Day # 19 Time passes on

The wind came right up Thursday night, I had the starboard side port hole open for cooking then later that night when the wind and waves built it was still open. With the 2 headsails set we were flying down the swells doing hull speed a lot of the time, autopilot working for its money. With the waves from one way and the swell from the side we corkscrew a bit, this one big wave we surfed fast down, then back up, big carve at the top then fly back down, another big carve and then bang just dropped on our starboard side. You guessed it a good bit of water through our porthole, all over our bits and bobs on the table and radio, Satphone, and the inverter (120v power source). Even though the inverter was switched of I came in and it was smoking, really not good. I disconnected it from the battery and sprayed the shit out of it with WD40 and left it until today. It's a lot calmer today and we pulled it to pieces and cleaned it up and now it seems to be working again alright.
Yesterday at daylight the wind was really up there and the swells had built and we were getting pushed north so when Julie woke we put back up the mainsail so as we could head a little south. Once at the mast we saw both the headsail poles barely hanging in there, the track they sit in had been ripped from the mast and luckily they were still hanging in there otherwise it would have been catastrophe with the poles banging around loose connected to the sails in 30kts of breeze, not cool. The spinnaker pole ring was real hard to get off but we managed with a big hammer and a hacksaw anyway we cut the track off, leaving what's left of the good track and then managed to get the rings out of the track with the help of the vice and more hammering and now we are back on track with both poles set once again. There was obviously just too much pressure on the track with the two pole rings right up the top, I never thought much about it. I will put on a new track, a little higher and will have more fasteners so hopeful it won't happen again. A shame though to see the newly painted mast scratched up but nothing a bit more paint won't fix.
Anyway the weather is once again good, been under 20kts all day and we are rolling away again heading west. It's great heading west and one of the most satisfying things is adjusting the clocks. At this rate we adjust the clocks back half an hour every 2-3 days to keep it in line, pretty cool.
Been too rough for fishing but maybe tomorrow but I'm kinda hoping we still have this wind and can keep romping along for the next few days and get there in good time. All good on the fine ship Sunflower
Saturday 5pm Pos 6*55S 128*22W. 708nm to go

Day 17

Routine has definitely set in and it's great. Sun rises, check sails, untie a reef, change sail plan, pole out a headsail, whatever needs to be done to keep us moving along well for the day. The person who's just finished watch goes to bed the other has a coffee wakes up, looks at the day, checks for flying fish and squids on deck, looks at the rigging then assumes the position and settles in with a book. The other wakes up sometime after 9, decide what to have for breakfast- fruit and yogurt (none left), toasted sandwich (thin pickings),scrambled eggs (most landed on floor) on toast or just plane boring toast. Then if the weather lets us we chuck out a line and try and catch a fish, kill and clean it if we do. We play a game where we guess how many miles we've done in the last 24hours, the alarm goes off at 1156 and we put a fix on the chart and see how many miles we actually did, looser gets the beers from the fridge. Hang out in the cockpit for an hour or 2 and decide what's for lunch and maybe try to have a shower on the cockpit floor if there's no chance of getting thrown overboard.
Then if we've caught a fish it's fish and salad if we haven't it's normally a salad of some sort - cabbage of lettuce if we have and whatever other veggies we've got and then tins of corn, beans or tuna, sometimes cous cous, healthy simple living. While we eat that we watch a series on TV (Homeland at the moment) then after maybe one of us goes for a siesta waking up at 5 for a customary rum and coke, put in an extra reef in the mainsail if needed for the night then talk about what to eat next. Lately with all this fish we've been having various Thai curries, chopped onion, garlic, carrots whatever else, fry it in either Thai red, green, yellow or Penang paste and then set aside and fry fillets of fish then add the veggies just before it's cooked and some coconut milk and lime, tiny bit of sugar and voila!, job done never get sick of it! Although we do have a few Indian curries to mix it up a little also with meat from the freezer. Then run the engine to charge batteries/make water then maybe watch another episode while eating and start our watches at 9, 3 hours each. Every second night we each get the 9pm watch which means every second night we get a half decent sleep. Watches have been pretty easy of late with no shipping about, just look out for big black clouds that bring the squalls and then furl in a little headsail if needed and turn the knob on the autopilot and run with it until it's blown itself out and then roll your guts out for a while as it's taken all the wind with it and left us there wollowing, soon enough the sun will rise again and it starts all over, happy days
The flag is looking like it's just about had enough??!
Thursday 28/6 4pm position 6*18S 123*13W. 1017nm to Nuku Hiva

