Galapagos to Marquesas Day 11

We Made it HALFWAY

Day 11: Tuesday 3/26

The BIG STORM……I am still in awe of the power of that storm. It took a good 6-8 hours for the seas to finally calm. We estimate there were some 12’ rollers….they were as high as the flybridge deck……whoa. Fortunately, none were breaking and Mystic just went up/down, but with a considerable rock/roll wiggle as she went on to the next one….TG for stabilizers!!!! It was so rough I didn’t even think about fishing…..probably could have in the afternoon but once again I was too tired!!

HOORAY……WE DID IT…..MADE THE HALFWAY MARK!!!!!!   Wow….what a rush……we celebrated with our one and only cocktail……Kathy, a grey goose martini, Les & Rose, Bacardi anejo rum and tonic, John-boy a Ron Zacapa rum on the rocks……then we sat up on the Fly Bridge and had a yummy burgers-on-the-grill dinner and watched a spectacular sunset…..LIG!!!!!

Clean-up: Well…..in all the haste to close ports and hatches during the storm, the port in our shower was left open. When Kathy went back to bed, she discovered water in our stateroom…..maybe ¼”……with the wind and seas water had come in…..everything on the floor – clothes, pillows, rugs, quilt (I’m still not quite sure why we have a quilt on our bed in the tropics but I just keep my mouth shut…..definitely living on the edge to put this in my log…..do you hear the smack coming 🙂 )))). Anyway, Kathy spent considerable time cleaning up……for my part, water had gotten into the bilges where we have stored the beer….oh, no, saltwater and cheap aluminum cans don’t mix….soon we will have beer in the bilge….so, I had the pleasure of vacuuming the bilges…..fun!!!!!!

I’m still not as relaxed as what I thought I would be. Even when we passed the halfway mark and I KNOW we have enough fuel, we are still burning slightly more than I want so my mind starts w/all the what ifs…..we are well w/in the measurement error so really nothing to worry about but still I can’t shut if off……it just seems my mind is constantly on……speed, fuel burn, course, weather, engines, repairs, watermaker/water, sat phone, emails, logs, stabilizers, autopilot, leaks, sail, fishing (the heat is really on….you should see the hair on Rose’s legs!!!) et al. I had a very good night sleep last night….6.5 hours of hard sleep…..very hard to get up for watch…..thanks Mr Ron Zacapa!!!!!

Repairs: Les fixed a cut cord on a fan!! Les has another idea to put a fan in the port side forward vent in the ER. The temps have been about 5-10 deg higher than normal (115-118 deg F, should be 107-109 deg F) due to the following winds, which are the worse to get fresh air into the ER. We should deploy it today!!

Blog Responses: Thanks for all the comments – the song for today was Moon River…..I had a moon for all my shift going into it so the refection on the water was priceless…..belted it out…..sorry L&R……I think the Big Guy likes that one 🙂 )))

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Position 3/27 @ 1300 UTC:

Position: 4 51S 115 50W

Traveled: 157nm today; 1588nm total; 1412nm to go; ETA sometime 4/5

Course: 241M HDG, 246M COG;

Wind: SE-ENE 15-25 kts in the am, 6-17 kts in the afternoon/night, current wind is 12 kts SE

Waves: SE-ESE 6-12′ swell; 10-14 sec period; 4-8′ wind chop 3-6 sec SE-ESE; rough ride became moderate in the afternoon, all fairly beamy; had to use stabilizers; it took a good 6-8 hours for the seas to calm after the storm but by evening we were back to moderate conditions – swell down to 4-6′, wind chop 2-4′

Speed: current speed is 6.9 SOG; has varied 5.5-7.0 SOG; avg 6.5 SOG today; 6.16 SOG total for passage (we planned for 6.0 but hope/want 6.5).

Weather: 100% cloud cover and squally in the am then 60% broken clouds, sea temp 81.5 deg F

Boat sightings: 0 today; 6 since we left.

Fishing: no fishing today 🙁 ((((, 19 total for the trip; 12 bonitos and 7 skip jack. Still nothing on the grill yet 🙁 ((((

Fuel Burn: After 240 hours we are burning 2.2 nmpg, 2.7 gph, 560 gallons total and 20 gallons more than our plan. Not a good fuel burn day – not sure why, maybe a measurement error, hope tomorrow is better!!

Sail: Still up and helping! It was up in the storm but it was set into the apparent wind so it did no harm nor did it help any……when the storm abated we reset and got a little push/steadying