Galapagos to Marquesas

We had some nice down wind sailing yesterday afternoon, and hooked a large 10kg tuna in the late afternoon again turning the cockpit into a blood bath. The freezer is well stacked, but a couple of Mahi Mahi would be nice to add to our latest provisions.

Wind became lighter overnight, and by mid morning had dropped to 8kts, and our boat speed dropped below 4kts so we put the engine on and have been motor sailing towards Hiva Oa ever since. Listening to the ARC radio sked this morning we are not alone, and most boats reported only 8-10kts of wind. The ITCZ has made it all the way down to 10*S, and water temperature is a staggering 30.4*C!

This morning we washed the deck with salt water, also throwing nice refreshing buckets of sea water at each other to cool off. It is nice to get the flying fish scales and remains of squid off the deck. It has amazed me how dirty the deck has got mid ocean. We are not the only ones as this was also a topic of conversation on ARC radio network that we pirate twice a day. After the sea wash we gave Sunday Island a refreshing fresh water wipe down, then I transferred 60L of fuel from our jerry cans into the main fuel tank for the long motor to Hiva Oa.

With the calmer weather the kids have got their leggo collection out and the saloon has been transformed into Lego land aqua world, of course the penguins are allowed to be part of the game even though they dwarf the lego men.

A hot and humid night resulted in very poor radio propegation, so we could not download weather or send our blog. The humidity continues today, and it is stifling hot. Sea water temperature has reached an all new high of 29.4*C. Yesterday our batteries got to 39*C, unable to cool down from the water rushing past the hull where they are positioned.

The sky today is crazy with clouds, all types of clouds on all levels. Cumulous clouds on the horizon, Strato Cumulous are on the lower layer, the stratus clouds layering above them, then finally whispy Cirus clouds in the upper layers.

Another 10kg tuna today, thankful for the light winds during the time I was realing it in as this one dived very deep.

Winds now about 10kts from the East, and hopefully we get some more wind tomorrow. Our ETA to Hiva Oa is now looking more like Friday evening.

Yesterday evening we were sitting down eating our Sunday pizza when the line went zing. After a good battle I landed a 12-15kg tuna – the biggest tuna we have caught so far on Sunday Island. The cockpit looked like a blood bath once we finished killing and filleting the big fish. Due to the heat in the cabin (34*C during the day and about 28*C over night) our fresh food does not last well, so our fresh food is limited to hardy items like potato’s, onions, garlic, and what can fit in the fridge. We ate our last carrot and cucumber yesterday. we now have a few plums, apples and lemons left.. enough to keep the scurvy away! (having pre frozen avocado and banana is a lovely addition to a smoothie too.). Our staple diet is from our dry stores – pasta, rice and beans. So a good tuna or Mahi adds to our menu beautifully.

Because of the delays cleaning the fish and cockpit our watches were about an hour out of sync, so we decided to conduct our third time zone change for the voyage. We are now only 30 minutes from French Polynesia time. The wind was a steady 15kts overnight, and in the morning started to lighten off. At midnight when I came on watch I saw a light on the horizon to the south, and over the next few hours the light got closer until I could tell it was a sailing vessel. I gave them a call on VHF and they reported that they “SV Aneil”, with 4 Swiss sailors onboard. Aneil is a Cal 45 from the USA, and we were sailing faster than it, so as they passed astern we passed our regards and sailed onwards.

By 10am this morning the wind dropped below 10kts, and our boat speed dropped below 4kts. The batteries need a good charge and we need to make a good quantity of water so we decided to run the engine for the first time since getting into the trade winds two weeks ago.

After a great lunch of Sushi and ceveci the wind swung to the SE, so we hoisted the Code-O. The wind is still under 10kts though, so we are motor sailing and making about 6.5kts. The Grib file shows the light winds for the next few days, which I assume is the ITCZ pushing its way to the south, but I do not have a large enough overview to confirm this as our weather fax program requires an update.

After lunch we hooked a nice sized Mahi Mahi, but unfortunately the line broke as I was trying to bring it onboard. I have since modified the gaff, and the line is back out ready for our next victim. Also our brown boobie has not returned to Sunday Island (thankfully) so we can start cleaning its mess from the deck.

Weather is getting more difficult to download on the HF, and the blogs are getting harder to send. We are now using a HF Winlink station AH7L 3000nm to our north in Hawaii and the environmentals are only good for this in the early morning, so our blogs and position reports will be delayed for the remainder of our voyage – if we are able to send them at all. I look forward to tomorrow’s weather GRIB, as the weather seems to be changing quite radically at the moment and quite hard to predict. Quite typical El-Nino conditions for this part of the world, and not helped by the high sea temperature which is now a sweltering 29.2*C, combined with an outside temperature of 34*C making life onboard bloody hot! I would love to sit in the freezer for 5 minutes but it’s full of tuna (and not really big enough for me!). Jokes aside it’s bloody hot.. did i mention – it is hot? The temperature we can deal with, but we don’t have enough diesel to motor to Hiva Oa, so hopefully the wind scenario looks better for us over the next few days. If the weather remains as forecasted our ETA into Hiva Oa is this Friday, just in time for the weekend!

