Into the Southern Ocean

When we first motored away from Easter island, sitting in the cockpit with mugs of hot coffee, we watched the sun rise on an unpromising sea. We knew that we would not have wind for a while and had loaded up on diesel in anticipation. We could have waited, but it was time to go. On the southwest side of the island there are two exposed rocks. One is a narrow obelisk of stone and the other large enough to be its own island. The SW edge of the big island ends in a steep cliff that looks down on these two islands. From the sea it looks like an eroded cliff face but is actually the edge of a volcanic crater. The grandeur of that high place lent itself to a Rapa Nui ceremony where men entered into the annual  Birdman contest would climb down the cliff, swim to the far island, and live there until one was able to steal an egg from the cliffed nest of a seabird and swim back triumphantly. When we learned about this ceremony, reading from a pamphlet while standing on the edge of the crater, I looked down at the wild sea and imagined that swim. It seemed insane that day and every day since. Today it seems quite reasonable. In the flat water and hot sun, one could've reached the island doing the backstroke while pondering life. The water looked viscous, undulating heavily like I imagine molten silver would.

The morning of our first day out from Easter Island.

I spent the first day nesting myself into this world we have created, and preparing myself for the 2100 miles to Puerto Montt. We read, worked on sewing projects, and chatted about family and Christmas. Time slows to a creep on passages and the world transforms to something strange and magical. At times, I think that if Max weren't there to confirm things I would lose track of the line between the endless blue and the reality that there is a future where I will sip the foam from a cappuccino while admiring local art in some hip cafe. I spent a long time making our  dinner and presented it to Max- blackened string beans and make-shift paella, cold gin & tonics. The pleasures of the first days of a passage. We ate on the cabin top motoring through the flat sea. The swell rolled in from the southwest like green New England hills and we bobbed up and over it. Next to the boat the surface was flat and in the sun we could follow the shafts of lights down to where they converged. Blue light through cathedral windows. An orange bucket floated by and seemed to be suspended in the air. We saw transparent Men-of-War and could discern the full length of their tentacles. We had never seen an ocean so flat. This is the part of the road trip where you pass through Kansas. These are the cornfields of the ocean. The doldrums. The horse latitudes.

A young Yellow Fin Tuna just off the Rapa Nui coast

When we are children we trace our fingers over lines on maps, imagining what the earth looks like where it is described in craggy lines, wide-bellied bays, or knotted fingers extending deep into mountain ranges. We read books about people who paint or tattoo their bodies, wear animal skins, and live off the sea. If we are sailors, we graduate to the works of Moitessier and Shackleton and imagine 36 hours of wakefulness dragging a sea anchor through a tremendous southern ocean gale, or wonder how we would fair if faced with abandoning ship in a harsh environment. Isolated islands with vowel-choked names and foreign shores become a possibility. The coast of Chile particularly captures the imagination. Its circuitous coast, numerous islands, and proximity to the Andean peaks are hard to imagine. For sailors, a daydream of this coast interacting with the notorious southern ocean is dominated by the endless lore of Cape Horn. Between Easter Island and Puerto Montt, though we had already sailed close to 10,000 miles, I felt every daydream of my childhood and youth coming to fruition. All the information I had gathered about ocean currents, high and low pressure systems, the geography of the Chilean fjords, the migration patterns of whales and sea birds was all of the sudden something I could see in front of me, knowledge that I had to use. I no longer had to wonder at what type of sailor I would turn into. I was neither living on coffee and cigarettes and chatting excitedly with sea birds like Moitessier, or do I have the calm resolve to dive off the ship every morning for a swim like Knox Johnson. I have become a sailor who lives off books, and yes, coffee too, with a confidence in ourselves and our ship that grows in proportion to a sharp respect for the elements.

A few days out from Easter Island I became very nervous about what we were about to do. The warm, predictable trade winds were gone and we were layering our clothing. The cockpit read 70 degrees and we had much southing to do. It was going to get a lot colder. I had been reading Hal Roth's, Seafaring Trilogy, where he and his wife enter the Chilean Fjords at Canal Chacao, have difficulty in their anchorages, and ultimately run aground south of the Straits of Magellan taking to tents on shore made of their sails. I decided to stop reading this book and chose more technical reading material. His experience would not be our experience, and the secret is to become knowledgeable. With knowledge, prudence, and respect for the weather, I became convinced we would make it safely from Easter Island, through Canal Chacao, wind our way down the fjords, and round Cape Horn. I spent every nightwatch pouring over a nautical guide of the fjords titled, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, by Mariolina Rolfo and Giorgio Ardrizzi whose meticulous work exploring and detailing 400 of the infinite anchorages between Valdivia and Mar del Plata, on the Argentine coast, is humbling. I entered the details of each anchorage into the Open CPN program we use to navigate including GPS coordinates, notes on depth and holding ground. When the binding on the book broke, I sewed a canvas cover. I paired this with reading about clouds, weather prediction, and low and high pressure systems. As I read the days passed and we inched our way across the chart chipping away at the 2100 hundred miles of our longest passage. We spent more time inside and our diet changed to include hot tea and mugs of broth, thick stews and creamy soups. We pulled out the long underwear and wool sweaters packed by our mothers.

