christin's sailing adventures

anything else?

2007-07-26T10:46:00.000-10:00

yepp, you probably already heard it, we blew out the third one! unser dritter spinnaker hat sich gestern nacht von uns mit einem lauten puff verabschiedet. it looked like it was going to be a quiet night, aber nein - natuerlich kommts erst richtig doll wenn es kommt! we were going through a huge squall that came out of the middle of nowhere, set the new record of 9.8kts, ich erinnere mich nich dran das geschreie vom neuen rekord unter deck zu hoeren. und dann find es an ganz schoen wild zu werden und ausser kontolle zu geraten. we rounded up so hard a few times that pots came flying of the gimbled oven. natuerlich war ich breits mit messer, rettungsweste, kopflampe und handschuhen bewaffnet seit ich ins bett gegangen bin, nunhiess es vorsicht beim aus dem bett kriechen und aufpassen dass man nicht vom schnellkochtopf erschlagen wird. made my way up on deck and once we all sat in the cockpit, thinking it might be ok, just wait - es wird sich ja vielleicht wieder beruhigen: kawummm!!!! der spinnaker ist explodiert und in stuecke zerisssen. bill und ich sind auf foredeck gerannt, natuerlich immer eingeklickt damit wir nicht ueber bord fallen. once we got on the foredeck, it was the hardest thing in the world to get that sucker to come down. bits and pieces flying all over, getting hung up on everything. didn't take long until i used my knife for the first time cutting free fabric that was sucking us into the deep ocean. mein messer ist leider kein gutes, ziemlich alt, auf volare gefunden, ein segelmesser mit gerader schneide (keine saege zaehne), ein marlinspike womit man knoten aufkriegt (langes duennes spitzes stuck metall). na jedenfalls war es nicht das schaerfste (serrated edge would have been a lot better) aber es war besser als zaehne zu benutzen oder haende zum reissen. the spinaker got wrapped around the spin net, the forestay, the sock-lines... imagine that! caroline in her underwear! got to the bow and took over the pulling down while i was trying to hold on to the sail that was partly filling with air, ripping it out of my hands a times. sooo schwierig den spin festzuhalten, wenn er sich mit luft fuellt (wir waren ja immerhin noch immer im sturm, grau und regen um uns herum). eventually we got it all down, including the spin net that was so hard to pull down since its is wrapped around the forestay (and furled jib) to prevent the kite from wrapping around that. anyhow. we pulled out the jib and poled it on port until just now when we jibed over.

wir sind noerdlich von maui, gleiche hoehe wir diamond head. no boat speed right now, it sucks! we thought we could make it by tonight around midnight, but maybe you guys have to hang in there a bit longer! we might be hoisting the wedding dress (den spinnaker den wir gesponsert bekommen haben und wir nicht benutzen wie ein hochzeitskleid das auf den tag wartet wenn wir ueber die ziellinie fahren) sooner or later, might have to take it down and baby it so it'll survive until we are home...

werd wohl anfangen meine sieben sachen zu packen, und ein wenig sauber zu machen.

bis bald,
eure christin

home by friday afternoon for sure?

2007-07-25T10:44:00.000-10:00

also, es sieht so aus als wenn unser navigator sich sehr sicher ist, dass wir auf jeden fall bei freitag nachmittag zu hause sind!!!! wenn wir so weiter machen wie gerade (~7.5kts) sind wir donnerstag abend um 8uhr HST da! waer das nicht schoen!

navigator bill says, purchase those tickets now, we will be home by friday afternoon! as of now, our eta is thursday, 8pm HST. well, that would be great, wouldn't?

kein drama letzte nacht, viele sterne, 11 flugzeuge und ein wunderschoener mond, reflektiert silber im ozean. heute morgen mal wieder kein wind fuer ne lange unangenehme weile aber dann als wir die richtung gewechselt haben, ging es wieder aufwaerts mit der geschwindigkeit!

es ist so heiss, unbeschreiblich! im boot laeuft einem die suppe runter, auf deck verbrennt man sich. welches ist das schlimmere uebel? hatten gerade leckere gemuese lasagne, der ofen macht das boot natuerlich noch heisser! wenn wir den motor am laufen haben um die batterien vom boot aufzuladen (die zb. den kuehlschrank und die instrumente betreiben mit 12V)koennen wir auch die fans betreiben, luefter geblaese sagt man, gelle?

danke fuer die updates ueber kilauea (haste richtig geschrieben, schwesterherz :) hoffentlich sehen wir was! sobald wir handy empfang haben, melde ich mich auf jeden fall bei euch! vielen lieben dank an bettina und wohl die ganze familie rockenberger fuer die uebersetzungshilfestellungen. meistens war es fuer mich zu schwierig, die bootstechnischen sachen in deutch zu schreiben, kann man kaum erwarten, dass ihr dass ohne segel experten uebersetzen koennt. wenigstens sind die wichtigsten nachrichten angekommen. und danke sebastian fuer den richtigen transpac link! good catch! liebe gruesse auch an unsere fans in laage! joseph hat sich uebrigens sehr ueber oma ihren anruf gefreut, konnte er wieder sein deutsch verbessern!

what's up with mr. curtis? had written him about 3 emails and he hasn't responded? everything alright? too busy looking at all the TP boats coming in ; ))) can't wait to see you all! i'm sooooooo excited!

that's all for now,
gotto go get some sunscreen action going before my watch starts.

bis sehr bald,
christin

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bald da

2007-07-24T17:08:00.000-10:00

"quick message for joseph: donna got tickets reserved (15 total, 2 for us) and will notify most likely valerie to pay for them before thursday 2pm. should know soon when we will be there! thanks!"

na hallo ihr lieben schmidts und anderen deutsch verstehenden. meine arme oma kann leider viel vom englischen nicht verstehen (lucie muss wohl zu viel zu tun haben, dass sie nihct uebersetzen kann : ) und darum schreibe ich heute in deutsch!

es war ein ziemlich ruhiger tag heute, im gegensatz zu den letzten naechten im speziellen wo totales chaos geherrscht hat. nur ein kleiner sturm kam heute kurz vorbei und hat unsere geschwindigkeit von 5 auf 9 knoten kurzzeitig angehoben. das war schoen. es macht tierisch spass das boot in viel wind zu steuern, man spuert wie sie sich aulaedt und schnell genug wird um die grossen wellen zu surfen. man fuehlt sich wie in einer rennmaschine, der man ploetzlich jet-benzin einspritzt (oder was auch immer die bei fast 'n furious reinspritzen). auf einmal geht sie ab wie schmidt's katze ;) der regen der normalerweise mit den stuermen kommt war eine genossene erfrischung, keine regenjacke notwendig! letzte nacht haben wir einen mond-regenbogen gesehen, schon zum 2. mal! direkt gegenueber vom mond kann man einen leichten schimmer in form eines normalen regenbogens sehen, nur keine verschiedenen farben, alles nur grau toene! haben uns gewundert was man am ende eines mond-regenbogens findet... als der mond unterging (wir sind direkt in den mond untergang hinein gefahren) sah es einem feuer sehr aehnlich. fasst so wie ein boot das in flammen aufging.

heute haben wir wieder zwei leinen zum angeln rausgehangen, und heute hat's auch endlich mal gebissen!!! mahi-mahi! da der fisch schon seit laegerem tot gewesen sein musste, hat er leider all seine gruen-blauen farben schon verloren. caroline hat ihn filletiert und wir haben ganz leckeres sashimi mit wasabi-shoyu gegessen. den rest ganbs gekocht zum abendbrot mit zwiebeln und knoblauch salz in alufolie im ofen gebacken! mit mais und bohnen. lecker (nicht boese werden liebe schmidt's gibt kein besseres wort ;)! und 5 minuten nachdem wir alles nach dem ersten fisch sauber gemacht haben (blut vom deck geschrubbt, angel leine und haken gereinigt etc) hat noch ein mahi gebissen! morgen gibts noch mal fisch!

heute nacht koennte meine vorletzte nachtschicht sein! wenn wir noch ein bisschen mehr wind kriegen, schaffen wir es vielleicht donnerstag abend im ala wai zu sein. das waer so schoen! die werden beim hawaii yacht club mit fernseh kameras und ner riesigen fete auf uns warten! am freitag ist die pokal-uebergabe, eine grosse party im hilton hawaiian village mit allen teilnehmern. wenn wir so weitermachen, koennten wir auch einen ersten preis kriegen! das waer echt ne gute belohnung fuer all die langen strapazen und schwierigkeiten. vor allem dass wir mit so wenig wind kaempfen mussten (noch immer muessen) und die schnellen boote zum schluss nicht. unfair! aber das ist segeln! falls ihr es noch nicht gesehen habt, geht ma zur transpac webseite (www.transpacyachtclub.org) da gibt es angeblich bilder und berichte ueber uns. pyewacket hat es als erster geschafft ins ziel (diamond head buoy) und roy disney hat sich damit die barn door trophy geholt. joseph und curtis haben das boot gesehen als es durch die ziellinie fuhr. 20 knoten schnell, helikopter und viele boote! mal sehen wie viele hubschrauber wir kriegen : ))))

wir sind alle schon sehr aufgeregt, gehen gerade durch die finish-prozeduren durch, wer faehrt, segel trimmt, zeit aufschreibt, etc. bald bald bald!

nun gut, versuche jetzt noch ein bisschen zu schlafen. bis bald,
christin

what else?

2007-07-23T17:00:00.000-10:00

today two weeks and 10 hours ago we started this journey. time flies when you are having fun.

is there any disaster left that has to do with spinnakers? i think we went through a almost every imaginable exercise. we are kind of getting low on chutes and socks, so hopefully the repertoire of dramas will shrink, at least for tonight! instead we have been fighting the light air, drama enough. just jibed back to port pole, lots of noise, heading south again (will his ever end?) and eta is sometime around labor day. well, at least i got to drive the top speed of the night during this awesome squall, as awesome as they can get if they stay friendly. 9.7 kts, fully under control and donna my shift mate very impressed. that made me so happy. wish if would have continued, but no - instead it was all rain, no wind from all over the place and a rattling main. finally put up a preventer to keep the noise to a minimum! we were kind of getting low on water, so we started a scavenger hunt for randomly misplaced bottles and luckily found a treasure of 15 1.5 liter bottles. what a relief! the LA hose water out of the tank is not that tasty, using it currently only for washing hands and making hot water for cold ice coffee drinks. the refrigerator on cirrus rocks, can make slushies (sp?) in no time. water mixed with some gatorade powder is tasty too when it is ice cold! you can see that it is pretty damn hot : )

figured tat i have to sleep with my light shorts on, marlin spike and knife attached to it and have my shoes, gloves and pfd tied together and ready to go in case of an emergency. no need to wear everything! glad i got that figured out. getting out of your bunk while still sleeping and feeling the victory at sea going on is challenging! somehow managed to get a hole in the bottom of my foot escaping from my bunk last night. not too bad, though!

i have never seen an entire spinnaker plus sock in the water, what a frightening view. the sail fills with water and acts like a giant sea anchor. it turned out that the halyard busted, so the sheets were still attached and tangled as much as possible. a decision had to be made soon, cut all the sheets loose trying to keep the shackles would have meant to cut the spin sail corner of, harder to do than cutting a line that is wrapped around block or stantion, if you know what i mean. we almost opted for the latter, but all of the sudden nancy started pulling the sail on deck and when we all joined in we got the entire sail on deck. lindsey ended up cutting the head of since the sock was pulling the winch with boat attached in the water on the port stern. all went smooth, very surprisingly. thank god! it really was a miracle that we ended up saving almost all of the sail, the sheets attached and the halyard that came out of the bottom of the mast by 'only' loosing the halyard shackle, head of the spin and the sock. wow!

i am hearing that preparations are being made for our arrival party, imagine how much we are all looking forward to that! it is not too far away! lots of flying fish, had a tiny one on deck earlier today. other than a random white bird nothing else to report. oh, all aloha b class boats seem to be lined up like duck chicks in a row behind us, cute ey?

anyone know where the kauai channel race starts from? ko'olina or ala wai?

as of 1700 HST we hae 461nm to go to makapu'u lighthouse, sudden burst in boat speed brought us up to 7.4kts, heading 253M at 22N16.8 and 149W27.2 - we are coming, slowly but surely ; )

bye for now,
christin

alles wieder gut

2007-07-23T03:45:00.000-10:00

heute ist der 13.tag und angeblich werden wir in 3-4 tagen zuhause sein. kann es kaum erwarten.

nachdem es ein paar komplikationen mit dem rest der crew gab, sprach ich heute mit dem navigator, bill, dem das boot cirrus gehoert. er hat mir versichert, dass ich nichts falsch mache (ein paar der anderen maedels denken das wohl anders) sondern hingegen viel besser als erwartet. er hat auch gesagt, dass das bootleben sehr anders waere, waere er der skipper. da das nun nicht der fall ist, muss ich mich anpassen und mitspielen und ja nicht meine meinung sagen. ihr wisst ja bestimmt, wie schwer mir das faellt, und darum gibt es manchmal herzschmerz und kummer, aber ich nehme es als eine grosse erfahrung - zu lernen wie man mit verschiedenen persoenlichkeiten umgeht und stress vermeidet. ich kann es nur nicht haben, wenn falsche sachen gesagt werden und man fuer etwas angeschmiert wird, was man nicht getan hat. aber naja, alles vorbei und gut. finger und fuesse sind noch dran nach dem gestrigen fiasko was sehr schlimm haette enden koennen. bald sind wir ja da!

joseph hat mir heute eine sehr gute nachricht in einer email zukommen lassen: wir haben eine wohnung gefunden! in hawaii kai (grob gesagt zwischen diamond head und koko head). wir koennen mitte august einziehen, was fuer eine erleichterung. joseph hatte ziemlich grosse probleme eine "billige" wohnung zu finden, aber hatte nun endlich glueck!

oki, ein paar der grossen schnellen boote sind heute in honolulu angekommen, gut zu wissen dass es wirklich ein ende gibt!

bis bald,
christin

asian danger

2007-07-22T11:51:00.000-10:00

last night at about 2300 i was woken up by a yelling skipper to get on deck as fast as possible, not having enough time to put on gloves, barely grabbed my shoes and did not fetch my gloves. pfd was hooked and as soon as i could open my eyes and stepped up on deck i saw that huge night mare. a monstrous fishing (?) vessel fully lit like downtown honolulu was extremely close to us, our spinnaker was flopping like a mad man on starboard side, we were heeled over hard, winches in the water, hell on deck broke loose. my biteguard still in place ready to take a beating from whatever, i was told to help bill on the foredeck trying to run the spin sock bridal lines to get them ready to bag the kite. the rest of the crew was in the cockpit attending lines, easing the pole spin gear to get slack in the kite that had a mind on its own no matter what we were doing. no gloves to give me enough grip i tried pulling down my long sleeves to help pulling on that line to bag the spin. it was just not possible, blowing like piss. scary sight of that vessel backing up on us. they never answered the radio calls, probably illegally long line fishing, could not read their name since it was in an asian language (lucky bastards). bill and i managed to get the line on a winch and with caroline's help we pulled that sucker down, what a challenge! when the head came close to deck, we pulled on the sock and all of the sudden the frickin' halyard comes off! barely seeing anything with the red headlamp on, it was a miracle to see the halyard the second it got stuck on the life lines and grab it before it went to outer space. there is also a few loose wires (it is a wire halyard) that like to slice open your hands when you grab it, luckily i did not get that part in my hands. good save! while we were dealing with that the cockpit crew had a terrible situation where one of the spin sheets got wrapped around the boom and they had to cut it to prevent the boom from snapping the mast. when we got to the clews of the kite, there was only three lines clipped on total, one was the cut sheet, one was wrapped around a lot of lifelines and one was completely in the water. we still haven't found the fourth line. it will probably show up when we unload the boat at makani kai!