17 MRCH 2024

Sunday is Pizza day and we have now been at sea for 2 weeks. Average speed 7.1kts.

Yesterdays GRIB file weather download did not give good news. There is some very unsettled weather up ahead, and a band of very light wind will pass us early tomorrow morning. I wonder if the unsettled weather has anything to do with the insane sea temps we are experiencing. Over the past 24 hours, sea water temperature has risen from 28*C to 29*C! 1*C may not seem like much, but from an ocean perspective this is huge. When we experianced 29*C in the Med we were concerned, but mid pacific ocean in 4000m of water, that is a real worry! The unsettled weather should not affect us too much, perhaps it may delay our arrival until Friday? The weather will no doubt give the ARC boats to the NE some unpleasant sailing and motoring for the last week of their passage.

We had some gusty winds last night, and the breeze backed to the East, so we were wing on wind since 3am, racing down the waves and making some good speeds. At 4am I saw a ship, from the navigation lights it was over 50m, possibly a huge super trawler because it was very well lit up and traveling slowly. The vessel did not show up on our AIS system which makes its business “smell a bit fishy”, as all commercial vessels should be broadcasting their details on AIS.

Because of the high sea temps it is very hot down below. and hard to cool the boat down. Luckly there is no spray on deck so we can open hatches, but it is still super hot. This makes all the electronics that we use work even harder. The fridge compressors are not as effecient in the hot weather, and the batteries are hotter than normal, but thankfully no issues with the boat at all so far this passage (touch wood)!!

Issy’s left front tooth is hanging on by a thread, so close to coming out and causing a few drama’s. But the doors onboard are not heavy enough to be of use…. perhaps a string to the boom prior to gybing? (Dad’s joke). Because of heat and teeth, and weather nobody is fully rested at the moment, so taking it easy watching documentaries and reading. Max continues to build his penguin empire.. the poor penguins must be very hot too!

Our resident Brown Boobie has been perched on the top of the mast or missen spreaders. I think it moves as required to maximise its effect of whitening our deck with its excrement. Who would have thought one bird could make so much mess. This afternoon our Boobie has disappeared. My book says that Boobies should only be 50nm from land, so I guess its using us to hitch itself a ride back home. Hopefully it has left us for another taxi.

16 March 2024

Another sunny day with fabulous downwind cruising. Our resident boobie sits on the spreaders and watches over the circus. We listened to the ARC ralley sked this morning and decided we are once again “lucky” with the weather, and have picked our routing well. ARC yachts are 120nm further north, have a counter East flowing current and have either no wind or 28 kts – Typical ITCZ conditions that we are skirting. We have 0.5-0.8 kts of current with us, and 14-20kts from the ESE, providing a perfect sailing angle for a displacement yacht such as Sunday Island with TWA 150-160. Our only sailing concern is that we are going too fast to catch Mahi Mahi and have eaten all our frozen supplies. We have lost most of the Mahi lures to Marlin, but have one in reserve that we will bring out as we get into island waters and slow down to 6kts.

Bilge checks and cleaning this afternoon amongst kids entertainment buiding a paper city in the saloon. Emilie baking muffins and biscuits as fast as we can eat them. I am reading a book about the origins of Polynesian migration and seafaring, plus passage planning for the Marquesas, Tuamoto’s, Society Islands and beyond.

15 March 2024

Brilliant down wind sailing today. The sun is out and breeze is fresh. The sun feels really hot today, and down below is sweltering combination from crew, sun, engine running to charge batteries after the last few overcast days, and oven baking fresh bread and cookies.

Yesterday a Red Footed Boobie took roost on the top of the mast. I don’t know where he came from or how he held on but he did not fly away until morning. On the off chance that the anchor light had not been fully destroyed by the previous boobie, i turned on the anchor light saw the reflection from the confused Boobie. The tri colour light has most certainly disappeared, so either only the lower anchor globe remains or the bottom section of the light. Not sure if the Boobie was eating from our deck through the night but there were very few flying fish on deck today.

Inspired by Taylor Swift (Yes the craze extends all the way out here) Issy is making a music album. Stay tuned for Issy Hewson and her Galapagos ballads. Issy’s debut performance was on the tour bus two weeks ago in Santa Cruz – making the most of the microphone, and now with the confidence of performing before a crowd Issy seems ready to hit the road. She has already a number of songs written and has mastered the G chord on the guitar. In order to reduce the play time of Taylor Swift onboard I have offered Issy $10 to learn the lyrics to Midnight Oil “We didn’t start the fire” so now we have some good Aussie rock playing on repeat.

