Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Day 22: Pacific Ocean Crossing

All is well aboard SV Terrapin

We are in the home stretch. Less than 48 hours to go! Which is great since both our girls have hit rock bottom. They're miserable. Over it. Ready to see land and stop sailing.

We originally set out to make landfall in Hiva Oa and have changed our minds and course to make landfall in Nuka Hiva. A few boats have reported that Hiva Oa has nothing to offer and that Nuka Hiva has more "amenities". By amenities we're referencing the 2 restaurants, a few "grocery" stores, and snack shack that awaits our arrival. We get a giggle out of the people who are asking us if we're ready for a marina and hot shower. Marina? No for a few more months. Thankfully we have hot showers on the boat.

Because we did not secure a long term stay visa, we have only 90 days to get through Marquesas Islands, Tuamotus Islands, and Society Islands. We're thinking at the end of our 90 days our last stop will be Bora Bora where we will check out, that's a lot of sea to cover in only 90 days. After checking out, it's off to Cook Islands, Niue, maybe Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. We really don't know where we're going....just head West.

The grocery stores in the Marquesas and Tuamotus are equipped with food that's been delivered by the supply ships consisting of mostly canned food and frozen meat. At the snack shack you can purchase a $2 can of coke, $7 drumstick ice cream and spend $5.50 for a can of beer (all costs in US $). Our first day on land we plan to live like kings. Regardless of cost we're going to be gluttonous having a coke AND ice cream. Heck we may even wash it all down with a beer. It's going to be amazing. There is a laundry facility. Our friends aboard Beach Flea took in 3 large contractor bags of bedding and clothes to be washed, and for $100 USD it came back clean!

Compared to Mexico things are going to cost a bit more which means we'll need to stick to our budget. Best way to stick to the budget is to write down every cent we spend, so I'll be back to posting my "Cost to Cruise" blog posts once a month. You all will get to witness first hand the depletion of our cruising kitty. Expecting that provisioning was going to be slim pickings and cost quite a bit for the next few months we packed the boat with about 3-4 months worth of food.

Off the boats that left La Cruz, all but Coastal Drifter, Tiger Beetle, Spill the Wine, Monark, Finally Finished, Danika, Mystic Ceti and Shakedown have made landfall (I'm sure there's more boats, but I'm referencing the ones who check in on the net). We should be next!

Next post should be from land!







-- Sent via SSB Radio


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At 4/25/2017 2:17 AM (utc) our position was 06°05.32'S 135°25.34'W

2 comments:

  1. How we're you posting along the way? Sending text updates via sat. radio to friends on land who logged in and posted?

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    1. We were posting to our blog by way of our SSB radio using a specific email address that posts to the blog. Because it's through SSB we can only post texts without photos.

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