We bought a small LCD monitor before we left Seattle with the intention of installing it into the nav station. It's been packed away this whole time until last night when Matt rigged it up so we could watch movies in the cockpit. Something in his Seattle blood compels him to watch movies outside after the solstice. We popped some corn and were watching a bootleg 007 shortly after sunset while Earl took care of the driving.
The fish were on us like stink on rice today. I caught a dorado around 1000 this morning. As I was cooking up our mahi-mahi lunch Matt caught a nice wahoo. I had just finished filleting the wahoo when Matt caught about a 20lb yellowfin tuna. This last one was kind of an accident. The lure we were using has an extra long leader so when it's reeled up to the swivel the lure is still in the water right next to the boat. Generally fish won't strike at anything that close but today they were practically trying to jump into the cockpit. We let the tuna go. Hopefully he'll be around tomorrow.
I think we've done more work sailing the boat in the last 400 miles or so than the previous couple thousand. Matt had a helluva time last night. The wind has been all over the place, mostly coming from the direction we want to go, with varying strength. Our track looks like we're sailing across Charlie Brown's shirt. The good news is that the seas are relatively mild and we've caught a couple fish. Jeff caught a nice jack a couple days ago and made some killer burgers out of it and I caught a little dorado just now using the patented McNeese "treble hook through the top of the head" technique. We'll take them any way we can get them.
I had an interesting evening. For my 8pm to 11pm watch I barely sat down for 20 minutes of it. It was blowing pretty good. We have no anemometer, so we just go by how scared we are for wind speed.
First I double reefed the main, which went as smooth as can be in the dark with the boat pitching and plowing into the waves. Next I go to take the big jib down. In trying to do that, either a sheet or the furling line must have gotten tangled up in the upper lifeline, because I heard a snap and when I looked forward the lifeline was just dangling there. No big deal, not a mission critical item. I resume rolling up the jib. I'm cranking it in pretty hard but could only get a fraction of it rolled up. So I cleated the furling line off and went forward. Don't worry, I was all lifejacketed and clipped in. As I worked my way forward, I didn't find any places the furling line was bound up until I reached the drum. The whole thing was a giant rats nest. Ugly. Back to the cockpit to let the furling line loose. Back to the bow to see if I could untangle the mess easily while it was all still inside the drum. No good. Back to the cockpit to untie the figure 8 knot that keeps the furling line from getting pulled through the blocks and out of reach of the cockpit. That done, back forward again. Wrap by wrap I worked the line out of the drum. Picture me straddling the anchor rollers and the bow getting stuffed into about every 10th wave. So I'm soaked from the waist down in addition to catching spray in the face pretty regularly. It's not too bad though the water must be 80 degrees and I could use a bath anyway. So wrap by wrap I get the line all the way out so I can get to the knot at the end. That little process must have taken a half an hour easily. I retie the furling line on the outside of the drum and started wrapping it back around so when I pull on it the jib will roll itself up into a little sausage. Same as getting the rats nest out, just in reverse. Wrap by wrap, making sure I leave just enough to lead back to the cockpit and get around the winch we use to roll the jib up. On my way back to the cockpit I feed the line through each of the blocks, half a dozen or so. Mind you this is on the same side as the broken lifeline and also happens to be the leeward side as well. So the boat is leaning towards the water, rail almost buried and I can't grab the lifeline for support. I work slowly, and get the line routed where it should be and back to the cockpit. Try number 3 for rolling up the jib. This time it works, whew. Back forward to untie and hoist the staysail to balance out the main.
I think everything is done, but the wind dies down. Now we're barely making 3 knots. That wont do. Back forward to take the reefs out of the main. I spend the next 20 minutes trimming sails and fooling with the wind steering to get us back on course at our best possible speed. Did I mention it was dark the whole time? Just another relaxing evening sailing in the tropics...
3 days out of Rarotonga and all is well. Went forward around noon today to drop the staysail. During this I noticed some sort of animal swimming with out boat near the bow. At first I thought it was a baby dolphin, and after I saw a few more I figured this was the case as we've never seen a young dolphin alone before. As i kept looking though they looked to chubby and had vertical tails, definitely not a dolphin. Second guess was penguin. But it's a little warm for penguins I think. Also they weren't a solid color but sort of iridescent. Purple, blue, ect. I yelled for Jeff and Casey to get up on deck and see the purple pernguins. Just as luck would have it, they were no where to be seen bye the time they came up to the bow. But they came back and turned out to be tuna. Not sure exactly which type, but tuna nonetheless. Pretty amazing to see tuna swimming with your boat on the surface. I wonder how often that happens. After taking a bunch of pictures, Jeff and I had both poles out trying to catch one. We thought about getting the spear gun out but thought that would be a little much. Still, would have been pretty cool to harpoon a tuna from a moving boat. Nevermind. As I type Jeff is taking our hawaiian sling and taping it to our broken oar to make a harpoon. This should be interesting.
The beginning of June is a tough time of year for me. The end of May is my birthday, which coincides with the anniversary of my brother getting a heart transplant back in 1997. Although that is a stressful memory it is a very good one. Then the 13th of June is the anniversary of his death in 2004, which is not such a good memory. So every year there is this emotional mountain to climb and then I usually go into a semi self destructive free fall for a few days and then come out of it. Most likely not an entirely healthy cycle, but it seems to be working so far. On the 13th I found myself with a bunch of really fun people at a really cool bar. There were New Zealanders, Australians, Irish(ians?), English, and even a Scot. The beer was cheap, the music was loud, the stars were out, and I could just imagine Christopher sitting next to me with a big Steinlager waxing philosophically about some crazy shit he learned in his Liberal Arts education. Despite the day, it was a good moment and I don't know where I will be next year, but I hope it is someplace that Christopher would enjoy as much as Rarotonga.
We left Rarotonga yesterday for Tonga. In hindsight, our week on Rarotonga was filled with some pretty miserable boating. A gust came through, causing us to drag our anchor and nearly hit our neighbors and the quay so we had to row out the secondary anchor in the dinghy. The Houdinghy escaped twice. Once it made it all the way over to the local fishing boats before being captured by the neighbor kids. Then the constant swell in the bay made sleeping uncomfortable and getting from the boat to the quay treacherous. Finally, on the way out yesterday our secondary anchor was fouled on another boat's chain. But all these little discomforts were overshadowed by how much we had there. Meeting new cruisers and locals, watching the islander dance show, closing down the pubs and playing poker until 5am. On top of that there were all the friendly and laid back Kiwis, Aussies, and Cook Islanders. I already miss the place. Tonga sounds cool though. Supposedly there are a bunch of little uninhabited islands there were we can go re-enact Lord of the Flies. I hope I don't have to be Piggy this time.
