We are currently 40 nautical miles south of Cabo Corrientes on a fast reach with six foot swells and wind a bit over twenty knots.
The port captain, immigration, and customs all showed up right on time and after a bit of discussion over which of our passports could be stamped, cleared us on our way. It was a little strange this morning realizing that today was the last day in Paradise Village, the marina that had become our home for the past year while got Roam ready to go.
Pam and Joan just served dinner (tri-tip sliders with a salad). I’ll admit I’m a bit queasy as I usually am the first day or two of a passage.
But spirits are high. The boat is moving fast, and the weather looks good for the next few days.
I won’t post every day so as not to fill up your inbox. We do post a daily update on our tracking page and you can check that any time here or on the “Where’s Roam” link at the top of the page/menu.
Go Roam, go! Don’t be shy about filling up inboxes!
Thank you! A great first few days!
Roam-ing looks wonderful! Safe travels ahead & we look forward to reading about your exciting adventures…
Thank you! Hope all is well in Danville. Daily updates here. https://sailroam.com/wheres-roam/
Yahoo. The next adventure begins. You will love the S Pacific. We have so many wonderful memories. Here’s to you making your own. Roam take care of our friend.
Cheers.
Hello! You guys have always been an inspiration to us. I remember when we parted ways in Zihua in 1996. You were heading to new places and adventures while we headed north to go back to work. Time to fix that.
May the weather stay in your favor. Love seeing your pictures while looking out my window at the 8 inches of snow that fell in the past three days. Biggest snow fall of the season and we got back from Mexico just in time for it! Wish we were still in NV with you! So excited to follow your adventures. Happy sailing.
Hello! It was great sailing with you guys here. Glad you made it home. Seeing Mark at the helm, you need a boat!
Wow — you are officially off on the grand adventure!! I am so excited for you and can’t wait to read more updates. The crew looks solid, you are clearly ready after all of that prep, and you are feasting like royalty thanks to Pam and Joan!! Enjoy the journey!!
We are eating like kings thanks to Pam and Joan. They are studs. No seasickness either. I couldn’t do it. We’d be eating granola bars for the first three days if we relied on me.
Love the predict wind overlay! We will be following you each day!!
It is amazing that software is so accurate in creating and optimizing the route and giving us a forecast. The wind we are in is exactly what was forecast three days before we left. Just amazing.
Hopefully the little red bucket is not being used for what it might come in handy for on a rolling ocean. Sailing looks great u til this morning….good thing you are not crossing the Tehuantepec!! Trailing a meat hook for dorado or tuna or Wahoo??
Buen viaje amigos
Señor Vargas! We cannot thank you enough for everything you and your team did to get Roam ready to go. We wouldn’t be here without you and the SeaTek team! Thank you!
Bonjour! No fishing yet. Meatline is ready to go. Just waiting for some space in the freezer. Maybe tomorrow!
The pics bring your adventure alive….my Old Salts sailing group is incredulous re your technology…comments on the spectrum like “we did without all that crap and did just fine” to just plain WOW
Alfredo, wonderful comment and a very interesting topic.
The old salts are right. None of this stuff is necessary. And, the lack of it wouldn’t keep us at the dock. Despite the cost, maintenance, and complexity, it’s nice to have and makes for very comfortable passage making.
In 1995 on our first cruise to Mexico, we installed a GPS unit in the nav station. It was quite new and a major step up from Loran and SatNav. Once a day I’d go down and read our position on it and plot it on the paper chart. I called it my “noon site.” I brought my sextant on that trip (and used it)!
Old-school cruisers at the time lamented the arrival of inexpensive GPS units. It will make it possible for people who shouldn’t be out here cruising to be out here cruising, they said.
In 2000 when I raced to Hawaii aboard the Cape Dory 330, mystic we connected a modem to our SSB radio to have 140 baud email (yes, 140 baud) and electronic weather fax downloads. Sailmail was an amazing innovation (and remains so). Veteran cruisers at the time lamented the presence of Sailmail for similar reasons.
Today the big controversy is clearly Starlink. The label “game changer” truly applies here at a level you can’t imagine. That has brought with it the rise of “YouTubers” who create very entertaining content as they sail the world and edit and upload from remote and exotic places. It also means more cruisers are working remotely while cruising (like me).
Does all of this change the nature and culture of the cruising community? Probably. Does it cause poorly prepared cruisers to go cruising at the expense of good seamanship skills? Possibly.
The world changes and the state of technology moves forward. Each of us has to find the right balance of lifestyle, cost, complexity, and maintenance. I don’t know what the right answer is.
For fun, here is a partial list of everything aboard Roam that we didn’t have aboard Passages back in the 90s.
