Our Valentine’s Day feast

Hannah made a marvelous chocolate layer cake for Valentine's Day. Chocolate with chocolate frosting on top and jam and yogurt inner frosting. Total pig out! It will probably not live to see sunset. We decorated the Crew Mess with cut-out red and silver hearts. Hannah had Valentine's pencils for all of us. Owen burned a CD of all our best love songs. It was perfect, except for being absent from friends and family.

Location: 33° 47 S, 99° 37 E
Tuesday 12:00, 02.13.2007

At noon on February 13th, the Schooner Maggie B was at 33° 47 S, 99° 37 E. We are headed 104 degrees magnetic, right for Fremantle, at 10.2 knots, hull speed. We have one reef in both the main and the fore. The wind is relatively steady from the Northwest at 18-25 knots. This is perfect sailing conditions for the Maggie B. We have occasional long swells of perhaps 10 feet that push us forward, with occasional surfing. The boat is perfectly balanced with zero rudder angle and Jorge, the Furuno Autopilot, only needs a few degrees one way or the other to handle our surfing.

We did 219 NM in the last 24 hours. We are 819 NM from Fremantle and have come 3820 NM from the Seychelles. At this speed, we will be in Fremantle in four days.

We need to get to Fremantle pretty soon because critical supplies are getting low. We are OK on garlic, coffee and Tabasco sauce, but chocolate is getting critical. We have only two more bars of dark chocolate! And Hannah has claimed one of them for the Valentine's Day cake she is making for tomorrow. Our Twix bars and Kit Kats are all gone!! We have a pile of candy bars, but they are "Bounty" bars, which are mostly coconut with just a thin layer of chocolate on top. Yuck!

We are still seeing Dusky Shearwaters, but we seem to have gotten out of range of the Albatross. Yesterday we saw a solitary Stormy Petrel, who seemed a bit out of place 1000 miles at sea.

Those who know the sea and sea shanties, know that the words that sailors actually sang to the tunes were pretty rough and occasionally totally gross. Most modern shanties seem to be sung by choirs who have never tasted salt water, let along rum with a dose of lime juice. Like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or Robert Shaw Chorale. For those who want a taste of the real thing, get a copy of "Rogue's Gallery," produced by Hal Willner. It's great.

One of my other favorite songs is from a CD called "Scotland the Real," where a marvelous singer named Adam McNaughtan sings a cappella a song called Oor Hamlet, which tells the whole Hamlet story, seemingly in one breath. Well worth ninety-nine cents from iTunes.

We are just coming up on an area of the seabed called the Diamantina Fracture Zone. We have been sailing along a plain of 4-5000 meters depth, but this Zone varies from 1035 meters to 7102 meters in a narrow but long area. In 1986, one ship reported "Discolored Water" near our position, along the Zone. A new island developing? Sea mounts in the Zone have interesting names, including Gulden Draak and Eendracht. I guess the the Dutch got here first, as in so many places.

Our Yanmar main engine is functioning perfectly now with the salinity probe epoxied into the opening at the bottom of the fuel filter. Whew!

All is well.

Location: 34° 17 S, 95° 54 E
Monday 12:00, 02.12.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 34° 17 S, 95° 54 E at noon on February 12th. We are headed straight for Fremantle (090 degrees magnetic) at 8.9 knots with a lovely NW'erly at 18 knots taking us in. We have come 3545 from the Seychelles and have 1040 to go to Fremantle. As I write this at 1630, we are cheering that we have broken the 1000 NM to go barrier! An extra round of chocolate for all hands!

Today has seemed to be an endless series of small, difficult repairs. Our gas shut off solenoid stuck partially open, which was tough to diagnose. It seems to be fixed now, but the T-junction valve also failed, and we had great difficulty putting together the parts to plumb it all back together. Now we are using gas from a little Brazilian bottle, which should, hopefully, get us to Fremantle.

