Author: Dave

Summary: Winds continue to be light at 13 kts from the east. We made slow progress overnight and immediately hoisted the spinnaker at dawn. We’re off angle 20 degrees from Hiva Oa and expect to be jibing our way there with no break from the rolling.
Position: 09 16.18 S 125 44.509 W at 12:00 UTC-8 (new clock setting)
COG: 278 degrees m
Distance: 163 nm (24 hr), 2,387 nm total
Average Speed : 6.8 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 770 nm
The seas have also settled down, but with equally diminished wind speeds the side to side rolling doesn’t feel any better. We adjusted the sails for less noise and flapping last night which helped a bit with being able to sleep. With land looming ever closer the kids have renewed their efforts at schoolwork so they can participate in shore excursions and not be so far behind when we arrive.
Otherwise, it’s been business as usual onboard. Dave added some lubrication to the rudder shaft which started squeaking annoyingly a few days back. It will get a more substantial greasing when conditions allow. We’ve been paying close attention to line chafe and putting on protective line covers when necessary to avoid any problems. All other equipment onboard has been working well although we swear we keep hearing new noises. We hope it’s just things shifting around as we roll. Either way, we’re going to give Anila’s systems a thorough check through after we arrive as there’s definitely been a lot of wear and tear on the passage.
Interestingly and annoyingly, some screws on deck are getting some rust, but not all and not even some on the same fixtures right next to each other. Perhaps this is an indication of the quality of the stainless used on said screws. Were interested in any tips for cleaning up rusty screws. We’re certainly going to be busy polishing the rest of the stainless to remove salty rust marks before they can cause greater problems.
Our “haute cusine” dinner aboard last night was Texas-style chili (with beans) and honey cornbread. We were so full we didn’t have any kind of special dessert. Maybe tonight.
All is well onboard (aside from passage fatigue) and we’re looking forward to some landfall reports and hope to see many of you soon again.

Summary: Another day of shifty windy and sail adjustments. Direct distance covered was less than total distance travelled because of this and we still couldn’t find a comfortable point of sail.
Position: 08 59.73 S 120 28.58 W at 12:00 UTC-7
COG: 246 degrees m
Distance: 171 nm (24 hr), 2,224 nm total (160 VMG)
Average Speed : 7.125 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 940 nm
Sure enough, yesterday afternoon the wind clocked back around to 90 degrees, straight behind us. We tried different configurations again and ended up on a more comfortable port reach at closer to 240 degrees at the expense of VMG. We went back to the rolly direct heading with only the main out last night but it was not very comfortable again. This morning we tried a starboard tack at 280 degrees, which was stable enough to charge batteries and make cornbread for tonight’s chili dinner. We were eager to get back on a direct route again, so we are running with a polled out genoa again on the rhumb line. The main kept getting flapped about by the wave action so we had to pull it in. It looks like the rest of the passage is going to be rolly and slower unfortunately.
The crew is very tired because it is impossible to sleep well for a decent period of time before being woken up by the boat motion and noise. We are counting down the days to our arrival.
Wildlife Sightings: the usual flying fish and occasional bird, no fish caught

Summary: After the winds picked up yesterday we switched from spinnaker to wing & wing with the genoa polled out on the starboard side. It was an extremely rolly ride, the most uncomfortable so far of the passage. Winds have shifted back to more SE and increased again so we are back to our previous port tack heading and feeling a lot better.
Position: 08 59.73 S 120 28.58 W at 12:00 UTC-7
COG: 246 degrees m
Distance: 171 nm (24 hr), 2,053 nm total
Average Speed : 7.125 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 1,079 nm
It was a slower and uncomfortable ride almost directly downwind yesterday. We were doing our best to make good VMG towards Hiva Oa, and the off-angle alternatives weren’t very good. We made it through a rough and rocky night which included our watermelon going flying and cracking open at 1:30 am. Satin cleaned up the mess and cut it up into containers. It was about time to start eating the big watermelon from the Santa Cruz market anyhow as we are nearly out of other fruits and veggies. Dinner last night was simple leftovers as it was hard to even pull food out of the refrigerator.
We’ve just about passed the 2/3rd mark and are hoping for continued good SE winds the rest of the way. Everyone is doing well and can’t want to arrive. It’s looking like we have another week and will get there on Saturday if the winds keep up and we can sail a heading close to the rhumb line (most direct route).
Wildlife Sightings: the usual flying fish and occasional bird, no fish caught