8am after the poker game, less than 4 hours since Matt and Jeff turned in, and we wake up to two guys with clipboards tenaciously rapping on our hull. I'm still not sure who they were exactly. They asked us some questions, laughed at the carnage of dead liquor bottles littering the galley, gave us some official looking piece of paper, charged us $20 NZ and a pack of smokes, told us we could take down our Q flag and left. Then we all went back to sleep until 2 in the afternoon. You never want to start a Monday too fast, good way to get hurt.
A little after 5, Jade came by to take us to a BBQ at her house. "Us" in this case included the gang from Bingo, Tom, George, and Nick from Shambahla, and of course all the Sohcahtoans, "us" proper. Jade has a great house with a big covered patio with these glass doors that fold away and make it seem like one big outdoor living room. We were all in awe of Jade's hospitality, inviting 9 foreigners (5 Americans, 3 Englishmen, and 1 Aussie) that she had just met over to her house for a bbq on a Monday night. Thanks again Jade. After the barbi Brian (B-dub) from Bingo and Tom came over for another friendly game of poker. I wasn't so lucky this time. Rarotonga is wearing me out but it's so much fun.
We arrived in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands yesterday. The passage from Bora Bora took just under 4 days. We had winds up to 25kts and sailed almost the whole way under a double-reefed main and staysail alone. The start of the trip was kinda rough with very confused seas that made me mouth-watering nauseous and made it tough to stay in a bunk for a solid two days. The plus side was that we didn't have to make a sail change or touch the windvane during that time and we were steadily cranking out 6-7kts. I'll trade comfortable seas for that kind of wind any day.
We Med moored at the quay in Avatiu harbor with the help of Demerrit off Bingo. After getting settled, we walked through town a bit but pretty much everything was closed since it was Sunday. We were able to get some Cokes, ice, and fried chicken though. Then we invited Brian, Demerrit, and his girlfriend Claire over for drinks. After a couple drinks we decided to play some poker and invited Tom and George, a couple of English guys off a boat named Shambahla, to join us. They brought their friend Jade, a kiwi who recently moved to Rarotonga, and next thing you know we had a full blown party on the Sohcahtoa. By the way, your humble narrator here ended up winning the poker game.
Before we left Puerto Vallarta we were docked next to Greg, Liz, and Steve on the Matador, really nice folks from California. They told us to look for a boat named Bingo that was also headed to the South Pacific. Well, we ran into them in the Bora Bora Yacht Club two days ago. There's two guys our age on the boat with basically the same schedule to Australia. Yesterday we swapped books and DVDs with them and also negotiated a trade for their ice maker. Yes, you read it correctly, we now have an ice maker on board. It's kind of bulky and not the most efficient thing but it's FREAKIN ICE in the FREAKIN SOUTH PACIFIC. We now have the ability to chill our Tang.This morning Jeff and I went out to this shallow spot near the reef with the guys from Bingo and fed Stingrays. The resorts have little tour boats that they bring the tourists out in and they feed them. We just waited for the tour boats to go away and drove in with the Duchess and a can of mackerel. The water was only about waist deep and as soon as we jumped in about 8 or 10 rays mobbed us looking for food. I'd guess they were 2-3ft across so it was spooky at first as they're swimming all around us, brushing by our legs and occasionally swimming right up to waist level looking for a handout. Coolest panhandlers ever.
Okay, seriously we've got to be out of here by Tuesday. We checked out of the country on Thursday so theoretically we should have been gone by Friday but government officials don't work weekends here and as per usual, some French holiday makes this a three day weekend. In short, we've got to be gone by Tuesday. In the meantime, the weather is back to tropical paradise conditions and we've been having more fun than a barrel of drunken monkeys.We went on a night dive in the lagoon a few days ago. The sea urchins had there needles stretched way out and were moving all over the place along with sea cucumbers and other things that are still during the day. The next day we did and afternoon dive in the same place and saw several spotted eagle rays. In addition to the great diving, Jeff's cousin Steve showed up a couple days ago. Him and his partner Gary have been vacationing here since shortly after the first Polynesians arrived. Also, they're travel agents so they have more knowledge about Bora Bora and French Polynesia than anyone I've met. So, for the past couple days they've been giving us the inside scoop about the island, shuttling us to the grocery store in their rental car, and feeding us. Oh yeah, did I mention that this is the same cousin who donated the famed Duchess to our cause? It was originally their dinghy for years and years up in the Northwest and now here we are giving rides around the lagoon in Bora Bora in the same little boat. Last night we all went to the Miss Bora Bora competition along with everyone else on the island. This was my first beauty pageant and wasn't really what I expected. For instance, I hadn't expected the free Hinano beer that came with admission, a pleasant surprise. I also expected speeches from the contestants or a talent competition but instead there were 7 beautiful women shaking their hips in various costumes while the crowd expressed approval through cat calls and wolf whistles, another pleasant surprise. Eventually the seats were too hard and the time between costume changes were too long so we left before a winner was crowned. I wasn't too concerned with the winner but I wouldn't have minded sticking around to console on the losers.
Haven't sent an update in a while but we're still here in Bora Bora. We've been moored at the Bora Bora Yacht Club for several days now working on the boat. Nothing major, she just needed some TLC after 3000 some miles of sailing. We did celebrate Jeff's birthday at the yacht club restaurant with some cold beers and steak dinners. Today we did a couple dives this morning. They were both amazing. There's so much sea life here it's amazing. I saw black-tip sharks, a lion fish, a couple different kinds of jack and trigger fish, but the most impressive was a couple of lemon sharks. I kinda thought I was accustomed to diving with sharks but these guys were bigger than anything I'd seen before, probably 8 or 9ft and a lot more menacing looking. Tonight we're going for a night dive, another first for me. We have another dive tomorrow afternoon and then we should be headed for the Cook Islands this weekend. It'll be nice to get out of here. This island is hard on the pocket book.
It's been raining on us lately and a lot more than just the little squalls we've seen. Our one night on Raiatea it rained buckets all night, close to 5 inches by morning. The next day we headed to Tahaa where we grabbed a mooring ball provided by the Hibiscus Hotel/Restaurant/Turtle Hatchery. It wasn't raining as bad but still intermittent showers so we went into the restaurant, played Sorry and enjoyed some cold drinks. The next day we headed for Bora Bora and the weather was great. Once inside the lagoon in Bora Bora we stopped at the gas dock, fueled up and dropped Jeff and Christina off so they could make it to their hotel. Matt and I grabbed a mooring ball at Bloody Mary's Yacht Club. The Yacht Club is just a few mooring balls and a dock with access to Bloody Mary's Restaurant. We planned on going in for dinner at the restaurant but were dissuaded by prices. Instead we walked the 6 kilometers to the town of Vaitape looking for an affordable restaurant, apparently that's an oxymoron on Bora Bora. We settled for frozen pizzas and an assortment of junk food from the grocery story and took a cab back. Yesterday morning we headed over to the west side of Motu Toopua which is in the southwest corner of the lagoon. This looked like a nice anchorage with good snorkeling nearby and shelter from the prevailing south-easterlies. Around midnight last night we started getting hit with a solid blow out of the northwest. Spent the rest of the night watching the leeward shore, trying to determine if it was getting closer and verifying my suspicions on the GPS. We drug anchor a little but stayed safely off the dirt. Things were finally calming down around 730 this morning and I was looking forward to some Z's when I heard someone hollering at us from a nearby boat. Our dragging anchor had put us about 50ft from a mooring belonging to the neighboring resort and they needed to tie a boat to it so, we pulled hook and headed out. The up side is that I don't have to go to work today and it's still cloudy and raining. Good weather for getting some rest on the boat.
