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.

Position: 27 degrees, 05 minutes south; 160 degrees, 17 minutes west 112 nm today

The east wind has set in and has brought a front with it. Since breakfast, we’ve had a double reefed main and stays’l in 25 knots wind at about 55 degrees to the wind in 3-4 foot waves. Now it’s raining too and the wind has come up to the point I’m considering a third reef before I go off watch (we just finished dinner). These conditions look to be with us for the next two days, then I’m not sure. We’re near a fairly complex system that is throwing off all kinds of weather and it’s not really clear what we’ll get on Monday. The gribs are showing light and variable before a south wind seems to fill in. I’ll be another day or two before I get a good read on what we’ll get. For now, we’re just heading on. All day we’ve been pretty much glued to 058 True. That’s almost direct to Tubuai, although it won’t last. Somewhere in here we’re going to get some northerlies too.

Anyway, that’s our update for today. It’s too bumpy to type and hang on. 😉

Thanks to everyone for their comments. Really good morale boosting to read them just before we “set” the first night watch.

Stephanie Esposito and JHam: Thank you for your kind offers to help with the LED for the compass. It actually seems like JHam’s idea to yell at the gremlins has worked. The second LED has come back on line. My moving the broken insulation may have had something to do with it too, but I’m sure the yelling was the more important part.

So, I’ll wait on trying to order a replacement and see if when we’re at anchor I can make a more permanent fix to the insulation. Funny how it didn’t work when I actually worked on it, but two nights later. Oh well, I’m not complaining.

Position: 28 degrees, 15 minutes south; 161 degrees, 58 minutes west

I decided it was time that you heard from me since Bob has been doing such a great job of regaling you with all of the boat talk. Good stuff if you are a sailor, maybe a little too much if you are just following the journey. So I speak.

I was very worried about this passage. Bob knows I like to keep track of the passages by numbers so he made me agree to start with a 30-day passage so I wouldn’t get disappointed when it took longer than I hoped. I did the numbers and based on mileage, 30 days was overkill but I agreed. 30 it is.

The boisterous start to the trip did not bother me. I convinced myself that this could be endured. I knew my muscles would finally adjust, the sleep schedule would set in and I could do it. Then we hit day 5 and 6 (I think) where we were hove to in 35 knot howling winds. Closed up inside of Charisma felt safe but it made me a little seasick. Yuk. I was very pleased when we finally were underway again.

These last few days skirting across the top of the southern lows has been amazing. The huge gentle giant waves building behind us and sweeping under and in front of us are a sight to behold. Such majesty. Gentle enough to allow me to make some yogurt, cook up some bacon and make some delightful meals. Passage meals can get boring so it is great to be able to spice it up. Made the greatest smashed avocado, egg, cheese and bacon sandwich on Sockdolager muffins yesterday. I love being able to get something done. Oh, and I love reading . I have finished four books this trip and am halfway through a fifth.

We decided not to change our clocks with the time zones to keep things simple. What has happened as a result is that while we are thinking it is 5pm it is really about 8pm. As a result I sometimes miss the sunsets. On “our” clocks it is happening at 4pm, the end of my nap. I always miss the sunrise because that is Bob’s watch. I take the early evening watch from 8 or 9pm to 2 or 3am. I get the moon. The moon is straight up in the sky long before my watch starts and it keeps me company all night. Last night it set at 1am. I loved the Cheshire smile as the new moon rose. I love the golden glow as it fills and grows each night. It keeps me from feeling lonely on watch and is a fabulous flashlight. It should be full just before we get there. Last night as we had our Charismas at 5:30 “our” time, the moon was creating shadows with the mast and the sail. We turned off all of the interior lights and sat on our back porch watching the gentle giants build in the moon light and slide softly under us. The Southern Cross shines behind us and reminds us that we will miss it soon. We know we are experiencing something very unique and special. We are making mental photos and memories. No other way to catch all of this.

I am writing this today because I know in another day or two we will turn towards Tubuai as the headwinds hit. I won’t be loving it. I will try to pull on these memories of the past few days to comfort me north. Almost there…but I am not counting. Thirty is still a long way off.

Position: 28 degrees, 58 minutes south; 163 degrees, 51 minutes west 110 nm day

This voyage plan had two parts. The first was to “run” (broad reach) with the west winds along the top of the Roaring 40’s, between 30 south and 35 south, on the lows that march across the Southern Ocean. That part has worked out pretty well, except for getting a little too close to one of the lows that was stronger and came further north than expected. We’re been sailing downwind on course due east for a week and a half. Not bad.

