[pin 4320] We are 1866 nm from Puerto Vallarta on day 15. Approx. 200 miles from the equator! Blog will be updated when we reach Hiva Oa in about 8-9 days.

[pin 4320] Day 5 Mar 24 Fish On!!!! Shortly after Jim;s shift started he saw a fish at the end of the line. It was a 20+lb yellowfin tuna. Of course this happens the day after we had a nice clean shower and there was blood all over Jim’s clothes and the deck of the boat. Nick miraculously didn’t get a drop of blood on him. We filleted the fish and froze half for later and ate sashimi for lunch and cracked pepper tuna steaks for dinner. It was amazingly tender and melt in your mouth and much tastier than skipjack tuna. The winds picked up today and we were on a beam reach and going fast. Way more rocky and rolly so cooking was a challenge as everything wants to roll away from me. Overnight Ian broke due to the strong wind & wave action so we’ve all got to hand steer overnight. A stainless steel bracket holding a pulley bent up (a lot of force considering this is 1/2 inch thick stainless steel). Day 6 Mar 25 We passed our 1/4 distance today! The winds slowed down today and Jim is worried that we’re going too far west so we’ve been trying hard to head more south. Today we put up our drifter sail – it’s like a large headsail but pretty like a spinnaker. It flew well in the light winds. Provisions wise the avocados and mangos are getting really ripe whilst the apples, oranges and potatoes are doing nicely. Since the winds were light, I did some clothes washing today. Mainly Jim’s blood stained clothes from yesterday and threw in some other clothes as well and set up the clothes line on the sunny side of the boat. We had tuna fried rice for lunch and leftover steaks for dinner. No more fish for a while. Overnight the wind died down to 4-5 knots and the sails were flapping and the boom banging so we turned on the motor for a few hours and headed south. We made water, charged up our batteries and turned off the engine when the wind picked up. Day 7 Mar 26 Everyone is tired as we have been hand steering for the last 2 days/nights. Also the sea has been confused which makes the boat roll up and down and side to side. The boom creaks, the sails flap and the blocks rattle whenever we get hit on the side by the waves as the wind is too light to keep the wind in the sail. It makes it difficult to sleep as well. So we’re more grumpy and irritable. We used the whisker pole on the head sail and it stopped the sail from slapping around. Jim is unhappy about our heading but we can only go where the wind takes us and maybe we should just head to Hawaii. The winds picked up steadily through the day but our heading is dead down wind and our boat doesn’t seem to want to head in that direction. Every day at 5pm we have a gathering in the cockpit for happy hour where we have a special treat and sometimes a beer or margarita. Today we had chocolate ice cream that I smuggled on board. We had cup of noodles for dinner. Day 8 Mar 27 Another tiring night of hand steering last night. Jim finally jibed and put out the mizzen sail to port and our poled out genoa to starboard on a wing on wing configuration, Ian was happy to steer the boat. Phew! We don’t have to hand steer tonight. Ian worked well, even with his dislocated shoulder in the 15-20 knot winds. The 2 cookbooks that I have found most useful is “The Boat Galley Cookbook” by Carolyn Shearlock & Jan Irons and “The Essential Galley Companion” by Amanda Swan-Neal. Today I made mango cream pie, thanks to Amanda who’s a kiwi (from New Zealand) as her book had 5 different mango recipes. As the oven was going to be on, I also made hamburger buns for our dinner tonight. It is challenging trying to cook with the rolly waves but I’m getting the hang of it. We had the mango pie for happy hour and Nick cooked up the hamburgers for dinner.