We arrived at the Isle of Raiatea today around 1330. Raiatea shares a lagoon with Tahaa. We're just a few miles south of Bora Bora now. The passage from Moorea took just under 22 hours of broad reaching. We sailed right through the pass into the lagoon and rolled up the jib right before grabbing a mooring ball maintained by a charter company here. We'll leave tomorrow but I'm not where to yet. There's stuff to see on Raiatea and we have dives to use in Tahaa or Bora Bora. Oh yeah, we've got to be in Bora Bora in a couple days to drop off Jeff and Christina. They've got a hotel there so they can get a break from the SS Three Smelly Dudes.
I had a great morning today. Started with coffee and some French pastries and followed by some great snorkeling before the rest of the crew awoke. This is probably the best snorkeling I've seen directly off the boat. This morning I saw a manta ray, remora, beautiful yellow anemone with clown fish (Little Nemo), urchins and several other kinds of fish. After snorkeling I decided to shave my moustache. It started as an experiment in Puerto Vallarta and continued as a two month celebration of my inability to grow facial hair, culminating in a mustache whose majesty would make Tom Selleck weep with envy. A tan line under my nose is all that's left of its former magnificence.My brief postpartum depression was cured when we cashed in some of our "drink link" money at an amazing little local resort. I'd like to thank everyone that donated once again. The pictures should be up on the web after Christina returns but we'll be sending our thanks directly when we can again connect to the nets of inter.
I'm not really sure why but approaching Tahiti from sea was really exciting. Tahiti wasn't even high on my list of places I wanted to see, partly because there are daily direct flights from LA. I think it was mostly the distinct skyline of the island. I had seen it in movies and pictures but it was entirely different viewing it from the Sohcahtoa. We actually arrived 2 days ago but we've been busy exploring. We're anchored off Point Venus near the town of Mahina which is about 10 clicks outside of Papeete. Papeete is the first city we've seen since leaving Puerto Vallarta. Jeff's girlfriend Christina flew in the same day we arrived and the two of them retired to a hotel. Today Matt and I are moving the boat closer to town. This anchorage is calm and empty but beach access and getting to Papeete is a pain. Yesterday Matt and I hitchhiked in to meet up with Jeff and Christina after learning that the buses don't run on Sunday. In fact, nearly everything is closed on Sundays here and the beach was packed with people. It's kind of frustrating at first, coming from the US where hardly anything is closed on Sunday and most supermarkets are open 24/7. Then I realize that we Americans work ourselves to death and would probably be healthier if we took more Sundays off. Wait, the dollars been dropping. No Sundays off until it recovers.
Yesterday found us diving with more than 50 Grey Sharks and a few turtles. We also did a drift dive through the pass which was amazing. You get swept along by the current at maybe 3 knots. That doesn't seem like much until you try to change your course. Which is practicably impossible. Now I see why they only do the drift while the tide is coming into the atoll, you could be swept far out to sea.After our second dive, we prepped the boat for travel and made our way out of the lagoon and on our way to Tahiti. It's roughly a 200 mile trip that we expect to take about 40 hours. Also found that our masthead tri-color light isn't working so right now we're just showing an all white anchor light at night. Looks like a trip up the mast while we're in Tahiti. There are much worse places for a view like that.Tahiti is the most populated island of the South Pacific and should hold in store such fabulous amenities as: Laundry, Internet, and hopefully a reasonably priced grocery store.
Manihi was a great little spot and we had some great dives there. Diving is one of those few group activities that creates immediate bonds with complete strangers and usually after two dives or so, everyone is chatting away like old friends during the boat ride back to the dive shop. The dive masters(Serge and Nikola. . .sorry if we butcher the spelling) were great and we had them out to the boat for dinner and drinks. We met some others on our dive trips, Eva from Germany, Kasha and Peter from Poland, Gustav from Germany boat Sea Star Rose, and some honeymooners from Mexico City that I can't for the life of me remember their names (sorry). Kasha and Peter were gracious enough to invite us to their amazing over-the-water bungalow for drinks and they let us use their SHOWER!!! The first real shower (with hot water and everything) since about March 20th. We each took one, probably leaving a disgusting film of dirt, sunscreen and dead skin in their shower. Peter had an underwater housing for his video camera and we watched the film from the day. The colors turned out great, and he is hopefully going to give me the video in .avi format(640x480 if you are reading this Peter) so we can chop it up and put it onto the website. We all went to the bar and met Serge and Eva and finally spent some of our Drink-Link money! Thanks Mark Hastins, Justin Lee, and Kevin Summers for their contributions. I will be sending pictures as soon as we get to the internet. Jeff Hall, we didn't spend your money yet because they didn't have much in the way of Tequila here, but I think Tahiti will have lots of bars. Anyways, we left Manihi and headed to Rangiroa, arriving at perfectly slack tide to make it through the pass for the atoll. We didn't realize how good our timing was until we walked to the pass that evening and there was about a 6-7 knot current with 200 yards of 6 foot standing waves. This morning, we had two dives and on the second one, we saw a ton of sharks. . .they were circling below us while a school of jack fish swam around us and a great big school of Great Barracuda swam above us. We were diving in "the blue" which is where you can't see anything below you except for dark blue, and we were down about 25 meters. The visibility was most likely 150 feet. The dive then led to the pass that we drifted through at around 2-4 knots. I had never done a drift dive and this was pretty cool. The locals told us that the pass should be calm around 5:30pm, so we packed up after our dives and made it through with no problems and some dolphins swimming in front of us. Now off to Tahiti, where hopefully on the 13th I will meet my girlfriend, Christina.
We left Rangiroa around 5pm tonight. We didn't see much of the atoll but we did make two dives today. The first dive we actually dove with a couple from Mexico City that we also dove with in Manihi. It was a reef dive where we saw four sea turtles feeding. I think they were hawksbill but I'll have to consult a guide. The second dive was a drift dive through Tiputa Pass. There were a ton of sharks at the beginning of the dive as well as schools of big barracuda, some manta rays and a spotted ray. The current in the pass was intense. At times I could feel it pulling on my mask and regulator hose as the coral went rushing by. We took our dives through Six Passengers Dive Shop because it was recommended by our friends in Manihi. Everyone there was nice and our dive master, Fanny, was an attractive blonde. Still, the service at Blue Nui in Manihi was much better, mostly because it's the only dive shop on the atoll and they only have one boat and two dive masters to run the whole operation. It makes it a bit more personal. Tonight it's on to Tahiti and the rest of the Society Islands. A whole new archipelago!