I finally pulled in a Yellow Fin

The sail plan we developed years ago in Brooklyn was to go east to Easter Island to avoid the northbound Humboldt current and the light and variable winds of coastal South America between Colombia and Valdivia. This was based largely on an article by Jimmy Cornell were he did the same. In retrospect, considering accounts I have read about others who followed the coast south, I believe we made the best decision. The coastal conditions are created by a high pressure system that remains in place as far west as Easter Island and as far south as the Roaring 40s. When we left Easter Island, our goal was to skirt the edge of the high without going too far south. We did this so effectively that it often felt as though we were beneath two skies, sailing through a weather diagram where the heavy air of a cold front is pushing up the light air of the high pressure. To the southwest the sky was dark and the waves textured by higher winds. To the east we had sun and perfectly formed high pressure clouds. Some days we traveled too far in one or the other direction and either suffered high winds or flat, hot seas. I began to relax and enjoy the weather lessons but the intimidation of the Roaring 40s always lingered in my mind. I recorded our position in the log always noting progress towards 40 degrees south. When we crossed this line, Max and I were below deck playing cards. We took a moment of silence to see if it really did roar and had to laugh when it indeed did seem to be quite loud above deck. The southern ocean was living up to its reputation. The winds  increased, the waves grew in height, and even the sky seem to grow wider and display all the cloud forms simultaneously, rolling by with a visible and steady momentum. Just like the visible bulk of the swell, the earth and all its elements took to a pendulum like predictability and I had to rely on our boat, our knowledge of the sea, as well as weather reports from home in order to trust that we were ready and prepared for all of these things. In fact, we were much more prepared than those who have come before whose stories have characterized this area of the ocean.

The coast of Chiloe Island

Our progress is described by the top line, our technical goal by the second down,
 and the suggested course by the lowest line.

It was 17 days before we discerned the coast of Chile, and a very long day before we entered Canal Chacao where the enormity of the Pacific ocean enters and exits a narrow and notorious channel. To the south is the island of Chiloe and inside is a beautiful cruising ground with the fjords of the Andes to the east and the scattered islands to the west. Once inside the canal one can sail south to Cape Horn without going into the open ocean for more than the hundred mile stretch aptly named Gulfo de Penas. If Canal Chacao is entered during the ebb tide, the quickly shoaling bottom, and the swell of the Pacific, can combine to raise very dangerous standing waves. This area is also subject to a thick fog and exposed rocks. We arrived at this entrance after 17 days because that is how long it took, not because we knew the weather and had adjusted our progress accordingly. We paid attention to the forecast as we got close and decided it was a good enough time to get in. We had a few strong things in our favor- the sky was clear with no risk of fog, the wind was so light that we had to motor, which is not ideal, but better than having too much wind and a lee shore. We realized that we would just be able to reach a safe anchorage inside the entrance where we could spend the night before continuing the 60 miles it would take to get to Puerto Montt.

We decided on an anchorage called Puerto Ingles which was accessible only if we were able to round the Punta Corona light where the outgoing tide can reach 4-5 knots, which, in combination with standing waves, is enough to cancel the forward progress of our Perkins 4.108. It took us long enough to approach that the tide switched and began to ebb. The sun was sinking fast, but we had already begun and turning around was not an attractive option. We could see a long row of crashing waves extending out into the canal. We got closer and it became very choppy. Waves were tossing us around and our speed was steadily decreasing. The Punta Corona light house was still far enough to worry us. I stood on the cabin top directing Max around large swaths of kelp that could foul the prop while holding onto the shrouds for balance. Every time I looked back I saw bigger and bigger waves coming towards us, threatening to break on the stern. Max was concerned that we were only going 2-3 knots with the engine at full power. At least we are going, I thought. At the slowest, we battled the tide with only 1 knot of progress.  Around that same time, a set of particularly steep waves began to form.  Max did not hesitate to turn the boat to expose our rear quarter, a technique intended to avoid a direct hit.  At the last minute, both waves slipped harmlessly only inches under the aft toe rail, gurgling in protest as they rolled past.

Reaching Punta Corona light just as the sun set

We made it to the anchorage by ten, just as the last hints of lavender sky disappeared. Letting out more road than ever, we anchored in 15 meters of water next to a yellow church and bucolic countryside. Black and white cormorants were the only things still at work. We were too tired to speak and anxious to tackle the additional sixty miles of the canal in the morning. Under the exhaustion, I was elated. We had arrived. We were in Patagonia. Our longest passages were over. We had been to Easter Island and made it back. The next morning we would be sailing next to volcanoes. I would learn the hills and fjords of this country, meet the people and see the architecture of this distant coast, walk the streets of tiny villages and eat the endless mariscos of Southern Chile.

Our visit from a Fin Whale.  Second biggest whale in the ocean.

