Family Party

September 9, 2010


How often is a family able to gather all of their members, free from other obligations, overcome geographic distance and scheduling conflicts to spend a pleasant evening together? The chance for that to happen in a large family is almost next to none. It certainly was the case on last Sunday when we attempted to have a historic first-ever family BBQ at our house. Despite missing some family members we managed to gather 6 out of 8 of my siblings and their respective families and had a total of 53 people for a back yard BBQ. It was a monumental task but the end result was well worth the effort. Just seeing the smiling faces of everyone interacting with each other, (some of them for the first time), was heartwarming and my parents would have been very proud.

Considering a good part of our family had been separated from 1950 to 1985 in two continents, not able to see one another regularly, one would wonder why we wouldn't get together more often, since almost all of us now live in California?

I had asked my sister Amy (no. 4) to buy all the necessary ingredients to make the deep-fried daikon cakes (蝦堆) at the party. This delicious little treat is of great significance to those that were born and raised in the old village in China. This is something I heard about growing up from my older siblings on how they missed tasting this little fried cake sold on street corners by vendors hovering over a small wok filled with hot oil. They would be deep frying a rice flour batter on a specially made round metal spatula with shredded daikon in the middle and topped with peanuts and dried shrimp (and hence the Chinese name 蝦堆 Ha Deui). I tasted it for the first time in my life last Sunday at the party among my family and it was DELICIOUS! Now I finally know what this is all about. It instantly brought me closer to my brothers and sisters as I always felt like an outsider being born and raised in Hong Kong.

Another important significance of the fried daikon cake marked a special meaning to our family. I found this out interviewing my brother Ji-lin (no. 3). He told me he was only 10 years old when my parents left China and he and brother Kai (no. 5) used to make this little treat to sell on street corners for a penny a piece to help support the family. I know I am ahead of myself on my story, but I can't help telling this.

The party was a huge success with great food and desserts. I found out many of the younger members (nephews and nieces) are budding chefs and brought over tasty treats.

We ended the party having each of my siblings bring their family (sons and daughters, grandchildren, their boy and girlfriends, in-laws) to center stage and have one member from each family introduce their family. It was the highlight of the party and was quite touching.

We vow to have more gatherings like this on a regular basis from now on. For not only was it fun, bringing everyone closer together, but, simply the right thing to do.

More next time.

The Man who Started it All

Jing Li House

August 9, 2010

After pondering for a number of years and from much encouragement (and sometimes threats) from friends and families, I have decided to start researching my family history for the last 120 years or so. I know from rough calculations that my grandfather (whom I never met) was born just before the turn of the 20^th century, in the late, late 1800 (Exact date to be determined if ever I can come across those information). He was born in Xingning (興寧) County, Guangdong Province (廣東省) in Southern China.

My grandpa, CHAN Jing Li (陳禎利), (Chinese always states their family name first) had earned every sense of the word, had three wives but only fathered 8 children (I can only guess why only 8 kids and will explain later). He started out as a poor man selling threads and needles at the town square where everyone bought and sold goods. Back in those days, they had small “swap meet” every three days and large “swap meet” every five days. You can sell everything from pigs, cows to wooden clogs; rice, vegetables to sun dried fish; fire wood, sweet goods to “slave” servants. Not the kind of farmer’s market we know of nowadays.

Anyway, Jing Li was a real entrepreneur, it didn’t take him long to build a fortune, married two wives in Xingning, had 4 sons and 1 daughter. He was still able to branch out to Lianghua( 梁化)(another county), built a farm house, married another wife (my grandmother) and had 2 sons and 1 daughter. The farm house was where most of my siblings were born. I am in the process of gathering description of the farm house, verbatim from my siblings and will coerce my brother Alex (the painter) to draw into picture. Jing Li also managed to start two stores by the town squares (see photo above) and sold fabric and groceries. He also owned many farmland and started a sugar cane factory, build his own road and bought trucks to transports farm goods to major cities. Now you know why he only had time to father 8 kids (A conjecture on my part).