Day 14- Making Miles

We've had plenty of wind the last few days, no worries about that. We have the wind right on our port quarter, it's just that tiny bit too Far East to either be sailing downwind with 2 headsails poled out or on a broad reach flying along. So we are zigzagging our way across our rhumb line, one day with the poles out and heading a bit north and rolling like hell and the next day on a broad reach heading a little south a but a lot more comfy. We are covering a few extra miles but it's easier on us and Sunflower and we are still having surprisingly really good day runs, today 169 miles made good and yesterday 151 so we are not complaining at all and still managing to get some sleep.
Saw a ship heading for Chille today, first one in days not a lot of action out here except the surprising amount of birds, there's loads and we are now about 1500 miles from any land?. Has been too rough to fish but I still gave it a go this morning even though we were doing more than 7kts through the water got a couple of strikes but lost them, could give it a go now as it's calmed of a good deal but I've already defrosted some chicken so will give it another go tomorrow.
Here's some boring figures that I find interesting anyway after today's noon fix of 2 weeks progress-
We are now averaging 145.2nm a day @ 6.05knts, last week it was 137.2nm a day @ 5.7knts.
This last 7 days we made good 1073nm and averaged 6.3kts or 153.2 miles per day, best passage yet as far as miles go.
We haven't used the engine for propulsion since we left the island although are using it to charge the batteries each night for half an hour and every few days run the watermaker for a couple of hours.
Nothing too exciting I'm sorry to say, but we like it that way anyhow
Pos 5*59S. 115*15W. 1490nm to go

Day 12- Rolling like Hell

Been a fast few days, found a little favouring current and then last night the wind came up with squally weather that lasted until this morning. Fast sailing, broad reaching with half the Genoa, staysail and a reefed mainsail but we were heading too far south so at daylight we poled out the staysail and Genoa and are heading downwind rolling like crazy but on course. Big swell from SW with the wind waves from SE and we are all over the place!! Not much sleep but pretty happy when at midday we did a fix and had made good 170nm in the last 24 hours! Best days run this passage and yesterday 162nm and the day before 150 so all is well. Tonight around midnight we should be nearly half way there so happy Days.
Too windy to fish as I would probably roll overboard trying to clean it so I managed to make pumpkin soup from a pumpkin that is well over 3 months old and still looked like the day we bought it!! This one travelled through the canal with us in march, they're tough little buggers
Position 5*20S 109*50W. 1816nm to go

