Pacific Crossing Part 3

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