- Position and Time: N 16-47 by W 126-45 at 2355 UTC May 6, 1084 miles from San Diego
- Speed and Course: 6.1 knots, 210 degrees true, 1600rpm
- Wind: 7 knots at 210 degrees relative
- Waves: 6-8 foot swells at 10-12 seconds, 3-4 foot wind waves.
The trip meter went over 1000. We are officially arrived to the vicinity of the middle of nowhere! Pretty soon we will be half way, which is still the middle of nowhere.
Yesterday, we deployed the paravane fish. We wanted to see how much it helped with the roll. It helped some, slowed us down, as expected. We decided that the fish didn’t stop enough of the roll to justify the loss of speed, so we put the fish back in their holders after a day. It was a bit tricky to bring them in out of the open ocean, but we did it.
We are still experiencing good size waves from the front at regular intervals, while simultaneously getting hit every couple minutes by big waves from the side. The side waves are the ones that make us roll a lot. The last several days the seas have been “confused”, which mean waves seem to be coming from several directions. We have white caps on some, which also slows us down. We decided to up the RPM to 1600, which still gives us over 20% reserve to reach Nuka Hiva.
It is 3:30 pm as I write this, and the sun has just finally peeked out from behind the clouds for the first time in days. It has been completely overcast almost the whole time no sun, no sunrises or sunsets, no moon, no stars have been seen for most of the trip. The two days we had some sun earlier in the week were followed by evenings of scattered clouds, and those two nights the full moon reflected brilliantly off the seas (when not hidden behind a cloud).
We saw our first sailboat out here. Well, first the radar alarm went crazy telling us something was out there, and later we were able to visually spot it with the binoculars. It eventually crossed our bow at about 1.5 miles. We tried to hail the vessel (call it on the radio for those who do not speak “boat”), but there was no response. The sailboat looked to be about 40 feet and was pounding head first into the brutal seas. And we thought we had it rough!
Still no luck catching a fish, but we have not tried too much since we realized the fillet table is stowed pretty deep and still needs to be assembled. We just didn’t get to it before we left. Oh well if we had waited to get to everything before we left, we’d still be at the dock.
I wasn’t expecting a blog post till day 22 or so. I am so stoked and inspired to read about your adventures. While I am sitting in my office chair 10 hours a day, you guys are out taking on the Pacific. That is so cool.
Jim and I are really sad that we missed your departure. However, it was a good year at Coachella. Hot and miserable during the day, but the nights were exquisite.
How is the Wii handling the rolling? News that you are probably happy to miss: Paris Hilton is going to jail for 45 days.
Safe travels.
Eric this is so great to read! And, I have the RSS feed on my google homepage to keep me company =D
You left before we had the “4 hour work week” speaker come to DivX but you’re doing what he suggests. What an inspiration! Take care!
Dawn
Very exciting. We are all living vicariously through you back here in San Diego. The conditions sound extreme.
Sorry I missed your bon voyage get together.
Eric – It got to 91 here in San Diego yesterday. Hope some of the cloudless days are headed your way. – Mike
Awesome blog, Eric. Totally fun to read, keep it up. =)
We finally got some sunshine back here in SD (been cloudy quite a bit lately) and it feels good. Hope you get some sunshine soon too!
G
As an honorary “Kosmonaut” I was inspired to see where you are, so if any body else is interested you can plot the coordinates in mapquest:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/linktomap.adp?mapdata=p5kqyoo6yZLjOAlx4cXmGBKXbF1jnlmxaqc6Ad%252f14y9EepP3GbgHKf7Jsf3auvRO7r5ks4ovqHQJ9e0rdWxFRgvyldYKE3sgfjATH86UfPjSflI3cZHSp%252fiaijTsspRDTYGI9JFeRKbeEe54b9WB1k7E8leD289SckJw2cAlrCAUDIgdn4sOd560d15ifo7BeerozmlY2edySMy8WDMe%252fk7LfWUXNDL%252f5L2xS0P7d5HjoAwGYefJXJ5SrjLAZOp6xloKQFyFFmgDDD9YeO8ncTWsNafR2OQvF1i3VnsGOG5RtyfM7FcJuHNxP6D5RUVbmI8Z8pWdXs7A3jJwbeElnpWYvuPM9hqOiYhenMKSZUuGhx9pdDjXINt%252f37ZlVr4V4AMKeJ3UxgJjTQ3hTeGoQ79d4AU%252f1oHGOCw9rsjKQdhCEA54QN0bpTaDGcPBxtpJXUa24wHdIUG5YpjeUrtAi1W8rmxPPu2ygij2uCYOERftuidaCKPy1sArwT5msaoMTDqqzR8EPnON%252ffVrn%252fomzJnZID64A9iP6GthnhSCD60XB88Fy4SydR%252fbeyAG5Cv%252f6nyyS8HT3VuFw336xLNRgpmfrKfOcFa6obRcwDrAN2%252bDUys8ZtHsF9W0t5B2TPATtU87TsR0kOZROVkjfuAssnZy69uzRt5BA9nOSI4Przh0nrnYHYdVEzEoxDzFTGNTL9f42rAgIFhmqz88m5vU0fQrkwLMouPCRDf%252fexXFRW8t7%252fxQROvXtJa9GO8fz7O7KY6Z5neRAeJoq%252f8Wt6daOUgyEDwah8XkzrRs%252bwz0aHDcjB1k7VuswUdBSoWB7ZIGfab6uDjKJ4i6BBv0L1A43%252fVEYgHHK68UDD6e4Wo33m07RA1UqNF7nfKlcOlQTsU6lx7ZifQ72tf5Lj73AjG1WWjQwKiCRuWUvUgvtCck%252fE%252bpl3d7zeKVlLUmCP4zanq9A6D1bE%252fU7Xb%252f9QhVpoclwf7KKme1T8pCt4uwaCCPCWZj%252fWCoz1PP9V7UQkUDdPXgnaP60LLV9AfVLApP1LHXLl65XiH8hU4qAy%252bvQgCRlK7il6widPhopGkApy1VaTcXy5fmsTMqY8lVBkzqT3Ssmy0gCQ0692YodGvyF2I1v9ms8jaXNM58G844KADUwKOqhw%252b57lbyB%252fK09mrQKjcqgA%253d%253d&ms=16.783299|-126.74997|2|1045|860|street
To follow up on other news since you have been gone…
There was a huge fracas on digg.
Someone posted the aacs key. AACS-LA sent a takedown. Digg complied. The digg users went crazy and repeatedly posted the key as new stories until everything on digg was the key.
Finally digg went offline for a while and k.rose had to come out and say they were no longer going to remove the key.
It was interesting.
For or pass to Bruce, your KML coordinated got truncated. I would like to follow their PIM (naval word for meandering course over water!). I suggest you post ift somewhere other than a blog entry. My two cents.
-rich
Hi Eric and Christi, good to hear you are doing well.
Hi Rich,
Yeah, I figured that was not going to work. But basically you can input latitude and longitude at Mapquest. This page should work:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/main.adp?formtype=latlong&cat=&address=&city=&state=&zipcode=