Happy 2016 to All

From the crew of Sirena we wish you all a happy and healthy 2016!

Preparations are almost complete and the New Year will soon see us headed southbound. Many new friends have been made already and we are looking forward to a year of adventure in 2016!

Blessings to all!

Welcome Matty

A big welcome to our newest crew member, Matty! She will be joining us as crew for the next leg of our journey through Mexico and beyond. Matty is a seasoned traveler and explorer at heart. Originally from Quebec, Matty has lived in Nicaragua, learning Spanish and speaks fluent French as well as English. She will be a welcome member aboard Sirena!

A message from Matty...

"Hi I'm Matty and this is why I want to go sailing.
There's something with the Ocean; so wide, so mysterious, so powerful. I can not look at the sea without feeling in all my "fiber" totally vulnerable and small. 
Rumi said " Dance, when you're broken open. Dance if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of a fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free"
It been a while that I felt she was calling me, and I think I just couldn't resited to the idea of dancing with her an instant."

So we look forward to our dance on the sea with Matty aboard Sirena!

Shawna and Matty with furry friend at the San Diego Natural History Museum

Here we are doing the installation of the ship name decals...

Matty and Shawna installing the Sirena name and logo

Unexpected Visitor

Friday saw Chris and I working away on boat chores at the dock. At one point I needed a particular hose, so I quickly walked back to the aft deck to retrieve it from the lazarette, which is a storage space under the aft (rearmost) deck. In my preoccupation with the task on hand I nearly stepped on this....

Unexpected Visitor

Seal or Sea Lion?

So how just how did this creature get aboard our ship? It appears that it jumped out of the water and actually slid through the railing, which is quite a feat since it's almost a four foot vertical jump! Nevertheless, there it was lounging on our deck. The debate quickly started as to whether it was a harbor seal or a sea lion. After a bit of research we found the answer. 

Closely related, sea lions and seals (and walruses) are pinnepeds which means "fin footed" in Latin. The sea lions have larger fin type front appendages, while seals have stubby front fins. But the easiest way to tell the two apart (especially with a small animal like the one on our boat) is to look at the ears, or lack thereof. Sea lions have small external ears, while seals do not have external ears at all, only small holes. Clearly this critter was a sea lion then, and seemingly a juvenile due to the small size. So where was Mom? We didn't want to find out!!! So a quick spray from the hose had the sea lion slipping back into the water.

Another visitor earlier in the week found our outboard motor to be quite a nice resting place, perfect for warming up the feet!

Spinnaker

Not everything is dirty work on a boat. Sometimes you get to have fun too! Here we tested our new spinnaker. It's actually an older spinnaker but looks unused. 2.2oz weight with a nice silky hand to it, we've ordered a sock to help douse it while on the journey. The test took place at the dock and good thing too because it took three of us just to get it hauled in and we barely had any wind that day! It's really going to be a winner once we get to the trade winds south of here. They blow almost continually at our back as we head towards the South Pacific, so the lightweight spinnaker will pull us along with ease. Hopefully the sock will arrive next week and we can take her out for a test sail and fly "The Beast" on Sirena.

Mr. Fix It

Not all projects are glamorous or fun, in fact most are downright a pain in the @$$ since the spaces we have to work in are so cramped, but in order for everything to function well "out there" we have to make repairs now. Winches are especially critical, so we've been overhauling them. Here's what a Lewmar 66 Winch looks like on the inside (pre-overhaul).

Then there are the fix it projects that we do out of necessity...like when the Aft water tank suddenly is empty for no reason (leaking hose clamp) or the bowthruster suddenly stops (blown solenoid).

Fortunately I have good hearing for pinpointing that pesky dripping sound and Chris is a great mechanic! Just order the parts and we fix everything ourselves.

San Diego at Last

A quick stopover in Oceanside provided an enjoyable evening and curbside parking at Jolly Roger's restaurant.

Sirena at Jolly Roger's famous restaurant Oceanside, CA

Over coffee in the morning we checked the marine weather predictions and saw a storm was on the way so we threw off the lines and sailed down the coast as clouds gathered to the Northwest.

Clouds gather ahead of a gale

Nearing SanDiego we were escorted by still more dolphins and I was fortunate enough to glimpse a full breach of  a whale while gazing through the binoculars at two other sailboats seemingly driftting several miles west of Point Lomas. Just as I was about to ask Chris, "I wonder if one of those sailboats is on distress?" the whale burst fully out of the water and arched its enormous body through the air, dwarfing the 36 plus foot long sailboats before crashing back into its watery home and sending the sailboats it could have easily crushed scurrying away to a safer distance.

Our first night was safely spent in a slip on Shelter Island, an appropriately named location as it sits nestled in the northern curve of San Diego Bay. There we rode out the gale that howled through the rigging all night. Several times we awoke to check the dock lines, assuring ourselves that Sirena would not be pushed against a nearby piling, but all turned out well. A neighboring boat was not so lucky when her staysail was tugged from it's furling by the fingers of the gale.

We spent several days at the "Cop Doc" as it is affectionately known, since the Harbor Police Station sits at the entrance to the public dock with slips open to transient boats for a fee. The number of nights any boat may stay there is limited, so after a few days of provisioning and hauling off items for repair we moved to the Cruising Anchorage located on the East side of Harbor Island near the Coast Guard station. The view of downtown San Diego at night was stunning.

