Rough Ride Round The Chathams

Day 135/13

Noon Position: 44 39S 176 30W

Course/Speed: ENE6

Wind: NNW25-30

Bar: 1015, dropping a point per hour

Sea: NW8

Sky: Dark, rain, more dark

Cabin Temperature: 60

Water Temperature: 57

Sail: working jib, three reefs; main, three reefs, reaching

Noon-to-Noon Miles Made Good: 160

Miles this leg: 1,592

Avg. Miles this leg: 122

Miles since departure: 18,847

A dirty, sleepless night. Up once an hour to discuss our course with Monte, this as the wind backed steadily, or take in more sail or both. By morning we were reefed right down and winds were a steady 25 and 30 from the NNW, wind Mo is carrying as far forward as she can. Rough ride, to say the least, but Mo is a champ and is banging out (literally) 6 and 7 knots.

Three photos in succession of just what “rough ride” looks like from the pilot house.

If I’d not known we were on approach to the Chatham Island group, the birds would have told me. Albaross by the score this morning, along with the now usual Cape Petrel and others. And now we pass kelp pods.

I was able to begin adding north into our course after noon, and soon after that the most southerly installation of the Chatham Islands hove into view, the most aptly named Pyramid Rock. For us it was a formidable dark triangle on the horizon, along with other lumpy masses that make up the southern constellation of islands and rocks. I’d hoped to get closer, but 12 miles off was my best shot, given that the wind refuses to back into the west as per forecast.

In the afternoon I radioed the Chatham Island Maritime Station to chat and to pass a message of greeting from Tony Gooch, who sailed past these islands on his solo round the world voyage in 2002 and also called in to say hello as he passed. But my partner on the island wasn’t willing to abide such informality. We never got past call signs and positions.

Yesterday, or should I say today, Mo and I crossed the International Date Line at 180 degrees (west/east) longitude or exactly half way around the world from Greenwich, England, where resides zero degrees longitude. Forthwith, May 5th resumed again, or so I have read. Beyond sliding over a thick green line on the chart plotter, not much seems to have changed.

Mo and I passed under Greenwich and into east longitude on February 2, 2018, headed, as it turns out, for Hobart. Now we’ve reentered west longitude, exciting for me because two of my favorite places, Kauai, at roughly 150W, and San Francisco, at roughly 125W, are on this side of the planet.