Well, ever since we got to Gambier we’ve been watching the big picture weather to develop an understanding of how rare it is to get a good sailing forecast to go from Gambier to Nuku Hiva, a 900 nm passage at 341 true. Ideally a nice Southeasterly with associated swell from the South would make this sort of trip easy peasy. It took until about 4 days ago for one of those systems to settle in.
In the meantime we had a blast at Gambier, kiting with our favorite kid boats, exploring some of the islands and motus, taking one big-toenail destroying hike, and getting to know a local family who host a Sunday bbq along with patonk and volleyball. All in all, getting to know them a bit was one of the biggest cultural highlights of our two years here, along with the 2019 Marquesas cultural festival.
Gambier was good, but about 3 weeks ago Isabel developed some kind of head cold chest cold flu like thing, and I followed a few days later. Not to be outdone, mine developed into bronchitis. We got that treated and even managed to collect my fancy new fungal infection ear drops before departing Rikitea at 1000 Wednesday morning, passing the outer channel marker right at noon where we adjusted our course to 341 and began to wait. Only 900 miles to go, both of us feeling like we were mostly recovered so ready for the trip, plenty of passage meals in the fridge and freezer. The first 24 hours were amazing sailing, under full rig with smooth following seas we put 179 miles behind us, but by 1515 Thursday afternoon with a squall threatening, we reefed down to the #2 setting. Funny how it works out, as the speed remains almost the same but the ride quality improves. We had rigged for #2 and #3 (only 2 sheaves in our boom with single point slab reefing), so #1 required a bit of a kabuki dance on the cabin top to manually secure the leech, and Isabel decreed that “Mark shall not go there”. Fine, we still blasted along at about 7.4 knots average speed even with reef #2, and no worries about having to reef again if a squall showed up.
Unfortunately, the lurgy returned and on Thursday, our first full day out we both felt awful. That’s a bad feeling to have at sea, when all you’ve got is your wits and physical strength at your disposal if things go South. Yesterday was not a good day, but Isabel slept until a bit after midnight and relieved me, and I slept until maybe 0700 this morning, and today I’m much better, thank you very much. Isabel has had a pretty quiet day, but it hasn’t stopped her from standing watch and trimming the odd sail. With luck we'll feel like fishing by tomorrow, when the forecast begins to mellow a bit. For the trip we’ve got a 7.3 knot average, and since midnight we’ve done 7.0.
We’ll get through this, and be lookin’ like Smilin’ Jack when we drop the hook at Nuku Hiva Monday afternoon.
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