28/04/15
Day 17
I found some dolphins last night! At least I assume they were dolphins. The moon is only half full and there's no phosphorescence in the water, so they were hard to see. I came upstairs at midnight to check the horizon and adjust our course, which is an exercise in futility considering how much the wind seems to hate us. I saw a dark patch off our starboard beam that struck me as strange, but it just sounded like a wave. I watched that patch of ocean for a while, wondering if it was occupied by a whale. There were little waves popping up all around us, but this one seemed blacker somehow. Then I heard the same noise on the port side. I figured this was just confirmation that I was hearing waves. I popped across to look into the water anyway and was met with the sight of a dolphin jumping straight up out of the water, then diving straight back down. Soon the boat was surrounded by a small pod of happy dolphins, playing on the bow wave and swimming circles around us. They would ride a wave and then burst out into the air as the water broke, not wanting to follow the course of the wave back into the ocean. I wonder if they were spinner dolphins, as the ones we're used to don't usually jump straight up. They tend to prefer big arcing leaps through the air, as if they were painting rainbows everywhere.
So that was a bit of excitement to break up our otherwise dull days. It's so cold and we've had so much rain that we've pretty much just been living inside. Garth's in the saloon and I've taken the aft berth. We sleep through our night shifts, an alarm waking whoever is on watch every half hour to check the horizon. We haven't seen another boat outside of a lagoon since we left Tahiti. I think whoever is scanning the horizon when we finally do go past another ship will have a heart attack.
We've pretty much given up on Easter Island. We've been hit by constant south-easterlies, pushing us further and further north. We tried tacking back and forth in the hopes that we would still make it, but that just resulted in us wasting time and not getting any closer to either Panama or Easter Island. So that's really disappointing. But there's not much we can do about it.
We haven't opened week three of our food supplies yet, because we're not halfway there despite being well into our third week. We did steal the 3rd packet of flour to make cinnamon and raisin bread though... at this point it's safe to say that we'll definitely run out of flour before we arrive. We're both dying for pizza again so hopefully there's enough to spare for that. Thank goodness for Pitufa's stove top bread recipe! After they enlightened us about using the burners instead of the oven, we've been baking like crazy! Stove top bread, pizza, pudding... I'm going to try brownies next. It's so hard to light the oven, I can't believe we didn't figure this out earlier. Instead, we just stopped eating anything that required baking.
02/05/15
Day 21
Finally, things are pleasant again! We've been going tight to the wind for ages now, and I have not been enjoying it at all. Shocking. Aside from the obvious drawback to going upwind, which is the ridiculous angle we're always on, we've had constant squalls coming through. They don't matter as much when you're sailing downwind but heading straight into the wind as it picks up wreaks havoac on our boat. We're constantly pulling in the headsail, then letting it out, then pulling it in again so we don't get too overpowered. The constantly shifting wind speed was churning up the ocean as well. We lost the lovely ocean swell and were left with short, steep waves which tossed us around relentlessly. We were both beginning to get quite miserable.
We've finally found a system for doing the dishes over the last few passages. Garth passes them up to me when I'm on watch and I wash the handful of things he used to cook dinner. Then he puts them away when he wakes up. But with the weather so changeable the cushion in the cockpit is always wet and it's not safe to put up the shade cloth, so we both hide downstairs all day and night. And the dishes don't get done. Then when I do get around to them, dirty ones get tossed on top of the clean ones before they get put away, and there's so many they end up on the floor anyway. It's a shambles. But the weather is finally agreeable again and we've reached a point where we can point slightly more downwind without worrying about going too far and having to tack the rest of the way. So the dishes are sorted out, the boat has been tidied and the cockpit is clean. All ready for the next set of nasty weather which will ruin everything again. I'm just happy to be able to sit around in the fresh air under the shade cloth again without being tossed around or having water constantly splashing me. Plus it's a beautiful day.
We lost our new lure, which was inevitable but sad. It was yet to catch anything so maybe it just didn't look delicious enough to the tuna. We tie the hand line on with a strip of rubber as well as with the line itself, so that if we catch something big the rubber will break so there's less strain on the line. Our rubber tie hasn't broken, so whatever took the lure just snapped it off in one giant bite. Whatever it was we don't have the right equipment to be able to have landed something that big anyway. We're fishing properly now, with two lines out. We promised Garth's dad that we wouldn't, because it's dangerous if they get tangled. But we're hungry and we want fish.
