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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Day 25, Arrival Hiva Oa

Noon Tuesday

These last couple of days have been pretty trying. A good friend of mine used to say that the average wind speed, world wide, is 15 kts. I used to counter 'Well if you average 30 knots and 0 knots you get 15, but neither 30 nor 0 knots of wind is pleasant to sail in'. I'd never had a situation where I could put that assertion to the test, until Sunday night.

The weather forecast was for 18 knots, but the squalls had other ideas. They would blow 25, then rain, then blow 10, then rain some more, then blow 25 some more. You get the idea. I'm sure we had about 15 knots average wind speed, but it was not pleasant sailing.

Thank goodness Monday night was clear and if not settled, steady. We made our landfall at the Eastern end of Hiva Oa just before sunrise and were anchored safely by 0900 local. There's no rest for us though, so we immediately put to work, moving the anchor chain, doing laundry and moving all the stuff off the bed so we can sleep nice and comfy again.

Previously I had said we would be underway 26-29 days. It was actually 25 days (27 with two nights at anchor at Isla Socorro). We sailed 2800 miles and had an average speed of about 4.7 kts. I said that wasn't bad, but in retrospect I think it's pretty poor performance wise. I just looked at how we did on our 2009 passage from the Galapagos: 3026 miles in 551 hours, average speed 5.49 kts. On this trip we motored about 50 hours, in 2009 we motored 4. So if you want to sail to the Marquesas, do it from the Galapagos! It may be farther but it's faster.


{GMST}09|48.193|S|139|01.848|W|Baie Tahauku, Atuona, Hiva Oa|Day 25{GEND}