Yacht Delivery Blog

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 troubl...

You know how there's always one person in every organization who really makes things happen? Well, at the Royal Papua Yacht Club, that person is Josephine! We were having a bit of trouble getting clearance to enter the country – our messages and calls to the authorities were going unanswered. Thankfully, we have Starlink! We called Josephine with Skype, and she managed to get in touch with someone and arrange for them to be standing by for our arrival today. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly, but I have a good feeling about it thanks to Josephine! Yesterday's sailing was great. The breeze was pretty steady, and we seemed to be making good time. I'm not entirely sure how accurate our tracker is (it's sitting inside the boat), but we seemed to be averaging around 8 knots. One thing that's surprised me is how little activity we've seen along the coast. Port Moresby has a population of almost half a million, but approaching the city, there's barely a light to...

Alright, crew, the last 24 hours have been a bit of a pain! We've had light and fickle winds, ranging from a gentle 8 knots to a slightly more respectable 14. But the real kicker? Those wild shifts in direction!  It's enough to make you want to tear your hair out. In these conditions, one of the things we keep a close eye on is our VMG, or Velocity Made Good. Basically, it tells us how fast we're actually moving towards our destination. Now, here's the thing: even if we're not pointing exactly in the right direction, we can still be making progress. But as we stray further off course, that VMG starts to drop. And if we were to keep turning away from our destination? Well, let's just say our VMG would hit zero and then start going negative. Yikes! I'm not entirely convinced the tracker you can see tells the whole story, though. It only updates hourly, so it misses some of the, shall we say, "creative" arcs we've been making. Typically, we g...

Well, it's definitely feeling and looking more tropical now, but those steady trade winds seem to have taken a break. Yesterday, as the wind started pushing us south, we gybed, expecting it to shift - which it did, for a while. Then it would sneak back to where it was before gradually coming around again. Everytime we thought about changing course there would be a hint of a wind shift. Talk about indecisive. Around midnight, it was clear another gybe was in order. So, here we are, pushing on even as the wind decides to take it easy. We had a little burst of excitement last night when it picked up to around 18 knots, but now it's back down to below 15. And if the forecast is right, it's going to ease off even more and shift behind us. I've been moaning about the lack of seabirds for a while now, blaming it on overfishing and the damage it does to the environment. Even a few years ago, it wasn't unusual to have boobies and other seabirds hanging around the boat durin...

You may have noticed a significant decrease in our speed. This is because we've encountered completely flat calm conditions with only the occasional gust of 4 knots of breeze. So, while we're still heading in the right direction, it's not as fast as I'd like. We're passing right by Port Vila, and it's quite tempting to stop in for some fuel. We filled up with extra in Fiji before we left, but the GRIB files are showing several days of calm across the Coral Sea next week, and it would be nice to keep moving. I'll see how I feel later. We sent our advance notification of arrival to Port Vila yesterday just in case – this is one of the fantastic things about Starlink and having internet access on board. Not long ago, it would have been impossible to tell the authorities you were going to arrive, and there would have been some explaining to do as they find it hard to understand why you might need to unexpectedly pull in. And it's much easier to explain to t...

The GRIB files have been spot on since we left, and we're currently in a large area of blue on the weather map, indicating almost no wind. It seems like the breeze won't return until tomorrow as we approach Vanuatu. We've had a quiet 24 hours, without even a chance to trick Rhona and getting her to stand under the boom. The only excitement has come from dodging fishing boats. Last night, we encountered a 25 nautical mile stretch of sea so crowded with fishing vessels that we had to navigate around it; I'm not sure we could have squeezed through between them. I hope this isn't a sign that there are no fish left in Asia so they are over here taking the South Pacific fish. I am sure Fiji , Vanuatu and the rest of the Pacific islands don't have the resources to monitor their waters, and even if they do then actually getting out to sea is a different story. The Fijian 'navy' recently put their latest high tech patrol boat through initial sea trails which unf...

The last 24 hours have been windy, wet, grey, and mostly uneventful. We had a few squalls and encountered several long-liners that seemed a bit suspect, but otherwise, it was pretty quiet. There was one moment of excitement, though. We were shaking out a reef, which meant Rhona was standing under the boom while I was on the coach roof prepping things and getting the sail ready to be hoisted. When Rhona started to raise the sail with the winch, about 100 liters of rainwater that had pooled in the sail poured directly over her head! It wasn't a steady stream like a shower; it was more like a ginormous bucket had been tipped over her head.  I also found one of my pesky nemeses in the main - a flying fish! It must have been 15 feet in the air when it hit the sail and fell into the sail cover. I cant say I am overly enthused about being attacked daily by smelly flying missiles like when we crossed the Pacific a few months ago. The weather to the south wasnt looking too peachy, so our t...

We're keeping a close eye on the weather forecast and preparing for a bit of a blow. The GRIBs all suggest that the wind will be southeasterly, which should make for a fast ride over the final 1000 nautical miles and perhaps we can smash the 200nm a day record. We're still on track to turn west by tonight and catch the wind starting to blow first thing tomorrow and bring it over the port quarter. The weather at the moment is fantastic, with clear skies, a few fluffy clouds, and 10-14 knots of breeze. There's no sign of what's coming around the corner. We're motor sailing to make as many miles as possible, which goes against my sailor instincts, but we're gaining around 30 nautical miles a day with the engine running. Yesterday evening, I found myself being hoisted up the mast again, an activity that's never pleasant, even in the safety of a marina. But at sea, with a partially raised mainsail swaying above me, the task becomes even more daunting. The upcomin...

I've realized that the focus of the blog has been slowly shifting towards flying fish and clouds, and even the clouds have started to take a backseat. so I decided to refocus the blog back on sailing and crossing the Pacific. Until last night, when I came off watch and went into my cabin, I didn't realize how much of my day had been consumed by flying fish (or avoiding them). I immediately knew something was amiss when I detected the telltale perfume of my scaly little flapping friend. There was a flying fish asleep on my bed! I poked it with the BBQ tongs, but it wouldn't wake up, so I picked it up by its wing and threw it off the back of the boat. Now, my whole cabin and bedding stink of flying fish, and our laundry facilities are slightly primitive, so I've had to soak all the bedding in a bucket of soapy water all night. I've spent the morning washing the smell out of my sheets. I'm aware the blog has not done a great job of shifting away from flying fish to...

As our access to onboard technology continues to improve we have to keep adapting. Since we now have Starlink for communication and weather downloads we no longer need to have a predictwind account, the downside is that we lost the tracking and associated blog. It took a while but I've come up with a solution. We can use the Garmin inreach for tracking and I've downloaded an app to make a blog. Amazing? Or very amazing?  So this is a test to see how it goes.  Don't get over excited. My blog entries covering our yacht deliveries are pretty mundane and I have, in the past, received constructive criticism saying "a bit more information would be nice" (Thanks Gary), and "you do know other people read this as well?". That came after I wrote that some fisherman chased after us while we were sailing and shouted over "do you want to trade rum for fish?" and I replied "Yes, but we haven't got any fish".  Yacht Delivery Solu...