View of downtown SanDiego at night

We plan to stay here in San Diego for several weeks while we perform a complete system check of the boat and make some upgrades. We are looking forward to catching up with family and friends while we're here!

Cats Aboard

Ninja and LoWang sailing cats of adventure.

Sailing with cats will prove to be an adventure all of its own, but careful research and chatting with other sailors who travel with their cats confirms our belief that the extra trouble will be well worth it. They are wonderful company on board, especially at night when they roam silently about and keep a lookout for mice or bugs. 

Below deck they enjoy sleeping in small cubby holes and anywhere they find a soft blanket folded. 

Chess anyone?

I have solved the issue of a litter box by using the puppy training pads set inside a litter box. I check it often and they seem to not need any loose material, so there's no tracking issues or bilge pump problems with which to contend. I would wager that once we hit foreign waters they will be so used to this process that newspaper or the like lining the litter box will suffice. They are very smart cats, being Siamese and part Siamese this should come as no surprise. Quick to catch on to anything new, they rapidly adapted to strange surroundings, feeding schedules, sights, sounds, and of course, the movement of the ship. At first they were sea sick, but just for a day. Then they were rather quiet and withdrawn for a couple days. But now they're back to their playful selves!

Oil Platforms and Cargo Ships

As we approached LosAngeles, one of the busiest ports on the West coast of the US, we saw an increase in traffic along the shipping lanes which run like highways in the ocean along the coastline. Carrying freight or oil to exotic ports around the globe, these vessels can measure up to 1000 feet long, and they are so massive it would be easy for them to run us over without noticing, so we keep a watch on both our instruments and the horizon.

To make our life a little easier we have AIS onboard. This technology allows us to see a signal transmitted by larger vessels, and to track them on our Raymarine GPS plotter. We also have the ability to send an AIS transmission, making us more readily detected by other ships in our vicinity, thereby making passages safer. When we see a target on our screen, we can click on it to see detailed vessel information such as length, speed, direction, and often a destination location.

In addition to the cargo ships and tankers on the move, we have stationary hazards, such as the gigantic offshore oil platforms which rise like small cities from the water-world.  At night they are lit up like a Christmas tree, and during the daytime fishermen can be seen fishing around their base.

Offshore oil platform

Fortunately the oil industry is very aware of the hazards associated with oil spills and the ocean here is well monitored for quality. The biggest hazard at this time is the prevalence of red algae due to the wander water temperatures brought by Mother Nature herself in the form of El Ninio and the shifting jet stream. Being on the water makes a person appreciate a truism... Everything is in constant change. We cannot make life constant, whether good or bad, all things pass with time, so acceptance of change and adapting to that change is the best method of survival.

Rounding the "Horn of California" on Veteran's Day

November 12, 2015 we rounded Point Conception, CA infamously known to sailors as the "Horn of California" due to the rough weather, wild waves and strong winds often encountered there. 

Happy Veteran's Day! Thanks and honor to all he veterans out there keeping the world a better place
to live! Capt. Chris at the helm here as we round the point. Chris served in both the Army and Marine
Corps. Hoorah!

LoWang and Ninja view the progress from the cockpit. Not too happy with the size of those swells, but a pillow in a sunny spot is always welcomed.

What's in a name?

Throughout history sailors have believed that to change the name of a boat is to bring misfortune upon it. But there are ways to appease the gods of the sea and the four winds so as to avoid bad luck. After much research and preparation, we performed the ceremony to "un-name" a boat, removing all traces of previous names from the boat. Items such as embroidered towels were donated while written records had the old names obscured. We found traces of both previous names of the boat aboard, so careful consideration was given to remove all mention of previous identity. The goal is to ask Neptune, God of the Sea, to forget the name of the boat.

Next came the renaming ceremony accompanied by more Champagne given to Neptune and the Four Winds to encourage their blessing upon our newly renamed sailboat, Sirena. Finally the new name was uncovered on the transom and we were ready to set sail.

We performed the ceremonies in Roche Harbor Bay on October 12, 2015 with the assistance of Owen Brown and Jay Spalding, who were to crew with is as we sailed the newly christened Sirena as wet set sail on October 13, 2015 down the coast of Washington and Oregon for sunny California ahead of the inevitable winter storms of the North.

Sirena, "mermaid" in the Filipino language, was chosen as the name of our vessel because of the prevalence of such similar names for mermaid across many cultures. From Wikipedia...

"In Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian,Portuguese, and Filipino the word for mermaid is respectively Sirena, Sirene, Sirena,Syrena, Sirena, Sereia and Sirena."

We find it to be a fitting name for this beautiful sailboat who will hopefully carry us around the world to visit these various cultures and foreign shores.

San Francisco to San Diego, California November 2015

Our journey southbound was interrupted by a quick trip back to close on our house sale in Texas, followed by a cross country drive with the cats back to Sirena. From just north of San Francisco, we boarded Sirena and hopped our way down the Pacific coast to San Diego, stopping along the way to anchor out and explore the sights.

 Road trip with LoWang and Ninja back to Sirena.

 Along the way the cats explored the boat and became more comfortable on deck.