Our passage to Male was scheduled to be 36 hours if we sailed at our usual average speed of 5.0 knots. This means, if we leave in the morning, we will arrive exactly at night the next day - a result no one wants. We try not to arrive in an unfamiliar harbor at night, especially one that is laden with coral bommies and less than perfectly accurate charts.

So, the day after our BBQ rescue mission, we spent the morning tying up loose gas cans, folding up and stowing Grin on the foreword deck, checking and rechecking rigging that has not really been strained for months now, and making sure all the lines (ropes) leading to various sail positions are ready to go to sea. I tucked everything away down below, and then we were sea ready. At exactly 5:00 p.m., we raise anchor again and sail quietly away from the atoll we’ve called home for three full months. I try to comply with the sailor’s superstition, “never look back at port upon departure,” but rarely succeed. This time being no different.

It’s my watch first. Andrew instructs me on the plan: due west for the next three hours, turning South around 10:30 p.m. Then, we will thread Sonrisa through a channel of atolls dotting the ocean around us. “Just try to keep it around 4.0 knots.” Andrew says, “If we go too fast, we will reach Male too early. We don’t want to arrive before sun up the day after tomorrow.”

I feel fairly confident we will stay well below 4.0 knots, as we have put in a triple reef on our main sail despite having perfect winds. (This means we hoist only about 1/3 of the sail, putting less sail area up to catch wind and drive us forward.) As we make our westward ground, Sonrisa is leaning over to her side and keeping a reasonable average between 4.0 and 5.0 knots. No problems there.

The ocean swell is huge, probably fifteen feet tall at the largest wave height, but the swell is far enough apart that it isn’t scary. We ride up the back side of a wave like a child coasting up a hill on his bicycle, only to turn our bow down the other side. Steel Sapphire sails on just ahead of us. Sometimes all fifty feet of her disappears completely in the trough of waves. I sit in the cockpit nestled into my grey beanbag warmed and soothed by the rocking motion, a cool breeze, and the last rays of evening sun on my face.

A few hours later, a yellow moon rise peeks over the horizon and it was time for me to turn further South. We all breathe a sigh of comfort as Sonrisa relaxes back to the center of her hull. It’s more comfortable still, as we slip between atolls that start to block the Indian Ocean swell. I lower the glow of the GPS screen and sit on Sonrisa’s cockpit combing so I can look out a head and enjoy the stars, the moon, the phosphorescence glowing in Sonrisa’s rolloping bow wake...

Rolloping bow wake!

“Sonrisa! How fast are you going?” I tuck my head back under the Bimini and squint at the low lit GPS. “Seven knots!”

Sonrisa gives me a shrug, but keeps on sailing. I roll in her large forward headsail and replace it with the tiny jib. She seems to settle a little, and I return to my perch and admire the Southern cross pointing my path forward. I am not listening to music, reading a book, or doing anything else to distract me, and yet, an hour speeds by without me realizing it. I check my heading and our speed....Seven knots

“Again, Sonrisa?!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it! The wind is soooooo gooooood! And there aren’t any waves to pester me.”

“We have to slow down.”

“I don’t think we do.” Sonrisa says, “I don’t see why.”

“You don’t want to enter port at night, do you?”

“No, but we could just hurry even faster. Shake out those reefs, you ninny!” Sonrisa chides me, but I do not take the bait.

“Stop the crazy talk. We need at least a couple hours to make our way through the inside of the atoll, find the anchorage, and have the agents show us where they want us to float. We can’t just rock up to the atoll right before sunset.”

Sonrisa pouts, and I roll in some of the jib which seems a bit ridiculous because the jib is already so small. “There.” I think, and return to my look-out only to find Sonrisa speeding up anytime she thinks she can get away with it. Steel Sapphire’s navigation lights have receded behind us like Venus setting on the horizon.

“Sonrisa, really, be reasonable.” I tell her at one point. To which she very clearly says she won’t.