The diesel was hard to start this morning and when I went over it, I found a small diesel leak from the bottom of the fuel filter. A small drain valve in a plastic water-in-the-fuel sensor had come free and was dripping fuel. We took that apart and used epoxy to seal the drain hole. Four hours later, with the epoxy set, we reinstalled the sensor, only to have it break when it was tightened. Sigh. OK, we don't need the sensor, let's just plug up the hole. Easier said than done. Large metric hole. We searched the whole boat top to bottom and couldn't find anything that fit. Then, finally going through a jar of junk, I found the discarded, failed, salinity probe from the watermaker, which we had replaced in the Seychelles. A perfect fit! It is now getting epoxied into position in a fresh fuel filter and we will know tomorrow morning if we have a functioning engine.

Hannah made a delicious little chicken for lunch. Roasted with lots of onions, olives, curry and garlic. Perhaps "puttinesca" if it were Italian, but we christened it Roast Chicken, Indian Ocean. Marvelous! We were able to have a civilized meal, eating on deck as we rush along almost at hull speed.

We should have a favorable breeze, 20 knots from either our port or starboard quarter for the next two days. The next gale is headed our way as early as Wednesday, as we close the Australian Coast. We will be very careful to keep our options open.

All is well.

Location: 34° 37 S, 91° 50 E
Sunday 12:00, 02.11.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 34° 37 S, 91° 50 E at noon on February 11th. The wind has calmed down a lot. We are headed 130 degrees magnetic at 6.7 knots with a wind of 275 at 15 knots. There is still a big SW'erly swell, which is throwing us around a bit, but of no danger. We expect to run off to the southward a bit and then jibe about midnight as the wind veers more NW, with the beginning of development of a high just north of us. The barometer is well up to 1017. We have come 3356 from the Seychelles and have 1210 to go to Fremantle.

Today was exciting --- to dry everything out. We looked like a gypsy (can one still use that expression or will the Romany of Australia come for me with sharp knives?) boat with foul weather gear, boots, socks, long johns, everything crowding for space in the sun. All hatches open below and all is now aired and dried out. Bliss!

The latest system to test us is the stove gas solenoid. We have a system that can electrically shut off the gas at the propane tanks, which are safely set back in a vented stern locker. The solenoid that shuts off the gas seems to be a problem. We had to replace the first on in Cape Town after it failed while crossing the South Atlantic. The replacement failed today and now has been removed from the system. We will try to oil, clean and reinstall it tomorrow.

I spent most of the day working on the Australian Customs "Small Boat Report." It is four pages long, and has fun questions like "List the make, model and serial number of all electronics gear." The report has to be submitted 96 hours BEFORE arrival. One recent yacht that didn't submit the report before arrival apparently was fined A$10,000!! I'm sure that they are nice people, but it does seem a bit ridiculous.

Regular readers know that I have been having issues with Lewmar blocks. Like five have failed so far. Well, now it appears that perhaps I just have issues with blocks. Yesterday a small Harkin failed, and we replaced it with a brand new Barton (South African brand?). The Barton was making some noise today and I went to oil and inspect it and found a little pile of brass shavings just under it as it apparently is in the process of self-destruction. Completely new!

Sigh.

I am going to start a "Quote of the Day" in my reports. Today's quote is from Don Bamford: "Only two sailors, in my experience, never ran aground. One never left port and the other was an atrocious liar."

All is well.

Location: 34° 30 S, 88° 20 E
Saturday 12:00, 02.10.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 34° 30 S, 88° 20 E at noon on February 10. The wind is 230 degrees magnetic at 30 gusting to 40. The seas are 20 to 30 feet from the Southwest, very large, but rarely breaking on us. The sun is out and the conditions are improving.

Last night we watched the barometer fall rapidly and realized that after all the quite time, we were in for a "summer" Southern Indian Ocean Gale. We doused the fore, double reefed the main and jibed over to head north as fast as we could go. During the night the wind blew 35 knots steadily with gusts to 52. Dawn was welcome, though it did show the large seas which just had been a physical rather than visual experience during the night.

At about noon we jibed back to starboard and are now headed for Fremantle, which is now 1380 NM away. We are doing ten knots. We have come 3175 NM from the Seychelles.

This low is moving ahead of us quickly and our wind should be down to 15 knots by 2000. We'll see. There is another, bigger low and cold front following this first one in a few days. We will take more timely avoidance maneuvers for the next one. We are six days out of Fremantle at this speed.

