The Pacific High is surreal given the vortex of weather, wind and wave that surrounds it. As we enter this broad 2,000+ square mile weather desert the conditions are at odds with all notions of sailing the middle of the Pacific. Winds have now dropped to variable puffs as we begin to motor across this silent expanse. The seas are perfectly flat and devoid of the smallest ripple save the Hula Girl wake which extends for miles behind the boat. The skies have become a cloudless blue with a ring of white puffs at the horizon of this endless blue lake.
The quality and endless blue depth of the water is stunning and is only matched by the complete and utter stillness that seems to extend forever in every direction. We cut the motor and all exit Hulu Girl for the first time since leaving Honolulu. As we swim and snorkel about the boat we are joined by a lone Albatross that has found its way more than 1,000+ miles offshore and seems content to land and float among us. Dropping a few coins into the water suggests 200+ feet of visibility into a bottomless deep blue.
Engines resume and we continue the eastern trek across what is now a vast expanse of flat seas and cloudless skies. The loss of access to communications in our first few days, and most importantly regular weather updates, has us venturing across the High searching for the eastern edge and winds that will carry us home to San Diego.
The center of the high is a vast blue desert, cloudless with the sun slowly progressing across the sky and a perfect stillness, often totally windless. It extends for as far as the eye can see in every direction. The sky and bordering clouds are perfectly reflected in the water as exact images of each other, confusing the transition from sky to sea.
As we traverse this empty expanse there is sun, heat and nothing else. No measure of progress or reference to mark either our pace or the distance traveled, only the sound of the boats diesel and the boats wake to mark our presence. During our slow march across this expanse we find wind on occasion and the once perfectly flat and still sea becomes an undulating surface of broad and shallow ridges and valleys that are measured 100’s of feet across in all directions. In these brief periods the engine stills as the sails partially fill and the hull moves silently though the water like a carving knife.
Our passage across this barren landscape is marked by no moon as the sliver of new moon closely follows the sun below the western horizon at sunset. This leaves the long quite night watches completely black with an immense blanket of stars, galaxies and planets fully exposed as nowhere else on earth. Every satellite and shooting star revealed as they speed above us and we progress slowly east to wind and landfall.