Passage to the Iles de Marquises

Crossing the Pacific Ocean On March 20, 2002 we left Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Nuku Hiva, Marquises, French Polynesia. It is a passage of 2799 miles and we cross the equator on the way. It took us 23 days to sail from Punta de Mita, Jayarit, Mexico to Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva, Iles de Marquises. 3/20, Leaving Punta de Mita 20'45.947N, 105'30.922W Punta de Mita, Nayarit, Mexico Adios Mexico! We checked out of the marina and sailed away to Punta de Mita. Sarah had picked some fresh flowers from the beautiful gardens around Paradise Village. She tossed them into the water as we left, to bring us good luck on our passage. We waved goodbye to the many friends we had made. Some we may not see for a while, but all we will keep in touch with. Sarah throwing flowers as we leave Paradise Village We raised sails and had a great passage across Bahia de Banderas to Punta de Mita. We followed Saperlipopette across the bay. Tonight we will relax and have a night at anchor. Even though it is a bit rolly it is good to be out of the marina. Tomorrow we set out on a journey across the Pacific. A new adventure for Rich, Elaine, Jesse, Sarah, Ronna and Katmandu. We have set a waypoint for Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas. We will try and keep in touch, letting you know a little bit about what the trip is like as we go. There is a whole group of folks who are making the crossing this year. Duet has already made it, in two weeks, averaging 7 knots an hour, sailing the whole way. Hazakaya left last Sunday. Saperlipopette and Windarra leave tomorrow. Many more boats will be following. We check in on the radio daily for weather, assistance and support. Please don't worry if you do not get an email every day, believe it or not, we could be busy! We look forward to the west as we say goodbye to Mexico. It has been a fun place for the last 4 plus months but now it is time for us to go. Adios Mexico! 3/21, Day 1 offshore As of 9:30pm Puerto Vallarta Time (PVT), 03:30 Zulu, 20 15.290 N, 106 04.800 W This morning, after a rolly night at anchor, we launched the dingy and Rich and Sarah took the foot pump back to Saperlipopette. When I was putting things back in the dingy on Wednesday, the nozzle attachment to our hand pump fell into the water. Bummer. We borrowed their foot pump until this morning. When Rich and Sarah returned we brought the dingy on to the foredeck, deflated it, and lashed it down. We do not like it on the davits during long passages. Around noon we hoisted anchor and followed Saperlipopette out of Bahia de Banderas. The winds were light but we made headway for a while. Then they were lighter still and we were facing a current against us as we tried to get out of the bay. We motor sailed for a while. We are back sailing again. The winds are 9-11 knots, out of the north and we are doing about 6 knots VMG. The seas are relatively calm and there is a half moon out with some stars and a few clouds. No sea traffic in sight or on the radar. The air is warm, t-shirts and shorts during the day, a light shirt and sweatpants in the evening. We are using 3hour watches. Rich has midnight to 3 am and noon to 3 pm, Ronna has 3am to 6 am, 3pm to 6pm, I have 6am to 9am, 6pm to 9pm, Jesse has 9am to noon, 9pn to midnight. Sarah relieves either Rich or Jesse and does the 9am to noon or noon to 3pm, alternating days. We will see how it works. We are all going without any thing for seasickness. Everyone is doing well so far. Rich has to watch that he does not stay below for too long unless he is lying down. Jesse was a little queasy for a while - he was in his stateroom trying to put the meat line together and tying knots for too long. He seems to be fine now. We had spaghetti for dinner that went down well. Mandu spent the morning lying on the floor of the salon. Now he is in the cockpit leaning against a pillow. He is much more adapted to passage than when we left Neah Bay for San Francisco. SV Windarra, 27 miles off the coast of Mexico 2653 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/22, Day 2 offshore As of 9:15pm PVT, 03:15 Zulu, 18 37.470 N, 107 32.530 W The day has been a combination of sailing and motor sailing. We sailed most of the night last night. The winds died to 3-4 knots around 8am so we motored for a while. Then they come up again and we are able to sail. The seas have a gentle roll about 2-3 ft in swell height. In the early morning we saw a large tanker headed south. Around 9am we saw a US Coast Guard Cutter. He changed direction and came towards us. We tried to hail her on channel 16 on VHF but no answer. After she had passed our stern to see our name, they called us n the VHF and asked for our boat registration number. They said that we were now in their database, what ever that means. They wished us a good