Peace!
Thursday, April 7, 2005 at 11AM we left Isla Isabella for what was to be our longest passage to date, and possibly ever. The day was sunny and on the way out we saw a few sea turtles and some dolphins, and we actually had some wind to sail! We started fishing right away, and even had a big tug on the line, but ended up losing our lure, whatever it was must have been big! We had leftover pizza and canned fruit salad for lunch and then settled into what was to become our routine. We tried flying the main and spinnaker in the evening but ended up taking both down and motoring through the night, and ended up keeping it on until midday on day three! The waves were fairly large, but far apart so it was quite rolly without any sail up, but the slapping was too much to handle especially when sleeping. In the afternoon of day two, April 8th there was a solar eclipse, but the sun was so bright it was almost impossible to see, and because of our position we didn’t get the full effect, but still cool! On day three it started raining and the wind finally came up a bit so we were able to sail, but there was a chop within the swell of the waves, making things even more uncomfortable. We quit fishing because neither of us was feeling very well with the roll and chop, and didn’t feel up to killing and gutting a fish. Squalls started moving through during the night, and they kept rolling through for the rest of the passage, although we never once had a squall with any wind in it, only rain! We had heard on the SSB Net that some of the boats ahead of us had squalls with 40 knots of wind, luckily we never did! Day four we noticed that the refrigeration compressor was running all the time, so Jeff changed out the thermostat thinking that was the problem, which it wasn’t. the wind was light so we decided to try the spinnaker, but as soon as we got it set the wind shifted and it started raining, what a way to make a bad mood worse! We retreated below and watched an episode of Family Guy to cheer us up and then I took a nap before making dinner. By 7PM dinner was over and cleaned up and Jeff was in bed, I took the first shift. That night, just before 10PM I noticed that the water was full of phospheresence, and then I noticed that it was moving in patterns- dolphins! I had a few minutes to enjoy them before waking Jeff for his watch, they were playing all around the boat, you could just barely see the outline of their bodies gliding through the water. This experience greatly improved my mood, even if Jeff couldn’t see them.
On April 11th Jeff saw this rainbow (I was sleeping) it was rainy and rolly, but this helped the spirits.
On day six I moved over to the starboard side of the boat to sleep, we were barely heeling so it wasn’t a problem to be without a lee cloth- and I was tired of “hot bunking” there is something to be said for having your own sheet to sleep on! Day six we also passed the 1/4 way mark, which boosted our moods a little bit more, along with the showers we got to take! The sky was still overcast with occasional rain, not so good for the spirits.
Day 7- Wednesday, April 13th we celebrated Parkers (my nephew) birthday with banana pancakes with the super sweet Galapagos bananas- so sweet that syrup was almost not needed! It rained all day again, still waiting for those tradewind conditions! 173 Miles in 24 hours!!! That was our best run to date- between day 7&8, and that was with just a poled out genoa up! The seas were still large and rolly, making life a bit uncomfortable, and the skies still overcast and rainy, but we were moving fast!
Day 9- the tradewinds finally arrive!!! The sun came out and the sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds, no more grey monsters. Today we also noticed that Jeffs bunk was smelling even worse than normal, more than just human stinkyness, so we peeled off his sheets and took the cushion out in the sun- somehow the bottom was all wet! It seems that the water tank that is under the bunk was a bit too full and was coming out of the air vent on top, soaking the cushion and getting really smelly. Jeff washed his sheets and dried out the cushion (its easy to do laundry without the main up, pleanty of room to hang!) the whole boat smelled 100% better after this! We were very glad to figure out where the funk was coming from, no more blaming Jeff. To top off a good day, we caught a fish! We had just barely finished the laundry when there was a bite on the line “fish on!!!” I reeled it in while Jeff got the gaff ready and slowed the boat down- MahiMahi for dinner! It was fairly small, enough for 4 fillets- perfect for us. In the afternoon we put the reefed main back up and rolled in the jib part way, the wind shifted a bit, but it made the motion less rolly so no complaints here!
Saturday the 16th- day 10. We are in a pretty good schedule now, sleeping enough and still managing to do things during the day. Today was hot and sunny, we played scrabble in the cockpit and had shrimp pasta for dinner (yes, we eat well). At 8PM we were only 20 miles from the half way point, that’s a reason to celebrate! Sunday dinner is homemade pizza and a small glass of wine- happy 1/2 way!
Monday, April 18th- day 12. we read most of the day and we both took naps. We were playing a game of Scrabble in the afternoon with a bowl of popcorn when I looked behind us and said “look, it’s the clouds from The Simpsons!” but this is really what the sky looked like for the last two weeks of the passage, the puffy tradewind clouds and blue skies.
One might think that we might get bored at sea for so many days, but really there is something new every day. Take day 13 for example. I was sleeping in my bunk when I woke up to a rancid smell, kind of like apple cider. I looked in the galley and in the nets full of fruit, but couldn’t find the smell. Finally I thought about everything we had stored in the bilge, I followed my nose and pulled up the floorboards right by my bunk, and BINGO. “Uh Jeff, we have a problem, you know that beer in the bilge??” yep, it seems that the Balboa brand beer that we had bought apparently costs less because they use really thin aluminum for the cans, there was beer everywhere! Some of the cans were totally empty, and some were still spraying through pin holes. This was the only brand of beer we ever had a problem with, others were also stored in the bilge with no problem. Anyways, I got a bowl of water and a sponge and started cleaning out the area most affected while Jeff disposed of the cans and got a bucket of seawater. He flushed out the deep bilge with the bucket and then poured some bleach in with it to deal with the smell- I’m glad we found it when we did before there was time for it to mold, which doesn’t take long in the tropics!
Another part of the passage that kept us laughing was Maya, our cat. She is an amazing boat cat, as I’ve mentioned before, but this trip was especially fun with her. The first part of the passage I had her in her harness and on her leash at night because it was rolly and there was no moon, I wanted her to know that we stay in the cockpit at night. When the motion smoothed out I let her off the leash, but kept the harness on her and clipped her in if she got a little too adventuresome. There were times she had us both laughing so hard! One time, I was cooking dinner and had my little galley fan on and she got curious and stuck her paw in the blades, got startled and jumped back, and then did it again! I had to watch whenever I had the fan on because she kept doing it! She was also very curious about the flying fish that landed onboard during the night, she liked to try to get them and bring them below. She only succeeded once, but she put the little bugger in my bed! YUCK! Luckily I put my hand on it while climbing in so I did find it before it had a chance to get stinky. Her favorite place though, was in the net I have hanging nearest the galley, it holds a lot of the everyday things like crackers and cereal etc. Maya takes a running jump and lands with her front paws over the net and swings- once she missed and landed in the sink, thoroughly embarrassed.
(notice Maya just inside the Diesel cans, enjoying the view and waiting for flying fish!)
The wind died on us after 18 days, the last 6 flying the spinnaker non stop, that last night we worked hard trying to keep the boat going without the motor, but after hand trimming the kite all night we gave up and started the engine, at least we kept the boat going! “LAND HO!” on day 19 we finally spotted Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas and we putted our way into the little crowded anchorage at 11PM, almost exactly 19 1/2 days since we left the Galapagos, not too shabby for our little NoNews!
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1 comment:
Love, love, love every word! Thanks so much for the awesome detail. Maya was a charmer, it's easy to see that she made many of the days pleasant. Abby, you need to make this a book!
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