Category Archives: Passage

First 24 Hours to Marshalls

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A perfect morning for a sail. A little gray, not too much sun to get sun burnt. Nice gentle breeze, no drama when the sails are up. Still behind the reef so very little waves. Pretty sweet.

Sails up, and off to the races we go. First day, going conservative start with one reef in the main sail, just incase the forecast is a little off. Works perfectly, nice easy sail. As “Lonely Island’s” song goes “Busting 8 knots in my flippy floppies”. Nice start.

Still concerned about the SPCZ thunderstorms that would be ahead, but just as Moses did the red sea, the SPCZ split and left us alone. Warnings to the left of us, and some to the right, but the center was clear. Yippie.

However, the splitting left us with very little wind to sail with so we changed the stereo station from Pop to Country we landed on “Little Big Towns” “Pontoon” with the Chorus .. Motor Boating. For the next few days at least that “Motor boating” song will be stuck in your head and ours as we endure the drone of an engine to make reasonable progress.

The blue zone, comes with perks too. No electrical worries, batteries will be fully charged. Water tanks full, no reason not to run the water maker. Warm water, all the warm water you use.

Glassy conditions, sail ready should the wind show up

The blue zone was in the forecast, it just came a little sooner than hoping and the blue zone has gotten much larger ahead of us. We will not be setting any 24 distance records with just one motor running, we only dropped off a mere 130 nm toward Majuro, Marshall Islands in the first 24 hours.

So all good on the big watery road, a nice chicken peanut curry for dinner. Too many miles left to count…. 😎

Arrived ..

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Anchor is down… breakfast before bed.

Anchor beer.

Blowing snot and big waves for the past 6+ hours. When your 23 knot high wind alarm goes off and you reset it to 30, and it still,goes off. The original 23 alarm seems so benign.

Cheers.

Mystery island is surrounded

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Surrounded in mystery that is for sure, or maybe just clouded in mystery.

Mystery island surrounded by clouds of mystery

Seems Daphne, Fred and the whole gang should be living there somewhere.

Well, morning came we waited still no word about permission to clear in with the cruise ship. Waited still office hours and Christine made some phone calls, and got the ball rolling. Not long after, the approval email came in, excitement was finally here. A destination instead of the unknown floating slowly along in building seas.

Alas, the excitement was short lived. A second email came through 5 minutes later saying disregard the first email and proceed directly to Tanna for customs, stating there is some weather coming on Thursday and the cruise ship stop maybe cancelled.

I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for them “Meddling Kids” (and Mother Nature) in the magical mystery machine van.

Bummer! But still we had a plan, now it was too late to make Tanna, Port Resolution in the day time, so the one more night out still held. We sped the boat up just enough to arrive at day break. The Port Resolution bay looks easily do able in the dark, we are not in that much of a hurry that a couple of hours makes a difference. There are 3 boats there currently, something like 6 left yesterday, so there will be plenty of space to anchor.

We did get caught by a weather trough, that has brought some crazy squalls all day and continues into the night. Gusty winds, near 30 knots and sloppy seas, the only saving grace is we are going with the waves and not into them. We have only a bit of head sail, jib, up and we are getting pushed toward our destination. At times too fast, arrive before sunrise and at times too slow arrive well after lunch. Here is hoping the law of averages works out and we arrive at day break.

During the email exchanges, and organizing customs for us at port resolution, we learn that we will arrive on a holiday and fees are doubled. Doh! So I guess the Vegas house wins again.

It is what it is, and it ps time to put some beer in the fridge so that there is a nice cold anchor beer ready for when we arrive. It might be a breakfast beer, before a long solid sleep. Which might be interrupted by the formalities of clearing into the country.

Anchor down beer

20 miles left