Pacific Crossing Part 5

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