Author: Pete

Location: 07°54.559S

135°06.765W

Date: 11:00 April 19 to 11:00 April 20

Day 21. It’s been a full, unadulterated three weeks on the high seas.

We’re sailing west, but we haven’t been playing by the sunlight’s rules. To make our night watches easier, we’ve been keeping the Galapagos time, which is the same as Central time in the US. Our destination, the Marquesas, is 3 1/2 time zones away. So we’re very, very slowly giving ourselves jet lag. Er… boat lag, as it were. It’s most noticeable in the evening when we’re making dinner and the sun is setting at 9PM. That’s not unusual for sunset in Northern Michigan summer, but this far south the sun goes down more or less at 6:00 always. So we’ve been tucking to bed around 10:00, which is really 7:00 where we are. There are no lights, no other people, nothing to indicate that it’s not really late once the sun goes down. So we rack out.

Another indication of our westward progress is the changing propagation patterns for the radio stations we’re connecting with. We are 876 miles from Tuamotu Islands, 2400 miles from Hawaii, and 2700 miles from San Diego, which is receding. Under 300 miles now. Striking distance. We’re salivating over the sound of a long walk and fresh island fruit.

There have been exceptional sunsets in the last days. The pinks and oranges of the horizon mix with the pinks and purples of the spinnaker. They blend together sometimes in the last light of the day until you can’t really tell the boundaries of the boat, the sea, and the sky.

It’s generally quiet on the boat, aside from the waves slapping on the hull, some rattle of the sails, and the chugging of the wind gen. It seems especially quiet at night when on watch alone at night. Everyone is tucked away in their berths. Your eyes adjust to the dark. It’s been many days since the moon hasn’t been up on my watch. Working under red headlight, bathing everything false color. I love it.