Pictures from, and summary of, the Longest Sailing Leg on Earth
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 29 Mar 2008 03:10
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09:48.188S 139:01.897W
At long last, some pictures. First though,
those trip details you've all been waiting on the edge of your
seat for.
Summary of the Longest Sailing Leg on
Earth:
Distance traveled: Approximately 2,980
nautical miles (a nautical mile is 15% longer than a 'regular'
mile)
Total Time: 17 days, 9 hours and 15
minutes
Average Speed: 7.14 knots (nautical
mile/hour)
Total Time Motoring: 35 hours, 48 minutes
(8.6% of total time)
Total Time Sailing: 381 hours, 27 minutes
(91.4% of total time)
Degrees of longitude traveled: 49 degrees to
the west
Degrees of latitude traveled: 9 degrees to
the south
Time zones crossed: 3 1/2
Highest wind speed: 29 knots
Lowest wind speed: 3 knots
Highest waves: 8 feet
Record High Temperature: 90.8
Record Low Temperature: 78.8 (And believe it
or not, we both wore fleece jackets at night when the
temperature dropped into the seventies and it got
'chilly'.)
Damage: None
Breakage/Failures: Both the tack and leech
lines broke on the Genoa sail [non-boater translation: The tack line is a
rope that holds the tack or bottom end of the sail to the forestay and the
leech line is the small rope that runs through a pocket down the entire back
edge of the sail. The Genoa is our head sail, which is the sail on
the front of the boat.]. The lines didn't break at the same time, and
both breakages were probably caused by the sail snapping very hard many times
when we were rigged for downwind and had the Genoa poled out (and were
cheating a bit with the wind not completely behind us, but on the side of the
Genoa a bit too far forward). Don replaced the tack line easily enough
while we were underway, and we plan to take down the Genoa and replace
the leech line soon. Neither breakage was serious.
We also had a fair amount of water leak into the
bilge from the bow thruster area. It's always a surprise to see water
in the bilge on this boat because one of the things Amel owners brag about are
the dry bilges [non-boater translation: bilge - space under the
floor - it's not a good sign when it fills with sea water.] When
we first noticed the leak, there was about a bucket full of water in one of the
bilge compartments. Don bailed it out and rigged a way to raise the bow
thruster up such that it sealed more properly with the boat hull. It
continued to leak, but not at an alarming rate. This is also something
easily fixed...but not while underway. Don plans complete the fix in a day
or two.
Food spoilage: 5 bananas. We bought a
lot of bananas before leaving the Galapagos (they were cut directly from a
banana stalk and were completely green when purchased) and they all decided
to ripen at once only a few days after we left. After baking banana
bread several times with the fast deteriorating fruit, I gave it up and
threw the last five, completely black and moldy bananas overboard.
Hopefully Neptune enjoyed them. Maybe the squid Neptune threw at me was
payback for the moldy bananas?
Seasickness Episodes: Don - 0, Anne - 0
(the sea legs have definitely kicked in)
Number of days without seeing anything but sea, sky
and each other: 10
Number of wildlife species seen: 4 - lots of
flying fish, two squids, a few whales (too far away for pictures, sorry),
and a couple of undersized tuna that Don caught and threw back
Furthest distance from the closest land:
1,300 miles
Number of fistfights among the crew:
0
Number of times mutiny was threatened by the crew
against the captain: 0
Number of times a full night of sleep was
achieved: Don - 0, Anne - 0
Number of daytime naps: Don - 16, Anne -
8
Alcohol consumed: Don - 1 beer per day, Anne
- 0
That's it.
Now the pictures.
Picture 1 - This pelican refused to leave the bow
rail of our boat when we were trying to pull up our anchor in the
Galapagos. In the Galapagos, even the pelicans were not afraid of
humans.
Picture 2 - Proof that Don did indeed catch a few
fish. It's just that we didn't keep any of them due to their puny
size.
Picture 3 - The squid (post mortem) Neptune threw
at me during night watch. Isn't that blue eye something? Also, the squid's
color before it died was a deep purple. Very pretty in a squirmy,
squiddish kind of way.
Picture 4 - This is our view of the non-rally boat
Neva (Neeva?) as we passed them right about at the half-way mark between the
Galapagos and the Marquesas. It was strange to randomly come this close to
a boat when we were completely in the middle of nowhere surrounded
by thousands of miles of ocean.
Picture 5 - This was our view looking forward for
the many, many days we had the downwind rig up. Isn't the blue ballooner
sail pretty?
Picture 6 - This was our view looking back for
many, many days. Note that there is nothing to see except for sky and
water.
Picture 7 - This was the most spectacular sunset
seen during the trip.
Picture 8 - As we were approaching land, Don
unfurled our big American flag on the back of the boat and hoisted the official
World ARC flag on the port side spreader (as shown in the picture).
Picture 9 - This was nearly our first view of
land. Note the grayish lump sticking up in the center on the
horizon. Land always looks completely out of place when first viewed
after many days at sea, and this grayish lump was no exception.
That about covers the trip. More
later about Hiva Oa.
Anne
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