getting the kite down below, reorganized the boat, reran the lines and after getting away from that spooky monster ghost ship we hoisted the 1.5 back up. of course by then the wind had totally died, so we changed to a 3/4 and jibed back on forth to find a good heading in that light air. very difficult with the main up, we decided to just take it down again, keeping the kite full and happy and easier to steer. looking out all night for squalls on the horizon was very important, in case one snuck up on us, we would have to take the 3/4 down and wait for the squall to pass. we got lucky, no major squalls, until 6am in the morning when one walked up on us and we decided to put a reefed main up to help stabilize the boat in case a squall would hit. makes it easier to steer through rougher wind and prevents taking down the spin.

well, since than it has been quite uneventful, wait - not true: the boom brake busted after nancy muscled it in too much : ) so bill fixed it with some shackles and now we are back in business!

until the next thing happens,
we will be home soon!

christin

"drama" or "squally squally night"

2007-07-20T18:51:00.000-10:00

after having had too much wind yesterday, today we were punished for all the complaints: no wind. this is how all the boats north of us must have felt. bobbing around in absolutely no wind the spinnaker decided to wrap around the forestay, what a joy. read all about the happenings on cirrus' blog, all i have to say it that it is fu%^&* hard to steer a boat with a tight main and no spinnaker in no wind. it was a huge mess, we all thought this is it, get the knifes out. but the problems was solved by wrapping it back around from the bottom (untied the sheets). after hoisting back up the 1.5oz, since there is no other usable 1/5oz or 3/4oz left over, we had to take the main down, it prevented the spin from filling with that tiny bit of air that was around. lindsey goes into all the details in her blog for everything that happened, so i won't bore you with that again, go read her's! she is good at explaining all the happenings! my fun part today was taking a shower after we hosed off the deck (nancy's blood made it look like a battle field, remnant of one of the foredeck maneuvers). hair is fluffy, skin is dry and face is clean! too bad i got a pretty bad sunburn after running up on deck for the second jibe after trying to nap after the morning jibe. no time to put sunscreen on, too much drama and such a hot sun and no wind! roasted christin was for dinner :(

it was pretty frustrating in that no wind situation, seeing the eta go to christmas almost! i was watching this huge grey wall to our right on the horizon and kept on asking about squalls. a couple of nights ago, that wasn't really a real squall, from what i have been told. well, not too long after i spotted that wall, it came very close and i got to steer my first squall! what an adventure. especially with no main up, increasing the boat speed to 9 kts and all of the sudden not seeing shit and having huge swells, made steering the kite very challenging. donna coached me through the huge waves, trying to not dip the pole in the water. that breaks the mast right where the pole attaches. not good. i did really good they say, making me very proud *(since the children did not get to steer the somewhat heavier weather last night). i think that was the most intense steering i have ever experienced. maybe the kauai return last year came close. but that did not include a kite : )

we managed to survive the first squall, but not the second. donna lost the wheel and we took the kite down, got the main back up, jib unfurled and were doing 7kts until just now, back to light winds. at least now there is no concern wrapping anything around the forestay. we actually made the effort after we cleaned up the first wrap, to hoist the spin net (fence), which everybody seems to hate. i think it is worth gold!

right now we are working on poling out the jib to go wing in wing, seems like tomorrow we might be hoisting kites again, if the wind returns. lets hope for a quiet night, some sleep would be great!

alright, that's all for now. please do some more wind chanting for us, we would hate to come in after the party is over, okay? since we have gotten more press than any of the big boats, it would be too bad!

wollte noch schnell ein grosses hallo nach breitungen senden, ist ganz schoen wild hier draussen. ich hoffe dass lucie euch die englischen berichte uebersetzt, ausser vielleicht das technische geplapper. hoffe ihr habt es nicht allzu heiss zuhause, und esst schoen viel honig! haette echt welchen mitbringen sollen!

nagut, dann bis bald,
eure christin

talking about spinning

2007-07-19T13:08:00.001-10:00

it was getting close to the end of my shift, i talked myself into being sleepy finally after not sleeping at all before my night shift. 10 min to 6am POP!!! the port spin guy exploded and since the sheet does not go in the jaws of the pole, we collapsed the kite pretty badly before the crew came on board. i tried my best behind the wheel, keeping the kite on port to get it down, since they started pulling it on deck on that side. did not turn out to be the best side to choose, since we hoisted on port but jibed over to starboard, so that the halyard was wrapped around the forestay and the sock-lines were all tangled as well. they ended up getting the kite down without the bag. what a nightmare trying to put that sucker back into the bag, down-bellow when you are sweating your butt off, it is super sticky, squally outside and you are about to pass out with open eyes. well, we waited for the squalls to pass, put up the 3/4 and tried wrestling the 1.5oz. into the sock.

still flying the same chute, just about to test hoist the 1.5 to get the bag situation straightened out. slept all night with clothes on and pfd next to my face in case the bigger squalls would get close and we had to take down the 3/4. guess how well you can rest with that :))

oh, almost forgot: it is 1/2 way time, point of no return, down hill from here: yeahhhhhhh!!!! it happened at ~2.30am while i was driving, how special that is! tonight we will have our extravagant 1/2 way party with painted tow nails, champagne, chilled vitamin drinks and stuffed chicken. will take pictures for you guys! hope you all read that we were a mile faster than pegasus the other day! thansk for sending us the press releases!

love you all and will be home soon!
christin

ein neuer anfang

2007-07-18T17:44:00.001-10:00

und nun in englisch:

i just turned into a new person over night. what a nice feeling. we had an incredible slow day yesterday, i know it could be worse, but my little racing ants in my pants are getting fuzzy and so i got a little annoyed and grumpy and lost the fun. until: i slept from 0600 until 1300 this afternoon and regained all my spirits. ok, gotto admit curtis' email helped alot, reminding me that even if it goes slow, this is exceptional and so special and that he is very proud! thank you so much! christin is full of energy now, rocking and rolling and smiling. we are very close to our 1/2way mark, most likely we have to bust out the champagne at midnight tonight. right now we are also getting ready for our life interview on hpr, which will hopefully be available as a link on cirrus' blog once they figured out how to out it there : ) better not have missed it!

we also just found out that there will be a local tv station camera team waiting when we come into honolulu. what a media support, never would have imagined that we would get that much press!

at the end of my shift yesterday, i got to do the foredeck! that is such a great change from driving!!! don't get me wrong, when there is some wind, driving these big swells and puffs is a ton of fun! my record for the day today was 9kts, overall 9.5, caroline still holding the 9.7! anyhow, we jibed the kite yesterday and i got to do all the fun foredeck stuff. cirrus has two poles and two guys on each pole. that makes blue water foredeck work a lot easier. i put back the guy onto the flying clew by running it trough the jaws of the new pole first. then the pole gets operated by the cockpit people using the fore and afterguy and the topping lift. then we trip the old pole and jibe the boat to the new board. afterwards we took down the 3/4oz. since the sky around us was filled with squall lines. we hoisted the repaired 1.5oz. and at that time it was blowing pretty nicely already. i was enlightened by the fact of how less you can hear on cirrus' foredeck. the water gushing by makes such a loud noise, communication with the cockpit is entirely based on handsignals. working out pretty good. donna and caroline had a hard time trying to keep the kite steady with the main flogging and decided to take it down. between squalls there was almost no wind making the main a loud as hell nightmare! during squalls it got a bit misty and blew a bit faster, nothing dramatic tough. anyhow, taking down that main let everybody and me especially sleep like a log and dream about victory at sea, stormy squalls and our boat volare being tossed around at home by the remnants of that hurricane heading towards honolulu. during my night watch it was luckily not necessary to put on foulies, and the wind was not all that much. almost a bit disappointing.

but they say the wind will pick up, lets see it!!!

still first in class, apparently not anymore tomorrow. trader is 80 miles behind us and we are trying our best to keep him off. ginny, another aloha b class boat just turned around. now there is only 4 boats left in our division. hope they still give out 1st, 2nd and 3rd, if we started with 6 boats...

alright, the satellite phone interview just happened, hope you all heard bill and lindsey! they were so excited! now it is sleepy time again!

