Time Flies

The moon has been shining full over our heads for the last few days, and with it came the promise of crossing the equator. We passed this major "landmark" on Wednesday night, May 18th, at about 9:30. What day is it now? Hmm. I guess the days are more difficult to keep track of when your sleep is divided into three hour stints and scattered throughout the day and night.

Although our days have been passing quickly, and they may in some cases seem to merge into one, they are neither constant nor boring. A look at the ship's log shows that conditions have often changed with each new watch. We have been sailing through multiple transition zones since leaving the doldrums. Winds, current, and swell are all affected. I think we have even seen more squalls now than we had throughout our sail through the doldrums. The squalls develop quickly and send giant sideways raindrops. Sometimes, they bring welcome relief from the hot equatorial sun and weak breezes. Another plus is that now everything has been scoured clean by those rains! I guess we had picked up quite an accumulation of grime while sitting under the Coronado Bridge in San Diego for all those years.

The last few days since crossing the equator have been frustrating. We have been hand steering in light winds, with moderate-sized mixed swell, trying to make progress in a direction that is as close to dead downwind as possible. This is not a direction that our sails are optimized for yet. And the swell pushes us off course, constantly threatening to make us jibe (not a good thing to do if you're not prepared). The big colorful spinnaker sail flying at the front of the boat helps to stabilize our heading further downwind, but frequent squalls prevented us from using it. After hours of fighting the elements, we finally gave up. We took down our sails, lashed the tiller in place, and scurried below to rest for the night. This strategy had mixed results. We were no longer fighting an inane (and futile) battle with the tiller, but calling what we did resting is rather optimistic really. Can one truly rest while riding a whirly-twirly theme park ride? I cannot.

As frustrating as the last few days have been, the last 12 hours has thankfully been very consistent and comfortable. We are sailing slightly into the wind, with the sails balancing the steering nicely, and our speed is closing in on 7 knots in exactly the direction we want! We're less than 400 nautical miles from Hiva Oa now which, at this rate, we could reach in just a few days! Have we really been doing this for almost a month now? Gosh. Time does fly.

Our current position is S 05° 18.8'; W 134° 43.4'.

Position Update

First off, I apologize for anyone who has tried to email us through our "At Sea" email address. We have not been able to retrieve those messages, so we will get them when we make landfall.
We are now on our 19th day out of San Diego, and are positioned at 4° 55' N, 130° 40' W. This is about 350nm north of the equator, and right in the middle of the doldrums. We have been experiencing the expected light winds and big squalls for a couple of days now. This is where the radar really shines. During the daylight hours we can see the storms coming. At night we use the radar to pinpoint the location and intensity of the squalls miles before they get to us, so we can either attempt to avoid them or else prepare to ride them out.
Last night the autopilot died, so we are hand-steering the rest of the way to Hiva Oa. This is a big pain, but we have the sails balanced so that the physical effort is not that bad. But it does require round-the-clock attention to keep us on course.
On the radio net tonight we heard from several other boats, all closer to landfall than us. They are all experiencing very light to calm winds even outside of the doldrums. We will probably take a little longer to make Hiva Oa than our original estimate of a May 24 or 25 arrival if these conditions persist.