One of our neighbors

We’re here and there’s nothing broken for now. Ann went to church today and was thrilled to have experienced her first mass in about 8 months that was given in ENGLISH! She enjoyed hearing the prayers and singing the hymns in English. While Ann was in church, I went down to the scooter rental place to get a scooter since it looks like we’re going to stay here for a week and explore the island. The place was technically closed-the Cook Islanders take their Sundays very seriously-but there was someone there who took my reservation for a scooter and I’ll pick it up Monday morning at 0800. $20/day is a good deal for such fun transportation! The only hang-up is I’ll have to take a motorcycle test (even though we had a scooter for three days on Aitutaki) and we have to go the Rarotonga Police Department to get a local driver’s license. Should be fun!

The rest of today was just reading our books and we went for a couple mile long walk just to get off the boat and stretch our legs. When we came back, Ann was talking to our boat neighbors and found out they had a key to the showers and unabashedly asked to borrow it (the harbor master has been closed all weekend since we got here and we can’t get our own key until Monday/tomorrow). Score! We got it and both of us enjoyed the first real shower in a while.

The other fun thing: people love to come down to the wharf and look at the boats. Since we’re Med-moored, our cockpit is facing the wharf and thus looking right at the people who are in turn looking down at us! We have now started conversations with lots of people who have given us their names, email, etc and invited us to visit them. It’s the same in all the areas we visit. People are interested in our story as we are in theirs and we have sort of pre-arranged to meet folks in lands we have yet to visit. Most of the folks we have met are from NZ and are on vacation here in the Cooks, but some are local and have invited us to stop by their business or call them if we’re in their town.

Yesterday on the wharf we also witnessed a cultural event that you just don’t see in the US. There was a small ship here-an island freighter-that also took passengers. Mid-morning we noticed a lot of people starting to congregate. Many had rugs and other mattress type things and we suddenly realized this freighter was going to be more of a ferry and would be taking a ton of people. It all came together when we realized that the last week of so has been Constitution Day in the Cook Islands. A celebration of their independence (I think from Great Britain-they are now aligned with NZ). Anyway, a hundred or so people were getting on board for a three day passage back to one of several Northern Cook islands. It was like watching a cruise ship leave except that you realized that these passengers would be setting up their own mattresses in the hallways of the ship for the trip. No fancy staterooms, yet everyone was thrilled to be on board and heading home.

Tomorrow, once we have the scooter (assuming I can pass the scooter test), we’ll do a tour of the island.

Postion: 21 degrees, 12 minutes south; 159 degrees, 07 minutes west

Contrary to current beliefs, we are comfortably situated in Rarotonga.

There was a rumor going around that the harbor was closed due to dredging. They are in fact dredging, but the harbor is not closed. This is a beautiful island and in some respects we’re glad people are avoiding it this year because of the rumor. More for us. There are only a couple boats in here, so it is very uncrowded. We’re thinking we’ll stay a week. There’s lot to do here including renting a scooter, hiking across the island (and taking a bus back-the buses here have two designations; Clockwise and Anticlockwise. That’s it!) and snorkeling. Not to mention the great Saturday market. We browsed it today and will hit it more seriously next week. There are some nice carvings and black pearls to by had.

On the way here-as if there wasn’t enough adventure from getting out of Aitutaki-a bolt holding the alternator bracket broke. Yikes. More stuff I never planned to have to fix. Anyway, we were having lunch in the cockpit when I smelled burnt rubber. I’ve learned to investigate stuff like that right away and pulled the engine cover off. Right away I saw the fan belt was loose. I looked for why it was loose and found the alternator bracket hanging in the breeze. We shut down the engine right away and investigated further. Found the head of a bolt in the bilge. OK, looked at the engine, OH-there’s the rest of the bolt still in the engine itself. So, I drilled a pilot hole in the bolt and then put a bolt extractor in the drill and crossed fingers. It didn’t look like it was going to come out, but after some work,I finally got the stub of the broken bolt to come out. Now all we had to do was replace the bolt. Oops, special size, we don’t have any. So, bailing wire, some silicone glue and a undersized screw and we were able to affect a jury-rigged solution that got us into Rarotonga.

Oh, I forgot to mention that after our adventure getting out of Aitutaki, we had a spectacular sail down here to Raro. We finally got out of Aitutaki around 1530 and the rest of the day and all night had a glorious sail. But, come early afternoon the wind had dropped and unless we wanted to spend another night at sea, we needed to start the engine. So with four hours to go we started the engine and that’s when the broken part showed up.

The upshot of all this was that we had to come into Raro in the dark. Fortunately it’s very straightforward. You just pick up the range lights and come straight in. We did that, but looking at it today in the light, I’m impressed with how narrow it actually was. The other fortunate thing was Orcinius got in here in the afternoon and were waiting for us to show up, so we had a welcoming party who allowed us to just side tie to them instead of med-moor in the dark. (And Orcinius had already cleared it with the Port Captain so that we COULD come in – with limited space you need special approval.)So we did and that’s how we stayed the night. Today, we all had to clear the harbor for a couple hours to allow them to finish doing some dredging. After about an hour they signaled all was clear to come back in and we successfully med-moored to the harbor wall. Charisma did good.

I finished the day taking apart the bailing wire solution to the alternator bracket and putting in a new bolt of the correct size I was able to find at the local hardware store. It’s 5/16″ SS, about 4″ long. I will have to find the exact part which is a special hardened steel, but this will work until we’re able to find a place with the right parts. In mean time, we’re good to go.

Position: 20 degrees, 07 minutes south; 160 degrees, 02 minutes west

The Captain and some of her helpers heel Charisma over to her rail

Jim was hanging on the halyard, while John (to the right) had it anchored to the reef to pull the mast over

John and Jim setting up the halyard anchor (note they are standing on the reef)

Giant clam

A little too much adventure today thank you very much. We almost spent the night and possibly much longer stuck aground in the pass, waiting for the next really high tide out of Aitutaki.

But first let me tell you about the marine reserve we visited today where they are growing endangered giant clams. These clams grow up to four feet across and we’ve been seeing them on our snorkeling expeditions. Yes, these are the ones you see on TV, grab the divers’ leg. They are big enough to do that, but they are filter feeders and not man-eaters. Anyway, they are also apparently delicious enough that they were almost collected to extinction. They are also very beautiful. When they are open, the “lips” of the clams are the most brilliant colors of blue, green, purple and yellow/brown, although the shells are just plain white. So we toured the facility where they are actually breeding them and then putting them out in the marine preserve. It takes about six years before they are old enough to transfer from the tanks to the lagoon.

After that, Orcinius (John and Lisa) and we “scootered” over to a nice little spot on the other side of the island for a last lunch on Aitutaki. The day was carefully scripted as it was important to time it to precisely hit high tide if we were to get out of the pass, so there was a little clock watching going on to make sure we made it back to our boats in time to get ready to leave. Orcinius was anchored with their stern tied by rope to a coconut palm and we were side tied to them. We knew it would take some effort to get untangled just getting out. Little did we know what lay ahead.

After lunch we motored back to the scooter rental place and dropped our trusty mounts off with a fond farewell. These are a darn fun way to get around the little islands and it looks like we might have opportunity to rent others in islands yet to be visited. The rental place was nice enough to drop us back at the boats so we saved a little time there that could be used preparing for sea.

After getting the dinghies stowed, engines put away, etc, we got together and briefed how we would deal with the pass and the spot where Charisma ran aground on the way in a couple days ago. It was agreed that Orcinius, which only draws 4.5 feet would lead and if we ran aground again, they would back up and grab a bridle prepared and in place on both boats to which we would attach a tow line. They could then pull us across the shallow spot if we “found” it again. Additionally Sockdologer (Jim and Karen) volunteered to follow us out in their dinghy and be the “in between” that could zip back and forth transferring lines and such if needed. So, it was with this little flotilla all set that the time came-about 30 minutes before highest tide. We started engines and prepared to leave. I put the engine in gear and throttled forward. Nothing. We didn’t budge. We were hard aground right there where we were anchored. At 30 minutes to high tide. Uh Oh!

