Arrived Hiva Oa, Marquesas, April 20

We  made landfall at first light this morning and were anchored in Atuona, Hiva Oa by 0800. A welcomed site!!

Lucky for us a few boats had left and made a little space. Stern anchors out and in for a tight squeeze behind the breakwater. Our waterline was very grubby with goode neck barnicles attached from th ekeel forward. We ran a rope either side of the bow to the keel, pulling on it from both sides and cleaned the boat en route! After sitting in the anchorage for 2 days, the barnicles died, leaving their small shells, whcih were easier to clean off! What a bargain!

 Our last 24 hours at sea was fast and boistrous in 25 to 30 knot ESE winds and 2 to 3 meter swells. Going into an anchorage on a lee shore in those conditions is not particularly comforting but we had been chatting with a boat already in there on the HF so we knew all would be well.

Peter's solution to some chaffing on the lazy sheet worked a treat!

Being caught in NW winds at night for 6 days slowed us down as we had to keep gybing to make our way west and south; more of the former than the latter.

Our 25 day passage was therefore a little longer than expected, however it was always our plan to arrive on the 20th April, in keeping with our Pacific crossing plans. Early May saw the thunderstorms clear between the Galapagos and the Marquesas, but we were happy with our timing, even though it was a little wet!

We will be in the Marquesas (which so far is  stunning) for about 3 weeks. We have wifi at anchor in nearly all the places we will be visiting!

Peter said that now I don't have to wonder what it would be like spending a long time at sea, and for him, a week long passage is now a walk in the park!

Galapagos to Marquesas Week 3

Are we having fun yet???????
Most yachts do this passage in 21 days. We have 3 days to go!!! All yachts that left Galapagos have experienced extensive squalls in addition to the yachts heading down from Mexico. Strange season!!
Although we find ourselves sailing along in shades of grey again, we have had mostly clear skies for the last week, with some nice sailing. We have been poled out for the last 5 days; not our favourite point of sail.
Our morning has been spent sailing the boat (a novelty as cruising is a little like point and press...get the sails up, point in the general direction of destination and away you go!!) which has been quite tiring. The wind has come from different directions and we have gybed countless times to stick to the rhumb line as best we can. It takes us 15 min to gybe the boat, and we do the mainsail first, then the pole. Peter has to run the topper around the headsail each gybe. We can only pole out the jib as opposed to the #1 heady. Now we have little wind but maybe some squalls tonight.
Chafe has been a problem with the headsail sheets. Peter has rigged up pegs off the forward shrouds and clips the lazy sheets in the peg.
We feel(and Peter has seen!) we have a little collection of marine growth (gooseneck barnacles) on our hull and have lost about a knot in boat speed. However, after the Marquesas, another 4 day passage to Apatiki Atoll in the Tuamotos is our haul out.
Peter has been baking some wonderful foccacia and I have been doing the cakes. We are eating well (but lost weight!) and now are on tins as our fresh food has run out. Having a side galley has been good in the rolly seas.
There have been a few great days of 170 miles, 2 sail reaching which was a lot of fun, albeit that we should have been keeping our height and making more west than south. We are paying for that now.
We think we will have wind right through to the finish, so we will have enough fuel for a few days. We get duty free fuel in the Marquesas, however our check in port has fuel shortages. The fuel pump Sam organised for us does indeed pump efficiently. We lost track of time and the putting the return fuel into the other tank caused a brief moment of overflow!!! We now know we can polish our fuel from one tank into another. When it calms down a bit, we are going to empty the saloon tank by hand and give it more of a clean. We should have done it when Peter and Terry had the tank out, but we just wanted to get it all back together quickly.
According to Bob McDavitt in NZ, we could be in for an El Nino year this year. Translates into light trades, if not reversed!!! Joy! Who knows what the weather will be like????????? Back to the dart board!!
Peter worked out yesterday that this passage is the equivalent of 7 years of Saturday afternoon sailing on the river..so our new mainsail will have had a bit of a workout by the time we get there. Must mean that Teddy has circumnavigated the globe at least once!!!
Advice from the ships master is that this has presented a wonderful opportunity for me to learn patience, if I chose to accept the challenge!!!!!!!! Although a frustrating sail, it has not been overly difficult.
So at the end of the day we will have just under 300 miles to go and look forward to getting the hook down!
The hunt for the perfect sail continues!!!!!!!!
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Galapagos to Marquesas Week 2

