As I sit and try to visualize what the next few years might look like, the environment keeps bringing me back to what’s around me. Being present while living and working in western culture is difficult and many, including myself, have to set aside time to meditate and to work on being present. It’s an activity, what we do, but sadly not part of who we are. Turning off the constant buzz of social media’s doomscrolling, and the news that has increasingly become, down right messed up, is now a task. Out here, I stare at the sea, the waves, the clouds and dead fish in the cockpit. It is hard to not be present. It is hard to not pay attention to detail. It is hard to not love my surroundings just the way it is. It’s hard to not love life!
Speaking of surroundings. We have been lucky. Our sailing friends around us have all had some high winds and “been holding on for dear life” as one person wrote in a message to me earlier today. A few hours later I noticed while sitting gazing out on the water, dark clouds west of me. I had been complaining about not being more west just earlier today. As the clouds were moving towards us I decided to get the boat ready for some high winds. I reefed both sails, removed portable solar and closed up port holes and simplified the cockpit. I’m ready! Bring it on! Wind picked up slightly and then clouds moved east just south of Sarantium! Storm never happened!
What a night! Stars, waves, nice strong breeze on beam/broad reach! Goodnight World!
We switched things up a bit. I “slept” from midnight to 03.00 and will now be on watch. I’m now rocking back and forth slowly and moving fire ward at 4 kn. I wait to see if wind will pick up or shake out the Genoa a bit! I wait as my journey includes slowing things down and finding space to just be. No timeframe, coconuts will not go bad and Sarantium is built for stability and needs to be loved, not pushed.
It’s dark tonight, as I move away from shore, substantial clouds fill in. Early last night, while sleeping in the cockpit, I felt rain. This is the first rain I’ve had since June! Come to think of it, it’s the first real cloud I’ve seen since June.
I’m in-between books. I’ve checked radar. I’ve stood up and looked around. I’ve looked around the cockpit for fish. Two. Dead and now part of the food cycle. I find myself scrolling through old photos of family around the fireplace, in the woods and close friends on mountain bikes, on skis and kayaks! I miss parts of that life, and remind myself that life for me is about continuous growth. The wind picks up and I must go with it. There is so much out there and I want more.
Some say, a house and home creates stability. I agree that we all need a space to go to for stability. However, the more I move through this journey, I realize that stability is within me and it always was, I just never realized. I would feel grounded when I would return home after a long day at work or return home from a trip. But reflecting now, stability was always within me. It was all the running around chasing activity and engagements that made me feel grounded only at home. Now, I feel grounded and stability is always present. Seems strange, don’t you think, considering I’m floating around in the middle of Pacific Ocean, in some fiberglass!
These long nights lends itself to rambling on …
Thanks for reading and thanks for writing. I read and reread your emails, comments and messages in whatever shape or form.
It’s time stand up look around and then close my eyes for a bit.
I slept well! We had very little wind early morning so I jumped in for a swim! Lovely! Two cups of coffee and wind picked up! We are sailing south again!
At 09.00: N14*54.627 W119*56.54
COG: 174 SOG: 5.5 kn, NE winds
Mostly sunny, 4-5 ft waves (4-5 sec apart)
Out!
Sail and weather routing! Where to cross the ITCZ…
(Night of day 7)…. Flying into the cockpit! This time it hit my face, while I was sleeping, with full force! I managed to get it back to the water, wings intact! They actually have wings! Long night ahead of me… 00.00 to 06.00 and hopefully without too much excitement, just good wind and moderate waves, I asked for. I made it to 04.00 of dozing off and waking up every 25 min. We had noticed that we were within 20 nm of a traffic lanes as lights started to appear. Our AIS must not be receiving other ships signals as nothing showed up on plotter, which I had relied on for the past hour. I hailed CBC Norfolk to say they appeared on our starboard and I could see their starboard lights. Is this correct? “Yes correct, we will pass stbd to stbd with 1 nm inbetween”. Yikes 1 nm is not a lot, I thought! I thanked them and they they said “good watch. Out” good watch… hardly I should have been on radar an hour ago… after that I counted 4 more tankers pass through and that was it. There was no need to hail any others as they all would have heard me talking to Norfolk. Another hour went by and then I asked for shift change early as 6 hours was too long tonight! I slept in the cockpit until 8.30☺️
Goodmorning!
Relaxing and chatting online about weather and life on the sea!
At 09.00 we gybed and pointing straight for the Marquesses. This made my morning!!! Now, a hard boiled egg, coffee with milk and a toothbrush!
