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DATE:	MONDAY, August 24, 1998
TIME:	1800 HOURS
POSITION:	48D 45M NORTH x 126D 41M WEST or 78 nautical miles west-northwest of Strait of Juan de Fuca and 38 nautical miles off-shore of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
ENTERED BY:	Captain Jan Miles

Hello folks,

We are motoring -- have been for over two days. The great sailing that we enjoyed a short while ago that we got by heading up to 53N x 150W did not finally die out till we got all the way to 51N x 137W. It was a good run, too. But the weather patterns that gave us reason to head north before turning south toward our destination matured and changed. The high to our south and west expanded hugely and covered us with a ridge to the northeast that killed the wind. The low that was heading northeasterly into Alaska from the Western Pacific turned north and dissipated as well. That took out any power in the cold front it was dragging along. So we started motoring.

We continued to get some push out of the leftover wind. Running on one of our two engines, we can make 7 knots using about 1/2 gallon of fuel per mile. For a displacement of 185 long tons, that is pretty good. But we only get this when the wind is abaft the beam. Making 7+ knots meant we were looking at a early arrival in the States. This begged the question of "where?" Port Townsend, Washington, naturally! For those "in the know," Port Townsend is the Camden, Maine of the West, i.e. traditional boat heaven. It would be a great place to get more maintenance done, the crew decompressed from the month at sea, and the boat ready for the public in Seattle. The office has been informed and they have arranged mail to be forwarded along with a few replacement parts the ship needs for maintenance and repair. A conveniently located dock has been found where the ship can tie up - one that will be convenient for Tina to go shopping and get vegetables and fruit aboard. I dare say, it will be good for the telephone companies as well! With perseverance, we should be secure dockside Tuesday afternoon, August 25.

Life aboard as we motorsail along has been very productive and comfortable. A variety of chores were tackled in the good, dry weather on a nearly smooth sea. Chores completed include work on the gangway, varnish prep on the rail-cap, and a little repair to a VHF radio. More painting has all but completed the entire inside of the bulwarks and the covering board. This means a great leap ahead in readying the ship for Seattle. It took a 2-3 person team working 4-5 hours a day these last four days to get the painting 95% complete. With that painting done, we are well ahead in getting other things done while in Port Townsend.

Otherwise, life had a easy tone to it. The sea was moderate, so motion was not distracting. Motorsailing meant there was less sail handling to do. When the crew were off watch and not painting, they had a chance to read, write, and play music.

Last Saturday's Captain's Bardenay featured PRIDE OF BALTIMORE II shuffle board on the aft cabin top. And Sunday featured a triple show matinee.

However, as I write, the breeze is filling in a bit. The forecast is for an increase followed by a moderating to near calm tonight before building again tomorrow afternoon. We could sail now, but we would not do better than 8 knots, which is needed to get in tomorrow before the end of the work day. Do we sacrifice getting in tomorrow for the sail? Do we also sacrifice the opportunity to get a lot of needed work done for a sail? There are times when having the latitude to choose can become burdensome. But this burden is a lot better than the burden of not being able to arrive when scheduled!

TUESDAY August 25, 1998, 0715 Hrs PDT
In The Strait Of Juan De Fuca

We finally did sail a bit, very fast, in a short lived breeze of about 18 knots. We got all the sail spread, including topgallant and studdingsail. So with that push last night and some smooth motoring today, we are now officially out of the Pacific and will soon be in Port Townsend.

Dawn in the Straight has been welcoming with pine tree smells and the beautiful sight of a nearly cloudless Olympic Mountain Range.

It is good to be here in our home country.

Cheers,
Captain Miles

We are leaning over hard into a Force 4 close reach breeze with all plain sail (the four lowers - mainsail, foresail, staysail, jib - and foretopsail) plus the jibtopsail. PRIDE is making between 8 and 9 knots. With a near beam sea of some 4-6 feet she has a tendency to lurch. The lurching with an angle of heel of 15 degrees makes for a 'fun house' existence down below. One can't move about below without being braced with arms out stretched

We are speeding to the northeast on the recommendation of our weather routers at WRI (Weather Routers, Inc.). At their suggestion three days ago, we had been sailing over the weekend between the latitudes of 48 north and 50 north. But their update on Sunday was we would soon be overtaken by two highs to the west and southwest of us, bringing us into light airs. By heading up to 53 north and 150 west it is hoped we will stay in fresher favorable winds. So we have altered course to the northeast. Certainly the fact that the winds are now northwest by north at 15 knots makes for fast beam reaching! But they are expected to back again to the west as the highs behind us form into one and catch us. With the new high's ridge extending east-northeast we may again see southwest breezes. But they will likely swing back to the west quickly. If we are up at 53 north by 150 west by then, we will have a broad starboard reach to our advantage as we turn again back down to the east-southeast toward our 'landfall' destination at 48D 30M North and 124D 30M West.

