Month: March 2018

We made it to Nuku Hiva! Now that we have arrived in the Marquesas, I thought I’d do a little summary of our passage…

Number of days: 26
Nautical miles: 3559
Departure port: Puerto Lucia, Ecuador
Arrival port: Taiohae, Nuku Hiva
Hours we ran the engine: 5
# of times we ran the water maker: 4
Last day we saw a ship after leaving Ecuador: Day 4
# of times we were buzzed by a helicopter: 3
# of fish we caught: 3 (1 yellowfin tuna, 1 dorado, 1 skipjack) # of times we saw dolphins: 3
# of audiobooks listened to: 7
# of French lessons listened to: 16
Highest wind gusts: 37 kts
Biggest seas: 20+ feet
# of days with rain/squalls: about 5 but squalls were brief
# of things that broke: 4 (spinnaker pole, boom vang, staysail sheet, block for reefing line on boom) # of hitchhiking birds: 2
Most # of flying fish that committed suicide on our boat in one night: 5 # of flying fish that hit Mike in the chest: 1 hahaha
# of days we flew the spinnaker: 1
Boxes of macaroni & cheese consumed: 3 (probably the most we have eaten since college) Packets of tuna eaten: about 20
# of hard boiled eggs eaten: 2 dozen

The sight of seeing the South Pacific islands rising out of the sea after almost a month was breathtaking. Mike woke me at sunrise this morning to come into the cockpit to see Ua Huka that we were passing to starboard. It was an amazing sight to see this massive volcanic island rising out of the sea in the middle of nowhere. Granted I was still half asleep at the time, but it was still fair to say I was speechless. The towering verdant hills stared down at us as we silently passed by on our way to Nuku Hiva. I was more than a little sad that we did not stop at the island even for a little while to admire it. But, Nuku Hiva awaited us, and a few hours later we were gliding into the bay at Taiohae and relaxing for the first time in 26 days.

Overall, I think we both feel a huge sense of accomplishment having crossed an ocean ourselves in our modest 41 ft boat. We had read others’ reports of their crossing that claimed it was relaxing and meditative, that they set their sails in the trades and didn’t have to adjust them for three weeks. That was unfortunately not our crossing. For the most part we had consistent winds that let us sail the entire trip. We adjusted the sails as the wind strengthened or lessened and only had to jibe a couple of times toward the end to keep our course. The biggest challenge of our crossing was the sea state. For almost the entire passage we had confused seas with a strong cross swell. The messed up seas tossed us about and forced us to shorten sail in order to minimize the flogging of the main sail. It also made moving about the boat more challenging and tiring, often making it difficult to sleep.

I certainly had my good days and bad days on the passage. There were days I thoroughly enjoyed just sailing and the peacefulness of being on the water. There were other days that I was tired and not feeling 100% when all I wanted to do was get off the boat. There were more good days than bad, and I think doing this on our own confirmed again what a good team we make together. We’ve arrived at the magical islands of the South Pacific and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.

-Katie

Trying to power a 30,000 pound boat across an ocean using only the wind is a challenge. I believe sailing includes the Goldilocks principle. There is usually too much wind or not enough wind and rarely the perfect amount of wind. But, you have to find a way to make the boat move regardless of what imperfect amount of wind you are given.

After several days of high winds and big seas, we were looking forward to the forecast that said the wind and seas would be calming. Well, they did calm right on schedule. We still had roughly 15 kts of wind, but it was coming from directly behind us. So, the apparent wind was down to 7-8 kts. The biggest challenge with light winds from behind, especially when there is still some swell running, is how to keep the sails full so that they don’t flog. When the sails start flogging, the whole boat vibrates. It is not good for the boat or the sails and has the potential to break something with all those forces at work.

So, we went to work trying to figure out the right sail combination. With the lighter winds, we set up our asymmetrical spinnaker, which is a light wind sail like a kite or parachute. We set it once, and then the wind picked up to 20 kts. So, we took it down, set the pole and went back to wing and wing. Of course, as soon as we did that the winds dropped and we were flogging like crazy. So, down went the pole and the spinnaker went back up.

As we were sailing more downwind, we had to mess with the spinnaker for a while to get it t stay full. We kept letting out the tack which helped but wasn’t perfect. We studied it for a few minutes and concluded that the problem was that the main sail was blanketing it. So, we put two reefs in the main to shorten sail and let more wind get to the spinnaker. That worked. We got a good hour out of it before the winds kicked up over 20 kts again. Down went the spinnaker and up went the pole again.

