Position: 18 degrees, 00 minutes south; 151 degrees, 21 minutes west 107 nm

The “distance to waypoint” on the GPS just switched to 100.9 miles! Wow, we are almost there. Back to Tahiti. Our memories of Tahiti are not full of tropical evenings and exotic landscapes. We have a few of those memories, but Tahiti meant being at the quay in noisy Papeete waiting for medical news. Our dear friend had had a diving “incident” in the Tuamotos and was being looked at in Papeete. It was a tense time. Thank God he is fine. Tahiti, and sailing to it, has always been on Bob’s list. Ever since he was a young boy following the travels of Robin Lee Graham in the National Geographic series. I heard about this desire early in our relationship. It went like this (on about date five): Bob – “I’m going to sail to the South Pacific in 2012. You can come too if you want. I mean I would like it if you did.” Seriously, he was that determined. He had hit his “Make it Happen” point. Tahiti, just saying the word out loud was my “Make it Happen” point. I enjoy a Facebook group called Women Who Sail. It is full of wonderful women interested in sailing. I think over half of the posts include angst from these women on how to make it happen. We dream about doing this but getting there is different. I never dreamed I’d be here. But saying “Tahiti” made it happen. I walked into my boss’s office at 3 o’clock on a Friday afternoon. Timing was important. I told him I needed to talk and he invited me to sit. I looked up and with tears in my eyes, it was a scary moment, I said, “Jim, there is no easy way to say this so I will just blurt it out. I am sailing to Tahiti.” His look was one of confusion. What? I clarified. “That means I need to quit.” Well that got his attention. He sat up straighter in his chair and said, “Holy crap, shit, that means you’re taking Bob!” I had worked for him for 17 years. Bob was our most prized consultant that I was dating. “Well, not really, he is taking me!” To his credit Jim gave me a huge smile and nearly jumped out of his seat to hug me. Oh my God! How exciting! Wow! And I stopped the tears of fear. I had done it. I said the word, “Tahiti” and now there was no turning back. It was going to happen. Jim stuck his head in my office as he left for the weekend. He still had that huge grin on his face. “I am so very excited for you…today. But come Monday after all of the implications have set in over the weekend I will be hating you. Have a great weekend.” So here we are, returning to Tahiti. Making it happen still. Time to go put the champagne in the fridge.

(From Bob) OK, on the sailing front, we’re still not “laying” Tahiti, more like Bora Bora, so I decided to follow the “Johnnie Joe School of Cruising” advice and “Run ‘er till she’s empty”. Yup we’re motor sailing for all we’re worth in order to head direct. If we just kept sailing, we would have to go around the west side of Moorea and then tack somewhere northwest of Tahiti. I would add at least a day, if not two to the passage. I’ve estimated we have about 20 hours of fuel in the tank, so we’re running 15 hours then we’ll shut down and sail a while and see where we are. Unless my estimate and/or our consumption is off. If things all of a sudden get quiet, we’ll know where we stand. We have ten gallons in jerry jugs on the deck, so when we’re well within that range, we’ll dump those in the tank and use that for the final push.

Position: 18 degrees, 52 minutes south; 153 degrees, 07 minutes west 97 nm day (and thanks to Carol on Arnementia for finding my little mistake on yesterday’s position report)

So, if sailing in light air is a delicate dance, sailing in light air on a squally day is like mud wrestling! It’s not very pretty.

In light air you spend a little time balancing all the inputs; jib, main, helm, and windvane and you can achieve a balance that will last for days. Until today, I hadn’t had to touch anything – Charisma was sailing just fine all by herself. But last night the squalls kicked in. Every squall has the same pattern. The wind increases – in this case, from a nice comfortable 10 knots to 20 knots. That part throws everything off balance. You have the big sails up, so you have to furl the jib and/or reef the main. Then the squall lasts 30-45 minutes and once it passes it takes all the wind with it and leaves almost a vacuum. Nothing. Charisma just wallows with no wind to guide her. That part usually last another half hour where you have to go to the helm and try to just keep the boat from spinning in aimless circles using the very small amount of boat speed you might have – maybe 0.5 knots or less – for rudder input. Then the wind fills back in. Now you unfurl the jib and/or unreef the main and go through all the little adjustments to rebalance everything hoping this time will be the last.