For the last several days the weather has been getting cooler. As we are further north now the crew are dressed in heavy woolen cloths along with wind breakers to ward off the damp cool conditions. Before the wind went northwest we had lots of fog and the damp was everywhere. Now it is dry, but rather cooler. Most all the hatches are buttoned down to keep the heat in and the cool out. Still, conditions below are like that of a country cabin. One has shelter but one still wears their long underwear and cloths while below.

Our days aboard have a tendency to run together now. Every day is like another. Especially when it was foggy. The crew go from being on watch with lots of activity and maintenance to off watch when they go to sleep. Then to stand-by watch when they can sleep except when it is between the hours of 1330 and 1530 when they must join in on the maintenance chores of the day. Even this new, dry, clear weather and it's 'fun house' motion brings little distinct change to the daily routine. But with everyone able to see the chart and our progress they are now placing friendly wagers on when we will arrive land-fall. This looking forward to the end brings with it an apparent slowing down of the days, making the voyage seem longer. Several of the crew know folks in the area of Seattle and other crew have family coming out to see them. With everyone having been away from the States for at least two months, the notion of arriving 'home' in the USA has a special excitement for everyone.

One of the ways we break the monotony is having 'Bardonay Hour'. This is a all hands party that we have once a week. Everyone dresses up in something with 'statement' written all over it. With music blaring everyone spends the time talking, nearly all at the same time, for about an hour. Depending on everyone's sense of fun Bardonay Hour can be pretty lively. We had one just this last Saturday. The highlight was the ship steering herself for minutes on end as everyone partied amid-ship's.

Sunday is movie matinee day. The watches take turns having the mid-ship's saloon for TV viewing of a video they have chosen. Tina often makes popcorn for the viewing gang. Yesterday they watched "A River Runs Though It" and "Devil in a Blue Dress".

Another weekend highlight is Tina's day off on Saturdays. Once a week during long voyages the cook gets a day off and is substituted for by a crew member. Each time it is a different crew member and each time the meals take on a very different theme. Almost always the presentation suffers. But I am always surprised at how high quality the food is considering it comes from someone that has no real interest in being cook on a boat. This last Saturday it was Caroline Smith's turn and she did very well with muffins for breakfast (along with the usual cereal); soup for lunch and chicken parmesan for supper.

Our days of ship's care have not been as progressive as I would have liked. Rigging wise, it is always surprising to the crew how much chafe and wear they find. And almost always it is after enough chafe has occurred that it has become a minor or major crises. After more than 18 years of voyaging in Baltimore Clippers I find my patience for crew being unaware of what they are to look for when they are aloft every day for the daily chafe inspection is nearly non existent. But it is also true that when the crew discover the chafe they immediately understand it's importance and jump to correcting and repairing it. Plus they are more vigilant and observant during their next trip aloft. Which means they are learning and becoming better seamen. But at such expense! So, while they go aloft and fix the problem I go below and grumble to myself. But whatever the problem was, the crew are more often quick to stop the chafe from happening again during future sails. At least till another set of new or returning crew are aboard again faced with rediscovering the nature of this chafe-ridden rig.

We have also been having problems in the engineering department. The generator developed a fuel leak of major proportions in it's injector pump. With a bit of bailing wire and some glue Mike Rogers, our engineer, has stopped the leak. He has also been having major frustrations with getting a good feed of sea water to the water-maker. This has been a recurring problem. As PRIDE heaves herself through the seas she produces a lot of water-bubbles in the water that slides by the hull. When the water-maker runs it chokes on the air bubbles that come with the sea water being pumped to it. Over the years there have been several cures. For reasons hard to fathom we have had to look at newer ways to solve the problem. After trying two different plumbing configurations we have come up with an apparently workable solution. Time will tell because we have yet to test it while on a starboard reach. But on this port reach the new configuration seems to work very well. Aside from these set backs the ship's engineering systems seem as dependable as always.

