We made it here after a ninety six hour sail - at least most of it was sailing. Some of it was drifting. As I have said many times before, Mike does not like to use the engine.
The first day went nicely, although the wind was on the nose, and we discovered we are out of practice when it comes to sailing into the wind. But we started to get our rhythm back, and I managed to get the boat to go about half the wind speed. This was good when the winds were only two knots - at least I could keep the boat moving forward. The winds died as the sun set, and we spent most of the night flopping around. This was the pattern for the entire trip - slow nights and mornings, with nice winds in the afternoons and evenings.
In some ways, sailing in light winds is harder than sailing in heavy winds, although you rarely worry that you are going to die. The main worry is that 1) you will never get where you are going and will run out of all the good food; and 2) the constant slatting around is not good for the sails or the rig. The last part is true, the first part less so. But trying to keep a sailboat moving forward smoothly is made a lot harder with no wind. The waves and currents become a stronger force when the wind drops. With no wind to counteract them, waves push the boat around, and currents can cause it to crab off sideways. You have to man the helm constantly, even with the autopilot, because even though you are steering the proper way, the boat is wandering off to the side, and it is not evident on the navigation screen until you are way off course.
One of the good things about going slow is that you get to see things in the water as you sail along. While we were out there, we looked into the clear Pacific waters and saw literally thousands upon thousands of jellyfish, all kinds and colors and shapes and sizes. Tiny ones and big ones. It is too bad they are such stingers because they are really beautiful and interesting. There were these white ones that seemed to float on the surface. At first I thought it was bits of styrofoam, but no. They look like great big white paramecium, actually. We wondered where all the sea turtles were as they eat jellyfish. (We saw them two days later, after all the jellyfish were gone. Coincidence?) We were also treated to dolphins every day, and whales too. It never gets boring, watching the water to see what is going to appear.
The anchorage here is gorgeous - I will post some pictures after I get them downloaded. (Oh I forgot - we took videos of dolphins and fish with the underwater camera attached to a stick and held under as they swim by. The fish are very curious about the camera and swin right up to it. I am eager to see how everything turned out and if holding the camera underwater like that gets us some good marine life video.) We haven't gone ashore yet - too tired to take the dinghy down tonight. We napped this afternoon, but are still tired.
Those overnight passages take it out of you. Here is how we do it. I go to bed at about 7:30 or 8 pm, and Mike takes the first night watch. He gets me up anywhere between midnight or two am, but not later than two. That is my idea, so that both of us get some dark night time for sleeping. Then I take the watch from whenever I get up until Mike gets up, which is hopefully no earlier than 8 am. He takes a nap later on in the afternoon. Of course if things don't go well, that schedule is shot to hell and nobody gets any sleep. It will be interesting to see how we handle literally weeks at sea. Four to five days is the longest so far. I am hoping we fall into a rhythm after a while, and that is gets easier.
Tomorrow we go into town to get some groceries and to explore around. I expect we will be here for a week or so. Anyway, I am still tired, and fear I am starting to babble. I will not end today with a quote - too tired and too lazy to look up a good one.
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