111811

Well, we made it through the ITCZ. I think I should get the sailing equivalent of a big silver belt buckle for riding the bronco thru the night last night. I stayed on the full 8 (or is it 12) seconds and then some!!! It was pretty wild!! The wind and the seas did their best, but I hung in there. My watch saw winds 18-23kt with gusts to 30. Not too big of a deal except the wind direction varied from 40 degrees in front of the beam to 40 degrees aft of the beam. Made sail trim and windvane setting a challenge. I pulled sail in and put sail out and adjusted the wind vane until I finally settled on the autopilot, the double reefed main and the staysail. With that we had reasonable speed 6-7 kts and only buried the port rail a little bit (Well actually a lot, but everything becomes relative after a while). The seas were pretty big and I got very wet. No rain though lots of clouds. The swell was and still is primarily from the north. The good news though is that the current is finally helping us a little bit - yeah!!! We will probably get to Honolulu on Thanksgiving Day - Kind of a pain as only the captain can leave the boat until customs comes, and then there is a fee for after hours/holidays - wonder if they'll take a check or credit card? Our supply of US cash is minimal. I had good sleep last night before my watch, and again after. It showed as I made pancakes for breakfast (1000 am). Josh is a little seasick again today, but in good spirits. There is actually blue sky out there, maybe we can get a little dried out today. The whole boat could stand to go through a car wash - ourselves included. Dennis cracked the hatch in our cabin this morning, and we got pooped by a wave. I had to tell him that generally I like to wash my underwear in fresh water! My drawer was out so that Dennis could reach the generator controls, which is why it was available to be doused with salt water. I wouldn't be surprised if we sprouted gills.

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111711

From the ITCZ. Wind is squirrelly - up and down. Its rainy, we are motor sailing. The only thing exciting ( if you can call it that) was we sailed thru a flock of flying fish 3 nights ago - boy do they stink!! I don't leave the cockpit at night (at least not because of smelly fish), so I had to put up with the smell - yuck! Also had a first of burying the aft deck toe rail - never done that before. Goes to show you can get used to just about anything. Actually I just want to be there so the discomfort of sailing like banshees is secondary to my desire to have a long hot shower. Optimistically we could make it by Wednesday, if we can just loose the current and pick up 20-25 kts of wind, it could happen. We should be exiting the ITCZ within the next 24 hours, and will then make our turn towards HI. The northern trades should kick in and off we go. Carla and I missed our SSB call yesterday as I was helping to un reef the mainsail - hoping to get some more speed going (finally gave up around noon and turned on the engine). So, we rescheduled for today. Had to cut it short today because they needed to make some sail adjustments, we'll try again tomorrow. We are only 8 miles north of them now, but they are about 17 miles to the west of us. Might be getting close to VHF range, in which case calls don't have to be scheduled. We can pick up the horn anytime. Josh is feeling a little seasick today - not sure what is different. He is being a real trooper - gets up every day at 0600 for his watch with no qualms. We are really proud of him.
Well, I will try to post this.....

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111311 From The northern Hemisphere

Well, its Sunday and we are back in the Northern Hemisphere. We crossed the equator around 0600 this morning. Not surprisingly, no one wanted to be woken for the occasion, so it passed quietly. We will probably have a little celebration this afternoon.

The wind finally clocked around to the southeast, so the last two days have been better as far as the motion is concerned. We hosed down the cockpit yesterday to get the saltwater off, things dried out some and I actually made a real lunch (Chinese cabbage salad). It has been nice to be able to open some hatches to cool down and dry out the inside of the boat. Lucky Dennis always seems to get pooped thru a hatch while he is sleeping, so the new rule is to always close the portholes at night!! He says it is a most unpleasant way to wake up - I personally hate having to dry everything out. It was my pillow that got soaked 2 nights ago when it happened last.

It has been pretty uneventful since fixing the diesel leak. Dennis and Josh had to add water to the generator cooling system, but that is a chore that will need to be repeated every couple of days related to the ongoing issues with it. I am pretty sure our batteries are looking forward to shore power almost as much as Josh is!!

