The Crossing

Category: Ships Log

Time Period: Monday, 4/21 -

Read the latest updates from our Pacific crossing here! Green Panther and her crew are on their way.

While we are crossing to the Marquesas, we will update this blog post as often as we can. New reports will be added to the bottom of this post, so just scroll down to read the latest!

Day 0 (4/21)

We cleared out with the port captain and with customs this morning and hoped we would be ready to leave this afternoon; however, we still had a couple small, but important projects to finish, which took a bit longer than planned (this seems to be a recurring theme with us :)). Luckily the weather system is a bit delayed as well, and not supposed to hit until about midnight. We will throw off the docklines tomorrow morning!

Day 1 and Day 2 (4/22-23)
We are finally underway! We left Paradise village marina in Nuevo Vallarta (Banderas Bay) yesterday in the very late afternoon. So far we didn't experience the predicted NW wind which is supposed to push us offshore, but we have S wind and are making about 2.5 kt sailing west.
The highlight yesterday was the spectacular bio luminescence when going by the Tres Marietas Islands. Around midnight we had a pod of dolphins following us and could see them hunting and chasing each other all around the boat. It was a dark and moonless night, but the outlines of their bodies were highlighted in a bright fluorescent green - it was spectacular and looked almost like a Disney Land ride, just better because it was real. A little later I saw a huge fluorescent green donut in the water, about 10m (30ft) in diameter. As we came closer the donut starting emitting a lot of fluorescent green blobs which came directly and very fast towards us. Eventually the entire donut transformed into a more snake like shape heading our direction and swallowing up the blobs in the progress. Everything happened so fast, so I didn't have time to think about what if this is an alien star ship hiding here and looking to bring some human samples home to its world :-). Anyway as the snake came closer I could see what it was. It consisted of thousands of small blobs. They all were about 1/2m (1.5ft) long, had a short torpedo shaped body, and fins - everything coated in the green bio luminescence. So the donut was a huge school of fish which came over to check out our boat, no aliens this time.

position at noon on April 23rd:
N 20 deg 45' 26.2"; W 105 deg 18' 11.7"

Day 3 and 4 - Birds, Bolts, and Big swells (4/24-25)
People wonder sometimes if we get bored out here at sea with nothing to look at other than the vast blue ocean. So far the answer is no. We adjust the sails, plot our course, watch movies, listen to music, read all the books we never had time for, plus we have a well staffed entertainment team giving us all its attention. The members of this team take care of you in the middle of the night as well as during the day, whenever they feel like it. And yes they are seabirds. The rules of the show go like this. Seabird scores points when he/she is able to land anywhere on the boat. Bow pulpit or dinghy is okay, but spreaders and the top of the mast count double. Bonus points can be achieved by covering as much surface area as possible with fresh guano. The sailor scores points for each abandoned landing attempt, and gets bonus points for the most creative ways to achieve this goal. So far we've had brown boobies and frigate birds visiting us. The brown boobies circle the boat like sharks hunting their prey and come closer with each circle before they go for it. Frigate birds being the more elegant air acrobats only perform one or two flybys before they aim for a spot to land.

Before we left, we prepared our boat for this game and mounted "cable tie spikes" on top of the mast. A brown boobie tried to land there anyway, pushed our small VHF antenna out of the way and touched down right next to the cable tie. However the antenna being flexible snapped right back in place, and scared the brown footed fellow away. One of his mates however, managed later on to land on the bow pulpit and on our dinghy on the foredeck, scoring points. The frigates came during the night and aimed for the mast top. The swells were still pretty high 7-8ft and Green Panther was pitching and rolling, so I am not sure why the birds would like to sit where the motions of the boat are amplified. Our defense strategy was to point our handheld searchlight at them just right before the attempted landing. When timed correctly, the beam of light distracted the frigate enough that she (the birds were females) missed the landing window and had to abort the mission. So points for the sailor here. However we got tired of the game after an hour and the frigates might have tried it again after hours.