After managing the entrance to Canal Chacao, and experiencing a level, anchored boat for the first time in almost three weeks, we woke early and set out for the sixty mile stretch to Puerto Montt. It was cold! We wore many layers, including hats and gloves. The morning was sharp and clean like mornings in the New York spring, or waking in the forest after a night of camping. I love this weather and did not miss the heat of the Caribbean. A good way to warm up is to raise 200 ft. of anchor chain on a manual windlass and by the time I saw our trusty Rocna anchor break the surface, I had stripped to a t-shirt. To dress for Patagonia is to dress in layers.

We left at the beginning of the flood tide with potential anchorages along the way if we failed to make Puerto Montt by sundown. The water in the canal was flat and moving fast towards Gulfo de Ancud. We glided along with just our Genoa out and a perfect west wind to sustain us. It is a glorious feeling to sail at 6-7 knots on flat water, after battling 2100 miles in the south Pacific swell. Liken it to coasting down a hill on a bicycle and being able to take your hands off the bars, sledding in the winter along an already packed path. The new landscape passed by quickly and we fell in with the traffic of fishermen who waved in orange foulies from brightly painted bows. Sometimes one would snap a picture with a smartphone. The stress of the passage had dissolved completely with the progress of the morning and the favorable conditions. We were in a mood of pure celebration as the peaks of distant volcanoes became visible with the cloud shift. Crowds of seals popped their heads above water like groups of Christmas carolers to welcome us to their chilly world. Sometimes they followed in our wake for a while; others sunned themselves on the nearby buoys that marked the borders of the salmoneras that were to become an omnipresent image of our time in Chiloe. The miles fell away and we were sure we would make the marina in Puerto Montt by sundown, free to admire the churches nestled into the passing hills, trying to identify the volcanoes on the map, and watching the current around stationary objects in the water with wonder. At our fastest, we moved through canal Chacao at 11 knots. At our slowest, we did six. It was fantastic.

To the southwest of Puerto Montt there is a narrow island named Isla Tengo that hugs the coast. Inside the island are three sheltered marinas. In order from south to north they are Club Deportes Nauticos Reloncavi, Marina Oxxean, and Marina del Sur. All three offer a wide range of amenities according to information available. We decided upon Marina del Sur. Oxxean seemed to host mostly commercial boats, and Reloncavi seemed too high brow for the likes of us. Marina del Sur has a beautiful cedar-shingled clubhouse with hot showers and laundry. We read that it also provided fuel, water, and had a bar/restaurant. Of the three, only the water was available but the staff were friendly and helpful, though the docks felt like a ghost town despite being full. We walked to Relonclavi one day and I was jealous to find a bar in operation, a pool table and common room with couches and wifi, and an enormous book exchange. We thought of switching, but they were full.

Beautiful female sea lion sunning herself on the dock at Marina del Sur

Marina's cost money.  Only way for us to justify the expense is tackle pressing boat projects. 

Marina del Sur

Marina del Sur became our home for two weeks as we worked furiously on the boat in preparation for the arrival of Max's family for New Year's. During the passage, the clew of our Genoa ripped free and we spent a hectic day repairing the sail underway by hand stitching three lengths of nylon webbing through the metal ring that holds the sheets. In the marina we took the sail off and discovered that much of the stitching along the leech had deteriorated in the sun. We spent one hour each day stitching through this tough material before our hands were too abused to continue. We also took the dockside opportunity to mark our chain with paint every 25ft to prepare for the deep anchorages we would encounter in the fjords. I scraped, sanded, and caulked the port toerail to prevent leaks while Max meticulously serviced the engine. He added respirators to the fuel tanks so that we could fill fuel more easily, changed fuel and oil filters, and replaced the oil. We haven't had a single engine problem and don't want any to start in this part of the trip when we may really need a quickly starting iron genny.

Our time in Marina del Sur was lovely and relaxing. We often took the bus to the Angelmo market to walk through the stalls of mussels, clams, various other shellfish of culinary mystery, and watch the fishermen throw fish heads to the sea lions outside. The market is stunning in its colors and smells, the exotic nature of its wares. Dried kelp is hung in bundles that look like aged surgical tubing or pressed tobacco, and sausages hang in links above wax-covered blocks of cheese. Hanging lines of dried mussels line the edges of stalls like beaded curtains. Piles of fruits we had not seen in ages were spilling from crates in the walkway were fishy waters drain down grates in the cement. Lucky street dogs, shopping along side you, trot away with a fish head to dine outside. We feasted every night on shellfish concoctions and experiments with new fishes. We ate Chilean Sea Bass, eel-like Congrio, and a Shellfish called Maca which has a thin beige shell and meat like a pointed pink tongue. We delighted in discovering that it was berry season in the south and consumed quart after quart of cherries, strawberries, and blueberries.

Dried shellfish hanging in the Angelmo market

Angelmo market

Air BnB breakfast nook

A beautiful church in Puerto Varas

Beer!

