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Inanudak Bay, Umnak Island, The Aleutians, Alaska, US, 16-JUL-2020 — It is Hilary’s birthday today. It is really the first birthday without her. It is fitting that we are in Alaska, in an empty bay, not surrounded by mountains, as we normally are, but by volcanoes. The original Hilary would have reveled, as would have the later, dementia-suffering woman.

The night before last it blew forty knots through our anchorage. Jennifer analyzed the other coves and decided this was still the best place to stay given the anchor holding ability of the bottom, the room to drag and that she could perceive no difference in the wind that would come through the valleys for the other coves. Continue reading “Thoughts on Adventuring”

Inanudak Bay, Umnak Island, The Aleutians, Alaska, US, 14-JUL-2020 10:13 HST — Umnak Island has the distinction of the being the limit of the range of a type of kelp called Bull Kelp. And yep, as we arrived we saw bull kelp. The first we’ve seen since leaving Southern California last fall.

Bull kelp doesn’t, generally, wrap around propellers, so it is not much of a worry. The outer limit of the range of dragon kelp is the Aleutian Islands in general, at a maximum length of 150 ft, it does wrap around props and we have seen it here and we do worry about it.*

We arrived here in the bay at 2:30 am the night before last after motoring for about 16 hours. It was not what we had planned. Well, we had planned on eight hours of motoring. Wind and waves were calm, and, while it was our first time anchoring in the dark, we have anchored several hundred times, it went very smoothly. Continue reading “Sailing into the Bering Sea and anchoring at night”

**written several days ago**

In the theory of capitalism, profit is maximized and market forces cause product improvement. In a monopoly, there is no need to ever improve a product–there will be no increase in profit because customers have no alternative.

Iridium Go is a monopoly, because of this all of the associated software sucks. The underlying satellite technology is good because there are competitors in that space.

This is part two because I accidentally pressed send. I wouldn’t be upset ”sent” actually sent the message, but it merely queues the message. There is no way to remove the message from the queue and re-edit. It can only be deleted or sent.

Morgan Henry, who last year sailed from Japan to Dutch Harbor, told us just before we left Hanalei Bay they had starter battery problems and sailed all the way to the dock with out using engine. Continue reading “Sailboats have Destinations, part 2”

52° 51.276N 169° 21.166W , 12-Jul-2020 — we’re here. In ten hours we will anchor near a hot spring and sleep attached to land.

Sorry about yesterday’s abridged post… technical difficulties. The rest and an explanation tomorrow.
Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.

51 02.6N 168 20.8 W — 11-jun-2020 12:56 HST — Motorboats have schedules, sailboats have destinations.

Caro Babbo demonstrates this as we arrive three days later than planned into Samalga Pass to the Bering Sea. Jennifer will blame this on a miscalculation in motoring capabilities, but the real arithmetic shows that of the four or five times we thought we should motor, only one or perhaps two would have been worth the fuel, if we had it to spare.

The wind, that the various models predicted and that the weather router person expected, did not show up as promised. Instead of the consistent 125 nm per day we have been closer to 100 and sometimes well below that.

Instead of arriving Friday, yesterday, we’ll most likely arrive Monday.

This has been a much easier passage than from San Diego to Hilo. None of the steering functions have failed, so we have not been reduced to tiller slaves. Continue reading “Sailboats have Destinations: Diligence and Attention to Detail”

44 41N 162 02 W. 7-JUL-2020 07:54 HST — Jennifer sleeps while I officially stand watch. It is foggy with little wind. Little wind has been the problem.

The passage has been good one, fair weather with great winds for the first week or so. The first few days we sailed above hull speed for hours and hours at time. One day was a 164 nm, well beyond what one should expect for a boat this size. (Broad reach, wind speed in the high teens, full main and 135% Genoa.) Continue reading “Fishnet catches us.”

23°35’N 160°13’W 00:14 HST 27-Jun-2020 — Today is my sister Linda’s birthday.

When I was a small child, I envisioned myself at age 46. It was the age I would be in 2000, so I was old enough to do arithmetic. I would have a beard and wear glasses. Forty-six has come and gone. As do the beard and glasses. I was a Toronto kid. The future was science and space ships.

The US, sailboats, and actual adult life were unseen and unimaginable. As unimaginable as crossing the North Pacific with a woman.

Tonight is a wonderful first night at sea. There have been occasional light clouds and an eighth moon that just set. The milky way is naturally mistaken for a cloud and if I used the app on my phone I could identify the stars and constellations. Continue reading “Eighty miles north of Kuaui”