Category Archives: Sailing

A Day On Raroia

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We took an easy day here anchored at our first atoll. We really didn’t do too much of anything. After an easy morning-I made an omelet and lots of coffee-we inflated the dinghy, put on the outboard and went ashore. Not a lot ashore. A small town but no stores. This is mostly a town that houses pearl industry workers. A lot of this atoll is pearl farms. You can see them in the distance and every day around 1530 the workers come back from work by boat.

The best part of the day was tide pooling on the ocean side of the atoll. We walked across-about a 300 yard walk and were on the ocean side. It was low tide, so there was lots of exposed coral. Not too many seashells, but it was like a treasure hunt. Every once in a while you’d see something shining like an opal against the dull white broken coral that makes up the beach. A cowrie! They are gorgeous and we collected a dozen nice ones (with no critters inside).

The other highlight of the day was the arrival of Orcinius. It turned out they decided not to stay longer at Oa Pou but instead just headed down here. We heard them the last couple nights on Seafarers Net, so they were not unexpected. In fact we radioed them last night to set up Mahi Mahi dinner for tonight. So after our tide pooling, we got back to Charisma around 1630, changed, collected the fish and went over to Orcinius for a delightful evening. Cocktails, dinner and good conversation. What fun. Oh, and left over birthday cake – yesterday was Lisa’s birthday!

The biggest challenge for today was coming back in the dark in an inflatable dinghy among the coral. I had established a course when it was light so I had an inkling where we needed to go, but it’s still kind of eerie knowing that any moment, if you are off course, the coral could rip out the bottom of the dinghy. And we have seen sharks in this bay!

We’ve decided there’s not a lot holding us here, and there are much nicer atolls ahead, so tomorrow at first light we’re heading out for an atoll called Tahanea. It’s about 140 miles, so an overnight. Oh well, as Blue Rodeo Mark says; “Nothing’s easy”.

Land Ho!

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Position: 16 degrees, 02 minutes South; 142 degrees, 28 minutes West

Landfall!

We saw land at about 1000 this morning. Raroia. Funny thing about the Tuamotus, they are atolls so don’t have tall mountains or trees. Just coral, sand and palm trees. We didn’t see the atoll until we about 7 miles away versus any of the Marquesas which are visible for at least 20 miles if not more.

It was pretty exciting to make landfall in a new island group. It was also nerve wracking. These atolls have a reputation of being “ugly” to enter. The tide is emptying and filling through a very small gap in the coral and they can develop fearsome tides that can overpower even a strong boat engine. It’s not unheard of for an 8 foot standing wave to develop in the pass that can swamp you if you’re not careful.

So, it was with the proper amount of caution, fear and recklessness that we entered this morning. We had been slowed down a bit the last 24 hours and thus just got here at 1100, which was over an hour past our estimate of slack water on the ebb. I decided we would try it anyway and if it looked at all problematic, we’d turn right around and wait “outside” until the next slack water at around 1500.

So…we furled the jib and started the engine while about a mile offshore. I lined Charisma up on the entry. It’s about 100 yards wide between two breaking reefs so a little intimidating. Looking through the binoculars, I saw whitewater. OK, we’re not going. Well, the whitewater doesn’t look too bad, we’ll try it. No, let’s not. Yes, it’s worth a try. All this was going through my mind. I finally decided the pass was large enough that if it got hairy, we could pivot and head out. In we go. I’m carefully watching the depth sounder and knot meter. Depth to make sure we wouldn’t end up in shallow water up on the reef. Knotmeter to make sure the current wasn’t taking us on a sleigh ride. The currents have been known to exceed 8 knots around here. That’s at least a knot faster than Charisma can go under power. The good news: depth looked OK and the current looked about 2 knots and it was still ebbing (I still don’t know why. It should have been in a full on flood by then). The bad news-we were having to make at least a thirty degree correction in order to go straight. I’m right at the edge of my comfort zone, but it’s looking good. Let’s keep going. As we got to the “commitment zone” where turning around wouldn’t be an option, things were looking good. Here goes nothing!

