We finally raised anchor just after noon on Monday, 11 April, and wouldn’t you know it, the SB engine started without issue.
The first day out was the polar opposite of the previous passage: instead of bashing upwind in strong winds trying to avoid squalls and getting pushed off course by the current, we were comfortably sailing downwind in light air hoping for squalls and getting pushed toward our course by the current. There are lots of log entries during the first two days of the passage, so clearly, I was feeling a lot better this time. We saw light winds for several days all from the NE to NW, so even though we were now down in the southern hemisphere, the SE trades had not filled in, which was good since that was the direction we were trying to go. We saw the occasional squall that would disrupt things a bit, because they would come with a wind shift to the SW, however, they wouldn’t come with much of a wind increase so we just altered course until the wind would shift back. Throughout these first days of the passage, I was looking forward to returning to Funafuti. In an email, I wrote, “ I am looking forward to the rarity of returning to somewhere we’ve already been, a place where I already know the best places to provision and where to fill propane. It’s a small thing, but I’m finding some comfort in it.”
On Day 6 of the passage, we decided to bypass Funafuti and continue pressing Southeast. You’d think since I had just been musing about looking forward to it, I would have been heartbroken. But here’s what I wrote at the time:
“Within sight of Funafuti, we made the decision today to keep going and try to get to Wallis or better yet, Samoa, with these N-NW winds. It wasn’t as hard of a decision as you might think… backing up a bit, when we left Fiji back in November it was with the idea that we would return in May to haul out and then possibly cruise Fiji a little more. But since then we’ve found out that we can’t actually haul out in Fiji, the boatyards can’t haul boats our width, which means they can’t haul catamarans… I know, we were shocked. So our options became Vanuatu or Tonga, and since Tonga is more centrally located to possibly be more attractive to a buyer, we’ve changed our plans to go back to Tonga instead. Now, for the quick South Pacific geography/weather lesson… It’s really hard to go Southeast, because that’s the direction of the trade winds, and Tonga is southeast of Tuvalu. I’ve been wondering for awhile now how we were going to manage to get to Tonga, and this morning, a weather window presented itself, and if we can get to Samoa we will be in excellent shape. There have been a family of weak lows, and we’ve been riding the top of one to get NW winds in order to sail downwind from Kirbati to Funafuti. Now it looks like we might be able to continue that approach, and hopefully we’ll make it as far as Samoa. So, that’s why it wasn’t a hard decision… who knows when/if another weather window would open like this again. Of course, I’m about to download weather now, and things change and the window could close on us and then we would have to follow one of my 96 contigency plans. Morale is surprisingly high on board considering that this morning we thought we’d be making landfall today and now we have 4-6 more days underway. I made two loaves of bread today, so I think that helped. My crew is pretty easy to please.”
Knowing what I know now, it’s hard to read this and not reprimand myself for this decision, because although I didn’t mention it at the time, it was a huge gamble. Cyclone season doesn’t officially end until May, and before leaving Kwajalein I had studied the pilot charts to understand the risk of an April arrival, and I had satisfied myself with the data although the risk was not zero, the chances of a late April cyclone were extremely, extremely low;
So low that insurance companies don’t consider it cyclone season anymore, and we were still covered. However, at this point in the passage we were able to ride NW winds all the way down precisely because there was still cyclonic activity. I make mention of “a family of weak lows” and so we gambled that those lows would stay weak, but *spoiler alert* one of them most certainly doesn’t stay weak.
We were in sight of Funafuti when we decided to press on
For the rest of the passage, the days all blend together. The wind steadily increased until we were running with a nominal 25 kts of wind on the stern and seeing more and more frequent squalls up in the mid to high 30s. Skies were consistently gray, and sadly Exodus became somewhat of a hospice care facility for small birds that must have been blown off course. Five total made their way to rest on Exodus, 3 died on board and 2 flew away after being startled (fate unknown). Tim would try to nurse them back to health, trying to get them to eat and drink, but I think by the time they got to us they were already spent. Needless to say, I was not the one who had to clean up all the poop. That was Brenden’s job.
This little guy didn’t make it through the night
On Day 10, the wind shifted so we couldn’t sail a direct course to Apia. There was a slight chance we could make it that day, so Tim wanted to engine up and head straight there. But I thought the chances were so slim we likely wouldn’t make it before dark anyway, so I proposed we tack NE and then sail straight into Apia the next day. We argued, but Tim was just done with this passage, and he was hellbent on doing anything possible to try to make it that day.
Trip Summary:
Hours underway – 9 days 14:29 hours
Log miles – 1129 nmi, Avg speed – 4.9 kts
Track miles – 1135 nmi, Avg SOG 4.9 miles
DMG – 1065 nmi, Avg VMG – 4.6 kts
Engine hours – P only 15:08 hrs, SB only 25:11 hrs, Both 12:09 hrs
We had travelled a total of 2022 nmi to get from Kwajalein to Apia with only two quick pitstops along the way, and we were SO happy to be there.
Gresham Family Exodus 