On 3rd February Cam, Felipe and myself left Panama bound for Polynesia. The crossing from Vista Mar Marina in Panama to Atuona harbour on Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands took us 33 days. We covered 4100 miles, so that means we averaged 5.1 knots. While that's slow, it's not apparently terrible for the Pacific. We've since heard of some significantly slower times for the same route, so after an initial period of frustration I am now reasonably happy that we did all we could to keep moving. We had about 6 or 7 days of decent winds, but most of the time we had light or very light winds, especially in the doldrums. With old sails and a heavily laden boat, that's not too bad. The guys were brilliant, the best crew I could have hoped for, easy to get on with and a great attitude, especially for the 3am gybes or changes to the sail plan. We even sunk a few rums and the odd tequila cocktail while waiting for the fish to bite.
We saw:
1 light of a boat in the distance as we neared Hiva Oa, and another near the Galapagos (probably fishing)
Loads of dolphins
Humpback whales
Orca (killer whales) feeding in a bloodbath - probably another whale they had killed
About 50 plastic bottles
1 lifebuoy (we couldn't get the sails down in time to recover it)
1 polystyrene fishing float
Loads of birds and sunsets, shooting stars and other celestial bodies
Er, that's it!