Day before departure we topped off the tanks!
Checked the weather forecast. Note there are 6 different weather models and all of which predict a passage of less than 15 days, maximum wind speed of 17.3Kts and less than 4 days motoring. Sounded perfect! Predictions like this become progressively less reliable out more than three days….
We were very fortunate to have an excellent crew member to help with watches and more.
My watch began at 4:00am so I had lots of time to think, read and write. Every morning I was rewarded with an awesome sunrise! The winds were perfect and the seas moderate.
We caught a Skipjack Tuna on our second full day out!
Katie turned it into a healthy and delicious dinner
Besides taking a watch, sailing, cooking and cleaning, Katie made an extra effort to always look her best!
… and afternoon/evening meals were always a special event!
Oddly we saw Boobies throughout the passage. We often wondered where they rested beside on the few transiting boats. As the winds died down, they landed on Samsara. The can make a stinky mess in no time at all!
In the lighter airs we hoisted the code 0 out of the forepeak and raised it on the spinnaker halyard.
We sailed with the Code 0 for about 24 hours in about 10 kts of wind and it was beautiful. Then, on afternoon of the 5th day, we heard a pop, which was the swivel block at the head of the sail exploding. With surprise and dismay , we watched as the sail drifted down and under our hull as Samsara continued forward powered by the main sail. It took about an hour to get it all back on board and may not have happened if Carlos wasn’t there to help. I would have had to just cut the lines and let it go….
Life went on with lots of resting.
More great Sunrises. We think Carlos was missing his wife and kids!!!
Showers on the back of the boat!
And laundry! We cleaned up the cockpit later this day as we crossed the equator!
Of course there were many more beautiful sunrises and sunsets! Below is a nice video of a sunrise.
Some happy selfies!
We caught another Skipjack Tuna!
We took one last selfie before arriving at Nuku Hiva!
After rounding the SE end of Ua Huka we finally closed in on Nuku Hiva. The cliffs look like carved chess pieces! After 19 days at sea we finally motored into Taiohae Bay seeing our friends Nan & Doug on Paseo for the first time in about a year, though we had been tracking their progress on Predictwind and reading their well written and entertaining posts.
We wasted no time, cleaning up the boat and going out to the nicest restaurant in Nuku Hiva with the captain and crew of Paseo.
sv-samsara.com 