Monthly Archives: March 2019

Realtime Passage to Easter Island #11

One week down(Saturday), we left Robinson Crusoe (Juan Fernandez) last Saturday. Rough math has 1000 miles in that weeks time. Some motor sailing, but mostly under sail.
After dancing with squalls some with rain showers all night, the morning saw the end of them. The wind was still cooperating despite being predicted to be absent. We were treated to a beautiful day.
Kept on Keeping on.
I woke Christine up to look at one of the clouds, right smack dab in the middle of a puffy white cloud was a rainbow splotch. Took a picture but hard does it justice, looked like someone had taken a paintbrush of rainbow and just accidentally touched the cloud. No big arch just a smudge. Pretty cool.
The waves and wind built during the day and we struggled to keep pointing to the mark and have a comfortable ride. Just before dinner we had resolved in taking a reef to make a nicer night, and after dinner the winds dropped down to 14, which is perfect.
Was just a beautiful day, tried shorts and t-shirt, worked in the sun but with the breeze it was still pretty cold. Looking forward to hot and muggy, but then will be wishing for cooler temps, I’m sure.
All is good will be under 500 miles before midnight (Santiago time) The trip computer has a nice 7.7 average since midnight (local time), knocking off 140 miles with 6 hrs till it resets.
Ran water maker, topped up both tanks. One bank of solar panels was not shaded by the sails and was able to support the boat and water maker within reason. Will have to run the honda generator at some point to night to catch all the way back up.
One apple left, rest of the fruits are gone, last avocado gone. Some lettuce and bell peppers and potatoes, onions, garlic are the remaining fresh food items – should be plenty for the next 4 days without having to resort 100% to canned items.
I hope that sunset photo from last night made it to the blog/facebook. Took lots of attempts on the SSB, one was 2 mins from finishing after 90 mins when the connection crapped out. I got time, but its still frustrating.. 😀
Cheers.
1610 of 1624 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 3/24/2019 @ 12:02 AM UTC Our position: 30°07.05’S, 100°23.01’W Traveling 7.9 heading 292T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-30.11750,-100.38350

Realtime Passage to Easter Island #10

Dancing with Squalls, today was the day to avoid the squalls. Got wet a little, the bright side the squalls brought some short lived wind but wind is wind. Able to sail during the squalls, probably turned motor on and off a dozen times today.
All good on the Shack, warmed up during the, shorts and t-shirt for a while. When night time and the squalls approached, they were with some pretty chilly breezes. Nothing much going on but sleep, eat, take shift keeping eyse on the boat and whats happening with the wind/waves and the squalls.
We have officially been on every point of sail on this trip, and if you start counting from Valdivia we have have used every sail we have on board, main has been in all but the 3rd reef position, which is reserved for serious winds of 45knots. upwind, downwind, sidewind (one of those is not a sailors term) but we have done it. 🙂
And hopefully we have only another 5 or 6 days till Easter. Definitely will be wind dependent tho.
674 of 1624 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 3/23/2019 @ 1:55 AM UTC Our position: 30°44.10’S, 097°14.85’W Traveling 4.6 heading 277T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-30.73500,-97.24750