June 2009 Archives

So, last week, while we were enjoying our first sailing trip of the summer, I tried out the new Digital Canon Rebel T1i's HD video feature. I wanted to try something unique, so I put on the Sigma 10mm wide-angle lens which allowed me to view the entire spinnaker sail in one view. Today, I used the Mac's iMovie program to produce an HD resolution movie with titles and then uploaded the resulting MP4 file to YouTube. The resulting video is very cool (especially when you realize just how wide the view really is). You can watch it here, but I recommend you click on the link to view the full YouTube HD resolution (which still isn't qiute as large as the original 1280x720 video):

View Full HD Version
For comparison, here is a screenshot of a video clip (very poor quality) showing the spinnaker flying from the same position using a standard compact digital camera at its widest angle:
A standard camera view of same boat with spinnaker

On Tuesday evening, we brought out the BBQ grill and cooked up some food in the setting sun in our anchorage near the Beaufort waterfront. It was a very comfortable day temperature-wise, with a nice breeze. So, we ate on the cockpit table and watched the pretty scenery.

After cleaning up dinner, and putting away the grill, we put the dinghy up on the transom in preparation for the early morning departure. The weather was forecasted to be very nice the next day - Wednesday. A bit too nice since little wind was to be expected - so there would be little sailing. This was important though because if we left on Thursday like we originally planned we would have wind on the nose the whole way.

The next morning, I woke up near dawn and started getting the boat ready while Karen got ready. We soon started the engines and began weighing anchor. Not a cloud in the sky, and very light winds as forecasted. We motored out the Beaufort inlet along with another catamaran called Kaya. As we passed them, we saw they had a Texas flag and called over and found they were from Kemah (not far from where we lived in League City, Texas).

Soon we were motoring on our heading for Carolina Beach. We raised the jib to give us a little boost with the shore breeze we were getting - but, still using the motors. It gave us about .7 knots of extra speed. Along the way south we saw lots of fisherman, and saw a pod of dolphin fishing as well. The winds curved around and we eventually had to drop the jib. As we approached Wrightsville Beach, several hours later at about 4:30 PM, the winds were almost from the south. We decided to divert east a bit so we could sail into the Masonboro Inlet. We had a nice sail for about an hour. We then motored down the ICW - and we took a few photos along the way.

By 6 PM we pulled into our slip at Joyner Marina. It was nice to be "home". A bit later, we treated ourselves out to dinner up in Wilmington. The next day, we planned to clean up the boat. It took pretty much all day to clean both the outside and inside thoroughly. We even did a bit of shining on some of the stainless steel (it's more than a 1 day job to do all of it). Today (Friday) we plan to head back home. But, we are hoping we can get back down here for another sailing trip soon!

Here are some photos from this part of the trip:

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And, here are the GPS tracks of the entire trip (including when we went ashore in Beaufort and Cape Lookout) which you can view in Google Earth .

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this trip.

In the first part of this trip, we sailed to Cape Lookout and spent a night and day there. Then on Sunday afternoon we moved to the Beaufort town anchorage (right across from the water front shops).

The next day, I posted some blog posts, and then did some research. I found a local sailmaker called Omar Sailmakers right in Beaufort town, and there were some positive comments from other sailors on the net. There didn't appear to be a sailmaker in the Wilmington area where we normally keep Tahina. So, I gave Omar Sailmakers a call. They said they could take our spinnaker sail later that morning and look at it the next day to see if there was any damage other than the bottom of the sock. I was hoping we might even be able to get it back before we headed back south. That would save me a 3-hour trip to Beaufort!

We threw the sail into Coconut - the dinghy. We barely had room for ourselves given the size of the bag - and Coconut is 12 feet long. Once we got to shore, Sandy helped us get it into their van. While we were carrying the sail from the dinghy dock, someone asked us "What's in the big bag? A body?". I quipped: "It better be two given the size of this!"

Back at Tahina, we put Coconut back up on the transom with our retractable boom-derrick and electric winch. Then we weighed anchor and headed back out to Cape Lookout (about a 10 mile trip). It was a beautiful day with no clouds, 10-15 knot winds, flat seas, low humidity, and highs near 80 F. So, we sailed out from the inlet and took our time making our way to the Cape.

