thursday february 10th 2011, day 1
We spent up our Baht on a nice dinner and a massage. On the way back a quick stop at the minimart took care of any remains as we walked out with a few passage treats. We successfully launched through the surf for the last time and once back aboard the Slapdash stowed the outboard engine, hoisted up the dinghy and secured it. Jaime went about making the cabin passage-ready while I did the outside equivalent. Before long we were fit for sea and fresh out of reasons not to leave. It was exactly midnight when we weighed anchor and began slowly feeling our way out of Naiharn’s beautiful bay. There wasn’t much wind so Thailand’s lights lingered with us half the night before slowly but inevitably sinking under the horizon and out of our view.
The pre-passage jitters (PPJ) and anxiety faded away much more quickly than Thailand’s lights. PPJ’s are similar to that gnawing feeling you sometimes get when you leave the house in the morning thinking you may have forgotten something, times a thousand… or five thousand; the number of miles to the Med which is the next time we’ll have the wide array of services available to us that we have here in Thailand.
Fortunately PPJ’s have an instantaneous cure; leaving land. Once offshore there’s no point worrying about what you might need or may have forgotten. The anxiety leaves along with the options and choices you once had. Going from planning for everything to doing something is a beautiful feeling for me. I’ve said it time and again but leaving harbour in a well equipped boat has to be one of the most exhilarating and freeing things that you can experience.
Once the sun came up the next morning there was nothing to see but that familiar watery blue horizon 360 degrees around us. Before breakfast our first dolphin encounter of the passage came along and added some life to the scene. Very slow going today, but calm, so it’s been what you could call a ‘sleepable start’. This relaxed and gentle progress is the only positive side of not having much wind. What a difference from the sailing we’ve been doing all year. It’s a relief to be out of the confined, dirty, and crowded waterways of SE Asia and back in the big wide open ocean. We’re not paranoid about shipping lanes, logs, plastic bags stuck in the water intake, fishing nets and all that other crap. The water is clear, clean, empty, and beautiful.
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friday february 11th 2011, day 2
Last night we encountered our first squalls of the passage. They were spiteful little bastards full of lightening, rain, and blasts of wind from the wrong direction. We’re rusty sailors after so much time land lubbing in Thailand so needed the exercise. Good practice since there are surely more to come.
Also new to the scene last night were some very peculiar sea conditions. We’ve read a bit about this phenomenon in the Andaman Sea so weren’t caught completely off guard, but it was still cause for some tense moments. Imagine cruising along on a flat glassy sea when some disturbance catches your eye. You start focusing on some strange looking action in the water up ahead. You were expecting this on some level but still refer to the charts one more time just to be safe, a bit irrational but you can’t help it. Breaking waves in the middle of a flat ocean can be a good indication that you are about to run aground. Fighting off that nagging feeling you proceed into the melee. Suddenly drunken mixed up waves slosh around in all directions colliding with each other and into your boat from every odd angle. Your speed is cut in half. Whoever was trying to sleep at the time is no longer and stumbles into the cockpit to find out what the hell is going on. Then at some point before you even register the transition, the noise has stopped, boat speed is back up to normal, and you are once again on a glassy sea. Did that just happen? Eerie, like weird Bermuda triangle type shit. It’s always tough to capture a picture like this, but we tried:
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I was keen for a swim today until I saw a big tuna (at least I think it was a tuna) leap clear out of the water 3 times in a row before landing for the last time in a turbulent patch of water caused by a big black shape just below the surface. The tuna didn’t do anymore jumping after that, and I didn’t do any swimming.
It may seem early to be considering our fuel reserve but once we pass Great Nicobar there’s nothing until Sri Lanka. We will pass 60 miles from the northern tip of Sumatra at that point where in theory we could take on additional fuel. So far there’s been no wind of any consequence. We’ll monitor consumption and forecast mileage before deciding once we’re there.
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saturday february 12th 2011, day 3
Our first night out Jaime claimed that a giant green attack dolphin had been repeatedly charging our boat. I chalked this up to a sleep deprived Gravol-enhanced hallucination, but owe her an apology after witnessing it for myself last night. ‘Giant’ may have been pushing it a little, but a dolphin bigger than most did come along and make a few passes. I don’t know if we’ve ever seen a dolphin alone before, so that in itself was unusual. The green phosphorescent comet was quite striking and made it look even bigger. Not sure if it was the same one but he sure fit the description.