I won’t describe in detail all the maneuvers we did to get off the bottom but suffice to say John worked hard on Orcinius to get the right purchase on Charisma to pull her forward, Lisa was masterful (as always) driving the big 44 foot cat and Sockdologer was great helping to keep their anchor line from getting sucked into our propwash as we were running at high power trying to drive off. Finally a combination of power, leverage and tide combined to float/drag us off our perch and we started moving. Cheers from all as we slipped into the (slightly) deeper water of the pass with Orcinius just in front of us as planned. The only problem here was that we had used precious time against the high tide just getting out. We motored very slowly down the pass, just 50 yards behind Orcinius, both boats seeking the best way through the narrow pass. You could see the undercut coral on each side and you the bottom just 6-7 feet below. Since we draw almost 6, we were holding our breath all the way. Just as we thought we might make it this time I felt the characteristic tap, tap, clunk of the bottom making contact with the sand/coral. Just as I was hoping against all hope that we would slide over the shallow spot, we hit solidly, the bow went down as we stopped and…(on the radio) I announced; “We’re aground”. Just as Orcinius was getting ready to come back to tow us out, THEY ran aground. I saw their boat shudder and tip forward then suddenly stop. This wasn’t part of the plan! Now even if they could get off, they couldn’t come back and tow us out. And the tide is now past its peak and starting its six hour journey to low tide. We were stuck and would start tipping over while spending a very uncomfortable night waiting for the next high tide 12 hours later and a chance to get off. No bueno. Not a good place to be.

We all jumped into action. We didn’t have long to somehow get us both out the pass. But as I was working on our problem, in the back of my mind I was thinking; “They only draw 4.5 feet to our 6 feet, how in the heck are we going to get over the next bump even if we get past this one?” Well, we’d get to that later, in the mean time we have this spot to get past. Back to the same “aground drill” we used earlier in the week. Move the heavy water jugs to the other side of the boat, move me to the bow and get Ann to try and drive us off, hoping that these changes would be enough to tip the keel over and allow us to sneak over the reef. We moved a couple feet and then stuck again. This time a bit further on as Charisma was now tipping over a little, standing on her keel in the increasingly shallow water. I’m guessing the depth at that point was around 5 feet 4 inches. We needed 8 more inches of water or make the boat 8 inches shallower in order to make it out. Turns out the latter is easier to do once you have reached maximum high tide as we already had.

Next step was to get Karen and Jim who were standing by in their dinghy to help. Karen came aboard and took the helm, Ann and I stayed on the bow and Jim hung off the end of the boom. We heeled Charisma over and down by the bow, put the engine in full forward, pushing billows of sand off the bottom and behind us. We again moved a little but just seemed to push even farther onto the bar or whatever was down there. Time is really working against us now. I can feel us tipped further over standing on the keel as the tide is starting to recede. At this point, John and Lisa got Orcinius loose and were able to continue out the pass. They radioed for Jim to come out and get John in the dinghy so he could come back and help. Lisa would stay with Orcinius to keep her on station just outside the pass.

While Jim was getting John and bringing him back, we were still working feverishly trying to beat the tide. Our next step was to unfurl the jib and try to use that as extra power and as a way to heel Charisma even further than we could with just our weight. There was 14 knots of wind off our quarter, so it might work. Getting ready, we unfurled the jib, quickly sheeted it in, applied full power on the engine and muscles tense and straining trying to will the boat off, we watched as we seemed to gain a few inches, then a few more then suddenly we broke free. We quickly doused the jib so as not to gain too much uncontrolled speed and slam into the reef. We only got about 40 feet when we hit another high spot and boom, we’re solid on again.

