Is this the end or simply a new beginning?

Croatia, 2015, giving Maple her name.

Last night when kissing Iris goodnight, I noticed she was cuddling her alpaca stuffy.  I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. To think that a year and a half ago we were traipsing around the beauty of Peru. What an amazing life you have led, baby girl. You have lived full time on a sailboat for half of your life, in that time exploring 32 different countries in 6 continents.  What a gift these 5 years have been for our family.  My heart brims with so much happiness with being able to pull off this lifestyle for as long as we have. 

We had some exciting plans this year.  We were going to add 5 more countries to our tally. But the world as we know it has stopped. Our good fortune has left us spending this time of great uncertainty here in the stunning jewel of the South Pacific. We have our health, we have financial security for the time being and we have a roof over our heads.  We have nothing but gratitude for what opportunities we have had in our lives. If we need to stop this lifestyle today, we have no regrets with the choices that have brought us here. 

We have been doing much talking and planning, as challenging as that is at a time like this.  We knew that we could not maintain this lifestyle forever, the bank account balance is dwindling. Our plan had always been when that time came, we would sell Maple and use the proceeds from the boat to settle ourselves somewhere to be determined to replenish the bank account. The reality is that time is approaching. 

We are not ready to end this journey.  We really wanted to explore Asia with the girls.  Unfortunately in this current climate, this is highly improbable. So what now?  Sell the boat?  Wait another year in French Polynesia to see if borders reopen?  With our current finances we will only pull off two more years if we are lucky. 

Hmmm...

....after 30 days of confinement we had a mind-blowing revelation...

....after years of saying we would NEVER sail to Canada, perhaps we could introduce Maple to her home port after all?!

Sure it is costly to import Maple and we need to reacquaint ourselves with winters (sob!). But by keeping Maple, we have a home that is already paid for so it means we could actually afford to live on the south coast again, enabling us to be close to family.  It also would allow us to feel we can easily adopt this nomadic lifestyle again as we understand the pull of the ocean is strong.

Even though the saying is “plans are written in the sand at low tide”, we are fairly certain this is the direction we are going to head. Sail to Canada, return to the only province the four of us have ever called home. What is unknown is the route we will take to sail there.  We hope as the months pass we will be able to form a plan on how many miles, countries and time it will take to sail Maple to her home port.  We have more questions than answers at this stage, but we have a goal that excites all of us!  

I hope this finds everyone safe and healthy during this time and we will post more as plans firm up.  

Perfection

So we just had to wait until night #5 for the perfect sail. Last night was a fabulous sail with more wind than was forecasted at a perfect angle for Maple to just fly. We turned more south to come past Ahe and Rangiroa in the Tuamotus and we thought it would be a slow sail but instead we were able to bomb along at an average of 6 knots, it was fabulous. Today the wind has slowed and we managed to finally break out the spinnaker. I don't believe we have used the spinnaker once since entering the Pacific or if we have it was once for a very brief spell. Needless to say we were very rusty in getting it hauled up. Many false starts with wrapped lines, lines on the wrong side of the stanchions and even managed to initially haul the spinnaker up on the wrong side of the head sail. Let's just say there were some tense moments between captain and first mate. Here's hoping bringing it back down is less exciting. We have already accumulated enough stories of how-not-to-douse-a-spinnaker, I am not interested in adding to that library.

It has been a very chill day with the sun still shining. I believe we have managed around 36 hours of no rain. On the SSB radio net last night, someone who is currently anchored in Tahiti managed to collect 600L of water with all the squalls that hit them there. So now I feel vindicated that I can in fact substantiate my sailing story of all the squalls rivaling our tropical storm in Grenada as we only collected a mere 500L of water during that storm. It was not so easy for us to collect the rain this time around while underway so we only managed to add 100L of water during the squalls on this passage, but not too shabby I say.

We are on track for a morning arrival on the 4th. Unfortunately tonight is forecasted to be very calm so likely we will be motoring as we are opting to not fly the spinnaker at night given some recent history with squalls and a torn sail. We don't much feel like adding more sail repair to our to-do list.

The sun is shining

What a difference a day makes!! The ocean wasn't trying to kill us, the boat didn't break and the bugs were not invading. Darryl's shift until midnight was unbelievably wet, but the squalls have left us alone since then. It was blessedly calm and beautiful all day today. We had a wonderful day of sailing in glorious sunshine and decent winds all day. We are trying to be cautiously optimistic that night #5 will be gentle and dry.

