PACIFIC CROSSING: WEEK TWO

We Rock! Alt Rock, Yacht Rock, & Folk Rock!

Tue Apr 22 2025 09:49:00 GMT-0930 (Marquesas Time)

In honor of Day 8, from The Violent Femmes I’ll quote our favorite song lyric with the number eight in it:

Eight, eight. I forget what eight was for!

Last night the clouds finally cleared for a while, the stars shone brilliantly, and in all its twinkling glory there it was; the Southern Cross! the southern hemisphere’s finest celestial body, one that means every bit as much to those raised there as the North Star does to their cousins in the north. Cue: lump in throat, misty eyes, and the echoes of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s finest. In fact, to celebrate and in keeping with today’s musical theme, everyone should play “Southern Cross”. It’s old yacht-rock, sure, but go on, do it anyway. You’ll be reminded of what a cracker of a song it really is. And for Pacific voyagers, how cannot we be stirred by these lyrics?:

Got out of town on a boat, going to Southern islands
Sailing a reach before a following sea
She was making for the trades on the outside
And the downhill run to Papeete
Off the wind on this heading lie, the Marquesas
We got 80 feet of the waterline
Nicely making way…

Though, when singing this, any true sailor will change “80 feet” to the LWL of their own boat (we go with 40' though it's 37' 6"). And, then, of course:

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way…

As if that wasn’t enough for today, another momentous moment happened yesterday, we passed 1,000 nm since leaving La Cruz! That’s a third of this passage under our keel, and it qualifies us as fully fledged members of the Ocean Cruising Club. A salty crew indeed! We’ve raised the famous flying fish burgee and will fly it with pride. To celebrate, we broke out a precious trifecta of Flagstaff aged cheddar, prosciutto, and crackers, which we savored together with our achievement. It was one of those lovely little moments that matter in life. Thanks to our friends Michael and Anne on Nimue for mentoring our OCC membership, and Pat and Alexa on Noeta for sponsoring our celebration!

And - huzzah! - there’s another musical interlude to be had! With apologies to The Proclaimers, if you know this crew you’d be disappointed if we didn’t belt out:

And WE have sailed 500 miles,
and WE have sailed 500 more,
just to BE the boat that sailed a thousand miles…

At the top of our lungs, before running out of inspiration for the next lyric. We’re not going “to fall down at your door”, after all. We were found wanting in that moment, though it now occurs that “to sail a thousand more” would have nailed it. Oh well, the Pacific and her gulls throw no shade on meandering and out of tune singing. Not that our musical shortcomings have ever stopped us!

Oh, and progress: We’ve eaten the last of our fresh lettuce, and chewed up some miles running wing on wing through the night - achieving a new 24 hour high of 176 nm! We now have our waypoint to approach the ITCZ at 10N/123W, which we should reach sometime mid-tomorrow. You’ll be hearing much more about the ITCZ as it looms large in our future…

Day: 8
Milestones: 2
Southern Crosses: 1 (there can be only one!)
Salty OCC members: 2
Songs sung heartily: several
Songs sung well: 0
Cheddar wedges devoured: 1
Hours without a sail change: 52
Distance noon-noon: 176 nm
Distance total: 1136 nm

What’s in a Name?

Wed Apr 23 2025 10:58:00 GMT-0930 (Marquesas Time)

Hello, and welcome to day 9 of the crossing! We’re happy to report that all’s well aboard, and the grey skies and our first rainfall have not dampened morale. We’ve been running like a greyhound since the last update, sleek and easy. Winds of around 22 knots and a positive 0.5 to 1 knot current have made for great progress, we ran through the night at over 8 knots. We were glad we’d kept the reef in! It’s been several days now since we last changed our sail plan, though that’s likely to change later today as we prepare for the ITCZ squall zone.

We did see our first small squall about one mile to port on the Doppler radar at 2am last night, though never too close it rained solidly for a couple of hours - our first proper constant rain on Tino Pai since Ensenada!

With grey skies and little solar our battery banks have been steadily draining, so we pulled out the Magical Mister Towed! He’s an old school prop-driven generator who came with Tino Pai when we bought her. So far he’s not having much of a wild ride, producing a steady 10 amps at about 6 knots SOG. He’s quiet and unobtrusive - apart from the line out behind the boat - and seems to be a bit like ‘Ben from Accounting’. Which makes him Ben Towed, ah-hahaha!

