Highs and Lows of Our Second Pacific Crossing

First, let me answer what you’re likely asking: wait, second?

Yes. Three years before this, we sailed across the Pacific Ocean for the first time — and now, we’ve done it again.

Although having the knowledge that we could do it definitely helped our confidence, nothing could’ve prepared us for what this second crossing had in store…

So, want to hear the highs and lows of our second Pacific crossing?

Highlights of the Pacific Crossing

Always start with the good bits, right? Well, we are.

Sunsets & Sunrises

I have to start here because they were the crew’s favourite part of the day — sunset especially, because it marked another day closer.

Most evenings we’d all come up and watch as the golden ball sunk below the horizon… or the clouds, depending on the day.

As for the sunrises, Bella loved sitting up there on shift, taking beautiful photos. Then each afternoon we’d have an impromptu competition and show off our best shots from the day.

Dolphins

It’s such a cool moment when you hear the puff and pop of dolphins coming alongside the boat.

We actually had heaps of them doing backflips and showing off while they fished. I think we probably got visited more than a dozen times… so amazing!

Spinnaker Sailing

Ahhhh, the spinnaker sailing was absolute bliss.

We did a lot of it, and those days were by far the best of the passage. During our first week, everything was picture-perfect spinnaker sailing and flat seas… glorious.

This was also the first passage where we had our “small” cruising spinnaker to try out. Even though we didn’t get to use it quite as much as we’d hoped due to one of the major cons (coming up in a moment), it definitely made the difference between a good passage and an okay one. It saved us from some slower miles and a fair bit of motoring too.

One last thing — you have to name your spinnakers, so I can’t just say it was awesome without giving credit. Thank you to Purple and Tina.

If you’re keen to know more about our sail setup for this crossing, check out this post here.

Fishing

On our last Pacific crossing, we had four lines out for 25 days and didn’t catch anything… literally nothing.

So even if our haul wasn’t crazy this time, it was a massive improvement.

We hooked a bigeye tuna on the way out of Panama, which gave us one delicious meal. But it was small compared to our next catch: a huge (by our standards) yellowfin!

The excitement when we landed it was awesome, and it definitely helped pass the time as Finn spent over an hour filleting it. That fish fed us for at least three meals.

Then our last hookup happened just a mile from the anchorage on the way in.

We had our spinnaker up, were closing in on the finish line, and suddenly hooked a giant tuna… we’re still eating through the haul from that one.

So yeah, fishing was definitely a highlight for us.

Assisting Current

For almost the entire passage, we had an assisting current.

This meant that if we were sailing at 4kts, we’d actually be doing 5kts thanks to the current — which meant we could keep the engine off more often.

That helped heaps and was great for morale. Everyone wants to go faster, right?!

Contact with Other Boats

Being able to communicate with all the other boats out there at the same time was really cool.

We’d chat about conditions and forecasting, catching fish, and all sorts of random things. It helped the days go by and created a real sense of camaraderie.

A few years ago, Starlink was only just becoming a thing, so the fact that everyone had it this time around was amazing.

Lows of Crossing the Pacific

This was our most challenging crossing to date — and hopefully ever.

I’m not going to go into full detail about what happened, but if you want the full story, you can check out this post Bella wrote here. 

So, here are the cons… or really, one major con and a few smaller ones.

Our Starboard Rudder Snapped

Yes, you read that correctly.

Yes, it was stressful.

Yes, we almost lost our home.

And yes, we still managed to sail 2700nm on one rudder to make it to the Marquesas Islands.

Like I said, I really hope this never happens again. Those are emotions I never want repeated.

Again, you can check out Bella’s post here to find out how it all unfolded.

Sailing with a Limp

After the rudder snapped, we did everything we could to reduce pressure on the remaining rudder.

That meant sailing slower than normal, which definitely frustrated some of the crew as boats we’d previously been ahead of started passing us.

But at that point, we were just surviving.

So yeah, sailing with a “limp,” as we came to call it, is not fun.

Three Days of Heavy Weather

About two weeks out from French Polynesia, we hit some rough weather: 3m seas and 25–30kts of wind.

These conditions would’ve been tricky with a fully functioning vessel, but for us they were super intense and sketchy.

Thankfully, relief finally came after a harrowing three days, but it was definitely one of the lowest points of the crossing.

Summary

There were so many memorable moments from this Pacific crossing — plenty of amazing ones, and unfortunately quite a few hard ones too.

As a crew, everyone did incredibly well, and we’re all ridiculously stoked to have made it safely to land… with our home still afloat.