S/V SUN DREAM
FEBRUARY, 2009 LOG

Thursday, February 12, 2009:

We finally left the dock at 11:30AM.  Bob & Judy Craig, John McBride, and James Steuwe for seeing us off.  We motorsailed to the Galveston Jetties due to a headwind and cleared the jetties at about 5:15PM.  Great winds, good seas and excellent sailing until 2:00AM when the winds died.

Friday, February 13, 2009:Happy Birthday to Pat!  Don’t tell anybody, but she is 62 today.  The fog started rolling in early this morning and the visibility was as low as ¼ mile.  It hasn’t lifted all day, but visibility has increased to about 2 miles.  Not really a problem thanks to radar.  I don’t know what we would do without it.  It is 4:20PM on Friday and we are at 28deg 01.7M and 96deg 40.5M with a course heading of 233 degM making 6.3 knots motor sailing.  Winds are still light.  We are 22.1 miles from the Port Aransas jetties and should arrive there about 8:00PM tonight.   Update:  The fog continued throughout the day varying between ¼ and 2 miles.  It was pretty heavy when we were about 5 miles from the jetties.  It is pretty eerie when the tankers start popping up out of the fog about ¾ mile away.  Fortunately, they were anchored, so we just slipped right by them.  We in fact did arrive at the Port Aransas jetties at 8:00 PM and continued in the Port Aransas channel and the Corpus Christi channel to the CC City Marina.  Fortunately, the fog lifed just before we arrived at the PA jetties.  Also, fortunately, there was very little traffic in the channels.  We arrived at dock at Midnight (Slip F-20 on the North T Head,) docked, did the necessary chores, before retiring at 2:00AM.We were tired, but it was a very good trip.  Winds were great at times and fair at times, but at least they were never on the nose.  Seas were never rough, mostly 2 to 3 feet and never on the nose so we took no spray in the cockpit.

Saturday, February 14, 2009We had a great nights sleep between 2:00AM and 9:00AM and are quite rested.  We will be here for about 5 days before leaving for Isla Mujeres, MexicoHappy Valentine’s Day

