Month: March 2016

Hello all,

Happy Easter from Adagio!

It’s been quite a while since my last post and as anyone following this blog knows we have finally cast off the dock lines and headed south. I am writing this post while anchored off of San Martin Island which is about 100 miles south of Ensenada. We arrived here at first light this morning and dropped the hook with the anchorage all to ourselves. The trip here from Ensenada was an overnight one that took about 20 hours so we were a bit tired and took advantage of the opportunity for a long morning nap.

The anchorage here is a bit “rolly” today (meaning the offshore ocean swell is running through the anchorage causing the boat to rock quite a bit from side to side.) so we implemented our “Slow your roll” device otherwise known as a “Flopper Stopper”. What a difference that piece of gear makes. Without it, doing any kind of cooking or other chores becomes much more difficult because you are first trying to keep your balance and then hope you don’t lose control and make a huge mess.

The delay in my posting has been caused by the tremendous amount of work it took to complete all of the projects necessary to get the boat ready to go. And there are still some that need to be completed. Here’s a list of the things that we have completed in the past few months.

” Installed new custom mast steps
” Installed new door latch with custom removable security bars
” Finally finished the galley with new counter tops, sink and custom top loading fridge/freezer box. ” Installed new Seagull water purification
” Built custom rail mount for the new outboard engine for the dingy
” Installed new custom bracket to hold the dingy in place on the foredeck when at sea.
” Installed our Iridium satellite system that allows us to send and receive e-mail, text messages, phone calls and also download weather data for the areas we are traveling.
” Installed new Hydrovane which is a hands free steering device that doesn’t use any electrical power. It steers by the wind which is way cool.
” Installed a new electric auto pilot that gives us another option for hands free steering especially when motoring long distances.
” Installed an AIS transceiver which displays other boat traffic near us when we are at sea. A great piece of collision avoidance gear because it provides some critical information like the speed, course, length, name, closest point of approach on current course, time to closes point of approach and more.
” Modified the anchor chain locker to hold more chain by adding a new bulkhead and drain.
” Purchased all new sails (Main, Staysail, Yankee jib) and added roller furling for the staysail which allows us to fly and douse the sail without leaving the cockpit. Also added all new running rigging to control the staysail.
” Installed new Lofrans windlass on the bow. A critical piece of gear for lowering and raising the anchor.
” Purchased and installed new batteries. One dedicated for starting the diesel engine and six for running all of our other electrical devices.

And as Forrest’s friend Bubba would say “And that’s about it”. I’m sure there are some that I have failed to mention but you get the picture.

Well that’s it for now. Hope to be posting more regularly now that we are on our way and add some more pictures once we get to a stop with wifi. Next stop is the Islas San Benitos about mid-way down the Baja peninsula.

Peace.

Captain Mike.

We finally departed Newport Beach last Friday.  It was six weeks passed our planned departure date, but schedules kind of went out the window.  After waiting out a few storms that rolled through and deciding to do a few last minute projects, we sailed out of Newport Harbor.

Our first stop was Avalon on Catalina Island.  We’ve been to Catalina dozens of times, but it seriously does not get old!  A couple of reasons we wanted to head out this way first were to test out the outboard on the dinghy and do the sea trials for our autopilot.  These were things that we just weren’t able to do in the slip, and we wanted to be able to buzz back over the mainland if there were any problems.  When we first picked up our new dinghy and outboard, the outboard just didn’t seem to be running all that smoothly.  However, in the harbor you really can’t run it very fast.  We had to get it out where we could actually get it up on plane to see what was going on.  We weren’t sure if it was just a matter of it being new and needing to be broken in or if there was actually an issue.  Luckily, everything seems to be running smoothly!

We left Newport in the afternoon and had to bash upwind and into to some swell.  We put a reef in the main and pulled out the staysail and were able to make some tracks.  It was a bit slow going, but we literally sailed off into the sunset!  We made it to Avalon about 9:30 on Friday night, and crashed as soon as our heads hit the pillows.

On Saturday we took the boat out to dial in the autopilot.  After a few tests, it looks like it’s going to work great!  We have two forms of self steering – an autopilot and a hydrovane.  The autopilot runs off a drive unit and computer which steer the rudder when set to a compass course.  The hydrovane is non-electric.  It has it’s own rudder and actually steers to the wind.  Both systems are a must.  You can imagine how tiring hand steering would be for hours or days on end!

We started plotting our course to Ensenada and working with our satellite phone/wifi to get our weather (GRIB) files.  Unfortunately, what we saw was pretty ugly.  Although it will only take us about 20 hours or so so sail to Ensenada, doing so in gale force winds is just not that smart.  Right now the gale flag is blowing here in Avalon, so we’re staying put.

While we have a couple of days here at this beautiful island, we’re having a little fun.  We blew up our inflatable canoe, which is pretty cool.  We also met some great new friends in the harbor who also have a Cheoy Lee and invited them for dinner tonight.

I’ll leaving you with pictures of me jumping in with Ukelele Eddie, who we met the other day, and a picture of Adagio in front of the Casino in Avalon.  Hopefully the next time I will be writing you will be from Ensenada!

We’ve been working hard to get the boat ready to depart Newport Beach. Our planned departure date is (was) tomorrow. But, mother nature has decided to make other plans. After weeks of just beautiful weather here in Newport, there is rain forecasted for this weekend that will sweep through Southern California and onto to Baja – our exact route south! So, we’re going to wait out the storms and look for a good window to leave next week.

In the meantime, that gives us a few more days to provision some additional items and finish up some projects that we thought we were going to have to do in Mexico. I’m also going to work on a video tour of Adagio to post for you all to see our floating home and what we have done with her.

We were able to take the boat out on Sunday to try out the new sails, which worked beautifully! Adagio was a sloop rigged boat, but we added a staysail to make her a cutter. This will give us more options in different winds and make the boat a bit easier for the two of us to handle in strong winds.

We also just added mast pulpits around the mast which will make it much safer for us to work around the mast especially if the boat is heeling. We had these custom made to include holders for our scuba tanks! We are really excited about that, because our rails around the cockpit were becoming a bit crowded with the outboards, grill, propane tanks, stern anchor, etc. This is going to be MUCH nicer. You’ll see what I’m talking about when I get the video posted.

Speaking of scuba, I did finish my certification! I can’t thank the instructors enough at Dive and Photo in Costa Mesa. They were wonderful! I’m so excited to be able to dive in all of the beautiful places we are going to visit!

So, one of my last minute provisions that I’m going to include are seeds for sprouting. I met a guy recently who was into farming and suggested that we could grow our own sprouts on board, because they don’t need any soil. So cool! Do any of you have any experience with sprouting? I’m excited to try it, and I’ll let you all know how it goes.

I really am planning to post more often once we get underway. Right now has been project after project. We’re so over the projects (and so is our bank account!). One of the cool things we installed is the Iridium Go! It is a satellite hotspot that will let us make satellite calls, text, emails, and update the blog, Twitter and Facebook. If you want to be notified of updates to the blog, please subscribe. You can also get our updates on Twitter and Facebook @adagiosvoyage.

Ok, mother nature…. it is time to let us go!

~Katie