Welcome to Zenitude’s blog where you can follow us while we travel slow in our Lagoon catamaran. We update this blog frequently when we are cruising to let family and friends know where we are. Check the complete story of our adventures that started in 2006 when Zenitude became our home and cruising our way of life. Graciela and Oscar

Tuesday 30 April 2013

Radio email, working again

We finally found the cause of our communication problems after a test showed we were transmitting loud and clear but we were not able to receive a reply back. This is most unusual and we wrongly assumed transmission or grounding problems, so we were all the time looking at the wrong end. Knowing where the problem was and after reading the manual we figured it out. It was only a problem with the radio settings that God knows how we managed to change. It is all working now.

With the communications back we are now looking at the weather for our next leg to Noumea. At the moment it seems that we should be leaving next Thursday or Friday. There is a front coming and it is going to get nasty here. We are 3 sailboats in the lagoon and one of them is going the same way so we are planning to leave together. In the meantime we are getting ready, fuel, water and supplies.

The weather has been fantastic so far and we are enjoying the island. We'll post pictures when we get good internet.
G.

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Sunday 28 April 2013

Miles away in Lord Howe Island

We sailed about 420 miles from Sydney to Lord Howe Island in 3 ½ days. Leaving Sydney at 8.00 AM on a rainy Monday morning we were soon motor sailing with little wind but very confused seas. It was the start of the passage in an uncomfortable washing machine style, but not really concerned as the forecast predicted seas calming down during the day.

Soon after leaving we discovered we couldn't connect to any of the sailmail stations using our SSB radio modem. We checked with Marine Rescue Sydney and they could hear us but we had no email, so we couldn't communicate with anybody in the family, we couldn't receive weather updates and we couldn't report our position. We definitely don't like going on a passage with no weather updates and no means of reporting our daily position, we considered turning back to fix the problem and to buy a satellite phone for good measure, but the weather window was good, the trip was just 3 to 4 days and we decided to keep going and fix the problem in Lord Howe Island. So here we are.

The trip was good and uneventful. A bit of sailing, a bit of motoring and a lot of motor sailing trying to keep up an average of 5.5 knots to avoid an extra night at sea. We had to arrive in daylight, before 5.00 PM to be able to enter the lagoon. During the first part of the trip this seemed impossible while we were fighting the East Australian current pushing us south, we were barely reaching 4.00 knots, actually crawling between 3.5 and 4.00 knots motor sailing with the 2 engines on.

The second day was much better and we were able to catch up sailing with good winds. The rest was a mix of light winds, no wind at all, good current some times, etc. At the end we made it, after a friendly large squall with strong winds in the right direction in calm seas gave us the right push to arrive Thursday afternoon at around 2.00 PM. Ironically this was a bit too early as it was the very low of the tide in the lagoon and maritime services asked us to wait outside the lagoon for about 1 hour before they could guide us inside to a mooring.

Now is time to rest and enjoy the island while we try to get our communications back. There is a limited internet service on land at the Museum that we hope to be able to use in the meantime.

There is a full moon this week and the island is fantastic, day and night!
G.

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Monday 22 April 2013

Underway towards Lord Howe Island

We left Sydney early this morning and expect to arrive in LHI sometime on Thursday. Not sure if we will be able to report position underway, our radio email is not working so far. Wind is light and seas are not high but they are confused, a bit rolly at the moment. All is well on board.
G

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Tuesday 16 April 2013

Back to cruising life

After 2 years of land life we are now back aboard Zenitude. On Saturday we left the marina and resumed our cruising life. We are still around Sydney Harbor waiting for a weather window long enough to reach Lord Howe Island in reasonable weather. The latest forecast has a strong southerly change for Friday, it seems that we can leave right after that front passes, either late Sunday or early Monday.
G.

Sunday 7 April 2013

Change of plans

One more low coming down the Tasman Sea did it. We changed plans. After receiving this forecast: 'a very intense low coming down close to Lord Howe Island next Sunday afternoon and night (14th) with gale force cyclonic winds. Once that has cleared, and the S winds ease on the NSW side of the Tasman, hopefully things may become more settled'.

We decided to take it easy and forget Sydney-New Zealand hard trip. Which means we won't visit Tonga, at least not this season.New plans now are Lord Howe Island (after the low clears), New Caledonia and Vanuatu. But, you never know, plans may change again.

In the meantime, while waiting for weather we finally installed our Camino 101 AIS system and we managed to integrate it with our Raymarine plotter. Now we can track big ships and they can see us, one hopes.
G.

Friday 5 April 2013

Still Waiting

Every night we check the weather maps and every morning we get an email from Roger Badham, the weather expert we hired to give us advise on our trips. He is an expert who has weather and trip advise service for sailors and he is famous around the sailing community. He's been saying it is a 'no go' with a following series of 'no change' and this morning the latest is 'No change this week to the lousy conditions'. With all the technical explanations, the result is that Oscar could leave Sunday with a possible window, if they go fast it's doable but not enjoyable.

We are thinking we want 'enjoyable', we don't need 'doable'.

So, we wait.

By now we are starting to think that if we can't change the weather at least we can change our plans. Just a thought.
G.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Waiting for weather

Ready to go, just the weather is not co-operating. Our weather guru have been telling us is a no go, last week and this week. Maybe next week. Here is what he reports:
"SAT 30

Low develops later Monday and track ESE to be over NZ by Thursday.
Broad area of SE/20-25 across entire Tasman all this week and back to SE/15-20 through to early next week.

I see all this coming week very difficult and the follow week in a slow improvement.

End"

So, we wait
G.

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