We saw rain clouds going across our bow several times today, and tried vainly to catch them--we could REALLY use a fresh water rinse at this point. (Even our salt crystals have salt crystals!).

But a few hours ago all that cleared away and the wind settled down at 12-13 knots, and the sun came out, and we've been having a pretty good sail. We anticipate another nice sunset, and hopefully an uneventful night.

The forecast (GRIB files) shows that we should expect some fairly strong winds for about 24 hours, starting late tonight or early tomorrow. We are not looking forward to that! But after that, the winds look nice for sailing right on in to Easter Island.

The trade winds peter out at about 20°-25° South latitude, and Easter Island is at 27°S. So we have a couple of hundred miles to cover in the 'variables'. Our friends on Visions ended up in this area with no wind for 24 hours, and then having to motor the last 100 miles into light headwinds. We are hoping our forecast holds and we'll be able to sail right on in.

We still haven't seen hardly any life out here... only one freighter, a few birds, and no whales or dolphins. We do see lots of flying fish, and quite a few have ended up on deck in the night--I almost got hit in the head by one one night (our dodger deflected it). "We're a long way from Kansas, Toto."
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At 3/10/2010 12:42 AM (utc) our position was 14°31.21'S 101°23.31'W

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We had a pretty good night. The wind was up and down, but within manageable ranges, and the seas were not too bad. The wind direction has eased to just barely forward of the beam, which is much better than close hauled!

The stars last night were just awesome!! It was brilliantly clear until about midnight, and we could see everything.

It has started to get quite a bit cooler here. This morning's air temp is 73 degrees F, and the water temp is down to 74.5 (they were both 80 in the Galapagos). It would be delightful if we didn't also have 20 knots of wind blowing across the deck. I've had to put long pants on and a jacket for my night watches.

We are now talking regularly to 5 or 6 boats on passage... one boat is Windy Too, 3 guys from Newfoundland, enroute from Galapagos to the Marquesas. We met them at Puerto Lucia Yacht Club in August. Another boat is Aliisa, they are a 32 footer, completing a 6 year circumnavigation in Australia. They are enroute from Lima, Peru to Easter Island. And of course, our friends on Infini, about 200 miles ahead of us, and Visions of Johanna, at Easter already.

We can still talk to some of the boats with better antennas 1000 miles away in the Galapagos, but the bulk of the Panama Pacific Net, where we have been participants and a Net Controller for the last year, is fading into the ether.

It's still early for the bulk of the boats making the Galapagos to Marquesas run. Though the World ARC boats were supposed to leave a couple of days ago. I think most people target arriving 1 Apr or later, because it's still officially typhoon season in French Poly until Mar 30. Most of our friends from Ecuador and Panama are either enroute to the Galapagos, or in the Galapagos still touring the Galapagos and getting ready to leave soon for the Marquesas.
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At 3/9/2010 3:00 PM (utc) our position was 13°45.18'S 100°56.44'W

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But this morning, the wind was down and we got a nice light rain to help wash the salt off the boat. For the first 2-3 hours, the seas were really confused... the washing machine again. But with the overcast, we needed to charge the batteries anyway, so we motored for a couple of hours. By late morning, the sun was out, the wind was steady, the seas were fine, and we were having a great sail. This continued all day, and was capped off by a beautiful sunset.

Now, about 8pm, the wind is still steady and the seas not bad. Hope this continues all night!!

We have 'only' 1006 nautical miles to go! Tomorrow morning we should reach our halfway point of 945 miles. Current ETA Easter Island is March 16. The forecast looks pretty good for the next week all the way into Easter Island.
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At 3/9/2010 1:49 AM (utc) our position was 12°39.91'S 100°13.60'W

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Today has been a pretty fast day, with good winds all day, and they are starting to swing a little more east. So we've been making 6.5 knots all day with a double reefed main, staysail, and only about a third of the genoa out. The wind has been up and down between 12 and 18 knots all day.

Just before dark, the wind piped up to 20+ knots (in gusts). We now have the genoa reefed in to 'scrap' size again and we are still going 6.5-7knots. It feels like we're rocketing along. The relative wind is about 70 degrees off our port bow, so we've been able to ease the sheets a little.

Infini, about 165 miles ahead of us, said they'd been through some very windy conditions today, and it had just started to ease for them. We are hoping ours will die down through the night (it is supposed to).

We saw a ship today. They weren't transmitting on the AIS, so Dave called them the old way "Ship at 9 degrees 44 minutes south..." The ship finally answered after several calls. They are enroute from Long Beach California to the Straits of Magellan, with cargo for Brazil. When I drew a great circle line on the chart (using the charting program), it bisected our course right about where we saw the ship. I put a mark on our electronic chart to pass on to others making this passage to be especially alert in this area.

