The blog describing our 3,000 mile passage from the Galapagos Islands to French Polynesia will take the form of an edited version of the daily updates I posted on our website via the satellite phone. I felt this is the best way to get a feel for the day to day flow of life on board at sea and also experience the highs and lows as they happened.

Day 0 – A mighty sea creature

Our first task after leaving Santa Cruz harbour was to stop the boat, get the mask and snorkel on and jump in the sea.  A man overboard driven by panic about what lay ahead?  No, the little propeller that spins as the boat moves forward thus measuring the boat’s speed had stopped moving. A dive under the boat revealed the thing clogged with barnacles that had grown in the short time we had been at anchor.  After a quick scrub with a wire brush, we revved the engines again and set out course in a South West direction across a milky calm sea.  The Galapagos sit in a windless band known as the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) or doldrums and this band slowly drifts north and then south and widens and narrows as it is impacted by the weather systems in the North and South pacific.  We timed our departure with when the band had shifted north and therefore, if we could get south quickly we could hook into the Easterly trade winds within a day of setting off. And so it proved. By midnight on the first night we were able to hoist the sails and turn off the engine.  From that moment on we were able to sail all the way to our destination and we wouldn’t use the engine again (other than for charging batteries) until the final day of the passage.

Before then, however, the Galapagos gave us a glimpse of a final incredible creature, the majestic whale shark, the largest fish in the ocean.  Hugo spotted it surface behind the boat and estimated it as long as our boat is wide (21 feet), its beautiful spotted skin and size leaving us in no doubt as to what it was.  We turned round and spotted it again, its huge tail fin slowly sweeping back and forth out of the water as the mighty animal sucked in huge volumes of plankton on the surface. Another item crossed off the bucket list.

Day 1 – Easing in to it

We all took our first full day at sea very easy. Lots of reading, catching up on sleep, screen time and generally lolling about staring at the horizon trying not to get seasick. 2/3 of the crew including both kids are fine, the other 1/3 are having a few belly niggles. The kids even did some school work which is pretty impressive given the conditions. They seem totally at ease being in the big blue.

We sailed all day and all night close hauled into a bumpy sea but during the second night, the wind slowly shifted from almost due south to almost due East which allowed us to sail on a broad reach which is much more pleasant and faster.

Day 2 – The race begins!

We set off from the Galapagos a few hours ahead of our friends on Aquafox, a Leopard 50 catamaran sailed by an American family of 6. We were also 4 days behind other friends on a boat called Waterhorse, a Kiwi family of 5 on a Leopard 46.  There was a bit of jesting before hand about who would sail faster and I secretly thought we had a chance of beating Aquafox and hauling in Waterhorse.  Other than good old friendly rivalry, sailing in relative close proximity to other yachts for a passage such as this does improve safety and, even more so, provides phycological comfort when lying in your bunk fretting about all the what ifs.

When I took over from Lottie at 6am, I prevented her from hitting her bunk for a well earned rest like the lovely husband I am so that we could replace the jib with the gennaker. This involves lots of messing around on the foredeck for me and Lottie pulling lots of ropes in the cockpit, most of which were the right ones…

The speed jumped up 1.5 knots which at the distance we’re doing saves 5 days so it was definitely worth the effort. This boat absolutely loves reaching and running with its big downwind sails. Aquafox is slowly catching us so its good to unfurl our secret weapon as they don’t have one. If the wind keeps shifting like this we’ll unfurl our even more secret weapon, the big Code D. Then they’ll have no chance! Oh yeah, its not a race is it…

At dawn I went through my routine, kettle on, smoothy machine loaded with bananas for kids, weather download running, then all hell broke lose as both fishing lines starting screaming at the same time. The kids and I were the only ones up so we started running around like headless chooks trying to slow the boat down (we were doing 9 knots) and putting on life jackets and then the kettle started howling adding to the mayhem. Long story short, we lost both. That’s 3-0 to the fish.

Day 3 – Disaster, fish face and a celebration

A lot to unpack today. Let’s start with the disaster.

