Pacific Crossing - Week 7

Day 43. (Sunday April 30)

15+ knots, 2m swell, sunny

Welcome to week seven..

Slapped a smile on my face this morning. I spent the first part of this journey telling Chez ‘no one except you can make you happy’ or some such similar waffle.. and I’ve spent the rest of the time not heeding those words at all. So, today: smile on face.. it helps that the wind is finally with us, the sun is shining and we’ve got less than 400 miles to go. Made about 100 nms yesterday - hard to say exactly as Navionics has a habit of crashing, and losing all the tracking detail. Hoping to make slightly further today - we’re going along at a steady 5 at the moment (10:30am)

I’m sacrificing another lure to Neptune today.. I should say: I’m back trying to catch a fish again.. but I think being a realist on that front is fair enough after the amount of success I’ve had thus far. As with the fresh food, I’m now also scraping the very bottom of the barrel of the tackle box - oh well, fingers crossed for a nice mahi mahi that’s the right size to land.

That was most definitely not to be.

Mid afternoon a boobie landed on the cockpit roof, Chez shooed him off, and he fell awkwardly into the lifelines getting his wing trapped on one side and body on the other. After making sure he wasn’t going to stab me with his vicious looking beak, I helped his wing off and then spent the next two hours sitting right next to him and chatting to him like a little baby. Went down for a nap, and woke to ‘You’ve got a fish!’

Oh! If only that were true.. I had in fact caught the boobie, who’d flown off and been tempted by the low skimming lure. Crying (it doesn’t take much at the moment), I wound him the 50m or so in, breaking the reel along the way. I pulled out a seemingly lifeless limp bird, with a three prong hook in it’s mouth and a bloodied chest. After successfully getting the lure out, I literally poured the water out of his drowned body. I then carried him to the side and laid him down to see if there was any life left in him. There was. Still looking very weak and terribly dazed he eventually managed to stand, but only just.

Writing this some 4 hours later.. I can’t bring myself to do what is probably the merciful thing and wring it’s neck. I’m hoping against hope that he comes good, but he’s not showing much in the way of further recovery just yet - fingers crossed for the morning.

Good wind remained with us all day… blimey, feels weird writing that!

Day 44 (Monday May 1)

Strong constant 15/20 knot wind, 3m close sets swell, rolly and sunny.

Mayday Mayday Mayday!

Calm your farm, it is actually May Day..

The 1st May.

The boobie is still with us - but only just. Really think I should have taken care of it as soon as I got it out of the water. Chez is hopeful that it still may perk up, me… not so much.

Made about 135 nms yesterday - a proper days sailing.. Finally!

11:30, the boobie is now preening itself on the Portside, currently in shade. Decided to move it to the sunshine - gentle picked him up, he squaked a bit, showing significantly more vitality than he had for the last few hours. On a whim I threw him skyward off the stern. He flapped once, twice… and flew - last seen about 100m away skimming the surface about a 1m off the water. They usually loop back round and land back on the boat if they are so inclined - he just kept going, suspect he’s had enough of ‘Serenity Now’ for now. Not sure how his life will pan out from here, but I couldn’t sit around watching him potentially die next to me on board. While there was a chance of him coming good, I couldn’t finish him off either.

Hoping that’s the end of the boobie saga.. I’ll hold fire on fishing for a while to be sure he’s gone. Midday: he just did a flyby, but didn’t stop.

Another full day of good strong sailing: making 5+ knots all day in the fairly big rollers. Still seems unreal, but land is actually only 2 days away now - OMG

Had a storm come through around midnight - came to nothing thankfully, jet black clouds, and messed the wind up for a while, but only a bit of light drizzle and the swell actually reduced.

Day 45 (Tuesday May 2)

20 constant, gusting more. 4m swell, overcast.

Well the little baby storm I mentioned last night showed it’s fangs a couple more times during the night: Big, from nowhere, blows banging us off course. Me, springing from bed responding to a call of ‘Richy!’ to go and assist the captain up on deck - who, to be fair, other than being appropriately flustered, did have it pretty much under control. The second one coincided with the sun getting ready to rise, so for the first time in 45 days, today I’m writing this and watching the sun come up.

Popped back below for a few more hours kip.

Looking at the timing of our arrival - it’s going to be dark unless we change something, so we’ve reduced sail and will be tacking for the rest of the journey.

Mid afternoon - the solar arch gave out in the swell: an awful creak and crack - it’s barely hanging on now. Repaired twice so far: Whisper Cove and Shelter Bay. I dare say some wag at the next anchorage will say ‘haha bring on another thousand!’ - well to reiterate my feelings from earlier in the trip: I’m done with all this shit. Someone else can start throwing money at it - not me. Duct tape and lashing will do for now.

