Day23 - Pacific Crossing - 14th April

14th April: 15:40 (Add 8 for UTC)
Course needed: 269
Course steered: 272
Speed: average 4.9 knots
Miles sailed: 2590
Miles in last 24 hours: 63!
Miles to go: 474
Lat: 9° 47'S
Long: 131° 02'W
Wind: 4 apparent, 10-12 090 true?
Plan: Sail direct for Hiva Oa (Yes!)

We spent the night bobbing around with Paul set to stop the wheel thrashing around in the swell on a mirror flat sea. With 3 knots of wind in the wrong direction we took all sails down and waited. A brief heavy squall came through. I slept deeply for several hours as watch keeping was put on the back burner though Gill stayed up much of the night to watch the stars.

We had a message from Mowser last night to say they were only 250 miles from Hiva Oa but they were also becalmed. Our forecast said it would continue into this afternoon.

But at 6:30 this morning we had 10 knots from the east. We put up the main, yankee and staysail and had breakfast. "Looks like a parasail day Gilly?" So that's what we did on a broad starboard reach all day averaging over 5 knots SOG (6 knots at present) with only about 6 knots of apparent wind. Excellent.

And guess what? Somehow the parasail survived being tangled in the radar dome without damage. We did wonder yesterday how the hell we were going to get it untangled but a quick turn to starboad and it all miraculously untangled itself. We were due a bit of luck!

So up to now absolutely no events of note to report today. The fishing rods are out but no fish. Gill has washed her hair and I've been learning more about the navigation program OpenCPN. UPDATE: 1 small (25cm) unidentified fish caught and returned. Greedy bugger as the lure is 20cm long!


Right. Here it is. Communication with the outside world. There is no internet, no wifi here. We have three devices that give us some connectivity, two via satellite and one via a special long range SSB (single side band radio). As I previously mentioned quite a few boats now have Mr Musk's Starlink which gives fast internet via his satellites. We don't have that.

#1. An InReach machine using the Iridium satellite network. Twice a day we send our position to family and support crew. It also gets picked up by NoForeignLand who provide our position map. It costs £33 a month and we can turn it in and off whenever we want. The daily position reports together with two other fixed messages are free of charge. One InReach can message another free of charge too. Other messages cost extra and it's not an easy system to use. There's also an emergency button that should get things moving.

#2. An Iridium Satellite Phone 9555. Looks like an old fashioned brick mobile phone and is about as user friendly. You buy a SIM for it and then a plan that is hundreds of pounds and it only lasts a certain number of months. But it makes calls to any phone number in the world (using up your credit) or you can send and receive texts to mobiles or email addresses. But the screen is tiny and editing messages is very annoying. We have the UK Coastguard number saved as in case of emergency they would coordinate any rescue. Oh yes, you should be able to send files like the blog using it but the USB connection is stuffed so I can't.

#3. The SSB radio. Almost all boats carry a standard VHF radio for calling the coastguard, talking to the local marina or other boaters. But these will only work over line of sight, maybe 30 miles if you are lucky. The SSB long range radio provides similar capability but over thousands of miles. We use it for two purposes. Firstly we can join "nets" as they are called. Every day on particular frequencies groups can get together to chat. We have been joining the Pacific Voyagers Net most nights. It allows us to report our position and find out where other boats are and whether they have any issues. This net is run out of Santa Cruz, California and boats join each evening from all across the Pacific. Pretty amazing really. But not as amazing as our other use for the SSB radio.

By using a special Pactor modem we can write messages or the blog on our PC, send them via the modem which converts the "Computer" messages into "Radio" messages and on to the SSB radio. From there special software sends the messages to around 20 stations around the world where the messages are converted back to "Computer" messages and sent on to join the normal email system. Clever or what? However like most things radio it's all a bit of a black art. You have to choose the best station (it was Panama, now it's one of two western Pacific stations) to send to in the best frequency at the best time of day (or actually normally the night). Connections speeds, if you can get connected are reminiscent of the modem speeds of the 1980s. It can take anything between 30 seconds and three minutes to send our blog each night. We can also request all sorts of weather info using this system and it is how we receive your, very welcome, messages. Oh yes, the equipment, radio and modem are not cheap (a couple of thousand pounds) but there's usually someone selling a system for a quarter of that. The messaging software known as Sailmail, charge 275 USD a year. You are supposed to only be connected for 90 minutes a month but I think we've exceeded that with no adverse effects si far.

There you go.

Let's hope for an event free night. We've decided to drop the parasail until the morning so in the event the wind picks up we don't have to wrestle with it in the dark.

So that's it for today.

We now have less than 500 miles to go. ETA maybe Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Not long now.


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

Follow us at https://www.noforeignland.com/boat/mehalah/journey

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