By this time Jim and John were almost back to Charisma and John had a plan. “Give me a halyard and tie it to your longest rope and give me your dinghy anchor.” As we quickly set that up, he Jim dragged the now extended halyard over to the side of the pass which was only about 25 feet away. They jumped out of the dinghy and were standing in four feet of water over coral and sand. They then planted the anchor in the sand and started to pull on the halyard (which since it goes to the top of the mast, this lever arm provides a lot of leverage to pull Charisma over on her side) trying to “tip” a 24,000 pound boat enough to tilt the keel such that we could get over what looked like less than five feet of water. Just then, another dinghy with the only other cruisers in the area showed up. Moe and Margaret from Wadda (from the US). They had been snorkeling and saw our boats stopped in the pass and thought, “That doesn’t look right!” While they were making their way over, I rigged a footstep out on the end of the boom for Moe to stand on-seeking maximum leverage. I stood on the boom out as far as I could balance, Margaret hung onto the boom, Ann was on the bowsprit, Karen at the helm and John and Jim standing on the edge of the pass pulling on the halyard. The combination had Charisma tipped over so far, her deck rail was almost in the water. This proved to be just barely enough because at full power we started inching forward dragging on the shallow bottom. Karen shouted, “It feels more like I’m driving a tractor through the field than a boat!” We were literally dragging Charisma over the shallow spot in the pass. Finally over, she was floating again and picking up speed very quickly. We throttled back and just then heard a muffled shout; “Bob!” I looked back and John, who was tied to the dinghy, halyard and anchor was being dragged through the water behind us. He had put his snorkel back on so he could breathe, since his face was being pulled under water, and unless I slowed down we were going to drown him. Also, when we broke free, Jim was pulling on the halyard and had to let go. That left him standing waist deep on the reef at the edge of the pass watching as John, dinghy and Charisma, all headed out! Fortunately Moe and Margaret went back in their dinghy to get him while John was able to disengage from us and we all headed out to deeper water.

I can’t quite describe how happy I was to be back in the deep blue. Floating. That’s what a boat’s supposed to do. We adored Aitutaki, but I am glad to be out although it was one of our favorite stops on the trip so far.

Once in deep water we hove to, as did Orcinius and both John and I dove to check the bottom on our respective boats. His description, “Well, we won’t have to sand the bottom when we haul for new bottom paint”. On Charisma there is a shallow gouge on the very bottom of the keel where we dragged over some coral, the bottom paint on the bottom of the keel is all rubbed off, but that’s all I could see for now. I’ll dive her again when I have more time and in calmer water, but it doesn’t look like all the dragging caused any serious damage. As for negotiating questionable passes again, I think I can say that I have now had quite enough of that kind of adventure. Many thanks to the cast of this adventure, including our Australian friends, Jo and Mike on shore, who helped untie the stern line to the palm tree and helped keep Sockdolager from swinging into us as we broke out of the mud! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

On the motu near Aitutaki

Only one way to get there. By dinghy over shallow coral reefs

You have to walk in the last 100 yards or so. Too shallow for the motors/props

We got to see live giant clams

Some great snorkeling

Even some big fish

Lots of fun

That’s the name of the Motu that we dinghied to with Orcinius and Sockdolager today to go snorkeling. There’s a marine preserve there, so we weaved our way through the bommies (i.e. coral mounds) for an hour to get there. But was it worth it! The water was turquoise and warm and the snorkeling was great. But more fun was the camaraderie of three couples tripping across the waters in their silly dinghies out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. At several points on the way, the water got shallow and we just got out and walked the dinghies. Finally we found the marine preserve area and put anchors in the sand in about three feet of water right on the edge of the reef. We were then able to walk a few feet over and slide into the deeper water where we were met by giant clams! They could easily grab your whole leg they were so big. Beautiful too. So many colors. I swam over and poked one just to see if it would close all the way. It didn’t fall for my bluff. It flinched a little but then realized it could just about swallow me whole and that was that. We finished the dinghy part of the day with a picnic lunch with our three dinghies tied together and anchored over the sand several hundred yards off the island in the middle of the lagoon. Nothing but clear, ice blue water all around. Simply wonderful!

Since we got up at 0700 to get started on the day, we were done snorkeling by 1300 or so. This gave us time to go motor scootering some more. Oh, I haven’t mentioned that the best mode of transportation on the island is a motor scooter and we rented one! $25/day. What a bargain! There are not a lot of roads here and half of them are dirt anyway, so scooters are the favored mode of transport. Very few cars, lots of scooters. We have been having a blast scootering around the island on the main road and off road as well. You see so much more on a scooter than when you rent a car. So scooter some more we did.