We spent the last few days in Manihi and had so much fun. Manihi is a beautiful little atoll but it's kind of a honeymoon destination so I wasn't expecting to meet as many nice people as we did. Of course we met everyone on our dive trips where it's easy to talk on the dive boat or waiting in between dives. After our first day of diving we invited our dive masters Niko and Serge out to the boat for dinner and drinks. We told them they could drink as much as they wanted provided that they bring ice which they did. They also brought an excellent pizza so we had an Italian feast with pizza and spaghetti. We loaned them some movies, including The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, a must-see for all divers. Hopefully it's just as funny in French.After our last two dives we invited our new friends Peter and Kasha out for cocktails. It was kind of funny because everyone that came out to the boat remarked that it was seemed so much smaller from shore. Probably because the only other boat there was a 27-meter custom sailboat, the Sea Rose Star, roughly twice the size of the Sohcahtoa. Peter and Kasha are from Poland and have traveled all over the world diving so they had some great stories and recommendations for us. After giving a tour of the boat we headed back in and they gave us a tour of their bungalow. It was over the water and had several windows in the floor so you could look into the lagoon, very cool. Peter had taken videos of our dives and we watched them on the TV in there room. I was amazed at how well they turned out. The colors were vivid and the picture was clear. It was like reliving the dive. For some reason I thought only National Geographic could make movies like that. We finished the night by closing down the hotel bar with Peter, Kasha, Serge, and Ava (another fellow diver). The dives were spectacular and I'm slowly improving my knowledge of marine life. Visibility was around 120ft (40 meters). A few of the cool things I saw were white-tip, black-tip and gray sharks, moray eels, a manta ray, a boxer shrimp, and a Napolean wrasse. There were also tons of barracuda, grouper, parrot fish, and trigger fish (Jeff got a nasty bruise when one bit him). Today we arrived in Rangiroa. It's the largest atoll in the Tuamotus and second largest in the world. The lagoon is 45 miles by 18 miles but we won't be here long enough to explore much of it. We're on to Tahiti soon and a few more of the Society Islands.
Arrived here about noon today after leaving Manihi yesterday about the same time. We did a total of 6 dives each in Manihi. All of them were incredible. Lots of fish, coral, and visibility. On the last few we met a couple from Poland, Peter and Kasha, that were shooting video. We gave them our info and hopefully we can keep in touch and get some of the video of ourselves.Of all the fish the most memorable was the Shark Sucker. He seemed friendly until you realized that he wanted to attach himself to you for a free ride. The more vigorously you tried to swim away or swat at him, the more he thought you a better candidate. I found swimming past another diver and then stopping would usually make the Shark Sucker change interest. I'm sure the fish was harmless, but I'd rather not get too intimate with anything named Shark, or Sucker.
8:00 AM, went diving outside the atoll today. Most amazing thing was watching 10 grey sharks feed off some parrot fish carcasses about 10 feet away. The sharks were swimming all around us. It was a little bit unnerving at first but there were lots of smaller tastier fish around so we weren't in any danger. The water is very clear, much clearer than inside the lagoon. I'd say more than 100 foot visibility. Today we also saw lots of reef fish, groupers, tuna, needle fish, moray eels, white tip and black tip reef sharks. We didn't see any manta rays today, but we did see one yesterday while snorkeling which the guides said was uncommon. We're going for 2 more dives tomorrow...
We just came back from the resort on the beach where we signed up for scuba diving tomorrow. It isn't too bad of a deal, you can buy 10 dives for 51,000 French Polynesian Francs ( exchange is 90 Francs a dollar) so that comes out to be around $55 US per dive. If we don't use them all here, they are transferable to any of the Pearl resorts, which are also in Bora Bora, Tikehau (Tuamotus), and Tahaa (North of Raiatea - East of Bora Bora). The Manihi Pearl Beach resort is a pretty amazing place. Half of the bungalows are over the water on stilts, the other half are on the beach in the palm trees. Everything is polished wood and white crushed coral walkways. All the huts are made of mahogany and bamboo with palm roofs. The reef starts about 100 feet from the beach, so you can snorkel in coral right off the beach, or from your bungalow. I went in this morning to find the dive shop and went to the reception area to ask where the dive shop was. I saw a sign that said $84 dollars USD and thought that was the price of the bungalows per night. WOW!! that is cheap! Later that day, after I had told Matt and Casey what a great deal this place was, we went back in and Matt pointed out that that was the local exchange rate, 1000 Francs for $84 USD. ..the actual price was $350 a night for a bungalow and $650 a night for the ones over the water. Whoops. Matt also asked if they had laundry service, since we haven't done laundry except in a bucket since March 22nd. It is ONLY $6 per tee-shirt for laundry. The bucket is looking better and better. We did have a cold Coke each and that was about $4.50 each, but when you don't have refrigeration, a cold drink with ice in a glass is worth it's weight in gold.
After signing up for scuba diving tomorrow we took the Duchess to snorkel around a couple different coral heads that Jeff had explored in the morning. I didn't tie any wounded fish to myself but I did manage to get a good nose bleed. It wasn't enough blood to attract the two sharks we saw though or maybe they weren't interested in the blood and snot combo. Still, I'd feel more comfortable swimming with sharks if I wasn't bleeding. I'm silly like that. At the second coral head Matt and I saw a ray that looked to have about a 5ft wind span. My immediate reaction was to dive down toward it and get a better look. Then as I approached, it turned and started swimming toward me. I thought, "Oh crap it's gonna eat me" and high-tailed it to the surface but the ray just swam away.In case I haven't mentioned it before, I am brutally ignorant in marine biology. This has probably shown through in some of these updates. Dolphins and porpoises (porpi?) fall into my "dolphin" genus which is then broken down into the "longer", "shorter", "fatter", "bluer", and "grayer" species. The sharks we saw today were 3-5ft long with white tips on their dorsal and tail fins which would lead me to believe that they were white-tip sharks but I could be wrong. The ray we saw was blue with some thick black stripes that ran sideways (wingtip to wing tip) across its body. I won't even try to describe the reef fish that were new to me. I'll see if I can't come up with some kind of field guide soon so you can just do a google image search in the future.