over and out for now,
christin

new start

2007-07-18T17:44:00.000-10:00

hallo meine lieben freunde,

konnte es kaum glauben, als ich mich heute morgen endlich aus meinem schlafsack gequaelt habe: es war schon 1300uhr!!! nromalerweise wache ich nach meiner 2-6am schicht so gegen 9uhr auf, weil alle wach sind und fruehstueck machen und mittag vorbeireiten etc. nicht heute, christin hat seit ungefaehr 3 tagen kaum geschlafen, und gestern nacht war es dann endlich soweit! wie gut es sich anfuehlt, koennt ihr euch bestimmt vorstellen!!! ein neuer start.

gestern war einer der schlimmsten tage fuer mich, kaum wind und das boot segelt soooo langsam. noch immer hatten wir unseren 1/2 weges punkt noch nicht erreicht und die ankunftszeit kroch langsam weiter richtung ende juli. sehr frustrierend. es war dann auch endlich soweit dass es zu einem kleinen streit kam, ich hatte schon drauf gewartet: christin die race-wuetige ewig segel trimmende super effiziente, deutsche, mathe und nummern geile blonde frau die alles richtig machen will und stur auf ihren willen besteht, wir sind hier immerhin in einer echten regatta. und der meiste teil von der crew (incl. captain) ist sehr erfahren, aber nicht im racing. was sich schnell auf dem boot anfuehlt, kann einem schnell in die falsche richtung bringen. und das wichtigste beim transpac ist, dass man richtung ziellinie geschwindigkeit gut macht. naja, mit unterstuetzung des navigators bill und boot plaenen die genau beschreiben wie man das boot am schnellsten in allen bedingungen segelt, kamen wir zu einem friedlichen kompromiss. nachdem ich dann heute so schoen geschlafen hatte, wir nun endlich 40 meilen von der 1/2way party entfernt sind und der wind ein bisschen mehr pustet, sieht alles wieder viel sonniger aus! schliesslich sitzen wir alle im selben boot und ziehen an den gleichen leinen...

heute um 5uhr hawaii zeit werden wir life interviewed von hpr (hawaiian public radio). auf cirrus' blog wird wohl der link bald erscheinen, wo ihr das interview dann hoeren koennt. wir werden wohl auch ein fernseh team am dock warten haben, wenn wir in honolulu ankommen. unsere press tante dana in honolulu hat das organisiert. also kommen wir nun auch noch ins fernsehen. viel mehr trubel als ich mir jemals vorgestellt haette!

bevor ich es vergesse, kommentare die ihr hier gebt werden direkt zum boot weitergeleitet. danke ulli fuer die werbe trommel, ich denke mal als entschuldigung koennen wir annehmen, dass deutsche freunde nihct so gerne online kommentare abgeben? ich weiss auch nicht wieso... wir freuen uns hier riesig auf dem boot wenn wir nachrichten von zuhause bekommen! dann fuehlt man sich nicht so vergessen und allein in der mitte des ozeans! naja, dann mal froehliches posten.

nun gut, will noch schnell einen post in englisch verfassen, damit der rest bescheid weiss.
bis dann,
christin

almost 1/2 way

2007-07-17T09:35:00.000-10:00

july 17 is day number 9 and it is not yet time for our half way party! apparently we are getting close though.
still hanging out in 1st place in our division. that kind of makes up for the unexcitement otherwise. well, i should not forget to mention the hurricane that is south of us and hopefully getting us some more wind soon. it is supposed to dissipate into a tropical depression soon... can someone comment on the actual position and forecasted track? we just jibed south since we could not keep a course below west. so we might get close.

yeah, those silly sailors do look like the Portuguese of War, blue shining in the sunlight. are they common out here in the middle of the ocean though? thought they only come in to waikiki to eat tourists : ) thanks carrie for following up on that! good to know you are following our blog. how is paddling going? i am missing out on a bunch of races i guess, can't wait to join in again once i have settled back in at home.

yesterday we had another transpac boat sail up on us. they called in on the radio and pretty much flew by us in no time. it was ruahatu, a division 4 concorde 47 (sp?). we saw them taking pictures of us when they went by. currently we are trailing behind two other transpac boats, one of them seems to be rancho deluxe, a swan 45 from division 5 (i think that is the one that was two slips over from us in long beach and is joseph's desktop background on his laptop crashing hard). yeah, hanging out with da big boys!

sleeping really becomes a luxury, for some reason i don't seem to get tired enough to fall asleep, while the entire boat is creeking, boom is crashing when we are too ddw, crew is screaming and yelling about any kind of excitement, or them making coffee or playing with the dishes in the sink. there is a lot of noises to be made that keep christin from sleeping. some of you know how much of a delicate sleeper i am. earplugs don't seem to be enough damping.

oh, and apparently the transpac beacon is crapping out i heard. hope you guys will still be able to track us. the whole thing with equipping all boats with these transponders was a huge experiment. they were supposed to report our position but apparently are overwhelming and overlapping, so that the communications vessel cannot read everybody's transmissions. what they are doing right now is sending all positions to the beacon company and they have to put the numbers on the website. not sure if that is the whole story.

anyhow, not much else going on, pretty mellow. boat speed is around 6.5-7 kts, windspeed meter currently not working (it is very light today however). position: 24N10.3, 132W51.5. overcast and really damn hot at the moment.

aloha,
christin

Photos from Cirrus

2007-07-16T23:09:00.000-10:00

Here are some photos that Christin sent over sailmail, from Cirrus, on Day #5 (Friday the 13th). Very nice. You guys are doing awesome!

- Joseph

number one

2007-07-16T10:49:00.000-10:00

yes yes yes
you heard right. this morning at the 6am pdt roll call bill accidentally forgot to turn off the speaker while he was listening with headphones on the radio. as soon as our division and position was called through, lindsey woke up the whole boat screaming and yelling: WE ARE FIRST IN OUR DIVISION!!!

you can't imagine how good that feels, after dragging along in the wrong direction for over a week we finally get paid, the rest seems to be stuck in the light air that we avoided by going more and more south. yieeehaaa! we also had an amazing mileage day yesterday: 171nm in 24h, how about that?! we are averaging almost 8kts now and flying along in 13-18kts of wind. it feels sooooo good to get the boat going on a run, feeling her smiling while all on board are enjoying the happiness. that's what we are talking about! it is a lot of fun, when the swell is not too big, to drive the boat a bit higher than the appropriate 140 degree apparent windangle to get some more speed and to drop into a wave. while cruising down the wave the wind is shifting forward, since we are gaining speed. usually we pop out a bit lower than the course but if you are on top of your game, you start steering upwind before we finish the surf, in order to be back on course and not get too close to ddw (dead down wind). that's when we hit record speeds, caroline still untouchable holding the 9.5kts. last night i had about a 5 minute run at 9.3kts, accelerating and adrenaline pumping, as you can imagine. if we do end up ddw, the entire boat will start to complain, because the main sail starts flopping when the wind is too much from behind. we have a boom brake installed that prevents a sudden false jibe by slowing down the booms motion. it makes an incredible loud noise though, when it is kicking in. that kept us all from sleeping for the past three days almost. i think the longest i have slept is 45min this morning after my 2-6am watch. cannot sleep anymore after my 2-7pm watch, too loud and the rolling of the boat makes it impossible to sleep. you kind of have to wedge yourself into your bunk, pressing your butt on one side and getting your knee up (bending it 90 degrees) and jamming that against the other side. that usually keeps me stable. then you have to find a spot for your head. mine ends up cramped against on of the sides. when the boat is rolling, your faces is pressed into your pillow so hard that it is challenging to breathe. well, i guess we all gave up sleeping when we stepped on the boat.

at 9kts at the moment (nancy is driving us into some good old waves!) the gps's eta is in 7 days! that would be exciting. unfortunately we won't be able to hold that speed up all the way, so realistically you probably have to add another couple of days.

anybody found out yet what silly sailors are?