I baked oatmeal cookies today when the wind moderated a little. Something for the long night watches. I studied some more French. I spent a lot of time adjusting sails as the wind went up and down... trying to keep us moving as fast as possible but as comfortably as possible. Dave fixed a few minor things around the boat and read up on Charlie's Charts of French Polynesia (the best French Poly guidebook we have).
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At 3/8/2010 2:09 AM (utc) our position was 10°43.45'S 099°09.45'W

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The wind started moderating during the night last night. Leery of being caught with too much sail up during the night, we were slow to add more genoa, and so had our slowest noon-to-noon day yet--only 121 miles (NM). That is only an average of 5 knots over 24 hours. That's pretty slow for us. Our average speed overall as of noon was 5.6 knots.

But once dawn came, we pulled out more sail, and have been doing between 5.5 and 6.5 knots all day. The wind has stayed pretty steady at around 15 knots all day. We have only done one cycle of 'the wind has died, pull out more sail, the wind is back, reef it back in'. We have a HUGE genoa... at 120%, it is almost double the size of the 95% yankee that the CSY's originally came with. With 15-20 knots of wind, trying to trim the sail properly (and roller reef it in and out) is REALLY hard. I'm getting my muscles back--I will look like a linebacker by fall!!

The weather has been beautiful--even when the wind was blowing too hard. Sunny trade-wind conditions. The temps have dropped from about 80 in the Galapagos to 76 right now (just after sunset). Now that the wind has moderated a little, we are really enjoying the sail.

With the ride getting more comfortable, we've actually been doing something other than just hanging on. This morning I spent several hours working on my French lessons. Dave has no French, and no desire to learn. So I guess I'm "it" in French Polynesia. Fortunately, I had French in high school and college, and used my French last time around the Caribbean, as well as a little bit in Europe this fall. I still need to do some heavy 'brushing up', but at least I've got a leg up.

We also spent some time today with the guidebooks, trying to map out our short term plans for French Polynesia, and our longer term plans for what route we plan to take to Hawaii, and where exactly we want to go for 2011. (Watch our 'Cruising Plans' page on our website for updates, once we figure it out).

Our friends on Visions of Johanna arrived at Easter Island sometime today. And Infini continues to increase their lead on us--they are now 160 miles ahead of us. (Guess we should stop calling their Westsail 42 a 'WetSnail', huh?) You can see their blog at svinfini.blogspot.com. Another boat we know has just left Lima, Peru for Easter Island. They have about the same distance we do, but have a better wind angle.

We've been keeping in touch with everyone via a twice a day schedule on the SSB radio.

We are about 1/3 the way there... only 1285 miles to go!! (Current ETA Mar 15 or 16)
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At 3/7/2010 12:56 AM (utc) our position was 08°39.83'S 097°43.61'W

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So far we have seen one fishing boat--our first night out of the Galapagos, 2 seagulls, and a lot of flying fish. No other boats, no marine mammals. It's a big empty ocean out here.

Today our focus has been to keep the boat moving at a reasonable pace, and stay dry. We want to sail at around 5.5-6 knots, but it's a struggle. The wind has been up and down all day. We get everything trimmed up just right and we're humming along at 5.8 knots, and then the wind comes up a few knots, and we start tearing along at 6.5. Faster is usually better, but in this case, it means we bash harder into the waves.

The waves, though not crazy like yesterday, are still big and still pretty much on our beam. Every now and then one breaks over us, and water washes down the deck and over everything. Occasinally when the wind comes up, we heel so far over that we bury the lee rail in the water. We have our cockpit enclosure to thank for staying mostly dry. But we've got so much foamy water on the lee rail that we have a salty mist in the cockpit, and everything is coated in salt.

We have kept 2 reefs in the main, and the staysail up, and use the roller furling genoa to slow us down or speed us up. Most of the day it has been blowing close to 20 knots, so we've varied between a 'scrap' and a 'bedsheet'. Right now our genny is only out about 8-10 feet. It isn't shaped very well when we've got it rolled in so much, but we don't care.

The forecast for the next few days is pretty much the same. The GRIB files say the wind should drop off a few knots from today's 20 knots, but not change direction much. So we'll be hard on the wind for a few more days.

With only Dave and I aboard, we are doing 3 hour watches through the night. This gives us each about 5-6 hours of night-time off-watch sleep, and we supplement that with a nap during the day, and cat naps during our watches. On Soggy Paws, we are permitted 15-minutes at a time while on watch, to cat-nap, read, or whatever. We use a kitchen timer loud enough to wake us up. After a couple of days of night watches, you get pretty efficient at sleeping in 15 minute segments, poking your head up to check on things, and then going back to sleep again. Or read... or work on the computer.
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At 3/6/2010 2:07 AM (utc) our position was 07°05.05'S 096°27.39'W

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