Fai Tira Blog Easter Monday 5nd April

Fai Tira Still somewhere in the Pacific 08:29.53S 117:45.80W

Hi from the Pacific.  We have been sailing now for thirteen days, so we are well past the halfway mark with only eight more days to go.  This ocean has not lived up to expectations of long rolling blue seas but instead has resembled the Atlantic with a short but large chop.  The trade winds have been very predictable though, with a constant fifteen to twenty knots coming from the South East. This has meant that we were beam reaching for the first five days and making fairly good progress at one hundred and twenty miles a day.  The winds then strengthened and we started to achieve one hundred and fifty miles a day, much better  J.  Two days ago the wind backed  to a more Easterly direction, so we had change the sail plan to a goose wing configuration that we know works well for Fai Tira and that gave us extra speed. Regrettably this meant we had to head due West and North of our rhumb line. We currently have twelve hundred miles to run to our first land fall of Fatu Hiva the most southern island of the Marquesas group.  This island is supposed to be the most beautiful island in the Marquesas with high mountains reaching three thousand feet covered in lush vegetation.  The locals make a cloth called “Tapa” on this island which is produced from the inner bark of trees. 

Our destination on Fatu Hiva is called the Bay of Virgins.  Rumour has it that dugout canoes overflowing with virgins in grass skirts paddle out to visiting boats with garlands of flowers to place over your head.  It’s a good job I bought my strimmer with me to cut the grass if you get what I mean!!!! Unfortunately it is also rumoured that the bay was originally called the “Bay des Verges” which translates to “Bay of the Phalli”. We hope that this is not the case, as we don’t want to be greeted by boat loads of randy men!!!!  In fact, missionaries who visited the island disapproved of the name “Bay des Verges” and introduced an “i” making it the “Bay of Vierges” which translates to “Bay of Virgins”.  We will be very disappointed if the Virgins don’t appear.  

John mentioned in a previous blog the problem with the foil coming apart. Subsequently it was decided that to avoid damage to the Genoa someone needed to go up the mast to fix it.  John volunteered sighting the fact he had a longer reach and would be more likely get to the dislodged part.  I was very impressed by his physical and mental ability to scale to the top of the mast to affect the repair.  Unfortunately both of us forgot the other problems at the top of the mast which are a bent VHF aerial, and navigation light which intermittently turn themselves off.  We think that this damage was due to Pelicans sitting on top of the mast in the Galapagos.  These repairs will have to be undertaken whilst on anchor, hopefully in a calm location.  We have also had problems with the twelve volt supply which turned out to be some loose screws at the back of the control board in the labyrinth of wiring.  Whilst fixing this problem I caused another fault and the fridge stopped working.  No cold beer what are we going to do???  It was my priority job this morning to fix. Yet another wire loose, so I spent some time checking all the other connections.  Hopefully we will be OK for a bit. 

Anyway we hope you all had a nice Easter break and had lots of chocolate eggs?  We didn’t and I would love to get my teeth into a large bar of chocolate right now.  Yum Yum.

Bye for now Pete, John and our new crew member David.