That is all.

We had a bit of a foodie day today. Breakfast is a bit of a help-your-self affair, usually revolving around muesli, porridge or if the generator is running toast. Occasionally a generous soul will offer to do something interesting with eggs for everyone else – like put them in pancakes and cover them in syrup. But not today.

Jon and Teo had a heart to heart before boat school.

“Your reading is really improving, if you keep practicing you’ll be able to read for fun soon.” said Jon encouragingly.
“…. wait, I’ll be able to pickup any book and just read it?” replied Teo clearly astounded by this revelation.
“Well, yes, I mean there will always be words you’ll get stuck on and either have to ask someone or look in a dictionary, but yes you’ll be able to pick-up any book and reading it will be fun and no so frustrating.”
“My book about oceans? My book about a million facts? My book about the weather? I’ll be able to read them all?” “Yup, with a bit more practice.”
“But I’ve been learning to read for THREE YEARS!”
“Just another year and it’ll click I think Teo.”
“Mamma!” Teo yells to Mia up on deck “I’m going to spend boat school reading today, mostly reading, lots of reading and then a little math game at the end, OK?”

The sudden burst of enthusiasm didn’t last all morning, but the desire is there. So that was boat school today. Anyway, back to food.

Cheese Scones baby! Jon’s aunty Margery came through with her recipe and despite it being very bouncy today Jon managed to whip together a bunch for lunch. YUM. So after Tomato soup and freshly baked bread (thanks Tina) we had a round of scones and butter.

The afternoon came and went without much ado. Mia beavered away and now Itchy Foot has a full complement of socks for her fenders, all hanging on the arch looking pretty. Tina also had her handful of needles and thread making a kindle case out of old jeans. Before we left, they had the plan to work on jewellery this crossing, turning silver wire, leather, beads, twine into cute little things. But the motion of the ocean is not very conducive to that sort of fine work, it’s not easy to put it down and pick it back up again. It would seem that needle work is better suited to the sea.

Jon continued his baking adventure by taking the last of our pears (they’ve lasted well) and making a Pear and Apple Crumble with Cinnamon and Rum. And a dollop of Cookie Ice-cream. Num num. The boat was filled with delicious smells. Mia was on dinner duty and we all enjoyed the Lasagna which they made and froze in Panama as tonights low stress option, not wanting to be outdone by Jon she also made garlic bread on the side.

The general consensus after the meal was that we were Thanksgiving Full (or Christmas Dinner full depending).

In other news, we continue in a direct line towards The Marquesas with maybe only a week to go, fingers crossed. We continue side by side (10 miles apart) from our Australian buddy boat. Their presence is reassuring, for example today we decided to reduce the size of the main sail to calm the boat down. To do that we need to turn into the wind for a few minutes while we roll away some of the sail and therefore we end up heading in the wrong direction for a couple of minutes. After a few seconds we here over the VHF radio:

“Itchy Foot, Itchy Foot, this is Adele 1, Adele 1. We noticed that you guys have dropped your boat speed and have changed direction. We just wanted to check everything was OK. If you are in the middle of reefing (reducing) the sails then no worries, don’t rush to reply.”

As we were Teo fielded the call and explained that we were indeed reefing the sails and that everything was OK, and thanks for the call. Anyway, it’s nice to have company, even if you can’t see them by eye.

We’re still looking for the right moment to pop our bubbles and celebrate, we have a feeling that tomorrow when we have less than 1000 miles to go will be a good one.

Itchy Foot is a Hallberg Rassy 39 Mark II. The yard that produced her has a good reputation and a long heritage of making solid, luxurious and seaworthy yachts for the moderate to high-markets. Think Jaguar or Mercedes but wetter. Even through (or possibly because) she is now twenty years old, there are some ‘standards’ and expectations to be maintained – there is an owners association and they have views.

For example, we chose to add an arch to the back of Itchy Foot, providing somewhere to place two large solar panels and quickly hang the dingy for short trips and security. But, gosh, that changes her lines, this will not do. If you must add then please consider a davits rather than an arch! Ahem.

We try our best; we don’t polish the stainless steel very often but we know where the bottle is at all times. The alcohol we use to kill fish is in a Molton Brown bottle on the back. We even debated getting fender socks but Jon drew the line – no fender socks – waste of money!