Just like last time, as soon as we pulled down the spinnaker the winds dropped to about 12 kts. Ugh. We lived with the inadequate wing and wing set up for a while until we couldn’t stand it anymore. Mike called it a flog fest. We tried setting the spinnaker one more time, but sure enough, as soon as we got it set there was too much wind and it had to come down. We reset the pole and wing and wing set up. In order to try and stop some of the flogging of the main and potential damage, we put a third reef in the main. (Our jib already had a reef in it due to our pole incident.)

We looked at the wind, our sails and the seas. There should have been enough wind to keep us from rolling and flogging as much as we were. But, the problem now appeared to be a strange cross swell. There was a regular swell from the south east, but you could see a periodic perpendicular swell that when it met with the regular swell created a washing machine effect which rolled the boat violently causing the sails to flog.

I was lamenting all of the work we had done that day putting the sails up, taking them down, and then repeating it over and over. Mike gave me a sly smile and said, “that’s sailing!” When on my next watch, exhausted from the day’s work, I started thinking about how sailing is a good metaphor for life. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you have to repeat things over and over to get it right. And, sometimes you just plan mess up, have to start over and apologize for what you screwed up (which was me the following day when I accidentally jibed the boat while trying to heave to – a big no no!). So, if you want to experience life’s necessities of patience, perseverance and determination in a tangible, visceral way, just go sailing!

And, just like life, sometimes in sailing you need a little luck. The next day in our second day of lighter winds and the strange cross swell, we needed a little luck to lift our spirits. I was down below and was just about to ask Mike in the cockpit how it was going when we heard the fishing line zing on the reel. Mike had just dropped the line in the water a few minutes earlier. We hadn’t fished at all when we had the rougher sea conditions. We slowed the boat as quickly as we could and Mike went to battle with the fish. As much line as was peeling outs we knew it was a big fish.

Mike finally got it to the surface and identified it as a dorado (mahi mahi). It took two of us to get it around to the side of the boat and get it in a position Mike could gaff it. That sucker put up a fight! Mike got the stringer in it and cut the gills so it wouldn’t bleed all over the deck. When we finally got it on deck we estimated it at about forty pounds. It was close to four feet long! It didn’t fit on the filet table, so Mike had to filet it on the deck. We got all the meat in the freezer, which we estimated at 15-20 lbs. That will certainly feed us the rest of the trip. And, we had a delicious mahi mahi dinner that night.

We’re now about six days out from the Marquesas. We’re at that point in the marathon when you passed the half way mark awhile ago, but you can’t quite see the finish line yet. We are anxious to arrive and begin our French Polynesian adventure.

-Katie

I guess we spoke too soon bragging about our luck with the great weather. A few days ago the seas started to build making it a pretty bumpy ride. It wasn’t just that the seas were big, but that they were often confused coming from different directions and sometimes steep leaving large troughs. Then, the clouds started to fill in and we had two full days of squally weather.

The squalls are usually short lived. You can see them coming on the horizon as low, black clouds with visible rain. They also show up on radar as a rain band. Looking at the radar is sometimes the only way you can adequately tell what direction or how fast they are moving. As the squally weather was all around us, there really was no way to avoid being hit periodically. So, out came the foul weather gear as we prepared to get wet.

By Saturday we had been seeing the winds sustained in the 25 knot region. We triple reefed the main and just put out the staysail. We would move along at about 6.5 knots and be prepared for higher winds when squalls hit. We’ve learned that the leading edge of a squall is where the highest winds are. As I said, you can see it coming, so during the daylight especially you can be prepared for it. The squalls brought us winds in the 30-35 knot range. I think the highest gust we saw was 37. That’s quite a bit of wind.

Our Hydrovane dutifully steered us through the mess. Whoever was on watch did have to keep a sharp eye on the wind though. When the wind gusted over 30, and especially when we got knocked a bit sideways by a swell, the Hydrovane would struggle to keep us on course and wanted to round up into the wind. A quick grab of the wheel to help the Hydrovane get us off the wind was needed a few times.

By Saturday afternoon we had the biggest seas we’ve seen on this passage. Some were at least 20 feet. It’s hard to even comprehend how big the seas are until the boat is on top of a wave and you look down into the trough below which is at least one story down. It was a wild ride to go up and down the swell. At times we got thrown around a bit, and more than once a wave pooped the cockpit. By Saturday night Mike and I were both starting to feel a bit fatigued. (Je suis tres fatigue. We have been practicing our French!)

The seas are still confused this morning but not as big as yesterday, and the wind has settled in around 23-24. The forecast says the wind and swell should start to back off around midnight tonight and we will have a period of calmer weather. I hope so!

