Letters from Tamsyn backlog - to Pat, Grandpa John, Lois & Hinka, & Grandma Jean

Here is a bit of a time machine of letters written by Tamsyn...

August 15, 2011 - Tahiti  (maybe on blog already)

Dear Pat, 

I am in Tahiti. We have a friend named Joel. We had him over for dinner yesterday. Joel is 30. He used to work on a NOAA ship and so did dad! And we have another friend who is 5 1/2, her name is Emma. I made her a gingerbread doll all by myself! I went swimming yesterday. Dad is going to get a fuel cylinder. Your sister is at the table not doing anything. Griffyn is still in the bathroom. How are things at home?

Tamsyn

September 28, 2011 - on passage from Bora Bora to Tonga (maybe posted)

Dear Grandpa John, 

Are you still coming to where we summer over? It's "summer over" because in the tropics there is no winter. "What a drag, I know." I think I heard you got a little snow last you wrote. We think we will summer over in New Zealand. But we are not sure, but if we do go, me and Griffyn get to go to a real school! 

An X for you and the cats. 

Add two OOs.

Tamsyn

October 3, 2011 - on passage to Tonga

Dear Aunt Lois and Uncle Hinka, 

I was up with the sun today. It was the first time I did it since I left home.  Guess what? Griffyn read 67 words yesterday. Can you believe that! I read these two great books called "Rowan of Rin" and "Rowan and the Travelers." How are things at home? We miss you both.

XXXX

from Tamsyn

October 3, 2011 - on passage to Tonga

Dear Uncle Pat, 

We are sailing to Tonga. I lost a tooth on the way. It was a molar. The place where it was bled for the whole night. We had left Bora Bora. They had French money and the tooth fairy gave me 100 pacific francs or French money. Darn it - we already left the island that the money works at. 

Hope all is well,

Love Tamsyn

October 5, 2011 - on passage to Tonga

Dear Grandpa John, 

When I wrote last I got mixed up. New Zealand does have Christmas, that is in the summer. It even snows there, that is in the winter. We saw these beautiful birds. The birds were as white as snow and have very long pointed tail feathers. I liked the way they flew. They glided along the wind with scarcely a flap. When one met the other, they soared tilting one wing and then the other right next to each other. 

I lost a tooth! And a different one is loose. Two molars! One out, the other half way! Today we will reach Tonga!! it is a Kingdom! How are things at home? We miss you and your cats.

X

Love Tamsyn

October 19, 2011 - Tonga

Dear Grandma Jean,

It is hard to miss the crickets, "sheesh!" Guess what? Once at twilight some how, (don't laugh) a cricket got on our boat! I caught him! We put him in my bug jar for a night and then when dad when to get water he brought him with him and let him go. The way you can tell crickets from grass hoppers is crickets have long antenna and grass hoppers have short ones.

I have been wondering. Do you have any good books? Maybe a Thorton Burgess or two, or "The Bobbsey Twins"? (Well you did run a bookstore, so.) Oh and please don't bring #8. I have it.  I really like the series. And please also bring some more of "The Boxcar Children", I have #4, Mystery Ranch. I love these too. 

XXXX for you and Samantha, do not forget Thomas and Danny

from Tamsyn

Daniel's Bay Video Postcard

Here is a video postcard from Daniel's Bay.

A Long Day - posted on May 14th, 2011

Carrie's post "A Long Day" has been posted retroactively on May 14th, 2011.  Follow the below link to read.

http://svmadrona.blogspot.com/2011/05/long-day.html

Night Watch is Sublime

(October 2011 (on passage between Bora Bora and the Kingdom of Tonga)

