SV Accomplice Blog week 22 19/3/20 to 25/3/20
Accomplice
Sun 5 Apr 2020 05:48
It’s been quite a trying week really. On the wind front it died and on the circumnavigation one it’s all over for now.
The wind started to die about four days ago, dropping to an annoying 5 knots. We sailed with it but endured the sails flapping and the rigging being jarred. When we got fed up with the noise we rolled in the sails, fired up the engine and motored for a few hours. Invariably the wind would increase and the sailing would became more tolerable. We used the engine sparingly knowing we had a limited supply of diesel and still several days before we would make landfall. It has been the case of using the wind when enough was there interspersed with short periods of motoring. We tried once again just drifting but we didn’t like the motion and quickly turned the engine on. We don’t do drifting!
It was at the beginning of the week that messages started to flood in about the impact on the world that the virus was now having. There was a hint that there may be problems ahead and the hint turned into fact a few days later. We were advised that the rally had been abandoned and that access into French Polynesia will be restricted. Updates came in thick and fast as events changed and moved very quickly. We were instructed that our planned landfall should now be Nuku Hiva and not Hiva Oa, then that was changed from Nuku Hiva to Papeete in Taihiti, another 800 odd mile sail. What do we do? We don’t have a safe amount of fuel on board so we could not reasonably make Taihiti. We therefore decided to stick to Nuku Hiva and take our chances.
As the week progressed the updates became more and more depressing. We have been getting our news from the World Cruising Club with their updates emailed to us and also from calls made to friends and family. It is frustrating trying to keep informed without the use of the internet, something when land based we take for granted. The penny dropped that all our plans were in tatters and it seemed now that we were on our own, having to make decisions based on information that changed daily. Our daily thoughts now revolved around the virus and how it was going to impact on our lives, even though we were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles from the nearest person.
The rhythm of life on board goes on. Our humour remains high, the highlight of our day is mealtimes, and as the fresh food has long gone, creating meals from tins of vegetables. Still no fish.... so now we are veggies with the rare treat of chopped Spam thrown in with the veggies. Ummm tasty!
We have 310nm to go to Nuku Hiva and the future is uncertain.
Andrew, Matthew and Janet
On passage to Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia.