8º 55.021s 140º 06.206w
Fri May 10 2019
JollyDogs
passage summary part 2
We
had arrived too late for any of the Pacific Puddle Jump parties or seminars,
nevertheless we found ways to keep ourselves busy. The diesels got thoroughly
inspected, cleaned and serviced with new oil, and both tachometers got replaced
due to intermittent hour meter failures. The CruiseRO water maker got new RO
membranes. All winches were dismantled, cleaned, greased and reassembled by our
dear friends Randy and Jody Fraser of Free Luff, a lovely parting gift indeed.
We spent days examining the balance of JollyDogs, moving heavy gear around to
achieve the best balance possible. We procured five additional diesel jerry
cans from a local fisherman, another 110 liters of fuel secured on the aft deck.
Isabel prepared and froze passage meals, carefully organized all our
provisions, and packed fresh fruit and veg for longest life by individually
wrapping each item in newspaper. Behan Gifford baked us a killer fruit cake,
great energy rich snack food, critical for night watches. Thad, a former ER
nurse, organized our entire medical kit. We learned how to drive our Iridium Go
and PredictWind, no small task indeed. Jamie Gifford reviewed the weather and
routing options with us, especially with regards to the ITCZ, current
influence, and the rare window to sail the first 400 miles from La Cruz out to
the trade winds.
In
the end, we knew there were lots of holes in our knowledge and perhaps some in
our preparations, but the weather window arrived and we left anyway. It was a
huge emotional day.
It
took us just under 21 days to make the journey. We traveled 2946 miles across
the Earth, a total of 494 hours 22 minutes underway, averaging 6.0 knots for
the passage. We motored a total of 102 hours, burning around 230 liters of
diesel. We downloaded weather and routing from PredictWind each day. Jamie
offered his routing guidance on a daily basis, and we fed back in-situ
observations for him to correlate with the weather models he was using. We did
encounter adverse currents and plenty of squalls, but it’s clear to us that
Jamie’s access to much more detailed weather data kept us away from the fire
and brimstone that was readily available, as well as the worst adverse
currents.
As
the reader might have surmised in part one of this missive, we’re big believers
in preventative maintenance. We’ve worked towards this event for years, and we
were trying to avoid the enormous cost and time delay in getting parts to the
Marquesas should something critical fail. Even more so, we we did our best to
minimize the risk of a catastrophic event such as the mast collapsing due to
failed standing rigging. It happened on a Seawind 1160 slightly older than
ours, and the owners were extremely fortunate that the associated damage was
minimal and they received no serious injuries.
Our
preventative maintenance efforts seemed to pay dividends for this passage, but
we’ve already got a small shopping list for our first visitor. We had one
Garhauer mast base turning block begin to fail early on in the passage,
fortunately noticing and replacing it prior to a catastrophic failure. We had
some chafe problems with the main sheet. We made some modifications in-situ to
reinforce main sheet block attachments, reduce reefing line friction, and
eliminate squeaking and groaning noise created by the reefing lines secured to
the boom. The Iridium Go was buggy. The SSB and autopilot decided not to get
along, developing some electromagnetic interference issue. The steering gear
began squeaking loudly near around the autopilot actuator attachment, a problem
resolved by plenty of 3 in 1 oil. Just before arrival the radar and depth
finder left the building. Turned out to be a couple of screws at key electrical
junctions, easily identified and resolved.
Nothing
big or critical broke, perhaps due to frequent detailed inspections above decks
and below, and we had spares and tools to correct most identified issues.
Altogether we were pretty well prepared for this passage, and we got excellent
routing advice which helped us avoid some dangerous squalls. We don’t like
lightning at sea. Most importantly, we got lucky. With the exception of 2 out
of the almost 21 days, we enjoyed our passage. Oh yeah, and we didn’t catch a
single fish, so that sucks.
We’ve
read accounts of other boats coming from Panama or the Galapagos or wherever
who are enduring much more miserable and difficult times. They’re having quite
the slog, hitting big nasty squalls full of strong gusts and lightning, and
they’re rolling and heaving about in big confused seas. Things are breaking and
crew members are seasick, but there’s nothing to do but press on and make
landfall. They’ve made it clear via their daily status updates that anyone who
romanticizes a Pacific passage has their head up and locked. That said, while
Isabel and I are both delighted and relieved that it’s over, we both thoroughly
enjoyed the experience. Lucky us!
We
arrived in Nuku Hiva on Tuesday May 7th and have managed to rest and regroup.
The following day we had a nice long lazy lunch at the best local restaurant –
Captain’s treat to the crew – and Thursday morning we were finally able to
check in. Today we’ll begin the carte de sejour for Mark. More about that
later.
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