Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Arrival at Fatu Hiva
Our final week at sea was frustrating — we had been averaging 136 miles a day and all of a sudden the wind dropped and we did 101 one day and 116 the next—gone were our hopes of a Tuesday arrival and now we had to slow down so we did not get in until dawn on Wednesday. Oh well what is one more night!! We did lose the wind totally on our last night so ran the engines and recharged our batteries.
Twenty two days after departing the Galapagos we saw the island as the sun rose and could actually smell the earth!! Quite a thrill and as this very small mountainous island arose from the sea we motored around into an idyllic bay which has the reputation of being one of the most beautiful in the Marquesas. The bay is sheltered and hills go straight up from the village with wonderful craggy rock formations.
This is by far the most beautiful place we have sailed and even Cutty Wren who had the crossing from hell has been able to justify it.
We are here with them and a number of boats we had met in the Galapagos and a number of European boats—they outnumber the US boats now.
Que Barbara—another catamaran hosted a harbour happy hour our first night, reminiscent of Mexico --the social groupie thing-- and a lot of fun.
We spent the first day cleaning the tarry substance which has attached itself to the boat—we had thought the open ocean was clean but unfortunately it is not—it is really hard to get off--we still have outside of one hull to finish-- and sleeping.
The next day we went ashore to try and restock our fresh fruit and vegs. You trade for everything and US dollars are not desired in any way. The hottest small trade item is perfume!! I had opted to buy lipstick and nail polish which although acceptable seems to be what everyone else has brought. You just wander up and ask where to “exchanger fruit” or they will just offer as you walk the streets. They are very good at it and although you get a lot of bananas (way too many--banana bread again!!), limes, oranges, papayas and the best of all the HUGE super sweet grapefruit they have managed to get several nail polishes, lipsticks shirts and ball caps. They all trade a little so you end up trading with lots of different people hence the quantities of trade products--I have to remind myself I only paid 50c for the nail polish and$1 for the lipstick it is just that my trading supply is diminishing. There are no vegs on the island but we are enjoying the fruit. I think in the Tuamotus that will diminish as they are just coral atolls and will not be green and fertile like here.
One of the choice trading items has turned out to be the extra jerry cans we bought for $15 in the Galapagos when we bought our extra fuel for this passage and now that the fuel is $7-$9 we will not replace it. As we walk down the street carrying one every man will stop and offer us whatever he has. We have learned to be very frugal with these—no fruit-- and traded one for a tapa—the local craft which had a sell price on for $45 so got a deal with the jerry can. Rum is also valued so will use that for chicken or fish.
Ken wore his fake rolex which he had paid about $45 in China in as he knew that as soon as someone saw it they would want it. Sure enough a man we had been trading for fruit the day before saw it and wanted it. We got two lovely carvings which are worth about $100 each. We tried to tell him not to take it swimming but as it says on the face it is waterproof they were insistent they could so hope it lasts more than one swim!!!!
We are not officially here as this island is not a “port of entry” but if you do not find the local policeman you can stay for 5-6 days and then go on to Hanamoenoa Bay on Tahuatu where you can buy another few days as you are only allowed 90 days in French Polynesia your 90 days becomes100.
We are on our way to the second anchorage now and will do an overnight to Nuku Hiva on Sunday night and check in on Monday when we meet up with Ashley and Aaron.
One highlight was to go with a group of 16 of us--arranged at Que Barbara's happy hour--to Kathy's restaurant for dinner. It was $25--she takes $$$--and you get a pile of food and they play their guitars and sing and the atmosphere was well worth the money. A must do she will cook for up to 16 cruisers.
We went for several hikes in the beautiful lush valley. The flowers are beautiful--the frangipanis at night have a pervasive smell which is wonderful and the sunsets are incredible. One hike took us up to the top after a couple of hours and the view is lovely.
Aaron and Ashley are now in the air coming to join us—I had a last minute SOS to Ashley to get some perfume samples from the Bay and Sears as well as some more lipstick from the dollar store and apparently she got 25 free perfume samples—what a way to a future mother in law’s heart!!!!—lots of brownie points for that effort!!!
