To the Heart of Polynesia

Smooth progress was interrupted a few days after the equator by weakened wind and clouds best described as “ominous.” After our experience in the doldrums we knew what to expect, and sure enough, we received a stormy squall and our first steady rain for weeks. We gratefully collected buckets of rain off the sails.

A series of squalls kept hitting us for a few days and we realized we were in the thick of the South Pacific Convergence Zone, the SPCZ being somewhat analogous to the ITCZ above the equator and will form nasty weather for boats. These squalls can have wind build to 50 knot gusts in a few minutes – the typical mantra is, “if you’re considering reefing a sail, DO IT!”
With less fresh water and food weighing us down after two weeks, Piggy was handling the squalls well and we escaped the SPCZ without issue.

We arrived to Apia, the capital of Samoa, in the morning of October 2. We missed October 1 because we’ve crossed the international date line! We sailed the 2200 nm in 20 days and broke fewer things than the crossing to Hawai’i:

• Half of our mainsail sliders split apart. These plastic parts attach the sail to the mast. Replaced with spares from the storm trisail (now we hope we won’t need that sail until we can replace the parts!)
• A seam in the main opened up so we sewed it with a sailmaker’s palm, needle, and waxed thread.
• The tackle attaching a running backstay to a chainplate fractured from fatigue, and we’d replace one part of it to have another one pop apart. Replaced with… more rope.
• Corrosion… everywhere. It turns out that submerging and being sprayed with a warm corrosive solution will rust things. Exposed wire, plugs, any non-stainless fittings (and stainless contaminated with steel).

This was a draining passage but our spirits are high. I think we over-prepared for the first leg to Hawai’i and under-prepared for Samoa (Goldilocks tells me the New Zealand passage will be just right).

Sewing the mainsail