87. Pacific Crossing Part 2: New Normal

By Day 4 of the crossing, we transitioned to our 3-hour on, 9-hour off schedule and began settling into a life of constant movement. As Eitan had predicted, traveling west with the wind coming from the north put us sideways to the well and caused us to roll back and forth. I sent a satellite message to our friend on SV Bula who had left before us and asked if the conditions improved farther away from shore. To my disappointment he said it was only getting worse and more rollie, coupled with a secondary swell coming from a different direction.

At this point, and for the next several days, I began to wonder why I had put myself in this situation. I found myself in a constant state of hunger, fatigue, and anxiety and wondered what toll this would take on my body. Simone had started calling it Type 2 fun, something that isn’t very fun at the moment but rewarding once it’s over, kind of like extreme hiking or running a marathon. These were the conditions that were more or less expected and the boat was performing great but I couldn’t shake the feeling that disaster was around the corner. I began to realize that my brain can’t seem to tell the difference between discomfort in the moment and imminent danger. My sense of anticipation would default to the negative, assuming something bad was about to happen, instead of the positive, seeing that, although conditions were uncomfortable, Sierra Wind was performing well and the conditions were consistent and well withing her ability to sail through them.

To improve morale, and more importantly, hygiene, we “heaved to” and stall the boat for an hour to bathe off the back. The sea state was far from flat and we were accompanied by dolphins circling the boat and surfing the swell. We each took turns being dragged behind the boat by a rope then soaping up and jumping back in to rinse off. We used the solar shower to wash off the salt with fresh water and give ourselves a final rinse. Showering felt amazing and gave us a huge morale boost now that we weren’t wearing the same clothes from departure day and didn’t smell anymore.

While we were stopped, Eitan took the opportunity to run the water maker. As we finished up with the showers, we were surprised to see a sheen of fuel on the water’s surface, seemingly from our boat since we were several hundred miles from shore. Due to a formerly leaky fuel tank port, we figured it was some residual fuel from the leak that was being pumped from the bilge. I opened up the bilge and was alarmed to see quite a lot of water in it. Are we sinking?! Apparently, when I changed the pre-filter for the water maker before we left, I didn’t screw it on tight enough and it was hemorrhaging water into the boat. Luckily, it was easy to identify and fix the problem.

With the motion of the boat and my anxiety, sleep continued to be a struggle. The whizzing sound of the propeller, slam of a wave, howling wind, and flogging of the sails always made the conditions seem worse while below deck. Several times, I would come up while I was off shift, sure that whoever was on watch needed help and was surprised to find no issues. While I was in bed, the rolling of the boat caused me to slide up to a foot in either direction and I found myself constantly holding on and bracing myself. With almost a week of little sleep, when I did manage to fall asleep, I would wake up completely disoriented as to where I was and it took me a while to realize we were still underway. One morning I woke up and struggled to remember even who I was, which really alarmed me. The worst part was that there was still at least 2 more weeks to go. Some days I would ask myself how much I would pay to be magically transported to a hotel room, and it was normally in the $2,000 range. I longed to be in a cozy bed without movement and feel truly safe.

By the end of our first week, we were about 30% of the way there with less than 2,000 miles to go. To celebrate, I decided to make lemon bars. This turned out to be a bad idea and resulted in burnt filling in the bottom of the oven, causing smoke to permeate the boat every time we used it thereafter. Despite having one week behind us, morale wasn’t very high given that we continued to be hungry and sleep deprived and the rolling motion didn’t seem to get any better. We were already past the first five days that Eitan warned would be the most uncomfortable but the long, gentle swells that the Pacific Ocean is known for and named after were nowhere in sight.

That evening, we began experiencing a mysterious cross-swell that SV Bula had reported a few days earlier. The boat was turned into a giant metronome as we rolled, rail to rail every few minutes. It was as if the keel had dropped off and we had no way to stabilize ourselves. Eitan decided to take down the main sail since the motion was causing the sail to thrash around and potentially break away from the mast. At the same time, a gusty 20 knot wind was blowing from behind us causing the primary swell behind us to grow steeper, occasionally breaking on the stern. I worried a wave could break into the dinghy or a roll that could cause the paddle boards to rip away from the stanchions.

At this point, I had a bit of a mental breakdown as I lay in the cabin, shaking like a little chihuahua. For the first time on this trip, I cried. I truly wanted to be (almost) anywhere other than here. I’m not sure what I had signed up for, but I know it wasn’t this. Reading encouraging messages from my dad on the satellite phone made me even more emotional as I wondered, once again, what I had gotten myself into. I quit my job to do this?! The truly frustrating part was that, rationally, I knew the conditions weren’t that bad. Although 20 knots may feel like a lot of wind in the moment, it’s not when you consider the greater world of sailing and the conditions that can be routinely encountered throughout the world’s oceans. The sea state was uncomfortable but far from being dangerous. The boat was performing well given the circumstance, but I couldn’t seem to control my anxiety and thoughts.

As Eitan found me crying on the bed, he asked me what I was feeling. Afraid? Afraid of what? This question perplexed me. What was I afraid of? Being uncomfortable? Being more uncomfortable than this? I didn’t even know why I was feeling this way and tried to remind myself about the differences of reality versus perception and anticipation. I told myself that if I could change my perception, I didn’t have to live through this experience in this way. But we all know that some things are easier said than done. My only hope was that things would start to feel better as we approached the equator.