The 550 miles that took us 10 days to travel

We left the Marquesas in a real rush. We briefly met a Swiss sailor who gave us a weather forecast and it seemed that we should leave that night or risk being stuck in dead wind for the following week.  So, we dropped the unwashed loads of laundry back on the boat, tore through the boat like a hurricane picking up anything we could trade for some fruit, and quickly said goodbye to all the boats we met while at anchor at Daniel’s Bay on Nuka Hiva. In our rush, we grabbed terrible things to trade- a small bit of rope, a tin of corned beef and a small jar of rum. We luckily were still able to get a stalk of bananas, a few papayas the size of our heads and small unripe pamplemousse.

We managed to set sail before dark and started off with a nice breeze that slowly slowly trickled down to small puffs. As we slowly passed the southern Marquesan islands, we contemplated turning around and waiting for some wind, but we decided that was foolish and should truck on. Truck on we did…at about 2 miles an hour. Eventually, the wind completely died and we ended up drifting for about 3 days not going anywhere in particular. 

We did what most sailors would do while they are waiting for the wind- opened a bottle of wine, played chess, read books, ate all our fruit and watched the stars reflecting on the perfectly glassy water. We were surrounded by stars- it was breathtakingly beautiful!

Although we had very little wind and averaged about 55 miles per day, it was, to date, our favorite passage.  We are sailing in the South Pacific to find small paradises and sometimes forget that the water in between is often the most remote and beautiful part of the world.