As of last night, we were around 1800 nautical miles (nm) from the Galapagos and about 1600 nm from Rangiroa, where we are headed. (We're not going to be able to make it all the way to Tahiti in time for Oly's flight on the 18th. Rangiroa is the closest we can get that has an airport). So, we're "in the middle of no where" as they say. It freaked me out a little bit a couple of days ago. I mean, what if someone got really hurt? It dawned on me then how important it is for all of us to be very careful, for everyone's sakes. Anyway, we're now a regular part of a SSB radio net, everyday, in the morning and early evening. We report our position and conditions to several boats in the area. The idea being, if anything *were* to happen, other people nearby know generally where we are, where we're headed, and what's going on on board. Our EPIRB transmits our position to the owner daily as well, but he wouldn't be much of a first responder over in Australia if something were to go wrong.
But nothing is going wrong, I'm happy to report. Well, we are out of fresh produce, so that isn't so nice. But we have lots of Mahi Mahi still plus loads of canned food. But meals are going to start to get pretty depressing from here on out.
We have run into one snafu though, with our sail situation. Bubas has a main, a jib and a gennaker. The main and jib and general rig of the boat are meant for upwind and reach conditions. Downwind, the setup doesn't work so well for a number of reasons that I won't bore you with. Our gennaker is designed for light-ish downwind sailing. Just before we left Panama, it had been repaired - a fairly large rip along the leach. We put it up about 10 days ago for about 10 hours, and it ripped in the same place, plus another spot further up. I worked for ~3 days to put a patch on either side of the top hole (patch came from a pair of shorts on board), and used duct tape and stitching to repair the original tear. Up she went again, this time lasting around 5 hours before opening up in the same spot. (The top patch held well.) We decided the bottom bit really needed a bit patch on both sides, so we used some old flags - Bahamas and Panama. It took another 3 days of sewing, a couple of blisters and bloody finger tips, but I'm finally done (and we're out of sail thread too so there's really no more sewing in my future thankfully). In a couple of hours, we'll run her up again to see how she does. If it tears again, there's nothing more we can do about it, and we'll have to make due with what we have.
On the face front, I'm pretty miserable, but again thankful that only 3 people are here to see it. Still no perceptible side effects, but my chin is an absolute mess. I am going to try to keep repeating outloud, "I will have a healthy face."
Elze continues to be seasick off and on. After so much time out here you'd think she'd have found her sea legs, but I guess some people never do. Poor thing.
We're all continuing on with our mellow rhythm we've established. I tend to nap for a bit after lunch, then Oly and I usually watch a movie. I come up for my 6pm watch and sometimes help with or cook dinner. Then I have some alone time as everyone heads for bed. Between 8 and 10 I usually watch another movie, then sleep for 2 hours before I'm on again at midnight. The last few nights have been absolutely stunning. There's no better place for stargazing; I only wish I had a star chart to learn more constellations. The moon rise last night was one for the mental photo album, and I've stopped counting shooting stars.
I think we've got about 10 days left to go.
PS - the gennaker ripped in a new spot above my patch after about 45 minutes. We're stuck with an unhappy main and and undersized jib, but still making good progress - doing 145-185 nm a day!
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