Author: Chris Tanner

3am, March 18th. I’m on the 0000-0400 watch tonight, and it’s dark. Really dark. There’s full cloud cover, and no moon. Not a speck of light. A stark contrast from last night- the sky was clear and rammed full to bursting with stars. The moon rises late, and small, which means until moonrise the stars are the only view. Last night it was so calm that I could see a reflection of the sky in the water. So still, so quiet.

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion,
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean”
– The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (I don’t have the whole poem, can someone send it to me?)

Possibly the most magical deep ocean moment of the passage so far, it felt pretty special, and for once I wasn’t wanting to drowse off. With both sails down and not enough swell to rock the boat, even the clanky galley cupboard was having a night of rest. Shining a bright torch into the water I saw hundreds of clumps of eggs- the same ones we’ve been seeing for a few days. Leaving the light on for a while, more creatures arrived. One crazy looking beast I’d never seen before was something part lizard, part eel and part fish, with a huge paddle of a tail. The trailing edge of the tail was reflecting the torch light in all kinds of crazy colours.

We’ve had some wind today, not a lot, but enough to give us a run of 74 miles noon to noon. I did the route planning with 100 mile days as the average, so we’re behind on miles, but as we left Mexico a week earlier than expected, we’re doing OK. I wonder if the other boats waiting for a weather window are actually going to get one … or whether they’ll just get tired of waiting and head out anyway, into the same light winds. Just after noon, we set ships clocks back an hour as we’ve crossed into a new time zone. None of the marine charts I have show time zones, strangely, so I had to dig out Rose’s tiny school atlas and guesstimate the longitude where we change from -6 hours to -7 hours.

We’ve had the spinnaker up most of today, with the mainsail taking a break, wrapped tidily on the boom. Just before dusk we took it down, as it’s probably not the best thing to be flying on a dark night with a crew that’s not used it for more than a few hours. So we’re being pushed gently along under a poled out genoa, not doing more than 3 knots, but at least getting somewhere! There’s a slight rolling motion, so the usual light-wind squeaks and creaks are doing their thing, but nothing uncomfortable. Received an email from Timewarp- the boat nearby. I’m pretty sure I saw their masthead light while I was on watch last night, but it disappeared after a few minutes, and I didn’t want to try them on the radio as it was so peaceful. They’ve been having conditions similar to us, also just drifting with the current, which for some reason makes me feel better. Someone else making the same decision in the same conditions always helps.

Making the most of the gentle motion of the boat I managed to get some exercise done today- some push ups, sit ups and stretching on the foredeck in the hot late afternoon sun. I’m looking forward to going for a walk or run. I’m going to be so unfit for biking when I eventually get back on two wheels! Then cooled off with a few buckets of saltwater over the head. The instruments say that the water is 35.5 degrees here… not sure it’s that warm but it’s definitely not cold.

This evening as the sun was setting, as we were tucking into our fajita dinner, there was a squawk, a flapping of wings and a bird appeared on the solar panels just above our heads. He wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry, and sat there tamely with a curious look on his face as I poked around with a camera. We (I) soon nicknamed him Bob. Bob the Bird. Eva thought it was a girl-bird, but really, I couldn’t tell. He let me tickle his feet, but when I poked him with a fork he squawked again and flew off. But after a circuit of the boat he was back. His buddies saw there was some action to be had, and we soon had four or five trying to find a place to perch, in the rigging, on the solar panels, or at the top of the mast. Not wanting to lose the masthead wind instruments to the webbed claws of a seabird, I took my rum’n’coke up on deck and spent the last few minutes before sunset slapping the mast when one looked like it was approaching too closely. Then as it got dark, we turned the masthead light on, which put everybody off landing.

Cleaned the fridge, checked our fresh food inventory, started a new book… all is well on board Rafiki as we come up to nearly a week at sea. Thanks for all your emails, and comments on the blog. We use an Iridium satellite phone to send and receive emails, and while it’s tempting to keep checking, I’ve restricted use to once a day to send our noon position report, and perhaps once in the evening to get a GRIB file (weather report). Over the past couple of days I’ve figured out the best times and frequencies to get the best weather from the SSB (short wave) radio, so the GRIBs have been supplemented by surface analysis charts and other useful stuff. Looks like light wind to the S and SW of us for the next few days, so I’m going to keep heading west to see if we can find stronger winds out that-a-way.

