Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Fat Hiva spotted but lost again behind the squalls that are plaguing us. Water maker failed too. Can’t have it all.

72nm to go.

How our fortunes and hopes rise and fall. Having had a small boost the day before, day 22 turned out to be a let down. The winds dropped to around 6-10 knots from right behind us. Our daytime average ended up under 4 knots and over night just over 3. I always expected to motor a little today to achieve landfall before dusk but after the last 24 hours poor progress we’ll need to apply a slight push to get us up to 5 knots all day. My guess this will add up to around 4-5 hours of genset time which is more fuel than I really wanted to burn to essentially give us a night at anchor rather than on the move. I went to sleep knowing I may have to make a decision to simply sail on and save the fuel or do the assist and assure ourselves of the anchorage. Well, the decision presented itself. I found myself in favour of sailing but figured I’d be very unpopular with the crew. And you never know, the wind may pick up later today. So we’re now making 5 knots with a push from the batteries. If I can, I’ll perform some of the recharging in conjunction with my planned house battery reset/recondition so it won’t be so bad.

One of the problems with the low winds is controlling the boom. The swell often gets the better of the sail which has little pressure to hold it in place resulting in slams or the occasional accidental jibe. I tried experimenting with different placings for a preventer, ie a line tied from the boom down to one of the cleats. In the end I found the most effective solution was two lines, one from the center of the boom down to the center cleat and one from the end of the boom to the stern cleat such that the stern line takes the pressure just after the center line.

There was some evidence that we are closer to land as we’ve seen a few more sea birds than normal. For the last three weeks we’ve seen just the occasional solitary bird. Today we saw a few flocks of white birds as well as what I believe was a tern in the distance.

I realized I made an error in my calculations as to what distance we could first see Fatu Hiva. Not in the trig but in converting the height of the highest peak into nautical miles. The corrected distance is now 68nm. That means it will be potentially visible at dawn.

Pretty much a nothing day.

We are so close I think I can smell the baguettes being made, but realistically we are still a day away. We had the slowest period for the last few days this afternoon.

The good news is that our distance to destination is now showing tenths of a mile on the chart plotter. Also our estimated time of arrival keeps popping up, but this varies wildly from tomorrow afternoon to never.

No fish, but we are planning tomorrows evening meal which is going to be a BBQ. Ribs, burgers, chicken and most importantly BEER!!

Two years ago I was packing the content of our house into boxes. We’d sold our house. We’d both given in our resignation at work. Our youngest son Sam was about to turn eighteen. We were about to start our much planned for and dreamed of adventure. I remember packing a book on the Pacific Crossing and thinking ‘No way! I know our plan was to circumnavigate but I wanted to blank out the part about spending weeks on an immense ocean, vulnerable to the whims of the elements. At the time I half seriously suggested to Steve that for the Pacific crossings he should get a crew and I would fly out and meet him at the other end. The thought of an ocean crossing scared me to death.

A year ago my thoughts about doing an ocean crossing were a little more open. We’d been living and traveling on our boat for a few months by then. But I was still reluctant. I still didn’t want to think about it. I’d only done a few over night crossings which I hadn’t enjoyed at all. The thought of days out at sea was too daunting.

Here I am now, almost at landfall after weeks at sea. Three and half thousand miles of water crossed from the American continent. Having survived days and days of pounding waves during strong wind sailing. Delighted in calmer days when we glided smoothly over gentle swells. Curbed frustration when the wind died. Coped with the day to day monotony. Endured night watches. Content to meditate and think for hours staring out at the never ending, ever changing sea. Awed again and again by the variety and beauty of dawn and sun set over the ocean each day. Thrilled by passing visits from whales, dolphins and turtles. Enjoyed and savored the companionship of John and Steve. Felt completely overwhelmed with the vastness, power and beauty of the ocean. Been a little crazy.
So how did I find my first ocean crossing?
It was a piece of cake!

Well we’re 2 days from landfall unless something amazing happens.

Me and Steve swapped the anchor chain around from end to end, the really rusty end is now attached to the boat and the not so rusty end to the chain. A very dirty job, but one that sort of needed to be done before we arrived.

Steve has put some beers in the fridge to cool. It feels a bit more like we’re coming to the end.

No fish 🙁