April 29 - Some thoughts as we wind down

Sunday PM, April 28, Almost to Papeete, Tahiti

READY FOR LAND, HOME, FRIENDS AND FAMILY, AND COOL, DRY AIR
Jan and I are probably not going to sail a long ocean passage again in our lifetime.  This trip, combined with the other sailing adventures we've had, are probably sufficient voyaging experience for us.  That being said I am so thankful to have had this experience.  It's been a stretch, for sure.  A real "adventure of a lifetime".  Now we both are SO ready for the total luxury of our three days at our oceanfront bungalow at the InterContinental Resort in Moorea (with the generous gift from our children), followed by our day-long long trip home to Colorado on May 5.  We are so excited with the successful completion of our cruise, and the anticipation of getting home, that the thoughts bring tears to our eyes.  It has been an overwhelming experience!!!

And we're ready for it to end.

Oyster Celebration Party - Papeete

MY PERFECT CREWMATE
I feel truly blessed to have shared this adventure with my wife. It is a rare female companion who enjoys sailing and an even rarer one who will risk three months at sea under these conditions, especially with me. I have treasured our time together and admired her stamina and ability to cheerfully chat or play scrabble with others even though being home would be more comfortable. I knew that it was a good omen that we met on a chair lift skiing at Winter Park 42 years ago - that she loved a good outdoor adventure!  And this surely has been one to remember.  Just the act of passing watches with a squeeze of her hand in the middle of the night has been reassuring to me. And counting down the days before our stay in luxury in Moorea together has gotten us through many rolly, hot, sweaty, uncomfortable sleepless nights.

Both of us treasure all of you who have read this and followed our adventure!  We are so blessed to have so many wonderful family members and friends.  We can't wait to see all of you and share some stories.

We have tomorrow and Tuesday for a thorough scrub down of Quester at the dock (dare I wish for the AC to be turned on?) and to remove all our gear and luggage on Wednesday for the 16mi ferry ride over to the beautiful island of Moorea.  There's an Oyster party Tuesday night we're looking forward to as well.

April 28 - Final passage: to Tahiti

Blog 4.28 Sailing to Tahiti
SITUATION REPORT:
Latitude 16.5,  Longitude 149.0 W;  70 mi to Papeete, Tahiti
Wind ENE 6-9 kts, spinnaker & mainsail dead downwind (again)
Lumpy seas, partly cloudy skies, probably about 87 degrees F.

ASSTERLY WINDS
It's downwind in light winds again.  Our sailing buddy Jim Powell gave us the term "noserlies" for when the wind is always coming from the direction in which you want to sail but can't go upwind.  We are coining the term "assterlies" for the weeks and weeks we've been sailing almost dead downwind.  A sailboat prefers to have some wind angle from either side of the boat so, once again, we aren't sailing exactly in the direction we want to go straight downwind, but 15-20 degrees to starboard or port toward the wind, requiring us to tack downwind.

Dawn, April 29, Papeete, Tahiti

We did some calculations this morning, and guess that for the 45+ days we've been at sea the winds have been ideal for sailing only about 8 days.  This has been a very light wind passage, and more directly downwind than we would have liked.  So it's been lots of work to tweak the sails to keep them flying and get the most boat speed possible.  Not the Trade Wind milk run we envisioned where we were told we'd set the sails on a port tack broad reach in 18kts of wind and not touch them until Tahiti.

Waves in the Pacific Ocean come from everywhere and generally from about three directions at once.  High winds or a storm a thousand miles away can send waves that we feel on Quester.  If you have good winds the boat is steady through the waves with a motion you get used to.  But when the winds are light and especially when they're assterlies, there is little steadying effect from the sails and the boat wallows around in the lumpy seas.  Fortunately neither Jan nor I, nor Joe, Deb or Mike, are prone to seasickness!!!!  But the rocky rolly boat does make life a challenge.  Especially sleeping.

LAST DAY AT SEA
It's so hard to believe that tomorrow morning we'll be pulling into the harbor in Papeete, Tahiti.  At long last, our destination after close to 5,000 miles of sailing.

April 26-- Rangiroa, Tuamotus

Blog 4.26 - Rangiroa, Tuamotus
Quester is in the NW corner of the "Dangerous Archipelago", the Tuamotus on the atoll of Rangiroa.  There are daily flights here from Tahiti and it is a famous SCUBA destination and the nearby dive shop has been very busy.  This has been a long and relaxing final stop on our way to Tahiti from whence we fly home on May 5.