09.27: N16*37.870 W119*14.818
COG: 200* SOG: 6.5kn
Radar is clear with no targets, no flying fish in my face, self steering is happy, peeking a hard boiled and waiting for coffee to appear in my hand ☺️ . out 👩✈️
Hanging out is easy! Today is a big day for making some good headway! Reefed main, reefed Genoa and my daily plotting on paper-chart is done!
I keep in touch with fellow sailors who are within 300 nmiles of me and also fellow sailors on land who are advising from afar. It’s been good to compare notes and cross check with my own calculations! Some of them seem really knowledgeable in regard to weather routing but doing this crossing is everyone’s first time! It’s so nice to have company out here. This passage is bringing me to another level of learning and living life. Words can not describe of how I feel! ❤️Truly mind-blowing❤️
Lots of clouds, no sun to charge solar, going west and not as much south as I’d like!
This morning feels like a lull on many levels. Boat needs cleaning, I need a swim. I would like to sleep like a baby. It’s quiet on the boat. I might put on some tunes and dance! Out!
When I looked at the chart and watching the wind shift and we were all of a sudden heading more west than south west, I should have gybed! But I thought “we are still going west and that’s not bad”. The next few hours were frustrating to say the least! Wind became super light, it swirled around and us with it. We started pointing to Hawaii then further north. At one point it looked like we were going to back to Canada! I said No!no!no! 🎶🎵🎶 so I swirled and swirled with Sarantium for a couple of hours. For those who may be tracking … you might think I opened the Rum early! The wind eventually filled in and pointed us to Hawaii again! But not for long as wind continued to be up and down. At one point a flying fish flew into the cockpit, bounced off me, and back into the water! Another couple of hours, of trying point the boat in the general direction of where we were going, went on. But unfortunately we just didn’t have enough wind. I backwinded the sail and offset the rudder (heave-to) and fell asleep. Sometimes you just got to cut your loses. Tomorrow is a new day❤️
So the whisker pole has been up all day. The wind increased and I thought we better take down the Genoa and replace it with the staysail especially since evening is approaching. We went through the order of how to take it down and it seemed we knew what we were doing. Start furling the sail in and then unhook the pole from Genoa sheet, reattach it to the mast chalk. Well, all of a sudden I can’t furl in the sail. It’s not budging. Sails are slapping, as well the topping lift is also not working. Hmm, has to be related! I follow the topping lift halyard up with my eyes and notice that the topping lift halyard is furled in with the Genoa sail. Ok, easy! Just unfurl it and redo but this time I need to make sure topping lift halyard is tight and not making its way into a furling sail…. Overall a good day! Big waves but nice wind! Good night world! Check out Sarantium’s progress on “Noforeignland”
The night was quiet! Wind and waves were decent! I slept inbetween the million things that wakes one up on a sailboat making a passage! I thought about deploying the whisker pole during the night but decided against it and to wait til day light. Therefore I kept a more western heading to allow sails to be on a beam reach.
First thing this morning “let’s deploy that whisker pole” that caused us to delay our departure for 8 weeks! So, I reefed the main considerably to allow the head sail to have unobstructed wind, took the pole out of the chalk (rubber holder on bottom of track), tugged on the topping lift to allow some height and slowly raised the pole and pulled out the sail. Hmmm, should we telescope the pole more. Na, it seems happy for now!
Tada, we are heading more south then west and aiming for inbetween Christmas Island and the Marquesses. We are surfing waves and drinking coffee!
Sails and sailors are happy!
Chalk to hold bottom of pole while storedWhisker pole attached to gib sheetMainsail reefed Another tool…Birds are gone!
At 09.00 N17*24.072 W115*43.10 COG: 230 SOG: 7kn ….clouds and flying fish!
Evening and night of day 4! Male Red Footed Boobie stayed on the solar panel all night while female Boobie flew around the boat on and off all night. He was sound asleep in the howling wind with his head tucked into his body. Since they mate for life she was probably wondering what he was up to!
Male Sound asleep…Goodnight world!Female Boobie searching for her mate!
Stars are amazing tonight and winds are building! I’m pretty sure I have to reef the mainsail more during this evening. I’ve already furled in the Genoa sail and staysail is up. Feels like it could be an entertaining night! Sarantium is doing 6.5 kn and getting bounced around a bit. I could point her down a bit and sail her on a beam reach but then we will go more south than planned. It’s ideal to sail as westerly as possible so when it comes to crossing the equator there are more choice in where to cross. You don’t want to get there “too east” as more likely to run into the doldrums too early. According the PredictWind there is more wind around the equator the closer we are to French Polynesia.
