The average frequency of some minor disaster on cruising yacht is about one a week. We don’t have any real numbers to back that up, and not all weeks are equal, but 50 big problems a year sounds about right. So we were overdue.

In the middle of hanging out washing, Jon detected a smell of diesel in the air, on closer examination the deck around the diesel jerry cans we keep on deck was wet. No problem, that part of the deck is often wet from splashing waves. Only it wasn’t splashy today and it wasn’t water. A quick dip and sniff of a finger and oh bugger, it’s diesel.

It is at this point that those of you who have ever owned a teak deck yacht have put down your cup of coffee, put your head in your hands and mouthed your preferred expletive. Cos you know how much of a nightmare this is going to be to get out of the wood.

We soaked up what we could with rags, found the offending jerry can with a crack and then syphoned the remaining diesel from the can into our main fuel tanks below decks. With that can cleaned up and unable to cause more damage we started to try to clean up the deck. The good news about diesel is that it doesn’t just burst into flames, so there was no danger from the spill. The problem with diesel is that, unlike a highly refined fuel, it is very dirty so even when the fuel evaporates off it leaves behind a lot of dirt which has soaked into the wood.

About an hour of absorbing, soaping, washing, rinsing, soaping, scrubbing, rinsing, repeating later we have deck port side of the boat which is wet and still smells of diesel. Being quiet late in the afternoon at this point there wasn’t time for the sun to dry the decks and for us to have have a look at the damage done before it got dark. We’ll see in the morning.

Other than that, the day was a good one. Jon found that the answer to how to successfully land a fish came from just sending out the email asking for help – in rather the same way that calling IT support immediately causes the problem to resolve itself. So yes, after a couple that got away this morning we managed to land a nice big (20lb maybe) dorado. This all happened around lunchtime so rather than sushi for lunch we had it for dinner. Very nice it was too. And plenty left for Tina to cook something fishy for dinner tomorrow night.

Thanks to both Jon’s uncle Malcolm and Mia’s old school friend Kris for tips on what we doing wrong when it comes to landing the fish. As you both independently said exactly the some thing we’ll give your advice a shot the next time we hook something, hopefully tomorrow.

In other news, Teo finished his LEGO Y-bomber from star wars, which everyone agreed is completely amazingly awesome. It’s also great to know that he is perfectly able to follow the instruction for the 8-14 age bracket LEGO now which opens up mountains of the really cool sets. His dad in now plotting to buy all the other cool star wars LEGO, for Teo of course.

Mia continued with her bunting project and managed to enlist the help of Tina, so together they have made major progress, Itchy Foot may smell like a gas station forecourt but she’ll look dandy in the Pacific.

Help, they are getting away!

So we are starting to catch fish, or at least get bites, but we’re unable to land them on the boat. One way or another they are getting away. Here is a description of the situation.

We are running two lines from the back of Itchy Foot, one each side. We don’t use rods, preferring to attach the reels directly to the strong metal tuned rails on the back of the boat. These are two trolling reels, penn and shimano with several 100 meters of 120lb braided line on each. The last 100m is 150lb multicolored braided line which is easier to handle as it is larger diameter. At the end of that main line is a suitably rated swivel with a clasp. Then I attach on lure, which usually has about 3-5m of monofilament and then a squid type lure, about 10-15cm at the end with a correctly sized hook.

Now we are in waters with fish we are getting bites, about five or six a day, often both lines at the same time. And that is the point where I need help.

The ratchet on the reel goes zeeeeeeee and I know we have a bite. The line starts to spin out at a furious rate. So I increase the tension on the ratchet to slow the rate the line goes out without stopping it completely. Itchy Foot is likely doing at least 6kn at this point and so I’ve tried slowing her down to 3-4 knots before working the reel. I’ve also tried to bring them in at 6knots which is harder work.

Next I start to increase the resistance on the reel and try to pull in the fish. At some point in the next minute or so the line goes slack and the fish has gotten away. Basically I’m getting two minutes into what should be a longer fight and losing the fish off the lure. Nothing breaks, no snapped lines, no lost lures, just no fish on the end anymore.