We have been making good time 6-8 knots consistently. We have caught up to Moondance in latitude, but they are 36 miles west of us. Our next waypoint is the ITCZ or the doldrums. Brad has us aimed for 8 degrees north 148.4 west. We are hoping it is a narrow band and we get thru quickly and can make our turn to Hawaii. Optimistically we have about 11 days to go. - Pray for us. Right now we are at 00 degrees 30 minutes north 148 degrees 37 minutes west and fighting the counter equatorial current or some such PIA. It is very strong and are doing a ferry to the northeast. Interesting thought for a sailboat.....

Quiet day today. I am nursing a sore left hand, I spilled boiling water on it this morning. It hurts like stink, but I don't think it is going to blister. Amazing really considering how much motion I cook with all the time that I don't get hurt more often. There is certainly an art about cooking on a slant with a moving stove top. We should video it for a reality show - I bet it would be hysterically funny.

Well, that's it for now...

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Thursday 111011

Well, here we are, its our fifth day out,and things are finally clicking in.

We left Sunday the 6th around 2pm. It was a beautiful day, the pass was no problem and Josh caught a 34 in approx. 30 lb yellow fin tuna just outside of the pass. That was a good thing even though it slowed us down. When we got back situated Moondance was 6 miles ahead of us. That night for the Pacific Seafarer's net we discovered our SSB was not transmitting. Dennis could hear them, but got no response to his attempts to check in. So... project for the next day. Ideally the winds would have been from the east or southeast giving us a beam reach. Alas the wind has been northeast, so we have been on a close haul. It is better than the death rolls we have had, but still is difficult to move around. On the upside, the Tuna was delicious!!

Monday Dennis cleaned all of the connections on the SSB, and Monday night was successfully heard and checked in. You can follow us on their website www.pacseanet.com. Our call sign is KI6HAI. I haven't navigated their webpage, so cannot give you any hints on exactly how to do it, but it can be done. Dennis thinks the connection was loosened at the deck fitting when I strapped down the water jugs.... I don't know, it is another one of those voodoo things that boats have. Josh discovered Monday night that sleeping in his bunk with this amount of port heel is not possible, so he has moved onto the salon settee until we have a more comfortable tack.

Tuesday we discovered diesel in the port food compartment. What a disaster. We unloaded it all, wiped and washed, tore off labels and relabeled with sharpie and put it all back. Only to discover on Wednesday that it was full again. So, repeat the above and add Dennis discovering that some stupid SOB in Evergreen's past thought that fixing a hole in the diesel fill tube with glue and covering it with tape was a good decision. NOT!!! Whomever it was better hope I never find them - it won't be pretty. Dennis cut out the hole and plugged the tube with a wood through hull plug and hose clamp. Today - no diesel, problem solved, food replaced.

The weather has been okay, we had squalls on Monday and Tuesday, no winds above 33knots, was weird to turn upwind, on the way from Mexico we turned downwind during squalls. We have a different sail configuration now, smaller main jib, so turning up feels like I have more control. Probably just my imagination. Mostly the winds have been in the 15-20 knot range. I had a first for me last night - I actually put out more sail. We had lots of wind, but no speed with the partially furled jib, so I put out the stay sail and voila! 6kts. We have been trying to go straight north with as much east as possible. Yesterday we crossed to the west of our north south line from Rangiroa to the equator. Hopefully we will get some southeast winds today (Jamie promised!!!) and will be able to make some of it up. If we continue at 130 miles per day will should be at the equator by Saturday....We'll see.

With the SSB working again, we are able to speak with Doug and Carla daily. It is nice to hear other people. I miss being able to just pick up the VHF and call over. Now we schedule our calls.

So today everyone looks well rested. Josh has been taking the 6-9pm watch at night and 6-9am in the morning. This lets Dennis and I get a 6-7 hour block of sleep, it really makes a difference. He fills in during the day as needed as well. We have been on power rationing, so he has not had as much computer time as he would like. Feeling slightly seasick hasn't helped his desire to look at the computer either. The weather is good, we are cruising along at 6-7 kts at 350 degrees true. A little more west than we would like, but at least we are moving, and at this point everything is functioning properly. Hopefully this will continue so we can settle into some sort of routine. I'll let you know. Now if I can get this to post life will be good!!!

