Monday, April 19, 2010

Day 18: Land Hoooooooooopefully!


07* 50.0' South
136* 52.0' West

Sometime in the next 24 hours we should not only see land, but actually make landfall at Hiva Oa. It's all very exciting. Brad had predicted that we would take 20 days for this passage and it look like we will come in just under that.
All in all, we have had pretty good trip with fair winds most of the way and only about 80 hours of motor sailing. The ITCZ was a relatively narrow band for us to cross and the sea swell has been of mild height though it has been fairly confused for most of the trip. Going to Hawaii on the Voodoo Child, one of the most remarkable parts of the trip was that the swell was so consistant once we hit the trade winds. Hopefully we will get the chance to see that again on our next passage!
On another note, we reported that we were having some radio problems, but we have thus far been able to maintain checking in with our Puddle Jump radio group at least once per day. However, our friends on Totem seem to be having worse problems than we are having. After two days of not hearing them check in, Brad put out a "health and welfare call" on the net. Another party had been monitoring the Pacific Seafarer's Net which has a land-based antenna somewhere that can pick up VERY weak signals and relayed that Totem is indeed having radio issues, cannot transmit strongly enough to check in with our group, but they are fine otherwise. We look forward to seeing them in a few days in Hiv Oa.

2 comments:

Seven C's said...

Glad to hear the update and especially the update on Totem. We knew they were having radio issues and were pretty sure the radio silence was due worsening radio problems.

Nita said...

Have you made landfall yet? Haven't seen a post in a couple days. I was wondering how far behind Totem is and when to expect Ty to fly home. I think he should stay a few days to experience the islands before he comes home. Can you give him that message for me since they are having radio problems? Thanks.