Escaping Panama, Sailing the Pacific to French Polynesia – Fat Susan’s Ocean Blog

After three months in COVID lockdown in Shelter Bay Marina in Panama, we had finally managed to take Fat Susan through the majestic Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean.  It was July 2020 when we lifted the anchor and sailed south from the Perlas Islands, with the distant islands of French Polynesia in our sights.  Nuku Hiva was our destination, the only port of entry for sailing boats in the Marquesas islands during this global pandemic.

This was to be our longest ocean passage so far, probably over a month at sea with no sight of land.  It wasn’t the ideal time of year to be leaving and, with stories of horrible weather and ocean currents in the Gulf of Panama in the back of our minds, the whole crew was quite nervous and apprehensive.  It’s a long way from Panama to French Polynesia in a 43 foot sailing boat.

This is the daily blog of SV Fat Susan.  While at sea on long passages, Fat Susan can be tracked using our Iridium Go satellite phone and a subscription to PredictWind.  Friends and family (and anyone else who fancies a look) can follow our track while sitting in the comfort of their lovely warm homes.  And while we are on passage, we scribble down a daily blog, which is slowly uploaded to the internet via the satellite phone.

Fat Susan’s Ocean Blog from Panama to French Polynesia

Day 1 – We set off across the Pacific Ocean, dolphins in our wake

I’d say that we’ve had a pretty bloody splendid first day of our crossing to French Polynesia. Our little flotilla of five sailing boats weighed anchor just after 9am and set off in search of adventure, fair winds and the mythical westbound current that has seen some of our fellow Shelter Bay Marina inmates hoon past the Galapagos at over 10 knots. We didn’t have a great start with the weather, motoring straight into some heavy rain, but the rain brought enough wind for the sails to go up and the engine to go off. With a massive pod of dolphins dancing on our bow wave, we were happy, if slightly damp campers.
We held onto the wind until teatime, but as the sunset pointed the way to Polynesia, it was time to put the engine on. Our flotilla had scattered throughout the day, and we only had the lights of our friends on SV Catching Up twinkling on the horizon to keep us company overnight. Once the moon set, the stars and the bioluminescence kicked in and we were given a fantastic light show as a huge lightning storm battered the Panamanian coast 100 miles behind us.

The Pacific is living up to its name, with a gentle swell that rocked us all to sleep. Susan is on top form with just a minor diesel spill and a bit of bilge water needing attention so far. The kids were pretty subdued as we left, the thought of the long crossing, lack of contact with friends and the inability to escape my random mood swings doubtless playing on their minds. They’ve settled in to the routine though and are steadily working their way through the snacks and our film collection. Floss and I are doing well, easing ourselves into the overnight watch routine and trying to be mindful of the adventure that we’re having.

129 nautical miles down, 3893 to go…
Love adventures, love the Pacific, love living the dream.

Day 2 – The Armpit of Panama isn’t that bad after all…

As is always the case, the second day of the crossing was much more exhausting than the first. We’re still working into the routine, and I can certainly feel the effects of yesterday’s lack of sleep. The weather has been much improved over day 1, with bright sunshine all day. But with very variable winds we’ve motorsailed most of today’s 127 miles. We’re keen to get out of the Armpit of Panama in the hope that the winds will be more consistent and allow us to push down past the Galapagos and onto French Polynesia. It’s a damned long way to go though, so we’re just focussing on the next few days and finding those trade winds.

Once again, SV Catching Up shadowed us through the night and we were briefly in radio contact with SV Bacchus in the early evening but I suspect that that’ll be the last we see of our little flotilla buddies. We’re keeping in touch via satellite email though, so even though we can’t see them, we know they’re out there, somewhere.

One particular treat from yesterday was hearing dolphins singing at bedtime. You could hear their chatter through the hull in our cabin. There was no sign of them on the surface, but they must have been close by. We’ll keep an eye and an ear out for them tomorrow.

Stats for nerds:
Total distance traveled: 256 nautical miles

Average speed: 5.3 knots

Distance to go: 3689 nautical miles

Vomits: None, which is nice

Hours motoring: 35

Uses of the poo knife: 1

Sam’s best passage film: Oceans Eleven

Evan’s best passage film: Bourne Legacy

Total number of films watched by kids: 8

Total number of films watched by adults: 0

Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 100%

Love hearing dolphins chatting, looking forward to escaping the armpit, must try harder to to watch telly.

Day 3 – That current isn’t so bad either…

What a day it’s been today. The combination of:

• Susan’s saggy sails (which mean that we can’t sail very close to the wind)
• Susan’s ultra clean and super smooth bottom (the four hours spent scrubbing barnacles & tube worms & weed & general ming off her hull on Monday are paying dividends)
• total blind luck (should have bought a lottery ticket)

conspired to make us adjust course overnight and head back northwest slap bang back onto Catching Up’s waypoints. Here we stumbled into the Polynesia bound current and had a fantastic day hooning along at well over 7 knots. Hardly any fuel burned and a stonking 130 miles of sailing under the keel.
And, because we were back onto Catching Up’s course, they caught us up and we had them in view for most of the day. It was a real psychological boost being able to see them and have a chat with them over VHF.

In wildlife news, the dolphins have abandoned us but we’re regularly being visited by boobies (and who doesn’t love a boobie? If you’ve never seen one, Google them, but do be careful if you’re at work…). They’re hitching a lift from the wind spilling off Susan’s mainsail and looking for somewhere to perch. They’re amazing things to watch, but allegedly empty their cavernous guts of stinking, part digested fishy filth all over your deck as soon as they get comfortable on the pulpit. We may have to deploy one of the kids as a scarecrow…

Stats for nerds:
Total distance traveled: 386 nautical miles
Average speed: 5.3 knots
Distance to go: 3620 nautical miles
Distance made good: 200 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 2.7 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 46
Uses of the poo knife: 2
Sam’s best passage film: Oceans Eleven
Evan’s best passage film: Bourne Legacy
Total number of films watched by kids: 9
Total number of films watched by adults: 0
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 95% due to difficulty of cooking in a kitchen where nothing stays still

Love it when we’re hooning, still can’t find time for watching telly, thinking about starting an internet poll to choose which kid gets to be a scarecrow…

Pacific Crossing Newsflash

Spirits received a huge boost early on day 4 as official confirmation was received that The Fatties have been granted permission to enter French Polynesia by the lovely immigration authorities.

However, in a shocking turn of events, six hours of beating into the wind, being battered by rain and making almost zero progress saw the Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer crash to 5%, which is an all time low for this early stage in a big passage. Please organise for clean underwear, wine, and chocolate to be shipped in bulk to Fat Susan – Current position 6 00.417 degrees North, 82 14.139 West

Day 4 – OK, we were wrong.  It’s as bad as we were warned…

Well, what a difference a day makes. We bloody loved Day 3. However, none of the Fatties are going to mourne the passing of day 4. It’s been a wet, uncomfortable, slow and frustrating 24 hours of variable winds, biblical rain and evil currents trying to push us back towards Panama. Worst of all, we’ve had zero hooning. Late on the evening we’d all had enough of this sailing nonsense and dropped all of the pointless sails and converted Susan into a motor boat and tried to power our way to happier waters. We’ll have to wait till Day 5 is done to see how well that decision worked out for us.

Still, looking for a silver lining on the gloomy clouds that have blanketed us for the last 24 hours, I’ve finally had time to fiddle with the radar settings and can now see rain approaching. This will be useful when we get into squall territory as we’ll be able to dodge around them. However, the day 4 radar screen just reported that it was raining, everywhere. No dodging options were available. We knew that already as we’ve got windows and can use our eyes, but it was good to have the technology confirm it.

A number of our avid readers have questioned the use of the poo knife. It’s a tricky and delicate subject, but the toilet on Susan is manually flushed and has a limited capacity. Despite living by the dual mantras of “pump as you dump” and “crimp every inch” sometimes the “product” is bigger than the pipework and needs to be, well, you get the idea…

Stats for nerds:

Total distance traveled: 500 nautical miles

Average speed: 5.2 knots

Distance to go: 3560 nautical miles

Distance made good: 240 nautical miles

Average speed made good: 2.5 knots

Vomits: None, which is nice

Hours motoring: 61

Uses of the poo knife: 2

Sam’s best passage film: Oceans Eleven

Evan’s best passage film: Bourne Legacy

Total number of films watched by kids: 12

Total number of films watched by adults: 0

Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 1% (it would be zero, but we love Fat Susan and would miss her if we stopped)

Number of times Floss has been told off by the kids for using highly inappropriate fecking language: 2

Day 5 – Our most horriblest ever day of sailing. And then the engine failed.

