Aries 32 - Thistledown
Well, it's been a while since I've written. This might be a long email. The short story is, I'm in pago pago (pronounced pango pango) american somoa now, waiting to get some mail.
For those of you who like to track my whereabouts on google earth, my position in the anchorage is S 14 degrees 16.342 minutes, W 170 degrees 41.769 minutes.
Last I wrote I was tied up in down town papeete (tahiti). I was still trying to check in, and had a hell of a time with it. All in all I waited in lines in 7 banks on three islands (sometimes more than one line per bank, sometimes returning to the same bank 2-3 times), as well as going to two post offices, getting pictures taken, and going to 3 gendarmaries (many times each) before I was finally legal with a visa and everything. I probably spent a week of my time in polynesia trying to check in, and it sort of tainted my experience there. I think if I ever go back, I won't check in. If the coasties board me I'll say "oh, I was on my way to go check in right now, I just got here" and then I'd just leave the country as soon as they weren't looking. Live and learn.
I hung out downtown for a while, which made me anxious because it was supposed to cost 19$/day. They started holding canoe races in front of the exit, so I couldn't leave if I wanted to, which was pissing me off because I thouht they would charge me for days I didn't even want to be there. I could never find the port capatain though, and I ended up leaving without paying. It was too expensive hanging out down town though anyways. I'd go to an internet cafe and they'd over charge me and I'd start to argue and they'd pretend they didn't speak english. They did speak english. Almost all of the french people spoke english... I'd catch them speaking fluent english after telling me that they didn't. very anoying.
I can't say I loved french polynesia. Some of the more remote places were really nice. Pretty islands and mountains and clean water and nice anchorages but... the people irritated me. The polynesians would mostly frown at you, and weren't very attractive people. It wasn't all bad, but... I had some bad experiences. Like one day I went to use a public bathroom. I'd just sat down on the toilet, when the cleaning lady opens the door. I'd double and triple checked that "tane" was the mens room in tahitian. I expected an "oops, excuse me" and a close of the door. nope. she just starts screaming at me, and kicks me out of the stall. I don't know if she wanted to clean it or what. She never said anything in english, and I don't think she ever even said anything in french, just tahitian. She had no problem with me being in the other stall... maybe the toilet was clogged on the first one? there was no sign or anything. another time they made me take my shoes off because they'd recently mopped the floor in some bathroom. going to the bathroom was the only time I put shoes on! Things like this.. and the checkin hassles, etc.. could really get me in a bad mood.
I wasn't upset when france lost the soccer game.
One day while tied up down town there was a parade and a little festival, and I ran into claudia from sail la vie. She agreed to come with me for the sail from the dock down to the anchorage, only about 8 miles but a nice little day sail (on july 2nd). it was nice to have some company, and to get away from downtown and forget about my issues with the gendarme and cleaning ladies. I ended up staying in that anchorage (near marina tahina) until july 19th. While I was there me and claudia took a scuba class and got a basic scuba certification. I still need to do open water dives, and this scuba cert restricts me to going to not more than 32' deep, but with a bit more practice I've now been able to free dive to over 50', making the scuba diving seem a little silly.
Eventually jonah and herbert showed up in marina tahina, rum bottle in hand, with stories from the uninhabited atol in kiribati that they'd visited. They all caught ciguatera, from eating poisonous reef fish, and jonah fixed his engine (temporarily), and .. sounds like they had a good time. I was happy to do the scuba thing though.
One day me and herbert were walking around downtown and ran into a sweedish girl sailing on an albin vega. I started talking to her mostly because of the boat, I'd initially planned on getting an albin vega. She was sailing with 2 guys, sometimes having as many as 5 people onboard that little 27' boat. Strangely, I felt a little jealous of that situation. It was what I always intended to do... to get a little albin vega or similar boat with a whole bunch of people and sail around the world as a big group kind of scraping by. She said they'd made sort of a game of avoiding port captains to get out of paying for the dock fees. She was sitting on the dock sewing sails, using a lid from a can as a sailors palm because she didn't have a real one.
Claudia got kicked off of sail la vie, and jim from aguja came back from raiatea and picked her up.. she went to sail with him for a while. When they went to the gendarmere to put her on his crew list they yelled at him and told him they were going to put him in jail etc etc because he's not supposed to come back to tahiti once he's checked out. The story I heard was that claudia turned on the waterworks and everything got much better. Ahh, the benefits of having a woman onboard :-P
I did a few boat projects while there... I made some hatches in my cockpit to improve my storage situation. Things like that.
The scuba thing... being in the water all the time, was bad for my skin. A lot of people have been getting little boils and things from he salt water. The fins chaffed through the skin on my foot and I got a little cut... and then it got worse and worse. Eventually someone said "hey.. you might want to put something on that... in this environment.. cuts like that are prone to infection..." and showed me where the cuts on his foot had got infected. He was right. I started putting some antibiotic cream on it, but.. it was too late. It got pretty infected and I had to stop swimming for a while to let it dry out and heal.
On july 19th we (me, jonah on araby, and herb on bamboo) weighed anchor out of marina tahina to sail to morea. Jim and Claudia had already left on aguja headed for raiatea to try to catch up with paul and laura on seacor. I immediately ran aground on a reef on the way out. It was pretty stupid of me. Some people came by in little motor dingies and pulled me off... but they pulled me kind of quickly and ran me into another reef backwards, which put a little gouge in my rudder. I got a little lecture about how the red/green buoys are reversed here from the US. I knew that, but, I was thinking "green on the left because I'm leaving" when I wasn't actually at the pass yet... I was still circling the island and so the green buoy was supposed to be on the outside. I thought I was fine too, because I figured I was still in the anchorage, I saw boats anchored to the right and left of me... but the boats to the right were all farther ahead... the channel turned a little.
