Oxygen is all tied up in the marina in Sorong after the delivery from Fiji. This was certainly an unusual passage!
We left Fiji expecting those gentle trade winds that usually sweep across the Pacific, but instead, we were greeted with 30+ knots and rain or nearly flat calm. The normal strong winds of the Coral Sea vanished, replaced by an eerie stillness, and even the typically turbulent Torres Strait was surprisingly calm.
These delays, caused by both excessive and insufficient wind, meant we faced headwinds for the next 1000 nautical miles after leaving Thursday Island behind. We could have managed this IF (and it's a big IF) we hadn't encountered a vicious counter-current that seemed determined to push us backwards, sideways or both.
As if things weren't complicated enough, we had a problem with the genset (remember, we have electric motors, so the genset is crucial!). AND THEN, just to add insult to injury, the support for the mainsheet track started giving us trouble, which meant we were limited to three reefs in the main with anything over 15 knots. I managed to get a patch/repair on the exhaust mixer for the gen set using JB Weld and fiberglass cloth - not easy lying on your back in 20knts of wind while you're sailing. But it held (with frequent monitoring) all the way to Tual where I was able to get some more glues and adhesives from the hardware store and build up on my previous repairs.
To say the going was arduous is an understatement. It felt a bit like using a racehorse to plow a field!
But the job is done! After all those delays, I'm finally on my way to the airport. Hopefully, I'll have 7 days at home before flying to French Polynesia to start the next trip. This time it's a downwind trade wind sail, so it should be pleasant conditions all the way. Right? RIGHT? 🤞
