Tag: Pacific Crossing 2016

This is the sequel and complement to the previous post, with a pictorial update of our 3,111 mile voyage between La Cruz, MX and Taiohae Bay, French Polynesia. Hope you enjoy.

We made excellent progress during our first week at sea, catching the Trade Winds early on, and riding them at high speeds. With that, we were fast approaching the Intertropical Convergence Zone, an area where the Trade Winds of the North and the South converge, and all the humidity they wipe builds up and falls back in the form of Squalls.

As we entered Latitude 7N the sky changed abruptly, and as night fell, we knew we were entering squally territory:

The first Squall hit us in the night – of course – and already gave us quite a show, with wind gusts of up to 30 knots while we still had all of our sails up. As day broke, another Squall wrapped around us, and it felt like it was trying to “eat” us. We switched on the engine and motored away from it to safety:

Each Squall is a relatively small formation of clouds, but they discharge an incredible amount of rain, and are often preceded by strong wind gusts:

The rain is so compact in fact that they even show up clearly on the radar. On this picture, the Squall that tried to “eat” us early that morning:

Whereas this one gave us a “pinch”:

And things were about to aggravate. Nearly two days into the Squall zone, as we approached latitude 4N, we discovered a large area of Calm had settled South of us and were forced to turn back to latitude 7N and keep going West until the calm receded. That would add 350 miles and nearly 3 days to our voyage – all of it inside the Squall zone. This was the absolute low point of the trip:

Those were wet days …

… the torrential rain constantly washing our deck over …

… and the gusty winds requiring constant adjustment to the sails:

With all this activity day and night, we were soon very tired (and constantly wet):

And then, an unexpected and incredibly welcome surprise. On April 9th – Paulo’s birthday – day broke and it stopped raining. There was even some sun out. Nature’s birthday present to him:

Everything came up on deck to dry up under the little sun there was:

Mood improved onboard at an exponential rate:

Paulo worked with Adriana in preparing pao de queijo – the treat he chose for his day:

In addition to the dry day, he got a box of legos, and started playing right away:

Raquel also took advantage of it:

Afternoon came, and we were all on deck soaking in the sun:

Adriana even evoked a limoncello to celebrate:

And Paulo got a b-day cake in the form of a bunny (note to self and all – trying to light candles outside is a huge challenge, as we were about to discover):

Nature brought yet another present:

Followed by this beautiful sunset:

Before the end of twilight, though, Mother Nature made clear the celebrations were over, as this ominous thing approached us from the North:

We were lucky, tough, as we only got rain (our friends from sv Enough were clobbered by a 50-knot gust coming from that same system that night). Our  case was the opposite. That thing sucked all wind from us and we stood still all night and the subsequent morning, floating hopeless some 200 miles away from the Equator. We were wet, sleep-deprived, and there was now an area of good winds blowing not too far from where we were. And we kept under the grip of that cloud, desperate to leave. That’s when I saw this:

This sequence of Squalls lined up on the direction we wanted to go. I asked Adriana if she was ok to get more wet – VERY wet, and she agreed. I pointed Pesto’s bow toward the first Squall, got its wind, and we were catapulted into the next one, and so on. We rode this sequence of squalls for all day and managed to get sufficiently near the Equator and far enough from the Squalls zone. The next day, before crossing the Equator, we took the Mexican flag down for the last time:

The Equator itself we crossed at night, on a bold beam reach and running fast straight to Nuku Hiva:

The next morning I prepared pancakes and offered the first one to Neptune, thanking Him for allowing us to have such a safe passage on his realm, and asking for fair winds and currents for the remainder of the voyage, and our stay in the Pacific Ocean:

That day we also hoisted the French Polynesia flag, and that wrapped up our Equator Crossing ceremonies:

We were now sailing fast under twin headsails, straight toward Taiohae Bay in Nuku Hiva:

Mind you, there were still some more Squalls to negotiate. But we were sailing so well – some of the best we’ve ever had – and were so poised to make landfall that nothing would deter us now. 5 days later it was Land Ho ! Adriana was the first to see Ua Huka on the horizon:

Nuku Hiva, our destination, was much more guarded, and only revealed itself under a blanket of clouds just when we were a few miles away, as we approached it from the North:

We were SO happy to make landfall.

