Tag Archives: catamaran

140 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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Dangerously close to breaking the 500 miles left barrier. More importantly the first 24 hours of actual sailing. It’s now a thing, complete these last few hours without burning more dinosaur juice.

Wind has been light and shifty all day. Maximum of 10kt, with 30 degree shifts every 10-15 minutes. I’d say fluky winds. One minute you are going off course left, a few minutes later off on the right. Checking your path, you would definitely be pulled over and given a breath test. “No I have not been drinking, officer. I’m just following the wind, I swear. He has been like this all day, honest. You should really see what he is on“

Moon rise, light winds, making it work

We are counting our blessings on making it through the SPCZ thunderstorm alley with nearly no chaos, the one squall that we did encounter, was with sails down so no issue other than a fresh water rinse of the boat.

Next up is the ITCZ. Looks like it’ll start rinsing the boat in just a bit more than 24 hours. With those showers also comes a change in wind direction. Yup, right on the nose. We have been heading a bit farther East to be ready for the wind direction change. Well really, I had been really hoping the forecast would change the North East winds to merely East winds, then it would be a non issue. Doesn’t look to be happening, now that we are a few days out, the forecast should be close to reality.

Stopped into Jason’s Deli (are they still even in business?) for dinner and picked up some loaded baked potatoes for dinner. Loaded with bbq pulled pork. Since we couldn’t source the ‘gigantic’ spuds the Texas chain uses we opted for garden fresh Kamara (Kiwi), Yams (proper English?), Sweet Potato (American).. but these were “Kamala” as they came from the gardens of Gaua, Vanuatu. Yummy..

Left to go, 500 miles

Equator, 75 miles

Diesel burned, 0 liters. And for people from Texas, that is 0 gallons.😎

106 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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Another 24 hours, another 72 liters (19 gallons) of diesel consumed.

It is what it is.. probably did the math another 24 times, and I believe we could continue running the engine at 1800 rpm and still have some fumes in the tanks. Course then why buy a sailboat? Chould have bought a trawler and just motored everywhere. For this passage we wanted an easy passage, wet got it so far. We have have had zero drama, so far. Touch wood.

However, It’s freaking HOT when there is very little wind and it’s 36c. (93F) I feel like we have lost touch with Austin, Texas summers where there would be nearly 100 consecutive days over 40c (100F) .. and still went bike riding. Riding to the pubs but still.

It’s so hot you can just cook on the deck.. so we did!

Solar oven from our friends on Moana.

Instead of adding to the “holy hotness” that is the kitchen, er galley – broke out he solar oven and baked up some fresh bread courtesy of Mr Fireball in the sky. Turned out quite nice, and the kitchen was no hotter than before..

The MOON.. the friggin moon is full of brightness.

Moonrise

Passages are always a planning game, weather, visa, schedules, etc. Being able to include the full moon on a passage is special. The moon lights the way, helps spot ominous looking clouds, and for those prone to seasickness helps keep the horizon level. We have been ahead of most of the clouds and squalls so far, there is some stuff building as we get close to the finish line. No worries, Mr moon should still be there with us. Tho seems like his is sleeping in later and later.

Speaking of where we are, we have between 4 and 6 days left, or another 120 hours if you are keeping track in hours. I used to use day x of passage but then by day 3 I’d forget if I stared day 1 on the day we left or the first complete day of passage, so trying hours this time. There is a little guy on the navigation station that keeps track of hours, so far he is doing a good job.

We have 699 miles to go, so sometime tomorrow will be 1/2 way. The next milestone is the equator, it’s about 270 miles till the toilets start flushing the other way around.

With any luck, we will make some decent time this evening. The wind came up just at dark, meaning its 6knots of breeze. The sails were raised and hopefully they will keep us going through the night and make the journey a little better quicker than under diesel power. Or at least for a little bit.

Just a few nibbles from the chicken of sea, even sailed through a school that were jumping all about. :(. I think Mr Marlin must have actually warned his friends or left that Yelp review.

Butter chicken with fresh baked bread for dinner.

Let us make lemonade

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When Mother Nature decides to not follow the recipe in the forecast and gives you lemons you make lemonade. Though I prefer limes for margaritas. We improvise and make do.

We have plenty of dead dinosaur juice, so we are not winning any “green card” awards today. Maybe 1/2 of one, since we are only running one engine to keep knocking off the miles. The original forecast was for lighter winds at the second half of the journey, but what we have here, is a failure to maintain that end of the bargain. Which is perfectly okay because the waves and swell is down too so it is perfectly comfortable out here in this big blue puddle.

Made the best of it, Christine trimmed up my mullet. I took the trimmers to my mane and coiffed a perfect Kiwi mullet that would have fit in perfectly at “Frings” on a Friday night. She wanted to take pictures for proof, but I declined as I didn’t want to upstage Joe Dirt.

Worked on a little cosmetic gel coat beautification from where we replaced the bathroom accessories.

Found some important missing safety pins (split rings) that keep the mainsail attached to the mast, so replaced the worn and missing split rings. Replaced some aging bungee cords that had long since lost the spring in their step.

Removed the base layer of clothing, yup, the lack of cold southern wind it is warming up nicely.

All in all a very nice day on the water but maybe too productive, will have to find more projects for tomorrow as well since there looks to be another 🦖 burning day.

Under single engine at efficiency speed we only make about 5 kts, while burning 3 liters per hour, so we are not winning any races and the last 250 nm will take 2 more nights on the water before finding a place to drop the hook and clear customs. And of course we want to arrive in daylight hours … just a juggling act, toss em up in the air catch as many variables as you can.