There’s a subtle but important difference between “drifting” and “adrift”. Drifting sounds peaceful, safe, intentional. Being adrift however, always seems to be used in context with abandonment, mishap and a definite lack of intention. Right now we’re definitely drifting, not adrift. The current is taking us slowly along at about half a knot, fortunately towards the Marquesas and not back to Mexico. There’s not a breath of wind, not a cloud in the sky, just miles and miles of blue sea around us. It’s REALLY blue. And really clear. When you look down into the depths you catch glimpses of Things way down deep, reflecting the light back up. Maybe fish scales, maybe jelly fish. Dave and Eva are taking turns swimming. I flipped a shiny penny out over the side and watched it glint in the sunlight for a good 30 seconds as it started its long journey to the deep (about 3km deep out here)

Eva and I took in the sails at about 730 this morning as they were flapping and banging around, the boat rolling gently on the small swell. I’ve only got the one set of sails and they need to last a good few thousand miles more, so I’m not having them flog around without providing any propulsion. It was a noisy, slow night – wind coming and going in fitful gusts. Sometimes up to 15 knots, but mostly less than 7, which is on the cusp of being enough to sail, but not so much that it holds the sails in shape. Frustrating – always thinking about whether to surrender and take the sails in, or just to wait a little bit longer for the wind. But frustration is an unnecessary reaction to the situation, and I’m trying to find the right compromise between the detachment from surroundings that’s needed for good rest, and being fully aware for safety and seamanship. Even though I didn’t sleep much the night before last, and even less last night, I’m not tired like I thought I was going to be. So far, conditions have been good, Rafiki has been trucking along just fine, and we’re all getting along well. Still some fresh bananas and avocados left, probably their last day today.

We’ve not run the water maker for a few days, and as it likes to be run regularly to stop bacterial growth on the membrane, today was water making day. It needs a fair bit of electrical power, so we ran the engine for an hour and a half to give the charge needed. No point having the engine running just for charge, so we motored a few miles at the same time. It seems insignificant, but that’s 6 miles closer to where we want to get to! I received a good set of weather faxes using the SW radio this morning. Not much out there in terms of wind. I wonder how long we’ll be bobbing around for… we’ll either get wind, succumb to the temptation of turning on the donkey, or else just keep floating about.

A huge storm is sitting on the distant horizon, it’s menacing dark cloud rising across the sky, marking out the boundary between two different air masses. It’s 7am, near the end of my second night watch, and the sun is supposed to be rising any minute. It’s going to be a while yet before it appears behind the storm clouds though. We’re powering along at nearly 7 knots, and have done loads of miles overnight. Put in a reef at 0130. The wind is coming from the west, I think being sucked into the storm, which is well behind us over the mainland nearly 300 miles away. We’re still hard on the wind, heading further south than planned but with great speed. Yesterday we had an email from a boat still waiting to depart from Mexico, saying that they were due a storm on Sunday night – I think they might be getting it early. We left at just the right time!

Day 3 passed easily, with clear skies and sunshine, and a little motoring in the morning when the wind dropped off completely. At about lunch time, the breeze kicked in and we were off. And before I knew it, it was the end of the day. Evenings seem to come around without me having done much – even the two tasks I set myself yesterday were only half completed. I lashed the diesel tanks properly, got half way through re-lashing the kayaks, discovered the line was too long, and then never got round to finding shorter line. So that’s today’s grand task. I’m still spending lots of time thinking, preparing mentally for all kinds of situations that might crop up. Even though conditions are benign at the moment, it’s not going to be like this all the way and we mustn’t get too casual.

