We made it!

We're cleared in and looking for breakfast with Kathy & Pat. More when we get to a computer!

Land ho!

Kelly spotted land low on the horizon off the starboard forequarter at about 11:25 HST. We were about 40 nm offshore at the time. Nicholas would have seen it first, but the low finger of land was almost invisible without polarized sunglasses.

We still can't make out the volcano, but since about 10:30 HST, we've been seeing bright plumes of salmon-colored smoke above the scattered cumulus on the horizon. Hawaii is so close we can almost taste it.

Aloha!

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 31

Date: 30 May 2009 1900 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 120 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 130 nm
Latitude: 18 42.464 N
Longitude: 154 29.075 W
COG: 267M
SOG: 5.2 kts under sail
Wind: 8 kts NE
Seas: 2 ft ENE swell, .5 ft wind ripples
Weather: 50% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1014.8, steady
Sea Temperature: 80 F

Today dawned with a lightly freshening wind and the prospect of arriving at the marina in under 24 hours. To say we're excited would be putting it mildly. Try as we might, we still cannot see the island of Hawaii some 40 miles distant at it's closest point.

Yesterday, there was almost no wind, so right after sending the update email, we fired up our main engine and began motorsailing. It was slow going, but at least we were making some progress. The light and variable conditions persisted throughout the day and night, and we were able to get in a few loads of laundry without the washing machine complaining about being tilted one way and the other. Around dawn the wind freshened and moved forward to the beam, giving us a knot of additional boatspeed.

Yesterday was a fairly quiet day aboard Samadhi. We're now doing fewer maintenance tasks in favor of taking care of them from the comfort of a mooring. This leaves us more opportunity to relax and spend time together. It also gives Kelly and Phillip more time for catching up on sleep! The seas continued in their near flat state, and we had sun throughout the day. Rain squalls have ceased to darken the skies, and in the still air, it got pretty warm down below decks.

The last of Alexander's excellent shortbread cookies are consumed. It's now back to Kinder eggs and Oreos for the remainder of our journey. Nicholas is looking forward to having some biscuit cookies with La Lechera (sweetened condensed milk) for a change.

In an effort to consume the last of our ground beef, Phillip prepared "meat cake" for dinner. Just as we were putting it in the oven, the clicker on one of the fishing reels started singing, and Nicholas was yelling "FISH!!!" before you could blink (his reaction time for this can be measured in microseconds). Up on deck, Phillip took the rod, the same one that hooked the billfish we lost a few days ago, while Kelly stopped the boat and Nicholas reeled in the second vacant line. Alexander was there to provide support and be a general gofer in case any of us needed something. The fish struck the line on the port quarter, the one which had only the spectra backing attached to a 10" chugger with rainbow-colored skirt rigged with double 8/0 hooks--a doppelgänger for the one that interested a certain sailfish north of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica.

Once the boat was stopped, Kelly grabbed our fish fighting belt and strapped it around Phillip's hips. The fish was running wildly, and Phillip was determined to get this one aboard. As she got nearer the boat, she sounded, straight down. Yes, after that little move, we were almost positive that there was a tuna of some variety on the business end of the line. Phillip fought the powerful fish for another ten minutes or so before the fish surrendered. Sure enough, we saw the striped body of a beautiful skipjack tuna. Kelly took the rod while Phillip gaffed the fish and brought her over the lifelines. On deck, the skipjack put up very little resistance despite her size. None of us were able to lift her without using both hands. She must have weighed in at 60 pounds or more. We didn't know that Skipjack grew so large, this one was as large or larger than the yellowfin we caught earlier in our passage. Smaller skipjack are commonly used for live bait for marlin and other billfish
. We wonder what could you catch with a 60 pound baitfish...

After a few photos, Phillip was able to start processing her without much trouble. Nicholas helped his father clean the fish while Kelly made sure the meat cake was cooking and Alexander played down below. Like billfish, skipjack tuna have a slit where they can retract their dorsal fin. We discovered this after we couldn't find it anymore and went searching. The armor plating on this skipjack's back was commensurately more tenacious then the previous smaller specimens we've landed. It took a full fifteen minutes to get through the first section. Before long though, Phillip had the four fillets (tuna logs) off the football-shaped body and downstairs to complete the processing--more than 30 pounds of boneless tuna. It should be noted that at no time during this process did anyone slice open his or her knee.

For dinner, we forwent the meat cake in favor of fresh sashimi over the last of our sushi rice. We managed to consume a little more than a eighth of the processed "tuna logs". The boys can each eat about twice as much sashimi as a hungry adult. We have no idea where it all goes. The scraps and cuttings from the fillets made an incredibly flavorful stock that we're looking forward to using in a fish soup. For breakfast this morning, we feasted on the enormous roe sautéed in bacon drippings and finished with a maple and lime reduction sauce. The recipe came from a cookbook written by another cruiser who is a French-trained chef.

We've got the lines out again this morning. Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky again today...

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 30

Date: 29 May 2009 1900 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 79.1 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 250 nm
Latitude: 18m 28.238 N
Longitude: 152 25.924 W
COG: 266 M
SOG: 3.5 kts under sail
Wind: 5 kts NE
Seas: 2 ft E swell, .3 ft wind ripples
Weather: 60% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1014.0, steady
Sea Temperature: 79 F

Our Garmin chartplotter (GPSmap 5212, excellent gear!) is finally showing Samadhi and Hawaii on the same screen! This is so exciting for us, as we have been looking at Samadhi on an empty blue screen for quite a while now! Of course, it helps that it's set to display at .75" : 20 nm scale.

The wind continues to do little to assist progress towards our goal. The Pacific once again looks placid and tranquil as a lake, only impossibly more vast. The tiny swells and minuscule ripples gurgle against the hull as we glide upright through the clear azure waters. The experience is akin to being at a 'beachhouse', you look outside and see ocean while hearing the little ripples against the sides of the hull. We aren't heeling noticeably, and the waves barely move Samadhi. She gently sways back and forth as the swells each give us a little push towards the islands. Given the fair weather and our still significant supply of food, it's not a bad way to spend the day. We only wish we had a say in the matter! The sunrises and sunsets have partially made up for it. When you get a sunset that keeps two young boys fascinated to sit and *watch* it, that is something. They actually complain when they miss it!

The wind picked up enough for us to do what we'd calling sailing for a few hours yesterday afternoon. It moved forward (was coming from slightly ahead of us) so that our apparent wind increased noticeably, and we were able to make four or five knots under main and genoa. It was insufficient to put the (heavy) staysail to use, to give you some idea of how little wind it takes to get us excited right now. We could use a massive Code Zero on a furler about now if anyone would like to deliver one out to us.

With the sail slatting and being pushed against the shrouds (when we were sailing dead downwind), our mainsail has experienced more than its share of chafe in the last couple of days. We've also found that our hated Dutchman Sail Flaking system has chafed completely through a nice little patch of sail. We're going to be making good friends with some sailmaker once we get settled in for refitting, probably near Honolulu. Summary: We don't like the Dutchman Sail Flaking System. In the two years we've had it, it has been an endless source of headaches--since day one! We're definitely going back to a stack pack-type system with lazy jacks.

Starting yesterday morning, we've been picking up US Coast Guard transmissions from the islands, the first radio chatter we've heard since leaving the Gulf of Nicoya. We're also within range of the US weather radio forecasts. This is great, but it means we're nursing no illusions about the conditions changing any time soon. Sometimes it would be nice to have blind hope.

Kelly's parents, Kathy and Pat have also been keeping an eye on the weather and calling several times a day. They're comfortably installed in Puako, north of Kona along the coast, and Kathy's already working out a vague itinerary for us so that we can make the most of our time together before they have to leave for the mainland. Given the Kona winds, we may stay on at the cottage at Puako for a few days after they leave. Kelly and Phillip are looking forward to sleeping through the night for the next little while.

Yesterday at snack, we broke out Alexander's shortbread cookies. They were even better than the last batch! It's wonderful that Alexander is getting interested in baking again. (Desserts have always always interested him more than savory creations in the kitchen.) We're looking forward to him perfecting his cookie technique with the next batch! He promised Kathy on the phone yesterday that he'd make some for them in the cottage.

Nicholas finished the last of his Calvert assignments yesterday (and Alexander isn't far behind). Now all that remains is for him to review for and take his last set of unit exams. Basically, once a month the boys each take a test for each subject, and we scan them in and email them to their advisory teachers in Maryland. The grades are back within a few days along with a letter of feedback for the student from their "friends". It's been a great system. We'll be sorry when the boys go back to public school in the fall.

According to Pat, depending on visibility, we should be able to see the peak of the volcano from a couple hundred miles away. We're within range today, and we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for a little peak poking its nose above the horizon. The boys have each vowed to be the first to sight land. Nicholas reported when we got up that there was too much haze this morning. Maybe we'll have better luck later on.

Since our speeds have dwindled, we've been seeing a sharp drop in the number of uninvited guests aboard. There's been only one (giant!) flying fish on deck in the last three days. Of course, he managed to nestle himself into a coil of line inside the cockpit, so he was clearly an overachiever. On the other hand, we're going slow enough that we're able to watch the jellyfish pass us as they glide by. It's all about trade-offs, right?

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 29

Date: 28 May 2009 1900 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 25 hours: 132 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 328 nm
Latitude: 18 15.486 N
Longitude: 151 03.926 W
COG: 255M
SOG: 3.0 kts under sail
Wind: 5 kts E
Seas: 1 ft E swell, no significant wind waves
Weather: 30% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1013.5, steady
Sea Temperature: 78 F

Slow progress continues in very light wind.

Now that we're on the Hawaii side of Longitude 150 W, we've moved our clocks back for the last time to -1000, Hawaii Standard Time (HST). This will be our last time change until we leave the islands, and we're still not in a place that observes Daylight Savings Time!

Things continue much the same aboard Samadhi. The wind has continued to be light throughout yesterday and last night. Early this morning the wind nearly stopped altogether. We are currently back to floating on glassy seas as we were earlier in our voyage. There's a certain existential symmetry in this, but right now we're having trouble finding detached appreciation for such things. Sailing downwind with such a light breeze sometimes leads to a tremendous racket from the mainsail slatting. It is not necessarily a tranquil existence.