Once at anchor, we took on a project I had been looking forward to: we pulled out Rover - our new VideoRay underwater ROV (remote operated vehicle) with video cameras. This little robot is ultra cool, and I wanted to record some video with it. Unfortunately, after pulling all the accessories out, I realized I didn't have the necessary cable to connect the video output to my laptop. Not only that, but once we started our little dive off the back of the boat, I realized two things: 1) it was too murky to see much in the anchorage - the water had low visibility; and 2) I still need to learn some things about driving Rover. The main problem I think was that I didn't properly calibrate the directional sensor before we put it in the water. I also didn't have a long enough power cord handy so I could put the control console out on the back cockpit table. So that, combined with the low visibility, meant I kept getting lost! Anyway, I eventually found and followed the anchor chain to the bottom - which was covered in sand. Not a lot to see - not even fish. Anyway, I promise sometime in July I will solve the video capture problem and take Rover out to a better dive location.

Next, Karen and I put the dinghy back in the water and prepared to go to the Cape Lookout lighthouse on the other side of the bay. We put on bathing suits in case we wanted to go to the ocean-side beach. Turned out that was handy because the lighthouse has no dinghy dock. So, after I dropped Karen at their dock, I moved Coconut off the beach a bit and dropped its anchor. Then I waded to shore.

We had a nice little tour of the museum, then walked to the beach and checked out the waves. I decided they weren't good for body surfing that day, so we just walked down the beach a bit. Then back to Tahina. We watched a large motor yacht enter the anchorage. The crew of four quickly had two jet skis in the water and made sure their guests had a good time. We also saw a sailboat nearby with a crew who decided clothing was optional. Not something you normally see in the US waters!

In the evening, we watched some awesome lightning displays from thunderstorms nearby. The biggest seemed to be headed our way, but fortunately all we got was some nice heavy rain - no lightning, and no wind thankfully. Tahina needed a good soaking of fresh water to take some of the salt off.

The next day, we just relaxed on the boat. I saw some sea turtles, and enjoyed the breeze. I also emptied 30 gallons of water in the dinghy from the rain the night before. Then, I watched a US Army amphibious ship pull into Cape Lookout and practice pulling up to the beach and dropping their ramp (they had no vehicles to unload - it was just maneuver practice) - they must have done it 6 times while I was watching. After lunch, we decided to go ashore for a walk at the beach. I also called the sailmaker and they said the sail was fine - no other damage at all. They had it ready for pickup already! So, after our brief walk on the beach, we weighed anchor.

We had another glorious sail back towards Beaufort. This time we sailed right into the inlet and up the ship channel. We dropped the sails before entering the narrow Beaufort town channel though. Thankfully our anchorage spot was still free and we quickly made ourselves "home". Omar Sailmakers asked if they could wait until 6 PM to drop off the sail. We went ashore and got some ice cream and did some souvenir shopping. The sailmakers showed up as arranged, and I was pleased that the price was quite reasonable. After loading the big sail on Coconut again, we soon had it back on the boat and in its locker. Wow, problem solved in about 24 hours!

After that, we got out the grill and cooked up some food. We had a nice dinner in the setting sun. We needed to prepare ourselves for an early morning departure on Wednesday so we could return to Carolina Beach. Thursday was going to have wind in the wrong direction, so we decided to go back a day earlier than originally planned. More on that passage in part 3.

Here are photos from part 2:

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Read Part 1 and Part 3 of this trip.

On Friday, just two days before the summer solstice, we packed up and headed out to the boat. Upon arrival, we cranked up the A/C on the boat (it was near 100 degrees F when we arrived outside), and immediately left for the grocery store to get provisions. By the time we were back, the boat was at more comfortable temperatures. We then checked over the boat, and weather forecasts, in preparation for a passage the next day. We wanted to sail to Cape Lookout - about a 70 nm trip in the morning.

On Saturday we got up at dawn and got the boat ready. At about 7:15 we asked the fuel dockhand to take some pictures and lend a hand as we moved the boat to the fuel dock. We wanted ample fuel to be able to run the generator for at least the next couple of days due to higher than normal early summer temperatures. We headed out towards Carolina Beach Inlet, but saw the dredger was occupying the narrow channel. So, we continued up the ICW to Masonboro Inlet (later I heard another boat ask the dredger to simply move out of the way - I didn't know you could do that - duh!). No biggie, it was in the right direction.

Once out the inlet we began prepping the spinnaker to be raised. The winds were almost dead aft and were forecasted to be building gradually during the day. We got the sail up in the light winds, but they turned out to be too light to keep the sail full. So, we re-chuted the spinnaker, but left it up and tied to a forward cleat. Meanwhile, we were really hot after deploying the spinnaker and started the generator and A/C. Ahh...the convenience of a luxury yacht!