Warning: The following post contains an excessive and uncharacteristically negative description of our experiences for the day. No children were harmed in the making of this blog and at no point were we actually in anything resembling actual danger. Those of a nervous disposition, or our parents, should perhaps wait for tomorrow’s blog where it all works out nicely and I have one of the nicest night watches ever…

If day 4 was bad, day 5 has been a total shocker. We’ve been mired in horrible weather, fighting invisible and seemingly random currents (3kts going in the wrong direction) while trying to sail in wind that can shift 180 degrees in the time it takes to scream a handful of blasphemous obscenities at the world before once again furling the bastard headsail and tacking away from French Polynesia.

The atmosphere onboard Susan has not been harmonious and we’ve had to put a halt to counting the inappropriate use of fecking language by all members of the crew – apologies for that, stats fans.
I spent a good few hours in the cockpit fully togged up in my wet weather gear (which hasn’t been needed since the Bay of Bloody Biscay) fighting to maintain a course whilst the crew were pinballed around the saloon every time we fell off another huge wave. Meanwhile, multiple new leaks were discovered in the cabins. The boys’ beds were soaked by rain coming in through the chain plates and we had to put a bucket under the hatch in our cabin to catch the flood washing in. Pacific my bloody arse. It’s nothing short of Aggressive. Grrr…

Just when we thought it could get no worse, the engine coughed, spluttered and died a slow and clearly painful death. Without its help we were at the complete mercy of the sea and the wind and started drifting towards Colombia. Now, unbelievably, there is an actual island out here, Isla Malpelo its called and it sat directly between Fat Susan and the Colombian coast. In sailing parlance, we were in trouble.

In these situations, it’s possible to “park” a boat by setting the sails against themselves in a manoeuvre known as “heaving to” (or “heave ho-ing” if you’re a Fattie). Alas, in a 3 knot current this is totally ineffective. The water here is 3 km deep so anchoring isn’t an option either. I therefore cracked on with trying to fix the engine. Filters were changed. Fuel lines were bled. Calls were put out to our sailing flotilla, requesting advice. I got a blister on my thumb, but nothing worked. The engine stubbornly refused to run for more than a few minutes before coughing and dying again.

On the upside (there’s always an upside if you look hard enough), things onboard did get mildly more comfortable whilst I took the engine to bits as the wind and rain completely vanished and we sat becalmed, silently bobbing towards Isla Malpelo, watching our dreams of sailing to New Zealand melt away faster than a Cornetto in the Caribbean.

And that’s where day 5 ended. With an estimated 20 hours drifting between us and certain doom, we packed up and went to bed. Sick of day 5, hoping that day 6 would see a return to glory, we stuffed towels into the headlining to try and stem the flood of rainwater, changed the sheets and put together an ad-hoc watch rota for the night.

Stats for nerds
I’m afraid that there are only two statistics of any importance today.

Number of working engines: 0

Distance made good in the last 24 hours: minus 11 nautical miles.  That’s right, after today, we are actually 11 miles further away from our destination.  FFS.

Day 6 – We avoid drifting towards certain death

The decision to sleep on the engine problem and let Susan drift with the current was absolutely the right call. We drifted silently towards Isla Malpelo for four hours and covered more miles going backwards than we achieved in the previous 20 hours trying to fight nature. They were all in completely the wrong direction but they gifted us enough peace and tranquility to get back into the adventure and start thinking rationally again.

By midnight, the wind had come up to 10 knots and we were able to sail away from Isla Malpelo into the safety of the open ocean. And apart from a bit of a sweaty moment when we were drifting at speed directly towards a flotilla of pesky fishing boats who weren’t answering their VHFs, I’d say that it was one of the most peaceful and lovely bits of sailing I’ve ever done. The full moon was shining brightly, the sails were full of wind and I rediscovered my sailing mojo. Yay!

The morning dawned with a lovely southerly breeze that allowed Floss to point Susan directly at the Galapagos while I got busy trying to fix the engine. The sound the engine made as it died pointed clearly at a fuel issue, either there was air in the fuel lines or they were blocked and we were starving the engine. There were no fuel leaks which would indicate the possibility of a hole allowing air into the lines, so a blockage was our next best guess. The run from the fuel tank to the engine is mercifully short and easily accessible, and it didn’t take long to find what can best be described as a nest of diesel soaked sand and pubes lurking in the fuel shut-off valve. With the plug of pubes removed it was a job of minutes to reconnect the fuel lines and re-bleed the lines. The moment of truth arrived. Would the engine start?

It was a joint effort involving all of the Fatties. Floss was in the cockpit controlling the starter and the throttle. I had my head in the engine bay looking for fuel leaks. Sam had his hand on the emergency stop plunger. Evan stood in the companionway coordinating all of our activities.

Go!

Or not.

The engine turned over, but not a splutter or a cough was heard.

On the highly recommended RYA Diesel Engine Maintenance course I’d taken way back in 2017, we’d been shown how to bleed the high pressure lines. I’d never had to do that with Susan, and the manual says it shouldn’t be necessary, but it seemed worthy of a go today. Injector nuts were cracked (ouch!) and we tried again.

Go!

Bubbles of diesel appeared at the injectors, the engine roared into life, and before I had time to tighten the injectors’ nuts, the engine bay, the galley and I were covered in a haze of high pressure diesel.

Stop! Stop! For the love of cheese, bloody well stop!

All the injectors’ nuts were tightened and excited mopping ensued. Third time lucky?

Go!

Susan’s engine turned over, instantly sprang into life, and stayed alive with not a hint of a cough or a splutter or a whimper. Total relief. We were back in the game, baby. Oh yes. I love this sailing life. Wouldn’t swap it for the world.

The rest of the day was pure, sweet perfection. The wind held steady and we moved a fantastic 110 nautical miles closer to French Polynesia. The sun was out and the sea was calm. A celebration meal of mash, gravy and chicken nuggets was a fitting end to the day. Bring on day 7 I say!

Stats for nerds
Number of working engines: 1 – huzzah!
Total distance traveled: 686 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.7 knots
Distance to go: 3431 nautical miles
Distance made good: 369 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 2.5 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 70
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Bourne Legacy
Total number of films watched by kids: 17
Total number of films watched by adults: 0
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 80% – the impact of all the bedding being wet after the floods is still taking its toll

Day 7 – We make slow progress, but at least it’s progress

After the excitement of the last few days, The Fatties had promised themselves a quieter, more relaxed sort of day for our first virtual Sunday of the crossing. Floss and Dez hatched a plan to find time to fall asleep watching a film, simultaneously improving our stats and making up for some of the sleep deprivation of our first week at sea.

It was to be a plan born out of naivety and hopeless optimism.

The sea state was relatively benign in the morning and we took the opportunity to get out on deck and slap some more silicone sealant around the chain plates in an attempt to stem the floods in the boys’ cabin. We slowed right down to limit the water sploshing over the deck and had a very pleasant couple of hours bobbing around in the sunshine.

Sufficient time was spent slowly sailing west for the silicone to start curing before tacking and pushing on south. The tack didn’t go exactly to plan as we weren’t moving quickly enough when we started this most basic of sailing manoeuvres, and we accidentally ended up heave ho-ing and coming to a dead stop in the water. What looked like an embarrassing schoolboy mistake actually turned into a total gift as Susan happily bobbed about in the swell with not a drop of spray getting anywhere near the deck. A plan was quickly hatched to take advantage of our poor sailing technique. The water maker was deployed, salty bedsheets were washed in a bucket, more silicone was liberally splashed about and bucket showers were taken on the deck.

Approximately three hours of domestic bliss later we skillfully managed to sail out of the heave ho and set off again. Despite being perfectly stationary in the water, the current was still moving and we had drifted a good four miles, in the wrong direction, obviously.

Other highlights of the day saw us have our first full day completely under sail. We might be making achingly slow progress towards French Polynesia, but at least we’re now doing it “properly”. And the forecast looks like tomorrow could see another full day’s sailing. Fingers are still being kept crossed that the engine will behave itself when we next need it, but at the moment, ignorance is bliss.

Stats for nerds
Number of working engines: 1 – huzzah!
Total distance traveled: 793 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.7 knots
Distance to go: 3442 nautical miles
Distance made good: 358 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 2.1 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 70
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Bourne Legacy
Total number of films watched by kids: 19
Total number of films watched by adults: 0

Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 70% – the annoyance of hand washing and drying bedding on a rolling boat taking the edge off the sailing joy

Day 8 – The engine craps out again

Right! Which scurvy dog didn’t keep their fingers crossed in anticipation of restarting the engine successfully? It’s mutiny I tell you!

The weather has been generally crappy, with heavy clouds and a distinct lack of sunshine today. Our solar panels have therefore generated only slightly more than no electricity whatsoever. Given the horrible conditions, we’ve been content to let Susan drive. She’s really brilliant at keeping us bang on course, but she does use a lot of leccy, bless her. Early on in the morning, Susan gave a cry as the batteries got close to being totally flat, and we cranked the engine (carelessly without checking the crew’s crossed finger situation) as that’s our backup for when the sun isn’t shining.

