The morning we left San Cristobal, we saw a dark blue monohull, “Giselle of Argyle”. They said they too were off to the Marquesas and little did we know what good friends David and Mary Wilson would become. We spoke with them daily via our Single Side Band radio the entire way. Our first day out, we were off to a blistering start covering 191 nautical miles in our first 24 hours, spinnaker up! Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Here’s Cindy doing what we ended up doing quite a lot! Steering the boat with the remote autopilot control. Relax, sit back and enjoy the ride. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
As you can see from our instrument read out, we had 23.9 knots of wind (lower left). Our heading was 266 degrees (upper left), close to due west. And in the upper right, we were doing 10.1 knots! For you non sailors, that’s real fast. Miss Piggy Rocks!… Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Mike really seemed to enjoy driving the boat with the remote. Cindy did not! We did this pretty much, day and night, the whole way… Normally, the pilot does all the work, but we were missing an important function, so we got to play the video game for 17 days+ Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
People ask us all the time, “What’s it like sailing 3000 miles across the Pacific?”. It can be everything from flat calm, to boisterious plus! This is a “squall line” passing in front of us. Typically these are localized areas of rain and convection with either extra wind or sometimes lots less. We saw some of both. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
At first, playing with the remote was kind of fun and early on Cindy was in the spirit. She got quite good at knowing “Beach House’s” mood swings to the various wind and sea conditions. However, after awhile it started to effect her mood. 17 days is a fast passage, but playing a video game that long can get a bit tedious…. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
I had placed my hat in one of the outside storage bags and when I went to find it, we found the beginning of a wasps nest in the brim. We noticed at the anchorage in San Cristobal, wasps seemed to like to hang around all the boats. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
I had placed my hat in one of the outside storage bags and when I went to find it, we found the beginning of a wasps nest in the brim. We noticed at the anchorage in San Cristobal, wasps seemed to like to hang around all the boats. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
If you look closely, you can see on the upper right above the mainsail where the track broke off and is now hanging down. The wind is from just behind the left side of the boat and with the reefed main we were still making excellent time our first few days out…. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
On race boats, the “full crews” hoist and lower the spinnaker out of a bag that is on the deck. We use an ATN Spinnaker Sock. You can see it pushed up at the top of the spinnaker in this photo. It allows us to quickly pull the sock down and douse the “chute” should conditions get too windy. For short handed crews, this is the way to go. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
In four previous ocean crossings, I’d seen exactly one ship. This trip was to be a bit different. Here, about 1/2 way or 1500 miles west of the Galapagos, we saw this long range Japanese fishing vessel. They use a “long line”, as in MILES long with hooks every so many feet to catch incredible amounts of fish. The Captain finally answered our radio hails an in his broken English asked if there was anything he could do for us? Cindy said, “Yeah, bring over some fresh Sushi!” He laughed too!.. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Just when I was touting how we were ahead of our hoped for 16 day crossing (in fact at the time we were on pace for 14 days!), the wind QUIT! I don’t mean got “light”, I mean QUIT. We motored for 24 hours at 4.5 knots on one engine to conserve fuel not knowing how long this would continue. Pretty disappointing after days of 221 miles, 231 miles (our record) and a few around 200 miles/day. This day we did 125 miles…UH!… So, we started doing “boat projects”. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Cindy found some mildew and a small leak in our camera closet. So Mike took the ceiling liner out and we epoxied the leak shut. It worked. The ceiling liner needed a bit of a trim to put it back easily, so Mike did his wood working magic and fixed us all up. You can see the laundry hanging out to dry too. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Among Mike’s many skills and hobbies, he’s an “Artisan Breadmaker”. So in the light air conditions, he made so YUMMY treats. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
So here we are, 1500 plus miles from ANYWHERE and there is absolutely no wind. At least it was calm (but quite hot only a few hundred miles south of the equator). Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Well, Cindy wasn’t always excited about holding on to the joy stick for 4 hours at a shot, but when the wind came back, so did all our spirits. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Mike wasn’t finished with his craft, so back to galley he went creating another yummy treat for the “Tres Amigos”, soon to be the “Trois Amie” in French Polynesia!…. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Chafe is the norm on these types of long passages. Everything moves! The line that helps hold the geneker sail down, rubbed and cut on the front of the boat. In five years this hadn’t happened. On this crossing it happened in 5 days! That’s me in the “bosuns chair” so I could get out in front of the area and work on it. We waited for another short calm spell before I got adventurous and went hanging off the front of the boat. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
So, the wind came back and we put up our big “geneker”. A fairly heavy sail that helps us go “down wind” when there’s plenty of wind. I noticed that we had developed a tear in the front, so down it came. Cindy and I had been through this drill before and knew it was a pain to deal with all that sail area. Fortunately, our cockpit is big. We still had to have part of it inside “The House”. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Well Cindy likes to sew, so away we go!…. Expertly hand crafting a patch, we worked for about three hours to get it all done. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
The white rectangle in front of the circle is the repair. We used a special material called “sticky back” which as the name implies literally sticks to the sail. The circle is a window that we can see through to help trim the sail. It stopped the tear from getting bigger. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
We repaired the sail and back to work it went. You can even see the patch in front of the window. The sail is a grayish material called “kevlar”. It’s the stuff bullet proof vests are made of. However, as any sailor can tell you, there isn’t much bullet proof forever when it comes to sailing gear. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Well, here’s Mike with the remote control. He actually set our momentary speed records twice. I tied him once on his second place record. 18 knots! and 16 knots!….Miss Piggy Rocks! Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
