Well, people, hold on to your pants because we are about to cross the pacific ocean. This will probably be the craziest thing I have ever done, or ever will do. The passage from here to the Marquesas–the closest island chain in the south pacific–is the longest straight open ocean passage in the world; we will be in the ocean out of sight of all land for between three and five weeks.
We intend to leave the day after tomorrow–there are many last minute details, paperwork, and logistics to be worked out, as you might imagine. The boat is ready (more or less). We are ready. We are beyond ready, actually. Most of our fellow cruisers departed a few weeks ago. Check out Io, Totem, Capaz, Mulan, and Trim, to see what the experiences have been so far. These folks have been posting to their blogs from the middle of the ocean, via a modem connected to the ssb radio coupled with sailmail software. We elected not to spring an extra $1000 for the modem, so you won’t be hearing anything from us until after we reach the marquesas and find some internet again. Our SPOT tracking device will post our location until we get out a couple hundred miles, then we’ll disappear off the map.
Despite the straight line on the image below, the actual path we take will be more of an S-curve: we go more directly west to begin with, then when we encounter the doldrums we turn south and go perpendicularly through them (minimizing our time in this squally no-wind area). When we exit the doldrums we turn west again, directly for our destination.
This is the sort of adventure we signed up for, so we’re all gung ho to get going with it. See you on the other side!
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