In the past three weeks, I have started to interview and asked many questions, beginning with only a few of my siblings, about their childhood memories. What rural Leung Far and the Farm House were like? How life was growing up back 70 years ago? It is like doing a jigsaw puzzle, a painting and a quilt all at the same time. As every answer provides a missing piece to solve the mystery, a brush stroke to give it more depth and an individual fabric to add color to the whole picture.

The only thing I did not prepare was the emotional side of the research and interview. Because our family (as in countless other families in China during the 1940s to 1960s) had suffered so much from a civil war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War), Japanese Invasion (http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=59&catid=2), the communist rule and especially during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution), details of the stories coming out of my siblings’ mouth are full of sad, horror and human indignation. It was very traumatic for both me and my siblings. I have to slow down the research just to recover from loss of sleep and anguish of feeling sorry for them.

One thing I notice, by sharing their past, it has seemed to help them to heal from their sufferings. I also managed to feel closer to them as I grew up apart from some of them until I was well into my adulthood. Another added benefit to the research, I also find out many of my family share the same birthdays. This project has taken a life of its own. I am planning to visit Lianghua and Xingning for the first time in my life with my sister Amy whom has already managed to find some long lost cousins in both places and they are eagerly awaiting for our visit.

More later….

In Search of my Family History

Stories gathered by a Son with a Real Birthday.

July 16th, 2010

I was born and grew up in Hong Kong, BCC (British Crown Colony), then under British rule. Of course Hong Kong is now part of China (since 1997) but yet it still has an abbreviated suffix attached to it. It is now called Hong Kong, SARs (Special Administrative Regions) China. I wonder when it can get its own name back without any attachment or condition. It seems people in Hong Kong are used to etching out a living no matter how they are labeled. They are the most adaptable citizens I know. If you don't believe me, I bet you a dozen donuts or dim sum of your choice that you can find people in all corners of the world that have come originally from Hong Kong. In everywhere I traveled, I can usually pick them out within a few minutes.

Anyway, I grew up full of colorful, heart wrenching, poignant stories told by my parents and siblings. These are stories on how my family and relatives grew up in China during the pre-WWII era, and how they suffered during the Japanese invasion of China between 1937 to 1945 and how our family had to split into two in 1949 (Liberation by the Communist Chinese). How the ones that escaped to Hong Kong lived? And how the ones that were left behind in China survived. We all subsequently united and are all living in the United States. There are countless stories needed to be told by everyone spanning the two continents (Asia and North America).

I am the only one among my siblings that was born in Hong Kong (in 1952 and know my true birthday). The rest of them have to guess or hold on to the dates from word of mouth passed on by my Mom as to their birthday due to absence of a Magistrate System in rural China. Have I told you I am the youngest of nine children? My Dad had two wives, a child bride and a common-law wife. My child bride mother has three kids ( one daughter and two sons) and my real mother has six (two girls and four boys).

The Chan family history (like many other family histories) is like an onion, has many layers. I am determined to peel back as many as possible and chronicle its stories. I have some ideas on how to do that but for the most part, I have to wing-it as it goes, as I know this is going to be a monumental task. Much, much harder than sailing Living Water from Panama to Galveston.

In the coming days, I will tell you how I gather (but not yet share) these stories from members of my family (all 56 of them from the last count). At the end, I will write a book and then you can read all about it.

Wish me luck!

Day 13: Land Ho

Galveston, Texas.

4/29/2010, Thursday, Day 13 - The Final Chapter

Here I am sitting comfortably in front of my own laptop (with a real mouse) and trying to recount the last day of our adventure. The room is perfectly still and the only things that move are the tree branches outside my office window caught under a light afternoon spring breeze.

Here’s what we encountered, on the last day of our 1600 nm non-stop trip, after entering Galveston Bay on 4/29/2010 at 0000.

From past experiences, we knew every time when making landfall at night at a strange harbor was going to be a challenge, but after studying the charts available to us on SeaClear, we knew right away this was going to be a navigator’s nightmare. The area we entered was about 125 square nm littered with hundreds of active and abandoned oil wells, derricks, drilling platforms, obstructions, sunken shipwrecks and a maze of shipping channels to accommodate the large influx of oil tanker traffic. Terry spent a good day worth of time painfully checking and double checking every waypoint and entering them onto our onboard GPS and making a route of 15 waypoints, feeding them to Auto, to be followed without deviation, for we are about to make our last track of 100 nm at night under a full bright moon.