As much as we could easily spend a month here, having a fairly deep draft boat, we have to live by the tides. Unfortunately tomorrow is the last day we can leave here in the daylight for at least two more weeks. So, regrettably tomorrow we’re heading out. Ann and I have both commented how easy it would be to just stay here, period. It’s such a relaxing place. I imagine this may be what Hawaii might have been like 100 years ago. The people are unbelievably friendly and while there are some resorts, they are very small and tucked away so you don’t even notice them. There are no high rises and locals claim there is no crime. You literally cannot pass someone on the street without saying, “hello”, even on a motorbike. Since I am not proficient enough yet to take a hand off the handlebar to wave, I have a head nod that says “hi” that seems to be working as everyone who passes us when I nod either waves or nods back. And I mean everyone. Even in cars. You just can’t pass without saying “hi” or waving or in my case a head nod.

So I’ll end this in the spirit of Aitutaki and say; “Hi, how are ya?!”

Position: 18 degrees, 51 minutes south; 159 degrees, 48 minutes west

Bummer. Aground and it was high tide in the middle of the channel. We should have had several feet under the keel

The channel is very narrow

Finally inside the reef, we tied up to Orcinius with Sockdologer on the other side. Orcinius had an anchor out and was stern tied to the trees

We were ready for it and yes, it happened. We ran aground coming in the very narrow and very shallow pass into Aitutaki.

There was a four knot ebb right at the ocean and I had Charisma gunned up but we were only making 3 knots over the ground. Then after 50 yards, the current dropped and we brought the RPMs down to a slower level, but we were still doing about 4 knots when we felt the bump, bump-at which point I said something like; “oh darn it!” and we took a really big bump-Charisma went bow down as the aft part of the keel hit really hard and we just stopped. Totally. Completely.

We were now in the middle (if you could say such a tiny channel even has a middle-it felt barely wide enough for us to fit through) of the pass and hard on the sand. Not moving. Blocking the pass. Didn’t really matter since no-one else was going to use it, we were the only non-local boat in that whole day. Other than us, only the fisherman used the pass and they were in little motor boats that drew about 2 feet. We draw 5’8″ before a ton of gear (literally) so loaded down, I’m guessing we actually draw 6′.

Six feet should have been OK, but I forgot to read some of the fine print of the chart book as follows: “…hug the sticks…”, (channel markers are sticks in the sand), “…close on to the north side EXCEPT around the wreck where you should stay out a little further…” . I stayed with the hug the sticks part and didn’t notice the “EXCEPT” part. So while hugging the sticks close on to the north side of the channel, we basically high centered Charisma on the sand. We hit so hard the alarm went off on the fluxgate compass (more on that below) since it couldn’t comprehend why we stopped so fast.

Once it became obvious we were hard aground I went through my usual litany of swear words to describe such a situation properly to Jesus Christ, then relented and quickly started taking action to remedy the situation. I was worried about two things: The current was going at right angles to the pass, so if we drifted loose we could really get in trouble by drifting onto the hard and very shallow coral that lined the sides of the pass and be in much more serious trouble. We only had 30 minutes before max high tide. We had to work fast and get loose by then, otherwise we’d spend the next 12 hours enjoying the view as the tide cycled back to where we’d have enough water to lift us off. Fortunately we had Orcinius on the radio. They got here a couple days before us and being a catamaran, they didn’t draw as much and thus were able to get in easier and were med-moored to a palm tree in the tidal basin. “Orcinius, we’re aground” was our simple message. Their response; “We’re on our way out in the dinghy”.

Everyone knows about this pass. Everyone knows it’s rumored to be only six feet deep, but that’s at mean low tide, so there should have been enough water for us at high tide. Anyway, we were all ready for the drill. While John and Lisa from Orcinius were heading out to help us in their dinghy, we set our plan in motion. We were aground with the shallow water on our port side, so we had to “tip” our keel to starboard to reduce the depth and pivot it away from the shallow water. We quickly put the boom over to the port side and Ann worked to set the preventer to hold it 90 degrees to the boat. While she was setting up the boom, I dashed to the foredeck and untied the dinghy (which was deflated and folded into its bag and lashed to the deck) and moved it to the port side. We also had two 5 gallon water jugs on the starboard side that I unlashed and moved to port. Just this moved about 200 pounds from one side of Charisma over to port. Then I put Ann on the bowsprit to try and drop the bow and lift the deep part of the keel while I gunned the engine. No joy. We’re still hard and fast.