After lunch, the winds were back up a bit. However, we needed to shift the spinnaker to the port side due to a slight shift in the winds. But, a few minutes later we had it flying again and were making good speed (about 6 knots). During the day, I took some cool shots with the new camera and a wide-angle lens (10mm Sigma). With this lens you can see the entire spinnaker in one shot. Check out the slideshow below. Later I'll upload some HD video I took with the same setup.

As the day continued the winds did indeed grow slowly and were were making 8-9 knots by the time we approached Cape Lookout late in the day. The true wind was about 18 knots at this point. We decided to have dinner before arriving and Karen cooked up a fine meal.

I had carefully planned how we would lower the spinnaker well before the Cape. Tahina's spinnaker is very large. We turned the boat and released the sheet, and it collapsed like it is supposed to. However, when I went to pull down the chute, it came down a short way and then wouldn't move further! Even with all my weight (I was not touching the boat), it wouldn't come down. So, I tried winching it down with the mast winch. Meanwhile, the sail is fluttering in the strong winds (although slightly less than full speed because I had the motors on). I did manage to get the chute down about half way, but it must have been twisted in the deployment line. Then pandemonium occurred. The line at the winch got jammed and the spinnaker wrapped itself around the jib (which was furled). I tried lowering the sail, but too much was capturing the wind and it started to go into the water. We tried changing the wind angle, but at one point the force was too much and the chute base (a fiberglass "O" shaped tube that allows the sail to scoop into the chute) shattered with the forces against the jib. Ugh! So, now there was no hope of chuting the sail further. Karen tried to collapse the bottom part further and I tried to help and/or tried lowering the sail. We were getting tossed about like rag dolls and managed to get a few bruises and rope welts! Meanwhile I was guiding the boat along the Cape beach to avoid getting too close to shore. Eventually we got the wind angle right and managed to collapse the bottom far enough and lowered a bit so that the sail was over the trampolines. I immediately started lowering (while holding on to parts of the sail with hands and feet), and we got it lowered on the tramp! At this point we were hot and exhausted!

We decided to go ahead and enter the anchorage before putting away the spinnaker. We motored in as the sun was setting and were soon anchored in this idealic anchorage surrounded by beaches. As the sun set, we cleaned up the boat and stowed away our spinnaker. I was really bummed we had somehow failed with the spinnaker. At that point I was stil trying to figure out what happened. But, eventually decided it had to be the sail had twisted around the chute deployment line. Possibly when we left it up. Our other spinnaker had a special shackle at the top that was a swivel which prevented twisting. I know what I'll be buying soon for this one!

We had some drinks in the cool breeze outside as the twilight receded and the beautiful stars came out. A few minutes later we decided to go ahead and wash the dishes from dinner before we retired for the evening. The temperatures had cooled off enough that we opened our hatches and had a pleasant night's sleep.

The next day I did some reading as I watched some of the weekender boats weigh anchor and depart, and watched some new boats arrive with people to enjoy the beach. After lunch, I spent a couple hours cleaning the hulls of some slime which had accumulated over the last few months. It wasn't bad though, and hardly any barnacles (thanks to antifouling paint).

We decided to leave ourselves mid-afternoon and head to Beaufort town for the night. I needed to do some blogging and since we don't have satellite Internet yet, I needed to grab some WIFI. We had a nice dinner ashore and the temperature really dropped nicely during the evening. This is the life!

Here are some photos as promised showing Tahina as it approached the fuel dock, lots of spinnaker shots and shots of Tahina with the wide angle lens, and photos of Cape Lookout and activities there. Unfortunately, we were too wiped out with the spinnaker fiasco to take pictures. But, the photos are definitely worth a look:

View larger slideshow

Read Part 2 and Part 3 of this trip, also check out the HD video.

Tomorrow Karen and I will start a little sailing trip for a few days of much-needed boat time. Since we bought Tahina last August, we have had very little time to actually just sail places and drop anchor for a day or two and enjoy life. We've finally managed to squeeze out a few days. So, we're going to start by sailing Northeast from Carolina Beach, NC to Cape Lookout. Then a day or two later we plan to sail up to Ocracoke on the Outer Banks for a couple days. Then, we'll return back to our slip at Carolina Beach.