A traditional Chilote sailboat at Marina del Sur

For Christmas we left Marina del Sur and took a bus to Puerto Varas where we relaxed for two days in an Air BnB by the expansive Lake Llanquihue. Puerto Varas is like the touristy ski town one might find in Colorado and we allowed ourselves to be tourists sipping mugs of beer in pubs, eating out, and walking along the lake to steal a peak at Vulcan Osorno in the distance. It felt peaceful to not be connected to the labors and tight spaces of our boat, to be properly showered with clean hair and clothing. I marveled that that is how I used to feel all the time, that sitting in a cafe with wifi that worked used to be normal, that one always reached destinations by car or bus. Quickly. While reading. I looked at the people on the streets and wanted to start randomly announcing that we had sailed there. That we had not taken a plane to Patagonia, not that it was wrong that they had. I had in the past, and if lucky, would do so again. But not this time. This time we sailed here, and it took six months. We had a lovely time in Puerto Varas. We got engaged there and spent Christmas skyping with our families. We cooked Beef Bourginon and drank too much wine. We missed home.

Fish prints help immortalize the fish we catch.

Easter Island

Max and I have split up. He is returning to the boat with the fresh food for our next passage and I am waiting to meet a woman named Pina and a group of Rapa Nui kids we will be taking sailing. I watch Max negotiate the waves in our little dingy from a bench that looks out from the edge of town. A man wearing a headdress and a futbol jersey, drinking a warm rum and coke, sits next to me. He introduces himself and I ask him twice to repeat his polysyllabic name. His face is leathery with few but deep wrinkles. He wears a heavy necklace of bone and carved wood and begins the way most Rapa Nui men do, by telling me that he loves the sea. He asks me my name, about the boat, about Max, and tells me he has watched us go about town for days. He offers me part of his day's catch, a fish with sharp white teeth and rainbow scales. I accept and we put the fish in a black plastic bag he finds beneath the

Easter Island arrival.  Preparing the anchor

seat of his scooter. He asks if I have a glass to share the Rum and Coke, and invites me for an asado at his house one day, describing how he would cook fish and meat for us in the way only a Rapa Nui can. He tells me to look at the stars and think of him on our journey and shows me how to scale, gut, and cook the fish correctly. This happens to us from time to time and the cooking directions are always the same, delivered in a serious tone as if to suggest that if I screw it up, he will not be held responsible- a pan, oil, a little salt. I promise that this is how I will cook the fish. As I listen to this man, and look around me, I wonder how I end up in situations like this? How did I get to this bench with this man? How did we reach this far off island?

Having stood watch for many stunning daybreaks, I have grown to love the slow lightening of the sky and the sharpness of the sun's first rays. None of these mornings compare to watching the sun rise on Easter Island after fifteen days at sea. It appeared first as a dark landmass, hardly different from the clouds, but larger and higher than I expected. We sailed towards Hanga Roa on a broad reach in calm seas and I sat alone on the cabintop watching the green undulating hills and eroded cliff faces define themselves. I could see trees disfigured by constant wind on the slopes and the spray of waves hitting those dark, porous lava rocks we grew accustomed to in the Galapagos. I watched the sunrise by myself knowing that Max's sleep was too precious even for this sight. I still peeked through the port at him every five minutes to see if he was stirring. When he woke up and tried to come up I blocked the way, covered his eyes and yelled nothing to see out here captain, nothing to see, until he pushed me aside and looking at the view, letting out a sound of astonishment. I know! I said, It's amazing! Max suggested that I make breakfast, the duty of the dawn watchman, but I refused, saying I would never give up this view to be below deck making oatmeal. I got two granola bars, filled up the coffee thermos, and we sat together staring at the approaching coastline.

Easter Island's mountain tops become visible at dawn

Max and I watching the coast line float by as we head into port

There is nothing like coffee and landfall

Hanga Roa is the only port in Isla de Pascua, more appropriately called Rapa Nui by the indigenous tribe who very much own the essence of this island. It's amazing that their creative, deep traditions could be altered easily by the white guy who showed up on a day that happened to be Easter and renamed the island. We arrived the day after Thanksgiving. So what? The town looked clean cut beneath rolling cumulus clouds and crisp air. We could see a few cars going by, restaurant terraces beckoning in the sun, lines of matte black Maoi heads, and then a tremendous, humbling surf breaking in turquoise and white foam. The main anchorage is not ideal as it is in 85ft of water with no shelter from the pacific swell. We radioed in and were received and even offered a free mooring. For those non-salts reading, a mooring equals a sharp decrease in stress.Government placed moorings don't

Our anchorage in Hanga Roa

usually drag; anchors certainly can. With a mooring one only has to worry about preventing chafe on the mooring lines where ever chafe can occur, a lesson I learned the hard (and terrifying) way in Guadeloupe. So we tied off well, with two lines cow-hitched to the mooring lines and sections of hose around the lines where they led through the forward chalks. Looking down into 85ft of cobalt water, I swore I could see the hard ripples of sand on the bottom. Next to us men were off-loading cargo from a large ship onto a small boat. We were the only two ships in the harbor. We opened the ports and went to sleep with a chilly spring breeze blowing through the cabin. By 10a.m. the crew arrived: immigration, department of agriculture, port captain, and then three others. They were extremely friendly and we went through the paperwork and inspections quickly. In the end it cost $9.00 to check in! They asked for it in USD, and by the way, our next three months are in this country, so it's pretty cheap for an entry fee. This comes as an enormous relief after the Panama Canal and The Galapagos.