At 3:30am, on Tom’s watch the brand new halyard that holds the Gennaker up (which I bought in Florida and installed in Panama just for this trip) parted and the gennaker and roller furler ended up in the sea as we were going 9 knots. It looks like it has chaffed on something inside the mast. Tom got myself and Lottie up and together we retrieved the sail and furler, stuffed it in the sail locker, unfurled the jib and got underway again. It looks like the gennaker and furler are not damaged which is a relief. However, the two sails that when we bought the boat I imagined using on this leg now can’t be used meaning for the 2,000 miles or so that we will be sailing downwind we will be slow adding days on to our trip.

Boooooooooo!

However, Tom and I have been discussing the issue all day and we may have a cunning plan to rig the whole system up again. Stay tuned.

Tom was in the wars again later that morning but in a much funnier way. Whilst lying in his bunk on his back, mouth open, snoring, a flying fish somehow managed to fly straight through his port hatch, glide over Ceara and land directly in Tom’s mouth! Can you imagine what it is like waking up to a live fish flapping in your mouth? Well Tom can! Carnage ensued as he and Ceara chased the astonished fish around their bed before grabbing it and chucking it back out the window. They are now washing their fishy scaly sheets.

Maybe this was the ocean’s way of wishing Ceara happy birthday as we are celebrating that milestone today. Tom and Lottie whipped up a delicious breakfast of pancakes, caramelised pears, bananas and maple syrup and, if my nose serves me well, I think there may be a cake later plus champagne afternoon tea (high tea on the high seas) and steaks on the BBQ for dinner! The kids have painted cards of Galapagos animals for her and I think Ceara is feeling well loved today.

Its time to move the clocks back but we can’t take an hour off Ceara on her birthday so we’ll do it tomorrow. You can make decisions like that when you’re on a boat!

Day 4 – Back in business (for now)

The last 24 hours have been eventful. No time to get bored out here!

After deliberating all day and drawing various sketches of the top of the mast, I decided to go up there to try to jury rig a spinnaker halyard block to allow us to use our downwind sails for the rest of the trip. So up I went the 75 foot metal stick, bike helmet protecting my nut and lashed to the mast so I couldn’t swing out too far as we rolled. I asked the team below to steer with the waves and they said “which ones, the big swell or one of the two different sets of wind waves?”. Brilliant. There followed one of the least pleasant hours (well one and a half hours) of my time at sea ever. Was it the fear of falling, the terrible sickness or the severe battering against the mast that was worse? Actually it was probably the fact that my twig and berries acted like shock absorbers as I clung there legs and arms wrapped round the mast holding on for dear life.

For 95% of the time I needed all four limbs to hold on and for brief periods I could free one hand to do the jobs I needed to do. Undoing shackles and tying knots one handed while being swung around like a wrecking ball is not something I have trained for and suffice to say a job that would have taken 5 minutes on deck took 10 times that long up there.

Anyway, long story short, it all seemed to work, we hoisted the gennaker and in celebration of that and Ceara’s birthday we all got stuck into the champers.

2am this morning, the halyard parted again and we were all on deck again fishing it out.

We have come to the conclusion that the halyard I purchased from the “experts” in Florida is not up to spec and we have gone back to the old one that served us so well for 2,000 miles in the Caribbean. Tom whipped up the mast this morning to re-feed it into the jury system I had set up and we’re now cruising along again, everything crossed.

We had another amusing flying fish incident when one sailed over the bow and straight through the galley window landing just next to the stove as Tom was preparing dinner. They seem to be attracted to him.

Still haven’t landed a fish, we seem to only catch prey and not the predators we are after.

Day 5 – Let it rain!

Lots of rain squalls and highly variable wind in strength and direction yesterday led us to making the call to drop the Gennaker and sail under our smaller jib for a while. This means we missed our 2am family “pull a sail out of an ocean” party that we’ve had the previous two nights but it did mean we all had much nicer sleeps and less stressful watches. As this is a slower configuration, it also gives our mates on Aquafox (who are a mere 25 miles north east of us) a chance to catch up. Come on guys! It would be very cool to meet up mid Pacific and sail in company for a while. Maybe they’ll give us some Bonito tuna they keep catching, we couldn’t catch a cold at the moment.