trip and went on their way. Several hours later we saw a Coast Guard plane fly overhead. It is nice to know they are there. We checked in the the Puddle Jumpers net at 10:30am, 1630zulu, at 8.1880 Mhz. Nine boats checked in this morning in various positions going across. It is good to hear how everyone is doing and to get weather reports. We also check in with Saperlipopette in the evening. This morning we found two squid on the deck. They must have jumped on board during the night. We did see a few dolphins and a shark swim by as well as some flying fish. It is strange to watch the horizon around the boat and not see a thing. Nothing, nada, zed. We take turns in the cockpit in various spots. Mandu was resting his head on the VHF microphone today so we got a picture of him. Yes Jan, I’ve looked at the weather faxes, it is the ITCZ! At sunset the sun was a large hot pink ball sliding into the sea. We watched for a green flash but no such luck. SV Windarra, 184 miles off the coast of Mexico 2526 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/23, Day 3 offshore As of 9:34pm PVT, 17 25.910 N, 109 37.790 W Today has been a combination of motoring and sailing. Right now we are sailing! This afternoon the winds increased from 5 knots, to 15 knots. The seas also went from 1-2 foot swells with no chop to 3-4 foot with chop. We are presently on a broad reach with one reef in the main and a partial reef in the yankee, the winds are from 11-18 knots. We are hoping that the winds are going to be consistent and that if we are not in the trades, we are at least close. Jesse put out his pole and he had a nibble but no fish. At one point it looked like a bird flew into the line in that the reel made a noise and we saw a bird around the line, but no fish. We are getting our sea legs. For lunch today we dined on garlic sausage with crackers and pate. The pate was from Gilles Lefort's restaurant. Very yummy. Sarah fixed burritos for dinner. This morning Rich and I took showers. It is a tricky task when the boat is bouncing around. I am not ready to take my showers on the aft deck so I have to figure out how to brace myself and wash at the same time. Luckily it did not make me feel ill. It is amazing to look out in all directions and see nothing between you and the horizon. Your eyes try to look for something out there. You rise and lower with the swells like a short elevator. The middle of no where! We watched the bright orange-yellow sunset but no green flash. Ronna is beginning to doubt that we have ever seen one. SV Windarra, 327 miles off the coast of Mexico 2388 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/24, Day 4 offshore As of 9:36pm PVT, 16 09.060 N, 111 31.720 W Today has been all sailing. We have been sailing since 4pm on Saturday. We reef the main at night along with the yankee and shake out the reefs in the morning. Same tack all day long. It is nice not to have the engine on. We did run the engine for a little while to charge up the batteries and run the refrigeration. The windmill and the solar panels help a lot but still need to run it every so often. We are on a broad reach as yesterday. During the day we had smoother seas. All day it was 90% overcast. In the distance you could see clearing and a few spots overhead but not much so it was a little cool today in the cockpit. In the mornings we check in with the Puddle Jumpers net and in the evening we check in with Saperlipopette. This morning there were about 11 boats checking in. Our friends on Final Straw are just getting out. They blew out the clew of one of their sails on the way from PV to Punta de Mita. The sail repair guy, Mike, of North Sails, came out to Punta de Mita and repaired the sail so that Final Straw could leave today. Some boats left from Z-town and are headed to the Gambiers in French Polynesia instead of the Marquesas. The watches seem to be going well. Since I have the 6-9am and the 6-9pm I get to see sunrise and sunset each day. I also do the radio check-ins. Ronna is fitting in to our quirks and jokes. She noticed that we even joke about mathematics. Are we there yet? Since we are more than 100 miles from shore we can pitch some of our garbage right off the side of the boat. Salt water dissolves all sorts of things. We have a great time throwing pop cans over, just make sure you don't hit the solar panels (mounted on the port and starboard sides above the jerry jugs). Plastic items we do not toss and store in garbage bags for disposal later. SV Windarra, 444 miles off the coast of Mexico 2255 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/25, Day 5 offshore as of 9:44pm PVT, 15 05.360 N, 113 42.240 W Today has been all sailing. We did have clears skies during the day but overcast this evening. Clear skies was a plus but the big minus was the seas, 6-8 foot swells with 3-4 chop on top and the seas are very confused. Every