The South Channel we entered was about 65 nm long and 1-1/2 nm wide but without any Aids to Navigation (ATON), i.e. no lights or buoys of any kind. At the end of the 65 nm run in the South Channel there was an intersection where other shipping channels (east, west and north) converge. Standing in the middle of this intersection, was one important channel marker, known to all mariners as a safe water mark or mid channel mark. You’ll find a safe water mark outside any port before entering, e.g. San Francisco (SF), Santa Cruz (SC), Half Moon Bay (PP)…etc.

This one is designated on the chart as – RW “GA” Mo(A). Stands for - Red/White, Galveston, Morse Code Alpha. All safe water marks have this same distinct feature, a white light that emits a Morse code “A “signal, i.e. dit and dah. (One short and one long,) Normally when sailing at night you can see this distinct signal 2 to 3 nm away as it usually stands alone in complete darkness. But this was absolutely not the case in Galveston Bay. The whole area where we sailed within this straight track was full of light with various colors and intensity in the fore and back ground emanating from all the structures I mentioned earlier. Finding RW “GA” Mo(A) was like threading the eye of a needle in a haystack.

We were both up all night, Terry was down below at the Navigation Station watching the radar, sailing instruments, GPS track, while I sat behind the helm (in shivering cold) keeping a sharp look-out and confirming visually anything he saw on radar. We had to dodge many ships in the beginning of the channel and then traffic got lighter into the night and I was able to take an hour nap to warm up. I got up at 0300 and Terry was at the companionway looking at this bright white light ¼ nm off our starboard bow with great concern. I tried to wake up and train my night vision onto that bright light and said it didn’t seem to move and maybe it was an abandoned oil well. Terry didn’t agree as he had tracked this light on radar the last half an hour and detected a very slow movement. He instinctively took the helm and gunned the engine and changed course 30 degrees to port and passed it to our starboard while giving it plenty of sea room. As we were passing this bright light, we were able to see it was a small boat with two outriggers, one on each side, moving ever so slowly on the water. It was a shrimper, those famous gulf shrimp boats made famous by the movie Forrest Gump. I was half expecting to see Bubba, Forrest and Lieutenant Dan on board when we passed its bow.

The rest of the trip up the channel was pretty uneventful until we got close to the safe water mark at the intersection. As we got to about 1 nm to RW”GA” Mo(A), I kept scanning the horizon to confirm the mark from the GPS (with my newly cleaned glasses). I have better vision than Terry and usually was able to find marks quite fast, but for the life of me, this time I couldn’t find it. It was getting closer and closer and all I could see were a bunch of white lights and yellow lights in the background and some off both port and starboard in the distance. We desperately needed to confirm and find this light as the chart might be wrong and we’ll make a major error by turning into the wrong channel in the dark. We had only this light to go by in the entire 65 nm track and I couldn’t find it. I started to curse myself for this inability. Terry even came out of his warm and snug “Crystal Palace” and helped me look. He then decided we needed to make our course change to 330 M to make the entrance to Galveston some 20 nm away. After the course change, he piped up, “How about that light at 11 o’clock?” And I looked in that direction and sure enough out there stood this elusive light blinking at me with a short and a long flash. It had been playing hide and seek with me the last 20 minutes. I was very pleased and was almost going to suggest to Terry to get close enough to RW “GA”, stop the boat so I could kiss its light bulb. So, the Great Captain had saved the day once again. We had since decided the chart from SeaClear was wrong and the coordinates for the light were off by ½ nm and therefore I was looking in the wrong direction. Yes, when all else fails, blame it on the chart!

Dawn had finally arrived, and the rest of the 12 nm to Galveston was much easier to navigate as we found all our marks despite many tankers passing us. We were sailing among the big boys, life blood to our economy, and I was once again busy with my Nikon to witness such a rare sight.

