26 August - Swabby Blog

0600 position 24-12S 158-15W. Day's run 160 miles

It's my turn to write the blog today and it's the perfect morning to do
so. What a difference a day and a half makes. After challenging
conditions 1 ½ days ago, the high winds on the high seas that Bill wrote
about, the southwest winds diminished to a whisper and then to nothing
Sunday evening. [pause for fish strike… catch and release 8lbs aku] I
wrung the last of the wind out of the atmosphere and Bill fired up the
engine. We motored over flat water and under a cloudless, starry sky for
the last half of my watch and most of Bill's.
I find the slow speed of motoring and the slapping of the steadying
mainsail to be frustrating but I did get some rest in the stable, if noisy
conditions.

I woke up at 5AM Monday morning when Bill backed off the throttle and
slipped the transmission into neutral. Soon the engine was silent and we
were sailing in just enough breeze to keep the sails full. I looked up
through the companion way and in the loom of the masthead light the wind
indicator pointed to wind from the northwest and we were on port tack.
This isn't supposed to happen. Bill said, "just as predicted." Predicted
or not, this wind is very favorable and fortunate for us, and very rare.
We are sailing from left to right on your screen and for most of this
voyage we have been blessed with winds from the south and southwest. A
typical wind in this part of the world, and a very unfavorable one for a
boat sailing to the east, comes from the southeast. The northwesterly we
sail with now is just the opposite of that. It is exceptionally lucky for
us and it is exceptionally rare. These "chance" winds are probably the
same winds that carried the polynesians eastward in their migration across
the Pacific.

In the first hours of my watch I sailed on a broad reach in very calm seas
in 10 knots of breeze. I watched the dawn blossom in the east into a
gorgeous citrus sunrise. It was tangerine and reminded me of the orange
fleshed limes that Lori and Vicki picked on Pangaimotu Island. The sky
was a checkerboard of cotton clouds on a blue field. We voyage for days
like this. By noon the seas had developed into lazy and infrequent 16
foot swells that were easy to sail over. We gybed twice and were
overtaken by a line of squalls but the northwest wind persisted as we
sailed wing on wing into the late afternoon. At 2030 we were again
overtaken by a line of rain squalls and this time the wind shifted to the
southwest and our exceptional northwest winds were gone, probably for good
this trip. Raivavae, here we come!