Our first trip in to Hanga Roa in our fodable dingy and little Tohatsu engine was the most terrifying experience of the trip so far. Our nearest brush with disaster. We couldn't even see the entrance between the lines of rollers and surfers in wet suits bobbing like sleek black seals. We only knew there must be one. A fisherman, in a long, heavy boat zoomed by an waved us in. He had long hair in a bun and a curly dark beard: the common aesthetic of the Rapa Nui man. He waved us in and pointed to his wake, so we fell in and followed. We quickly realized how incredibly slow we are in comparison as he disappeared around the corner. At least we knew the way in. I was busy looking over the town trying to decide which lovely terrace was deserving of our first beer, when I saw a heavy swell coming towards us. That wave is going to crush us, I said to Max. There was nothing to do but resign ourselves to the fate. We were going swimming. I imagined two weeks of boat garbage unleashed into one of the world's most pristine surf spots. Max imagined something more practical- how we would get anywhere without the computer that was on my back. The wave hit, breaking

Max braving the surf after having perfected our entry method

almost upon us, we instinctively leaned towards it and forward and it sent us spinning, the whole dingy flexing dramatically. Then it spit us out, upright. There was no time to celebrate as another wave was swelling towards us. This one hit and was even worse. We tilted even more, the engine let out a primitive growl, and again I thought of how I could quickly collect all the garbage before swimming to safety. Again we made it. A minute later we were at the dock laughing together like two kids who know they just got away with doing something really stupid. For five days we braved this entry and exit, becoming better and better at what I started called the real Hell's Gate. We never went without the computer in a dry bag or with too much weight. Significant previsions required that I hitch-hike with a fisherman while Max braved Hell's Gate solo. We realized that the entrance can be done well if you are patient and wait for the break between lines of swell. People like to say all types of things about waves. That they come in threes, fives, sevens. The truth is more variable. If you are surfing, the ones you can ride come in threes. If you are in a sturdy fishing boat with a lot of horsepower, you should wait out five. The waves that can sink a foldable dingy with a 3.5 horsepower engine, come in lines of 9-11. You have to wait and study the horizon. If you decide to go for it and another develops, it is best to whip around and hit it head on. I watched Max do this one day from the dock and saw our dingy almost totally airborne. After so many trips, Max perfected this technique to the point that the Rapa Nui men voiced respect. I must admit, I never drove the dingy in or out, enjoying the pleasures of back seat driving or rides with fisherman too much.

After the terrifying rollers, Max ties up next to a Maoi

The town of Hanga Roa is an easy-going paradise. The Rapa Nui are stunningly beautiful, happy, and kind. The kids are all little surfers running around town barefoot, their waist length hair tangled and ending in bleached brown curls. The women wear flowers in their hair and the older men wear ornamental necklaces. Most bodies are decorated with traditional tatoos of tribal designs inked precisely over shoulders defined by a dedication to surfing or long circulating tattoos winding around thighs and torsos. Something written out in Rapa Nui hyroglyphs. The Rapa Nui flag, white with a red curved image of two heads looking up, is omnipresent. We literally laughed all the way to the bank on our first walk through town, reminiscing about the dingy entrance, stunned by our luck. We found a terrace for our first beer and, looking over the menu, shuddered at the cost of things. I was sure that Max had the exchange rate wrong. In the end, the exchange was 650 pesos to the dollar, and an appetizer at a middle of the road place was 11,000 pesos. Town is very expensive, but there are a few gems that we found.

One of many street food options available in Hanga Roa

There's a sandwich place right in town where two guys make amazing food while blasting 90s hip hop and alternating breaks to share a joint they kept outside. The tables are saw mill cut boards hanging from the braided palm frond roof. We ate a fresh Tuna sandwich big enough for two that cost 7000 pesos, then ordered another of beef with onions and cheese with a fried egg on top. Unlike in other restaurants, where a waiter may approach and say, how is everything this evening?, in that false tone, our waiter, bopping his head to the music with heavy eyelids simply makes the Rapa Nui hand signal, thumb and pinkie out, twitching back and forth.  The gesture is returned to convey that your dinning experience is satisfactory.  He smiles, genuinely happy. The restaurant faces a large rugby field, the focal point of the town, that hosted a tournament for the Polynesians Islanders during our stay. We spent many sunsets there eating grilled meat kabobs for 3000 pesos and watching the games. People went by in cars, on scooters, or bare back on horses, but overall town is quiet except for the tremendous crash of the surf.

Up the main street a little more is Restaurant Chez Ramon where empanadas big enough to make you skip dinner are made to order by Ramon. His restaurant is tiny and nested into a vibrant garden of tropical flowers. He goes about his cooking thoughtfully and slowly, bringing little snacks to hold you over. Ramon has a big heart and an affinity for sailors so much so that this became our home base. We filled all our water jugs there, placed a very economical vegetable order through him, and ate many of his fresh Tuna and cheese empanadas. Ramon can do your laundry for less, rent you a car for less, and really get anything a cruiser may need, for less. If we ever did anything through anyone else, he would admonish us and say, why didn't you ask me? 

