Author: Pete
Location: 07°03.742S 106°38.596W
Date: 11:00 April 6 to 11:00 April 7
Day 8 at sea.
One third done! 1000 miles in the bag! That’s the distance from Michigan to Miami, 48 hours driving straight. The passage from Galapagos to Marquesas is approximately 3000 miles, so 2000 to go, or about the distance from New York to San Francisco.
We still have plenty of food, water, books, and snacks, so don’t worry about us. On sunny, windy day we churn out about 12 gallons of fresh water, so we haven’t even broken into our 300 liter onboard tanks yet.
I’m always impressed with how devoid of scent the high seas are. I always expected it to smell like the salty, sea sprayed lighthouse piers of New England or the low tide plains of a delta in the Gulf. Nope. Neutral. So then everything else in the boat smells that much stronger. The home made bread toasting on the stove, coffee in the press, oiled tools under the bunks, musk of damp towels drying, sort-of recently washed hair, fishing lures in the tackle box.
Tayrona cruises along happily without much interference from us. Haven’t touched the sails aside from putting in a reef at night and shaking it out in the morning. Reminds me of that infomercial, ‘Set it! And! Forget it!’ We don’t forget it though. No lights on the horizon for a few nights, but Wavelength reported a cargo ship passing 6 miles from them last night, so we can’t get complacent about our night watches. Or day watches, for that matter.
Reefing is a pretty easy task with the in-mast roller furling. No need to go on deck, one person can handle putting in or taking out a reef. This also allows for more delicate sail trim, unlike slab reefing which requires you to decrease the sail are by 1/3, then 1/2, or the like.
Cloudy skies tonight and a fresh breeze. But we have wind in the sails and charge into the batteries. Makes for a happy captain.
Between the wind and towing generators, we charge at about 12 amps during the day, and 2 amps at night. Haven’t seen significant discharge, even with the water maker going. Haven’t run the diesels or gas generator yet, and don’t expect to. Nice to have the surplus, free power.
Popcorn and board games- one of our favorite ways to end a day at sea.