Cheers,
Captain Jan

We are sliding along at near 10 knots in the fog with all sail set including our topgallant and studding sail. The sea is not much bigger than 4 feet so the ride is easy with the wind behind us from the SW as we head ENE. It has been foggy for four days now and anyone on deck is dressed in warm cloths with foul weather gear over them. Down below we have retired the propane stove and gone to the diesel stove. It remains on all day and night and thus is our central heating. It does a great job of drying out the down below areas. Weather is cool but not especially cold. Temperatures range from high 50's to high 60's and low 70's as the fog comes and goes with the night and the day. Our horizon is only a few boat lengths away. We hear nothing but the water and the wind or ourselves. After a while one can wonder if there really is a world out there beyond the fog. One of the crew joked that we were really in a bottle and some giant was playing with us. The watch leaders peer into the radar frequently to see if there is a contact. We have had two over these four days of no visibility. We have not seen them visually, but we have spoken with them by radio to be sure they understood we were a sail boat and thus had limited maneuverability. They considerately changed course for us so they would keep from getting closer than a mile away.

Life aboard has been great as the sea has been slight and the wind strong enough to keep PRIDE II gliding along with little effort at speeds of nothing less than 7 knots and frequently 9+ knots. We are getting this sublime weather (even if now it is wet and damp with the fog) from a high that is centered on the International Date Line near 40 degrees North. As it produces winds in it's clockwise rotation and we sail around the north side of it, we are experiencing winds from the southerly semi-circle. Several days ago the wind was southeasterly and a few days ago they were southerly. Now they are southwesterly and sometime soon they will go westerly as we start to pass to the northeast of the center of the high.

However, as we go by, the wind has been getting further behind us and at a point when it is on the quarter we must start to turn with the wind to keep it on the quarter. Wind hitting PRIDE II farther aft than the quarter does not set well with the sails. Those sails forward of the mainsail can't catch the wind as well when they become 'blanketed' by the main. This slows us down. So we are forced to change course with the wind till it has changed so much we choose to jibe and put the wind on the other side, or in this case on the port side. But even if we are not at present sailing exactly toward where we want to go, we are sailing well toward the east. Soon we will cross the date-line and repeat the day like lost souls in a time warp.

Crossing the date-line is a mathematical experience rather than a real time warp. We still experience our days one at a time as they begin with sunrise and end with sunset (even if we can't see them). And with the moon just passed full we can see the light it brings as it rises and sets. But yesterday it was Wednesday August 12th and so too is today. What happens, as we cross from west to east, is we go from being the first to experience the beginning of the date to being the last. All in the moment we cross the date line. For instance last night at our supper time of 1900 hours on Wednesday August 12th, it was 0300 hours in Baltimore on August 12. But as I write this some 16 hours later, it is near 1100 hours on Wednesday August 12 on board while it is near 1800 hours in Baltimore on August 12th. On one side of the date line we were getting to the end of the 12th while Baltimore was in the beginning of it. Now, as we cross the date line, we are at the beginning of the 12th and Baltimore is near the end. While the name and number of the day has changed, for us yesterday was yesterday and today followed it. They just happen to both be Wednesday August 12th. Confusing? Well it might be. But we get an extra day to travel and make miles toward our destination.

Life aboard with the easy sea and fair winds has been very productive as crew take advantage of the easy conditions to get a variety of maintenance chores done. They got more paint spread, in this case on three sides of the aft cabin. Since the fog arrived they have not been able to paint. But we caught a Mahi-Mahi of about three and a half feet which fed the whole crew a meal.Jennifer Huggins, our second mate, got a haircut from first time barber Chris Flansburg, the bosun.
We have been visited by dolphins a couple of times and Chris's hands are getting better all of the time, as demonstrated by his stitching up a ditty bag. Tina Koch, our cook, decided she wanted to do something interesting between meals and got the chief mate, Wes Heerssen, to let her tar the head-rig one afternoon. Mike Lawnsby, deckhand, mixed up some Vaseline with linseed oil in preparation of lubricating the spots on the mast that get the most chafe, namely where the gaff jaws and main boom rub hard on the masts. John Hope and Chris Dyer, deckhands, climbed up to the main-gafftopsail and stitched up an open seam. And as we crossed the date line (at 1323 hours ship time) many of the crew got together at the chart table to record the event. It is very hard to photograph an imaginary line!