Interestingly, we didn’t feel the overflow of senses that we have heard from fellow cruisers – the scent of land, the colors, the sounds. Everything felt quite natural and “normal” to us in fact, almost as if we were returning from a weekend sail.

On the other hand, we were all feeling in IMMENSE sense of pride. And that has been with us since then.

I don’t think we are the same anymore.

Probably won’t ever be.

The time here has been split between sightseeing, bureaucracy, resetting Pesto to Coastal Cruising, sleeping, and swimming. Not much left to download, sort and process all the pictures taken during the Puddle Jump. But here it is, finally – a visual update of our 3,111-mile voyage across the Eastern Pacific.

But a quick disclaimer before proceeding: unfortunately there’s an awful lot of pictures of me barechested … it was way too hot/humid during most of the way, and I just didn’t think of dressing up before pictures were taken. For that, I apologize.

Ok, here we go now:

Departure #1, from Barra de Navidad. From left to right: Phil (sv Terrapin), Debra (sv Coastal Drifter), Janet (sv Cape D), Adriana (sv Pesto), Julien (sv Cape D), Jessica (sv Terrapin), Phil (sv Coastal Drifter), Aimee (sv Terrapin), Emma (sv Terrapin):

We were making good progress on a tight reach in light winds – we would soon learn Pesto sails really well upwind:

But the backstay fitting broke, and we had to turn back. The kids took advantage to reacquaint themselves with their friends in La Cruz. Here, Paulo receives a haircut from Adriana under close surveillance of his friends:

The hydraulic fitting was fixed – despite the odds – making the skipper very happy – we were good to go again:

Another departure, another occasion to bid farewell. Here the crews of sv Pesto, sv Kenta Annae and sv Enough met up for one last dinner at the local German Restaurant in La Cruz:

We left early morning on a Monday. When the sun set that day, we were already out of sight of land:

Back then, blankets were still necessary for the night watches on the cockpit:

On the second evening we were glad to receive visitors:

The boobies were so cute! We welcomed them on our back solar panel:

We would soon regret it, but on the meantime, we were happy and distracted by the parade of sunsets and sunrises – one more beautiful than the other:

Other than the boobies, we also had the occasional visits of Dolphins:

Adriana and Paulo, in particular, are very fond of these visits and often spent long times on deck watching the dolphins swim by:

On one of these visits, we were at the bow, camera on hand, waiting for the dolphins to surface again for yet another picture, and then THIS happened:

This dude was a large bottleneck Dolphin, and he must have jumped at least 2 meters above the water, right in front of us. It was breathtaking – and even a bit unnerving!

Back on deck, the boobie situation now was getting out of hand. This guy landed on deck, and he was clearly different from the others. He looked of advanced age, was very tired, and had green feet. I tried to evade him – gently – but however I tried, he would fly back onboard. I figured he was nearing absolute physical exhaustion and didn’t have anything else to lose. I ended up letting him stay, and the kids named him “Lucky”:

The condition for Lucky to stay was that the others would have to go. Here, Adriana tries to evade one daring boobie who landed on our Radar:

This sophisticated contraption (empty plastic bags) kept them away from the Radar for the rest of the voyage. The solar panel, on the other hand, would require ongoing surveillance (and a lot of cleaning):

As a revenge, the boobies were now trying to land at the top of our mast. If they succeeded, they would destroy our wind sensor, and that would be a big nuisance for the rest of the voyage (we used the sensor during the night to adjust Pesto’s position to the wind). We learned from sv Enough, who were also enduring similar problems, that loud noises prevented them from landing. We spent many hours blowing our whistle as a result:

And the days went on, together with the parade of sunsets and sunrises:

After just three days at sea, we found ourselves at the edge of the Trade Winds already. It was Spinnaker time!

