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120 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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Ohhh .. what’s that sound?

Just the sound of water rushing behind the boat.. The iron sails are getting a much deserved vacation.

The sound is amazing

Raised the mainsail just before dark last night in hopes the wind would fill in. Of course it waited till morning. Was still a bit flukey over night into the wee hours of sunrise.

Stabilized with 8-9 knots which happily pushes us along quite nicely. And the sound is amazing. Just a little U2 on the stereo while the wake tries to catch the boat.

It only took 120+ hours to get going. Sadly the forecast won’t hold this for very long and we’ll be back into the sweltering heat but we’ll take what we can get.

Happy Friday

Passed 1/2 way, 620 miles left its all down hill from here? Or is it..the swell goes down and UP.. and we are heading towards the earths belt that holds the middle in, so will the down actually hill start after the middle section? Guess we’ll find out soon.

60 Hours into the passage to the Marshall Islands

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Nothing to report….

Kidding, good day, just no wind. Turned into a project day.. Finished cleaning the teak, being careful not to fall off the boat. Christine tackled the stainless. And a few naps of course. The full stalk of bananas are nicely turning ripe. 100 or so bananas.. luckily (or our t-shirt method) is letting them turn ripe in seconds instead of all at once. And the folklore about not having bananas on boats, its bad luck for fishing.. I present you a marlin and skipjack with bananas on board.

Super hot today, barely any wind, I think it was 2 knots at most. Must be spoiled by spending too much time down in New Zealand.

Middle of the dreaded SPCZ thunderstorm alley..

Checked the water temperature, its nearly 31C (87F) can almost spend all day in the bath water without even getting chilled.

First time flying the drone off the boat while moving. Much more difficult than it sounded in my head. Normally, near land there are reference points to know which direction you are heading. Out here it’s everything is just blue. The up and down of the swell made the retrieval a challenge. Need a better plan before trying it again.

Finally broke the 1000nm to go, so that feels good. Checking the forecast and hoping for a breeze in our future. Sadly it seems the the noise free travel is still a few days away so the sound of the engine continues. How many times per day can I attempt to calculate how much engine time we can use before we run out of diesel? Is it 8 or 9 days? Are we using 3 liters per hour or 2.5? How full were the tanks? Do I trust those gauges? I’ll probably go through those calculations several more times daily till we arrive or the breeze starts and we can turn off the noisy sail.

All well on board, Fish were not interested in our slow lures today. Chicken Fajitas for dinner,.

First 24 Hours to Marshalls

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A perfect morning for a sail. A little gray, not too much sun to get sun burnt. Nice gentle breeze, no drama when the sails are up. Still behind the reef so very little waves. Pretty sweet.

Sails up, and off to the races we go. First day, going conservative start with one reef in the main sail, just incase the forecast is a little off. Works perfectly, nice easy sail. As “Lonely Island’s” song goes “Busting 8 knots in my flippy floppies”. Nice start.

Still concerned about the SPCZ thunderstorms that would be ahead, but just as Moses did the red sea, the SPCZ split and left us alone. Warnings to the left of us, and some to the right, but the center was clear. Yippie.

However, the splitting left us with very little wind to sail with so we changed the stereo station from Pop to Country we landed on “Little Big Towns” “Pontoon” with the Chorus .. Motor Boating. For the next few days at least that “Motor boating” song will be stuck in your head and ours as we endure the drone of an engine to make reasonable progress.

The blue zone, comes with perks too. No electrical worries, batteries will be fully charged. Water tanks full, no reason not to run the water maker. Warm water, all the warm water you use.

Glassy conditions, sail ready should the wind show up

The blue zone was in the forecast, it just came a little sooner than hoping and the blue zone has gotten much larger ahead of us. We will not be setting any 24 distance records with just one motor running, we only dropped off a mere 130 nm toward Majuro, Marshall Islands in the first 24 hours.

So all good on the big watery road, a nice chicken peanut curry for dinner. Too many miles left to count…. 😎