the canoe

Spent the weekend in Catalina, at Two Harbors. There was no wind on the 24 mile trip from Long Beach to the Island so we motored the entire way. On the way we ran the watermaker and topped up our starboard water tank, tested the autopilot, GPS, Maxsea software and other systems...all worked well.  At Two Harbors we picked up a mooring in front of the village and made the boat all snug, as we expected some weather later. A fast moving cold front passed through overnight, bringing wind and rain from around midnight to dawn, and left us with a cold northerly wind the next morning. We hiked over to Cat Harbor around midday to enjoy the scenery of that idyllic anchorage. It's a short hike across the narrow isthmus, to the southwest side of the island where Cat Harbor is located. On the way we came across two bison grazing in the field next to the road. Bison roam wild on Catalina. They were originally brought over from the mainland in 1924 for the filming of a Zane Grey silent western.  Since then, the Catalina Island bison herd has been carefully nurtured and controlled by the Island Conservancy, and number about 150 head. Shaggy and prehistoric looking, they are the undesputed kings of the animal life on the island, except for us humans.

Viewed from aft, the transom extension is hardly visible

On the mooring with the swim ladder deployed

Nice, clean wake

We had a fine sail home on Sunday, and for the first time I was able to observe the new transom extension under sail. It worked as I had hoped, reducing turbulence and drag, and increasing our sailing performance. But most of all, it made a perfect place to board the boat from the dinghy.
????

The autopilot does the driving while Catalina recedes in the Honcho's wake.

????

It's been about six weeks since I started working full time on preparing the Honcho for extended cruising in Mexico. Until yesterday it's been long days and nights of work to get the boat set up and prepared. Today I can say that we're basically ready to go. All that's left is final provisions and fuel. For the first time I could sit back and relax a bit. With my workload tapering off I've had time for a morning jog on the beach the last few days, and time to reflect more on the voyage instead of the multitude of tasks to be completed before I could say the boat and crew are ready. But now the days are getting shorter and the nights colder, telling me it's time to go.
Our course south will take us first to Ensenada where we'll clear customs and collect all the necessary permits for a vessel traveling in Mexican waters. This will take a couple of days. Then the Honcho will leave the cities behind and head south along the coast of the Baja Peninsula. Our first landfall will be Bahia San Bartolome, or Turtle Bay, about 300 miles from Ensenada. We'll spend a couple of days there, then continue on to Bahia Santa Maria, another 225 miles south. Bahia Santa Maria lies at roughly 25 degrees north latitude, and it is at this point where the weather usually turns from colder north Pacific conditions to warmer, more tropical conditions. In spite of the tropical latitude, the landscape there, as nearly everywhere else on the peninsula is arid and desert-like. We'll hang out in Bahia Santa Maria for a few days, then continue south past Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of the peninsula. Cabo lies about 175 miles south of Bahia Santa Maria and in addition to being a tourist destination, is the point where we'll leave the Baja Peninsula and cross the Sea of Cortez, making landfall at Puerto Vallarta. PV is about 300 miles southeast of Cabo San Lucas. That will conclude the first leg of the voyage.

??
??

I think of Joshua Slocum as the first world cruiser. In 1895 he set out from Boston in an old wooden sloop that he rebuilt, and sailed solo around the world by way of Cape Horn, Torres Straits and Cape Agulhas. The Spray, as it had been named years before he owned it, had the following dimensions:

LOA: 37'
Beam: 14'
Draft: 4'-2"

When the Spray left Boston in 1895 it had a 14' long bowsprit and a 34' boom, In South America Slocum shortened them to about 10� and 25� to make the boat easier to handle. Still, the fifty-something year old Slocum had to be fairly acrobatic to set, reef and douse its sails.  Another interesting fact is that the Spray had no cockpit for shelter at sea, no self steering gear and no winches. Everything aboard the Spray, including the anchor windlass, was �handraulic�. Slocum must have been the epitome of a sailor in every sense of the word to sail that boat single-handed around the world. Since his historic voyage, many people have circumnavigated the globe.

One thing Slocum wrote in his classic narrative of his voyage was that you need not be an expert sailor to circumnavigate, and that point has been emphatically driven home recently. I refer you to seventeen year old Zac Sunderland, who managed to stagger around the world in an old Islander 36, and the even younger Jessica Watson who accomplished a solo nonstop circumnavigation in a Sparkman & Stephens 34. One of the most interesting recent circumnavigations was that of Pat and Ali Schulte in their 35 foot catamaran. I highly recommend their lighthearted and amusing book about their travels. You can find it at www.bumfuzzle.com.

One of my favorite circumnavigators was Harry Pidgeon. Harry built his 34 foot Seagoer yawl on the beach in San Pedro, California. Harry was a rafter, a rambler, an accomplished photographer and a pretty good story teller too. His book, �Around the World Singlehanded: The Cruise of the �Islander�� is well worth searching for. I always admired the calm, confident way he set about building his boat and simply sailing over the horizon. You can find out more about this fascinating sailor at: http://captainharrypidgeon.org/

It�s interesting to note that all five of these circumnavigations were done in boats with an average length of about 35 feet, none of which was designed or built with such ambitious voyages in mind. Yet these fairly average people ranging in age from 16 to pretty old achieved these admirable goals without any serious problems.  You can find a list of notable circumnavigators at http://www.joshuaslocumsocietyintl.org/solo/solotable.htm

Congratulations to Rudy Heessels and crew on the completion of their Pacific voyage aboard Wind Child, his Beneteau 36s7. From their home port in Washington, they sailed down the coast to San Diego in time to participate in the 2009 Baja Haha. Then in the spring of this year they took off on the Pacific Puddle Jump to the Marquesas, then on to Tahiti, and finally returned to Sequim, Washington by way of Hawaii. You can read all about it on their blog: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/rpo/