Hands up who can guess what happened?

That’s right. The engine started, ran happily for 2 minutes and then died. Not a slow, lingering death like before.  This was a bullet to the head sort of death.

The fuel lines were checked, and found to be clear but closer inspection of the water separator showed it to be clogged with filth which hadn’t been there yesterday. I drained it of the marmite like muck but decided to properly clean it out while I was at it. Digging into it I found another nest of diesel pubes and masses more marmite. I hate marmite. Everything was bolted back together and the engine roared back into life, thankfully without the need to spray the galley in diesel this time. Huzzah!

With the engine running and the batteries charging we got on with enduring the rest of the day, the highlight of which was watching a lovely pair of red footed boobies struggle to hitch a lift on the pulpit. Bless them for trying. Hours they were at, coming in again and again only to have to bear away at the last second as Susan’s bow smashed into another wave. They did both eventually make a successful landing, but before they could have a poo they were washed off by another huge wave. Good.

Stats for nerds
Number of working engines: possibly 1
Total distance traveled: 923 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.8 knots
Distance to go: 3310 nautical miles
Distance made good: 490 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 2.5 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 70
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Bourne Legacy
Total number of films watched by kids: 23
Total number of films watched by adults: 0
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: minus 20% – complete lack of progress, everything is broken, the batteries are too flat to run the freezer and the boys’ cabin still leaks

Day 9 – Everything leaks

By now, I’m getting thoroughly bored with the ongoing crisis with the engine. The ‘will it, won’t it’ start of each attempted fix is emotionally draining. Suffice to say, the last fix to remove the diesel pubes and marmite from the water separator didn’t do the job, and at around about 4am when we needed the engine to charge up the batteries so that we could continue to use the autopilot, it didn’t work. Hand- steering has therefore now become a significant part of our day. Another “fix” has been identified and I’ll let you all know how it goes when I’m strong enough to try it.

In other news, the fix to stem the flood on Evan’s side of the boys’ cabin has proven successful. The fix on Sam’s side less so. We’ve therefore setup the passage bunk above Evan’s bed and moved Sam over there. We’ll try and work out where the water is coming from later on when things calm down.

We’ve also had a second go at sealing the forward hatch, and moved all of the food that was getting wet into our cabin, which is mostly dry, most of the time.

We’re making good westerly progress and slow but steady progress south now that the wind has obligingly moved around to the south. We’re getting close to where the magical western setting currents have been reported. Hopefully we’ll pick them up in the next day or two sometime before we scoot just north of Darwin island, the most northerly of the Galapagos Islands.

Boobie news: We had a hitch-hiker with us for most of the night. A red-footed boobie (now called Gregory) successfully landed on the guard rails just after dark and immediately went to sleep. His mates continued to circle, but were unable to repeat Gregory’s skillful landing. They’d swoop past and give a loud squark of dismay as they missed the rail and then flap off into the night. Gregory was with us until well past midnight, when I accidentally tacked Susan and sent the boom crashing to the port side. He shot off and thankfully took his stomach contents with him. Gregory is my favourite and most well behaved boobie and is welcome back anytime.

Stats for nerds
Number of working engines: possibly 1
Total distance traveled: 1051 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.9 knots
Distance to go: 3182 nautical miles
Distance made good: 618 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 2.9 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 70
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Harry Potter 1
Total number of films watched by kids: 24
Total number of films watched by adults: 0
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: minus 19% – the fleeting appearance of the sun makes things mildly better, but everything else is still crap

Day 10 – We are not having a fun time

Sweet gorgonzola!  For the love of baby cheeses, what the bloody edam is going on with this weather?

This is not the weather for crossing the world’s biggest ocean. To be clear, this is not even the weather to be sailing in the Solent. This is the weather to be tucked up on the sofa with a litre of cheap port, a massive bar of chocolate and a black and white war film. This is late November weather in the UK. It’s cold, it’s windy, we’re blanketed in thick low cloud and it’s raining. I am not having a good time.

The engine saga is still running, unlike the fecking engine, and we’re doing lots of hand steering, exposed to the elements in the cockpit to reduce the load on the batteries. It’s also necessary to be out in the open as the varying weather means that constant course corrections are needed to prevent unwanted tacks or gybes. I doubt that the PredictWind track will show it but we’ve been slaloming our way around storm after storm all day.

On the upside (I’m trying hard here, don’t be disappointed when you read it) we are a day closer to French Polynesia. Nearly 120 brutal miles achieved today, and all of them in the rough direction of Nuku Hiva.

Huzzah for the mostly southern wind.

Huzzah for wet weather gear.

Huzzah for thick socks and gloves.

Boo for having buried the blankets too deeply in the bilges to be able to dig them out on a violently rolling boat.

Sorry stats fans. No stats today, we’re too busy to make them up. I will say that the poo knife hasn’t been troubled today though, I know that’s everyone’s favourite stat.

Day 11 – Things brighten up a bit

After my severe weather-based ranting of yesterday, I’m pleased to report that today has been much improved. The swell has dropped steadily throughout the day, the wind has become more consistent and manageable, the cloud has lifted and the rain has stopped.

Things had improved so much by tea time that we were able to dig into the bilges and dig out all of the cold weather gear. We’ve got blankets and sleeping bags to keep out the night chills. There are hats and scarves and gloves and long trousers for the day. And Evan’s personal favourite, thermal underwear. He’s been mincing around Susan looking like someone in a Damart advert from the 1970s for the whole evening. I’ve never seen him so happy.

In engine news, we think that we’ve located the source of our troubles. The fuel line going into the lift pump is showing its age and got a bit saggy around its business end (haven’t we all though, eh?). This is likely the source of the air getting into the lines. We’ve tidied it up and reattached it and we’ll see how that goes. Keeps those fingers crossed, guys. Having found the likely problem, we did seriously consider a diversion down to the inhabited islands of the Galapagos to try and get a replacement, but ultimately decided to push on and manage any problems as they arrive. Even though we were only 200 miles away it would be a three day detour to get down there, all against the wind and the tide. With things improving so much on our westerly course we just couldn’t stomach the grief of more beating into the weather.

Finally, some boobie news. We have not seen the return of Gregory today, but three other intrepid souls took advantage of the calming conditions and hitched a lift on the pulpit. The three red footed boobies had a brief argument about fishing quotas before snuggling up together and getting some rest. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

Still no stats I’m afraid. With the improvement in the weather I’m hoping to be able to work out the all important numbers for you nerds out there tomorrow.

Day 12 – Isla Darwin and SV Bacchus – the best day at sea ever

Hold onto your hats, fellow fat lovers, this is going to be emotional…

What an unbelievable start to the day! Looming out of the mist and towering above us was Isla Darwin, the most northerly of the Galapagos Islands. Its sheer cliffs and rocky shore mean that it’s totally impossible to even consider landing here (not to mention the fact that it’s completely illegal and poor form to invade a wildlife sanctuary, what would the great Sir Lord David Attenborough have to say?), but just seeing land brought a lump to my throat.

But wait, it gets better…

By some miracle of timing we could also see the lovely Asher and Dani on SV Bacchus approaching fast from the south. Full sails up and looking magnificent in the early morning sun. Seeing them in the shadow of the island brought tears to my eyes.  The last time we saw them was as we left The Perlas Islands, twelve days ago.  They took a completely different route to us, and we have arrived at the Galapagos Islands at exactly the same time.  How weird is that??

We heave-ho’d (because we’re The Fatties), they hove to (because they’re proper sailors) and we caught up on each other’s news by shouting between boats, exchanged “care packages” and generally hung out together. It’s difficult to put into words how much this has cheered me up. It really does feel like we’ve passed our first major milestone of the passage. A really significant achievement for a family of land lubbers who struggle to differentiate a sheet from a halyard and who think that the stars are pretty and not something to be used for navigation.

Another significant milestone is that we’ve crossed our first timezone. We’re now six hours behind the UK and even more confused than ever about whether it’s time for afternoon tea and biscuits, or time for a nap. Most of the time it feels like we should be doing both, and I really hope that with the current being with us instead of against us we can start spilling less tea and napping more soundly.