Woke up this morning 25 miles SW of Great Nicobar. Did some homework and found the island in one of our guides. Apparently these are Indian islands and stopping there is absolutely prohibited. There’s a bunch of military installations there and they don’t want people snooping about. To the South we have Sumatra and the port of Sabang. It doesn’t get glowing reviews either, a commercial port in a province with ‘considerable unrest, be sure to check on the latest situation before attempting to land’. This is getting complicated so we’ve decided to put our chips on Neptune. The wind is meant to fill in once we’re clear of these islands so we’ll take our chances. We have plenty of food and water anyway so if it comes down to it we can always just bob around and wait if we have to. Seems like a better idea than taunting the Indian military or getting our good selves mixed up in considerable Sumatran unrest. Both of these things are probably exaggerated of course, but our fate is sealed; it’s Sri Lanka or bust. It feels good to have that settled. There will still be much reworking of miles travelled, diesel used, engine time and RPM adjustments for optimal mileage.
sunday february 13th 2011, day 4
I started my shift this morning and on her way into the cabin heard Jaime say, ‘there’s wind’. We had taken the sails down again last night after it had died completely so this was welcome news. She was asleep within seconds of sharing her observation. Feeling set up I began hoisting and trimming the sails myself. This wasn’t too much trouble with the help of the autopilot and light winds, but I guess the change of motion eventually woke up Jaime. I sarcastically apologized for the inconvenience, saying that I hoped my solo efforts at tending to the boat hadn’t disturbed her slumber. Instead of taking the bait she made a sweeping gesture towards the stern of the boat and airily replied that something was caught on the rudder before promptly returning to bed. With the boat underway I began freeing Slapdash from the chunk of fishing net she had picked up while secretly plotting my revenge which has now taken shape in the form of recording the entire exchange in this log. Jaime edits and posts all the logs though, so we’ll put her journalistic integrity to the test and see if her version of events differs from mine. [Editor’s Note: journalistic integrity shall not compromise artistic flair, in the form of gross exaggeration, while describing subpar performance, behaviour, or fashion sense of the Admiral.]
We keep passing these absolutely monstrous freighters. I read about them in ‘Dangerous Waters’ and have been wondering if we would see them on this passage. I’m not sure if they are VLCC’s (Very Large Crude Carrier) or even ULCC’s (Ultra Large Crude Carrier) like the decommissioned Jahre Viking in the latter category. Her dimensions were almost unimaginable. So big that both canals, the Malacca Straight and English channel ,were off limits to her. At 458 meters from stem to stern she was longer than the Petronas towers are tall! By the way, “Ultra Large Crude Carrier”? Not exactly extravagant language for the largest mobile manmade objects ever built. Seriously, who let the engineers name the ships?
Frequent encounters are making dolphin spotting connoisseurs out of us. There’s the full moon sighting, the sunset sighting, the sunrise sighting (which turn the dolphins a beautiful pink color) and the new Slapdash favourite, the phosphorescent comet tail sighting. Last night’s encounter left me completely speechless though, and not just because Jaime was asleep and there was nobody else within a thousand miles to talk to. A few critical factors were in play; the water out here is crystal clear, last night the moon and stars were hidden behind a blanket of clouds, and I was totally tripping on Peyote. Just kidding, although you might think so after the next few sentences. The wind was nonexistent, we were motoring along over this crystal clear sheet of glass in absolute darkness. Normally green comet tails would give away their positions, and you would be treated to this really cool monochromatic submarine firework display. But last night the perfectly still clear water helped to create a completely new effect. Instead of only seeing their trajectory, the entire shape of the dolphins became completely visible. Millions of glittering white flashing lights created these perfect dolphin shaped missiles that darted back and forth between the bows just inches below the surface. Their fins, noses, tails and everything were perfectly outlined in what looked like flowing diamonds, or sparkling frost. The mind blowing effects would have made James Cameron drool.
monday february 14th 2011, day 5
As if on cue the wind picked up almost as soon as we past Great Nicobar. It was out of the SW though, a bit unusual since we are at the height of the NE monsoon season. This passage is meant to be a pleasurable downwind cruise, but we’ve found ourselves working windward for the past 24 hours. No complaints though, we are very relieved to be sailing properly and making miles without relying on the engine. Every free mile counts. The forecast we downloaded 3 days in a row before leaving was unchanged and called for 7 straight days of NE winds from 10-15 knots. We get the feeling based on the first few days out that we could be in for something all together different.