Upon arriving in Galveston at 0730 was this yacht basin where we were supposed to check in with the US Coast Guard, guardian to our sea coast and savior to all mariners. The proper protocol was to hail them on Channel 16 or 22A (Coast Guard’s own working channel) with our VHF Radio. Terry had tried for 30 minutes but got no acknowledgement from them. We finally called one of the marinas, a number I found while doing some research on the area when I was still in Sacramento, and got from them the number of the Galveston Coast Guard on a land line. (So much for our Sea Coast Guardian monitoring VHF radio for Mayday distress calls on Channel 16.) After making numerous phone calls to the Coast Guard in Galveston, to a phone call to US Customs and Border Protection in Florida and back to Galveston, a typical bureaucratic run around, we were finally told to pull up to the fuel dock at the yacht basin for official clearance with US Customs and Border Protection under the newly established Department of Homeland Security.

An hour later, after fighting a strong current that set us down the coast for 3 nm while finding out where to check in, we were making our first docking after 12 days. As we made our approach to the fuel dock, there stood two uniform officers in blue waiting for us. I stepped off with the bow line in hand while Terry expertly maneuvered the boat to a halt and grabbed the stern line and came off and we both secured Living Water to the rather large wooden bollards on the dock.

I turned and saw the two officers, a tall, slim African American female with a serious look, Officer Johnson and the other round faced, well-built white male with a smiley grin, Officer Pyle (I did not make this up). I put on the best Texan accent I could muster after this long night ordeal and said, “Hi, y’all. What a fine mornin’!” The two officers turned and looked at each other and probably had no clue as to what I had just said. After a few moments of awkwardness, once again the Good Captain came to the rescue and proceeded to go through the paperwork with Officer Johnson. Meanwhile, I was attempting to make small talk with Officer Pyle and found out he was actually from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (No wonder he couldn’t understand my Texan accent). I switched my accent ever so slightly to a more southern tone. “How yo like’em shrimp boats?” I said, from which I drew another puzzled look from the gentleman. Tired of the small talk, Officer Pyle, not to be out done by the other Officer who was checking our ship’s documentation, asked if we had brought in any meat or vegetables, to which Terry had truthfully answered to the best of his knowledge that we had some frozen meat and two apples. After further questioning, Officer Pyle decided we needed to surrender the apples so I headed back to Living Water and retrieved the contraband. While going through the refrigerator in the galley, I also discovered we still had two oranges, two red onions, a cucumber, a mango and a lime. I wasn’t about to contradict my dear Captain and kept that to myself. After stepping onto the dock, I put on this pathetic and sad look and reluctantly handed the two wrinkling apples to Officer Pyle.”We were going to have them for breakfast.” I said, trying to hold back tears. My acting skill was still in fine form, never mind the little labels on the apples that said they came from Washington, for after a few moments of detailed examination, the good Officer handed me back the two apples and said we can keep them. I thanked him profusely; glad my acting had saved our food store.

At almost the same time, Officer Johnson had finished the ship’s paperwork and asked to see our passports. I just then realized after two weeks in the sun, my appearance was now darker in complexion and with my short crew cut hair, I looked more like a Panamanian than a Chinese. I immediately took off my hat and my glasses, and tried to rearrange my face to some resemblance to my passport photo which was taken 4 years earlier. The old adage prevailed once again about us Asians, “After awhile, they all look alike.” Office Johnson handed me back my passport without any questions. The time was 1100. We had wasted 4 ½ hours trying to do the right thing by checking in, while the US Coast Guard and the US Customs and Border Patrol had done such a lax job when they are supposed to protect us from foreign threats. And that was our arrival story in Galveston.

Three hours later, we tied up Living Water at Seabrook Marina at Seabrook, Texas, a quaint little backwater town along the Texas coast and thanked Living Water for being such a good ship. I poured the last of the SMS and gave a well-earned toast to my Sea Captain for his diligent, precise, untiring efforts in bringing us back to safety.

