Latitude: 09 54.583 N
Longitude: 122 01.316 W
Conditions: Warm (80 degrees at midnight), humid (60%), a breeze of 15 knots, sea swells 8-9 feet
At midnight, last night we marked 2 weeks at sea. As we begin our third week this morning, are odometer indicates that we have traveled 1,386 miles. We are 1112 miles from Puerto Vallarta. As you can see, our distance traveled is greater than the rumb line to our current postion. If we followed a rumb line (direct angle from our current postion to Hiva Oa), we are 1580 miles away from the Marquesas. We wish it were that direct, but the wind direction, speed, and wave/swell intensity and direction from moment to moment determines our course. We are a little disappointed that we haven't covered more ground, but hope once we have passed through the ITCZ, we can pickup some south east trades. We are within 5 degrees now of being in the "doldrums". The forecast actually looks like we might have some winds, and the squalls do not look as intense as they have been. We hope this pattern continues. We've been saving our fuel for powering us through this area if we get stuck. When we were planning to leave on March 31, we estimated that we would arrive in Hiva Oa around April 28 (29 days). Seems like this was pretty realistic. Since we left a week later, we will probably arrive in Hiva Oa late in the first week of May.
Our first week was marked by very little wind and of course very little progress. Our second weeks has been better in terms of speed and direction, but the following seas when we are running downwind, wing on wing have not been consistent. Sometimes they follow from directly behind us which is nice ride when they aren't too big, but they also are coming from our port stern quarter and our starboard stern quarter. This direction and sail configuration, rocks the boat continuously 30 degrees starboard to upright to 30 degrees port. The rocking continuously fills one sail and spills the other. This motion makes every activity on the boat a challenge. Garyn fixed lunch yesterday and before he could get it up to the saloon it all landed on the floor. Food preparation has led to a lot of stuff sliding across the counter and diving through the gap area of our gimbaled stove. There's probably a couple of meals sliding around underneath.
Our fresh fruits and vegetables are being consumed and will probably be depleted by the end of the third week. Then we will move to the canned fruits and veggies. The refrigerated lettuce, broccoli, spinach, and celery have held up well. The slightly green tomatoes, potatoes, and jicama have done well in the hold so far. The peppers,lemons, carrots and cabbage have not fared well without refrigeration, but the mandarins, grapefruits, apples, and limes have. As the frig has been freed up, I have been transferring some of the wilting stuff in.
I had the dawn watch today. The sky started to lighten about 5:30. By 6:00 it was apparent that we were going to be introduced to our first squall. A very dark black cloud was on our port quarter dipping its many tentacles into the sea obscuring the sunrise. I flipped on the radar and sure enough, we had an image of the squall sneaking up on us. I woke up the guys and we got into our harnesses, went out side, took down the wing on wing configuration, turned into the wind and ran on a beam reach with just the main, and closed all of the hatches. Fortunately, this little squall was a good drill for us. Retrospectively, when we turned upwind, it took us off course and slowed us way down. We should have done a controlled gybe and will give that a try next time if presented with a similar situation.
The squall ran past, spitting water from its clouds, just enough to cool us off and wash down the boat a bit. With the black cloud now in front of us and to the starboard side, our wind direction had shifted making it possible for us to run with gennaker on a broad reach if we gybed. So we did. As I write this paragraph we are flying between 6 and 7 knots about 230 (southwest) towards our next mark. Our plan was to do a left turn dog leg at 125, but we are cutting the corner a bit.
Time for a nap. Garyn and Russ are watching Genny and Hydie for awhile.
We have now dropped below latitude 10. We had a little excitement this afternoon as we came off a wave and rocked too far to starboard and back throwing the bow of the about just enough to go down wind long enough for the gennaker to wrap on itself. We knew what to do. I took the helm and purposely put the gennaker in the wind shadow behind the main. Russ released the line and Garyn pulled down the sock to extinguish the twisting sail. After Genny was down, they worked on taking out the twist and bagging her for the time being. We are now sailing wtih main and jib on a beam reach, heading a little more west than south, but the boat is much more comfortable for all of us on this tack and as evening approaches we have more manueverablity with this sail combination of a squall comes up. According to our grib charts, the wind is supposed to practically die tonight. We'll see. Garyn is napping as he has first watch tonight. There are a lot of clouds so I doubt whether we will see much of the moon. Russ has KP in the galley and dawn watch. Moi....to bed to bed for the whole night.
All is well on Worrall Wind.
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