Land Ho!

We did it!!! On Friday May 29 we dropped anchor in Hanaiapa Bay on the North side of Hiva Oa after 2,997 miles of sailing and 23 days at sea. Though we had highs and lows, overall it was a remarkably smooth and fast passage and we’re very grateful to have arrived safely without any major things breaking on the boat! This blog picks up where we left off on day 13 with our daily reports and journal entries chronicling the last 10 days of our sail. At the end we’ve included some reflections on the passage and what’s next for us!

Had a wonderfully lucky night of no rain! And then a very cloudy day with consistent rain showers through the afternoon. Was a nice change to be a little chilly at times. But the soggy musty clothes and bedding are getting old. The swell has been crazy to watch and experience. Some relatively big 6+ foot rollers with strange constructive interference with other swell from different directions. Grateful we’re pretty used to the boats motion at this point. Had the engine on all day just trying to make progress towards the equator! Had some light headwinds. If we keep up this pace will cross into the southern hemisphere tomorrow evening!

J: A moment of presence at the bow after a great shower in the rain. Watching Staphy fly in little loops and hunt flying fish

M: also our shower in the rain! Felt so good to cool off and be clean, like a fresh start

J: really enjoying being shirtless all day in the breeze, but then I got sunburned all over my back

M: Staphy wandering close to the cockpit and then taking aim and pooping right at me!! And all over the cockpit. Right at the end of a rain shower too.

J: equator tomorrow! And maybe some wind soon

M: equator crossing!! Coffee ice cream and maybe some fun costumes for our crossing ceremony

We crossed the equator and made it to the southern hemisphere!! Woohooo! Neptune gave us a bit of a morale test beforehand, all night and all day it dumped rain on us, we were on a little slate blue disc surrounded by misty gray on all sides. Felt more like the PNW than what we expected from the tropics! We spent a lot of time reading inside trying to stay dry, then going outside in our swimsuits to cool off when we got too hot and sweaty and sick of the sound of the engine. It was a good lesson in embracing the conditions you have rather than wishing for or trying to force something different. We baked focaccia and took lots of naps and got more and more excited about the equator crossing as the day went on! We crossed just before sunset and celebrated with tuna steaks for dinner and offerings of coffee ice cream, Trader Joe’s peanut butter cups, freshly baked focaccia and Martinellis for Neptune (only the best!)

J: writing a little ceremony script for the equator crossing. It was really nice to honor the moment and find the right words

M: the southern trades arrived exactly 10 minutes before we crossed the equator!! I’m not usually a superstitious girly but out here it was hard not to take that as a little sign of magic. After two days of motoring we had just enough time to get the sails up and grab our bottle of cider before we zipped across the equator with the engine off and nothing but the sound of the wind, waves, and our cheering.

J: feeling exhausted and overwhelmed in the soggy heat this afternoon and bickering with each other

M: same, had a low moment this afternoon where I was so sick of the rain and especially the rolling of the boat. We had no wind to stabilize us so we were intermittently burying the rail on either side, getting tossed around the cabin. Truly the most confused seas I’ve ever experienced, we had swell from the north, southeast, and west, all mixing together in a washing machine.

J: sailing! And more cloud watching, not just looking at gray mist

M: definitely sailing! Fingers crossed we keep the southeast trades with us from here to Hiva Oa!

Riding the southeast trade winds! Tardigrade trucked through the miles today. After two days of motoring we are both relieved and excited to have plenty of wind to sail. Halfway through the night we put a second reef in the main and it was definitely the right call, Tardigrade has plenty of power right now! Unfortunately in addition to the wind chop we have a 6 foot relatively steep swell on our beam, and have been sailing upwind in order to stay South and get to better current, so it’s been pretty challenging to move around the boat. My family has a saying that when something is the harder version of a task it’s “varsity”, so for example parallel parking in a tight spot is “varsity parking”. Right now with how much the boat is moving I’d say we’re participating in varsity cooking, varsity dishwashing, varsity walking up stairs, and varsity peeing. Mostly we can find humor in it and given that we’re in the middle of the Pacific Ocean it could be much worse! We’re very happy to have plenty of wind to keep us moving and on track.

