May 31 — Thursday was uneventful. We spent the day doing boat chores, which means cleaning, organizing, and maintenance stuff. Eric changed the on engine fuel filters for the generator and main engine. Tip: If the primer pump is not working, turn over the engine to realign the camshaft so the primer pump works. If you forget this step you tend to panic because without the primer pump working, the engine will not start. We had about 10 minutes of some panic with the generator as we discovered this.

Cruisers: Corona is not a good choice of beer to bring along. When stored on it’s side while the boat is rocking, they leak through the cap. The bottles of Foster’s and Fat Tire did not leak.

We did go to shore to barter with Theresa. Our two bottles of wine got us 9 small potatoes, 3 pampelmousse, 3 heads of garlic, 2 onions, and some self-rising flour. I think considering each bottle of wine was $2.00, we actually made out ahead this time. We’re learning. But she still won overall.

The guidebook said that this bay was known for gold and purple skies along the mountains at sunset. The sunset Thursday wasn’t nearly as pretty as Wednesday’s. But, after the sun had dipped below the horizon, we did notice the sky turned a periwinkle color for a few minutes. We’ve never seen anything like it before.

June 1, 2007 — Friday morning we were up at 5:00 to head out to sea again. In our protected anchorage, the wind was blowing 32 knots and there were whitecaps in the bay. Needless to say, it only got worse out on the open ocean. Currently we are in 12 foot beam seas and at a couple extreme cases are rolling as much as 35 degrees in each direction. Thank goodness the boat can handle this. We have a lot of weight at the keel (bottom) to keep us upright. We certainly would not want to be out here in our old boat!

This is by far the worst conditions Kosmos has been in yet. During the 21 day passage we needed to hold on to a hand rail at all times or else we’d be knocked down. In these seas, if we aren’t holding on we literally get thrown across the room. Hopefully, it will get better soon. This passage is only three days, but if it stays like this, it will be a long three days.

Answers to some blog questions from the last couple of weeks:

Q. What is wrong with the water gauge?
A. The water gauge seems to have magically fixed itself. It must have gotten stuck and is no longer stuck.

Q. What are you using for internet while at sea?
A. We are using Iridium Satellite Phone for e-mail and 9.6kbps Internet access. We also use Sailmail on an Icom 802 with a Pactor modem for e-mail, which runs around 200 bps. Each has it’s own set of issues and we are not always able to connect. We have a friend managing the blog for us, so it probably seems like the connectivity is better thanks to him.

Q. What is the change in roll rate related to swell and wave action as you move farther south with and without stabilization.
A. The roll rate hasn’t really changed, but the roll amount has. We never considered turning the stabilizers off at any point in time. You have to remember that this is a boat and boats move. A boat will never be smooth like a 747 airplane. We do not have any experience aboard other size boats, sail or power, in open ocean conditions. Huddled around beers, the sail boaters we recently met mentioned the motion is worse than they thought. In general, we would say most cruisers cherish their time in a safe harbor and try to minimize their time at sea. We are finding we are no different.

Q: How much fuel did you burn on the passage from San Diego to Nuka Hiva?
A. Fuel burn is a piece of the puzzle, but you really need to know how fast you go at each RPM. But, your best case speed versus your real world speed can vary a lot with wind, currents, and waves. At various instantaneous calculations we were going to arrive with 450 gallons of reserve and almost zero gallons of reserve. We ended up with 250 gallons left. The important numbers: 1000 gallons used, 2832 nautical miles traveled, 500 hours underway. Given those you can derive we burned 2.0 gallons an hour, went 2.8 miles per gallon, and averaged 5.7 knots. We ran between 1450 and 1650 rpm. So just as important as knowing your fuel burn is knowing the currents you will be facing. Pilot Charts have this data. Also there is a handy program called Visual Passage Planner (VPP), that contains the Pilot Chart data. VPP lets you plot a course and see what the prevailing conditions are. Of course that is just history. Using additional tools and more up to date predictions you can get a more precise plan. In the end you will not know until you are out there.

Q: Did you change the main engine oil on your 21 day passage?
A. A Lugger representative told us that oil breaks down most when you start and stop. We were told that as long as we were using a synthetic oil blend and not stopping, we could make it across without changing the oil. We changed the oil upon arrival in Taiohae.