The wind is howling outside, but this 22-knot breeze is nothing compared to the weather we’ve endured for the past 48 hours. Anchored securely in the sand of Coralee Bay on Great Mercury Island, Windfola has been swinging from northwest to southwest and back again in sustained winds of 26-32 knots. (And those are the conditions we arrived in, so you can imagine what the sailing and anchoring was like.) Last night, gusts of 35 knots hit us beam on during ill-timed swings. But we are safe, and thankful for our 15 kilogram Rocna anchor and the catenary created by 39 meters of 8mm chain in just 6 meters of water.
Numbers, numbers, numbers.
As I’ve studied and planned for this journey, my head sometimes seems like a jumble of facts and figures. What are the forecast wind speeds, swell heights, and periods? How many nautical miles in each direction to a safe harbor? How much water and fuel do we have left? How many seconds between flashes of the signal light on that point of land? Depths, weather, fuel, water, charts — my mind is full of these numbers because I treat every sail as seriously as a trans-oceanic passage and prepare accordingly.
My high-tech bunk-drying system.
But this sail is just the prologue to a much greater journey ahead of us, and it is probably my study of the 2,800 nm course I’ve planned that has filled my head with so many details. (More on that soon.)
For now, we are dodging gales along a coast we’ve traveled twice before, destined for a place we’ve not yet been: Auckland. Windfola’s new rig and improvements are holding up well and it’s been nice to let her fly faster than ever. My feet (and Zia’s paws) haven’t touched the earth in four days, and I have eaten the same legume-based dish out of my pressure cooker for every major meal since we departed five days ago. The ice in the cooler has all melted away, there’s condensation under the mattress in my bunk, and there’s only occasionally a cell phone signal. With no heat aboard, Zia and I are snuggling up to a hot water bottle twice a day just to stay warm. And, I couldn’t be happier about it all!
Windfola woke me up last night in the rowdy weather, thrumming a beat with an errant halyard that I’d forgotten to tie off. I ventured above deck in the chilling midnight air to quiet the line. My body felt alive and strong in the cold, caring for my sailboat under the stars.
That’s the same feeling I had at the helm yesterday as we approached the island. I eased the main in a 32-knot gust, and when I peeked over the dodger to look at the water ahead of us, a wave seemed to leap right out of the sea and collapse on top of me. Freezing cold or soaking wet, nature reminds me that I am small… but I hang on to the helm and that makes me feel powerful.
We’ve returned to the salt life, and I’m in love.
xo & fair winds,
elana, zia, and s/v windfola ⛵️💕29 September, 2020; Coralee Bay, Great Mercury Island, New Zealand