16 Days

Siphoning fuel into our tanks

That’s how long we’ve been at sea now, in our quest to cross the Pacific Ocean. 16 days. We initially thought the passage would take 24-26 days. Ha! That was before we encountered the Gulf of Panama, which is nearly always windless and that was certainly the case for us. Over the first 10 days of the passage, we motored for a total of about 6.5 days. And motored veeeerrrrry slowly, at about 4 knots, in order to conserve fuel. The good news is that strategy worked: we have used less than half of our fuel. All of the jerry cans on deck are now empty, as we transferred that fuel into our internal tanks, which are both still nearly full. The bad news is that what was to be a 24-26 day passage is now looking like a 30 day passage. Oof.
However, the pain of the doldrums is behind us (we hope). We have found wind! Yes, the “blessed trades” do exist! For the last 4 days, we have been trucking along due west, powered by southeast tradewinds varying from 12-22 knots. Yesterday was our second best day so far: we covered 179 nautical miles. Our best is 184, which was the first day. We were hoping to break that record, but the wind died down about midnight last night, so no record-breaking for us. Friday and Saturday were especially spicy, with wind gusts up to 23 knots and a combination of 1.5 meter swells and wind-driven chop making for quite a wild ride. Friday was pretty squally/rainy as well, so everything being wet (including us) didn’t help the vibe on board. We’ve also had lots of practice reefing: partially furling our sails to reduce the sail area. This is necessary to keep the boat under control in high winds. We can pretty much reef blindfolded now. The windy, rolling conditions do take their toll. It’s pretty tiring when you take a step to discover the floor isn’t where you left it. So far, only minor bruises, however.
We’re pretty much all alone out here. We haven’t seen land or another boat since we passed The Galapagos Islands on February 28. There isn’t even anything on AIS, which has a range of about 25 miles. Yet, Kim and I agree that it doesn’t seem like 16 days. The time has passed quickly for us, as we’ve settled into a daily routine. Every morning we make water and do laundry. We also do our daily boat checks to make sure everything is in order. Keeping an eye on weather also takes a bit of time. Updated forecasts come out twice a day, so we are always checking our routing to make sure we are on the best course to take advantage of conditions and avoid problems.
We’ve also been blessed with some great wildlife encounters. Kim has this thing for birds, so the boobies that took up residence on our bow pulpit for a few days around the Galapagos were a big hit for her. They were a big hit for me as well, since I got to clean up the poop they left all over. And a few days ago, we encountered a “superpod” of dolphins. We were suddenly surrounded by about 100 dolphins who hung with us for about half an hour. Amazing creatures. And we got to try out the GoPro for some underwater video which came out great!

The chore list

Otherwise, it’s just day-to-day stuff out here. The food is great-Kim does a great job with dinners and I pitch in on breakfasts and lunches. We’ve grilled a couple of times when it’s calm and made pancakes and quesadillas as well.

And that’s about it for this week. Happily, breakage and misfortune have avoided us since the “whisker pole incident”. We should hit the mileage halfway point tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Remember, you can track our progress in real time with our PredictWind Tracking Page.


Filed on board S/V Meraviglia, Sunday, 9 March, 2024. S08°28.372′ W104°22.668′