We departed from Panama on March 30th from the island of Contadora in the Las Perlas islands, about 35 nautical miles (nm) south of Panama City. The winds were light and we sailed and rode the current southward through the Bay of Panama.
While leaving the Bay of Panama, in the pitch darkness of a new moon, bright stars and the numerous lights of the Milky Way shone brightly overhead. Almost appearing to be a mirror reflection of the sky above, the twinkling glimmers of phosphorescence sparkled in the ocean below. A school of dolphins swarmed around the boat, sending bright streamers of glitter shooting from behind them as they twisted and weaved about. Stars appeared to burst from the ocean in spouts, as the dolphins surfaced, blowing out the air from their lungs. It was as if they were wishing us a beautiful passage as we slowly drifted south in the current leaving the bay.
Sailing with the dolphins
It was a slow sail towards the Galapagos Islands. Often we were only able to sail because the current was carrying us south and west at about 2 knots. This increased our apparent wind just enough to make sailing just barely possible. As we got closer to the Galapagos, the current began carrying us westward.
These conditions made us decide to pass North and West of the Galapagos Islands. While wanting to get a view of the islands, we also did not wish to get too close. With the frequent calms and the strong currents that rip around the islands, we thought it prudent to keep our distance. We experienced nice sailing conditions as we passed north of the islands, but once we were past them and trying to make our way south along the west side of the islands, we lost our wind. We had an agonizing 4 days being becalmed with a north setting current pushing us in the opposite direction that we wished to go. We seized every opportunity to sail, making the most of every tiny puff of wind. Through our desperation not to lose ground and to attempt working our way to the Southern latitudes, we discovered that we could actually forereach into the wind with our asymmetrical spinnaker and mainsail. All we needed was 2 knots of South wind to gain speed and then we could create enough wind from our own forward propulsion to continue sailing. It was painstaking work. At times the boat was so barely sailing that if we moved around too quickly we would throw Chandrika off balance causing the sails to flog and us to stop sailing.
Sailing in light winds with the assymetrical spinnaker
On April 13th we crossed to equator. That night we sat on watch becalmed gazing at the four stars of the Southern Cross beckoning us southward. On the opposite side of the sky, we could see the Big Dipper and the North Pole Star. We still had not caught a glimpse of the Galapagos and had assumed that we would be unable since we were too far offshore. However, stepping out on deck one night, we saw a bright red stream of lava outlining the right-hand side of a mountain, as a plume of red smoke billowed upwards from its summit. We were witnessing a volcanic eruption on Isla Isabela! What an amazing site! The next 2 nights (being in relatively the same location since we were still becalmed) we could here a rumbling like thunder, which we presumed could only be coming from the volcano, although we could no longer see any lava or smoke).
On April 16th, the winds began and come April 17th we had made it through the Doldrums. We were moving along in East South-East 20 knot winds with 2 to 3 foot chop on top of 6 foot swell. It was great to be moving again. We threw out our 300 pound monofilament hand lines and soon we we had caught a 10 pound Skipjack Tuna.
Skipjack Tuna
The trade winds continued and so did the catch. Next was a 16 pound Mahi Mahi (also called Dorado), which made for great ceviche and a couple of meals. The rest was dried for preservation, to be eaten in the next few days. These fish were a bit large for us, as we prefer to eat it fresh and not dried (as we do not have refrigeration). We were therefore happy that our next few catches were 3 to 6 pound Mahi Mahi. Mmmm….
Mahi-Mahi
The fishing was great and we kept at it. Graham set a line early one morning and soon noticed we had taken a 30 degree zig zag on the GPS recorded track. Almost as strange was that we had dropped in speed by 1 knot. Sure enough a fish had bit our line, and this was not a little fish. Sue was awoken from her peaceful sleep, and we took turns hauling in the line. The fish was a fighter and we got a great workout as we pulled it in. “Damn that’s a Big fish!” Sue said. Graham had recently made a noose out of stainless steel cable and a 6 foot wooden rod in anticipation of catching a “Big fish”. We ran the hand line through the eye of the noose and eventually over the head of the fish. We tightened it down at the tail, so that we now had the fish by both ends. Graham lifted the fish up by the tail and successfully landed it onboard. We had caught a huge yellowfin tuna. While only 4’ 2” long, this fish had a girth the same as Sue’s (over 2 feet) and it weighed 60 to 70 pounds! Now we understand why this is a commercial fish. We quickly jabbed an ice pick into its brain for a speedy death and for our own safety. Before prepping the fish, Sue let out the tangled and bloody line and was coiling it back in for storage, when…
“Oh Shit!” she cried.
“What’s wrong?”
“We just caught another fish!”
Yes. It was another large yellowfin tuna. We pulled this one up as we contemplated how we were going to release it without killing it. To our luck, the stainless steel hook broke and we lost the fish. What a relief!
Yellowfin Tuna
We cleaned and gutted our catch. We only kept 40 pounds of meat. We cut steaks and lay them out to sun-dry. The whole process took about 6 hours.
