3200 miles to Marquesas

If all goes well and according to plan, this should be the longest leg of the entire trip! The passages across the Indian ocean and the Atlantic fall somewhere in the 2000 nm range, so were hoping they will be easy after this one (famous last words).

So far, everything has been great; we are currently 14 days into the trip, and we still have 1150 nm to go. The first couple of days fresh out of Puerto Ayora, the wind was barely blowing and we ended up motoring for a couple days. Not usually a big deal, but on a three week passage, we need to be very conservative with the fuel. With all the diesel we have on board, including the jerry cans on deck, we have only six days worth of fuel if we are running the engine at 2100 rpm. And of course we need diesel to run the generator to keep the batteries charges and to keep that watermaker running. So, needless to say, we were elated when we got into the trade winds and turned the motor off. In the map animation in the video you can see how far south we had to go in order to get to the trade winds. The reason why we headed south so much instead of southwest, was to get out of the ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone). This is an area around the equator where the southeast trades in the southern hemisphere converge with the northeast trades in the northern hemisphere. This creates unstable weather which usually results in thunderstorms and squalls. So obviously we wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. It has been relatively smooth sailing since we got into the trades, all downwind with a following sea. We have been wing and wing for the most part; we have only taken the gennaker out a couple of times and it never stays up for more than a couple hours because of varying wind speed and direction. All in all, very comfortable sailing.

When we were provisioning for this trip we had to think of ways to get protein that would last forever. So, naturally, we got an absurd amount of canned tuna. Makes sense, right? Around day 8 or 9 we caught a 60 pound Bigeye Tuna, thus eliminating the need for the canned version. In the US, the average price per pound of Bigeye is around $25, which means this fish we just pulled in is worth around $1500! The meat is superb, I doubt you could find better anywhere else in the world. We put three quarters of it in vacuum seal bags in the freezer, and we are still working our way through the first quarter of it. And it doesn't stop there; The other day we caught ANOTHER one! Not nearly as big, but equally as tasty and we added it to the stockpile in the freezer. If anyone wants to meet us in the Marquesas for some great tuna, come on down.

Marquesas here we come!