Cheers,
Captain Jan

We are presently sailing in a Force 6 blow with lots of rain and 10-12 foot seas and as a result have shortened down to the triple reefed main, full foresail and staysail. The wind is just on or abaft the beam. PRIDE II rollicks along at about 9 knots when the wind is a little bit up, or 8 knots when the wind is down. She rolls to leeward enough to have her lee bulwarks partly into the waves. As she heaves herself over the waves it is impossible to walk around without hanging onto something. This makes us all look like recovering drunks as we move fore and aft on deck.

All of us are dressed in our foul weather clothes of riotous color or bland black. All day we have been calling extra hands to first reef the main once, then twice, plus to take in the foretopsail. After that it was the third reef. Then it was take in the jib. Lastly it was to re-tie the jib into a 'trice' to keep it out of the water. Each of these evolutions takes about an hour. We are heading generally northeast and a little east. I think these conditions will stay with us for the night and into tomorrow before we get far enough within the high-pressure system to our east that the wind will ease and the sky will clear. If that becomes so, it will be very well received because we have been in rain since yesterday.

This is our sixth day out from Japan and we are now over 1,000 miles out. Our route so far has been further south than I had expected from my research. The recommended route for small sailing vessels is to head out to 42D North x 170D East (we started at near 35D North x 140D East). Due to weather along that route we have gone to 32D North x 155D East before beginning to head northeasterly. This will have increased our overall mileage, possibly by as much as 500 miles. Being as how the open ocean part of this leg of our Asian journey is 4200 miles via the recommended route, we could find ourselves sailing a lot more than we had originally planned. But we are sailing well now, if not in the most comfortable fashion.

Conditions like we have now are felt mostly in the focsle. As one sleeps the up and down motion can be much like a feeling of free fall. In addition is a rolling motion that goes mostly down on one side due to the pressure of the sails that hold the ship over to one side. The result is a feeling of uncertainty as to where you will come down keeps one awake or frequently waking with a start.

One gets pretty wet too, despite the foul weather gear. Maybe the dampness comes from leaking around the neck as you stand your watch. Or it could be sweat from a lot of exertion reefing sails or stowing them tightly. The weather here is summery at near 80 degrees F.

Down below life is stuffy as the ship needs to be kept closed up due to spray and rain. There are ventilation tubes and other openings, but with fourteen persons aboard and Tina cooking her wonderful meals (bread, pies and cookies) life below can be pretty close.

Despite all this, the crew is in good spirits. These conditions are an adventure to them and, if not, better than motoring...something we had to do for nearly two days in the middle of this first week at sea.

After our fast departure from Japan last weekend and the rain that followed us, the weather dried up and the wind quieted down a lot. We continued to sail with all our sail up and with the good weather a variety of maintenance chores were tackled. With two good sunny and dry days in a row, most of the inside of the bulwarks in the stern have been sanded and painted. Some varnish patchwork was done too. Painting and sailing are rare opportunities in smaller vessels because they are so easily wetted down by the sea. But PRIDE II offers just enough size to make it possible to paint while underway in the right conditions. In other repairs our engineer fixed a pump in the galley and Chris Dyer sewed a patch on one of our studdingsails. This is delicate work as the cloth is Egyptian cotton rather than the heavy-duty synthetic cloth of the other sails.

Mike Rogers, our engineer, had a very busy day on his birthday two days ago. The watermaker was nearly inoperative because it was sucking up more air than it could handle while running when PRIDE II was sailing on a port tack (wind on the port side, thus leaning over to starboard). This has been a problem in the past that had been solved. But the solution required being in a location that was hard to get to for normal maintenance. On the trip over to Asia, an experiment was tried with relocation. Things were fine till Mike's birthday. The two of us discussed options, including putting things back the way they had been. But he was gung-ho to try a new location I suggested considering. So he worked late into the night to set it up. His efforts were rewarded with success. Now the watermaker does not have air troubles until the sea conditions are really heavy.