so many wave the boat thrashes from side to side wildly. It is hard to sleep, hard to cook, eat, etc. Moral is low. We tried different sail configurations but ended up with a reefed main and the staysail, on a broad reach. Unfortunately we then have the swells on the beam so we roll around. We are in some sort of trade winds convergence zone. We all hope it will settle down tomorrow. Last night (after I sent out the email) we had a contact. It was a Greek container ship heading southeast. We talked to him on the VHF. It was nice to know that he had us on his radar or as he put it, "We are aware of your presence." We watched the boobies chasing the flying fish as they skip across the waves. Even saw some sparrows. Not sure why they are so far out to sea though. SV Windarra, 580 miles off the coast of Mexico 2119 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/26, Day 6 offshore Today has been again, all sailing. Since yesterday and last night were very rolly we decided to try and work that today. We are on more of a run with a single reef in the main. We jybed to have a southerly course and go towards the rhumb line. At 5pm we jybed again since the seas are more consistently from the NE and the winds are from the N, NE. Hence, we are in the trades. From the net this morning we heard that for Mobisle and Saperlipopette and Kazahaya, They are getting winds 10-20. Kazahaya had winds to 30. Boats that left Sunday are seeing their winds dying. Our winds are 10-15 today, but the skies are clear. We watched 3 boobies as the fly around the boat, diving and catching fish. They follow the boat since we disturb the flying fish as we move through the water. One poor flying fish landed on the deck sometime during the night. We found his desicated body on deck. The boobies fly around the boat but keep well clear of the radar arch with the wind generator spinning away. We all fear one of the birds accidentally flying into it and being minced all over the deck and us. Before we left Puerto Vallarta, the bees had started to swarm as they do in the spring. The swarm around the boat and were attracted by the wind generator. Later we swept up many pieces of bee parts off the deck. Obviously not a smart collective mind. During the days it is warm and we wear shorts and t-shirts or tank tops. In the evening after the sun goes down we may put on long sleeve shirts, warm up pants or jacket. Tonight it is a little too warm to sleep below. May get crowded in the cockpit with the five of us but the on watch person will have plenty of company. SV Windarra, 676 miles off the coast of Mexico 2023 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/27, Day 7 offshore as of 9:50pm PVT, 12 22.740 N, 115 33.160 W Today we decided to get out of the confused seas and the set current and head south to cross the rhumb line. It has been a good sail, winds are either 10-15 or 15-20. At one point we were doing 7.5 knots speed in the water. It was a nice sunny day and very few clouds. We all got a chance to relax and recuperate/rejuvenate. Ronna and I seem to be immune to being seasick at least so far. We are able to work below - do dishes, make meals, work the SSB radio, etc without feeling uncomfortable or queasy. Sarah is doing okay but felt a little queasy with a headache after taking a shower. Rich is fine but prefers not to be below for long unless he can lie down. Jesse spends the least amount of time below unless he is sleeping on the port settee. A few of the other boats are having some problems with seasickness - only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since no one can stay below to fix a meal. This is in contrast with Saperlipopette, as tonight Marie made a cheese and ham souffle for their Day 7 dinner. Bon Appetite! The moon is full now and it lights up the boat and the stars. Rich and Jesse think they saw the International Space Station go overhead. Last night during Ronna's watch we saw a container ship on the horizon. Rich tried to hail him but no response. Later they called us and were full of conversation. The ship is going from Panama to Japan via Hawaii. They saw us on their radar (a good thing). They were surprised that we had come all the way from Seattle, Wa. It is hard to believe that it has been seven days already since we left Punta de Mita. Don't get us wrong, we are still very anxious to get to the Marquesas but the message is we are adapting. Even Katmandu. SV Windarra, 766 miles off the coast of Mexico 1933 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/28, Day 8 offshore as of 9:44pm PVT, 10 35.220 N, 116 24.700 W We have been sailing continuously for the last 5 and 1/2 days. Our average winds are from 10-20 knots. Average boat speed from 5 to 6.5 knots. Today we tried a new sail configuration. We rigged up the whisker pole with the yankee. So we are running almost ddw (dead down wind) with