day 188: so close and yet…
Naomi here, Well here we finally are slowly easing our way up the cook strait , which in fact we have been doing for, just about 24 hours now. Not having a very functional motor can really slow you down sometimes, it’s not so bad tho if you can have a hot cuppa and a hot meal while you slat about waiting for the wind to come up. Which we cannot do we ran out of propane a couple days ago. Last night the wind died early in the night and didn’t come up again till early this morning so we took turns standing in the pouring rain refreshing ourselves with cold instant coffee or, nice plain tank water ! Are new lows being reached on bluebird? It’s hard to say, there were so many lows during our beloved passage to gambier I feel like nothing could be as uncomfortable as that passage was. But there is something special about being a stones throw away from our home port or even a comfy little mooring ball and instead just having to sit in the rain pretending there might be a bit of a breeze here or there. There have been some highs tho, we have had some brilliant sailing the last couple days, hitting at one point a 9.9 knot average over an hour ! And yesterday bluebird achieved a new high speed 18.1 knots- not naming any Naomis on who was helming for that one. The albatrosses and mollymawks continue to be favourite companions of ours, altho yesterday coming into the strait we discovered, perhaps the prettiest seabird in the world? The cape petrel with its spotted wings and dotty little bum, very very cute. We also had a slide break on the main and fixed it fairly easily which felt like a nice easy win for us. So while in some ways bluebird is sort of limping in to harbour with no alternator extremely limited capacity to motor and only 3/4 of a mainsail , in other ways, I would very much like a hot meal and a cuppa right now.
Miriam here, It is a brilliant, clear morning, the coastline rugged and gorgeous, cloud strewn mountains rising in the distance. Or at least it was for the last hour or so. Now the sun is disappearing behind a massive rain cloud and the chill wind is piercing as we continue to slowly inch our way towards Waikawa. I thought to blog yesterday, heralding the penultimate day of this mercurial passage. But, true to form, things continue to change drastically and often and at this point we’ve given up predictions and just hope to get there in some sort of reasonable timing, preferably before dark today. That hot meal and cuppa and, wonder of all wonders, a hot shower will be very appreciated.
But we have had daily cetaceans to keep our spirits up! There were three consecutive days of dolphins, whale sightings the last two days, and yesterday I saw a wee little being that Nao is guessing is a Hector’s Dolphin. The seals have been making appearances as well; yesterday morning (I think? It’s all a blur at this point…) Naomi and I laughed aloud watching 3 play in our wake, all sinuous leapings and flipper flailings, bright eyes sparkling in sleek whiskered faces. There have been some maybe sharks as well, just chilling at the surface. I’m loving all the sea birds as well and never tire of watching the grace and precision of their flight as they wheel and tilt around us.
The crew is getting creative with our new cold diet. Jamie has discovered that ramen rehydrates decently in cold water and the msg flavour packet makes it a delicious meal, only vaguely crunchy. Luckily we have ample crackers and cookies, some cans of tuna and squid, and have yet to get desperate enough to eat cold refried beans. Oh, scratch that, just looked over to notice someone opened them this morning and now that I’ve had a bite they’re actually better than expected cold. Every meal is a snack! What else…The hum of the hull when Nao set the new speed record was remarkable, Bluebird singing as she flew. The 7 knots traveled in 7 hours of last night’s slatting around in the rain was another kind of record we hope to never beat. As another sailor I met in Fiji put it, the thing about sailing is that the highs are so high, and the lows, well…