Kathy and Pat checked in from the big island shortly after lunch. They scouted out Honokohau Harbor and the available space for us. Assuming no one else shows up in the next couple of days, it looks like we'll have a secure place to berth Samadhi while we have fun exploring the island.

Much to our delight and not a little amazement, we still have plenty of fresh food aboard Samadhi. The fresh from the farm produce we were able to procure with the help of our Tico friends combined with our efficient refrigeration systems has kept us in fresh fruit and veggies for the entire voyage. Just yesterday, we were eating fresh eggplant, broccoli, carrots, and peppers. This is about as good as we could have hoped for, especially considering that this is our first extended passage. We're quite pleased.

Considering all this abundance, we've been doing our best to be "gourmands" so that we can consume as much of the things that may be confiscated upon our arrival as possible. Yesterday, we decided we needed something sweet to complement all the savory creations. Not only that, but we had some extra homemade bread that was beyond the sandwich phase. Phillip solved the problem with a bread pudding, complete with Southern whiskey sauce. It was delicious! Then, not to be outdone, Alexander baked up some more shortbread cookies with a little guidance from Kelly. The cookies weren't cool in time for a tasting yesterday, but we're all looking forward to snack time.

We picked up a ship on the AIS at over 20 miles. This was the confirmation we have been looking for to prove our AIS antenna issues have been solved. We are very happy that we don't need to climb into the lazarette and solder any more coax connectors!

Nicholas is now on the last lesson of his Calvert school year, and Alexander isn't far behind. Nicholas is hoping to finish up his testing before our arrival. If the winds continue so light and variable, it may happen yet. The boys are very much looking forward to a summer without lessons.

Based on our progress of the last couple of days, we're probably looking at two to three more days underway. We're very much looking forward to, as Kathy puts it, kissing the land, but we're content to bide our time and let the wind and the ocean decide when that will be -- at least until we're within motoring range!

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 28

Date: 27 May 2009 1800 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 151 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 456 nm
Latitude: 18 32.005 N
Longitude: 148 47.273 W
COG: 256M
SOG: 6.2 kts under sail
Wind: 10 kts ENE
Seas: 3 ft E swell, < 1 ft wind waves
Weather: 30% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1014.8, steady
Sea Temperature: 76 F

Light winds attack us once more!

The wind dropped precipitously around mid-morning yesterday and became shifty in nature. When in the vicinity of a squall, the wind builds, and we have a short period of good sailing, followed by a calm period once the squall passes. We are sailing in fits and starts, at one point making a 50 degree course change in a wind shift!

In the late afternoon, we jibed after being forced far north of our desired course. Given that on either tack, we were looking at a bearing significantly off of our desired track, we decided to rig the pole and sail wing and wing, trying to keep pointed as much toward the big island as possible. Through the night, the squalls became less frequent, and we settled into a slow downwind passage in 5-8 knots of breeze. We are going approximately the correct direction, but not nearly as fast as we were hoping. We can put up the spinnaker and sail faster at angles to wind if the breeze increases a bit more.

It's a challenge to put into words how disappointing it is to be so (relatively) close to our goal and have the weather stop cooperating, weather that is generally renowned for its consistency and reliability, as much as any weather can be. Still, unlike the beginning of the passage where we were truly becalmed, we are continuing to make steady progress towards our destination. It's some small consolation to be less than 500 nm in a straight line from Honokohau.

The closer the wind brings us, the more tempting it is to fire up the big Perkins, and motorsail the rest of the way. As Pat mentioned, we have easily more than a day's worth of fuel reserves. On the other hand, they're called reserves for a reason, and we're not likely to tap into them until we're confident we're within stabbing distance of the harbor.

The lack of wind has led to smooth seas. The skies are mostly clear, and we enjoyed a wonderful sunset in the evening. The sunrise showed us large squalls all round us that lit up with glorious colors.

Alexander and Nicholas are getting very close to being done with their lessons. Phillip and Kelly are very proud of their hard work. After school yesterday, the boys invented a game using their toys from the Kinder eggs. It was quite complex in rules and execution, having multiple rounds and an intricate scoring system. Kelly took a video of the boys playing to make sure we'd remember it later.

The weather continues to grow colder the further we sail from Central America. The rain coming out of the squalls yesterday felt decidedly chilly! When the skies cleared in the afternoon, we left the shade of the cockpit for a patch of sun on the aft deck. We can't even remember the last time we sought out the sun for warmth! With the light breeze coming from astern, blowing directly down the companionway, night watches were particularly cool. Phillip went so far as to dig out the woolen socks from deep in his clothing locker. We may look silly to some, sailing through the Tropics in sweaters and stocking feet, but at least we're comfortable!

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 27

Date: 26 May 2009 1800 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 186 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 590 nm
Latitude: 18 56.168 N
Longitude: 146 25.539 W
COG: 270M
SOG: 7.2 kts under sail
Wind: 9 kts ENE
Seas: 3 ft E swell, 1 ft wind waves
Weather: 50% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1015.4, steady
Sea Temperature: 75 F

< 600 nm to Honokohau!

We have gone two days now without any aquatic stowaways aboard Samadhi! Although we have seen plenty of flying fish, so far they have kept to their watery element and off of our decks. Perhaps this is natural selection at work. We find no way to account for the absence of the squid, and they aren't talking.

The cloud formations have been fascinating lately. Multiple layers of heavy clouds at different altitudes, some quite massive, have surrounded us. The uppermost layer is obviously windblown ice to a great degree. Closest to the ocean are the puffy cumulus clouds we see so many of, but now in groups. We feel sure that all of these clouds are trying to tell us something, we just don't know what it is! (Hopefully, it isn't "turn back!")

Our wind continues to slack off from duty at night. Usually, we have been able to maintain slow progress, but sometimes the swells cause the boat to roll and distort our sail shape. Trying to nurse the boat along at 5 knots at night, when there isn't a moon and the swells are bouncing you about, isn't much fun. Still, just at dawn the winds pipe up again, and the larger waves begin to return from seemingly out of nowhere. The sunrises have been particularly spectacular lately with fluffy purple clouds silhouetted against the high, pink and orange cirrus in the pale yellow and blue sky. There's no question that Kelly and Phillip are ready to have nights of undisturbed slumber again, but they'll miss the peace of these solitary moments in the vast expanse of the Pacific.

The boobies that were omnipresent at the start of our voyage have given way to another sea bird that we don't know by name. They are a smidgen smaller than the boobies and fly with the gently curving, concave wings of gulls in children's drawings. Their bodies are brilliant white, compact, and have hardly any tail to speak of. Their bright orange beak and black webbed feet strike a stark counterpoint to their plumage. For several minutes at a stretch, any number of these birds will sketch squawking circles around Samadhi, presumably riding the air currents we leave in our wake. We are all now thoroughly convinced of the fallacy of the "There are birds, so we must be near land." myth. Not a day has gone by without a sighting of our feathered friends, no matter how many hundreds or thousands of miles we are from the nearest patch of dirt.

With over a gallon of freshly squeezed lime juice available, Phillip decided to make up some ginger limeade. He didn't have a recipe, so he improvised one. Extraction of the fresh ginger was done by steeping sliced ginger in the simple syrup while it was being 'cooked'. The result is delicious, but not as 'ginger spicy' as Phillip wanted. Maybe the secret is to press fresh ginger, and avoid using heat extract it. This will bear further investigation.

For dinner, Kelly continued tweaking her recipe for homemade sloppy joes, this time served open-faced on Phillip's homemade bread. Absolutely delicious! The boys say they'd never even tasted them before this voyage, but they were quick converts. For dessert, we had another puffy pancake, using up four more eggs (yes!) in the process. We have been especially trying to use up our ground beef prior to arrival in Hawaii, and as of today it looks like we are nearing the end. We're hoping to have very little for Customs to confiscate when we arrive at Honokohau!

Phillip & Kelly have each just finished reading Richard Rhodes's fascinating, fairly technical history of the atomic bomb, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, written in the late '80's. (Thank you Leslie!) It is quite a tome, but even so, we can't recommend it highly enough. The stories of the aftermath of Little Boy in Hiroshima are unbelievably chilling. Our boys have each been reading stories of Jewish persecution by the Nazis as part of their Calvert curriculum (Ann Frank's Diary of a Young Girl and Number the Stars -- about Jewry in Denmark). Then, a few days ago, Alexander started playing a game on his Nintendo DS called "Panzer Tactics", which as one might guess, lets you battle Axis vs. Allies over Europe. All of this has offered quite an interesting opportunity for discussion about WWII and war in general. It seemed entirely appropriate in light of Memorial Day. Then, just as we were talking about the recent US actions in the Middle East (and Phillip's time there), the bo
at rolled suddenly, and from the galley below, we heard an awful crash!

We use Corelware (highly durable glass) dishes aboard Samadhi. A complete set came with the boat in a handy teak holder mounted on the wall, and we saw no reason to replace them. Corelware are known for their shatter resistance (Nobody says unbreakable anymore.), and they generally are. Living on a rolling boat leads to inevitable drops, and the dishes usually just bounce. However, sometimes if you drop one *just right* they will break. Oh boy! When Corelware breaks, it explodes like a bomb into a bazillion little razor-sharp shards. Corelware must have been initially developed as a weapon for the military. We spend tedious time crawling around and cleaning the deck 3 times to make sure that we get all of the glass up. Even after our best efforts, we find little glass splinters stuck in our feet. We've got a new slogan for them: "Corelware, be afraid!"

We had a few phone calls again yesterday, this time from Kelly's parents. Kathy called a couple of times, and then Pat called later in the evening. It had been about a week since we last spoke. Kathy was eager to talk about their arrival on Hawaii in time to be our welcoming committee and the progress of Cortney's wedding preparations. We also heard about the passing of a close family friend after his difficult, year-long battle against cancer. Our hearts go out to his widow and family in their time of grief.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 26

Date: 25 May 2009 1800 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 194 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 773 nm
Latitude: 18 02.789 N
Longitude: 143 19.638 W
COG: 273M
SOG: 8.7 kts under sail
Wind: 16 kts ENE
Seas: 5 ft E swell, 3 ft wind waves
Weather: 60% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1014.9, rising
Sea Temperature: 76 F

Happy Memorial Day Monday to all of our friends and family in the US. We hope you're all having a wonderful long weekend. Out here on the ocean, we've gotta admit that we're envious of those of you getting a day off.