J: a super fast night watch with 20+ knot winds and 7 knot boat speed! Hand steered for a while and listened to music and danced, very thrilling and cathartic

M: eating focaccia for breakfast with my tea on sunrise watch. Getting to the climax of my book (The Farseer trilogy). Feeling grateful for the wind and sun!

J: not doing a great job taking care of myself today, not eating until the afternoon and trying to stay busy to escape feelings of discomfort

M: collecting lots of bruises on my hips and back from being tossed around inside the boat while trying to do chores. Arms and shoulders sore from the bracing

J: hoping to take better care of myself tomorrow, get more rest and read my book

M: dipping into our snack bag on night watch. We have a new pack of sour gummy worms to open!

Our days in the tradewinds are homogenous, sleepy and blue, our bodies sluggish and the boat fast. For 5 cookie-cutter days and nights we beam reach through 15-20knot winds and 6-8 foot swell. After the fluttery winds of the ITCZ, the muscular South East trades are mostly a welcome asset— a brisk, if battering, train to be aboard. With the steep swell coming at us from the side, the boat charges forward in a lurching step, rolling first right, then left, then back again every 10 seconds or so as another wave passes beneath us. Onboard this creates the constant sensation of being pressed: a pulse in the direction and magnitude of one’s gravity, body growing obnoxiously heavy against whatever you happen to be braced, then releasing and even levitating to the opposite side for a moment before hurtling back with a vengeance.
After a few days of this, our bodies are bruised and tired from all the trying, and often failing, to catch ourselves. Nowhere on the boat feels quite comfortable against the variable pressure regime. There is very little to do, all the sails and the windvane can stay set as they are for days on end, and there’s nothing and no one to run into for another thousand miles. Still, we are tired more often than not, taking long naps and reading the days away.

A chill day in the Southern trade winds! Things were still pretty rowdy overnight but the swell was a little less steep today so we had an easier time moving around! And enough energy to cook pesto pasta for dinner and meal prep some baked ziti for later in the week. Neither of us slept very continuously last night so Jeremy snagged a few extra hours this morning and we both had a very restful day, mostly just reading in the cockpit and trying to drink a lot of water. We’re finally getting pretty dialed in on how to set up the sails so that the boat is balanced and can be steered easily by our Monitor windvane. We are full converts to the windvane life, what an incredible piece of gear! It’s been steering the boat on its own with minimal adjustment for 48 hours now and will probably keep going most of the way to Hiva Oa. We barely made changes to the sails today, Tardigrade was in her happy place just zipping along, taking care of us while we tried to get some rest and regain some energy.

J: reading my book about meditation and feeling very present

M: cuddling together in the cockpit this afternoon each reading our books

J: body soreness, not being able to find a comfortable position on night watch that didn’t feel like straining against the motion of the boat or poking a bruise

M: feeling really sleepy this morning after getting woken up a lot last night with the rolling of the boat and our bilge alarm going off multiple times when the float switch got stuck (nothing wrong, but always a jarring sound to hear!)

J: reading the short stories that Ross pulled together for me!

M: more reading on night watch, and eating ziti tomorrow!

Another chill day in the same conditions! We’re starting to understand what people mean when they say the days start to blur together out here. We’re a little bored in a very pleasant way, it feels rare in life to have a stretch like this, it kind of feels out of time. And it’s extremely cool that while we read, nap, and cook ourselves food, Tardigrade just continues to make consistent progress towards the Marquesas! We’ve also learned that relaxed stretches like this always come to an end somehow: conditions changing, something breaking etc. so the best thing we can do is really catch up on rest and enjoy it while it’s chill! During Jeremy’s second watch last night we did have a line on our Monitor chafe through. He did a great job repairing it, luckily it worked to tie it in a knot since that part of the rope doesn’t pass through any pulleys. We still haven’t figured out what it chafed on so we’re on the lookout for signs of it happening again, but for now the Monitor is back up and running and steered great all day!

J: reading the short stories Ross recommended. So delightful.

M: eating a piece of chocolate after dinner (really thrilling stuff going on out here)

J: having a fight before night watch and then having to awkwardly pass each other in the night between watches before we resolved it (lol)

M: feeling very sleepy, I think the 7 hours of sleep a night is catching up with me a bit. Took a 3 hour nap which helped!