Other than that, we did get the predicted NW wind and the large swells of 6-10 ft yesterday. They came with high winds (>25kts) and made for a bumpy ride. We talked to the couple from "Crazy Love" yesterday (they are headed for Hawaii) on the radio and they had an even harder time with the "mini storm" since their 26ft vessel has a low freeboard and its bow got buried in the waves several times. By night time though, the wind died down to 5-10kts, although the swell remained the same, so the ride shifted from bumpy to very roll-y. We're still working on getting used to the different motions!

The not so good news is that our windvane steered very sluggish yesterday. A quick examination revealed that the bolts between the windvane and the metal mounting brackets on the transom were loose, and the locking washers and nuts were gone! We found one spare 7/16 locking nut in our screw collection and could re- tighten at least one of the two bolts. We want to find a second nut or a different bolt before we use the windvane again, so the autopilot does extra shifts now. It is a wonderful thing to have a back-up auto steering method so we don't have to hand steer! We will work on the windvane once the sea calms down a bit.

Position: 19 deg 46'N, 108 deg 29' W

Days 5-7 (4/26-28):
Over the last several days the wind and large swells have found us. Our first couple days we were barely moving along, but now we have had a fairly consistent NW wind blowing. Generally the winds have been around 12-15 kts, although sometimes we'll get a few hours of 20+ kt winds. These are not the trades yet, but rather the remnants of systems moving down from the California coast. The wind below 20 kts is great, but when it gets much stronger, it is too much for our autopilot to handle so we end up hand steering. We are hoping at some point the swells will die down a bit so we can try to temporarily secure the bolts better on our wind vane. Then we won't have to depend on our autopilot so much and risk burning it out. Along with the wind, the swells have also increased and are not so much fun. For the last several days we've been averaging about 10 ft swells. When the wind picks up, these swells start forming whitecaps and occasionally we'll get some of the spray blowing over our boat. The worst part of the swells though is the uncomfortable rolling motion. As swells go under us, or hit us from the side, we can roll from a 45 degree angle on the port side to a 45 degree angle on the starboard side. This makes walking, cooking, and doing pretty much anything other than sitting at the wheel or lying down and sleeping, very difficult. As an example, this morning I was making a german pancake with apples for breakfast. I placed the batter on our gimbaled stove so it wouldn't spill. But of course a good sized wave hit us broadside, which made the stove dip very sharply downwards, and the bowl tipped over, spilling half the batter behind the stove. Lesson learned: you can't leave anything unattended on a moving boat, even on a gimbaled stove. For the past few days, we also never quite feel 100%. We aren't really seasick, but if you hang out in the cabin too long trying to cook food or do some other task, you get a headache pretty quick and just feel exhausted.. Hoping we'll either get used to the motion of the swells or the swells will die down soon!

Here is a quick excerpt from our onboard logbook from yesterday, which was the craziest day we had so far:
am: winds with 15-20 kts from NW, genoa furled to towel size, first reef in main
4pm: wind calmed down to below 15kts
5pm: wind blowing again with strong gusts over 20kts , autopilot is overwhelmed, now running downwind with 3rd reef in main, no genoa
8pm: wind calmed down to below 6 kts in last hour, swell is still running at ~10 ft, sails flapping, we bob around like a cork > started engine @ 1500 rpm
9pm: wind from NW ~10 kts, stopped engine, set full genoa, heading 240deg

Our position as of Monday at noon: 17 deg 44'N, 111deg 53'W

Days 8 -9 (April 29th-30th) Good sailing and a day off
The strong winds subsided on day 8 and we finally enjoyed a good day of sailing, well except for the swell which was still running at 8 ft from the NW, but at least the large waves now had more distance between them which makes for a more gentle motion. However, at 11pm, as predicted from our weather reports, the wind decided to take a break. First it calmed down a bit and then there was no movement at all (except for the swells, which of course never go away); it was dead calm. That reminds me to watch Dead Calm the movie again, a great sailing suspense thriller but a bit scary and it makes you think twice before picking up a random dude in the middle of the ocean. Anyway we decided to call it a night, took all the sails down and enjoyed a good night of sleep bobbing along. Yes it was a bit rolly due to the swells, but we were pretty exhausted and slept like stones. We did get up once an hour to check for other boats, but there was nothing out there. Actually we haven't seen another boat for several days now.