Now that tummies have got their sea legs, everyone is feeling much hungrier and so we’re putting much more effort into the cuisine. Tom and Ceara cooked some great fillet steaks on the BBQ last night eaten with home made chips and salad and for lunch Lottie surprised us all with a middle eastern inspired smorgasbord of flat bread, home made humus, tzatziki, olives and chorizo amongst other things.

The kids are getting so bored they are begging to do school work. Honestly.

One of the games we play to keep occupied is a daily game of Wordle. It was Tom’s turn to make up the word today and his “magma” was both topical and extremely hard. I’m no teacher but I reckon playing that is good for the kids. Hugo’s maths is the daily 24 hour distance run measurement and he reports back on that including average speed and also how much we have lost or gained on the other boats we are racing, I mean sailing, with. Our last three 24 hour runs have been 186, 165 and 187 (our record on Kilauea) nautical miles, very respectable. We have a 200 mile day in us, I know we do.

Lottie has arranged a “pub quiz” evening for later today having spent the last few days preparing questions. I’m pretty sure “George Michael” will be one of the answers. Whilst we don’t have a log fire or pints of real ale, I have dug into my secret supply of good booze in the bilges and have 4 bottles of dark ale chilling in the fridge. Small pleasures mean a lot out here.

Day 6 – 1,000 miles down, 2,000 to go!

Well we landed a fish. It was a beautiful tuna about 6kg in size.

Problem is, of all the tuna in the sea, there is one type that tastes of dog food and that’s skip jack tuna which is of course what we caught. We fried a piece up and Tom, Ceara and I had a taste but no matter how much we wanted a nicoise salad, we all agreed this wasn’t the fish to give it to us so back in the drink it went.

Still cloudy, rainy and variable winds but our constant trimming and re-trimming of sails is paying off as we logged a 184 mile day. Its a little draining though.

I indulged myself with a morning in bed watching a Star Wars movie with the kids on the laptop. For a couple of hours I even forgot we were bobbing around in the ocean until the call came to come on deck and shake out a reef. It was nice to escape for a bit but the boat’s needs must come before our own.

One third of the way done and all the crew are doing admirably. Ceara has been teaching the kids how to play the ukulele and I now have the opening chords of “rip tide” playing on repeat in my head. Charlotte’s finding imaginative ways to cook using bananas (thankfully no “Banana Dorado” this time mum, Mike and Lynnie) and Tom’s sketching and teaching the kids unusual games with ancient names involving wooden boards and lots of pegs.

Me? Well I spend a lot of time managing our fuel / water / electricity situation (sun, please, I just want some sun for my solar panels!!!), downloading weather, texting other boats, sailing our boat and occasionally, yes, watching star wars movies…

Day 7 – Billfish Beauty!

One of my life long ambitions has been to catch a billfish while sailing. I have had so many on the line that have either thrown the hook or spooled the reel but today the dream became a reality!

The rod went crazy at around 11:30am. Tom leapt up from the foredeck where he was partaking in some morning yoga with Ceara (yes that’s right, Tom doing yoga) to grab the rod while I furled sails and turned the boat into the wind to slow it down from 8-9 knots to a more manageable 2 knots.

The fight was epic with the fish leaping several times and diving for the depths at others. Everyone was involved with the event, giving advice, handing out life jackets, examining fish charts, passing out the gaff, filming the spectacle or just whooping with delight each time the fish jumped.

After Tom and the fish were equally spent he managed to get it alongside and I sunk in the gaff and pulled with all my might to drag the beauty on board. There followed a comedy moment when the fish started flapping around the cockpit with people leaping out of the way or diving on the fish Steve Irwin style to keep it on the boat.

After a few smacks with a winch handle to stun it and then a knife sunk between the eyes the incredible creature finally breathed its last breath, it was ours!

