Crossing the Pacific - are we mad?

We left Panama in a bit of a rush.  This is mid-March and coronavirus lockdowns were starting to take effect around the world.  We had been provisioning in Panama City for several days and at first everything on the streets was more or less normal.  We managed to visit the BioDiversity museum not far from our marina on Saturday, but on Sunday we tried to visit the Canal Museum in the old city and it was closed.  Things were beginning to tighten up - we read online that all entry and exit to Panama by boat was closed and saw that some cruisers who had tried to process their clearance found the offices closed until further notice.  We were facing being imprisoned in Panama.

After the weekend, we made another couple of trips to Pricesmart (like Costco) and the large supermarket Riba-Smith at the mall, for last minute shopping needs and found that the supermarket was only letting a handful of people in at a time, and we queued outside for about an hour.  Things were definitely changing.  We did manage to go to the Health Center to have our yellow fever inoculations, and also to the immigration office which was now open again - at least for a day or two.  With our clearance papers in hand and india fully fuelled and provisioned, we decided to make a break for it.

We wanted to leave the rolly La Playita anchorage and find a calmer spot to ready the boat, including cleaning the hull and strapping the dinghy in place.  The small island of Taboga about 10 miles out of Panama was a good spot, or so it seemed on the chart. When we arrived we found big swells, rocking the boat throughout the night.  We did our last minute jobs, and the next morning weighed anchor to finally be on our way.  The wind and weather predictions for the next two to three weeks looked favourable, but on the day we left there was almost no wind, so we ended up motoring for about another 16 miles before deciding to anchor one last time at a small, almost uninhabited island, Isle Otoque.  It was a beautiful, quiet and calm anchorage where we could have a good nights sleep and recharge our batteries to 100%.  The next morning we left for real - the last time the anchor would be deployed before French Polynesia.

Goodbye to Panama

The island of Taboga

At this point we still had no idea what to expect when arriving in French Polynesia - the daily updates we were seeing on Facebook groups indicated that no sailing would be allowed between islands and the borders were now closed. All foreigners were required to repatriate and flights in and out were dwindling to none.  All in all, not a promising picture, but we couldn’t imagine how they could turn us away having been self-isolating at sea for 4-5 weeks.  We put these thoughts behind us for now as we concentrated on the task in hand - sailing the 4,000 plus nautical mile passage across the mighty Pacific ocean.

The first stretch is to the Galapagos islands. Typical routes may go north or south of the islands depending on currents and winds, but we opted to route North as there were strong currents reported all the way down.  The winds were light, so we raised our new Code Zero sail, which is a large, thin, foresail designed to be used in light winds. The sailcloth is very light and it has a large surface area to make the most of any breeze.  This efficient sail together with a strong current pushing behind us, enabled us to move along at over 5 knots.  The seas were flat calm, and it proved to be a very comfortable ride all the way to the Galapagos, about 1000 miles, perfect for sleeping and moving around the boat.  On the way out of the Gulf of Panama we caught a few small (10 lb) Bonito Tuna, but released them all back as they were not our favourite fish to eat, being very dark-fleshed and a little minerally tasting.  The most amazing thing we saw coming out of the Gulf were pods of dolphins swimming at night in the phosphorescent waters.  As they glided through the water, the thin layer of water close to their bodies glowed with the natural organic phosphorescence and gave the appearance of ghostly animals swimming all around us. The wake they formed as they sped along glowed intensely in the darkness and was truly an incredible light show, just for us. This was just the first in a series of night-time viewing spectacles on our journey.

The new Code Zero sail!

The sail to the Galapagos was uneventful, smooth as I said, and five days and nights of enjoying our self-isolation.  Our satellite system, Iridium Go, was working well, allowing emails, text messages and some limited web access for news and importantly weather and wind prediction updates to enable us to choose our most efficient route.  We were in touch with a couple of boats we had met in Panama, who had chosen also to take the plunge and make the crossing. One of these boats, Moorea, named after the large heart shaped island next to Tahiti, had originally planned to stop in the Galapagos although they had closed their borders a few days previously.  With young children on board, they took the chance to stop anyway, but were refused entry, so were able only to re-provision and refuel. They made a new plan to sail to Hawaii, since they were US citizens, hoping they would be able to enter there. They will need to quarantine on their boat for 14 days when they arrive, even after many weeks at sea. We wish them luck.