The night's calms continued yesterday morning until they convinced us it was a good idea to put up the spinnaker. We keep trying new ways to launch it. We're confident we'll have a reliable system by the time we arrive in the islands. Unfortunately, winds continue to be fickle some of the time. We had a period in the afternoon with winds over 20 knots, but they tapered off as evening descended. We spent the night with wind between 8 to 15 knots, with the higher winds around squalls. It wasn't until around the time of the last watch change at 1330Z (4:30 a.m. Samadhi Time) that it began to freshen again.

This morning finds us sailing in a much better breeze, and surfing on the fairly square seas. Samadhi takes off with great eagerness down the face of waves, with spray shooting out from the side of the hull. We reach the bottom of the trough going well over 12 knots, then slow to 8.5 or 9 as we await the next wave. Fun!

Around mid-morning yesterday, we had a sat phone call from the boys' Abuela Linda in New York. It was great to chat with her. Nicholas regaled her with the story of the tuna that we caught with one of the lures she gave us. He must be prescient because...

We were relaxing in the early afternoon when all of a sudden, we heard the clicker on one of the reels go off. The boys scrambled to get their harnesses on while Phil and Kelly rushed on deck without pause. Sure enough, it was the starboard rod making the racket, the one with the 12" green and black 'doorknob' lure rigged with dual 12/0 hooks, one of the lures Abuela Linda had brought Alexander on her visit in March.

The rod was nearly doubled over, the line was already at the spectra backing (meaning we had 250 yards out! 400 to go), and the fish was still making its screaming first run! Phillip got the boat stopped while Kelly went to retrieve the other lure, the little Tuna Catcher. Alexander helped furl the sails, and Nicholas got the cameras, just in case. Kelly fought the big fish with Phil at the helm, but we weren't successful this time. After a 15 minute struggle the fish showed us who was master and took off with some of our gear! We kept the rod, reel, and most of the Spectra- the fish got everything else. We could see the fish leaping several hundred yards astern of us, making splashes much bigger than any dolphin we've come across would. The billfish was massive and silver but that is about all we could tell. It's behavior says "marlin", probably blue marlin.

Our unrefrigerated produce is still doing great. The limes were starting to look a little peaked though, so we decided to juice the lot. All we can say coming out of the experience is that we're glad we don't run a bar. We now have almost a gallon of fresh lime juice in the cooler! It's too bad we don't have any gelatin aboard to make pies.

We have changed course slightly due to a shift in wind. Advice from our weather router has us sailing this direction for the next few days until we are closer to Hawaii. Assuming the winds cooperate, we're now planning to go via south point on our way to Honokohau. It should be quite spectacular to sail in the lee of the 10,000' volcano!

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 25

Date: 24 May 2009 1800 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 191 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 970 nm
Latitude: 16 50.794 N
Longitude: 140 13.470 W
COG: 278M
SOG: 7.7 kts under sail
Wind: 8 kts NE
Seas: 2 ft NE swell, 1 ft wind waves
Weather: 70% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1014.7, rising
Sea Temperature: 76 F

Smoother seas and slackening winds brought change to our sailing yesterday. Starting in the early morning, the wind waned and moved around behind Samadhi. Having the wind behind us cuts our speed significantly, especially when the wind is light. We waited for a couple of hours to see if conditions were going to change before hoisting the spinnaker.

Sailing under the spinnaker immediately brought our speed up, but not as high as we have been seeing recently. The wind continued to drop steadily throughout the day and into the afternoon. We managed to hold our average speed around 8 knots, but only barely. As the wind dropped, our lovely clear skies gave way to near complete high overcast. It cleared by the late afternoon, and we were left with lots of puffy little clouds reflecting the rays of the setting sun.

The wind was fickle throughout the night. We squeezed what we could from it when it would blow, then slowed to a crawl when it died down. Today dawned overcast with light wind, but as the sun has risen the clouds are reducing. Perhaps the wind will increase soon as well.

On Friday, Alexander and Kelly made shortbread cookies (with the Tartine recipe--Thanks Cort!). We ate a couple of them then, and while delicious, mostly they were still too warm and crumbly. Fast forward to yesterday--somehow, we managed to finish the entire rest of the batch between snack and lunch. The boys just couldn't get enough! For extra servings, they even made up cute improvised ditties praising Alexander and his shortbreads. Alexander has promised to make us another batch sometime soon, maybe this time without any assistance.

We received a couple of phone calls yesterday. It's always a pleasure to talk with folks shore. Nana, we hope you have a wonderful time back east at Juline & Greg's wedding. Please pass along our best wishes to the happy couple. We're sorry we won't be there to help celebrate the occasion.

One of the things we're really looking forward to about arriving in Hawaii is being back in the US again. We'll miss our adventures in Latin America, but being able to shop at a grocery store where we can find things like a produce section with lemons and Brussels sprouts and a familiar butcher counter with cuts of meat we recognize will be so nice! That's not even mentioning the fact that it's a nightmare to have many boat (yacht) parts fixed or replaced outside of the US, especially with shipping and customs being what they are in some countries. We're definitely going to have our hands full with projects for a little while to come!

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 24

Date: 23 May 2009 1800 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 25 hours: 207 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 1161 nm
Latitude: 15 54.214 N
Longitude: 137 03.897 W
COG: 276M
SOG: 8.7 kts under sail
Wind: 10 kts NE
Seas: 3 ft wind waves
Weather: 0% Cloud Cover (with occasional puffy trade wind clouds)
Barometric Pressure: 1013.4, rising
Sea Temperature: 76 F

Yesterday was another fine, sunny day aboard Samadhi. The ocean has such an amazing personality. On days like this, we could spend hours watching it undulate and foam. On overcast, gloomy days like the two before, its raw malevolence makes us want to look away and think of more pleasant things. No matter what, when above decks, the antics of ubiquitous flying fish of all sizes catch our attention. The other day, we were sure we saw one with the name tag "Jonathan Livingston".

Yesterday morning after breakfast, Phillip and Kelly attached the wayward soft vang to the mast, this time with the help of a spliced spectra strop. Spectra is a high tech fiber that is stronger than steel, truly magical stuff. It seems to be holding up well under the not insignificant load. We're optimistic that it'll hang on until journey's end.

Just as we were finishing up lunch in the cockpit, we spotted a barely-loaded container ship on the horizon off our starboard forequarter. Phillip went down below to find its information from the AIS stream that should have been displayed on the chartplotter--only it wasn't. Eventually, it did come through, and we resolved to check into the issue once they were gone. We called them up to say hello and watched as they passed about a mile in front of us on their way to Papeete in the South Pacific. Later, we went around testing each connection and found the culprit, a faulty connector at the cable to the antenna. He cut it off and replaced it. The meter says that everything is well now. We'll just have to wait for another ship to come by to be able to test it in action!

We had a more significant problem yesterday, the failure of our autopilot! Kelly was on deck attempting to adjust course while the autopilot wasn't responding. The boat continued to turn more and more upwind as Phillip had terrifying visions of hand steering for the next 160 hours. Luckily, it turns out Phillip had accidentally knocked the breaker for the hydraulic pump to "off" while working in the engine room. This left the autopilot computer on without any ability to control the boat! Phillip apologized for the misadventure and vowed to install a guard on the hydraulic pump breaker to prevent this from happening again. We were all happy that there wasn't a real issue. In these quartering seas, it's a fair bit of work to steer Samadhi!

In the mid-afternoon, we took advantage of the outstanding weather to all go up on deck and set off the remaining giant firecrackers from El Salvador. They're about as plain as they come, but they do make a very satisfying *boom* when they go off. If you'd like to get an idea, you can see us blow up last year's Jack-o-lanterns with them on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/floatything. Crossing oceans amongst the sound and smell of explosives caused Phillip to suddenly desire to paint Samadhi 'haze gray'.

When checking our email, we received confirmation from Honokohau that there is currently space available for us. We'll make a last check as we get close enough to call on our US cell phone, but for now the plan is to clear in at Honokohau. Assuming we can keep these speeds up, our anticipated arrival is May 29th. Of course, if the weather changes, your guess is as good as ours.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 23

Date: 22 May 2009 1700 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 214 nm
Distance to Honokohau, Hawaii: 1367 nm
Latitude: 14 44.087 N
Longitude: 133 43.468 W
COG: 284M
SOG: 8.5 kts under sail
Wind: 14 kts N
Seas: 3 ft E swell, 3 ft wind waves
Weather: 30% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1012.6, rising
Sea Temperature: 78 F

First, we'd like to point out that sometime today, we expect to cross latitude 135 W. This will mark yet another time zone change for us, from -0800 to -0900 or just one hour ahead of Hawaii. Please expect tomorrow's update to be an hour or so later. Now, back to your regularly scheduled passage update.

The aquatic invaders launched a full scale attack yesterday morning. In our rounds on deck, we found two squid and seven flying fish. One of the squid tried to make a beachhead on the seat inside cockpit before lack of water got the better of him. After marveling at their tenacious spirit, we helped them all back into the ocean. The decks are becoming littered with the blue-grey scales of the fallen.

After breakfast, the wind shifted aft again, and Phillip started to say the "s" word. Kelly convinced him that we should come up and sail a more direct course for the big island rather than take a chance with the chute. Overall, conditions remain pleasant with Samadhi continuing to make fast time across the sea. The wind started to slack around 1200Z (4 a.m. Samadhi Time), and until almost 1500Z (7 a.m. ST) we were showing an average speed of 9.0 kts for the day, our best yet. (It dropped down to 8.9 kts by 9 a.m. ST.)

