The Western Pacific - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 383

Lessons Learned
So what ever happened to short and easy? A lesson we had long since learned had been re-
inforced: it's not distance but conditions that ultimately defines those terms. Our 3,000 mile
passage between the Galapagos Islands and the Marquesas had been a dream of steady sail-
ing in benign conditions, making those twenty-eight days the “shortest” passage in our
wake. In contrast, these three and four day hops seemed much longer. Part of the reason
was our heading: southeast winds can seem a lot less friendly when the bow is pointing
SSW instead of west. Beyond that, the southwest Pacific consistently served up a different
kind of ride - almost like an ocean of its own, where the long, steady swell of the eastern
Pacific was replaced by a confused slop.
What accounts for the swell? This stretch of ocean is several thousand miles west of the
carefree playground we left behind somewhere in the vicinity of Bora Bora. It's the home
turf of the SPCZ and highly sensitive to the spillover of weather systems whisking by in the
far south. The two can also gang up, for example, when frontal passages in the distant
south connect with a branch of the SPCZ. Part of it may be a hemming-in effect: more is-
lands, fewer swaths of open water to allow the swell to stretch out, plus an irregular under-
water topography. No matter how much information we gathered on weather systems, con-
vergence zones, wind and swell conditions, there was no predicting exactly how everything
would align in terms of crew comfort. That's the ocean for you. If we wanted predictable,
we'd never have left home.
The lesson, I suppose, is not to underestimate the sea - any stretch of it, no matter how
short. But the rewards remain the same: the pride of having covered yet another inch of the
globe, and the unique landscapes - cultural and physical - at either end of the trip.