We've made it to the Tuamotos. Had to heave-to off the coast during the night so we could come through the small channel in daylight. There are lots of coral heads and black pearl farms underwater to look out for and they aren't marked so we have to have lookouts on the bow to direct the person at the wheel not to hit anything. Luckily the coral heads aren't too hard to see (they look like light tan spots) and are quit big here). We set the anchor off an awesome little hotel that has little bungalows on stilts over the water. Each one has a stairway down into the water so you can go snorkeling from your room. We put the dutchess together, put the engine on, and took our snorkeling gear out the the nearest coral head. We dropped our little dinghy anchor and set off snorkeling. It took us more than an hour to work our way around this coral head. Lots of fish and some creatures attached to the coral, but the water was a little cloudy, nothing like the 150 foot visibility we supposed to have. Maybe a storm kicked it up and it will die down in the next couple days.
That's the definition of an atoll. Today we dropped anchor in the lagoon of Manihi, an atoll in the Tuamotu archipelago, after spending the evening hove to. Even in daylight, navigating the lagoon is tricky. The island is actually made up of a bunch of small sandy islands with some breaks in between. There's one pass into the lagoon and it was a little tricky determining which break was the actual pass. Approaching the pass the water was too deep to register on the depth sounder until we were at the entrance of the pass and then it jumped to 50ft. In the pass we could see the coral passing under the boat. Very cool but also a bit scary. Boats and coral don't play well together. Once inside the lagoon I promptly drove us into one of the poorly marked black pearl farms. With Jeff and Matt spotting on the bow we were able to weave our way back out again without any harm to us or the farm. We dropped our anchor a couple hundred yards from the Hotel Manihi Pearl Beach Resort, a cool little resort with a bunch of bungalows on stilts, white sandy beaches and palm trees. Everything that comes to mind when I think "island getaway". After setting the hook and launching both dinghies, we jumped in the Duchess and drove 30 seconds away to some coral and had some great snorkeling.
When I wrote my 8pm log entry last night we were making 7kts, setting our landfall a little before noon today. Then I wrote an e-mail to a friend bragging about what great time we've been making on this passage. It was like a catcher walking up to the pitcher in the 9th inning and saying, "Wow, you know no one's gotten a hit yet?" When Jeff woke me up for my 2am watch we were barely making 3kts. My poor decision making didn't stop there though. Today I decided to make chili and cornbread for an early dinner because nothing goes with 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity like a hot bowl of chili. The beauty of cooking a meal like this lies in using both the stove and the oven simultaneously. I'd estimate the temperature in the galley at somewhere around 200 degrees when I was done cooking. I would light a nun on fire for a bowl of ice cream right now. Tomorrow I'll wrap up the stupid idea trifecta by tying a couple wounded, bleeding fish to myself before snorkeling.
We're a little over a day out of Nuku Hiva right now. We've been making between 6 and 7kts with just the staysail and double-reefed main on a broad reach. It's been just wonderful trade wind sailing. It's nice just to be away from the island bug bites and the formalities of putting on a semi-clean t-shirt and sandals that come with going into town. We got a strike on the handline today. Matt got a look at whatever it was before it broke a splice in the line. He said it was huge and looked like it might have been a shark. That was a bummer because the lure was a nice Rapala and that was the first time we'd used it. Even if the line hadn't broke, I'm not sure how we would have gotten it back from a shark. It would be nice to catch a pelagic fish before we get into the tainted waters of the Tuamotus. At least we know there's something out here.
I guess it's more like "Under way again" but that Willie Nelson song always pops into my head when we're preparing for another passage. Some weird gusts were blowing through the anchorage this morning. It would go from dead calm to a 25-30kt blow that would last for about a minute. One of these gusts capsized the Houdinghy. When I woke up she was floating upside down behind the boat. We lost our nice hand pump that we used for bailing and almost lost one of the oars.Leaving the bay today I busied myself with hoisting sails, re- assembling the anchor locker, and setting the handline. When I finally got everything set I sat down in the cockpit and realized that I was getting nauseous. I sat there for a good half hour watching the horizon and drinking water before giving up and taking one of our anti- seasickness pills. Someone else can have the salty dog award today. Most of the time I'm okay but every once in a while my stomach and the ocean are at odds. Usually it's something more than just the waves though. My last close call was leaving Mazatlan. I spent the first hour in the galley cooking dinner and when I finally delivered it to the cockpit I ate about 4 bites. There were several contributing factors this time but the largest was last nights rum-a-thon with our new friend Eddi.Jeff met Eddi a while ago and invited him over for cocktails last night. Eddi's a German mechanical engineer, a little younger than us, who was crewing on a boat making the Puddle Jump from Puerto Vallarta like us. The owner of the boat herniated a disk in his back so poor Eddi had to single hand the 46-ft boat the final 5 days to Nuku Hiva. The owner was flown out, had surgery, and is flying back soon. In the meantime Eddi is stuck in Taiohae listening to stories from all the other cruisers who get to explore the different islands and bays. We had a great bull session last night with Eddi and we wish him the best of luck with the rest of his cruise.
Looks like we're finally headed to the Tuamotus tomorrow. We came back to Taiohae from Anaho yesterday. It was a pretty rough ride for the first hour or so, motoring directly into the wind for a while and then quartering the 5-6ft waves. Wet and bumpy. Once we got to south end of the island it mellowed out a bit. We drove through a flock of birds about a mile out of Taiohae trailing the handline. Usually a flock of birds out on the water means the predators are feeding, driving the bait-fish to the surface. We caught one little unidentified fish but he was too small to trip the handline so we through him back. We're stocked up on vegetables, cheese and baguettes. Tomorrow we'll top off our diesel jerry cans if the gas station is open and then head out. I will miss Nuku Hiva but mostly because a 28ft boat skippered by two bikini-clad beauties arrived this afternoon. For those outside the "cruiser" world I must emphasis the rarity of this event. I'm talking Hindu NASCAR driver rare. Sure, there are beautiful women in the cruising community but most often they are part of a sailing couple (yes, these two could be a couple but play along with me here) and I've never seen one in a bikini. Before today my idea of an attractive female sailor looked something like a model from the REI catalog. Today the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition sailed into the bay. While retrieving their anchor after a failed set they drifted within 10yds of us. Normally I'd never want another boat this close but today I was thinking, "Forget that anchor. We'll throw some fenders out and you can raft up to us." It was clear that wasn't an option when they didn't return our waves or smiles. Within seconds of finally setting their hook our neighbors, a pair of mid-thirties Italian guys crewing a Benatau 57, dinghied over to them but were quickly dispatched. Wasting no time, the ladies stowed their mainsail, bagged their jib and washed the decks down before going to sleep. This display of efficient post-passage seamanship did nothing to decrease my simultaneous feeling of fascination and intimidation. But I digress. We'll be headed for the reportedly crystal clear waters of the Tuamotus tomorrow.