At about this point, John and Lisa came on the scene. We started out with both of them hanging off the boom from their dinghy hoping to pull Charisma further over to port. I again gunned the engine. We weren’t moving, but when I moved the wheel from one side to the other, Charisma would pivot so I knew we were just sitting on the lowest part of the keel and not too far from coming off. The problem at this point was ME. Not literally, but my weight in the cockpit steering the boat was keeping the keel firmly in the sand. OK, so now we’ll try this: Ann and Bob on the bowsprit waaay out in front of the bow. John hanging on the boom 10 feet to port making a pretty effective lever-arm and Lisa (who weighs almost nothing as far as we can tell) steering. Back to full power, turn the wheel left then right, then left again-I can see Charisma pivoting-I shout; “MORE POWER”and she turns it up. We can see sand boiling up from the stern as the big propeller is pushing tons of water and then…inch by inch, I think I can see we’re moving. Yes, we’re moving. Slowly at first, then it’s clear we’re sliding off the sand. Yay! We’re free!

John relaxed off the boom and headed back in to prepare for us to side-tie to Orcinius and Lisa stayed on for the ride in. The rest of the way was anti-climax, but still amazingly tight. Even the turning basin inside was barely big enough for Charisma to turn without doing a “back and fill”. In the mean time “Saint John” had set up everything on Orcinius so we didn’t have to drop an anchor and med-moor. We would just tie up to Orcinius who already had an anchor out the bow and the stern tied to a coconut palm tree. Yes, that’s how small this harbor is. You have such little room, you are tying the stern to trees to keep from swinging into the coral as wind and current change.

It doesn’t matter too much anyway-at anything but high tide, we actually sit on the bottom here in the anchorage. It was a little unnerving last night as we could hear and feel Charisma settle into the mud as the tide went out. We’re probably about a foot in the mud at low tide and just barely floating at high tide.

I mentioned an alarm went off in the electronics right as we ran aground. It was a different one than I’d ever heard and I was busy, so told Ann to just turn it off and come back up above deck. Turns out the fluxgate compass doesn’t like sudden stops. What the heck’s a flux gate compass you ask? Don’t ask, but suffice it to say it’s a gyro type compass that provides the synchronization between radar and GPS so the two systems can talk with each other and show up together on the chart plotter. After we got in and settled down after our entertaining entrance, I noticed the error message and the fact that the GPS/Radar overlay no longer worked. Crap! I don’t know how to fix that stuff! Once again, out come the binders of manuals and after some reading I found the answer. “Turn the power off and then on again”. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had added the word; “crisply”. In other words, reboot the system. I did that and it now works. Yay! Crisis averted.

OK, so that’s our yesterday. Today, we rented motorbikes (actually one, we ride together) and motored around the island. What a blast! No traffic and scooting around on both two lane asphalt and dirt roads. Really fun! Also, the people here are amazing/incredible. We have decided that no matter what the reality, we have decided “Aitutaki” means; “really nice, friendly people”. And everyone speaks English! But more on these last topics tomorrow. It’s time for bed for now. Motorbilkes, flux-gate fixes and dinner and a Polynesian dance show with Orcininus have exhausted us for now.

See you tomorrow.

Landfall!

We made landfall today around noon. Definitely not the most graceful entry we’ve made into a new spot. In fact, it was downright ungraceful, but we’re very tired and need to get some sleep. More tomorrow.

Position: 18 degrees, 29 minutes south; 158 minutes, 34 degrees west (125 mile day)

We expect landfall tomorrow morning IF the wind holds which is questionable. It’s gone light now so whereas all the bouncing around the last couple days was from the wind and big waves, now it’s because of the light wind. Today was a gorgeous day. The wind dropped to 14 knots and the waves down to 2 meters. We put the main up and set the jib out on the pole and ran wing and wing all day. It was the kind of day that is why we love cruising. The wind has dropped to about 6 knots now so we are eking out about 3-4 knots boatspeed. We have to get to Aitutaki by noon because that is high tide so if the wind completely drops out we’ll have to motor-sail.

