Pacific Crossing - Week 3
Day 15. (Sunday 2 April)
Light / no wind, sunny, long low swell.
“I can’t take it anymore, it’s doing my fucking head in!”
The ideal wind which had blissfully glided us along all day yesterday slowly faded off during my night shift last night. This left a tired Chez, starting her shift at 2:30am with a setting moon, barely a whisper of wind and a torturously annoying brain and rigging rattling swell. That rattle, while not actually increasing through the night, is like a dripping Chinese water torture - it does not relent. The swell continued and the wind faded to nothing. She did well to coax some movement in the right direction, however, by 9am, frustration and a nasty headache had her coming below for a break. Not really a break though, just a change of scenery, as the movement and noise is no better below.
….anyway: Good morning!
Sun’s shining, the two boobies who rode the bow last night are still there doing a core workout as the boat rocks them back and forth. No ships, land or anything other than water and sky as far as the eye can see again.
The spinnaker is back to its usual operation around lunchtime: ie. doesn’t fly - there isn’t even enough wind for that. So we’re back to waiting, conserving diesel and bobbing. Had we known that the conditions were to be quite so benign here in the Pacific, we probably wouldn’t have used up all the words for ‘I Spy with my little eye’ on the Atlantic crossing. A line I used back on day 9 of that crossing: ‘A day to be endured rather than enjoyed’ Well today’s another one of those I’m afraid. I’m usually the one to keep morale up and smiles pasted on faces, but I’m - understandably - struggling this time round.
After a day of classic doldrums weather, at quarter to midnight, I finally relent and pop the engine on.
Day 16. (Monday 3 April)
No wind, light, long frequency swell, sunny.
Despite the similar conditions to start the day as we had yesterday - today we’re going to have a better day. I’ve written it down… so it must be true!
The current plan is to bob during daylight - using any wind that comes our way, then motor at night so we can sleep. Within two or three days that SHOULD have us hitting the trade winds, with diesel still in the tank.
I flopped the back step down and had a dip first thing - cool and refreshing.
…and then Predict wind sent us a message saying our monthly subscription payment had not been successful - oh dear, that could be a fairly large spanner in the works if they cut us off: no weather and no communication. Flicked them back a message, we’ll see how that plays out.
Chatted to Lou and Bel mid morning - funeral arrangements for mum are underway, and those two seem to be doing well for now.
Lunchtime, Chez caught sight of something following the boat. It turns out to be the biggest ray we’ve ever seen. Sleek and brown on top, and light turquoise like a spitfire undercarriage below. Wing span of maybe 2.5m, gracefully gliding along behind us checking us out. He’s got a couple of hanger on fish with him - one 30cm stripy black and white, the other maybe 70cm like a small albino shark who remains underneath throughout. The ray stays within 5m of the back of the boat for an hour or so - he must be as fascinated by us as we are of him. It’s another nature visit that I’m very grateful for - an amazing experience to see something so majestic in the wild.
I should also mention that while that beauty was gliding around our stern, a fairly large turtle went by.. a spectacle slightly more exciting than the toilet seat we had floating by a few days ago!
Wait… there’s more.
While writing that - a large (30+) pod of whales comes into view about a mile away on the Portside. What an amazing day for wildlife! That pod turned out to be an inter species party of large pilot whales and very playful jumping dolphins who circled the boat at some distance. I was a little glad the party didn’t come closer; some of the dorsal fins on the whales were bigger than any we’d seen before.
Not much wind at all today, but as I said at the start of the day: a better day today, and it has been.
Now sunset, I plan to bob until midnight then engine SW until dawn on the ongoing hunt for the elusive trade winds…we’ll get you one day!
…and just to finish off what has been an amazing day for wildlife. I had a go at fishing from the stern after dark - there was a brace of mahi mahi hanging around clearly visible in the crystal clear water - the smaller of the two took a nibble when I first dropped the lure in, but showed zero interest after that.
All good. We’re not going hungry just yet.
Day 17. (Tuesday 4 April)
No wind, light, long frequency swell, sunny.