Sorting out the lure
We've discovered a little blue fish living underneath us. He's about 30cm long, which is pretty big as far as boat fish go. Tag-alongs are usually little tiny things eating the algae off the bottom. This guy is adorable and he's been entertaining us constantly. Whenever we throw something overboard he chases it, then turns around and races back after us. Even a bucket of water brings him out from his hiding place, so we've just been throwing water at him. I was woken up this morning by Garth giggling at the back of the cockpit. He was putting out the lure and drawing it back in again, watching our little friend chase it repeatedly. Fish sightings are the highlight of our day, which I guess says a lot about what a six week passage is like.
The moon is amazing at the moment. It's full again, which is a bit strange because it was full when we got to the Gambier and we didn't stay there for long before leaving on this passage. It certainly makes night time a lot nicer though. One thing I really appreciate out here is watching the moon go down. You don't really get to see it get close to the horizon when you're living on land, and it's spectacular. It turns into a giant orange ball as it sinks down out of sight and it really feels special to be able to witness it so often. I wish i could take a picture, but the boat is never still enough.
We're getting close to half way now, over three weeks in. We've got about 2200 miles to go. And we haven't been going that slowly either, keeping up an average speed of about 4 or 5 knots. Which isn't that fast either. But at least we're not floating aimlessly around in circles. Aside from Antartica, this is probably one of the most remote places to sail in the world. If something goes wrong here it's over 2000 miles to the nearest land that could dispatch a rescue crew. Easter island isn't too far away, but they're sure as hell not coming out here to rescue us. So that's a frightening thought. At least we can't get further away from civilisation at this point, either way we go now we're heading towards something instead of away from it.
04/05/15
Day 25
So I guess we've reached the point in the passage where things start breaking. It was going to start happening eventually so I guess it doesn't make much difference whether it was now or later. Luckily it's really calm at the moment, which makes it easier to do repairs.
The boomvang block broke last night, which Garth discovered this morning when he did a rigging check. It almost looks like the metal snapped after being heated up from overuse. Which wouldn't be surprising considering the strain our rigging is constantly under from strong winds and continuous sailing. Garth replaced it this morning, hopefully with something that will last.
The thick dynema rope we bought for Boris (Our windvane steering) also broke early in this trip. Dynema is pretty unbreakable and very expensive. Boris works by moving the wheel back and forth with two ropes running from the windvane at the back of the boat to the wheel. The rope on the downwind side of the boat is under a lot of pressure, so when we're on the same tack for ages that rope constantly rubs back and forth against a metal shackle whilst being pulled tight. So it actually melted right through from the friction. Yay for upwind sailing, where our rigging literally melts from overuse.
We also discovered that our mainsail needed a heap of maintenance today. There's straps attaching the sail to the boom at the front and back, as well as all the way up the mast. They've started to come off all at once. Garth spent all afternoon mending them, so our main is once again attached to the boom. There's lots more of them that havent come off yet so we'll see how long they last for.
The sea is really flat today. It's calm and lovely and we can actually see the horizon in all directions without having to wait for the waves to go down when we look around. The moon is still full and there was a beautiful sunset yesterday, so I'm happy.
We've been getting so many messages on the satellite phone and every single one has brightened our day. Our friends have been sending us jokes, riddles, and sweet little messages as well as the weather. Mark and Liesbet from Irie have sent us a message nearly every day, and every single one of them has rhymed. It's ridiculous how amusing something as silly as 160 characters delivered in rhyme form can be, but I absolutely love it. It's really lovely to hear what our friends are up to and to be reminded that we're not the only people in the world.
Our pet fish is still there. He got bored yesterday when the wind died down and started swimming circles round us. His name is now Alfred and he likes pasta.
07/05/15
Day 27
The last two days have been torture. We've been going at a decent speed in the right direction, which is good. But the sea state has once again reached the status of mental breakdown, which is bad. We're sailing on a close haul, which is usually bad enough in good conditions. But the waves are all steep and choppy. So every few seconds we get launched over the top of one and land back down with a sickening thud that reverberates through the whole cabin. I guess from down here we're not actually that far away from the water, so when we smack down on top of it we notice. It made sleeping pretty difficult and moving around impossible. I keep telling myself that it will eventually be nice again... but it's already calmed down a lot so it looks like we're stuck with this unpleasantness. Which is at least a lot better than it was before, but is a long sight off a nice day of downwind. The wind is supposed to shift to further south soon, so hopefully we won't be close hauled for the next two weeks.