But. Our fenders ( big rubber balloon things your put on the side when in a marina between the boat and the pontoon ) are now 20 years old and the rubber is starting to leach out oil. This oil collects dirt on the surface of the fender and then applies it liberally to the side of our once white boat. Every time we used the fenders we would then spend several hours cleaning the hull, trying to remove oily dirty marks which only respond to sand paper. Cleaning the fenders themselves lasted for about a month. Two solutions: new fenders (they are 100 USD each and we need 8) or cover them in socks.

Clearly socks then, they can’t cost as much as new fenders. Ha! Imagine a shop that sells everything you need for a wedding. Not just a bridal shop which sells you a dress, but everything. Flowers, cakes, invitations, table settings, photographers, a lotta shoes, a lotta rice. Now imagine the prices you would find on the items in that shop, the specially wedding shop, they would be a ludicrous! Well, boat shopping are just like that – ludicrously overpriced.

How much for a fender sock? 25 USD. For a tube of stretchy fabric that goes around a fender. We needed 8 of these socks and therefore also a plan B.

Thankfully Mia is very good a a great many things, not least of all imaginative and cheap solution to problems. Mia noticed that our fenders are roughly the same size as, how shall we say, big boned ladies thighs. She also noticed that in Panama you can buy a pair of very heavy duty and generously sized leggings (navy blue please) for about 3 USD. And that is for two thighs each!

Flash forward and in-between bunting the project Mia and Tina started work on our fender socks today and boy do they look great! Itchy Foot is going to look lovely in the Pacific.

Anything else happen today? Not a whole lot. The wind continues to be glorious and basically perfect. The waves have continued to build but even at their peek today are more comfortable than we feared. We saw another yacht on AIS today and had a nice chat with them after lunch, Adele 1 from Oz. They caught up with us doing the night and looked set to overtake us today, so Jon trimmed the sails a little more and now we’re going the same speed. Collective noun for yachts? A competition, we suspect. A nice and quiet day finished with watching ‘The Princess Bride’ for the n’th time for the Wrights and the first for Tina.

And now? It’s 3am (we’ve chosen currently to be in California time zone – it’s a bit arbitrary but keeps the sun in line with our meal times) and we took the bimini down so above our heads is a blanket of stars. Endless.

The sailing today was, in a word, Zoom. Zoomy, zoomy, zoom, zoom. Tina clocked us doing over 12knots SOG this morning, but I suspect the GPS was broken. However, solid 8 knots all day for sure.

What else? We smell better.

It was a water making, laundry and showers day today. How do we make water?! We run the generator (burning diesel), which sucks salt water out of the sea and pushes it through a very very fine filter (finer than salt molecules), it spits the extra salty water over the side and spits the fresh water into our tanks. We then use the fresh water to wash clothes, dishes, ourselves and drink – all of which ultimately ends up down the drain and back in the sea. So, in a strange kind of way all the water maker really does is turn diesel into people who aren’t thirsty and smell good. Yay.

Nothing else happened today! Nothing. Well, Tina saw a turtle and cooked dinner (unrelated). Jon caught a Mahi-mahi and watched Iron Man with Teo, Mia finished her book and cooked lunch, Teo did some school and played a math card game with Jon. So basically nothing, the days are starting to run together!

We also joined another fleet of boats! What is a fleet of boats and how do you join it, glad you asked! Basically, there is a nice lady on a boat sailing somewhere between Panama and the Marquesas. Everyday, she collects all the emails she gets from other boats, she gathers together all the details of where the boats are and any interesting news, including weather, fishing, technical problems, what they ate, etc. and then sends a summary back around to the all the other boats.

Well, that is M-Fleet and they are mostly ahead of us. But today we found out about another fleet of many kids boats who are mostly behind us, so from tomorrow we’ll be sending our position to two lists of yacht spread between Panama and French Polynesia. My guesstimate is that there must be about 30 boats between these two fleets and likely the same again which aren’t listed but out there ‘nearby’. So over 50 boats around here somewhere. But there is a lot of somewhere out here.

4000 miles, that’s how far we are sailing. What is 4000 miles? It’s London to India. Oslo to Florida. LA to Japan. Longer than the cape of good hope to cape horn. A lot of somewhere.

But still we were passed last night a British registered super yacht ‘Rosehearty’ – 150ft long according to our AIS and headed the same way, albeit twice as fast. Mia wanted us to call them up and explain we needed Tea and crumpets, and to watch the royal wedding on satellite TV but we didn’t, it was late.

Did I mention that we all feel very lucky to have such good sailing weather? Well well do.