And now, the bit you’ve all been waiting for…

Stats for nerds

Number of working engines: probably 1
Total distance traveled: 1124 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.3 knots
Distance to go: 2866 nautical miles
Distance made good: 934 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 3.2 knots
Hours motoring: 103
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 1 each
Number of times we spotted Sir Lord David Attenborough: 0 – he’s sheltering at home, not bothering wildlife at the Galapagos

How far we could have travelled in a car: 15015 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 1
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Harry Potter 3
Favourite series of Blackadder: 2
Favourite QI fact: The world’s oddest book title, “People who don’t know that they are dead, how they attach themselves to unsuspecting bystanders, and what to do about it”
Total number of films watched by kids: 26
Total number of films watched by adults: 0
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 70% – I’ve been promised that there’ll be no more fighting wind and current and I’ll never again sail minus 11 miles towards our destination

Day 13 – Finally sailing in the right direction

Having spent the last twelve days trying to make progress, today has seen the wind and the current finally on our side. You’d think that we’d be revelling in this new found speed, but bizzarely we spent the day trying to go slower. When we hit 9.5 knots we started reducing sail, then we took the prop brake off (we’ve got a swankypants furling prop, we go faster if we stop it spinning when sailing), then we fiddled with the sails a bit to make them less efficient, finally we reduced sail a bit more. Screaming along at 9 knots is great for speedy passage making but it’s really uncomfortable and scarily noisy and we just don’t like it. Comfort over speed has been today’s motto as we’re all exhausted and we settled on a still respectable 6 knots by bedtime.

Still, the speed has given us our best day so far and we’re now 147 miles closer to French Polynesia than we were when we started the day. If we keep this pace up then we’ll be there before August. Which is nice.

No big news today, so here are some headlines from around the boat:

Early morning bucket shower for the grownups.

Pancakes for breakfast.

Dez read a book, watched a film and listened to a podcast.

Kids forced to bake brownies to stave off extreme boredom.

Cheese supplies running low and are now being rationed.

Health and Safety Sam metamophosed into a boy racer and actively resisted attempts to slow Susan down whilst on the helm.

Fresh fruit and veg supplies almost exhausted, more poo knife action expected as things inevitably start backing up.

Battery management going well, another day of zero engine hours.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: probably 1
Total distance traveled: 1370 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.4 knots
Distance to go: 2722 nautical miles
Distance made good: 1078 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 3.5 knots

Hours motoring: 103
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 1.5 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 16267 nautical miles

Timezones crossed: 1

Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Harry Potter 3
Favourite series of Blackadder: 2
QI Fact Of The Day: There is a type of leech that only lives in hippopotamuses bottoms and has to hold on at both ends as hippopotamuses do explosive farts

Total number of films watched by kids: 28
Total number of films watched by adults: 1
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 65% – The rating will only go up when I get more sunshine and less drizzle

Day 14 – Two weeks at sea, time for a wash

July 14, 2020

Day 14, our second virtual Sunday, dawned cold and overcast but with a much gentler swell than the previous few mornings. It was time to make some water!

Floss was sleeping off the effects of her 4am shift so it was down to the boys and me to get Susan heave ho-ed. Evan was concerned about the finer details of the manoeuvre, but as I explained, the process is pretty simple, we just needed to do a really bad job of tacking. Given our boat handling skills, he seemed to think that this was eminently achievable, which I took as a compliment.

The water tanks and jerry cans were soon filled and we took the opportunity to reintroduce the kids to shampoo and shower gel. Given the weather, and that all showers on Susan are taken al fresco, this second task didn’t take long and we were soon on our way. We kept the overnight combination of the staysail and double reefed main and were soon hooning consistently at 8 – 8.5 knots. We even had a brief glimpse of the sun. Yahoo!

The rest of the day was a pretty chilled affair. The stress of the battle to escape the Armpit of Panama has caught up with us and much napping was done. Our last pineapple has reached peak ripeness so that’s been chopped up and stashed in the fridge awaiting the first signs of scurvy to start showing in the crew. As an aside, does anyone know what scurvy looks like? I strongly suspect that someone (Sam) will claim symptoms of scurvy tomorrow and scoff the lot.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: probably 1
Total distance travelled: 1516 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.5 knots
Distance to go: 2585 nautical miles
Distance made good: 1215 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 3.6 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 103
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 17518 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 1
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Harry Potter 3
Favourite series of Blackadder: 2
QI Fact Of The Day: Even if you crack your knuckles every day for 60 years you still won’t get arthritis. Total number of films watched by kids: 30
Total number of films watched by adults: 2
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 65% – Not enough sunshine today to justify any improvement.

Day 15 – We find that westward ocean current.  Yahoo!

What an amazing day it’s been. The sea has been like the proverbial mill pond, the current has been racing westward, the wind has been consistent and even the sun briefly graced us with its presence in the morning. We’ve been literally flying today with a speed over ground regularly over 9 knots, and we have not slammed into a single wave all day. Truly fantastic sailing.

To mark our wedding anniversary, Floss took advantage of the calm seas and butchered the world’s biggest pumpkin, turning it into a feast of pumpkin and lentil curry and spicy pumpkin soup. She cooked up four meals worth of curry and soup and still had enough pumpkin left over to fill the freezer. Dinner was served by the kids who then did the washing up and the early evening watches so that we could have the evening off to watch a film. Truly a fantastic treat.

It’s been a bloody brilliant day and we’re hoping for a good few more days like it before we get to French Polynesia. Hooning all day with the milky way, shooting stars and satellites all night has made a perfect start to week 3.

Scurvy news: Many thanks for all of the splendid emails detailing the various symptoms of scurvy. As predicted, Sam played his scurvy joker despite showing none of the official symptoms and snaffled most of the pineapple before we could shout “Show me your gums, have they softened?”. The current outlook is for us to take another three weeks to get to French Polynesia, we may need to break open the vitamin supplements in the next week.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: probably 1
Total distance travelled: 1679 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.7 knots
Distance to go: 2386 nautical miles
Distance made good: 1414 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 3.9 knots
Top speed recorded: 11.8 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 103
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 18769 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 1
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Die Hard 2
Favourite series of Blackadder: 2
QI Fact Of The Day: An blue whale’s penis is 16 feet long
Total number of films watched by kids: 32
Total number of films watched by adults: 3
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 65% – Again, not enough sunshine today to justify any improvement.

Day 16 – Our fastest ever sailing

What a fantastic day’s progress. We faffed about in the morning for a couple of hours trying to find a sail setup that worked before settling on running downwind on just the headsail. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be too efficient, but today, probably due to those fabulous ocean currents, we’ve been storming along. A peak of 13.1 knots with and average of 7.6 knots saw us fly 173 miles closer to Nuku Hiva. Unprecedented progress for the Fatties, which has really lifted our spirits.

We’re rapidly closing in on the half way point, which has been chosen to be a longitude of 109 degrees and 30 minutes west. We’re not too troubled by being scientifically accurate here, and needed to pick a point that we didn’t need to do any maths to spot; we can watch the GPS screens and see our progress towards this point literally ticking away. Another couple of days at our current pace should see us race across this invisible line in the ocean. Beer may be drunk. Chocolate may be eaten. Tears may be cried.

Toilet News: I fear that one of the seals on the toilet is going the same way as the fuel lines as we’re starting to get product flowing back into the bowl when we’re heeling. We’ve instigated a regular “bowl watch” system to avoid product spillage, but we’re also in the market for a new, flushing related toilet mantra. Suggestions to the usual email address please.

Scurvy News: The pineapple has been scoffed. No cases of scurvy yet reported.

Number of working engines: probably 1
Total distance travelled: 1862 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.8 knots
Distance to go: 2213 nautical miles
Distance made good: 1587 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.1 knots
Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 103
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 20021 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 1
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Die Hard 2
QI Fact Of The Day: Your best chance of winning a penalty shootout is to either aim directly at the goaly, or be German.

Total number of films watched by kids: 34
Total number of films watched by adults: 4
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 70% – Again, not enough sunshine today to justify any serious improvement, but a good day hooning always makes things better.

Day 17 – Screw comfort, I need speed

It’s been a day of two halves. The daylight half has seen us screaming along, regularly over 10 knots with the wind and the swell on our aft quarter. It’s been fast and pretty comfortable even though today’s motto has been “Screw comfort, I need speed”.

A record distance of 197.6 nautical miles has made us all very happy.

The night time half has been less great. Within an hour of the sun disappearing behind the horizon the wind dropped completely and it became impossible to hold any sort of westerly course. Sail faff in the dark ensued, but to no avail. There was nothing for it, we’d have to motor for a bit until the wind picked up. The engine fired first time, and we all stared at the rev counter, braced for Susan’s now common deathly cough and splutter from the engine. But no, bless her heart, Susan pulled us through and ran smoothly for three hours till the wind returned. Huzzah for Susan, that’s what I say.

As well as getting us 20 something miles closer to Nuku Hiva, running the engine also had the benefit of putting a bit of charge into the batteries. The morning had started with a low battery warning and we’d been hand steering for most of the day as the dismal levels of sunshine were only just enough to keep the fridge running. We’re in serious need of some heavy sunshine for the next couple of days. If you’ve got any spare, please send some our way. Thank you.