Other maintenance while at sea, of course, is on the rig and sails. A lot of greasing goes on at the points of greatest ware, both aloft and down low. The mate, Wes Heerssen, wound up doing some stitching repair to the main-gafftopsail. Instead of detaching it from it's place aloft at the top of the main-lowermast and bringing it to the deck for work -- a chore in itself of sizable proportions -- he did the repair aloft. I noted the ship was heaving around a bit in a confused sea from several directions and wondered to myself how he was faring. But I did not call to him to inquire. He is a very strong individual with a lot of sea sense. I chose not to bother him. A little while later he came down from aloft looking pale in the face like he was going to be sick. He lay down on deck and commented on how wobbly he felt. I am sure he gripped with his life to stay in place through the heaving motions of the ship while he pushed a needle and thread through two layers of thick cloth. No way was he going to admit defeat if he could avoid it, especially as the sail might be needed again soon. So by the time he got back to the deck he was one very tired person. He went to his bunk to rest for his forthcoming watch responsibilities four hours hence.

We suffered an injury of our bosun Chris Flansburg three days ago. In the middle of the night with a steadily rising breeze it became necessary to reduce sail. In the process of one of the sails being lowered his line jerked and ran on him, right through his hands. Being the seaman that he was, he feared more for what would happen to the equipment than to himself, so he hung on and cried out for help. By the time Wes got to him the damage had been done, but the line had been brought under control and could be handled by another. As luck would have it one of our crew is a registered nurse and we have a pretty well planned medical kit. For the last three days Chris has been unable to do anything with his hands, but he dutifully comes on watch and does what he can. It is important that he not allow his injuries to get wet or the bandages to be disturbed. Burn wounds have a greater capacity for becoming infected than other wounds. After a couple of days of anxiously waiting for their first inspection since they had first been bandaged, it became clear to Pamela Caughlin, our nurse, that the injury was not as bad as it might have been. Second degree burns yes, but nothing deeper. One could still see his palm print on the damaged skin, indicating the degree of original damage was less than it could have been considering how much heat had to have occurred with him trying to stop a running line with his hands. It is hard to tell when Chris will eventually be able to do real work with his hands again, but he has already gone from being completely helpless to being able to write and hold his eating utensils. Things are looking up.

Our medical preparedness changes as the crew changes -- we do not always have a nurse in the crew. But our base line is a well-planned medical kit and a couple of near-EMT trained persons on board. We also have the capability of calling, via the ship's satellite phone, to our medical friends at MEDEX, a Maryland medical consulting group that set PRIDE up with her medical kit. Even so, it is so important that we avoid injury at all costs. Even with such a medical kit and knowledgeable consultants there are many injuries we just plain can't expect to cope with on our own. So as we roll and heave along everyone takes great care to avoid slips and falls.

I can't be sure what tomorrow will bring weather-wise. It could be more of the same wind strength and overcast sky or it could be the same wind with more sun peaking through the clouds. Either way, as long as we are making good speed in the right direction none of us are complaining.

Cheers,
Captain Miles

This is our second day out from Japan and we continue to sail fast toward the east and a little south. Everyone aboard is happy with the good sailing. (No one has experienced any while actually in Asia). PRIDE has all her sail up, with the studdingsail being set and doused repeatedly as the squalls come and go or the wind shifts from behind on the starboard quarter to a little ahead of the starboard beam and back again. She storms along at 10 knots with an occasional 11+ showing while she rolls with the swell. Crew scramble to the hatches when the rain falls and again when it stops. The weather is just as hot and muggy as it was near shore but no one minds because of the good sailing. Meanwhile it is just now coming onto noon. Our first noon to noon sail of this voyage is 213 nautical miles through the water and 228 over the bottom. A very nice beginning to this long 4,500 mile trek across the Northern Pacific.