The next day was our day off since there was still no wind and no way to steer without turning on the engine (we are trying to save our fuel to get us across the doldrums near the equator). We slept in, enjoyed a nice breakfast and a solar shower on deck. Alena didn't want me to jump into the water because of possible sharks, but I don't think there are more out here than closer to the coast, so I am still planning to swim at some point on our trip. We also cleaned the boat and had time for all the tasks we couldn't do when the wind was blowing. We started our water maker and after finding another air leak and replacing another o-ring, it did what it was supposed to do: make drinking water out of seawater! Also I had time to fix our wind vane mount and after a long search in the darkest corners of the boat I finally found a nut which fit the loose bolt. Another problem was to straighten out the wind vane again since it shifted backwards when the bolts got loose. Our Aries wind vane is a heavy beast but with the help of both winches I managed to pull the vane towards the transom, straighten it out just right, and secure the bolts. We'll have to wait a few days to test it though, since there are only very light winds in the forecast. Also I ran a few more lines today and mounted our big spinnaker pole. The pole holds up our jib sail in light winds, and should be very useful once we finally reach the trade winds. In fact it is doing just that right now while we have our happy hour of Pacifico and popcorn.

Current position: 16 deg 22' N, 113 deg 42' W

Days 10 - 12 (May 1st-3rd)
For the last 4 days we have been becalmed, meaning there has been almost no wind at all. In this time we traveled a whopping 84 nm, or about 21 nm per day. In total, we have only traveled about 600 of the 3000 nm we need to reach the Marquesas. At this rate, we'll be lucky to reach the Marquesas in 4 months, let alone 4 weeks. :) And no we are not in the doldrums yet, we just hit a calm patch. We are not motoring because we really want to save our fuel for the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ aka doldrums) where besides no wind there are also lightening storms. So for the time being, we are making the best of peacefully bobbing along the ocean.

This interlude has actually been quite nice. The swell has died down to 3 to 5ft, so the motion is more smooth and it almost feels like we are at anchor. The days are sunny and warm (mid 80s) and the ocean is a gorgeous deep royal blue. At night, because there is barely any wind, we just let the boat drift (checking outside about once an hour) and are each getting a full night's rest. We've made water twice in the last four days and have a full water tank. We've also had showers twice in the last four days, so are squeaky clean by cruising standards. With the conditions so calm, I've also been able to make some proper meals and bake bread and cinnamon rolls. And last night we even had an outdoor movie night with popcorn, smoked salmon dip and chocolate pudding. As a result, we are feeling completely relaxed and re-charged for whenever the wind decides to come back.

Another nice thing about having so much free time on our hands is we finally have time to do things we've put off in favor of boat projects. For Chris, this is learning how to use his new GoPro camera and starting to read some of our cruising guides for the Marquesas. For me, I finally started growing sprouts with this awesome sprout kit my friend Cynthia got us before we left. Now that our produce is starting to run low, it will be great to still have some veggies! The first crop should be ready in 2 more days. I also started learning to use a sextant to determine our latitude and longitude. In the days before GPS, this was how mariners determined their position. In case something happens to all of our GPSs onboard, I figured it would be good to know how to use this (not to mention that it is a fun exercise)! My first attempt today with 3 daytime fixes of the sun was about 150 nm off from our actual position, but I'm hopeful with a couple more fixes, and maybe some nighttime fixes on stars, I can get a bit more accurate. Thank you very much to my old boss Skyli for the great sextant and CelestiComp calculator!

