Half the perfect world - Panama to Marquesas
A pacific puddle jump with so much to say.
We left Panama City with good wind to carry us all the way to Galapagos and left with about 10 other boats. Was a bit rusty coming out of the city and immediately broke a stainless steel dorade cover that a halyard was mounted to which set an uneasy tone out the gate. Was able to repair the cover and seal the holes in the deck with 5200. After we got everything shaken out caught our first tuna (5lbs lol) which set hopes for better things to come.
The wind out of Panama was fantastic and we managed to clock a beyond fast 237nm 24hr speed record for azurite while wing on wing in 20+kts. Had really fantastic sailing to the Galapagos. Passed the equator late a night so not much celebrating.
After staying south of the Galapagos we decided to change divert course from the other boats and head almost straight south to get to 10 S by the time we were at 96 W hoping to pick up the trades faster and get south of the thunder storms sooner. This added some extra miles for us but really paid off in the end while finding that 17-20kts that Azurite is so happy in. Had to motor for near 24hrs to get through some incredibly light air south of the Galapagos.
Once south we found good wind and fishing. Catching ~15lb tunas every night and a 22lb wahoo. Once about half way through the trip we picked up some uncomfortable swell being pushed up from the southern ocean which made for decently rough seas for the rest of the trip.
After riding our spinnaker for a couple of thousand miles we finally got over zealous with it and it ripped in half in a 26kt gust. About 5 days out. This was really not great because for the rest of the trip we had a really hard time keeping our big heavy genoa stable for downwind sailing in rolly seas leading to lose your mind level of flapping. Luckily the sail was made by Evolution in NZ and they can get a new one to us in a month or so.
The last few days were hard as the rolling and flapping was driving everybody insane and landfall on the Marqueses was very welcome.
The pacific was good and had a really well defined beginning, middle, and end that all had different qualities. The challenge for me was more mental then I expected, but I think most of that came from sailing in powerful conditions for most of the trip. The thing that surprised me the most was the smell of islands when making landfall. Thankful for such a good crew.
To sum it up in bullet points:
-had good wind, went fast
-ate well
-didn’t sleep much
-got better at fishing
-got stressed about sails
-fell in love
-played lots of cards
-learned a lot
-adore my crew
-76 flying fish on deck in one night is possible
-My Chemical Romance still slaps
-allegedly I fart too much
-Azurite is a good boat :)
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