I wasn't doing so well then... the day before I'd tried to patch the hole in the bottom of my dingy, but after a lot of work I put my dingy in the water and it sank... and then the epoxy cans tipped over and cured into sticky half-cured fiberglass all over my deck.. and then I tried to clean it and pulled up my non-skid... and then I went to wash my hands and stepped on a tin can and bled all over the place, and then I tracked blood all over my boat looking for the first aid kit.
Then we didn't make it to morea before dark, and so me and jonah stayed off for the night heaving too waiting for morning. and then my GPS died, and I couldn't figure out how to make my backup GPS work. ...and I was just saying in my last email how I thought celestial navigation was dumb and GPS's were so reliable :-P
The next day was much better. I figured out how to make my backup GPS work. I had a nice sail into morea. I found the hole that had caused my dingy to sink. I was glad to be away from tahiti. Sometimes sailing is extremely frustrating and stressfull, and sometimes everything is just feels great.
We anchored in upanohu bay, and from there walked over to cooks bay one day, and another day walked up to see some ruins. jonah and herb did some diving, but my foot was still too messed up. Jonah lent me some epoxy and I was able to patch the remaining hole in my dingy.
and then on july 24th I sailed out of morea headed for raiatea. It was just one night to raiatea, about a hundred miles. I dropped anchor just inside the reef in raiatea, but when I got to shore I immediately ran into claudia and jim on aguja, and paul and laura on seacor. I thought they'd already left for fiji or wherever, but they were still here doing boat work. Paul told me where the good free dock was they were staying at (apartently 10/day, but the port captain is scarce there too), and came with me to sail my boat up to the dock. It was nice hanging out there. There were cocounts growing alongside the dock and a couple of times a day I'd walk up a coconut tree and grab one for a juicy drink.
I did some boat work, which was convinient being at the dock. I shaved, and then dumped a bucket of water into my cockpit to rinse out the hair. I heard it immediately pour down onto my engine, through the hatch on my cockpit floor. I figured "that's and easy fix, I'll just tighten down the dogs on the hatch." So I searched and searched and eventually found the tool to tighten down the dogs. Then I went to pick up the teak grating in the cockpit floor, but, the hatches I'd made in the sides of the cockpit blocked it from coming up. After a little thinking I used my grinder and a chisel to take down the side of the teak grating, and finally got it up. I went to lift the hatch out, but it was siezed in place, jammed up with aluminum oxide from corrosion. .. so I went down below and pounded on the hatch from underneath to free it, and eventually it came up. I went up top to see, and realized, the hatch had not come free from the frame, the screws had ripped out and the frame had come free from the cockpit. so I took the whole thing out on the dock and tried to beat the hatch free from the frame. it came out, but I cracked the cast aluminum hatch. someone told me you can't weld cast aluminum, so I'm still looking for a solution to that problem (probably either 5200 or fiberglass?). someone walking by told me that aluminum oxide is alcohol soluble, which was helpful, because I have lots of denatured alcohol for my stove. The dogs were siezed too, but with some denatured alcohol, a pipe wrench, and a few hours of hamering I finally got everything free. Then I rebedded the frame, made a new gasket for the hatch with some polysulphide sealant, and finally put the hatch and grating back in. I still wasn't able to tighten down the dogs on the hatch. Such is the frustrating nature of boat work.
In utuaroa (on raiatea), I used internet a lot to order stuff to get in american somoa. It's easy to recieve mail in american somoa because... it's american. they have US post offices and stuff here. jim had tried to get an ssb modem mailed to him in tahiti and he had a really hard time getting it. He spent a hundred dollars on faxes faxing them every kind of form he could think of, but they kept hanging onto it because it said modem on the box, and they were thinking it was some kind of office supply that needed to be taxed in some special way.
I mailed some things home from raitea too, like my GPS, to have my parents return to west marine and send back to me in american somoa. Again, at the post office... I say "parle vou ingles??" and the answer is "no" .. so I try to explain in broken french that I want to know how much it will cost to mail some things to the US... and of course she ends up just speaking to me in perfect english.
I remmeber a guy I met in mexico who was from canada. He said he knew french perfectly, but refused to speak it. He felt like it was rammed down his throat in the canadian public schools, and it was like it was some kind of protest that he would never ever speak french. He didn't seem to realize just how french his attitude was.
The girl in the internet cafe was pretty. I figured she was french because most of the tahitian women aren't so pretty. I ran into her at a carnival one day and got a couple of beers with her. She said she was in fact tahitian, but she was part french and part chinese and part german... but that wasn't it. I noticed that she was taller than me and had very large hands and was wearing a turtle neck. The prettiest tahitian women aren't women at all.
Seacor (paul and laura) left for fiji, and eventually Jim left for bora bora, and herbert caught up. Claudia found a job back in germany and flew home.
One day I saw a pretty Argentinian girl sitting by the docks as I went to grab my daily coconut, and she said hello in english.. so I started chatting with her. She said she was waiting for the ferry to bora bora, and so I said "I was planning on sailing to bora bora tomorrow. you should throw away your ticket and come with me instead." I was kind of suprised when she said "ok." but... then she showed me some pictures of her boyfriend, discoraging any fantasies I might be having. (maybe she has some friends??) Being argentinian, she spoke spanish, and let me practice speaking spanish. This was fun. She was good company... and she had some new songs to play on the guitar... I'm trying to get her to email me the lyrics to some of them, particularly the ones in spanish.
We went for a swim, and she immediately stepped on a sea urchin. I kind of knew what to do, but figured I'd let her find out on her own, lest she not believe me. We walked over to some locals who were playing some game throwing balls, and she showed them her foot and asked what to do (she spoke french). They laughed, and responded in english. The guy points at me and says "you," grabs his crotch and says "pee pee," points at her foot and says "her foot." So we went back to the boat and I peed in a bucket and she soaked her foot for a while. Urine is supposed to disolve the spines.
Eventually she decided she wanted a professional opinion so we looked for a hospital. We walked across the street and asked where it was and luckily the answer was "ici" .. "here" ... So we walked in. We tried to explain what happened and they started freaking out saying "poison pie!?" "poison pie?!" running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I think poison means fish, not poison, and pie probably means foot, since that's what it is in spanish. They probably thought she stepped on a rock fish, which is pretty poisonous. They brought her to a doctor who looked at her foot and then everyone started laughing. They put a little bandage on her foot and told her she'd be fine.
