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4/2/2006 6:07:00 AM
500 miles outside Z town
Just south of waypoint 1004 ... we are ahead of schedule
Day 4 of 25 - The Typical Day of a Puddle Jumper
DAY 4 of 25 - you asked for it you get it. Here is a typical day on Lawur right now.
. well maybe not every day and who knows what other boats do and these things change in a hurry if things go wrong, but nevertheless let me try to give you the typical day on Lawur as it is starting to develop.
Lots of people have asked us what a typical day for us looks like so here we go . and let's start at midnight because we are up 24 hours a day.
12 - 2 AM - ROBERT WATCH - So what does it mean to be on watch? Well we typically check every 15 minutes both the radar and visually by looking around for anything we need to go around . islands (not sure there will be any until the Marquesas), other boats (rare) or other obstacles which we might see on radar (very unlikely) . as you can imagine in the middle of the Pacific there isn't much around so this gets boring real fast . but you cannot get complacent. Other then checking radar and so forth, I check the sails and do a quick boat overall check every hour or so by turning off the autopilot and hand steering the boat and, maybe checking oil once in a while or any other things that need regular monitoring such as our battery consumption. Lots of things to worry about but all takes little time and leaves a lot of time to actually read and write emails or read a book, which I do a lot of . almost finished with my second book . cannot wait to get my hands on it again.
2 - 5 AM - NIKI WATCH - Pretty much the same as the above but one more point I want to make is that if we do make sail changes the old saying "all hands on deck" applies to us too and we both need to be up. So if Niki decides it is blowing to hard and we need to reef the main, then I get back up and we do whatever needs to be done and vice versa . I tend to do a few things by myself but reefing for example requires us both for safety.
5 - 8AM - ROBERT WATCH - I get back up and that is the hardest shift most of the time . kind of the last shift of the night, I am tired and I might do what single handers do and take cat naps . nap 15 mins and get up to the check on the radar, a quick look up top to make sure things are going still OK . then back for another 15 minute nap . sort of weird but I don't even need an alarm, I just wake up when it is time and do my thing.
8AM - This is sort of the time when the whole family crawls out of their bunks . Benjamin and Sebastian are probably already up for a little bit and Niki gets up and makes breakfast while I check into the first radio net of the day called the Amigo Net. Boats from all over Mexico check-in, give their position and we get a weather report from Don, the weather guru up in Oxnard, California. He is fascinating, gets up every morning around 4AM as I understand, does his weather analysis and then gets on all these radio nets and gives weather analysis for FREE . and he is spot on so many times it is scary to think what we would do without him . once in a while you need to take some abuse for a dumb question like I did yesterday but I think we all get our share of that . it is the blind talking to the one seeing color after all (blind ME, color Don).
9AM to MIDDAY - After the nets are over and we had our chats on other frequencies with boats surrounding us or even farther away ( we can talk to boats all the way to Marquesas depending on the frequency), it is time for me to take a good couple hours of sleep. While I sleep, Niki does school or whatever else is on the program with the boys. This will become a very productive time for Niki and the boys though until now it was mainly games, art projects and other fun activities.
12:30PM - Guess what there is another radio net to attend to called the Westbound Net which gets all the people currently underway to the Marquesas together. Unfortunately, the time and frequency has precluded us from checking in most of the time due to bad radio propagation (think how far the signal goes for the not so geeky under us). Nevertheless, we are lucky that we still have other boats within a 20 mile radius of us, one is called 'Capaz' and the other one 'Long Tall Sally'. What that means is that we can talk on the regular VHF radios, the kind you would use at home or in the car and not the fancy ones that can go thousand of miles if conditions are right. That way we end up checking in with each other whenever there is a big event, e.g. Pokemon disasters and help calls for the kids, turtles, dolphins, food and meal discussions, sail changes, course discussions . you name it we talk about it . well we have little other people to chat with so we are getting really social on these VHF calls. But fun aside, it is a good feeling to have someone so close by if things should happen and you need help . makes this journey a lot easier mentally.
AFTER LUNCH - After Niki prepares us a lunch, she typically heads off for her time to sleep a bit or read or whatever comes to mind. I will then spend some time with the boys, we do a little science project where we write down every day, where we are, how many miles we did, our average speed and the high and low of the day . here are 2 tidbits from yesterday . things had gotten so nice that Sebastian came up and said "This is almost as smooth as in a marina" . so here we go, you take your kid and deprive him of the real world, ie take him onto the Pacific Ocean for 4 days, and that's how skewed reality gets and perspectives change . one more tidbit, I promised to report daily mileages . so yesterday was another record with 153 miles for the day . not bad for the wimpy Schmid family on Lawur.
Afternoon is also time to do any projects, clean-up or whatever needs to be done on the boat. Today I finally went into my 'nuts and bolts' box which is a mess but VOILA I found a part to fix my windvane which I will probably tackle tomorrow . our main electrical autopilot is making some funny noises I am not too sure about . could be just my paranoia (so I turned on the engine now so I cannot hear it anymore) or could be a problem developing but I want to get the windvane back in business soon, especially now with us doing a lot more down wind sailing. Talking about sailing, I have to say we have been SOOOO LUCKY with the weather up to this point . and yes I am knocking on wood as I say that . but we have had winds for almost all of the last 4 days and we are currently screaming along at 7 - 8 knots which is pretty damn good for us. The wind direction has changed and sometime tomorrow we should hit the true trade winds but to be honest I have no idea how to differentiate between what we are having now and what the trades are . maybe it needs to clock around a little bit more to be considered trades but I take what I have right now with a smile . its blowing 20 knots out of the North and we going straight for our waypoints . pretty nice sailing.
4 - 5PM - HAPPY HOUR - Which means the whole family sits down, I am NOT allowed to work on the computer or boat unless it is critical, Niki does no projects and we have a soft drink together and play some games . today it was Uno again and I won once while Sebastian won twice and Benjamin once . it wasn't Niki's lucky day I guess.
5 - 8PM - ROBERT WATCH, NIKI DINNER - Since Niki does the meals, I take that first shift which is an easier one since we are all still up. But then again, it is the time to prepare everything for the night, which often means taking down some sail to make for an easier ride at night, putting things away and Niki cooks dinner. Today we had the full menu thing going all day . breakfast French Toast and then Niki baked banana bread, lunch we had some leftover noodles with eggs and some ham from the day before and then for dinner Niki made a delicious Dijon chicken . meals as I have heard before become the highlights of the day so please humor us by listening to our menu reports . it is a tradition for cruisers to write back what we eat on our passages, never got the exact reasoning except that it is such a special time of the day and breaks up the day much more then it does in our regular land based lives.
Talking about traditions, here is another tradition when writing these reports which is the fishing report of the day . well we still haven't put out our hooks once yet, but nevertheless we found 4 flying fish and yes they have wings and 2 squid on the deck . all dead and dried out by the time we got to them but nevertheless I guess we caught something . so here we go on the fishing front of things.
8 - 11PM - NIKI WATCH - That's when all the boys on the boat tug in and go to bed. Niki does the first shift and then I get back up to do my next one
11PM - 12AM - ROBERT WATCH - So this wraps up a typical day on Lawur . have I said before how blue the water is . damn I am starting to sound like a broken record but I still cannot get over that one .
Thanks for coming along via email on our voyage. Unbelievable we are already into our 5th day at sea and now looking at the map you can see we are WAY out there . scary in a way then not so much. Just glad the damn seasickness is all gone now . they are right what they say about getting better after 3 days.
Happy voyaging,
TheSchmids Family Sailing on Lawur
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