Southward Bound Again
We were once again on passage, New Life moving steadily through the South Pacific swells. The leg we had just started on was taking us south from the volcanic peaks of the Marquesas towards the low-lying atolls of the Tuamotu Archipelago. I had just started the first night watch and the stars were coming out.
This journey brought me back to a moment now months before, when we began our monumental journey from Mexico. I remembered the sensation of that first night, far from any lights glowing over silhouetted coastlines, when the dark depth of the night sky opened above us and made me reach for equally superlative vocabulary.
The Milky Way stretched across the black velvet South Pacific sky, a river of diamond dust, so dense and brilliant it felt like a physical presence. My eyes followed that luminous current southward, leading directly to it: the Southern Cross. There it was, standing clear, a familiar yet distant friend.
It was a strong echo of its first clear appearance when we had turned south, a week and a half out into the Pacific. It was at first a subtle shift in the night sky as we approached the 20th parallel still north, a quiet sign of the Southern hemisphere we were about to enter after years spent under the northern stars.
Leaving Mexico behind
As we had left the coasts of Mexico behind on the 4th of April, the ocean air felt different, fresh and open. The distant scent of land faded, replaced by the deep, clean taste of salt on the wind. The last view of the receding coastline slowly gave way to an open, wide blue stretching in every direction.
That first step into the big, endless ocean was a deep experience, one that resonated in me with stories of way finders from history, navigating without maps.
Ancient wayfarers
I was reading as we sailed out into the sea fascinating stories about navigators like James Cook and the ancient Polynesian voyagers, and their settlement of these vast waters. They found their way across this very ocean using only the stars and natural signs, not following GPS waypoints and weather router’s instructions, like we were.
Still this passage, for us, was our own first experiences of learning to read the ocean’s subtle cues and the ancient script of the stars rather than just coastal markers.
Boat and Ocean Rhythms
Life on passage quickly settled into a steady rhythm. The constant movement of the boat became the pulse of our existence, a quiet hum as the hull moved through water. Each mid-watch log entry, at night written by the red light of the chart table, became a small anchor in the endless flow of time, marking our progress.
For the crossing to French Polynesia, we had been joined by Carlin, a sailing acquaintance and fellow boat owner we had first met on Great Barrier Island. As a diesel mechanic, experienced offshore sailor and cheerful crew member he greatly helped our journey go smoothly.
Meals were prepared in a galley that swayed and rocked, a dance with the elements that became natural. Even simple pleasures, like a glass of cold orange juice at sunset, felt more special, mixed with the sharp taste of salt and the wide, golden sky.
Day following day
Our days were marked by the same quiet observations: looking out for ships that never appeared, fewer and fewer sightings of birds or other sea life as we moved further offshore.
As the nights deepened, we watched the familiar northern constellations, like the Big Dipper, sink lower each night, slowly disappearing below the horizon, while the last stars of Ursa Minor barely held on in the northern sky.
It felt like moving, not just across latitude, but across hemispheres, with the equator appearing as a subtle sign. In the dark, the sounds of the boat, and the engine’s hum when the wind died off, filled the quiet, becoming the only music of our isolated world.
Broken sleep
The broken sleep of a passage, interrupted by watch changes and constant movement, surprisingly led us into a calmer state of mind. There was a lingering feeling of seasickness, coming and going, that became another part of the background.
Always, one hand held on, automatically, so we wouldn’t be tossed around. Even sleeping meant subconsciously locking oneself in place, finding the curve of the bunk that kept us steady.
Navigating challenges
Life on the open ocean had its hard realities. Every passage brings tests, not just of our sailing skills, but of how well we can adapt.
As we entered the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, large cloud formations started to tower over our boat. The sudden winds and heavy rain of squalls tried to surprise us, making turning the radar on every few miles a crucial habit, watching for the colored warning signs on the screen.
Huddling under the bimini to shelter from the wind and rain became common. And then, the loud alarm of the autopilot as it struggled with strong gusts in a squall, sending the watchkeeper rushing to the helm, sheltering behind the steering column as the rain hit the boat.
Problems
Beyond the squalls, other problems came up. Only a few days out, the port water tank began a small leak into the bilge, forcing an emergency stop at Mexico’s western most island. Without a water maker, every drop counted so we had to stop the leak before moving on. Fortunately, we could replenish lost water from a nearby dive expedition boat.
Maybe a week later, the autopilot, our tireless fourth crew member, started failing, also needing troubleshooting. On April 21st, it stopped working completely. We spent the better part of a day tracing the error to fix it, while the watchkeeper had to helm by hand. Luckily, our wind vane, though needing constant, small adjustments, worked well, helping to hold our course.
Then there were the smaller, growing frustrations: the first gas bottle ran out too early, the induction cooker burnt out, a flexible solar panel came off in a gust but could be reattached, two sets of fishing tackle were lost to unseen ocean creatures, and the Iridium Go got too hot and stopped charging. Luckily Carlin had brought his own Garmin satellite tracker to serve as backup if the Starlink had also failed.
These moments tested our skills and preparedness, pushing us to rely on our own know-how and each other.
Adrift in mid-ocean
We even dropped sails and stopped twice, once at 4 degrees north of the equator to clear a blocked wastewater outlet, and again the next day at 3 degrees north to clean the boat’s bottom which within a fortnight after the last scraping had already become covered again by thick invertebrate growth that was slowing us down.
And of course we stopped again when we reached the 0 degrees so Nico would later be able to say that he had swam across the equator as a 7-year old.
Never a dull moment
We experimented quite a bit with our tackle but unsuccessfully so. Still, there was a little satisfaction in just changing lures, a small hope sent into the wide unknown below.
We tried to collect rainwater in the sail, a simple act that felt connected to old sailors relying on nature.
Reading “Curious George” with Nico felt new, his small voice clear in the surrounding quiet, the familiar stories repeated in this new setting.
Something bigger
Small things, like seeing what seemed like the same boobies resting on deck over days, or more frequent tropical showers, became small connections with ocean life.
In those quiet times, especially on night watches, there was a strong sense of being part of something much bigger than ourselves.
Meanwhile reading about our destination, the Marquesas, filled the days, like Herman Melville‘s Typee and thinking of our destination, connecting the ocean now with the land ahead.
The Destination on the horizon
As the weeks went by, the ocean began to show hints of what lay beyond. With flotsam and land-based seabirds beginning to appear, we tried to look beyond the horizon for the first signs of land.
But as if to remind us of what could have been a much tougher passage, the last few days brought stronger winds again, making sailing much less leisurely as the wind and swell tossed the boat around.
And so it was a strong moment – trying hard to avoid cliche words – to finally see the peaks of Nuku Hiva, one of the northernmost Marquesas islands. That first distant silhouette of land after over a month of only the ocean was a feeling hard to describe – a mix of relief, excitement, and new anticipation.
More landfalls
We entered Taiohae Bay with a real sense of accomplishment. The passage from Mexico wasn’t just a trip; it was a big change. It made our skills sharper, tested how determined we were, and made our bond with New Life and each other deeper.
Without exaggeration we can say that the passage prepared us well, in ways we are still finding out, for the vibrant new chapter that awaits us in French Polynesia. Not least by giving us confidence to set out on more long passages like the one we were on now. And when next year’s cruising season lets us head further west, we know there will be many more dramatic landfalls waiting.