The medical system is better there than the US anyways. They asked her her name, and that was about it. No waiting for hours in an emergency room bleeding to death in french polynesia. No worries about health insurance or filling our forms for hours. They just help you out for free. It's nice. The more I experience medical facilities in other countries (and after actually needing a doctor in the US for something... and after paying ridiculous amounts of money for poor treatment even having good insurance), the more I realize that we really do have things screwed up in the US. I used to be a lot more sceptical of people pushing for socialized healthcare and that sort of thing, but the US medical system has some pretty severe problems to overcome.
The next day it rained, so we didn't sail to bora bora. We just kind of hung out and walked around. The day after that, it rained again in the morning. So... in the afternoon, just to do something, we sailed to tahaa. Tahaa is another island in the same reef as raiatea. We anchored just inside the barrier reef in 15' of water, on the east side of tahaa. It was nice. I went for a swim when we got there. The next morning, friday august 4, we weighed anchor early in the morning and sailed out of tahaa headed for bora bora. Again! I ran aground! Jonah and herbert were starting to make fun of me, but they've both run aground too. Seems everyone has some time or another, but this was a little too much.. twice in just a couple of weeks. I was trying to tack up between tahaa and the barrier reef to get to the pass to leave these islands, and just came too close on the west side. Again the channel was a little crooked, and I wasn't sure if it turned or if I could keep going straight, and I guess I was just trying to do it in as few tacks as possible. I immediately threw the dingy in the water and started rowing out kedge anchors to pull the boat off... and again a couple of friendly boaters came by in little motor boats to help pull me off. These guys were pretty good, one ran a line to one of my halyards to tip the boat, to reduce the draft, while the other pulled me backwards. It worked great. I offered them some money for gas, but luckily they refused as I realized after I said it that I was all out of francs. One of them accepted a bottle of wine.
I duno what I'd do without the help of the other boaters. It's great how much people help each other out... for getting off of reefs... or whatever. self sufficiency is cool and all, but ... when it fails....
Since I had the wine out I opened a bottle, which was probably a bad idea... I wasn't really thinking about the fact that pilar hadn't been on a small sailboat on the ocean before, and once we got outside the reef she started feeling sea sick. And it started raining again. Oh well. It was kind of fun anyways (at least I thought so). And we got to bora bora before dark, so didn't have to spend a night at sea. We had good wind the whole way.
The next morning we went snorkling, and walked around on a little resort/motu on the barrier reef of bora bora. ... and since she had a nice digital camera we took a lot of pictures: /sailing/aries32/batch8/
I put the sailing rig together on my dingy, and sailed her to shore. It was a nice beam reach of about a mile... a nice sail both ways. As soon as we got to shore, the first truck to pass by stopped for her. She'd been on the island before for a day, and it was someone she knew. I went to town and walked around a bit, and then on the way back I ran into some drunk tahitians sitting by the side of the road drinking beers and smoking pot. They offered me a beer, so I joined them for a bit. They didn't really speak much english... sometimes I could understand the french, but they kept reverting to tahitian which was very confusing. I passed around my phrase book, and most of them seemed a little confused by it, but one girl started looking up words and trying to talk to me. .. Then the guy who invited me over started pointing at the girl and saying "mine!" with a nasty scowl on his face. I don't know if he was jealous or what. Kind of a weirdo. Then thier father came by. He was cool. He was trying to get me to teach him words. He'd say "donemwa un bierre! domemwa un biere! ingles! ingles!" and I'd say "uh... give me a bear?" .. and then he'd start yelling "give me a beer" to his kids who would just look at him confused. The father said he spoke hawaiian, french, tahitian, amd somoan.
The girl looked up words and told me they were all collegues. I asked what of... work? school? She couldn't find what she was looking for but eventually pointed at the word "entertain." I didn't understand. They told me to come to the bar the next day at 4. Later I realized she probably meant they had a band, and were playing at the bar. Eventually the guy who'd invited me over started saying "sit up. go home. sit up. go home." over and over again. I'm not sure what his deal was... Then he'd stop for a second and they'd continue with "tomorrow, 4 oclock. the bar." So I finished my beer and got ready to go, and the girl hands me a beer... I say "but... your boyfriend here is telling me to leave?" She doesn't understand me. She says "no, it's ok, it's from me" And she takes a couple of beers and puts them in my backpack and hands it to me. They're still looking at me like they want me to go, so I get up and leave, still quite confused. I walked around town the next day, but never saw any of them again, and never found any bar that stood out as having a band playing or anything.
another day I sailed my dingy to the resort motu and sat and read. One day I met a french girl who spoke spanish but not english. That was kind of cool.
Pilar says that when she was traveling in france she'd ask if they spoke spanish first, assuming they didn't, and then when they said no she'd say "well I don't speak french, is it ok if we speak english?" ...and then they would. What's wrong with these people?? I think language is cool. I like to study languages. I understand it has all kinds of cultural value etc etc etc. but... first and foremost, when I'm at the post office trying to get a package delivered, language should be about communication. French isn't even that commonly spoken. It's somewhere around 10 or 15 in terms of most spoken languages world wide.
I'm supprised how much german I'm hearing. Seems like everyone speaks german in the cruising comunity. They all speak english too... but they get together and all start speaking german and it's like some little secret code language. I always thought of german as just germany, but then the swiss and austrians speak it too. Unlike the french though, they realize I'm there and they say "oh, we should speak english so he can understand us too."
There was a low preasure system, so we waited a few days for good wind. Jim left a day before me, but herbert and jonah went on herb's boat to explore the back side of the island. We talked about meeting up in suvarow, an atol that's part of the northern cook islands (a posession of new zealand) half way between bora bora and american somoa.