J: inspired by the short stories to do a bit more writing

M: gonna get out my sudoku book tomorrow and do some puzzles!

Pretty much the ideal day of sailing! This West current is helping boost our speed and it’s satisfying to be covering so many miles each day! The Monitor windvane continues to be the most valuable crew member and got some more attention today on some chafing and loosening lines. We’ve turned downwind a bit so the swell has been more comfortable. This morning during the sunrise watch change we started talking about all the foods we were craving and ended up deciding that instead of Jeremy going to sleep we wanted to cook a big diner breakfast. We pulled out all the stops and made scrambled eggs, pancakes, and hashbrowns from scratch. It was so fun to cook together and watch the sunrise. We’ve been surprised that our appetites have been pretty low this trip but it seems like they’re back! Jeremy slept after eating and we passed the day with more reading, writing, some Sudoku, and a game of Catan (Maddie won)

J: hanging out chatting at sunrise and fantasizing about all the delicious foods

M: eating breakfast and watching the sunrise together! We realized because of our watch schedules we hadn’t had breakfast together in 18 days so it felt like a rare treat

J: really no thorns. Maybe the fact that the Monitor doesn’t work as well downwind and we struggle to set the sails right for it to not steer an S curve.

M: also no thorns. At one point the Monitor line came off the wheel but pretty easy to recover

J: more reading and maybe some spinnaker sailing

M: winning more games of Catan

This morning I woke up to Maddie wiggling my leg in the dawn light. I had curled up on the lower edge of the cockpit where I could look at the stars, and the proceeded to sleep soundly through at least the last hour of my watch, which would have been a more serious offense if it hadnt been days since we touched the helm and weeks since we saw another boat. A little bashful but pleasantly refreshed by my extra sleep, we sit together and watch the sunrise, feeling lovey and warm towards each other. The day dawns peach-colored behind rows of popcorn clouds, and we spoon and discuss food cravings: Schlok’s breakfast bagels, the poke bowls at Gus’s on Haight street, a sizzling salmon steak, a classic diner breakfast. We linger on this last one, relishing in the nostalgic joy of remembering a dozen cozy morning dates to the crowded little diner on Divisadero, with its walls lined with corny mugs and classic red vinyl booths. It occurs to us that we could probably make our own diner breakfast out here, and before long we jump into motion, preparing breakfast together for the first time in several weeks as I shirk my second sleep shift, motivated more by hash browns than responsibility. I grate potatoes and whisk eggs while Maddie makes pancakes, I froth little matcha lattes while she spreads out the hashbrowns in one careful disk around the skillet. I scramble the eggs and manage to flip the whole hashbrown like an oversized pancake, lifting it up spot by spot afterwards to slide little pats of butter under the uncooked side. When we sit down to eat the morning is growing warm and we scarf it all down in a blur of grease and syrup, happily gluttonous. I end up putting most of my matcha in the fridge in a slight concession to our sleep schedule, and then ride my budding food coma to bed.

More trade winds, reading, and napping today! Maddie especially was very tired and slept for 5 hours in the middle of the day. Jeremy had more energy and cooked up some delicious fried rice with carrots and cabbage, our remaining veggies. Conditions continue to be very consistent and fast with the current helping us along. We may have a little less wind tomorrow. Our buddy boat arrived yesterday and said we’re going to have our minds blown when we arrive. We can’t wait!! Less than 500 miles to go.

J: Fun dance party to Fred Again… during night watch

M: feeling fresh after a shower and cuddling watching the puffy clouds in the afternoon light

J: how grumpy Maddie was in the morning

M: same

J: still spinnaker sailing! (Jeremy is spinnaker obsessed)

M: hopefully having more energy tomorrow. And eating cookie dough for dessert

Today felt a bit like we were back in the ITCZ. Had very light, variable winds overnight and a few squalls. We were sailing at 3.5 knots a lot of the night getting so rolled by the swell, it was super uncomfortable and frustrating. It was hard to figure out the right sail plan. During the day we were seeing big wind shifts of 30+ degrees and lots of changes in wind speed as squalls moved around us, often gusting up to 25 knots. Luckily this evening we seem to have gotten more consistency and speed back. We’re both starting to feel the finish line within reach! Lots of mixed feelings about being a few days from arrival, but overall we’re starting to feel ready for the end of the passage.