Once everything is set and you think you can go get some sleep you look up and see the next squall just upwind, and you know you’re going to do it all over again.

By the way, Ann now belongs to the “On the bowsprit when it goes underwater” club. She was out on the tippy end feeding the jib into the slot when we went up, up, up and big wave and came down, down down and the bowsprit and Ann were christened by the Southern Ocean.

Exhaustion. It was a long night last night and we wear it like a layer of thermal underwear. It’s too hot for thermals this close to Tahiti. Almost there. Just over 200 miles to our waypoint off the island as I write this. But the exhaustion is palpable. For Bob especially. Sailing in light air, fluky light air close hauled is not easy. Wilson, our fabulous windvane is trying but it is not easy as the squalls, not big ones, small ones just big enough to disrupt the fine balance Bob has achieved. Charisma is trying but she answers best to Bob. I try but know that I can only adjust so much. Bob gets awakened by the imbalance of the boat and arrives in the companion way to do his magic. He stands and listens to the input from Charisma and deftly applies the necessary adjustments. She listens and we are off again. Until the next squall sucks all of the air and changes the fine balance. I pray for wind adjustments. I know God doesn’t make deals but perhaps the angels can work with the winds. Perhaps the squalls can give Bob more than 45 minutes sleep each time. That’s how it was last night and through the morning. This afternoon we had to lower the “Whomper” jib and adjust the furling line. It is a big sail and was not furling properly. Working with a sail this large is no easy feat under sail. Bob is an expert from his younger years as an ocean racer; we got it done. Seems a small adjustment made a big difference because it is furling better now. Bob made more adjustments and the wind shifted behind a squall. We are now headed on a better course and the winds are building some. Maybe it will be an easier night. Because we are almost there…

We Found Some Wind

Last evening it was looking a little grim. We are pretty much out of fuel, except for our last 10 gallons of “get in” fuel in the jerry jugs on deck. By 10 PM the wind had all but quit. The speedometer was bouncing between zero and 0.5 knots. Charisma was pretty much just drifting in slowly spinning circles. But, at 12:01 AM the wind started to fill in. Within minutes we had a whopping 6 knots of wind and were going 3 knots boatspeed. That wind held and the rest of the night we were making between 3 and 4 knots toward Tahiti. Today, the wind increased a bit more, in the 10-15 range and we’re still there at 8PM doing 5-6 knots. Now all we need is for it to go just a bit more south and we can lay Tahiti on this tack. If it doesn’t we’re going to miss Tahiti to the west and we’ll be out here another day or two longer than if we can ride this wind straight in.

So, that’s about the extent of things here. It’s beautiful, the moon is up, sky is pretty clear and we’re just trucking along almost in the right direction. What a difference from the first half of this passage. Good thing there’s a well-known cruisers’ affliction known as “passage amnesia”. We’ve already almost forgotten the terror of the lightning and 50 knot winds.

Almost.

Position: 21 degrees, 21 minutes south; 155 degrees, 16 minutes west 112 nm (motored all night)

Today was one of those days that make you forget about the other ones. Blue sky, blue water, and warm weather. It would have been perfect with just a touch more wind. We’ve had about 6 knots of wind most of the day and are able to make about 3 knots boat speed out of that. Sometimes we stretch to 4 knots. We’re hoping for a tad more wind tomorrow, but nice to have calm conditions after chasing that low across the Southern Ocean. Now we’re in a high, so the air is more stable and we don’t worry (as much) about crazy squalls and stuff. We actually have no reefs in the main for the first time in over two weeks and we changed jibs to “the whomper”, our really big jib. The other nice thing about the change in weather – we have stowed the long underwear. We’re definitely in the tropics now, so have been all day in shorts, tee-shirt and flip flops. Nice.

