Crossing and Landfall

We arrived at Atuona Bay, Hiva Oa in the Marquesas, May 4^th, 2016, just shy of 25 days after our departure from Half Moon Bay, near San Francisco.  The three Children, Carrie and I braved the Pacific Ocean, together.

The boat performed amazingly well.  Except for a failed fresh water pump on the engine, nothing significant went wrong with the boat or equipment.    With respect to the engine problem, you know our philosophy: “It’s a sailboat; we don’t “need” an engine.” 

We knew the Pacific was bigger than the area of land on the entire planet but still the enormity of the Pacific was surprising.  Day after day we endlessly covered areas of vast open ocean and a constant 360 degree horizon.  We saw almost no traces  humans as we were crossing, except a very occasional bit of garbage seen far off the coasts of Mexico and Central America and Mexico and one fishing vessel with which we crossed paths within one nautical mile near the equator.

Blue Water Sailing

Once we were a few days into the voyage, the ocean turned an unbelievable beautiful blue that is only seen offshore. 

Animals

We saw whales and dolphins.  The first exciting encounter was when Sophie said, “I think I see a Shark” and about a minute later an Orca whale swam within a meter of the boat, RIGHT NEXT to where I was sitting, I let out a very startled yell.

Another fantastic encounter was about 300 miles away from the Marquesas when a pod of dolphins spent an hour playing in our bow wave, really cool.

We saw a number of big whales too, nothing so close as the Orca but all exciting none-the-less.

Temperature extremes

The first week was nice and warm when the sun was up and quite cold at night.  As we got as far south in latitude as mid-Mexico it got warmer at nights.  This all changed quite dramatically as we got closer to the equator and it got much warmer.  The water temperature rose significantly going from 12 degrees  C in San Francisco to almost 30 degree C water at the equator.

By the time we were just south of the equator it was almost unbearably hot and humid in the boat, even at night.

ITCZ

There is an area near the equator (just north of the equator this time of the year) where there is sometimes light (or no) wind (also known as the Doldrums) mixed with occasional squalls.  We were lucky in this area as we had decent wind throughout.  We did encounter a few squalls but we managed to ride them out. 

On one occasion we went through a rain storm like nothing any of us have has ever seen.   The quantity of rain was unbelievable.  We managed to all get showered and wash clothes!

Flying fish

We saw a lot of flying fish which are amazing creatures.  The bigger ones fly over 50m just over the tops of the waves.  There are also big schools of smaller flying fish.   Some of the unfortunate ones would land on the deck at night.

Homework and reading

We all read a lot.  The kids did homework most days, except when we had rough seas that knocked our energy down too much.  We really enjoyed using the experience as a basis for some of our homework including geography, oceanography, astronomy and navigation.

The Equator

After 19 days, we crossed the equator.  This was a time to celebrate.  Sophie made cupcakes! 

Landfall in Paradise

Hiva Oa has not disappointed!  The landscape here is more beautiful than we could have imagined with lush vegetation adorning dramatic mountains shooting out of the sea.   We are surrounded by relaxed Marquesan Polynesian people and culture.   There is almost no English spoken here, it is entirely French, with some native language heard from the Polynesian rowers.   The anchorage of cruisers has a lot of French nationals.  There are a few US flagged boats, and we have the only Canadian flag that I can see.