I celebrated the free miles with something we’ve coined the ‘suicide swim’. This involves diving off the bow of the boat while underway and swimming beside it as fast as you can for as long as you can before darting back in behind the boat and grabbing a line trailing off the stern. Good exercise, cools you off and it gets the heart pumping. Jaime has yet to sign up for the suicide swim program and is still content with the occasional drag off the stern.
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We are loving the sat phone. We receive free incoming text messages with this plan. These text messages create a nice level of connection that doesn’t at all take away from the solitude, mystery and adventure, but provides a thin thread of connection to a sister, a brother, a mother or friend. Turning on the phone and downloading the little messages we get from home has quickly become a daily ritual and highlight for us. On the other hand now that we’ve become accustomed to these little treats, when we fire it up and nothing comes through it’s a bit of a downer… so keep it up folks. We especially liked the strange motivational ones about eating frogs in the morning??
Sometime after dark after a few nasty squalls (this is turning into a very unpredictable passage) Jaime poked her head out into the cockpit and said, ‘oh yeah, Happy Valentines day’. Then she gave me a piece of liquorice and went to bed.
tuesday february 15th 2011, day 6
This morning I lowered the stern end of the dinghy to drain out all of the water collected during last nights’ squalls. We leave the plug out of course, but even so this dink has a deep bow and collects a lot of water up front. Too much weight on the davits led to a bit of high seas drama on a passage in the South Pacific so we try to stay on top of this now.
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Once the sun came up I could see just how ugly the sky had been. Skuddy crap smeared across the horizon in front of us. It was raining and I had low expectations for a comfortable morning watch. My mood reflected the weather until a little while later two things happened almost simultaneously that made me feel better. Dolphins (pink in the morning light) began breaching beside the boat just as a rainbow appeared just beside the starboard spreader. Two good omens, enough to give me an optimistic outlook, and then I looked astern. The ugly squall line we had passed through the night before was still visible on the horizon, but exploding out of them higher than any other was this crazy cloud shaped like a horse with a rider carrying a sword in his left hand. The sun backlit the scene casting it in a burning orange glow…“behold, a fiery red horse appears, its rider has been given a large sword”. This can’t be good. Unsure which omen to trust, and unable to remember which terrible outcome for mankind the red horse of the apocalypse represented, I started reading the manual for our chart plotter.
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Turns out we have an odometer that we can reset for every trip. Who knew? It’s right there on page 46. Ever since we started our trip I’ve been using the distance from objective to calculate our daily progress for the log. For example, if 24 hours into a 1000 mile passage we were 840 miles away from our objective we record a 160 mile day (wishful thinking on this passage). This of course doesn’t take into consideration the extra miles covered in pursuit of our objective (most commonly a course change to optimize sail trim), which I’m assuming that the odometer would. So we’re talking about the difference between planned vs. actual here, on some days this could be a very significant difference. Our method obviously has us logging less miles than we have actually sailed, but a more accurate assessment of progress. If we were logging actual miles sailed then in theory we could put less emphasis on the actual destination, and more on maintaining the perfect point of sail thereby enabling us to log 200 mile days… sure, we end up in Antarctica or back where we started from but with bragging rights. That seems stupid, so is there some standard method we should be using? Until I hear otherwise we’re sticking to our countdown method.
One of the messages we received from home was from a recently married, soon-to-be dad best friend who jokingly asked if we would like him to send us another bird to keep us company on the passage. Of course there’s more to the story so this is a bit out of context, but strangely Larry the Bird II showed up today. He was a bit retarded compared to the last Larry the Bird though and kept trying to land on our vertical main sail for some reason. Eventually he crash landed on the bottom step of our starboard transom. Jaime immediately said, ‘uh-oh, that’s not a good sign’. Usually when birds visit it’s because they know that there is some nasty weather on the way and they’re looking for a place hide out. That’s when I began to think that in nautical poker a fiery sword wielding horseman of the apocalypse may trump a Dolphin/rainbow pair. Anyway, we scooped up Larry the Bird II and gave him a little place to rest for the night. Like the other birds we’ve played host to, Larry the Bird II didn’t mind being picked up and moved around. For some reason (either exhaustion or no exposure to humans) they seem completely unafraid of us. Thanks Bob!
