Landfall
20 August 2019 | Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia

This afternoon we made landfall in Baie de Taiohae, Nuku Hiva,in the Marquesas Islands, one of the archipelagos in French Polynesia. The passage from the Galápagos Islands was 3,076nm (3,540 Statute miles, the distance from London to New York), completed in exactly 19 days at an average, current assisted, speed of 6.8 knots. As our estimate was 24 days at 5.5 knots we are pretty pumped by this result. The other surprising fact is that we are already more than half way to New Zealand from Panama. We will do the second half at a more leisurely pace.
While the winds were ideal for a fast passage, conditions were decidedly robust and it was definitely not the serene experience we have heard about from others. Moving hand over hand in a sometimes violently moving boat for weeks at a time is hard and slightly risky work. I know that my balance and upper body muscles have benefited enormously. It will be interesting to see how bad the dry land vertigo is this time.
So, how do I feel about it now? Firstly very pleased to have done it. It was the culmination of several years of boat preparation, skill development, incremental challenges and learning. I think this is probably the most serious adventure I have ever undertaken and I've undertaken a few. Then I feel relieved. It might be something to do with my background in the offshore oil industry, constantly doing risk assessments, but I spent too much of the trip in a state of heightened anxiety. "What's going to break?". "What have we forgotten?". "How would we deal with the many hundred failure scenarios I managed to conjure up? I think we did a really good job of preparing the boat and ourselves but the difference between 'succeeding' and 'getting away with it' is always fuzzy and we were a LONG way from any help. I was particularly concerned about injury in the rough conditions so we were very careful how we moved about and protected ourselves and each other. As soon as we were within motoring distance of land some of the anxiety fell away. Now the rest has gone. We did have a buddy boat, Kelvin and Caroline, a couple of New Zealanders on SV Ondina. We managed to stay within 50nm of one another for the entire passage which provided a potential source of help but, perhaps more importantly, a sense that we were not completely alone in a VERY big ocean. During the entire passage we have only seen two other vessels, both tuna fishing boats waiting for calm enough weather to fish.
I have really enjoyed working with Janaki to manage the operation of the boat. She has been developing her cruising skills and we have become a more balanced sailing team, working really well together. She has remained resolutely upbeat (apart from a couple of well justified galley melt-downs). I cannot conceive of anyone I would rather do this with. We discussed getting crew to help but we are very glad we did not. Getting enough sleep has been a non-issue and crews bring all sorts of other challenges. Just being the two of us has made it a great experience. We have actually been quite surprised by our resilience. Neither of us feels too depleted and we agreed that we could continue pretty much indefinitely if we were so inclined - we are not.
We do still have a few pink and blue jobs. Janaki does the provisioning and cooking and I do the cleanup and the fishing. J did a lot of planning for the trip and it worked out amazingly well. We are still eating salads and fresh fruit on the last day. The meals have been fantastic, with plenty of rough weather options. My fishing was pretty meager due to the conditions (and some competence issues) but we have supplemented our menu with some very nice Wahoo steaks.
So, the few serene days were just that. The rest was rugged but OK. I enjoyed the isolation but it was somewhat marred by ubiquitous internet access. It would have been nice to avoid my daily dose of unpleasant reality but I couldn't resist. This is about the only aspect of the passage where I envy the early navigators. Janaki did a much better job of staying offline.
Overall I'm very pleased to have done it but equally pleased that I don't need to do it again. There are lots of five day trips in our future and maybe a few ten day passages but nothing like this. Fine by me.
I will do another post on the more technical aspects of the passage when I've had a good sleep.