Hope you are having some warm weather--it is around 28C here and the nights are cool and the sea warm--what more could you ask for?
I will post photos whenever we find an internet—so far Kristen is putting these on from my sat phone email connection.
Au revoir---oh the French is sooooo dificult after so long in Spanish!!!! My two word sentences have one spanish word and one french!!!
Twenty two days after departing the Galapagos we saw the island as the sun rose and could actually smell the earth!! Quite a thrill and as this very small mountainous island arose from the sea we motored around into an idyllic bay which has the reputation of being one of the most beautiful in the Marquesas. The bay is sheltered and hills go straight up from the village with wonderful craggy rock formations.
This is by far the most beautiful place we have sailed and even Cutty Wren who had the crossing from hell has been able to justify it.
We are here with them and a number of boats we had met in the Galapagos and a number of European boats—they outnumber the US boats now.
Que Barbara—another catamaran hosted a harbour happy hour our first night, reminiscent of Mexico --the social groupie thing-- and a lot of fun.
We spent the first day cleaning the tarry substance which has attached itself to the boat—we had thought the open ocean was clean but unfortunately it is not—it is really hard to get off--we still have outside of one hull to finish-- and sleeping.
The next day we went ashore to try and restock our fresh fruit and vegs. You trade for everything and US dollars are not desired in any way. The hottest small trade item is perfume!! I had opted to buy lipstick and nail polish which although acceptable seems to be what everyone else has brought. You just wander up and ask where to “exchanger fruit” or they will just offer as you walk the streets. They are very good at it and although you get a lot of bananas (way too many--banana bread again!!), limes, oranges, papayas and the best of all the HUGE super sweet grapefruit they have managed to get several nail polishes, lipsticks shirts and ball caps. They all trade a little so you end up trading with lots of different people hence the quantities of trade products--I have to remind myself I only paid 50c for the nail polish and$1 for the lipstick it is just that my trading supply is diminishing. There are no vegs on the island but we are enjoying the fruit. I think in the Tuamotus that will diminish as they are just coral atolls and will not be green and fertile like here.
One of the choice trading items has turned out to be the extra jerry cans we bought for $15 in the Galapagos when we bought our extra fuel for this passage and now that the fuel is $7-$9 we will not replace it. As we walk down the street carrying one every man will stop and offer us whatever he has. We have learned to be very frugal with these—no fruit-- and traded one for a tapa—the local craft which had a sell price on for $45 so got a deal with the jerry can. Rum is also valued so will use that for chicken or fish.
Ken wore his fake rolex which he had paid about $45 in China in as he knew that as soon as someone saw it they would want it. Sure enough a man we had been trading for fruit the day before saw it and wanted it. We got two lovely carvings which are worth about $100 each. We tried to tell him not to take it swimming but as it says on the face it is waterproof they were insistent they could so hope it lasts more than one swim!!!!
We are not officially here as this island is not a “port of entry” but if you do not find the local policeman you can stay for 5-6 days and then go on to Hanamoenoa Bay on Tahuatu where you can buy another few days as you are only allowed 90 days in French Polynesia your 90 days becomes100.
We are on our way to the second anchorage now and will do an overnight to Nuku Hiva on Sunday night and check in on Monday when we meet up with Ashley and Aaron.
One highlight was to go with a group of 16 of us--arranged at Que Barbara's happy hour--to Kathy's restaurant for dinner. It was $25--she takes $$$--and you get a pile of food and they play their guitars and sing and the atmosphere was well worth the money. A must do she will cook for up to 16 cruisers.
We went for several hikes in the beautiful lush valley. The flowers are beautiful--the frangipanis at night have a pervasive smell which is wonderful and the sunsets are incredible. One hike took us up to the top after a couple of hours and the view is lovely.
Aaron and Ashley are now in the air coming to join us—I had a last minute SOS to Ashley to get some perfume samples from the Bay and Sears as well as some more lipstick from the dollar store and apparently she got 25 free perfume samples—what a way to a future mother in law’s heart!!!!—lots of brownie points for that effort!!!
Hope you are having some warm weather--it is around 28C here and the nights are cool and the sea warm--what more could you ask for?