With the big chute up, speeds were now steadily above 7kts and we were making excellent progress straight on to Polynesia. Pesto was happy, and the crew was happy as well:

Every day there was something to fix on deck. Here, I am setting up a jury system to replace the boom vang which was giving up – not coincidently, another hydraulic fitting !

Other daily chores included cleaning the decks from the flying fish that met their fate onboard during the night. Every morning there would be between 5 and 10 of these creatures lying around:

Early morning was also the time to check in with the Pacific Puddle Jump net on the SSB radio. At that time I would broadcast our current position and take note of the positions of other boats doing the Jump as well. There were over 15 yachts along the way back then:

For a while, Paulo and I tried to plot these positions on a large map. It was cool, but I confess the activity required a discipline that neither Paulo or I had. The seas were building and Pesto was rolling a lot. Moreover, the air was getting hotter and more humid, and time inside the cabin was reduced to the absolute minimum necessary:

We had a fantastic time with the spinnaker up, flying it for 72 hours straight:

But the winds kept freshening up, and it was now time to douse it. Boy it was quite a chore to bring all that canvas down in 25 knots of wind!

Paulo wasn’t too happy at first:

But he would soon realize conditions were getting a little too sporty. At this stage, we had the largest waves that we would (thankfully) see on this trip – at up to 3 meters. Paulo and I spent some time at the stern watching them roll under us:

At one point, winds were so strong that even our genoa sheet broke. It was quite a fight to get a replacement tied to the wild sail under those conditions !

With all that wind and all the action, time was flying, and we were gaining a lot of Latitude toward the Equator. Something was lurking in the horizon and we hardly noticed:

That, and more, will be the subjects of the next post.

Stay tuned !

WHEN: Saturday April 16th 1335Local (Marquesas) / 1905EST / 2005BRZ / 2305UTC

WHERE: 08:55S 140:06W – Tahioae Bay, Nuku Hiva, The Marquesas

MILEAGE: 3,111 miles since La Cruz, MX (sailed)

We have arrived !
It took us 19 days, 8 hours and 5 minutes to cover 3,111 nautical miles, with at least 10 days battling light winds and vicious squalls.
It wasn’t easy.
But it was a highly successful passage.
One might think that we had a surge of emotions at the first sight of land, an explosion of senses as we approached the lush island of Nuku Hiva, and the ground moved under our feet as we came ashore for the first time. At least, this is what I expected.
None of these happened.
In fact, our arrival felt almost “trivial”. As we entered Tahiohae Bay, it was almost as if we were returning from a weekend trip. We talked about it, and our belief is that we were all so focused on this passage, on taking care of Pesto and ourselves, that our minds are adjusting and taking in the new environment’s stimuli gradually.
The one feeling that we are all sharing, is one of Pride. Never before have I felt so proud of something I’ve accomplished. That’s a bold statement, and it’s true. And Adriana, Paulo and Raquel are all having similar feelings.
This will be the last post of the Passage Daily Updates, as we are wrapping up this (major) step of our Journey.
And when one chapter ends, another one starts. As I write this, I am surrounded by the most lush ground I may have been to. The terrain is impossibly steep, looking indeed like the Jurassic Park or King Kong islands. People speak a lovely language of which we can’t understand a thing. Chicken, dogs and horses roam free on the (few) streets there are. It’s a new world for us. One that we worked hard to get to.
But this is already the subject of other stories.
Thank You so much for following us along this voyage. And a special, heartfelt THANK YOU for all those who shared messages with us, before and during the trip. I have been trying to find words to describe our appreciation of these messages, unsuccessfully. We were overwhelmed by the amount of love, wisdom and care that were put into them.
Have a great Sunday.
Pesto Out.