The remainder of the island provides vast landscapes of partly cloudy skies, green hills, and a coastline of lava rock formations being battered by waves. We drove around the entire perimeter in a couple hours. We climbed to the top of crater edges to peer at lagoons below, visited the ruins of ceremonial grounds, and stopped at many sites of toppled Maoi. The tour gets more dramatic as you continue from Hanga Roa around to the east, leading to the "Maoi workshop" where you can see the sculptures in all stages of production, some half carved out of a cliff face, and other toppled and rolling downhill. This site is halfway up a dramatic crater that rises suddenly from green fields where horses gallop in herds through the bent over grasses with the turquoise sea in the distance, darkening towards the horizon. I am not joking; it's that pretty. Towards the end of our road trip, we found the famous site of the 15 Maoi lined up at the edge of the sea. The site is as amazing as the cliffs and coastline that surround it. You will want to sit and stare for a long time noticing the slight differences between each of the 15 carvings and try to comprehend the scale of everything you are looking at. We sat in the grass and recycled the same conversation we had all week. I can't believe we are here. I can't believe we sailed here. and from Kingston. 

View from ceremonial town at the southwest of the island

Our off-road rental car

Laura at the edge of volcanic crater

We are preparing to leave Easter Island today and will spend one more night at anchor, casting off after breakfast tomorrow, December 1. This evening we will take a group of local kids sailing. We are not sad to leave. There is too much to look forward to. The anchorage here is dreadfully uncomfortable at times, dingy approaches leave our hands shaking and hearts racing, and town is just too expensive. Sometimes, just moving around the boat at anchor is a challenge. The hose on the mooring line chafed through and the boat looked like a giant shook it up every time we returned. Out of the six nights we spent at anchor, about half were peaceful with long dinners and bright orange sunsets. This island and people have nested themselves quite permanently in our hearts and we are thankful. For the opportunity to visit such a distant and special place, for the fishermen in feathered head dresses and Adidas hoodies who leave part of their catch on our decks and give me rides, for the little kids riding 12 foot waves like it's no big thing, and for the people who covered these hills in monoliths that remind me of something I am not wise enough to understand or articulate.

 

Our Longest Passage: The Galapagos to Easter Island

Tuesday, November 15th 

Yesterday we weighed anchor and sailed out of Puerto Ayora. It´s amazing to fall so in love with a place, and just as quickly decide to get out of there. We are determined to make haste and have begun to speak in numbers. 1945 miles from Galapagos to Easter Island. 1231 miles left. 15-18 days overall, depending on our average speed.  Max came to bed and whispered, We did 136 mile VMG (velocity made good) in the last 24hrs. What was our overall? I ask. I don't know, he says, but I didn't touch the tiller my whole watch. Me either, I say. If we are lucky, it will take us eleven more days to end up 2000 miles from anywhere. How had the Polynesians ever found this place? 

A port tack convinced us to abandon the v-berth and move into the main salon where gravity holds us in a space too narrow to at anchor. Everything else is uphill or insufficiently padded. Better to sleep like two sardines than suffer sagging lee clothes or boards in your back. This passage has been so serene we have taken to being below deck together for longer

periods of time, even dozing off for fifteen minutes as we switch watches. The boat just goes ever since we hit the steady South Easterly trades. There are no shipping lanes to cross and this wind should hold for days. Still, I am nervous. This time we are really venturing far out into the Pacific. That being said, I can't deny the obvious facts. The sky is partly cloudy everyday, it hasn't rained at all, and the temperature has cooled to that of May in New York. Could it be this easy?

There were times in New York when I would say things like, the passage from The Galapagos to Easter Island scares me, but by that time we will have sailed over 5000 miles. We will be different sailors by then. I bring up this memory at cocktail hour. Remember when I said that? Do you feel like a different sailor? We decide that in fact, we are different, but certain things are remarkably the same. I still wake up with a certain amount of anxiety and have to immediately find Max. Even his shadow will do. I am relieved when I see him go from fast asleep to calling my name, and know he shares that anxiety. I still look at the waves and imagine myself falling in and being swept away, but by now I realize that's not too likely and,

to a large degree, up to me. Max and I are only awake, together, and talking during meals and at cocktail hour when we discuss the looming feelngs and questions that have been developing in our minds throughout our separate watches. We talk about what worries us, what we have noticed about ourselves or the boat, and what we miss or look forward to. As sailors, we have begun to feel what the boat feels. We know its textures, its leaks, its splinters and sharp corners. We know how to keep the water in the kettle and the kettle on the stove. We know how to wedge our bodies into place to cut a clove of garlic without losing it. We have installed, inspected, and run our hands over every piece of harware, line, bungee, and know when they are under strain. We try to be a little paranoid. To notice. Sometimes we notice things a little too late.

