Pacific Crossing
ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) and the equator March 31st 00.00.0 – 131.10.004 W
Day 11 has just ticked over and we are on track to get in to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas in the 16 days we estimated.
Most of what governs our speed is fuel burn rate, and this is the number one planning criterion.
To say that the trip has been completely uneventful is an overstatement.
We have only sighted one ship crossing our bow miles off en route from China I imagine to the Panama Canal, and this is just it. No sound or sight of anything apart from an odd Booby wanting to hitch hike on our pulpit.
The trip all the way to the equator has had the wind constantly behind us from the NE, and this has varied from 10 – 30 kts.
30 knots was hardly discernable to the way the bost handled with the wind and sea from behind, and unless we looked aft and saw the sea behind us, it was hard to tell what was happening.
Currently as I write, the only wind is on the nose, and is just apparent, as we are making our own wind.
This is the major time for motoring for the sailboats, and why they used to call it the Doldrums.
The ITCZ is where the trade winds and northern and southern Pacific high pressure zones converge, often bringing clouds, rain and thunderstorms, and wind from all directions.
My good friend and weather man Clark Straw in La Jolla CA said we were blessed, as every snotty bit of weather seemed to lay down before us. He said that I must have the luck of the Irish.
So what does Rick, Jim, and Peter do all day? Quite frankly very, very, little.
We have watches to keep which is 3 hours on, and 6 hours off. Watch keeping is about making sure we were pointed in the right direction, and that the thing that is driving us is a fit, healthy, and non complaining, single John Deere engine, which I am very emotionally close to.
The watch keeper has the job of inspecting the engine room every hour to confirm everything is in order and we follow a checklist.
Jim who is new to boating of this type was so fastidious with this chore, that I often worried that he wasn't going to come out of the engine room, he took so much time with his exemplary attitude.
We have two independent radars in operation all the time, one set at 36 miles, and the other at 8 miles. Both have guard alarms set up so that if anything intrudes into our preset area, we will know about it with bells and whistles going off.
Our AIS was also alarmed if a ship came within 5 miles of us. Which never happened of course, as we were completely on our Pat Malone out there.
One thing we didn't look at was depth as it was very deep out there, everywhere.
Reading is our main off-watch preoccupation. However I personally couldn't read anything but cookbooks, and as I said many years ago that one day if I had the time, I would learn to cook properly. Well this is happening finally, as I certainly now have the time.
I’m not interested in learning to cook anything but fairly exotic things, particularly Asian, and trying to get around using limited ingredients has me building an enormous shopping list, but don’t expect that this will be fulfilled in the Marquesas, and will have to wait until Papeete that has a big Asian population.