just the yankee, no main sail or staysail. This is a great stable configuration we found out. It hands the winds up to 20 knots, no problem and we can run more with the wind and the seas. The swells are 6-8ft out of the NE. Right now we are doing 5.7 knots speed over the water in 13.5 knots of wind. Not too bad. Even 10th swell we rock back and forth a little but the boat is stable. We are happy with the new configuration so I brought out some frango mints I have been hiding for a treat tonight. Ebony dark of course. Amazing how much of a treat they can be. Sarah helped make chicken fajitas for dinner tonight. Cooking onions and red peppers seems to be her specialty these days. We all enjoyed it. This morning I saw moon set and sun rise. This evening I saw sunset and moon rise. The nights have had some clouds so we have no seen a green flash yet. Still trying. The moon is full so it lights up the sky. Helps to look for other boats/ships. I wish I knew why if we do see a ship, it is only at night. What do they do during the day? There are more boats being added to the roll call for the Puddle Jump net. One is a French boat, named Makoko sailing to the Marquisas from Cabo. More boats are leaving Puerto Vallarta. We are strung out about 1300 miles. It is fun to track everyone. SV Windarra, 873 miles off the coast of Mexico 1826 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/29, Day 9 offshore as of 9:34pm PVT, 08 39.570 N, 117 37.160 W Today was another day of sailing continuously. The winds averaged between 18-20 knots for most of the day. A few times it was up to 25. Our speed is between 5 and 6.5 knots. Still running with just the yankee. It keeps us stable even in the high winds. Early this morning we had a squall come through and drop a little rain on us, just enough to get the decks wet but not a serious downpour. Winds were up to 23 knots for a time. The seas are 8 to 10 feet and close together. Some times we surf a little and some times we roll side to side with everything on the boat shifting around. It is a challenge to wash the dishes as well as do other things down below when the boat is moving over 20 degrees from side to side. Yeehaw! The Captain! On the net this morning we found out that Kazahaya, a Norseman 447 is hove-to. They are having problems with a chainplate that connects to one of their shrouds for the mast. They are trying to see if they can make temporary repairs so that they can get to the Marquisas to have it fixed. Since we are in the vicinity along with Mobisle and Saperlipopette we are standing by in case further assistance is needed. Each evening we chat with Saperlipopette to see how they are doing and to get each other's position. Today they celebrated being half way by bringing out a bottle of champagne. Congrats to Team Saperlipopette! We got an email last night from our friends Tony and Libby of Silkie C. They are now proud parents of a baby girl, Aria Angelina Kaul. She was born March 28th at 2:20am and weighed in at 8 lbs, 9.5 oz. Congratulations to the new parents. One more thing... I am sending our position and weather information in via winlink. The information is collected and posted on the internet. You can look at the sight and see where we are on a map. The site allows you to change resolution of the map to 5, 50, 500, 5000 miles. The site is: http://www.winlink.findu.com/KD7PHP KD7PHP is my call sign. Since I did not start sending in reports until recently you will see us starting in the middle. Hope you enjoy the site. SV Windarra, 1001 miles off the coast of Mexico 1698 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/30, Day 10 offshore as of 9:25pm PVT, 07 00.710 N, 118 58.240 W Another day of sailing. Still running with just the yankee poled out with the whisker pole. In between squalls, Rich and I went on the foredeck to add some straps to secure the dingy on deck. It is deflated on the foredeck but was sliding back and forth as we were rocking with the waves, so we tied it up a bit more. Rich also worked on the whisker pole. We have a JFN (just for now) rigging system on it and the topping lift attachment needs perfecting. Other than the occasional squall, today was like yesterday. The ride is rolly but we are making good VMG to the equator. This has been a big topic of discussion prior to leaving Puerto Vallarta. Where to cross the equator? Where is the ITCZ - inter tropic covergence zone? Jimmy Cornell's book says to cross between 128 and 130 west. If you draw a straight line from Puerto Vallarta to Nuku Hiva, it crosses the equator around 128 west. One fellow has been suggesting 135 w. One of the boats, Mithrandir, crossed at 122 W. I think we will shoot for 128 W and adjust from there. We are getting anxious to be at the Marquisas. We have had enough of passagemaking. Unfortunately we still have 1574 nautical miles to go! The refrigeration