So, ask the audience. If anyone has ideas or researching a little for me I would be very grateful. I can not read your comments here, not on the blog nor on Facebook until we get to land, which would be a little late. However we can receive email and I’ll give the address at the bottom. Please no links, no photos, just plain text in the emails or I won’t be able to download them. Remember the speed of the internet in 1994? I wish it was that fast. Imagine 2400 baud modem, that is what I have. So text only please.

Mail tips and morale support to jonwright@myiridum.net

Any and all helpful advisors will receive an unsigned photo of us eating sushi.

Many thanks!
Jon and the hungry crew of Itchy Foot.

Not wanting to cross the equator in the middle of the night, we decided last night to sail westward just north of the line until the sun was up. Early in the morning we resumed our course SW and crossed from North to South at around 10:30 in the morning.

To start the celebrations for the day, we popped a bottle of Champagne and shared it between us, with Teo mostly sticking to pear juice. He is not a big fan of Champagne, more or a frozen margarita or mojito kind of kid. But I digress. We toasted the southern hemisphere and toasted Itchy Foot for taking us safely there.

On a more somber note today also happened to be Mia’s uncle Oke’s funeral today and so we toasted his memory. Mia had hand stitched his name onto a piece of fabric and after a splash of bubbles and a few words we cast it into the sea at the equator. We will miss him.

After a bit of lunch we has a special visitor onboard Itchy Foot. Neptune’s consort Amphitrite rose out of the depths of the ocean to welcome us to the south pacific and hopefully grant us safe passage, if only we could complete the trials. Neptune, it would seem, was busy. To transform ourselves from landlubber and pollywogs into the sons and Neptune and Shellbacks.

Mia was the first up and as the sea was a bit lumpy she had to crawl around the cockpit three times on hands and knees while being sprayed with water, to wast away the dirt of the north and cleans her for the southern seas. On the aft deck, she had to prove her worth by roaring like a lion (for strength), squeezing like a dolphin (for speed) and oinking like a pig (for intelligence). Having passed these tests she was granted safe passage in the oceans by Amphitrite and given a marker pen tattoo of a turtle. Teo was up next who performed the trials beautifully. And finally Jon was welcomed to the South Pacific – through it did take longer to wash away his dirt from the north. The celebrations continued with the beach boys providing musical accompaniment as we danced on the aft deck as the whole crew were dressed in grass skirts, flowers and even a flowing green wig – someone looked dandy.

So now all the crew are members of the Order of Shellbacks.

The afternoon continued nicely with good sailing, making water, showers on the aft deck, building a lego Y-wing bomber and then watching a movie before bed. Thanks to Tina for taking full responsibility and organising todays events – you make a great greek goddess.

The forecast said light winds and lots of motoring, so of course we had perfect sailing conditions all day. We’re down by the equator now, on the west side of Galapagos and making great progress. Not only are we making good speed and course, but the sailing has actually been really enjoyable for much of the day. The waves were very low and the only sign we are in the ocean rather than around the coast is a very long slow ocean swell coming from some distance storm far to the south. The swell is long, about 15 second from the peak to peak and beautiful to watch roll towards you, almost like rolling farm land.

Life onboard was slow and easy like the sea today. Teo wasn’t in the best mood so boat school wasn’t super productive, but it happened. Jon spent a little time making Italian Herb Focaccia bread for lunch tomorrow. And Tina read and relaxed before making a delicious lunch with some leftovers and fish we caught yesterday.

In the afternoon the tempo of the day increased, with Tina running her ‘Saturday Quiz’. Once again Tina pulled out all the stops to provide a fun and challenging quiz for the afternoon. The same format as last time, Teo and Jon (The Black Pearl) were up against Mia (Mamma Mia) in several rounds of questions, interspersed with music rounds and finished off with ‘write a poem’ challenge. As you would expect, Teo carried Jon through the Harry Potter questions and Mia cleaned up on the music round. So going into the final poetry section Mia had a commanding lead. In the end, the following poem from Teo and Jon pulled it back to a draw.

Mia’s Bunting
so nice and new.
Will flit and flutter
in the blue.

All hand crafted
with such great care.
Will look so pretty
in the air.

And Itchy Foot
dressed in flags,
that once were just
friends old rags.

Will look so fine
and so snazzy,
by far the coolest
Hallberg Rassy.

