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5. Panama to Tahiti

Halfway Day

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Today, Day 10, around dinner time, we crossed the half way point. To celebrate, we made a coconut carrot cake (with no recipe — why don’t we have a cookbook on board…?), which was delicious.

It’s been a beautiful day, the breeze a little cool, the blues of the ocean and sky seeming to have extra richness. The wind has been light. These light winds can be frustrating, but today I didn’t much care, as it was a joy just to be gliding smoothly along at a tranquil six knots.

Tim took the relative calm as an opportunity to work on our port engine, which acted up the day we left the Galapagos. (We had a two minute conversation about turning back, but we figured we didn’t really need the engine for the ensuing three weeks, and repairs in French Polynesia seem equally plausible as repairs in the Galapagos.) We have diesel getting into the engine oil. Our hypothesis is that the fuel lift pump diaphram has failed (a common problem, according to our Calder reference book). We have a spare, and switching to the spare was Tim’s project today. He seems to have been successful, but it will be another day for the gasket goo to harden before we can try it. He couldn’t detect any problem with the old pump that he removed though, so we may need another hypothesis…

Bill took the relative calm as an opportunity to put an adhesive patch on our torn screecher. We’ve been using the big sail in stronger winds than it was designed for, and we got a two foot long tear in it. Now it is patched, but we’re not sure how strong the patch adhesive will be, so we will only be using the sail in very light winds. (Our winds are mostly light, but they come and go. When they come, they tend to be too much for the screecher.)

I baked bread and the Halfway Cake.

Being half way it was Bill’s opportunity to say if he wanted to switch night watches with me, so he could do the early watch, and I take on the middle of the night watch. But he says he is happy with the present schedule, which suits me just fine.

So I’m on my night watch (now 7:30 – 11:30 by our local “boat time”). And it’s a beautiful night. Just enough chill in the wind for a fleece over the T-shirt/shorts. Intense stars. No moon. Venus low in the western sky casting a reflected glow on the ocean. The bowl of the big dipper pointing toward the North Star, now well below our horizon. Opposite it the Southern Cross pointing at the empty space where the “South Star” would be if there was one. The Milky Way rather dim in the north, and growing brighter in the south, and brightest just before the Southern Cross, then petering out at our southern horizon. And what’s that faint glow about 20 degrees west of the Milky Way, and maybe 20 degrees away from the south celestial pole — no individual stars there but a definite patch of lightness? It must be a cluster of an unimaginable number of stars, and unimaginable distance away…?

An occasional shooting star. Not many, though. And THERE, a star is moving! A satellite heading south right past Orion’s belt. Funny how it is hard to spot satellites, but then suddenly one jumps out at you. At least, that’s my experience. This one passes behind the jib. I don’t want to move from my reclined position on the cockpit seat, so I wait what I estimate is the right interval and then try to find it again on the other side of the jib. But even when I know it must be there, I can’t spot it.

While thinking of things celestial, it is equinox time, which drives home the point that we will increasingly be looking to the north at the sun. Disorienting for a Northerner like me!

5. Panama to Tahiti

Cookies

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Cookies
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Fresh food and a hot shower. From past experience, these are the things I have missed after a week or so at sea, that were the plus side of arriving somewhere. If not for those benefits, I’d have preferred that the passage not end.

And these benefits are calling to me now. But their song is not so compelling as in the past. The reason is that we have amenities that I’ve never had on my boats before: a refrigerator, a freezer, and a water maker. Okay, I’ve had a fridge on past boats, but never one that we relied on for an ocean crossing.

It’s true that we are running out of fresh fruits and vegetables. But our freezer is well stocked with meats and cheese. We have fresh baked bread. We have cold beer and soft drinks. Sure, a good dinner at a restaurant sounds delightful, but I wouldn’t trade it for tonight’s beautiful sail under the stars in the warm breeze. I do miss having a regular supply of cookies…

And with a water maker we can use water much more freely than if we were limited to what we started with in our tanks. So we can take showers. Not like showers ashore, but at least a fresh water rinse every couple of days, to get off the salt. It’s wonderful!

So upon completion of our 3,000 miles, will I be happy to arrive, or disappointed that we have to stop? Not sure yet. I suppose it will be both, as in the past. Sorry to see it end, and happy to have cookies!

5. Panama to Tahiti

Westward Toward the Distant Marquesas

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First day out was fantastic. The BPO had a scheduled noon “start,” which I guess was essentially a chance for the shore crew to come out and take photos of the boats. We were anxious to go, and got out to the start at least an hour early. Do we keep going, or wait around? We decided it would be good form to wait, and that gave us a chance to clean most of the crud off our waterline that had accumulated in the dirty Galapagos harbors. But when noon arrived and most of the other boats were still motoring toward the start, up went our sails and off we went. There was a surprisingly pleasant wind, and we made the most of it, staying in front of all but one of the other boats.

It’s not a race, we are frequently reminded, and we remind ourselves. But in fact, for us, it is two races. The most important one is to make the best possible crossing given whatever conditions we encounter. In this race I think we are doing very well. The winds have been unusual/challenging. But we have kept the boat moving nicely, taking advantage of whatever is available, and I can see only minor details (even in retrospect) that we could have done better. Our second race is against the other boats. For starters we want to prove (to ourselves) we are faster under sail than the other catamarans. This is pretty much accomplished already, as they are 60+ miles behind us. But there are two boats ahead of us. Blue Wind is reputed to be a serious racing boat, though I know nothing more about this than seeing how fast they go! Tohawus is a fast cruiser, but is 54 feet long to our 42. We’d like to prove (to ourselves) that we can go faster than they can, in certain conditions. So far we have not found those conditions. We have been going fast, but they have been going equally fast, or slightly faster. They have been about 30 miles ahead of us for the past two days. I think there are conditions (fairly high wind, downwind, where we might be surfing at 13 knots or more) where we could overtake them, but we haven’t had such winds, and I’m not sure if we will on this crossing.

Our second day/night out was more what we expected for the first few hundred miles — very light winds; everybody motoring. Most of the boats go under power at about the same speed, but Tohawus is faster under power, so they pulled ahead. But we stayed in front of the pack, so when the wind came up, we got it before they did. And the wind has gradually increased each day, allowing us to stretch ahead of them (while Tohawus stretched their lead on us). Stay tuned. Check the Cornell Sailing “track the boats” web site to see how we’re doing!

During the day I do a lot of staring at the horizon, half expecting to see something. But there is nothing here but ocean, more ocean, an occasional bird, and lots of flying fish. I did see a whale spout once, but it remained in the distance, taking no interest in us. We haven’t seen another boat since our second day, nor do we expect to at this point. We’ve had a lot of pleasant idle time. I have a book to read, but that feels like a distraction from just sitting and watching the ocean go by.

Life has been pretty smooth aboard. The first days we tend to feel lethargic — just a touch of sea sickness. That is now past, and we have more energy. I started baking bread today, as our bread from the Galapagos has already turned moldy. Mine is a hundred times better than the crap they have there anyway. I don’t understand how such interesting people can put up with such lousy bread!

I’m on my night watch, and it is a black night — no moon, no stars. We are scooting along at 9+ knots with no fuss at all. Very cool that this boat can move like this, though eerie to be speeding into blackness.

I’m very, very happy to be exactly where I am right now! 🙂