The weather will be very hot tomorrow, and we'll have a following wind. The good news is that we'll probably be flying the spinnaker and having a nice sail. Fortunately, there's a cool front coming in on Sunday night, and the weather supposed to be very nice the first few days of next week.

I'm hoping for a chance to try out our new VideoRay robotic underwater video camera. If all goes well, I'll have some cool YouTube videos to share. Maybe I'll find Blackbeard's sunken treasure! He used to hang out a lot at Ocracoke.

After a day of mostly minor projects on Sunday, we decided to take the boat out for a spin on Monday. It was a nice day with light winds forecasted. The tide was low at sunrise, so we opted for a mid-morning departure. I did a morning blog post for GEB, and then started prepping the boat. This includes checking the engines (oil, belts, water), checking radios, instrument covers, rigging sails, setting up laptop, putting speed log back in place, installing safety equipment (EPIRB, lifebuoy, etc.), putting out winch handles, and more.

Once Karen was up, we prepped for departure. One of the deckhands came over to help us with lines, and we fired up the engines and cast off. Today was Karen's chance to get some helm experience. Once we cleared the docks she took over and guided us out. I put away the fenders and lines while we headed up the ICW to the Carolina Beach inlet. The inlet was dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers recently, but we watched the sonar carefully on the way through the dredged channel. We never saw less than 9 feet (our draft is 4.5 feet).

Once out, I was expecting winds too light for a good sail. But, was pleasantly surprised with near 10 knots. We headed due east under motors for a couple of miles, then raised sail and began a southeasterly sail. We were soon regularly going 6+ knots, and 7 knots for a good while! It was better than expected, and it didn't seem to hot either. Seas were mostly less than 2 feet, so it was smooth going.

Soon I brought out the fishing gear and had two lines in the water. I always run some lines if we're offshore, but haven't yet caught much off Carolina beach. I was able to ruin that record a little while later! We had some lunch, and after making 15 or so miles out we tacked to head back. A few minutes later, I heard the pleasant sound of the fishing reel going *wheeeeeeeee*. I could immediately tell we had caught something big. The fish leapt out of the water and I knew I had a game fish. Before long, I spotted the colors of a Mahi Mahi. I asked Karen to point the boat more into the wind to slow us down, then asked her to get the gaff, then asked her to get out the camera, and oh - get the fish gloves out... In quick succession. She pointed out I was asking her to do too much at once. :-) No problem, the fish was well hooked, so I played with reeling in the fish a bit while she got everything ready. After a few pictures I got the gaff and we soon had the fish on board. Here are a few pictures:

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We put the fish in our cold box (a refrigerated locker in the cockpit). He barely fit - 42" in length - nose to tail. We'd get plenty of fillets from that! Sure enough, after finishing our sail and returning to the dock, I went ashore and cleaned up the fish. Got a great tip on improving my fillet technique from a fisherman at the marina (for which I rewarded him a couple of fillets). After sharing a few other fillets, we had to head home. So, we cleaned up the boat, packed and headed home. What a great day!

On Friday, we spent most of the day near the house awaiting the 3rd attempt to have our new kitchen appliances delivered and installed. The company we bought the appliances from (who will remain nameless) was told they must deliver the appliances early enough so that we could leave no later than 6 PM because we had a social engagement that evening. Did they make it in time? No! They showed up at 3:40 PM to install 4 big appliances (including a huge refrigerator). The job wasn't done until 7:30 PM. So, we were late. The delivery crew also only had two guys (who actually worked hard and as fast as they could - I blame their company for mismanaging the project). It took four of us (myself and my daughter's friend Michael included) to get the refrigerator into the house. As expected, we will have to get some modifications to our cabinetry before everything is fitted properly, and to have custom faceplates added to the fridge and dishwater. And, then we'll have to have the cabinets re-painted to match the colors. All of this to get our house ready to put on the market before we move onto Tahina.

Wedding

On Saturday we needed to return to our marina to attend the wedding of one of the marina managers. Captain Tim Nichols is a former member of the US Coast Guard who has a yacht services business handling service, charters, cleaning, maintenance and more (see his web site). He operates out of Joyner Marina, and is a great asset to the boaters here. Since he eats and breathes boating, it was appropriate he planned his wedding right at the marina. This was probably the nicest wedding I've attended (other than my own of course!).