Thanks to Teo for providing the phrase, flit and flutter. So with the high stakes stress of the quiz behind us the relaxing could return and the afternoon pottered away. Mia and Teo spent a good hour making Teo’s 7 year old crown which he gets to wear as part of our equator crossing celebrations tomorrow, before offering in to poseidon and/or neptune. It looks great!

While Tina was on watch and the crown was being prepared, Jon prepared a dinner of…

‘Shallow fried line caught Dorado, in wild garlic and provincial herb breadcrumbs. On a bed of pureed potatoes, awash with melted New Zealand butter and sea salt. Topped with Dijon Mayonnaise and crushed black pepper.’

Or…

‘Fish and mash please pappa!’

Speaking of fish, today was an exciting and yet disappointing day on the fishing front. We had the reels go spinning over five times today and each time the blighter got away. The first couple of times, we think the error was slowing down the boat too much allowing said fish to get ahead of the lure and spit it out. The last couple of times we’re just not sure, but on pulling in the lures at the end of the day we noticed that one of them had broken the tip and the barb was missing, making it much easier to spit. So tomorrow we’ll change the hooks and try again – but at least we successfully sailed over a bunch of fish today!

And now, as the sun is about to start on day eleven we prepare for crossing the equator and sailing into the southern hemisphere for the first time. More about that tomorrow…

Another day sailing, albeit a little slower than yesterday. We sailed into the wind shadow of the Galapagos islands combined with being around 1 degree north of the equator puts us inside the ITCZ or the Doldrums as it was previously known. So the wind has dropped, but with it the sea, so while our speed has reduced the comfort level onboard is just fine.

We had a nice upbeat start to the day, plenty of coffee and as we were running the generator to charge the batteries we could also run the toaster. We are down to our last loaf of ‘eternal’ bread and soon we’ll start baking break everyday or so.

Bob (the boobie) stayed with us all night and Tina (who was on the early watch) informed us that he was up at dawn and went on several early morning fishing runs with the first light. Jon managed to scare him away this morning, while conducting his daily inspection of the boat and he (bob) hasn’t returned yet. Jon is suitably sheepish.

More boat school today (but it’s a Saturday?! don’t worry we’re not teaching him the days of the week, they have no use here and it’ll get in the way of boat school). More reading with Mia and more math game with Jon, this time Teo got to design a few cards himself and seemed to enjoy it more with a little more complexity added.

We caught a fish, actually we caught two but the first one managed to break our reel, snap 120lb line and take a lure with him. So that was big. But the second we actually caught, killed, cleaned, filleted and is ready to become ‘fish and mash’ on Sunday night. I’m starting to think there is very little too this fishing lark, we were in the right place at the right time and really they would have snapped up anything we’d hung off the back. The one we caught was part of a large group hunting smaller bait fish, the sea as full of them and it they were biting at everything.

Fishing seems to be one of those sports which is high on anecdotal evidence and very low on numerical data…

“Oh, you used the green squid lure with the bullet head on a cloudy day while traveling at 6 knots in a following sea with a spring tide? You fool! You should have used the yellow one, clearly!”

I suspect this nonsense is driven by several factors:

Firstly there needs to be some arcane knowledge which can only be gained by years of experience to give you a sense of progression and improvement. Otherwise it could be summarised as ‘Drag a lure near a fish”.

Secondly, you have to have something to do to make it an activity, researching lures, choosing the right lure, tying special knots, getting the distance for the trolling lure just right, changing it as the clouds roll in etc. Otherwise it could be summarised as ‘Drag a lure near a fish”.

Finally, humans are wonderful pattern matching machines, we see patterns wherever we can. We don’t even need enough data, I’ve spent the last few days trying out different lures, different depths, difference configurations, but what am I going to do with that knowledge – I’m going to tell some salty sailor in a bar that “Clearly you should be using yellow squid lures when…” After all it makes for a far more interesting conversation than “Oh I dragged a lure near a fish”.

But quite honestly, from what I saw today I could have driven a sock from the back and caught a fish. If any of us owned socks. Which we don’t.

So tomorrow I will try once again to drag a lure near a fish. I’ll be sure to tell you if there was one there.