anyhow, gotto go now. my daily duty of reading all boat's positions to bill to be put in the computer is waiting for me. can't wait to see how our standings look on a map! hope all of you are still with us, wanted to say thanks to stefanie and the rest of the laage gang! say hello to all of the rosenow's for me! and thanks to jerome and wendy's wishes! every comment is read by all of us and makes a warm feeling in our tummy that you are thinking about us!

aloha for now,
auf wiedersehen,

christin

what a day

2007-07-14T15:35:00.000-10:00

who would have thought that all this can happen in one day, actually less than a day:

it was supposed to be a quiet spinnaker surfin' day trying to break nancy's record of 8.7kts. some showering and fishing were going to spice up the routine. well, it came a bit different:

caroline finished taking her deck salt water shower and i got ready to go next: put on the bikini and harness and clip in to the tether on the foredeck. a pump from the forepeak pumped saltwater through a hose on deck. all secured i happily washed off a thick layer of 'gunk' and froze my butt off. luckily the sun was out and the wind was not blistering cold. finishing off with a bottle of freshwater to get the shampoo and soap off me, i heard lindsey saying that once i am done, we will change the chute (we were still flying the 1/2oz.). forgot how good it feels being clean : ))) (don't get the wrong impression, we have lts of baby wipes!)

well, guess what happened then: bang!!! the kite rips while we were going down a wave and all of the sudden all hands on deck, christin out of her bathing suite into her pfd+harness and get that sucker out of the water! all ripped up, we got the kite back on deck and convinced bill to put a new one, rather than flying white sails to get everything sorted out! luckily we got all the lines run on the port side after we clipped them off the destroyed kite so a new one was pretty much ready to go. we are still racing, right?! got the 1.5oz on deck and hoisted that no problem. everyone got organized and we cleaned up the cockpit, people got back to napping who were not on watch and nancy and me having fun flying the new stuff.

after careful weather map studying, bill and lindsey decided it would be a good idea to jibe the kite. that got everybody excited and we had a great effort of professionally jibing the kite.

continue until: bang!!! the donut on the port guy explodes, the guy line rips off the clip and we are flying on the lazy sheet that was not cleated off. guess how fast everyone was back on deck! got the sheet clipped in the pole jaws and praying that we were going to repair the old guy on time before we were going to blow the spin sheet (does not have a donut and is as worn). bill jerry rigged a new preventer on the guy and reattached the clip (awesome work!) and we got the new guy run fairly quickly after we put up some wrap-the-kite-around-the-forestay preventer lines. had those up the entire time, never came close to wrapping the chute. but when we blew the guy the kite really wanted to hug that furled jib : )

well, tune in tomorrow into cirrus blog to get the whole story and all the details.

enough excitement for today!
fishing is for tomorrow!

bye bye,
christin

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wer ist der schnellste?

2007-07-14T08:27:00.000-10:00

mein record wurde gerade gebrochen, damn it! unser capitaen lindsey hat gerade den neuen record von 8.3 kt gestellt, die wellen werden langsam groesser! der offizielle wettkampf hat begonnen!

hoffe ihr habt alle die deutsche nachricht von ulli auf dem cirrus blog gelesen! er macht ganz nett werbung fuer meinen kleinen blog! also schoen weiter sagen!

unsere windgeschwndigkeit ist nun meistens ueber 5 kt, mit dem spinnaker segel fahren wir nun ungefaehr 7 kt im durchschnitt. das macht jeden an board sehr gluecklich! unsere ankunftszeit ist noch immer der 27. +/- 1 tag.

gestern nacht haben donna und ich ganz komische geraeusche gehoert, sie kamen vom lenkungsquadranten. bill ist ueberall im boot rumgekrochen um die ursache zu finden. leider haben wir nie genau herausgefunden, wo die geraeusche herkamen. sie hoerten nach meiner schicht wohl auf... angeblich hab ich mir die wohl eingebildet. naja, wollen wir mal hoffen dass das boot noch fuer ein paar wochen zusammen haelt ;)

heute ist haar-wasch-tag, und angeblich auch angel-samstag! mal sehen ob wir einen grossen tuhnfisch fangen!
tagsueber ist es sehr sonnig und warm, da werden wir wohl heute im cockpit ein wenig planschen.

wir fliegen noch immer den selben spinnaker, werden zu einem dickerem wechseln sobald der wind ueber 8 kt weht. bis jetzt haben wir auch noch nicht geyibt (eine halse gemacht?). die einzigen aufregenden momente sind wenn wir die segel neu einstellen, nachdem der wind sich ein wenig geaendert hat. und natuerlich wenn wir die wellen surfen koennen!

das solls erstmal gewesen sein,
bis morgen,
eure christin

surfin'

2007-07-13T16:54:00.001-10:00

that's what i was waiting for:

6kts apparent wind, reaching pretty hot and surfing some 1m waves getting the boat up to 8.2 kts, top speed so far! ants in my pants and jumping up and down smiling like a maniac.

don't laugh, but that is the fastest we can do here with the 2nd slowest boat in the fleet... and hopefully it will get better soon!

correction on the previous post: the fastest boats are still to start, to our satisfaction! divisions 1-3 start on sunday, and will probably fly by just like the ones that started yesterday.

i just saw my first silly sailor, some funny creature looking like a bubble on the water (some refer to it like the condom of the sea). can someone look that up and explain what kind of animal that really is? they can reflect the light and sometimes appear blue...

alright, gotto do dishes now :( and get some sleep!

ahoi, christin

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sextant 101

2007-07-12T09:06:00.000-10:00

position: 29N53.7 120W26.65 course 188M speed 6.5

heute starten die schnellen boote (pyewacket, morning light etc.) und so wie es aussieht werden die wohl ganz fix an uns vorbei zischen... diese aussicht ist schon ein bisschen enttaeuschend, aber wir tun das beste was wir koennen, und das am schnellsten!

gestern nachmittag hatte sich die windrichtung genug nach hinten verlagert, so dass wir den spinnaker jetzt segeln koennen. endlich ein wenig aufregung! na wenigstens fuer ein bisschen. der unterschied ist echt gross zwischen kurzstrecken regatten mit grosser besatzung und dieser langen regatta mit nur zwei personen auf deck. da setz man die segel zum wind, und dann steuert man so dass die segel schoen voll sind und man auf kurs bleibt.

gestern nacht war das bisher wunderbarste segelerlebnis: als ich um 2uhr morgens zu meiner schicht auf deck kam, konnte ich nicht glauben, wieviele sterne ich sehen konnte. einfach unglaublich! leider hat sich unser mast licht gestern von uns verabschiedet, daher mussten wir einen zusaetzlichen satz lichter fuer die nacht anschalten. das licht am hinterende (helft mir hier mal, ihr habt bestimmt schon mitgekriegt dass ich so gar keine ahnung von deutschen segel worten habe, ist das bug oder heck oder was?) vom boot war leider an und somit war das cockpit ein bisschen beleuchtet. trotzdessen war die anzahl der sterne atemberaubend. unserer kurs ist ungefaehr 10grad oestlich von der milchstrasse, die man so klar sehen kann!

gerade wurden wir alle an deck gerufen um eine riesige schule von delfine beim mittag essen zu beobachten. die delfine haben uns schon seit tagen verfolgt, und eben haben sie wohl einen schwarm von fischen umzingelt und waren wild am planschen und mampfen. es ist so cool das meeresleben life zu erleben!

was gibt es sonst noch zu berichten? oh ja, fuer alle die das englisch von gestern nicht lesen konnten, und vor allem fuer meinen papa: ich bin zu bill's neuem studenten erwaehlt worden und hatte gestern meine erste sextanten stunde! bill war ja mal professor in berkely, CA und hat daher sehr gute lehrer qualitaeten. gestern sind wir ueber die theorie und das instrument selber gegangen, haben fleissig winkelmessungen gemacht. heute werden wir durch ein rechenbeispiel durchgehen, koennt euch bestimmt vortsellen wie sehr aufgeregt ich bin diese mysterie endlich aufzuloesen. bill und ich geben auch jeden tag die positionen aller boote in den computer ein. die bekommen wir jeden morgen um 6uhr, wenn alle boote ihr positionen ueber radio dem kommunikationsboot uebergeben. mit hilfe einer selbstentwickelten (ein deutscher namens ulli hat es inphp geschrieben: das programm heisst cirrugator) software koennen wir dann eine menge verschiedener kalkulationen machen. ein computer in japan berechnet ein wettermodel jeden tag das vom cirrugator gelesen wird und dann spuckt es die beste route fuer uns aus. echt fantastisch! man kann sehen wo alle anderen boote gerade sind und wer besseren wind hat etc. na jedenfalls sagt das program uns dass es bald besser werden soll mit dem wind. gestern nacht sind wir echt geflogen, 7 knoten mit nur 5 knoten wind! deutsche fahrer fahren schneller : )))

nagut, muss jetzt mal meine leckere pizza mit dem frischen salat essen! und dann abschwaschen und noch ein kleines schlaefchen einlegen bevor meine schicht um 2pm anfaengt.