J: Getting really into reading The Well of Ascension, rare to just enjoy reading for pleasure

M: making pancakes for breakfast

J: not getting to fly the spinnaker

M: a really rolly floggy night watch where the sail was making a horrible creaking sound that I couldn’t figure out how to fix and it was driving me crazy!

J: writing and noticing details specific to passage to write about

M: feeling very excited to arrive and be social again!

It’s feeling very real how close we are! We were right on the edge of arriving during daylight tomorrow so we decided to try and slow down to arrive Friday morning instead. But with all the current and wind it’s proving harder than we thought to sail slow! We might just anchor in the moonlight or we’ll heave to when we get close. We had an incredible sunrise and sunset today and have been trying to appreciate the rhythms and beauty of the sea in our last couple days.

J: winning Catan and making really yummy peanut noodles for lunch

M: a stunning sunrise and baking a quiche from scratch for breakfast!

J: rolly seas today. And some angst over timing our arrival for the light. Going back and forth a bit on whether it was smart to slow down. But it will all work out!

M: losing Catan. And also arrival timing

J: enjoying our last day at sea! Taking time to reflect and be very present

M: same, excited to enjoy the peace of the last day before we get to land and all the excitement there!

Our final full day at sea before arriving to Hiva Oa tomorrow! Hoping our plan to “heave-to” (set the sails in a way where the boat mostly stays still) tonight works out and makes the boat more stable for a decent night of sleep, because last night kinda sucked! Had 25 knots of wind and steep seas that really rolled the boat back and forth. We’re both pretty tired and ready to be at anchor, but we did a good job pushing through today and still enjoying our last full day. We ate good food, played games, read, and chatted lots about the upcoming transition and the mixed feelings that are coming with the end of this chapter.

J: coming up with the rules for a new Dominion Catan mashup game and playing together. (And beating Maddie.)

M: a lovely morning quiche and matcha breakfast. And just enjoying watching the waves on our last day

J: it was sooo rolly last night. At one point I woke up because my head whacked against the wall by the bed

M: same, terrible night of sleep with the swell that came up. I think some of the biggest swell we’ve had on Tardigrade. The boat handled it very well but unfortunately we had a tricky point of sail and there were some occasional awful rolls.

J: very excited to experience smelling land after all this time at sea. That always seems to make an impression on people

M: too many buds with the big transition to land coming up! Excited to be social and meetup with friends, and call family. And eat baguettes. And a night of continuous sleep is sounding incredible right now

We made it!!! We had a challenging last night with back to back squalls that made the wind completely die and then gust 20 knots every 20 minutes. We didn’t get much sleep with the constant changes in noise and motion. But that struggle all faded away at sunrise as the earthy reds and vibrant greens of Hiva Oa’s cliffs brightened into view! As we entered the bay the last of the squall rain formed a perfect rainbow over our friends boat, and they greeted us with a cold beer and a fresh pamplemouse (like a grapefruit but sweeter) followed by a crepe brunch for everyone in the anchorage! We could not have dreamed up a better end to our passage. Jeremy got his wish to experience smelling land after being at sea, and the strength of the scent way exceeded our expectations! We agreed it was like sticking your head in a bag of potting soil. So many feelings as this chapter comes to a close: gratitude, awe, sleep deprivation, nerves about the next chapter, pride, body soreness, excitement to explore. We’ll likely spend at least a week here catching up on sleep, cleaning up the boat, restocking food, socializing, and enjoying our first experiences of French Polynesia. Apparently there’s a half marathon ending in the bay tomorrow followed by a pig roast so we’ll scrounge together something to contribute and brush up on our French!

After the initial adrenaline rush of reaching land wore off and we had some time to recover and reflect, we tried to capture some of what surprised us, what we missed, and what we didn’t miss about passage:

Things that surprised me about the pacific passage

• How ubiquitous flying fish are

• How much the clouds felt like topography, how much I felt like I was moving through different landscapes. Not sure if that was just my mind fitting what I was seeing on the ocean into something more familiar and land-based but the clouds really looked like cliffs, canyons, and valleys at times

• Our gray drizzly days. I thought it would be sunny or squalls, not extended all-day rain

• How low my appetite was. Generally pretty content with two meals a day and some snacks.