The sailing today was fast and yet quite pleasant, the wind has continued to back around to the south and east leaving us free to come off the wind a little – we not close hauled anymore. With the wind angle changing from about 40 degree from the bow round to about 80 degrees from the boat lots has changed. The movement of the boat is more comfortable, we don’t lean over as much and we even go slightly faster – all good stuff. We hope this is a trend that will continue over the next few days.

We’re now as close to Galapagos as we are likely to get, in fact we have just clipped the corner of the marine reserve and are now on the west side of the islands. There is no fishing permitted inside the marine reserve, so of course we sailed past a commercial fishing boat busy ‘just outside’ the box on the charts. Being nighttime we had taken in our lines, as Jon doesn’t fancy trying to land, gut and clean a 50lb tuna in the dark. This strategy may change as his desire for sushi increases.

Boat school continues, Mia and Teo spent some time reading together and Jon took a turn teaching him maths with an educational card game he is working on for kids. Teo is doing OK, frustrated with the challenges of living onboard when the world keeps skipping out from under your feet and hard bits of boat jump up to bite you. But he is also enjoying the long lazy mornings snuggling with whomever is sleeping late after the early morning watch. This morning it was Jon’s turn to cuddled by a sleepy Teo – only to be woken instead by a rather excited Teo with a tooth in his hand. A few weeks ago Teo lost a baby front tooth and we knew the second wouldn’t be too far behind. Sure enough the second one got super wobbly and then stuck out and an ‘Alabama’ style angle – and then stayed that way for two weeks! Finally this morning he has gone from looking slightly inbred to super cute, unfortunately he also looks a little comical and we’re having trouble taking him seriously… all I want for Christmas….

Sometime in the after we received a visitor, a big grey/brown bird settled herself on the bow. This is not a trivial feat, especially if they are webbed. We thing he/she is a boobie. This left Teo with a huge problem. The Teo approach to naming the animals which enter our lives is simple, yet effective, you take the type of animal, or a shortened version, and stick an ‘e’ on the end. For example, the Gecko we have kidding onboard is ‘Gecky’, the frog we rescued from the pool at the marina, Froggy. The Puffer fish which hung around the back of Itchy Foot, Puffy. You get the idea. But what about the Boobie? Boobie-y? Jon suggested Bob – Teo was sceptical but in the absence of an alternative it’s stuck.

Bob is resting on the bow. Holding on with webbed feet to a polished (I know, I just polished it) stainless rail, while leaning over and waves come splashing over the top; Oh and now he’s sleeping.

After dinner and before the night watches started we decided to have a family movie night up on deck. Accompanied by Pineapple upside-down cake which Jon baked this afternoon while the rest of the crew worked on the boat bunting. So the laptop was connected to the cockpit speakers and placed infant of the chart plotter, the lights were dimmed we all settled down in the dark to watch ‘Captain Fantastic’. We heartily recommend it. It is not really a kids movie, but these are all words that Teo will hear from either a salty cruiser we meet or whenever Jon is in the engine room trying to fix the generator. Despite the language Teo enjoyed it and so did the rest of us.

Then almost everyone went off to bed as the seas calmed and the wind died a little, in the shadow of the Galapagos islands and slowly making our way down to the equator and the doldrums that await.

We moved onto Itchy Foot in Palma de Mallorca over two years ago, which is roughly 2 degrees east of Greenwich meridian, today we passed 88 degrees west, putting us a quarter of the way around from the world from where we started. There are no plans to get ‘all the way around’ as so to that at Itchy Foot pace would take another 6 to 8 years. But it’s nice to know we’re making progress.

A great days sailing today, plenty of wind and even the direction was OK. We are close hauled on the wind at the moment, which basically means we’re trying to go into the wind, or upwind. What does this mean for life on Itchy Foot? Several things, none of them good!

When going upwind the apparent wind increases, if there is 10 knots of wind when you are standing still, then you run with the wind at 5 knots the end result is that you feel 5 knots on your face. However, if you were to run into the wind at 5 knots you would feel 15 knots on your face. So while there is about 12-15 knots wind today, because we’re sailing upwind it feels like 20 and we need to set sails like it’s 20. The mainsail is made smaller by partially furling some away inside the mast. The fore sail is made smaller by rolling some away around itself at the front.