bis demnaechst,
eure christin

wild life

2007-07-11T16:49:00.000-10:00

day three in the aquatic adventure of christin on cirrus:

i must say, this is exceeding my wildest dreams and it might also be different from what you might expect:
a crystal clear sky, an ocean as flat as a pancake and absolutely no wind! who would have thought???

we are about 170Nm (nautical miles) out, not a whole lot, still heading south to avoid the light air (can't tell you more about the planned course, all top secret type of stuff : ) and barely making progress. pretty damn frustrating when you think of an ocean with huge waves and storms and all that mystery stuff. well, not here anyways! but, we are moving forward and in a few days the weather seems to be getting better.

the wind had shifted enough for us to hoist the spinnaker today, that is what i call excitement! it is inside a sack, which stays up on the mast while we are flying the shoot. very awkward looking! we also jerry-rigged a type of spin net, so the kite cannot wrap around the forestay (will be very helpful at night when you can't see nothing and the wind is as fluky as it is right now). not touching the kite has been a tough test for me. since there is only two people on watch and this actually IS a long distance race, we are steering to the spinnaker, rather than trimming it... guess how my fingers are tickling. but driving to it turns out to not be too bad. sometimes you get to ride a lift or wave, that hypes me u to stay awake : )

we always (maybe not in a no air situation that continues for hours) wear our PFDs (personal floating devise) and tethers that we hook onto the boat when we are on deck, to not get swept overboard by those huge waves :) especially when you are trying to brush your teeth and get so scared by a seal popping up right next to the boat. they always breathe out when they come up and that sounds very frightening : ) dolphins do that too, i guess it has always been too loud when i have seen them on the water before. they make lots of funny breathing noises. more wildlife: we saw a shark fin yesterday, circling a patch of seaweed. and there is lots and lots of whales around! huge ones!

for dinner tonight we had a pot roast with mashed potatoes and fresh salad! i am eating a lot better here than at home i seems like! cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, dried fruit snacks, fresh fruit, good bread etc. where is the exercise room?

i am so happy about every email and comment you guys send! thanks a ton for those! it is a ritual, every time we turn on the radio to transmit/receive via sailmail on the computer. we all gather and read everybody's comments. helps us to stay focused and not completely loose track of reality and the world out there! keep 'em coming! i am thinking of you guys, lots about sailing siesta (especially in light winds when we would go so fast : ) and about coming home soon. can't wait.

more tomorrow!
stay tuned.

christin

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Ahoi vom grossen teich

2007-07-10T10:03:00.000-10:00

this first blog from the boat will be in german for my family. will try to post bilingual in the future so all of you can understand. please see Cirrus' blog or capt lindsey's first blog! link is bottom right on this page.

es fuehlt sich wirklich komisch an, jetzt wo es endlich soweit ist, ist es fast undramatisch: wir sind endlich unterwegs nach Honolulu. gestern um 1300 PDT sind wir losgesegelt (fuer genauere beschreibung lest bitte den Cirrrus blog, link rechts unten und momentan sitzen wir hier suedlich on catalina island fast windlos in ziemlich flachem wasser rum. ab und zu gibt es ein bisschen wind und wir segeln 4-6 knoten schnell. bei dieser geschwindigkeit koennten wir wohl zu weihnachten zu hause sein : ) die vorhersagen sehen nicht sehr rosig aus, leichter bis kein wind fuer die naechsten paar tage. Na wenigstens ist das boot damit so ziemlich flach und trocken und die reise ist bisher sehr angenehm. bisher bin ich auch von der seekrankheit verschont worden! ihr koennt euch ja bestimmt vorstellen wir gluecklich mich das macht!

jeden morgen um 0600 PDT geben alle boote ihr position durch, und scheinbar sind wir momentan auf 3. platz, gar nicht so schlecht, in anbetracht dass wir sicht von allen booten nach ungefaehr 10h verloren hatten. angeblich haben die schnelleren boote die am 12. und am 15. juli starten viel besseres wetter und werden uns wohl schnell ueberholen, so unfair!

Wir hatten einen echt guten start gestern, in allem war er ziemlich friedlich, keine aggressiven maneuver. Wir sahen sogar mehrere delfine, einen riesigen grauwal den wir fast ueberfahren haetten und seeloewen! gestern nacht konnten wir die seeloewen sogar hoeren, echt gespenstig. nachts zu segeln ist wirklich was besonderes: stockdunkel (es war bedeckt, daher hatten wir weder mond noch sterne), fluoreszierende tierchen im wasser die anfangen zu leuchten wenn sie aufgestoert werden und dann sofort wieder dunkel werden. gestern nacht haben wir noch lichter von den umliegenden inseln gesehen, heute nacht vielleicht schon nicht mehr.

meine schicht ist von 2pm-7pm und von 2am-6am PDT. schlafen konnte ich entgegen meiner erwartungen richtig gut! zu meiner nachtschicht war ich trotzdem noch supermuede und bin ab und zu eingenickt. leider wird man dabei ganz schoen kalt! keine gute idee, hab ganz schoen doll gefroren gestern nacht. tagsueber scheint die sonne ein bisschen, da muss man 'nur' seine langen wasserfesten latzhosen anziehen und ein paar t-shirts und ein fleeze. wenn der wind sehr geht hab ich meine regenjacke drueber gezogen. ich bin echt froh dass wir mir die besten sachen gekauft haben, man kann sehr ungluecklich und miserabel werden, wenn man friert. nachts hab ich meine fleeze unterhosen angehabt, dicke handschuhe, 2lagen dicke unterhemden und hab trotzdem gefroren (weil ich eingeschlafen bin und meine koerpertemperatur gesunken ist...). heute nacht gibts ne extra lage klamotten! angeblich soll es bald waermer werden.

ich bin auch zum abwaschen und aufraeumen eingeteilt, die anderen maedels kochen und schmieren brote (bisher gab es 2x belegte brote und snacks wie chips, studentenfutter, kirschen, mandarinen, etc). wir waschen mit salzwasser und seife ab und spuelen nach mit frischwasser aus unseren taenken. damit muessen wir sehr sorgsam umgehen. macht schon spass endlich auf einem segelnden boot zu leben!

meistens sind mindestens zwei maedels auf deck am segeln, waehrend der rest entweder schlaeft oder liest unter deck. sehr gemuetlich und ruhige atmosphere.

nagut, das solls erstmal gewesen sein fuer heute.

fuer papa hier unsere position: dienstag 10. juli 12.46pm 32N55.9 119W09.2 Kurs ist 268 grad magnetisch, und wir fahren momentan 4.2kt schnell. 2160 nautische meilen to go!

Aloha,
Christin

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... to be continued

2007-07-08T18:16:00.000-10:00

tomorrow, July 9th at 1300 PDT. First start of the 2007 TransPac is tomorrow, when Cirrus, a Standfast 40, the owner and navigator Bill Myers and the all female crew will leave Long Beach, California. The windforecast seems to predict some very random and unusual winds, we shall see what that will do for us!

I am not quiet clear if I really understand what I am getting myself into here, but I will find out very soon! Getting the last minute stuff together at the moment, saying goodbye to Joseph who came all the way to LA to be with me before we leave. He will get a spot on a spectator boat tomorrow for the start to take pictures. So exciting!