Squalls continued until 7 degrees south, where there was a beautiful blue line stretching across the southern horizon. How does the weather know where the lat lines are?? Some very frustrating sailing getting caught in holes at the wrong end of a squall system, some of which were over 150 miles long!
We have had about 5 great days of sailing like it should be. Wind and swell on our port quarter, clear skies. Today is day 15, so that is not a good average for the best sail in THE world! Key word in the literature is 'can be' the best sail in THE world. Read the small print!
Peter spent one morning, when it was not so rolly up the mast twice. Once to take down the broken forward spot then another to fix the lazy jacks. Harness on and with me tailing, he free climbed to the first spreaders, each time. He is still pretty fit!!
I think Peter must have secretly belonged to the Foredeck Union at some stage as he does a great job up the pointy end. We only know him as the master helmsman! The autopilot has usurped him with the latter.
We have seen a fishing boat, small freighter and a very large whale (Sperm??) that was over twice the length of us, all heading north. In all the ocean, we were actually on a collision course with the freighter. We think maybe he had been at Easter Island.
In the early stages of the week, when we got stuck at the back of a system, we motored out of it looking for wind. We have about 70 hours of motoring left before we run out of diesel, so with light winds around the Marquesas, it could be challenging!
We are getting a little bored now and are looking forward to the next two days to reduce our distance to under 1000 miles to go! Lots of books being read and a few story tapes. When we know we have enough fuel, we may get to watch a movie. We are watching the power consumption.
Red Sky was fortunate to be at the front end of the squall system we were at the back of and consequently raced ahead to be now some 280 miles in front of us. They have had very different wind and wave conditions to us. We sail as fast as the Moody 54 given the wind just abaft the beam.
So with 1000 miles of westing to do in 100 odd miles of southing, the next week will be painful. We expect to arrive on April 20. Not a fast trip. A Hylas 47 did this in 18 days last year, obviously with more wind.
Hopefully by week 3 we will be almost there!!
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Galapagos to Marquesas. Week 1.

We would have to say that EVERYONE we have spoken to over the years who has done this trip, is of the opinion that this is THE best sailing in THE world!! It is even documented as such. SE winds clear skies!
On closer examination, Cornell (Jimmy fame) says that you need to stay north of the 3 degrees south and 100 west corner as there is significant convection from 3 south to 8 south until 100W. We can indeed confirm this! However, it appears that this year it is extending to 120 W, just short of the Marquesas!! We also expected positive current on departing Galapagos, however we did not find this until after 3 degrees south, which left us motoring along with 1 knot against us.
We departed Galapagos on March 27 in loose company with two other Australian Boats, Red Sky and Shweetie (they are about 80 miles ahead of us). We have all bought our boats in the Americas recently. Leaving too soon after equinox was possible not a good idea, but then again, a week later the weather pattern has not changed significantly. We want to be a little head of the pack of 200 or so yachts crossing the Pacific this year. We are doing twice daily HF scheds with Red SKy and once daily with all the other yachts doing the same passage.
We did manage to get some fuel before leaving Isabela, not an easy task there. A knock on the hull at 2000 hours and presto, we had some young men you would get us fuel. 1/3 of the price of what we could buy it for in the Galapagos. Peter asked if it was clean..their response translated along the lines of absolutely, it is new fuel, never been used!!! Unfortunately we could have taken another 60 or so litres, but we did not have enough jerry jugs. Maybe we should have got them to do two runs...
We have already had to motor too much and we are only 1/3 of the way..almost!!
We did get some great winds for 4 days which pushed us south into the 'no go' zone. Not so bad as we started achieving 140 mile days. Eventually we got caught in a low..tons of rain and shades of grey..not so much wind, but from every direction possible. During our torrential down pour, Peter was sitting on the cockpit sole reading. Our bimini, being quite old, is not exactly water proof! Exhausting sailing,trying to keep the boat moving. We missed the worse as Red Sky and Shweetie spent one night in chunder and frightening, with the frightening striking all around them! In the end we realised the low had passed us (face the wind and put your left arm out kinda measurement). Grib files are a little inaccurate at times! We get Bob McDavitt's weekly weather gram (NZ weather guru) which gives a precis of the Southern Pacific and he has given us some directions for our passage, but not very accurate. We have had it all; stars, blue sky and no wind; cloud, grey skies, wind and rain; some nice winds and cloud. Now we choose clear skies, lots of stars and fair winds!
So today, we have clearer skies and heading SW. Apparently more consistent SE winds south of 6 degrees..so we just have to get there!! We are not bored yet having lots of reading, scrabble, story books and cooking. We will have mid-day movies when there is lots of sun for the solar panels!
Some of the yachts have gone down to 10 S then run square in 15 to 30 knots and 3m swell plus sea. Why go down there to do 7 knots reefed down when we could stay higher and achieve the same speeds in more comfort and with more control on your angle of sail?? I guess the secret is having wind...which we should have more of from tomorrow! We are making our way to 5 south.
At the end of week 1, we have only done 786 nm with 2169 miles to go!!! We have lots of fresh food as we went to a farm in Isabela with the other two yachts and walked around picking fruit and vege from the garden. All organic and grown symbiotically, with marigolds used to deter pests. Bananas are actually banana flavoured! 20 bananas for $1.50 and 3 bags of produce for $10!!!
We live in hope of this dream sail that everyone talks about!!
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