Day 26 - Pacific Crossing - 17th April

[It seems I posted yesterday's blog to myself rather than the blog! So here is what you missed. Today's follows below it.].....

Finally, finally. After twenty something days and with only a few hundred miles left we have gorgeous downwind trade wind conditions. Sparkling sun on big ocean rollers lifting us up and pushing us westward at over six knots. Apart from reefing last night we've barely touched the sails for twenty four hours now. On she rolls rising on each 2m swell and dropping down into the next trough with a twist to wait for the next one.

It's been a day of reflection I guess, a day for lazing naked in the cockpit and a day of very few jobs. This is how the Pacific crossing, The Coconut Run, is sold in all the glossy magazines. Haha, but we know better now! Consequently there is not much to say today although I did call my mum on the satphone this morning. She is getting very old.

We did see another sailing boat on AIS though. The thing is you all start from say the Galapagos with your own course in mind that may vary by several hundred miles or so. So you don't see each other for maybe 2,500 miles. But at the other end you are all aiming for the same place so you come back together again. We saw no boats for weeks and now as we get closer to the Marquesas three in two nights. Last night it was a very nice Outremer catamaran called Wild Thing². Owned by a German family with three children under 12 this is one of the families we climbed the volcano with back in the Galapagos. We had a quick radio exchange with them as they passed us out of sight six miles off our starboard side. Apparently the children are looking forward to running around on land again!

We've seen the ubiquitous flying fish of course. Not so many of the 20cm jobs have flown aboard recently but loads of little 5cm ones. Also one blue footed booby. The return of Baldrick? I think not.

With landfall hopefully only a couple of days away we've started discussing making Mehalah shipshape for our arrival. Plenty to do to tidy up those parts of the boat left exposed after the various incidents earlier in the passage.

And that I think is pretty much it for today. Paul continues to sit quietly on the back of Mehalah with his yellow yin yang paddle steering us unerringly towards Hiva Oa.


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[And here's today's......]


17th April: 16:00 (Add 8 for UTC)
Course needed: 272
Course steered: 269
Speed: average 5.5 knots
Miles sailed: 2955
Miles in last 24 hours: 133
Miles to go: 114
Lat: 9° 57'S
Long: 137° 06'W
Wind: 8-24 apparent, 105 true?
Plan: Sail direct for Hiva Oa (Yeah!)


Well, this MIGHT be the last passage making blog. Gilly especially will be very pleased to be in Hiva Oa. She has had enough. At present we are motoring as we got stuck in a squall system with either no wind or wind in completely the wrong direction.

That meant bringing the sail in. We have perfected our reefing/hoisting/dropping process by adopting the Ramshaw technique when downwind reefing is required. It involves turning the boat towards but not into the wind. Because the sail is prevented out it comes into wind before the boat. Then I just work as though the boat/sail combination was all head to wind. Much quicker and safer than going right round. Much less strain on the rig than doing the whole thing completely downwind. Thanks Peter!

Other than that it's mostly been a day of calculating if we can make it tomorrow or if another night will be required. We are hopeful of making landfall tomorrow. And we have decided to stick with our original plan and head for Hiva Oa one of the official checkin islands.

Our main problem right now is that the celebratory bottle of champagne has been hidden away somewhere and we can't find it. Oh no!

Oh yes. French Polynesia has for some reason decided that they should be nine and a half hours behind UTC! At present we are -8 so we have to lose 1.5 hours (put our clocks back by 90 minutes) sometime. As we are doing complex "when will we get there" calculations anyway we have decided to change the clocks after we anchor. We also have to dig out the yellow quarantine flag and our shiny new French Polynesia, or is it Marquesas, courtesy flag too. And the battle hardened red ensign will also make its reappearance.


email (text only, no pictures) to mvgc3@sailmail.com

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