Am all drugged up to not get sea sick, hopefully sucessfully! The first few days are supposedly very rough! Last night in a nice hotel bed, the most sleep I will get in the next two weeks, most likely! Not sure yet what my shifts are, will find out soon. Hopefully I will be able to write you an update sooner than later, all depending on the sea and Christin state, if I can handle writing on a laptop!

Please check Cirrus blog for daily positions and updates etc. I will try to write personal stuff on my blog here, once I get a chance!

http://cirrus2007.blogspot.com/

Will be waiting to receive your comments, anything that happens around you. Heard it gets lonely and boring out there...

aloha,
christin

Jakarta News #1

2007-06-29T19:10:00.001-10:00

What a journey, and there is still some more to come! We made it off the ship in Kupang, West Timor, on June 28. A place a little more sophisticated than Sorong, New Guinea, but still far beyond anything you might compare it to. The hotel we stayed at had a pretty interesting name: ASTITI, we were pretty sure though, we would end up alone in our room : )))

Not having had any beer for a month, most of the crew saw it very necessary to drink as much as possible in as short as possible time. Imagine what happened... We went to a beautiful bar at the ocean (pictures to come in a couple of days) watch an amazing sunset and yes, the beer tasted pretty darn good! A typical Indonesian dinner with mie goreng (fried noodles) that taste so delicious you cannot describe it! Nasi goreng (fried rice) and sauteed red snapper (spicy!) and prawns. They make these awesome fresh fruit juices here in Indonesia, apple juice e.g., is freshly "squeezed" apples, or pineapples etc. More like a smoothie, but fruit only!

Alright, gotto go to lunch now, will write more later.

Bye bye,
Christin

Rats off the ship

2007-06-27T11:27:00.000-10:00

In just a few moments the M/V L'Espoir will arrive alongside a pier in the Kupang harbor. A pilot boat has just arrived and will provide a pilot that steers the ship to the pier. Have packed up my things and still finalizing the data drop for the client. The relief crew is supposed to arrive sometime later this morning, so that we can leave the ship after a handover discussion. Will keep you posted as much as I can. The next couple of days spent travelling might be rather sparse on documentation! Will catch up soon,

Aloha,
Christin

Five days to go

2007-06-21T06:10:00.000-10:00

Yepp, it's almost over! Only 5 days left and we will head into port in Kupang, Western Timor (part of Indonesia). Starting to wrap up the projects and get organized for the port call data drop. Yesterday we were offline due to bad weather for a few hours. One of the outside door on the bridge fell out. The seas have gotten rougher again and data collection was just not save anymore. We were pointing into the wind at 1kt for hours until the ocean calmed down and we could continue at 3-5kts. What a drag! Slowly started to run out of food items (cheese, coldcuts...) a while ago, now that the seas are rough, we are close to port call and the food is getting worse, tension increased exponentially and people get mad at each other. Apparently one can blame anything on the client rep...

It will take us probably a couple of days to get off the boat, out of Kupang and into Jakarta. I am scheduled to leave Jakarta on June30. There is a slight possibility to stay in Frankfurt on the way home for a couple of days if Cirrus hasn't come in yet. It's all still up in the air.

Once the next adventure starts from Long Beach on July 9th, communication will be a bit more difficult. I can still update my blog using Cirrus' sailmail email address. You can write emails to us on the boat at WCX9983@sailmail.com but have to keep messages brief and clean in plain text (not html). No attachments or internet references (URL's). Please see Cirrus's post below:

The website: "Cirrus - Transpac 2007" at cirrus2007.blogspot.com will contain daily briefings during the delivery and the race.

The Transpac website www.transpacificyc.org will be providing information on the progress of the race.

We will be able to make phone calls out (at a cost of $1.25/minute), but people will not be able to call us. I'll probably call Valerie frequently and give her our position and let her know how things are going. She is willing to pass this information along to a list of email addresses that you provide. One way to do this is to send her an email at vossipoff@yahoo.com and "Copy" the addresses you have in mind. That way she can just move them directly into a mailing list.
You can send us text messages (for free) using the satellite phone. This is one direction only. We are not able to reply. Go to messaging.iridium.com and type our ID # 881631530391 into the window and then type a (very short) message into the box, and hit send. The messages can be up to 160 letters(not much) and there is a counter on the web site to help you stay within the limit. This can be done five times an hour, so a dedicated communicator could send a bunch of messages in a row. It is a little tedious on the other end since we will be receiving the messages on the tiny screen on the phone that is only 14 letters wide and 3 lines (at a time) long. I've tried it and it works pretty well. You should tell people who want to use it that the message should start by indicating to whom it is addressed. We will get the messages once a day when we connect the phone.

More about that once we get closer!

Tschuessie,
Christin

The old man, the younger men and me

2007-06-16T17:11:00.000-10:00

Capt. Egbert, Gardline Party Chief Colin and the Lead Client Rep Sam

More bridge photo shoots

Alles Gute

2007-06-15T07:39:00.000-10:00

zum Geburtstag, lieber Papa! Wie schoen es waer wenn Joseph and ich mit feiern koennten so wie letztes Jahr! Hier ein Bild zur Erinnerung an Neujahr! Bis bald,
Eure Christin

Gestern war Kindergarten

2007-06-13T13:54:00.000-10:00

Heute geht es richtig rund! Jedes mal wenn das Boot in eine Welle faellt, vibriert es nun fuer 10-15 Sekunden! Macht einem richtig Angst das was kaputt gehen koennte, wenn alle Waende anfangen zu knarren...

Ich hab auf meiner Albums Seite ein paar dramatische Videos gestellt, damit ihr ein bisschen mit fuehlen koennt!

Viel Spass beim schaukeln,
Eure Christin

Wild Motion of the Ocean

2007-06-10T08:59:00.000-10:00

Last night I woke up from being tossed around in my bunk and loud noises all over my room and the ship. My big Nutella jar (plastic, thank God) went flying through my room, everything that once was standing was now all over the floor. Huge masses of water gushing next to my window, almost always burying my porthole under water (am I in a submarine?). Loud bangs and crashes from waves slapping the stern of the boat, falling off waves and crashing in the trough. What a wild ride!!

Yes, we finally are getting in some rough seas! Currently the weather looks like Force 6, 3m swell all from the ESE. The boat is heaving, rolling and pitching like crazy, my cup of tea in front of me won't stay with me! One of the GeoEngineers was throwing up in a bucket yesterday (luckily not on my shift!) while he was pushing buttons. He could not leave the lab, had to stick around for the line turns... Noise cancelling headphone would have not helped, I guess!

My stomach has been nice to me, when I start to feel queasy I put on my little relief band and it takes of the edge immediately. Hope it will work that amazingly on Cirrus, the boat for the TransPac.

Cirrus had been having some problems with water pumps and alternators, needed to turn around twice already and are hopefully off on Monday for good! Time is running out, the start of the race is coming up quickly (July 9) and some extra time in Long Beach before take off is always handy!

Sleep deprivation is already starting (what a good prep for the TransPac), getting thrown around in bed does not help me sleeping! Up to Force 3-4 it is fine, actually helps you falling asleep, but now you can't lie still! The weather is supposed to stick around, THANKS John for all your websites! We showed them yesterday to the Party Chief and Captain, unfortunately, now - we cannot connect to the internet anymore! Apparently, if it gets worse, we might have to abort and go hide somewhere! Sounds scary...

Our current position is Lat 7S3'44 and Long 132E33'04 and we are only 400 km north of the coast of Australia, still in Indonesian waters, of course. Our surveying permit only allows us to collect data in Indonesian waters, so staying clear of Eastern Timor and Australia is very important and one of the reasons we have an Indonesian Liaison Navy Rep on the ship. The next area to survey is called Jamdena, which we will most likely not finish before we head into port to Kupang, Western Timor (Indonesian territory). I am assuming we will either fly to Bali or Jakarta from there (apparently the town of Kupang is as 'bad' as Sorong). The BGE office might want me to go through Jakarta so they can keep me there for a few days to explain the data. We shall see, Bali would be a nice touch!

