Passage to New Zealand: Day 4-5

Author: Pete
Location: 26°31.746S’ 173°34.450E’
Date: Nov 1 and 2, 2015

 

Day 4 and 5 at sea.

Variable winds yesterday sweeping southwest to southeast, ending almost directly where we’re trying to head.  We keep changing tacks, fighting upwind, which is definitely not Tayrona’s strong suit.  We can’t burn too much diesel now as there will be a portion of the trip that we have to motor heavily into headwinds farther south.  Conditions were mild during the day, then kicked up in the evening, throwing a couple squalls which helpfully washed our decks of salt accumulation.

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Winds increased the next morning to over twenty knots almost on the nose with rollers literally big enough to hide a freighter.  We’re tacking a good deal to get ourselves south, making for a slow, pounding day.  Does that make us tacky?  The wind died, then eventually built again, swinging farther east which allowed us to point straight at our waypoint, 500 miles north of New Zealand.  Now it’s back to calm conditions and motoring, but I have a feeling that will change soon enough given the schizophrenic nature of the wind in these waters.  

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I’m always startled by how loud sailing can be.  When the boat is really cooking along there is the constant snare percussion of light hull slaps accompanied by the bass thud of heavier waves striking the bridge deck.  The complaining of the lines and creaking of the blocks and tackle under their loads are amplified when telegraphed through the fiberglass and into the cabin.  The wind fills in any gaps in the cacophony with an airy hush through the rigging. Sounds like taking your vehicle through a drive-thru carwash with the wipers going full tilt and a couple of burly guys throwing sandbags at your quarter panels.  Scree-chah-splish-BANG.  Splish-sploosh-BANG-thump.  Sometimes I pretend that I’m the conductor and it’s my own orchestra.  It doesn’t seem to break Miranda’s sudoku concentration, but I suppose if the heaving boat doesn’t, nothing will.

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Things are well aboard.  Mir made home made English muffins for breakfast and I made fifteen-bean soup for dinner.  That’ll put the wind in your sails!P1160205

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Passage to New Zealand: Day 3

Author: Pete
Location: 21°35.573S’ 175°13.900E’
Date: 10.31.15
Day 3 at sea.

Happy Halloween!  We’re celebrating All Hallow’s Eve aboard with a big bag of candy corn smuggled to us by Miranda’s buddy Teri. Surprisingly, we haven’t had many Trick-or-Treaters out tonight.  Miranda doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, so I have a feeling that I’m going to be eating the whole bag myself.  Jacked up blood sugar is a really great way to break up the monotony of cruising.  TIME TO GO RIDE BIKES!  TIME TO SWAB THE DECKS!  WHO WANTS TO GO UP THE MAST?!  Haven’t figured out a good costume yet.  Possibly a sailor?  A pirate?  Or maybe a mermaid?  Not much else in the costume department ’round these parts.  I wanted to go as a ghost this year but Miranda said we need the sails intact.  She doesn’t feel the need for a costume, saying, “I pretty much resemble a hobo right about now.”  We’ll have to find her a stick and a handkerchief.

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You’d think the open ocean would be a spooky place on Halloween, what with the web-footed sea monsters, shipwrecked souls lost to the deep, and devious merfolk all floating about.  In actuality, it’s another beautiful moonlit night.  The only scary thing out here is our hygiene and diet.  We’re pushing canned meat since it will be confiscated in New Zealand.  BLTs have been on the lunch menu with crispy Spam instead of bacon!  We still have ghoul-green lettuce and blood-red tomatoes to go on the sandwiches.  They’re horrifyingly good!  No pumpkins floating about, and we’re out of coconuts, so we made a dozen zombie eggs for fun!  It’s tough to draw on a round object on a bucking boat.

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Time to go howl at the moon.

 

 

 

 

Passage to New Zealand: Day 1-2

Author: Pete
Location: 20°00.000S’ 175°31.251E’
Date: 10.30.15

 

Leaving Fiji we encountered fair winds and flat sailing for a few hours inside the barrier reef.  We were welcomed back to the high seas outside the pass by 25 knot winds on the beam and 2 meters seas.  It got pretty raucous with foam blasting our bows and the dishes rattling in the cupboard as if by juggling poltergeists.  A bright moon lighting up the sea helped ease us back into our night watches.  We’re sailing as close to the wind as possible, and still not quite pointing at our waypoint.  We put on Scopolamine patches right out of the chute and have felt pretty darn good even below in the heavy seas.  The medication gives the impression that one has been chewing on cotton balls and sawdust though.  Mlehth…

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Winds moderated through the night and into the afternoon.  Tonight we are motoring through the forecasted lull with mirror seas with only a whisper of breeze.  We are deviating from our intended course to head more directly to a point 500 miles north of Cape North in New Zealand.  Will have to wait to see how the wind fills in as the cycle of highs and lows progresses farther south.

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