From Zac via Sat Phone:
Hey!
The reason that we didn't post my position yesterday was because I made a planned stop at Emerald Bay at Catalina Island for some time with the boat with no distractions. This is so familiar because I spent two summers living here with my family when I was about 10 & 11. With all the media attention last week it was very difficult to get on board the boat for any length of time without distractions unless we were seatrialing. I arrived Saturday evening about 7:00 pm after an awesome sail over in some nice winds. I spent Sunday reorganizing and sleeping and Monday Dad came over with Greg from Itik Productions to waterproof the cameras and install my new anchor, donated by Quickline. My sisters Abby and Jessie came with him and spent the day swimming and hanging out. Photographer, Lisa Gizara, came to help out and take a few last photos. Harbor Steve made dinner for us. We just sat in the cockpit and watched the sun go down and the nearly full moon rise. I couldn't help wondering when I'd have such a time again.
After cooking some bacon and eggs, I dropped the mooring this morning around 11:00am and rounded the west end of Catalina Island. I settled in to my first way point only to have the wind die and the swells roll in. It was pretty crazy rolling like mad and not being able to do anything about it. A quick look at Clear Point Weather showed me that the wind would be filling in soon so I pressed on and by about 3:00 had a good 12 knots and was traveling at 6 knots myself.
The following position was taken at 2:19pm Pacific.
My web guy is out of town but will be posting a new page on the web site that will have my course outlined as well as my itinerary. For now I will give a daily position report.
Since this will be my first night at sea alone, I will answer the question of how do I sleep at night. Intrepid is equipped with 2 radar systems. The first is a RayMarine radar and chart plotter. The radar is set to scan the horizon every 5 minutes. It looks out over the sea as far as 24 miles. If it 'sees' anything a mark will show up on the screen. At night, I can set the radar alarm so that when something appears, an alarm will sound. Secondly, I have an AIS ship radar. This was a sponsored piece of equipment from Dr. and Mrs. David Lowenberg. All commercial shipping (ie. BIG ships) are required to send a signal out over the VHF radio that is picked up by this great little unit. It will show the location of the ship and if you run the cursor over the ship, it will show what type of ship it is, how fast and what direction it is going and even the name of the ship in case you need to hail them. As far as steering goes, I can set one of three autopilots, a device that steers the boat for me on a set course. Another night time safety routine is to turn on running lights; a light on the mast, bow (front of the boat) and stearn (back). I am planning on sleeping in the cockpit tonight, teathered of course to my harness and the boat.
Thank you for all the great emails. I am hoping to be able to answer a few of them when I get into a 'groove' as they say.
Until tomorrow.
Cheers,
Zac
posted by Zac at
9:15 PM
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