Well the journey begins well before the passage starts…
Destination researched, formalities discovered, paperwork agonized, meals prepped, boat stocked, safety gear organized, weather scrutinized all leading to sheer chaos or mental madness.
Waiting on clear skies.
This next voyage will commence in a few hours. Some 1300 miles away is Majuro, Marshall Islands. Majuro is nearly due north from where we are in Vanuatu, just across the equator so to speak. To get there we will go through 2 weird weather convergence zones, hopefully we have chosen a decent time cross the ITCZ and SPCZ, places where the weather comes together to argue. Think about it this way, the toilets in the northern hemisphere flush counter clockwise, and in the southern hemisphere flush clockwise. (Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0778446/plotsummary/) We will be trying not to argue with the hemisphere’s choices on the direction of the spin but simply pass through without getting all caught up in their political agendas.
What normally happens in the zones is squalls or no wind.
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.
The painters tape on the jib car worked, the nut came loose again and the painters tape held the sail. 🤪 That’s some magic green tape! (Might actually been the dyneema/ stronger than steel rope behind the tape: but I won’t tell if you don’t)
The morning continued with normal working sails, main sail and jib/genoa. Easy stuff. The mornings weather update showed lighter winds around midday.
The forecast actually showed 2+ days of motoring. Oh well, thems the breaks. Break out the light air sails, the spinnakers.
First up, a trusty white 125m2 spinnaker. Started with this one, to make sure we remembered how. Raised the sail at the top edge of the wind range where we would normally be taking it down. The forecast said it was going to be going lighter. So let’s go, goes up, flies well a couple of bobbles getting it trimmed, but all flying nice. After getting it soaring, the winds were indeed decreasing.
So… let’s fly a bigger one, 170m2.
170m2 parasailor
A fresh, never been flown before. A newer bigger version of the 125m2, what can go wrong?
After a struggle getting it out of the forward hatch, setting up and launching was no problem. A beautiful sail flying in 10 knots of breeze. As luck would have it it’s getting near dark. So decision time for night time sail choice..
As much as I would like to run the spinnaker all night, given the nature of night sailing and dodging squalls it’s got to come down. Return the smaller one to service and set a high wind alarm at 16 knots.
As it gets dark, there goes the alarm..oh it can’t be real, just reset the alarm. Damn went off again, down she comes @ dusk. After getting all squared away, back to working sails. Which eventually get put away in favor of the iron sail. 5 knots of breeze and the swell no sail was going to stay full.
There is going to be a lot of rest in our future as the forecast seemed to forget about the wind in our neck of the ocean.
Butter chicken for dinner while checking into the SSB radio net listening to where the other boats are heading and what kind of conditions they have.
Still knocking out the miles, under 400 miles to go, and Bonus, the lack of Southwest winds, waves are getting smaller AND it’s warming up!