We've finally reached the halfway mark distance wise! Though it took us nearly four weeks to get here. The trade winds have kicked in now, so the rest of the trip should be a lot easier. We actually get to travel in a straight line to our destination, instead of tacking all over the place. 2000 miles to go. If we go the rest of the way travelling at 4 knots, we're 21 days away from Panama. 16.6 days if we can manage an average of 5 knots, and our destination is only 13.8 days away if we can keep up the speedy 6 knots we're managing at the moment (which we won't). Not that I'm counting or anything. Every single upwind passage so far has taken us longer than we thought it would, so it will probably be another 20 days or so. Which sounds like an insanely long time. We've already been out here for almost a month.
Alfred has disappeared, which is very sad. Either he got bored and wandered off when we were going too slowly, or he got sick of chasing us now that we're going faster. He might even still be under there somewhere and we just can't see him under all the wake. Either way we need to find a new source of amusement.
We lost another lure on the hand line, so we've stopped using it unless there's somebody sitting right next to it. We need to figure out how to rig up some kind of alarm when we catch a fish, because at the moment you just have to keep checking it. Garth decided not to bring in the rod the other night so we left the line out overnight. We were disturbed at about 2am to the sound of it running, but by the time we both got upstairs and untied it we'd lost our fish. That was our first bite in a long time. I'm determined to catch something before we leave the Pacific. But whilst the fishing rod makes a good racket, it's a lot harder to actually land the fish. So maybe we'll just have to stick to the tinned stuff.
One thing we haven't been short of on this passage is power. With our new batteries, bigger solar panel and nonstop wind for the windgen our batteries have been maxed out since we left. Garth has even been running the laptop every day and can't put a dent in our power. Considering the batteries remember how nice you've been to them, this is fabulous news. I don't think I could deal with wrecking them straight away. They were so expensive and we put so much effort into installing them before we left Tahiti.
Day 17
I found some dolphins last night! At least I assume they were dolphins. The moon is only half full and there's no phosphorescence in the water, so they were hard to see. I came upstairs at midnight to check the horizon and adjust our course, which is an exercise in futility considering how much the wind seems to hate us. I saw a dark patch off our starboard beam that struck me as strange, but it just sounded like a wave. I watched that patch of ocean for a while, wondering if it was occupied by a whale. There were little waves popping up all around us, but this one seemed blacker somehow. Then I heard the same noise on the port side. I figured this was just confirmation that I was hearing waves. I popped across to look into the water anyway and was met with the sight of a dolphin jumping straight up out of the water, then diving straight back down. Soon the boat was surrounded by a small pod of happy dolphins, playing on the bow wave and swimming circles around us. They would ride a wave and then burst out into the air as the water broke, not wanting to follow the course of the wave back into the ocean. I wonder if they were spinner dolphins, as the ones we're used to don't usually jump straight up. They tend to prefer big arcing leaps through the air, as if they were painting rainbows everywhere.
So that was a bit of excitement to break up our otherwise dull days. It's so cold and we've had so much rain that we've pretty much just been living inside. Garth's in the saloon and I've taken the aft berth. We sleep through our night shifts, an alarm waking whoever is on watch every half hour to check the horizon. We haven't seen another boat outside of a lagoon since we left Tahiti. I think whoever is scanning the horizon when we finally do go past another ship will have a heart attack.
We've pretty much given up on Easter Island. We've been hit by constant south-easterlies, pushing us further and further north. We tried tacking back and forth in the hopes that we would still make it, but that just resulted in us wasting time and not getting any closer to either Panama or Easter Island. So that's really disappointing. But there's not much we can do about it.
We haven't opened week three of our food supplies yet, because we're not halfway there despite being well into our third week. We did steal the 3rd packet of flour to make cinnamon and raisin bread though... at this point it's safe to say that we'll definitely run out of flour before we arrive. We're both dying for pizza again so hopefully there's enough to spare for that. Thank goodness for Pitufa's stove top bread recipe! After they enlightened us about using the burners instead of the oven, we've been baking like crazy! Stove top bread, pizza, pudding... I'm going to try brownies next. It's so hard to light the oven, I can't believe we didn't figure this out earlier. Instead, we just stopped eating anything that required baking.