Up to now, the passage had been fast and smooth. As we passed north of the Galapagos, we turned southwards to sail down the west side of the islands toward the Southern trade winds below the equator, which should whisk us all the way westwards to French Polynesia.  We knew at some point we would hit the doldrums - the windless area called the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) between the northern and southern hemisphere weather systems - and sure enough, here it was.  Our wind and weather prediction service had given us an inkling of where we would encounter the ITCZ and how wide it would be. The trick is to catch it when it is at its narrowest, so one can motor through to the beckoning easterly trade winds on the other side.  Before hitting the ITCZ however, we had to cross the equator.  We had spent some time in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands three years ago, so this was a revisit, of sorts. At 1:56am on March 28th, we crossed latitude 0 degrees.  Since it was the middle of the night and Dara was sleeping while I was on watch, there was no elaborate celebration, just a quiet prayer to Neptune to keep india and ourselves safe for the remainder on the journey. We did have a small tot around midnight, before Dara retired, not wanting to upset Neptune.

As dawn broke, we were treated to a bizarre sight - the sea was glassy smooth, there was no wind at all, and a dense fog surrounded us. It was eerily quiet and we had one engine running to keep some forward progress.  Everything was damp from the fog, but as the sun rose eventually the fog lifted, but the sea remained like glass. It stayed like that for another day, until we were 3 degrees south of the equator, when we started to feel the breeze lifting and the seas moving. As we exited the ITCZ and entered the area of the southern trade winds (which blow from east to west more or less), squalls started to appear.  This is common in this area of convergence and weather change, and although squalls can be terrifying with high winds, lightning, thunder and driving rain, these were much more friendly, with barely no more than 20 knots of wind and some rain for short spells.  As the skies darkened with the squalls so the winds picked up from the south east at first, and for the first time since leaving Panama we raised the main sail and Genoa sail - the 'big boy' sails. Over the next five or six days, we enjoyed strong, consistent winds and averaged 8 knots of speed and were able to put 190 miles a day behind us.  Although we were led to expect following seas, the swells and currents were a little on the beam, so it wasn’t the most comfortable ride - but it was fast, and we felt alive.  One of the odd things about moving fast through the waves here is that the boat becomes a magnet for flying fish and squid - especially at night. In the morning we would walk the decks to see how many poor creatures had jumped onto the boat and perished. The daily critter count..

Critters galore!

Poor squid...

We were in contact with a couple of other boats crossing, one about seven days ahead of us.  They had advised us to contact the authorities in Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas - our intended point of landfall - to obtain authorisation to stop there, since effectively all of French Polynesia was under lockdown and borders closed.  We had hoped that for yachts in transit, spending weeks on the sea, quarantine at least would not be necessary and we would be allowed to stop to catch our breath.  A day or so later our form was returned with the message - ‘Stop in Nuku Hiva refused - proceed to Papeete’.  Not good news on the face of it since Papeete is in Tahiti, almost another 800 miles further on the west side the French Polynesia.  This would increase our passage time by maybe six or seven days.  Luckily at this point all systems were functioning well and we had no critical breakages, did not need water, food or fuel, so we resigned ourselves to the new destination.  Over the next few days the wind started to lessen, little by little, and our daily progress became less and less.  We were still sailing however, but soon enough the wind pretty much disappeared altogether.  Faced with using fuel to motor forward, or just letting what little current existed carry us along, we opted to just drift.  The sun was shining, the sea was calm, and we drifted - luckily in the right direction but our elapsed daily distance was now just 70 miles.  We figured we weren’t in a rush to be anywhere, so we actually enjoyed this drift, did some small projects on the boat, cooked and slept in comfort and watched some TV to pass the time.  We had hoped this would be short lived but we were plagued with light or no winds for the next week - and endured either drifting, sailing with the Code Zero at low speed, or motoring when our patience ran out. At times like this, the days seem endless, one can read, play games, doze to pass the time but the scenery doesn’t change.  For me the wonder of being in the middle of the largest ocean in the world, literally thousands of miles from another human being was uplifting, as any epic adventure should be.  During the night time, just one glance at the sky with the myriad of stars and galaxies that can be clearly seen makes one realise just how small we are in the huge universe.  The sight of the milky way stretching across the southern skies, with no light pollution, has to be seen to be believed, and never gets old.