Part Two of the voyage plan was to get to roughly 155 degrees west and turn “left” about 50 degrees and sail direct from there to our destination. Typically the westerlies run out about there and you “catch” a southeast wind from there up to Tubuai. We’re heading into part two of the plan in another day or two. Problem is, there’s an uncooperative weather system moving into place to squelch our plan. Just as we’re ready to turn the corner this system is going to bring us northeast winds. In other words, wind from exactly where we want to go. Since we can’t go straight into the wind, we’ll have to “tack” back and forth at about a 55 degree angle to each side of the course, in order to get there (with 55 degrees being the cruising version of “close hauled” in ocean conditions). So, the next few days will be interesting to see how this plays and out whether there’s a system on the “other” side of this one that will bring back some more favorable winds. For now, my available data such as weather faxes and gribs don’t go out far enough. So, we sail on and see what the weather will let us do just like sailors have done for centuries. Even with all the high tech stuff, some things don’t change.

By the way, if you want to see some of this stuff in “real time” and maybe even be a step ahead of what we can see, go to www.windyty.com. It is a pretty cool application that shows real time wind flow across the globe. Or, if you want to really waste some time, go to www.noaa.org and dig around and look for South Pacific weather charts. You’ll want the Surface Analysis, or 24 Hour Prog chart of the area of the ocean we’re in. These are essentially what I’m able to get via weather fax. It’s all about bandwidth.

Back on Charisma at dawn. The sun is stretching and yawning getting ready to meet the day. His orange glow gently nudging aside the stars and the night sky, sending them back to the other side of the world. Right on schedule, as the stars disappear, the morning squallies are marching down behind us. Fluffy, billowing white no doubt soon to bring our daily dose of early morning wind and rain.

It’s just another part of our day.

Position: 29 degrees, 40 minutes south; 165 degrees, 47 minutes west Only a 99 mile day

Near bliss.

The wind lightening in the early morning to about 10 knots and we still had the storm sails up, so Charisma was very underpowered. At the watch change at 0230 local, we decided to put the mainsail back up. It was the first time we’ve had it up in a couple days and it was furled, packed and tied up tight for the gale, so getting it back in action on a rolling deck, in the dark wasn’t a trivial exercise (these things are always needed “in the dark”, aren’t they?). Anyway, down the storm sails and up the main! For now we’re just leaving the storm sails tied down on the deck. We’ll do the clean-up in the daylight.

Right now (about 0330) we’re on a very broad reach with a full main and jib. There’s massive “star-age”, 10 knots of gentle wind and not a light (or anything for that matter) on the horizon within a thousand miles. There’s still a bit of a residual swell for this amount of wind so it’s a bit rolly, but from time to time we get into one of those quiet, blissful grooves where Charisma is steady, you look up and can feel the wind gently caress your face and in the background is the zen garden-like sound of water peacefully burbling by the hull. If this isn’t bliss…

Hard to believe that the ocean was "snarling" just a day or so ago.

Speaking of lights, the compass light LED that allows us to see our course at night is going into failure mode. One the two LED lights inside has gone out. You can still see half the card, but the other half is very faint. I have a parts list on board and found the part number and will try and get it shipped to Tahiti. I would order it now, but the parts list doesn’t have an email on it. There’s always something to fix. If this thing goes completely out I might have to reprise the famous “Collinator Mark II” compass light that we created on the Transpac when our light went out on Shanti. Remember that Jon Eberly? This version will have to be modified though to be a binnacle instead of bulkhead mount.

All in all though, a mostly nice day. A few squalls, two cockpit showers (and a shave) and a couple more albatross sightings. Really now, what more can you ask for? Well, Sockdolager Muffins to be exact. Ann made a dozen of them today. You can’t imagine both how delicious they are and how hard it is to make them – all the ingredients, mixing, rising, rolling, cooking – on a rocking rolling boat. Wow, but worth it. And a special extra treat, she found some Barker’s Apricot Preserves. New Zealand’s finest and some of the best in the world! Oh yes, it was a good day on board Charisma.

A squall and a rainbow.

Position: 29 degrees, 53 minutes south; 167 degrees, 51 minutes west A 122 mile day.

Not a bad day’s run – an average of 5 knots. It started out pretty boisterous with evening, late night and early morning squalls with some blasting winds. We sailed all night with just the storm trys’l and storm jib. I added the regular jib this afternoon as the winds lightened.

The foulies are getting a break.

We’re in a place right now where the major force of the low has passed us and we’re now riding the remainder of the clockwise rotation – so the wind is still west quadrant. Right now, it’s SW and tonight it’s looking to shift west and then NW which would be nice since we want to stay right around the 30 degree latitude line Right now the SW wind is pushing us northwest a bit. We want to go about 90 degrees, but we’re actually going about 60 degrees. If we go higher we risk very light winds, even easterlies as there is a high above us filling in. Below the 30 degree line we can hold 15-20 knots of westerlies at least until the end of the week. If the wind doesn’t change tonight we’ll jibe in the morning and head southeast. At that point it looks like there’s a new low behind us that we’ll have to deal with. It’s just now forming above New Zealand, so too early to tell how strong it will get or exactly the path. So we plan. As far as tonight, even though the wind is getting light – in the mid-teens, we’re going to give ourselves a break and stay with this sail combo and not put the main up until tomorrow. The past week has been a lot of work and we deserve the night off from lots of sail adjustments. I think it’s going to be squally anyway, so right around midnight I’ll probably be very glad we don’t have the main up.