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110311 from Rangiroa

110311
Well, I have been pretty remiss in posting since we arrived in Rangiroa.  We have been here almost 2 weeks now and even have reasonable internet, I have no excuse.  Oh well, I am what I am I guess....
The trip here from Toau went well, no problems, sailed the whole way.  We arrived Friday morning just before slack tide, but entered thru the pass anyway, again with no problems.  We had a dolphin escort for the last 30 minutes or so and just before they left they gave us a real show - jumping and spinning - way cool.  The pass was a little swirly, but totally manageable -at least for us going in. A big schooner left right after us, and going into the current was a bit rougher, they had a pretty wild ride going out.  We anchored just northwest of the pass (Tiputa) in a real pretty bay.
The first week we spent getting to know the atoll and provisioning.  The main town is about 8 miles from us, and getting there is interesting.  There is a magazine close by, but is does not sell beer (heavens to mercy - what to do??:) ), and is somewhat more expensive.   We have been ordering baguettes from there , so at least we have bread which is nice.  We are anchored in front of the Kia Ora resort which has a nice dinghy dock and a helpful front desk.  They called a restaurant to come get us one night for pizza and a taxi to take us to town on another day.  We had a nice evening with Doug and Carla in the bar overlooking the lagoon.  Moderately expensive, but not too bad for a resort.
As I said, provisioning is always interesting, and here the distance to town and lack of public transportation makes it even more so.  On our first attempt we all hitchhiked into town, we were at least halfway there before we got a ride, but we were grateful nonetheless.  There are two reasonably well stocked stores in Avatoru and one about 2 miles from there.  Chez Daniel was willing to give us a ride back to the boats, so we stocked up on immediate needs - beer, soda, eggs, cream, fresh veggies and fruit.  That Wednesday we took a taxi from the hotel into town, did our stop at the gendarmes and then into Avatoru for a big provisioning run.  The taxi driver is very nice - Eugene.  He waited at the gendarmes and took us to the post office.  Chez Daniel was crazy with the arrival of new stock, but the woman who runs it (Elise) put aside beer, soda and eggs (we didn't want them to  be refrigerated) and said we could have a ride back to the boats later in the afternoon.  So, we walked to Magazine Kenny, back to town, had lunch,went to the smaller magazine, then did our shopping at Chez Daniel then waited for an hour and a half for a ride back to the dinghies.  Whew!!! it was a long day.  If you visit Moondance's blog (www.followingmoondance.blogspot.com)  you will see pictures of the provisions on the beach awaiting the dinghies.
Since then we have done some snorkeling and walking and exploring.  Josh's friend Max on s/v BigFish came to our anchorage at the end of our first week here.  He was very happy to see them and has been going nonstop since then.  We first met them in Moorea back in June, and were expecting to catch back up with them when we got back to Tahiti in September.  As it turns out they really like the Tuomotus and have been here all season.  Max (16) has 2 sisters Alex (14) and Ayla (12).  They are a really nice family on a large catamaran.  Josh and Max have been spearfishing and fishing like crazy.  They have even sold some of the fish they caught to the locals.  Quite the entrepreneurs.
It is hard to believe it is November already.  We celebrated halloween with Moondance - watching Charlie Brown and the The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp.  Carla made popcorn balls - yum!  The local population had trick or treating for the first time this year.  We would have loved to have gone to town to see it, but it was really rainy and transportation is a real issue.  Elise from Chez Daniel said it went real well.  Tuesday the first was a school holiday - the day of the dead - I guess sort of like Memorial day in the US.  Lots of flowers and such at the cemetery.
We are hoping to get at least one drift snorkel thru the pass in before we leave, and I hope that I can talk Josh and Max into one more fishing expedition.  They have been real lucky catching yellowfin and it would be a nice supplement to our provisions for the crossing.  I think we are going to head out on Sunday - Brad thinks it is a good window to leave.  I am doing all the last minute projects and stowing, and we will do one last provision run tomorrow.  The last thing we will do is put the dinghy on the front deck - at that point we will be pretty much boat bound, but at least it means we will be moving.  I think we are all ready to head north and move into the next phase of our adventure.  Hopefully we will get visitors in Hawaii, and I will find a job quickly.  I will post along the way as I did on the crossing from Mexico.  We will participate in the pacific seafarer's net, they have a website that I will post, I think you can follow us on that as well.

