Or at least, just back to where I started.
So, here's the thing. On the 7th of April, I set off for the Marquesas Islands. Yes I know, I didn't blog for days before that and didn't tell you what was happening, and it's all terribly unfair. Dry your eyes princess, I was busy.
So off we went. The forecast was great. We should have had 5 days of steady north-westerly winds at about 15 knots, which is ideal. And when we set off, that's just what we had. A 'beam reach', probably the best combination of fast and comfortable sailing. 7 knots we were doing. 7, I tells ya! For about 6 hours. Then we were becalmed for about 3 hours. Then the wind came back, and went away again. So we were becalmed for about 12 hours in the first 3 days, but still managed 300 nm (nautical miles (540 km. 1 nautical mile is about 1.8 km)).
Unfortunately, Going neither fast or comfortably, nor on a reach, run or tacking into the wind, made any difference to the crew being sea-sick. It was not good, and it didn't go away.
Anyway, we were out of sight of land by sunrise on the second day. That's when it really sinks in, for me at least, that this is a big ocean. There's nothing but water as far as the eye can sea. And it isn't flat at all. The ocean swells mean that parts of it are always moving. Really big parts, sometimes. It can be really eerie to have the boat sink down into a small valley, and you're looking up at the water all around you, even when it's relatively calm. Then later you're sailing along on the top of a small hill of water, and everything is 'down', and you can see other small hills of water moving around the landscape. Took some getting used to.
The boat was boarded by seas creatures on three occasions. And they were ... squid. Not giant attacking squid rising from the deep.Little things, not much bigger than my thumb. One of them actually made it into the cockpit. I'm not sure how, but it didn't end well for the squid. It must have been washed into the cockpit during the night, and ended up under my feet. All I knew was, when the sun came up, there was squid ink smeared around the cockpit floor, where I had apparently trampled the poor thing to an inglorious end. So it goes.
There were a couple of periods of just about every variety of weather available, and we were consistently managing 100 nm per day. I was, apart from James continuing to be sick, pretty satisfied. Then on day 9 the autopilot gave up the ghost. This, it occurred to me almost immediately, was 'not good'.
A quick decision was made, and that was that we couldn't continue with sick crew member and no autopilot for the remaining 1800 nm to Nuku Hiva. Hawaii was almost as far, and Mexico was something like 1100 nm. Our starting point, Channel Islands Harbor was 'only' 950 nm behind us. So, around we went, heading back.
The weather, I would have to say, was not kind to us on the way back. Not severe, but coming from exactly where we wanted to go, for about 5 days straight. The sailors among you will know that this means tacking. For 5 days. But we got through it, and slipped back into the same pen that we started from some 19 days and 1954nm later.
The plan now is that I'll fly home to get some administrative stuff sorted, and the two fillings that fell out of my teeth during the trip replaced, then come back and try again. James has decided that a sailor's life is not for him, and has resigned from the project. So it's back to my original plan ... doing it solo!
I fly out of LAX tomorrow night, and should be back home in sunny Stawell on ... err ... Tuesday, I think. Then I'll be back here in two to three weeks, do the repairs and make some changes based on my first attempt, and try again.I'm really pleased with how the boat handled the variety of conditions, and with the lessons learned from the first attempt, I'm even more confident that this can be done. Not easily, but it can be done.
I'll transcribe a couple of my 'reflections' from the ships log in the next couple of posts, but that will be a few days away, as I'll be travelling and so on.
Toodly pip.