In the afternoon, we realized that we've got way too many eggs on board, not to mention too much food in general. Given that we're now looking at stable conditions and are relatively close to our destination, we decided we didn't need to ration what amounts to a two-week, 15 egg/day reserve. For afternoon snack, Kelly made a "puffy pancake" with five of the little beauties. It tasted especially good with Renate's recipe for preserved passionfruit (maracuyá). Of course, the boys preferred their traditional pure maple syrup. Chacun à son goût!

Phil apparently drew the short straw and got the "thrilling" watch last night. Around 1100Z (3 a.m. ST), there was an amazing "BANG" on deck that sounded like a rifle shot. After recovering from having a few years of his life rudely ripped away from him, he went to investigate. On deck, he found the remains of the fatigued aluminum bracket that was holding the soft vang in place on the mast. Phillip had reused the remaining half of the rigid vang bracket as an attachment point for the soft vang. Yes, that means we're once again sailing without a boom vang. Today, we'll work on making a new attachment point for it, Phillip plans to attack the problem with Spectra this time. Hopefully, this puts an end to the excitement the vang can dish out for this trip.

Pat and Stan have been helping us to do research on where exactly to make landfall in the islands. After talking to the port at Hilo, it seems like they wouldn't know what to do with a small vessel like us. Instead of running the risk, we decided to look at other options for a port of entry. Right now, our first choice is Honokohau Smal Boat Harbor on the Kona sida of big island of Hawaii. We have been in touch with the harbor agent and started arrangements for our arrival. Once we confirm that they'll have a mooring for us, we'll be able to say for sure that's where we're headed. Thanks to Pat and Stan for all your help! (And, don't worry Stan. We won't be able to stay away from your stanwiches for long!)

The sea surface temperature continues to plunge. It's amazing how much the temperature affects us. Suddenly, the tap water is several degrees cooler than before and the refrigeration systems consuming considerably less electricity. The past couple of days, we've been seeing temperatures averaging about 78 or 79ºF (or "freezing" according to the boys). Last night on watch, we even saw a reading of 75ºF. That's a far cry from the 93ºF we were sitting becalmed in a few weeks ago! We no longer need to run fans at night to be able to get to sleep. In fact, we've gotten out light fleece blankets to keep us warm at night. Nicholas even wrapped himself in a light blanket while studying yesterday!

Thanks to the waning moon, our night watches are getting darker all the time. This means much of what the ocean is doing around us is a mystery except as interpreted through the motion of Samadhi. It's really tricky to adjust the autopilot without visual feedback. On the other hand, the darkness gives us a better view of the Southern Cross (Crux) and the phosphorescence around us. It's amazing to think that we'll have watched the entire cycle of this moon from sea.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 22

Date: 21 May 2009 1700 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 206 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 1697 nm
Latitude: 13 59.690 N
Longitude: 130 10.599 W
COG: 258M
SOG: 8.9 kts under sail
Wind: 16 kts NE
Seas: 3 ft swell, 4 ft NE wind waves
Weather: 90% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1012.1, rising
Sea Temperature: 80 F

Yesterday saw another very pleasant day of excellent progress across the sea. It was warm and sunny with a good breeze, the perfect temperature to lounge about in the cockpit without feeling too hot. Samadhi continued to surge across the Pacific at a very good clip, without requiring much attention from her crew.

Feeling brave, and disappointed by our speed of "only 8 to 9 knots" after breakfast, we decided to fly the spinnaker. The wind was blowing around 15 knots, which is right near the limit for the spinnaker we brought along. Also, we are sailing on a reach (The wind is hitting us on the side.) instead of a broad reach (wind at our rear quarter), or a run (wind behind Samadhi). The day was sunny and beautiful, and the seas were fairly smooth so we rigged the sail and launched it. As the spinnaker started to fill, we trimmed the sheet to configure the sail for reaching. Our speed immediately started going up, 9, 10, 11, 12 knots... Samadhi was straining, the sail wasn't very stable, and we were heeling quite a bit more than we like. The autopilot had its maximum of 10 degrees of rudder applied, and Samadhi was still having difficulty sailing in a straight line!

The chute was essentially dragging the boat through the water in a most inefficient manner and making a massive, turbulent wake behind us. Yelling over the wind, we decided to put away the spinnaker, and thus ended our morning's excitement. Unfurling the genoa and staysail netted us the same 8 to 9 knots we had before and much less stress on all of us! We concluded that we really need a different spinnaker if we want to use it for reaching in the winds we were experiencing. The one we have is simply too big and not cut for reaching. Maybe someone visiting Hawaii from the Bay Area wants to lug one with them from our storage locker? When the sails we trimmed, we sat down and drank some cold Lio Té iced tea and decided that our speed was just dandy.

A little while later, Calvert, the boy's school, asked (through the lesson manual) what we would take with us if we had to leave precipitously and could only bring what we could carry. This is something that's never too far from our mind when out at sea. There's always the possibility of needing to leave most of our belongings to the deep as we move into the newer, more cramped quarters of the life raft. It's another one of those things that we plan for but hope never to do. The philosophical exercise was particularly interesting for Kelly and Phillip because of the boys' answers. Alexander stressed that he would bring along some magazines about video games "so [he]'d have something to read" while Nicholas wanted to make sure to have his wallet and a flashlight.

The past few days, Nicholas has been working on a children's story he's writing with the working title of "Mr. Beetle Blasts Off." Yesterday, he almost completed the rough draft. Soon it'll be time for him to get started on the illustrations. Abuela Linda, we wish you could be here to help guide our budding artist!

While making the rounds on deck, Phillip found three flying fish, side by side. There was a large one, a medium one, and a truly tiny one! The kids compared them to some sort of aquatic Goldilocks story. Regardless, they were no longer flying anywhere without assistance. Phillip helped them into the sky for their final flight back into the sea.

We have been receiving e-mails from a surprising number of people who are following our trip. It's great to hear from friends and acquaintances and nice to know people are taking an interest in our passage to Hawaii! One of the highlights of our day is downloading our email and reading it. (It usually only happens twice--once in the morning, and once at night. This means that it could easily be 24 hours or more before you receive a response to something you've sent us.) Somehow email isn't nearly so special on land.

Just after dinner, as they were about to dig into their Kinder "sorpresas" and unveil the toy inside, the boys had a call from their mother. Afterwards, we had an interesting conversation about satellite phones, and long distance communication in general. It was very difficult for the boys to believe that ships on the open sea did not have telephones until recently. We are still not sure that they truly believed that ships went all over the world with no communication whatsoever... it just doesn't seem possible to them! The Iridium satellite phone may be expensive, and it isn't going to win any contests for being sexy or cool, but there isn't any other way that you could telephone us out here.

We barbecued hamburgers for dinner. The flying fish told us that they thought they smelled delicious, much better than flying fish sandwiches anyhow. We tried to explain to the flying fish about what a cow was, but they didn't seem to believe us either. We tried to talk with the squid but they only stared back at us. Everyone knows squid can't talk!

We spent a fair bit of time in the cockpit simply watching the waves and the endless shapes they make. Sometimes, as two waves meet, a shimmering translucent tower of blue appears. As the sunlight shines through the waves, the resulting color is like the finest gemstones. It certainly helps that the ocean water here is unbelievably clean and transparent. It probably sounds strange to be watching waves as opposed to watching a sitcom or some televised sporting event. We found it to be the equal of anything the entertainment industry has to offer. It's also possible that we are starting to go crazy...

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 21

Date: 20 May 2009 1700 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 205 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 1697 nm
Latitude: 13 59.808 N
Longitude: 126 40.264 W
COG: 258M
SOG: 9.1 kts under sail
Wind: 15 kts NNE
Seas: 3 ft swell, 2 ft wind waves
Weather: 40% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1011.0, rising
Sea Temperature: 79 F

We sailed over 200 miles in 24 hours! We have broken the magical "200 mile per day" barrier for the first time aboard Samadhi!

The seas have been quieting and moving towards smoother, long period swells. Since we aren't being tossed on our side when we are hit by seas, we are able to carry more sail. Not only is Samadhi sailing faster, but we are much more comfortable. We still don't have good surfing conditions for Samadhi, so if the waves move a bit further aft, we could go quite a bit faster.

The weather is becoming more pleasant, with the sun being visible at least most of the time. The sea water temperature and air temperature continue to drop. We aren't cold yet, but a light blanket magically appeared on the night watch. Having the sun out makes everything look a lot more cheerful. We had a few small rain squalls last night, but nothing like what we have seen earlier in the trip.

We're all settling well into the new steady pace. Nicholas hasn't even felt queasy the past two days, and both the boys are finishing their studies in record times. They're enjoying all the extra free time playing together and exercising their creativity. Alexander continues to write in his journal. With his permission, we'll have to post an excerpt when this is done, complete with illustrations. It really is a marvelous documentation of our voyage.

Phillip prepared and installed a new "soft" vang early yesterday morning from spare hardware we had aboard. The new vang works flawlessly but is only a 6 to 1 purchase instead of our previous 12 to 1. The lack of purchase means that we have to slacken the halyard a bit to tighten the vang, then winch the sail back up. This isn't an issue as we have only needed to adjust it once in the past 24 hours. We picked up over 1/2 a knot with the vang in place, and it helps to stabilize the boat as the main cannot twist off as we roll. Unfortunately, this temporary setup doesn't support the boom like the rigid vang did. We need to use a new procedure for reefing now, to prevent the boom from dropping dangerously onto whatever is below it, the deck or worse.

Phillip also climbed into the lazarette and soldered the final connector for the AIS receiver (a testament to the smoother seas!). Now we should be able to receive AIS signals out to 20 miles or so. Our AIS receiver is configured with a separate antenna on the radar pole located at Samadhi's stern. The AIS antenna is also our backup VHF antenna in case we lose the mast (not something we like to think about). We try to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

In short, the wind and seas are kindly, and spirits are high aboard Samadhi V!

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 20

Date: 19 May 2009 1700 UTC (0900 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24.75 hours: 190 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 1900 nm
Latitude: 13 59.941 N
Longitude: 123 11.204 W
COG: 258M
SOG: 8.5 kts under sail
Wind: 15 kts NNE
Seas: 4 ft wind waves
Weather: 80% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1009.2, rising
Sea Temperature: 82 F

Today dawned with a large swath of blue sky overhead. It's a pleasure to see the morning sun again. The sea surface temperature dipped below 80 F for the first time last night. The boat has been much more comfortable with the cooler ocean beneath us and overcast skies above. Still, we're looking forward to seeing the sun for more than just a couple of hours in the afternoon.