All in all, it was virtually a non-event. A little tricky with the side current, but easily handled. No massive whitewater. Once inside, we turned right and followed the very obvious coral heads that were menacingly lining the path toward the little village where we wanted to anchor. We got a quick lesson in how to “read” the water colors for depth. Deep blue-good/deep. Light blue-OK, but get ready. Pale blue-you’re treading close, slow down and get ready to stop, it’s less than 15 feet deep. Sometimes,much less. Yellow/brown-If you see this it’s too late. This is the coral near the surface. You don’t want to see this, you’ll hit it.

After motoring along the reef about a mile, we found a nice little spot to anchor. There was a swath of sand about 100 feet long and 40 feet wide. It is surrounded by reef, some of which is breaking the surface of the water, but it’s a good anchorage if we can hit it just right. We circled twice just to get the feeling for how we were going to line up and on the third pass, slowed down. With Ann driving and me at the anchor in the bow, I directed us right up to the front of the sand where there was a large coral boulder. I signaled “stop and back”, Ann put us in reverse and I dropped anchor. It hit the sand spot on and we dragged chain back down the middle of the sand strip. The anchor dug in and we snugged up with about 40 feet to spare behind us where there is coral sticking up and breaking the surface. As we were waiting to make sure the anchor set, two fairly large black tip reef sharks cruised by to say; “hi”. We’re going to have to get used to those guys if we’re going to do any snorkeling. They are not supposed to be aggressive or dangerous, but just the look of them….

One more thing and this is more a tip to the future cruisers reading this. There is a large coral boulder about five feet high right toward the last 30 feet of our anchor chain. Usually this would be a concern as the chain might wrap around the coral and make hauling anchor very difficult without diving. BUT! We learned a new technique from an Aussie couple in Anaho Bay. You set the anchor, then pull up the last 1/3 (or whatever is appropriate) of chain and attach a float to the chain. We’re using a boat fender for the float. You set the fender/float so that it holds the chain just above the obstruction. So instead of the chain wrapping as you drift, the float lifts it up over the obstruction and there’s no entanglement. We’re in 30 feet and the coral rock is about 6 feet tall (a typical height for coral). So after setting the anchor with the usual scope, I hauled in about thirty feet, set the fender/float line for 18 feet (for margin of error) and hooked it with a SS carabiner to the chain, then let the chain back out and set the snubber. Later I dove the anchor to check the whole rig out and darned if it doesn’t look pretty good. The float is holding the chain just above the coral. It would definitely have wrapped without it. I’m pretty pleased with this new trick and will use it again. Charisma also seems to ride to anchor better with the extra “spring” that the floating chain seems to give (sort of a super catenary).

That’s our day. Tomorrow, we inflate the dinghy and go ashore to explore, then “Orcinius” gets here. We talked with them on the shortwave today and were pleased to hear they are just behind. We invited them over for Mahi dinner. They are coming and bringing the wine! Yay.

Another day in paradise.

Fish On!

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Position: 14 degrees, 23 minutes South; 142 degrees, 21 minutes West

Nice Mahi. Fed us for a week!

After a long night watch with numerous squalls to contend with, I finally got off watch at 0800 and quickly went to sleep only to be awoken an hour later by Ann’s excited shout of “FISH ON!” She was sitting in the cockpit when she heard the sharp slap of the line being pulled off the clothespin that we hook it to for just that purpose-so we can hear it get slapped to the deck. The bigger the fish the bigger the slap and this one hit hard. She looked up at where the lure was trailing behind and saw a large fish jump out of the water. Whoo hooo, game on!

I jumped up and hit my head on the top of the berth. OK, time to slow down a little-still groggy from just having fallen asleep, I staggered up the companionway stairs. “How big?” I asked. “Pretty big”, the reply. When I make it up on deck, she had the line in her already gloved hand and was starting to pull it in. “Hold on, we have to slow the boat down first”. Pulling in a fish of any size while going six knots is harder than it needs to be and since it was just dragging through the water on our hand-line, we had time to get things in order before bringing it aboard. Especially important if it’s a big fish that we want/need to subdue fast before it can do any damage. Fish bonker-check, rope to tie it with-check, knife-check, icepick-check, my gloves-check and on, gaff-um, “Where’s the gaff?” “It’s coming”.