All for now, gotto go back to work, oh and btw - for those of you who know what was going on here lately: the absorption coefficient mess is getting cleaner and I am not stressing anymore!

Aloha,

Eure Christin

Finally on board

2007-06-04T11:24:00.000-10:00

Ahoy from the Dutch flagged ship M/V L'Espoir. We are finally under way after a couple of days in port which we mostly spent in the town of Sorong (pronounced like [sooo wrong] with a very rolly 'r').

For pictures you can visit the link of the Photo Albums on the right (Spring). This time Erin (former G&G office mate just did the previous leg), Chris and I cruised around town a bit since we were mostly stuck in our hotel by the airport fo Sorong. We were invited into a random car that pretty much just waits all day infront of the hotel to drive around tourists like us. Sounds easy enough, the challange becomes to explain where you want to go and where not to - and, that 150,000 Rupiahs is way to much money to be paying for a ride ($15 where as usual taxis take $2).

The evening before we were scheduled to go to the boat, everyone from the ship was at the same hotel, ate and drank as much as they could. And that means TONS since we are talking about sailors who are going to be gone for a month - what an introduction to the new crew, quite scary to be honest... When not intoxicated, most of them turned out to be not so bad after all : )

Our current position is 129E19 and 2S2, winds are at force 2 out of the SE and causing a 0.5m swell from the same direction. So pretty quiet weather wise... The data acquisition is going well, getting into the groove slowely after initial communications and improper handover problems. Working with Sam, the lead client rep and Chris has been very good and productive! Yesterday my heart stopped, however, after the PC decided to not have a rebootable harddrive anymore. You guys can probably imagine how much panic was going on in my mind : ) The party chief helped fixing it, all because of faulty connectors that attach the HD to the motherboard, what a waste of nerve cells! All good again, no data lost - luckily!

The food has been good as well, same Dutch cook as from last time. So very european style cooking to my pleasure! Just like at home... Potatoes (or fries, rice), salad, vegetable (cannned goodies such like beans, corn, carrots and peas etc) and some kind of meat, gestern gab's GULASCH!!

The phone and internet have been working great, talking to Joseph and Germany every day really helps out a lot ; ) I am on the night shift from midnight to noon (which is 5am to 5pm in HNL and 5pm to 5am in GER) which has been very quiet! Very important since there is a ton of work to do: just so you can get an idea of what we are doing out here: we import the collected bathymetry (seafloor topography) and backscatter data (sediment type) into ArcGIS, we also import the navigational data (ship's track) and the magnetic data to build a map of the survey area that we can interpret geologically. A major task is to design the survey lines, direction, spacing and extent in such a way that the budget is maxed out. I.e. lines should not be too close that you have too much overlap (the deeper the ocean the wider the swath of seafloor you can map). Lots of fun and very dynamic, since you don't know how deep it will be...

Fishing is apparently banned from the ship, so I gotto see who is the fish freak from the crew and make friends with him : ))) Some sashimi would be a nice alternative!

The TransPac boat Cirrus has left port in HNL for good hopefully after having to turn around due to a faulty water pump. Now they are in rough seas north of teh islands battling through big waves and squalls, read their blog to see what I did have to go through *smile

That's all for now,
hope you are all OK at home,
don't hesitate to comment, they are sent to me via email!

Tschuessie,
Christin

Hospital Madness

2007-05-31T00:50:00.000-10:00

I survived one of those days you will never forget in your entire life: a day in an Indonesian hospital!

The surveying company designed this new rule last minute to require from everybody a specific medical exam. Before you can go offshore for any company, you have to get a medical to start with, like I did in February in Honolulu. Well, they now want a different one...

After about an hour of driving to northern Jakarta we finally arrived at Puri Medika Hospital, a place for seaman to get their medical exams to go offshore. Totally packed with people, us being the only white guys, we were quite the attraction. It only took about 4 minutes for the director of the hospital to come downstairs to personally meet us. He was one of the two people that could speak English, btw. We were given the expedited service and were soon in this 18th century, to our surprise air conditioned examination room with the director to talk about what we would have to do to be in compliance with the requirements. A full on blood chemistry, spirometry, a new drug and alcohol test, audiometry and a photo were required in addition to what we already had accomplished with our personal exams from home. All hospital personell was wearing very cute (like from the 60s) turquoise uniforms. Getting my blood taken was the scariest thing. The needle was new, that was good to see, the blood just got squeezed out of the needle into a little canister that had drops dripping down the side... sitting right next to the open canister of my predecessor. A quick look into the lab showed a bunch of Indonesians sitting around samples and lab looking stuff, not very clean like the whole place. My pie test for the drug screening was interesting, the bathroom being a typical pie on the floor and no paper, soap or running water kind of deal. After being examined personally by the director we were told to wait 10 min to get our results. Those turned into 2 hours and after another 2 hours of traffic we were back in the office with our new certificates, we all passed!

Today we went shopping: coffee, tea, nutella (500g!!!), fossilized wood, etc. Tomorrow we will leave the hotel at 3am to catch the 5am flight to Sorong, New Guinea. No internet or email until we get on the ship on the 2nd of June.

Hope you are all OK,
aloha,
Christin

In Indonesia

2007-05-29T15:39:00.000-10:00

The adventure has officially started. I am in Jakarta, Indonesia, a crazy and colorful place. Got here after about 20 hours of traveling through Taipei and Hong Kong with China Airlines. Luggage arrived just fine together with me ready to crash. Met my other half at the airport, Chris who is also a contractor for AOA Geophysics and will be the other client representative for this mega geophysical survey around Indonesia. We will take off from Sorong, a small town in eastern Indonesia (Papua) on June 2nd. The dutch flagged ship "M/V L'Espoir" will take us south of New Guinea for about 28 days returning most likely to Sorong around June 31st.
Chris and I visited the office of Black Gold Energy (BGE) yesterday, a local company funding part of the survey. Being served water, cappuccino and tea while working on the new lilne plans for the upcoming leg it is very unusual to not employ the locals as maids, cooks, gardeners, security guards etc. All people are super nice and very friendly. Lunch was at a Indonesian restaurant, poor Christin ordered without knowing one of the spiciest dishes and could not eat all that much : ) But it was excellent!
Phil Teas, VP of BGE invited us over to his place for some pupus and drinks after working hard on trying to locate the hospital we are going to today for an additional physical exam. There is no such thing like online road maps or taxi drivers that know what a map is if you print the satellite view from google maps. Very irritating if you are as spoiled as me living in a world where everybody and everything is available online. In the end the doctor from the hospital has to talk to the driver on the phone!
Jakarta is very busy and crowed town, beautiful and awkward at the same time. Walking on the "sidewalk" can be fatal if you don't pay attention to missing blocks of stone that cover the drainage systems that lies underneath the sidewalk. Missing a real sewer system, that explains easily how heavy rains for more than 2 days lead to extreme flooding in this country... (tourist that got stuck in the holes pluck up the drain trench in a heartbeat : )
On every corner in town people sell hot food in these tiny wagons you can push around. Apparently some of the best food around (if your stomach is coated with cement). Indonesians love their mopeds, there is about a 80% chance of getting run over by at least one when crossing a street! So much traffic it is hard to breathe, and no one believes in carborators here of course!

Comments are appreciated, please feel free!

Hope you are all OK, heard Siesta had an awesome three day, congrats! I miss you guys!

Aloha,
Christin

Aloha

2007-04-30T14:48:00.000-10:00

My first blog, how exciting!!

I will update you guys on my recent trips, upcoming adventures such as my second travel to Indonesia, which is most likely going to happen in June.

Immediately afterwards I will participate in the 2007 Transpac, a sailboat race from LA, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. The start of the race is July 9th, lots of preparations have to happen before then. Getting the right foulies, boots, shirts, baby-wipes etc. will be essential for the ~14 day race. Check out CIRRUS, the boat, at their blog for the race at http://cirrus2007.blogspot.com/ and learn more about the transpacific race at http://www.transpacificyc.org/.

That will be Christin's first ocean crossing, huge! I will keep you updated on all that's going on, maybe even in German : )