Anyway, although this becalming has been quite pleasant, it does appear we will be back on our way soon. The latest weather files show an east wind should start blowing about 5-7 knots tomorrow and changing to a NW wind at 10-12 knots by Monday. Hopefully this will finally carry us into the Trades!

Current position:
15°04' N, 114°24' W

You can also follow our progress via the Pacific Seafarer's Net with our HAM call sign KG7GAM: http://www.pangolin.co.nz/xtras/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KG7GAM or http://sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=KG7GAM.

Days 13-14 (May 4 - 5) A hitchhiker
The last two days finally brought some wind and we are moving a bit faster towards the southwest. We are now two weeks into the crossing and have traveled almost 900 miles. Our first week was slow because rough weather meant we had to reef our sails to keep the boat under control, and our second week was even slower with dead calm to very light winds. Thus, we estimate it will take us about 5 weeks for the entire journey to the Marquesas, but we'll take it day by day.

Alena was on watch at about 3:30 am yesterday night when I saw her frantically closing all our portholes. "Rain?" I asked still very sleepy. "It's pouring!" was the short answer, so I jumped up and installed our acrylic window in the companionway door. We left a gap open so we could see and hear our autopilot performing its duty in the downpour while we were snug inside. Our only worry was that we might hit a squall with high winds in which case we would have to get up there to reef our genoa, but fortunately the wind remained pretty constant.

"We also got our first flying fish, it landed in the cockpit and got stuck behind the rescue ring. It arrived just before the rain hit. And by the way it's your watch now." Alena smiled and handed me the flashlight for the cockpit. I checked my watch and she was right, of course. After the worst of the downpour was over, I stepped outside to check on the autopilot, scan the surroundings, and take care of the flying fish so it wouldn't be a stinky mess in the morning. Shining the flashlight on the cockpit floor I could see two long fins sticking out behind the rescue ring. I wasn't sure if it was still alive, so I carefully pulled on one of the fins and was surprised to pull out two wings and a tail covered with black feathers. This little fellow, was actually a tiny bird which most likely got surprised by the rain. We do have a strict no seabird policy on board ;-), but this tiny, exhausted and wet bird was definitely in need of some recovery time, so I gently put him by the steering column, under the cover of the bimini.

The next morning the little bird had wedged itself between the diesel can, a throw cushion and the steering column on the cockpit floor and was fast asleep. He did wake up a few times during the day to look around and to get his feathers in order. He made some progress there but still looked like a little black mess. Anyway we decided to move the little bird, since we were in desperate need of a shower, and the only shower we have is in the cockpit. We made a small nest out of an empty milk carton and some paper towels. The bird didn't like it at first but we covered the "nest" with a rag for sun protection and it settled down. We also provided some oats soaked in water, but they were ignored in the same manner as the dried cranberries soaked in water we tried serving earlier. Our seabird book says it is most likely a species of storm petrel, probably a juvenile since it's only about 12cm long, but there is no info about what they feed on. Maybe insects, which would be bad since that's the type of food we try to keep off the boat.

The end of the hitchhiker story goes like this. There was not much movement during the day in the "nest", but as soon as the sun went down and the clouds had moved in again, a little head poked out under the rag and soon after the petrel awkwardly climbed out. Still a little bit shaky but in much better shape he sat next to me for a few minutes and then spread his wings and tried to fly off - right into the dodger window. His next tries weren't too successful either, so I picked him up and set him on top of the dodger. This time with no obstacles in the way the little petrel flew off and disappeared into the cloudy night sky, the same way he arrived.