Another blisteringly fast day on Itchy Foot. Yet again we had 15kn of wind on the port quarter (not on the side, nor on the stern, somewhere in-between) and Itchy Foot loved it. This point of sail is called a ‘Broad Reach’ and is usually the fastest for our sort of boat, Itchy Foot is no exception. Over the next few days the wind will work its way farther behind us until we are going more of less dead downwind, which is slower and less comfortable, but for now we’re lovin’ it.

Speaking of Lovin’ It! – did you know that 40% of MacDonald’s sales come from Happy Meals?! We didn’t but do now, because it was Quiz Day today! Tina once again provided an hour of entertainment in the form of a quiz, with challenging questions for all onboard including a Star Wars and Harry Potter section. Mia as usually won the most points in the music section, the final blow coming when Jon confused Grease with Pulp Fiction – it would have been worse if he had been picking the next family movie night. Not even the Poetry Round could save Jon and Mia penned the perfect tear jerker about Teo to win the judges hearts and points.

Tina has also taken over the role of Itchy Foot bread baker, and is baking a fresh loaf everyday during her night watch. Lunch never tasted so good, especially as Mia had the good idea to pair it with the last of our fresh vegetables and make a Pumpkin Soup to go with. We’re down to a couple of green pepper, a bunch of apples and plenty of potatoes as we go into our last 10 days. Thankfully we haven’t touched the food in the freezer yet and Jon keeps catching fish – four bites today – two got away and two Mahi-mahi are now in the freezer. So dinner was pan fried yellow fin tuna and buttery potato mash. Oh and Teo is a fan of the Orep Cheese Cake – as you can see from the photo.

Not much else to report. Mia is upset she missed a royal wedding and wants to know all about the dress. Any descriptions and wedding gossip would be greatly appreciated at jonwright@myiridium.net – no photos please!

After the bright colours, songs and celebrations of yesterday, today felt a little sombre. Over night on the 17th we did a lot of motoring, there simply wasn’t enough wind to sail and bobbing around a night it not good for morale – at least motoring gives the boat some stability and a kinder motion for sleeping.

The morning was better, Tina was on the first daylight watch and reported nice sailing, calm seas and plenty of wind so we buzzed along at 7 knots and everyone else slept in. Teo was up next, with Mia close behind. Teo in the morning is the perfect addition to this boat and our family, he is not quick to life, preferring to ease into the day gently and so long as a bowl of cereal is forthcoming fairly promptly he is usually church mouse quiet. In fact, there is a good chance he’ll be pretending to be a mouse or some other cute creature, at the moment he is a ‘crystal critter’ from Star Wars. Anyway, no screaming, running, singing or anything else offensive comes from the little man until the sun is well up.

As soon as Jon stuck his head out of bed the wind died and on went the motor. Then it came back a touch, and died again. The main problem with light wind is not actually going too slowly, we’re not in a hurry and if you plan to cross oceans at a brisk walking pace, then travelling at a shopping mall stroll isn’t much different. No, problem is the damage that light winds do to sails. Sails like to be full and stay full, not to fill and collapse, fill and collapse… and while they are collapsed rub against the wire rigging. The solution is a switching to a lighter sail which can fill with lighter airs, in this case our spinnaker!

We have a spinnaker onboard, it doesn’t get a lot of action being a bit of a beast to handle but today looked good. Tina and Jon started by digging out all the necessary lines, blocks, sails and other bits and bobs from the forepeak. Then we started to rig it all up, attach blocks for turning lines, run the lines, untwist things, put the pole up etc. etc. Before we started Jon made two predictions, firstly that the whole process would take an hour and secondly that when it was ready the wind would have built to be too much to fly this light sail. Right on both counts!

But at least we were sailing, albeit with the spinnaker still on deck ready to go. After an hour or so the wind died again and the was our chance, so Mia and Tina on the winches and Jon managing the ‘sock’ up she went and pretty she was too. After a bit of tweaking we were making 5.5kn under spinnaker alone – good enough for lunch and medals.

During lunch we noticed that a squall line was building behind us, which would bring both rain and more worryingly too much wind. So a hasty bite to eat and down came the spinnaker just before the rain and wind hit hard. We switched the spinnaker for a headsail alone and all went down below with the hatches closed for a favourite board game followed by a movie, as it somewhat traditional on Itchy Foot rainy days.