In wildlife news, we’ve hit a rich seam of suicidal flying fish and jumpy squid recently. They mostly land on the deck overnight and we’ve had to start regular morning patrols to hoik them back into the sea as they stink and make a right mess.  However, yesterday we had a lucky strike and managed to save a life. The hapless squid hurled itself into the cockpit around 10pm, making an unpleasant splat against Sam’s leg. Once the squid was over the initial shock, which happened way before Sam got over the shock, it decided that suicide was a bad life choice and started looking for a way back to the sea. It made a truly nightmarish vision, as it climbed vertically out of the cockpit in a cacophony of eyes, tentacles and slime. Sam and I weren’t going to go anywhere near it, but Floss came to its rescue, gently easing it away from Susan and plopping it back into the sea. Yuck. Sometimes nature is best experienced from the safety of a television I reckon.

Finally, it looks like we’ll reach our theoretical half way point sometime in the middle of tomorrow night. It’s a shame for us not all to be around to enjoy the moment, so we’ve nudged it 30 miles west so that it now sits at 02 00.000N 110 00.000W. Hopefully now we’ll all be awake to join in the celebrations.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: generally 1
Total distance travelled: 2059 nautical miles
Average speed: 5.0 knots
Distance to go: 2024 nautical miles
Distance made good: 1776 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.3 knots
Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots

Hours motoring: 106
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 21272 nautical miles

Timezones crossed: 1

Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Die Hard 2
QI Fact Of The Day: An orange is the exact molecular opposite of a lemon
Total number of films watched by kids: 34
Total number of films watched by adults: 4
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 75% – Still not enough sunshine today to justify any serious improvement, but a good day hooning always makes things better.

Day 18 – We finally get some sunshine

I love the internet, I just bloody love it. It’s a miracle, and if it didn’t exist then someone would simply have to invent it. You can do anything on the internet. Yesterday, we used the internet to ask for someone to send some sunshine over, and they did. Day 18 has seen us basking in super heavy sunshine with a stiff breeze pushing us along at well over 7 knots for the day. The solar panels have been cracking out the electrons for a solid 12 hours and the batteries are absolutely full to bursting. I don’t know which of our avid readers sent the sunshine, but we’re eternally grateful and we’ll toast your health next time we have a beer.

The arrival of the sunshine allowed us to let Susan do the driving, and released a bit of the pressure that we’ve all been living under since we left the Perlas islands. The reality of just how knackered we are, what we’ve worked through so far, and how far we still have to go caught up with us. Everything felt like an effort and not a great deal of anything got done. The autopilot started making a new and unpleasant noise during the day, but I was too exhausted to investigate. Needless to say, the noise has got worse throughout the day, and I spent my midnight till 3am watch regretting my laziness. A priority job for tomorrow will be emptying the garage and checking the autopilot and steering gear.

Toilet News: The much calmer weather today has meant no heeling and therefore we’ve had no backwash into the bowl. As soon as the swell returns we’ll be following the new mantra (again, thanks are necessary to the internet) of “Stay Alert, Pump Carefully, Save Susan”.

Final thought for the day regarding keeping myself entertained during a long, cold night watch. I’ve been very much enjoying discovering hidden music gems from my youth lurking lost and forgotten on my phone. Last night’s discovery was Meat Loaf and the fact that I still know the words to “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”, 8 minutes and 28 seconds of totally indulgent musical perfection from my teenage years. Check it out, it’ll bring a smile to your face.

Finally, finally, some wise words from Evan on the subject of vegetables and women:
“You don’t want any leeks on a boat. They’re bad luck on a boat. Like women. And rabbits. And pasties. I wouldn’t have them on a boat if I were you”

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 2222 nautical miles
Average speed: 5.1 knots
Distance to go: 1864 nautical miles
Distance made good: 1936 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.5 knots
Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots
Hours motoring: 107
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2 each
Timezones crossed: 1
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Die Hard 2
Total number of films watched by kids: 34

Total number of films watched by adults: 4

Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 15% – despite the very welcome appearance of the sun, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the scale of what we’re doing.

Day 19 – Halfway Day!!

Halfway Day!

Woohoo!

At 07:58 we crossed our theoretical halfway point of 110 degrees west. Keen readers will note that we arbitrarily moved this point 30 miles west to ensure that the whole crew could enjoy the moment. Alas, the cracking progress we’d made over the last few days meant that everyone apart from me was still asleep when the time came. Ho hum!

We’re hoping that we’ll need considerably fewer than 19 days to do the second half of the journey. The first half was a slow struggle out of the armpit, but now we’re enjoying the westerly currents and are flying towards Polynesia. Estimates show that we’ve got about two weeks’ hooning left to do. Fingers crossed that the wind and the currents stay with us, but we’ll not start counting the days until we’re less than 1000 miles away.

If celebrations were missed in the morning, we more than made up for it in the evening with a veritable feast of freezer based comfort food, home baked pizza swirls and an ice cold beer. This is the way to live life.

The day itself was spent enjoying the sunshine, faffing with fuel lines, failing to discover the source of the autopilot noise, drinking coffee and eating biscuits. Bon Jovi provided the throw-back soundtrack to my night time watch. And I’m getting close to discovering just who committed the Murder on the Orient Express.

Life Saving News: Sam continues to be the Dr. Doolittle of The Fatties saving two more souls on his late night watch. Another suicidal squid, determined to end it all, leapt out of the sea, slapped Sam on the chest and started thrashing around in the cockpit. Sam valiently administered first aid (he kept it soaked in sea water) whilst calling for backup. Once its condition had been stabilised, Floss hoiked it into the sea. The second near casualty was a monster flying fish that arced majestically across the cockpit, just inches from Sam’s face, before landing on the deck and starting to thrash around manically. With only seconds to act, there was no time to call for backup and Sam bravely leapt into action, single-handedly grabbing the fish by the tail and hoiking it back into the sea. Well done Sam, you’re a real fishy hero.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 2338 nautical miles
Average speed: 5.1 knots
Distance to go: 1804 nautical miles
Distance made good: 1996 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.4 knots
Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots
Hours motoring: 107
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Timezones crossed: 1

Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 90% – the sun is out, the wind has dropped and the waves have vanished; this is the sort of sailing I like!

Day 20 – We are becalmed.  Sigh.

When we look back on this bit of our sailing adventure with Susan, day 20 will be characterised by the words

slow
tedious
frustrating
dull
exhausting
depressing
hot

The wind started to slacken off in the evening of day 19, and continued to drop throughout the night until our speed through the water was being recorded as 0.0 knots. That’s right, our only movement was due to the prevailing current which was nudging us along at an average of 1 knot, in a roughly north westerly direction. I guess that it could have been worse, at least the current was on our side, if it had been against us we’d have had another “minus” mileage day.

We agonised all day about using the engine to try and motor to find some wind but given its lack of reliability and our limited fuel reserves we decided that we should save the engine for when we really needed it. We’ve still got to cross the doldrums and snuggle into an anchorage in Nuku Hiva so we just had to suck it up and hope that the wind returns tomorrow.

Having been handed a lemon of a day, we tried to make lemonade and got on with some chores. We made some more water. We did some laundry. We had a wash, well, most of us did. Dr Doolittle insisted that he preferred to carry the slight aroma of fish with him and managed to dodge soap all day. Evan made chicken nuggets for dinner, which we all enjoyed in the cockpit with a glorious sunset. Lovely.

Murder News: !SPOILER ALERT! I finished my book, and was delighted to discover that it was the butler, and the nanny, and the cook, and driver, mother, sister, best friend, father, father’s girlfriend, teacher, another best friend and policeman’s son. I think. Basically, everyone on the Orient Express had a hand in the murder. But the victim was a proper wrong ‘un and had it coming to him I reckon. Vigilantism On The Orient Express would be a more accurate title, but clearly gives the plot away a touch.

Suicide News: Given the total lack of wind and progress, the night time watch schedule was adjusted and everyone but Floss had the night off, including the suicidal squid and fish. Not a single corpse was found on the morning patrols, which made a very pleasant change. Although we did find a dead fish in the dinghy yesterday. He’d clearly been there a few days and had started baking in the sunshine. Not having greased the dingy before we set off, he left a very sticky residue as he was peeled off the hull. I think that he might have become a permanent feature. Dr Doolittle has already named “him” Stephen Fried. Rumour has it that he’s working on comedy names for the “angel wings” left on the pointy end by a flying fish and the spooky ink blot tentacles left near the blunt end by a suicide squid who emptied his voluminous ink sack in his death throes.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 2382 nautical miles
Average speed: 4.9 knots
Distance to go: 1762 nautical miles
Distance made good: 2038 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.2 knots
Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots
Hours motoring: 107
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2.75 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 25026 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 1

Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 60% – the sun is out, but the wind has dropped too far, this isn’t sailing, it’s merely floating with style.

