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3/30/2006 1:00:58 PM
Outside Zihuatanejo
Just left Zihuantanejo for the Marquesas

Day 1 of 25 - We are underway to jump the puddle

DAY 1 of 25 - Today is a big day for TheSchmid family on Lawur. It is day ONE of our passage to the Marquesas which we, for reference only, estimate to take about 25 days.

Whoever came up with this idea to call the biggest crossing any family cruiser will ever make, about 3000 miles give or take a few tacks, the ?puddle jump? is a mystery to me. But let?s not jump the gun here ? just figuratively speaking obviously because I am sure this saying is rooted in some marine custom too ? here is something for you saying experts to research and get back to us while we have no internet access ? Jan!?

Anyhow, let me start with saying today is a big day for TheSchmid family on Lawur. It is day ONE of our passage to the Marquesas which we, for reference only, estimate to take about 25 days ? if we get there earlier, we are doing really good, if we get there later nothing to worry about. As our weather guru Don wrote, 25 days is the average time a passage to the Marqueas takes for the smart cruiser ? well who doesn?t want to be smart ? let?s at least try. So for us that means, we pretty much crossed April out of our calendar for any appointments ? we are away from civilization out somewhere in the Pacific that month ? for you that should mean lots more emails and updates from us. My goal for the passage is to write a logbook entry every day ? yes every day but I am not offended if you don?t read it all ? just don?t wanna hear at the end, we didn?t communicate. One word of caution, the small print if you want, just because we slip a day or so at some point in time doesn?t mean we are having problems ? it might just mean we are busy doing whatever we do and I cannot even imagine yet ? hey remember I have never done this before either, so this is a first for probably most of us. So let?s take this voyage together and you are along for the ride in writing at least for the next month ? WELCOME A BOARD LAWUR IN ROUTE TO THE MARQUESAS.

Our boat and my family has never been this ready before for this trip. We have talked about this trip for over 3 years by now and we have read many books, worked countless hours to get Lawur ready and Niki has carried tons ? and I mean tons as far as I am concerned ? of food onto the boat. I have no idea what we are going to do if we catch any fish because I can already hear Niki say ? ?We have to eat the pork tonite before it goes bad?. But one step at the time ? Lawur is ship shape, she has never had all the systems installed, all the lines, bunjjes and netting installed, never had everything put away as we have for today and NEVER carried this much fuel before (we purchase extra fuel cans totaling 90 gallons which is more than our tanks carry) ? to make matters worse ? Frank you won?t believe it ? but we were done actually a day in advance ? felt good to be so ready. Niki, the boys and I are also as prepared as we have never been before ? I have spent quite a few hours entering coordinates, looking at weather and talking to the weather guru here Don ? Niki has spent many, many hours planning for food, rations and our social time for the trip and the boys got ready by playing into the late hours of each evening with all the other families that were around in Zihuatanejo, our last port in Mexico.

We had a fabulous time here in Zihuatanenjo which is close to Ixtapa, a pretty well know resort town on the mainland of Mexico about 100 miles north of Acapulco. Z-town as the cruisers call it has been a great last port, not too touristy, lots of nice little places to eat and not too expensive which is always a plus when you don?t work anymore. We also met up with quite a few cruisers that were waiting for the right time to leave for the Marquesas and today and tomorrow is the day where Z-town will mostly empty out. Our buddy boat Ohana Kai is leaving tomorrow since Lisa has her parents in town and they wanted another day with them and her sister is also here. Today, there were all together 3 boats leaving beside us, Long Tall Sally, Capaz and us. Capaz is another boat with 2 boys so by now we cover the range from all the way of 6 years to 11 with 6 boys between Lawur, Ohana Kai and Capaz ? it gets wild at times, we call them the 6-pack.

Let me come back to the passage and give you a little bit more data than you might want ? this is a long trip and to be able to follow along and reference back to where we are I decided to give you some details:

1 ? Let me start by saying that you can follow our course and progress in detail via Google Earth ? go to www.lawur.com/tracker/ and you can download both the Google Earth application as well as the necessary file to see our track ? I promise to send every day at least 2 position updates which will actually include data for the last 3-6 hours down to the hour detail including, speed, heading and wind speed which you can also see at www.lawur.com/tracker/track.aspx?boatname=Lawur

2 ? If you are interested into the details of the planned route and so I can reference better where we are for future writing, I have taken the 2917 mile trip according to our navigation software and split it into daily 120mile portions if you want. Here are the exact coordinates for plotting our future reference:

Name    Pos      COG     SOW    ETA      TTG      Tot TTG Leg Dist Tot Dist.