” OK, everything’s ready, l’ll pull it in around the cleat and you take in the slack”.

While I’m pulling it in, at first it seemed like we’d lost it. The line was very slack, but it didn’t take long before the fish noticed what was going on and started fighting back. Yes, a good sized fish was on the line. When we got it near the transom we could see a flash of bright green and blue. Mahi! Bring it alongside, aim, got him! Pull up on the gaff and he’s out of the water and still fighting. Break out the fish bonker and voila, (see how we always practice our French?) fish landed and in the scuppers. This one’s a beaut. A good 40 inches. Nice. I’ve been hoping we’d catch a fish to supplement our supplies for the next few weeks. The choices of main course food in Nuku Hiva were OK, just not very inspiring and fresh fish really adds to the day.

A couple hours later and we have filets and have cleaned up the deck. In the fridge are six one-gallon size zip bags with a total of 20 filets and a bag full of scrap meat for fish chowder. Most of it fits under the freezer unit which will nicely freeze them and allow them to last long enough for us to enjoy all the fish without any waste due to spoilage. Yay.

About last night-it started out a gorgeous moonlit, star-filled night. The moonlight dancing across the waves was an inspiration. Ann got the first watch and I went to sleep from about 2200-0200. Coming on watch the first thing I noticed was the sky was now full of clouds. Uh oh, squally night. Ann confirmed that the clouds were building and we had dodged a rainy one just a little while earlier. After she went to sleep, I gathered my rain jacket, and made other preparations to “batten down the hatches” in case of a squall. It didn’t take long before the preparations were put in use. After about an hour I saw what looked like a little squall up ahead. I went down below and turned on the radar to have a look (radar will “bounce” back from the rain and therefore is a good way to “see” a fully developed squall). Saw some green speckles about 8 miles off. “Hmmm, doesn’t look too bad”. I decided to have another look in five minutes to see if it developed at all and somewhat to my surprise the little speckles at 8 miles were now bright green, yellow and red returns (signaling heavy hits) at six miles. OK, time to get ready. Checklist: All hatches and portholes shut tight (I left the starboard side open for air as the squall was approaching on the port side, I felt the rain wouldn’t come in the starboard ports), companionway boards in, jacket on, pfd and tether back on. Just as I got the tether snapped back on, it started to sprinkle and I felt the cooler breeze meaning the squall was just about on us. The last thing on the list is to furl the jib down to a smaller size in case the wind increases. It had been blowing 15 knots and I furled it down to about half the size. No sooner had I finished and the blast of wind hit, suddenly accelerating to 30 knots. Whew, just in time and Charisma shot off down a wave at 7-8 knots but well under control. Had I not reefed in time, we would have rounded up and things would have been much less fun. Once the wind hit, the 30 knots was sustained. Then the rain dumped. And dumped. And dumped. Good thing I put on a rain jacket.

So, all in all, even though it was a nasty little squall, we were ready and rode through with relative ease (and a some very soggy pants).

The rest of the night was just stunning in a different way than it started. Early on it was all stars and moon, after the squall I spent the night watching the incredible power of two huge squalls receding in the distance. The one we went through and an even larger one that passed in front of us. Both looked like huge explosions. They painted the sky black from the water, where they were dumping rain in huge quantities, all the way up to 30,000+ feet where the tops were blowing off into the night sky.

Amazing.

As I write this, it’s 1700 and we’re about 100 miles out from Raroia, our first landfall in the Tuamotus. Our hope is our speed holds tonight and we get in early in the morning. Slack water for the low tide appears to be at somewhere around 0900 or so in the morning and that’s when our best shot at getting in through the reef will be. Stay tuned.