The wedding started with two yachts coming down the river towards the marina with horns blaring. The first was driven by Captain Tim and had the male part of the wedding party. The second yacht had the female part of the wedding party. The guests were sitting above the main long fuel dock watching them arrive. The male party lined up on the dock and each walked down the dock to escort the ladies from their boat up the ramp to the wedding setting. Awesome!

All the decorations of the wedding (including the cake) were nautical themed with shells, sea horses, etc. The food was very nicely catered with sea food and more nautical decorations all around. They had a reggae-style band playing Jimmy Buffet and other natucial-themed music. It was awesome eating/drinking and watching one of the best sunsets I've seen here yet.

The wedding was a great opportunity to try the new Canon Rebel T1i digital SLR camera I bought on Friday for the Tahina Expedition. Here's a slideshow of just a few photos (16) I took during the wedding:

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I especially like the nighttime shot with lightning in the background and Tahina in the foreground. You can see the wedding was right next to Tahina.

Speakers and things

First project on Sunday was to process all the photos I took during the wedding. I planned to give them as a part of our wedding gift to the couple. This only took a couple of hours with extensive use of Google Picasa. The photos were well-received.

The first boat project was to attempt replacing the broken cockpit speaker. I had stopped at West Marine on the way down on Saturday and bought what looked to have the right specs to match our current speaker. I took off the old one, and was pleased to find the new speaker was an exact fit. Not only that, but a quick test hooking up the wires produced good sounds. Next, I took a look at the back of the old speaker and realized it was getting water over it from the inside of the arch where the speakers are installed. So, I puzzled for a moment how to solve this problem. The speakers are water proof, but they should not have salty water running over them because nothing is truly water proof from salt water. I grabbed a piece of plastic and cut out a rectangular sheet and bent one edge. Then I simply duct taped this custom-made water diverter over the top of the back edge of the wall above the speaker (on the inside of the arch). That should keep water from running directly over the back of the speaker. In the photo below, see the project, an example of how the diverter was set up, and the finished speaker installed.

We also took some time polishing and cleaning the arch, access ports, and stainless steel screws/washers that were stained with salt/rust. This added an hour or so to the otherwise 1-hour project. Next, we started prepping the boat for a planned excursion next week. This mostly involves checking provisions, engines, and doing laundry. Goodie!

Imagine a world without fish. That's the tag line to the new upcoming movie "End of the Line". National Geographic held a press conference about the movie on World Ocean Day this week. The movie is most likely the first significant feature movie available in theaters on the subject of overfishing.

The Tahina Expedition hopes to learn more about the subject of overfishing and as our readers grow, we hope to help educate people about it on this site. We plan to talk to fisherman around the world to get their perspective on how fishing has changed in their lives. We want to find out what kinds of fish they are catching, how far they are going to find fish, and what techniques they are using.

On Tahina, we do plan to fish. In part, this will be our way of testing how serious the problem is. But, we will only be trolling two fishing lines off the back, and will return to the sea anything we don't eat. We'll also avoid fishing near the islands we visit. In part out of respect for the local populations, but also because of the risk of poisoning (specifically ciguatera) from eating reef fish. And, we'll respect local rules and regulations about fishing and respect marine protected areas as well - since in many cases the rules are due to problems with overfishing.

Before leaving on our five year sailing circumnavigation on Tahina, I wanted to have one last big backpacking trip with some of my friends. So, I invited Fred and Andy, who also live in North Carolina, and we flew out to Arizona to meet a third friend of mine, Jim, who lives in Tucson. Jim works at the University of Arizona where we both got our degrees - many years ago!

Once in Tucson, I took my friends on a tour of the UofA campus and we picked up Jim at his office in the Lunar Planetary Labs. Then we drove out to Kitt Peak National Observatory and spent the day touring the many telescopes on this impressive mountaintop. Jim gave us a private tour of the mountain - since he's been working up there for many years. We got to see and talk to some astronomers at work on the McMath Solar observatory who were conducting experiments while we were there.

The next day, I took Fred and Andy on an early morning hike in the Saguaro National Forest. They were awed by the beauty of the desert and the huge saguaro cacti (which happen to bloom flowers on their tops in mid-spring). We later went to the awesome Desert Museum - which I highly recommend to anyone visiting the Tucson area. Here you see and learn about the flora and fauna of the desert. They have some awesome exhibits at the museum. Later in the day we ended up at Gates Pass in the Tucson Mountains to view the sunset. Andy got up close and personal, unintentionally, with a rattlesnake after sunset. But, they went their separate ways without harming one another (look for the picture).