We are mostly dry and warm below decks. The off duty watches can sleep.

All is well.

Location: 36° 13 S, 85° 28 E
Friday 12:00, 02.09.2007

At noon on February 9th, the Schooner Maggie B was at 36° 13 S, 85° 28 E. We are headed right for Fremantle at 8 to 12 knots. The variability on speed (10.2 knots is hull speed) depends where we are on the swells, which are now up to 10-12 feet -- sometimes surfing, sometimes recovering. But nice long swells with no nasty habits. We are headed 120 degrees magnetic and the wind is pretty stabile at 20-25 from 270. The day now is mostly clear with just occasional rain showers (concentrated, as usual, on Hannah's watch).

It looks as if we now "have our ride" to Fremantle (Freo). The weather forecast suggests that the wind will build to about 30 knots by midnight, and then back a bit more and settle in 15-20 from the south for at least several days (until the next front). At this speed, we are six or seven days to Freo. We have come 2938 NM from the Seychelles and have "just" 1522 NM to go.

The Maggie B is looking a little like a "hobo" boat. Some halyards are several lines spliced together, our sheets don't match any more, and many have sheetbends holding them together. Many "working" parts of masts, gaffs and boom have "protection" glued on at one place or another. There are even some places with, gasp, duct tape, holding something on or together. We are not ready for a Concours d'Elegance. But we are ready for a nice week's 1500 NM run to Freo! So many boats are like the Harley Davidson motorcycles that are polished and cherished and only drive two miles every other Sunday (and not if it is raining!) to the nearest Starbucks Cafe. Then you see the bike, maybe a BMW 1975 Boxer or Norton 750 with banged-up saddlebags and a variety of paint under the dust and dirt, down the street outside a bar with cold beer and good pizza. That's the bike you want to take somewhere.

All is well.

Location: 36° 14 S, 81° 59 E
Thursday 12:00, 02.08.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 36° 14 S, 81° 59 E at noon on February 8th. We are motoring directly towards Perth/Fremantle at 7 knots, on a heading of 116 degrees magnetic. There is no wind, but a long, big swell is making up from the SSW. The sky is generally clear. We have come 2766 NM from the Seychelles and have 1691 to go to Perth/Fremantle.

Today is the calm before the storm. The first in a series of cold fronts should arrive about noon tomorrow. Winds maybe to 30 knots, but should be on our quarter, allowing for great speed towards Perth/Fremantle and a relatively comfortable ride. We are seeing the swell already, but no significant clouds as yet. The barometer topped out at 1022, and now is down slightly to 1020.

Readers who considered the latest Commander's Weather advice may have puzzled over our choices with these new systems coming in, as we have. Basically one big option was to head south to get in a better spot for the next storm. I puzzled over it, making complex "what if's" and Velocity Made Good analyses. Finally, I decided that with all the variables, we could do a lot worse that heading right for Perth/Fremantle, so that is our plan. We may have to wait a bit longer for the wind pressure, but we won't have wandered all over the Southern Ocean.

We have been motoring a bit since Mauritius, but we are still on our first, 120 gallon, tank of diesel, with the second tank holding about 200 gallons. We use about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 gallon per hour at 7.5 knots, so have at least 850 NM of motoring left available. From the look of the weather charts, we won't be using a lot of diesel the rest of the way in.

Some have asked how we keep clean at sea. Very nicely, thank you, we reply with a surreptitious check of our underarm smell. In fact we are in good shape for fresh water. We started out from Mauritius with about 350 gallons of fresh water, and I have been making water with our desalination unit pretty much every day, when the engine or generator is running. We can make six gallons an hour and we pretty much still have full tanks. So a fresh water shower a day per person is usual and easily "covered," though I occasionally growl at shipmates who I suspect of taking "Country Club" showers, just to stay in practice.

Washing clothes is a little more challenging. We have lots (and lots) of salt water and "Cold Water Tide" suds's up nicely in cold salt water. The system is two buckets, and a bucket full of dirty clothes (three t-shirts, three underwear, and a pair of shorts, perhaps). Suds and wash in the first bucket of salt water, rinse in successive buckets of salt water until all the soap is out and then finish rinse in fresh water, hang on the rail and you are ready for a few more days! The only serious drawback is seeing just how dirty your clothes are, judging by the color of the rinse water. Hard to imagine with no real dirt within 1000 miles....