02/05/15
Day 21
Finally, things are pleasant again! We've been going tight to the wind for ages now, and I have not been enjoying it at all. Shocking. Aside from the obvious drawback to going upwind, which is the ridiculous angle we're always on, we've had constant squalls coming through. They don't matter as much when you're sailing downwind but heading straight into the wind as it picks up wreaks havoac on our boat. We're constantly pulling in the headsail, then letting it out, then pulling it in again so we don't get too overpowered. The constantly shifting wind speed was churning up the ocean as well. We lost the lovely ocean swell and were left with short, steep waves which tossed us around relentlessly. We were both beginning to get quite miserable.
We've finally found a system for doing the dishes over the last few passages. Garth passes them up to me when I'm on watch and I wash the handful of things he used to cook dinner. Then he puts them away when he wakes up. But with the weather so changeable the cushion in the cockpit is always wet and it's not safe to put up the shade cloth, so we both hide downstairs all day and night. And the dishes don't get done. Then when I do get around to them, dirty ones get tossed on top of the clean ones before they get put away, and there's so many they end up on the floor anyway. It's a shambles. But the weather is finally agreeable again and we've reached a point where we can point slightly more downwind without worrying about going too far and having to tack the rest of the way. So the dishes are sorted out, the boat has been tidied and the cockpit is clean. All ready for the next set of nasty weather which will ruin everything again. I'm just happy to be able to sit around in the fresh air under the shade cloth again without being tossed around or having water constantly splashing me. Plus it's a beautiful day.
We lost our new lure, which was inevitable but sad. It was yet to catch anything so maybe it just didn't look delicious enough to the tuna. We tie the hand line on with a strip of rubber as well as with the line itself, so that if we catch something big the rubber will break so there's less strain on the line. Our rubber tie hasn't broken, so whatever took the lure just snapped it off in one giant bite. Whatever it was we don't have the right equipment to be able to have landed something that big anyway. We're fishing properly now, with two lines out. We promised Garth's dad that we wouldn't, because it's dangerous if they get tangled. But we're hungry and we want fish.
We've discovered a little blue fish living underneath us. He's about 30cm long, which is pretty big as far as boat fish go. Tag-alongs are usually little tiny things eating the algae off the bottom. This guy is adorable and he's been entertaining us constantly. Whenever we throw something overboard he chases it, then turns around and races back after us. Even a bucket of water brings him out from his hiding place, so we've just been throwing water at him. I was woken up this morning by Garth giggling at the back of the cockpit. He was putting out the lure and drawing it back in again, watching our little friend chase it repeatedly. Fish sightings are the highlight of our day, which I guess says a lot about what a six week passage is like.
The moon is amazing at the moment. It's full again, which is a bit strange because it was full when we got to the Gambier and we didn't stay there for long before leaving on this passage. It certainly makes night time a lot nicer though. One thing I really appreciate out here is watching the moon go down. You don't really get to see it get close to the horizon when you're living on land, and it's spectacular. It turns into a giant orange ball as it sinks down out of sight and it really feels special to be able to witness it so often. I wish i could take a picture, but the boat is never still enough.
We're getting close to half way now, over three weeks in. We've got about 2200 miles to go. And we haven't been going that slowly either, keeping up an average speed of about 4 or 5 knots. Which isn't that fast either. But at least we're not floating aimlessly around in circles. Aside from Antartica, this is probably one of the most remote places to sail in the world. If something goes wrong here it's over 2000 miles to the nearest land that could dispatch a rescue crew. Easter island isn't too far away, but they're sure as hell not coming out here to rescue us. So that's a frightening thought. At least we can't get further away from civilisation at this point, either way we go now we're heading towards something instead of away from it.
04/05/15
Day 25
So I guess we've reached the point in the passage where things start breaking. It was going to start happening eventually so I guess it doesn't make much difference whether it was now or later. Luckily it's really calm at the moment, which makes it easier to do repairs.
The boomvang block broke last night, which Garth discovered this morning when he did a rigging check. It almost looks like the metal snapped after being heated up from overuse. Which wouldn't be surprising considering the strain our rigging is constantly under from strong winds and continuous sailing. Garth replaced it this morning, hopefully with something that will last.
