DEEPWATER SWIMMING
1428 Ship’s Time
Sailing
After poke tuna nachos (corn tortilla chips + Ryan’s guac + leftover poke tuna), we stopped the boat for a swim. The water had been glassy since shortly after sunrise and we finally gave up on ghosting along at 2-3 knots and fired up the diesel. The sun was out, music was playing in the cabin, and with a sloppy weather forecast on the horizon for tonight and tomorrow morning, we took advantage and took the plunge.
The water here is 10,000-feet deep, and extremely blue. Crustal clear, you open your eyes underwater and can just see forever, right into the literal abyss. Temps are in the mid-70s, so for me who’s used to swimming in Sweden in the summertime in the mid-60s, it was downright balmy. Most of the crew partook, with Eric standing watch on the cockpit and doing the final headcount to make sure we all came back aboard. It’s been a while since I did an offshore swim, and man it’s so fun.
Now we’re in prep mode for some anticipated heavy-ish weather tonight and into the morning. The boat’s cleaned up inside and out, the staysail is rigged and flaked on the foredeck, and the off-watches are resting. Just as I started writing this the wind is starting to fill in from the SSW, and we’re sailing again, now on a close-reach with the yankee and full main. If I had to bet, I’d say we’ll be reefed down before midnight, and maybe wet by sun-up with some rain squalls in the offing as part of a weak cold front that’s going to pass over us tonight and tomorrow morning.
We’ve also decided to stop short in Cabo San Lucas. The marina there has space for us, and being that we’re behind schedule thanks to a very light-wind passage thus far, the crew voted to pull in, so if you see us on the tracker in Cabo, we didn’t just stop off to party :) Mary and me, plus the incoming staff for the next leg, might move the boat up to La Paz in-between trips, but that remains a future problem for now. And in any case, it’s only a two-hour drive from La Paz to Cabo, so if we end up staying put it’s not going to mess up the big-picture plans.
// Andy
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Kauehi conundrum
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Hove-to!
Falken is too fast—a problem most sailors would kill for, yet here we are, tacking back and forth across the Pacific just to kill time. A rogue low pressure system south of Tahiti has stolen the trades and scrambled our timing for the tidal window into Kauehi's pass, leaving us hove-to 45 miles short of our target in the Tuamotus. Salt licorice, dream sandwich debates, and a philosophical question about mermaid reproduction are helping pass the night.