10/20/11

Thursday 10/20 - Well we have been here for 2 weeks on Toau, and plan to leave today for Rangiroa. We have been pretty much boat bound since Saturday as we were scrunched between a high and a low. Which means it has been rainy and windy. Valentine is happy as the rain has filled up their tanks and she has been able to do laundry. We have only been off the boat twice since saturday, so would have preferred a little less rain. But, we got some projects done and Josh has done a good bit of homework. Since Dennis won the battle with the generator last week it has been running well, so we have had lots of power, good thing since the whole solar thing has been off line with no sunshine. The trip to Raniroa is about 100 miles, so we will leave around 4pm to time our arrival there with slack tide around noon tomorrow. It is still pretty windy, so we should have a good sail and may arrive early, seems weird to thing about slowing the boat down....

Our feast last Tuesday night was all we expected and more. Valentine served 2 kinds of raw fish - traditional poisson cru and hot and cold sashimi - grilled tuna and grilled lobster, rice and bread made with coconut milk and chocolate cake for dessert. What a lot of work! Including Valentine and Gaston there were 11 people.

Since then we have done a couple more snorkels, the fish here are amazing. On one a saw not 1, but 2 octopus. Josh has done some more spearfishing, even though Valentine and Gaston tell us to just go get fish from the fish trap.... We did two hooka dives, one outside of the reef which was okay and one on a coral head on the way to the Pink Sand motu. That one was pretty nice, cool coral formations lots of fish and even a lemon shark to check us out. We did that one with Doug and Carla and then afterwards met Valentine and Gaston on the Pink Sand motu for a picnic lunch. Ever the busy people, by the time we arrived they had many piles of dead palm leaves and trash burning, as well as more tuna on the grill. The Pink Sand motu is very cool, small but has lots of soft sand around it. I guess they harvest copra there. One of there dogs entertained us by chasing small reef sharks in the shallows. Gaston says he quite often catches them too!

We had another potluck/bbq last Thursday, seems to be the Thursday thing to do. By then we had 2 different boats in the anchorage, so got to try some different things. The couple from s/v Irene (Finnish boat - made me feel like I was in Crystal Falls) made smoked fish on the grill and a Finnish salted raw fish dish, I made potato salad, Carla made canneloni, Valentine had bread and rice and of course fish, and s/v Evan (a couple from Madagascar with a 3 yr old boy and a 9 yr old girl) brought mac and cheese and a chocolate torte for the little girl's birthday which was that day. I think I could live here.....

We have also done some exploring with Doug and Carla. We went to a motu north of us one afternoon, and to the west of the pass right here by the anchorage. We walked the whole way around that one, picked up several bouys for Valentine and Gaston. The bouys wash up on the motus and Valentine and Gaston collect up the good ones, send them to here family on Apataki who then resell them for them. Her nephew came on Saturday and took the 600 they had collected back with him to Apataki.

Monday when we ventured off the boat we walked around the main motu here. There is actually a small pension here, and my understanding is that it is currently closed because they have no means of transporting people back and forth from Fakarava. They used to have a 22 foot boat that they used, but the motor died. They will be getting a new motor soon, partly financed by the bouys that they pick up. They have quite the managerie here as well, 5 dogs, the requisite chickens, pigs and a pet frigate bird named UmuUmu. The fishing boat that brought the Tuna last week came again (sadly no Tuna) and brought them new coolers and chicken. Valentine shared the chicken with us, she said it was too much for them, and I also think they don't have enough freezer space to keep it.