On the day jim left, I went and checked out, did some grocery shopping, got my bond back, and went to the yacht club bar to spend the last of my pacific francs.
At the bank I ran into a guy who talked of pirates in jamaica, and said he had a gun on board and ended up killing three of them. He said that the pirates made two trips, and he didn't have his gun out the first time, and they got off with his ipod, computer, camera, and some cash. I've assumed I wouldn't need a gun anywhere, and didn't think many people actually had weapons onboard. It's possible that if I enter scetchier areas, I'll want something, or at least to sort of caravan more closely with other sailors. The mallaca straight might be scetchy, or if I go up the red sea... I'm not really sure exactly where the worst areas are. I wouldn't want to keep a gun onboard all of the time, because most of the time it's probably a customs nightmare. ..and I'd have to learn to use a gun. The only guns I've ever fired were 22's in boyscout camp, or bb guns and that sort of thing. The guy I talked to said he couldn't get his gun out at first because it was locked up by the jamaican customs people. He said when he went to the police later they said "well, you should have killed more of them." Later I met another guy who said he just has a pistol that he hides onboard, and doesn't tell customs. He said he only used it once, shot at some people who were in his cockpit trying to steal his outboard. They zipped away, and then started coming back, but he took off. I think most of the time I'd rather not get into a shoot out over some posessions anyways, but... who knows what could happen. It just sort of made me think a bit. I have a spear gun, and a can of mace, and they say at point blank a flare gun can kill someone. Some people carry modified flare guns that can take shotgun shells. I've heard some stories of people fighting off pirates in the red sea. I might be going around africa instead of going up the red sea though. I should have got that book "dangerous waters" about modern piracy. I think if someone comes aboard with machine guns I'm not going to go spraying them with a can of mace. I figure it'll just end up going in my eyes a few minutes later after they shoot me and take it from me, all the more irritated. Sailing back to the boat from the yacht club dingy dock that last night in bora bora was dead down wind. it seemed like I was about to have a nice easy dingy sail, and then it got really gusty. It was pretty scetchy. The waves got bigger... it was all I could do to lean forward and ease the main halyard a few inches to try to depower the mainsail a bit... I was surfing down the waves. A couple of times I had to round up into the wind and sort of heave to in a sense to regain control. A couple of times I thought I was going to lose it... swerving back and forth down breaking waves just clutching the boat trying to hang on. I was going really fast. I was a little drunk and had forgot to take out my headlamp before leaving. I had all my groceries, 5 gallons of water, my passport, my checkout papers, and about a thousand dollars in cash in the dingy... in my backpack etc. I was afraid I was going to lose it all if I capsized. I didn't know if I'd be able to right the dingy in that kind of wind (the bailing bucket wasn't tied down, and I'm not sure how well my dingy would float after all the problems I've had with it), or how hard it would be to swim the mile or so out to my boat. If I sailed a bit of a reach I could luff the sails a bit to depower, but then I couldn't quite sail the course I wanted to sail, and I found myself beam-on to breaking waves. As I got closer to the barrier reef it got worse, and I couldn't make myself seen by other boats that were around. I just sailed whatever way I could, and eventually found myself at jonah's boat. I grabbed on, doused my mainsail, and rowed the last bit over to my boat.
The next morning (tuesday, august 8th) I sailed out of bora bora, headed for american somoa and/or suvarow. It was a great sail. I figured out that when the jib's luffing, I should drop the mainsail rather than furl the jib. Without the mainsail the jib stays full, and pulls the boat from the front... The boat rolls less, sails a steadier course, and even I think goes faster. I was going mostly dead down wind, and was moving along at a very good pace. One day I did over 165 miles, which is great for me. My best day yet. I was going to go to suvarow, but after a while I just kind of wasn't feeling it... I went north of suvarow, and arrived at night, and then the wind shifted from the south, and I didn't feel like tacking into it to get into suvarow... so I just kept going.
One night near somoa I hit a thunder storm, and this scared me more than any sort of wind or anything I've experienced. Just before the thunder/lighting came I'd been reading about electrical storms (bad timing), and about a boat that was returned to the factory that had been hit by lighting. The first 4' of the copper grounding wire had been vapourized, every screw in the boat had unscrewed itself, every piece of electronic equipment onboard was fried, and the hull started leaking from where the electricity went through the hull to the water. This was a boat that had a lighting rod and grounding wire,... my boat doesn't. I looked for my jumper cables, with the intent of clipping one end to the shrouds and dangling the other end in the water, to offer some kind of ground... but I couldn't find them. I mostly just laid in my bunk thinking "please don't hit me, please don't hit me" counting between flashes and sounds. I never realy cared about thunder and lighting before. I mean, climbing above treeline in thunder storms, I knew I could always just run down the mountain if it got really bad... but on a boat I feel particularly vulnerable... having this giant metal stick pointing up into the sky, I feel like I'm just asking to be struck.
The weather got worse as I approached american somoa. I arrived at night, and hove to to wait for morning. I didn't sleep much. The wind would die, and the sails would flog, and I'd have to drop them. Then the wind would return, and the boat would get thrown around violently, and I'd have to re-raise the sails to steady the boat... and the whole time it was still too violent to sleep. I kept trying. I'd set me alarm for 15 minutes but 5 mintues later I'd be up looking around trying to figure out what was making so much noise. Morning slowly came... I kind of wondered if it was too nasty to be sailing into port, but I didn't want to just sit out there... So I sailed in. On the way in I barely had a few feet of my jib unrolled and I was sailing at about 8 knots. I was beam on to the seas... and at one point I looked over and thought "good thing I rebedded the cockpit hatch" sort of bracing myself as a wave crashed over me. The cockpit filled with water and some water poured down the companion way... but not that much, and the boat didn't really founder at all. Everything was still under control. The cockpit is so small I still had plenty of bouyancy in the stern. It took a minute or two for the cockpit to drain, and then I pumped the bilge... I didn't have to pump all that much, so it must not have leaked all that much.