Oh yeah, the green flash. This evening watching the sun go down I noticed the clarity around the horizon and said to Ann, “Watch for the green flash” (you’ll have to google the reason for this – too long to explain). She turned and we counted down, watched the sun dip and…blam, the biggest green flash either of us has seen. The sun disappeared and a second later this huge flash of fluorescent green lit up where the sun was. We were both so stunned we started cheering. A great end to a gorgeous day.

But wait, there’s more! Two hours later, the glow of the moon on the horizon announced an imminent appearance. Ann shouted, “Charisma time!” and I ran below to prepare our evening concoction. Got ’em done just in time to celebrate the moonrise with our favorite cocktail.

So, we’re 373 nm out of Papeete as of this writing. That’s the good news. The not as good is we’ve about used up our fuel and have light winds for at least the next four days, so if the wind dies, so does our speed. (We’re doing 2.3 knots right this moment). We might average 80 or so miles a day, so we’re still some days out. And, the wind looks to be heading us – meaning that at some point it may force us away from our destination. We’re trying to get “some easting” in right now and hope for the best.

It’s all part of sailing. At least it’s warm.

Evening. The sun has set. The remains of its warm glow have given way to the deep blue of the night. There is not a cloud in the sky, nor a whisper of wind. Nothing disturbs the horizon vying for our attention.

We are in a perfect, limitless amphitheater. The water’s smooth, gently undulating surface perfectly reflects the stars. The horizon is an indistinct blur vaguely suggesting a transition from sea to sky.

We feel as if we are floating on a sea of stars.

The moon boasting of its fullness tonight, rose with a gentle, golden glow. Higher now, it has turned an almost blinding platinum in the dark night. Only the most confident stars are visible beyond its glow. Below it, leads a shimmering path across the ocean. Perhaps leading to infinity on such a night, in such a place.

We can only feel honored and at the same time humbled in being here.

Postion: 22 degrees, 21 minutes south; 156 degrees, 44 minutes west 143 nm day (motor-sailing, no wind)

This afternoon, two bright white birds, looking for all the world like white doves appeared out of nowhere and flew around and around us – four, five, maybe six times as if there were bringing a message of peace-“We’re sorry, we didn’t mean to be so rough the other night”.

Thank you. We accept.

Position: 23 degrees, 40 minutes south; 158 degrees, 48 minutes west 67 nm day

Whew, thank goodness we got an easy day today. We’re both exhausted after last night’s events. This morning brought some unsettled looking weather (again), but it turned out pretty benign. All day, there has been little or no wind. We have been motoring since morning (it’s after dinner right now) and we expect we’ll continue to motor through tomorrow sometime, maybe even the next day. That’s probably getting pretty close to the extent of our fuel though, so we’re hoping the wind fills in for the final stretch. It should fill in from the south and then south east Thursday for a few days, so cross fingers.

This shows our planned route(s) versus actual. The "bottom" route was the original. The next higher was our modified for weather avoidance. The actual is shown by the triangle representing our boat and the dotted line behind it. Snarky weather and ENE wind are pushing us toward Tahiti instead of letting us go east to Tubuai...so we'll go where the wind lets us.

Oh, I don’t know if I mentioned we decided to just bypass Tubuai and go direct Tahiti at this point. We’re currently about 600 miles to go.

That and the beautiful almost full moon we see tonight for the first time in three or four days is about all the news for now.

P.S. Thanks to everyone for your comments. We enjoy ready them in the evenings. Some of you are either new or on new computers, so if you don’t see your comment, it’s because I have to “moderate” i.e. approve the post. I can’t do that until we get internet access in Tahiti and approve you. Once approved all your comments will go through with no further action required. Meanwhile we still are receiving them and enjoying them.

Position: 24 degrees, 13 minutes south; 159 degrees, 45 minutes west

…and rain and wind!! We won the trifecta.

