The Timeless Blue Bubble of Maddie Zug and Jeremy Snyder
Almost exactly one year since we cut the dock lines in Berkeley and started full-time cruising, we left La Cruz, Mexico, and pointed the bow toward French Polynesia. Even though our Tayana 42 Tardigrade was kitted out and provisioned, our stomachs churned with nerves and anticipation as we bashed out of Banderas Bay under a glowing sunset.
In the past year, we’d sailed from San Francisco to British Columbia, cruised the Pacific Northwest, and returned south to Mexico. With our longest passage yet having been just five days, the jump to a multi-week, 3,000-mile crossing felt big, but it was something we were eager to experience.
Our first couple of days passed in a sapphire rush. We had near-perfect sailing, 10–15 knots, 60 degrees off starboard. With all three sails up, Tardigrade galloped forward, chewing through miles as we approached Isla Socorro, the last land we would see for the next three weeks.
We struggled at first to relax into the stillness, our internal flywheels still spinning from the intense months of prep in La Cruz. Jeremy channeled his energy into little tasks like splicing several dozen Dyneema soft shackles. Evidently he wasn’t replacing the metal fixtures fast enough, because on the third day we heard a loud BANG as the boom vang snapped clean off its padeye. We fixed it by Dyneema-lashing it to the mast base, with a WhatsApp consultation from our buddy boat Dogfish.
Despite the stress of the first breakage, we felt the ocean was being kind to us with a relatively easy fix and a playful pod of speckled dolphins at our bow that evening. By week’s end, we’d settled into our watch rhythm: three- and four-hour shifts from 8 p.m. to 10 a.m. Jeremy liked his night-owl time, meditating, writing, and winding down. I loved mornings making tea and watching the sun rise. We both liked the “bonus” time on midnight watches, feeling like kids reading under the covers with a flashlight.
Deeper into the northern trades, clear skies gave way to puffy cumulus. One night we realized the four-star constellation dead ahead was the Southern Cross, a small, stellar signpost of our progress that made us feel connected to seafaring traditions spanning millennia.