Not much else to report for the day, we didn’t celebrate half-way as it didn’t feel like a celebration kind of day, tomorrow looks better. We continue our journey West, as all the other directions seem longer.

The 17th of May was always a favourite day back home in Oslo. It is Norway’s national day, or birthday if you like and it is a day celebrated with great pride, warmth, openness and good spirits.

Our traditions back home followed a similar pattern each year. Being old farts we didn’t go out and get hammered on the night of the 16th (traditional). So the celebrations started for us on the morning of the 17th. Firstly, we would dress in our finest, neither of us owning the traditional Norwegian national costume we would dress in Sunday best suits and pretty summer dresses accordingly. We normally hosted a champagne breakfast for a few close friends to enjoy a slap-up breakfast and bubbles would flow. After that we walked down town, to the kings palace amount the throngs of people also dressed to the nines, waving flags and praying for a nice spring day.

A procession of marching bands would troop past the king and along the main street of Oslo, as the sidewalks were lined with cheering, hot dog eating, flag waving families. After the bands cleared out we would find a nice park to sit in with friends, or if the weather was less enticing a balcony or living room of a friend. Champagne would continue to flow, along with cakes of all shapes, sizes and colours. This continued until the early evening when we would pick our way homeward to get out of our finest and wind down the evening resting feet that don’t normally see dress shoes and need to be up on the sofa.

So, how do we achieve this on Itchy Foot?! It wasn’t easy but between us we had a good stab at it.

The morning started slowly, no champagne breakfast this time, with Jon taking school with Teo and Mia and Tina taking watch and choosing outfits for the day. Just before lunch Jon started making, if you ask him, the most importantly part of the 17th of May; the cakes. First up, separating the egg whites for the Kransekake, not easy when the eggs are 15 days old and the yokes and the whites start to run together – they are still perfectly safe to eat (boy can you tell when they aren’t) but impossible to separate. So, lunch quickly became scrambled eggs on toast (all the eggs that wouldn’t separate) and eight eggs later Jon had separate out two whites.

After lunch the cake making continued. Thanks to a lovely couple we met in Vista Mar Marina (Becca and John from Halcyon) we had some almonds onboard. For Kransekake you combine equal weights ground almonds and icing sugar with a little bit of flour. Then stir in whisked egg whites until it gets to be a dry but workable texture. Now, where did we put the Kransekake rings?! Never fear we’ll make some out of aluminium foil. Roll into cigar sized sticks, put in tinfoil forms and then bake in the oven for 12 minutes at 200C. Then allow to rest for an hour and they are frankly amazing with a cup of coffee.

Next cake!

Oreo No-bake Cheesecake! Thanks for Nahanni land support and to Tina’s mum for getting a few recipes online and emailing them to us. Life savers. This one was easy. Crush the Oreo cookies, spoon some into the bottom of ramekins (or jars in our case). Then mix a packet of cream cheese with a can of condensed milk…. wait…. Jon threw out the can of condensed milk as it looked like it was rusting. Oh, wait. How about just adding less water to powdered milk and then keep adding sugar until it tastes right? Yup, that works. So combine the cream cheese with the ‘condensed milk’ and stir in a bunch of ground Oreo cookies. Pour over the top and then stick the jar in the fridge until you are ready to devour.

After getting dressed in our finest – Jon found a lovely piece of red webbing we had spare which made a perfect tie – we enjoy coffee and Kransekake. Then turn up the Ah-ha music and parade around the deck waving our homemade flags. The sun was starting to set and the sea was calm, beautiful. Tina made a lovely evening meal and we decided that we had reached our cake limit for the day and so the cheese cakes will wait until tomorrow.

We miss many things from Noway. Good friends, the beautiful country, a cosy apartment, going to concerts, music day, the 17th of May to name but a few. It was a bitter sweet treat to have such a warm reminder of a place we call home.

Nothing much else to report from the day, the winds were on the light side, but we still made around 5-6 knots on average. The sea is calmer now and even Teo commented on how much easier life in onboard when the waves calm down. We continue on our rhumb line course to our destination and tomorrow I think we’ll celebrate our half-way mark. The champagne is already in the fridge chilling.

We bumped into another yacht out here today, thankfully not literally. Around lunchtime we get a call on the normally silent VHF ‘Itchy Foot, Itchy Foot this is Miki, Miki, Miki’. Replying to their hail we discover it is a Norwegian yacht that left Panama a few weeks ago and are also on their way to the Marquesas. They are a little shorter and a little slower than us, plus they got unlucky with the wind so we managed to catch them up and pass them throughout the day.

