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US National Parks 2013

19 articles
August 2, 2012Nestor1 min read

Welcome to Death Valley, CA where the temperature is only 127 degrees!  Death Valley NP is in the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and contains a diverse desert environment of salt-flats, sand...

August 2, 2012Nestor1 min read

Exotics Racing 
Yolanda drove a Ferrari F430 & did a ride-along in a yellow Corvette with a professional drifter, and Nestor drove a Lamborghini Aventador; what a rush! 

Happiest of New Years to everyone!!
With less than 1,000nm to go, the wind has died and will continue to die over the next few days, in a very unusual case of doldrums due to a front that stopped the trade winds and caught everyone by complete surprise. The wind is currently blowing <10 kn and predictions as the days go on and specifically into Tuesday are only to get worse, with some areas predicted to get as low as ZERO knots. The boats in the ARC Rally have little choice but to motor if they want to get back before Christmas, but they can’t start motoring too soon or they will run out of fuel. Games Maker II is currently sailing as far as possible until they are in “diesel range” and then will start motoring to complete the crossing to St. Lucia. There is a bit of gambling, scheming, calculating and camaraderie going on right now, as there is chat on the radio between boats of diesel being sold to the highest bidder, lol. At least they are having fun with it. So the current ETA onboard is to be able to start motoring Sunday or Monday, with an eventual arrival to St Lucia on Saturday, Dec 10th *fingers crossed.*
Day 1-5 of the ARC Atlantic Rally Summary: Greetings from somewhere west of the Cape Verdes islands. During the first five days of the crossing, Games Maker II has performed as a bonafied sailing machine and we are keeping up with most of the larger production cats in the fleet. As of this writing, we are currently 6th in multihulls B, where all boats, except for a L380, are much larger than us. After five days, we have averaged over 7.1 knots and 170 miles/day. When the wind speed at 20knots True in 155TWA, sailing the 120sqm cruising asymmetric spinnaker leads us to 8-9knots of speed sustained and hitting double digits happens often. Those speeds at such a deep angle was surprising to me. We are so spoiled that when we take the big sails down and we start sailing at 6-7knots we feel we are barely moving. And all this with a boat loaded for a 3 week passage, including double water tanks and full diesel tanks that will likely arrive to St Lucia still full! - Nestor
Last formal dinner before the big day! The day was quite busy with many final preparations & projects taking place. Time to get a good night sleep, T minus 14 hours!
ARC Atlantic Sailing Rally from Las Palmas, Canary Islands → St Lucia ✨. Nestor is on a bucket list sailing trip right now that will be his longest ocean crossing yet! He is one of four crew members on Games Maker II, a Lagoon 42 Catamaran, that is part of a rally of ~150 boats that will sail 2700 nm across the Atlantic from Las Palmas, Canary Islands to St Lucia in the Caribbean ⛵️. The Rally starts this Sunday, Nov 20th @ 12:30 PM local time/7:30 AM EST. The crossing should take just under 3 weeks; with good weather, they could possibly arrive in St Lucia as early as Thurs Dec 8 but might not arrive until Sat Dec 10 🤞🏻. He has Iridium GO, a satellite hotspot, for basic text communications, and they may get lucky and have decent Starlink reception along some of the way - I will be posting his updates as I get them 💜. You can also follow along from the ARC Atlantic Rally website or the YB Races app.
Appreciating the pure luxury of a hot ten-minute shower, after three weeks of boat life, water conservation & “Navy showers” 💜. Our boat has a 90 gallon fresh water tank that we aim to conserve for one full week, split among 6 people, each person should use ~15 gallons total for the entire week. This includes all of the water to brush our teeth, wash our hands, shower & do dishes. In my ten minute shower, I just used about 20 gallons, 5 gallons more than my share for an entire week on the boat. What a privilege to have access to clean, endless, fresh, hot water. Enjoy the little things, sometimes they are the big things ✌🏻.
Super chill downwind spinnaker sail today from English to Jolly, closing out another excellent week of sailing with good friends & great vibes✌🏻.
One of the views from our hike today. Falmouth Harbour, Antigua.
Dinner date at Sea Dreams Restaurant.