On route to Marquises - Halfway

Posted 16 April 2010

Our position is 08 degrees 20 minutes south and 113 degrees 57 minutes west, we are halfway !! Took us 12 and a half days to reached the halfway point, 1500 nm to go. For a couple of days after we left Galapagos on Sunday April 3, we had to motor to get through the doldrums. There was no wind, the seas calm with the daily squall or sometimes a series of squalls. We did not mind the squalls as with it came rain that washed all the salt off the boat. Only 3 times, and always on my watch in the early morning hours, had the squalls cause us to reduce sails. Monitoring the squalls on the radar you had a pretty good idea if it is going to be a big one or not, the thing that surprised me most was that the squalls hit within seconds and did not give you much time for reducing sails. By the third morning still getting drenched we had the sails reduced in no time. The squalls are more active close to the equator and since we passed latitude 06 degrees south we had no more squalls.

We are sailing on a twin head sail configuration, and this will most probably be for the rest of the way unless the wind changes direction. This sail configuration is great as it is self correcting, not much pressure on the wind wane and not much for us to do. It can be rolly, especially when the sea swell gets a bit bigger.

We have settled into a routine of sleep, eat, read, radio talk, check the weather and the boat etc. We had 3 sightings of commercial ships since we left, not much traffic, although we are 1 of 6 sailboats within 400 nm miles of each other on route to the Marquesas from Galapagos. We have a radio schedule twice daily with the group of boats. This is also reassuring for me to know that we are not entirely alone.

We consumed all the fresh vegetables and fruit except for some potatoes, onions and a watermelon. We still have lots of frozen vegetables and fruit, so we should be OK until close to the end of our passage. Then the tin vegetables and fruit will have to do.

One of Dinis ham radio friends arranged for us to get a phone patch via the ham radio and we spoke to Morgan. This was our highlight of the trip so far. Both Dinis and myself were quite overwhelmed when we first heard Morgan's voice booming loud and clear over the radio. It was so nice to speak to him. We will do this again before he leaves on his next assignment.