Only 3,000 Miles To Go

Hello Everyone - Music is off on her next adventure.  John and 2 crew are currently sailing Music to French Polynesia and the South Pacific.  They left Friday, March 16 and it will take approximately 3 weeks to get to the Marquesas.  I'll be flying over to meet them in mid-April.  His 2 crew did the Pacific Cup race, so everyone knows each other and the boat and they are all excellent sailors with alot of ocean experience. 

Following are the first few messages from John and I'll be posting regularly with new updates as I get them.

Date: 03/17

Time: 19:00
Lat/Lon: 18 deg 52.48' N; 107 deg 48.08' W
Course: 207 deg Mag
Next Waypoint: 6 deg N; 126 deg W

Persons Onboard:

John McCartney, Skipper
John Denny, Sea Chef & Crew
Bob Peters, Crew

Day 2, first full day on the water, and while the winds are light and fluky, with Cabo Correintes 150 nautical miles (NM) behind us, and Music moving smartly along close hauled at 6 knots in an apparent breeze of 12 knots as we are making dinner it seems we are making pretty good progress.

John D. saw a whale about 50 yards off to starboard late yesterday afternoon after leaving the Banderas Bay, and today we've seen lots of flying fish which appear to be getting bigger as we get out to sea.

We've also seen 2 seals floating on the surface sunning their bellies with up all four flippers out of the water like kids having some sort of contest to see who could hold their arms up the longest. It's an odd sight, and while we've seen this behavior before, it's always fun to whiteness. Additionally, John counted 6 sea turtles and one birdal, or bird standing on a turtle.

For dinner tonight we are subsisting on guacamole, heated taco shells, and camarones sautéed in garlic. John Denny promises to start fishing tomorrow. It could be worse - I could be doing the cooking. But then, and the crew would mutiny for sure.

Bye for Now,  Skipper John

Date: 03/19

Noon to noon run: 153 NM

Time: 21:00

Lat/Lon: 16 deg 09.77'N; 112 deg 06.52'W

Course: 215 - 220 deg Mag

Next Waypoint: 6 deg N; 126 deg W

Bearing to waypoint: 225 deg M

Wind: Mostly on our port beam at about 15+/- knots, having built early in the day from about 5 kts during the night.

Having established watches at 3 hours on and 6 hours off from the start, we seem to be settling into the routine of life at sea. Last night, just after dusk a really bright light appeared on the horizon to our stern. We surmised it was most likely a fishing boat, but there was no AIS signature so we'll never know. At the time we were approximately abeam of and about 100 NM south of Isla Socorro of the Islas Revillagigedo group. While the Revillagigedos are one of the few mile stones along this route to the Marquases they signal that we are truly away from Mexico and have begun a new adventure. It really feels good to have them behind us.

As the night progressed a light appeared on the opposite horizon, off our bow. After midnight, we could see that we were overtaking them. We hailed the suspected boat in our Puddle Jump fleet and found it to be s/v Cheers. We passed them sometime between 3 and 6AM this morning while John D. was at the helm. He claims with emphasis, "We didn't just pass them, we smoked them - tell it right!" So, I stand corrected and freely admit that we truly passed Cheers in fine style.

Winds today have been quite consistent and we've taken back the helm from our Monitor wind vane steering system, Monty. Why should Monty have all the fun while the winds are good and we enjoy driving? Our windvane was christened Monty during our return voyage to San Francisco from Oahu in 2008. That brings me to the number of steering systems we have onboard which total three. And while some of our yachting friends back in the San Francisco Bay Area seem shocked that autopilot is not one of them we get by just fine.

The three steering systems are hand, Monty, and string. You've heard of "string theory", and in vascular diagnosis we have a "string sign". Well, we onboard Music have "string steering". It works like this, when we are motoring with no wind, we tie a string (a heavy piece sail cord called leach line) to a padeye at the base of the helm steering wheel and secure it's two ends to spokes on opposite side of the wheel, thus keeping the boat on a relatively straight course despite the torque of propeller rotation. While we cannot just tie it and forget it like some yachties do when using autopilot steering, you should never do that when piloting a boat anyway.

Date: 03/20

Noon to noon run: 150 NM

Time of position: 19:30

Lat/Lon: 14 deg 41.30'N; 114 deg 06.51'W

Course: 210 deg Mag

Next Waypoint: 6 deg N; 126 deg W

Wind: Mostly on our stbd stern at about 10+/- knots apparent

The wind went well aft today and maintained a steady 15 Kts or so. So we set the genoa out on a pole and started sailing wing on wing. After some relatively unsuccessful attempts at getting the windvane to steer well with the winds so deep, we finally had unequivocal success just after dusk. I am truly impressed with the Monitor windvane steering system. It appears to work really well, even when steering quite deep on a broad reach, right almost to dead down wind, or DDW. Well, it's time to get some sleep now.

From all of us onboard Music, good night.

Skipper John