Current position:
13° 36' N, 116° 41' W

Day 15-17 (May 6 - 8): Lots of rain and no vane
Our visitor from earlier this week (the storm petrel) turned out to be a harbinger of a shift to more stormy conditions. Instead of our usual sunny weather, for the last three days we've had solid clouds with rain showers off and on all day and night. We also found the Trades finally and as a result have had a strong NE wind blowing about 15 kts. Unfortunately, with the increase in wind, there is also an increase in the swells, which are now about 10 ft. The seas are a steely gray reflection of the clouds and very sloppy with waves coming from multiple directions. Steering the boat in the wind and horizontal rain, I almost feel like I am back home in Oregon (except it is still in the 70s here). The silver lining of all this rough weather is that we are making good speeds - we're averaging about 4.0 to 5.0 kts. The only downside to this is we've been hand steering the entire time and in this swell and weather, it is really exhausting. Oh, and after the three days of rain, all our gear is soaking wet and the cabin is starting to smell like mildew. Yes, the joys of sailing!

So if you've been following our posts, you might wonder why we haven't been using our wind vane? The first day of strong winds Chris tested it out for most of the day. The problem seems to be that we are sailing dead downwind and as a result are unable to balance our boat properly. To sail downwind, we have our genoa out (no main), held in place by a boom. Because the sail is only on one side of our boat, our boat is not well balanced, meaning if we were to set the rudder straight, the boat will not stay on a straight course. And for the wind vane to work properly, the boat needs to balanced. Right now, the wind vane has a lot of trouble holding our course; it reacts too slow and ends up steering a very severe zig zag pattern of +/- 40 degrees. The result is a nice slalom course down the waves that would make even the oldest salt seasick.. Our autopilot is not very strong, and not meant for these conditions so for the time being, we are hand steering, like we used too. It definitely makes us appreciate how good we had it when the conditions were calm enough for the autopilot! After these last few days, I am cautiously looking forward to the doldrums where it should be more calm and we can get some rest again;. we should be approaching them in the next 4 to 5 days.

Position on May 8th, 9pm:
11°13' N, 120°49' W

Days 18 to 20 (May 9 -11):: Halfway point and flying fish

The last several days were all pretty much the same. We are doing our 6-hour shifts at the helm, making good use of the 10-15 kts of wind blowing day and night, and fighting the 2.0 to 2.5 m swell that comes with it. I don't think you can really get used to the swells rolling Green Panther from side to side. There is a train of smaller swells and then every few minutes a very large swell hits the boat and slaps us around quite a bit. Thus we follow the good old rule, one hand for you and one hand for the boat. This however makes even simple tasks such as opening a can and pouring the contents in a pot rather challenging. I did manage to make Pullman's Bachelor Deluxe the other day, a mixture of stove top stuffing, chicken, corn, some slices of cheese and this time with some fresh sprouts on top. Alena created some delicious breakfast burritos this morning as well, so we are not starving. Although most of our meals involve canned food, or pasta dishes that only need boiling water added.

We also have frequent visitors on board again, this time of the smelly kind. We are in flying fish territory. The flying fish are silver-blue and can spread their pectoral fins all the way out so that they act as wings. They usually only fly about half a meter above the water, but you can watch them glide for 100 meters or even more. However they can fly higher because every night a few of them manage to land on our boat so we have a flying fish clean up every morning. The largest one we found onboard was about 25 cm and I read that some people ate them while trying to survive in a small life raft at sea. Well you have to be pretty desperate to eat them, because they are the fishiest fish you can imagine. Meaning whenever one of them lands in the cockpit we immediately grab a flashlight and start looking for it to throw back overboard before the fish smell becomes too bad. Apparently cats go crazy for them - yes we met cruisers who brought their cat all the way to French Polynesia, if the cat stays on the boat all the time it is apparently okay.

Finally the good news is that we are about halfway out, having sailed about 1500 nm and having the same distance before us as well. In the next days we will enter the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) also known as the doldrums. At this point we are actually looking forward to a break from wind and especially the swells and we believe we have enough fuel to make it through the ITCZ and into the southern hemisphere. We also learned a few days ago of another sailboat nearby, "Emerald Steel," they left from San Diego bound for the Marquesas as well and are only a few hundred nautical miles behind us. We are in radio contact, but it would be fun to actually see another boat out here.