Day 21 – We get confused by time zones

After yesterday’s dismal performance, the wind has made a bit of a lame, half cocked sort of appearance today. It arrived with the sun, faffed around for 12 hours with just enough enthusiasm to tickle Susan along at about 4 knots, and then vanished in a blaze of glorious sunset loveliness leaving us once again becalmed and bobbing about in the swell. However, this time the desire to make progress overrode the desire to save fuel and engine hours and at 8 o’clock we tidied the flogging sails away and fired up the engine. It took till 3am but we eventually found the wind and current lurking at around 114 degrees west. Sails up, engine off, we’re back in business.

We managed 130 nautical miles for the day, but this is flattered slightly by the fact that we’re catching up on timezones and day 21 was therefore a 25 hour day. Day 22 will also be a 25 hour day. Many thanks to the lovely Ryan for looking up the longitudes of the various zones. We should have ticked one off soon after Isla Darwin, there was another a couple of days later, and we’ve got one and a half to go before we get to Nuku Hiva. Next time we cross an ocean I’ll endeavour to make a note of timezones before we set off. I’m sure that I made the same mistake (and subsequent promise) on the Atlantic crossing.

If the day hasn’t been fantastic for progress, it has been our best so far for wildlife. We had an early morning visit from a pod of pilot whales, and were then entertained by a huge pod of dolphins chasing down the biggest tuna we’ve ever seen. We briefly discussed the idea of putting the fishing line out as there were clearly fish around, but the tuna we saw jumping out of the sea looked big enough to sink Susan. There’d be no way we’d ever manage to land one of those monsters.

Doolittle News: No lives lost and none to be saved again last night. The change in overnight watch schedule due to the calm weather ensured that Dr Doolittle’s healing hands weren’t required to help maintain the fish and squid populations. Which is good.

Music News:  The overnight soundtrack was courtesy of Bryan Adams. Not nearly as good as I remember it, but I was preoccupied with listening to every tiny grumble and little mumble from the engine incase it was about to die again. Perhaps I’ll give him another go when I’m in a better frame of mind.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 2512 nautical miles
Average speed: 5.0 knots
Distance to go: 1655 nautical miles
Distance made good: 2145 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.3 knots
Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 116
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2.75 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 26190 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 2
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Ocean’s Eleven
Total number of films watched by kids: 36
Total number of films watched by adults: 4
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 90% – the sun is out, the wind is gentle, the sea is calm and it’s full of whales and dolphins; what’s not to love?

Day 22 – We have nothing to report

July 23 2020

Not a lot to report today. It’s been another frustrating day of disappointingly variable winds, coupled with significant sail faff to try and maximise our use of the minimal breeze. Every one of the 141 miles we sailed today has been hard won. But by 8 o’clock in the evening we’d hauled in the sails and were drifting through the pitch black night with zero wind. The moon sets just after the sun at the moment and coupled with a cloudy sky, means we can see nothing beyond Susan’s guard rail except inky blackness. With no point of reference it was a surreal and slightly scary experience. No moon. No stars. No horizon. No waves. Even the phosphorescence disappears when there’s no wake. I don’t like it.

Fishing News: Nothing to report here, as has become normal. We’ve had a line out every day since we received a new lure in our care package from Bacchus but haven’t had a single sniff from a fish yet. Maybe tomorrow…

Doolittle News: Nothing to report here either. Our passage through the inky blackness of the night was so stealthy that nothing spotted us moving. Not even the invisible, glow-in-the-dark critters twinkled their little bottoms at us. Another good night for the fishy squiddy populations.

Wildlife News: At last, something to report! We’ve acquired a hitch-hiker. Something squishy has taken advantage of all of the time that we’ve spent wallowing over the last 3 days and has made its home in our log wheel. Our reported speed through the water has been steadily reducing over the last couple of days and has now finally reached zero as the little critter got himself properly comfortable. We’ll report on exactly what has moved in when we get to Nuku Hiva and can get rid of the little bugger.

Timezone News: Yesterday was another 25 hour day (which explains some of the 141 miles we did yesterday) and we’ve now caught up on the zones that we missed. We’re now at GMT -8 hours.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1

Total distance travelled: 2653 nautical miles

Average speed: 5.0 knots
Distance to go: 1523 nautical miles

Distance made good: 2277 nautical miles

Average speed made good: 4.3 knots

Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots

Hours motoring: 117
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2.75 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 27527 nautical miles, which is more than once around the world

Timezones crossed: 3

Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 65% – bored of constant sail changes and very little actual sailing.

Day 23 – Ben Ainsley eat your heart out!

If day 20 was characterised by slow and disappointing adjectives, day 23 has been a day of

speed
power
balance

contentment
sunshine
progress

As soon as everyone was up and breakfasted, we pointed Susan directly at French Polynesia, hoisted all of the sails and got cracking with the fastest day’s sailing in the world, ever. Ben Ainsley would have struggled keeping up with Susan as she picked up her skirt and literally sprinted towards the equator. For the first time since we left Panama the wind remained steady and we were able to get all of the sails up and properly trimmed. The telltales were streaming, the rudder was dead centre and we were gobbling through nine miles every hour. I’m expecting good things from the enthusiasm-for-sailing- ometer today, I can tell you.

Our rapid progress continued for a full 24 hours after which we were 211.1 nautical miles closer to Nuku Hiva than when we started. And what perfect miles they were too. A gentle swell with hardly any heeling nursed us through the day; we didn’t even have to hang on when we were sitting down. It was like having a holiday from crossing the Pacific. Loved it!

Technology News: With two teenage boys onboard we were worried about how they’d handle being cutoff from the internet for over a month. It turns out that they’ve coped better than most of our devices. Phones, tablets and music players are all now complaining that as they’ve not spoken to Uncle Google, Auntie Disney and Cousin Netflix they don’t know if they’re allowed to play the music or watch the films we downloaded in Panama any more. Floss has got 13 songs on her phone which are going to be providing the soundtrack for the next 1500 miles. Unless I can find some music on a hard drive somewhere, my night watch playlists could be replaced by Dolly Parton, Tom Jones and Spandau Ballet. Gulp.

Critter News: We discovered that the critter in the log wheel isn’t entirely settled in. Once we get over 8.5 knots, he can no longer stop the log wheel from turning and we register some speed through the water. Let’s hope that yesterday’s magnificent speed gave him a right royal headache and he soon decides to move on.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 2863 nautical miles
Average speed: 5.1 knots
Distance to go: 1318 nautical miles
Distance made good: 2482 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.5 knots
Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 117
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2.75 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 28780 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 3
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Ocean’s Eleven
Total number of films watched by kids: 44
Total number of films watched by adults: 4
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 100% – had a lovely day, the sun was out, the sea was calm and we smashed our way into the 200 mile club

Pacific Crossing Newsflash – We crossed the EQUATOR!

Celebrations have started aboard Fat Susan as she sprinted across the equator at 10:21 local time (18:21 GMT). Rum was drunk. Chocolate was eaten. Thanks and offerings were given to Neptune to ask for our continued safe passage. With our heads spinning slightly with the rum, we splurged some phone credit on emotional calls home to our parents. Celebrations are continuing throughout the day with the boys baking a magnificent lemon drizzle cake, an evening menu of burger and chips, and maybe, just maybe, a cheeky beer as the sun sets on another fantastic day of sailing.

Day 24 – We share rum and chocolate with Neptune

July 25 2020

Equator Crossing Day!

Huzzah and hooray, we’ve made it into the Southern Hemisphere. Who’d have guessed that was ever going to happen when we slipped the lines in Portsmouth and headed into the Solent with a plan that could be summarised as:

Sail to Falmouth
Pick up Uncle Adam
Sail to Spain
Have an adventure

And to be fair, we weren’t even that confident about the picking up Uncle Adam bit.

It just goes to show what can happen if you stop thinking of reasons not to.

It’s been another fantastic high mileage day with us slicing through another 201.1 miles of the journey. Unbelievably, we’ve covered 10% of the whole Pacific crossing in just two days. It’s a far cry from the first two weeks struggling to get out of the armpit of Panama.

We crossed the equator at 10:21 Susan Standard Time, and shared our celebratory rum and chocolate with Neptune. Festivities continued throughout the day with the kids baking a fantastic cake (don’t tell Neptune, he didn’t get a slice) and burgers and beer for dinner (he didn’t get any of that either). Phone calls home were pretty emotional, as were all of the congratulatory emails and messages that we received. Thank you to everyone who’s been watching our progress and helped us celebrate the day. We’ve now got much less than an Atlantic crossing left to do, and with luck we should be getting to Polynesia sometime in the next two weeks.

In other news:

We didn’t touch the sails for another 24 hours, this is our type of sailing!