Conditions for yesterday, our nineteenth day at sea, started out mild. The morning saw all of our working sails set, and we made good progress over a fairly settled sea. (With the higher winds in addition to localized squalls, it's been some time now since we last hoisted the chute.) As the day progressed the wind increased, and the seas steepened. By mid day, we were sailing with a single reef in the main, and the genoa reefed. By late afternoon we got down to a double reefed main and staysail. As we moved into evening, the wind trend reversed itself ,and we started adding sail back on... Although we are still making sail adjustments to keep the boat sailing efficiently, we aren't doing it nearly as much as we were at the beginning of the passage. If we were willing to give up a few miles we could go 24 hours without touching sails and still make reasonable progress.

We found 5 flying fish aboard Samadhi yesterday--a new record! One of them even came into the companionway to give us the weather report before returning to the sea. Don't worry; we've got it on video so you don't miss such a rare event. This morning, we found two flying fish and three squid on deck. They were our first squid on deck since our trip down the coast of Mexico. Nicholas was disappointed we hadn't found them in time to turn them into bait.

Our speeds have not been as high as we would like due to the steep beam seas. So, as much as we prefer to sail at a quick pace (quick being relative--we are talking about 9-11 knots instead of 7-8.), we have been trying to keep Samadhi sailing with peak heel of less than 35 degrees when hit by seas, and probably about 20 degrees averaged. This is strictly a comfort issue. We have to live here and cook here, and the boys are trying to do their schoolwork so keeping the boat livable is important. We are all hopeful that the waves will move slightly off our stern so that we can push the boat harder without a comfort penalty. If we were racing... comfort be damned!

In the afternoon, we received a new update from our incomparable weather router. Though his pre-departure predictions didn't pan out for us, his underway updates have been right on the money. In the email, he adjusted our course to have us continue on a more westerly track until we're closer to the ENEerly winds. With the new APs having us continue south of the GC route, our sailing distance is increased slightly. We passed the "2000 nm to go" mark twice yesterday!

We had some excitement just as we were serving dinner when we heard a very loud "BANG!" from up on deck. Phillip ran up to investigate. In the falling twilight, he could see the mast was still standing, all of the shrouds were still attached, we were still sailing... Finally he spotted the problem--the attachment bracket for the rigid vang had broken. The casting that held it to the mast had simply snapped under the shock-loading as we came off of a wave.

In the fading light, Phillip removed the vang from the boom--it had already taken itself off of the mast. Samadhi's rigid vang is quite large and very unwieldy for one person on a rolling, slippery deck. Kelly helped get it first into the cockpit and then strapped down aft on the "sun deck". The culprit looks like metal fatigue in the cast aluminum bracket which held the lower point of the vang to the mast. This is a highly loaded piece that sees load reversals every time we crest a swell. Today, Phillip will make up a soft vang to replace the rigid one for the rest of our passage. The ocean very conveniently sorts out what gear is up to the task and what isn't in short order. Hopefully, we can order a new mounting bracket from Selden after our arrival in the islands.

Disneyland made a mistake when they got rid of Space Mountain. For those who may not know, Space Mountain was a roller coaster in a blacked out building. The simple change of removing the visual cues transformed the fairly mild roller coaster into something extraordinary. Well, last night aboard Samadhi, we had our own version of Space Mountain. The waning moon is rising quite late right now, and as the sunset faded in darkness, we were sailing under an inky black sky. No lights from anything were apparent, not from the stars due to the overcast, not even phosphorescence from the wave crests. After dousing the lights in the salon while on watch, we each took turns sitting in the cockpit and enjoying the ride while everyone else slept. It was great fun to try and track the movements of the boat in pitch black! You hear the waves approaching before they hit the boat. This adds another dimension to the experience. Magical!

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 19

Date: 18 May 2009 1715 UTC (0815 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 189 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 2055 nm
Latitude: 13 55.386 N
Longitude: 119 57.418 W
COG: 268M
SOG: 9 kts under sail
Wind: 12 kts NNE
Seas: 3 ft N swell, 3 ft wind waves
Weather: 100% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1008.5, steady
Sea Temperature: 82F

First, please note that in anticipation of crossing longitude 120 W this morning, Samadhi Time is now -0800. This is the same as Pacific Standard Time or one hour earlier than Pacific Daylight Time.

Yesterday, the day dawned gray once more. The ocean which looks so charmingly blue when it's sunny, appears malevolent and uninviting when the skies are gray. It's surprisingly cool now, with temperatures in the high 70s at night. The overcast cleared up in the afternoon, and for the first part of the evening we had clear skies to watch the stars.

Steady winds continue, and the seas have been building on our beam. We continue to sail on a beam reach in 15 to 20 knots of wind. Most of the day was spent under a single reefed main, reefed genoa, and full staysail. We have found that it pays to use our high cut genoa along with the staysail in beam reaching conditions, even if we have to reef it. Our speeds have been consistently fast, with our W-H autopilot earning its keep in the close-spaced seas. As the day progressed, the seas grew larger and farther apart. We prefer the larger, farther apart waves over the short and steep, close-spaced variety. We wouldn't mind if the seas moved around behind Samadhi, instead of hitting her sideways. Waves from behind mean surfing for Samadhi, and faster speeds with less effort!

As Phillip's meatloaf was roasting in the oven for dinner, a large tanker appeared directly astern of Samadhi. We were surprised to see a ship out here, and it appeared almost as a hallucination at first. (The horizon was a bit hazy.) This was the perfect opportunity to test our AIS receiver! Since we still need to solder one more connector (in the lazarette no less), Phillip made a temporary antenna out of wire. The AIS receiver worked flawlessly, integrating with our Garmin chartplotter/radar and displaying the ship's information and location. We have access to all sorts of information via AIS, the name of the ship (very useful for calling them on the radio!), their course, speed, position, closest point of approach (CPA), destination, cargo. It goes on and on. This is one more safety tool for us to use.

Even better, the officer on watch was a native of Queens, New York, and we all got to chat with him on the radio. He confirmed for us that Samadhi gives a very clear radar return at over 12 miles, a very good thing to know. They are on the same email schedule that we are, checking over satellite connection about twice a day. It's funny to think that we have some of the same facilities as a huge tanker like the Stolt Effort!

In the later evening we reached a milestone for Samadhi: 100 miles in less than 12 hours (meaning an average speed of more than 8.4 kts). The wind eased quite a bit during the night, but it didn't dampen our enthusiasm. We are ecstatic that even in these square seas, we're able to keep such a pace. Here's hoping that we can continue at a good clip for the remainder of our passage.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 18

Date: 17 May 2009 1615 UTC (0915 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 168 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 2240 nm
Latitude: 13 52.473 N
Longitude: 116 44.770 W
COG: 253 M
SOG: 8.0 kts under sail
Wind: 17 to 20 kts N
Seas: 3 ft swell, 3 ft wind waves
Weather: 100% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1008.5, rising
Sea Temperature: 81 F

We've had over 48 hours now with continuous wind. It's difficult to articulate just how happy this makes us. Perhaps the easiest way is to say that, if we can maintain an average of 150 nm/day (6.25 kts) for the remainder of the voyage, we're more than halfway done with our journey. Much as we're enjoying the passage (and we are! The boys were just saying how it only feels like four or five days since we left.), we are all looking forward to our arrival in the islands.

Yesterday was another quiet, dreary day aboard Samadhi. I'm not sure any of us saw the sun. It started to clear in the evening in time for us to see the pink of the sunset reflect off of the higher clouds, but the sun was already below the level of the solid band of cumulus on the horizon. Thankfully, there was very little rain. On the other hand, the low sea surface temperature combined with the wind and the overcast made for a day that was decidedly cool! We haven't had temperatures like this since we were in Panama (and that was only at night)!

The recent advent of the winds has taken the seas quite by surprise. Yesterday, Samadhi was at the brunt of all their confusion, right on the beam. The crew fared quite well in spite of being unaccustomed to the motion, and no one took ill, not even Nicholas! The boys were able to complete their studies as usual, and Kelly and Phillip were able to do more boat maintenance in between alternately shortening sails and shaking out the reefs. Even though no one was sick, the added motion left all of us feeling especially tired. We're hoping that with more consistent wind the seas will even out and become less confused.

We have been able to sail as fast as we care to in these conditions. We can dial up 10 knots easily, but the beam seas tend to push us way over every few waves with much water on the decks (very dramatic!). Phillip is conflicted, as he wants to go as fast as possible, but he doesn't like to eat and sleep on the bulkhead either. Shortening sail a bit leaves us with a good turn of speed, while keeping Samadhi on her feet and with a much softer motion. Regardless of how we sail her, Samadhi never feels strained or pressed.

One of the last things that confused seas leave you eager to do is cook. Cooking in the short, square seas is a form of gymnastics that (we believe) is worthy of Olympic consideration.

Olympic commenter #1: "Will you look at that! Three boiling pots and she is still managing to serve the food while the boat falls off a wave!"
Olympic commenter #2: "I don't know Ed. The judges aren't going to like the fork that just slid onto the deck. She is going get some points off there..."

In spite of the danger of having the Kitchen Aid mixer thrown from the counter top, Phillip made more delicious, home-baked bread. Somehow, he even got it to rise evenly in the loaf pans while the boat was heeling. We were recently aboard another cruising sailboat with an ungimbaled stove. Getting bread to rise is one thing, but even doing something as simple as heating water would be a highly dangerous proposition in seas like this if it weren't for our gimbaled stoved keeping itself level.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 17

Date: 16 May 2009 1615 UTC (0915 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 143 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 2407 nm
Latitude: 13 34.990 N
Longitude: 113 53.034 W
COG: 255 M
SOG: 7.5 kts under sail
Wind: 12 kts gusting to 15 kts
Seas: 3 ft N swell, 2 ft wind waves
Weather: 100% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1008.1, rising
Sea Temperature: 83 F

The first half of of our day was defined by rain. Rain, rain and more rain fell from the sky in true tropical downpour fashion. The rain fell from closely spaced groups of squalls that brought lighter winds with them, so we would sometimes see the sun, if only for 10 minutes. By mid afternoon, the rain had mostly abated and the wind returned. We were happy to be sailing once more at higher, i.e. normal, speeds. As a bonus, all of the freshwater from the sky has left Samadhi squeaky clean on the outside.