Starlink gobal high speed internet
PredictWind weather routing / forecasting
406mhz EPIRB
IridiumGo satelite communiations
Smartphones / tablets — 10 of them onboard at the moment
Laptops — 3 of them
Chartplotters — 3 of them on an NMEA 2000 network
12kwh of lithium battery capacity
2kw of solar generation
Victron integrated management, charging and inverter system
Wakespeed WS500 regulators to control our 4 alternators
30GPH water maker
5kw generator
Electric convection oven
Electric induction cooktop
Instapot
Electric kettle
Electric coffee maker
2 Freezers (in addition to 2 refrigerators)
Icemaker
Microwave
Electric winches (3 of them)
Air conditioning port / starboard
Vacuflush freshwater toilets
Jeez, writing that list makes me realize how different things are.
Keep your comments coming. We all love them!
Lol at your list! I do remember a time aboard our Norseman 447 which I had loaded with the most advanced electronics (at the time) and other modern stuff like water maker. There was a period where it was all breaking or not working faster than I could fix it!! When we sold her up in Lake Union I came back here and bought Jubilee and vowed to KISS. I have been successful mainly because each time I bring up the idea of adding something new, Sandy reminds me. I do love my new hydronic heating system and of course the fancy costly below decks autopilot with wireless remote (I mostly singlehand these days). Last I checked you were only doing 9.2 kts…better crowd on the sail!
Can I get a pdf or word doc to you?
Alfredo
Thanks for the update, so glad you’re off to a good start…. except for the queasy part🥲. I agree, fill up our mailboxes so we can live vicariously through all of you adventurers! Great start…
Thank you! Check out the tracking page. Daily updates there. With pictures!
https://sailroam.com/wheres-roam/
Post away! We’re happy to hear from you and get to share a little of the experience as often as you want! Hope the stomach settles quickly — maybe try clicking your heels together three times…#theresnoplacelikeroam
Ha! We are posting a daily update on the tracking page. https://sailroam.com/wheres-roam/
Now that I am past the queasy phase I can write on the computer again.
Congrats on the start of a big adventure! Sounds like Roam and the crew are ready.
Sounds like you’re living out the lyrics to the B52’s Roam….
Roam if you want to
Roam around the world
Roam if you want to
Without wings, without wheels
Enjoy the trip and look forward to the updates.
Cheers!
You know it. We had that song cued up as we pulled away from the dock so that the entire marina could hear it.
And here we are. Roaming. Without wings and without wheels! Although these past few days Roam has felt as though she has wings!
Congratulations. Best of luck and great organization, planning and prepping the boat will carry you off on your adventure safely.
Cheers, Barbara and Alex
Hello Barbara and Alex. Thank you for coming along with us. Hope you are both well and getting some sailing in aboard Swoosh!
Cheers from SpaceX in Hawthorne!
Safe travels ~
Thank you! The crew of Roam are huge SpaceX fans. Even more so Starlink! Here we are in the middle of the ocean with high speed internet! Unimaginable just a few years ago.
In addition to staying in touch with all of you, we get weather model downloads twice a day, we correspond with our weather router, MetBob. We were able to resolve a few minor issues with our watermaker and our sail rigging by exchanging messages with the shore side support. I could go on, but “game changer” is not an overstatement!
Congratulations!! The pictures are amazing. Sending all of you prayers for a safe journey! Excited to be able to track your adventures. Hope all that amazing food Pam prepared holds up!
Safe travels,
Patrick & Darcy
Thank you! Pam and Joan are killing it. We are well fed. Pasta Bolognese this evening (the Cooks Illustrated version).
Daily updates on our tracker https://sailroam.com/wheres-roam/
May God bless all of you and make your journey the best it can be. Love 💘 and blessings to you all.
Thank you Gary. It’s been a beautiful trip so far!
Yay go Roam! Following your ocean progress and delicious meals! Love the photos and updates.
Skip the airstrip to the sunset, yeah
Ride the arrow to the target, one
Take it hip to hip, rock it through the wilderness
Around the world the trip begins with a kiss!
Without wings, without wheels…
⛵️
Thanks Judy! So far a great trip, all is well 🙂
I guess replies to the “We’re Off” is the best place to leave a note? Freight Training sounds exhilarating bordering on terrifying/spookie. Glad you put all that prep work into Roam…like new rigging and all fittings checked. My sources show swells coming from opposite directions (N & S roughly) with not a great period in the ones from the N…definitely an E ticket ride with all that wind. I can see your plan, just not getting too far S for now.
200+ NM a day…you are really eating up the distance. Are you sure Roam’s real name is not Pyewacket?
Love the shots of your B&G data…definitely must remind you of night flying. My best to you and crew…I thought of you as I sailed home yesterday on a waveless broad reach and 14 kts with sun. Check your email for another Al’s writing piece. Also, will your set up allow video? How about FaceTime?
Al
Yes! Very much like night instrument flying. One time I was flying with my flight instructor at night in the clouds and trying to keep the cabin lights on red and very dim (an offshore racing habit) to preserve my night vision. He looked at me and said, “there is precisely NOTHING outside that window that is going to help you fly this plane. Turn up the lights!” It is true on this boat right now. You can’t see anything in front of us so we rely on the radar and the AIS system. And, the “big ocean theory” which basically boils down to “it’s a big ocean so the odds you will plow into something big enough to hurt the boat is low.” Some comfort in that, I guess.