Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 982NM SW of Catalinia

What a difference a day makes! Around 8pm we caught an easterly breeze and could stop motoring, and around midnight the wind was strong enough for the windvane to steer.

Night was cloudless, and the only challenge was a trawler that crossed our bow, the long trawl lit like a string of Christmas lights.

The lovely conditions continued throughout the day, and we’ve been able to enjoy leisurely ocean sailing on a beam reach without having to touch a single line. These are not yet the trade winds, but it feels we’re on the trail to find them.

In the morning, Suski caught a tuna, providing us with some new variation in the menu.

• Distance today: 88NM
• Lunch: tuna ginger curry
• Engine hours: 1.6

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 894NM SW of Catalinia

As the night fell, we motored on hoping for wind. In the early hours of morning it came, suddenly and fast. 20kn out of the darkness. So we rolled out a sliver of genoa and sailed! Since then the wind keeps disappearing and reappearing randomly. The sky is grey and the seas confused. So to keep up the morale, we motor the in betweens because drifting would be just too umcomfortable. Neither of us is sleeping well with the constant changes in conditions. At least we are making solid progress now.

Quite a huge difference with the forecast, where it was supposed to be sunny with light but consistent wind.

• Distance today: 105NM
• Lunch: Shakshuka
• Engine hours: 12.4

Monday, March 9, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 789NM SSW of Catalinia

We finally hit the proper convergence zone, and so the night went with fickle winds, heavy rain, and some thunder in the distance.

What a difference the hard dodger and the new backdrop make in these conditions! One could sit on watch outside, and stay perfectly dry!

By midmorning the sky cleared, and we could actually enjoy some sailing with the wind on the beam. Now approaching dinner time we reached the next calm patch, and this time we decided to punch through it under engine power.

• Distance today: 50NM
• Lunch: chanterelle risotto
• Engine hours: 1.5

Sunday, March 8, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 739NM SSW of Catalinia

The night was windless. At first we were slowly sailing. By the midnight watch change, the wind died completely. As we both were awake, we decided that it was time for some motor maintenance aka motoring time. We have decided to run the motor for an hour or so every week to keep it happy on the long passage.

After the 1.5 hours of motoring Lille Ø slowly drifted towards NW. At dawn the wind picked up to 4kn, which ment that we could again choose the direction we were going, not the current. As the night draws closer, we are enjoying 6kn of wind, which at this point feels like a lot!

The bird of the day was a brown booby sitting at the aft solar panel.

• Distance today: 45NM
• Lunch: cous cous salad
• Engine hours: 1.5

Saturday, March 7, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 694NM SSW of Catalinia

We’ve been at sea for a week, and the days are starting to blend into a continuous stream of watches. Sleep, sail, sleep, sail.

Conditions remain light and very comfortable as we ghost our way to the southwest. Beam reach, and the boat just glides on the blue ocean. We had two brief visits from dolphins at night and in the morning.

• Distance today: 63NM
• Lunch: shiitake mushrooms with fried egg rice
• Engine hours: 0

Friday, March 6, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 631NM SW of Catalinia

This was our slowest day yet. Wind has been under 5kn for most of the time. At night a frigate bird decided to use the aft solar panel as its sleeping spot. In the morning it left and behind it a very thoroughly pooped panel. The panel got washed, and soon after two swallow-tailed gulls decided that aft panel is the coolest place to hang out. We seem to be popular with the local wildlife.

At noon, with 3 nautical miles to equator, the wind picked up and we were able to hoist the mainsail too. Suski went to bed and was woken up before crossing the equator for the audience with Neptune’s court that had assembled for the line crossing ceremony. Neptune raised water from the deep and both Suski and Bergie were doused properly and thusly accepted to Neptune’s court as shellbacks.

Now we are sailing further SW in search of the trade winds that are at the moment 5°S, so a few slow days are still in ahead of us.

• Distance today: 46NM
• Lunch: makaronilaatikko
• Engine hours: 0

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 585NM SSW of Catalinia

Another slow but comfortable day in the light conditions. We’ve been mostly carrying full sail and making slow but steady progress south. It makes no sense to turn on the engine this early in the long passage, especially as the boat is still mostly steerable and moving in to the right direction.

At the time of writing, we’re still some 17NM north of the Equator. The crew is eagerly waiting for the line crossing ceremony, and King Neptune and his court have already assembled in the cockpit in anticipation.

• Distance today: 70NM
• Lunch: pea soup
• Engine hours: 0

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 515NM SSW of Catalinia

As the night grew older, the wind started to dwindle. The mainsail came down as going down wind it was just making noise and not really helping with speed. We continued with the double headsails. Annoyingly the blue extra sheet is not long enough to run the full genoa when not poled out and Bergie not wanting to wake me up opted to run it reefed. As mid day arrived, the wind had turned even more requiring a new sail plan. The staysail came down, so did the blue rope. Genoa got stretched out and the mainsail was up in full too.

Light headwinds and only a large rolling long swell means that we are silently sailing further with couple knots of speed. Long distance sailing sometimes is making desisions based on how loud they are versus how effective they are. Silent but slower is always our choice. Good sleep is basis for a successful ocean passage

• Distance today: 65NM
• Lunch: tomato-feta pasta
• Engine hours: 0

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 450NM SSW of Catalinia

In addition to our primary offshore communications system, Starlink, it is also important to utilize the secondary systems frequently. Now that I have a full amateur radio license, we’re able to use the HF radio on board. And so we have now enrolled to the Pacific Seafarers Net (14300kHz at 3:00Z). This is a voice-based radio net that tracks boats during their ocean passages.

Last night when reporting in, we were alerted of the lunar eclipse to occur. Since we had cloudless skies, we got to watch the shadow on the moon grow from a small “hat” to a nearly full eclipse. Nice!

A brown booby chose our spinnaker pole as its hotel for the night, staying perched despite the occasionally big rocking in the swell. The bird left at sunrise.

We are starting to get closer to the doldrums, and so winds are getting more fickle. But so far sailing conditions are good, and right now weather routing thinks we should be able to reach the southeastern trade winds with little motoring, as long as we stick closer to Ecuador than Galapagos Islands.

• Distance today: 144NM
• Lunch: beans and rice with fresh herbs
• Engine hours: 0

Monday, March 2, 2026

Pacific Ocean, 306NM SW of Catalinia

The night brought some light winds and we made good progress aided by the current. At dawn watch change we reefed the mainsail to 2nd reef in preparation for the expected 30kn winds. They came as promised and we enjoyed the speed immensely. A dampener to the feeling came with a debree field of trash, twigs and sizeable logs. Sharp lookout was required in a desperate attempt to avoid hitting the biggest ones. Only once I missed a big one, but the impact was luckily only a soft thud.

As we are going to the night, the big theme is avoiding the island of Malpelo with enough sea room. The nearly full moon accompanies us on the night watches giving the sea a delightful sparkly surface.

• Distance today: 136NM
• Lunch: lentil-coconut soup
• Engine hours: 0