We had sailed about 1600 nm in 11 days 21 hours, double-handed, endured all sorts of weather and wind conditions, done a remarkable job on navigation, encountered many ships, had many great laughs, seen some spectacular sun and moon rises and sets, took many photos, caught a few fish, ate some terrific meals, visited by lost birds, performed a sea burial, did equipment repairs, kept our own blog, drank some good Scotch, stocked up a chest full of sea stories that would last until we are well into our eighties, but most of all, renewed our friendship. We have entrusted our lives into each other’s hands and abilities while sailing the deep ocean. As we know sailing is our passion, our way of life, our escape from everyday life on land, we have put our minds and bodies into such a harsh environment, and in the end, we can walk away and smile knowing what we have done. Though very tired and hungry, we thank the good lord for our good fortune and accomplishment.

After a nice dinner in town, we crashed for the night and I left to head home the next morning but not before Terry fixed me a nice fruit salad (from the smuggled contraband) and toast for breakfast. He carried my sea bag all the way from the dock to the parking lot and my taxi arrived just at the same time. We bade each other a long farewell and a big hug. We knew we would see each other soon and would sail many seas in the future. For this is just a short shore leave for us………

Day 12: Smoke Signals

4/28/2010, Wed., 1700 Zulu, Lat. 27 49.2 N, Long. 094 03.6 W, Day 12

And so, we have come to our last full day at sea. This morning at 0600, we passed this humungous structure all lit up like a Christmas tree 6 nm to our starboard beam. It was so big you thought you could reach over the life line and touch it. I supposed this is one of those huge off-shore oil or gas platforms. We were still over 120 nm from land. What lies ahead are hundreds of oil derricks, according to our chart, scattered all over our path. Terry spent all morning carefully laying out our route so we would keep them at least two nm from our track. Our ETA is 0800 tomorrow at the outside sea buoy. It will take another 20nm to get to Galveston, (Hey Bill, did you know that Galveston is an island?) then another 20 nm to the marina at Seabrook, where Terry has reserved a slip for Living Water.

Yesterday after the rather ominous news about the cold front, we were prepared for another rough day at sea, but the strong wind never materialized and we had quite a pleasant sail and made great progress to rapidly decrease the sea miles between us and land. We noticed some peculiar looking jelly fish, hundreds of them floating by. At first glance, they looked like someone had tossed clear drinking bottles overboard, but on closer examination (and Terry had already pointed this out) they are sails from the jelly fish which they use to keep them drifting with the prevailing wind. How interesting! I spent a considerable amount of time during my off watch trying to capture them on camera. I finally gave up and told myself I need to procure a telephoto lens in the future.

Dinner was Panamanian Costello Beef Flambe’ served with Country Home Fries. Have no idea what Costello means or what it would taste like. The beef must have been raised by the Costello family and hence got its name (I assume). Anyway, the price was right, only $2.50 per lb. which we got back in Colon some two weeks ago.

At 1730, while Terry was sitting at the helm waiting for dinner, I started to cook the home fries and then the flambé beef, all along thinking my dear Captain will once again be impressed by my culinary skills on the high seas. Preparing the meat was easy, just a little garlic powder, salt and pepper and Worcestershire sauce will do the trick. Cooking involved butter and oil in a hot pan and let the meat cook for about 5 minutes on one side and 3 minutes on the other. I even took the time to ask my patron at the helm how he liked his steak cooked. “Medium to medium well”, was the reply. After the required cooking time in the red hot pan, I had to perform one last step to finish the dish, i.e. the flambé step. I retrieved my now dwindling supply of SMS (as I said in my earlier posting, there is no cooking sherry on board) from its secret location and was ready to impress my audience. I opened the bottle and while trying to give the hot pan with the Costello a good swig, the boat was suddenly hit by a wave and proceeded to list to starboard (the same side where the galley stove is located). A great amount of my precious nectar was poured into the pan and white smoke started to puff, I mean, billow out of the galley and up the companion way. Bright red flames followed and started to burn on the surface of the pan. It seemed like an eternity before I wiggled and turned the pan and got the flame out. Just at that moment, Terry poked his head from the cockpit into the galley and asked, “Is everything OK? I can see white smoke all the way from the helm.” I turned around and said everything was alright, I was just sending him smoke signals that dinner is ready, all at the same time shoving his plate, which now contained this rather big piece of smoldering charred meat, into his hands. I could see the doubt on his face, but his hunger had gotten the better of his curiosity and he withdrew his head from the galley with his dinner in hand.

