We are 20nm from land. Close enough to see it and smell the musky scent of earth, but not early enough in the day to hook onto it. Tonight we will heave to and arrive in Baie Tahauku on the south coast of Hiva Oa, in the morning.

The crossing from Mexico to French Polynesia is really just a connection of two conveyor systems with their on/off ramps: first a good Northwesterly coming down the Sea of Cortez gives that initial push away from land, by a couple of hundred nm and connection to the NE Trades. While keeping on a WSW track from longitudes 1050 to 1300 longitude it is mostly downwind and/or starboard quarter sailing. For us the NE Trades were not very strong and at periods non existent. So a larger portion of our time was spent struggling to get westerly progress above the ITCZ.

There were two different approaches that we observed for crossing the next part of the system, the ITCZ. Many boats chose to make a rhumb line to the Marqueses starting just west of the Soccora Islands, around longitude 1240, while a few others, ourselves included, remained in the NE Trades much longer and made an approximate 90 degree turn and fairly direct north-south line through the ITCZ. At the end of the day neither way earned faster progress, arriving in as very close order as they departed. Our choice was made in league with our weather router Commander Weather, to spend the least amount of time in the ITCZ dodging squalls intermixed with light winds. The SE Trades were a welcome site after chugging along on the motor and watching the fuel gauge going down, down. Connecting with it felt like stepping out of a trickling stream into a big river that comes initially as a light SE breeze and builds over the next 24 hours to a consistently strong and virtually straight line highway to the Marquesas. You stay on this for 800nm.