Transition Zone

Some new things have happened over the last couple of days — first and possibly most exciting being that yesterday morning we had three flying squid on our deck and then today we had our first flying fish on deck (RIP sweet ocean creatures). Second, we started our this passage at 33N degrees latitude and are now in the 24N degree range — we are excited for the 23.5 degree N line because we will then officially be in the tropics at the Tropic of Cancer! Definitely we will have a tropic celebration — perhaps involving splitting one Modelo and maybe, just maybe, putting on t-shirts instead of long sleeves (fingers crossed!).

We’ve traveled 581 miles in 4 days, which is just under 150 miles per day. Our boat could go faster, and given that we are still learning, we take it slow. And there is a lot to learn, especially that we are now effectively in a transition area for the next few days. The wind is transitioning from a northwest flow down the California coast from the Pacific High, and now moving into the clockwise pattern from the high and heading towards the tradewinds. This means that the swell/waves are a little confused, bouncing us around at night especially when the wind dies down, and the wind is quite shifty in this area.

So this morning we tried to figure out the best sail plan that would work in light, shifty winds and one swell that is following and one swell that is on the beam. Yesterday, we set our pole for the first time (see photo above from this morning of what that looks like — it helps push the jib sail out so that it doesn’t slat around which not only makes a lot of noise but also puts too much force on things which is not good or nice to be around), and this morning tried adjusting the pole and the sail area, then tried putting up the mainsail for the first time on this trip — neither the main nor the jib liked being up in those conditions and certainly not together so they kept slatting around, so then we tried the jib without the pole and more upwind and that didn’t work either.

Finally, before getting out the spinnaker, we put up the staysail (the small sail near the front of the boat) and this has given us and the boat peace for the first time since yesterday afternoon. It’s counterintuitive that our smallest sail would be the happiest in the lightest winds (guess our diva big sails think they’re too good for these conditions to perform!), and we’re glad we kept trying until we found the right sail plan. We are perhaps going to try putting up the spinnaker soon after we do our daily forecast update—so maybe you’ll see a pretty color spinnaker sail photo in our next update.

As you can see, a lot of sailing is figuring out how to make your sails and boat and crew happy given the sea state and winds. It really is reacting to whatever conditions are right in front of you. This is no easy task! We have been working together really well to figure these things out, and encouraging each other to keep going even when it’s hard, which is mostly always :). We’re told it will get easier…

Here’s to that tropical latitude so soon.