Little does he know how close I was to activating the ship’s fire suppression system, i.e. a mad Chinese with a water bucket. Living Water would have no “Water” left if I hadn’t put out the fire in the nick of time. Lesson learned, never attempt to flambé steak on the high seas on a small boat unless it is someone else’s small boat.

During dinner, I casually commented how the Costello family really doesn’t know how to raise tender cattle. “The beef at home is much better”, I said. Nevertheless, my fellow diner said it was the best flambé steak he had ever had. I humbly accepted the compliment and said, “I could do better next time, perhaps less salt.” And that was my dinner story.

I cannot leave you, as this is my last posting at sea, without telling you what it was like living with my good friend Terry in close quarters for the last two weeks. I know some of you, boys and girls, have encouraged us to sail on (even back track to Panama to California) so we can tell more stories at sea. But, there are other more urgent things waiting for us on land and we must leave you. I will have one final posting when back in Sacramento from my own Gmail account. I promise.

Anyway, Terry and I met at sailing school some 20 years ago. He is half German (that explains his analytical, precision side) and half Portuguese (that explains why he is such a good sailor and loves to fish). He is also tall, handsome, athletic and a devour Christian (back in Roman time). Generally a kind and gentle man, a bit shy on the surface but (as you can tell from his blog) with a great sense of humor. (I have to say all this on the off chance that he might read my blog before my departure from Living Water, as he still holds my passport and wallet in our survival bag, and he has the only key). And let me continue, he had become a great sailor throughout these years while we partnered and raced a smaller sail boat on SF Bay.

One thing you will always notice when you see him. He is so clean and smells good. I mean Felix Unger will be pale in comparison to Terry. He loves to clean, period. When I first got on Living Water back in Colon, he had bottles of cleaners and 6 (I counted) toothbrushes on deck to take out dirt and grime on the boat. (I have since slept with my own toothbrush under my pillow). Do you know he has every cleaning product known to the western world on Living Water? He knows how to use some of the product that the manufacturer themselves do not know, e.g. Tilex is good for taking blemishes off and polishing chrome railings and winches. His favorite cleaner is Windex. And he carries a bottle around everywhere he goes. If you spill something, he’ll wipe it up with Windex. If he sees dust in the cabinet, out comes the Windex. If you sneezed, …. Hope you get the picture.

I have to say living with him was fun if you consider putting needles in your eyes a pleasure. (I borrowed this line from our good friend Marty, thought I just put it in). Of course, I am just kidding. (Still waiting to get my money and passport). But, in all honesty and kidding aside, he is a very considerate and hard working man. As I am writing this, he is slaving up in the cockpit trimming sails and this is supposed to be my watch. I would sail with him anytime and place.

I have to leave you with this as we have just entered the shipping channel to Galveston and there are three supertankers approaching. The next 18 hours will be interesting. Our last 24 hours run was 128 nm.

Thank you Gary, Corinne and Rickster, Mike and Dave for your e-mails. The Brave Captain just called all hands on deck. I don’t understand why he keeps saying that as I always bring both of them wherever I go. Now, I must leave you…..See you back at Sac

Day 11: Dolphins Sighting

4/27/2010, Tuesday, 1700 Zulu, Lat. 26 2.7 N, Long. 092 40.8 W, Day 11

We are currently 232 nm from Galveston and should be making landfall this time two days from now. Things should be winding down. All the obstacles we had to worry about seem to pass us one by one. Navigation, wind, fuel, water, weather, all these concerns are not much of an issue. That is if Mother Nature cooperates with us with her weather. But, this doesn’t seem to be so. Got up at 0600 and Terry said you better sit down before I tell you this. I tried to gather my strength and see what was in store for us today. The weather fax he just received is telling us there is another cold front approaching and like the one we had two days ago, the wind will be clocking to the north and we have to beat again. “Great”, I said, as I just put on fresh clean clothes and now we have to get sprayed again.