[pin 4320] We’ve had such a pleasant stay in Mexico that it was sad to have the immigration and customs officials come to our boat to check us out of the country. We got our official “zarpe” which is the official document. Without this we’ve heard that it can tie your boat up with red tape at the next port of call in the next country. We’ve made many friends and had to say goodbye to some of them as our paths separate. We hope to meet up with them someday, at sea or on land. Flying Squirrel’s Dave & Amy and their kids Matthew & Morgan, who played minecraft with Jacintha are heading back up north doing the “Baja Bash” (sailing north up the Baja coast). We’ve had a few meals with Tom & Kelly and Sofie from Stochastic at the Vallarta yacht club (think cheese stuffed chicken wrapped with bacon) and for steaks at Sonora el Sur. They are also heading north. Yolo had Presley & Colton aboard and they had a few playdates with Jacintha. They are heading up the Sea of Cortez for the summer. Hannah on Ohanna is adventuring further south with her family towards Panama. Pelagic with Anna, Xander and Porter are currently in Panama awaiting their turn to transit the canal. We miss Billy and Gracie from Seahorse V and Bucket from Velvet Sky, they are south in El Salvador. We’re excited that Family Circus are also doing the Pacific Puddle Jump since Jacintha has so much fun playing with Amaia and Alina. They’re leaving a day later than us but will probably pass us along the way as their boat is faster – the advantages of having 2 hulls (catamaran). Korbut Rose will be crossing in April, we wish them good winds and hope to catch up with them in French Polynesia. Other boats on the puddle jump are Lorien, Daybreak, Sarita and Aussie Rules! Day 1, Mar 21, 122 nautical miles – We took off yesterday from Paradise Village heading towards another paradise. We were all chomping at the bit to leave (Jim most of all) but we had to have our last frappacino from Starbucks, McDonalds Happy Meal and Chinese take out lunch. After a couple of hours motoring, passing the dinghies of the regatta hosted by the Vallarta yacht club, we hoisted the sails and when we were just past Punta de Mita we turned off the engine and sailed. We had good wind with light seas. Perfect sailing weather. For dinner we had mushroom soup I had cooked the night before in anticipation of being seasick but the swells were minimal so I got to enjoy the meal as well. Our friend Lance has been sending us weather reports on our SSB email which is helping to determine which direction we have to sail. We were disappointed not to be able to hear the SSB radio net to see how many boats had left with this weather window including our friends. Overnight the sail was beautiful. 10 knots of wind with little swell. The stars were out and the lights from Puerto Vallarta grew dimmer and dimmer in the horizon behind us. Champagne sailing and the icing on the cake is that we’ve managed to tweak Ian (our Fleming wind vane) so he’s steering the boat perfectly on a beam reach, which means less work for us! Day 2 Mar 22, 140nm – Everyone except Jacintha was a little tired today but after a breakfast of chorizo omelette, mango and oranges, and naps for everyone, all is well. The fact we’re not hand steering makes a lot of difference in the exhaustion scale as well as having an extra person to take watch. Thank you Ian and Nick for being troopers. We sailed all day with all 4 sails up. A pod of dolphins swam by the boat this afternoon, jumping up and down around the bow of the boat. We also passed a couple of cargo ships and spoke to SV Kookaburra who were within VHF radio range but we didn’t see them. No bites on the fishing lines. On the SSB we found out our AIS tracker was interfering with our signal so we could communicate with the net tonight. We learnt that a bunch of boats took off the over the last few days. Day 3 Mar 23, 110nm – Today we had to head a bit more south to clear Isla Socorro. This meant that we were pointing further downwind and Ian did not like this point of sail as much. As the wind was lighter 8-10kts, it meant that there was not enough wind to steer our wind vane (he works on current and wind power). We took down the staysail and poled out the genoa which took a bit of effort. We had to hand steer a lot of the day. A flying fish visited our boat. It was tiny, about 2 inches long and had flown into the cockpit near Nick’s feet. We showed him the way back to the water. Jacintha has been super about being on the boat. She has been watching a lot of movies on the computer. High School the Musical 2 and the Lorax are her current favourites. Nick cooked pancakes this morning so she was very happy. Our batteries were running low today so we ran the generator to top them up. To conserve power we’ve turned off a lot of our electronics. This evening we instituted happy hour and had some margaritas with ice from the new freezer to celebrate. We had teriyaki chicken wings for dinner tonight. During night watch, I saw the Southern Cross low on the horizon. It’s such a comfort to me to see it and the pointers up there in the sky amongst the Milky Way. The moonless night makes the stars even brighter and I’ve been playing with Starwalk app on my ipad to show me the different constellations. Now all we have to do is bone up on our celestial navigation and dig out the sextant to find our latitude and longitude the old fashioned way. Day 4 Mar 24, 119nm – Today we passed to the South of Isla Socorro and headed more west again trying to catch the trade winds that we can see on our grib files (wind report). The winds were much lighter today and eventually we ran the motor for a couple of hours. We also made some water when the motor was running to fill up our drinking jugs. We are keeping a close eye on our fuel consumption as we only have what’s in the tanks (110 gallons left) and in our 2 jerry cans (10 gallons), so we have to be conservative. Having light winds is not fun as the boat tends to get swiped more by waves and rock and rolls sideways. Everthing swings and creaks, the sails flap and the boom rattles noisily. A bird decided to catch the bait on the fishing line trailing the boat and got it’s feet hooked. We had to pull it in and unhook it. We saw it take off after sitting in the water for a few minutes. We also took a solar shower on the deck this afternoon. It’s nice having clean hair and body and fresh clothes. Jim tried hailing any boats on the VHF but there aren’t any boats close by or they’ve turned off their radios. The SSB net at night is a social highlight for us as we find out where all the other boats are and what’s happened in their day.