day #9 fish paradise

Miles are ticking away super easy here and the fishing is becoming a joke. We literally just throw our little soft pink plastic squid m on a hand line over and in less than an hour each time we have another Mahi Mahi, perfect fish and perfect size. Some are just 2 feeds, bigger are 3-4 so we only have to get one every day or couple of days. Have been eating grilled with herbs, fried in spices, curried in Thai coconut milk different ways, crumbed, sushimi, you name it twice a day, happy days!
A couple of days ago in the arvo I could see a fleet of fishing boats on the AIS. This gives us there course, speed, eta and info,about there boat. Anyway we had to sail through the middle of them and they were all doing less than half a knot? Big boats also, 50,55 and even one 74 metres. All Asian, maybe Korean, or Japanese I'm not sure but they were like small tanker ship style with massive freeboard to carry loads and wide, looked run down like old ghost ships. Then the closer we get they have like Davits all down the side and then through the binoculars I can see what looks like rows of lights up above all the way bow to stern. Sure enough just before the sun went down they switch on there lights, I've never seen anything like it, I'm not joking in the daylight you can't look at it for any amount of time as it burns your eyes like you're looking at the sun!! All LED, serious bloody Lumens!! So I think they must be jigging for squid, but they must be getting other things a
s well as there can't be that much money in squid and just the fuel alone to run these generators must be huge? And they're 8000nm+ away from home? They just sit here hanging off a sea anchor drifting slowly head into the wind, massive big boats. A couple that had AIS said there ETA was 30 th of November but it didn't say what port? Big swings away from home for sure and not the nicest of conditions I'm certain. Lots in the fleet were called LURONGYUNAYU and then a number at the end, one was 538 check it out on google maybe something comes up would be good to know? Anyway once it was dark for the whole night it was like looking at a city, hundreds of these boats in the distance and now last night we saw only 2 lights, really strange they are all together like that.
Another strange thing we saw, actually the strangest thing I have ever seen at sea was these bright orange like floating clumps, some the size of a fist or 2 and others smaller all shapes and together in an area about half the size of Sunflowers deck. There was a bit of a cloud of merky water around it like maybe it was shat out or regurgitated from a whale??! I really don't know, haven't seen any whales, did it come up from the sea floor 1000's of metres down and a volcano was going to pop up?? Anyway I yelled out to Julieta and she saw it so I'm not going mad but I really do want to google for myself and see what I can find!!
Anyway all is good, 2299nm to go, position 4*11.5s 101*52.0w
Here's another pic of a fish as I don't know what else to put up!!

BBQ Day 7

Bloody good day today, woke up and it was sunny, waves were down and had a nice breeze. We took down the 2 headsails, put back up the full main and got back on course doing 6kts all too easy:)
At noon we checked our progress, just 130nm made good but we are happy enough with that, been a reasonably easy enough passage so far. After 7 days we have covered 961nm averaging 137nm a day or 5.7knts and hopefully that might improve the further west we get, anyway just happy the sun is shining and the weather is warming up.
We saw from a distance coming these massive dolphins? Not sure exactly what they are but they are a lot bigger than a usual dolphin for sure with a massive round head. Anyway they stayed with us for an hour today happily swimming under Sunflowers bow, was really nice to see. After all that excitement it was time for a beer and seeing the weather was so nice why not a BBQ? Julie managed to find some Argentinian meet in the city that turned out to be very nice indeed!!
Good times

Day 6

Been a pretty good few days although a bit slower than the start. The wind died a little and came more from the East, or behind us so we lost a bit of speed but are still doing alright. Day 4 we made good 136nm, then 141nm and today only 126nm. It's been very cruisey sailing though except for last night when the wind died and we were rolling like crazy with the mainsail banging and cracking until we took it down and put up the 2 headsails at daylight. Just as we finished setting up that a rain squall came through with a big gust and a wave on the port side we broached a little and 3 cartons of eggs went flying from one side of the cabin to the other, big mess!! Now with the wind right behind us we are rolling a lot but we will no doubt get used to that, at least we are still making miles. The weather is sunny today, yesterday totally cloudy but it has warmed up a bit for sure and the water temp is now nearly 20 degrees. The current is now helping us a little also but the wind is light and we are only just making 5kts.
There were a few fishing boats south of the Galapagos but they have all gone now which is good. Had a freak out the other night, was watching Narcos season 3 with a big proper shoot out at the end and then hear a fisherman on the radio, he's talking to another fisherman in Spanish saying he can see lights to the right. We see his lights and then he switches them off and we know he's close but it's pitch black and can't see his little boat on the radar and with all that colombian drug war fresh in my head all I can think of is I really need a machine gun right now?!?! No more watching those shows at night
Also our stalk of bananas got loose the other night and smashed itself up quite bad underneath the solar panels but no need to worry as there's still 100 others ripe and ready to eat, can't remember ever eating so many at once. Bit disappointed with some of our other vege purchases, had to throw out a few rotten tomatoes, onions and limes they don't seem to be lasting the distance and are only just over a week old.
Caught a nice little Mahi Mahi the other day which has been feeding us well and also 4 little squids landed on the deck which we had for lunch yesterday, easy fishing!!
So let's hope the wind picks up a little and we can start making some good miles once again.
Position 03*32.800s 094*50.200w distance to go 2718nm

