Marshalls to Alaska Day 25 - Through the Samalga Pass

Land !

Greetings,

This is our last 'blue water' day for a while :) We spent the day closing in on the Samalga Pass on a broad reach with calm seas and good conditions, and passed from the Pacific into the Bering Sea shortly after midnight 'Fluenta local' time.

More land !!

It was Sunday on board, so after a quiet morning watch (singing, reading, playing video games, knitting) I braced myself in the galley (port tack means that everything slides off the counter) and prepared bacon, eggs, and pancakes. One of the items I forgot to re-provision in Majuro (after our trading exchange in Ailuk) was baking powder, and we have been stretching a half-can throughout the entire trip. We still have a little left for tomorrow (and we have used a lot of baking soda / vinegar in the meantime)! I cooked the bacon in the oven so I would have an excuse to turn it on :) A fresh bottle of juice and our "Sunday Music" playlist completed our nod to the day.

and lots of kelp to watch out for.

Things were a little more exciting in the afternoon. Eagle-eyed Johnathan noticed a little piece of metal on the deck. It turned out to be a stress-fractured piece of cast aluminum from the end of our boom vang. He and Max cranked down on the mainsheet to take the tension off it, and then they lashed dyneema line through a tang in the boom to a gap in the top of the vang to hold the two together tightly. This takes most of the load now and helps protect the remaining side of the vang end where it secures to the clevis pin connection to the boom. Ironically, Max had just sent an email to the manufacturer, Selden, regarding the broken gas strut, and now we will follow up with an order for a replacement end fitting! [For old times sake I was tempted to wrap it in some duct tape too. In 2011 I did a race to Bermuda and on the first day out the boom came apart. There was a lot of work to get the program to the point of starting this race so we were not turning back. I was able to lash it back into place as the extrusion had sheered its rivets and fell off the casting at the gooseneck. We then added some bolts to act as pins. Lacking a tap and die set we then duct taped the bolts in place so they did not fall out. When we got to Bermuda we were famous with the posh boats - which was most of them - as the boat with the boom held on with duct tape. Max] As with many maintenance issues, we were simply grateful that this happened during the last few miles of the trip, and not when we were just starting out with 3,000 nm to go.

Not much you cannot fix with dynmea line !  This was the "at sea" first version of the jury rig.  The next one worked for over two months until I could get the right part.

The winds picked up a little in the afternoon, so we had consistent boat speeds in the 7-8 kt range - it was almost as if the weather and Fluenta were working together to deliver us to Alaska :)

Dinner tonight used the last of my canned (jarred) beef: peppered beef in cream (condensed milk) sauce on (instant) mashed potatoes. This was literally a 'meat & potatoes meal' (unless onion counts as a vegetable serving): we will have to eat extra fruit tomorrow, as there seemed to be no more cans of vegetables in the ready-access cupboard when it was time to cook (although I'm pretty sure I have more in deeper storage).

Johnathan and I stood the evening watch as we moved ever-closer to the Samalga Pass, and then he and I sailed the boat through the pass, following the route that Max had prepared. Conditions were foggy but calm. The wind dropped over the last hour as we approached, and we kept expecting to start our engine, but we maintained enough boat speed that we could continue to sail. We anticipated finding a wind shadow from the volcanic hills to the west of us, but we actually managed to sail right into the Bering Sea. The current (1.5 kts) was pushing us, so even when the wind dropped a bit, we continued making good speed. It was extraordinary, after so much vigorous sailing in off-shore conditions, to be gliding along almost silently in the calm water. The only sounds came from the gentle 'shush' of the hull on the water and the chattering of some of the sea birds who seemed quite worked up about our presence. The only way to know that we were near land was to see it on the radar or the chart; we had no visibility of the shore on either side. Eventually, the winds did drop off as expected, so Johnathan and I reluctantly furled the genoa and started the engine, but it was lovely while it lasted.

We have about 150 nm remaining until we arrive in Dutch Harbor. We expect the wind to pick up again in the morning, so we hope to sail most of the remaining distance.

Thanks for all your emails and good wishes while we have been underway. We look forward to reconnecting with more bandwidth in only a few more days!

Love to all,
Elizabeth
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At 2019-07-01 2:02 AM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 53°44.05'N 167°47.67'W

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