Not too much else to update. Dinner was Mahi II. I sautéed some veggies that were about to go bad (an eggplant and a bell pepper) with an onion, threw it in leftover rice and seared the mahi on the cast iron pan with some spices. Yum. Also, we had the ceviche on crackers for lunch. Can you eat too much fish? I don’t think so….

That’s about it for today. Stay tuned for our update of our attempt at the pass at Aitutaki.

P.S. To JHam: Jerry-we do swab the deck, but with a brush. There’s no room on board for a swab although I used to swab the decks on a schooner I crewed on when I was in my teens. Ann swabbed, er, brushed the deck after we caught the Mahi. Fish scales everywhere although I’m getting much better about not spraying blood all over the place. In fact, these days, there’s very little blood when I gut and fillet the fish just lots of swearing as the boat rolls and I have to hang on to fish, knife and self. At least I no longer have to change my clothes and take a shower (bucket bath) after catching a fish. 🙂 You should have seen some of the early attempts. Psycho!

Position: 17 degrees, 48 minutes south; 156 degrees, 31 minutes west (138 mile day)

Ahhh, Mahi

Short post as it’s rockin’ and rollin’ and very hard to type.

We caught a Mahi just after lunch today, so we had fresh Mahi Mahi, rice and salad for dinner. (yay!) It was delicious. The fish also provided 5 additional dinners for two, 1/2 pound of ceviche that I made this afternoon and a pound of extra bits for chowder. Yum.

More blue water and blue skies with some clouds along with 10 foot seas and 15-20 knot winds. A good day, but we’re almost straight downwind which makes it rolly in these big waves. Wilson is doing an amazing job steering. We have only tweaked it when we reef the jib in or out-which is once or twice a day-and after three days, it’s steering us within five miles of the rhumb line course.

It’s beautiful out here even at night when the full moon is illuminating everything.

OK, time for bed. It’s Ann’s watch from 1000 to 0200.

By the way; to our family who are now in Aptos on vacation-Ann made ginger cookies for you all, but we can’t figure how to deliver them, so we’ll have to eat them. Sorry, she’ll make more later.

Position: 17 degrees, 08 minutes south; 154 degrees, 04 minutes west (about 130 miles last 24 hours) Sailing this afternoon, watching wave after wave after wave and nothing but blue water as far as I could see, I was struck by how “out there” we really are. We just left a small island, for an even smaller island some 500 miles away where the only entrance into the lagoon is narrow and shallow-maybe too shallow for us to fit. Just thinking.

I’m finally over my almost mal de mer. I didn’t feel very good for most of the first 18 hours of the trip. First touch of seasickness I’ve had in years. But got my sea legs back now.

Yesterday evening a potentially ominous issue came up. Just before sundown I glanced at the solar panel readout and it was dead. Not working. No light. Uh oh! Solar is one of our major sources of energy and it would be very bad if they panels quit working. It was too rough and I didn’t feel good enough to start rooting around in the electronics closet so I decided I’d put off looking at it until morning. Once the sun came up, I consulted the manuals and they said that; “a spike in power can cause the microprocessor to turn off. Disconnect all power and then reconnect, crisply”. Crisply??! Oh well, worth a shot. There is a fuse in the battery compartment under the bed in the quarterberth that delivers the solar power to the battery. I figured I could check it in case that was the problem and at the same time disconnect and reconnect it “crisply” and see if that would work. OK, found it, pulled it, it broke. Now I have to get the pieces of the fuse out of the inline holder (while still feeling a bit poorly inside the rolling boat). I dug them out-even had an extra fuse holder but didn’t feel like dealing with it so used the existing one for now. Found an appropriate fuse, inserted it crisply and voila! The panels came back online. Yay.

The rest of today has been pretty typical passage-making. Eat, sleep, read, enjoy the view. The evening radio nets start in an hour so we’ll be able to see where our various friends are and maybe talk with them. Last night Dave from Camanoe (our friend from Mexico who went to Hawaii when we left for the Marquesas) was on and called us when the net controller asked if there was any “traffic” for Charisma. Alas, his signal was pretty light and we couldn’t find a frequency so just said; “Hi”. Maybe we’ll be able to have a longer conversation tonight. Since he’s still in Hawaii it’s a long way and the ionosphere has to be just right to bounce the signal all the way down here.

