ed years ago. 

California is perhaps as beautiful a place in the world with mountains, coast and desert.  It lacks only a warm ocean. And is too crowded, being about the size of New Zealand but with ten times as many people.

Several layers of clouds: high cirrus; middle altocumulus; and low cumulous. Gaps through them all and sunny at present, though only 78ºF. Feels almost cool. Wind remains light. SOG 5.3 under jib alone. 

I put the mainsail cover back on this morning. Keep being pleased how much easier it is without having to snap buckles in the gap between the spinnaker pole and the mast. Should have gotten rid of the pole long ago. Will also be able in time to remove two more lines from the mast: the one used to raise and lower the pole end car on the track I installed on the forward edge of the mast, and the pole topping lift. The first runs up inside the mast and I’ll replace it with a messenger. The topping lift is all external and I could just pull it through, but that would leave a block up there that I think would rattle around.

Another piece of the UV resistant cloth on the jib has torn. This is an added protective layer and does not affect the strength of the sail itself except over time. This was along the foot. I winched the sail in until I could reach it and cut the dangling piece away. Looked slovenly.

This morning I realized that the only way to be consistent about the sailing time of this circumnavigation is to reduce the start and ending times of all passages to GMT. I had recorded them in local time, which wasn’t the same as I crossed time zones. I’ll go over this again, but am reasonably certain that my sailing time through Bora-Bora is 169 days 14.25 hours.

It will be one hour more if New Zealand was still on summer time when I sailed from Opua on April 21, 2008. I don’t think it was, but will check when I get in.

This passage crosses the International Dateline, which got me to thinking about about all this, began at on Sept. 15 at 0700 Bora-Bora time which is Sept. 15 1700 GMT.

Noon position: 22º 33’ South; 163º 31‘ West. Day‘s run: 121 miles. Opua: 1398 miles; bearing 237º.  

1700 We look to be getting some weather. Complete high overcast. Some low cloud. Increasing swell, which has not yet been accompanied by increased wind and has given us a wallowing, sloppy afternoon of rolling and collapsing and filling jib, and only a 4 to 5 knot SOG. Hard on the boat and irritating to me.

Just checked the pilot chart software, which shows 0% gales in September within hundreds of miles of our present position. This is what I expected; but it is a serious sky.

Wallowing on and awaiting developments. 


September 22
South Pacific Ocean: Tuesday

0630 A lousy, lousy lurching, rolling, jib collapsing, banging night. Awake from midnight when a wind shift caused me to jibe until 0400 with one exception when I briefly fell asleep around 0300 only to awaken a few minutes later when the wave action felt wrong and I found us sailing due north.

Most of that time it was sheer torture. Constantly noisy with blocks and lines banging, snapping, crashing. Spastic motion. Rarely do such conditions last very long because the seas die down after the wind does. These were not large, but they didn’t die down.

Around 0230 light rain began, accompanied by the flicker of distant lightning that an hour later was close enough for me to hear thunder, but never close enough to be worrisome.

Went out in the rain and jibed back when I found us heading north. Got some sleep between 0400 and 0500. Was up once to adjust course, which was then too far south.

At the moment we are making 6.5 knots in the right direction for a change under the jib with a couple of wraps in it. Sky partially clearing. Barometer 1013.

Also to my surprise we have are about to leave the tropics. Our latitude is 23º 25’. We will cross the Tropic of Capricorn at 23º 26.4‘ in a few minutes. 

Horovitz playing soothing Scarlatti on the cabin speakers with my first cup of coffee.

0740 A lousy morning. Scarlatti wasn’t enough. Becalmed. Set small spinnaker--we could certainly carry the big one, but reluctant to set it in unsettled conditions and it overlaps shrouds more and would chaff more when collapsing--but even the smaller spinnaker just flails about. Furled it, but left it up. Clouding over again. May drift backwards into the tropics again. 

Only good thing is that I don’t think this will last. Wind will return from somewhere.

0810 Making 6 knots in right direction. Under power. Tired of rolling around, I turned on engine ten minutes ago. Generally try to run it under load once a week on a passage anyway. Left both jib and spinnaker up and furled. Sometimes spinnaker starts to unfurl at the top, particularly this one, so I’m keeping an eye on it. 

Sky again covered with low cloud. Barometer back up to 1015.

0945 Just turned off engine. Sailing--sort of--under small blue spinnaker, which is collapsing and filling. SOG 2.3. High cirrus clouds. Low cumulus clouds. Some blue sky. Sun shining at moment. Tiller pilot steering. Too little wind for Monitor. I can barely feel it against my skin.

Shaved this morning. Planned on solar shower this afternoon. We will see.