We initially thought it was a sailfish but after consulting the fish guide we determined it was a spear fish, very similar but with a smaller dorsal fin and a blue band rather than stripes. It measured 1.81m (exactly the same height as Tom) between the fork of its tail and the base of its bill. We reckon it weighed around 30kg.

We then set up the fish processing line and ended up with 4 family meals for the fridge and a whopping 7 meals, vacuum packed in the freezer. As we caught this on our 7th day we had worked down the freezer just enough to make room.

We’ve just had sushi and sashimi for lunch and we have all declared it the best we have ever tasted. So its billfish steaks on the BBQ for dinner tonight and ceviche for lunch tomorrow. The menu is about to get much more interesting!

We all agree it is the best fish by far any of us have ever caught and also the most beautiful. We also agree that we want to respect this stunning creature by eating every part of it we can and in the most delicious meals we can think of.

What a brilliant day!

Day 8 – squid-tastic

You know your life is getting a little same-y when the most exciting thing that has happened to you over the last day is squid related.

What is it with these little critters? At night you see them jump vertically out of the water like little missiles or characters in a computer game and by morning the decks are festooned with those that were incredibly unlucky enough to jump just as a boat swept passed in this huge expanse of empty ocean. I’m going to get Hugo to work out the odds of that happening to an individual squid on any given day for today’s maths lesson.

Anyway, our squid story. One of these little buggers must have leapt seriously high just in front of the boat as we surfed down a wave, hung in the air just long enough to post itself through our small forward hatch that was only half open and land on the sofa to be found the next morning lying in its own squid ink death stain. When the dead squid was removed the resulting ink-free shape within the stain gives the impression of a chalk body outline you see at a murder scene. And no murder weapon? Spooky…

Oh well, at least that stain has a better story than “I fell asleep holding a glass of wine” which accounts for most of our sofa stains at home.

In other news we clocked our best 24 hour run ever on this boat, 191 miles. The sun has come out and the wind has eased so we’ve unleashed the secret weapon (gennaker) shaken out the reef and we’re smoking along again. The halfway point is getting very much within reach…

Day 9 – Halfway there!

At 01:37am this morning the instruments showed that our “Distance to Destination” was equal to our Distance Travelled with both reading 1,511 nautical miles. This means we have reached the halfway point! It is comforting to know that every mile we travel now takes us closer to the nearest land rather than away from it as has been the case for the last 9 days.

Less comforting is working out which other humans might be further from habitation than we are. Astronauts on the Space Station are only a few hundred miles above the earth so we can’t count them. The coastal bases on Antarctica are closer to South America, South Africa and Tasmania than we are to land. Maybe the only ones more isolated are those on expeditions close to the North and South poles or on vessels crossing the expanse of the Southern Ocean between the three Southern capes (Horn, Good Hope and Australia/NZ) and are more than 1,500 miles offshore? There can’t be more than a few hundred people that fall into this category, surely. It makes you feel both adventurous and very exposed at the same time.

After the first night at sea we haven’t seen a single yacht or ship, that’s 8 days of just ocean, sky and our boat. We did pick up a 30 foot yacht called WASA on the AIS on the third day but they didn’t answer our hail on the VHF radio and we didn’t see them at all visually.

We do know that we are not alone though with Aquafox a few dozen miles South East of us and Waterhorse 440 miles up ahead plus others we don’t know about. It gives us some comfort that if we were to need help, there are boats our here who could offer support, its just that we can’t see them!

We’re celebrating the halfway point with a breakfast of Charlotte’s home made croissants and a screening of the movie Moana this afternoon to get us into the French Polynesian mood and remind us why we’re out here doing this.

Day 10 – last of the bananas

Today in the Pacific, nothing happened.

Well nothing of note anyway. We ate the last of the banana bread and chucked the rotting remains of the branch we bought in the Galapagos over the side satisfied we got our $5 worth out of that lot. Our fresh vegetables are dwindling to such an extent that we are on first name terms with each of the hardy ones that remain. Shall we eat Adam the Avo or Zoe the Zucchini tonight?

