Monthly Archives: September 2015

We are now 150 miles from our predicted landfall, and within range of the marine weather radio for Southern California. We now are blessed (?) with accurate (?) local weather forecasts. All the planning and arranging we did to avoid … Continue reading →

Right now as I write this there are four ships showing up on my instruments within 25 miles. There was not a minute all day where we had fewer that two within range. Not all of them came close enough … Continue reading →

The Fetchin’ Ketch is a ketch type sailboat. One with two masts, the one in the back smaller and called the “mizzen”. I have been told several time by people whose opinions on the matter I trusted that when you … Continue reading →

AIS is an acronym for Automated Information System. A less descriptive name I could not have invented, but it is a fantastically useful thing. Here is the description of two interactions between large ships and small yachts sailing at night, … Continue reading →

The events of the last two days have been driven completely by a little, tiny, 8mm set screw. That screw came loose on the wind steering vane, which allowed it to fall out of alignment, which lead to it twisting … Continue reading →

I’ll have more of an update later, but we had some more issues around our autopilot. We have decided to head in to Southern California to get it fixed.

I know you have all been waiting on the edge of your seats to find out the solution to yesterday’s riddle. I’ll get to it in a minute… There is so much new and different it is hard to pick … Continue reading →

There was much head scratching on board yesterday evening. I used the “odometer” readout on our GPS to determine our miles run for the day that I posted yesterday with such glee. Even under those nearly ideal conditions I was … Continue reading →

Yesterday shortly after noon I set out a fishing line for the first time on this trip. We had seen some evidence of fish and a little bit of bird activity, so what the heck! While in the middle of … Continue reading →

Early this morning we crossed the “magic” line from coastal weather to the tradewinds, those more or less constant winds that blow across the subtropical oceans. Big breeze and a few light showers announced the change in weather pattern and … Continue reading →