The trip so far...

So now we have “Puddle Jumped” the Pacific Ocean to Bora Bora and it is time to take stock of the trip so far....The facts are, Ensenada, Mexico to Bora Bora, French Polynesia was done in 3 main stages giving a total distance of 4,649NM covered in 36 sailing days. We are now just over ½ way to making landfall on the main land of Australia!

For Jan and I “Fully Involved” was a whole new level of yacht, many things on her we had never used, i.e. SSB radio, water maker, gen set, bow thruster  to name a few. We had not sailed her overnight either until we had set off, all we had done was a night arrival into San Diego as mentioned previously.  Going cruising in the USA and Mexico is not so much a matter of casting off, as all dock lines are taken with you regardless of how long you are going to be out sailing, it is more a case of having someone on the jetty to throw the ropes at you, maybe to make sure you don’t chicken out!!

So off we sailed on a rhumb line track for the Marquises, 208 degrees. The first night we did our normal tactic of reducing sail area just as the sun sets so we still had some daylight to trim and set up for the night ahead.  With 3 on board, watches of 3 Hrs each was established starting at 18.00. This works very well for us so it has been adopted for the whole trip. During the daylight we adopted an ad-hoc watch system, taking a ‘Nana nap’ as and when required.  As Jan says, a passage is only a collection of day sails followed by an overnighter, and that is how it was, one day blurred into another. We soon realised just how capable the yacht was to get us thru any situation providing we followed basic sailing techniques. If we were to re-name her it would be ‘Charging Bull’ or something on those lines, as that is how she felt no matter what the sea produced, she just put her head down and went for it! We lost count of the number of consecutive days she stayed on the same point of sail, it was magical, 8.5 Kts water speed or hull speed.  ‘Nana’ our trusty autopilot was the hardest working member of the team, never sleeping or complaining, well she did let out s creek or two when the boat was over sailed for the winds and she struggled to hold us on course, but apart from that she was fine, a very handy piece of kit for getting into harbours at night. Getting into the Atolls required a very steady nerve and a good understanding of the cruising guides as some entrances are marked only by white posts!  Although we had the latest chart plotter cards and paper charts of the area, we always checked the Atolls positions using the radar and thankfully every Atoll was where it should be!!  The hardest part is knowing when slack water is as this is the best time to enter them. Coming out wasn’t that much of a problem,  as by the time it was time to depart, we had a good idea of what was going on.

Good reliable weather forecasts are a MUST for a crossing such as this. Some sources we already knew of but when other jumpers are encountered it doesn’t take long for the conversation to turn to “Where do you get your weather reports from”?

One thing amazed me above all others is how much damage or rubbing can be done by even the smallest piece of rope in 24 Hrs at sea! Things moving in draws had to be silenced, bottles banging together, cups moving together in a rack, anything that could move does and it is very annoying after a few days believe me!

Only a couple of minor issues have needed attention so far. We realised we had taken on 750 odd Litres bad water in Mexico. Despite running it thru a pre filter before entering our 1000 Litre tank, so by about ½ way the water took on a distinct sulphur smell, but as we were using the water maker we couldn’t use bleach in the tanks to kill it as this also kill’s the membrane in the Spectra when it is back flushed after use, so we suffered smelly showers!  The LPG gas regulator wires corroded thru so that had to be mended mid ocean by rewiring to get gas to the cooker.  We had a small rub on the luff of the main sail so took that down whilst in the doldrums and applied sail tape to it.

While in Tahiti the macerator pump was seen to be leaking so as a spare was carried that was changed, yuck!  Replaced the main sail outhaul sheet as it had gone very square in most places along its length. I did an oil and filter change on the Generator and replaced the start relay as it failed....Jan’s Computer unfortunately went for an unintentional swim when she was getting back on board from the dingy, this happened to be the one we use for running the nav station navigation equipment, so we had to replace it here in Tahiti before carrying on...

Oh yes one last thing.... Jan & I have a new nocturnal sport...It’s called “Hatch Aerobics”... We have 7 hatches and 14 port lights and as they all have fly screens on we have them open at night, but sometimes it rains, so every time this happens it’s a mad dash to shut them, trouble is by the time they are all closed and locked it stops raining and we have to open them again, good exercise!!

Jan will do a sum up of our time in French Polynesia, but for now that’s it from me....Mike