I will post photos whenever we find an internet—so far Kristen is putting these on from my sat phone email connection.
Au revoir---oh the French is sooooo dificult after so long in Spanish!!!! My two word sentences have one spanish word and one french!!!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Near collision in the Pacific
I was asleep last night and was awakened by Ken talking—in my half awake stupor –to himself?? Or did we have someone who had dropped by??
We had been sailing wing on wing (where you have your main sail out to one side and your front sail out the other—you need to be sailing straight downwind so you don’t’ backwind one of the sails) as night fell we had seen a light of another boat. We had only seen 2 vessels in the previous 15 days. As the night wore on it became obvious to Ken—I was not awake—that it was on a collision course. We had made sure we were well lit up and he called us on the radio. He was on a southerly course and we were on a westerly—Ken was tracking him on the radar and they talked as the other boat turned and went behind us 1/10 of a mile behind us. It is amazing how difficult it is on a dark night with no moon and no radar (he did not have one, but luckily we do) to estimate whether you are far enough away when you change your course to pass.
What a coincidence that we should have a near collision in the middle of the ocean. The name of the vessel was Spectacle and it certainly would have been all of that!!! We have been wondering how we come up with pictures of our crossing—lots of ocean and sunsets—that would have given us another topic!!
They had hit a weather buoy a couple of days earlier—these are huge structures 7 feet wide and weigh 500lb. Apparently they are padded and they were sailing full speed but slid off the side of it. We dread to think of it ending up between our amahs under our catamaran—it is a shipping hazard one doesn’t think about—we would have a permanent anchorage—we do have a list of locations of some but boats seem to be finding them elsewhere. They are meant to be lit but I am not sure of the maintenance schedules. We did hear the location of one on the SSB radio which was 10 miles from us one morning but never saw it.
Next entry, bar new excitement will be from Fatu Hiva.
We had been sailing wing on wing (where you have your main sail out to one side and your front sail out the other—you need to be sailing straight downwind so you don’t’ backwind one of the sails) as night fell we had seen a light of another boat. We had only seen 2 vessels in the previous 15 days. As the night wore on it became obvious to Ken—I was not awake—that it was on a collision course. We had made sure we were well lit up and he called us on the radio. He was on a southerly course and we were on a westerly—Ken was tracking him on the radar and they talked as the other boat turned and went behind us 1/10 of a mile behind us. It is amazing how difficult it is on a dark night with no moon and no radar (he did not have one, but luckily we do) to estimate whether you are far enough away when you change your course to pass.
What a coincidence that we should have a near collision in the middle of the ocean. The name of the vessel was Spectacle and it certainly would have been all of that!!! We have been wondering how we come up with pictures of our crossing—lots of ocean and sunsets—that would have given us another topic!!
They had hit a weather buoy a couple of days earlier—these are huge structures 7 feet wide and weigh 500lb. Apparently they are padded and they were sailing full speed but slid off the side of it. We dread to think of it ending up between our amahs under our catamaran—it is a shipping hazard one doesn’t think about—we would have a permanent anchorage—we do have a list of locations of some but boats seem to be finding them elsewhere. They are meant to be lit but I am not sure of the maintenance schedules. We did hear the location of one on the SSB radio which was 10 miles from us one morning but never saw it.
Next entry, bar new excitement will be from Fatu Hiva.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Half Way There!
Well here we are at day 14 of our crossing and all is well. We are at S08 40 and W121 12 and are on a heading of 256 degrees which in theory in 1039 miles will have us arrive at Fatu Hiva on Tuesday of next week unless the winds get too light and it will take us another day.
Now that we have accepted the actualities of this passage we have got into a rhythm of managing the watches and sleeping whenever we can. The time goes by easier than I had anticipated—enjoying reading lots of books, doing sudokus and we have a daily scrabble game. Those combined with our efforts to diagnose the best point of sail to cope with the light and easterly winds—involves raising, lowering and letting out and pulling in the sails. Then putting up and bringing down the spinnaker all which takes time and effort—we are still looking for the passage where you do not change the sails for days but perhaps would be bored.