I see water, lots and lots of water

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Position: 12 degrees, 24 minutes South; 141 degrees, 31 minutes West

I’m giving Bob a blog-break tonight. He said to give you my perspective and so there you have it..lots and lots of water.

But it is beautiful blue water full of fish who are not entertained by our lures. Which means instead of fishing I spend my time looking at my French workbooks. There are two trains of thought about this language thing. The first is that we are in a foreign country and should learn to speak their language. Heck, most of them speak Marquesan and French. (We do know how to say hello in Marquesan – it sounds like “aloha” but is “kaoha”) The second thought is that we are only allowed in French Polynesia for 90 days, so why bother.

I am torn and am not really great at French but what the heck, what else do I have to do all day anyway? Watch the waves, check the course, do the dishes…you get my point. Actually I also made a lovely tuna salad for lunch, did a little exercise routine with my stretch bands (thanks Joanne) and did the laundry – you can do laundry when the boat is not moving too fast.

As we left Nuku Hiva we had some great wind and were making 6 to 6.5 knots. During my first watch (9 pm to 2 am) the winds lightened but mostly because we were behind the other small islands. Later it picked up and we were making 4.5 to 5 knots through the night. Unfortunately today has been a little slower, more like 4 knots, although now at 2100 the wind’s picking up and we’re back to 5-6 knots boatspeed.

But did I tell you what an almost full moon looks like on an open ocean. Incredibly beautiful! As the sun set last night we could see a big squall behind us. Very big, so glad it went behind. But it put me on alert so all through my watch I “prayed” the clouds away. And it worked. They skirted all around us and provided beautiful vistas against the bright moon. There is nothing as peaceful as the moon on the ocean. And every once in a while you get a special treat – a shooting star!

So my closing thoughts on today: I am a little stiff from sitting. I also tried to kill time by putting all of the pictures on my iPad into folders but was not successful. Anyone know the secret?

And a final thought – a year ago Bob and I were up in Tahoe with Cliff getting ready to ride our bikes around the lake. Unfortunately we were rained out. Tomorrow Cliff and friends try it again. We are very excited for them and wish them lots of energy to get up those hills and lots of joy coasting down the other side. We look forward to the full report. (Party on, Garth)

Blue and Blue

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Position: 10 degrees, 46 minutes South; 140 degrees, 57 minutes West

Blue sky, blue water, all day. 14 knots of wind and 3 foot waves. Nice, nice and nice. It’s also about 80 degrees. Hard to believe we’re in the middle of the ocean, it’s so nice today. Last night was a bit less comfortable though. We were essentially passing from North to South on the West side of the Marquesas and the islands, although more than 20 miles to windward, made the seas very bumpy and uncomfortable. Basically, each island diffracted the large Easterly swells which left us in the diffraction pattern. We had waves combining from all kinds of different directions forming into pyramidal shapes at times which threw Charisma around quite a bit leaving me with a couple substantial new bruises from cooking dinner and getting thrown about the galley. We had the hatches closed fearing a rogue type of wave would combine from out of nowhere and dump saltwater into the cabin. I even put in one of the companionway boards because I saw a couple alarming size/steepness waves sneak up from behind us. We’ve talked with several other boats who got surprised the same way and spent the following day cleaning up and I wanted to avoid that scenario.

Anyway, we’re past the islands now and the waves have settled down to a comfortable ride. We’ve been cruising all day with just the jib doing 5 and ½ knots or so and catnapping trying to catch up on sleep that is hard to come by on the first night out. We’re not in the rhythm yet, although 0300 we’re about there.

Nothing much else to report for now, except for any Hams out there. If you have access to a ham radio with a good signal, we’re checking in with Pacific Seafarers Net at 0330 daily. We’re about #20 in the check-in, so the actual time we come up is closer to 0345. It’s basically a way to stay in touch. If you don’t call in on a given night, they start an alert and look for you. It’s a great service and many of our friends are on it as well when underway for more than a day or two passage. For instance, we’re in touch with our friend Dave on Caminoe who is right now on passage from Mexico to Hawaii.

Wilson’s Back In The Saddle!

