Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

I woke up just before my 6 am watch. There was wind! Very welcomed news after having to motor sail last night during my 9 pm to midnight watch. John who was just finishing his shift said he was able to sail throughout his watch.
I made myself coffee, enjoyed the wind in my face and the sun rising over the sparkling sea. I trimmed the sails and managed to get an extra knot in speed. A couple of dolphins swam by. I was happy!
By 7 am my happiness was diminishing with the wind. My comfortable fifteen knots wind was down to barely ten knots. I wondered how long it would be before I would have to put on the motor. Steve woke up at this point and after hearing me lament about the decreasing wind suggested we put up the Code Zero. Remember the incident yesterday when I turned the boat into wind instead of falling off while Steve was trying to furl up the Code Zero. Well this caused the the sail to be rolled up so badly and tightly making it almost impossible to unfurl it while hoisted up. After trying a few times to untwist it ourselves, we had to reluctantly wake up John to give us a hand. We had the Code Zero laid out on the front deck and just our luck, the wind decide to increase making everything harder. John and I had to sprawl ourselves on top of the sail to keep it down and stop the wind billowing it up, while Steve untwisted and untangled. Finally we got the Code Zero unrolled and up safely. Immediately the boat speeded up. We were delighted. John went back to bed and I went happily back to the helm. Steve then decided to look at the shape of the sail to make sure it was trimmed properly. He noticed a mark near the upper part of the sail. I had noticed it too but thought it was dirt (bird shit actually). After looking at it for a while we came to the horrible conclusion that it was a tear. We knew we had to bring down the sail straight away to patch it up before it got any worse. Again I went down to wake up John who fortunately was still awake. This time we had no problems bringing down the Code Zero. The wind had dropped a little and Steve had fallen off from the wind! With some good sail tape we patched up the rip and two other small holes we had also noticed.
Once the Code Zero was up again it was plain sailing for the rest of the day albeit slowly because of the light winds. The sea was almost flat so we laid around reading and listening to music. The wind finally died in the evening after dinner so it was back to motoring for my night shift. I was not happy.

(My last blog said day 1 but it should have read day 0 – to be edited later)

My day 1 began with my 3 hour shift from midnight to 3am. It passed pretty uneventfully although during the shift the wind picked up enough so that we required hardly any push from the motors to maintain 4 knots. At 3am I woke John who’s shift follows mine.

I woke shortly after 6am, my normal time, not feeling as though I’d had enough sleep. Going upstairs I quickly agreed with Helen that we should hoist the Code Zero to make the best of the wind which was now a little behind us. Due to the previous days errors when dousing the sail the sail was not furled properly and hence had problems opening. In all it took us 90 minutes to sort the sail out and get it flying. In the process we caught it on the spreader causing a slight tear. I only noticed the tear while trying to establish contact on the mornings SSB Pacific net and immediately focused on that as a small tear could easily turn into something larger. Having woken John for the sail raising we again woke him to get it down again and patch the hole we’d made.

Once the sail was properly up it was now my 9am shift. The winds were up and for a while we were making 5.5 to 6 knots but this didn’t last. A lot of the day the winds were 6-8 knots and we were consequently making 3-4 knots under sail. Later in the day the wind shifted putting us 30 degrees off our ideal course. Around dusk we dropped the Code Zero and raised the head sail and motor sailed. Soon the winds had died down so much that the head sail was in the way and that was furled.

We had the lines out all day but had no luck. That’s about it for the sailing. I’m back on my midnight watch. We’re motoring doing our 4 knot trick running on batteries for 2/3 of the time. Just now the wind picked up a little (3 knots) from abeam – enough to warrant unfurling the head sail. Perhaps the winds will pick up some more.

The whole issue with the sail irritated me as it was one of those chain of events issues starting with mishandling the boat while we were trying to furl it on day 0 when the wind suddenly strengthened. The effectiveness of the crew ultimately is my responsibility so I spent today, probably annoying the hell out of Helen, by randomly asking her to tell me which way to steer to head up or fall off so that instructions will be less easily misinterpreted in the future. We’ll see.

It’s worth noting that we’re making a point of not reading each others blogs as make this crossing. The main idea is to ensure we maintain personal viewpoints and not be influenced by what others write. I’m looking forward to reading the results when we arrive in the Galapagos.

Also at the Galapagos may well be our friends on Jackster and Bristol Rose. The latter have resolved their mechanical issues resulting from running over a line at sea. They were on the World ARC but I think are now about a month or so behind schedule. Maybe this will mean they can take their time. Hopefully we will see them with the iguanas, tortoises and sea lions.

Helen seems to be enjoying the solitude of ocean sailing. I’m getting into the groove. John has had headaches for the last couple of days – perhaps due to dehydration from the sweatbox that was Puntarenas. We’ll soon see if ocean passage making brings him peace or insane boredom.

I’ll go and enjoy the night. The moon is high and bright so the stars are not as clear as they could be. The sea is pretty calm; small ripples over a slight swell. There’s lightning off in the distance somewhere – perhaps over southern Costa Rica – but nothing near. Peaceful.

Finally got out of Costa Rica!!

The last few days back on the boat sorting things out before heading off have been so hot. I made the mistake of walking back from Puntarenas (4Km) with loads of shopping in late morning/noon heat. I think that has given me heat stroke, sunburn and dehydration. Felt pretty ill for the last few days, especially after cleaning the bottom of the boat in very murky waters.