As I got closer, I had to go around a shoal in the entrance. I checked and double checked and triple checked the chart, but the depth sounder kept saying I was in 12 ft of water when I should have been in 300+ ft of water. I think my depth sounder was confused, because eventually I saw the green buoy and knew for sure I had to be in the right spot. It was still pretty nasty though... as I sailed in, I'd have to watch next to me and as a wave came I'd swerve down wind for a second, and the wave would pick up the stern and break under the boat, and then I'd turn back to get back on course.
Maybe my scetchy dingy sail was good practice for the approach to pago pago (american somoa).
As I was coming in, my windvane control line chaffed through, and I had to hand steer. I felt like I needed the windvane most at this point, so I could run forward to grab my dock lines, and things like that.... or talk on the vhf. I saw that it was chaffing through as I was approachins suvarow, but was wondering how long it would last and figured I'd see if it would make it or not. I won't do that again, next time I'll fix it right away. Of course it's going to fail when I need it most!
I called port control on the radio and they had me come tie up along side of a tugboat to check in. I tied up around 10am on august 18th, about a 10 day sail.. at aver 1200 miles the way I went north of suvarow. I made good time. Checkin was painless. That may be because I'm american, but it seemed like everyone went through the same process. The customs/imigration/etc people all came out to the tug, and handed me the forms, I filled them out and handed them back, and sailed off. That was it. Very easy. They didn't even bother to search the boat. I think the only difference if your a foreigner is you can't stay more than 30 days.
From there I sailed over to the anchorage. It was a bit difficult to anchor... it was still blowing 30 knots, and my guidebooks says "you will drag anchor here." There is a lot of litter here, and the ground under water is covered in plastic bags, making it hard for the anchor to dig in. I set the anchor good, sailing hard onto it, but maybe in a bad spot because then I drifted too close to another boat. He fended off, and someone came over and helped me row out a kedge anchor to kedge me into a better spot. The guy who came to help me said he'd dragged a bit ago: his boat just suddenly took off at hull speed heading for shore. He wasn't onboard but his girlfriend was (who I guess doesn't know boats very well) and the story was that everyone was just watching and praying that she'd figure out how to turn on the engine and not let the boat run aground. She did. :-) .. and then some people rowed over to help her re-set the anchor.
The next day some of us went for a hike out to a waterfall, and had a few beers in the yacht club bar. I got a wireless internet connection. Did some food shopping.
I'm waiting for mail here. I'm going to get a digital camera so I can take more pictures, and some stuff for repairing the boat, ... more of my prefered brand of epoxy, fiberglass cloth, stuff like that. I'm also getting a new GPS to replace the one that broke, and a replacement collision avoidance radar detector (my old one broke), and hopefully a new ssb reciever (my old one broke), a new stereo (my old one broke) etc. Are you noticing a theme? Everything on the boat breaks. Especially electronics. I'm ordering lots of books. I think I ordered 20-30 books from amazon, and my mother added some from my stash back in massachusetts etc.
I like it here. I'm finding it to be a much friendlier place. People smile instead of scowling at you when you see them. You say "hi" to someone and they want to talk to you for a while. You get on a bus and end up having a conversation with every single person on the bus. People seem happy to see you. It reminds me of the "southern hospitality" thing or something like that ... and the prices of things. It's so much cheaper. It's such a relief. I can't afford to keep cruising in places like french polynesia.
In theory I could actually get a job here if I want to... since it's US. There's a big canning factory here with signs up that they're looking for people. Or maybe I could go work on a US fishing vessel for a month... that'd be fun... go be a long liner or something.
So I'm guessing that jonah and herb and jim stopped in suvarow... I imagine they'll be here in a few days. I'll probably be here at least a week or two waiting for mail and whatnot, and maybe doing a bit of boat work, and reprovisioning etc. I went to a bulk-foods store today where I got a lot of good stuff... things I haven't been able to find since I left the US. Next I'll probably head to apia in western somoa, pretty close by. Then I have to decide if I want to head to fiji, kind of south west, or if I should head north up through kiribati, and micronesia/melanesia. I can't go too far north until december anyways, because it's typhoon season in asia until then. I don't have to be out of the south pacific until november, which is still a ways off, and even then I just have to be north of about 10 degrees S latitude. Even here in pago pago is considered a safe place to stay for hurricane season. My plan is pretty flexible right now. If anyone wants to join me for a bit, this might be an easy place to fly into, since it's a domestic flight, though I looked on the web out of curiousity and found flights that were over 2 grand round trip. I guess flights are becoming expensive with everything going on lately. I'm a bit out of the loop news wise but I've been hearing a little bit... interpreting the cartoons in french news papers and listening to rumors.
Feel free to email me. I'll probably respond. One friend who had been getting my updates told me that somehow she didn't realize that she could write me back :-P I guess I'm supposed to send post cards, but I never really understand the point when I can just email people. I can even make phone calls using my skype phone.
Below is laura's most recent update, laura from seacor. Her writing is kind of funny. She's got some of the same stories, this is from marqueses to the tahiti area. It's one of the boats we've been traveling with.. I first met up with seacor in san diego.
Likewise with what laura says below... if you don't want to keep getting these emails let me know. They're on the web anyways if you don't want them clutering your inbox.
Also, jonah (obi.. on araby) has updates are on his blog: http://freejonah.blogspot.com/
Those of you telling me I should write a book probably don't realize just how many people are doing this, and sending out the same sorts of stories, probably written better than mine anyways :-P
oh, and most recent pictures are at /sailing/aries32/batch8/
-brian
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Once again, if you want to be off the list let me know, if not, here you go:
...
The last time I wrote we were in Daniel's Bay in the Marquises Islands. Well now we are a little further west, at the island of Raiatea, which is about 100 miles past Tahiti. We're getting the boat ready for the trip to Fiji, which is about 1700 miles.