And finally, this. Our Monitor wind vane has fast become a beloved and vital crew member. Silently steering Tino Pai to the wind, he’s always at the helm, never complains, and is rather better at handling messy swells than many less mechanical sailors. He won’t do night watches, which is fair when all things are considered, especially because he doesn’t get any of the chocolate ration. And his name is Morris, not Maurice. There was an intervention onboard Tino Pai in which Shan - with Morris reprovingly watching on - explained to me that I’ve had it wrong all along. My protestation that Maurice and Morris sound the same (at least in my world) fell on deaf ears - Shan’s figuratively and Morris’ literally. Mea culpa. In apology, Morris, I humbly offer this Haiku:

Morris, my crew mate
With your homophonic name
Ne’er again Maurice!

I also created an “artist’s impression” of Morris hard at work. Renoir, eat your heart out!

Oh - and Shan won the rain sweepstake, picking day 9 (I had day 10). I won the most miles in a day one with 185+. We smashed that one!

Day: 9
Days wing-on-wing: 4
Crew-member of the week: Morris
Squalls: 1
Haikus: 1
Miles noon-noon: 194 nm
Total miles: 1330 nm

What a Difference a Day Makes

Thu Apr 24 2025 09:52:00 GMT-0930 (Marquesas Time)

Day 10 is here, and it should be halfway day! We’re at 1,473 nm and should pass 1,500 nm this afternoon. That means treats!

And what a difference a day makes. After getting confirmation from our weather router - Jamie at Sailing Totem - last evening we made the dive south! For those who don’t know the significance of this, when crossing from Mexico to the Marquesas sailors first sail SW towards around 10°N 120°W, then once in that neighborhood we look for a good place to go south into the squall zone and more directly towards the ITCZ (the “doldrums”). The idea is to find a latitude where the ITCZ is narrow, so we can sail more and motor less in crossing it. Tino Pai made the turn at 9°N 124°W and we are off to 4°N 125°W. After a week sailing towards "the dive", It’s a moment!

And what a change overnight! We’ve left the trade winds of 20-22 kts with a 2 M swell, which we ran through at pace, and have much more genteel sailing today. We’ve 8-11 kts of wind out of the ENE with a 1 M swell from astern. That means we’re making 4-5 knots in a nice beam reach with little roll. Just lovely!

We’re getting more sun too, which is welcome after yesterday afternoon’s rain. It rained. It rained nonstop for about 4 hours - we were soaked, sodden, soggy, sopping, steeped in rain. You get the picture. At least it was warm, and as it became futile to keep our clothes dry, they became optional. I opted out. I’ll spare you the picture.

Nothing comes without a price they say, and with the pleasant conditions come squalls. Shan calls this area “squallywood” or “squallyworld”, depending on her whim. Like raisins in a scrummy muffin if you don’t like raisins, they turn up just when you’re enjoying things. And depending on how the batter is stirred, sometimes all at once. After observing several nearby, we had our first direct hit this morning. The sky darkened, wind leapt from 9 kts to 25 kts in seconds, and driving rain took about as long to remind me that it’s quite nice being dry. It lasted about 15 minutes during which time I took over the helm from Morris. Our resulting track leads me to think he’d have done better. It can’t have been too bad though, as it hit Shan sleepily poked her head out of the sea berth, mumbled “you need help?”, and when I said she no turned back in to sleep. There’s a vote of confidence for you!

We sailed within 3 nm of our friends on SV New Life this morning, we could see their sails on the horizon as the skies lightened, and Marea hailed us on the radio for a nice chat. It’s a big ocean, so it was delightful to be so close and catch up on things. I snapped a picture (below) of them in the distance giving the expanse of ocean and clouds some scale.

Heads up! Squall approaching, we’ve got to go… hasta mañana!

Day: 10
Clichéd Blog Titles: 2 (in a row!)
Birthday suits at the helm: 1
Buddy boats spotted: 1
Squall direct hits: 1
Miles noon-noon: 132 nm
Total miles: 1462 nm

It Goes to Eleven!

Fri Apr 25 2025 11:03:00 GMT-0930 (Marquesas Time)

Eleven. It’s a number that should always be said with a Scottish accent; it just sounds better that way. The exception, of course, is when you’re dialing it up to eleven. Some quotes simply cannot be messed with.

Rain and squalls have been the story of the last 24 hours, we’ve seen more rain in the last 2 1/2 days than in the last 2 1/2 years! Staring out at it over the grey, grey sea frees the mind to wander (I’ve found) sometimes strangely. Thus:

If you loved Frogger as a kid, you’d enjoy our new game: Squaller! From Mattel’s marine division, especially for cruisers. In this game you steer a plucky little sailboat through a maze of nasty globulous squalls. Try not to get squalled! Best played with a radar console (not included). Once the beginner ‘daylight’ level is mastered, try ‘nighttime’ for a real challenge where your vision is zero and play is ‘instruments only’! Horizontal rain and lightning side quests are included. Enjoy!

