Great Sailing

We have been so unbelievably fortunate with the weather. The fleet ahead and behind have been complaining of squally conditions and higher winds, while we have had near perfect sailing conditions for the past six days. Ten to fifteen knots on the beam, four to eight foot gentle swells, cloudless nights, no squalls at all -- I know I've said it before, but it doesn't get much better than this. In the past four days, only one of our noon-to-noon runs was less than 150 nm. One of them was 165 nm -- a new record for us.

We had a great run today; 150 miles up to noon. That was with two reefs in the mainsail and using the #2 jib (smaller than our usual jib). The conditions were near perfect: a beam reach in sync with the swells, and no squalls. It doesn't get much better. We should cross the line (i.e. the equator) sometime tomorrow.

5/21
We spent one night moored at Toau, a beautiful little atoll, and had breakfast ashore with one of the two families that live there. Then we were off again. Right now, we are close reaching with the drifter (a massive sail): light breeze, sunny sky, flat sea. It's been a great start for Bronson; I could sail a few thousand miles like this, myself. What a difference from the first leg of the trip!

5/23
We motored most of last night in a flat calm, and have been sailing rather slowly all day. But the skies are clear and the seas are flat, so we don't mind too much. We had a bird try to land on the wind generator just before sunset yesterday. He got clipped by the blades and fell to the deck, landing on the fish-cleaning station. He appeared to have a broken wing, but I couldn't bring myself to pitch him overboard. We just left him resting on the board there, and next I noticed he was gone. We have a local net with about six boats, including Orca III, Malachi and us. Both of them are a couple of days behind us. One boat is well ahead.

5/24
We're not making great time, but we're having a great time. We motored all last night with no wind. Most of today has been great sailing, reaching at 5 knots in 10 knots of breeze. One squall killed the wind for about 2 hours, though. Enjoying life.

Bound for Hawaii

Transmission over the HF radio has been problematic, so Mark's emails have been quite brief. I'll pass along his reports from along the way, but might amplify or paraphrase his comments a bit, as the transmissions are sometimes telegraphic.

Mintaka left Papeete, Tahiti on Monday May 18. They made their way through the pass in the reef at 1600, bound for the Tuamotus, a group of coral atolls scattered over a huge area of ocean. There was very little wind, and they motored on mostly flat seas.

As of a couple of hours ago they were moored at Anse Amyot, on the atoll of Toau. We spent a week or so on Toau in 2003, on our way west across the Pacific (the photo at left is from that visit: Mintaka is the boat on the right). It's a beautiful atoll, one of those quintessential South Pacific islands. Almost uninhabited, the only residents are two related families living at Anse Amyot. Mark and Bronson intend to spend the night there, then leave tomorrow for Hawaii. I'll add more as Mark sends me updates.

Departing for Hawaii

Out at sea, outgoing emails need to be kept pretty short, so much that could have been said went by the boards. It’s a rainy morning here in Papeete, so I thought I'd share a few memories with you.

One night, while still coasting in New Zealand, we saw the most amazing meteor that I have ever seen. It was so close and so bright that it almost looked like a distress flare. It came straight down quite near us, breaking up into fragments near the sea. I've seen many "shooting stars" before, but nothing like this.

Mintaka is a fairly tender boat, meaning that she heels (leans) way over in a breeze. Since our stove is not gimballed, the heel makes it difficult to cook sometimes at sea. We had to cook all of our meals in the pressure cooker, because that is the only pot we have that we can tie down to the stove.

We have a radar reflector hanging up in the rigging. Around the midpoint in the passage, it partially broke free, hanging from one cord and swinging all around. Well, this was a problem. It is difficult (and dangerous) to climb the mast at sea, so we waited, hoping it would break free entirely and drop overboard. It didn't. Instead, it wrapped itself around the jib halyard, jamming the halyard tight with the jib not quite lowered. So, picture this. The boat is bucking around as usual, and Dave is standing on top of the bow pulpit, holding on to the jibstay (wire) with one hand while reaching up to untie the halyard with the other. Wish I had a video of that. Of course, we didn't want to lose the end of the halyard, either, but that maneuver gets difficult to explain.

From time to time, if the wind gets up too much, someone has to go forward onto the bowsprit to drop and secure the jib. This tends to be the time that the bowsprit is going underwater with every other wave or so. Well, I was out there at one point when a wave lifted us a bit higher than usual before dropping the bowsprit into the next trough. This was quite a drop. The best analogy I can think of is jumping off the high dive while holding onto a boogie board. Besides getting the wind knocked out of me, I had to ride the bowsprit completely under water. Fun and games in the southern ocean. Wish I had a video of that, too.

Dave tried to teach an albatross to water ski one day. The six-foot-span bird hooked his bill on Dave's fishing lure, but rather than being pulled bill first, he stuck out his feet and essentially skied along behind us. One doesn't like to hurt these birds, so we reeled him in, and I held his wings pinned while Dave unhooked him. He kept following us, apparently none the worse for wear.

By the way, my crewman for the next leg (Bronson, an old friend from Salt Lake) will arrive Sunday, and we plan to be on our way to Hawaii on Monday. That pasage should be a piece of cake compared to the first leg, but one never knows. I don't expect it to take nearly as long as the first leg, either, but again ….

Papeete, 3 May

After all the headwinds and bad weather on this passage, we finished by motoring 100 miles on flat water. Of course, we had to hand steer those miles because both of our autopilots failed. One of them was brand new, right out of the box. We entered the port here after dark on the 3rd, tying up to the quai downtown. After clearing in the next morning, we moved over to Marina Taina, where we will remain until departure in a couple of weeks. I guess it was a rough passage, but really, it was just a long slog into the wind. There was never anything scarey or dangerous, just annoying. The weather never gave us a break. I'll be spending the next week or two getting the boat ready for sea again. My friend Bronson will be arriving on the 16th to crew as far as Hawaii, and I am looking for one more crew (Ron not being able to continue). Stay tuned for developments.

Noon: South 19 degrees 11 min, West 148 deg 03 min. We have 131 nm to go. This is the 2nd sunny day of the trip. We're still beating, but expect the wind to shift more favorably tonight. It might drop enough to motor straight towards our destination. Motoring didn't work for very long yesterday. However, morale is improving. We hope to sight Tahiti before dark tomorrow.

Noon: South 22 degrees 26 min., West 148 degrees 14 min. 189 nautical miles to go. Hove to all yesterday and last night. We're now motoring on course in dying wind. We expect to continue motoring with little to no wind the rest of the way.