We had a good breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast with butter and strawberry jam with fruit juice to give us energy to face the day. We now have all the sails up and beating to weather on a starboard tack with a heading of 285 M. Galveston bears 328 M. We are still 43 degrees off. I put Auto into Wind mode and set it at 32 degrees apparent angle and he will keep the boat at that wind angle in anticipation of the wind shift to the north. It will hopefully make up the 43 degrees difference. Wind has been shifting the last two hours from 319 to 330 to 344.

I love passage making. It has many facets. Sailing is only part of it. You have to have proper cruise planning in order to have a successful passage. These are as follow: 1. Crew Selection: you need to find crew that is compatible with you so there will be no mutiny (I kid you not). There are also health and medical issues of each crew member to be concerned about. The boat is only so big and living together in tight quarters under stressful conditions can ruin many friendships. 2. Provisioning: you have to plan for food, fuel, water, and first aid kits so you have enough for the passage. A well-fed and healthy crew is a happy crew. 3. Weather: this is very important so you are not putting your crew, boat and yourself in harms way by taking unnecessary risks. 4. Communication: you have to ensure you can communicate with other ships and land in case of emergency. That means have your VHF (Very High Frequency) radio, SSB radio, EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon), Weather Fax,....etc. in working order. 5. Budgeting: you need to know how much you need to spend in terms of money, cruising time…etc. 6. Navigation: ensure you have all the necessary skills and equipment to safely take you from point A to point B. Terry has done a wonderful and superhuman job on cruise planning and has addressed all these elements. That’s why this one is a happy passage.

Navigation at sea is one of the main things that attracted me to sailing. It consists of four categories: Dead Reckoning (DR) or Deduced Reckoning, Piloting, Electronic Navigation and finally Celestial Navigation.

DR is a basic skill a navigator must have. It involves a working watch (not the kind that can only tell time accurately twice a day), hand held compass, charts, pencils, dividers, parallel rulers, erasers and paper. To keep a DR plot, one has to keep a log of a starting fix position and keep track of every course and speed change and plot it on a chart with the correct time. You have to know how to keep a LOP (line of position), LOM (line of motion), keep a fix, running fix, estimate fix... Learn how to account for current’s set and drift (direction & strength), take bearings, relative bearings, dangerous bearings…etc. Christopher Columbus was a very good DR Navigator, that’s how he managed to find the new world.

Piloting, as I like to call it, eye ball navigation basically involves a pair of sharp eyes and a detailed chart to correctly identify buoys, beacons, channel markers, and landmarks to safely guide a boat into or out of harbors or anchorages.

Electronic Navigation involves learning how to use a GPS (Global Positioning System), Radar, Auto Pilots, Electronic Chart Plotters.

And lastly, Celestial Navigation which involves, using a sextant (a glorified protractor), almanac, reduction tables and all the equipment used in DR. It basically measures the precise position of heavenly bodies (and I don’t mean the female kind, well it has been a long cruise and can’t help to have my mind wander). You have 7 planets and 54 navigable stars to choose from to find a fix. One has to learn how to use a sextant, identify the planets or stars, take the sight reading, and do the calculation using the almanac and reduction tables. It is quite tedious.

If you just do day sailing, knowing piloting will get you home. If you do coastal sailing within sight of land, you need to know DR. That is the basic stuff, and if you go off-shore and out of sight of land, you need to know celestial navigation. (In my humble opinion)

Well, that is the old school of thought. With the advancement of marine electronics, many sailors just buy and learn to use GPS and electronic chart plotters and off they go on their cruise. They are easy to learn and use, and quite accurate. This often involves pushing a button or turning a dial. It is fine and dandy until the equipment fails, or worse, is hit by lightning and all electrical systems on board are fried. Then what do you do? You are not very smart if you go off without any electronic equipment, for it makes navigation much easier and more accurate, but you are equally foolish going off not having any of the DR, piloting and celestial navigation skills.

And this is my little presentation according to what I know about navigation.

As I was writing this, Terry just yelled “dolphins sighting!” So I took my camera to the bow and took about 50 shots. There were about 10 to 15 dolphins playing with our bow waves and having fun. Hope they don’t die from this.