• How scared I felt of squalls. After all this time sailing in places with no rain I was surprised how anxious I felt seeing the red blobs show up on radar. I kept expecting the wind and lightning to be worse than they were, but a lot of what we encountered was just rain showers.

• How normal it felt. I had moments of awe and thinking about how crazy it is to be in the middle of the ocean but most of the time it felt so natural and I was just in my rhythm and routine.

• Understanding the love and relationship people have around their boat. I already felt some love for Tardigrade but this passage really built my trust and reliance on the boat. It’s wild that it’s our shelter, transportation, sense of comfort and safety, and can handle so many different combinations of wind and seas. I feel so much tenderness and gratitude towards Tardigrade! I’d always heard other people say “the boat can handle more than me” and I felt that on this trip. When I see a white capped wave rising up above Tardigrade’s stern I get a pit in my stomach, but then as I’m squinting all tensed up, when I open my eyes the wave has somehow been absorbed and whooshed out past the bow with nothing more than a gentle rocking

• Every time we do something new on the boat I’m surprised by how resilient and adaptable humans are. It’s crazy that we just made this amount of motion and weird sleep schedules our normal for 23 days.

• How weird my dreams were! Had a ton of stress dreams, some about sailing and some not. Had a reoccurring dream/wake up where I’d bolt awake and think that I was on watch and had fallen asleep even though I was just in my bunk. And some strange half asleep/half awake dreams while the boat was rolling around.

• How much I was able to trust Jeremy and actually be off watch. I struggled with that early in our year and on shorter passages it was more possible to be “on” for longer. On a 23 day passage you don’t have that option, you have to let go, trust, and rest.

Things we miss

• Night watch being time set aside to be alone and engaged with our surroundings. Watching the Milky Way. Being inspired to write in the dark middle-of-the-night hours.

• Being so immersed in nature in a rhythmic way: watching every sunrise and sunset, observing and reacting to each little change in the swell and wind

• Being in the passage “bubble”. Total lack of FOMO, feeling like there’s nothing else we could or should be doing and our goals are very clear, which makes it easier to feel present and in the moment. Slower pace.

• Reading a lot for pleasure

• Small things feeling really big. Like really looking forward to a piece of chocolate after dinner, or a sour gummy worm on night watch. Crossing the invisible line of the equator feeling like an event with costumes and poems. Showering and feeling like a completely new person. Everything Staphy did feeling of note and getting reported to one another between watches. Just generally delighting in and looking forward to things that we previously took for granted or wouldn’t have focused on.

• Staphy!!! She left sometime around day 14 when we went through a bunch of squalls and rain. We were surprised how attached we had gotten to her, despite her propensity for pooping in the worst places.

• Being able to dump all of our food waste overboard so the garbage was never smelly

• Being able to exist naked or in a swim suit or however was most comfortable in the hot tropics air

Things we don’t miss

• Getting thrown and bashed around the cabin. Getting unexplained bruises.

• Having to keep a hand on every liquid, plate, bowl, or open container when cooking and eating, and inevitably having things spill or fly off the counter. And eating less nutritious/more basic meals since it was hard to cook.

• Not having many fresh fruits and veggies available past week 2

• Never sleeping more than 4 continuous hours

• J: not getting to be awake during the sunrise/early morning hours because of the watch schedule

• Religiously checking the weather and satellite maps looking for squalls

• The horrible creaking and flogging of the sails and rolling of the boat in light wind

• Not being able to swim in the ocean and not showering much

Thanks again to everyone who followed along with our little posts and sent messages of encouragement throughout the journey! We couldn’t have done this without the support of our community both near and far ❤️ At the time of writing, we’ve been in the Marquesas a little over a week and we just moved to our second anchorage and island, Hanatefau anchorage on Tahuata. From here we’ll likely keep exploring the Marquesas for a couple weeks (maybe up to Nuku Hiva next?) and then look for good weather to head to the Tuamotus in July. We’ll keep our tracking page active for anyone who wants to follow where we are, but will probably post less there. We’re feeling pretty recovered from passage after some long, full nights of sleep and lots of fresh baguettes and pamplemousse. We’ll hopefully be back soon with some photos and writing from our time on Hiva Oa!

Lots of love,

Jeremy and Maddie (and Tardigrade)