Tom has been mastering his sextant and getting clued up on celestial navigation. He’s making good progress but so far the only thing he can confidently tell us is at what time the sun is at its highest. This did have the unintended benefit of showing us we had forgotten to put our clocks back for the second time. We are now in the same time zone as Alaska.

Meanwhile, Lottie and Jazz are baking a cake, Hugo’s writing a story, Ceara’s strumming the ukulele giving the boat a Polynesian vibe and I’m wondering whether I can be bothered to shake out a reef or maybe go for a nap instead.

Its not really a rock and roll lifestyle, I grant you, but I have to say I am loving the simplicity of life at the moment.

Day 11 – wild and windy

Its been a bit of a rollercoaster (physically this time, not mentally) all day today with winds between 20 and 27 knots and the biggest waves we have experienced on Kilauea to date some of which break right behind the boat.

Tom and I have been hand steering a lot today to give the autopilot a rest. Yes I know, machines don’t need rests but it has been really fun steering down the big waves and channelling my ocean racing past. I reckon if I concentrate really hard, focus and put all my effort into it I can steer better than the autopilot. After 10 minutes or so I can’t do any of things very well and the autopilot would beat me.

We’re making excellent progress in exactly the right direction but I have to admit I would like this wind to chill out a bit tonight to give the night watches a more relaxing time.

The new moon is waxing again, probably about 3 days in and looking exactly the same shape as the one you see the kid fishing from at the start of a Dreamworks movie. It sets about an hour or two after the sun which means very black nights which give the sensation that the boat is careering out of control at a hundred miles an hour rather than about 10.

Tom’s celestial navigation is going from strength to strength. He can now confirm we are definitely in the Pacific Ocean which is a relief. Everyone else is playing Pictionary and we’re all looking forward to billfish curry tonight!

Day 12 – workout Wednesday

It appears everyone on board except the Skipper has decided today is the day to keep fit.

Tom and Ceara can be found on the foredeck most mornings limbering up for a bit of yoga / pilates. Ceara makes it look easy, Tom makes it look very very hard.

Charlotte has rigged her “TRX” from the roof of the cockpit. This is a series of straps and harnesses which look like they would be more at home in one of the more seedy boudoirs in the red light distract of Amsterdam rather than on our boat. It was bought for Lottie by her work team when she left to keep fit while she was away and before long, Lottie had both ankles suspended off the deck and was performing an elevated plank with Hugo counting down a timer on his ipad.

Next, the kids designed their own workout session which included such things as hopping around the boat like a kangaroo and a wrestle on the sofa. Oh well, you know what they say, a fit crew is a happy crew.

In other news we passed the 1,000 mile to go mark last night signifying the 2/3 point. The weather has decided to play ball and we’ve had a sunny day with slightly less wind so much more pleasant all round. The wind has swung to due East and we are now due West of our destination and as you can’t sail directly down wind we will head West South West for a few days before gybing and then heading West North West straight for the Marquases.

If the crew keeps this up they will be fit and ready to go for a hike the moment we land. Just the thought of going for a walk now feels like such a luxury. Less than a week to go until its a reality!

Day 13 – Sail repairs

As the wind has dropped a little in strength and shifted directly behind us there has been a lot of discussion on board (and with other boats via satphone texts) about the best sail plan and course to steer. One option is to sail a zig zag course which is much faster but you have to cover more ground. The other is to sail more directly towards where you want to go but do so at a slower speed. It all comes down to the sails you have, the design of your boat, how much comfort you want, the current direction and strength and what wind shifts you are expecting amongst many other things. It is definitely not an exact science.

Mid morning we decided to get one of our downwind sails out, the gennaker that has been dropped in the sea three times now. Tom whipped up the mast to fix the halyard for the third and we hope final time and then we realised the sail had three tears in it caused by its trip under the boat. I got the sail repair kit out and sticky sail repair cloth that I purchased in Panama and set to work. It was exactly what I imagined a long ocean crossing would involve. Sat on the trampolines while the boat surfed down big Pacific waves needle and thread in hand sewing patches on to sails. Robin Knox Johnston would have approved.