As we are going upwind and the wind isn’t blowing us where we want to go, we need to use the sails like wings, like an airplane wing to create lift which pulls us sideways. But the boat doesn’t want to go sideways because of the keel under the boat pushing against the water of the sea and resisting. So we are squeezed between the sails wanting to lift us sideways and the boat resisting which in effect, sucks us forward towards the wind. But the lifting force of the sails is up high and the resisting force is under the sea so we tip over and lean, quite a lot.

Today we’ve spent most of the day at about 30 degrees of lean, sometime more as we get knocked by a wave or a gust of wind but mostly 30 degrees. It’s not dangerous, we have 4 tones of leaded at the bottom of the keel which means won’t lean too much, but it does make life onboard… interesting. For example, the toilet is on the left (port) side of the boat facing towards the centre line. We however are leaning to the right, starboard. So yes, we need to hold on tight at all times!

The galley is on the starboard side, so we end up leaning over the stove to cook. Thankfully the galley is very well designed so this isn’t too dangerous but handling hot pots of food requires a certain amount of caution and care when you are days away from a doctor.

Tina is sleeping in the starboard sofa in the saloon so she has a good place to sleep when close hauled, with the heel of the boat holding her firmly in place. Mia, Jon and Teo are in the aft cabin and sleeping sideways across the full width bed. The overall effect is the if feels like you are sleeping standing up at time. Every few ways and gusts you slide a little bit down the bed until your feel touch the wall, or you sleep holding on.

This afternoon the wind started to back around to the south and work it’s way onto our side. We were able to ease the sails a little and the boat sat more upright. Hopefully over the next few days this will continue and over the next week or so we’ll find ourselves heading progressively more and more downwind. With luck the last half of the passage should be a more comfortable downwind sail.

What happened today?

Boat school continues well, despite the challenging conditions. Mia made great inroads into her sowing project for boat bunting. Tina is devouring books at an impressive rate and enjoyed a movie on the sofa with Teo this afternoon. Jon is still cursing at poseidon for lack of fish but hoping his luck will improve as we sail within a few miles of the Galapagos marine reserve – but we’re confident that the fish will know which side of the line to swim on.

Another quiet day on Itchy Foot.

I should really set the scene.

These blog post get written on night watch, usually either just before or just after midnight. Why is anyone awake I hear some of you ask?

Well, we tried to anchor and get some sleep bit was was hard to carry around 3000m of chain to get the anchor to touch the bottom, so we have to keep moving. I guess we could put out a big sea anchor which would hold our position, or we could just take down the sails and drift while we all get some shuteye. Or even, as many short handed sailors do, leave the sails up, set the auto pilot and simply go to sleep anyway. So why not do that?

One reason to keep on moving during the night is that we spend half our time at the equator at night… so if we only actively sailed during the day then our total trip time would go from 30 days to 60, which is a tough sell. And then if you are moving you should really try to keep a good watch for other boats and ships. It is admittedly very quiet out here, hardly Piccadilly Circus, but we have seen a ship or two (on radar) and another couple of yachts on the horizon. So it is not entirely inconceivable that two sleeping boats could get a little closer than desired. So we keep a watch and we keep moving.

Anyway, that is why were are up writing blogs in the nighttime.

It is full on dark out here, the moon is waning, half full (do pessimists say half empty?) and so it’ll rise right after midnight and set right after lunch. As a land person I never really connected the shape of the moon and the time of day/night that it rises and sets, but now I do. So at 10pm there is no moon yet, with a slight cloud cover and all the lights off are off, except the navigation light at the top of the mast so sleeping sailors could see us.

There is a strange effect when sailing at night, everything sounds more exaggerated, either the boat sounds like it’s going really fast or, as is the case now, it sounds like it’s going way too slowly. Admittedly we are only going 4knots, a moderate ‘trying to get to the cashier before the other guy but don’t want to look like I’m running’ speed. But it feels and sounds like we’ve completely stopped.

Dark, quiet and that lovely summer evening ‘shorts are ok but I’ll take a fleece’ temperature. Sitting up on deck, feet up on the opposite side of the cockpit, laptop balanced on my lap and slightly uncomfortable. We debated buying one or two of these lovely reclining padded chairs which we’ve coveted and enjoyed on friends boats, but space is always an issue not to mention the cost. So we’re using a mix of foam cushions we got from J2’d many moons ago, great but firm. And falling apart woollen filled cushions which were rescued from ‘near’ a bin (Mia denies that they were actually IN the bin) and then laundered, stitched and recovered – they are also great but now very very soft. The end results is combination of the seating which is comfortable for about the first hour of the three hour watch. I’m now coming up to two hours and they are no longer comfortable.