Early in this trip we noticed two things: a crack in the tiller and three screws missing from the base of the roller furler. we discussed each in turn. Had the tiller always been cracked? Could we have not noticed that? We each traced our memories back to those early days in the woodshop. I could feel the sandpaper between my hand and the wood. No, I say, it was perfect. But Max remembered the sandpaper too, and could recall a small crack, something that the paper tripped over, toward the base. Regardless, what would we do if it broke? We discussed what would be necesary to fit the spare tiller, a long alluminum bar, into the space where the current tiller is. We would have to drill holes for the blocks that hold the self-steering system, the little nipple that holds the electronic autopilot, and then how to fit it tightly into the space in the back so that there would be no play would be an issue. We decided to put dots at the ends of the crack with a Sharpie, continue to mull it over, and see if the crack was existing or developing.

As for the furler, three screws of a certain thread and metric had wiggled themselves free reminding us that every screw, bolt, nut, inch of adhesive, cable, pulley, cleat, is under constant strain. They are all wiggling free, chafing, deteriorating in the sun, etc. Everything has a life expectancy, everything is breaking, all things fall apart, and it's our job to see it happening. Even today, a thin line was touching the top of the tiller, and as the boat drove itself by making small adjustments to port or to starboard, the line rubbed gently on the varnished wood. After a day of this, six layers of varnish are gone and the edge of a piece of bronze hardware was polished to a bright gold finish. Our problem with the screws on the furler system is that we have no more of that type, which is impressive considering the bulk of our hardware box, and didn't want to risk damaging the threading by using a different type of screw. Thankfully, Max had found one of the three in the scupper days earlier, and not knowing where it had come from, put it aside. So, one screw holds the furler in place. A wrap of Gorilla tape provides resistance. We furl gently and hope for a hardware store in Easter Island. 

Thursday, November 17

Going above deck this morning I am in awe of what has become normal. Our boat charges, rushes, plunges through the dark. The waves are just discernable, but I don't need to see them. I can tell that they are short and steep, heavily textured by the wind. I can sense that they are building and stick my hand outside the dodger to feel the cold sting of rain. The

 leeward rail dips deeply and clear, cold ocean runs back into the cockpit scrambling the sheets and flooding the cockpit floor. This is my cue to reef the Genoa and I go below to put on foulies.  

Full moon night photography

We are passing through endless squalls. Stripes of gray that reach down to the horizon. Evenly colored, thick as flannel, and smudged where they meet the water. We are constantly reefing in expectation of the weather and then shaking reefs once it passes. Between squalls the wind dies completely and the climate seems to be reeling from the storm. We dropped all the sails and motor. Another squall comes and we hoist enough sail to get through it. This is

the type of sailing that we find most challenging. Constant sail changes can exhaust even the most patient sailor. By the end of a six hour watch, I have reefed and shaken reefs, furled and unfurled, motored. I am wet and my hands are aching, lines of blood blisters have formed on the inside of my fingers. I go below to wake Max and say, It is with great pleasure that I hand over the sailing of Tortuga to you this morning Captain.

Friday, November 18

From Nuqui, Colombia to Puerto Ayora, Galapagos we almost caught one Tuna, so small we didn't even bother to get the gaff or a net. He threw the hook between the water and the cockpit, and we were relived because he was too small. Since The Galapagos, we have caught one shark, one coil of green line, a cluster of cassette tape plastic, and one half of a Tuna. The shark bit soon after we left Puerto Ayora- a last reminder of the abundance of life in those magical islands. We didn't want the shark of course, but thought we might be able to get the lure back, which would be mutually beneficial. Max reeled him in slowly and when he came alongside the boat I could see that he was a white tip shark, about five feet long. He swam steadily just below the surface and seemed unconcerned by what was happening. Terrific to watch, we tried to get him as close as possible before cutting the line. We hoped to leave as little as possible with him. We did our best.

A white-tipped shark on the line

Today we caught half of a Tuna. Max had been complaining all day about how many bites we had that didn't turn into fish, about catching sharks or bunches of plastic. He kept saying, I just want to catch one fish before Easter Island. When the reel went off, he wasn't taking any chances. We could tell it was a big fish and Max reeled in slowly, letting it run a few times. When it got close, Max took the pole out of it's metal sleeve and walked it forward. He sat down and kept reeling while I got ready with the gaff. We saw the dark blue back of a Tuna cut the surface of the water a few yards behind the boat. Then the fish dove and Max's shoulders and arms were shaking with the effort. He kept saying that it felt really strange. The struggle stopped and the fish came to the surface, apparetnly dead. I reached down with the gaff and noticed that something was very odd. Half of the fish was missing. After a second I yelled, Max, Half of the fish is missing! As I yelled that I saw a large shadow just beyond the Tuna and the brilliant,

unmistakable stripes of a TIger Shark. He had obviously helped himself to half our catch and was hungry for more. Gaff it!! Max was yelling while I was fixated on the vibrant shark moving himself towards me in that muscle bound way they swim. I pulled the half Tuna into the cockpit and Max and I collapsed laughing. The shark did us a favor actually. Even just the head is too much meat for us to eat, and it is so much easier to pull in a dead fish that has already bled out. No violent fish blugeoning in the cockpit with hard to clean blood spraying all over the place. Whenever a fish is caught, it means an hour of work for each of us. Tuna blood stains incredibly. We made delicious steaks for dinner and there is a lot left. 