it was sunny today with patches of fluffy white clouds typical of the trade winds and a nice balmy 90 degrees with about 80% humidity. a pretty steady breeze blew from the East (again, the trades), which kept most of the little annoying biting insects away from the boat. The tide was really low and I was able to jump in and see the coral down around the boat. I snorkeled into the reef, which isn't anything too fancy. The coral comes up from a sand/silt bottom of around 15 feet, which makes for some good coral heads and some good valleys and caves. I always take the Hawaiian sling(spear) that I got from a co- worker(kevin), not to kill fish, but to put at ease the part of my brain that is huddled in the corner mumbling something about sharks and being eaten. The rest of my brain doesn't believe that a 4 foot spear would really do much against, say, a 6-8 foot bull or hammerhead shark. But having it is the Thorazine that my little anxiety monkey needs to shut up and quietly enjoy all the pretty fish. The reef fish in the Marquesas all are toxic with a little bug named Ciguatera. This toxin concentrates up the food chain, so bigger guys (the ones that we would want to eat) could kill us dead. . .or at least make us very very sick. So, we just kind of fin around and maim fish left and right, honing our aim, but not keeping any. . .hopefully nobody from PETA (or would it be PETF?) is reading this. I even saw a wolf eel with a head the size of my swim fin(the biggest I have ever seen.. the eel, not the fin). we all went into the beach and walked around the bay to a white sand beach with overhanging coconut trees and coconuts rolling in the crashing surf. It is a pretty cool beach. I stopped there while Matt and Casey kept on the trail to go over the ridge to see the other side. I stacked coconuts, stuck sticks in the sand, chased the coconut crabs(which are really fast), outran the waves, tried to weave palm tree roots together to make rope, and just generally screwed off on a beach for a while acting like a curious 9 year old. I think that everyone should act like a kid now and again. That is an order. Everyone at work, stop reading, go outside and start throwing rocks at cans and find cool bugs. Even the ladies. But don't laugh because they throw rocks like a girl.
(I messed this up last time I sent. So it's kinda out of order. A thousand pardons...)So here it goes.We have our tourist visas after putting up our bonds at the bank and buying $30 stamps from the post office. For the bond you can either get an airline ticket back to your home country or pay the equivalent at the bank, which they refund when you leave the country. We decided to do the bank way and it turned out to be about $1200 each. Hopefully we don't get too screwed on the exchange rate. For the $30 stamps, you don't send anything with the stamps, they just stick them in your passports. So now we're good here for 90 days, too bad we'll only be using about half that time. There is no sign of authority here except for the 2 customs/port officials. But I haven't seen them leave their little air conditioned office so far. I guess that on an island of only a few thousand people everyone knows everyone else. No one locks their cars or takes the keys or even turns them off when they go shopping. It's the opposite of Mexico here. Everything is kept up very nice. No trash. In Mexico it seemed as if every thing was under construction where as here nothing looks to be in progress. It seems to be a national pastime to weedeater everything constantly to keep it looking good. Even the gravel roads here are leagues smoother that the paved ones in mexico. I'm not sure how the island sustains itself economically. There is a tiny bit of tourism with the few sailboats and the small cruise liner that comes. There is an industry of growing coconut and then drying it out in the sun for either coconut oil or shredded coconut. But I cant see how that gets you to a point where you can buy a new Land Rover. The only other businesses I've seen are 2 or 3 little hotels that could maybe take 30 guests each, 4 grocery stores, 2 restaurants, 1 hardware store, 1 gas station, 1 customs office, 1 bank, 1 post office, 1 medical clinic. Everything here closes down for 2 or 3 hours during the middle of the day. Almost more than in mexico. The grocery stores, bank, post office, everything, but they don't all use the same hours to be closed. So it gets kind of frustrating when your trying to buy bonds at the bank and stamps at the post office and take it all to the customs office. I asked where a place to get a haircut was and was told that I had to call a woman and go to her house, so I think I'll just wait until we make it to Tahiti. Curious what lies ahead if this is the most populated island and the administrative capitol of the Marqueses. Most of the people here have impressive 4x4's from Japan or Britain. Lots of cool Land Rovers and Toyotas that all run on Diesel. Nothing this good ever comes to the US. We drove our Suzuki Samurai around all over the island for 7 hours and only used 3 gallons of Diesel.Most of the people here and all of the people we have had to do business with speak very decent english. Far better then we could ever learn in our time here. I'd say French and Spanish would be the most useful second languages to learn if one was planning traveling extensively. English is probably the most useful, but we kind of lucked out on that one. The island is very lush but with few flowers. Lots of trees. Pine trees, trees that look like they should be in Africa, and huge trees made up of hundreds of smaller trunks that all together can be 30 feet or more in diameter. It rains about every other day, keeping the humidity up. The boat gets to be sweltering when we have to shut the hatches and we lose all our airflow during the showers.As for wildlife there don't seem to be many large native species except for birds. There are horses and pigs that are tied up along the side of the road all over the place. Also there are a good amount of goats, and lots of chickens. I've seen a few geckos and other small lizards too. So far the most dangerous thing is the no-nos that bite you and can get infected easily in the tropical weather. We'll maybe the hammerhead shark was more dangerous, but they are fairly easy to stay away from.The land here is mostly tall volcanic cliffs. Few plains. Plants grow everywhere, and seeing the two dozen or so waterfalls already they are sure to get plenty of water. The majority of the island is inaccessible due to the very steep terrain and dense growth. People live on the coast in a few places where there is usually a small plain and a river outlet. Other than that the land is left to the goats.We've seen a few of the ruins. Mostly they are just the rectangular rock platforms built up out of the abundant volcanic rock. The most elaborate of the areas had two dozen platforms and a courtyard about half as big as a football field. As for their history or past use I have no idea.Instead of Propane here they have Butane. Seems to burn the same but we were told it doesn't burn as hot or have as much pressure. Saturday we hiked up to a huge waterfall that's supposed to be one of the tallest in the world. Amazing when you think that it is on this relatively tiny island. Where we landed our dinghy we met Daniel, who is a wonderful old man who has greeted cruising boats for decades and whom the bay is unofficially named for. He used to live at the next bay over but moved when Survivor came to film. After our hike he treated us to fresh coconut milk, bananas, and pomplemouse which is like a large mild grapefruit. He was pretty upset about his weedeater having a shot bearing and had some interesting things to say about Japanese engineering. The bugs swarmed our boat saturday night and we had to shut all the hatches and try and kill them all, which took about an hour till they were eradicated. With no other lights in the bay except the other boats we made an easy target I guess. At least these ones didn't bite, but they would probably help themselves to our food and gladly make their home with us if we let them. We found the bug screens that the previous owners had and attached them to the velcro around the hatches and were able to let some of the cool fresh air back in. During the lockdown bug hunt things were getting a bit sweltering.Sunday we moved on to the opposite corner of the island to Anaho Bay on the NE coast, which is said to be the most beautiful bay on the island.
