Landfall in Marquesas

Author: Pete
Location: 09°50.075S 138°58.907W
Date: April 22

 

LAND HO! Day 23 at sea and we’ve made it to Hiva Oa! Some heavy squalls last night and this morning too. Woke to dark cliffs off our starboard, visible only occasionally when the clouds broke. Miranda went topside to get something, came back down to the berth with wide eyes. “There’s more yellow than black on the radar.” Yellow is land, boats, and rain return. Black is open sea. On the radar we’re surrounded by islands. It’s a little intimidating after having, literally, ALL the sea room in the world to navigate for a month, to suddenly be penned in with three rocky shored islands that you can only kind of see.

DSC_3574

DSC_3582

DSC_3584

P1140371

P1140369

 

Once we were four miles from the harbor the squall line passed and we were left with heavy broken skies, an a double rainbow, exactly like our arrival in Galapagos. Pretty spectacular. Great green cliffs pouring with waterfalls rising from the rain clouds. Sharp volcanic peaks perpetually topped with a cap of clouds, clinging to the vegetation.

P1140382

DSC_3616

DSC_3620

 

We rounded the green light at the break wall and found a spot amidst the sheltering boats to anchor. Everyone is anchored bow and stern to admit more boats into the tiny harbor. Daniel, our Swedish friend with a Lagoon 380 who we met in Panama, came zipping over in his inflatable and graciously brought our stern anchor out to drop. We’re anchored next to other friends, Wayne and Dana, on Journey, also from a meeting in Panama.

P1140385

 

Made plans with our immigration agent, Sandra, for getting the bureaucratic work done the following day. Then we put the dinghy in the water and went ashore! Land! Sweet land! We walked the couple of miles into the tiny town. Our first stop, the French bakery! We bought a baguette, cucumbers, tomatoes, and the last four pan au chocolat! Perfect! Ate sitting in the shade watching the Marqueseans watch us as they passed.

Filled water tanks, the water a little turbid, but apparently still good to drink. Went for a run up and up and up a winding road into the steep hills. The legs will be sore tomorrow. Went out for pizzas to celebrate and got a ride back to the harbor with a massive, tattooed warrior of a Marquesian named Humu who we spoke to in broken French and English. Back to the boat in the dark for the first uninterrupted night of sleep in three weeks.

Made it, made it, made it.

DSC_3605

 

Passage to Marquesas: Day 19

Author: Pete
Location: 09°15.981S’ 130°03.656W’
Date: 11:00 April 17 to 11:00 April 18

 

Day 19 at sea.

The wind was low again today, so we motored through the calm. Made for good reading. The last day we motored on this trip was April 1st. This is pretty cool for us since we’ve been under renewable power (solar, wind, towing) and haven’t had to use the engines, or gas generator for over 2 1/2 weeks! Think about not using ANY power for 2 1/2 weeks in your house. Feels good to have a balanced boat, despite our loads, mostly the watermaker, refrigeration, and autohelm, but also electronics, and lights. We’ve had it balanced at anchor, but having the towing generator pumping out ~3-4 extra amps makes all the difference at sea. We could have gone longer too, but we fired up the engines for propulsion. The batteries were getting a little low in the last days since we had low wind, boat speed, and cloudy skies. We didn’t make water in the last 2 days. So we’re happy to have excess energy for a bit, as well as hot water for showering.

DSC_3100

GOPR2096-2

GOPR2008

 

The wind came back up this evening. I helped Miranda put up the sails at 22:00 when the squalls died down and the wind filled in more consistently. Now we’re reaching at six knots in 13 knots of wind. Happy to be under sail again.

DSC_3497

 

We don’t worry too much about the days racking up with slow transit. Although a boat in our fleet, Tallulah Ruby, has done this passage in 16 days, our friend Nadine took 29 days to do it. Another boat we’ve heard of skipped Galapagos and went straight from Panama, taking a whopping 55 days at sea! Yikes.

DSC_3483 DSC_3489

 

We’ve been finding a couple flying fish on deck most mornings. After one particularly rowdy night, Felix found nine aboard in the trampoline! They flap around and leave fish scales sloughed off on the deck as they try to flop back into the water. You don’t often look at your hull sides when you’re on a passage, but I began to notice that there is fish scale spatter in concentrated patches all over the hulls, even on the inside up under the trampoline. The schools of flying fish get spooked by the boat and try to buzz away to safety, only to slam into our hulls, occasionally ending up on deck too. There must be many of them careening head-long into our boat, because there are 3 or 4 square foot patches of clinging scale all over. They look like shimmering feathers in the sunlight. Eventually it’ll look like Tayrona is molting. Gross.

G0011885

DSC05611

Luckily for us (unluckily for them, I suppose) at least we can “recycle” the poor buggers at bait fish.

P1140212

P1140214

 

Tonight is moody and cloudy, with chop coming in broadside to the boat. Makes for a jerky night. All good aboard.

DSC_3469