As I've said before, these coral atoll islands are very unusual.  They are formed from the coral rings that originally build up and surround now long-submerged or eroded volcanoes.  The coral originally grows in the sea below the low-tide level and down to a depth of about 30'.  But as the volcano disappears the reefs rise up a bit and form dry land where vegetation takes root over thousands of years.  The highest land here is about 5' above high-tide.  The rings, or atolls, are very narrow but can be miles across.  Rangiroa is 45 miles long and about 25 wide.  In the middle of the atoll is fairly shallow water - averaging 15 - 40 deep.  The coral land is broken up into islands separated by cuts where the sea flows in and out.  A few of these cuts are deep enough to be navigable by sailboats and we're close to one of those at this anchorage.

One of the cool dives, which can be done either snorkeling or with SCUBA gear, is to take a motor boat out to the sea-side of the cut after low tide when the water starts rushing (up to 7 kts here) into the lagoon.  You jump into the river of water and just hang limply, riding the current as the scenery goes by.  You see lots of coral and many kinds of fish including sharks, rays, needlefish, barracuda and brightly colored coral fish.  About half an hour later you are in still water hovering over coral beds.  The boat picks you up and takes you back out the cut where you repeat the process all over but on the other side of the cut.  A very fun experience and one that a snorkeling beginner can do.

April 19 - Tuamotus! Pearls and snorkling

Blog 4.19 Fri  Ahe, Tuamotus
STATUS REPORT:
Lat 14.5 deg South, lon 146.3 deg  West
493 mi SW of Nuku Hiva, taking 4 days instead of 3 to get here.
3,600 mi from Galapagos, 4,600 mi from Panama
79 mi to Rangaroa, Tuamotus; 300 mi to Tahiti

Arrived Ahe at 11:15 this morning after a slower than planned passage.  We did have two beautiful days of spinnaker but the rest was light winds on our tail.  We were headed almost exactly SW, and the winds were often NE.  That might seem good, having the winds behind you, but sailing directly downwind is actually difficult.  The wind you rely on to cool you drops because the boat is going almost as fast as the wind.  For that reason, the wind pressure on the sails also drops which makes for rocky-rolly in the waves.  The wind dropped below 7kt for at least half of the trip, requiring much fussing with the sails when we tried to sail, or motoring (for two days) with no sails.  Oh, that brings up another unpleasant thing about downwind -- if you run your engine the exhaust flows right into the cabin.  So the passage seemed longer that it actually was because of the conditions.  No rain,  just hot sun and little wind.

AHE, HEAT AND PEARLS
We're just inside our first landfall in the Tuamotus on an atoll called Ahe.  It is about 9mi wide and 13mi long, smooth as glass inside the cut, with a ring of low-lying coral islands which are not more than about 3' high and most with palm trees which is what allows you to see the atoll from sea.  We didn't see anything until we were 12mi from land!  Quite a contrast to the volcanic 3,000' peaks of the Marquesas.  Ahe has about 400 residents and has developed quite a business in black pearl cultivation in the last 20 years.  There is a very small village and Lonely Planet says there are two outstanding pensions.  We see neither hide nor hair of either pension.

Hotter than blazes anchored with very little wind to cool us off.  So we swim from time to time to cool off, but together, as the locals tell us that there are sharks that bite!  Joe has a spear gun aboard that he takes snorkeling with us so we swim with Joe! Hope he never has to use it......

April 16 - Tahuata & Ua Pou, Marquesas

Blog 4.16 Tue
STATUS REPORT:
Lat. 10.8 deg. South; 141.8 deg. West
140 Mi SW of Futu Hiva, 300 mi to Takaroa, Tuamotu Is.
[amended at 13:40 to 332 mi to Ahi, bypassing Takaroa - too sketchy]

Sailing on mainsail and spinnaker, broad reach in 15kt winds, doing 8kt SOG.
Beautiful crystal clear day with few clouds and hot sun.  Steady 13-16 kt winds from ENE since dawn.  Light 5kt winds overnight in lumpy seas with lots of rolling.  Expect to make our first landfall in the Tuamotus at the atoll of Ahe then on to Rangiroa 70 mi to the west.

TAHUATA.  I cannot believe it's been over a week since I sat down to write, but we had a busy (and wifi-less) few days after Fatu Hiva.  Last Tue. we sailed to Tahuata where we found another small village, but this one had a little grocery that took our VISA card, so we bought $100 worth of groceries and snacks, including ice cream pops!

April 8 - Yes, Land Ho (PHOTOS!!)