stopped working today. Rich will work on it tomorrow. It was too hot down below after we ran the engine to charge up the batteries. He thinks he needs to clean the brushes on the motor again. Hope that fixes it. Kazahaya has decided to make for Hawaii to have their chainplate/shroud repaired. They were concerned that they would not be able to get it fixed until Papeete. We wish them luck. SV Windarra, 1125 miles off the coast of Mexico 1574 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 3/31, Day 11 offshore as of 9:41pm PVT, 05 56.240 N, 120 14.230 W During my watch (of course), the squall hit. The winds jumped up to 30 knots and fluctuated between 22 and 30. I called up Rich to come help me and we reefed the yankee. We were still fairly stable with the exception of waves not from the northeast that would set us rolling back and forth a few times. Then the rains hit. It was a downpour, coming down in buckets. Since it was coming from behind us the cockpit was getting soaked and us with it. We put on foul weather jackets to keep our upper bodies dry. Then Rich said, hey why not get wet and he took a shower on the aft deck! I used the opportunity to clean the cockpit - it collects a lot of crumbs, cat hair, etc in the last 11 days. After 30 minutes it was all over. The sun came out and dried it all up. This morning's net was a little confusing. We have over 21 boats signing in the roll call. They are strung out between Punta de Mita and the equator at 128 degrees west. The net controller this morning is only 100 miles off shore so many boats could not hear and boats had to relay the information back and forth. The net was over 45 minutes. Way too long to sit below and listen. Hopefully tomorrow it will be a bit more organized. After the net we sent Rich up the mast. The shroud that connects from the outside of the lowest spreader to the inside of the top spreader had worked its way loose. We are not sure how or why but Rich tightened it up before we had any problems. The motor for the refrigeration stopped working yesterday. This is similar to the symptoms we had before we left Puerto Vallarta. Rich removed the motor and was cleaning the brushes. Unfortunately he had difficulty trying to put them back in and have the motor operate correctly. Compound this with trying to work down below where it is hot and stuff and the boat is rolling and lurching around. Needless to say, Rich will try to work on it again tomorrow. We may have to order a replacement motor to meet us in the Marquisas. no ice! We are getting closer to the mid waypoint and to the equator. Beginning to see effects of the ITCZ - inter tropical convergence zone. May have to make our break to cross the equator. SV Windarra, 1225 miles off the coast of Mexico 1474 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/1, Day 12 offshore as of 9:33pm PVT, 04 42.380 N, 121 34.020 W We are still moving along. The winds are 15-18 knots out of the NE but the swells are 4-6 out of the NNE and the SE - confused seas, very rolly. We are plowing along at 5 knots still heading for Nuka Hiva. On the net this morning we heard Kiapa. They are on their way to Hawaii. They plan to join us in Bora Bora by July. Hope they have a good trip. Today we celebrated being more or less mid-way today. I made some scones that were good with jelly. For dinner, Jesse made some great pizza. Yes, food is a big part of the day. You can only stare at the water for so long. I rigged up a small fan to blow the warm air away from the laptop inside the nav. station. It was starting to get a bit warm and the serial to USB adapter port was getting a little flaky for a while. Now it seems to be doing better. Since it is so rolly it is hard to work on any projects. We do a lot of reading, sleeping, and some eating. Not a thrilling 12th day. Jesse just got out the Snickers bars so I need to take a break. SV Windarra, 1331 miles off the coast of Mexico 1368 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/2, Day 13 offshore as of 9:45pm PVT, 02 48.870 N, 122 21.570 W Well last night was not the best night. It started at 9:15pm, Jesse's watch, when we saw lightening of the port side. It developed from there. We had one squall after another, winds to 30 knots, seas 6-10, confused, thunder, lightening, rain that completely soaked us, coming sideways into the cockpit. We put on foulies, not that it was cold but to try and stay dry. The lightening would flash and you would be blinded for 10 seconds. First thing I would do is look to see if the boat instrumentation was still working. We put the computer, the hand held GPS and the Iridium phone inside the microwave. We figured that the microwave would provide some shielding in case we were struck by lightening. Once we did see it strike the water, it was not a thin line but a wide stripe! Needless to say Rich, Ronna and I were up all night with