wind but the seas have gone down some from 20+ feet. We are heading toward Point Conception and then into the Santa Barbara Channel and into the Southern California Bight. Finally!

Gridlock?!?

After days of not seeing another sailboat, well actually, weeks, we nearly collide with “Thelonious” returning also from Hawaii, (Kawaii), to Marina Del Rey. A singlehander, he hailed us on the VHF radio which got our attention to look up and there he was approaching rapidly. Out here is thousands of square miles and we nearly run into a neighbor. That punctured our adventure fantasy that we are all alone in this great expanse. So we are ‘buddy boating’ back to Marina Del Rey. OUr weather update has revealed a gale forming just out of San Francisco, so we are opting to head south and take a chance that the SoCal weather is returning to “normal” as hurricane Marie continues downsizing and moving more west–this may add one more day and some hours to our porting in ETA. Today, the squalls have mostly cleared out and the sun is shining dazingly on the beautiful blue water. We are makig more water with the RO device and getting ready to do some more fishing. We hope to bring back some fresh fish in the freezer since the solar panels are doing such a great job. Oh darn, we are having left over fish chowder tonight.

Rain to Shine

Motoring all night last night–very little wind and then in the early morning rain and wind showed up. It was flukey and gusty, died out most of the day until this afternoon. A glorious 13 to 18 kts of wind with beautiful sunshine! Our little hitchhiker bird that lighted on the boat during the night hung around until this afternoon–it was a young water bird with cute little black web feet. We are still sailing in this great breeze with a pretty sunset happening soon. The weather prediction gives light winds for tomorrow so we’re hoping it isn’t accurate like today’s wasn’t. We have a big pot of fish chowder now for tonight and for tomorrow so we are having plenty to eat once again. We hope to catch another fish tomorrow.

Whack-A-Mole

“Getting around the Pacific High” has proven mostly elusive. Jus when we think we have gotten east of it, it decides to move east–poof! Just like that! This certainly extends our effort is “easting” enough to get to the other side of the high into the northeasterlies. So today was another motoring day in the “desert” of the Pacific. Lot of trash out here–‘really disheartening. The swell coing from the ESE from Hurricane Marie is big and merges with the swell coming from the gale up in the Gulf of Alaska making for some really BIG swell that we go Up-And-Over. It really extends our view for those moments. Today was fish tacos for lunch and fish cracker crumb saute for dinner. The albatross showed up again of course-‘hasn’t missed a day of saluting us with its huge wing span. More ships have passed close by heading to SFO, L.A., Mexico or Panama–their AIS data gives their destinatin along with their course over ground and speed. The wind came out of the west for a while this afternoon and we hope to have more of it tomorrow! It is so beautiful out here!

Things have improved!

A cargo ship running without someone attending the VHF came very close last night doing 13 kts overtaking us as they headed a few degrees more south than us on their way toward Panama. After hailing it on VHF 16, 12 & 13 citing their AIS MMSI number a several times, someone finally responded sounding like they were awakened from a deep sleep. Besides the intense accent, muttering out of sleepiness made it very hard to understand what was being said. Eventually, when they were within 2.5 miles, the person said they will avoid us and pass on our starboard quarter. The cargo ship was over 70 ft long moving right along and changed course enough–thank you! Then, a weather system arrived with rain–rinsed off the boat nicely and then brought several brief periods of 20/25 kts of gustiness. It sure is dynamic out here. The day began with orange sky rather than red sky which was encouraging and ended up being a mild sailing day. It was a nice break from the motoring! AND! Our fishing luck returned with gusto! We just finished cleaning and fileting the biggest MahiMahi yet! It was over 4 feet long. So we are in business for more fish tacos, fish chowder and breaded and sauteed fish filet-ettes! Joe has become the official fish processor and manages the official fish processing plant–the cockpit of Aeriagnie. He’s got the routine down now. Now we’re on the hunt for a tuna! WE have wasabi, ginger, soyou and chopsticks waiting! It looks like the high is moving back in again–clear skies! We area all doing well–getting more sleep, eaating well and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

Mid-Pacific Desert?

Long period rolling swell have been coming from the northwest and from the east and southeast all at the same time–this has made for some interesting rolling and twisting movement on the boat. And the sea surface has been flat, flat, flat–like a desert all day. Sea turtles have been all around the boat and three skipjack tuna looking fish were swimming along side the shady side of the boat for a while today. As for fishing, no luck. Also, we haven’t seen any flying fish–so there seems to be a real correlation between flying fish appearing and hooking up a fish. We had fish chowder tonight and that finished off our stash of fresh filets. We are now less than 975 miles from San Francisco and finding the direction of the wind, (although very light wind), coming more from the north/northwest. !!!!! We hope to be through the high in the next day or so with some good sailing NW wind! We pumped more water today into the tank–that Katadyn R.O. unit really does a good job!