Lunch today was Hannah's tuna noodle casserole. Some may not find that very special, but when Hannah makes it with brand-fresh sashimi-grade tuna and whole wheat rotilli, it comes out marvelously. Dessert was fresh-baked cinnamon cake. Best of all, there's lots of leftovers for Night Watch!

All is well.

Location: 36° 27 S, 79° 12 E
Wednesday 12:00, 02.07.2007

The Schooner Maggie B's noon position on February 7th was 36° 27S 79° 12E. We are headed due east magnetic at 7.2 knots, closehauled under all plain sail, with the wind from 160 magnetic at 12 knots. The wind has been backing steadily, and lightning up. By midnight tonight, we expect to be motoring SE against a 5-10 knot Easterly. We have come 2608 NM from the Seychelles and have 1824 NM to go to Perth.

Essentially we have to wait a day for the first in a series of Cold Fronts to catch up with us. The further to the South and West, the earlier we "catch our ride" to Perth. Ideally, we should be about 150 NM to the south, but we will do fine here. The fronts should bring in great wind for us. Maybe 25-30 knots, on the beam or quarter. We should have a fine ride into town.

In the Northern Hemisphere, one says "backing" if the wind is shifting counter-clockwise and "veering" if it is shifting clockwise. We are wondering if we should say it the other way around in the Southern Hemisphere, because everything rotates the other way around.

Last night was wonderful clear, at least after midnight. The celestial high point was seeing Scorpio all laid out like a cat on a sofa arm, with Jupiter coming up from underneath, as if working on a rendezvous with red Antares (yes, like Paul Antares in "Dune") in the scorpion's belly.

One correspondent has written to us to say that there is a special, endangered albatross living on Isle Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Albatross. It is apparently identifiable by dusky brown upper wings, rather than dusky grey. We immediately decided that our following albatross squadron REALLY had dusky brown wings. We did see a tag or two, which perhaps were just missing wing feathers.

On researching our delicious tuna, one reference book said that tuna schools sometimes follow along with boats, taking advantage of what the boat does to frighten flying fish and squid, making them easier to catch. It is funny to think that we have accompanying tuna, just as we have accompanying albatross.

Hannah today made what used to be her "Nova Scotia tea biscuits." This time, she added some of our fresh vanilla beans from Madagascar, in a vanilla butter swabbed in on top, to make "Madagascar Sea Biscuits." We had them at lunch in a lovely tomato-based fish stew. Yum. Chocalate chip cookies for tea time. Double yum!

One can't ignore it getting colder any longer. All have chosen favorite blankets from the storage closet. Some are considering a second one. Night watch means "Tooks on." (Took = toque = warm knit hat).

At about sunset last night I contacted Isle Amsterdam (AKA Roche Godon and Martin de Vivis) on the VHF. A nice French woman with a lovely accent answered. We no longer had the opportunity to land as we were 55 NM north and the wind had shifted to the South, but I thought that it would be fun to check in. She reported that there were 30 French on the island, that there was no protected anchorage, and that we were very welcome to come by. It made me think somehow of the Sirens, that we would land and the crew would be turned into pigs, or that it would turn out to be a SuperSecret French listening post, and that we would drop anchor and the French Frigate, that had been tailing us, would appear from behind the island and we would never be heard from again. Paranoia? Maybe.

Perth/Fremantle in perhaps ten days!

All is well.

Commander’s Weather Corporation
Tuesday, 02.06.2007

From: Commanders' Weather Corporation Route: Port Louis, Mauritius to Perth, Australia Position: 36 30s/74 45e at 0000utc Tue, Feb 6 Prepared: 1230UTC Tuesday, February 6, 2007 Summary

Unfortunately you may be hearing more from us in the coming days!