Later in the week, we drove south to Green Valley and then headed southeast up Madera Canyon. Our objective was to put on backpacks and spend three days ascending Mt. Wrightson which is next to Mt. Hopkins (home to another set of observatories), camp out at night and see the stars, and see (and photo) as many sights as possible. We all made it to the top, and took a lot of pictures along the way.

You can see a travelogue of the entire trip in Google Earth by downloading this file . The file includes GPS tracks of the various routes we took, a special colorized GPS track of our ascent of Mt Wrightson which indicates altitude change, and thumbnails to some photos we took - which are geotagged to the location where the shots were taken. NOTE: read the instructions in the loaded file and make sure you turn on the Historical Imagery mode in Google Earth 5 to see the best views.

A better slideshow of the photos can be seen here (warning, there's a lot of photos, but this is just some of the best of the many hundreds photos the four of us took during the trip):

View full screen slideshow

Footnote: I spent many hours gathering and processing the photos, tracks, and Google Earth content for this trip. I tried various experiments with the Google Earth file to best highlight the content. An attempt to use the new GE 5 Tours function ultimately did not turn out the way I wanted it, so I had to put that idea to rest. Right before I intended to publish this last weekend, Google released new imagery for Arizona that looks horrible! So, I added the instructions about the historical imagery mode so you could see better satellite imagery for the areas we visited.

This weekend I went down to install the replacement jib halyard (that's the line which keeps the jib sail up - which in our case is a furling sail wrapped around the main forestay at the bow). If you've been reading this blog, you'll remember our former halyard - a steel cable - broke during a windy day a few weeks ago. It shouldn't have broken in those conditions (it wasn't that windy - we still haven't determined the exact cause), but we'll keep a careful eye on it in the future.

Anyway, the weekend before last I went up the mast and got the top piece of the old halyard down. Then took the old halyard to West Marine who sent it to their rigger to have a new one made. This past saturday I picked it up, and we went down to the boat to install it. The process turned out to be a bit more challenging than expected (see below).

Here's a slideshow showing me going up the mast several times, and the new halyard. Thanks to Sue, dockmaster at Joyner Marina, for taking some of the shots!

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Here's the process we went through to get this installed:

1. Prepped to go up the mast, got out the bosun's chair and connected it, tied leatherman to my shorts and put it in pocket, took some sail ties, tied the coiled new halyard to the chair, got out a camera for Karen to take pictures, and took the old shackle (which I had cleaned last weekend).
2. Once up the mast I first went to connect the shackle to the top of the jib furling unit. Uh oh - the shackle would not go through the new eye. West Marine had installed an eye which was maybe 1 mm too small! Just like that, the first trip was a failure. But, to avoid other issues, I decided to insert the other end of the halyard into the mast. Another problem: the steel eye loop would not fit through the very narrow finger-width opening above the pulley into the mast. With my precarious position up the mast I couldn't force it in. So, I had Karen take me back down.
3. Back on the boat, I found a shackle one size down in my spares. Then I decided I could squeeze the eye to near flat and wrap it with electrical tape so it would fit the hole. Re-prepped to go up, and tried again. This time, things went much more smoothly. We got the shackle on, then I started uncoiling the line. Once it was untangled I inserted the taped end into the mast and it went in! Down it went. Karen could see it through the hole in the bottom. So, I had her let me down.
4. I needed to borrow something to make a hook to grab the other end inside the mast. Another boater had a perfect piece of stiff copper wire with which I made a hook. Grabbed the halyard on the first try. Then we struck some more bad news... the other end wasn't reaching the fixture at the mast designed to tighten the halyard. It was too short by 6 inches. At this point, I opted to join the local marina party rather than going on (it was getting dark anyway).
5. The next morning I concluded one of three things had happened. Either the cable was made too short (unlikely), the line was hung up on something inside the mast, or the top of the jib furling unit had slid down after the old halyard broke. So, I prepped to go up again. By the way, we have electric winches, so Karen isn't getting tired taking me up and down. :-)
6. Once up top, I realized quickly that the jib furling unit had slid down - about 6 inches! So, all we would need to do is unwrap the sail and pull the halyard to bring it down further. Fortunately we had light winds. But, before I came down, I went ahead and cleaned some of the stainless steel fixtures on the mast which were getting rust stains.
7. We let the jib sail out in 5 knots of wind and in just a few minutes had managed to attach the new halyard. Yay!