the storms. We reefed the yankee when the winds got up to 30 knots. In the morning we discovered that we really had not reefed the sail at all since some screws that mate the roller furler to the yankee track had fallen out (vibration from sailing with the yankee for 4 days continuously). Now we understand why after we thought we had reefed the sail, we were still moving along at 6-7 knots. In the morning after everything had started to settle down we decided to take down the yankee and motor to the equator! We waited until the seas were calmer and repaired the roller furler and rehoisted the yankee and furled it. We cannot fly the staysail until we readjust the shroud on the mast. This requires someone to go up the mast (Rich), to tighten it. This task must wait until the seas are calm. So we cannot even motorsail. We spent most of today resting. Jesse made some focacia bread from scratch. We enjoyed this with our tomato soup for dinner. Saperlipopette crossed the equator today. Hooray! The hardest part was driving between the dotted line. They brought out some nice champagne, French of course, to celebrate. This evening is going a lot better than last night. Can hardly wait to cross the dotted line. SV Windarra, 1435 miles off the coast of Mexico 1264 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/3, Day 14 offshore as of 10pm Central time, PVT, 04:00 zulu, 00 57.020 N, 123 43.190 W This morning the seas were a lot better. They are coming in the same direction of the wind, from the southeast. The swells are just 4-6 feet with 1-2 ft wind waves on top. Rich put on his climbing harness and we hoisted him up the mast to retighten the inner shroud from the 1st to 2nd spreader on the port side. This is the same one he tightened before. We are not sure why it is loosening. After he came down we raised all sails and set a broad reach course of 228Mag for Nuka Hiva and turned off the motor! Today was a great day of sailing. Nice warm breeze, winds and waves from the same direction, a comfortable ride on the boat. Right now we are about 100 miles from the equator. Hope to cross tomorrow! Jesse continues his culinary efforts and baked some sugar cookies. They are great and the boat smells so good inside. We lounged in the cockpit, shorts and bathing suits, everyone reading their books. Rich is reading Shogun by James Clavell, Ronna is reading Letters from the Lost Soul by Bob Bitchin, I am reading a dragon series book by Anne McCaffrey. Sarah did homework today also! We are in better mood today. Looking forward to crossing the equator. Hope the winds and seas cooperate. Now if we could just get the refrigeration working... A project for tomorrow, maybe. SV Windarra, 1564 miles off the coast of Mexico 1135 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/4, Day 15 offshore, crossing the Equator! as of 01:31 zulu, 00 09.520 S, 124 56.000 W The Equator! Today was a milestone day. At 22:25 zulu (2:25 pm Seattle time), Windarra and her crew crossed the equator at 124'44.160W longitude. To celebrate this event we dropped the sails and each of us took turns and jumped in the water and swam across the equator. The skies had light clouds, the seas were reasonably calm (4-6 ft swells). The winds were 8-11 knots. We also brought out a bottle of champagne given to us by Bill and Jean Harris that we drunk to celebrate. Then we brought out the foie gras and crackers to round out the repast. We toasted to Poseidon and Neptune. We toasted ourselves for our accomplishment. We then put a note in the champagne bottle, replaced the cork and threw it overboard. Hope someone finds it. Swimming across the Equator! Jesse practiced making cream puffs today. The cookies he made last night were great, especially for the night watch. We are now sailing along on a beam reach at 5knots in 10knots of wind from the SE. Tonight we hope to have clear skies so that we can see the Southern Cross again tonight as we saw it last night, low in the sky, lit by a half moon. The seas roll along and Windarra rides them well. We hope she will take us swiftly to Nuku Hiva. SV Windarra, 1661 miles off the coast of Mexico 1038 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/5, Day 16 offshore position as of 03:39 zulu, 01 04.637 S, 126 47.792 W Now that we have crossed the equator we can hardly wait to get to Nuka Hiva. This is another 914 miles away. Today the winds have been little, mostly 5-11 knots. We are sailing between 4 and 6 knots. The seas are 4-6 ft rollers but they are widely spaced and much more comfortable than the seas we have before the equator. After the net we talked to the folks on Nootka Rose. They have been following a course similar to ours and wanted more details about the weather around the equator, especially the doldrums. The interesting thing is that we have not seen the doldrums. We have wind. Now we are in the southeast