After a quick glance through the binoculars and a zoomed into photo Jon figured out they are an older Hallberg Rassy, which he was sure we’d seen somewhere before. We called them again and exchanged some more detailed. Sure enough, and by chance, we’d seen them transiting the
Panama canal the day we visited the museum at the Gutan Locks, we even have a few photos of them figuring that there was a chance we’d see them down the line.

We talked a little more, exchanged contact details and satellite phone numbers incase we needed to contact someone nearby. And finally talked about our plans for the 17th of May – which is Norway’s birthday and national day – a huge celebration back home. Our preparation started today with Mia, Tina and Teo all sitting down to make Norwegian flags to decorate Itchy Foot. We sent off a few emails to get recipes for different traditional cakes which Jon will try to put together in the morning – assuming we have the necessary ingredients onboard. And maybe in the afternoon we’ll grill some hotdogs, which again is a very common thing for the kids to eat on the 17th.

Another fast day sailing today, we spent most the day zooming along at 7.5knots. The seas are starting to build and get higher which isn’t helping the comfort onboard and they are forecast to get larger still. This makes simple jobs like brushing teeth, eating, preparing food, even going to sleep, much harder than normal and leads to frustration.

The good news is that we’ll be celebrating the half way mark tomorrow, so double celebration! It’s not a precise half-way and the total time left maybe less or more than what we’ve done so far. We don’t sail in the straight lines as the wind, waves and currents don’t always permit or encourage straight lines, so we’ve been working on the idea that the crossing is about 4000 miles. Tomorrow we should have 2000 left on the rhumb line to our destination. Hopefully we’ll be able to sail the rhumb (direct) line for most of the remaining trip.

From noon till noon on day 13/14 we sailed about 165 miles (straight line between the two points). So divide 2000 miles by 165 and you get a little over 12 days. But that is optimistic and 140 miles a day is a little more our normal pace which gives closer to 14 days. Again, assuming a straight line and no shortage of wind, neither of which is a given.

On we go.

The last ocean crossing we completed was the Cape Verde to Barbados, and it took 14 days, so we would have arrived today. For the Pacific we are still debating if we are half way there or not! If we’re lucky the answer is yes, continued good wind and conditions should see us arriving in French Polynesia in about 14 to 16 days time so almost half way. Though of course, French Polynesia is barely half way across the Pacific!

Last night we had a few strange encounters; from the moment the sunset we stated to see a strange glow over the horizon. The glow was bright white and illuminated the clouds in the sky in the direction we were headed. Nothing showed on AIS and so we were confused but kept out a cautious eye on the horizon as we sailed west. Shorty after midnight lights started to appear and it became clear we were looking at a huge commercial fishing ship. This thing was vast, finally it showed up on AIS (one of our system to seeing other ships) and it was 600ft long and not alone. By the end of the night we counted seven of them, festooned with floodlights, almost stationary in the water and hauling in huge fishing nets. Judging from their names it was clear they were a large commercial fishing fleet out of China. By the time I came on watch at 6am they were safely behind us and the wind was increasing.

In a word, today was FAST. Fairly much all day from the moment the sun came up we were zooming along, never once dropping our speed below 6.5kns and most of the day was between 7..5 and 8 knots which is blisteringly fast for little old Itchy Foot.

Before lunch Jon caught and landed a Yellow Fin Tuna. It was one of the most beautiful fishes we’ve seen, almost too pretty to kill it. The fishing tips from family, friends and other sailors were put to good use and they seemed to have helped. With fish for lunch, dinner and a couple of lbs of Tuna in the freezer we took in the lines and Jon took the rest of the day off from fishing – it was too fast anyway!

Another quiet day on Itchy Foot. Jon baked bread and cake after lunch before settling on the sofa to watch the latest star wars with Teo. Mia continued with her bunting project and Tina seemed to be relaxing with music, journaling and keeping watch much of the day. We put the clocks back an hour at noon today, so we are GMT -6 on Itchy Foot – the same time as San Jose in Costa Rica. We don’t really need to do this, but it helps keep the watches aligned with the day and night periods – so night watches start when it gets dark for example.

Oh and on a positive note, the diesel spill on the deck seems much better than feared and from initial inspection the staining seem to be minimal. It doesn’t sound like we do much on Itchy Foot, but your’d be amazed how the days fill with little jobs and tasks.