Author: Ulrich Fingscheidt

I hiked along the mountain ridge today, to get a view of the Anchorage. Easy is marked with a blue circle. I did not see anyone for hours. I like the Îles Gambier a lot!

I am on my way to Taravai, another very remote island of the Gambiers.

The hull was super clean when I left Panama. This is what it looks like after 35 days at sea. The larvae must live pelagic since they were even attached to the windvane paddle which I only put in the water on day 2 of my trip.

Easy is anchored at the dead-end village of Rikitea, on the island of Mangareva (Îles Gambier). It is a rainy day today. Just right to replenish my sleep deficit.

Finally, les Îles Gambier.

When the blue water turns grey it is time to reef the sails. These clouds bring stronger wind from a more easterly direction, rain, waves, all the nasty stuff. In addition, the gain of the solar panels decreases so that I have to save energy. It is getting wet in the cockpit, I have to close the hatches. I am going way too fast now. I will have to take the mainsail down before dawn. Then I can adjust the speed better by just furling in or out the headsail. It will be a busy last night.

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Today is a calm day. Easy is going vertically up and down like in an elevator. The large swell is coming from the southwest, from 210 degrees and has a height of 3 m. Just in the opposite direction run the wind waves, coming from 60 degrees, with a height of 1,5 m. So the wave pattern is an irregular interference of these two systems. The highest amplitude I measured (barometric changes) was 4,7 m. On the photo, you can see nothing of these waves. The inset in the photo shows the amplitude of the main wave system as forcasted by PredictWind.