At about 5am the bilge pump alarm sounded. It’s pretty loud and piercing, rudely disturbing me from listening to a splendidly English BBC podcast on the History of Britain at Sea (David you’d like it, remind me to give you a copy). Normally the alarm turns off after a few seconds, having pumped out the small amount of water that accumulates after a few days from the prop shaft seal. Not this time. It kept going, so I jumped into action. David and Eva stumbled out of their cabin, even more rudely disturbed from their deep sleep. I pulled up the floor board above the bilge and it looked dry – all OK, we don’t have a leak. That’s good. The siren still sounding, I pulled up a second floor board above the float switch to see that, due to our angle of heel, it had slipped sideways and jammed itself on. Knocking it back into place the alarm went quiet, and all was back to normal. I think David and Eva were a bit shocked to be woken by a shrill alarm! Glad I added it though – otherwise the pump would have been running dry for hours, not doing it any good at all.

From the latest YOTREPs summary, it looks like there are about 5 or 6 boats out here at the moment, with Timewarp being within 50 miles of us yesterday. Received them loud and clear on the evening SSB net, but got no reply when I tried them later on the VHF radio. Kept a lookout for a masthead light in the night, but nothing seen.

Last night as the sun was setting we had a number of birds flying round the mast – some kind of booby, I’m not sure what type. They circled cautiously, but didn’t look like they were interested in landing. And then to finish off the evening we had a visit from dolphin. Around 30 of them skipping over the sea to come and check us out. A couple of acrobats in the distance we jumping high out of the water, spinning and flipping with amazing force. We’ve seen a couple of turtles in the last few days, making their ponderous way along the surface. It’s amazing to think they spend all their time out here, and incredible how they find their way back to land to lay eggs. We saw a whale spray, but other than a couple of nearby whale sightings back in Banderas Bay, that’s been it for wildlife. Oh, and a load of what might be shark eggs, the first day offshore when the sea was calm and glassy. Gelatinous blobs with a yolk-like centre, floating along like huge frog spawn.

Here comes the sun, time to put the coffee on.

We left Puerto Vallarta a couple of days ago on March 10th. The plan was to depart in the morning and use the land breeze to get out to sea, but various Things transpired to delay us, as Things are wont to do. New bilge pump, changing Pesos to Dollars, final trip to the hardware store… So we finally ended up casting off the dock lines at about 4pm. The fuel dock on the way out of the marina was busy, so we loitered around for about half an hour before we could take our turn to fill the six extra jerry cans I’d bought for the crossing. We’ll have about 280 litres of diesel, which gives us around 120 hours of motoring.

Instead of heading straight out to sea, we sailed up to Punta de Mita on the northern end of Banderas Bay to spend a night at anchor and get a couple of final things done. I changed the engine oil – a hot, sweaty, tiring job in the belly of the ship. It’s not like changing oil in a car, where you just put the empty container underneath the sump and open a drain plug. Since the engine sump is right at the bottom of the boat, there’s no space underneath. I have to pump it out manually through a small pipe inserted into the dipstick hole. But my pump sucks. As in it’s cheap and won’t suck properly. Which means almost an hour of non-stop hand pumping to get two litres of old oil out… but the job’s done, and the engine is grateful for a fresh load of oil.

At noon yesterday (11th) we hoisted the main, hauled up the anchor and sailed out of the bay in a nice breeze. Westward ho! Pretty exciting to finally set sail. After a great start, 106 miles noon to noon, we’re now over a hundred miles offshore and away from the land breeze. Sea is flat calm and glassy. No wind. The forecast was light, so we expected this. The engine has been running for a couple of hours, and I plan to keep going under power through the night if the wind doesn’t pick up. I’ve downloaded a weather report, and it looks like the trade winds kick in about 110 degrees west – another 150 miles from here.

The food is all organised into various lockers, and written up on the provisioning list that we’ll update as we eat through each cupboard. It’s going to be interesting to see whether we have enough, and whether it’s the right mix of ingredients. We’re bound to run out of some key ingredient early on, but hopefully we’ve planned well enough that we don’t end up eating just pasta and milk powder… Dave made a huge batch of chilli con carne on the way across to Pta Mita, which we had for the last two evening meals and will probably last another two more.

It’s coming up to 1830 (UTC -6); about supper time, but it’s hot and the sun is still high in the sky. Our westing is really making a difference to the time. The sun is setting later – maybe tomorrow we’ll have to update our clocks and hop across to the next time zone.

Crew and boat doing well, let’s hope we find wind in the next couple of days.