Sunday November 20

I have been seeing the most amazing things. Last night I learned what the sky is capable of doing. The sun set in an almost cloudless sky. The where the horizon is hunting season orange and then above the first stars and planets are as bright as LED lights in a deep lavender

atmosphere. Max and I watched the sunset together on the cabin top while discussing the passage so far. Just as the sun sank I reminded him of the green flash, a phenomenom of light that appears just after the sun disappears and can only be seen by the dedicated and patient sky gazer. Max is a non-believer, so I covered his eyes and told him I would oncover them at precisely the right moment. Wait for it, wait for it, and Now! I yelled uncovering hs eyes. Just then a crown of neon green light shot up from the horizon. Did you see it? That was amzing! But Max hadn't seen it.

After dinner I had the first watch, 8pm to 2am. I dressed in my foulies, made a pot of coffee, and went above deck to watch the sky. On such a clear evening I could welcome each star to the sky and watch its constellation form, trying to remember the names and stories. With a six hour watch, there is time for this. Venus was brighter than I had ever seen. Such a diamond of sharp light I kept mistaking it for another ship very close to us. Orion appeared close to the horizon and I could see the face of Taurus rising. The scene of the great hunt I consider every evening. The sails were trimmed to a broad reach, seas were calm, and the boat was easily making 6-7 knots without my help. I pulled a blanket over my legs and got lost in a daydream. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bright green light and jumped up, thinking that I had missed the approach of a ship and that its starboard light was incredibly close. I stared into the night trying to decipher the even darker shape of the ship that must be there. But there was only the green light going quickly passed and my heart beating at the thought of who could be out here with us, and so close. When I was sure that the light was passed I relaxed a little, but then saw another coming. Another neon orb floating quickly across the water, the size of a basketball. I woke up Max for this one and we watched it together, and then another, and another. I guess there are glowing orbs in the South Pacific. Who knew? We stayed awake together for a while looking at the exceptional sky. The stars on the horizon were flashing red, blue, white. Venus, before deisappearing in its rotation was also flashing bold colors at the horizon. Max went to sleep and I spent the rest of the watch enveloped in my senses. Clouds covered the stars and vision was traded for sound. Beyond the leeward rail and the working and non-working lines, I could hear the rushing and collapsing sea. A pulley to my right clicked line in and out and the wind generator rushed and slowed with the changing wind.

It took 14 and a half days for us to reach Easter Island. When we left The Galapagos my neck was in a brace due to a pulled muscle, leaving Max with the burden of any heavy lifting. We kept pace the entire passage, motoring when necessary, and making incescant sail changes to keep up our speed. The South East trades treated us well and we sped over a large section of ocean while playing cards below deck, or reading for hours in the cockpit. There were a few days of hard work, squalls, and fickle wind. Overall, it was easy. It was easier by far than NY to Bermuda or Guadeloupe to Colombia. There were no big seas and no storms. Mostly the sky kept changing back to partial sun, fluffy cumulus clouds, and spring like weather. 

We passed Thanksgiving underway and managed to make potatoes, stuffing, and even gravy with canned Rouladen (pickles rolled in venison). We missed our families intensely and talked for hours about how much we love that holiday and why. We discussed each

recipe of our mothers in great detail. We carefully described the Christmas traditions of our families and what is eaten when. I began to realize that the holidays aboard the boat by ourselves are going to be tough.

Max and I are closer than we have ever been, though romance has given way to something more practical. We show our love through splinter removals, rash inspections, and small gestures that are so meaningful at sea. A pot of coffee for your watch. New sheets on the bed. A swept main cabin floor or cleaned head. I think Max's journal entries from the passage sum it up beautifully...

 11/12

Night is settling in as an improvised boat dinner fades into memory.  The smell of coffee fills the cabin along with warm yellow light. Sam Cook plays in the background.  I put on my sweater, waterproof pants, and jacket.  I feel completely relaxed as if I have lived this momemnt a million times before.  There is no rush to go outside.  The wind is still blowing and the boat is on course as assured by her heel and movement.  She has found her groove in the south east trades. She keeps running and running pushing water out of the way like she never has before.  It´s as if she is chasing something.  Something tickling the dried up tuna tail tied to her bowsprit maybe. The woman of my dreams dreams in the forpeak leaving me with the main salon, cockpit and deck to myself.  My somatch tingles with anticipation as it does in a child retreating to a secret hiding place.  Anticipation for the place itself, for its potential, for the memory of this moment.  The perfect night in the South Pacific, a place I have always dreamed of exploring.  It seems I have it all to myself with the only company I will ever need sleeping quietly in the forepeak. 

I hate this picture, but Max loves it. I had to wear this neck brace for our fist week out from The Galapagos.

Night watch letter writing

Max sewing a new waterproof bag for his clothes

Finished War and Peace!

First sight of Easter Island

Thanksgiving!