The thick dynema rope we bought for Boris (Our windvane steering) also broke early in this trip. Dynema is pretty unbreakable and very expensive. Boris works by moving the wheel back and forth with two ropes running from the windvane at the back of the boat to the wheel. The rope on the downwind side of the boat is under a lot of pressure, so when we're on the same tack for ages that rope constantly rubs back and forth against a metal shackle whilst being pulled tight. So it actually melted right through from the friction. Yay for upwind sailing, where our rigging literally melts from overuse.
We also discovered that our mainsail needed a heap of maintenance today. There's straps attaching the sail to the boom at the front and back, as well as all the way up the mast. They've started to come off all at once. Garth spent all afternoon mending them, so our main is once again attached to the boom. There's lots more of them that havent come off yet so we'll see how long they last for.
The sea is really flat today. It's calm and lovely and we can actually see the horizon in all directions without having to wait for the waves to go down when we look around. The moon is still full and there was a beautiful sunset yesterday, so I'm happy.
We've been getting so many messages on the satellite phone and every single one has brightened our day. Our friends have been sending us jokes, riddles, and sweet little messages as well as the weather. Mark and Liesbet from Irie have sent us a message nearly every day, and every single one of them has rhymed. It's ridiculous how amusing something as silly as 160 characters delivered in rhyme form can be, but I absolutely love it. It's really lovely to hear what our friends are up to and to be reminded that we're not the only people in the world.
Our pet fish is still there. He got bored yesterday when the wind died down and started swimming circles round us. His name is now Alfred and he likes pasta.
07/05/15
Day 27
The last two days have been torture. We've been going at a decent speed in the right direction, which is good. But the sea state has once again reached the status of mental breakdown, which is bad. We're sailing on a close haul, which is usually bad enough in good conditions. But the waves are all steep and choppy. So every few seconds we get launched over the top of one and land back down with a sickening thud that reverberates through the whole cabin. I guess from down here we're not actually that far away from the water, so when we smack down on top of it we notice. It made sleeping pretty difficult and moving around impossible. I keep telling myself that it will eventually be nice again... but it's already calmed down a lot so it looks like we're stuck with this unpleasantness. Which is at least a lot better than it was before, but is a long sight off a nice day of downwind. The wind is supposed to shift to further south soon, so hopefully we won't be close hauled for the next two weeks.
We've finally reached the halfway mark distance wise! Though it took us nearly four weeks to get here. The trade winds have kicked in now, so the rest of the trip should be a lot easier. We actually get to travel in a straight line to our destination, instead of tacking all over the place. 2000 miles to go. If we go the rest of the way travelling at 4 knots, we're 21 days away from Panama. 16.6 days if we can manage an average of 5 knots, and our destination is only 13.8 days away if we can keep up the speedy 6 knots we're managing at the moment (which we won't). Not that I'm counting or anything. Every single upwind passage so far has taken us longer than we thought it would, so it will probably be another 20 days or so. Which sounds like an insanely long time. We've already been out here for almost a month.
Alfred has disappeared, which is very sad. Either he got bored and wandered off when we were going too slowly, or he got sick of chasing us now that we're going faster. He might even still be under there somewhere and we just can't see him under all the wake. Either way we need to find a new source of amusement.
We lost another lure on the hand line, so we've stopped using it unless there's somebody sitting right next to it. We need to figure out how to rig up some kind of alarm when we catch a fish, because at the moment you just have to keep checking it. Garth decided not to bring in the rod the other night so we left the line out overnight. We were disturbed at about 2am to the sound of it running, but by the time we both got upstairs and untied it we'd lost our fish. That was our first bite in a long time. I'm determined to catch something before we leave the Pacific. But whilst the fishing rod makes a good racket, it's a lot harder to actually land the fish. So maybe we'll just have to stick to the tinned stuff.
One thing we haven't been short of on this passage is power. With our new batteries, bigger solar panel and nonstop wind for the windgen our batteries have been maxed out since we left. Garth has even been running the laptop every day and can't put a dent in our power. Considering the batteries remember how nice you've been to them, this is fabulous news. I don't think I could deal with wrecking them straight away. They were so expensive and we put so much effort into installing them before we left Tahiti.
I have only just gotten a chance to read over your blogs properly and I am being reminded of how freaking awesome you two are! Oh and you're making me ache for the solace of night sailing :P Honestly, you two impress the heck out of me with what you have accomplished so far. I am such a proud friend, boasting where ever I can about my friends sailing to Panama! Now on to read the next installment :)
ReplyDeleteOh I love you darling, you fabulous thing you :)
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