Always a beautiful sunset at sea

Fishing is another way of passing the time, although there is virtually no active participation on our part. We send the lines and lures out behind the boat in the morning and forget about them. From time to time the reels start to scream and we rush down from the helm to see what we may have caught.  A friend had caught a seven foot marlin just out of Panama, providing enough meat for many meals, so we were ever hopeful.  One day as we were about to take a couple of nice steaks off the grill and sit down to eat, all hell broke loose as both reels started to scream.  We had sailed through a school of Wahoo who were hunting smaller fish and both lures looked tasty enough to be taken.  We abandoned the meal to reel them in, first on the port rod, and we landed a huge Wahoo, maybe 60lbs in weight.  Attending to the other reel we had the second Wahoo almost to the boat when it managed to wriggle free. No worry - the one we had on board was a beauty and yielded enough meat for several tasty meals. Dara is familiar with Wahoo and suggested frying it when we had caught a smaller one previously, so that is our preferred way to eat them - and they are really delicious.  There is nothing better than enjoying the harvest of the ocean to make this all worthwhile.  Towards the end of our passage, I had gone to bed one evening and forgotten to bring in the lines, when Dara called down on the VHF radio to say she thought a fish had taken the line.  I popped up from my sleep to find a nice size Yellow Fin Tuna on the line, in the dark.  These fish of course are the prize and can be eaten sashimi style, or lightly seared and are just beautiful.  Unfortunately that was the only Tuna we caught, but at least we had a little luck.

60lb Wahoo

Lovely YellowFin Tuna

On a grand voyage like this, one has to be well prepared, both the boat and the sailors, in many ways. Apart from the obvious preparation of provisioning with food and drink for many months - which is an art in itself, which Dara has perfected over the years - one has to ensure all the systems are functioning correctly, and have spare parts, tools etc on board to anticipate any possible critical failures or breakages.  Our shakedown year last year in the Caribbean was a useful experience to test and predict  - we were never far from the next port, and on the the whole one could obtain parts if needed.  Not so easy out on the Pacific.  Something often underestimated is the stress that constant wind puts on the sails and rigging, and even the hulls. With a huge main sail up in 20 knots of wind for days on end, the pressure on all the lines is immense. It is never unusual for a line to break, or for a sail to tear.  When this happens it can be catastrophic - the sail could fall in the water and be almost impossible to retrieve, or something else like a boom, or block system could be destroyed when things ‘let go’.  So we spent plenty of time checking lines and attachments constantly, looking for signs of wear before they become a problem.  We replaced a couple of lines ‘on the go’ including removing the main sheet line for the mainsail, dragging it behind the boat to remove twists, and then fitting it reversed to even out wear.  We did have one broken line we hadn’t foreseen - the first reef line which allows us to pull in part of the main sail to reduce surface area in high winds, had chafed on a steel ring and broke when we pulled the sail in one time.  Since the winds were never that strong, and weren’t predicted to be before the end, we didn’t even worry to replace it, although we could have done if needed.  Aside from that, the biggest failure was a water leak when we used the washing machine one time.  Every two or three days we would run the generator to power the water maker to make fresh water, and sometimes we would take advantage of the generator to run the washing machine also (not that we were collecting a lot of dirty clothes on this voyage :). One day it dumped its load of water....  With all this time on my hands I decided to jump in and tackle the job. On a boat like this everything is carefully shoehorned into its own place, and the washing machine in particular is positioned such that the only way to remove it to start to diagnose an issue is to virtually dismantle all the cabinetry around it until the machine is just sitting there in an open space.  So that’s what I set out to do - it look several hours to figure out the jigsaw of panels, doors, shelves and screws that needed to be removed in order to release the beast.  Once I had it free I could tear it apart and run it to see where the leak was coming from.  As luck would have it, no parts were needed - it was simply a plug in the rubber door seal that had come loose and needed refitting into place. Leak stopped. Then another few hours to put the jigsaw back together again!  And as always, I had a few screws left over…

Another casualty was our Satellite Antenna, which I broke when changing the main sheet.