We had a record day of solar power generation with nearly 3kWh being squeezed into the batteries.

We’re still seeing the occasional boobie, which is amazing given that the nearest land is 1400 miles away.

The critter in the log wheel is getting stronger and has now completely stopped the wheel from spinning. He’s living on borrowed time, as soon as we arrive in Polynesia he’s toast.

As we crossed the equator we were :
5400 nautical miles north of Antarctica
2000 nautical miles south of Los Angeles
7200 nautical miles east of Borneo
2400 nautical miles west of Ecuador
Basically, we’re a long way from anywhere.

No stats today nerd lovers, I’m afraid that we’ve been having far too chilled a time to work any out.

Day 25 – We hit the Horse Latitudes

The heady progress of the equator crossing came to a slow, whimpering end today as we crossed back into the doldrums. Right at about 2 degrees south, the wind dropped and we were again struggling to get above 4 knots. This area around the equator used to be known as the “Horse Latitudes”, as this is where, to avoid starvation, the crews of tall ships stranded for weeks at a time would start eating the horses that they’d brought with them.

There’s no room for a hamster let alone a horse on Susan, so getting stranded for days on end (again) wasn’t an option. We engaged in heavy and frustrating sail faff whilst all the while inching our way south to where we hoped the wind would again pick up. And right about tea time, the wind did indeed pick up. We had a fantastic chilli con carne in the cockpit, basking in the sunset’s warm glow while the billowing cruising chute pulled us majestically south. It was a moment of pure indulgent pleasure, right up to the time that the sun vanished below the horizon and we realised that there’s no way we could get through the night with the current sail plan. Major sail faff ensued by torchlight as the chute was snuffed, poles and lines pulled back in and tidied up, the headsail was unfurled and a tight knot of halyards was unwrapped from around the radar.

We’re hoping that in the next day or so we’ll have threaded our way between opposing gyres and be far enough south to make our final turn and start heading directly at Nuku Hiva. Excitement is building as from that point there’ll only be a sniff over 1000 miles left of the journey. Woo hoo!

Moon News: We’ve almost been sailing for a full cycle of the moon and we’re pleased to report that the moon is once again making a welcome appearance and lighting our way to Polynesia. It spoils the view of the stars, but I’d much rather that than have any more of those eerie, pitch black nights drifting through the night with no horizon. It puts the willies right up you, it does.

Ginger News: We’ve reached crisis point with the McVities Ginger Nuts. Despite buying enough gingers to last us for 3 packets a week for 7 weeks, we are now down to our last, solitary packet. And we’re only on day 26, with at least a week of the crossing still to go. Accusations are flying, and Sam is copping most of the heat, but we all know that it’s Floss who is the weak link when it comes to dunking a ginger nut.

Blog News: We’ve heard from a couple of highly prized Fat Lovers in Western Australia who have written to us to let us know that the Fat Susan blog is now an essential part of their early morning routine. A big shout out goes to Kate and Nick who will be reading this nonsense in bed with a mug of strong tea. Nick, many thanks for your recent email. The boys and I read your thesis on cannibalism with interest, and will bear it in mind if we ever get stranded. Although, as Floss does almost all of the cooking, we’re going to have to get crafty with the main ‘ingredient’… The prize of an “I wake up with Fat Susan” mug is ready for you both to collect once we make landfall in Nuku Hiva.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 3599 nautical miles
Average speed: 5.9 knots
Distance to go: 1051 nautical miles
Distance made good: 2749 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.6 knots
Top speed recorded: 13.1 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 120
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2.75 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 31283 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 3
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Ocean’s Eleven
Total number of films watched by kids: 46
Total number of films watched by adults: 4
Total books read by Sam: 7
Favourite book read by Sam: Thrawn
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 50% – was having a lovely day, and then we started messing with sails and poles and ropes and nonsense. Grrr…

Day 26 – 1000 nautical miles to go!

It’s been another perfect day. Once again we’ve enjoyed brilliant sunshine, calm seas and strong winds which have allowed us to speed past another Pacific milestone. We’ve now got less than 1000 nautical miles between us and Nuku Hiva. It sounds like a long way, but after nearly 4 weeks at sea it really does feel like the final leg of the journey. Another week should see us safely snuggled up in Taiohae Bay, enjoying that first sweet, sweet beer and looking back on a fantastic adventure. There’s not a lot to report today, here are the highlights:

We had some watermaker faff first thing and we’ve now hopefully got enough water in the tanks to see us through to the end of the journey.

The stars have been breathtaking, possibly the best of the journey so far.

Despite warnings about the strength of the sun, I’ve burned my nose and now look like a clown.

We’ve managed to access some of our downloaded music by resetting the date on our phones.

Evan has discovered that we have all 8 series of Spooks available, and is now on a mission to watch them all before we arrive. He’s started slowly, taking a leisurely 2 days to get through series 1. I’ll monitor his progress and keep you nerds posted.

Day 27 – Fat Susan turns into a washing machine

It’s amazing how quickly things can change on a trip like this. Yesterday we were basking in bright sunshine and loving the calm seas and kind winds. Today, we’ve been battling to stand still as the wind has risen to 20+ knots and the seas have grown to have a 3+ metre swell. There’s not much of a gap between waves so Susan is being knocked around as waves alternately bash her pointy and blunt ends. Susan is fine with this sort of weather, it’s what she was built for, but for us, it feels like we’ve moved into a washing machine. And at night, once the moon has set, the wind howling through the rigging adds an extra dimension of spookiness to the affair.

There’s less to report than yesterday I’m afraid. The tricky conditions (brilliantly described as “gnarly” by the Bacchus crew) make even the simplest task (such as typing up a daily report) a bit of an ordeal, which is why I was a day late with the Day 26 report. Sitting still and holding on has been the main priority today. The upside of all this (there’s always one if you look hard enough) is that with wind comes speed. We’ve been screaming along all day, and the bright sunshine means that there’s enough grunt in the batteries to let Susan do most of the steering. This sort of speed could easily knock a whole day off the rest of the journey. I’m not wishing the journey to be over, but excitement is building at the thought of dropping anchor, getting ashore and discovering a bar that sells cold beer, hot chips and chocolate ice cream.

It’s been too rough to work out anything other than the one stat that’s occupying all of the Fatties’ minds: Distance to go – 764 nautical miles.

Day 28 – A rough wave throws us off the sofa

In the face of massive and occasionally violent seas, excitement levels remain high amongst The Fatties. As the 4th week of this epic passage comes to an end we’ve been hit with the biggest winds and heaviest seas that we’ve seen since we crossed the Atlantic back in February 2018. The Pacific is still refusing to live up to its name and still seems to be intent on making this our most memorable passage ever. The highlight of yesterday saw an evil rogue wave take a broadside swipe at Susan’s beam tipping her 40 degrees to starboard and launching Floss and I off the sofa, flinging us through the air and dumping us unceremoniously on the floor. We’d been having a nap at the time and it’s a pretty confusing way to be woken up I can tell you.

On the upside (you knew there’d be an upside, right?), with the swell at nearly 4 metres and the wind consistently up in the 20s we’ve surfed an impressive 192 nautical miles today and recorded a new top speed of 14.2 knots. At that speed, we’d have only taken 11 days to get to Niku Hiva. As it is, we’re just 582 miles away from landfall and starting to think that we might be in by Sunday.

The swell has made living aboard pretty uncomfortable and cooking nigh on impossible. Luckily, Floss had foreseen this possibility and has stocked the freezer with lots of hearty pre-prepared meals that just need heating up in a pan. Unfortunately, Floss didn’t foresee the difficulty of distinguishing one meal from another and so nothing has been labelled. In conditions like these, we enjoy playing “guess the menu” when Floss serves another helping of “Defrosted Slop Surprise”. Last night was supposed to be chickpea curry, but actually turned out to be a delicious spicy bean casserole. Life is never dull onboard Fat Susan.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 4097 nautical miles
Average speed: 6.1 knots
Distance to go: 582 nautical miles
Distance made good: 3218 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.7 knots
Top speed recorded: 14.2 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 120
Uses of the poo knife: 3
Showers taken by the crew: 2.75 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 35037 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 4
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Ocean’s Eleven
Total number of films watched by kids: 49
Total number of films watched by adults: 4
Total books read by Sam: 9
Favourite book read by Sam: The Hunt for Red October
Number of seasons of Spooks watched by Evan: 3
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 20% – being thrown off the sofa when having a nap is just rude, and unnecessary!

Day 29 – We’re sailing in a washing machine

Phew! Another day in the washing machine. Another 168 nautical miles under the keel. Another day’s worth of bruises and knocks as we edge our way ever closer to Nuku Hiva. I’m loving being out here, just the four of us, and I’m trying to make the most of this precious time together. But bloody hell I’m knackered.