Last weekend, our custom canvas contractor - Sally Nichols - came by to complete the custom fitting of our spray dodger. We not only had the basic "windshield" part done at the front (between the roof and the "dash" of the front lookout of Tahina), but we also had her make two side dodgers which go from the right edge of the front portion around each side to provide some corner protection from wind, rain, and ocean spray. We actually used the front dodgers when my Dad came out a few weeks ago. It worked great! I planned to write about this last weekend, but forgot to take pictures. Today I set it up and took some pictures seen here:

Thanks Sally!

The talented French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has specialized in taking amazing nature photography - much of it aerial photography. I was so amazed at his previous works that I bought his excellent "coffee-table" sized book "Earth From Above" years ago. There's an excellent layer in Google Earth which lets you see the locations of many of his photos so you can explore the locations in greater detail (read about the layer here).

Today, Yann's spectactular eye for beauty is reaching movie watchers around the world. He has found a sponsor who is letting a production HDTV movie be distributed around the world for FREE through the Internet - for a limited time only (until June 14th). The movie is called "HOME", and has a very important message to every human on the planet. It's about our planet. And, it shows the wonderful beauty of our planet. But, it also tells the story of unprecedented growth of our species and the dramatic demands we are making upon our limited resources. It shows the dramatic changes that are occurring across the face of our home. It compels us, and pleads with us, to take action to protect our home from wanton destruction and wasteful expenditure of resources. Here is just a sample of the beauty to be found watching this movie:

If you don't want to hear the bad news, I guess you could ignore the audio - and just watch the absolutely stunning videography and beauty of our planet. But, I hope people around the world will pay attention to the movie's message. At the end, there is a ray of hope that humanity is already beginning to take positive steps to correct our mistakes. But, more action is needed.

A big part of the Tahina Expedition is that my wife and I hope to see many parts of our planet now - before they are ruined by exploitation and changes to the environment. But, an even bigger part of our expedition is that we hope to help people become more aware of the issues our planet (including the oceans) is facing. The movie HOME is a very effective step in helping raise that type of awareness. We hope to add to that in an incremental, and very personal, way as we invite you to join our explorations of the planet.

The following video shows what its like on a brisk windy day on the Atlantic Ocean sailing a 50 foot catamaran. Tahina cuts an elegant path through the frothy mess - we were experiencing 6 to 10 foot seas. But, it was the roughest ride to date on Taihna since we picked her up last August. It gives you an idea of what its like sailing in bigger seas even on a moderate sized boat. Just watch the video here (WARNING: if you are prone to seasickness, you might not want to watch!):

(I recommend you select the "HQ" or "HD" option in the YouTube player for higher quality video.)

Winds were 25-30 knots with higher gusts (apparent), and Tahina was making 10+ knots most of the way. We spent a good part of the day on the passage. You can see the track in Google Earth and other pictures here.

It took me a while to get around to making this video. I'm trying different techniques for processing videos. This one is a 16:9 ratio format, but based on standard ratio video clips from a digital camera.

In addition to completing the install of the AIS receiver, I spent a few minutes on Saturday setting up to go up the mast and remove the broken jib halyard (which happened on the last sail).

To go up the mast (the top of our mast is 72 feet off the water), I have a bosun chair (as shown in the photo here - that's not me in the picture). The chair attaches to a halyard which we then run to one of the electric winches. Safety is important, so I strap myself in the chair, and I grab another halyard while going up in case something happens. My wife Karen then slowly and carefully winched me up the mast while I carefully inspected all the fittings on the mast. Once at the top, I both removed the broken part at the top (which was connected with a shackle), and inspected the fitting at the mast to see if there was an obvious reason why the halyard broke.

In the past, I've seen where the steel halyard can "saw" a groove and create sharp edges. But, that wasn't the case this time. I suspect a combination of factors: metal fatigue due to 11+ thousand miles of use, too much force applied with the winches to tighten the sails, and possibly too much sideways force when running with a double-reef in moderate winds. Hopefully this won't happen again on our trip.

Here you can see the broken halyard (first two photos), and a few shots from the top of the mast (click for larger view) showing scenery from our marina in Carolina Beach, North Carolina:

Also, see the photos from the first time I went up the mast of Tahina.

After we got the halyard (and me) safely down. I drove it to a local marine chandlery (West Marine) and they are arranging to have a new one made this week.