Summary: Winds and waves have lightened up and we’re running slightly downwind with the spinnaker and pole up. Waves and occasional gusts have us keeping a very close eye on the setup, but were doing an average of 8.5 kts. No fish caught yesterday.
Position: 09 31.11 S 117 46.80 W at 12:00 UTC-7
COG: 250 degrees m
Distance: 184nm (24 hr), 1,882 nm total
Average Speed : 7.7 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 1,236 nm
As predicted by the forecast the wind speed is lower and the wave are smaller today. The wind shifted from SE to E this morning after sunrise, so we hoisted the poll and spinnaker. Camille wasn’t thrilled to be woken up early to help with the whole affair. Unfortunately the waves from behind are rolling us side to side as they pass and making it hard for the spinnaker to be fully effective. We tried putting the main wing & wing out on the opposite side, but with the rolling it was flapping back and forth more than helping in any way.
Later, after 1 pm, we had increasing seas and cloudy weather around so we decided to drop the spinnaker before it became too hard to handle. We left the pole out and switched over to about 3/4 of the jib polled out with the main on the opposite (port) side. This stopped the crazy flapping, but we’ve been trying to handle the side to side rolling all day and it is not very pleasant. With the wind shifted from directly from 90 degrees (East) our current heading is 275 degrees downwind, almost directly towards our destination. The only other option is to head off to either side at plus or minus 30-45 degrees which will diminish the rolling, but also put us off the direct route and very likely add more time to a passage we are eager to complete. So we’re not doing that right now…
We have a hazy blue sky today with warmer weather than we’ve had over the past few days. Fortunately this means we are actually getting some decent solar power for a change and maybe we won’t have to run the generator as long tomorrow. The large swells of the past few days kept the autopilot busy and power hungry.
Wildlife Sightings: A couple tiny flying fish on deck, 1 white bird.

Summary: We had another fast day! Sea conditions were a litter better with more consistent waves yesterday and last night. Today the seas have built a bit and are more confused with not much change in the wind. We hope the forecast is right and this settles down a bit tomorrow.
Position: 08 52.16 S 111 50.95 W at 12:00 UTC-7
COG: 252 degrees m
Distance : 192 nm (24 hr), 1,519 nm total
Average Speed = 8.0 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 1,590 nm
We don’t have much new to report today. We had the fishing line out most of the day yesterday but didn’t catch anything. The bigger sea conditions are making it hard to move around and everything, especially preparing meals, takes twice as long as we take care not to get hurt, damage, or drop anything. We are looking forward to passing the halfway point within the next day and will celebrate with some of our favorite foods tomorrow. We are happy to have just beat our previous 24 hour speed record! We made Bananas Foster for dessert for something a little different and they were delicious. (Fun fact: This dessert was invented at Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans.)
We were finally able to reach Panache, a catamaran that left the Galapagos just before us, and a passing freighter on VHF yesterday after seeing both come up on AIS. AIS stands for Automatic Identification System, and is a digital VHF broadcast from ships that is shown on our chart plotter. It’s like digital radar, but also shows ship speed, heading, name, length, width, and other data. We also broadcast on AIS so other ships can see us too. So it’s nice to know the VHF is still working and hear some other voices besides our own. Although we tried with the stabilized binoculars, it was too grey and rolly to see either one off on the horizon. Weather reports show the waves and winds backing off in the coming days and we’re hoping they are accurate. It’s nice to be moving fast, but we could also use a break from wave motion.
Wildlife Sightings: A few flying fish.