Night Watch is Sublime

You set your timer to beep every 10 minutes. When it goes off you look in all directions - for anything, a boat, land, something floating in the water. You scan the horizon carefully because missing a boat could be fatal. You wait until the waves crest, so that you can see far ahead of the bow, behind the stern, amid ships. Then you check the wind speed - does it make sense? Do the numbers you read "feel" like the wind hitting the back of your neck? Or have they increased lately and you watch the dials to confirm your suspicions (you may need to reef). You check the wind angle (the point of sail) and you check the compass, has the wind shifted direction? Is the boat still sailing the right course? And you check the speed - how many knots? Do all these mechanical readings confirm what you already feel? 90% of the time - they do, the other 10 % involve changing sail or changing course.
If everything is O.K. - you reset your timer. You go back to reading about Sookie Stackhouse, that village in Tuscany, an Elegant Hedgehog or some other completely absorbing novel that you would never have had time to read back home in your previously busy life. You go back to cat napping because you are at the beginning of your watch and it is too soon to wake up your relief - but for some reason your day exhausted you. You go back to journaling about your day - what you saw, what you thought, what you want to remember, any new epiphanies you might have had that must be recorded. You go back to star gazing because the stars are so bright out here over only water, without light pollution - it's no wonder people have written about them since the beginning of time. Serius is so bright is beams light like Jupiter. You stare at the milky way thinking about "Men In Black" and just how small we really are. You watch the moon set or rise - each night the rising or setting is 45 minutes earlier or later than the previous day. A full moon is so bright it feels like sun light when you look out over the shining water - it is easy to see everything and a moonless night is so dark especially if it is cloudy that you strain to see the horizon - all you can hope to see is a light from another vessel. You try to remember the constellations you learned in high school - Orion, the big dipper, and dig out a book showing you others. These constellations become your friends as you sail under the same sky night after night. You learn which direction you are sailing based on where Orion is in the sky. Or if this night is one of those rare special nights you get to watch the bioluminescence curl along the side of the boat with each bow wave spreading tiny beads of rippling light in arcs across the water. It is so beautiful - each wave sets off a different shape of twinkling lights. And this cycle of renewal to mind and spirit lasts as long as your watch (if all is well 3-4 hours) until your eyes can no longer focus or you feel sleepiness overcoming your ability to be on watch.

Carrie

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Thunderstorms and catching rain

So this morning around 7:30 am it started to pour down rain. It fell in sheets, and the boat was buffeted by strong gusts of wind that varied by as much as 100 degrees of the compass. I tried to roll over and bury my head under the pillow, but soon I noticed that Carrie was up and in the cockpit. Then I heard Griffyn up. I figured I had better join the party.

Unbelievably the rain increased in intensity, and water was running in sheets off our bimini cover (which covers our cockpit). Soon we were getting pans and buckets catching the water. It's always nice to catch some fresh water to use in the solar shower, or use for laundry. In fact we spent part of yesterday sewing our big fancy rain catcher. In minutes we had collected a gallon, then two. Of course we were in swim suits and were drenched in moments if we stepped out of the cockpit.

Carrie lowered our dinghy - which was hanging above the water suspended by a spare halyard. It was rapidly filling with water. Then I went forward to get some big five gallon buckets. Our neighbor S/V Balena, only one hundred feet away, was almost invisible behind the sheets of water. The rain actually stung. At least it was warm.

The period of intense rain in most big squalls usually lasts an half an hour before it settles down to a steady moderate rain. Today's rain lasted six hours, and was punctuated by frequent peels of thunder. We ended up putting over thirty gallons of fresh water in our main tank. we also filled the solar shower, and put some water aside for laundry.

As bucket after bucket would fill up, I would go forward to the deck "water fill" and pour the new water into the tank. Then I would get back under cover and after a few hours soaked and exposed to wind, I began to get cold. Carrie kept serving coffee which kept us going.

Below decks Carrie not only made breakfast (corned beef hash and potatoes), but she baked 2 loafs of bread, oatmeal cookies, and a chocolate cake (to share with our guests Joel and Christine from S/V Balena who are soon to jump to New Zealand). It is now late in the afternoon and thunder still rumbles, and rain still comes down from time to time. The kids are dong school. I will soon help Tamsyn with math.

