“Imagine if you will... a “young” couple takes off on their dream cruise of a lifetime. Only to find there is no place to land”
I’ve been hearing (reading actually) from so many friends and family about their tracking of us! It seems with little else to do, our Odyssey is providing plenty of entertainment. Glad we could help out that way!
We now have less than 2000 miles to Hilo and we are just flying along. Jeff sure knows how to trim the sails to make Salpare fly. We left Puerto Vallarta 9 days ago and headed southwest for 2 days; then north northwest for 3-4 days hopelessly trying to get to San Diego; then east to Cabo for about 10 minutes and are now are on day 4 of the route to Hilo, Hawaii or as Jeff’s dad called it “How are ya”. Apparently we wanted to check the box on all the cardinal directions of the compass.
I have read just about every book on crossing the Pacific out there... you know... star filled skies, phosphorescence, freedom of the ocean. Yep, that is all true. But what I have never read is a story of a passage as fu%&ed as ours. Having the option of crossing 2500 miles of the Pacific in a not-so-great weather window as your best option. Well, something is clearly changed in the world.
As many of you have seen on our tracker, we are in a red blob. Red means sustained winds of 20 plus. If it showed gusts like my offshore version does, we would be in dark, blood red bordering on black. Anyone see a warning in those colors???? Salpare has sailed incredibly through nights of 20-25 kts sustained winds gusting to 27. And the best is yet to come. Until Sunday, we have increasing conditions - winds, waves and my anxiety! Not sure what the guys on the boat are most sick of.
Life in the red blob can be comical at times. Every step must be calculated and chosen carefully or you will end up on the other side of the boat. Cooking is similar to a Cirque du Soleil show but not quite as elegant. I caught Kris laughing the other day while on watch. Apparently he thought it was mighty funny that in the midst of this maelstrom, I poked my head up the companionway and asked “mustard or mayo on your sandwich”. We have to be a bit civilized, don’t we?
During the day we try to improve conditions aboard, update weather forecasts and catch up on much needed sleep. We cover each other’s watches seamlessly depending on what the crew needs to do to improve their life. We could not ask for better crew than Kris. We lured him on to Salpare with dreams of a gentle trade wind Pacific Crossing where he could play his ukulele and be welcomed by Polynesian women on the other side. Instead, its a tough ride right back to where he lives - Hilo!! Can’t make this stuff up. Never a complaint or grumble and always helping. We are so glad he is here with us. And we will be happy to help him rebuild his pig fence back at his home in Hilo.
Each morning and night, Jeff tunes in on our SSB radio to listen and report on the NET. There are 3 other boats in front of us and we all check in and see how each other is doing. We have a good 500 miles between each of us so social distancing is not a problem.
Then we are either on watch, backup to the watchman or sleeping. The days go fast; the nights sometimes not so fast. It’s hard to describe what night watch is like. It’s completely black as even the moon is keeping is in self isolation. Only the instruments light the cockpit. The roar of the waves breaking (yes,breaking) and the loudness of the water rushing by is sometimes deafening. AirPods playing disco helps me deal with it as well as texting to my sister for over 2 hours. At 7 kts, it feels like 50 mph; just racing along. Kris even said it felt like we were planing on the waves. Hard to do with a 7000 lb keel hanging below you but I said Jeff was great at sail trim!
So, that is today’s report. Don’t worry, you do not have to subscribe to this show or give money. Just send good karma our way and please please please take care of yourselves
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