Day 21: Crossing from Mexico to French Polynesia

Yesterday, woke up to squally sky with the treat of a rainbow, a “squall-bow” a friend called it.  Winds up and down, five sail changes before pancakes done.  Winds filling in, sails up, and moving along!  Back to our old friend, beam seas and raucous noises.  Emil calls 17 knots of wind our “Goldilocks speed,” not too much, not too little, just right.  Reports are for increasing winds, seas, and squalls over the remainder of our voyage; will make land that much more sweet!

My Aunt Barb asked us what the first thing is we’ll do once we arrive, what we most look forward to.  Chris looks forward to watching everyone try to walk a straight line on land.  I’m craving pizza with a cold beer on land.  I’m looking forward to getting the boat clean, loading up on fresh local produce, doing laundry, and sleeping through the night.  Even more, I’m excited to start our exploration of the unique Marquesas islands and culture.  Cora is excited to not be moving around and will simply enjoy the still land.   Calder wants to get in the water and scrub the hull to get more speed.  Emil is having a hard time believing there is such a thing as land, also looking forward to jumping in once we are anchored and being reunited with his family.

Today, the highlight was dolphins – 30-40 large dolphins playing off our bow, jumping waves in a synchronized way in groups of 4-6.  Outstanding!  We noticed some of them had pink cheeks and bellies. We found out that this is due to vasodilation of capillaries in warm water dolphins when they are physically exerting themselves as a way to cool off.

We had a flying fish fly into the boat through a port hatch, funny for Calder to find him on the floor a bit later when getting ready for sleep.

Overnight, the wind and waves built up and we cracked off west (more than south) to keep the building seas on our stern, a more comfortable ride.  We dodged a squall line successfully, always so interesting to have winds build at the front of the squall, then drop to nothing at the end of it.  It feels so energetic and active, then all the energy is sucked up leaving quiet. 

We hit the 2,500 nm mark today. Less than 300 nm to go!

Total miles over the last 24 hours:    128.4 nm

Average speed in last 24 hours:       5.3 kts

Total miles of trip so far:     2,593 nm