11º 19.606s 139º 38.392w
Mon Oct 07 2019
Happy
Birthday Shawnee! Gosh, this passage has been “occasion rich”. First Isabel and
I celebrated (I checked to make sure) our 21.5 year wedding anniversary. Today
Shawnee documented another lap around Mr. Sol. In honor of all these festive
events, we caught a wahoo today – right at 1 meter long, and enough meat we’ll
likely go looking for folks to give some to once we arrive at Fatu Hiva. Tomorrow
at sunrise. No kidding. The title of the sailing track on the chart plotter is
“Fatu Hiva or Bust”.
The
weather forecast has helped us overall, but the winds have really differed
vastly at times, making course planning a bit of a wild guess. When possible
we’ve sailed hard to the East as we expected the wind to finally rotate around
and come out of the Northeast and finally the East, helping us sail to our
destination. The wind vector has been such that making Northing has generally
been easier than making Easting. Adding insult to injury, the wind has often
decided to be directly on the bow when we point at the objective, forcing us to
tack upwind. Tacking is easy enough, but this ain’t no performance racing
machine, rather a cruising catamaran whose design errs on the performance side,
and if we weren’t laden with all the machinery and supplies necessary to live
remotely off the grid for months at a time, we would be a lot lighter and would
point higher. As it is, Isabel especially gets quite discouraged at the leeway
we make in rough conditions.
I’m
fine tacking upwind as long as we can make progress towards the destination and
not beat ourselves up in the short period wind waves. We’ve had a lot of green
water over the bows and up through the trampolines this trip, with spray
occasionally making it to the cockpit. Last night when the moon finally set and
the stars were bright, it wasn’t terribly pleasant to perch in my usual
position on the side rail, listening to various “The Motley Fool” podcasts and watching
for shooting stars. After a rather rambunctious afternoon yesterday we shook
out the reef near sunset, and right about the time I began my watch after
dinner yesterday the winds had lightened up and the seas had flattened enough
that I stowed the jib and motor sailed single engine direct to Fatu Hiva,
making about 200 liters of water with the excess electricity. About 0100 this
morning as I was contemplating awakening Isabel so I could have a snooze, the
wind had finally picked up and rotated around enough to roll the jib back out,
shut off that noisy starboard engine and sail nicely along at around 5 knots
speed over ground, almost laying the course.
When
I awakened this morning we were just at 100 nautical miles from Fatu Hiva with
an expected arrival of dawn tomorrow. It’s important to note that given the
choice we will not enter a strange anchorage in the dark of night, and right
now there’s not enough moon to help. Everything was going to plan and we were
just about laying the course with full main and jib. Then Mr. Wind decided to
ignore our very lovely forecast and do his own thing, and all of a sudden we
were headed and the starboard tacking angle had us giving up some of our hard
won progress to the East. The port tack was just as bad for giving up Northing,
but the wind waves made that tack even more uncomfortable. We pressed on the
starboard tack to keep making Northing and continued to pinch up as much as
possible. Around lunch time the seas had mellowed a good bit and the wind was
down to around 10 knots, so Isabel and I made the command decision to fire up
the starboard engine and motor sail as close to the desired ground track as
possible. The wind has continued to drop, and we’ve rolled up the jib and
tightened up the apparent wind angle just to the point the main sail isn’t
flogging and does actually help us punch through swells.
We
left Makemo on October 2nd expecting and mentally (and emotionally) preparing
ourselves to be underway for 5 days. Yes we have a plane to catch on the 16th, but
we’d also like to enjoy at least 2 of the Marquesan islands before finally
arriving at Nuku Hiva and beginning preparations to secure JollyDogs for 7
weeks with a caretaker. That process will take about 2 days of cleanup,
dismantling and stowing gear.
We
reached a point earlier today that “come hell or high water” we’re going be
looking at the inlet to the chosen Fatu Hiva anchorage when Mr. Sun peeks above
the horizon tomorrow morning. Don’t care if we have to burn diesel, we got
plenty. If the sailing is good we’ll sail, but if not we’ll be there anyway.
We’re not adding any risk to our journey, we’re simply adjusting our plans to
meet an arbitrary goal that will allow us a little relaxation before we have to
begin the hustle of putting JollyDogs to bed. Plenty of hard core cruisers
might poo poo our decision, and lots of arm chair sailors would likely ridicule
us. Bite me.
Right
now JollyDogs looks like a giant salt crystal, typical of any sailboat that’s
been on a rough ocean passage. Isabel and I crewed with Captain Ian Fagg on
Inukshuk, a Swan 82’ from Newport, Rhode Island to St. Marteen years ago, and
after tying up at the dock there we used $500 worth of fresh water to get the
salt out of the sails and rigging and off the hull. Another reason not to own a
boat any bigger than you need. Fingers crossed for a good hard rain just after
we arrive in the anchorage in Nuku Hiva. In the meantime, there’s fresh wahoo
for supper, in whatever form chef Isabel decides it should take. Maybe a little
sashimi! Maybe a little Southern fried with light corn meal dusting! Who
cares?!?
Wahoo!
Woohoo!
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