S/V Acacia

We had over 24 hours of nice weather. Wonderful clear skies last night. Very dark and more stars than one can imagine. We are still going wing and wing toward our destination. It’s nice to see the miles count down.

Our current position is:

LAT 44 08 N
LONG 132 32 W

We just got a new weather forecast and things may not be a simple as we had hoped. We will take a closer look and decide what course of action to take.

Chris made bread for the second time and it was better than the first. It’s nice to have a baker on board. I made pieapple pancakes for breakfast. We were out of blueberries and had some cans of pineapple. It was very good.

Bob

We have now been at sea for three weeks. This is about how long we expected the trip to take, but we obviously aren’t there yet. We are now about 530 miles to go. It’s nice to see the number get smaller.

Last night we had some sort of front go through with winds in the 45 knot range with gusts in the low 50 knots. This is more wind that I have ever been in before and have no desire to see again. It’s best described as a “roar”. While it was a lot of fun taking and furling the main during this, it went well and we slowed down. Acacia handled it very well. We never felt there was a problem with the boat or our safety. Acacia is really designed to cross oceans. That said, it was quite an experience.

The weather today has been very nice. Steady wind from the right direction and sunshine. It’s not as warm as Hawaii, but it was nice let our foul weather gear dry out. The experience of having put put on damp have foul weather gear to out outside in the rain can’t quite be described.

Our current position is 42 42.2 N, 134 20.9 W.

A change of plans to announce. We had originally intended to head to Vancouver where Acacia would stay for the winter. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a slip for her. Instead she will be spending the winter in Seattle. We currently plan to head to Seattle once we get out of the Pacific ocean into the strait of Juan de Fucca. We will first stop at Neah Bay just inside the strait and refuel and get some fresh food.

Bob

It’s been a very “interesting” day. Our weather router put us on a more direct course and had us slow down to let the worst of the weather go by. That good because what we get was bad enough. At the peak we saw gusts of over 40 knots and sustained winds in the middle thirties. It has now slowed to a nice low 20 knot range. Crew and boat came through fine. It amazes us how fast Acacia can go with so little sail up. We have been sailing with only part of the staysail up.

One very nice byproduct of the more direct route is that our current miles to go figure is 678.

Our current position is:

41 01 N
135 59 W

As you can see we have now passed 41 N and 135 W.

Bob

Be careful what you wish for. Today we have wind and are likely to get more. There is another low coming. We have just gotten a new set of weather routing information that we are digesting. This should help us avoid the worst of it. Hopefully this will be the last one.

We continue to make progress. Now 838 miles to go. Still a long way, but getting closer.

Chris’s bread baking was excellent. We had no idea he was such a good cook. We will problaby have the second loaf with dinner tonight.

Our current position is:

LATITUDE: 40-03.10N
LONGITUDE: 137-47.62W

Bob

Sill sailing east. Reasonable progress till the afternoon when the winds have gotten lighter. Still moving in any case.

We have reached an important milestone. On our intended course, it is now less than a thousand miles to our destination, 945 nautical miles at present. We have come almost two thousand miles so far. I am resisting making a prediction of how much longer it will take. Maybe when the number is smaller and we are through the next low that is coming our way.

Chris is making bread. It is currently rising in the oven with the pilot light on. Needless to say we are looking for fresh bread. It will be a treat.

Our current position is:

39 38.7 N
139 56.9 W

Bob

For those of you following the boat’s position via ShipTrak, you may
have noticed the last data point being quite a bit further south than
their previous position. I asked Bob about it and he said that there
were some glitches with ShipTrak so what was posted there is not
accurate. He assured me that they hadn’t suddenly been transported
south, but were continuing in an easterly direction. As soon as the
next gale passed in about 2 days, they will head north/northeast to
make San Juan de Fuca.

joel to sv-acacia

Bob was in touch today to tell me that Acacia is less than 1000 miles
from their destination at San Juan de Fuca. At an estimated 6 knots,
that puts them about 7 days away from port. Everyone is well and looking
forward to making landfall!

Maryann

We motored last night till around midnight when the wind came up. We have been sailing toward the east since then. The wind even came up in the morning.

Another low and cold front is forecast to come by from the north in a few days. Like before we are going east to avoid the worst of it. Our weather advice is coming from the “Weather Guy” a professional weather router based in Hawaii. His recommendations regarding these storms has been very good. We get them via email every 3-4 days. Hopefully once it passes we can proceed back on the rumb line toward Juan de Fucca (the entrance to Vancouver and Seattle).

Chris caught our forth MahiMahi this morning. The biggest yet. While we would have preferred a tuna, it nice to have some fresh food again. Hard to complain about very fresh MahiMahi. I think we will try to BBQ it if the boat isn’t moving too much. Chris says to tell Becca her lures are working very well! We will have to start using a smaller lure as the bigger onces are catching fish that are too big.

Bob

We had lots of wind last night. I think we saw a peak of 32 knots in the evening. We ended up under just the triple reefed mainsail. The actual front came through around 11pm and then the wind changed directions and the rain started. It rained the rest of the night and through the mid afternoon. Currently it has stopped raining, gotten colder, very little wind, and is gray. Once the weather systems stabilize, we hope for some more wind. Maybe even some sun!

We saw another ship last night. It was going to come closer than we would have liked so we changed direction for a while to avoid it. Hard to believe that with all of this ocean two vessels can come close together.

We are currently at 38 46.6 N by 145 03.3 W.

Bob

We are still going east full speed. We have the third reef in the main and only the stay sail up. It’s windy and the swells are getting bigger. The crew and boat are doing well. We think we will be through the worst of the low by mid-day tomorrow. It should make for an interesting night. If it gets to be too much wind we plan to hove to.

That’s it for now, I will try to send a longer report tomorrow.

We are currently at 38 25 N by 146 40 W.

Bob