Category Archives: South Pacific

San Diego to Nuka Hiva Day 8-9

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  • Position and Time: N 16-47 by W 126-45 at 2355 UTC May 6, 1084 miles from San Diego
  • Speed and Course: 6.1 knots, 210 degrees true, 1600rpm
  • Wind: 7 knots at 210 degrees relative
  • Waves: 6-8 foot swells at 10-12 seconds, 3-4 foot wind waves.

The trip meter went over 1000. We are officially arrived to the vicinity of the middle of nowhere! Pretty soon we will be half way, which is still the middle of nowhere.

Yesterday, we deployed the paravane fish. We wanted to see how much it helped with the roll. It helped some, slowed us down, as expected. We decided that the fish didn’t stop enough of the roll to justify the loss of speed, so we put the fish back in their holders after a day. It was a bit tricky to bring them in out of the open ocean, but we did it.

We are still experiencing good size waves from the front at regular intervals, while simultaneously getting Continue reading →

San Diego to Nuka Hiva Day 6-7

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  • Position and Time: N 20-34 by W 124-24 at 2155 UTC, 818 miles from San Diego
  • Speed and Course: 6.0 knots, 210 degrees true, 1450rpm
  • Wind: 12 knots at 150 degrees relative
  • Waves: 6-8 foot swells at 10-12 seconds, 3-4 foot wind waves.

We are almost one third of the way.

The routine has pretty well set in. Doing watch, eating, sleeping, doing engine room checks, checking communications, etc. The obvious fact that we are about hundreds of miles from the nearest land (Mexico’s Guadalupe Island) occasionally comes to mind. The seas have picked up, and there is no doubt we are on the open ocean. We get a combination of a swell and wind wave about every minute or so gives us some strong roll, even with the stabilizers. We estimate these waves to be about 8 feet or so. Anything requiring moving around takes extra concentration and careful timing between rolls. Continue reading →

Day 5 San Diego to Nuka Hiva

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  • Position: N 24-27.32, W 121-57.12 at 2322 UTC on May 2, 2007 (549 nautical miles from San Diego).
  • Speed and direction: 5.9 knots, 210 degrees true.
  • Wind: Wind 15 knots 150 degrees relative,
  • Waves: 6 foot swells, 10-12 seconds. Wind waves 1-2 feet. 1016.7mb.

Our route to Nuka Hiva is almost a straight line, but not quite. This morning we altered course slightly to 210 degrees true. Our next way point is N19-30.67 by W 125-04.60, which we expect to reach in about 60 hours. In case you have not noticed Continue reading →

Day 3 to Nuka Hiva

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First the basics: We are 277 miles from San Diego. If you draw a line from San Diego to Nuka Hiva, we are pretty much on it. At U2308 UTC we are at position 28-29.07N by 119-39.03W. Speed 5.5 knots with engine running at 1450 rpm at course 207 degrees true. Wind W knots relative speed and direction of D degrees, wind waves 1 foot, swells about 5 feet at 12 seconds. Barometric pressure is B and steady for last H hours. Depth is crazy deep, don’t ask. We traveled 130 miles yesterday. We measured 1.8 gallons per hour fuel burn, can calculated about 3.8 miles per gallon. These are great numbers which mean we have a range of about 4600 miles at current conditions. We are only going 2900 this first passage. We are increasing rpm to 1500.

We are on day three. All is calm and quiet. We have things to keep us occupied at sea. We have lots of books and various watch duty activities, which is what mariners have had for ages. Buy hey, this is 2007. We have a Wii plugged into a 26 inch LCD TV in the saloon. Also we have 720p TV projector with a 50 inch by 30 inch screen in the mid stateroom with 5.1 surround sound. We do not plan to use these toys much when we are on land, but they are nice things to have here at sea.

We are excited that the first destinations on our journey are places totally different from what we are used to. There is tremendous abundance in San Diego, and now we are going to some of the most remote places on the planet. Did you know that 98% of the people live in 2/3 of the world? There is a 1/3 slice of the planet, mostly made up of the Pacific Ocean that is essentially empty. We are going straight through the middle of that on this trip.

We just watched a pod of about 10 dolphins at the bow the boat. It is our second dolphin sighting so far. My thought of the moment is we are so lumbering and loud in our pocket of artificial land compared to those graceful creatures.