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American Spirit II - Day 59; Sea Lion Sighting; Radio Net; Shark Leapingr; Southern Cross & Big Dipper; Monday, March 3, 2014



Sailed all night with engine off. Ran generator 3:00 AM to 7:00 AM to charge batteries. Wind went light so had to start motor sailing at 7:00 AM. Many boats started motor sailing last night at 10:00 PM.

Off watch 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM. Got up 6:00 AM showered and shaved and went on watch again. Got 5 1/2 hours sleep. Good night!

Folie a Deux, a 39 foot Catamaran, within a half mile from us. Our 'buddy' boat (we're sailing together since we're similar in size and speed). We're heading 252 degrees, trying to get south to trade wind belt and west in the process, since the Marquesas are 2,9890 miles west. Lots of rain about. Not squalls, just individual rain clouds that look like squalls. Speed 5.2 knots over the ground; thru the water 3.9 knots. We have a helping current of 1.3 knots. Wind is light at 8 or 9 knots from southwest.

Had to turn on motor at 7:00 AM. When we do so we have to keep track of engine hours and distance traveled under motor, so those two figures can be used to determine who wins each leg of the trip. There IS a competitive nature to this Rally.

At 11:00 AM I saw what I thought was a log on the port bow 100 yards off. When I passed a head stuck up out of the water. It was a sea lion, 56 nautical miles from land. By itself. It looked at me as we passed, then stuck his head back in the water. Amazing!

At 11:00 AM every day all the boats in the Rally have a Radio Net. One of the boats is designated as Net Controller for that day, and their job is to conduct a roll call of all the boats. During this roll call,boats are called by the Net Controller in alphabetical sequence. Because American Spirit II is an 'a', we're the third boat called during this roll call. Each boat gives their Latitude (distance north or south of the equator) and Longitude (distance east or west of Greenwich, England).For example, our boat's position during the Net Monday was 1 degree, 42 minutes South; 92 degrees and 10 minutes West; Wind speed and direction 4 knots from the south; and engine hours since the start of the leg, 4. Each degree of latitude and longitude is 60 nautical miles. A nautical mile is 15% longer than a statute mile. For example, with the Galapagos leg 2,980 nautical miles to the Marquesas, that equals 3,427 statute miles. A minute of longitude or latitude is one nautical mile. So for our boat, 1 degree 42 minutes South means that we're 102 nautical miles south of the equator (60 + 42). With a longitude of 92 degrees 10 minutes West, we are 5,530 nautical miles west of Greenwich, England; the Prime Meridian. At 8:00 PM local time we have another net which is just a roll call. No positions are given. During the morning net and evening net any boat with any information to share does so at that time. If a boat has a mechanical problem they can't fix, they can announce at that time what the problem is and another boat will offer to help them via the radio after the net is over. The morning net takes 30 minutes and is done using a Single Side Band Radio (SSB). We use different pre-arranged frequencies depending on the distance between the boats. The SSB radio can reach out and talk to someone 8,000 miles away; or about two thirds of the earth's surface since the radio waves go both ways around the world.

At Noon our position was 1 degree, 46 minutes South; 92 degrees 13 minutes West.

Between 12:10 PM and 1:10 PM we stopped the engine, rolled up the sails, and along with Folie a Deux, had a bottom cleaning/swim party in 6,500 feet of water. While Joel and I donned snorkel gear and brushed the bottom, Mike stood shark watch. Once we were done Joel and I swam 50 to 100 yards over to our buddy boat, socialized for a while, and then swam back. Our boat had started 'sailing away' even without sails,so it was time to get back. Mike then hopped in the water as I shark watched him. Surprisingly, no sharks appeared.

At 6:25 PM Joel and Mike saw a 5 foot shark jump 10 to 15 feet straight up out of the water 5 or 6 times. How cool is that? The shark was behind the boat to starboard, about 200 yards away. I missed it because I was down below typing a log and when told of the event I didn't hear the call (need to get my hearing checked).

A new moon rose off the starboard bow right after sun set, just a sliver of a moon. It set 30 to 60 minutes later. It wasn't bright enough to inhibit our seeing millions of stars. Mike got a good look at the Milky Way, a first for him. The Southern Cross was visible at the bottom of the Milky Way; and the Big Dipper was visible 180 degrees opposite it, with Polaris, the Pole Star, resting on the horizon. It won't be long before we won't be able to see Polaris at all. The Southern Cross is the equivalent of the Big Dipper, in that it points the way south. The Big Dipper points due north to Polaris.

As usual, a phosphorescent trail followed the boat, throwing out white sparks.

Two large lumes were visible off our port (left) beam. These were from large commercial fishing boats with their deck lights on. Some of the boats passed by closely to these boats, and like on the leg from Panama to the Galapagos, they were escorted away from these fishing grounds. In this case I don't think it was miles of nets, but lines behind the boats. Long lines.

I transmitted a couple of logs and emails around sun set, and after getting 'disconnected' on the first attempt, was successful on the second, with a fast send and receive mode. When connecting to a land side station, the first part of the communication is the 'send' part, where my logs and emails are sent out. The second part of the communication is the 'receive' part, where I received emails from family and friends; from other Rally sailboats; and from the World Cruising Club. Every couple of days they send us weather GRIB files and sail boat position reports. The GRIB file that the WCC sends is text only. We get other 'picture' type GRIB files that we request daily. These files show a satellite picture of the Pacific Ocean; and wind direction, speed and wave direction and height. Very useful.

At 8:00 PM the evening Net was held. The most significant info transferred were the coordinates of the fishing boats along our path.

When we left Galapagos Sunday our water tank was empty, because we couldn't fill it in the dirty anchorage. We had two spare 5 gallon jerry jugs of water that we poured into our water tank. We refilled those today.

At 10:00 PM during my 9:00 PM to 12 midnight watch, I had one of the fishing boats I mentioned earlier come at me from my left. It was all lit up and miles away, but I couldn't tell if he was on an intersecting course until I ran a bearing on him a few times. This is done by standing over a boat's compass and seeing what degree heading the boat is on. In this case, my first bearing on the boat was 135 degrees. That changed to 130 degrees, then 125 degrees. If the bearing had stayed the same at 135 degrees, then a collision would have resulted unless my boat, that boat or both boats made course changes. During this whole process I turned on our very bright LED deck lights so the fishing vessel knew where we were and that we saw him. The light we have lit up at night so boats and ships know which way we're going is called a 'Tri-light' and is located on top of the mast. The lights are green, red and white. What light you can see lets other vessels know what direction we're going. For example, if a boat saw the red part of our tri-light, they'd be on our port side. If all they saw was our green light, they'd be on our starboard side. If all they saw was our white light, they'd be behind us. And if they saw our red and green light, that would mean that we're headed right towards them.

Brian Fox

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