Took a day to go snorkeling and briefly swam with a spotted eagle ray. Hautulco, Oaxaca, Mexico

Magdalena Bay

Happiest of Black Fridays from Cabo!

For a more detailed account of our Thanksgiving and our stay in Cabo, check out one or more of our journals. These are pictures of the delicious food we had at Baja Brewing Company and of the new friends we met there and then took sailing and snorkeling today! Tomorrow we plan to leave for Puerto Vallarta.

Yumm!

Some New Pics

Isla San Martin

Between Bahia de Tortuga and Bahia Magdalena

Bahia Magdalena

So Close!

Update Nov 7:
We're leaving tomorrow, yayyyy! This morning, a man named Jim who had been helping us with our engine problem figured it out for us and our engine works now! We're spending this evening doing some various projects to get ready and tomorrow, we're off! (Also, thanks, mom, for sending me that package that was so hard to relocate.)

Nov 5:
So we're still in San Diego! Surprise! We've gotten hung up again with engine problems and right now we're playing the One-More-Day game...so much fun! All we really want to do is get to Mexico, and we'll leave as soon as our engine can take us away from this dock! I'm working on uploading a bunch of photos to a Flickr album, here's the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennapocalypse/sets/72157637366830445

More will come when we have wifi and after I have time to edit the hundreds of pictures I have to go through--I promise!

p.s. the best way to reach us from here on out will be email or facebook, as we will have our phones turned off.

Gone Fishin'

Pertinent updates:
We got our new boom! It is longer (a little bit), stronger and heavier than our last one. Our plastic slides on our main sail didn't fit into the track on the new boom, so we sailed from Moss Landing to LA with a reef in the main, and when we got here we got in contact with a local sail repair guy who replaced all of our slides, and even picked up & dropped off our sail! We should be good to go in full working order when we leave LA for San Diego.

We caught a fish! Ian and I decided to put out the handline Monday afternoon. By about 4:30 or 5:00 when we hadn't gotten a bite, Tom was going to reel it in and put it away. I, however, had checked our fishing for cruisers book and read that on sunny days, you're more likely to get a bite in the late afternoon or early evening, so I told him we should leave it out for a while longer. We had rigged it so that the snubber (the rubber part that stretches when you get a bite so that the line itself doesn't take all of the immediate stress) was resting on the railing near the back of the boat, so that if and when we did get a bite, we would--hopefully--either hear or see the snubber disappear over the side. Sure enough, at about 5:30, while Koelby, Jessica, Tom and Ian were playing cards, I heard a small thud and when I looked back, the snubber was gone and the line was tight. I went to investigate and voila! there was definitely something on the line. I ran to get my gloves and Koelby and I reeled it in; I pulled in the line while he wrapped it around a 2x4. When we got it close enough, Ian slipped the gaff hook under its jaw and hauled our Bigeye tuna out of the water. We don't have a hanging scale, but we think it was around 35 lbs. I slit it up the belly and we pulled it on deck. Koelby gutted and filleted it and Matt and Ian threw it on the grill; it was very good.

We also went swimming while we were drifting for a couple days with no wind outside of LA. On Wednesday, the boys even rigged up an impromptu rope-swing attached to the spinnaker pole--for pictures of it, go check out Jessica's journal.

About time for an update.