Yesterday around 5PM local NZ time, we saw some lightning off in the distance, downwind of us. It seemed to be clearing where we were so I didn’t think too much of it until half an hour later I noticed the whole sky was rapidly clouding over and the lightning was getting closer. Holy cow!! It turned into the biggest lightning storm we have ever seen. For five hours we were trying to avoid cells by tracking on the radar and adjusting course. We sailed upwind hoping to get “above” the line, but there wasn’t a line, it just appeared everywhere at once and enveloped us. After an hour or two there was no-where we could go that there weren’t lightning bolts. At one point we sailed between two bolts that struck the water on either side of us. It wasn’t pretty. And it rained. Poured, actually. So hard and noisy you couldn’t hear yourself think.

Then, after five hours of insanity, suddenly the wind died down. I went forward to tighten the preventer and as I got back to the cockpit it quickly started building and by time I got to the helm to adjust our course (the wind changed direction about 90 degrees I think, it was all confusion by this time) and in ten seconds was blowing 40++ knots (at one point during a relative “lull”, I measured 43 knots at the deck with a hand held). The gale driven raindrops were like a thousand BB gun shots on your face. Charisma went crazy as I struggled to find a groove where she’d settle down. Fortunately we only had the third reef in the main and a little storm jib. I steered downwind to lessen the load on the rig, and we went surfing away. If the sail had been any bigger, we would have blown it out for sure. I have no idea how fast we were going as I couldn’t take my attention off the red glow of the compass for even a moment without risking careening out of control. After maybe ten minutes I realized this was no ordinary squall and it wasn’t going to blow out, so waited for a slight lull and threw the helm over to round up and (hopefully) get Charisma to heave to. We turned and heeled until the water was up to the cabin, but she came up and settled. A little. Problem at this point, she doesn’t really heave to with any kind of jib up. I had to go up to the bow and take the storm jib down. Took me a few minutes to psych myself up for that one, but finally left the relative safety of the cockpit. Yipes. The wind was blowing so hard it literally felt like it was going to lift me out of the boat. I crawled. 37 feet. One hand hold at a time. Finally with Ann’s expert help managing the lines, I got the jib down and secure and we spent the next roughly four hours riding it and wondering where the heck this beast came from?

Wow, what a night. Don’t want to E V E R do that again. Charisma did really well. We’re both a little shaken and just riding hove to in the early morning with the wind now around 10 knots, catching up on some sleep and cleaning up in anticipation of getting going in another hour to two after the morning net at 0715 local. Then we’ll do a boat inspection to check on any damage and see about moving on.

Position: 25 degrees, 57 minutes south; 159 degrees, 56 minutes west 76 nm

We didn’t get very far today. Last night was very windy and bumpy so we sailed quite conservatively. Then early this morning it really started to blow consistently into the 30’s. That’s too much for our stays’l, so we took it down and were going with just the main with three reefs. But, the waves had built rapidly into short, steep uncomfortable little moguls (or big moguls, they were in the 8 foot range). It just got too uncomfortable. It was getting very hard on Charisma, the rigging and the crew, so we hove to (again). Good thing too because it wasn’t long before it was howling. Fortunately we were quite comfortably stopped and just waiting it out.

Around 2PM local NZ time, I untied the helm and started sailing again. The wind is still gusting into the 30’s but the waves have settled a bit and we’re just chunking along at about 3 knots and not exactly in the right direction, but due north. It’s a small moral victory though ’cause at least we’re not just sitting.

Weather wise, it looks like our old friend “the biggest low on the planet” is still influencing our weather. It has thrown off a big front that curves up from its position – something like 600 miles southeast – over us and up through the Cook Islands and over to Tonga. Well over a thousand miles long. Anyway, it’s turned into an occluded front over us, which is when a cold front meets a warm front and they stop to play. Warm and cold air create convection – the air rises and becomes unstable – and there’s the recipe for crappy weather, which is what we have.

We’re hoping that the gribs are right when they show light and variable up north of us day after tomorrow. We just want to get out of this and any change will be welcome.

What this weather also means is that Ann and I are still wearing our long underwear all day and night. It definitely hasn’t warmed up at all yet. Hopefully now that we’re starting to trend north we’ll be getting into warmer weather. Another bath would be nice at this point too.