Like just about everything we do on the boat, our route for the passage from Easter Island to mainland Chile was determined by the weather. The dominant weather feature in this part of the ocean is the South Pacific high, a semi-permanent area of high pressure located directly between our starting and ending points. Since high pressure means no wind, our route needed to go around the high.
Leaving Easter Island, we sailed almost straight south for a few days into very light winds from the southwest. The light winds were not good for our speed (we only averaged 5 knots boat speed for the first week), but they made the conditions very comfortable – it was a nice way to ease our way back into being at sea.
Once we got south of the high, we entered the latitudes of the westerly winds and were able to start heading east. The wind strength also increased, and our speed picked up as well.
Even though it’s the middle of summer, we still had a couple of storm systems that worked their way north from the southern ocean into our path. We could see them in the weather forecast a few days ahead of their arrival, and we kept as far north as possible to stay away from their centers. Even with this, we had two gales in the final four days.
One surprise of the trip was the lack of boat traffic. We saw a couple of fishing pangas 15 minutes outside Easter Island, and then the next boat we saw was 20 miles from the Chilean mainland. For the middle part of the passage, we were alone.
We were also surprised by the lack of marine life. In the north Pacific, we saw a lot of seabirds, dolphins, whales, and flying fish. On this trip, we saw nearly no sign of life for the first 10 days or so. After that, we started to see some shearwaters and then were joined by albatross for the last couple of days. We had no flying fish on deck the entire passage, only a couple of small squid.
At the beginning of the passage, both Mike and Angie were a little nervous – with the stormy Southern Ocean so close, the weather in this part of the ocean can be more serious than in the north Pacific. But aside from the two gales, we had really nice conditions – warm air, mostly sunny skies, and moderate wind.
Our mainsail repairs held up the entire trip, we didn’t break anything on the boat, and we are delighted to be in mainland Chile!
Total distance: 2179 nautical miles
Average speed: 5.9 knots
Total time: 15 days, 9.5 hours