Woke to tears from the Captain. She’s suffering from a dose of ‘Down in the doldrums’ (Compounding frustrations: A lack of wind that seems to follow us like a curse, just finished a good book, unavoidable constant rolly swell, tiredness, rotten limes, Predictiwind payment issues, upset stomach and a morning shart!) There’s also probably 1001 things that don’t immediately spring to my mind, but are no doubt vying for space in hers. I spent the morning buzzing around trying to stay positive… but also struggling a bit myself. We shouldn’t be: the sun is shining, PredictWind are unlikely to cut us off, there’s no storms forecast for the foreseeable future (edit: hmmm), and although we’re using more diesel than we’d like to at this stage, the lower latitudes we’re making for should (SHOULD!!) provide us with the wind to sail. Anyway - she’s gone down for a nap, and will hopefully return with a revitalised brighter attitude a bit later.
I’ve heard the analogy used that ocean crossings are like childbirth - an ordeal, that whilst possibly terrible while they’re underway, will slowly fade from memory and eventually the pain can barely be recalled..then you do it again. I think a lot of what Chez is feeling now, is possibly a throwback to that first Atlantic crossing - there’s a lot of similarities.
All I can do - then and now, is hold her hand and tell her to keep on pushing. The achievement to be looked back on, will, in time, wipe away all the problems and niggles she has currently at the forefront of her mind. Hopefully we can get to a point where our memories of this time are of a blissful, once in a lifetime journey on calm waters, where jumping dolphins, whale song and glorious sunshine are the norm… probably not by the end of the day today though. After four hours of motoring, we do manage to get both sails up and the engine off for a while.
Just a short while..
I then I succumb to a bout of the apparently contagious ‘down in the doldrums’ and spend a large part of the afternoon staring out to sea and thinking dark thoughts.
Chez calls me for something making the rod’s reel squeal close to sunset - sure enough, a little fishy something has bitten the lure.. sadly for me, great for the fish, it got away as I started reeling it in. If I had to guess, from the one jump for freedom it did, I’d say it was a small mahi mahi.
As the sun goes down, the sky in front fills with cloud and takes on the colour of a ripening black eye. We make a 20 degree turn to Starboard to hopefully avoid the worst of it.
It’s now 10pm, dark angry clouds now surround us. There’s an occasional lightening flash that lights the whole sky. I’ve just put the two phones we use for navigation into Tupperwares and put them under the gimballed grill… it’s the closest I can get to a Faraday cage. Really hoping we don’t get struck by lightening, but there’s not that many other tall metal poles around at the moment… There’s no gap between lightening flashes and the rumble of thunder.. oh dear. Then the rain came down hard: we finish this day off with a scary ride on a wet roller coaster!
Day 18. (Wednesday 5 April)
Grey overcast, light wind (on the nose) everything wet. 3m plus swell.
Last night got a little better - at 1am I was able to turn the engine off. The surrounding clouds brought some decent wind with them, which allowed us to keep going in the right direction at around 5knots. I left Chez sleeping after a failed attempt to rouse her at 3. She’s usually wide awake and up and at’em straight away, she must be really tired to be so completely out.
She rose of her own accord shortly after, which coincided with a drop in wind and an increase in rain - not exactly what she needed to cheer her up! I head off to bed at 4:30. By the time I resurface at 9:30, she’s developed something like trench foot from the wet teak to add to her woes!
Its starting to feel like we’re a donkey with a carrot on a stick dangled in front of us.. the right wind is always just a little bit further…
So today, in decidedly rolly seas, we continue motoring, heading SSW to hopefully finally get a decent bite of that windy carrot a little later today or tomorrow.
It’s 3pm, I’ve just come down for a nap - up on deck we do seem to have finally found a little pocket of decent wind to use. Since midday, we’ve been whipping along close hauled at around 5-6 knots.. very pleasant. …and ditto until sunset. It makes such a difference to the mood on the boat - both agree: today was a ‘This is what we signed up for’ day.
Had a massive, I don’t know what on the rod just as we sat down to dinner - struggled to reel it in, then whatever it was got away as it was within 20m of the boat. Oh well.. at least there’s fish out there.
Day 19. (Thursday 6 April)
Grey overcast, warm and breezy, light (1m) swell.
After a day of ‘This is what we signed up for’ yesterday.. happy to report that as I rose, we are still sailing along nicely. A mid morning squall came through - thankfully arriving just after I’d sewn up the hole in the cockpit roof. This also gave Chez - who was napping at the time - time to jump from her bed and rapidly wash some tea towels in the free fresh water provided.
It’s amazing the change in conditions we’ve had in just a few short days - glass smooth sea with not a cloud above, to large swell, squalls and bruised clouds all around.
