Makena - Niue

We are less than 2 days from Niue now. As we were powering along at 10kts this lunchtime both fishing lines buzzed so loudly that they scared Kai. Kai and I ran to the flybridge to get us upwind, furl the genoa and then slow the boat down as much as possible with some help from the starboard engine (Watt & Sea is out behind the portside one). Victor and Luc quickly each brought in a rather large tuna. Victor had just finished making us sushi for lunch with the tuna we caught two days ago! At least it is very tasty and we have plenty of sushi making supplies, including fresh ginger. We went through quite a prolonged storm since the last blog. We stayed in a pack with Juno and A Plus 2 and checked in on each other hourly. Luc saw 56 true wind on the monitors on two occasions (a. read more...

Makena - Pacific Crossing - almost to Hiva-Oa!

The winds have died out on us so we relented and started motoring towards Hiva-Oa. We’ve done 16 full days now and hopefully we’ll be well anchored before the 17th starts. We are under 60nm from the islands now. We’ll likely cross the finish line for this leg at night and anchor outside the bay that we’ll move into next morning. It is a pity that we will likely not see the islands rise from the sea since the nights are dark now. It will be very exciting nonetheless to see the lights ashore. Apparently only one cafe/bar on the island has free wifi! We’re racing to get there first :). read more...

Makena - Pacific crossing day 15th

We had the pleasure to see our friends from Juno show up on AIS, which means we can have chats on VHF of much better quality than the SSB radio.We have been able to exchange our remaining egg count, and it seems that Caroline is well taken care off by the three men on board according to the men at least... we only have 350 miles to go, but unfortunately the winds are less strong, so we most likely will arrive Saturday morning. We have had discussions about dinner at a restaurant Friday night, but that probably jinxed it.Anyway we had a GREAT dinner last night on board with Boeuf Bourguignon, and Creme Brûlée for desert, along with a nice Bordeaux.Tonight we have left-overs bolstered by fresh white bred made by Dave, and I have seen a Rhum soaked Prune Clafoutis in the oven...Tomorrow we. read more...

Makena - Pacific Crossing less than 750 miles to go

Good morning from a calm South Pacific Ocean. 4000m of blue water below and less than 770 nm ahead for us. We normally try to avoid making major sail changes at night but last night around 3am Sarah got us to change from an uncomfortable, slow and very northern gibe with main and gennacker to being wing on wing with gennacker and genoa. Things have been going well since so the wake up calls were worth it. Perhaps we won’t need to change from this setup now until we reach the islands! We’ll see. Luc is having conversations with the fishing rods. No more fish catches to report though. Dave is making his morning bread for us. Oliver has the galley looking spotless. The family members are all well. Trivia thought for the day is that we’ve been at 26 Degrees East with Makena this summer when. read more...

Makena - Pacific Crossing - 11 days done

All is good aboard. We’re on a peaceful but not too speedy gibe now with our patched gennacker. Dave made a white bread AND a spelt flour brown bread today. We’re going to tuck in for an early lunch and wind our clocks back to UTC-8. Not much to report! Thinking of our family and friends. . read more...