Days of overcast skies meant generator Gene came back out yesterday afternoon, ironically while we were enjoying a sunny patch - Murphy was definitely a sailor. Shade cloths and noise cancelling earphones were in order. At least I was able to download some French lessons, pourquoi pas?

On a sad note, today we must perform a requiem for a crew mate… we lost Ben Towed last night. He’s still out there, spinning away behind Tino Pai, but his spark is gone. He’s dead. Deceased. Shuffled off this mortal coil. Perhaps we asked too much, throwing this round little guy out of retirement and into the big game unprepared. He tried, he did, giving us all his amps until he blew. I blame myself. If some blokes can only give 10, one shouldn’t ask for 11. Ben, it was a short time, but a good time. You’ll spin on in the waters of our memory.

We crossed 1500 nm and our official half way point yesterday afternoon at 01:30 UTC, almost exactly 10 days after leaving La Cruz. Not too dusty! Solving the difficult math, we’ve averaged 150 nm per day. We’re happy with that, me more than Shan because I won the “Halfway Day” sweepstake! Treats were had. I went for 11 days (eleven!), Shan went for 12. Tino Pai went “hold my beer”!

So - here we are, in the middle of this iconic passage, as far away from any land as we’re likely to be ever again. It’s humbling, to think of how big the Pacific really is. Even the Boobys are scarcer out here, with only odd visits from solitary individuals - typically Masked Boobys - rather than the flights of curious birds checking out our rigging and fishing around us that we’d been used in our first week. Even Shan is mostly Pooh Bearing it due to umm… “life jacket chafe”.

And in business news, we’re on a broad reach sailing SSW as close to S as we can in 10-16 kt winds from ENE to NE, which are fluky and giving Morris plenty to think about. We’ll be passing our waypoint to the west, and getting ready to move from the active ITCZ into the “doldrums”. If you are interested, check out “What are the doldrums?” from the NOAA. It’s a good brief explanation from real experts.

Day: 11
Birthday suits: 2*
Hours of rain: plenty
Hours of sleep: insufficient
Morale level: 11
Miles noon-noon: 139 nm
Total Miles: 1601
Miles to Hiva Oa: ~1400 nm

*not (always) including ”Pooh Bears”

Community

Sat Apr 26 2025 09:48:00 GMT-0930 (Marquesas Time)

Day 12 dawned prettily after a clear and starry night, promising much more sun today. Experience suggests though, that pretty promises should be taken with a grain of salt - of which we have plenty - and sure enough clouds developed as the day warmed, though not as densely as we’ve been experiencing so we should get some solar. It was nice to see the stars after several nights of heavy cloud cover, not just for their beauty - oh! The Milky Way! - but also for a welcome lack of squalls. Sadly the marine layer south of us shrouded the Southern Cross; happily it will be higher in the sky the further south we sail.

We reluctantly motor sailed for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon and again for a few into the early part of the morning, motoring for the first time since day one. We needed to make south, had light winds, and both wind and current against us from the south. So it was on with the “Iron Genoa” and away with tranquility. We have to make south, as if we go too far west to cross the equator, our path to the Marquesas becomes much more challenging given the prevailing weather patterns. Thus the wind and current pushing us more westward than south was not a good option. We’re currently making good way in a close reach, on a bearing of 190° in 12-14 kts from the ESE. The wind backing around was VERY welcome!

We’ve no shortage of power while motor sailing as the alternator tops up the batteries, so it’s not all bad. We’re able to leave Starlink on, allowing more time to delve into weather and currents, get updates, and catch up on communications. Shan spent much of her night watch messaging with buddy boats making the same crossing. Which leads me to a fun and interesting feature of the passage:

We’re alone out here, but not lonely. Through WhatsApp we’re in regular contact with friends - and soon to be friends - who are out here in the same grand adventure with us. We’ve Dovka already in the Marquesas, Nimue getting very close, and a gaggle of boats in our “Late Leaver’s Luau” WhatsApp group, we all departed in one of the last weather windows of the season. There’s Balloon and Salish Dragon to the west and east of us, Polar Sun, Rocinante and New Life not too far astern, and a bit farther back there is EmyLou, Psipsina, Lochinvar, and Bibi. We’ve been actively sharing our position, sea state, weather, course, plans, general observations, repairs, fish catches, puzzles, and more. The humor, support and amicability of the group has been a joy. We’re looking forward to meeting up with everyone in the islands - some for the first time! The cruising community truly is a special one.

