Making waves & showers
I was afraid we would need to charge the PG status of the blog to R, but we remained respectable. Yesterday, since we had an almost full tank of water on the port side, it was time to celebrate with showers. As we have been continuing south I am feeling stickier and have a patina of salt crystals building up.
Bill filled the shower bag and set it out into the sun for a couple of hours. We then hosted it and tied it to the end of the boom. Bills showered and I followed next. Glorious! Sharon had Bill hang it in their shower below decks (she did not want to have to sit down to shower). When the engines run Turtlebones has hot water in the tank, but not when under sail so the bag gave us perfect warm water.
It was an awesome sailing day. The waves continued to build steadily and we jigged more westerly for a while, averaging about 7.5 or more knots. We have done over 210nm in the last 24 hours. Last night we put a reef in the main and set a more southerly course (195 degrees).
The waves continued to build to about 2.5 meters as I sit in the cockpit and write this. The difference is that yesterday as I looked out at the horizon, periodically the odd wave would crest above the horizon. This morning as we climb up a wave the boat slows to 6.5knots and as we coast down to the trough we are doing 9.5knots. In the trough, the horizon is usually the wave about 50 to 100 feet behind the boat.
Last night and the balance of today should be the most raucous we experience on this passage. All of the wind models show wind and waves will have peaked. You can see we are in a “Goldilocks zone” with stronger winds behind us and softer ahead, but the zones continue to shift.
By tomorrow the stronger winds will have move south, faster than we do. Notice the transition zone? Almost like it goes from strong winds to nothing at some magic point.
The computer models make it look so easy to keep the boat in this zone just north of the deadzone – good luck!
NEWSFLASH – so I moved inside about 30 minutes ago as it had started to rain, then the squall line hit. Winds jumped to 21 kts apparent and the boat was zipping along at 11 knots. Bill rousted as the rain was blowing across into their berth. We discussed pulling in some sail and the next round of the squall line hit. Bill saw the boat speed hit 15kts (I saw 17kts). The apparent winds hit 25 so we were in a 35kt+ wind gust. We rolled in part of the genoa and put a second reef in the main. It worked surprisingly well to reef even though the pressure was in the sails. The front has passed and, although we are a little wetter, we are still moving along at a nice 8+knots.
So by Thursday/Friday the winds fill back in we have a nice sail and we should cross the equator around midnight on Thursday night.
Sharon will need to roust us when he hit 0 0.00S as we will need to perform Neptune’s Ceremony. Technically we are all Polliwogs (Tadpoles in the Canadian Navy) – we have not crossed the equator at sea, we have no Shellbacks (previous sailors who crossed), and Bill as Captain will need to fill the role of King Neptune. It should be fun!
So it feels like we are on the home stretch. Three of 6 models show us arriving on the 24th, 3 on the 25th. Three show some motoring. All show wind speeds on average dropping between now and the 20th, then a perfect 10 to 15kts to take us to Hiva Oa.
Of course, as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”. We shall see!
