For the last 4-5 days we've been the boat in a bubble - a bubble of unsettled weather aka ITCZ. The problem was that as we moved north, so did our bubble of unsettled weather with squalls, then no wind, then squalls, etc. The NOAA surface analysis confirmed what we were experiencing and showed the ITCZ bending all the way to 12N. But yesterday evening we escaped.
Yesterday morning we were motor sailing in clear skies, scorching sun and a light breeze from the south. Our noon to noon run improved to 176 miles. By early afternoon we had about 8kts from NNE, nothing we could sail with (at least not towards our destination), but enough to boost our motoring speed a little. Then about 5pm the wind suddenly spiked to 18, but still from much further north than expected. We started sailing uncomfortably close to the wind into choppy confused seas. Within an hour the radar screen was covered with squalls and from 6pm - midnight there was a continual series of squalls and the wind varied from 18-24. Now at 2am we may have passed the last squall. The wind has moved further to the east to be just forward of the beam and dropped to a more comfortable 16-18kts. But the squalls have left behind a horribly lumpy sea so we are lurching around a bit and occasionally we abruptly either fall off a wave or slam into one; neither of which is comfortable.
The cloud cover is partially broken and allowed me to see the moon set. Now some stars are mixed in with the clouds where earlier it was just blackness.
It feels like the home stretch as we have less than 600 miles to Oahu. I'm anticipating two days of close reaching in 15-20 which should produce good speed. We still have to negotiate the wind shadow to the west of the big island which will probably necessitate some motoring again, then the final reach into Honolulu.
