Pacific Crossing (8 April 2015 – 11 May 2015)

The anticipation of this momentous epic passage was mind boggling. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I would cross the Pacific Ocean in an 11 metre sailboat!!! Wowza! I’m writing this post on 12 January 2018 in Auckland city where we are currently rooted. Since adopting the land life and working full time we have neglected to keep our blog up to date. My apologies to the tens of thousands…errrrr rather the ten…errr handful l of our followers. Salut Daniel! (Paul’s dad). I’m trying to transport myself back to Panama city...our starting point for our Pacific crossing. We spent a solid week preparing Arbutus for her Pacific crossing. There were several trips to the grocery store and markets where we overflowed shopping carts. We even bought hats, fishing gear, sewing materials etc to trade with the locals in the Pacific islands. Arbutus was considerably heavier with provisions. The water line moved up a few centimetres. Also for the first time I think the weight was distributed evenly. Usually, because of the anchor chain the bow is heavier than the stern, but with all the food we crammed in the back we levelled out...for the meantime. 08 April 2015 @ 20:30 -- An island just outside of Panama city We filled our bellies with hearty dinner then lifted anchor at 20:30 and sailed away into the sunset. We were flying at 8 knots and settled into a more familiar 6 knots of boat speed. Shortly after we left Paul hit the hay and I was on shift until 01:30 am but I wasn’t alone there was a pod of dolphins to keep me company. 09 April - 1 day at sea 6 knots average boat speed, 10 knots wind avg Dolphins in the afternoon At midnight wind increased to 15 knots, then during the night died down and we only had a boat speed of 3 knots. Dinner - noodles and veg After one day at sea I’d already had enough of my long hair so I grab the scissors and removed the small square mirror in the bathroom...it’s actually the only mirror we have on the boat. Funny how living on a boat changes you. Not by choice but because of environment. I remember when I lived in a house on land in my own room and I had a full length mirror. There were actually several full length mirrors in our home and I would spend not hours, but a good chunk of time in front of it checking myself out. My clothes, my hair, my body, my butt, how my butt looked in my clothes. NOW it’s impossible hahaha. Maybe we could ban full length mirrors from adolescent girls rooms so they wouldn’t have the means to be so critical of their physical appearance. Back to my hair. I thought about giving myself a super short cut but decided against it for fear of being ugly. It’s crazy. I was afraid that when we reached French Polynesia and again had human contact with the Polynesians and other cruisers they would think I was ugly because I have short hair. I wonder if there will be a day where I will be completely comfortable in my own skin and not give a damn what others think of me. I think I’m getting there... So back to my hair. I cut it to just below my ears. The shortest I can remember in a long time. I know I saved a lot of our fresh water each time I washed my hair. 10 April -- 2 days at sea VERY Light winds...on day two...advancing at 2 knots thanks to the swell pushing us forward. Arbutus was very rolly and uncomfortable...How on earth were we going to cross the Pacific Ocean?!? 4000 nautical miles to cover and we are advancing at 2 knots. 11 April -- 3 days at sea While we were checking into the Pacific Cruisers Net the wind picked up to 7 - 8 knots and soon it was up to 10 knots. We were rocketing along at 6 knots. We easily fell into a routine and checking into the cruisers net was always one of the highlights of the day. Other highlights included preparing and eating lunch, preparing and eating dinner, and nap times. During each net we would “check in” and report our position and conditions and note down the same for the other cruisers who checked in. So much fun and reassuring to know that there were other boats in the neighbourhood. 13 April -- 5 days at sea Thanks to our SSB radio we are able to send emails from the middle of the Pacific ocean. I’m not able to look at a computer screen for long periods, or even short periods of time, so I had to get Paul to write my emails for me. It was uplifting to know we weren’t completely cut off from the rest of the world. We also received our weather information via the SSB. 15 April -- 7 days at sea I think I took a shower every 5 days. I would stand on the swim platform at the stern of the boat and with a bucket scoop up salty sea water and dump it over my head and body. I would soap up then rinse with the ocean water and for the final rinse use the fresh water from the solar shower. In the middle of the afternoon while under engine I saw some floating aligned plastic containers precariously close to us...then I looked for the lines...oh snap we may have already engined over the line. Paul cut the engine and yes indeed we passed over the fishing line. We were 500 nm from the closest land and we were running over fishing lines?!?! Paul dove and removed the line from our propeller. As he was climbing back on the boat a small open air fishing boat came out of nowhere….I was thinking pirates! Haha or that they would be pissed at us for running over their line. Our meeting was brief as they just asked us for drinking water so we gave them 4 litres...wondering to ourselves how they got so far out in such a small boat...or wondering where the mother ship was. If there was a mother ship it didn’t have AIS. 17 April – 113 nm in one day (second best day since we left) -- 9 days at sea During my night watch I heard a loud-ish THUD on the hull. I looked over the edge with my headlamp and saw nothing…it was too dark. Possibly a plastic container? A turtle? My imagination? A message in a bottle? It was alarming but we have an aluminum boat. So the worst that could have happened was we get a dent in the hull….right? 18 April -- day 10 Rough sailing with the wind against the waves creating 3 - 4 metre seas….not fun 21 April - Pedro! -- day 13 We have adopted a new crew member who gives us more work and contributes nothing…except the most important thing. A break from the monotony! Pedro‘s perch was standing on top of the radar or the solar panels. His favourite activity was to shit and shit some more on the solar panels. Ooooo the captain wasn’t happy as this reduced our energy input. Even worse though, every morning Paul had to clean the shit off. Pedro was unwilling to listen to us when we asked him politely to dump somewhere else. Frustrated with a daily shitty morning clean up, Paul made Pedro a makeshift perch at the end of the spinnaker pole. Paul used two clamps to attach a small wooden plank to the end of the pole and we slowly trained Pedro to relocate to his new home. Pedro has a new perch and we have a clean solar panel. Win win. 22 April -- day 14 Crossing the equator should be a celebrated moment wrought with tradition. To celebrate we planned on taking a picture of our GPS position...wow not a fun crew...HOWEVER, ZIIIIING goes the fishing line. One minute before crossing the equator we had a Mahi mahi on the line!!! So of course we attend to our soon to be dinner and abandoned taking a picture of our GPS position...We caught a nice size Mahi mahi which fed us for several days. Sooo nice to have fresh fish. It really boosts moral. 25 April -- day 17 Unfortunately I can’t read or even watch movies when we are under sail because my sea sickness gets worse. So I had a lot of free time to think. I thought about the past and the future. The friendships I have and will continue to have for my life time and I thought about my family in Canada. I dreamed of the day when Arbutus and her crew will sail into Vancouver or Nanaimo with our friends and family waving us into the dock. ..seems like we won’t be there for another few years still. But I dream about this day. 27 April -- day 19 Rigging There were a couple of boats who reported problems with their rigging when they checked in with the cruisers net. I guess 30 + days of consecutive non stop sailing can take a toll on your boat and rigging. The Pacific crossing has a reputation of an easy sail with consistent trade winds and a smooth ride….Not this year. The ocean was pretty rolly at times which most likely put a lot of strain on the rigging. One evening just after dinner during my night watch I was sitting in the cockpit when I heard the most unusual noise. I thought maybe we hit something…but the noise didn’t come from below so I looked on the deck and holy bologna one of the port side rigging cables broke and was swinging, mid air, precariously next to the dodger. I woke up MacGyver immediately to assess the situation. Paul was dumbfounded when he saw upon closer inspection that it was the turnbuckle that split!!! They aren’t supposed to break right?!?! Because we didn’t have any spares. There was more strain on our port side rigging so Paul took one of the turnbuckles from the starboard side and replaced it with the broken one and on the starboard side used dyneema rope and magic to secure the rigging on the starboard side. We decided not to report what happened to the others on the net because we felt our temporary fix would get us safely to French Polynesia. We didn’t want to worry anyone. 29 April - 21 days at sea - Pedro left :( Pedro flew off without even a goodbye or thank you for the ride. But it answered our question about its sex. Typical male… 1 May - 23 days at sea I felt seasick all day so Paul made olive bread and I made muffins...It cheered me up slightly. 3 May - 25 days at sea Our hardest working crew member, our Windvane, needed some TLC. Working 24 hours a day since we left (not including the times we were motoring) the windvane’s rudder came out of alignment which took us slightly off course. Paul was able to fix it easily. That same day we had to repair a small tear in the main. 4 May - 26 days at sea MMMMM opened up the gigantic can of confit canard (duck confit) from France. Meat mmm so tasty. By this time we were out of our fresh food (still had onions and cabbage) from Panama so we dove into our canned goods. Mushy. I spent several hours a day dreaming about a leafy green salad with crunchy veggies. Maybe this was the hardest part about our Pacific crossing for me. Lack of FRESH food. The crossing also took a toll on my body. We are constantly moving. Other than the two or three times we used the engine there was never a moment when the boat was completely still. I was always lethargic. I never felt like I had a good night’s sleep and for the most part I was in a constant daze. Even when we had fresh fish...the meal was never as satisfying as on land, when my body felt “normal” 5 May - 27 days at sea The wind shifted on us in the early morning and made Arbutus heal abruptly. We adjusted the sails as the sun was rising. Mac and Cheese. We bought some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in Panama and it was Paul’s first time EVER eating this delicacy of macaroni noodles and processed cheese powder. “Why is it so Orange?!?!” My mom never let us eat it growing up so I only ate it when I was at a friend’s house. It brought back some fond memories but this time with Paul we didn’t have any Heinz ketchup to squirt on top. 8 May - 30 days at sea!!! OMG I felt really seasick on day 30...and the conditions were not even bad. Maybe my moral was taking a dive along with my mental and physical health...Not even the certainty of putting my feet on land in a day or two lifted my spirits. I remember sitting on deck just staring into the horizon lost in my thoughts. 10 May - LAND HO!! - 32 day Pacific Crossing “LAND HO LAND HO!!! I see land!!!”, Sundy says. “ I saw it an hour ago”, says Paul. “Liar, I saw it first”, Sundy retorts. We left Panama with a pod of dolphins and we approached the most magnificent anchorage imaginable...Bay of Virgins at Fatu Hiva, French Polynesia. We did it.