Aside from the rain, it was an uneventful day. In the dreary, early part of the day, we took the opportunity to get some extra sleep. Sleep is a wonderful, delightful thing that you can truly appreciate when you haven't had enough! The boys took watch duty while we slept. Phillip is somewhat less worried about collisions at sea right now as we haven't seen another vessel in over 5 days. This doesn't mean that we stop maintaining a 24 hour watch; it just allows Phillip to be less paranoid.

Kelly cooked two fantastic meals, Thai green curry eggplant for lunch and pasta in fresh tomato vodka sauce for dinner (with Phillip's famous garlic bread). Kelly is a master at putting together disparate ingredients we have on hand into something remarkable.

Communication technology continues to astound us. The boys called their mother in Florida on the satellite phone an the call was seamlessly transferred to a cell phone to reach her while she was traveling. We exchanged emails with our friend Steve Dashew who offered some tips on maintaining our sanity in the windless periods. Steve and his wife Linda are aboard their yacht "Wind Horse" in Norway, headed to the Arctic Circle. It is truly amazing that we can exchange emails and telephone calls with people all over the world basically as if we were all in the same town ashore.

We sailed along around 5 kts most of the day and night. Our weather router has advised us that we are approaching stronger and very consistent winds in the next day or so. We are anxious to get away from the evening calms, as they do great harm to our progress. There have been several days where we sailed consistently fast, only to find the wind vanishing at night. If we can sail quickly during the day AND the night we will dramatically increase the number of miles covered each day, probably by well over a third. Now we just need to hope for an end to our 1+ kt adverse current.

Thankfully, last night helped us along with a fair breeze, and we're continuing well this morning as the breeze freshens. We'll keep our fingers crossed that we're finally out of the woods.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 16

Date: 15 May 2009 1615 UTC (0915 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 100 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 2540 nm
Latitude: 13 23.31 N
Longitude: 111 28.50 W
COG: 260 M
SOG: 3.6 kts under sail
Wind: 5 kts N (unreliable because of nearby squalls)
Seas: 1 ft swell, 1 ft wind waves
Weather: 95% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1009.3, steady
Sea Temperature: 84 F

Yesterday was a quieter day aboard Samadhi. The seas were placid, gently rocking us as they helped push us towards Hawaii. The winds were on the light side, but we kept moving all day long. We were under fairly clear skies, with scattered, high altitude, cirrus clouds. There are the usual puffy cumulus clouds floating down by the water, which occasionally turn into squalls. The high altitude clouds were showing evidence of some serious wind up high!

Since conditions were so quiet, we decided to catch up on laundry. We managed to process three loads through the machine by mid-afternoon. We do our laundry aboard in a small, front-loading washer/dryer, much like one you would use at home. When we were preparing to go cruising, lots of people said that taking a washing machine along was a silly idea. Most cruising sailboats don't have washing machines, so laundry is done by hand or ashore when the boat reaches port. For us, we simply put the clothing into the machine, add detergent and fabric softener, and let it run! We don't typically use the dryer function unless it's raining continuously as it uses a fair bit of power. In any case, clothing hung outside dries faster here in tropical conditions than the dryer can dry it. Our washing machine is one of the better choices we made when we were setting up Samadhi to leave. It has made our lives much easier as we cruise!

We sailed through the day with the genoa and main, then added the staysail in the afternoon. Finally, we set the spinnaker and sailed with the chute up until evening squalls appeared. Once we were within a few miles of the squalls, we doused the spinnaker and stowed it below decks. With only one of us on watch, we don't generally sail with the spinnaker through the night.

Once again the wind calmed in the night, with the exception of the squalls going by overhead. The adverse current meant that at times we were completely stopped even though we were still moving through the water. The slatting, as previously described, is a big problem for the whole rig. This time the lowest batten managed to escape entirely.* Everything else seems to have survived until the wind came back about 1200Z (5 a.m. Samadhi Time).

We still aren't catching fish. We don't have a shortage of food, but fresh caught fish is always a welcome bonus in our diet. We see lots of flying fish, and certainly something is down there that chases and eats them!

* Losing our lowest batten has the least effect on sail shape, so this won't impact our performance noticeably. The reason that we are having issues with the battens is the horrible batten tensioning system on our main. Our main is made by UK Sails, and is a good quality sail with the notable exception of the batten ends. The system that UK chose for the batten tension is based on a velcro strip that is impossible to tension effectively and won't hold whatever small amount of tension you manage to apply! We were already planning on retrofitting it with a more effective batten tensioning system once we reached Hawaii, even before we started having issues with the lowest batten loosening. We attempted to have it looked at in Latin America, but south of Mexico, competent sail lofts are hard to come by.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 15

Date: 14 May 2009 1615 UTC (0915 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 25 hours: 138 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 2653 nm
Latitude: 13 09.630 N
Longitude: 109 47.432 W
COG: 265 M
SOG: 5.0 kts under sail
Wind: 6 kts NNW
Seas: 2 ft swell, 1 ft wind waves
Weather: 70% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1010.0, rising
Sea Temperature: 84 F

You probably don't pay much attention to the last line item above, but we do. First, it speaks of the possibility of (and energy available to) a tropical storm. Though highly unlikely at this time of year, it is something we (and our weather router) keep an eye on. Second, it affects our energy usage, both for refrigeration and ventilation fans. Third and perhaps nearest to our hearts, it dramatically changes the ambient air temperature aboard, inside and out.

When we left Costa Rica, the sea temperature was about 90 F. Shortly thereafter we would see daily fluctuations up to 93 F. While this was lovely for swimming, it really turned up the heat below decks. For the past couple of days, the temp has been steady at 85 F dipping last night below 83 F. Though this may be a symptom of the 1+ kt current affecting us at the moment, we're very happy for the cooler temps.

Lots of maintenance items got done yesterday. Our maintenance workload has increased tremendously now that we are sailing 24/7 for weeks at a time. However, the extra maintenance required comes with lots and lots of time to get it done in.

We disassembled the port primary winch (a Lewmar 65) to treat a sticky pawl. Turns out that a glob of a gluey substance formerly known as grease had migrated onto the pawl and was preventing it from moving freely. These pawls are very important as they prevent the winch from rotating backward under load! We were able to get it unstuck without dismantling the transmission, something we were dreading given that some of the parts have a penchant for swimming. We'll wait to give it a complete service until we reach port.

We repaired a loose batten car on the mainsail. The batten had worked its way out of the car (probably when the sail was slatting), so we dropped the mainsail to the second reef and loosened the batten tension then reinserted it into the car. 20 minutes later the sail was back at full hoist and everything was set right. This task would have taken less than 5 minutes if we were tied up in a marina, but working on a moving deck at sea tends to slow things down a bit!

Yesterday when we were replacing the foresail, we attempted to motor downwind to further reduce our apparent wind. Unfortunately, a few minutes after we started the main engine, it cut out and would not start up again, so our next task was to troubleshoot that. We checked and bled the fuel system, and removed some air from the fuel system. Then, we ran the main engine for 30 minutes to make sure everything was working correctly. We have an external electric pump that is used for bleeding the fuel system or in case of failure of the engine lift pump. This external pump is a fantastic piece of equipment! Every marine diesel engine should have a system like this.

We have been testing different methods of attaching the spinnaker tack. So far, we have tried using an adjustable pennant attached to our stem fitting, an ATN Tacker on an adjustable pennant and attaching the sail directly to the stem fitting. Our latest solution is to attach the spinnaker tack to the tack fitting on the genoa furler, this seems promising based on initial results of yesterday's sailing.

Speaking of spinnakers, ours was up and down constantly yesterday. As a plus, we are getting well practiced at hoisting and dousing the sail. As a negative, it is tiring work getting the sail up and down so many times. Tired sailors = bad!

Earlier yesterday Kelly was chatting with her mom on the sat phone when a squall passed by, and the wind suddenly veered and doubled in strength. Quick action with the autopilot remote brought the sail into the lee of the main and we were able to get the sock over the spinnaker without major issue. 20 minutes later, with the squall gone, the giant sail was hoisted once more to get our speed up a bit.

Everything was going great through the afternoon with lovely sailing conditions. We sat in the cockpit listening to music and chatting as Samadhi made easy progress. Suddenly we both felt the wind increase. Within literally 15 seconds it was obvious we were going to be hit with a big breeze very quickly. The time it took to get from one side of the cockpit to the other to dump the spinnaker sheet was too long. The wind hit us like a wall and Samadhi laid right over onto her side. Well, it felt like we were on our side. We probably heeled about 45 degrees which is a LOT! (Even so, we never had solid water over the rail.)

Just as the boat was trying to lay down and rest, we got the sheet free and the sail dumped the wind. Samadhi popped back upright, and both of us worked to get the spinnaker sock over the sail (not easy!). Within 4 minutes the whole episode was over, with the sail safely stowed and Samadhi happily sailing along at high speed under main alone. While all of us were shaken, no harm was done, and we continued sailing without further issue.

Yesterday was "bread baking day" again, and in the afternoon two loaves magically appeared from the oven. We are using a recipe with a combination of 2/5 whole wheat flour to 3/5 of conventional, all-purpose four. The resulting loaf is light tan in color and delicious! The only downside to using the whole wheat flour is the tendency for the dough to be quite sticky during handling. Luckily, we do almost all of our kneading with a Kitchen Aid (Thanks Kathy & Pat!) so the stickiness isn't a big problem.

We're over two weeks into our cruise now, and the unrefrigerated produce s doing well. We've certainly seen some spoilage, but all in all, we've done a fair job of using things in an appropriate order and as a last resort, finding room in the fridge as we can. Our freezer space is slowly opening up as well. We've even been able to make ice a couple of times. Such a luxury!