Along with the wind easing, we had blue skies and very large, majestic waves rolling us along. It actually was a gorgeous sailing day. Let’s see; we want to go east, the wind is pushing us east, it was a nice day. Hmm, I guess I can’t complain too much.

The other event of the day was another albatross sighting. These are just incredible sights to see. They are huge, with 80 something inch wingspans and are most graceful. There is a colony that we visited near Dunedin on the South Island and they told us there that the juveniles, upon leaving the nest go out do not touch land for two years!

Trivia for today – our weather guru in NZ emailed that the low that we were in the last couple days was just described on NZ TV as “The biggest on the planet”. It sure felt like that to us.

Position: 30 degrees, 57 minutes south; 169 degrees, 44 minutes west (We only made 64 miles today since much of it was spent hove to)

Nice to have the weather clearing.

Riding the tiger is what you have to do to go east. You get right on the edge of the big lows in the Southern Ocean and take advantage of the west winds they generate as they circulate clockwise and move east from Australia to South America. Well, sometimes you get too close! The price we pay. If we’re too far north we have headwinds from the east and can’t go forward, so we are “playing” in an area called “The Variables”. Variable winds in other words. Sounds much nicer and more benign that what we spent the last 24 hours in.

Here's the actual weather fax showing "the biggest low on the planet" according to New Zealand weather forecasters.

Today, it’s still a little blustery with WSW winds of 25 knots with occasional squally gusts, but it’s been largely blue sky and we know that winds are not building toward something ominous. So just after breakfast this morning we released the wheel, gave it a turn and headed back on our eastbound course. So nice to be sliding down waves at 6 and 7 knots. These are the leftover waves from the gale and our weather guru calls them our “gentle giants”. They are pretty impressive. 15 feet towering above, but in general what’s known as “long period” swells. Just big old rollers coming up from behind. They sound like freight trains and occasionally one smacks us good, sounding like an explosion and shaking the boat.

It was so nice today, Ann took her first shower (well, on Charisma it’s a bucket bath in the cockpit) since we left. It’s been a week and I’m told she really needed one. (Don’t tell her I said that!) Previously she had managed to wash her hair in the kitchen sink. Too cold for a shower that day.

So, on we go. We’ve been pretty lucky so far to have such an extended period of westerly winds. Looks like we have about three more days worth before we get to the end of this low. Don’t know yet, what we’ll find when it poops out – that’s part of weather planning on a voyage – looking far enough out to make a change in position that allows you to take advantage of the next favorable system, or at the very least avoid the really worst scenarios of storms and/or headwinds.

Position: 31 degrees, 37 minutes south; 170 degrees, 57 minutes west

It’s 2000 local NZ time and we have been hove to since 0600. We basically used a combination of storm sail and locking the rudder hard over to one side to stop Charisma’s forward motion, keep her facing the waves and more or less go very slowly backwards at about 1.5 knots away from the direction of the waves (In reality it’s a little closer to going sideways, but the effect is the same). The idea here is to keep Charisma going very, very slow and under control in storm conditions and not tire ourselves out wrangling an out of control boat being thrown about by large waves and high wind.

We even put a seat belt on Ann's Pukkeko.

We’ll stay this way until daybreak as it’s still very windy and the sea state is large and confused. Trying to sail downwind (no way to go upwind in these conditions) would be a bad idea for a number of reasons. So we sit and wait. Patience.

The day has been blustery to say the least. We prepared for the onslaught yesterday, so everything was well secured and ready when the wind came. Early in the day the wind was in the 30’s, but in the afternoon the storm pulled out all the stops. The waves got steep, about 15 feet and short, the wind came up measured at the deck as sustained 35 knots gusting to 45 knots and then heavy rain. In those conditions another advantage of heaving to is that we just closed the hatch and sat in the warm, comfy cabin. We’re getting a little bit of cabin fever, but it’s better than the alternative.

I think we’re now in the “passing” stage of the beast. The seas have become quite confused since the wind is shifting as the low passes by to the south of us. The barometer is up 3 mb over the last two hours to 1012 which also signifies the low is passing. Ironically enough the “ride” is the most uncomfortable right now that it’s been because the seas are so confused. Instead of big rollers all coming down from essentially the same direction, little pyramid shape waves made up of several directions are slapping us around.

Hopefully when the sun comes up and shines some light on the situation we’ll be able to see our way to “cracking off” and getting back to our easterly voyage. We will have west wind thanks to this and another low that’s rampaging about down south and we want to take advantage of the west wind while we can. Just a more gentle one please.

It’s 0600 and after close reaching with storm sails all night in decent conditions wind and sea were getting too high for comfort as we were going fast and slamming into waves. We just hove to and now we’re doing 1.5 knots in much more comfort. Peak storm should pass over about 1200 local, so we’ll just sit and wait. Maybe read a book. 😉

Getting the storm sails up before dark.

It's cooommminnnggg...

One of the weather grubs showing the low and our projected position.

 

Will update again this evening.