We’re heading pretty much dead down wind with just the poled out headsail which feels slow (but actually isn’t in these conditions) and which causes Susan to be tossed from wave to wave in a constant lurching and lolloping stagger. Sitting still is hard work. Manouvering a cup of coffee from the galley to the cockpit needs military levels of planning and coordination. Going for a wee is an ordeal best put off for as long as possible.

One major squall in the morning caught us all napping and had Sam and I scurrying into the rain battered cockpit to take over from Susan (using the autopilot) who was struggling to hold a course in the blustery conditions. There was no time to adjust the sails so it was simply a matter of trying to run with the wind and holding on till it passed. Sam genuinely seemed to be enjoying the chaos, further evidence that he’s turning into a proper boy racer.

Defrosted Slop Surpise News: The “Guess the Menu” winner was Evan who correctly identified the delicious pumpkin and lentil curry.

Cheese News: To raise spirits Floss has pulled a blinder and released one of the bonus blocks of cheese that she’s been hiding. Cheese on toast for lunch was a real and totally indulgent taste of luxury.

Doolittle News: Suicidal fish and squid have been struggling with the conditions over the last few days but overnight Dr Doolittle copped a whopper of a fish right in the left man-boob. It was too big even for him to deal with and backup was called for to get the stinking monster off the deck. Opinions are divided on whether or not the critter survived the ordeal.

Stats for Nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 4264 nautical miles
Average speed: 6.1 knots
Distance to go: 423 nautical miles
Distance made good: 3377 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.8 knots
Top speed recorded: 14.2 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 120
Uses of the poo knife: 4
Showers taken by the crew: 2.75 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 36288 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 4
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Ocean’s Eleven
Total number of films watched by kids: 51
Total number of films watched by adults: 4
Total books read by Sam: 10
Favourite book read by Sam: The Hunt for Red October
Number of seasons of Spooks watched by Evan: 3
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 40% – feeling a bit better about sailing today as the sun is shining.

Day 30 – We are sooooo close….

More of the same today, but either we’re getting used to the swell or it’s slowly, ever so slowing calming down out here. The rough weather over the last few days has certainly taken its toll and we’re all fading. There has not been a lot of anything happening today.

When you’re this tired it’s easy to lose sight of the magic in what we’re doing and we’re all willing the journey to be over. But, if you can lift yourself above the exhaustion and look at where we are then the massive clear blue sky, and the deeply textured and perfectly blue sea are indescribably beautiful. Floss said today that she would happily spend 30 minutes a day out here for the next six months, on the condition that she got to spend the other 23.5 hours of the day on land.

Vitamin News: As further evidence that things are calming down, we didn’t play “Guess the Menu” tonight. Floss was able to prepare a delicious chicken, mash and gravy combo with carrot (we only had one to share between us) and cabbage. That was absolutely the last veg onboard. Evan couldn’t help letting out the tiniest squeek of delight when he realised that the veg was finally finished. Bless him, we’re only 2 days out of Nuku Hiva and we’ll soon be able to restock on fresh fruit and veg. He’ll be gutted when he realises…

Other News: There really isn’t any.

Stats for nerds

The only statistic we’re focusing on is the distance to go. And at the end of day 30, that stands at a pleasingly small 266 nautical miles. A Saturday arrival is looking possible.

Day 31 – We have a day of ‘firsts’

Oooo… We’re getting close. We can almost see land. We can almost step ashore. We can almost order those cold beers, those hot chips and the biggest chocolatey ice creamy thing on the menu. We’re now openly wishing the journey was over, there’s no pretence of living in the moment, building memories or reflecting on the longest single journey were ever likely to take. Let’s get this journey done!

Someone sent us an email a few days ago saying that more people probably climb Everest these days than sail across the Pacific in a fat little sailboat like Susan. I’m not sure if it’s true, perhaps I’ll look up the stats once we get access to the internet, but it does put the last 31 days in some sort of perspective.

With regards to arriving at Nuku Hiva, we are in the final stages of getting the paperwork together. The Health Authority has been in touch with the last set of questions to be answered and we’re really hoping that we get the “all clear” to come ashore tomorrow. If it doesn’t arrive tomorrow then we’ll probably be quarantined on board till Monday. Beer will still be drunk, but the chips and the ice cream will have to be put on hold for the weekend. Emotions will be on a knife edge tomorrow…

We’ve had a couple of firsts for the journey today:

Today was the first time that the weather has been good enough for us to play cards in the cockpit during our afternoon tea and biscuit session. Despite Sam’s rampant cheating he failed to win anything. Evan was the champion of the day.

Today was the first time that the wind has been right to allow us to set up the cruising chute, and leave it set up for more than a couple of hours. It’s our least favourite sail and if the wind drops enough to use it, we’d vote for putting the engine on instead. However it’s truly a thing of beauty in the right conditions and powered us through another 158 miles. It’s now our favourite sail, because we are that fickle.

Today was also the first time that we’ve had a really clear call using the SSB radio over any significant distance. We managed to join the Pacific Maritime Radio net and discussed the latest Covid news with Peter, a lovely chap who was over 3000 miles away in New Zealand. Sadly, Peter had very little positive news for us. Things certainly haven’t taken a turn for the better in the last 30+ days, have they?

Stats for nerds
Number of working engines: occasionally 1
Total distance travelled: 4586 nautical miles
Average speed: 6.2 knots
Distance to go: 116 nautical miles
Distance made good: 3684 nautical miles
Average speed made good: 4.9 knots
Top speed recorded: 15.4 knots
Vomits: None, which is nice
Hours motoring: 120
Uses of the poo knife: 5
Showers taken by the crew: 2.75 each
How far could we have travelled in a car: 38791 nautical miles
Timezones crossed: 4
Sam’s best passage film: Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Evan’s best passage film: Ocean’s Eleven
Total number of films watched by kids: 54
Total number of films watched by adults: 4
Total books read by Sam: 13
Favourite book read by Sam: The Hunt for Red October
Number of seasons of Spooks watched by Evan: 3
Enthusiasm-for-sailing-ometer: 80% – We’re nearly there and getting the cruising chute up and flying beautifully makes us feel like proper sailors.

Day 32 – French Polynesia Ahoy!  We made it!

Sunday August 02, 2020

What a day it has been! It’s a struggle to know where to begin. I guess I could start with the mundane stuff. The weather. The food. The suicidal fish. I could move on to point out the obvious connection between the end of the vegetables and the recent sudden upturn in the use of the poo knife. Or I could cut to the chase and say that we’ve only gone and bloody well arrived in French Polynesia, baby!

Almost exactly 32 days to the hour since we left Panama, we made our last sail change and tacked north into Baie De Taiohae. We were greeted by a pod of circus dolphins and SV Spacegrazer who passed us on their way out the bay.

After 32 days at sea, Captain Max clad in just his trademark, all weather cruising boxers was a sight for sore eyes that lifted the spirits and stiffened the sinews.

An even happier sight however was the crew of SV GypSeas, patiently waiting for our arrival in their dinghy, ready to give us a tow should Susan’s engine get tricksy again. And no sooner had the circus dolphins summersaulted their way out of the bay did the ticksy action begin. With a cough and a shudder the engine stopped. The crew sighed in unison as Susan started drifting towards the rocks, and then got to work. Sails were faffed with. Sam jumped on the helm. Evan and I got busy with the engine, clearing and re-priming the fuel lines. Floss sorted out the lines and got us moving with GypSeas towing Susan slowly into the bay. What a team, we were totally on it.

It didn’t take long to get us into the anchorage and with lots of faff and some extra help from the Due South crew in their dinghy we soon had the anchor set. It was fantastic to be welcomed in by so many Shelter Bay alumni. GypSeas, Due South, Bacchus, Windchase, Moira, Catching Up and Spacegrazer all called in bearing gifts of cake, fresh fruit & veg, booze and ice cream. Until we get final clearance to go ashore, we’ve got all of our food groups covered for the next few days. Thanks
guys, you’re the best!

It’s now mid afternoon, the adrenaline has worn off and we’re starting to flag. We’ve had an unbelievable 32 days and I think that it’s going to take a long time to process the adventure and let it all soak in. We haven’t experienced it yet, but we’ve been told that the physical effects also take some time to recover from. We haven’t walked any distance at all for over a month and we’ve got a long way to go before we’re doing 10,000 steps a day again.

I’m going to sign off with another word of thanks. This one goes to everyone out there that has taken time to read this nonsense, and especially to those that have taken time to keep in touch via email over the last 6 weeks. You’ve all been a fantastic support and have genuinely helped and encouraged us through every one of the 4500 miles we’ve sailed to get here. We love you all, even the cannibals.

Love sailing. Love this journey. Love it more now that it’s over.

16 29.500s 151 45.756w