There were lots of squalls and overcast skies during portions of the day. Happily, the seas have quieted since the day before. Even better we had a good strong breeze through the evening, and though it quieted around 0700Z (midnight Samadhi Time), it was back like someone had flipped a switch at 0830Z (1:30 a.m. ST). Since then, it's continued to be enough to sail comfortably by.

We didn't find any flying fish on deck yesterday, but we saw lots and lots in ocean and air around Samadhi! Phillip saw one almost clear the freeboard!

We haven't had any more of the swallows visit us onboard, but we continue to see them flying past. We are now more than 450 miles from land. What on earth are swallows doing out here? As far as we know, swallows cannot land in water. Do the swallows fly nonstop across the Pacific, maybe on their way from South America?

We fished yesterday, but we didn't catch. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Alex, we wish you and Miguel were here to spit on the lures for us!

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 14

Date: 13 May 2009 1615 UTC (0915 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 25 hours: 130 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 2778 nm
Latitude: 13 02.32 N
Longitude: 107 27.55 W
COG: 271 M
SOG: 7.0 kts under sail
Wind: 9 kts NNE
Seas: 3 ft swell, 3 ft wind waves
Weather: 60% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1009.9, rising
Sea Temperature: 85 F

We are trying to catch up on our sleep in the morning, so our updates may come out later than they used to. Please bear with us while we tweak our schedules.

Yesterday morning while making our rounds, Phillip found three flying fish on the deck. These are the first who've ever made the jump successfully. Sadly, they did not survive the trip, and Phillip committed their bodies to the deep.

While we were eating breakfast we heard a loud *pop*! The tack attachment point webbing on 155% Tape Drive genoa had failed due to chafe and UV damage. We rolled it up on the furler to the reef point to keep the tack from flogging and resolved to look out for a lull to swap the sail out for our high-cut 135% genoa.

The mast and boom fittings are having a hard time with the motion from the slatting at night. The vang and the gooseneck are bearing the brunt of the forces and their bushings are basically shot at this point. On the morning rounds we found laying on the deck two of the eight screws that secure the vang to the mast. The remainder were quite loose. We've got them all in and tight again, but they will bear constant watching.

Just as we were about to serve Krabby patties for lunch, the latch on the fridge door decided to come apart. The screw that holds the latch together was stripped. We held it shut with our favorite weapon, the bungee cord. After lunch, Phillip made new screw from one of those in our stores in Samadhi's workshop. That should hold for at least the remainder of the voyage and then some.

We're making progress on getting our AIS receiver wired. It's now mounted and connected to power. All that remains is to put a connector on the antenna cable in the lazarette (a rather uncomfortable job because of the confined space) and then to program the Garmin GPSMap 5212 chartplotter to read its data.

We put up the spinnaker in the afternoon and sailed under it for a time. Our lull finally came just as Kelly was starting to make dinner at 0000Z (5 p.m. Samadhi Time). She set things so that they would stay put on the galley counter while she and Phillip wrestled with the big sail.

Getting 155% down and stowed was a real challenge. For those of you who've never folded a sail, I'm not sure how best to describe it. First, you probably have to have an idea of just how big the sail is. The "155%" part of the sail name describes how long the foot, or bottom edge, of the sail is relative to the distance from the base of the forestay where the tack, or bottom front corner, of the sail is attached back to the base of the mast. 155% means that it's more than half again that distance. On Samadhi, that puts it at about 34 feet. Then you have the luff, or leading edge, of the sail. Our mast is 76 feet off of the deck. The luff runs along the jib stay, the wire that is the hypotenuse of the triangle described by the vertical line of the mast and the horizontal line of deck running forward from it to the base of the stay. This makes it over 100 feet. I hope you're starting to get an idea of the magnitude involved.

Now, let's say you manage to get the sail all on deck with no problems--not a big deal, especially when there are two of you. On land, we'd just pull it off the boat, lay it out flat somewhere, flake it (fold it like an accordion), roll it up, and stuff it in a sail bag. On Samadhi, the largest clear space on the foredeck is about two feet wide and less than twenty feet long, curving along the shape of the hull. To say that we were cramped doesn't even begin to describe it.

Any sailcloth is very stiff. This particular sail is made from a proprietary kevlar-reinforced laminate called Tape Drive. Lucky for us, this means that it's not as heavy as if it were dacron, but it still tips the scales at over 100 pounds. I'm not sure I've encounted anything as thick and heavy as sailcloth elsewhere, but suffice to say, it would rather not be folded.

Now imagine two sailors trying to manipulate such a sail in the last hour of sunlight on a boat describing every variant of yaw, pitch, and roll available to it. Yeah, it was a bit of a mess. (As sailors, we have a different word for it, but this is a family show.) It took a long time, and it's not anywhere near the crisp neat burrito of sail that fits in its sail bag. That left us with figuring out where to store the thing.

Like many cruising boats, we carry a dinghy on our foredeck. Ours is a rigid Fatty Knees sailing dinghy. (The big RIB we keep secured to davits on Samadhi's transom.) Given that we'd been tripping over the dink and its tie-down strap during the adventure of flaking the genoa, it was the obvious choice for where to stow the thing. With some sail ties and a bit of brute force, we were able to make the sail fast under the dinghy and still have access to the all-important ventilation hatches in the forward cabins.

Then, all we had to do was rig and hoist our heavier, reaching genoa. As is occasionally the case, our initial attempt at reeving the lines wasn't exactly successful, but soon we were sailing with the new headsail, and dinner was on the table.

Just after we sat down to dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread, the satellite phone rang. Veronique and Chip were calling to chat with the boys. It had been a few days since they'd spoken, and the boys were very excited both to talk and that the mystery of being unable to call us was solved.

While we were happy that the wind had calmed long enough for us to swap headsails, we were less thrilled about the continued lull. Sails slatted through most of night. The noise of the rig destroying itself and our exhaustion from the work of the day and two weeks without an uninterrupted night's sleep combined to make what may have been the worst night underway ever. It's incredibly disturbing to sit helplessly while the sails slat above you. We leave them up because if we were to douse them, the boat would be completely at the mercy of the seas and without the stability gained from the sails.

The wind came up after one last squall passed in the morning. It's been blowing at 6 - 10 kts since and we're managing to sail comfortably. We're hoping that we'll have more consistent wind today.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 13

Date: 12 May 2009 1515 UTC (0815 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 170 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 2893 nm
Latitude: 13 15.66 N
Longitude: 105 27.26 W
COG: 272 M
SOG: 8.3 kts under sail
Wind: 12 kts NNE
Seas: 2 - 3 ft swell, 2 ft wind waves
Weather: 60% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1008.6 falling
Sea Temperature: 85 F

First, sorry about the incorrect "Day #" at the top of yesterday's email. It should have read Day 12.

We're very excited to report our first day without a long period of calm winds in the evening. The slatting sails are Phillip's version of Chinese water torture, so he was especially pleased to stand watch with the sails full. There were still times where our speed dropped to something around 4 kts, but for the majority of the day we were up in the sixes and sevens.

After last night's squall, it was a bit of a bumpy ride this morning. The boys took it in stride, and Nicholas only had the slightest hint of mal de mer. He was more uncomfortable on our last afternoon driving through the metropolis of San Jose!

The boys are doing great on the studies, despite the movement of the boat in the choppy seas. Alexander has been reading The Diary of Anne Frank for his Calvert lessons, and as part of his studies, he's been assigned the task of keeping a journal. It couldn't come at a more auspicious time. Each day he writes a little something and then draws a picture on the facing page. We're sure that this will be something he'll treasure down the years.

After a late lunch, we all enjoyed a quiet afternoon. The boys are finding more time to respond to emails and have been reading voraciously. Our friends Megan and Brian from S/V Nomad (last known to be heading for the Galapogos, but that was back in March) gave us a book that Alexander is especially enjoying, and Nicholas has been reading some of the ones we traded for from the library at Land Sea in Golfito, Costa Rica. It's wonderful to see them lose themselves in a novel.

The evening saw a slight decrease in wind, and Phil rolled up the staysail on his watch as it was no longer flying. By 0700Z (1 a.m. Samadhi Time), the breeze had freshened and we were moving along at a steady 8+ kts. By 0815Z (2:15 a.m. ST), Kelly needed to take a reef in the genoa, and the wind has been steady on our beam ever since. It's a real pleasure to be looking at 150+ nm days.

It's time to write a small "Ode to a Trash Compactor". When we bought Samadhi, there were two appliances that struck us as, well, excessive: a special marine ice maker and a trash compactor. Kelly grew up with a trash compactor in her family's kitchen, and Phillip has had them at various homes as an adult, but we've both always viewed them as not much more than a novelty item. In Kelly's household, they stopped using the compactor feature altogether after it started acting up occasionally. Phillip had issues with plastic bags that just weren't stressed for the abuse they went through and so gave up on the endeavor. Both ended up using it as a glorified trash can.

As luck would have it, the ice maker died suddenly on our first cruise to Catalina Island, but the trash compactor has never given us a lick of trouble. In fact, we've come to view it as invaluable. Sure, you could cruise without one. Plenty of people also cruise without refrigeration. Our question is: why would you want to?

The trash compactor is our only trash receptacle on the boat. After almost two weeks at sea, we still have yet to fill one bag. Naturally, we throw food scraps into the ocean, but even so there's plenty of smelly plastic that gets put in the bin. Even so, it keeps the odors sealed inside away from the crew's sensitive noses. (You'd be amazed at how much a funny smell can affect your sense of well-being when you're being tossed about on the ocean.) Not only that, but because it locks so securely, we never have to worry about it coming open when we're knocked own, no matter the tack. It was very nice not to worry about trash flying everywhere when the squall hit yesterday in the early morning hours.

We're continuing to enjoy our special Costa Rican "Cafe Rey" coffee often out of the special demitasses from Alex and Adri. One of the delightful things about cruising in Central America is the outstanding local coffee. In Costa Rica, for instance, the most expensive premium coffee sells for about $3.50 (US) a pound. We're not looking forward to going back to paying US prices!