Summary: The winds and waves picked up quite a bit yesterday afternoon and through the night. We reefed the genoa and main after dinner, and have been tossed about since last night with taller, shorter waves. It’s been generally cloudy with patches of sun or stars. Winds have been 14-22 kts with 10-foot waves.
Position: 08 34.55 S 108 41.53 W at 12:00 UTC-7
COG: 254 degrees m
Distance : 173 nm (24 hr), 1,327 nm total
Average Speed =7.2 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 1,778 nm
Yesterday until now has been our most uncomfortable day so far on this passage. The short, steep seas have been throwing us and the boat around. Even though we continue to make good time, the wind in the sails is not enough to fully stabilize Anila against the waves. We move around carefully, not able to do much except sleep (sort of), eat, and read. It looks like we might have more of the same for the next several days and we aren’t much looking forward to it. At least we are still able to maintain our rhumb line. We are ostensibly sailing for Hiva Oa, but are ready to redirect to Fatu Hiva if reports come back that the gendarmerie is allowing short stays after landfall.
We were just within VHF distance of Panache and heard them hail us, but it seems like they couldn’t hear us. We didn’t see them on AIS or radar either, but we continue to keep a close eye out and hail periodically to pass the time.
Satin and Kyra managed to make pizzas for dinner last night despite the rolly-polly conditions. The pepperoni was lost somewhere in the freezer, however, relegated to a future pizza dinner. For we still have plenty of mozzarella and pizza sauce!
This post is a little late from yesterday due to the conditions. There will be another post for Day 9 following shortly.
Wildlife Sightings: Nearly biblical numbers of flying fish on deck this morning. They didn’t like the seas last night either.

Summary: Another good day of sailing with some sun and a clear night full of starts. Clouds are back today with lighter winds despite forecast showing increasing winds.
Position: 08 27.95 S 105 51.01 W at 12:00 UTC-7
COG: 254 degrees m
Distance : 183 nm (24 hr), 1,154 nm total
Average Speed 7.6 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 1,947 nm
It was nice to have some sun back yesterday and have a change for things to dry out a bit. The sky remained clear last night, the first time we could see a full sky of stars since leaving the Galapagos. A wind shift last night put us off the rhumb line a bit to avoid uncomfortable seas and flapping sails. Dave saw a the brightest meteoroid he’s ever seen. It was bright green with a tail and almost looked like a flare falling straight down from the west.
We had pasta and “beatballs” for dinner last night, making a creative use of our vegetables for another delicious meal.
Wildlife Sightings: Flying fish on deck and birds.

Summary: More good sailing and limited rain last night was a nice change. Kyra and Satin made lemon cupcakes for a treat.
Position: 08 12.25 S 102 49.04 W at 13:00 CST
COG: 257 degrees m
Distance : 185 nm (24 hr), 964 nm total
Average Speed 7.7 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 2,140 nm
The sea calmed down yesterday with similar 12-17 kts winds allowing for a faster day. Today the winds are similar but the swells are bigger and more closely spaced. We’ve had good luck reporting into the Pacific Seafarers net at 0300 UTC on 14300 USB, but the last two nights there was a lot more interference. We’ve also tried to listen in to the French Polynesia Magellan net and Pacific Puddle Jumpers net and could only hear bits and pieces. Maybe this will get better as we get closer to French Polynesia.
We have an Icom 802 single sideband (SSB) radio onboard which can receive and broadcast from 1.6 to 30 MHz on marine and ham radio frequencies. It allows us to talk with other boats, listen to radio broadcasts, receive weather maps, and do email. However, we use an Iridium Go! satellite communicator as our primary email and position reporting device. Our blog posts get sent via email while at sea, which is why you aren’t getting the usual array of fun photos. On a good day, the Iridium is about as fast as an old 2400 baud modem. (The SSB typically even slower for data transfers). To put this in perspective it would take over an hour to send just one photo taken on a typical smart phone. This really makes us appreciate the fast Internet we’ve gotten so used to at home.
Otherwise, all is well onboard. We’re doing a lot of reading, movie watching, and sleeping. The Kiwix offline Wikipedia has been great for reading up on our destination islands. We’re still about 600 nm from the halfway point. The girls are planning on baking chocolate chip cookies to celebrate. We were going to try baking bread yesterday, but we couldn’t find the yeast we thought we brought. It’s now on the top of our list to locate when we get to the Marquesas (ok, maybe right after fresh bread and croissants).
Wildlife Sightings: The usual fish and squid on deck. No dolphins yet…