I'll tell a few stories of how we spent the last month after the big flood at Daniel's Bay, which was the last thing I remember describing. The morning after the flood I may not have mentioned that the tall ship, the Soren Larson came into the anchorage (have a look at their website www.sorenlarsen.co.nz). There were seven people and five boats in anchorage at the time, all part of our fleet. There was a lengthy discussion over whether the tall ship would have ice and beer and in the end we decided to form a boarding party. We rowed en masse towards them in our various poor excuses for dinghies. Charitably enough however they restrained themselves from sending us on our way with a few well-aimed water bombs and instead invited us on board for a cup of coffee and a tour.
The ship left New Zealand in November for Easter Island, and is now on her way home via Tahiti and Fiji etc. They have about 14 crew and between 15-20 guests on board. The guests are treated as crew and have to do watches and help manage sails and so on but even so the crew work very hard to keep them happy as well as running the boat. All the guests were on shore though when we appeared so the crew were quite happy to chat for a while. It turned out that they were in need of a second cook to sail with them from Tahiti back to New Zealand. Martine's little ears pricked up and soon she had a job interview set up for 19th of June in Tahiti. Not a bad career progression from crisis manager/cook on a Westsail 32 to second cook on a tall ship. We were going to be sad to lose her though. No one else in the fleet enjoys making garlic bread while others drink rum and play chess.
Shortly after visiting the Soren Larson we headed east for six miles or so to the main town. Things were winding down in the Marquises as Paul & I had to be in Tahiti on 18th June to meet my parents and it was nearly June already. Still we had a few days in Taiohae with our friends. A few evenings into our stay at Taiohae we were having a little gathering in the cockpit of Seacor. The special occasion was that Tilikum had just flown to Hawaii to earn some money before coming back to sail her little boat home. This unfortunately left Herbert newly single and so, showing a distinct lack of imagination we decided that the best thing to do was help him drink rum.
Herbert disappeared quite early on in the evening and it occurred to us that we hadn't make any new friends for some time. Maybe we were in danger of becoming cliquey? So we put a call out on the VHF that anyone in the anchorage with rum and/or ice was welcome to come over and join us. About an hour later, the call forgotten we were somewhat anxious to see a huge centre console dinghy speeding straight towards us driven by a single man in a very white shirt. Bugger, we thinks, the French navy is coming. After a guilty scramble to hide anything illicit, someone goes on the side deck to say hi. Turns out its not the navy at all, it's just an American guy from the biggest catamaran in the bay who heard our call. Always good to have a fresh face on the boat, although for my part I couldn't stop staring at his white shirt. I hadn't seen whites that bright since, well England probably.
The guy had an interesting story to tell, by the time he was thirty he'd made and lost a million, making it I think had involved setting up Dominoes pizza, and losing it had involved drugs and alcohol. Then he had found God and now sailed around in his rather large catamaran called Good News.
Martine was asking a few questions about religion that night. So, the next morning Good News swoops through the anchorage with all 140 horse power and screeches to a halt next to Aguja in order to drop off a Good News Bible, a Jesus DVD, a spliff and a fifth of rum. He works in mysterious ways.
The resulting wake upset a chess game and Shanghai the kitten fell off the dodger but Martine accepted most of the presents. I was still busy gawping at abilities of his laundry lady.
After several days of delaying to stay with our friends we finally accepted that it was time to move on. Aguja now had a deadline to be in Tahiti too and so we left Nuka Hiva on 4th June bound for Rangiroa, 570 miles away.
The journey lasted 4 days. The winds were with us the whole way, with a lot of squalls. It was relatively uneventful until we were only 10 miles away from the atoll at which point a big squall hit us. It was probably 40 knots for about 5 minutes which was enough to rip our jib in half. While we were out on the foredeck pulling in the pieces the rain came down so hard that the surface of the water looked smoky. Pretty impressive really, except for the death of our favourite sail. No more leisurely 165 miles days with only the jib up in 20-25 knots.
About 2 hours later we were lining ourselves up on the leads into the pass. Atolls are basically a ring of reef with a large lagoon in the middle. The island that used to be inside the reef has long since disappeared. Rangiroa is the 3rd largest atoll in the world and has a circumference of about 100 miles. The currents in the passes are known to be quite strong as when the tide goes out the only places for the water to drain out are through these narrow passes. There are many cruising books filled with advice for making the pass entries as painless as possible, e.g. go through at half moon with the tide running slightly against you around high water etc. Various calculations are running through my head as I stand up on the foredeck looking for coral outcrops. "Er Paul, the current is with us." "Um, it's quite strong" A quick look back at the cockpit is rewarded only with a slightly manic grin. Ok, so we're going through now.
The water outside the pass was very flat, and we were swept along merrily with a 6 knot current. Once in the lagoon, and navigating around a central bank, we discovered that when a 6 knot current is ripping into a lagoon then there are overfalls on the other side. In practice this meant that as I was standing on top of the dinghy on the foredeck looking for navigation marks we were burying the bow in breaking seas. Reminded me a bit of those rodeo bull machines that you get in pubs sometimes. Didn't last long of course as our speed over ground was around 8 knots. That was quite fun too, after the initial "Oh bugger we can't get out of this" feeling.
Jim joined us about 2 hours later. By then there were no rips to speak of so we were denied getting some good photos.
Rangiroa is beautiful although the wind was howling the whole time we were there. We cycled one day along the atoll about 4 miles to the next town. The land is only about 50 metres wide in places, to our right we had open ocean and to our left was the lagoon with the other side of the atoll too far away to see. At the next town we found the other pass into the lagoon, which had some good surf. The local kids were out riding boogie boards. Two of them were even standing up riding waves on those boards. Jim bought a mini keg and we sat on the beach and watched.
The ride home was harder work against 25kn winds but we all managed ok except Paul who had chivalrously taken my duff bike and found that he had to stand on the pedals the whole way back.
The fish life was very impressive in the lagoon. Living under our boat we had a mating pair of ramoras, about 2 - 3 foot long. They'd come out and eat anything thrown over the side. Taking the rubbish out (and other stuff) had never been so much fun. Paul assured us that the place was full of reef sharks too, although I never saw one from the boat.