As Pat mentioned to the Followers list, he managed to get a connection to our sat phone today, but only after three or four attempts, and even then it was still sketchy. The phone always shows full signal when we're using it, but who knows what that actually means? We'd like to encourage those that try to call not to be discouraged if you get a few funny messages or tones. You're dialing the right number. Remember, your voice has to go through outer space to get to us!

This morning we crossed over 105 degrees W longitude. We're taking this opportunity to move our clocks back an hour to -0700. For those of you in the US, this means Samadhi is now in Mountain Standard Time or Pacific Daylight Time. The boys were very excited to get an extra hour today.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 11

Date: 11 May 2009 1515 UTC (0915 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 25.25 hours: 146 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 3061 nm
Position: 12 48.01 N
Longitude: 102 37.55 W
COG: 272 M
SOG: 8 kts under sail
Wind: 16 kts NNE
Seas: 2 - 3 ft wind waves
Weather: 90% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1009.1 dropping
Sea Temperature: 88 F

It was a day of great relief as we spent the first 10 hours of it under full sails and a fresh breeze of 10 to 15 kts on our beam. Until the wind slacked around sunset, we had a average speed of better than 8 kts with bursts up to 10.9 kts. With those kinds of speeds, as Pat mentioned, we could conceivably reach Hilo before the month is out in spite of our poor start.

We hope you mothers following along with us had a lovely Mother's Day (US). We spent a fair bit of the morning drafting messages to our relations. The boys couldn't remember when they'd last written so many emails at a stretch! As a special treat, Nana the boys' great-grandmother called on the satellite phone in the afternoon. We all had a lovely chat and enjoyed the opportunity to wish her the best of Mother's Days over more than just email.

We all seem to be settling into the rhythm of the cruise. The boys both finished their lessons in record time and we had a long peaceful afternoon relaxing on a stable boat swishing her tail to the quartering seas. Phillip made "meat cake" (That's meatloaf to the uninitiated.) for dinner, and we all feasted until we couldn't manage another mouthful.

From about 0100Z until 0730Z (7 p.m. until 1:30 a.m. Samadhi Time), we had an insignificant amount of breeze and were subsequently tossed around quite a bit by the wind waves left over from the afternoon. By 0800Z (2 a.m. ST), there was enough wind (about 5 to 8 kts) to set the genoa, and it was better going since then, anywhere from 4 to 6 kts.

Then at about 1000Z (4 a.m. ST) Kelly noticed that she couldn't see any stars or moonlight behind her. There was a 10 mile wide squall fast overtaking us, and it looked ugly. With plenty of time to prepare everything, there were no real surprises. When it finally hit, Phil got up to help, and we worked together to keep Samadhi out of the worst of it. The rain came down in torrents and the wind whipped at the sails as it clocked around. Thunder and lightning became a constant accompaniment. After about an hour, things had stabilized, and Kelly went to rest. Exhausted, Phil joined her once the boys were up and able to take watch, about 1330Z (7:30 a.m. ST).

The boys did a great job on watch. By 1500Z (9 a.m. ST), the wind was gusting to 20 kts which combined with the steep wind waves on our beam to occasionally push us past 25 degrees of heel. Samadhi likes to sail upright, so this got us out of bed to investigate.

Alexander had kept things well in hand. He gave us a brief report, and said that conditions had been pretty stable. We could still hear the thunder, though it was too light out to see its counterpart. We let out the main a bit and put up the staysail for balance. We're well away from the squalls now, and the wind shows no sign of abating.

After the spate of emails yesterday, we'll keep this one short. Here's hoping for another day of steady breezes and a less squally night.

S/V Samadhi V - Passage from Costa Rica to Hawaii, Day 11

Date: 10 May 2009 1400 UTC (0800 Samadhi Time)
Distance sailed in last 24 hours: 111 nm
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 3202 nm
Position: 12 19.32 N
Longitude: 100 16.926 W
COG: 250 M
SOG: 8.4 kts under sail
Wind: 12 kts NNE
Seas: 2 ft swell, 2 ft wind waves
Weather: 35% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1009.4 steady
Sea Temperature: 88 F

The wind, although still light, was steadier yesterday. We decided to set the spinnaker to try to get our boat speed up a bit. Samadhi came with three different asymmetrical chutes in her sail locker, but because of space concerns, we only brought the largest, lightest one (a 1/2 oz. radial by UK) on our cruise. It has the sail area of our other two biggest sails, the main and the 155% genoa, combined--a truly massive quantity of wispy nylon sailcloth. This has proved to be exactly what the doctor ordered for the light winds of this passage. To ease handling by a short-handed crew of two, the a-sail is in a "sock" so that setting it can be done very methodically, attaching lines while it's still in the forepeak, hoisting it in the sock, double-checking everything, and only then opening it up to fly. The only thing better would be to have it on a continuous line furler, but that wasn't in the cards this time around.

We set the sail right after sending out the morning's update. There were no problems, and soon we nearly doubled our speed in the light wind. Unfortunately, no sooner had we started to enjoy life under spinnaker than a new batch of squalls popped up. At one point, we were surrounded by four simultaneous squalls. Oddly enough though, the rain from the squalls never came close, and we were able to leave the boat open the entire day. This was especially important because it was one of the hottest days yet.

Sailing with the spinnaker near squalls proved tiring for Phillip & Kelly. There were constant course changes and sail adjustments as the wind came from different directions. Brief bursts of higher wind pushed Samadhi over 9.5 knots which, discretion being the better part of valor, caused us to sock the chute. No sooner would we take down the sail, it seemed, than the wind would drop, and it was time to put the sail back up again.

We had the chute down at lunch, and after, we took the opportunity to repair two small tears in the fabric with tedlar patches. They're the first on the sail since we left on this cruise almost two years ago and seem to be holding up very well. There were already some from the previous owner, but we had them repaired properly by the sail loft in Point Richmond just before we left there in July of 2007.

In the late evening on Phillip's first watch, he dropped the mainsail as it was constantly slatting in the waves and light wind, and continued under spinnaker alone. We were doing pretty well averaging around 4 kts until about midway through Kelly's watch when the wind started to freshen. By 0230 we were moving along at a steady 6 or 7 kts with occasional runs up over 10 knots surfing. It's fun going faster, and we have been using every trick we know to keep the boat moving at a fair clip toward Hawaii.

There was a question to Pat this morning about two of the acronyms in the summary at the top of our updates: "SOG" and "COG". We figure that if one person is bold enough to ask, there are probably a dozen more with the same question on their lips, so please allow us to discuss them briefly. You old salts following along can skip the next two paragraphs.

"SOG" is short for "speed over ground", which is distinct from "speed through the water". SOG is the speed that we move over the surface of the earth. For us, this is computed by any of the several GPSs aboard. We measure our speed through the water with a small paddlewheel which protrudes through the hull just forward of the mast. The difference between them shows us the apparent current, or the speed of the ocean current affecting us relative to our course. At times, due to tides or current like Kathy experienced when she went around Punta Mala, Panama with us, we've had our SOG vary from our speed through the water by as much as three or four knots. We've clocked Samadhi at 17 knots (nautical miles per hour) SOG when surfing on waves approaching Barillas Marina Club in El Salvador. The closest we've ever come with speed through the water is 13.5 kts.

"COG" is our "course over ground". This is the direction of our course, again, as measured by a GPS. A magnetic compass may read something slightly different due to the effect of ocean currents, tides (when closer to land), or waves. The one we care about, of course, is our COG. We feel incredibly privileged to live in an age where the technology to have all of these figures computed for us can be fit in a tiny handheld device. Hurrah again for not living in the former "age of sail".

One side affect of sailing under the spinnaker is that we're no longer hosting our fleet of hitchhikers aboard "Motel Samadhi". The six boobies, yes that's right, six of them, who slept on the bow pulpit last night, left just as we put the tacker around the furled jib, and they haven't managed a return yet. Each time they come in on approach now, they veer suddenly when the chute wiggles a little at them. Though they always seemed fearless around us, there's something about the big sail that makes them nervous and keeps them at bay.

We had a small tragedy aboard in the early afternoon. Phillip was working on the aft deck when he came across the body of one of the small swallows that had been with us off and on for two days running. It showed no signs of trauma but had very clearly shuffled off its mortal coil. Phillip brought it forward to the cockpit to show Kelly and the boys and then said a few words before giving it a burial at sea.

Later in the day, we saw another swallow flitting through the peaks of the small waves that have been our constant companions since the wind picked up. It did not approach the boat. We wonder what these land birds are doing so far out to sea. Acapulco, the closest point of land, is over 250 nautical miles off our starboard beam. Are there any ornithologists in the crowd (or Internet-savvy googlers) who can shed some light on this for us?

The dolphins only made one appearance late on Kelly's watch in the night, but we have seen an abundance of sea turtles, including several "birdles" (sea turtle with a bird sitting on it). One of them even put its head up and started swimming toward the boat as we sped, yes sped!, by. So adorable! There are still plenty of flying fish of ever increasing size to watch soaring over the swells.

This was the third day running that we've trolled without luck. Early in the day, Kelly rerigged the lure that landed us our last yellowfin, a jet head with a blue and pink skirt. Even running it and another subsurface lure, we didn't have a single nibble. Nicholas is hoping things will be different today.

Food continues to be one of our chief sources of entertainment aboard. In between times spent babysitting the big sail, we cooked up a lunch of fettuccine bolognese, tomato salad, and garlic bread and ate tacos for dinner. We've been having fresh chilled pineapple for snacks, but the last of it will be served today. After that, we'll move on to some of the other tropical fruits we've brought. With the water temperatures remaining in the upper 80's and low 90's, keeping chocolate solid is an issue even hidden away low in the bilge. The boys don't seem to mind coming away from dessert with sticky fingers.

We've been enjoying quiet afternoons as a family. Alexander has been creating his lego vehicles, complete with customized rotating stands. Nicholas and Kelly put the finishing touches on the little "dragster" model that they've been working on for the last week. Without all the usual, modern, shoreside distractions, we find there's lots more time to spend together, and what could be better than that?

We are looking forward to a continuous, steady breeze that is measured in double digits. For now, we'll just be happy with a day where our average speed was well over 4 kts.