Happy to be on our way!
The passage from Galapagos to Easter Island was different than we expected. The Galapagos Islands are located nearly at the equator, well north of the start of the South Pacific trade winds. Easter Island is located at the far southern edge of the trades. So, our passage would traverse the entire trade wind belt.
Chillin on the aft deck
In the North Pacific, the trades were very steady in both direction and strength, and that set our expectations for the trade winds in the South Pacific. What we found, however, was completely different.
Flying Code Blue
The trade winds on this passage varied a lot in strength with a strong diurnal component – the wind would strengthen around sunset, blow decently overnight, and then slacken off at daybreak before slowly strengthening throughout the course of the day. But in general, the winds were fairly light – the peak sustained wind we saw over the 2 week passage was 20.0 knots.
Angie revived her sourdough starter and made several delicious loaves of bread
And the direction was much less steady than we expected. The wind would swing by 40 or 50 degrees to port for a few hours, then back to starboard for a few hours. And the wind shifts from nighttime squalls were superimposed on top of the baseline wind shifts.
When we were becalmed in the high pressure the water was oily calm
But all in all, this was a fairly nice passage. The weather was warm the entire time – Mike wore shorts and a T shirt, with a fleece or vest at night. And despite the light wind, we made pretty good time – Madrone is a good sailing boat!
Hard at work hand stitching the repair on the sail
Total distance: 1957 nautical miles
Total time: 14 days plus 2.5 hours
Average speed: 5.8 knots
Number of fish caught: 0
Number of lures lost: 1
Number of mainsails repaired: 1
Number of mainsail repairs remaining: 1