So, there you have it. About three days to go (hopefully) to our next island. Position: 17 degrees, 08 minutes south; 154 degrees, 04 minutes west (about 130 miles last 24 hours) Sailing this afternoon, watching wave after wave after wave and nothing but blue water as far as I could see, I was struck by how “out there” we really are. We just left a small island, for an even smaller island some 500 miles away where the only entrance into the lagoon is narrow and shallow-maybe too shallow for us to fit. Just thinking.

I’m finally over my almost mal de mer. I didn’t feel very good for most of the first 18 hours of the trip. First touch of seasickness I’ve had in years. But got my sea legs back now.

Yesterday evening a potentially ominous issue came up. Just before sundown I glanced at the solar panel readout and it was dead. Not working. No light. Uh oh! Solar is one of our major sources of energy and it would be very bad if they panels quit working. It was too rough and I didn’t feel good enough to start rooting around in the electronics closet so I decided I’d put off looking at it until morning. Once the sun came up, I consulted the manuals and they said that; “a spike in power can cause the microprocessor to turn off. Disconnect all power and then reconnect, crisply”. Crisply??! Oh well, worth a shot. There is a fuse in the battery compartment under the bed in the quarterberth that delivers the solar power to the battery. I figured I could check it in case that was the problem and at the same time disconnect and reconnect it “crisply” and see if that would work. OK, found it, pulled it, it broke. Now I have to get the pieces of the fuse out of the inline holder (while still feeling a bit poorly inside the rolling boat). I dug them out-even had an extra fuse holder but didn’t feel like dealing with it so used the existing one for now. Found an appropriate fuse, inserted it crisply and voila! The panels came back online. Yay.

The rest of today has been pretty typical passage-making. Eat, sleep, read, enjoy the view. The evening radio nets start in an hour so we’ll be able to see where our various friends are and maybe talk with them. Last night Dave from Camanoe (our friend from Mexico who went to Hawaii when we left for the Marquesas) was on and called us when the net controller asked if there was any “traffic” for Charisma. Alas, his signal was pretty light and we couldn’t find a frequency so just said; “Hi”. Maybe we’ll be able to have a longer conversation tonight. Since he’s still in Hawaii it’s a long way and the ionosphere has to be just right to bounce the signal all the way down here.

So, there you have it. About three days to go (hopefully) to our next island.

Position: 16 degrees, 37 minutes south; 152 degrees, 18 minutes west

Yup, we’re finally out of French Polynesia. I took the French flag and the Polynesian courtesy flags down today for the first time in three months. The next flags to go up will be the yellow “Q” flag and the Cook Islands flag as we enter the Cooks. Hopefully that will be in about 3.5 days at Aitutaki. I say ‘hopefully’ because it’s a tricky entrance. There’s a very narrow cut through the coral reef of something like 30 feet and the depth is approximately 6 feet. We draw 5 feet, 8 inches, so it will be close. Fortunately high tide is at 1200, so we’ll have the sun overhead to help us see the bottom. It’s a +0.68 meter tide so that will give a little extra room. Once inside though, the lagoon is very small, so if there are many boats there, we won’t have room to anchor. Lots of “ifs”. The last “if” is if we can’t get in, we’ll keep on going another couple hundred miles to our next stop at Palmerston Island.

It’s bumpy bouncy again, so this will be short as I don’t have my sea legs yet and it’s not easy to type and not get seasick, LOL.

This moonrise tonight was almost surreal. It was a full moon and came out of the clouds above Bora Bora. Just amazing. Breathtaking really. It was the biggest moon I’ve ever seen and it was red. Amazing. A great way to start another leg of the voyage.

It’s blowing about 16 gusting to 20, the seas are about 4 feet and we’re doing about 6 knots with just the jib rolled about 40%. The wind should increase some in the next day or so then ease as we approach our destination. We checked in on the Seafarers Net, which is a Pacific-wide Ham net dedicated to keeping track of boats who wish to be followed. Good safety net. If you google searfarers net, or possibly go to www.pacseanet.com you can find the report that shows where we are. I think there are two Charismas, so we go by Charisma San Francisco.

That’s it for now, I need some air. See you tomorrow.