Southern Cross

Both photos were taken by Peter Lyons from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)

Elise just got back from Hawaii, via San Diego but she is not quite ready for the Bay yet. She needs to have the protective coating for the road removed and the mast put back on...We also need a new forestay and to remove all the ocean gear to get back into bay racing mode.

In the meantime, it is a great opportunity to sail on other boats and learn from others. Nathan, Bob, Pat, Lance and I sailed with Brian on Red Sky, an Olson 34 on the Southern Cross ocean race.

Start was in front of the Golden Gate YC, the course was out of the gate, around the Southern Approach buoy, around the Lighship and back to GGYC. It was great to be back on the water after so much time putting together this new home...and dealing with some serious cat bites that deprived me of the use of my arm for several long days...It got very badly infected...My joint is still painful so I hope that there isn't any lasting damage...

After a couple of days, my elbow and forearm and hand were SO swollen that I couldn't bend or stretch out my arm, or could I bend my fingers. It was sore, hot and red...There were 5 bites total, eg 5 sets of two stab marks, too deep to be cleaned up properly with alcohol and antiseptic). 4 around the elbow and 2 on my wrist, not as deep as they hit the bone...The doctor who examined me a few days after the event said that some of the swell was probably from the bite themselves, eg scar tissue and some from an infection...
I couldn't remember the exact date of my last Tetanos boost so they gave me an extra one. The nurse said 'how about I do the shot on the same arm. It will be very sore for a couple of days and you might get a little fever. Sore for sore and fever for fever because of your infection, might as well concentrate all this in one place"

Irrefutable logic really...

Picture is with hot compresses to try to get some relief!!! Heavy Tylenol user for a few days until the doctor replaced it with stronger prescription pain meds. Took about 2 weeks to resolve. Amazing how much harm these little creatures can do!

I was actually retrieving one of my cats who had escaped inadvertently - (or so he meows)...he was so fast that all I could do was grab him by the tail. Don't do that.)

The pharmacist said that I needed 2 strong antibiotics because the first one wasn't sufficient to take care of all the bacteria in a cat's mouth. And that both of them will be very tough on my stomach...No kidding...I basically was feeling fine on the boat (I always take a patch when I go out to the ocean if I remember, just as a precaution) but the minute I put something into my mouth...I was able to feed the fish. Then fine again. I decided to eat small bites of stuff that was super easy to digest and I had a really nice dinner. No further problems afterwards. It didn't prevent me from having fun since I wasn't miserable at all, the whole thing lasted for less than a minute...Weird...

Anyway, light air out in the ocean, usual build up at the gate. According to the results, we beat our nearest rival by about 2 hrs and 30 mins. We beat the last boat by 8 hrs.

But then, there was a bunch of really good sailors on board...

CT-Scan and checkup results

No change from last time - still waiting to have a fine needle biopsy of the nodules on my thyroid scheduled. They found a couple that are bigger/differentiated and active and that don't look like the usual dead cysts that develop there very regularly. Should be fine though still...

Dealing with various side effects...all annoying but I guess a small price to pay to be sailing around...

Pacific Cup 2008 Finish

Lining up Pyramid Rock (the sign for our finish...)

We have dropped the chute (spinnaker for non-sailors) and are now beating up to our "escort boat". The boat will tow us all the way into Kaneohe...

The end of the adventure...

Closer and Closer to Kaneohe

We can now distinguish details. It was blowing really nicely on that day! Remember it is the day when I did 9.72 knot average speed and 16.2 (or was it 16.1???) record speed. And the swell was just PERFECT for surfing. Some serious fun to be had in that race...

Closing in on the Finish Line.

And the Super_Hard_To_Find_Without_The_Lat_Long_They_Gave_Us Finish Buoy...In fact, half the time you don't see it as it is concealed by waves...

Arrival...

We start to see land...After 15 days of blue blue blue...This really shows how isolated the islands are. We sailed past Maui (about 40 miles East of the island) but since our 'horizon' was about 4 miles away, we never got to see the island.

Now we are seeing our destination...

The breakers are now visible...We will sail right past them

Red Bull and Blue Sea during Pac Cup

A good reason to have the blues...

A great picture of Nathan. He looks so happy!

Sailing into the sunset...

Everything you need for your watch. On the last day, we were doing 1 hr up and 1 hr down...since we stayed up together during a squall that night...The Red Bull came in handy. Thanks Stephanie for your foresight...

Some Serious Surf

OK, the bow wave is JUST starting...

It will also be visible on the side...

Look at the wake!!!

Express 27 - the Queen of Downwind

Even Mark agrees with me...

