Author: Pete

Location: 31°09.966S’ 172°42.202E’

Date: Nov 5 and 6, 2015

Day 8 – 9 at sea.

Wind continues to come from SSE where we would like to be heading.  We tacked Tayrona upwind all day, which she really doesn’t love.  I can’t say I blame her; we’ve just gotten coddled and soft from eight thousand miles of downwind run.  The fifth was a beautiful day with cloudless blue skies and flat water, literally the calm before the storm.  We knew that a nefarious front was incoming, dragging heavy weather with it.  Preparing during the sunny day for the rough seas to come left me feeling like a nerdy kid that knows the bully is going to beat him up and steal his lunch money at recess.

And come it did!  Yikes!  “So when do you think we’ll see that front come through?” asked Miranda.  Ten minutes later we’re donning foul weather gear, taking in sail, and dogging hatches.  The wind kicked from twelve to thirty knots, accelerating the boat to nine knots almost instantly, sending us skipping over waves and giving a pounding to the bows and hull.  Things haven’t abated; we’re still ripping along under reefed sails in the dark and rain.  It’s too murky to see outside so the radar is blazing away looking for the next squall to tear through and, more fearsome on a dark night, freighters.

Feels like we’ve been on passage for an eternity with all the tacking, motoring, fighting upwind.  We really haven’t hit a great sailing groove yet.  We’re ready to get there and aren’t thrilled by having a raging front to punch through after nine days already at sea.  Bleh.  We’re picking up weather forecasts from various sources and compiling them to come to our own routing conclusions.  We’re only 250 miles from New Zealand but can’t motor directly to it because the wind and waves are too heavy from that direction.  We have to go out of our way to the west and wait for the post-frontal southwest winds to blow us in to New Zealand.  It’s real sailing for sure, gauging weather, time, distance, and fuel, but I much prefer the “Set it!  And!  Forget it!” approach where we’ve run downwind with a spinnaker up for a four days straight.

It had been rough the previous days.  Miranda’s birthday fell right in the midst of the trough when wind was gusting into the thirties on the nose and ten foot seas paraded through.  I wrestle-baked a carrot cake, which is a neat procedure on a rolling boat because the batter stirs itself!  I had to secure the pan inside the oven with two sets of vice grips to keep it from being ejected mid-bake into the cabin.  The birthday festivities were rounded out with snacks, libations, presents, and Scopolamine patches.  We have plans to go out for a more agreeable and much deserved celebration ashore.

Currently, the rain just stopped blasting our topsides, but the gloom obscures the horizon and waves shake us like a dog with a shiny new chew toy.  Miranda is below and I’m on watch.  We’re doing fine, just ready to be there.  I think the boat is rather enjoying herself though, engaging in some nautical calisthenics after an easy month day sailing through Fiji.