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188 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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Dance party…….

The dance party lasted all night long. The only thing that cleared those pesky red splotches from my screen was day light. And like any good party that lasts till dawn, a mess was left behind. The waves are no longer nice and organized. They too weren’t sure how to handle all those loud windy kids. I can’t believe what they call it music.

All good, daybreak is here. Still playing a bit of dodge boat with the fishing fleet. 3 of the ships are busy laying out fads dead ahead. probably too soon for me to sneak a sweet fish from their “Fish Attracting Device” as we go by. Doesn’t mean I won’t try.

Fads from the mother ships, used to create shelter and attract fish.

Max wind gust with driving rain last night 34, went from 5 knots to cooling breeze, to can’t see a damn thing.

Dance parties are always exhausting, but Christine let me sleep a bunch through this one, she knows I don’t like to dance anyway.

Waiting to see how the wind settles down when the sun is up, will set the sails. Looks like it will be a Wednesday morning arrival. Still have 220nm to go which says ether haul butt and make it tomorrow afternoon, or haul a little less butt and have one more night out to make a nice daylight arrival. Being that there is more light winds in the future forecast, I don’t think we’d make the the 150nm we normally average in a day.. so if we give ourselves 2 days at 125, we have room to spare.

All good on board, boat was nicely rinsed off, but since we will be sailing through the garbage left after the dance, I’m sure we’ll get it all nice and salty today.

180 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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Knocking off the miles, as the forecast said, it would knock us off our route. We had put nearly 40 miles to east in the bank to prepare for being knocked off course. Well that was not enough son!

I have been watching a fishing fleet of 9 or 10 boats, that have been canvasing across our path. Mornings check and they were all traveling west, and just far enough west that with our wind shift we could still stay east of them. All good, decent sailing. That 40 miles to the east.. was quickly depleted as we were being forced to sail a bit west of north. No worries the wind should shift and bring us back the other direction later.

I thought the shortest distance between 2 points was a straight line, but we get to do “S” turns, just to keep it interesting.

Mid after noon, checked up on my fishing fleet.. Damn, if they didn’t do a 180 degree turn, now all 9 of them are crossing our path over the course of 30 miles, or some 5-6 hours of dodging 30 meter long fishing boats towing lines? nets? dunno, but what you gonna do, just aim for them.. they’ll be gone when you get there, at least that’s the way race cars do it.

Fishing fleet

And then the sunsets before crossing our first targets path, just to add to the fun. In the dark we dance!

Then I develop a bad case of acne/pimples/zits all over my screen. I ran to get the clearasil cream, but the rubbing it on the radar screen just made them blurry. As soon as one would go by, another would appear.. So begins the night of dodge squall and dodge fishing fleet, all at the same time. Why does this always happen before a big dance?

Acne

The first squall no problems, we were able to get to the ‘good’ side to go around, its east side. The second one, not so lucky.. took us another 5 miles west with its winds on the ‘bad side’. We have now lost the orginal 40 miles to the east and now another 40 miles to the west of where we want to go. Doh! While deciding how to proceed, lower sails and wake Christine up when it clears up, or take sails down and motor for a bit and wake her to raise the sails. Just then the radar alarm went off again, with another big squall dead ahead. Drop sails, and see how this plays out.

Played out well, next squall brought 34kts of driving rain, and just as we were arriving to the dance The first of the fishing fleet was 4 miles off our starboard, hidden in the driving rain, 8 more to go.

Egg Plant Parmesan from our passage meal collection.

240 miles to go, was going to be a 2 more sleeps till finish kinda pace, but with the current acne issue, might be 3 sleeps, as we will want to arrive in the daylight.. It’s all good.

All good on board if not a bit soggy.. It’ll dry tho…

Off to find more acne medicine, aka Clearasil.

155 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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Wowzers what a day!

Sailing can be fun and today was one of those days. winds and seas cooperated, and even a milestone was achieved.

Another day without the drone of the engine, and the diesel supply remains intact. We have enough fuel if we need to motor the rest of the way, the gauges read 60%, so in the first 5 days, we only used 30% since we left with about 90% full. The math, or the numbers. We hold 800 liters (210 gallons) of diesel in our main tanks. We would normally fill them and 4 jerry cans for a journey like this. let’s say 900 liters. So since each engine consumes about 3 liters per hour, that would be 300 hours (12.5 days). We left with maybe 600 liters, so 200 hours (8.3 days), the journey was starting to look like 10 days or more. Thus the concern, being able to sail for the past 2 days has eased the mathematically minded.

Now back to the specular day.. nice sun, nice breeze, forecast looks good for the rest of the day, and a questionable wind shift materializing with rain a day ahead. That ain’t gonna stop an equator crossing!

Christine was the most productive, our stalk of bananas was quickly becoming too many ripe bananas to swallow. Froze a few (er 20), smashed another 10 and she baked banana muffins, and since the oven was hot she also baked cookies. All this before the equator even suspected we were coming.

Wanting to be the first to spot the equator.. or just relaxing from a busy day. Or waiting on the champagne celebration

I think we surprised the middle of the marble. We had been climbing up from the south quietly but speedy. We had good wind and made better progress and crossed in the daylight hours. Expected a red carpet affair watching the “S” fall over and become a “N” on the GPS. Poof, just like that the toilets flushed the other way around. No carpet, no fan fare, and didn’t even spot the pink tape holding the 2 halves of the globe together.

Shellbacks, pollywogs is what you become for crossing the equator. I was so excited, I was going to order one of those trendy “Sail Naked” t-shirts to mark this occasion but then figured a T-shirt would defeat the purpose of the message.

Cajun pasta from our passage meal collection, with the obligatory copious amount of cookies for desert.

The wind shift started, we are no longer able to make our point of sail, off by 10-15 degrees, so all that easting we did is dwindling rapidly. There are still 400 miles to go, so fingers crossed for a little shaft back in our favor. The forecast doesn’t support it, but you have to think it will happen! All is well on board and with the universe.