" Yes, the Express is definitely the queen of downwind--- especially on the ocean (what amazes me too, is how well they sail upwind in the bargain...not as much fun as downwind, of course). We have only done a few ocean races on Xena, but they were a blast. The Drake's Bay race (2007)was the most fun. On the return, we recorded speeds of over 17 knots. It was blowing 30 knots, and the 17s were hit coming in over the bar. Enclosed is a photo just after we had cleared the knarliest of the bar waves (it was ebbing) -- [...] Xena won overall (all divisions), both days (the upwind day and the downwind)."

Photo taken by Kevin McElroy, sitting way back hanging on to the pushpit, helping to keep the bow up.

Cats love Elise

See for yourself...

More Pac Cup pictures

A victorious-looking Nathan happily surfing waves...Nice-looking powerboat wake (not that there usually is a matching nice-looking powerboat bow wave). We had a lot of this on the last day! That's when I broke my speed record! AND I was steering toward Hawaii, not toward the fastest boat speed point on the horizon. Note a broken solar panel on starboard...that's what a flying boom can do to you...At some point, during an accidental jibe (we did have a few of those, both of us, not that very many and often actually in very very little and shifty winds, probably actually more than we normally would as we were trying to sail REALLY low in order not to put any side load on the rig and keep it up. NOT the fastest point of sail anyway and according to Nathan "I am a little obsessed by the numbers on a little top-left quadrant..."), I got swept across the deck by this famous flying boom and ended up scotched tape to the starboard side shrouds, feeling very much like a crepe. Given how sunburnt I was, I probably wasn't very far from being one!

Note the protection on the port lifeline (there was one on both sides), very useful to prevent chafe for the spinnaker sheet and guy. Remember that the spinnaker was up for DAYS (and nights)

Sailing toward Hawaii in the setting sun...

News on medical side, I need a biopsy. Hopefully, all good, will keep everyone posted as usual.

Breakfast at Half Moon Bay

Trying to get out...



Trying to get out...

Managing! All you need is a little help from a friend...

Aborted Monterey Bay Race

The last ocean race we did before Pac Cup. That's when the forecast promised 30 knots of downwind breeze and we ended up with less than 5 knots of upwind breeze. At 6:30 we weren't at Half Moon Bay yet...so we turned into HMB as opposed to continue all the way down to Monterey. I think that the problem with the weather is that Dayne was sailing on Red Sky on that race.

The Welcome Wagon at Half Moon Bay with pretty strong My Ties to the buoy
(and no, it's not a sea turtle in the water, it's just the reflection of the mark...)

Nathan jibing France on the return from HMB. We did have a nice downwind leg, not the promised 30 knots (we would have been flying...the problem with heavy air surfing and driving is that now anything less than 25 knots of breeze doesn't really feel exciting at all...) but a nice pleasant sail.

More old Pac Cup Boat Work Photos

Nathan fixing the bilge pump...We since added a strainer on Nathan's recommendation to prevent clogging of the pipe...

Elise proudly displaying its spinnaker net.

Elise and the spinnaker net at the tack fitting. Also nice view of what a regular tack fitting should look like...Nice and clean...with a pretty-well attached forestay...and a regular lifeline, eg. a piece of webbing used as a regular lifeline :)

Notice also Elise's deck-level navigation lights. We do not use those as our regular lights in the ocean. They are really hard to see with the waves so we use the mast-head lights but they are our emergency ones. On the Bay, some people argue that it is better to use deck-level lights on short rides because ships can look at them contrasted against the black-looking water at night, as opposed to a confusing background of city lights...

Learning to survive on birds in case a whale hits...

Old Pac Cup Boat Work Pictures

I am clearly on a historical trip...Here's Nathan drilling some holes somewhere...Maybe for the battery. Notice Elise's bilge since we had removed the floorboard...

Nat working 'at the back', my second home...on setting things up to receive the water bladders and the SSB tuner. It looks like I was sanding and cleaning the surface about to be resined. The cool thing is that you get a good view of our Pacific Cup 'bed'...

Working on electrical stuff. Setting up the nav light which turned out to be very very useful during the Pac Cup. Clearly, not everything is put away yet...

Nat working on the cabin interior lights (replacing with LEDs the original ones). Who said that headroom was a problem on Express 27s? ;-) And you get a good view on Elise's mascot!!! THE frog!

You know why Elise's logo is a singing frog right? 1) because the Brits call the French the Frogs and because we felt they didn't have enough attributed to them lately and 2) because of 'Fur Elise' and the Beethovens!

The Beethovens

I would like to extend a HUGE thank you to the Beethovens without whom Elise would never have been able to make it to the start line of the Pacific Cup.

When sportspeople mention their team and thank them for getting them where they are when they receive a medal, they really mean it. It IS a team effort, and there is no medal without the team.

So whatever accomplishment Elise manages to achieve, every single member of the team should feel equally proud of it.

Thank you.

Hard at work...