Max continues with building a craft city for his penguins, and the saloon if filled with paper buildings, cars, planes, boats, and tortoise sanctuary’s. Today we made a courtesy flag for French Polynesia. We cut the flag out of sail cloth and paint it with cloth paint. We are still a bit unsure if there is also a specific flag for the Marquesas and if the French flag should also be flown. We will use Mk 1 Eyeball to confirm as we sail into the bay next week.

Yesterday I had a random email on my Winklink system from a fellow Ham radio operator in Germany. Klaus DO2KDE operates a marine radio network for German cruising sailors and has a sked with fellow sailor OE5HLE onboard SY Freya 200nm to my East who is sailing to Marquesas as part of the ARC. At midnight I joined the INTERMAR Sked and found myself talking to HAM radio enthusiasts in Germany and BF2PY in Florida. I was informed that they had a good signal which I’m sure was helped by them directing their huge antennas in my direction from the other side of the world! We have organised another sked with Freya this afternoon. It is great to know that we have the support of fellow HAM radio operators around the world and to know my HAM “Rig” set up is satisfactory.

All good onboard, Still going too fast to fish, but we did throw the line in yesterday afternoon. Now off for a Maltese lunch of Hobbs Be-Zejte (tomato sauce, capers, beans and tuna on fresh bread) Yum.

Days Run 175nm.

14 March 2024

Yesterday we had fansastic sailing conditions with sunny and dry conditions, but the wind could not decide if it was coming from the South East or East, so the sail plan was in constant adjustment. This morning at 5am a small front passed over and the wind veered to the SE, and then gradually backed to settle ESE at about 8am. A residual swell from the SE gives Sunday Island a bit of a roll making life a little challenging, particularly at meal times.

Overnight “swarms?” of flying fish crash landed on our deck, and this morning the deck was a blood bath awash with no less than 80 flying fish on the deck. Somehow one even made it into the cockpit locker.

With the rolling of the boat it is too challenging to do school, but the kids have been busy doing craft, perfecting paper aeroplane design, building paper boats for toys, and watching more David Attenborough documentaries. Emilie and I have also been building paper boats for toys, as well as busy doing small bits of interior maintenance, trimming the sails and autopilot to keep us moving at a good speed in the right direction.

We are making great speed and if keep up the good pace and the weather holds its present prediction we will hopefully be into Hiva Oa late Thursday or Friday next week.

13 March 2024

Beautiful sunny day today. A morning of washing and drying sheets and underpants. Sunday Island has a bit of extra sail area with the sheets hanging from a line on the boom.

Emilie had a busy morning in the Galley cooking cookies and muffins.. yum yum yum and sorting through the remaining fresh food onboard. Eggs as usual have not faired well.

Yesterday evening we saw a ship pass 10nm astern of us on a course of 295, I guess towards Taiwan or China? This is the only vessel we have seen since leaving Galapagos.

Today we put the clocks back another hour. The difference between Galapagos and Marquisis is 3.5 hours, so now we have 1.5 hours to change before our arrival.

12 march 2024

Another beautiful day sailing in the Pacific. From midnight the wind swung ESE and we cruised down wind “wing on wing” for the morning. At sunrise the wind swung back to the SE and increased throughout the morning to 22 kts, also increasing the sea state, resulting in a few waves wetting the cockpit.

The kids donned their harnesses today and walked over the deck collecting flying fish specimens. Max found a really good one, dried out still with its wings spread. We have put it in a jam jar. Unfortunatly no formaldehyde onboard to pickle it.

Max has been talking about getting a Budgie non stop since before our arrival in Galapagos. There are no pet shops out here and a flying fish just won’t sit in a cage, so Max has made a budgie and a cage. Issy has made a fish tank. We now have a pet corner in the saloon.

Today we reach the half way in distance. We are making great speed ahead of our polars on the navigation computer. Our average speed since depature has been 6.8kts.

11 March 2024

Squally conditions abated yesterday afternoon. We had another Marlin take the lure at sunset.. we are now seriously low on lures, and saving the Mahi/Tuna lures for inter island Marquisis sailing. Presently trailing a small blue squid, however sailing 7-8 kts is a bit fast for Mahi and small tuna, so no bites today. Lots of flying fish on deck by the morning though.

The new day bought blue sky and perfect “trade wind” sailing conditions. The wind backed to the ESE, and we are now running with the genoa poled out “Wing on Wing”.

I continue to passage plan for the Marquisis and Tuamoto islands, Issy created a new board game (of which I am now world champion) and the main salon is setup as a Vet/Aquarium.