Dinner last night was Mahi Mahi with Butter Orange Sauce served with Peas and Carrots Couscous.

Our 24 hours noon-to-noon run was 141 nm.

Thank you Bryce, Michelle, Geraldine, Bill, Bob and Kathy, Lindsay and Marlies for your lovely e-mails, Terry and I will try to keep our sanity intact for two more days to make landfall. I need to clean my glasses so I can do some good piloting.

Day 10: Buff Landed

4/26/2010, Monday, 1700 Zulu, Lat. 24 14.6 N, Long. 090 59.0 W, Day 10

It is a sailor’s delight today so far, i.e. if you are a heavy weather sailor like Terry and I. We just love the challenges posed by the wind and waves interacting with each other. I like to drive the boat and Terry is very good at, and loves, tweaking sails. Together, we make a good team.

It all started last night after dinner at around 2000. We were motoring for most of the afternoon up to dinner time when wind steadily came up from 2 to 20 knots within 30 minutes. I was taking a nap after my usual shower. Terry was single handedly trimming sails, taking the reef in and generally making a big racket and woke me up. Wonder why there is always something happening during my naps? I got up and made my way to the cockpit and saw the sky has blackened and thunder and lightning were appearing on our starboard beam. We were sailing right next to a thunderstorm formed by the earlier low pressure system, and we can confirm that with our radar as we can see there was this white span 3 nm away on our beam. Normally, I would have enjoyed seeing the spectacular light show, but being on a sailboat with a 52 ft. mast acting as a lightning rod, we were both a little leery and were careful not to touch any metallic objects around the boat in case we got hit.

We had a pleasant afternoon before the storm and Terry was asking me what’s for dinner. I told him it’s going to be pork chops. He began to dictate to me what he wants, “How about some glazed apple with cinnamon to go with the chops? And a cucumber salad would be nice, and for a side dish…how about some mashed potatoes.” Captain Bligh is back to his usual appetite and now is telling me what to cook. Yesterday he couldn’t even finish his dinner. I felt like Hop Sing (the cook in Bonanza) and wanted to tell him, “Yea Cap, me cook you foot, won fly lice to go with?”

Anyway, dinner was Cucumber and Red Onion Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette, Pork Chop with SMS Cinnamon Glazed Apple, (there were no cooking sherry on board), and Italian Mashed Potatoes. The Mad Captain was pleased.

If I tell you what was going to happen during dinner, would you all promise not to call me a liar? As this is a true story……while eating dinner, Terry was sitting across from me on the port side and suddenly his mouth dropped open and pointed over my shoulder as if he just saw a ghost. At first I thought he was playing a trick on me and paid him no attention, but he kept pointing as he was gagging. I looked around and thought I saw a ghost as well. It was this tiny yellow feathered bird flying around the stern and landed on the port lifeline, inches away from the same spot P*** had landed four days ago. Terry said, “He came back alive from the deep sea.” It was such a surreal moment and instinctively, I reached for my Nikon but stopped myself before I got to the camera. I do not want to add another charge to my now long rap sheet waiting for me in Galveston.

After both of us calmed down, we realized it was not the same bird. This one had more muscle and must have been working out in the jungle gym. We both agreed to name him Buff. But, this time we did not feed him anything afraid of any personal attachment in case of any untimely demise. He hung around and spent the night, ironically, at the same perch on the wire fruit basket. The next morning, Terry saw Buff fly off which rid me of any unwanted accusation. And there is part 3 of my bird story.

Our 24 hours noon-to-noon run was 103 nm. It was slow due to sailing hard on the nose. Living Water being a full keel boat with 17 tons of gross displacement, just doesn’t like upwind work. We are now 366 nm from Galveston.

Thank you again for your e-mails, Nanci, Geraldine, Linda, Dave. Mary, your sadistic e-mail was painful to read though it was beautifully written with great wit and charm even it was full of P words and changing the lyrics from P*** the Magic Dragon to P*** the Magic Birdie was hilarious. And to Bill Brown, no Terry and I do not have the Bird Flu. Thank you very much.