We left Taiohae on the 21st for Daniel's Bay (aka Hakatea Bay) just a few miles to the west. It was a beautiful little bay with only two other boats there on our arrival. The next day we rowed to shore where we were met by Daniel himself. He pointed us toward our intended target, a trail the base of the Vaipo waterfall. We had a great hike, much needed after all this time on a boat, and the waterfall was impressive. It's supposed to be one of the largest in the world. The falling water actually travels so fast that upon impact the molecular bond is broken, releasing pure hydrogen gas. Natives of Nuku Hiva used to capture this gas to inflate their war dirigibles, giving them military superiority over all other islands in the Marquesas which is why Nuku Hiva is the administrative capital of the archipelago even today.We stopped to talk with Daniel upon returning from the hike. He's a very nice guy, probably in his late sixties to early seventies, with a good sense of humor. He told us about having to move from the cove where our boat was anchored to the cove he was currently living in when the began shooting the Survivor TV show in the previous cove. He keeps log books of all the visiting yachts and we signed in after looking through it. We gave him a bottle of rum and a pack of Marbs and he gave us pompelmousse, coconuts, bannanas, and limes. The next day we left for Anaho Bay and we were glad to be gone after getting swarmed by tiny moths the previous night. We got in to Anaho just before sunset and got the skinny on the anchorage from our friends on Kohilo who have been here for a while. After setting the hook we then rowed over to Kohilo to help eat a chocolate cake that Donna had made. Anaho is a gorgeous little bay with white sand beaches plus it's probably the calmest anchorage we've been in in months. Not sure where we'll head next but we'll keep the updates coming as long as the SSB e-mail holds up.
Today we rented a car a drove around Nuku Hiva. It rained all last night so when we headed to shore the bay was brown from all the sediment run-off. The plus side to the rain was that waterfalls now cover the island. The rain also raised the water level in the creeks to cover parts of the road but nothing that our little Suzuki Samurai couldn't handle. The roads were pretty well maintained, mostly gravel with pavement where the water would hit it the hardest. They were crazy steep too with lots of switchbacks, reminding me of a few ski hills I've been to. We stopped by what I think was the historical site of Tapivai but don't quote me on that. I'll ask someone in town next time we're there. We also drove through a couple villages. Like Taiohae, there wasn't a bit of litter anywhere in the villages and the yards were immaculate.
Matt and I rowed into town today, still in Taiohae. Pretty much everything was open so we got some cash at the bank and then phone cards at the post office. Of course I forgot to bring any phone numbers with me so if you're expecting a call from me it won't be for a day or two. Then we got cold Cokes for a buck fifty each and well worth it. We picked up some groceries in the store and headed to the Internet place but the town was infested with kids from a boat called Concordia so we weren't able to get on. Among the groceries were a wedge of excellent brie and a can of pate that we enjoyed at sunset tonight in the cockpit. The brie really did the trick for the dairy jones I've had since leaving Mexico. Now before anyone gets concerned that eating brie and pate may inject some modicum of class into the crew of the Sohcahtoa, I should mention that they were served with Ritz crackers and warm Tang.
I think that means "two small dogs" and I am prettysure that I hear it everywhere. Maybe because that isthe extent of my french. Not much in the way of aconversation starter except in very specificcircumstances. So we are getting some more food andare going to head around the corner to Daniel's Baywhere the (so we have heard) second biggest waterfallin the world is. Then off to the north side of NukuHiva to Anaho bay and then off to the TuamotusIslands. Our rent-a-car excursion yesterday was agreat way to see the island and to get a feel for howeveryone lives. Hopefully in Tahiti (maybe) we willfind an internet connection that is good enough toupload our pictures to the site.
We are safely anchored and are working on getting ourpaperwork finished for our offical entrance intoFrench Polynesia. It sounds like we will get 90 dayvisas, which is good. Other than that, we are feedingwhole swarms of the biting flies with our tastyimported skin and are wandering around buyinginteresting french food. Last night for a pre dinnersnack we had a big wedge of brie (Casey was in cheesewithdrawls) and some "Foie du Champagne", which Ithink is a paste made out of pig liver and white wine. It was really tasty, but we decided not to read theingredients until after we ate it. Tomorrow I thinkthat we will rent a car and go and rally around theisland in the Suzuki Samurai that we will get. Adieu.
Okay, so in my last post I talked about how exhausted we were. We all crashed hard but our bodies are still set for waking up every few hours so we were all back up before the sun set. We were eating popcorn, drinking rum and cokes in the cockpit sometime after dark when Matt spotted an outrigger canoe headed our way. Matt hollered at them, they hollered back and pulled up alongside the Sohcahtoa. It was three local guys, Joseph, Matu, and Sergio, with a half bottle of rum- like booze. They came aboard and their bottle joined forces with our grain alcohol-like rum. There English was slightly better than our French-Marquesian but we did pretty well with pantomimes and the French-English dictionary. After a couple rounds Matu asked if I wanted to try out the outrigger. Paddling the canoe around the anchorage in the middle of the night has to be the South Pacific equivalent to drunken four-wheelin in Omak, probably less dangerous but equally entertaining. It was a fiberglass canoe that looked like a thin 3-person kayak with an outrigger and it hauled ass. Even with just Matu and I it was easily the fastest man-powered boat I've ever been in.Today we headed ashore in the Houdinghy to check out the town of Taiohae. We'd been told that everything would be closed for Easter so we were pleasantly surprised to find the grocery store open. We picked up some cold sodas and sandwiches there and ate them in the shade. I'm not sure I've ever had a soda taste so good, probably because it was the first cold drink I've had in nearly a month. We also found the Hotel Keikhanui Pearl Lodge had its restaurant open so we decided to grab something to eat, today is the first day I've been really hungry since leaving PV, and a cold beer. This was easily the best beer I've ever had but at nearly six bucks a pop I felt like I should have at least got to see the Mariners play a couple innings.
Jeff spotted land today shortly after I got off shift. I was fast asleep when Jeff and Billy Dee Williams appeared in my dream with Jeff yelling "Lando!". Put a nerd in the ocean and this is what happens. I woke up and realized what was actually happening, viewed the island on the horizon and went back to sleep. I'd would have been more excited but we're going to fast and we'll have to heave to for a few hours so we can enter the bay during the day.
We dropped anchor in Taiohae Bay on Nuku Hiva around 1100 this morning. On the way in we were welcomed by a group of acrobatic dolphins and some mysterious dorsal fin belonging to a shark, marlin or maybe a sharlin if there is such a thing. Our friends on Kohilo got here a few days before us and came over to celebrate our passage with a couple rum drinks. They gave us the lowdown on the island which is apparently closed until Tuesday for Easter. That means no cold beer or soda or meat that didn't come in a can for two more days. Bummer. It's extraordinarily hot here too. We've had a solid 15+ knots of wind the last few days so we hadn't really felt the heat of the South Pacific until shortly after setting our anchor. Matt's pictures will do more justice than I can in describing the island. I will say that after 24 days at sea I would have been happy to land at Beirut. Nuku Hiva is a long way from that. It's lush with vegetation, even on the extremely steep hills and crazy rock formations. We'll head into shore tomorrow. Today is for resting. It's like a wave of exhaustion has been following us since we left and crashed down on us shortly after setting the hook. Stay tuned for more South Pacific action!