Cruising-Day 3

Sunflower never fails to surprise me, she makes the miles easy and super comfy. 1st day hard on the wind we made 130nm's good, next day 147 and today 151. We still have the current on our port side but last night and today was the only times that it seems to slow us down a little. Today it is really strong and we are pointing an extra 30 degrees to make our course and still getting pushed north. Tonight sometime we will pass about 50-60 miles south of the Galapagos and hopefully according to the pilot charts our current will change and slowly become more favourable. Yesterday was awesome sailing in 15-18 knots on the beam, full sail and we were doing 7-8 knots all arvo. Was mesmerising watching us cruise over the swells so easily without any effort. We put 2 reefs in the mainsail at night so there is no need to go on the foredeck after dark but it slows us down a bit but we still made alright miles although there was a fair bit of rain around and the wind was a bit all over the place.
There's also a surprising amount of fishing boats around, you see there bright lights in the distance and early this morning we passed quite close to one and I think it was a big purse seiner probably catching tuna.
The water has warmed up a little from 13.9 degrees to now 18.4 let's hope it's a bloody bit warmer though when we get there! Put the line out this afternoon but no luck as yet so have just taken out some mince, normally as soon as that's defrosted we will land a fish, had sashimi and then Thai fish cakes with the last tuna 🐟
Bit slower day today as winds are light and also forecast light for tomorrow but let's see, maybe if we're in the Equatorial Current we will still make another 150nm 🌻⛵️😉
Our position 02*13.600s 88*38.000w. 3100nm to go

Pacific Sailing!!

All is well, got back to Ecuador and Julie met me in the Capital of Quito where we spent the night leaving the next morning for the 8 hour bus ride to Bahia. Back onboard Sunflower we got everything ready to leave but once again we were stuck in the river with not enough water to get out so we had to wait until Sunday. We had a good time though as there were a few other cruisers around and we also got away up the coast for the night to Canoa to relax and eat some good seafood. Sunday came and the swell was up but we managed to get out the braking sand bar without an issue, just waited for the sets of waves to roll through and then go flat out with the engine and after half a mile were free in the deeper water and very relieved!! We motorsailed bashing into it for 12 hours until we got to Isla De La Plata about 50nm south arriving just after midnight and were greeted by 4 turtles and a load of fish swimming around us in the light. There are some moorings there so we picked one up but after banging on it due to no wind and tide we ended up putting the engine on astern and getting a few hours sleep. First thing I was up and in the water cleaning the prop and bottom and fixing a leaking watermaker. About half a dozen tourist boats turned up but know one was bothered about us which was nice and we got out of there just before lunch.
Once clear of the island we saw we could make course for Marquesas although hard on the wind but at least we were sailing once again. By early evening wind was up in the 20's and then a bit more but the seas weren't so big so we made good progress with 2 reefs and a little bit of headsail. Problem is the Humbalt current, it's bloody freezing. At night all rugged up in jeans and jumpers and today the water temp is 14.9degrees!! The current is on our port side so not bothering us too much and after a couple of days more it will hopefully be pushing us from behind as we pass the Galapagos. Today the wind has backed SSE so a lot nicer angle and only about 15kts so we have full sail and making 6kts boat speed which is real nice. Caught a fat little stripy tuna at lunch and will have him for dinner which we are pretty stoked about.
All is well aboard Sunflower with only 3400 odd nautical miles to go