Things wear and break on a boat

Repairing the washing machine in the middle of the Pacific

When I describe this as one of the worst things to happen to us, you can see that it was really an uneventful passage. Partly through thorough preparation, but also the weather cooperated - granted we would have liked more wind on those really calm days, but otherwise even during the squalls the wind never rose above 20 knots, it hardly rained, and we were never caught in a lightning storm (one of the other most feared events when in the middle of nowhere).  The seas were never really big, and were only uncomfortable from time to time because of the swells coming out of the south.   Boredom was the biggest issue, and next time we’ll take more books.

And so after 30 or so days, we were able to shout ‘Land Ho!’ - the time honoured way that sailors announce the first sighting of terra firma after a long voyage.  It was the Disappointment Islands, a few hundred miles south of the Marquesas, and on a rhumb line to our new destination, Papeete.  We had decided to illegally make a stop at an uninhabited atoll called Tahanea prior to arriving in Papeete. Partly to give us a couple of days and nights to decompress before a busy anchorage, and just to see something new since we knew we would be stuck in Tahiti for a while. And so, around 6pm on the evening of April 25th, as dusk fell, we entered the lagoon at Tahanea and anchored in about 40 ft of water. We sat down with a real drink and congratulated ourselves - after 33 days at sea we had crossed the largest ocean in the world on our own!  We slept together that night for the first time in 33 nights, and it was so peaceful, hardly any water movement inside the lagoon.  We woke the next morning to see our beautiful surroundings, crystal clear turquoise waters in the lagoon, sparse desert islands surrounding it, blue skies.  Then we spotted it - the French Navy frigate P675 coming in though the lagoon pass - we were busted! We had switched off our AIS to be in stealth mode, so there was no way they could have have know we were there, they were just patrolling the atolls, and happened to arrive at the one we picked to stop at.  We watched them anchor a couple of miles away and expected a tender to be dispatched to us right away, but none came, so we settled in to the few jobs we had to do - one of which was to take a swim in the inviting waters.  There were plenty of colourful fish swimming around the boat, attracted by our presence, and as soon as we entered the water, the sharks came. At first just small ones, some lemon sharks and black-tip sharks, neither known to be be aggressive, but then the larger ones - at times seven or eight just circling around as we saw close to the boat, cleaning the hull and so on.  There were enough that we were a little concerned about a feeding frenzy should anything happen, so we quietly finished our jobs and jumped back aboard. 

The lovely atoll Tahanea

The French Navy frigate left around the same time as us..

As it happened the Navy didn’t bother us that day, but the following morning did send that tender over to check on us. I was in dive gear, under the boat with tools repairing a broken saildrive anode. They were super nice, asked if we needed help, and just noted a few details of who we were and where we were headed for their log book.  We had planned to leave that morning anyway, so finished our jobs and prepared to depart. It would be about another three days to reach Tahiti - we knew from our weather forecast that the winds would again be on the light side, but the seas would be calm - that old trade-off.  The Code Zero went up after an initial lively exit from the atoll, and we settled into a leisurely progress toward Tahiti.

As luck and planning would have it, our arrival into Tahiti would happen at night - around 2am to be exact, on Thursday April 30th - 38 days and 4,800 nautical miles (around 5,250 land miles) since leaving Panama.  We planned to anchor until daylight at Venus point, which is the harbour where Captain Cook first landed in Tahiti, under orders to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun in 1769.  It was pitch black as we slowly guided india around the point with its lighthouse and trusted the electronic charts to dodge shoals to finally arrive in about 40 ft of water to drop the anchor, a few hundred yards from the shore.  We could see the silhouette of the island against the night sky, but it was only in the morning when we woke after a very short nights sleep that we could see for the first time, the island of Tahiti in its glory.

We had some Boobies join us for a while!

Who us? Stowaways?