We had a great couple of days when the winds turned a little and came from the SE which boosted our westward progress a lot but they have returned eastward and lightened up, we are hoping they will strengthen again. We have had squalls at night where they were up to 31K. Our friends on Cutty Wren who are 450 miles ahead got winds of 40K in a squall the other night which we are hoping will have moved on before we get there. We have never had anything more than 30-35 which we decided was enough---20-22K for our boat is the optimum. We are talking to boats both ahead and behind us on the radio daily and learn from those ahead and give advise to those behind.
We bought a lot of extra jerry cans with fuel--$1 05 a gallon in the Galapagos as opposed to $7 in the Marquesas—but as we have had good winds we have not needed to motor and so are a very heavy catamaran. The cardinal rule of catamarans is not to overload it but we already had broken that rule when we left Canada and have now compounded it. Another catamaran ahead of us had done the same and then found they were bow heavy and too slow so they just motor sailed like crazy for a week till they burned up the extra fuel. They were then lighter and sailed the rest of the way and got to the Marquesas in 14 days. We will take the extra time, be heavy and hopefully will get to Tonga or beyond with our fuel.
We see flying fish on a regular basis, they are very cool. They are in schools and will fly through the air for hundreds of feet, often landing on our deck. Ken cooked some but they are too small and bony so will await the squid which we prefer. He caught a 3 foot dorado ((mahi mahi) yesterday so that was a nice treat for supper. Our freezer had emptied somewhat so had room to freeze the rest. We are down to potatoes, onions, garlic lemons and a pathetic looking cabbage and are starting on the canned stuff. Yes the Bimbo bread is still surviving, although we are at the last loaf so will not be able to do the 4 week test and the eggs are still OK.
All in all it is not painful and besides the alternative could be that we had to go to work and cope with snow.
Hopefully when I update this next week we will be looking at palm trees and sandy beaches.
Now that we have accepted the actualities of this passage we have got into a rhythm of managing the watches and sleeping whenever we can. The time goes by easier than I had anticipated—enjoying reading lots of books, doing sudokus and we have a daily scrabble game. Those combined with our efforts to diagnose the best point of sail to cope with the light and easterly winds—involves raising, lowering and letting out and pulling in the sails. Then putting up and bringing down the spinnaker all which takes time and effort—we are still looking for the passage where you do not change the sails for days but perhaps would be bored.
We had a great couple of days when the winds turned a little and came from the SE which boosted our westward progress a lot but they have returned eastward and lightened up, we are hoping they will strengthen again. We have had squalls at night where they were up to 31K. Our friends on Cutty Wren who are 450 miles ahead got winds of 40K in a squall the other night which we are hoping will have moved on before we get there. We have never had anything more than 30-35 which we decided was enough---20-22K for our boat is the optimum. We are talking to boats both ahead and behind us on the radio daily and learn from those ahead and give advise to those behind.
We bought a lot of extra jerry cans with fuel--$1 05 a gallon in the Galapagos as opposed to $7 in the Marquesas—but as we have had good winds we have not needed to motor and so are a very heavy catamaran. The cardinal rule of catamarans is not to overload it but we already had broken that rule when we left Canada and have now compounded it. Another catamaran ahead of us had done the same and then found they were bow heavy and too slow so they just motor sailed like crazy for a week till they burned up the extra fuel. They were then lighter and sailed the rest of the way and got to the Marquesas in 14 days. We will take the extra time, be heavy and hopefully will get to Tonga or beyond with our fuel.
We see flying fish on a regular basis, they are very cool. They are in schools and will fly through the air for hundreds of feet, often landing on our deck. Ken cooked some but they are too small and bony so will await the squid which we prefer. He caught a 3 foot dorado ((mahi mahi) yesterday so that was a nice treat for supper. Our freezer had emptied somewhat so had room to freeze the rest. We are down to potatoes, onions, garlic lemons and a pathetic looking cabbage and are starting on the canned stuff. Yes the Bimbo bread is still surviving, although we are at the last loaf so will not be able to do the 4 week test and the eggs are still OK.
All in all it is not painful and besides the alternative could be that we had to go to work and cope with snow.
Hopefully when I update this next week we will be looking at palm trees and sandy beaches.
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