Around 1:30 a.m., I’m sleepy and my responsibilities are over, so I slunk down the companionway to wake Andrew for his turn. Once he is vertical, and his eyes look somewhat cognizant, I report on the weather, the ship traffic, Steel Sapphire’s relative location.

“...and Sonrisa refuses to slow down.”

“She refuses to slow down?”

“Yes, I’m down to a triple reefed main, and a reefed jib. The only thing left to do is run bare poles or put out the drogue. Andrew takes this news on the chin as he loops his arms through his harness straps. “Be safe, see you in the morning.”

“Get some good sleep,” he tells me.

It’s such a comfortable and lovely night, that I fall immediately to sleep in the crew berth only to wake with the sun already rising. I peek up and out, asking Andrew how it’s going.

“Too fast,” Andrew says at the same time Sonrisa declares “It’s perfect out here!”

“Mmm, yes. Much the same as last night.” Banking on the bet that a lull always happens, we continue sailing through the day until by around 1:00 p.m., we realize if we don’t do something, we will arrive at the outside of the atoll at midnight.

“All right, Sonrisa, that’s it. No more fooling around, we have to hove-to.”

We get asked all the time “How do you stop a sailboat at sea? You can’t anchor where it’s thousands of feet deep, can you?”

The answer is no. We can’t anchor. But we can hove-to!

“Grraahhuguuuughhhhh!” Sonrisa grumbles as I swing her helm around and guide her bow through the wind. I leave the jib sail secured on the side was already on while I let the main sail switch. I play with the helm, finding just the right spot where the rudder and the two sails are all fighting each other. Instead of moving forward, we begin to scuttle sideways at the blistering speed of less than 1.0 knot. The benefit is we ride along comfortably, rather than rolling and swinging back and forth in the waves.

“There.” I say, “now we can float here for a while.”

When we finally release Sonrisa’s lines and set her sails to “Go” again, the sun has fallen and I’m starting my night watch again. The moon is an hour later rising, and in the time before it comes to life the stars fill the sky horizon to horizon. I relax in Sonrisa’s cockpit, the tropical breeze kissing my skin neither too hot nor too cold. If I didn't stop to think about it, the softness of the equilibrium would escape notice. This is some of the best sailing I’ve ever done in my life.

The bitter sweetness of it all overtakes me. Passage making, for me, gets better with momentum. It takes me a few days, even a few separate trips to get into the rhythm, shake off my nerves, get my sleep schedule right so that I can enjoy the ocean. We spent all of last year stopped, waiting, working on Sonrisa's keel in Langkawi, Malaysia. I lost so much sailing momentum and, I was looking forward to this year of movement across the Indian Ocean. On a night like this, it feels like blasphemy to say, but sometimes I hate being at sea! Sometimes, the rolling, bouncing, fatigue, seasickness, fear of what could happen - all becomes unpleasant and I don't enjoy it. Yet, as I sit here tonight keeping Sonrisa company under these millions of stars I know I would be sad if you told me I would never do a long haul passage ever again.

I hear Katherine Hepburn give me a “merp" from down below, and I stick my head down to invite her to join me. She has settled herself on the top stair, and this is why I had to install a more permanent reminder: Do NOT step on the cat.

“This is a terrible place to sit, Little Cat.” I tell her as I sit with her for a moment while she nuzzles my ankles. “Do you want to come up? It’s a nice night out here.”

She pokes her ears above the door frame to decide whether it's safe enough to come up. She deems it safe, so she climbs up on to the cabin top and settles in on her blanket beneath the dodger. I nestle the beanbag within arms reach of her, and she lays her chin on her paws to purr while I scratch her ears.

“It's a very nice sailing night tonight, Little Cat."

She purrs.

As I relax and enjoy, Sonrisa does, too. Tonight, she's not racing along, but instead meandering along a trail of wake bubbles. They gurgle and fizz as we slide along at four knots, then three.

“Have you decided to slow down, then, Sonrisa?"

She sighs. “It's such a nice night, I don't want this passage to be over too soon. I’m not sure when we will get another one like it...if we will get another one like it.”