Tonight we will start wending our way through some of the atolls of the Tuamotus so will need to be more vigilant with our watches as up until now we have been out here all alone with no obstacles. Goal is to arrive in Tahiti by February 4th so just 3 more sleeps hopefully.

Creatures of the deep & unwelcome company

Okay, so night #3 was unpleasant but no additional broken boat bits to report so will call that a win. Apparently I should not have boasted about a dry helm and silent engines in my last post. I actually had to pull out my foul weather jacket which I haven't used on the boat since possibly the Atlantic crossing?!?! The volume of rain we saw through one squall after another I am convinced rivaled how much rain we experienced during a tropical storm in Grenada. But like all good sailing stories, it can't be substantiated.

In addition to the rain, there were two highlights to my evening. As I sat at a now very wet helm seat surrounded by complete darkness with the only light on offer from distant lightning that surrounded us and the annoying hum of an engine, suddenly this supernatural glow caught my eye off our starboard (right) side. Once my eyes had a chance to adjust, I witnessed the most spectacular bioluminescence drifting past us. I can't adequately describe the large, greenish orbs that swirled and intersected with each other. I aimed my flashlight on the water to see what was causing the dancing lights but this offered no answers. Jellyfish?? A school of fish?? I have no other suggestions but it was a beautiful sight and a welcome distraction to my drenched self-pity.

On this high, I turned back towards the front of the boat when something else appeared in my periphery to the left. I quickly realized I was sharing the helm seat with a most unwelcome guest. Slowly darting towards my leg was a HUGE cockroach. Yup. A big, ugly cockroach with antennas that rivaled the size of its body. Feeling trapped in my seat and paralyzed with fear, I managed to flick it away with my jacket sleeve. With this momentary reprieve I was able to scramble down the helm station into the cockpit. I quickly caught sight of it again, where it was now exploring the seat back cushion of the helm seat. Of course I did what was only logical....I started screaming. I felt like I screamed for a long time before Ella came up to investigate. She aided me by preparing me with bug spray and a shoe. I stood there glaring menacingly at the beast hoping it would recognize it needed to find a new ride but it remained undeterred. I was left with only with one possible option, I had Ella wake up her dad. Despite Darryl's equal dislike for these nasty bugs, he is more of a problem solver than me and managed to bravely go into battle with the beast and conquer. With the roach now crushed and drifting away at sea, other than a bruised ego, all was well on board again.

On a side note, this morning I told Iris about the battle with the bug and she calmly says to me..."oh, that is what you were screaming about"?! Seriously kid??? No investigating to see whether your dear mother needs assistance, she clearly just managed to get herself back to sleep.

Now that I have demonstrated to all my lack of resilience I will end this post here. All is well on board. The engine did eventually get turned off and we are enjoying an easy sail at the moment with only one squall hitting us so far today. We will see what night #4 has on offer...

Rain, rain and more rain

So our second night was much better than our first with only one squall paying us a visit which where we were trimmed well for so it passed without incident. However, Day 3 has been one squall after another. Needless to say the cockpit is soaking wet. The only saving grace is the angle of the wind and rain is on the opposite side to our helm so we are able to stay relatively dry at the helm when the squalls hit. Squalls always seem so much easier to contend with during the day when we can see them coming from miles off and are more than prepared for them when they hit.

Despite the torn sail and wet weather, we really can't complain. We have been sailing beautifully along, haven't needed to turn on the engine once since leaving. Even when the sun is needing to fight its way through clouds the solar panels are doing a great job of keeping our batteries charged during the day. The seas were a bit confused yesterday which generally does not leave the crew in a great mood, but today the seas are cooperating better. The girls only mildly grumbled about having to do a bit of school today after taking yesterday off. Otherwise, the girls spend their days laughing while binge watching the series, Big Bang Theory, so really they shouldn't complain about putting in an hour of school a day.

As usual, the Maple crew prove to be incompetent fishermen and despite having two lines in the water, we have yet to get a nibble. Meanwhile when we were in the Marquesas we had friends who took pity on us and generously shared portions of marlin, wahoo and yellow fin tuna with us. It is not like the fish are not out there they just seem to do a terrific job of evading our lures. So instead we enthusiastically enjoyed fish tacos last night using wahoo courtesy of Sugar Shack, thank you guys!!! We still have 500 miles to go before reaching Tahiti so perhaps I can try to be cautiously optimistic on replenishing our now depleted fish stocks.