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Position:09 degrees, 19 minutes South; 140 degrees, 17 minutes West

Back at sea

We’re back at sea on a three and a half day run to Raroia in the Tuamotu chain of islands. Wilson’s got the steering under control and we doing 5.5-6.5 knots with 14-18 knots wind and a 20% furled jib. We’re taking our time because when we get to the island, really it’s an atoll which means a “hollow” island surrounded by reef, we have to wait for a favorable tide to go through the pass into the lagoon inside the reef. We left today at 1630 and we’re looking for a 3 ½ day passage getting us there in the very early hours. We’ll then be able to wait around outside until it looks safe to enter. The guides say to enter at slack water after the ebb, so when we figure out when the ebb is, we’ll do the calculations. I think it’s sometime around noon but we’re working to confirm that.

It’s an absolutely gorgeous night of sailing. Not only is the wind moderate but it’s about 75 degrees F so shorts and a tee-shirt are all that are needed to stay warm. The waves are about 5 feet and quartering so they are rolling us a fair amount, but we were getting tired of rolling in the anchorage and going nowhere for it.

That’s about it for tonight. This starts “leg six” and the Tuamotus are a whole different experience. Folks who are ahead of us say (on the shortwave radio) that they don’t want to leave. Just sand, some palm trees, no people and snorkeling among the reefs. Sounds nice. Can’t wait.

Internet Day

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We finally found a decent internet connection today and spent over three hours uploading pictures. We would have spent more time since we only updated through May 5th, but the battery in the computer died. We might be able to go back tomorrow morning and finish since our next leg requires that we leave in the afternoon for an early morning arrival after about three to three and a half days (depending on wind). It’s not just us. Everyone we’ve met has been frustrated by the lack of connectivity in French Poly. It’s the good news/bad news syndrome. One the one hand it’s great that it’s so primitive and therefore relaxing, but on the other hand we want to share the pictures from the adventure and the internet that is here is usually only capable of the barest of text connections. Think early 1990s AOL.

The photos we managed to upload barely do the beauty of this place justice. On some of them it’s worth it to “click” to see it a bit bigger, but it’s so hard to capture the beauty and grandeur here. It’s all so “big”. You put on the wide angle lens to bring it all in and the steepness and height disappears. And the colors are phenomenal, buy the light is so bright, the contrast is hard to impossible to control except mere minutes before sunrise and after sunset. In any case, we hope you enjoy seeing some of what we’ve been doing.

Not much else to report today, we’re getting antsy to get going again. We would have been to the Tuamotus by now if the broken alternator had not put us in here during a holiday weekend (we still don’t know what holiday they celebrated) where we couldn’t supply or refuel.

Hopefully tomorrow night will find us blogging from sea again, so we’ll see you then.

P.S. A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHOUT-OUT TO MY DAUGHTER KELLY WHO IS TURNING 21 TOMORROW! Wish I were there to help celebrate, but I know she’s got some great plans with both family and friends. So Happy Birthday Kelly. For anyone who reads this who knows her, please tell her the same! Thanks!!

Pictures

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I finally got to a decent internet link.  I have now uploaded pictures to the blog from April 1st to May 5th.  You have to got back and sort of browse to see them.  I’ve tried to put them at the beginning of the text.  Sorry-ran out of battery and we’re leaving in the morning.  Will try for more from Tahiti in about three weeks.

Never As Easy As You Think

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We thought today would just be an easy day getting ready to leave the Marquesas. The plan was to get up, go to the clinic for Elephantitis pills (yes, it’s a problem in French Polynesia and we don’t want it-the pills are free), go shopping for final fresh food, then get fuel in preparation for sailing to the next island chain, the Tuamotus.