Finally, we only get a tiny trickle when it comes to international news out here, so I was very excited to hear that Christina Wurst (the bearded lady) won the European song contest "Eurovision 2014" for Austria!

Current position
08°10' N, 125°29' W

Days 21 - 23 (May 12 -14): Doldrums

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, we lost our wind and officially entered the ITCZ, aka the doldrums. We fired up our engine and are currently cruising about 2.0 - 2.5 kts which is the most fuel efficient speed for our boat. Now that the swells have finally started to decrease with the wind, we've been able to recover from the previous week. The first two orders of business were sleep and water. The autopilot is capable of handling the current swell conditions again (they are about 3 -5 ft), so we have been able to sleep and just check the helm every hour. I think we both slept about 14 hours that first day of calmer water! It was wonderful. With the swells down, we were also able to use the watermaker again. For the last couple weeks, the swells were too rough for the watermaker pump to take in saltwater without also taking in air; as a result we were trying to be careful with our water which meant not wasting it for showers and in the last few days, dishes. It was a good thing too, because Sunday our tank did run dry (and of course there was no rain on the horizon). Luckily we have plenty of juice, milk, soda and beer on board, so we weren't in danger of dehydration. Although we were getting pretty smelly and our kitchen sink quickly became a disaster zone. Anyway, after making water both Monday and Tuesday we filled our water tank again, enjoyed nice long cockpit showers, and got the kitchen back in order. I never enjoyed a shower so much or felt so good to be clean again! This is the longest I have ever gone without showering - about 8 days. It reminded me of a children's story where a kid refuses to take a bath and he got so dirty his parents planted seeds on him when he was sleeping. The seeds sprouted and I think that finally convinced the kid to bathe. I feel like we probably could have sprouted seeds ourselves! At least on our heads. Being out at sea for an extended period really makes you appreciate some of the luxuries of land!

Of course now that we can make water again and have showered, it started to pour rain. We are in the midst of some massive rain clouds that seem to stretch the entire length of the ITCZ. So far it has only been rain though, no lightening (knock on wood) so I am perfectly happy with it. If we can get through here with just the rain, I will be thrilled. It's also quite relaxing since we can have the autopilot steer while we stay dry inside our cabin. Besides catching up on sleep, we're also cooking and baking again. We are really appreciative of this break!

Current position:
0639' N, 12610' W

Days 24 - 28 (May 15-18): Still in the doldrums

It's a dark and evil place. The shadows of the night have gained control of the days and no single ray of light is ever allowed to touch the surface of this gray world. No living being, no bird, no fish, no insect inhabits those eternal gray moving hills of water. Endless rain as dense as waterfalls and an unpredictable mixture of dead calms and fierce blows shape this world. However once in a blue moon lonely travelers enter these dark realms in an attempts to cross. Focusing all efforts on finding the shortest way to make it through before the dark spirits poison their soul and keep them trapped forever. For those who make it, the tropical paradise of the southern hemisphere opens their arms and rewards the travelers for the long and treacherous journey.

Maybe we have been on this boat too long already, and maybe we have been listening to too many Dean Koontz audio books. :) Anyway this is my impression of the doldrums so far. In addition we hit some unexpected south winds (15 kts plus) in the last several days which really slowed us down, because south is were we want to go. We switched to motorsailling with the main and genoa up and are beating into the swell and wind waves. We run our engine in low rpms to stretch our diesel longer, so we are slowly creeping south, hoping to exit the doldrums soon.

We also learned that electronics die quickly in the marine environment, especially if you step on them. This happened to my google nexus tablet which flew off the bench when a surprise squall with high winds hit us at night. I rushed through the cockpit to release the sheets so we would not heel over that much and crrrrrrrrack . . The water proof case did not protect against the impact of my feet and now the touch screen has three big cracks and does not respond any more. Another victim was Alena's ipod. We used it a lot during night watches and it seems that the salty air slowly corroded its way through the charging connector and into the guts of the ipod.

