Pacific Crossing Day 21: The Companion of my Days

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. ❤️ We celebrate our love daily but dug out the crystal champagne flutes we used during our ceremony with our wedding date engraved on them and popped open a bottle of sparkling apple cider during the last moments of daylight. In our vows, we refer to each other as “the companion of my days,” nothing feels more true after 21 days of just us and the open ocean. Cheers to the best year yet! 

I started my first watch shift at 9pm. Sitting at the helm with no moonlight in 6-9ft seas is incredibly disorienting. We spend all day watching the horizon for potential squall activity, keeping an eye on the sea state, and analyzing sail shape. When you can’t rely on visual cues, you have to trust your instruments, listen to the wind and waves, and feel how the boat is responding. It becomes more of a numbers game- looking at speed and rudder angle for confirmation you made the right decision rather than tell-tales or luffing. It’s a different kind of sailing. When I was first learning to sail, I used to get frustrated when I saw Ray make an adjustment and asked, “How did you know to do that?” And he’d respond, “I just felt it.” I illuminated the sails with a headlamp all the time during my night watch shifts as a way to “double-check” myself. Over the years, I’ve begun to understand what he meant. I’m still not as in tune as he is, but maybe it’ll come with time. I only used the headlamp once last night. 

It was still pitch black when I came up for my second shift at 7am. I watched as the sky slowly lit up, turning the clouds from gray to gold. 

We’re less than 1,000 nautical miles away from Hiva Oa. It feels bittersweet, getting closer. Obviously, that’s the goal of this passage, but who knows if/when we’ll ever do something like this again… I think we’ll miss it when it’s over, but I’m looking forward to new, beautiful cruising grounds. 

We turned Starlink on briefly this morning to download emails and post our latest YouTube video, then shut it back off to conserve power. These cloudy mornings are killing us! It always clears up once the sun slips behind our sails, though…

The water below us is over 13,000ft deep. You can feel the power of the waves as they push our home forward, giving us an extra 2-3kn of speed. We’re sailing at ~7kn, but our SOG reads 9.5-10+ as we surf downwind. 

I have a question for my fellow sailing ladies: how are you planning to pee in your life raft?😂 Looking out at these monstrous waves, there’s no way I’m getting in and out of the water if, God forbid, we needed to use the thing. Is there a device I should purchase and keep in our ditch bag? Are we using plastic bags? Let a sister know. These are the things I’m left to ponder when Starlink is off. 

We shared our last passion fruit with lunch. We’re down to just apples now, plus some mango and banana that I froze. At this point, I call visiting the freezer below “grocery shopping.” It’s still incredibly well stocked. I pulled out some roasted chicken to have for dinner. 

The waves are 10-12ft now, but Sabado & crew are handling it just fine. However, I wouldn’t mind some moonlight tonight…