I have been away from the ship since mid June when my new partner Dan Parrott took over command in Korea. I returned to the ship in Tokyo only a few days ago. The ship looked good and the crew seemed excited about the long passage to Seattle. While I was away, the crew changed a lot. The ship now has a different crew aboard from those that sailed her out to Asia. I already know most all of them because they have sailed aboard PRIDE before. Chief mate Wes Heerssen has sailed aboard numerous times starting back in 1990. Second mate Jen Huggins first sailed with us in 1995. Bosun Chris Flansberg first sailed with us last year, as did engineer Mike Rogers and deckhands John Hope and Pamela Caughlin. Chris Dyer (pictured to left) is back with us again as deckhand too. She first sailed with us back in 1996. Our new people are cook Tina Koch and deckhands Caroline Smith, Mike Lawnsby and K.C. Hinkley. But they are familiar with the ship having been aboard more than a month. Almost as soon as I stepped aboard I got the impression everyone was comfortable and well established into the routine of the ship.

We captains did our 'turn-around' quickly. Many preparations for going to sea for a month or more non-stop had been seen to by Dan and the crew. There had been numerous conversations on what wanted doing between Dan and me, so our rotation responsibilities were short and sweet.

On departure day, July 30, PRIDE and her crew, plus two guest crew Anson Frelinghuysen (pictured to right) and Carol Zajano, started the voyage at 0930 in the morning. Many of the Japanese friends that were made over the last several weeks were there to see the crew off. And Dan, his wife Kim and Leslie Bridgett (our teacher 'stow-away' who is getting off to get back to her classroom for the beginning of school in late August) added to the farewell crowd ashore and the collective melancholy mixed with excitement about the coming adventure.

But we were not to go directly to sea. It had been observed for some time that PRIDE's underbody was getting increasingly full of sea growth such as moss and barnacles. She had spent since late December 1997 in warm tropical waters which caused an accelerated marine growth rate which had a deleterious affect on her speed through the water. Hence we were headed to a small boat harbor recommended to us by our friends aboard KAISEI, the Japanese Sail Training Association ship, as a good place for diving on PRIDE's bottom. We also had a last minute arrangement to pull into the U.S. Navy Base at Yukosuka, which is right on the way to our bottom cleaning harbor, to drop off some accumulated paint slopes they could easily dispose of in their hazardous material disposal plant.

As we pulled away from the dock I became aware of a strange sensation; PRIDE was not herself. Throughout the day I concentrated on assessing what I noticed to be different. Certainly she was slower than I knew her to be when under power. I looked forward to seeing what would come of her bottom cleaning.

Our arrival in Koaziro Wan on the west side of the Yukosuka peninsula was an exposure to the Japanese inshore fishing trade. The entrance was nearly blocked by floating weir nets scattered in a near blocking pattern. But we got in before dark and the heavy rain that followed and dropped anchor in a charming place that obviously catered to the yachting crowd. We all immediately appreciated the choice made for us by our Japanese friends.

Friday, August 1, was a busy day for all. In the end we got the bottom cleaned after using some 15 air bottles with up to 5 divers. We ferried some 115 gallons of diesel fuel, 15 gallons at a time, in three 5 gallon containers to top off the tanks. We got part of the topsides cleaned and the fore and mainmast gaffs re-varnished. Our cook did some last minute shopping. What does not take long to describe left us all tired but satisfied that the ship was ready and the effort worth while. There was as much as 3 inches of barnacles located in a variety of spots on the hull (on the propeller hubs between the blades; on the copper strapping that runs up and down the hull at each mast and on our lightning grounding gear; on the shafts and the struts; on the bottom of the keel, and all along the water line down some 2-4 feet - deeper back aft and near the rudder). Upon receiving the crew reports of the growth, I could hardly wait to see the results the next day, departure day.

Indeed it was good that we cleaned the bottom. Had we not we would not be able to sail at the 10 knots we have been sailing and motoring would be very costly in fuel (we might also have been unable to finish this voyage). Once the crew hauled back the hook and we pushed out of harbor at 0500 Saturday morning, it was immediately evident the PRIDE was back to her ol' speedy self. The wind was light and we pushed till midday as the crew checked all things and got organized into watches. We also spent time on safety issues and general discussion of what to expect and do in a long list of circumstances. By midday we had cleared the last peninsula of Japanese land and were pointed for North America. The wind shifted at that time and came out of the south.

Sail was set and off we went with the engines turned off.. What a feeling too! Wind at 10-12 knots on the beam and PRIDE flying all she could carry for the wind angle. She was gliding along at better than 8 knots! Which soon increased to 10 as we got further off shore and the wind increased in strength.

LATER SAME DAY

Cheers,
Captain Miles