05.44S 117.27W 31st July 2011 Day 12 Pacific Crossing
Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Mon 1 Aug 2011 00:17
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Another one day record falls for us as we cross the
Pacific. Over the past 24 hours we have sailed 175NM and the way we are
travelling we may even put that under pressure come this time
tomorrow.
We are at the half way point to Tahiti and well
past what would have been our half way point to the Marquesas. For the
first time since leaving Galapagos we are moving closer to land, rather than
away from it.
Last night the sailing was fairly challenging until
about 4am when the wind eased from the 18 knots we had been seeing to a very
manageable 14 knots. It was still a pretty rough night though with several dark
clouds passsing over us bringing stronger winds.
By morning we had clear skies and a pleasant
12 knots from the south-east. We unfurled the genneker and used it for about 3
hours to lift our speed again. By 10am the wind had picked up to 16 knots so we
pulled down the genneker and have been sailing since with the full genoa.
Today has been about perfect as far as sailing
conditions go. We have had a beautiful clear day with a constant 16 knots from
the south-east coming across our port side at about 100-110 degrees and have
been averaging 7 knots+ for most of the day. At the moment we are touching every
so often at 10+ knots of boat speed.
We have both caught up on some sleep after a long
two days in challenging conditions.
Our fresh food in nearly all gone now. The fruit
was finished a couple of days ago and we are left with one loaf of frozen bread
and a sad and lonely tomato. We are however loaded with just about everything
else. Our freezer is packed with fish and we still have some pre-prepared meals
in there as well. Tonight we are having a chicken dish made by Jane in Galapagos
and we will cook up a portion of the 20 kilos or so of rice we have
available. Rice and pasta were going to be traded in the Marquesas [for
lobster!!] so we have tons of it with us.
At the half way point we have maybe used 30
litres of diesel of the 600+ litres we are carrying and still have heaps of
fresh water.
The lead for my satellite phone is
causing me some grief and I am now having to hold it in the phone when sending
emails, which is tricky in lumpy seas. I am hoping it will hold together for the
rest of the trip.
With time on my hands and the lack of sweltering
heat we saw in Aruba and Panama I have been able to attend to a couple of
maintenance issues that have been bugging us for a while. Daniel will be glad to
know that the squeak in his cabin has now been sorted by trimming back the wall
panel. The same has been attended to in the main cabin and I am
now finally dealing with several other minor issues with the
boat.
By tomorrow Mojo 2 and I will have sailed over 8000
nautical miles together since leaving La Rochelle on the 16th April. This
means we have covered about two-thirds of the distance required in order to
sail to Australia. By the time we make Tahiti another large chunk of this will
be gone. Originally I planned to take 3-4 months to sail the whole way but this
has blown out. My calculations on sailing speed were conservative at 6 knots
average but where I went wrong was the time taken in port, especially in getting
through the Panama Canal. The other thing I did not count on was the frustration
in trying to repair equipment breakages in countries where you did not speak the
language. The upside of all this is that I have visited places I thought I would
never see and done so in the company of family and some very good
friends.
At 5pm we are 1760NM from our waypoint off the
Tuamoto group of islands in French Polynesia.
Andrew Partington.
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