What a difference a day makes.
Van Morrison said “There would be days like this”. Today was pretty much the quintessential big wave sailing day. 4 meter waves, with an actual period between them, so much better then the washing machine of days gone by. With any luck those washing machine memories will be replaced with more of the blue skies and smooth sailing, even if it means climbing mountains all day long.
Winds under 15 knots, clocking from 220 this morning to a fine beam of 170 to our 270 course toward them Gambier islands. Occasional dips into double digit SOG, surfing down the back sides of these horizon eclipsing waves.
Even drug the fishing lines today, no joy so far, but it is a signs of a good easy day. Under 900 miles to go, three apples left, 3 avocados too, so that means 3 more days right? Only in a plane, we are gonna be arriving without apples that’s for sure.
As sun was setting, the all too familiar squirrels (squalls nicknamed on the Pacific Puddle Jump – a group of boats crossing the Pacific each year) reared their heads on the horizon. To avoid the squirrels at night you try and head up wind round them, or since I’m lazy reef, that and there are many this evening. So just at sunset we reefed the main down to second position and no sooner has the sun set, squirrel #1 descended on our position with some rain and some wind, having a little less canvas meant no problems. Adjust for changing wind direction and return to course as soon as we are past this squirrel. Interesting that we used squirrel to mean those stinky creatures that are all over the Galapagos and San Francisco bay. The Galapagos squirrels are also to be avoided as they are stinky and leave presents that no one really ever wants onboard.
Cheers
866 of 1414 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 4/5/2019 @ 2:42 AM UTC Our position: 25°58.56’S, 119°27.99’W Traveling 6.8 heading 290T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-25.97600,-119.46650

Day #4
Break on through to the other side! We ran right smack dab into the weather system that was causing us all the grief for the past couple of days. We haven’t broken free yet, the skys are still gray, and rain is all around. The waves and winds are becoming less chaotic and more synchronized.
Before shaking the reefs out, some long naps were in order to recharge and make sure the weather we were seeing was going to continue. All good since this morning, little motor sailing when the winds went real light, but back on sails alone now that the winds are over consistent above 8knots. Going to be another dark night, clouds, sliver of a moon and a very late moon rise at that.
Its been slow going, hopefully we can get moving a bit better with the improving conditions. Supposed to have some decent wind and weather for a few days. The waves will remain large at 4M, er 12 footers, might still be bouncy.
See the image attached, that rest stuff on the right of the photo is what we were going through. That RED on the bottom is what we were definitely NOT wanting to get involved with. When we left Easter the most comfortable direction was directly west which we would have run right into that big RED. Only spotted that on the weather reports after we had already gone 25 miles toward it. Yikes, thus the next days were trying to head north up that other red zone is where we were getting bounced around a bit.
999 of 1414 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 4/4/2019 @ 2:50 AM UTC Our position: 26°26.43’S, 117°03.76’W Traveling 6.3 heading 283T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-26.44050,-117.06267

Storm on passage to Gambiers

Welp, we are on our way to French Polynesia.
Enjoyed our stay in Easter island. We did not find the Easter Bunny nor a Cadbury Farm, and all the eggs were just the normal brown and white variety. Some interesting Moai and history that is somewhat incomplete and vague.
Our “tourist visas” were up, the port was closed due to weather, there wasn’t any sign the weather was going to get better on the forecast so we managed to find a way ashore and top up the gasoline for the dinghy and honda generator and of course some normal colored real “Easter Eggs” and cleared on out of the country with a destination of Gambier Islands some 1400 miles away.
Forecasts and the fact that the port was closed we strong clues that the wind was strong and coming out of the North. So we raised the main sail in the first reef and slowly peeked past the protection of island to see what we were up against. Perfect 1 reef and just over 20 knots of wind and fingers crossed the waves would mellow out as soon as we got away from the islands shallow spots.
Of course that was not gonna happen. Rocking along for 5 hours getting bounced all over the place the wind picked up some more and that was enough of that, pull down some more sail to the second reef position and slow the boat down and try and pick an angle on the waves that was not as bouncy and that is where we are. Sails are set for 35-40 knots of wind should it come. Boat still moving along decently at 6-7knots, still bouncy and gonna make getting any decent sleep tonight a challenge. Spray from the waves all over the boat, including covering the solar panels some 10+ feet above the water.
12 hours of bouncing done, over 200 more hours to go, hope it smooths out at some point, but the forecast does not support that )*hope*. At one point the GPS said it was going to only take 6 days, but that was when we were rocking along at 9 knots.
Daggerboards down and heading into the wind we go.
1344 of 1414 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 4/1/2019 @ 2:32 AM UTC Our position: 27°23.44’S, 110°43.09’W Traveling 7.0 heading 259T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-27.39067,-110.71817