Pacific Crossing Day 10: From Pollywogs to Shellbacks

We crossed the equator at 9:06pm last night. We counted down together in the cockpit, poured some rum overboard for King Neptune, asking for a safe passage in return, and drank some non-alcoholic bubbly ourselves to celebrate the momentous occasion. We have officially graduated from mere pollywogs to mighty shellbacks! 

Ray headed to bed while I took the first watch shift. Thick fog surrounded us, making for a damp, cold night. We changed time zones a few times and now every one of our devices says something different. Shift change o’clock became a little confusing, but we managed. 

I woke up to the sound of Ray bringing out the gennaker at sunrise. We had great wind this morning, SOG 6.5-7.5kn. I had some tea and a muffin at the helm while watching a pod of dolphins in the distance. The sunlight was warm, and the water was calm. When conditions are like this, I feel like I could sail forever. 

A couple of our Patrons sent me messages about missing comments on these blog posts. I did some investigating and found an entire spam folder of comments I’ve never seen before, so if you randomly got a bunch of replies from me, I’m sorry! I’m just now seeing it! Ray helped me change the settings, so this shouldn’t happen again. I sorted through them all, smiling from ear to ear. Sharing this with you guys has been so fun! Thanks for following along; we love reading your comments. 🙂 

I did another produce inspection today, freezing some mangos before they spoil and chopping up a watermelon. We ate our last avocado with lunch. We’ve been doing great with our food supply so far, though I wouldn’t mind making some room for some fresh fish… We sailed most of the day, blasting music and just hanging out. 

I checked our fishing lines only to notice one was missing. We had a giant squid lure on it, and the swivel was busted, so it must have been snagged by something big! Ray is going to repurpose the old band from my spear to make a replacement handline. 

The wind dropped slightly this afternoon, and the sea state got lumpy. We were tired of listening to the gennaker flop around, so we brought out the jib instead, lowering our speed. Conditions continued deteriorating as we began battling 1.5kn of current and opposing ground swell. We decided to drop the sails altogether to prevent any damage to the rig and start an engine.

A pod of pilot whales visited us just after sunset. I had a brief moment of panic when we first spotted them; I thought they were orcas, and after hearing so many reports of orcas attacking boats, I wanted nothing to do with them! Luckily, we identified them by their unique bulbous heads as they swam right by us. What an incredible way to end the day!

We’ve raised the main, brought out the jib, and are attempting to sail again as I post this. It looks like we’re in for another bumpy night, but we’ll see how it goes!