I will sign off for now as another squall looms behind us.

En route back to Tahiti

Well that first night was unpleasant to say the least. After such a chill first half to Day 1, the second half decided to throw us a curve ball. We were hit by two squalls, the first of which we were very much unprepared for as there is no moon beyond 10pm right now so we had no light to work with to see what the sky is doing other than to see that the stars have disappeared. Our experience up to yesterday had been that squalls in the Pacific were pretty low key, perhaps you see some rain and a 5-10 knot increase in wind speed. But that is all, generally passing quite quickly. Given that for the first 14 hours we were only seeing 6-10 knots of apparent wind, we kept the sails full with no reefs, which is not typical of us at night. Well that first squall decided to give us a cruel reminder on why we prefer to be cautious on night sailing.

It was only 11:00pm but the moon, for the tiny crescent it is worth, had already long set. D was nearing the end of his shift and as usual I am lying awake in bed listening to every noise. Suddenly I could hear the boat start to race down much longer and steeper waves than we had been experiencing and the water just sounded LOUD. I raced upstairs to find D hand steering desperately trying to keep Maple heading downwind with the full sails still in a wing on wing formation without accidentally gybing (letting the wind come onto the other side of the main sail). Unfortunately this is very hard to do when skidding down waves with full sails and in 25 to 30 knots of apparent wind. All it took was a moment for the wind to sneak behind us and with one loud boom of a sound, the main sail tore straight across just below the first reefing point. Sigh. We had really hoped that sail would hang on until Thailand as we knew she was starting to show her age. The good news is we can still use the main sail, it just needs to be always reefed at the first reefing point and Maple has a very resourceful Captain who is already exploring how he is going to stitch her up when we arrive in Tahiti. Needless to say we were better prepared for the second squall that hit us last night without further incident.

I will say I am hoping that the rest of the passage does not continue to replicate our first night otherwise this is going to be one painfully long 7 days. On the upside, we have collected ourselves a bunch of rain water to keep our water tanks topped up, which is helpful since the watermaker stopped working a few weeks ago. Always something isn't there?!

Moments of Zen

There are two wolves battling inside all of us. One is joy and hope. The other is sadness and despair. Which one wins? ....

So the last 48 hours or so has seen me having to dig deep on not letting the miserable conditions get the better of me. On one hand we have had phenomenal sailing wind, but with good winds comes big seas and boy have we been seeing that in spades. Generally there is a rhythm to the swell but every so often we just get nailed by a big wave. Maple has taken more waves over her bow this passage than I think she ever saw on two ocean crossings combined.

Generally when we sail the conditions allow us to have at least the main salon hatches open slightly or the bathroom portholes open that allow some air flow through the boat. In fact I believe we never had to close the salon hatches during either ocean crossing. But with the conditions we are seeing on this passage all the hatches have to be locked tight. The main sliding door is left open but when sailing upwind that doesn't allow the wind to come inside the boat. This means that Maple is outrageously stuffy and warm. This translates into me feeling nauseous the second I cross the threshold. It means cooking needs to be done strategically to allow me to get a breath of fresh air every so often. Meanwhile, the girls will sit inside watching movies the entire day!! I don't know how they pull it off. However, every so often Iris will come join me on the helm seat, snuggle her entirely too warm body against mine and hold me for a minute or two while she cools down before returning to the hot box that is Maple.

This morning Ella said to me, "There are two wolves inside all of us. One is joy and hope. The other is sadness and despair. Which one wins?... Depends which one you feed." My wise 13 year old was reminding me to feed the joy.

So instead of feeding the wolf of despair, I am feeling grateful for the strength Maple continues to demonstrate in difficult conditions. Overwhelming gratitude for a partner who keeps my spirits lifted with his eternal optimism even when my despair wolf is taking the lead. Laughing with Ella when twice this morning she received an unintended salt water shower when she decided to sit on the windward side of the cockpit. Feeling my heart brim over with love when Iris gives me a giant, toothy grin and the dive symbol for "Ok?" every time she sees me. And of course remembering how fortunate I am to be on this remarkable journey with my family.

I hope everyone today has found a moment to feed their wolf of joy and hope!!!