Some cats have all the luck. Take Leif,
who sails aboard Bill and Sharon Jensen’s Seattle-based Pelagian.
As you can see from the photo, it’s not chopped liver for her,
not when there’s Mexican lobster around.
The Jensens are currently in La Paz, where
they discovered a leak in their bowsprit, and turnbuckle problems,
which prevented them from heading off to the South Pacific. While
in La Paz, they also experienced the typical 90+ average heat,
and came to the realization that they are WWWs – warm weather
wimps. As a result, they’re having their boat shipped back up
to the Pacific Northwest for cooler summer cruising in Alaska
and Canada.
The other two photographs are of Sharon
and Leif during the ever-popular 0400 to 0800 watch, and Bill
with Gregorio Sanchez, the port captain for Man O War Cove in
Mag Bay. We’ll have more on the Jensens and their lobster loving
cat in the June issue of Latitude
38.
Photos Courtesy Pelagian
Yo Ho Ho and Sixty Bottles of Rum
May 8 – Vallejo
Arv Voss, Past Commodore of the Vallejo Yacht Club, sent us this
photo of the lucky recipients of five cases of Whaler’s rum.
The rum was hauled off by the HDA H winners of Saturday’s run
to Vallejo, the Express 34 Two Scoops. The original concept
was to award the skipper of the first boat to finish with his
or her weight in Whaler’s rum, a sponsor of the regatta. Further
discussion resulted in putting the names of each class winner
into a drawing to award the rum. Five cases (five different flavors!)
was the maximum, weighing in at 210 lbs, and the boat’s skipper
of record, Chris Longaker, is a big guy.
The actual skipper that day was Chris’s
less statuesque boat partner Tom Goodwin, the youngest 75-year-old
you’ll ever meet. Tom attributed the win to good maneuvering
at the crowded Vallejo 1 mark and in the last leg up the river,
where Two Scoops passed about forty other boats!
The crew took lots of ribbing during Sunday’s
race back, as every boat within hailing distance shouted out
comments like, “Hey, got any rum left?”
From left to right: crew Graham Day, Ken Jones
and Jeff Fraine, owner Tom Goodwin, crew Christine Weaver, owner
Chris Longaker, crew Sue Routh, and Vallejo YC Vice Commodore/Race
Coordinator Bob Hull Photo Arv Voss
Blair, Joan and Capricorn Cat at
Fanning Island
May 8 – Fanning Island
The Grinols, of Capricorn Cat, have checked in with this
report:
“Today was a nice day – although it
rained about five times. We went to visit the village where we
had dinner last night. We took gifts, balloons and packs of Kool-Aid
for the children, a file for the chairman of the village to sharpen
his saws, and two small drill bits to drill holes in shells for
stringing necklaces. I gave the Chairman a watch for his granddaughter
– I had bought 20 cute little watches at the Jerrataderas Tuesday
market. The Chairman insisted on giving us two eggs that one
of his chickens had laid, then invited us to lunch at the Maneaba.
We had fritters, deep fried sweet yeast breads, fresh bread slices
with a coconut/chocolate syrup poured over them, fish, rice,
shredded breadfruit cooked in coconut milk to make a mush, warm
tea, and some rice/bean combos. There were just a dozen or so
men and children, and one woman who traded most of the stuff.
We traded an old snorkel and mask for a stalk of bananas from
another native.
“Unfortunately, the anchorage here
at Fanning is on the leeward side of the lagoon, so it’s quite
windy and rolly most of the time. Otherwise it is a nice quiet
place to spend some time. On the seaward side of the pass, it
is calm and some boats anchor out there. There are two boats
here with guys that work here in the saw mill where they make
some kind of custom decorative beams and posts for builders in
Hawaii. But the biggest export from Fanning is seaweed. They
grow the major portion of the seaweed shipped to Tarawa to be
processed for use in cosmetics. The problem is the workers make
just $10/day while Mary Kay and the other companies make the
big money.
“Later we hunted down the Customs
and Immigration officers to get cleared out. We are leaving for
Palmyra tomorrow morning. We will be there about a week and then
continue on to Penryhn Atoll, Suwarrow Atoll, Samoa, and Tonga.”
Villagers prepare for an outdoor celebration.
Fanning Island waterfront
Family is the center of village life.
Fanning is a 12 mile by 4 mile
island, 1,200 miles south of Hawaii, home to about 1,600 people.
To find out how you can help the
Fanning Island Relief Project, or to see more photos, go to www.interpac.net/~fanning/index.html
That’s where we got these pictures.
Blast off from Catalina
May 8 – Catalina Harbor
There are only two ‘urban areas’ on Catalina
Island: Avalon and Two Harbors. And they couldn’t be more different.
In Avalon, everything is neat, clean and orderly. Two Harbors
is much more rough and ready. As a result, you won’t find the
Southern California Rocket Club blasting off in Avalon, but that’s
what they were doing two Saturdays ago at a clearing near Cat
Harbor. If we understood correctly, the rocketeers shot off some
rockets that were three feet in length – probably just the size
needed to bring down on the jets on wide approach to John Wayne
Airport in Orange County. But when this year’s rocket smoke had
cleared, nobody had been injured.
Photo Latitude/Richard
YOTREPS
May 8 – The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace
Who is out making passages in the Pacific
and what kind of weather are they having? Check out YOTREPS –
‘yacht reports’ – at http://www.bitwrangler.com/yotreps/
Looking for current as well as recent wind
and sea readings from 17 buoys and stations between Pt. Arena
and the Mexican border? Here’s the place – which has further links
to weather buoys and stations all over the U.S.: www.ndbc.noaa.gov/stuff/southwest/swstmap.shtml.
