It’s Sunday today but it was just Monday. 12 days have now passed in a blur of sail, sleep, sail, eat, sail, dream,sail. Time does weird things on a boat, day blurrs into night and night becomes day Wednesday becomes Sunday and time bends around objects in a way that it makes you question your sanity. The world coalesces into what it should be wind, waves, sails and a hull, sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moon set and next thing you know you have been sailing non stop for two weeks out of sight of land.
Sleep usually comes in 2-4 hour snatches and I am dead to the world during those hours. Even when sleeping I am dreaming about sailing.
We eventually found the well established trade winds and a hit a steady tide of 0.7-.1.2 knots running with us. The sailing has been out of this world and we often had 4 full sails up which is a whole lotta horse power. For several days there was a steady 14-18 knot wind from the east and we were moving along nicely at 8 knots in a south easterly direction.
The motion of the boat is different now we are sailing downwind. The wind is blowing from the East and we are heading West under a poled out Genoa, a poled out Code 0 and the mizzen staysail. It’s fast and very rolly. We have a following sea. This is the stuff of sea sickness if your sea legs aren’t on right. With the two huge poles out amidships on port and starboard and all of their operating lines along with all of the lines from 4 sails and several preventers, the cockpit quickly looks like a snake pit.
We are diligent about keeping the lines cleaned up so that they can run cleanly when needed. This is a constant task.
We are twelve days into the crossing and we passed the half way mark on Friday. We were 1200nm north of Easter Island and that was a tempting destination for us to head to. Like all long ocean passages most boats are dry boats but there is typically a small celebratory drink at the half way mark. We all have a G and T and toast each other, the boat and the Pacific Ocean on deck as the sun is setting.It would have been intoxicating even without the G and T.
12 days in and I have just realized that I forgot to bring a hairbrush. I’m not sure what that says about me other than I have had more important things to focus on. When I sailed from Halifax to Bermuda last May it was freezing cold and we had toques on for days and nights on end. I was wearing 8 layers on top and slept in 3 sleeping bags and still couldn’t stay warm. My friend said at a certain point that she felt like a sick cat that had forgotten how to groom itself. That cracked me up for days. I couldn’t look at her without laughing after that. When I sailed across the Atlantic to St Lucia, I practically had dreadlocks by the time we arrived after 3 weeks at sea and being totally salt soaked the whole time. Things are not that bad yet.
We have easily settled into our life on board. It’s very collaborative and fun and there is an ease. We share all of the tasks equally. There is kindness and consideration for each other and an easy navigation of our differences. We are now a well functioning crew. There are hours each day when we are all in the cockpit or working together to make sail changes and maneuvers. Conversation between us comes easily as does hours of being quiet together. I can tell already that we will come out of this as friends. As you can imagine. the dynamic on a boat can make or break an ocean passage. By choice I am doing much of the work at the bow and am becoming much more comfortable with the dance of strength and balance on the bow of a boat in big swell and enjoy being on the foredeck trying to problem solve the stuff that inevitably goes wrong.
Although we haven’t seen another boat for 10 days, I’ve been in touch with my friend Pete who is 5 days ahead of us. We have been swapping notes about wind, current and wildlife sightings. I feel quite blessed to have a web of kindred connections that span the world and are out there on different oceans or different parts of the same vast ocean. Pete is a real character. We sailed from Halifax to Bermuda then Bermuda to St Maartin. We met so many boats in Bermuda heading back to Europe from the Caribbean leaving before the hurricane season. We were stuck there for 6 days riding out a storm. I almost jumped ship. We were the only boat heading south right into the eye of the hurricane season and got there only days before the first hurricane really hit. I was with him in St Maartin when he ran the boat aground 3 times and he was pretending like it was to teach us how to get out of a bad spot if we found ourselves in that situation. In the end he just wanted to park next to the boat that had the most rum on it. We got invited onto that boat and that’s a whole other story.
I tried to take a photograph of the parasailor in the moolight for you because it’s was so beautiful it was unreal. There’s a moment when you are trying to take a photograph in low light and the phone says “hold still”. Are you freaking kidding me! I’m on a boat heeled over at 20 degrees with 8 foot swell on the beam. Hold still hasn’t happened for 10 days. Anyway this is the best I got before it got too dark.
Even in the darkness with my eyes closed I can feel the sort of wave that is coming. I can tell by the wave that comes before it if next one is going to be one that picks up the stern and twists us around as we accelerate down its back. I practice hand helming in these conditions in the dark learning again not to get disoriented or over correct when twisting down the back of waves.
The morning after I took the parasailor in the moonlight portrait we were sailing along minding our own business when a nasty little squal came rampaging through and the sail was ripped almost clean in two, it was left hanging by its seams at either side. Thankfully it happened while Joerg was on watch and surprisingly there was no real amount of swearing. He did yell “all hands on deck” loudly as Stefano and I were both below deck. We were on the deck in a flash and spent the next hour and a half wrestling the massive ripped flailing sail down and setting up our new sail configuration.
The full moon was eclipsing as I was on watch the other night. I felt certain that I could hear a faint howl in the distance and I like to think it was a chorus of seals but it was most likely just the wind howling in the shrouds which is not nearly as interesting as the seals. I was on watch when the Earth lined up between the Moon and the Sun, hiding the Moon from sunlight. As I was looking out into space I could see so many more stars than earlier in the bright full moon light. I was thinking it had to get dark in order to see everything more clearly, to see what was there all the time, ah ha! and this is true of life as well. Oh my god, it’s stunning out here under the stars sailing along and a total eclipse clearly visible behind me. Every inch of the sky in every direction is studded with stars, it’s a bit mind blowing, trippy almost.
Saturday morning and we are sailing DDW ( dead down wind) and the swells are making for a very rolly ride. We are all slightly sleep deprived because it’s hard to sleep when you are being tossed around in a bunk and we have been quite busy with sail configuration changes so there’s been very little down time even when not on watch. I have become quite used to bracing myself sideways in my bunk to minimize the rolling but this is next level being tossed about .
Today we spent 3 hours working in the cockpit to repair the huge tear in the parasailor. It took all three of us to pull the huge sail out of the bow sail locker and drag it along the deck to the cockpit where we do the work. It is completely blown across the middle. It looks like the menacing grin of the joker in Batman. We debate whether to use sail tape or glue or both and end up just using sail tape of varying colours and sizes and cutting out all of the frayed sections. If this sail had been taken to a professional sail maker to repair, it’s very likely they would just laugh and write it off or say the whole bottom third would have to be replaced painstaking panel by painstaking panel. Not us we just forge ahead and patch this puppy up. Stefano launches into an extremely long story about battlefield surgeons. I say to Joerg and Stefano that I’m pretty sure this sail should be called “Patch” by the time we are done. We won’t say let’s get the parasailor up, we will say let’s get Patch up and flying. You will be able to see us from a mile off with this parasailor that looks like hell but is still flying against all odds.
It’s been the temperature of a microwave today and I can see that Joerg is tired.I think I’ve figured it out that his mood is directly tied to a) how much wind we have b) how fast the boat is going and c) what position we are in the fleet. Right now we are managing to exceed the polars of the boat and have done so all through the last few nights and we have moved up the fleet again. Anything over 100% of the boat polars and it makes for a very happy day on the boat. We only have 1200 nm miles to go now and I wish it was longer but to put it in perspective that is the equivalent of two Newport to Bermuda races or two Sydney to Hobarts so still plenty of sailing left
It’s night again here and I am on watch till 3am as we fly through the darkness leaving a trail of phosphorescence behind us. All is well.
With a whole lotta love and gratitude.