Other than managing the boat and watching the weather, the last few days have been uneventful. After the spinnaker pole mess, we kept saying we do not want to break anything else. So, uneventful is good. I remember reading summaries in Latitude 38 in years past of boats that made the puddle jump. They always listed all of the things that broke or went wrong. We did not want to be one of those boats.

When on night watches by myself, it’s easy to let your mind wander. I was thinking about what surprised me most so far on this passage. I think I’m still surprised most that there are birds at sea this far from land. When there is nothing else to look at but ocean, birds are interesting to watch. We’ve had two hitchhiking birds. The one that stayed the longest was a brown booby who landed on the rail at the bow. He showed up one morning and stayed over 24 hrs. I guess he was tired.

In a break in the clouds last night I had a couple hours of a moonless and cloudless sky revealing the most stars you can see with the naked eye. But, last night was a treat as I saw multiple shooting stars in a short period of time. One of them was the brightest I have ever seen. It was low in the sky, got really bright and then flamed out a few seconds later as it streaked eastward. A meteor?

We’ve got 1450 miles to go. We are estimating about another 10 days or so depending on conditions. We are definitely on the home stretch and that feels good. We can’t wait to see the islands pop out of the ocean on the horizon for the first time. So exciting.

-Katie

Hello from the middle of nowhere in the vast Pacific Ocean. As of this writing it is about four hours into our eleventh day at sea. With the exception of the sea state, which at times has been quite confused with steep short period waves making it less comfortable on board, the conditions have been quite amazing. This westward sailing super highway we are on called the south east trade winds have been extremely steady and reliable in the mid teens to low twenty knot range. Our points of sail have been either beam reaching or running the majority of which has been the former.

As I write this we are beam reaching in 16 knots of wind making about 6.5 knots over the ground. So the journey has been quite amazing so far with one exception that we experienced yesterday.

It was late afternoon and we decided the conditions looked nice to start running wing on wing for the rest of the day and night. After we rigged the pole, set the jib to port and adjusted the hydrovane to keep the wind aft of the beam on the port side we took our nightly showers in the cockpit and started heating up dinner. The sun was just going down and we were excited to enjoy our meal while watching a beautiful Pacific Ocean sunset.

The problem was that we wanted to maintain as much of a westward course as possible which required us to set the hydrovane to keep the wind very close to just aft of the beam.

The hydrovane, which is a self steering device that uses the angle of the wind with respect to the boat to steer a course, has been such an amazingly reliant piece of gear since we left California that we have developed tremendous confidence in it’s abilities. In fact we are trying to come up with a name for him/her because it is like having an extra crew member on board. The first two possible options I have come up with are either Rocky or Mo Cushla (not sure about the spelling of the second one which is from the film Million Dollar Baby and means “My Darling”). Katie thought we needed a French name since we are going to French islands, but she liked Rocky too. If you are so inclined, leave us a comment with any suggestion you might have for a name. It would be fun to hear what others come up with.

Anyway, back to the story of our first calamity at sea. The makers of the hydrovane say that the boat must not be over powered for it to steer a proper course. We have experienced this in the past. We’ll have the vane and the sails set to steer the course we want according to the current strength and direction of the wind, then the wind increases in strength and the game starts to struggle to hold the course. Then an adjustment or combination of adjustments must be made to correct the issue.

Usually we have some time to make the adjustment when this happens and it’s not a big deal. In this case, we had a double whammy. The wind gusted suddenly to 25 knots and veered up higher on the nose at the same time. As a result, because we set the hydrovane to keep the wind very close to just aft of the beam, this sudden change caused the wind to move just forward of the beam so quickly neither we nor the hydrovane, because it became suddenly over powered, were able to react in time and the jib was back winded. This caused the spinnaker pole to snap in two very quickly and the jib to begin flapping angrily in the wind. Our wonderful sunset dinner plans had been destroyed in an instant.

I was devastated because this meant that we no longer had an effective way to sail with the wind aft of the beam without setting the spinnaker which I only use in light wind situations that we weren’t likely to have. Crippling our down wind sailing options could add days to our crossing which wouldn’t be the end of the world I guess, but I also really enjoy down wind sailing. Its the reason people always wish sailors “Fair winds and following seas”.

