Tag Archives: catana

NZ Bound #3: 210 till entering the world of pies

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Pies are the like tacos of Texas or Mexico, pie competitions are fierce. The best filling to crispiest (but not too crispy that it makes a mess) and getting the just right savory to dough bite is serious business.

We are still knocking off the miles and that is good, still on track to beat the next cold front hitting New Zealand. We have 2 more sleeps at sea before clearing into the country

The bad news is that we are using a bunch of dinosaurs 🦕 🦖 juice to get it done. A dreaded blue hole materialized on the weather forecast, it was predicated and then not and then again, and yup it happened.

No big deal, we sailed with the engines on for a while. The wind started coming out of the north so we broke out a big kite to play with and let it pull the boat toward NZ. After getting it all set up and talking through the procedure, the wind nearly died. Not enough wind to blow out a candle. So on came the noise makers and we have been motoring nearly all day and will continue through the night.

One huge bonus, we rinsed off all the Deep Water Salt for the startup business, there were not enough people interested in Deep Water Salt Margaritas. Oh well. Also made water and filled the batteries. And.. it was warm enough to get a shower on the back of the boat

Penultimate sunset of this voyage came complete with a little green flash

Penultimate a cool word that doesn’t get worked into everyday conversations nearly enough. When was the last time you said one before last?

There may be a little bit of wind coming in tomorrow to finish the last day under sail, one can always hope.

All well onboard.

Quickie of the sunset

Cheers.

NZ Bound #3 1082 nm till quality craft brews

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22 boats left Wednesday, we waited another day when only 5 boats left. What did we miss? We heard on the SSB that there was champagne sailing out there, so in search of that we go.

Looks a bit sporty?

We are now just about 12 hours into the journey and if we had any champagne it certainly would be shook up and have lost all its great effervescence.

We had a Mexican night onboard, enchiladas and rice, and a salt covered boat, just missing the rest of the margarita.

Still searching for champagne.

Cheers, All well onboard, at least another day of bouncing along.

155 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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Wowzers what a day!

Sailing can be fun and today was one of those days. winds and seas cooperated, and even a milestone was achieved.

Another day without the drone of the engine, and the diesel supply remains intact. We have enough fuel if we need to motor the rest of the way, the gauges read 60%, so in the first 5 days, we only used 30% since we left with about 90% full. The math, or the numbers. We hold 800 liters (210 gallons) of diesel in our main tanks. We would normally fill them and 4 jerry cans for a journey like this. let’s say 900 liters. So since each engine consumes about 3 liters per hour, that would be 300 hours (12.5 days). We left with maybe 600 liters, so 200 hours (8.3 days), the journey was starting to look like 10 days or more. Thus the concern, being able to sail for the past 2 days has eased the mathematically minded.

Now back to the specular day.. nice sun, nice breeze, forecast looks good for the rest of the day, and a questionable wind shift materializing with rain a day ahead. That ain’t gonna stop an equator crossing!

Christine was the most productive, our stalk of bananas was quickly becoming too many ripe bananas to swallow. Froze a few (er 20), smashed another 10 and she baked banana muffins, and since the oven was hot she also baked cookies. All this before the equator even suspected we were coming.

Wanting to be the first to spot the equator.. or just relaxing from a busy day. Or waiting on the champagne celebration

I think we surprised the middle of the marble. We had been climbing up from the south quietly but speedy. We had good wind and made better progress and crossed in the daylight hours. Expected a red carpet affair watching the “S” fall over and become a “N” on the GPS. Poof, just like that the toilets flushed the other way around. No carpet, no fan fare, and didn’t even spot the pink tape holding the 2 halves of the globe together.

Shellbacks, pollywogs is what you become for crossing the equator. I was so excited, I was going to order one of those trendy “Sail Naked” t-shirts to mark this occasion but then figured a T-shirt would defeat the purpose of the message.

Cajun pasta from our passage meal collection, with the obligatory copious amount of cookies for desert.

The wind shift started, we are no longer able to make our point of sail, off by 10-15 degrees, so all that easting we did is dwindling rapidly. There are still 400 miles to go, so fingers crossed for a little shaft back in our favor. The forecast doesn’t support it, but you have to think it will happen! All is well on board and with the universe.