I know that Jimmy Buffet did a song titled “Christmas on Christmas Island” but have never heard one titled “Easter on Easter Island”. Perhaps we should write one as we will be there - and then. As I type this it is Wednesday afternoon and Easter Island is still 60 miles away – still below the horizon. We expect to sight land before dark tonight but won’t make landfall until early tomorrow morning. With a full moon and what appears to be an easy approach we might attempt to anchor or, if instead we choose to be wise and prudent mariners, we’ll heave to well offshore and go in at first light. That will be the Captain’s choice. I always say I won’t go in at night – but always do.

Approaching land after 26 days of not seeing any at all has me trying to wax philosophical about our passage. That would, however, be quite a stretch for the average engineer’s philosophically challenged brain so I will settle here for a few observations on a month’s life at sea.

The Boat

Romano is a Swedish built boat, a Najad 44. She’s big and she’s comfortable. While Kelly Rae is a good boat, sea worthy and sea kindly with a good motion, her 8 tons are no match for Romano’s 18 when it comes to riding bouncy seas. Romano does roll and pitch and yaw and, at times, pound just as much but it all happens more slowly and with more grace.

The converse side is that, unlike my lovely Crealock 34, there are no sail control lines that can be grabbed and simply pulled on board Romano. The sails are big so there is lots of force and friction. There are lots of winches aboard and you end up using them often for even simple sail adjustments. Such things can require some effort for one person. With two people available all changes are relatively simple. Three people tend to get in each other’s way unless one stays behind the helm.

Romano is also a well-equipped yacht – read that as saying that there are lots of complicated pieces of equipment and systems. During our month at sea the water maker packed it in, the DuoGen water generator fried its bearings and has been pulled out of the water and the solar regulator has developed the tendency to get very hot during the maximum solar charging part of the day (and likes to be gently cooled by a properly positioned fan - otherwise the smell of hot electrics becomes a bit disconcerting). In addition, the cause of the smell of diesel in the salon was found (a leaky tank fitting) and corrected and the sources of the not large but still concerning (and at first unexplained) water routinely being pumped from the bilge have been explained and proven to be easily manageable and not likely to increase. There were other smaller concerns as well.

This all sounds like a lot of problems (by boat standards it is not) but Romano has excellent redundancy in all her core systems. With the sole exception of the dearth of showers for the crew necessitated by the water maker’s demise, none of these problems has presented any great difficulties.

Giving credit where it is due, Romano’s Hydrovane wind vane (named by me “Idrovanny” – think the Spanish pronunciation of Hydrovane) has proven to be every bit as reliable a self-steering system as KR’s beloved Monitor, “Wilbur Wind Vane”. Early problems getting Idrovanny to hold course proved to be operator error. We just had to get into his head, think like a wind vane and make a simple adjustment and all was, and has remained, well.

Weather and Sailing

I have never spent so much time reaching in beautiful, crystal clear but deep ocean dark blue waters. Our course has been mostly between 60deg off the wind to 120 off. This is “Disney” sailing or, if you prefer, “hero-making” sailing. Anyone who’s ever sailed a Sunfish on a lake can do this – mostly.

Right now we are on a broad reach in 12-15kn of wind, Romano carrying us placidly along at 5-5.5kn. No, she’s no racehorse but that’s pretty good for a heavy (and heavily laden) cruising boat. Just the amount of wine and beer provisioned on board is probably costing us a knot!

We have had plenty of patches of showers moving through – two big ones passed across our bow and stern respectively on my 4-8:00 watch this morning alone. Generally not very wet these can come through with increased and often squirrelly winds. They deserve respect and get it. We have not had, however, a single “squall” (a shower on steroids with 40-50-60kn of wind along with lightning, thunder and sometimes waterspouts) in 3000 miles of open water. Our more than 2000 mile path to Tahiti over the next couple of months (where I will debark ship) may correct this deficiency – but let’s hope not.

The Crew

I haven’t thought of a punch line yet, but the joke could begin: “A Scot, a Brit and an American sail off on a three-month long voyage through the South Pacific…”.