Summary: We had a reasonable day of sailing with some sun breaks but mostly cloudy. More rain and squalls throughout the night, but nothing strong enough that we needed to reef.
Position: 07 54.01 S 099 40.73 W at 12:10 pm CST
COG: 248 degrees m
Distance : 170 nm (24 hr), 780 nm total
Average Speed 7.08 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 2,314 nm
Sailing conditions have generally improved for us, but the weather has still been cloudy and rainy. Conditions seem most variable early in the morning and just after sunset. We’re now on a rhumb line reach for the Marquesas. Speed has been variable last night and this morning from 6 – 8.5 kts.
Wildlife Sightings: Lots of flying fish zipping along with us. More sea birds
In other news, we were eager to try out Counting Star’s bread recipe but we can’t seem to find the yeast we thought we had brought. Instead we baked lemon muffins this morning in the convection microwave while topping up the batteries with the generator. The solar panels haven’t been helping much with power due to the cloudy conditions.
We spent a lot of time running around Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island provisioning for the passage. There were more stores and more supplies available than we found on San Cristabol and certainly Isla Isabela. We stocked up on chicken, ground beef, steak, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, melons, apples, pears, garlic, rice, beans, peanut butter ($14 a jar!!), chips, ice cream and more. In order to save some trouble underway, especially in unfavorable seas we pre-cooked many meals and sealed them up with our trusty vaccu-sealer for the freezer. If cooking is too difficult, it’s an easy matter of pulling a bag out of the freezer and heating on the stove (in the microwave if the engine or generator are running). We even found a nice little Italian restaurant and had them make up 4 orders of lasagna to-go for us. They were a little surprised that we wanted it cold as we explained that it was for our boat trip. We’re working on a future post of all the foods we miss and rarely or never find.
One example near and dear to our hearts has been finding decent chocolate (ie: not Hershey’s or some local high-sugar milk chocolate brand). There have been exceptions. We found a small place in Costa Rica making their own bars and truffles from locally grown coco and doing it right. We had a tour in Mexico at a woman’s house/kitchen who makes her own chocolate by hand from beans to coco, but she doesn’t make bars ready to eat even though the chocolate was pure and delicious. In the Galapagos we found the Ecuadorian Pacari brand in more creative flavors than you can imagine, but it was expensive at about $3 for 50 grams. Of course, that didn’t stop us from trying several. We also found a small artisan shop in the Galapagos near the Darwin Research Center making delicious chocolate turtles from Ecuadorian chocolate and beans. We also found some really tasty chocolate ice cream at the Galapagos Deli. It was the best ice cream we had since La Paz, MX so we bought a pint of chocolate and their passion fruit sorbet for a special treat along the passage.
Here’s what we’ve eaten for dinner over the last week if you are curious:
Monday: Canned chili and salad Tuesday: Beef & Broccoli (precooked) Wednesday: Rice, beans, and beef burritos (made with precooked ingredients) Thursday: Spaghetti (cooked) and carrots (raw), brownies for dessert Friday: BBQ chicken, rice, brussell sprouts, (precooked) and lentils (cooked) Saturday: Tenderloin (precooked), mashed potatoes, and salad with lemon pound cupcakes for dessert (baked)

Summary: We are thankful the engine is running again and for the good wind we had last night, sailing at 7-9 kts. This morning we came into a rain and squall zone with confused seas and shifting winds again as we constantly adjust sails.
Position: 07 14.16 S 096 59.82 W at 12:30 pm CST
COG: 225 degrees m
Distance : 160 nm (24 hr), 610 nm total
Average Speed 6.7 kts (24 hr)
Distance to go to Hiva Oa: 2,500 nm
We had excellent sailing conditions and speed last light, however we are not so lucky today. It’s been nearly constant rain, squalls, confused seas and shifting winds. Latest forecasts show lighter winds coming our way so we’re trying to continue SW where we may find better conditions. We had to run the engine this morning to charge batteries as the generator exhaust is often below the waterline on our port tack. Later in the afternoon the winds started to straighten themselves out and as of 2:45 pm CST we’re not getting rocked as much and cruising along at 8.5 knots. We need to break out some brownies tonight for yummy dessert. Thank goodness we stocked up on a lot of good food.
Wildlife Sightings: More dead flying fish and squid on deck.