SEEKER arrives Home

SEEKER arrived home to a wonderful welcome at Shilshole Bay Marina, friends and family arrived to greet the crew, which included a welcoming boat at the entrance. After over 5000 ocean miles SEEKER has completed the journey with all hands arriving home safe and sound, with nothing broken on the boat, and all systems up and running. This is a excellent testament to the skill of the crew and thoughtful preparation of the boat. It has been a joy and fulfillment of a lifelong dream to have completed this voyage, and a huge thank you goes out to Andrew, Gary, Gordon and Lauren for their outstanding job as crew, and to all of our families and friends who have sent their love, support, interest and encouragement. We wish you all the spirit of Aloha, and of adventure in life. The ocean is vast and crossing it with good friends on a small boat is a reminder of our own vulnerabilities as well as our strengths as people, as friends, and as sailors. My compliments to the crew of SEEKER. You have each demonstrated your skills and seamanship as sailors. It is an honor to have shared this journey with you and I look forward to crossing many more horizons with each of you in the future.

Mahalo to all

Ken Greff, Skipper
S.V. SEEKER

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Seeker cleared cape flattery just after 0100 the morning of August 17, and suddenly the fog was broken by the headlands of the cape and the lights of neah bay came out. And the wind died, so we motored most of the way to Port Angeles, where we went ashore at about 1430. After a delightful night of dining, visiting, and relaxing, we took off at 0600 the next morning and made Shilshole bay by 1730, where we were serenaded into the docks.

Seeker Out

one last night on the open ocean in the fog

Seeker is still fogbound, after some partial clearing today, visibility dropped back down to about 1/4 mile. But we have radar and the winds are favourable and we have only 175 miles to Cape Flattery.

Seeker Out
47°58.5'N
129°02.9'W

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Getting close

Winds have gone light as seeker approaches a ridge of high pressure that is parked off the coast. We have decided to motor through the night, using about a third of our remaining fuel, but it should get us to the northwesterlies on the other side of the ridge. Which should, in turn, carry us to Cape Flattery and beyond!

Meanwhile, we've found that our radar does indeed work, when we spotted a freighter this evening 7 miles off. A brief radio exchange revealed that he had already spotted us and plotted a course to miss us by 3.6 miles. Glad we're not the only ones watching out in this fog.

Seeker out
47°09.8'N
132°07.7'W

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Fog

They say that this is a big ocean, but the sailor would never know, having never seen more than 2 miles of it at any time. Amd with current atmospheric conditions, our world has shrunk even smaller to about 100 yards right now. Our radar seems to suggest that there is open ocean beyond the wall of grey, but it is rather unconvincing.

We are sailing along well under somewhat lighter conditions, winds have eased and come forward to the south at 12 kts, we are sailing NExE at about 6, plus a half knot of current. We are currently at:

46°22.3'N
134°26.9'W

Seeker out.

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favourable winds continue

Seeker still has favourable winds today, with15-20 kts on our quarter as we reach along at about 7kts toward Cape Flattery, less than 600 miles ENE. A little bit of drizzle now as the next front approaches, and where a couple of days ago the crew were trying socks again for the first time, now it's fleece and foulies.

Seeker Out

44°47.9'N
138°02.8'W

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In Between Gales and Headed For Home

Seeker saw about 30 minutes worth of a gale yesterday morning, which delivered about an inch of rain, and today we've been cruising along in decent breeze following the passage of the front. The big storm that they've been calling for in all the forecasts should reach us tomorrow night or wednesday. Or, at least the very edge of it might reach us and give us a little bit more wind than we have right now, but most of the storm is going to pass north and west of us.

Seeker Out
43°31.4'N
141°22.8'W

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oops

Forgot to post last night, we're making good progress with west-southwesterlies, and we're heading straight for home. Last nights position would have been:

42°32.4'N
144°38.5'W

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Movin' right along

Good prefrontal southwesterlies today, Seeker was averaging 7 kts for the better part of the day. A system is likely to pass over us tonight, but the one we have our eyes on is still developing off the aleutians. The 96 hr forecast is showing a 975 mb low tracking along 50° N, with gale force winds stretching down below 45°, hence the easting that we're putting on to avoid it.