This was pretty much our standard sea going “on watch” position. We’ll look forward to getting our “navigation go too” function back as well as perhaps a high tech way (in the near future) of having the boat steer easily to the wind. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Well, this is our dash board. We have an apparent wind angle instrument in the upper left (tells us the relative angle the wind is coming at the boat). Magnetic compass in the center. This is really a backup for us. A wind speed, course and “anything you want to know” repeater instrument in the bottom left. The GPS Chartplotter is seen on the right. It’s basically a very large version of the system lots of cars have today, but ours is for the water part of the world and helps us keep our distance from the “hard stuff”. Thankfully, the charts of the South Pacific have been updated to modern GPS and were spot on. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Today is Skye’s birthday, Happy Birthday Skye. We snuck in a quick satelitte telephone call. Squall lines driving us to the barn. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Despite having a lovely steering wheel, on long open ocean passages, using the autopilot is the way to go. Cindy has the remote in her hands. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Dagger boards up to reduce drag, spinnaker flying we averaged just under 8 knots for the entire 3150 miles we actually sailed. Due to light wind times, about 72 hours of the trip we motored. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
After just over 17 days at sea, we finally saw Hiva Oa. This is the second largest of the Marquesas. There are about 13 islands in the group, only a bit more than half are populated. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
You can see the small “boat icon” just below the top island, “Hiva Oa”. Here we are about 6 miles out of the harbor and the village of Atuona. The other two islands are Motane (uninhabited to the lower right) and Tahuata where Captain Cook visited the Marquesas about 230 years ago. The islands are called “Fenua Enata” in the Marquesian language. It means, “The Land of Men”. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
All the names of the various islands have to do with parts of a house. Hiva Oa is the roof, Fatu Hiva the floor, etc. The ancient Marquesians thought of their islands as “The House” on the sea. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Here in the rain squalls we were about to finally touch earth for the first time in 17 days. Though Cindy and I had sailed here 13 years ago from Mexico with Larry and Lillian Frederickson aboard their “Sea Rose”, the excitement was still in the air. I remembered this entrance as though it had been yesterday! Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Mike looking pleased at the conclusion of his first long passage. Me…tired, but excited to be here. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Just after we anchored in Hiva Oa, “Arinui 3” arrived. She’s the main inter island cargo vessel that comes twice a month from Tahiti. They also have luxury passenge suites for “boutique” tours. One of the main attractions here is the final resting place of impressionist artist, Paul Gaugin and 1960’s famed French singer, Jacques Brel. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Watching this vessel enter and negoitiate this tiny harbor was pretty amazing. Watching everything come off of it, even more so. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Aranui means “The New King” in Polynesian. To watch this vessel unload, food, fuel, cars and building supplies in just a few hours as well as unload/load the “boutique” tourists from their whirlwind tour was quite amazing. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
After 17 days 7 hours, plus a good nights sleep, we finally embarked for the two mile hitch hike to Atuona to check out the town and “in” with Customs. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
13 years ago when we were here, you’d see a car every 10-20 minutes. Now you see lots of cars every minute. Things have changed….ga Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
This is the harbor, it’s small breakwater and the cruising club off to the left. If you look close you’ll see “The House”. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
This is the main town (in fact only town) on Hiva Oa. We hitched three times. Twice we were picked up by Frenchman and only once by locals. The locals used to go out of their way to be helpful. Now? We’ll we got the finger from one local while hitching……Things just aren’t as they used to be….. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
The Gendarmes run the official check in/out procedure. Mike was making arrangements to get out of dodge and we had to present him physically to check him in/out in one fell swoop. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
As Mike is our “go to” guy in Southern California for all things boat and more; Cindy was going over our package of goodie to go back to LA with Mike. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
This was what was left of the sail track that broke on day 3 out of the Galapagos. Mike pulled me up the mast and I retrieved as much of it as I could. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
The boat on the right is “Ulliad” with Stephen, Kathleen and son Emmit aboard. We actually SAW THEM 2000 miles out of the Galapagos! A first for all of us, actually seeing another sailing vessel so far from shore. The boat the left is “Giselle”. David and Mary whom we saw as we were leaving the Galapagos. Both boats had very respectable passages. 19 days for Ulliad and 20 for Giselle. The average by the way is 22-26 days. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
In preparation for the annual Bastille Day festivites known locally as the “Fete”, the locals were having a “mini fete”. Preparations included the usual local crafts, carvings, dancing and palm frond weaving. These “weaves” are still used and last about 3 years as roofing material and are effectively 100 % waterproof. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
Hard to see in the photo, but this young Marquesian sports a tattoo on his left upper cheek. This is the HOME of the Tatoo. Many locals have at least one and the local artists are famed for their talents…….These are the islands where the old time sailors were first tatooed and made the idea popular….. NO, we didn’t get one. Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
It seems like a dream now, but we picked Mike up, took him on a tour of San Cristobal in the Galapagos, sailed with him 3150 miles for 17 days, and just as fast said goodbye!….A happy end of the trail for us all. The “Tres Amigos” become the “Trois Amie”! We’ll see ya’ soon Mike!….A bientot! Galapagos Islands to Marquesas Islands