We ventured off the boat again yesterday, mostly just to get off, but also to see if we could burn some trash. They had family here from Fakarava and they had gone fishing. Wow - amazing number of parrot fish, they filleted some, and strung some whole. They will take it to Fakarava and Tahiti to sell. Valentine again shared some fish filets with us - yum. Josh and Doug cleaned the bottom of Moondance yesterday as well.

We will spend the rest of today prepping the boat for the trip to Rangiroa and will go in one more time to say good bye to Valentine and Gaston. We will miss them, but will have great memories of our time here.

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Tuesday 10/11/11

Saturday was a great day. We left around 1100 for the motu. It was quite the dinghy parade. Gaston and Valentine had their big yellow powerboat to guide 4 dinghies thru the coral across the lagoon to the pearl motu. Before we left Gaston jumped into their fish traps and speared 4 fish for our lunch. The fish trap is incredible, the number of fish - Wow! hard to describe. We were looking forward to lunch!!! The motu is small, but was pretty littered with trash and very overgrown. With Gaston and Valentine we had 13 people. The place looked totally different by the time we left. Valentine says that when the seas get big, the waves break across the entire motu, hence all the trash. We not only picked up garbage, but also raked up seeds from an tree that reminded me of a Russian Olive. Gaston cut down lots of trees with his very sharp machete. We separated glass and plastic, but everything else got burned. Gaston cooked the fish whole over a fire, and everyone contributed a variety of other things to constitute lunch. After lunch we went snorkeling. I didn't see any big sharks, but Josh and Dennis saw some big grey sharks and black tip reef sharks. The only one I saw was about 2 feet long. Sadly the only down side of the day was that the generator was still not working.

Sunday.
Dennis got up and started working on the generator again. It seems the new pump cannot handle pumping the hot water to the waterheater and back, so Dennis bypassed the waterheater. So, the generator was working again, but no hot water. Once that was taken care of, we went for a snorkel by the fish traps. Again - amazing numbers of fish. The fish swim in the trap, then can't figure out how to get back out. This was some of the best snorkeling ever. We saw an eagle ray, moray eels, grouper, an octopus, along with all the usual small reef fish. Josh was beside himself to use the speargun, so when I was done snorkeling, I followed him and Dennis around as they went hunting. Dennis was the first to have success with a 2 foot or so grouper, I finally had to make Josh quit for lunch, but after lunch he went back out with Dennis and got a good sized parrot fish. While they were out after lunch, Carla, Doug and I went in to look at Valentine's pearls. She was willing to trade food/clothes/household items for them. In the end I thing everyone walked away happy. I got a necklace, 2 baroque pearls and some 8-9mm pearls, and Carla got a bracelet a some more 9-10mm pearls. We were meeting for a rematch of risk that evening too. When we all gathered on our boat for the risk game, Dennis was just finishing up making the day's catch into tempura... YUM!!! We called the risk game at 8pm, took note of what/who was where and will continue another night. All in all a busy but very good day.

Monday
Ran the generator a long time to give the batteries a good charge. In the meantime Dennis continued working on the old pump, and finally got it working. He will reinstall tomorrow. Was kind of a cloudy blustery day, so we spent the day on the boat. I made bread - which turned out pretty good. Carla made cookies which she shared -yum!!! A power boat came in early in the morning and gave Gaston and Valentine some yellowfin tuna which they shared with everyone in the anchorage. Again yum!!! I think yesterday's time in the water caught up with Josh, because he ate his way thru 3.5 tuna steaks, salad, bread and 1/2 a pan of rice...Anyone interested in signing on as cook on my boat????? :)

Tuesday
Well the generator is winning the battle again today. I trust that Dennis will persevere and win the day, but it is not pretty. The generator drew first blood and right now is ahead....... Fortunately for me the watermaker is in a cooperative mood, so I was able to change out all the filters with little difficulty. We are supposed to be having dinner on shore tonight, we are looking forward to it. Valentine's feasts are stuff of legend... I'll let you know.

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