1000     17°34.8881 N / 101°35.2699 W   353 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 03/29/2006 08:00:00       00s       ---         0.000 Nm            ---

1001     16°49.1462 N / 103°31.2306 W   241 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 03/30/2006 07:58:09       23h 58mn          23h 58mn            120 Nm 120 Nm

1002     16°06.1527 N / 105°28.1251 W   242 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 03/31/2006 07:58:55       01d 00h 01d 23h 120 Nm 240 Nm

1003     15°21.3151 N / 107°24.1411 W   241 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/01/2006 08:02:57       01d 00h 03d 00h 120 Nm 360 Nm

1004     14°34.8282 N / 109°19.0575 W   240 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/02/2006 08:07:13       01d 00h 04d 00h 120 Nm 481 Nm

1005     13°47.9635 N / 111°13.3158 W   240 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/03/2006 08:10:32       01d 00h 05d 00h 120 Nm 601 Nm

1006     12°59.8712 N / 113°06.0352 W   239 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/04/2006 08:07:20       23h 56mn          06d 00h 120 Nm       721 Nm

1007     12°10.3343 N / 114°58.5354 W   239 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/05/2006 08:12:46       01d 00h 07d 00h 120 Nm 841 Nm

1008     11°20.8585 N / 116°50.5959 W   239 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/06/2006 08:16:56       01d 00h 08d 00h 120 Nm 961 Nm

1009     10°29.9430 N / 118°41.5572 W   238 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/07/2006 08:20:03       01d 00h 09d 00h 120 Nm 1082 Nm

1010     09°38.4542 N / 120°31.8604 W   238 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/08/2006 08:22:19       01d 00h 10d 00h 120 Nm 1202 Nm

1011     08°46.1826 N / 122°21.2841 W   237 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/09/2006 08:22:16       23h 59mn          11d 00h 120 Nm       1322 Nm

1012     07°53.7881 N / 124°10.0488 W   237 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/10/2006 08:18:34       23h 56mn          12d 00h 120 Nm       1442 Nm

1013     07°00.4103 N / 125°58.3743 W   237 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/11/2006 08:17:51       23h 59mn          13d 00h 120 Nm       1561 Nm

1014     06°00.0008 N / 127°59.9981 W   236 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/12/2006 11:19:01       01d 03h 14d 03h 135 Nm 1697 Nm

1015     03°00.3394 N / 128°00.7620 W   173 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/13/2006 23:14:58       01d 11h 15d 15h 180 Nm 1876 Nm

1016     00°00.0000 N / 127°59.9981 W   173 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/15/2006 11:19:03       01d 12h 17d 03h 180 Nm 2057 Nm

1017     01°21.0450 S / 129°28.6526 W   221 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/16/2006 11:20:22       01d 00h 18d 03h 120 Nm 2177 Nm

1018     02°41.6326 S / 130°57.4218 W   221 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/17/2006 11:18:34       23h 58mn          19d 03h 120 Nm       2297 Nm

1019     04°03.2272 S / 132°25.7517 W   220 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/18/2006 11:20:11       01d 00h 20d 03h 120 Nm 2417 Nm

1020     05°24.6849 S / 133°54.5210 W   220 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/19/2006 11:23:14       01d 00h 21d 03h 120 Nm 2537 Nm

1021     06°45.9602 S / 135°23.7303 W   221 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/20/2006 11:26:55       01d 00h 22d 03h 120 Nm 2657 Nm

1022     08°06.5730 S / 136°53.3790 W   221 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/21/2006 11:26:55       01d 00h 23d 03h 120 Nm 2777 Nm

1023     09°45.0013 S / 138°44.9985 W   221 ° Mg           Kn         5.00 04/22/2006 17:00:33       01d 05h 24d 09h 148 Nm 2925 Nm

So right now we are at a heading of 260 degrees magnetic to the West which is slightly more north than the forecasted 241 heading for waypoint 1001 with a scheduled arrival for tomorrow morning. As you can see by looking at this, we will proably never really make any of the waypoints exactly but this is a reference for us and for you to follow along. If we are sort of in time at about 5knots average speed, we should be getting into Hiva Oa in the Marquesas on around the 22nd of April ? damn this far out from here.

So for now, we treating this like any other overnight trip and we are expecting some winds straight ahead later today which means an uncomfortable beating into the wind, but we were all told that it will take probably about 3-5 days before we have totally adjusted to making a long passage ? let?s see, the day is early and we have just 2 hours behind us.

So that?s it for now, wanted to give you a quick update on our exciting depature. Keep the reply emails coming please, we have time to answer now and but PLEASE DON?T COPY this email back to me ? this will increase my download times by A LOT ? just hit reply and delete the original message PLEASE.

Happy sailing and voyaging,

TheSchmids Family Sailing on Lawur

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