The snorkelling there was amazing too. We took a tin of sardines to the bank near the pass and fed the fish. From the moment that Paul got in the water with them there were hundreds of fish clustered around him so that he was hidden from sight. The average size was about 15 inches I guess and the little buggers were biting his hands. He offered me the tin and I managed to keep hold of it without squealing for a good 30 seconds. I then palmed it off on Martine.
There was also 2 good-sized moray eels right next to the dinghy mooring. As we were looking at one of them the current was slowly taking us closer to him. It wasn't too deep either so evidently the eel was threatened and started menacingly weaving his way out of his hole and towards us. Martine said afterwards that she saw him come out and wondered if she should be worried. Looked around to see where we were, she caught only a distant glimpse of fins disappearing into the distance.
We were keen to press on to Tahiti but day and night 20-25 knot winds blew with squalls passing through almost every hour. One day Paul had gone surfing taking the dinghy and I was catching up on the housework. On the cabin roof I put two mattresses out to dry after they'd not unusually become saturated with seawater. I was just about to bring them in when I heard a thump. Peering out into the cockpit I saw a cushion merrily blowing away into the lagoon. As luck would have it Jim was anchored about 200 metres away directly downwind. I jumped on the VHF "Jim I need help, my cushion has blown away, I'm going in to get it but I might need a hand getting it on your boat!"
It was lucky he was 200 metres away because it took me half that distance just to catch it. A 7 foot long saturated piece of foam is not the most manoeuvrable float in the world but I got it to the side of their boat and pushed it up towards Jim. I then climbed up their bobstay, as their swim ladder is broken. I was wearing a soaking white t-shirt at the time but that was soon covered up with a towel and a rum and coke soon sorted out some the d'oh factor. It wasn't possible to row back against the wind so I was forced to stay for a while.
A couple of hours later Paul returned from his surfing foray with big smiles and cut up feet from the coral and initially showed some suspicion as to the events that had led to the demise of the rum bottle in his absence. The soaking cushion hanging from the side stay proved what had really happened though.
The next day it was time to leave for Tahiti, if we were to make it on time to meet my parents. We had a dodgy forecast of 30 knot head winds the night before but as the morning dawned the met boys had changed their mind and forecast no wind. As it happened we had 15-20 knots favourable wind with the occasional squall, which suited us fine.
Now, you would have thought we had learned something from our trip into the lagoon, i.e. when sailing through passes, timing it right does help. However, although we had a good plan, both Aguja and ourselves had trouble getting our anchors up and so by the time we were heading into the approach the current had started ripping. There was 6 knots with us again. As the pass narrowed and the current was building we looked in front of us to see breakers right across the entire pass. We were past the point of no return by then but we radioed back to Jim to say that maybe he'd want to think about bailing out. Paul said some encouraging words along the lines of, "Wow, I've never taken a boat through seas like this before," and with that we headed into them. He told me just to look behind us at the leads and tell him where to steer, which was good really because I didn't really want to look at the big breakers rolling down on us. We soon discovered that the current was also pushing us left so although the breakers were right across the entrance we were meeting them at about 45 degrees. We had a couple of green ones roll over the boat but we were soon spat out the other side.
We looked around behind us and Jim had declined to bail out. We radioed through that as long as he stayed on the leads he was safe and that it doesn't last long. That said we sat back to watch. Our interest turned to trepidation though when we saw a big set rolling through. The first one knocked him broadside and we got to see his keel and his prop turning uselessly in mid air. He said afterwards that as it hit him it knocked him off his feet and he slid forwards in the cockpit. Then, his engine seemed to quit. At that point things weren't looking so good with the reef only 50 metres away but he realised that in fact he'd just kicked the throttle when he went flying forward. He never did quite manage to get back on the leads but luckily the pass is relatively wide and he took the shortest route out the side of the rips.
All seemed well and there were a few giggles, until we got a message from them over the radio that Shanghai the kitten was missing. Now Paul takes great delight in teasing the cat, talking about kitten kebabs and so on but I think I saw a genuine lip wobble then. Shanghai had been under the dinghy on the foredeck when the first wave hit. About half an hour later though we got the news that she had somehow managed to get back inside the boat, as Martine found her hiding under the bunk in the forward cabin.
In the end we arrived in Tahiti about the same time as my mum and dad, as we spent the preceding 6 hours hanging around outside waiting for dawn. As soon as there was light to see we headed on in.
With my parents on the boat we spent a couple of days at Tahiti reprovisioning etc and then cruised to Moorea and Huahine. Jim had stayed in Tahiti as Martine had accepted the second cook's job on the Soren Larson and there was paperwork to do and new crew to find. Paul had two great surfs in Tahiti but his second got cut short by a guy who sliced half his head open and wanted a ride in the dinghy back to shore. Tahiti surf is dangerous!
Huahine was our favourite spot, as Paul could paddle off the boat to his surf break and there was a restaurant next to the dinghy dock that had grasped the un-French Polynesian idea of happy hour.
After a few days there we had a beautiful sail to Raiatea. En route Paul landed a 5 foot dorado, which my dad caught on film. Lacking a big group of friends and a freezer we radioed a couple of the boats nearby and set up a BBQ for that evening on the public wharf at Raiatea.
A good day turned a bit sour though when we managed to get a rope wrapped round the prop while coming into the wharf. The strut that supports the shaft snapped, which wasn't really a surprise, but was a bit of a bugger. We would have to haul out but luckily we had just arrived at the island with the most popular and affordable boatyard facilities in the whole of French Polynesia. My parents never did get to see Bora Bora but I think they had a good time. In turn we did have a lot more dinners in restaurants than normal J
After my parents flew out we decided to have a couple of days more not worrying about the boat repair. That weekend there was a race from Raiatea to Tahaa and lo and behold, the Soren Larson turns up to take part. We head on down before the race to see if Martine (now known as Olive) was enjoying her new job. They were pleased with her as it turns out and the skipper, Barry invites us on the boat to sail with them in the race. Sadly we forgot our camera but we had a great day. Paul was doing mainsheet, aided on occasion by two enormous Polynesian men. There are no winches on the boat so there's lots of heaving and hauling. I stayed down by the second mast helping the guests and crew adjust staysails and brace the square sails etc. Lots of new words to learn when you sail on those boats! We were impressed with the way she handled. At one point they had to tack up through a gap between two reefs that was only a couple of hundred metres wide. They managed it in fewer tacks than some of the rather inept cruisers nearby. We sailed the entire course and finally anchored off the nearby island of Tahaa.