One of the rods gave a squeal in the afternoon. Something big.. I could barely hold on, let alone get a turn on the reel to start bringing in whatever monster was at the other end. After 5 minutes of making no headway with it, I did eventually manage to wind a couple of turns on the reel before the inevitable slackening of line. Whatever it was, lives to fight another day - the good news from this incident is that my lure, the wire leader and all the knots in between were up to the task. That’s three bites in three days (none actually caught though).. but it does show there’s definitely some big fish out there… and one inept fisherman at the other end!!
As the sky darkened at sunset, promising an ‘interesting’ night, the same rod squealed again. This time successfully; a fish within the acceptable range - ie. one I was capable of actually winding in and landing. It’s a skipjack tuna - dinner for two sized. As I got it near the boat, something big, perhaps a shark or just a significantly bigger fish had a jump at it. Great to see, and I reeled a bit faster to make sure it was us who got dinner and not whatever it was. As I said earlier today: there’s definitely fish down there!
Had an intense long lasting squall come through after Chez went to bed (definitely not to sleep!). It slapped us around quite a bit and pretty hard. Initially as the first of the purple/black clouds went over there was an accompany freezing wind which I hadn’t experienced before - little bit terrified to tell you the truth. There is however no getting off the ride, so in the absence of anything better, I went with the grin and bear it option. The next few hours were jaw and gut clenchingly intense. If there are any positives to take from such a night: it definitely got our average speed up for the day!!
…and another Neptune / Odyssey style update:
‘Blearily realising he’d overslept, Neptune jumped from his bed, tripped on his trident and landed beard first in his cat’s water bowl.
Raging, he stood, violently snatched up his trident and slammed it into the floor with enough force to shake the world.
Those unlucky few mariners who’d foolishly been wishing for more wind were overpaid tenfold.
The cat meowed.’
- Richy King 2023
Day 20 (Friday 7 April)
Clouds burning off to blue, long frequency 3m swell, 8-10knots from South.
Chatting about how to describe last night, I think the best we can come up with is: we survived. That was a nasty one, up there with our worst yet. Come this morning - things have calmed for now, still surrounded by threatening clouds initially, but we’re OK for the moment. We’re sailing and heading in roughly the right direction (Westish) - it’s going to be a good day. Good Friday in fact! Some blue showing through in the sky by 10am 
By lunchtime the wind has weakened, it’s proper rolly, the sails are flapping and a’cracking and the associated sighs turn the day into more of a Mediocre Friday than good one - hoping we don’t descend any further than that.
The second tuna in two days foolishly decided that my lure would be a good one to take a bite out of. Landed, cleaned and filleted in 5 minutes. Once again, a right sized fish for us: a yellowfin tuna this time - enough for 2 good meals. Chez has just shown me a video of me landing the one yesterday:
As I hop it on board, I use the line: “Come here you appropriately sized beauty”
For nightshift we reset the clocks back an hour.. SNT (Serenity Now Time). I’m treated to an hour of utter darkness between the sun setting in the West and the fullish waning moon coming up in the East. This allows a full salting of stars to show above (thankfully a lot less cloud tonight!) and a trail of phosphorescence below - truely beautiful. Also, after a day of flapping, the wind has increased just enough to keep the sails full despite the side on swell - it makes such a difference to the ride.
Day 21. (Saturday April 
Grey sky, drizzle, barely enough wind to move us flappily forward.
Kicked the day off with a nice fried brekkie - a bit difficult to eat in the side on swell, but it was enjoyed by both of us all the same.
Saw our first other boat in a few days: ‘Chang Shun Seven’ - a large red fishing vessel. Didn’t come overly close, just a couple of miles away - but it’s good to know there’s someone else out there.
Spinnaker up, spinnaker down - enough said.
Barely any wind other than an hour or so around midday, it looks like we might have another mentally sapping day on our hands.
Had a bit of a cry… it’s not a good day.
As the wind further dropped, so did our spirits, and we had a low level barney. I’m sorry to say, I started (…or perhaps continued) to go a bit mental.
As of today: 8th April 2023 I’m done.
Get the boat back to Aus and sell it.
I’m ready for the next chapter. Might have a change of heart further down the line - but for now, as I say: I’m done.
..oh and let’s finish off this happy end of the third week post by saying there’s yet again storm clouds gathering at sunset….FFS!!
..no let’s not finish there.. that’s as bad as starting with vultures!
Let’s finish up by saying the tuna caught last night tasted wonderful in a Thai inspired dish with garlic, ginger, chilli, and coconut cream - rice on the side. That’s how we end week 3!
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