We still didn't catch a fish but ran into a fishing vessel called "Amercian Eagle." We chatted a bit with the captain over the VHF radio. The boat is actually from Ecuador with a crew mostly from Portugal and out here to fish for tuna. But as the captain repeated three times during our conversation "there is just too much rain, too much rain now" so they took a break from fishing and just drifted.

That's it for now and we hope we will have escaped the doldrums when we post our next ships log entry!
Our position now:
05 deg 12 min N, 127 deg 23 min W

Days 29 - 32 (May 20-23): Out of the doldrums and at the Equator

The sun is shining,, puffy white clouds dot the blue sky, and a school of about 20 flying fish erupt from a nearby wave crest, veer to the right in synchrony, and disappear into the next wave crest. The petrels and shearwaters dart in and out of the waves as well and occasionally a tropicbird flies by. This is the view from the other side of the doldrums. About two days ago we finally escaped the curtain of solid gray clouds and rain that dog the doldrums and found the stiff SSE wind that marks the start of the Southern Trades. The wind blows between 8-15 kts and with both our mainsail and genoa up we are making between 3.0 to 4.0 kts. With this wind, we were able to clear the final two degrees of latitude remaining in the Northern Hemisphere and today at 12:40pm (Puerto Vallarta time) we crossed into the Southern Hemisphere. It took us almost 32 days to reach the equator, but we finally did it. Now we are on the final stretch - just about 800 miles remaining to the Marquesas!

For boaters, crossing the equator is a special occasion and cause for celebration. One of the most popular ways to mark the occasion seems to be dressing up in Halloween costumes and popping a bottle of champagne. Although we have been saving a bottle of champagne on board, with the constant rolling motion of the boat neither of us has had much taste for alcoholic beverages so we decided to save the champagne for when we reach the Marquesas. Instead in a courageous joint effort last night we baked a chocolate-vanil la marble bundt cake for today's celebration (try mixing a cake by yourself when anything you set down ends up flying in a matter of seconds). The bundt cake fit perfectly since it is actually in the shape of an "O" for zero degrees latitude. We also dressed up a bit; Chris donned his captain's hat and eye patch and I put on a wig from Halloween and we took some silly pictures.

We're both looking forward to finally reaching land again soon and hope to make it in the next 10 days!

Current position::

00.20 S, 131.03 W

Days 33 - 37 May 24-28): In the South Pacific

We saw the island pretty late because it was rather low lying and pretty tiny. When we came closer I noticed that there were a bunch of buildings on it. Actually it was a little strip mall and one of the stores there was grocery outlet. They had a wide selection of fresh vegetables and fruits, a good variety of dairy products and lots of chips and other snack food. I was so happy we could re-supply and have fresh produce again.

This is what Alena explained to me this morning when she described the very exciting dream she'd had last night. Of course there is no island here. However the dream shows that we really learn to appreciate certain things that one takes for granted back home. Fresh fruits and veggies for example. We did stock up on both before we left, but of course they hold up only for a while, and we are underway for 37 days now. Looking at our produce net, there is only one apple left, 4 bunches of garlic and some limes. We also grow sprouts which helps, but it is about time that we hit land. :-)

We are already south of the equator and have about 400 nm to go, which means about 5 to 6 days of sailing before we hit the Marquesas. Our speed will depend mainly on how much we have to beat into wind and swells to make our way south. The good news is that our windvane finally cooperates, with the main in the 3rd reef to balance the full close-hauled genoa. The vane has been holding Green Panther on an okay course for the last 300 nm. This makes it much easier on us, especially at night, because now we only need to check our course and sweep the horizon once in a while and can read, relax, cook, clean, and watch movies between checks. However, most tasks such as cooking and cleaning are quite challenging with the boat's constant and unpredictable lurching back and forth; we are both looking forward to finding a stable anchorage soon. It has been a long trip and we can't wait to see the Marquesas in a few days!

Days 38 - 41: An island!