Preparing the tuna to be sundried
The trades kept blowing from the South East at 10 to 20 knots, and we were moving along well, covering anywhere from 120 to 140 nm a day. We liked having at least 20 knots of wind, because with any less wind the sails did not stay full as Chandrika got tossed around in the large Pacific swell.
On April 20th we passed through a system of squalls one after another after another. The wind between the squalls was about 20 to 25 knots, with anywhere from 30 to 40 knots of wind inside the squalls. One particularly strong squall had gusts in the upper 40s, topping out at 48 knots! We stayed heavily reefed as we were slammed every couple hours by another squall. This weather lasted about 48 hours.
When the squall system finally passed, the swell had grown to about 9 feet with 2 to 3 foot seas overlaid on top. While we still had moderate trade winds, varying from 10 to 20 knots, it became more challenging keeping the sails full, especially when the wind dropped to between 10 and 15 knots. We were still making good mileage, but it became difficult and stressful to keep the sails from flogging. We did our best to minimize the slapping of the sails, but at times it was unavoidable.
The swell gradually lessened as did our wind and by April 28th, we were sailing along in 5 to 10 knots of East South-East wind and calm seas with a gentle 1 to 3 feet of swell. On April 30th with about 850 nm remaining until the Marquesas, we decided to furl in the jib and bring out the asymmetrical spinnaker. The jib would not furl. Graham went up to the foredeck and looked up. He noticed a few wires protruding from the top of the forestay. We pulled the jib down, removing it from the roller furling system. Graham tied into a halyard and shimmied up the mast. In the 3 feet of swell, he did his best to keep from swinging around and slamming into the rigging. To our horror, Graham discovered that four wires had broken at the bottom of our swageless compression fitting. The wires had unraveled down to the top of the roller furling extrusions. Graham had been aloft 3 days prior, when the sheeve for our asymmetrical spinnaker halyard had broken, shredding the sheath off of the halyard. At that time there were no wires protruding from the headstay, so the wired must have just recently broken.
For the next 3 days, we sank into depression. We were not worried about getting to the Marquesas safely. We had brought 80 gallons of diesel and so far had only used 1 gallon. Our engine is very fuel efficient for a marine diesel engine, using only a little over 1 liter per hour. With our diesel capacity and a slight westbound current, we could probably motor to the Marquesas if we sucked our tank and fuel reserves dry. What we were concerned about was being able to repair our headstay, since we will have a long way to go after the Marquesas. We suspected that the flogging of the jib had placed enormous strain on the cable just below the fitting, which had caused the break; although, we could not be certain Unfortunately, we could not fully assess the damage without removing the roller furling unit, which would have to wait until we were in harbor. For now, we would have to focus on the rest of the journey. No longer able to use our jib without risk of causing further damage, we were limited to sailing with just the mainsail, our spinnaker and our small staysail. Fortunately, since the trade winds were coming from abaft, there should be little strain on the forestay. Furthermore, since we are a cutter rig, our baby inner forestay provides some redundancy. If decided that if we needed to forereach, we would do so with a reefed mainsail and our staysail, in order to eliminate strain on the mast above the inner forestay attachment point. The last thing we wanted to do was to fracture our mast or even lose the top piece of it.
For the rest of our passage, we had extremely light winds directly astern, and we were frequently becalmed. We mostly sailed with our asymmetrical spinnaker. On May 10th, at first light, we saw land. Hive Oa and the surrounding islands of the Marquesas shot out of the ocean. Their majestic summits and lush green vegetation beckoned us. As we were approaching Hiva Oa, we caught sight of our friend, Steve, on Tulak, sailing in and completing his 44 day long passage from Costa Rica to the Marquesas. We had last seen Steve in Panama City about 2 and a half months ago. We sailed in together towards Atuona harbor.
Arriving at Atuona Harbor on the island of Hiva Oa
As soon we had dropped our anchor in Atuona harbor, we were greeting by a red trimaran named Migration. The trimaran motored past us, as a man and woman shouted, “Welcome to the Marquesas!” and proceeded to toss fresh tropical fruit at us. They bestowed us with bananas and juicy pomplemousse, a local citrus fruit akin to the grapefruit.
Our friends, Rebecca and Patrick, on Brickhouse, arrived to welcome us and to help us set our stern anchor, the customary anchoring technique in Atuona harbor. They told us that Bruce and Alean aboard Migration had invited us to dinner. We began our meal that evening with poisson cru, a delicious Polynesian version of ceviche that uses coconut milk, cabbage and small pieces of fruit. The main course was lightly seared fresh yellowtail tuna sashimi bathed in a garlic ginger soy sauce, rice, and fresh slices of perfectly ripened mango. Apparently Bruce is a former professional chef. The best part of the evening was enjoying the company of our friends both old and new, Rebecca, Patrick, Bruce and Alean. What a perfect welcome we received in the Marquesas!
April to May 2009