What the hell am I doing bobbing around in a little sailboat in the middle of the Pacific??? Seriously. Anyone?8:00: We've been hove-to (see glossary) the last 8 or 10 hours getting our window for entering Aotupa Bay into the daylight hours. By this time tomorrow we should be at anchor. I look forward to a full 16 hours of sleep and an entire 6 pack of coke. Not sure what to expect from an island with only 3000 people living on it. Cannibals?
I started my watch tonight eyeing a huge squall a few miles to windward. This one looked different than previous squalls I've seen in that it was much taller. It looked like a huge cotton iceberg with nothing but black underneath it. The bright moon above it provided a reference so I could actually see how fast it was bearing down on us. When it finally blotted out the moon I warned the guys downstairs to shut the galley hatch and prepared for the worst. The squall must not have been ripe enough though because is passed with just a minor increase in wind and a sprinkle of rain. Far different from the nasty one that hit during Jeff's afternoon watch where Matt and I got soaked by waves on deck while reefing in over 25kts of wind. That was probably the most wind we've seen in squall to date.The real news for this watch though came about halfway through when I pulled in a nice little female dorado, that's mahi-mahi if you're looking on a menu. Matt gaffed her when I got her close enough and I cut out a couple of fillets that should make a nice breakfast tomorrow. This was a huge relief for a couple reasons. First, I've been wanting to catch a dorado since we left. Second, the last few nights we've had strikes on the handline but all we've got were lures taken and hooks bent. We're under 120 miles from Nuku Hiva. The winds have died off a bit but hopefully we'll at least be able to see land tomorrow.
The GPS says that we have a little under 400 nautical miles to go. We are currently making 6.5 knots an hour, so that makes land fall in 60 hours and 45 minutes...exactly. Most likely add a day onto that, so we could be crying "Land Ho" sometime on Saturday if the wind keeps up. Last night we were averaging 8.0 knots for a few hours. For our boat, that is smoking along. The wind is from the SE and we are heading to the SW, so that puts us on a beam reach, which is a very fast point of sail for us. In the last two days we have lost 3 fishing lures and straightened two hooks on some (I'm guessing) big fish. We will catch one soon...OH yes, we will.
Today on my watch I was about as useful as a poop flavored lollipop. There was a 20-25 knot wind from the SW (the direction we are trying to go) and a 1-1.5 knot current from the West (called the equatorial counter current, i think). The combination of these meant that for 4 and a half hours I sailed my ass off...tacking back and forth, trimming sails, just trying to get every little bit out of the boat. And the result? 7 miles in the direction we want to go. That is effectively 1.5 knots per hour. Matt was smart. Matt took down the sails and is now motoring.
We crossed the equator around 5:00am, and had the ceremonial crossing party. We drank a bottle of champagne that my Aunt Sharon gave us before we left in August. We had to pour some into the sea for Neptune. We wore stupid hats and ate cookies that our friends on the s.v. SunBaby gave us in Puerto Vallarta. We have offically graduated to shellback from pollywog by sailing across the equator.
We are currently 59 nautical miles North of the equator and should be crossing sometime tonight. Yesterday afternoon we came out of the squall line and the wind shifted around to the SE. We have been in SE winds ever since, and that means that we have made it through the ITCZ (knock on wood), and are in the SE trade winds. We got extremely lucky, since other people have been bobbing around for days trying to get through and we only had to motor for half a day. When we got through, we could look to the North and there was this almost solid wall of towering clouds running perfectly East to West, and to the South there was nothing but blue skies and little fluffy clouds. We are still heading due south because the ITCZ can widen up and engulf us if we don't get far away. Maybe sometime tomorrow afternoon we will turn more to the West and resume our track for the Marquesas.
I'm not sure what inspired me to open the can of spaghetti sauce and leave it on the counter in the galley while I went up top and made sure we were on course. Either I was so excited about eating that I just couldn't wait to get one step closer to caloric bliss, OR, that I really needed to get that ever-so-difficult can opening out of the way so that I could focus one hundred percent on seeing if the current heading was correct or not. The out of sync wave that we took on our beam just then was so perfectly timed that it proves the universe has a poop-joke level of humor. The can rocketed to the end of the counter, hit the lip, flipped once and landed almost perfectly upright. The inertia of the sauce and the impact of the can created a sauce shotgun that effectively carpet bombed the starboard side of the boat opposite the galley. This included the navigation station(charts and electronics included), the ceiling, the floor, and even in the head. Looked like some final shot of a Tarantino film. Lesson learned. No sauce on the pasta. Ever.
We're just about to wrap up another week out. This week has been considerably better than the last. The winds have been stronger and we've been ticking off some solid days. The biggest difference for me has been the increase in sea life. We see tons of flying fish, we've had a few visits from dolphins and caught 4 fish in 3 days. For some reason this makes the ocean seem much less desolate and lonely. Still haven't caught my elusive dorado but I'd be okay with just catching wahoo for the rest of the passage. They're pretty tasty. The next week should bring on the ITCZ with its doldrums as well as our equator crossing, transforming us from Tadpoles to Shellbacks.
Just a quick update to say we are okay. The wind died a few hours ago so we will most likely motor through the night. The wind is supposed to pick up to the SW, so hopefully we will be back into it soon. Last night Casey caught a 40lb. Wahoo. We have lots of pictures that we will put up when we get back near internet. Today we got caught by some squalls and it rained A LOT. It is kind of cool driving the boat down big swells with rain so hard that it is splashing about a foot back off of the water and a 30 mile an hour wind pushing you along all the while trying to shampoo your hair and keep the soap out of your eyes.
It is the name of the fish we just caught. . the Wahoo. It looks like a Barracuda but it's jaws aren't as long and they are open ocean dwellers. They have the most amazing blue stripes on their sides and a super dark blue on their backs. Once it bit, it took off until it was almost parallel with the boat. I couldn't figure out why until we got it a bit closer and it was dodging sharks! One of the sharks came and hit our fish attractor a few times and then returned to chasing the Wahoo. The swells are about 12 feet tall and you could see the sharks in the face of the next wave. They were only 4 feet long or so. The Wahoo slashes it's prey with it's really sharp teeth, so it almost bit through the 200lb test mono filament leader we were using. We have lures with wire leaders, but we were trying to catch a Dorado (Mahi- Mahi). The Wahoo was really good eatin' saut E9ed with some onions, garlic, pepper, hot sesame chili oil and a bit of salt.
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