Well it took all morning but now we are cruising towards the sunset, with just our patched gennaker flown off our bowsprit and no mainsail for the first time in almost 2 weeks. The boat is a lot slower than last night but its a very cruisy setup, very little for the crew to worry about and the lazy miles are just sweeping by, there’s only 700 more to go.

Its Thursday and the Mouldy Banana (the pop up on board pub) threw open its doors to the crew for its weekly quiz afternoon with Jasmine and myself as quiz masters. Poor old Tom struggled with some of the Moana and Little Mermaid questions and picked up the wooden spoon this week but Hugo always looking strong led from the start and picked up this week’s prize.

And so another day slips past. Looks like is Wahoo paella for dinner tonight which is a family favourite so all is good in the world!

Day 14 – yellowfin bonanza

An interesting thing happened this morning.

We are very used to seeing flying fish taking off from near the bows of the boat and flying off to either side (or sometimes into Tom and Ceara’s cabin) as they seek to escape the boat surfing towards them.

As I gazed out to sea off behind us I saw a large shoal of about 20 flying fish take off from about 100m away behind us and fly straight at the boat. Weird, I thought, something must have scared them back there. A millisecond later the rod buckled over, reel screaming and maybe half a second after that the reel on the other side of the boat added its screaming noise to the din.

Half an hour later we had a brace of yellow fin tuna glittering in the cockpit with Tom standing above them sharpening the filleting knife ready to apply his vet dissecting skills to the two beauties. Well that explains what scared those flying fish! These are the first yellowfin tuna we had landed on Kilauea and many had told us how delicious they are.

We were not disappointed. Out came the sushi making kit and by lunchtime we had a platter of nori and nigiri sushi and sashimi all ready to go with lashings of soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger to go with it. We all thought billfish was the best sushi we had ever tasted but everyone agreed that yellowfin topped even that. It just melted in the mouth. And enough left over for Yellowfin Tuna Daube for dinner tonight!

We’re now sailing straight at the Marquases wing on wing (mainsail one side and jib the other) and making great progress. The worst thing you can do is start predicting your arrival date and time based on when you’re going really well BUT confidence is building that we will be safely at anchor at some time on 12 April barring any disasters. Well there you go, I’ve said it, I am sure I have jinxed us now!

Day 15 – a nod to my mum

If there was one person who has inspired me (and by extension, the whole Gilbert family) to sail and take on this crazy idea to sail to Australia across the Pacific, its my mum, Ros Morey.

Mum is an accomplished sailor, cruiser and racer. She has competed in one of the world’s most gruelling yacht races (the 1979 Fastnet Race) at a time when that wasn’t the sort of thing many women did and has sailed across the Atlantic Ocean five times. One of these crossings was in a 21 foot long boat (yes that’s right, I kid you not) and four of them was with my Step Dad Mike (also a fine sailor and Kilauea’s shore support for all our long passages) on their 41 foot sloop Thaisa. I lived aboard and, to a certain extent, grew up on Thaisa over a period of three years and it was during this time I completed the longest passage of my life, the 2,700 mile Atlantic crossing from the Canary Islands to St Lucia.

Well it was the longest until now! We have just passed the 2,700 mile mark and this is now the furthest any of us on board have sailed in one go.

My mum always dreamed of crossing the Pacific Ocean and exploring the South Pacific Islands but sadly she just didn’t manage to achieve it before she hung up her oilskins. While she can’t be here with us on this trip and has to content herself with reading our blogs, she has given us one of her prized possessions to take on her behalf, the fifty year old sextant that she and my late father took on that first crazy Atlantic Crossing and which she has journeyed with ever since.

So here’s to our mums and the people who inspire us to do what we do. We’ll toast you with a glass of rum tonight mum and we know you are here in spirit even while you sit in your nice warm house in Warsash with a glass of sherry reading this.

Day 16 – so close we can almost smell it!