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When Jaime started her shift at 9AM we were making slow progress under full sail, choppy seas, and fluky winds. Not long after I crashed out things started to pick up. We have literally been weathering a procession of squalls one after the other so this was really nothing special. Jaime woke me up when the wind hit 20 knots and I told her not to worry that this was exactly what the last three did, this would be the worst of it and within the hour we would probably be forced to motor again. A few minutes later I hear ‘twenty five’ from the cockpit and decided that it was time to join her. We still had full sail up, but convinced by our days of experience with this on again off again weather just decided to put the wind behind us for the few minutes it would take to blow itself out. Mistake. Twenty five became thirty. Thirty became thirty five. We were blasted so hard and so fast it was hard to believe. Clearly this was not going to be like every other squall. Despite the risk of damaging our sails we had to get them down, things were going from surprising to dangerous at an alarming rate. By the time we had swung the boat around and released the sheets in order to take in sail we were in the high forties. After furling most of the headsail I went up on deck and started wrestling with the main. As I left the cockpit a quick glance at the wind meter told me that for the second time on this trip we were in the plus fifty category.
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The Beaufort Scale is an empirical measure for describing wind speed. At 54 knots we were on the very high side of Force 10 on the Beaufort Scale (force 11 starts at 56 knots, force 12 is a hurricane), which lends this cheery description to the category:
“Trees are broken or uprooted, building damage is considerable. Large waves (6-9 meters), overhanging crests, sea becomes white with foam, heavy rolling, reduced visibility.”
There were no trees around, and building damage while unfortunate was not our primary concern. Colourful as the description is it leaves out what I consider to be by far the scariest part; the noise. It’s deafening. Sails shake with frightening intensity, the mast looks like it may uproot and disappear, lines whip around like bullwhips… but the sound is more incredible than all of that. You can scream at the top of your lungs at somebody 5 feet from you and they will hear nothing. Fortunately Jaime and I both knew the drill and didn’t need to do much talking. We did end up with a nice little tear in our headsail, and one or two of the little clips that hold the mainsail onto the mast popped but we did manage to get the sails in. We had hundreds of miles of sea room so just turned downwind with a tiny bit of headsail showing and rode it out. It didn’t take long to blow itself out. We were still riding downwind an hour later but winds were only in the high thirties. Not long after that we were mid twenties and then poof! Nothing but a torrential and blinding downpour and the miserable sloppy leftover seas to worry about. Once the windy bits were through we began to worry about collisions in the reduced visibility. We decided to renew our policy of keeping the ditch bag handy on passage. Jaime happily agreed.
Stupid horseman.
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wednesday february 16th 2011, day 7
Wow. Beautiful morning. A complete contrast to the last 24 hours. Larry the Bird II flew the coop this morning. Not before walking around for a while and randomly pecking at things. I sensed that he was about to leave us so woke Jaime up. She would be disappointed (and may blame me) if she woke up to a Larry-less boat.
We pulled the sails off and repaired the tears from the big storm yesterday. We feel like such grown up sailors when we do stuff like this. Look at us making repairs while underway! This was only the start of our busy morning. We also transferred the last of our reserve fuel into the main tanks. We did this with the help of “the jiggler”. This is the latest in my long line of fuel transfer devices, and the most simple. Roger from Palapa gets credit for showing me the way of the Jiggler, and I found one of my very own in Thailand. It’s just a little siphon hose with a brass fitting on one end that has a ball valve on it. You drop the hose into your jerry can, put the other end in your tank and start jiggling. The ball valve is one-way so it draws fuel up the line and starts the siphon. Simple, effective, cheap. We love it! After that little project was packed up I moved onto engine maintenance. For some reason we’ve developed a leak near the injector pump. This is disconcerting for a number of reasons. Wasting fuel, potential fire, potentially broken injector are among the most concerning. I’ve been able to determine exactly where the leak is coming from, but it appears to be from where the injector lines come out of the pump. Time for a little light reading. Technical manuals… hooray!
I also cleaned up the engine compartment. We seem to be shredding belts, this sucks because our engine was totally mint and now there’s this black belt residue and diesel all over everything. I cleaned it up as best as I could and left the hatch open so that the diesel would all evaporate in hopes that I’ll be able to identify exactly where the leak is coming from.
More dolphins, today a pod of at least 50 hung around for a long time. At least an hour. Very cool and we managed to get some good pictures and video. After all that boat work I did a few suicide swim laps to cool off and work the kinks out. Very refreshing and I’m almost beginning to forget how shitty things were yesterday.
