Category Archives: Passage

Time spent between destinations travelling on the water.

Oman to Egypt – Day 10

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Around 2300 last night, the wind calmed to about 20 knots. Within a couple of hours, seas were a little better, but by a little we mean that conditions have gone from “absolutely miserable” to “miserable”. We were not consistently pounding as hard into the waves, but were still periodically getting pelted by some very hard waves. Speeds were holding steady in low 5’s. Sigh.

By noon, the winds had picked back up to 25 and the seas continued to get worse and worse, going right back to “absolutely miserable” again. Speeds worsened to the high 3’s/low 4’s at 1600 RPM.

Around 1630 (4:30 pm), we turned Continue reading →

Oman to Egypt – Day 9

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11:00 — Yesterday afternoon the seas calmed down to where it wasn’t too bad. In the night it calmed down so much that the ride wasn’t bad at all. The wind died to practically nothing for a while. When the wind died, speed really picked up. But this morning, the wind returned with a vengeance. Wind was in the low 20’s, on the nose, and waves were angry and brutal. We slowed down to 1800 to reduce bashing. We are probably going to need to slow down even more. It is definitely in the miserable category right now. It is rocking so much that Christi’s tea splashed out of her cup and all over her while she was holding the cup steadily upright.

In good news, our 24 hour average was 7 knots, thanks to good speeds yesterday. We also crossed the Tropic of Cancer line a couple hours ago, so we are officially out of the tropics. In bad news, Continue reading →

Oman to Egypt – Days 7 & 8

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Yesterday morning, we saw a pod of dolphins playing at the bow. There were only 5 or 6 and they didn’t stay long, just a couple of minutes. They were tiny little guys, the smallest dolphins we have ever seen.

The waves were mildly uncomfortable in the early hours of the morning, and as the day progressed, the waves got bigger and bigger. By the afternoon it was definitely well into the “uncomfortable” category, not quite at “miserable”, but close. Eric got sick. His body just doesn’t do well in the lurching head seas. We had to lower the RPMs by 200 because we were just hitting the waves too hard at the higher speed. We were only doing 4.8 knots, abysmally slow for 1700 RPM.

Today the ride started off just a touch better than yesterday. In the afternoon, the sea Continue reading →

Oman to Egypt – Days 5 & 6

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We have a confession to make. As you all know, when we crossed the Pacific Ocean on our 21 day passage from San Diego to Nuka Hiva, the blog postings were in real time. We didn’t want anyone to worry about us, so we seriously downplayed how miserable we were during that passage. Now that the blogs are no longer in real time, we feel no need to underreport. By the time an entry gets posted about ugly seas, we are already safely in a port, so no one needs to worry.

A secondary reason we downplayed our misery on that first passage was because we were novice blue water travelers, and we didn’t want to sound whiny. We figured that Continue reading →

Transiting From the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea – Days 3 & 4

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Yesterday morning we rolled up 3,000 hours on the engine. That is 125 days of sea time. 89% of those hours have been put on the engine since leaving for this around the world journey. We calculated the fuel burn so far on this passage. We are getting the worst fuel burn we have ever gotten at 1.7 miles to the gallon. That is what happens when you run consistently at 1900 RPM. We feel moving fast through the dangerous area is worth the cost of the fuel.

We heard on the BBC that the French Navy has been following the captured yacht for 600 kilometers, and that the crew and yacht all seem to be safe. Eric did the unthinkable and talked on the VHF to another yacht. The other guy was a part of the radio net, but we were never able to contact him on the SSB. Eric heard him talking on the VHF, so Eric hailed him, inquiring about what to expect ahead of us, since he was already in the Red Sea. We were already out Continue reading →