1030 Spinnaker waving like a rag. In the second or two it fills five or six times a minute it produces enough power to move us forward at 2.6 to 2.8 knots.

Becoming sunnier.

1130 Just finished a very enjoyable novel, CITY OF THIEVES, by David Benioff. This is the one I mentioned earlier set in Leningrad during the WWII siege. A teenage boy, accused of looting, and an young soldier charged with desertion, are allowed to avoid execution by obtaining a dozen eggs needed by a Soviet Colonel for his daughter’s wedding cake. Except there are no eggs left in Leningrad. This is well worth tracking down and reading. Improved an otherwise deficient morning.

1200 SOG touched 3.1. Roaring along. There has been a lot of slow sailing in the Pacific Ocean this year.  I’ve thought about setting the bigger spinnaker, but don’t know that it would make noticeable difference and would just be more to collapse. Also I am too tired.

With the tiller pilot steering, I did squirm over the stern and check the lines I put on the servo-rudder latch. Every time I do this it costs me blood. I gouge either my arms or legs. This time arm.

The lines seemed tight, but I untied two of them and tried to pull them even tighter.

Noon position: 23º 35’ South; 165º 07‘ West. Day’s run: 108 miles. Week’s run: 845. A not very impressive 5.02 knot average.  Opua: 1291 miles, bearing 237º. 

1600 Another lovely and extremely slow afternoon. We’ve made 13.3 miles since noon and presently have an SOG of 1.9. 

I showered. Did some housework: swept the floor. Put away the French courtesy flag and incidentally found that I don’t have one for New Zealand. I assume that the one I had when I left last year was frayed and I got rid of it. 

My collection of courtesy flags lives in a ziploc bag in a duffle bag that also contains paper charts and lives at the aft end of a shelf beside the port quarterberth. Some of the charts of South Africa were moldy and falling apart and have been given an honorable burial at sea.

Fell asleep while sitting up listening to music. About to go on deck and have a drink to celebrate something. Maybe the first week at sea. At our present rate of progress there will be many more between here and Opua.

1730 An hour ago while I was on deck a line of dark cloud appeared ahead of us and in a half hour had overrun the entire sky. The wind veered from northeast to southeast, but didn’t increase. After I finished my gin and tonic and listening to an album called TEARS OF STONE, I furled and lowered the spinnaker. I really don’t want to listen to the jib banging around tonight, but these clouds could bring unpredictable wind, including some from ahead and the spinnaker can’t handle that.

After leisurely and peacefully sorting out and coiling the spinnaker sheets and the furling line--after all we weren’t going much more slowly with the sail down that we were when it was up, I unfurled the jib, changed from tiller pilot to Monitor steering, and came below to make dinner of freeze dry lamb fettucini. It is now cooling and the wind has picked up. In the past few minutes our SOG has doubled from 3.3 to 6.6. Going to stop writing and see what is happening.

1740 Wind 25 knots. Good that I got the spinnaker down. Still making 6.6, but with deeply furled jib on beam reach.  Wind feels cold. Going to put computer away. Water may be coming aboard.


September 23
South Pacific Ocean: Wednesday

0520 Another lousy night, but different. Variety is everything.

After I stopped writing last evening, the wind continued at 25 to 30 knots and heavy, torrential rain began, accompanied by lightning and thunder, again none very close. This persisted until 2200. In the midst of it I had to go out and furl the jib further. Wore my new foul weather pants for the first time and they did their job.

At 2200 rain stopped. Went on deck again and with wind still in west, set mainsail with single reef. Wind was light, but in darkness complete except for a sinister swollen orange first sliver of moon through clouds, I couldn’t tell if more rain and wind were coming.

For the rest of the night we rattled and slatted around, except for three times when I found us heading slowly back east, with the jib backed. I’m not sure how many times I was on deck. Many. I’m not sure how much sleep I got. Not much. I am sure that we got nowhere all night and have made 37 miles since noon yesterday and are not presently improving on that much, heading 300º close-hauled starboard tack at 4.8 knots. The last time I tacked, we couldn’t point higher than 175º on port, so I’m hoping eventually the wind will back to the southeast.

Was too cool on deck for shorts and t-shirt, so dug out Levis and an old passage Polartec, which is what I have on now.

I think that the masthead wind unit is stuck showing the wind angle always to be a broad reach. Also something happened to the sleeve of the spinnaker halyard which has come loose of the core. I noticed it while setting the mainsail last night. Can’t yet see if it has chaffed through.

Course has fallen off to 313º May try to tack again.

Sky cleared during the night, and what I can see through the companionway is clear in pre-dawn light. Barometer is 1012. 

0600 Went on deck and made some adjustments to Monitor and