The middle of nowhere

Ripple2
Thu 15 Jun 2006 19:26
Well we are now on our way from the Galapagos Islands to the Marquesas - we have just passed the halfway mark on this the longest leg of our journey home and we've been at sea since Saturday a week ago. That's about 12 days and we have come 1500 odd miles since leaving San Isabella in the Galapagos group It's another 1500 to go to the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquseas group. That means we are a lomg way from ANYWHERE. I hope that our photo blogs came through okay from there, we haven't had a chance to check them as we've been at sea ever since. We are averaging 120-150 miles per day and speed varies from 5 to 7.5 knots depending on the wind speed and direction. We are mostly getting 15-20 knots from the East with a reasonably lumpy swell coming from the SSE and a bit of  South Equatorial Current pushing us along. The first week was kind of rough but it has settled down somewhat and we've had mostly fine weather day and night. We have had the most glorious nights under full moon and stars.
 
Our days have mostly consisted of: getting the sails right, then reading, eating, sleeping, making water, running the fridge, checking the bilge, watching for ships etc.(none sighted).  We have managed to have two showers in the calmer spots.The other day we decided to put the fishing line in. Darren has a thing about fishing and says that every time he puts a line in something goes wrong on the boat. He thinks there's bad juju associated with fishing. So I had to throw it in, besides which I was really ready for fresh Mahi Mahi (or Dorado/Dolphin as it is also known). I baited the hook with half a flying fish which had landed on the deck a few nights before and a pink squid lure which I kissed (well, spat on) and we did a chant* of "Mahi Mahi Mahi Mahi" with drumming to be extra sure. * Friends of ours introduced us to this surefire technique for specifying the type of catch required. It took several hours but I got my Mahi, made to order - about 2 feet long and a beautiful golden yellow with bright blue fins and speckles all over. I won't go into detail of the process involved between landing him on the aft deck to frying him in a pan of sizzling oil but the result was DELICIOUS!!
 
I am not going to wax lyrical about this crossing because so far, apart from the odd moments of absolute breathtaking beauty/serenity etc, most of the time we have been either on our ear lurching from side to side in massive swells or just lurching from side to side in average swells. At least so far our speed has been encouraging and we fell like we are chewing up the miles like a little Pacman - sometimes fast, sometimes not quite so fast. We are breaking up the monotony - (although to be fair the monochrome of blue on blue on blue is working for me, it's my favourite colour and it's totally surrounding me in all it's beautiful hues) - of sitting or standing and watching the ocean going by with breaks of eating, sleeping, reading etc. After Darren's brush with near starvation on his Atlantic crossing years ago we made sure to stock up. The boat is brim full with foodstuffs of various types - there are enough cans of this and that to feed an army and all sorts of dried food like pasta, rice, pulses and lots of condiments and accompaniments. Then ther'es the fridge and freezer which are only now starting to lose some weight and gain some space (now we can catch a BIG fish). Our diet has been varied and plentiful - the only challenge is preparing anything whilst heeled over and rolling from side to side ( and trying not to stub the already broken toe in the process). Luckily all my years as a charter chef have stood me in good stead for food preparation under way and the boat has a good gimballed stove and lots of fiddles (edges that stop things sliding off countertops and tables) and the storage spaces are good and secure. I managed Mahi in beer batter with chips in 12 foot seas the other night - keeping the chips on the plate later was another story,, We've also had Mahi steaks with fried plaintain and salad and fried Mahi with Pasta and fine herbs and cheese. The last 2 steaks I'm saving for tomorrow night and I just might fry up some chips to go with. Tonight we are having prawns with Jambalaya rice and there's still loads of lasagne, beef bourgignon, peanut pork and curried chicken in the freezer (I had another big marathon with the pressure cooker in San Isabella). I'm going to have a go at making bread soon, we had the last 2 croissants for lunch today with ham and cheese and mimosas to celebrate the halfway mark. We still have some bagels, muffins, pita bread and tortillas so we'll be fine for a while.
 
When we are not eating or preparing food we've been doing a lot of reading - I'm on about book 6 and Darren is not far behind. One of my all time favourite things in the world is being able to read undisturbed for as long as I want or until I tire of it, and that has been a highlight of this trip for me - I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to get lost in a book for hours on end. Of course the catch is that on this particular leg of the trip sometimes that is all you can do. My broken toe is really appreciating the opportunity to rest up and do very little. We hiked so much in the Galapagos ( that's me in the pictures with the strained smile walking up to the crater lake, hiking through the volcano etc) it was a big relief to stop. I'm glad I persevered as it was totally worth it to see all the sights there, I'm grateful I could at least manage to hobble everywhere with the aid of a few painkillers and didn't miss out on anything.
 
There are about 5 other boats that we are cruising in company with (within 300 miles of each other) - we met them in Colon, Balboa and the Galapagos: Matt and Togs on 'Helene', Will and Elisa on 'Ragtime', Andrew and Caroline on 'Revision II', Nick and Ellen on 'Kika' (all English) and Sandy, Joan and Warwick on 'Zefferyn' (Kiwis - they did their first circumnavigation 30 years ago). We have been keeping a radio sked with them in the mornings and evenings where we listen in to a certain frequency on the Single Sideband radio and have a chat and give our positions and generally catch up with each other's weather and happenings eg: fish caught, gear breakages, birthdays and other milestones celebrated etc.Matt on 'Helene' had about 50 squid land on his decks the other day - all 3-5" long, and I have been hankering for calamari ever since. We get the odd one or two who land on the deck along with the flying fish (yes they really fly) but we usually don't find them until they are way past the frying stage, they make good bait anyway.
 
Apart from flying fish and squids we haven't seen much of anything except a few birds - some petrels and terns - no other signs of life out here, just the vast expanse of deep blue water which stretches out to the horizon as far as we can see in every direction - a big blue bowl that we are floating in and on.... must be time to go and watch it some more.  Let's  hope that the second half is as swift as the first.
 Bye for now.