trades. (NOTE: We found out later that the woman we have been talking with is the captain. Her husband decided he didn’t want to go just before they left, so she got a crew together and went anyway.) The refrigeration is still not working so we had a burial at sea for the items we had in the freezer, mostly meat we had bought at Sam's Club in Puerto Vallarta. We have plenty of food to sustain us to Nuka Hiva but it was hard just to toss the stuff. We had a nice bright pink sunset but no green flash. SV Windarra, 1785 miles off the coast of Mexico 914 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/6, Day 17 offshore position as of 03:22 zulu, 02 21.020 S, 128 05.080 W Well, another day. Today we had light winds, 5-10 knots. seas are more from the S than SE, from 3-4 or 4-6 feet. So we ghosted along. In the evening we hoisted Rich up the mast again since the shroud had loosened, again. It is difficult to work on during rolling seas. Will be a project for at anchor. Hang on! Our friends on Final Straw crossed the equator last night. We talked to Saperlipopette tonight and they are 20 miles from the landfall waypoint and another 15 miles from the anchorage. They are so excited to be so close. We are very jealous. We will be crossing the longitude of 128'28 W tonight. This is the longitude of Cape Scott, our west most spot to date. Going around Vancouver Island seems like so long ago. Not much else to report.... no green flash.... SV Windarra, 1890 miles off the coast of Mexico 809 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/7, Day 18 offshore as of 06:22 zulu, 03 45.790 S, 129 57.250 W Well another day at sea. I am beginning to notice a trend in my position updates... Today we had reasonable winds. We were averaging 5 knots or more most of the day. In the last 24 hours we covered 123 miles. Not the most in a day but better than the last few days. We changed all of the clocks to the same time zone as the Marquisas’ which we are now in having passed 127 W. Since Seattle just switched to daylight savings time, Seattle and the Marquisas clocks are the same. 6pm in Seattle is 6pm in the Marquisas, and 0300 Zulu (Greenwich mean time). It now is dark at 6pm at the start of my evening watch but I get to see the Milky Way, lots of starts and tonight even a few shooting stars. We talked to Saperlipopette this morning briefly before the net. They anchored in the harbor late last night. They are joined by 30 other sailboats! Where did these folks come from? Any way, they are glad to be anchored. We look forward to meeting up with them. They promised to have cold beers waiting for us when we arrive. SV Windarra, 2029 miles off the coast of Mexico 670 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/8, Day 19 offshore as of 06:15 zulu, 05 07.864'S, 131 40.015'W Another day. Today the winds are very light so at 2:30pm in the afternoon we started motorsailing. At 6pm we shut off the motor, since the winds were around 8-10 knots. Now the winds are around 11-12 knots. Hope they continue! Not much happened today. Jesse and Sarah worked on homework. I am starting to make a bug screen for the main companionway. Mandu makes sure Jesse does his Calculus A lot of the boats are motoring since there is so little wind. Mobisle has reached Hiva Oa and found 12 boats already there. Hope to be in Nuka Hiva sooooooon!! SV Windarra, 2157 miles off the coast of Mexico 542 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/9, Day 20 offshore as of 06:25 zulu, 06 21.440 S, 133 46.480 W Well we are getting closer. Made some good progress last night. Motor sailed a little today. Since 2pm this afternoon we have been making great progress, winds 11-16, seas 2-4 ft, boat speed 5.5-6.5 knots. Right now we have 15 knots of wind and we are doing 6.7 knots over the ground with a reefed main and a reefed yankee. During dinner tonight a large pod of dolphins came by and swam by the boat. They would occasionally leap high in the air. It was fun to watch them jump and swim by. We take it as a good omen. Talked to Saperlipopette this morning. Half of the boats that were in the harbor in Nuku Hiva left today. They are part of a world cruising rally. Glad it will not be so crowded. SV Windarra, 2302 miles off the coast of Mexico 397 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/10, Day 21 offshore as of 06:25 zulu, 07 12.493 S, 135 58.042 W Still getting closer. We made good progress during the night and early this morning. A squall dumped some rain on us just as I was starting watch, of course. After the squall went by the winds died to around 5 knots. We decided to start motoring and have continued motoring. Jesse made a chocolate cake with a rum frosting. It was a good treat. Speaking of treats, Rich opened a can of sardines. Katmandu, who was sleeping below came up into the cockpit, ready to investigate. Hmmm, fish! Jesse