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thursday february 17th 2011, day 8
At the moment we are on exactly the same longitude as Kathmandu. It’s only 1000 miles directly north from our position. I’ve started re-reading manuals on this passage for some reason, I guess because that odometer thing made me wonder what other tricks our little Slapdash has up its sleeve. Low and behold, I finally found out how to change our water temperature thing to Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. I’ve always felt goofy reporting in Fahrenheit since I have no idea what it means, and couldn’t be bothered with the complicated subtract 30 divide by whatever conversion. So, I’m happy to report that the water was 30 degrees Celsius today. That’s pretty bloody warm. It was so beautiful and clear and inviting that we shut down the boat, geared down and went for a skinny dip out here in the Indian Ocean hundreds of miles from anything. I get some juvenile thrill from looking back at our boat from the ocean… it just feels so wrong in every way that it’s hard to resist. It was so nice that even Jaime who is normally a bit of a chicken when it comes to such matters couldn’t resist the temptation. We had a good session of swimming, jumping and diving off the boat. Jaime got this cool shot of me diving into the water, and I took the other one while swimming around the boat.
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 17-Feb-2011 20:32, OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP. u1030SW,S1030SW , 5.0, 5.0mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 80 |
The battle of the fuel gauge versus the wind gauge continues… it’s never far from our minds. Look at that, on this passage even when we have 0.0 knots of wind it’s right on the nose! Could be a close one.
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This just in… We saw the green flash. We first heard about this phenomenon from Tom off Some Days a Diamond way back in the Bahamas. After hundreds of failed attempts we chalked it up to folklore and fairytale. One of the many seafaring tales that are just plain old BS… like mermaids, the Kraken etc. Tonight just before sunset Jaime and I both happened to be in the cockpit drinking a tea. There was a bit of broken cloud low on the Western horizon. It was my watch and I had just finished doing my rounds, the sun was about to dip below the horizon and since we were both there I said, “hey Jaime, maybe this is a green flash night” even though the conditions were not what have been described to us as being optimal for this phenomenon to occur. Despite that, we both stared silently at the sun’s last few seconds. These last few seconds seem to be the only time you can really perceive the sun move against the horizon and for some reason its captivating. Tonight as the last bit of the top of that red disc dipped into the sea a bright green (like I mean neon green), diamond shaped starburst flared just at the point where the top of the sun was a moment ago. It lasted for one or two seconds and then vanished. We celebrated this extremely rare and magical experience by hooting, hollering, and high fiving like idiots.
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friday february 18th 2011, day 9
You know how sometimes you get that brief and confused moment when you first wake up in a hotel room or on someone’s couch and you don’t know where you are? I love that moment. It’s exciting because you really could be anywhere.
You never know, the next moment could be; ‘oh yeah, I’m in the Country Inn and Suites in Calgary and have a treadmill, continental breakfast and all-day sensitivity training workshop to look forward to.’
Other times you realize that you are on a sailboat in the middle of an ocean on your way to somewhere that you’ve never been, from somewhere that you may never be again. That was the case this morning. It was 6AM. I opened my eyes and there was Jaime, looking very Captainly with her raingear sipping on a mug of something hot and steamy. I took this picture. What a ridiculous life.
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saturday february 19th 2011, day 10
This will be our last day. We stopped the boat to visit a big sea turtle that we saw along the way. He swam right up to us and then seemed surprised at something and quickly left. When the sun came up we were surrounded by little fishing boats. My last count had 34 of them dotted around the horizon. The ones that pass close enough return waves and smiles, always a good sign. I’m not begging them for diesel either, looks like we’ll make it with 15 gallons to spare. I wasn’t able to fix the injector line leak but it hasn’t been getting any worse either so it’s on the Sri Lanka list.
We both have a good feeling about this country. It’s a bit of a dark horse, we don’t know much about it and find that very exciting. We’ve gleaned what we could from a 30 year old little booklet and will fill you in with what we learn when we get there. Right now we’re trying to make contact with the Port Authority for permission to enter Galle Harbour. We’re told that we can expect a Navy escort so that should be interesting. It’s been a crazy, mixed up and long passage. We are both very, very happy to make this landfall.
Hoping for a safe harbour, long shower, good neighbours, cheap beer, and spicy food.