Blog 4.8 Mon
STATUS REPORT:
Fatu Hiva, Marquesas; Latitude: 10.5deg south, 138.7 deg west (S of Alaska)
At anchor in Bay of Virgins.  3,000 miles from Galapagos, 4,000 mi from Panama Canal start, 0 mi to Fatu Hiva, Marquesas.
Partly cloudy with occasional rain squalls.

Last night was our first night at anchor in 20 days, and it was cool and quiet and we slept for nine hours straight.  Such a luxury!!

Making landfall around the northern tip of this volcanic island was spectacular and pulling in to the harbor was as breathtaking as we had been led to believe.  Jan and I have had a double page spread photo from a sailing magazine of this anchorage in our kitchen at home for several months to get us excited about this sail.  We didn't know exactly what island the picture was of, but recognized it immediately as we rounded into the Bay of Virgins.  It was so stunning and the trip here so long that the sense of delight and relief at reaching this destination brought tears to my eyes!

Land Ho?

Bay of Virgins, Fatu Hiva, French Polynesia (h/t: dieger)

Although we haven't gotten any specific confirmation, by all accounts Quester has arrived in this location:  the Bay of Virgins on the island of Fatu Hiva (don't pronounce the 'H').  It's in the Southern Marquesas Islands.  Or perhaps in heaven-- it's tough to tell from the photo.

During the passage, we got a few emails off and on, all very upbeat and excited about progress and the beautiful sailing.  They're not expected to have any internet available for several more days.

April 6 - We paid our dues for this

Blog 4.6 Sat

STATUS REPORT:

Latitude: 10.3 deg south, 137.1 deg west (S of Alaska)

COG 268 deg; SOG 6.3 kts, mainsail & spinnaker. 2,900 miles from Galapagos, 3,900 mi from Panama Canal start, 100 mi to Fatu Hiva, Marquesas.

Beautiful, crystal clear day with a few puffy clouds, sailing as close to downwind as we can on the 10-12 kt winds from the east. This is what is described as the milk run -- downwind in very smooth seas going fast with the chute which we put up at 0700 and haven't touched since. All we've had to do is watch the wind direction and push the + or - button on the autopilot from time to time. Fantastic.

But we paid our dues for this day.

April 4 - Brownies for birthday

Blog 4.4 Thr (Steve's B'day)

STATUS REPORT:

Latitude: 10.6 deg south, 132.3 deg west (S of Alaska)

COG 271 deg; SOG 7.6 kts 2,677 miles from Galapagos, 3,677 mi from Panama Canal start, 323mi to Fatu Hiva, Marquesas.

A rather pleasant, cloudy day with some bits of rain to wash off the salt water. Decent winds and sailing conditions.

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

I felt very special today as the ship's crew brought forth a lovely lunch followed by fresh baked (in the oven, in 90 degree weather) BROWNIES with frosting! Joe prepared a fabulous dinner, and we had brownies again for dessert! Even got a stirring rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" sung by the crew. Very nice day.

I am positive someone arbitrarily added 10 years to my age without my permission! I absolutely DO NOT feel 68 years old and I'm hoping this sailing trip proves that I'm not really that old.

That's scarily close to 70!! So, I've decided to compromise with whoever sets your age and say that I'm 58 today.

April 2 - Ideal conditions, getting close

Blog 4.2 Tue.

STATUS REPORT:

Latitude: 9.3 deg S, 127.3 deg W (S. Vancouver Is)

2,300 miles from Galapagos, 3,289 mi from Panama Canal start, 659 mi to Fatu Hiva, Marquesas.

Sunny, warm, beautiful, 16-18 kt. winds from SSE, sailing a broad reach under full mainsail and full jib through 8 - 10' waves from SE. Less hot & sultry.

Only sail change in 48 hours has been to take down the pole holding out the jib as it's not needed with our better wind angle. Still too much wind for our big spinnaker so no 'chute'.

THIS IS WHAT WE CAME FOR

We have had beautiful trade wind conditions for the past three days and hardly have changed the sails! The only negative has been a .3-.4kt current against us which has changed in the last two hours and is now pushing us. Clear skies with bright stars at night and a few small cumulus clouds here and there. Our first night at sea Jan wondered where the Southern Cross was that everybody sings about. She couldn't make it out until i told her it is the shape of a Kappa Alpha Theta kite. She spotted it right away. No rain for days. And now we have under four days to go to reach Fatu Hiva, so the end of this long stretch at sea is in sight.

We are all feeling pretty adjusted to 24 hour sailing while the boat rocks and rolls. Sleeping has gotten easier because our bodies are used to the motion, and we're still probably sleep deprived.