Tag Archives: Marquesas

5. Panama to Tahiti

Seeking Trade Winds

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PLEASE NOTE: This post belongs after “Westward to Distant Marquesas” and before “Broken Shroud.”

This passage isn’t going the way I pictured it. No surprise, right? None of the places we’ve visited have matched my preconceived notions of what they’d be like. But I’ve crossed oceans before, so I thought I knew what to expect at sea. After a few hundred miles sailing or motoring SW from the Galapagos, we should hit constant trade winds of about 15 knots, and be zipping along on a broad reach under spinnaker for the last two-thirds of the trip. We’re going into our sixth day, and we’re still looking for that constant trade wind, and we have yet to set a spinnaker. Right now we have about 10 knots, from the expected SE. But for much of the day we had 7 or 8 knots — very light. Plus patches where it changes 45 degrees and/or nearly stops blowing. What’s happened to the trade winds!?

And what should our strategy be to make the most of the situation? The wind is generally stronger further south. And when the wind is light, we sail fastest on a close reach — going across the wind rather than with it. So we’ve been continuing to sail SW, beyond what we had planned. Getting more South, and keeping our boat speed up. We are now south of the two boats ahead of us. Soon we will have to turn west for the Marquesas. Will our additional “southing” give us a payoff, or are we simply sailing unnecessary added distance?

We make our guesses about the trade-offs based on “grib files” — wind predictions that we receive via the SSB radio, in a .GRB file format. I don’t remember what GRB stands for, if anything. A file is very slowly coming in over the radio now, as I write, but the software estimates it will take another 35 minutes to completely receive it. It will show wind predictions every six hours for the next two days. Based on what, I honestly don’t know! How much data is available, and how much is interpolation? [We have a drifter buoy aboard, that we will be deploying when we get to 108 degrees west longitude. That will add one more data point. Other BPO boats are deploying buoys at various longitudes, but still there can’t be all that many buoys transmitting weather data…]

Based on the previous grib files from the previous two mornings, we expect to see a trough of confused and light winds to our north, and gradually stronger winds as one moves further south and west from there. Two days ago it looked like we were far enough south to avoid the messy area. Yesterday it appeared that we would have to get further south. Today…we’ll know soon.

Jimmy Cornell likes to say that GRB stands for “garbage,” and we should ignore these predictions. Or at least not “outsmart” ourselves by taking the predictions too seriously, and making course changes on account of them. Yet that is what we’re doing, and so far the gribs have been helpful. We’ll see over the next few days if our southing has a payoff…

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
——-
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!