So I think the scene is well and truly set. Which is good as little else happened today.

School – Mia and Teo did some.
Food – Mia put together a risotto type lunch and Tina a nice Black Been burger pita type dinner.
Fishing – I made more lures, I changed them, I pulled them in a put them back, the fish laughed. Books – Tina finished Ready Player One Mia has the final chapter in her hands. Wind – There wasn’t much, so we motored a lot.
Weather – It rained, so we watched movies (Tina has now seen Empire Strikes Back)
Boat Jobs – Jon sorted out the selection of electronic charts he has for the Pacific Islands.

It was not the most inspired day on Itchy Foot, but the mood is still good. More excitement tomorrow I’m sure. Oh and the boat stopped leaking, well, more actually it leaks from a different place now, but the first place stopped leaking – progress!

Another unexpected gem of a sailing day, the forecast looked gloomy and lacking in wind but we did great all day. Itchy Foot, with her big 140% genoa, really likes to go upwind in relatively calm seas with 14knots of apparent wind and that is fairly much what we got all day. No idea how far we managed to travel in the last 24 hours and I’ve decided that until we get down into the trade winds I’m not going to calculate last 24h miles run – with 3500 miles to go it seems needlessly frustrating to worrying about ten here or five there. In short, when you’ve decided to travel long-haul light distances at a brisk walking pace then it’s pointless counting the steps.

Today was a nice upbeat day on Itchy Foot. The sun was shining most of the day and the above mentioned sailing put a small on all faces. Tina prepared over-night oats for our breakfast and chopped up the last Papaya to liven it up. Teo decided that this morning would be time to try out ‘teenager moods’ when breakfast was not to his liking. Given the glimpse of what he’ll be like when he’s 13, we’re pleased to be out sailing with him earlier.

My grumpy, sulky breakfast pants however got stuck into boat school with vigour and covered a bit of reading – Biff, Kipper and Chip (why these names, why?) books are a hit and alternated with ‘Help you child with Science’ and drawings of Itchy Foot trying to get to French Polynesia to understand the difference between Velocity, Speed and Acceleration he was a happy camper.

Jon promised Sushi for lunch but provided Breakfast Burrito which met with disappointed approval from all. We woke to find a couple of suicide squid on the deck, which were promptly stuck back into the sea on the end of a lure – it didn’t help either of us. He did ‘catch a little fishy’ today but it was way too little. Unfortunately big enough to mess up his fishing lines out the back and so several hours was spent moving string between reels and tying little knots on wires. Still no fish. But we did lose a lure. Pound for pound they maybe winning.

Oh we discovered what broke yesterday, it turns out we have a little dribbling leak above the bed into the aft cabin, thankfully (he didn’t see it this way) Teo’s fluffy toys managed to absorb most of the water. Jon gave them all a good sucking to see if the water is either fresh (rainwater) or salty (seawater) and the conclusion was that we need to wash Teo’s fluffy toys more often. It is inconclusive where the small dribbles of water are coming from, but it has been noted that since we’ve shortened the sails and stopped half the sea gushing down take side of the deck then the dribbles have stopped. As Teo would say… “coincidence? I think not.”

For example: yesterday morning when reading this 100,000 interesting facts book he said “Hey, there are seven seas and I’m seven, coincidence? I think not!”

Mia and Tina got stuck in on a ‘lets’ make bunting for boats’ project, up-cycling (yes it is a thing) old clothes (we have a few) into little triangles to make into decorative bunting for Itchy Foot. So long as they don’t start cutting up the sails!

Oh and the crew of Itchy Foot is also significantly less smelly as we had hot showers on the aft-deck today, it was a water making day and we refilled our tanks of water in a couple of hours with plenty left over to freshen up the crew. Teo even got his hair washed. Which gave us ‘quote for the day’ which he slicked back his wet hair. “Malfoy from Harry Potter, he is a bit of a baddy, but he has a great hairstyle”.