Waves are building tonight and it seems sea floor is shallow here. Typically, when the depth-sounder says 34-40 meters depth I can expect larger breaking waves. But there is no way around it. We have another island coming up on our port side and after that depths should increase. I’m so glad I bought a boat that can handle these conditions well.
I can’t wait to crack open my first coconut!
Looks like 180 days was all this flag could handle! Today, I’m illegally here in Mexican waters!
01.00 it is and my shift has started! I laid down for 4 hours, however slept zero minutes. Can’t say I’m excited about my shift tonight! As soon as I took over the helm, female red footed Boobie joined her partner on the solar panel, 4 feet away from the helm! They have been saying hello to each other by squeaking back and forth! They must be happy to be rejoined!
Pretty quickly winds diminished and I had to unfurl mainsail and get Sarantium up to 6 kn in order to stabilize and have a smoother sail. After an uneventful night I fell asleep.
At 11.18, N18*21.54. W113*53.20
COG:223T SOG: 6.2 kn
Plan: keep this course until W130* and N9* and then start turning south through the equator to avoid doldrums. 😉
180 days ago I fulfilled one of my small dreams! At the time it felt like a milestone crossing the border into Ensenada, Mexico! I remember feeling this journey I embarked out was more than just a vacation to the USA. I was also damn nervous about getting the TIP (temporary import permit) and the border rigmarole. Of course, I didn’t have the right paperwork and it took a bit of work on my part, contacting my boat broker, who stepped up and made it way less stressful🙏🏽. Anyhow, here we are, just about to cross into international waters at 355 nautical miles off Mexico mainland! I believe international waters starts 200 NM off a any country. If so, then we are definitely in international boarder. But what I am not clear on is if this includes islands off Mexico. There are five to six islands that we have been passing throughout the night and we have two (Isla Roca Partida on our port side) coming up which we will be passing in the next 6-7 hours.
So, I slept!!! Last night I crawled into bed around 20.00 and was woken up around 00.30 to take over in the pit! I was still tired as I am pretty sure I had not slept much in the past 48 hours as waves were so close together and wind direction not favourable. For that reason, we set the steering more south than we would have liked. The motion with a following sea brings more comfort. Now we are steering more west and will continue this until we see a favourable crossing position for the equator.
I set my alarm on my phone for 25 min as this is generally how long it takes for tankers to appear on the horizon. Yesterday, I hailed two as they were within 2-3 miles of collision. Both, altered a their heading a couple of degrees to give more clearance. It has been busy with tankers, cargo ships and large pleasure boats up until now. Now, all I see is another sailboat called “Bliss” who most likely are headed to French Plolonesia! It is nice to know other sailors are out here. My Danish connection is also out here somewhere but a couple of days ahead of us. I keep in touch with them on “Noforeignland”.
I slept on and off for the next 6 hours with the alarm to wake my every 25 minutes. I stand up, look around, activate the radar and check the AIS for large boats. Repeat the alarm and go back to sleep!
At 06.00 we did shift change and I slept until 09.00! YAY!
During the night, generally, my rule is that we drop the genoa and replace it with the staysail and if necessary reef the main. This I do 30 minutes before sunset. The boat slows down a couple of knots, from 7.5kn to 5.5kn. In the event we would hit something, such as a whale, container or derelict, the impact would be less. It will also be less dramatic if a squall occurs.
In regards to food, we snack a lot. I have hard boiled eggs on hand, nuts, bread and cheese, apples and oranges. Every 2-3 days, I make a pasta/rice/veggie stew loaded with lentils, beans and chickpeas that can be eaten warm or cold. My mother would be happy to know I eat well. I dug out the fishing gear this morning so with any luck we will be feasting on fresh fish soon!
On my service list: 1. tighten up bolts on hydrovan as it seems to be moving slightly. 2. resplice some wires for the AIS and VHF, as it corroded and broke off. We temporarily cleaned it up but it needs to be done properly when we have less waves. It works for now but my friend, Kevin, the Marine electrician (on S/V Cat Harpin Blue) would be horrified, if he saw it!
No wildlife other than birds; I can’t find my birdbook for identification, but I believe they are boobies. They always look like they are trying to land on the bow of the boat!
In the day, I wear shorts, sweater. In the night, I wear base layer (smart wool), foul weather gear, wool hat, socks, rubber boots and two thick wool blankets on top when I snooze in the cockpit, as air is wet and cold.
I am happy!
Red Footed Boobie!
Ps. Male boobies are grey brownish in color with red feet, like the one on my boat. Female boobies are white with some black and also have red feet! I’ve witnessed female boobies circling around and fishing while the male is sitting here! He is probably waiting for dinner to be served!
Sailaway Sarantium 