However, today has been nice, sunny with about 12-15 knots of wind. Good sailing. We both took long naps to catch up on our sleep.

Conditions finally moderated enough that Dave braved going out on the swim platform at the back of the boat to hook up 'Henry', our Monitor wind vane. For you non-sailors, this is a device that uses mechanical means to steer the boat automatically, relative to the wind. We have been carrying this expensive, pretty, stainless steel device around on the stern of Soggy Paws since 2007, and it (so far) has gotten about 1 hour of use. Normally, we use 'Janet' our electronic autopilot.

Janet has been doing a GREAT job of keeping us on course over all these miles. But on long trips like these, we should be using the Wind Vane.

It's a little bit of voodoo magic to get it set up and working right. Dave bought ours second-hand, and it wasn't put together right. So the first couple of times we tried to use it, it didn't do the job. Dave took it apart and re-assembled it correctly, and we've finally gotten around to setting it up and using it. We tried once on the way to the Galapagos, but the wind was too light for it to be effective.

Henry has been steering now flawlessly for the past 3 hours. Henry's biggest benefit is that he runs without electricity, saving us about 24 amp-hours a day. And he doesn't eat much :) Henry is named after our friend Henry Mikelait, who is another world traveler. We are happy to have Henry guiding us around the world.

600 miles to go! About 4-5 days. We know the wind is forecast to get pretty light as we approach Easter, so we expect to slow down some the last day.

One of the other boats we've been talking to on the radio--s/v Aliisa--who left from Lima, Peru for Easter Island, said he was passed by a big cruise ship, the Oceanic, who's AIS signal said its next port was Easter Island on March 15. There goes the neighborhood! We hope it has come and gone before we get there!
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At 3/11/2010 10:44 PM (utc) our position was 18°20.33'S 104°03.34'W

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The wind has been blowing 'briskly' all day, about 15-20 knots. But the direction is now almost on our beam (this is better than before). We are no longer beating to windward, but now just trying to keep from rolling our guts out. We have learned that too little sail is as bad (or worse) than too much sail on this point of sail. Too little sail and we roll. Too much sail and we go so fast we get scared :p We like to to keep our speed between 6 and 7 knots.

With the wind up, the seas have gotten bigger. Janet, our autopilot has been working hard to keep us on track. With the big waves slewing us around, she has to work extra hard. I hope she keeps it up!

But it was a nice sunny day all day.

Still have seen no other ships, or other signs of life. But I did see one bird today.
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At 3/11/2010 1:14 AM (utc) our position was 16°38.57'S 102°41.77'W

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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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