41°32.1'N
148°09.2'W

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a thousand miles from nowhere

Seeker was today about a thousand miles from any point of land, actually 900 miles from an island in the aleutians. Even though it's 300 miles farther to cape flattery, I think we'll head east. Decent breeze (relatively speaking) today and more on the way tomorrow. hopefully not to much.

40°50.2'N
151°41.4'W

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Two Ships

Seeker saw two ships this morning. There was a little breeze for a while. Then there wasn't. Now there is again. Tomorrow there will be more, if the forecasters have any idea what's going on.

39°31.0'N
153°11.4'W

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a little wind

Today was not so bad for wind, we had a few knots for most of the day, which then died out right before sunset, so we have the motor on again for now. The most recent forecasts are more promising, however, so we may be in the westerlies before too long. We'll see.

Seeker Out
38°23.6'N
154°16.0'W

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Still becalmed

The high is still parked right on us, motored for a good part of the day.

26°53.6'N
155°04.1'W

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Under Pressure

Seeker motored most of the day today in light and shifty winds, as the north pacific high shifted basically directly on top of us. Saw a shoal of dolphins and a bit of junk floating about and a couple flying fish. still no sign of the great north pacific island of plastic, however, and we should be pretty close to where it would be.

Seeker out

35°16.6'N
155°43.1'W

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not done with the North Pacific High yet...

Seeker was plagued with light headwinds again today, eventually becoming light and variable enough that we switched on the motor and motored north for about 3 hrs. We then picked up some light but favourable breeze from the northwest, and went back to being a sailboat.

Also, while motoring, we saw some large debris in the water ahead, and upon approaching, what appeared to be a round bouy and a mooring bouy turned out to be a round bouy and an albatross sitting on the water, which proceeded to unfold its great wings and soar off in the trough of a wave.

Seeker out

34°00.0'N
156°20.0'W

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More Mahimahi

We caught another mahimahi today and had half for dinner, the other half is waiting for tomorrow in the fridge. We have plenty of food, so we're probably not going to be doing any more fishing for a while, unless we sail through a school of tuna.

Last evening we sailed into a ridge of high pressure, which left us with glorious cloudless night watches, then we hoisted the iron spinnaker to try to pick up a front that was going to pass to the north of us. The morning was still clear, so we shut down the boat for a brief swim, then motored for another couple hours before we started to get weak but steady southwesterlies. Now we're cruising along with 11 kts from the WSW, making decent time toward home!

Seeker Out
33°15.4'N
157°51.1'W

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ridges

The thing about crossing an ocean is, if you've got wind, you've got clouds. But every once in a while you have to cross a ridge or skirt a high pressure center, which you pay for through a shortage of wind, but at night you reap the rewards! New Moon to boot! It's just too bad that the next big meteor shower is not for about 10 days.

As I said, right now we're crossing a ridge between the two dominant high pressure centers, trying to get across in time to pick up a front that a low will be swinging by here tomorrow or tomorrow evening. We'll see if we can pull it off. If we can it will significantly help our ETA.

Seeker Out
32°03.4'N
158°56.1'W

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Where are we now?

It has come to my attention that to many of you the latitude and longitude given at the end of each post is probably fairly meaningless... to give meaning to these numbers, I would recommend downloading Google Earth for free from the Google Applications website. I think if you google "google earth" you probably can't miss it. then simply copy and past the lat & lon to the search field in Google Earth, and it should make a little mark at our position. You might also be able to do this without downloading anything with google maps or whatever online mapping tool you like to use, but I can't guarantee it will work, or if it does, you probably won't be able to save any kind of track. Good luck!

Seeker Out
31°44.4'N
158°50.3'W

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How going oceanbashingwise?

A big squall today kicked up some nasty cross-seas, there were easily identifiable wave trains from the NE (wind direction) as well as N, E, NW, SE, and S. If you looked hard enough you probably could have spotted waves from the south and southwest also. Combined with the wind direction backing, it made for slow, rough progress today, but progress nonetheless. And the cool, cloudy weather did help make it a little more bearable below, probably worth the tradeoff of not being able to stand.

Seeker Out

29°53.5'N
158°35.4'W

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