Its getting towards the end of the day and the instruments are saying 180 miles to destination. We’ve managed to cover that ground (or is it water?) in 24 hours for most of our days at sea so in theory we should get there tomorrow. However, the wind is dying and the angle isn’t great meaning we will need to sail further. Also, the current can’t decide if its with us (yay!) or against us (boo!). Therefore, its absolutely touch and go whether we make landfall before we lose the light tomorrow or have to spend an 18th night at sea. Everyone is excited but also a little tense as we do everything we can to increase our speed. There’s been a lot of hand steering and trimming of sails as every 0.1 knots counts now!

In readiness for our re-emersion into civilisation (albeit a tiny village on a very remote island) we’ve been running the water maker, having shaves and showers and generally converting ourselves from bilge scum to presentable human beings. The weather has really switched it on today with gorgeous sun, fluffy clouds, warm temperatures and a lighter breeze as if to say, “don’t leave the ocean yet, it can be really nice, honest!”.

Lottie has led a furious cleaning session this morning with many others chipping in and the boat is looking immaculate. Tom and I have been working out how far away from the island we will be when we can see it. At 1,000m in height, Tom worked out we should be able to see the tip of the highest point in theory at 70 miles although we will be limited by visibility to less than that. He’s working out how to fix our position using a sextant to measure the elevation of a known peak and a compass to measure its bearing. He’ll use this to confirm his other calculations which suggest that we are almost certainly in the South Pacific.

Day 17 – Land Ho!

We have just spotted a grey slope appearing out of the haze which can only be the island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquases, our first glimpse of French Polynesia and any land at all in fact for 17 days!

Our stats for the trip assuming we arrive when we expect are:

Distance: 3,075 nautical miles
Duration: 17 days and 7 hours
Average speed: 7.4 knots
Max speed: 16.6 knots
Best 24 hour run: 191 nautical miles
Number of fish hitting Tom: 3 (2 in the mouth, one of which while he was sleeping in bed)
Teeth lost: 2 (both Jasmine’s)
Number of boats seen: 0
Fish caught: 6 (5 tuna and 1 Spearfish)
Fish lost: 10ish
Number of vomits: 0
Number of watches each person has taken: 52
Number of people who can forever say they have sailed across half the Pacific Ocean: 6!

We expect to be dropping anchor soon after sunset. I wouldn’t normally like to go into an unknown anchorage at this time but it looks very straightforward on the chart and Waterhorse who arrived two days ago gave us some good intel which will help. The thought of bobbing around for 12 hours overnight to wait for morning doesn’t bare thinking about.

We’re diligently tracking our friends on Aquafox and will be cheering them into the anchorage hopefully tomorrow. Andy and I have been texting each other all the way, discussing routing, sail plans, boat maintenance and also swapping the odd terrible dad joke. We’re all looking forward to sharing our experiences with another family who have just been through the same thing and for the kids to have someone else to wrestle for a change!

I’m immensely proud of this crew that has sailed the boat immaculately, cooked some amazing dinners, fished with gusto, entertained with games and ukuleles and kept their spirits up even in some very challenging circumstances. I’m especially proud of my wife Charlotte who has been worrying about this trip for 18 months now but has taken it on like the very brave person she is and not only survived but, dare I say, thrived. Diligent night watches, amazing bread, inventive and delicious cooking, endless entertainment for the kids and lifting me out of my dark spells when I was tired, irritable and despairing when things were not going as I had planned. She is an incredible woman and I am a very lucky man to go on adventures like this with her by my side.

This trip would have been far less fun and enjoyable had Tom and Ceara not joined us. Tom has been a great sounding board for me and is a superb sailor in his own right plus a lovely bloke and Ceara has been such a pleasure to have on board facing up to all the challenges with gusto and providing lots of laughs along the way. Both have given our kids so much, whether its actively listening to their stories or teaching them art and music.

Well that’s enough gushing from me. I’m feeling very emotional as you can probably tell. Being a skipper you are ultimately in charge of everything on board including everyone’s safety and the burden has felt very heavy at times. I’m so pleased and relieved that we have all made it through in one piece and I will make full use of the “1 alcoholic drink a day” rule ending tonight after we have safely anchored.

I can’t quite believe it but we’ve only gone and DONE IT!