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You two rock! Thanks for the great post and pictures!!! Years ago I used to drag myself behind my boat over the south Florida reefs, with mask and fins for miles – you bring back those great memories! Be safe and enjoy it all!!!! Warmest regards, Paul PS: still cold and rainy in the Pacific Northwest. HA!!! So who’s the smart ones and whos’s the dumb one here….? LOL
Posted by Paul Grandall | 10. Mar, 2011, 10:29 amThis is your best piece while cruising yet! Both Cindy and I were delighted by all the things you touched upon in this posting. Keep it up!
Posted by Mitch | 09. Mar, 2011, 6:15 pmShip it you guys… if not for the two of you then for all of us. You’ll never look back and regret missing that one leg. You wouldn’t sail recklessly into highly sketchy weather – same thing here. You’ve got a cat that is ideal for shipping, and less than ideal for around the Cape… so there’s your answer. The Slapdash moniker has become tongue and cheek right? It’s now refers to the crazy life experiences in desired ports of call – and it’s no longer about the combination of big balls and naivete on the water. Don’t over think it, just be the wise sailors you are.
Posted by Mark | 08. Mar, 2011, 8:31 pmAppreciate the sentiment Mark. Rest assured nobody will take the decision more seriously than Jaime and I. Are you one of the Mark’s that we know?
Posted by theslapdash | 09. Mar, 2011, 9:42 amNot one of the Mark’s that you know… just a long time lurker / reader. (and admirer if you will).
Posted by Mark | 09. Mar, 2011, 12:02 pmI second this
Posted by sailingdan | 17. Mar, 2011, 11:26 amI really enjoy reading about your adventure. Y’all are brave souls and I admire your courage to go into “uncharted” waters. Thanks for the beautiful pictures of the sunsets, turtles, dolphins and life as you see it at each port.
Posted by June | 08. Mar, 2011, 3:01 pmHey thanks June. I think we’re gonna have to go looking for some extra special courage for this next bit, but yeah all of the spooky unknown stuff has always been overshadowed by all of the amazing things we’ve seen and done. Glad you like.
Posted by Jaime | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:24 pmSuicide Swim? Think about how big the fish will be that takes that bait. And I don’t mean Seth’s bits per the previous episode in the eastern Pacific.
Posted by Kevin Murphy | 08. Mar, 2011, 7:49 amSo I wasn’t the only one to be thinking of that episode? I wonder why it didn’t cross HIS mind? Defies all logic.
Posted by Jaime | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:34 pmYour writing is superb, so are you guys. XOXOXO
Posted by Mom | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:33 amDude! You need to have a name like “New York Times Literary Critic” instead of “Mom”. Didn’t we talk about this??
Posted by Jaime | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:21 pmWhat an epic passage that was! Congrats on riding it out like pros. Hopefully the dolphins, sunrises, birdie visits, and solitude outweigh the nasty parts! The mug in the captain photo says it all.
Posted by Pamela Bayntun | 08. Mar, 2011, 12:28 amI’m not sure how it’s possible but the birdies and sunsets and Sri Lanka make the medicine go down. You guys would LOVE it here!
Posted by Jaime | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:37 pmGreat post and what amazing pictures, especially the sunset and turtle. Looking forward to hearing about your stay in Sri Lanka and hoping you’ve found that cheap beer by now!
Posted by Mid-Life Cruising! | 07. Mar, 2011, 11:49 pmCheap beer has in fact been located and goes well with land sunsets, I must say. You like the pics? Can’t wait to show off Sri Lanka. Wow what a place.
Posted by Jaime | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:41 pmI’ve seen a green flicker, does that count?
Posted by Ken Page | 07. Mar, 2011, 8:58 pmFlicker, flash. I think as long as it’s green it’s good.
Posted by Jaime | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:41 pmGreat read as usual, guys. Congrats on the successful passage!
Mike
Posted by Mike | 07. Mar, 2011, 7:35 pmSuicide swim?…we call it trolling…don’t set the drag too tight, and let the critter chew the bait a little before you set the hook…
Posted by Mike | 07. Mar, 2011, 5:50 pmI think his nice white bum makes him a bit…tasty looking. If I were a fish that’s what I’d go for I think.
Posted by Jaime | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:43 pmSounds like an awesome passage guys! I totally digg the idea of “suicide swims”
Good luck with the “Big Decision” – maybe you can televise it like Lebron James…were you guys around for that fiasco?
Anyway, take care.
Posted by Lorry Reynish & Joanna Richardson | 07. Mar, 2011, 3:45 pmHighly recommended but only when there’s no wind. If there’s wind then the Admiral has a fit.
Posted by Jaime | 08. Mar, 2011, 5:44 pm