Well…we made it into town-a little later than planned. Of course, laundry always takes longer than expected (about 2 hours!) That’s OK, things move pretty slowly. Ran into some friends on Black Dog at the dinghy dock and chatted for a while. OK, actually we gossiped, but it was well intentioned gossip. Anyway, we took our leave and looked for the clinic. The directions were something like- “Go up the hill toward the Gendarmerie. The clinic is ‘up there’. If you get to the hospital, you’ve gone too far”. A little vague, but workable. So up we went. We got to the hospital, whoops, too far. So back a bit. Nothing. Finally Ann went into the hospital to ask (and that’s another story we don’t have time for here) and they pointed; “not this house, but the one on the other side”. So back we went to the one we thought might be the clinic but since there was no signage, we were worried it was someone’s house. Turned out to be the clinic. The woman inside was very helpful and with broken English and our basic French we determined that you take the pills based on weight. Four for me, three for Ann. (My surprise was I’ve lost about 25 pounds since leaving the US! Yeah! Back to 252 which I haven’t weighed since the mid 1990’s). Ann has lost another 5 pounds too!

Once fortified with pills (they are not preventative, they are “for the larvae of the mosquito” as she told us, sort of like worming your cat so we’re to take them upon leaving French Poly), we headed to the store. Got there just in time to find it had closed for lunch. Rats. All stores here close from 12PM to 2:30PM. Oh well. Back to the dock where there’s an outdoor crepe shop. We sat down and ordered a couple “completes” with bacon, cheese, ham and egg. They were delicious!

We were just getting ready to go to the store when John from Orcinius called us on the hand-held VHF radio. They were ready to do the fuel thing. Fueling over at the fuel dock is a very scary experience with three foot waves and massive surge; it’s very hard on small pleasure craft. It’s more made for the supply ships that come in once a week. John has a couple custom 40 gallon fuel bladders and an electric pump for transferring fuel. We were going to go get 80 gallons in the bladders in the bottom of the dinghy and then back to Charisma and pump them out into our tank. Sounds much easier than Med-mooring (back in and tie up with your stern to the dock) at the dock in all of the surge.

First off, getting the fuel was pretty funny. The supply ship was in so we motored the dinghy just under the huge bow of the ship and next to the side of the wharf where there’s a steel ladder up about 15 feet to the dock level. I walked over to the fuel station and said I wanted 300 liters (about 80 gallons). They said I had to come back when the ship was gone since there was no room at the wharf. I said my boat was already tied up and pointed out at the bow of the ship. They looked at me kind of funny as from their perspective, there was nothing there but a huge ship bow. Finally I got it through I had a little dinghy with fuel bladders, etc, etc.

So, got the fuel. Now, with the dinghy almost sinking from the weight, we motored over to Charisma. This was going to be great! Easy as pie. We opened the fuel port, pulled the hose up, started the pump, it whirred with a passion and…nothing happened. No fuel came out. I won’t bore with all the detail of the rest of the afternoon except to say it was spent taking the pump apart to find a broken check valve. Once fixed, everything worked and we transferred the fuel, but voila, afternoon gone. No shopping. Day over.

Fortunately Ann had a much more productive afternoon albeit in the “sweat shop” of the cabin on a hot day. I found her slaving over the sewing machine with both fans on high and aimed at her perspiring forehead. While John and I were fooling with machinery on deck, Ann did a beautiful repair to the staysail cover and she made a bunch of tie-downs with buckles for the jerry cans on the bow. Now I don’t have to untie miles of rope when I want to get at the water, rum or diesel up on deck. I just unsnap the buckle on the tie-down and we’re good to go.

By the way, I may not have mentioned that one of our jerry cans is full of rum. We learned awhile back in Mexico that liquor is very, very expensive here in French Poly but you’re also not supposed to bring any in. Our solution- fill a 5 gallon “water” jerry can with rum. Hopefully it looks like water and customs won’t ask. Well, not quite fill, but we bought a bunch of 1 liter bottles of a decent yet cheap rum and poured it in. I think something like 10 liters or so. Now when we’re out of rum in the decanters in the cabin, we just go to the jerry jug bring a funnel and fill up. In Mexico the rum we’ve found here for $60 was about $10, so we’re doing pretty well on the operation.

So, there you have it. The going is easy, but never as easy as you think. But at least our rum is cheap.