[pin 4320] Our first update didnt post. I’m hoping this one will Day 5 Mar 24 Fish On!!!! Shortly after Jim;s shift started he saw a fish at the end of the line. It was a 20+lb yellowfin tuna. Of course this happens the day after we had a nice clean shower and there was blood all over Jim’s clothes and the deck of the boat. Nick miraculously didn’t get a drop of blood on him. We filleted the fish and froze half for later and ate sashimi for lunch and cracked pepper tuna steaks for dinner. It was amazingly tender and melt in your mouth and much tastier than skipjack tuna. The winds picked up today and we were on a beam reach and going fast. Way more rocky and rolly so cooking was a challenge as everything wants to roll away from me. Overnight Ian broke due to the strong wind & wave action so we’ve all got to hand steer overnight. A stainless steel bracket holding a pulley bent up (a lot of force considering this is 1/2 inch thick stainless steel). Day 6 Mar 25 We passed our 1/4 distance today! The winds slowed down today and Jim is worried that we’re going too far west so we’ve been trying hard to head more south. Today we put up our drifter sail – it’s like a large headsail but pretty like a spinnaker. It flew well in the light winds. Provisions wise the avocados and mangos are getting really ripe whilst the apples, oranges and potatoes are doing nicely. Since the winds were light, I did some clothes washing today. Mainly Jim’s blood stained clothes from yesterday and threw in some other clothes as well and set up the clothes line on the sunny side of the boat. We had tuna fried rice for lunch and leftover steaks for dinner. No more fish for a while. Overnight the wind died down to 4-5 knots and the sails were flapping and the boom banging so we turned on the motor for a few hours and headed south. We made water, charged up our batteries and turned off the engine when the wind picked up. Day 7 Mar 26 Everyone is tired as we have been hand steering for the last 2 days/nights. Also the sea has been confused which makes the boat roll up and down and side to side. The boom creaks, the sails flap and the blocks rattle whenever we get hit on the side by the waves as the wind is too light to keep the wind in the sail. It makes it difficult to sleep as well. So we’re more grumpy and irritable. We used the whisker pole on the head sail and it stopped the sail from slapping around. Jim is unhappy about our heading but we can only go where the wind takes us and maybe we should just head to Hawaii. The winds picked up steadily through the day but our heading is dead down wind and our boat doesn’t seem to want to head in that direction. Every day at 5pm we have a gathering in the cockpit for happy hour where we have a special treat and sometimes a beer or margarita. Today we had chocolate ice cream that I smuggled on board. We had cup of noodles for dinner. Day 8 Mar 27 Another tiring night of hand steering last night. Jim finally jibed and put out the mizzen sail to port and our poled out genoa to starboard on a wing on wing configuration, Ian was happy to steer the boat. Phew! We don’t have to hand steer tonight. Ian worked well, even with his dislocated shoulder in the 15-20 knot winds. The 2 cookbooks that I have found most useful is “The Boat Galley Cookbook” by Carolyn Shearlock & Jan Irons and “The Essential Galley Companion” by Amanda Swan-Neal. Today I made mango cream pie, thanks to Amanda who’s a kiwi (from New Zealand) as her book had 5 different mango recipes. As the oven was going to be on, I also made hamburger buns for our dinner tonight. It is challenging trying to cook with the rolly waves but I’m getting the hang of it. We had the mango pie for happy hour and Nick cooked up the hamburgers for dinner.