Looks like the cold front passed you around 0600UTC +/- 2 hours and you must now be in a S wind

a) trailing high pressure is in a bad spot, near 43-45S/62-65E, which is S of you and this means you will soon have S-SE and SE winds, so upwind

This means you will have 3 options

a) motor straight E - the wind speeds/seas will not be that great, so will be able to do this, if you have sufficient fuel
b) sail upwind as tight as possible. Once again, winds and seas are not that bad, so should be able to hold a decent angle and not be forced too far N
c) can motor S and try to get thru the high and into the westerlies

There will be a series of monster cold fronts moving from the SW to the NE later this week into next, so I am reluctant to get you too far S, too early

a) I sailed/motor sailed the S-SE and SE winds E and ENE until the high pressure area moves closer, to you
b) this means another 24 hrs or so going E and then winds are more SE and ESE and quite light, so now we use the engine and get S and into the westerlies, but
c) only want to touch the westerlies and start going E or probably ESE. Basically, we keep working S until the wind speeds are strong enough for a quick sail to the E or ENE

Tropical Cyclone Dora will remain trapped to your NW, but always a good idea to keep an eye on her!

Series of big cold fronts will move quickly NE Fri - Sun

a) 1st arrives Friday
b) remember, these will be southern ocean cold fronts - very squally, even after the wind shift into the S-SW and in general, the worst conditions are 12-24 hrs after the initial wind shift
c) there will be a BIG surge of wind and sea on Sat, but Sun calms down
d) however this will be followed by another big cold front early next week

Good news, this fronts will extend right up into Perth, so if under control, it will be a fast ride into Perth

Routing

Prefer easting right now and let the high get closer before committingto the S

a) by letting the high pressure catch up to us, we don't have to go asfar S to catch the trailing westerlies
2) Motor S when winds become E tomorrow 3) Once into the westerlies, fastest gybe to the E a) maybe starboard gybe at 1st, but
b) once wind speeds are higher, then port gybe will be strongly favored, even if N of rhumb line
4) Once the cold front passes on Friday, only 1 option, as comfy as possible on starboard Wind Forecasts
Wind direction TRUE, speed in kts, time is UTC
Tue, Feb 6
18: 170-140/10-15
Partly to mostly cloudy today and tomorrow, but more sunshine with time.
Wed, Feb 7
00: 170-150/10-15
06: 150-130/10-15
12: 140-110/ 8-14, near 37S/79E
18: 100-070/ 7-12
Thu, Feb 8
00: light/variable, going thru the middle of the high
06: light/variable
12: 240-270/ 7-13, probably on starboard, near 39 40S/79 30E
18: 240-270/11-16, over to port!!!
Partly cloudy.
Fri, Feb 9
00: 240-270/20-30
06: 230-200/18-24, maybe a squall or 2 to 35 kts
12: 220-190/20-30, near 39 40S/82 30E
18: 210-240/17-23
Increasing clouds with rain and squalls likely with the initial wind shift, but still a scattering of small, brief squalls 6-12 hrs after the initialwind shift. Seas becoming SW and increasing to 6-10 feet
Sat, Feb 10
00: 220-250/25-40, squalls to 50
12: 190-210/30-40, squalls to 50, near 39 10S/86 50E, being further N canlimit wind speeds by 5-10 kts
Fast changing sky conditions with numerous, fast moving, brief squalls to50 kts. Rough with seas up to 12-18 feet.
Sun, Feb 11
00: 190-210/26-34, squalls 40-45
12: 210-240/16-24, just a brief lull near 38 30S/91E
Squalls ending then partly cloudy, but more squalls likely on Monday. Seas up to 12-18 feet, but falling before increasing again on Monday.

37 South, 76 East

It is time to write again. It is colder now, I am wearing two sweaters as we are more to the South than the Cape of Good Hope, truly so far from everything. Being this far allows us to experience things that would never be possible without having left. Check this out: I just had an hour run in the bow hanging on to the halyards, watching the sunset, with about 20 albatrosses flying all around the boat. How cool is that?

On the top of the waves the setting sun was reflected so one side of the waves was a golden color and the other side silvery blue. The air is so pure here, I feel strong and free as if I were standing on the top of a mountain.

This trip is purifying and clarifying in every way. I have amazing dreams and visions. I feel as if I were on a pilgrimage in search of light and I think that in fact, I am. In addition, I think that in moments, I am finding it. I do not yet have words for it.