We’ve a Booby problem. You might think “yes, Andy definitely gets fixated on Boobys”, and you might be right, but today my problem is Boris. Boris is a Yellow Footed Booby, and he’s been testing me this morning. Boris wants a rest, and I’m okay with that, but it’s the location of said rest that we differ on. I’ve so far yelled at him to get off my lower port spreader, starboard spreader, masthead, and solar panels. Boris is reluctant to move and either ignores me, or simply looks at me as if to say “what?”. I’ve suggested - loudly - that the bow pulpit is the spot, and finally - finally! - he’s settled there. Thanks, Boris, rest away. Oh, and he’s "Boris" because he has the tenacity and balance of a Russian circus performer. And a blank, yet daunting Soviet-era stare that makes me blink first.

Day: 12
Hours on engine: too many… 6?
Boobys: 1 (only ornithic counted)
Squalls: 0!
Miles noon-noon: 124 nm
Miles total: 1724 nm
Miles to the Equator: ~250 nm

Code White!

Sun Apr 27 2025 09:40:00 GMT-0930 (Marquesas Time)

It’s lucky 13 and, why yes we are. Clearly so, as not only are we out here - and I’m touching wood, throwing salt (spray) over my shoulder, and drawing on all the luck that 13 offers as I say this - the ITCZ is being quite decent towards us. We’re on a beam reach under sunny skies, with a moderate swell in both size and period. The sails are full with telltales streaming, and we’re making 5-6 knots despite having over a knot of current flowing against us from the equator. Lucky to be here, in this boat, in these conditions, lucky indeed! While saying that, we have had excellent guidance from our weather router Jamie at Sailing Totem.

The night was not without its challenges - more frustrating than concerning - and the crux of it is that I’ve pulled Boris’ bus pass. I’ve taken his parking permit, canceled his charter, and revoked his visitation privileges. How did it come to this? It probably started when Shan convinced me that Boris could stay for the night after he’d settled on the corner of our starboard aft solar panel. Yes, he’d come back. Having some experience of Boris that morning I was reluctant, but begrudgingly agreed. All seemed well, until Morris the wind vane started being erratic during Shan’s watch, being finicky about staying on course and meandering more widely from our heading than usual. She was frustrated and happy for the change of watch, and not long after so was I. Even minor adjustments sent Morris off on exaggerated turns. Adjusting for weather helm helped, but Morris just wasn’t being the reliable team player we love. What was up? Boris was up.

As dawn brightened the sky, it became apparent that Boris had pooped on the stern pushpit, the outboard, the transom, and Morris. No wonder the poor bloke threw his toys out of the cot, I’d refuse to perform in those conditions too! Grabbing the deck mop, I braved Boris’ beady-eyed stare and chased him off. He tried to come back a couple of times - tenacity, remember - but the mop in his face put paid to that. I cleaned up Morris as best I could along with the rest of the stern area, and apologized for the indignity of his becoming an ornithic head. I seem to be making a habit of apologizing to Morris, but he seems to have been much happier since.

The stars were amazing last night! I spent most of my night watch staring out at them and picking out constellations, among them the Southern Cross shone majestically. It felt great to sail instruments-free with the wind vane, keeping the Southern Cross on a constant bearing off our port bow (it was before the pooping happened, apparently). It felt quite old school.

Finally, we’re about 140 nm from the equator as of noon local time, which means we should cross tomorrow afternoon. More on that later, for now we’ll make the most of our final hours as humble Pollywogs!

Day: 13
Cranky wind vanes: 1
Code whites: 1
Birds non gratis: 1
Miles noon-noon: 122 nm
Total Miles: 1846 mm
Miles to the Equator: 140 nm
Pollywogs: 2
Shellbacks: 0

Crossing the Line

Mon Apr 28 2025 10:58:00 GMT-0930 (Marquesas Time)

Pollywogs no more! Shannon, Andy and Boris the Booby all became Shellbacks at 18:45 UTC today! A short update, there will be more tomorrow as we’re savoring the moment. For the uninitiated though, we can confirm that:

A) We toasted ourselves, after giving Poseidon and Neptune a tot.

B) Andy won the Equator sweepstake. He’s on a roll!

C) There isn’t actually a line. We looked!

We’re stoked!

Day: 14
Pollywogs: 0
Shellbacks: 3
Hemisphere: Southern
Bottles of Moet: 1
Tots to Neptune & Poseidon: 1 (each)
Miles moon-noon: 133 nm
Total miles: 1979 nm