[pin 4320] We’ve had such a pleasant stay in Mexico that it was sad to have the immigration and customs officials come to our boat to check us out of the country. We got our official “zarpe” which is the official document. Without this we’ve heard that it can tie your boat up with red tape at the next port of call in the next country. We’ve made many friends and had to say goodbye to some of them as our paths separate. We hope to meet up with them someday, at sea or on land. Flying Squirrel’s Dave & Amy and their kids Matthew & Morgan, who played minecraft with Jacintha are heading back up north doing the “Baja Bash” (sailing north up the Baja coast). We’ve had a few meals with Tom & Kelly and Sofie from Stochastic at the Vallarta yacht club (think cheese stuffed chicken wrapped with bacon) and for steaks at Sonora el Sur. They are also heading north. Yolo had Presley & Colton aboard and they had a few playdates with Jacintha. They are heading up the Sea of Cortez for the summer. Hannah on Ohanna is adventuring further south with her family towards Panama. Pelagic with Anna, Xander and Porter are currently in Panama awaiting their turn to transit the canal. We miss Billy and Gracie from Seahorse V and Bucket from Velvet Sky, they are south in El Salvador. We’re excited that Family Circus are also doing the Pacific Puddle Jump since Jacintha has so much fun playing with Amaia and Alina. They’re leaving a day later than us but will probably pass us along the way as their boat is faster – the advantages of having 2 hulls (catamaran). Korbut Rose will be crossing in April, we wish them good winds and hope to catch up with them in French Polynesia. Other boats on the puddle jump are Lorien, Daybreak, Sarita and Aussie Rules! Day 1, Mar 21, 122 nautical miles – We took off yesterday from Paradise Village heading towards another paradise. We were all chomping at the bit to leave (Jim most of all) but we had to have our last frappacino from Starbucks, McDonalds Happy Meal and Chinese take out lunch. After a couple of hours motoring, passing the dinghies of the regatta hosted by the Vallarta yacht club, we hoisted the sails and when we were just past Punta de Mita we turned off the engine and sailed. We had good wind with light seas. Perfect sailing weather. For dinner we had mushroom soup I had cooked the night before in anticipation of being seasick but the swells were minimal so I got to enjoy the meal as well. Our friend Lance has been sending us weather reports on our SSB email which is helping to determine which direction we have to sail. We were disappointed not to be able to hear the SSB radio net to see how many boats had left with this weather window including our friends. Overnight the sail was beautiful. 10 knots of wind with little swell. The stars were out and the lights from Puerto Vallarta grew dimmer and dimmer in the horizon behind us. Champagne sailing and the icing on the cake is that we’ve managed to tweak Ian (our Fleming wind vane) so he’s steering the boat perfectly on a beam reach, which means less work for us! Day 2 Mar 22, 140nm – Everyone except Jacintha was a little tired today but after a breakfast of chorizo omelette, mango and oranges, and naps for everyone, all is well. The fact we’re not hand steering makes a lot of difference in the exhaustion scale as well as having an extra person to take watch. Thank you Ian and Nick for being troopers. We sailed all day with all 4 sails up. A pod of dolphins swam by the boat this afternoon, jumping up and down around the bow of the boat. We also passed a couple of cargo ships and spoke to SV Kookaburra who were within VHF radio range but we didn’t see them. No bites on the fishing lines. On the SSB we found out our AIS tracker was interfering with our signal so we could communicate with the net tonight. We learnt that a bunch of boats took off the over the last few days. Day 3 Mar 23, 110nm – Today we had to head a bit more south to clear Isla Socorro. This meant that we were pointing further downwind and Ian did not like this point of sail as much. As the wind was lighter 8-10kts, it meant that there was not enough wind to steer our wind vane (he works on current and wind power). We took down the staysail and poled out the genoa which took a bit of effort. We had to hand steer a lot of the day. A flying fish visited our boat. It was tiny, about 2 inches long and had flown into the cockpit near Nick’s feet. We showed him the way back to the water. Jacintha has been super about being on the boat. She has been watching a lot of movies on the computer. High School the Musical 2 and the Lorax are her current favourites. Nick cooked pancakes this morning so she was very happy. Our batteries were running low today so we ran the generator to top them up. To conserve power we’ve turned off a lot of our electronics. This evening we instituted happy hour and had some margaritas with ice from the new freezer to celebrate. We had teriyaki chicken wings for dinner tonight. During night watch, I saw the Southern Cross low on the horizon. It’s such a comfort to me to see it and the pointers up there in the sky amongst the Milky Way. The moonless night makes the stars even brighter and I’ve been playing with Starwalk app on my ipad to show me the different constellations. Now all we have to do is bone up on our celestial navigation and dig out the sextant to find our latitude and longitude the old fashioned way. Day 4 Mar 24, 119nm – Today we passed to the South of Isla Socorro and headed more west again trying to catch the trade winds that we can see on our grib files (wind report). The winds were much lighter today and eventually we ran the motor for a couple of hours. We also made some water when the motor was running to fill up our drinking jugs. We are keeping a close eye on our fuel consumption as we only have what’s in the tanks (110 gallons left) and in our 2 jerry cans (10 gallons), so we have to be conservative. Having light winds is not fun as the boat tends to get swiped more by waves and rock and rolls sideways. Everthing swings and creaks, the sails flap and the boom rattles noisily. A bird decided to catch the bait on the fishing line trailing the boat and got it’s feet hooked. We had to pull it in and unhook it. We saw it take off after sitting in the water for a few minutes. We also took a solar shower on the deck this afternoon. It’s nice having clean hair and body and fresh clothes. Jim tried hailing any boats on the VHF but there aren’t any boats close by or they’ve turned off their radios. The SSB net at night is a social highlight for us as we find out where all the other boats are and what’s happened in their day.