The fact is that we have coexisted well on our small plastic island, standing 4-hour night watches (rotating every night) of 2000-2400hrs, 2400-0400, and 0400-0800. There are no assigned watches during daylight – the assumption being made that the watching will get done. The middle night watch, it has been agreed, is the tough one requiring rising from a dead sleep to a (hopefully) alert and functional state. The other watches with their crossover from or to daylight hours and longer uninterrupted sleep time are pretty easy. In all cases, the watches are a time to be alone with your thoughts, to read, listen to music or podcasts, stare at the stars or at the relentless passing seas and even, occasionally, look around for any ships in the area. There have not been very many of the latter and none at all for the last 1-1/2 weeks.

The UK does have some traditions which assure pleasant social time – a sit down to tea or coffee in the late morning (complete with biscuits - cookies to those of us from the ex-colonies), a light lunch in the early afternoon, tea around 4:30-5:00 (more biscuits) and finally, a sit down dinner in early evening. After dinner, the first watch takes over and the others head off for reading or sleep. There is plenty of time together to chat.

Conversations

What do we talk about? Poking fun at the stereotypes of our respective homelands has been a main stay. An unrelenting and concerted effort to educate the ex-colonial in the superior ways of the mother country has been another. Outnumbered in this, I have attempted to turn the tables (unsuccessfully, I am afraid) to try to deflate the obviously over inflated self-image of said representatives of the Mother country.

Every day there are new revelations proving the vast gulf that exist between “English” English and “American” English – both in proper use and in slang. I expect to be speaking a somewhat different, and somewhat affected, hybrid of the two when I debark than when I embarked.

Most interesting to me has been the changing nature of general discussions over the last 4 weeks. In the early parts of the voyage, world affairs, particularly the political gyrations of our respective countries, were the most common topic. As the internet and news cycle slowly lost its grip, conversations slowly segued into more stories and discussions of our individual upbringing and adult lives and experiences. At tea time a couple of days ago, our comparison of nursery rhymes in the UK vs the US, (which included singing) made it clear that we had finally gotten far enough away for long enough to escape the “civilized” world. I will have internet tomorrow for the first time in 4 weeks – and will need to use it for several purposes (posting this to the blog for instance) but will not be completely happy to be once again aware of and immersed in current events.

It should be noted that all of our pleasant, diverse and occasionally spirited conversations were unfueled by spirits of any kind. We all took the pledge of no drinking on passage and, other than one glass of wine each with dinner on the evening we crossed the equator, have kept to it. Tomorrow on anchor the pledge is null and void.

Reading

Mike and Gill are avid and diverse readers and Romano’s well-stocked bookshelves reflect this. And, with Kindles and iPads loaded with even more books and magazines, there is no lack of reading material aboard. Tea-time conversations often turn to books read and authors prized.

In one somewhat awkward choice, I had picked up a book in the Green Cove Springs cruiser’s book exchange titled “Mutiny”. Written by a British author, it provides a brief history of many famous and infamous mutinies beginning with Magellan’s earliest voyages and extending to the present day. It was a good book and one that both I and Gill, who read it next, enjoyed very much.

Mike, on the other hand, despite our assurances that it was a history book – not a How-To manual - can be excused for being somewhat disconcerted by the title as Romano headed out across miles of open ocean – far from any possible assistance. He became even more concerned as Gill and I discussed the myriad ways that the unlucky Captain was dispatched and disposed of. The fact that all of the mutinies discussed – even if initially successful - eventually proved to be dismal failures did not help Mike’s anxiety in the matter – perhaps because in most cases the eventual failure did not magically resurrect the Captain from the ocean depths. We now notice that he seldom gets near the edge of the boat when we are around – and never turns his back on us in any event.

It has been an amazing passage. While there is much sea time yet to be spent between here and Papeete, this last has been the longest. Our next stop, Pitcairn’s Island, is 1200nm and the Gambier Islands a further 800. Relatively speaking, just short hops – easy day sails really.

Best to All.

PS Landfall at Easter Island on Thursday Mar 24 – hook down at 9:00am. 28 Days out of Panama City, 27 days continuously at sea and just under 3000 nm logged.