So as some of you know the six of us are currently stuck in Berkeley California... Yes the six of us! Let me explain, this story begins at 1 in the morning about 50 miles off the coast of Eureka, CA. Tom and Cliff were up together on watch when Tom noticed the boom looked more like a V than it should so he sent Jenna to wake me (Koelby) up and I could not believe my ears. I figured she must be mistaken. There is no way we broke our boom I thought. As I scrambled to get dressed and head topside I could feel the boat bobbing around erratically and realized we must no longer be making head way. When I got topside we made the decision to drop the main sail and remove the boom from the mast. By about two in the morning we had everything down and in some sort of order but now had to decide what the game plan would be from here. We motored for 30 hours and arrived at Pier 39 in San Francisco the morning of the 19th. We were met by Ian Steele, he would be replacing jessica's grandfather cliff... well nobody can replace cliff but he would try to fill his shoes. (I know that only makes five but I'm getting there) we showed him the broken boom and explained what happened. His Mother Ellen was great and loved the boat. We appreciate her letting us take her baby boy. The America's Cup race was getting ready to begin so we headed over to watch as we worked on finding a way to get the boom fixed. I could write 6 pages about everything we went through finding a new boom so ill paraphrase. we had quotes as high as $7500 some people said they could fix it some people said we shouldn't trust it so after a million phone calls (all by Tom by the way) we settled on a boom that was made for a similar boat, but never used. The alterations to make it fit our boat should be done in about 10 days so thats good. Now back to this sixth crew member. I guess I will start on the 23rd of this month when a guy and a girl came to the boat and knocked on the window. They introduced themselves and explained that the girl (We will call her Sally) had just finished a summer job and wanted to travel and were wondering if it was ok if she came with us. The five of us talked about it and decided what the hell lets invite her over for dinner and see what she is all about. We made pizza for dinner and mixed up some gin and tonics (a boat favorite) as we talked with Sally. She seemed really nice and down to earth and I thought this just might work out. She would have to share a room with Ian but trust me he didn't mind. As the night went on the gin flowed, Sally's chances of coming with us quickly faded. After just a couple hours she could no longer balance her head on her neck and her favorite words became F you! The odd part about this is that none of us were even feeling it, just a calm relaxing night. Long story short we decided she was a liability and have not returned her phone calls since. So at this point we are still five strong. We moved the boat over to berkeley where we would do some minor repairs on the boat while we wait for the new boom. Tom and I had an old navy friend (Matt) currently living in Berkeley and going to school. We gave Matt a call to see if he wanted to check out the boat and grab a drink. Matt loved the boat instantly and as the night and the drinks carried on the talk of him coming with us started. My phone rang about ten o'clock the next morning and it was Matt, he explained how he had already withdrawn from all of his classes and got out of his lease so he could come with us. I was instantly surprised and excited as was the rest of the crew when I told them. So Ian has a roommate and a partner to chase girls with and we will be moving all of his stuff to a storage unit on the 30th. Thats where we are now. I'll keep you updated as things progress.
-Koelby

Detour

Today we're pulling into Astoria so our sails can get a ride into Portland to have some minor repairs done. We'll keep you guys updated!

Update--because we have to stop here anyway, we're going to stay in Astoria until Monday morning. 

A Whale Tale

September 3rd--

It stayed pretty grey for a while today, but around 1:30 the sun came out and so did some new friends! We spotted these two humpbacks (see last picture of the post), and at one point they were about 50 yards away from us and coming straight for the boat before they dove again.

Later that evening when we finally got out to the Pacific, we were greeted by an entire pod of orcas--there was even a (sort of) baby! --I think we have pictures, so if we do we'll post more later!

Sunrise Rainbows!

September 3rd--

Another early morning (Tom and I are on watch from 2am to 10am every morning) and this one was pretty rainy. Not so bad, though, considering the view. 

First Day!

September 2nd--

The sunrise this morning was, as I'm sure you can tell, gorgeous! It almost made up for having to wake up at 2am!

Peace out, Girl Scout!

September 1st--

Goodbye, Seattle! 

Finally arrived in Seattle!

Two days left to get ready for the trip of a lifetime!

Fixing the anchor light

The view from the top

Through the locks from Seattle back to Bremerton

The Edlund's bring the boat back from Seattle! 

Interior photos.

We hope this will give everybody a better idea of what the inside of our boat looks like. There will be some changes to upholstery we will post pictures as things change. Feel free to post comments if you want any more pictures or clarification of what your looking at.

V-berth

forward bunks. (nobody lives in this cabin)Aft bunks

Aft cabin

The Big Move

We finally made the big transition from lake union to Bremerton, which was quite the adventure. We had to take the boat through the locks and had no experience doing so. We killed the motor and sailed across the sound despite the rain. The boat heeled over pretty good (up to 30 degrees at times) but made good time cruising between six and eight knots. Trade Winds is now moored safely at the port of Bremerton. The close location makes all of our preparations for the big trip much more convenient. Enjoy a few pictures from the last few weeks.

This is Ian. He came up with Keaton for the week and was more than happy to get hauled up the mast to do some cleaning!
















We took the boat out last weekend and got a few great sunset shots.

More pictures as requested!

Here are some pictures topside.

Here is the haul out.

We will be posting some interior photos in the near future so stay tuned!

Meet Tradewinds

Meet Tradewinds our 1990 53' steel cutter designed and built in New Zealand. She will be our home and mode of travel for nearly a year.

Join Us

The six of us have spent the last couple years "dreaming and scheming"to make this trip happen. With the purchase of our beautiful boat Tradewinds the dream is finally coming to fruition. This web page is designed not for us but for all of our friends, family and supporters around the world to not only keep tabs on us but maybe do a little living vicariously through the six of us. Tradewinds will raise sails and point west this august but until then we will update this page with pictures from our summer adventures and any news on the trip. by becoming a follower of this blog you have the option of being notified via email anytime we post new photo albums, videos or even new posts if you wish. We are beyond excited to begin our great adventure and thankful for every ones support. If you have any questions feel free to post them as comments or email them to followtradewinds@gmail.com