Didn’t need that today - I was starting to get a good feeling about the trip as a whole - now as utterly pissed off as I was back in week 3. …oh did I mention PredictWind and the bank are again playing the ‘payment unsuccessful’ game, and that Navionics won’t stay on for more than 5 minutes without crashing. Ahh… this is the life!

I perked up a bit later on - made a tacking plan for the next 2 days for a daylight arrival, had contact with PredictWind, and thought of a decent temporary fix for the solar arch.

Having perked up, storm clouds gathered, swell became the worse sort: low wind, big roll. A decidedly worse for wear Chez rose early, enduring a nasty bout of seasickness as a few squalls came through - intense and short lived thankfully. …oh and I didn’t mention: earlier in the day the swell threw a just made jug of hot coffee onto her lap - mild scolding.. all in all, a fairly crappy day from her perspective. Off to bed at 4.

Day 46 (Wednesday May 3)

Ominously dark clouds and some broken sunshine here and there. 15-20 knots, 25+ gusts when squalls come through. Big 3-4m swell. Uncomfortable ride.

Got up at 7ish, coffee and pancakes with Chez, who is not having the best morning Teary end of passage blues and seasickness, and all the other things I don’t know about.

The tacking plan seems to be on track for the moment.

The bilge pump has kicked in a few times this morning - just for a second or so.. mildy concerning.

Went down for a catch up roll around on the bed… woken to cries a moment later - the final weld on the solar arch having given up the ghost in this constant bloody side to side swell.. there followed a terrifying half hour with me trying to hold on to the arch, Chez holding on to my leg and some serious bodging using thick core electrical flex and duct tape to fashion four flexible joints which might just hold out until we get to land. Shout out to Chez for the leg holding - saved me from going overboard on two occasions as the swell tried its damnedest to throw me off - and in this swell, that definitely equates to saving my life : Thanks Love x

…another tale to tell in years to come.. but for now, just a hand shaking adrenaline come down that has us both a little teary - as I said a few days ago: it doesn’t take much at the moment. After yet another failed nap, I’m called on to further bodge the solar arch - it’s lost all stability, and is rocking around dangerously. I do this by tying a series of lines across the strain points and down onto fixed points on the deck. It ends up very stable, and I’m a bit pleased with how it turned out. I knew watching all those rope bondage ‘art’ films would come in handy eventually

Tears have been fairly free flowing from both of us today - exhaustion, grief, tantalisingly close to relief… truth be told, I can’t actually quantify why exactly we’re both so emotional, but glad we’ve got each other on days like these.

A good analogy that came to mind this afternoon: two heavyweight boxers, in the last minutes of the last round, dead on their feet, aching and feeling nothing but pain.. but somewhere in their bashed around brain, there’s that knowledge that if they can just last for another few moments, the referee will lift their arm victorious… but the heavy blows keep raining down:

Big left hook: Dinner time, the gas finally ran out - which, bizarrely triggered an absolute flood of tears. (…and a tin of fruit for dinner!)

..followed by a hard right jab: realised the solar panels haven’t been charging today, and the batteries are desperately low.

Enough of the boxing analogy for now.

For the last time tonight, I’ve said to Chez;

“It don’t matter to me!”

A nightly ritual at her bedtime, me letting her know I’ve got it, and she can go to bed.

I can’t remember who told me - maybe Lachie(?) - but there’s apparently two types of enjoyment: the immediate type: eating an ice cream, hearing a nice song. And then there’s the delayed gratification type - where you look back on the trials and tribulations suffered with a satisfied retrospective glow… I await the glow.

If you’ve read this far, you’ll be pleased to know that in the coming days I’ll have significantly less time on my hands, so these musing waffles will come to an end.

Day 47 (Thursday May 4)

Grey, squally, 1-2m swell 15+ knots

Gently woken by the captain to the news that land is indeed ‘ho’

Expecting a sun kissed, palm fringed paradise, first impression was slightly less than hoped for - a dark foreboding rectangular chunk with deeper bruised clouds on top.

The sea calmed as we got round the lee of the island, and as the clouds cleared (a little) we were able to appreciate some of Fatu Hivas rugged beauty. Having not anchored for a while - the first anchorage was not overly tempting, small and limited protection. We instead opted for the Bay of Penises (changed to Bay of Virgins by prudish missionaries) a spectacular spot where the scenery is beyond good and the neighbours are friendly - bit deep though (dropped in 25m… unheard of before).

A couple of messages sent, a beer and hug, then off to bed - totally and utterly drained.

…oh, and the solar panels seem to be working

That’s a wrap!