Sunday, February 15, 2009 through Sunday, February 22, 2009, 1:00PM:  We rested; visted & had dinner &  breakfast with Kyndera & Dillon; had dinner with Ham & Cheryl (Pat’s Maid of Honor in 1968); walked a bit; bought a few more supplies; and totally finished up the “to do” list. 
Sunday, February 22, 2009:  We left the dock at Corpus Christi marina at 1:00PM.  It always takes longer than expected to get away from the dock.  The north wind didn’t last long enough, as it was still on the nose all the way to Port Aransas.  It was a beautiful sunny day with winds about 10 knots.  We should have left earlier and just jumped into those north winds. We had a semi-submersible ship with a jack-up rig stowed on deck catch up with us in the Corpus Christi channel and passed us just before we got to Port Aransas.  It certainly looks huge when it is overtaking your donkey..  I will post a couple of pictures on the web site when I have access. After clearing the PA jetties at about 6:00PM, it was great sailing.  Unfortunately, we were headed more for Veracruz than Isla Mujeres.  Oh well, that’s sailing and we’ll just find a way to compensate later.  It was a beautiful night with many stars in the sky. 
Monday, February 23, 2009:  Winds started slacking off to about 5 knots and moving more to ESE about 1:30AM so I cranked up the iron genny and motor sailed the rest of the nightAt 12:12PM, we are at 26 degrees 54.122 minutes N and 96 degrees 12.344 minutes W.  Winds are out of 110 degrees and about 5 knots.  Seas or 3 to 4 feet rollers with no white caps.  It is about 50/50 cloudy/sunny & we are about 65 miles from closest land.   We haven’t seen another vessel since we left Port Aransas behind.  There were a few platforms last night; but we haven’t seen anything at all this morning – no vessels, no platforms, no birds.  There just plenty of blue water, currently about 650 feet of it.  It is very pleasant and relaxing.  Pat is currently taking a nap.  She slept from 8:30PM last night until 11:00PM; from 1:30AM this morning until 4:00AM this morning; from 7:00AM until 8:15AM.  I’ll try to update you again some time tomorrow.  It’s either time for lunch or a nap one.  Decisions are just so hard when you are retired.
Monday, February 23, 2009 Afternoon:  Not much to see in the afternoon and night.  We didn’t think we were going to see anything, but eventually there was one Coast Guard helicopter, one tanker, and about 4 birds, none of which landed on the Sun Dream.  Thank goodness, or I would have had to get out the trusty slingshot to scare them off.  Motorsailed most of the night into the wind and waves which is a slow go.   I did manage to reach an understanding with “Heidi”, our new Hydrovane wind steering.  She now works great, and I am thankful for having her assist  “George” the autopilot.  She is now doing a good job of steering when we are sailing without any power consumption.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009:  The sun came up beautifully today, and it has been a warmer and sunny day.  At 2:40 PM , we are at 26 degrees 01.8 N and 94 degrees 45.2 W sailing on a COG of 98  degrees at 4.1 knots.  The wind was blowing about 15 knots so the 3-4 ft seas have been white capping.  Currently, the wind is from about 150 degrees at about 8 knots. We need more wind and we need for the wind to move a little more to the south and west.We haven’t seen anything today except for two platforms under construction along with two accompanying vessels.   
Wednesday, February 25, 2009:  The wind picked up yesterday afternoon and it was wonderful sailing for the rest of the day and night.  We didn’t see a thing last night except for one lighted buoy which I think was one of the NOAA weather buoys.  A slight problem arose this morning when I started the engine to charge the batteries.  The alarm came on indicating that the engine was overheating.  So, I turned the engine off and continued sailing.  After breakfast (migas) and allowing the engine to cool, I located the problem and replaced the impeller on the water pump.  It’s not quite as easy to do as to say particularly when you are heeled over and sailing at 5.5 to 6 knots.  It wasn’t a good way to start the day, but everything is fine now. Currently, at 4:30PM, it is sunny, beautiful,  and 78 degrees.  The seas are about 4 feet with white caps.  The wind is 10 to 12 knots from 135 degrees.  We are currently at 92 degrees 19.3 W and 25 degrees 37.6N and sailing at 5.5 knots on a heading of 82 degrees.  I have been able to sail between 100 and 110  degrees most of last night and today, but the wind has come around to the east a bit more so I can’t even hold 90 degrees.  Isla Mujeres which is still our destination is at 126 degrees now.  No way to sail that and it isn’t even pleasant motoring or motor sailing, so I am just hoping for a wind change that will allow me to go more toward the south.  While I was working on the engine today, I heard a conversation on the VHF (unusual out here).  When I went into the cockpit, there was a cruise ship and a tanker both in sight about 5 miles away.  The cruise ship which I assume was heading to Galveston or Houston passed within 1.5 miles on the starboard and tanker passed about 2.5 miles o the port side.  Those are the only things we have seen all day.I may try to motorsail some tonight to see if I can get our heading a little more toward Isla.Sweet Dreams from the Sun Dream. 
Thursday, February 26, 2009:  The seas were pretty calm last night  so we motorsailed all night so that we could make progress toward our destination.  This morning we are sailing again so our course heading is once again east.  The engine purred all night so the impeller repair seemed to do the trick.  Pat is always pleased when the engine purrs.  Not much going on, it is sunny and beautiful.  The wind and waves have come up this morning so we are rocking pretty good.Nothing much else to report.  A couple of vessels off in the distance during the night.  They were probably tankers or cruise ships.  We have not seen another pleasure craft (either sail or power) since we left Corpus Christi.It is 10:45 AM .  We are about 244 miles from closest land which is on the Yucatan.  Water depth is about 11,000 feet.  Wind is blowing about 18 knots from about 115 degrees.  Our course heading is currently 86 degrees (COG).  Current position is 224 degrees 50.7 minutes N and 91 degrees 05.1 minutes W.For those getting SPOT reports, we tried for two hours to send a report.  Apparently there is a satellite problem.  It’s not that we didn’t try.  We will try again later.      It looks like a cold front coming through sometime Saturday or Sunday.  That should make it interesting.  Another update coming tomorrow.  
Friday, February 27, 2009:  We were finally able to get the SPOT message through yesterday & today so hopefully those are being received.  The wind continues to come at us directly from Isla Mujeres, so we have a choice basically of sailing toward Florida or Veracruz but not Isla Mujeres.  So we have been doing a lot of tacking, i.e. sailing one way and then the other.  It works in theory but is pretty dang slow progress.  We’re not in any hurry though.  In fact I have intentionally slowed down waiting on the cold front to come through tomorrow.  I want it to arrive when we are in the Gulf & not in the Yucatan Channel.  The predictions I have seen look like it will hit us after 6PM tomorrow.  Winds will probably be 25 to 30 and seas 10 to 13.  When the winds come out of the North, we should be able to fly to Isla Mujeres.  The weather should be really nice after the front has gone through and the winds have settled down.  I am planning on a Monday/Tuesday arrival and the weather should be nice then.
Saturday, February 28, 2009:  Weather gorgeous, sunny & warm.  This morning had about 15 knots of wind from the SE and seas were running about 6 feet..  We made a little progress sailing today (very little) and mostly toward Florida or Veracruz.  At the moment the seas are calm, 1 to 2 feet, and the wind has died down to about 3 knots from the NE.  Last I saw of the weather, the front looks like it will hit us about 1:00 AM tomorrow morning.  I’m ready for the change, but don’t really want to get to Isla Mujeres until probably Tuesday.  The winds and waves should have died down some by then.Murphy, of Murphy’s Law fame, was definitely sailing with us today.  The generator wouldn’t start this morning so I worked on that for a quite a while before getting it started.  Then it ran and we were charging all our batteries until it went off after about 20 minutes.  So I went back to the manual and it turns out that it was an impeller on the generator.  I’m sure I damaged the first one trying to get it started.  So I unloaded that lazarette again (actually the 3rd time today) and changed the impeller.  It is humming once again and we are charging all batteries before the front.  This has not been my trip for impellers – first the Yanmar and then the generator.  After that I decided to check the bilge and noticed that there was more water than usual.  It turns out that there was enough water that got into the bilge from changing impellers to wash enough crud that was still in the bilge from construction in 2003 to the sump pump.  The strainer on the sump pump was completely stopped up.  So we alternately pumped and cleaned the strainer until the crud was gone – at least for now. At 4:30PM it is very warm and very calm, i.e. the perfect lull  before the storm.  We will be ready though; and as a very famous man (Pat’s Dad) once said, “We’re going to see what we’re going to see.”