Tomorrow I'll be working much of the day. I've got to finish up the big Teatown job and then get cracking on a nice little illustration for Fort Lauderdale by the Sea. I can't wait to be in one place for a while again to push out the work. Another couple of weeks. Hopefully the rain tomorrow will be moderate, and not Biblical.

More later.

Owen

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A Book Report from Tamsyn - The Minpins

To Lin,
Forest of Sin
THE MINPINS is a book by Roald Dahl. It is about a boy named Little Billy. He was longing to go in the Forest of Sin that was outside his house. His mom said that there are "Whangdoodles and Hornswogglers and Snozzwangler and Vermicious Knids," and worst of all is the "Terrible Bloodsucking Tothplucking Stonechuckling Spittler!!!" Billy's mom said the Spittler blows smoke out when he chases you. She said a poem that went like this, "Beware! Beware! The Forest of Sin! None come out, but many go in!"
I think the book is very nicely written. I like the characters. The pictures are beautiful. I like how Billy's mom is so stern. I think it is funny that Roald Dahl copied his own writing from Willy Wonka. It's a great book. Just great!
By
Tamsyn Klara Caddy
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Arrived in Tonga - will sit out cyclone season in New Zealand

Hi All.  Just a quick note.

We arrived safely in Tonga a few days ago.  We've been so very tired after this last passage that we have not had the energy to track down internet, or do much of anything else for that matter.  We are now somewhat recovered and are taking an interest in our surroundings.

We are in the northern group of island in Tonga; in Refuge Bay - the site of the only town.

Another bit of news is that we have decided to sit out cyclone season in New Zealand.

More later!

Owen

Strangers in the Night

So we are doing well, moving along with 350 miles to Tonga, 1,100 miles under our belt on this jump so far. We've had some very still days. Yesterday we rolled around in 3 meter swells with only 4 knots of wind - not enough for steerage. But we relaxed and played and schooled.

Last night the wind picked up around sunset and we sailed at 2 to 3 knots all evening. A couple of squalls came by, but to our southeast a huge electrical storm lit up the sky all night. Silent flashbulbs cast the clouds in stark relief, and darkness would collapse back on the night. Then moments later a staccato burst of flashes would erupt somewhere else.

On the 29th, near sunset I was on watch, and sighted a sail on the horizon. "A boat," I called out. It looked to be a slop some 4 miles away. I called n the VHF and talked to David, who along wit his wife Sonja, have sailed their Swiss registered 36 foot sailboat - S/V Moulimentum from Europe. They to were floundering in no wind. As darkness fell, David said that they were going to motor all night, and he lamented how much the decision was going to coast them in diesel. Soon their light pulled ahead of us. I guess we are purists - but we can't see using up diesel in a sailboat. The wind will come eventually.

Last week we met a giant yacht transport vessel (with 32 yachts aboard) sailing from the U.S. to Australia. I talked to the bridge crew - a fellow named York - and he was very happy to talk to someone else out in the big blue sea. He hadn't seen anther vessel in 3 days. On radar I clocked him at 17 knots.

So it is a big ocean, but it's full of storms and other vessels. Tonight as we sail lazily along at 3 1/2 knots westward storm clouds are again building on the horizon's rim. I hope we don't meet a big electrical storm tonight. Getting hit by lightening wouldn't hurt us more than likely, but it would probably kill our radios. we have two spare GPS units and batteries in a "Faraday cage" (our microwave)in the event we do suffer a strike, our navigation won't only be by sextant and reduction table.

So all is well - except that Carrie won't part with the Kindle, as she is devouring the Sookie Stackhouse novels. It's not fair. What am I to read? Kids are watching Harry Potter. More in a few days. Nite.

Owen

S 18 33.13
W 167 28.54
At 22:00 zulu

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