Author: Pete

Location: 08°54.943S 126°16.550W

Date: 11:00 April 13 to 11:00 April 16

 

Day 15 – 17 at sea.

Another fairly exciting couple of days roll by Tayrona! Yesterday we passed into the triple digits! We celebrated being under 1000 miles, and 2/3 of the trip done with a big pan of brownies! Seems like every other day we have a milestone, but it’s the little victories that keep one going on day 13, 14, and now 15. At a conservative 5 knots, landfall would be another 8 days from here, putting us in Hiva Oa on April 21st. Give it a day for who knows what, and we’ll call it the 22nd. We had a great Thai noodles with a special sauce Miranda cooked up, and even a couple of beers with dinner! Then we sat on the bow at sunset and devoured the entire pan of brownies like the starving sea dogs we AREN’T.

Prepared a message in a bottle for this occasion too. An almost empty rum bottle was all we had aboard, but I thought it fitting. We obligingly emptied it, put in our names, contacts, date, and location, and pitched the old girl overboard. The crew members have a documented, running bet about where it will show up, with some brews on the line.

 

Wind has been slacking and is predicted to do so for the next day or so. Bob McDavitt, a marine weather forecaster from New Zealand, discussed El Nino indications in the south Pacific, with warming waters bringing lighter trade winds with more southern development. We’re already seeing the effects, yesterday with 14 knots (9 apparent) of wind and now 9 knots (6 apparent). All coming from 135 degrees to port. Still making ~4 knots with the spinnaker up through the night, but may mess up our landfall prediction.  A rocky, but authentic picture of the motion on our boat at night- here’s Venus, as she guides us along just off our starboard bow.

 

Last night Miranda saw a meteor airburst! It’s a relatively rare meteoroid entry that ends up coming into the atmosphere, heating through ram pressure (extreme pressure differential, not friction with the atmospheric molecules as generally thought) and then exploding in the atmosphere in a brilliant burst. She said the sky lit up in a white, etherial flash, bright enough to cast shadows on the boat, just for a second, then a falling trail of glowing debris, also white. It occurred roughly at 12:30am, early morning April 14th. Our position was 08 degrees 42.700 min S, 122 degrees 20.000 min W, and Miranda saw it around 20 degrees up in the sky SSE of our position.

Cloudless and great stars again tonight. Tranquil seas, and no moon make for fantastic stargazing from the trampoline! All good aboard Tayrona.

Author: Pete

Location: 08°35.981S 120°27.125W

Date: 11:00 April 12 to 11:00 April 13

 

Day 14 at sea. Two weeks! Can you imagine spending two weeks in the same 2 rooms of your house? I suppose if you live in Northern Michigan in the winter, that’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination. We discussed our lives in the real world and cited all the things we’d be getting done in two weeks of our normal efficient worker bee cadence. It seems like our days out here go so fast though. We have our routines, our duties aboard the boat, food to cook, dishes to do, then time to do our own things. Still astounds me that every day there is something that I didn’t get time to do. How does that happen when there’s seemingly nothing to do?

 

Lower winds today gradually turning aft, so we put up the spinnaker! Gave us a boost of a knot or so, and no flopping headsail to annoy the crew. A little pink and purple are welcome changes in our general world color scheme these days. The big, parachute of a sail also provides some welcome shade on the trampoline in the hot afternoon sun to sit and play guitar.

 

We’ve been checking in with the Tangaroa fleet in the afternoon really briefly for any emergency traffic. Apparently it was ‘Tantoa’ only on the frequency list sheet they gave me before we headed out. It’s Tangaroa. Sounds like there may have been some trouble in paradise with some broken bits on a boat well ahead of us, not in our fleet. Tallulah Ruby suggested a quick afternoon monitoring of an emergency frequency in case anything of the sort happened to one of us. Good to have safety measures in place.

 

Today was a sad occasion, as we finished our last remaining fresh fruit. It’s cans from here on out, baby.

 

All good tonight aboard Tayrona. The moon has come and gone. The stars are out in force. I’ve been enamored with Scorpio in the southern sky. There are some great astronomical features around it, globular star clusters, the Scorpio Jewel Box, and the red supergiant Antares, all well visible through a good set of binoculars. Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until we’re back in a flat anchorage to really scope them. Just get a good dose of nausea from eyeing the heavens too long on the deck of a rolling boat.

 

Author: Pete

Location: 08°21.914S 118°20.678W

Date: 11:00 April 11 to 11:00 April 12

 

Day 13 at sea.

The wind took it easy today. Last night it dropped to 10 knots and during the day it was down to 7. Our speed ground down to 3 knots at some point in the afternoon. The sea state came down as well, so we had a nice calm day, much appreciated after the last week of tumultuous wave associated with the higher wind. It was downright relaxing.  And the flat seas make it conducive to re-stocking the rice!  Not as much energy in without the wind and towing generators chugging along like hopped up bunnies.

 

Tonight the wind came back, now around 13 knots, and we’re back to making 6.5 knots of headway. Flat is nice, but when you have 1216 miles to go, speed is better appreciated.

 

We have Ghirardelli chocolate brownies in the hopper for our ‘Triple Digit’ threshold, when we’re under 1000 miles. Not sure if I’m more excited for the milestone or the brownies.

It’s a gorgeous night out. Usually the early night watches get good stars, then it clouds over for the late watches. I have the graveyard watch, so I’m usually out under matte, gun metal skies. If it’s not too rough on nights like this I’ll go lay on the coach roof under the sail and watch the stars past the mast. It affords a good lookout vantage for ships. I’m always clipped in when I’m up there, but sometimes it’s disconcerting for off-watch crew to peek up and find the cockpit empty. “Did anyone hear a splash?” Tethers. We all wear tethers at night.

Arroz con Pollo for dinner and two cans of pears for dessert. We have two more real live fresh oranges in the refrigerator that we’re saving for a special, grave day. A few tomatoes survive on, along with one brave carrot.  We also have SNOB brand hot sauce from Ecuador to keep things spicy.  SNOB brand is WAY better than any of your wimpy hot sauces.  I wouldn’t dream of using any other kind.

All good aboard. More to come.