The fun didn't stop there though, outrigger races were scheduled for the afternoon. The idea was for us to form teams of 3, who would then be put in outriggers with 3 Polynesian men and we would race around a short course. The Soren Larson crew had had a recent spate of the flu and were lacking able-bodied girls so I was drafted into the girlie team. The lads wore baskets made of palm leaves on their heads as hats, making them look oddly like action men. We wore fluorescent wigs. As we landed onshore we were cornered by the paparazzi and made to pose next to posters for the insurance company sponsoring the event. I have a sneaking suspicion that there's some odd photos of me on the internet somewhere.
The heats began. They had six canoes and the winner of each heat made the final. Our friend Akko, of the classic steel boat White Haze had a few issues at the first mark and they managed to capsize their canoe, much to the amusement of the party on the beach.
Paul & the lads were second in their heat which I would have thought was a tactical decision to make the most of their drinking time, were it not for the fact that they were bright red in the face and looking ready to collapse in little pools of sweat. Hmm, maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, but it was too late by then, I'd already been photographed in the blue wig.
The course was around a moored yacht, then out to the Soren Larson and back to the dock. We too manage to finish second in our heat, although my theory on that is that because we were so much lighter than the men our presence didn't interfere so much with the three Polynesian guys in the canoe.
We returned to the Soren Larson for dinner and then made it to the party on the beach. Paul and Martine were slight casualties that evening as he grazed his shoulder when she rugby tackled him, and she then trod on a sea urchin.
We still hadn't sorted out somewhere to stay that evening but our problems were solved when we got chatting to the Polynesian guys who had spent the afternoon paddling the outriggers. After competing in 7 races they'd evidently decided that a few beers were in order. Usually they head straight back to Raiatea after the race but this time the night wore on and they were still having fun. They said that if we wanted we could come back with them in the outriggers. Eek, I thought, having just paddled a short race and not sure about doing the several miles back to Raiatea.
Around midnight the party was breaking up and they invited us to come back with them in the boats. They were taking one boat with an outboard and towing one outrigger with 6 guys in it. There were room for us in the boat which was a relief.
We set off. Outriggers have no keel obviously so as we went hacking across the water with his 30 horse power opened up they were surfing down the wake, then suddenly swerving across the other side. Having seen Akko capsize in one of these boats while doing about 5 knots I was curious to see what happened, but what did happen wasn't what I expected. Paul started saying, "go left, go left!" and gesticulating wildly but too late, we hit the reef at full speed. I ended up flat on my back on the floor with my legs sticking up in the air. Not a good tactical position when an earlier decision as to appropriate dress had resulted in a short red skirt.
No one laughed at me however, the boys were all too worried about were the hell they were and whether they had chewed up their prop. While they lifted up the outboard the six guys behind us got their paddles out and towed us off the reef. Not a single one amongst them recognised any of the cardinal markers so Paul earned his keep by guiding them home.
They dropped us off with smiles and assurances that we were close to our marina. It took us some time to realise this though as they dropped us in the middle of a fair with a kebab stand. After sampling the wares and drawing a map of Raiatea with a question mark and little stick men on it we established that we were indeed quite close to home, it was only a 10 minute stagger along the ring road.
If the weekend wasn't exciting enough, we found in the morning that Jim on Aguja, and Phillip, his temporary new crew had arrived. We knew that the Soren Larson was heading to the south of Raiatea that day and so we set off in hot pursuit so that Jim could see Martine. He wanted to see that she was settled in ok, and she wanted some more of her things, not to mention visual proof that Jim hadn't ditched little Shanghai.
We caught up with them a few hours later. The entire anchorage was 100 feet deep so Barry let us hang a line off his stern for a couple of hours while Martine finished cooking lunch. She came on board for her things and had a sneaky shot of rum before heading back on board. At 2pm they hauled anchor and set sail for Huahine. We settled for a sneaky couple of red wines on the way back up to the town wharf.
On Monday morning reality set in and it was time to start working on the boat. Paul spent much of the day fixing (or should I say installing) the brakes on a local guys car in return for use of a lathe. After visiting the boatyard, Thursday was set for hauling out. We had the luck to bump into some friends of ours at the boatyard. They were Paul's surfing friends and had decided unexpectedly to put the boat on the hard for the rest of the year and go home to earn some money. We helped them out by taking on board all of their perishable food, and plenty of food that wasn't all that perishable. In return we cooked them a few dinners. Paul and the boys managed to get some surf in at a place called Mirmiri which is very shallow and all involved are still recovering from more coral cuts.J
By the way, if anyone is interested in buying a third share in a nice 42 footer with Rob and Ben and going off on a surfing trip next year through the Pacific then e-mail birchrob@yahoo.com. Their current partner, Mike, is bowing out to do the family and work thing back in Florida. He paid about 30k US for his share, which is a pretty good deal.
After 6 days on the hard Paul finished the repair of the strut and we are now back in the water. Now we can get on with planning the rest of the trip. I have booked a flight home from Fiji at the end of August in time to start work in September so we're looking at where we want to visit on the way to Fiji. I think Paul is quite keen just to get to Fiji as quick as possible as both surfing friends and surf will be there. I'm trying to spin out my last couple of months of freedom before I return to London and start the process of becoming a lawyer - eek. (the updates will stop then, I'm sure no one wants to here about that!)
If you've stayed with me this long then I'm sure you have something to write back to us. We'll reply to every e-mail we get - its always good to get news from you.