Passage Making: Marquesas to Tuamotus

Following on the heels of my last post, I'm surprising even myself to say that I wholly enjoy passage making. We are into Day 2 of a 4-day passage from 'Ua Pou in the Marquesas Islands to Makemo Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago. There is something about the simplicity of life while crossing the open ocean that I am, somehow, able to embrace. Perhaps it's that there are so many things we cannot do given the movement of the boat, or it's the fact that there's nowhere to go, but spending time with my family this way is one of my favorites. We can focus on homeschooling without the need to run here or there, and we can all read together after dinner sipping warm licorice tea.

It does take a couple of days to get into the routine. I still have a headache from crazy sleep schedules, and my stomach will continue to feel a bit nauseated until my sea legs get under me. But the time is peaceful, and the sound of the wind and the rolling waves is comforting. I am finally getting a chance to really learn to sail and Michael is a patient teacher.

There are four 'buddy' boats out here. Ceilydh, Brittania and Piko all left 'Ua Pou within an hour of us, and after spending several weeks together in the Marquesas, we're all heading to the same atoll. Although we are all still, more or less, within VHF radio range of each other, we check in over the Single Sideband radio at 10 a.m. to see how the night went and to get everyone's location. We discuss weather reports and what's for dinner. And we help solve each other's problems: one boat found a cockroach and found water had leaked into their rudder post, another had water come in one of their portholes and onto their bed and we wanted advice on how to furl in our asymmetrical sail more efficiently. There is also a South Pacific Cruisers' Net at 5 p.m. that we all check into.

Our menu is not nearly as exciting as it was during our 19.5 day crossing from Mexico, but we're still doing well, eating lots of salads and fresh fruit while we still can. There is not a whole lot of that in the Tuamotus, we understand. Tonight on my night watch I am baking rye bread and muffins to surprise the kids in the morning.

-Barb
Once again somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

-----
At 5/31/2011 11:05 (utc) our position was 12°26.46'S 141°47.38'W