It took taking the time to have some dinner and reflect before I came up with an idea that might enable us to still use the pole and resurrect our down wind sailing abilities. Our spinnaker pole is telescoping which means it’s length can be adjusted. When it broke we had it adjusted out almost as far as it would go and it broke very near the telescoping end. So I decided to use the hack saw I had on board to cut out the broken portion and then re-insert the remaining portion of the telescoping end back into the pole. We wouldn’t be able to extend it as far but it could still work. By this time it was dark and my repair job would have to wait for daylight.

Daylight came, and with a bit of work with a c-clamp used to correct the out of round condition of the damaged end, I was able to re-insert the telescoping end back into the pole. By the way, Katie always says that I have too many tools on board the boat. This time I think she was glad that I had a c-clamp on board. After the repair, the only thing left to do was try it out. We put it up and it worked perfectly to about 90% of it’s previous capacity. What an incredible relief it was to have our down wind sailing options resurrected.

Lesson learned. Don’t sail so close to calamity without someone at the helm ready to react within seconds.

In the end, the price we paid for a bad decision wasn’t too bad after all.

Mike.

Day 10:

2475 miles to go…

We’re just starting Day 10 at sea and have surpassed our previous longest passage. We have about 2 more weeks to go, we estimate. So far we have been extremely lucky with the wind and weather and hope it continues.

Our strategy to head south paid off as we got south of 6 degrees south latitude. The wind picked up to a steady 18-22 knots from the south-southeast and we found the favorable equatorial current. We’ve been oscillating between a beam reach sail with double-reefed main, double-reefed jib and staysail and a more downwind run sailing wing and wing with the jib poled out to port. We’ve switched back and forth as the wind shifts to make as much westerly progress as possible. We’re pretty consistently seeing the boat make 6.5-7.5 knots. We keep saying this is a marathon not a sprint. We are sailing conservatively to keep the boat and crew happy.

There is quite a bit of swell running out of the south which as put it on our beam and creating some roll on the boat. It is manageable and not too uncomfortable except for the occasional large wave that hits us just right sending the boat over to starboard. If you are standing, you better have a wide stance with your knees slightly bent to keep from being thrown about the boat. This especially takes a bit of gymnastics when working in the galley, and I can feel the effects in my quads. No need to go to the gym here!

As I mentioned last time, our friend Dan on Kini Popo is out in front of us. He is sailing about a knot faster than us and making about 25 miles on us each day. So, he should arrive in the Marquesas a few days ahead of us. We are checking in with him several times a day via sat phone and all is good.

Each day has brought us blue skies with just some wispy clouds and nothing but blue ocean around us. Because the scenery is the same each day, it’s hard to fathom that we’ve already traveled over 1000 miles. There is still the occasional seabird which surprises me. I guess I need to brush up on my ornithology. Every night we get a couple of flying fish that make it onto the boat, and we have to evict the stinky buggers.

We haven’t seen a boat in several days since a container ship from Chile en route to Asia passed us a couple of miles in the distance one night. The officer on watch called us on the radio out of curiosity after we popped up on AIS. He was from Barcelona and chatted with Mike for about 10 minutes. He said he liked sailing when he was back home in Spain and was quite interested in where we had been and where we were going. He also relayed a current weather forecast to us, which was really nice. An ocean crossing in that large ship would be a whole different experience.

Mike & I have gotten in a pretty decent routine for our watches. After dinner, Mike is on from 8-midnight. I take over until 4am. Mike is back on from 4-8, and then I’m 8-noon. From noon to 8pm we’re both up together, which lets us do lunch and dinner together. It’s still hard to interrupt sleep after 4 hrs, but we are managing with a good amount of rest. On watch at night I like to listen to audiobooks or podcasts. As much as I like reading and have a ton of books on my tablet, I can’t stare at a screen for very long on the moving boat or I get a headache. Listening on the iPod in my pocket also lets me look and move around the boat easily.

We also downloaded an app with French lessons that Mike & I have both been listening to. I was finally feeling comfortable having conversations in Spanish, and now we have to learn a new language. My previous knowledge of French was to count to ten and a few words and phrases I picked up in books and movies. Although the islands have their own Polynesian language, the islands are French. We want to at least have some basic words and phrases and be able to deal with the officials in the islands. As I have traveled, I have always tried to learn a little of whatever language it is to be polite if nothing else. I’m finding French a bit easier than when I first started Spanish, as there are a lot of similar words and sentence structure between Spanish and French. The biggest challenge for me with French is the pronunciation. Mike is much better at getting it to sound right, just as he was with Spanish.

I was going to write more about our water maker and Hydrovane, but I think I will save it for next time. I’m going a bit cross eyed staring at the tiny screen and typing on my iPad while trying to keep myself from getting thrown around by the swell in the cockpit.

-Katie