We are now a scant 30 nm from our destination, Hiva Oa. A couple hours ago I was sitting in the cockpit reading, when Chris came out to get some fresh air. As he was scanning the horizon he exclaimed "I think I see an island!" I got up to stand next to him, and sure enough from the haze of clouds on the horizon emerged a large, although faint, light grey hilly shape. After 41 days at sea, it feels like ages since we've seen anything on the horizon, apart from the odd fishing vessel. It is hard to believe we will finally get to rest soon and walk on land again! The only downside is at our current speed of 4.5 kts, we will reach Hiva Oa in the wee hours of the morning. So now, after so many weeks of trying to go faster, we are trying to reduce our speed so we will arrive in daylight.

Now that we are actually in sight of land I can't help but fantasize about what the next few days will bring, such as: a full night's sleep, an end to the low level seasickness I feel most every day, being able to do normal tasks again without difficulty such as cooking, cleaning, and walking, having clean laundry, tasting fresh fruit and ice cream again, walking on stable ground, seeing green plants and trees, and much more. At any rate, by this time tomorrow, we should be anchored and will hopefully get to see some of our fantasies come to fruition!

Current position:
09°40' S
138°31' W

Comments

+1 #8 Holden 2014-06-21 03:06

My husband and I are preparing to live aboard in a few weeks, and we found your blog to be inspiring and fun. I don't know that we'll ever be able to make such a great trip, but cheers to you for doing it!

+1 #7 Roy Wessbecher 2014-05-31 20:08

I had a Monitor vane and attached a small push-rod autopilot to the vane counter-weight. In my opinion it's the only way to go on a Columbia 34 MKII. (The concept should work with any vane.)

Keep up your spirits - you're almost there!

0 #6 Althea Pribyl 2014-05-30 16:39

(The blog is on strike again, so here's the latest post..--Althea)

Days 33 - 37 May 24-28): In the South Pacific

We saw the island pretty late because it was rather low lying and pretty tiny. When we came closer I noticed that there were a bunch of buildings on it. Actually it was a little strip mall and one of the stores there was grocery outlet. They had a wide selection of fresh vegetables and fruits, a good variety of dairy products and lots of chips and other snack food. I was so happy we could re-supply and have fresh produce again.

This is what Alena explained to me this morning when she described the very exciting dream she'd had last night. Of course there is no island here. However the dream shows that we really learn to appreciate certain things that one takes for granted back home. Fresh fruits and veggies for example. We did stock up on both before we left, but of course they hold up only for a while, and we are underway for 37 days now. Looking at our produce net, there is only one apple left, 4 bunches of garlic and some limes. We also grow sprouts which helps, but it is about time that we hit land. :-)

+1 #5 Patrick Schwientek 2014-05-28 00:57

Hey cruisers,

I am crossing fingers that the second half of your journey will be as smooth as the first one, and that you have less swells ;-)

Keep up the great postings, I enjoy reading them and seeing the awesome pictures!

Best,
Patrick

0 #4 Lora 2014-05-18 03:21

wow....

0 #3 Larry B 2014-05-17 04:27

So cool about the bioluminescence around the school of fish! That's some wave motion you were talking about. Bummer about the balky wind vane—wish us landlubbers could air-drop some spare parts to you, Hunger Games-styel. The petrel story was great.

Thanks for sending the tracking link—really neat to see your position live.

Having fun with more citizen lobbying over here. Also recently went north to Anderson Valley for camping, beer, disc golf, wine tasting, and s'mores.

All the best!

+1 #2 Bernhard 2014-04-27 21:01

Hi, nochwas: geht das eure Position auf der Route zu aktualisieren?
VIEL GLÜCK!
Lg,

+1 #1 Bernhard 2014-04-27 19:50

Viel Spass beim Vögel - vertreiben! Dieses Problem muss sich doch mit zunehmender Entfernung von selbst lösen, oder??
Wir fiebern mit euch mit - und warten schon gespannt auf eure nächsten Erlebnisse!!
Lg, BGDM

The Crossing

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