held the can so that he could have the leavings. You never saw a cat lick so fast. When he finally stopped, Jesse threw the can overboard. Katmandu watched the can fly overboard. You could tell he was thinking, "Wait a minute, I was not done with that." He liked his treat very much. Sarah made Phad Thai for dinner tonight. It was great. We saw two fishing boats tonight on the horizon. The first boats we have seen in over ten days. As you can see, we are getting pretty bored with the sea and ready to make landfall. Soon, SV Windarra, 2543 miles off the coast of Mexico 256 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/11, Day 22 offshore as of 06:35 zulu, 07 47.980 S, 138 04.452 W Getting closer. We motored until about 2pm this afternoon. We have depleted our aft tank and will reserve the center tank for motoring in the harbor. As soon as we turned of the motor and brought out the sails, the winds died. We rolled around for a while. A squall came through and moved us a long. We are running with only the yankee, poled out to starboard. The winds are 9-12 knots from the East-South-East. The swells are 1-2 feet from the east. We are ghosting along at 4knots. We are really, really ready to be there.... Hope the winds and Neptune cooperates. Soon, SV Windarra, 2671 miles off the coast of Mexico 128 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/12, Day 23 offshore as of 06:19 zulu, 08 46.850 S, 139 38.870 W Are we there yet? We are 18 miles from our first waypoint, just off the coast of Nuku Hiva. Then we follow the waypoints into the anchorage at Taiohae Bay, which is another 12 miles. We hope to be in at around 3am give or take a little. We first saw land, Ua Huka, at 12:30pm this afternoon. The winds would go from 2 knots to 18 knots. At one point we were going 2 knots, just by the current, the wind was nil. Hopefully by the time you read this we will be at anchor. It has been a long day and we are anxious to be at rest after 23 days at sea. SV Windarra, 2781 miles off the coast of Mexico 18 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint 4/12, Day 23, Arrival as of 05:00 am Marquisas Time, 08 54.910 S, 140 06.170 W We're here! We just set the hook in Taiohae Bay in Nuku Hiva. It was a long night and early morning. After we sent the last email the winds died all together. We turned on the motor to give us a little headway. The winds started to pick up so we decided to sail again. We could see Ua Huka in the distance but we still could not see Nuku Hiva. The winds started to die again. We rolled back and forth and the sails started to flog. Aside from the noise of the sails flapping and the lines beating we started to hear a new noise. The whisker pole decided to part company with the mast and swing wildly on the foredeck. All hands on deck! Sarah turned the flood light on and Rich and I went forward to get things under control. By this time, one end of the whisker pole was wedged along the mast and the other end tethered to the yankee sheets. We carefully lowered the pole and strapped it on deck. So, what now? We raised the main and brought out the staysail and set sail again. Shortly thereafter the winds decided to play with us and change direction and weaken. We did a few 360s to try and find the wind. Then the wind started to build to 12 knots. Hey we are going again! When we were about 3 miles out we got a VHF radio call from Marie on Saperlipopette. Where are you? It was now about 4 am. We told her that we were coming up on the entrance to the harbor and that we would call when we were at the entrance. We furled the headsails, turned on the motor and dropped the main sail. We had the radar and the navigation software running so that we could negotiate the entry. Of course it is dark and we still do not see the island visually but the radar has it. From looking at the electronic chart and the cruising guides we check for lights ahead. Is that a buoy? No, it’s a fishing boat. Okay. We call Marie. They turn on their strobe light at the top of their mast so that we can see them. Beware, she says, not all the boats in the harbor have anchor lights on. Okay. We can make out Second Chance and Makoko and Saperlipopette. There is room for us to drop our hook next to Saperlipopette. The sky is starting to lighten and we can start to make out the shoreline. The smell of land and the sound of roosters crowing brought wide smiles to our faces. It is around 5:30am. Gilles and Marie come over in their dingy with ice, cold beers and pop and a big welcome. They are up early to go to the farmer's market on the pier on Saturday mornings. We finish our cold ones and go down to crash. We're here! SV Windarra, 2799 miles off the coast of Mexico 0 miles to Nuka Hiva waypoint Landfall, Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva, Iles de Marquises

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