Day 7: Pacific Ocean Crossing

All is well aboard SV Terrapin

A HUGE thank you to those who have sent us messages. It's awesome to read words of encouragement, well wishes and jokes from people whom we've never met before. It makes our whole day to read what you're writing, again, thank you!

We have finally found some wind that has kept us steadily sailing for the past 48 hours. It's about time we make up speed from the 2 days of bobbing around. We're not quite into the trade winds but have a steady 10+ knots of wind. We've been mainly on a broad reach with a jib and jigger configuration.

The following vessels checked in on the Pacific Puddle Jump Net either 4/8, 4/9 or both nights:

Sv My Dream
SV Coastal Drifter
SV WIZ
SV Danika
SV Slow Flight
SV Sky Blue Eyes
SV Spill the Wine
SV Music
SV Fandango
SV Shindig
SV Mayaluga
SV Finally Finished
SV Me Too
SV Cynthia (sp?)
SV Pangea
SV All Day
SV Beach Flea
SV Southern Cross
SV Blessing
SV Nomad
SV Mystic Ceti
SV Ashika

It's great to hear what the other vessels in front of us are experiencing. Biggest gripe by the majority of boats is sloppy seas and cloud cover. In years past the biggest gripe has been no wind.

SV Slow Flight has reported that their spare alternator works like a charm and they're doing great, minus the boobie who crapped all over Kimi's Kindle....can't win them all.

SV Beach Flea is doing better. They were able to "trick" their autopilot into working in sloppy seas and haven't been hand steering as much. They are still without an alternator but report that they have enough gas for their generator that they're really not worried about it. They are thinking that the helicopter which hovered over them a few days ago was associated with a mass tuna fishing fleet. The same day there was a helicopter hovering over their boat they had to navigate safe passage around a parked tuna trawler.

Speaking of navigating safe passage around other boats, Terrapin must be a magnet for ginormous boats in the shipping lane. Just about every day we've spotted huge vessels that we have to change our course for.

To keep the girls sane, I've started an arts and crafts club from 2-6pm during one of my shifts. Two days ago we created paper airplanes and flew them off the boat followed by paper orgami. Yesterday I hauled out a stack of magazines and they each created collages from cut up pictures they liked. Boat school out on the open sloppy seas is a bust, however we were able to squeak in a day of Algebra.

We've been a full week at sea and I'm happy to report that for most of us it went by fast. Only a few more weeks to go ??


-- Sent via SSB Radio


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At 4/10/2017 2:53 PM (utc) our position was 14°25.44'N 115°25.95'W