I have now done a full 24 hours of what our shifts will be like for the next …. however long its going to take….. and am feeling much more rested, better and hydrated. Just a headache to cope with.

Saw a dead turtle and puffer fish yesterday :(, saw a very large living turtle as well and a few belly flopping rays.

Not much to report on the sailing. The winds have been low and we’re plopping along, no fish as of yet, I think once we pick up speed the lures will start working.

We finally left the Costa Rica Yacht Club, Puntarenus by high tide. Steve managed to get our clearance paper with no more hick ups. John and I completed our last bit of prepping the boat. We fueled up to the rim and off we went.

As we exited the estuary we had some wind! Steve decided to get out the Code Zero (a large head sail) to give us some extra push in the light wind. Soon after getting the Code Zero up the wind suddenly picked up from about 8 knots to 18 knots. This meant getting the Code Zero down again. Not at all easy in strong winds as we had to be very careful of the light sail material which could rip. I was downstairs when all this happened but I could hear the sail flapping loudly so went up to see what was happening. Steve was at the front of the boat trying to roll up the sail while John was trying to control the line to minimize the sail flapping. When Steve saw me he shouted for me to fall off the boat by 20 degrees. Instead of turning the boat away from the wind which falling off means, I turned it into wind by 20 degrees. Well this made the flapping worse and Steve’s job harder. I realised my mistake when I heard angry shouting. Once I got the boat pointing the right way, we managed to bring down the sail. As you can imagine Steve was royally p*** off with me. He lectured saying I must learn and practice my terminology. Which I really must and hope that I learn falling off and heading into wind better than my left and right.

Although the wind was a bit strong for the Code Zero, it was perfect for our normal sails. Once we had all the normal sails trimmed nicely we were really sailing. We had originally planned to stop off at a nearby island where Steve and John could clean the props and bottom of the boat. However with such good wind we decided to stop off at Leona Bay the furthest place we could anchor before heading out into the ocean. It would have been nice not to stop at all but the water was so filthy at Puntarenus that we had to remove the growth on our hull bottom and props so as not to slow down the boat during our crossing. The sail to Leona bay was most pleasant. Flat seas and good wind, just how I like it. We saw a huge turtle, the largest I’ve seen in the waters and loads of rays jumping out and belly flopping back into the sea.

We made it to Leona in good time. John and Steve got into their dive gear immediately and started work on the boats bottom. I did a wash, tested out the air conditions and waxed the dodger which I had completed forgotten to do before. We managed to finish all our chores at the same time. John came out of the water feeling very unwell with motion sickness bobbing up and down under the hull. Not a good start for him as were about to head out into the Pacific.
Anyway we put away what we could, upped our anchor, raised the sails and headed into the setting sun. The wind died!

I’m on my midnight watch, the winds are light and we’re motor sailing. We have, as the crow flies, 688nm to go. There are no crows out here which is fitting as we won’t be going the route they would take anyway.

I was off the boat before 7am yesterday morning to catch a bus into Puntarenas town center. There I located the bus that would take me to Caldera. I was at the Capitan de Puerto’s office by around 8:10am. It took a mere 30 mins to obtain my zarpe internacional. Feeling quite excited that we now had no impediment to leave I started walking the main road from the port back to Puntarenas hoping to either hitch a lift, catch a bus or taxi. The taxi option arrived first so I was back shortly after 9am.

Next stop was to move the boat through the tight mooring field to the fuel dock where we filled up both tanks and the jerry cans we’d emptied on our way up through the windless seas of Panama and Costa Rica.

That being done I paid up all our dues and we were off at around 10am. Motoring west out of Puntarenas we had 13 knot apparent wind which turned into a light beam reach once we’d rounded the peninsular. It was so light we unfurled the Code Zero hoping for some better assistance. The wind continued to die until all of a sudden it picked up to 20 knots in just a few minutes. This involved a little yelling when instructions to fall off (to reduce luffing and strain on the running rigging (and my hands)) were implemented as heading up. The new wind direction was from the SSW so we had to quickly furl and drop the Code Zero and sail under main and headsail. We had been aiming for Islas Negroes to stop and clean the props/bottom but the new wind angle suggested we head for Bahia Leona.

We made it there under wind power with the hope that we may be seeing an end to the endless motor sailing we’ve been experiencing. We stopped there and John and I donned our diving gear to work on the bottom while Helen ran a wash, flushed the tubes on the aircons and cleaned up topside. We finished our bottom work just as the washing machine finished, quickly stowed gear and were off before sun down.

At this point the wind and currents were becoming less cooperative. The SSW wind was staying put which the direction we wanted to go. It had died down to about 12 knots while we were working on the boat so we used a little assist to get us through the chop. After a few hours of tacking we weren’t getting too far against the current so eventually pointed the boat closer to the wind and used more push from the electric motors.

Since then we have continue to motor sail into the night. The winds have died down and shifted direction more to the NW. At 6 knots it’s not much help so we’re in our planned 4 knot routine running on the electric motors and charging 1/3 of the time.

I’ve noticed a problem on the depth sounder. When we’re in deep water it starts to show readings from 20-30 feet which is disconcerting. This may explain our feeling that our charts were off weeks ago as we entered Costa Rican waters. Not sure what I can do about this at this point.

You may see blogs from Helen and John this trip. They agreed to do so and we agreed not to read each others entries until we arrive at our destination. Blogging the trip to the Galapagos is a warm up for blogging the long trip where our different perspectives day by day could become interesting.