Day#6
Yippie, Made the 1/2 way mark of 707 miles between Easter Island and Gambier.
As the sun rose and the first light started to show the world around us, those first sights were none too pleasant. Squall lines all around and a huge one formed behind us in the picture. Luckily we were cruising along at a decent clip and were able to stay in front and take advantage of the fresh breeze and keep on trucking. Successfully avoiding the rain that was falling all around us.
Another nice tranquil day of sailing, knocking off the miles and napping as the swell and winds caress the boat toward the destination. Beam reach with quartering monsters. All is good till rudely awakened from a nap to the sounds of “fish on”.
Yeah. What will it be this time, Tuna? Wahoo? Mahi? Well, wait it is taking ALL the line. Slow the boat, it is still peeling line. More drag, slowly cause we’ve all learned that lesson too many times. Hmmm. Full drag and still loosing line. Oh oh, it’s going to be a long battle. 90 mins later finally near the boat but no sighting. Oh my. Marlin. Too too big, Tried everything to retrieve the lure, but he was not getting near the boat, and 3 meter seas did not help, sorry to the beautiful fish, and hope that hook rusts out soon. 🙁
2 more days of wind in our forecast, followed by 2 days of not much, hoping tomorrow is spinnaker weather and the seas mellow down some.
Have also made contact with the SSB Radio net that meets twice a day to track boats and keep everyone up to date on where people are and how to locate resources in French Polynesia. The Magellan net meets at 0400z on 8.173 and I think the othe time is 1800z but haven not confirmed that yet. Just another way to keep in touch and find out about local happenings, tonight was a way to get discounts on things in Tahiti.
Cheers Happy Friday
699 of 1414 miles left to go. [realtime]

What a difference a day makes.
Van Morrison said “There would be days like this”. Today was pretty much the quintessential big wave sailing day. 4 meter waves, with an actual period between them, so much better then the washing machine of days gone by. With any luck those washing machine memories will be replaced with more of the blue skies and smooth sailing, even if it means climbing mountains all day long.
Winds under 15 knots, clocking from 220 this morning to a fine beam of 170 to our 270 course toward them Gambier islands. Occasional dips into double digit SOG, surfing down the back sides of these horizon eclipsing waves.
Even drug the fishing lines today, no joy so far, but it is a signs of a good easy day. Under 900 miles to go, three apples left, 3 avocados too, so that means 3 more days right? Only in a plane, we are gonna be arriving without apples that’s for sure.
As sun was setting, the all too familiar squirrels (squalls nicknamed on the Pacific Puddle Jump – a group of boats crossing the Pacific each year) reared their heads on the horizon. To avoid the squirrels at night you try and head up wind round them, or since I’m lazy reef, that and there are many this evening. So just at sunset we reefed the main down to second position and no sooner has the sun set, squirrel #1 descended on our position with some rain and some wind, having a little less canvas meant no problems. Adjust for changing wind direction and return to course as soon as we are past this squirrel. Interesting that we used squirrel to mean those stinky creatures that are all over the Galapagos and San Francisco bay. The Galapagos squirrels are also to be avoided as they are stinky and leave presents that no one really ever wants onboard.
Cheers
866 of 1414 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 4/5/2019 @ 2:42 AM UTC Our position: 25°58.56’S, 119°27.99’W Traveling 6.8 heading 290T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-25.97600,-119.46650

Day #4
Break on through to the other side! We ran right smack dab into the weather system that was causing us all the grief for the past couple of days. We haven’t broken free yet, the skys are still gray, and rain is all around. The waves and winds are becoming less chaotic and more synchronized.
Before shaking the reefs out, some long naps were in order to recharge and make sure the weather we were seeing was going to continue. All good since this morning, little motor sailing when the winds went real light, but back on sails alone now that the winds are over consistent above 8knots. Going to be another dark night, clouds, sliver of a moon and a very late moon rise at that.
Its been slow going, hopefully we can get moving a bit better with the improving conditions. Supposed to have some decent wind and weather for a few days. The waves will remain large at 4M, er 12 footers, might still be bouncy.
See the image attached, that rest stuff on the right of the photo is what we were going through. That RED on the bottom is what we were definitely NOT wanting to get involved with. When we left Easter the most comfortable direction was directly west which we would have run right into that big RED. Only spotted that on the weather reports after we had already gone 25 miles toward it. Yikes, thus the next days were trying to head north up that other red zone is where we were getting bounced around a bit.
999 of 1414 miles left to go. [realtime]
At 4/4/2019 @ 2:50 AM UTC Our position: 26°26.43’S, 117°03.76’W Traveling 6.3 heading 283T
Google says we are here www.google.com/maps/place/-26.44050,-117.06267

Storm on passage to Gambiers