En-route to Nuku Hiva

We left Hana Moe Noa bay yesterday morning with the intent to head to the north side of Hiva Oa for a night or two. The winds between Tahuata and Hva OA gave us a great push and we were reaching at 7 knots. We had a great sail. We got almost to cape Kuikui on the NW corner of Hiva OA when the winds died then turned to the NW. Odd direction but we realized it was due to the island bending the easterly trades. The wind blew up more and more and we were motor sailing hard to weather, barley making 2 knots. I looked again at the chart, then the winds, then realized that the anchorage would be basically horrible, with the winds screaming directly into it and blowing us onto a lee shore. A quick decision was made and we turned to the NW and headed for Taiohae Bay on Nuku Hiva, 80 miles away! The wind came onto the beam and with mizzen and headsail we have been sailing at 5-5.5 knots with the wind steering in control. The repair to the wind vane has made the system better than new and we have been holding a course within 5 degrees all day and night. We are 25 miles away just now and will get there by around 02:30 which means heaving-to until sunrise befire we head into the anchorage. Cathy and I plan to spend a couple of weeks around Nuku Hiva before we head south to the Tuamotu’s

Hapatoni Bay - Tahuata

We motored the whole 5 miles south to Hapatoni Bay on the southwest side of Tahuata yesterday. It took us four attempts but we finally got anchored just north of the village. Again, the Polynesian government has invested in infrastructure in most of these villages. There is a substantial breakwater and cement quay with a boat ramp that makes landing nice and easy. The village is spread out along the bay as it backs onto a very step ridge. Being Sunday, there wasn’t much happening but we met one of the local artisans Kalino and his son Erman. He offered to get us some bananas today so we will go back in this morning. The bigger village on the island is about a mile north of here but the anchorage is somewhat exposed. Not that this anchorage is much better but it will do for a night or two. There are 4 other boats here, two from France, one from Holland and our friends on Toketie. We will see how this all plays out.

Had a great visit with Kalino. We looked at his carvings which were quite frankly spectacular. He works in cow and pig bone, marlin bone, antler, rosewood and ironwood, sometimes combining them into the same piece. We bought a small tiki on a neck cord and when Cathy had her back turned, he put another in our pack!! On top of that, he also gave us a hand of bananas. We split this with Toketie as there is no way we could eat them all. After we got back from the village, we decided to head back up to Hana Moe Noa Bay for the night as the anchorage at Hapatoni was not the best. Tomorrow we will head for the north end of Hiva Oa.

Tahuata, Hana Moe Noa Bay

We’ve had a pleasant if not busy stop here in paradise. A white sandy beach, beautiful clear water, some coral, fish, stingrays, and invisible jellyfish! Cathy and I have both got stung while swimming but we have not seen the little buggers.

There were a 6-8 boats here when we arrived and we knew most of them from our travels in the US and Mexico, or via radio nets. Thursday, one of the boats organized a book swap on the beach and we spent the afternoon standing in the water (too hot to stand on the beach) getting to know what each of us were doing. We met a French couple, Patrick and Noel who have been in French Polynesia almost a year now. She grew up on a boat and has been sailing continuously since she was 8 years old. Friday night we all congregated on Arial, a 46 ft Cal sailed by a young couple (Eric and Ivanna) originally from Poland. They are making their way to New Zealand to hopefully immigrate. Eric got out his accordion and another cruiser produced a saxophone and we between listening to Polish war songs, songs from the Solidarity movement, some great blues from the sax, a bit of Beatles, we had a great time. I needed the break. I spent all day Friday removing and patiently cleaning the chain plates for the forward lower shrouds. It’s a job I have been putting off for quite a awhile but during the passage they both started to leak so they had to be looked at. When they built the boat, Westerly thoughtfully buried one half of the chain-plates in a void between two bulkheads. It meant that I had to cut an access hole through the bulkhead to get at the bolts. It all turned out fine and thankfully the chain-plates and attachments were in good condition. By the time the job was complete, it chewed up a day and half. We also realized when we got here that something had hit our wind steering blade. So that came off and was fixed with a little metalwork and epoxy. Oh the things we do in paradise. We’re heading off today a bit further south on this Island (Tahuata) to visit a couple of the villages. We’ll probably spend a day or two there and then work our way back up to the north side of Hiva Oa and then across to Nuku Hiva. We have made plans to be in Papeete Tahiti for the 27/28 of June for a Tahitian welcome or all the cruising boats so we have to be conscious of time. Although that is 2 months away, the days seem to disappear quite fast.

On the radio front, it turns out that the antenna tuner is NOT under warranty so now we have to replace it. I will wait until I can do a bit of research before we decide which one to get. We will arrange for it in Papeete.

Atuona - Hiva Oa

We arrived in Atuona Saturday afternoon to a crowded anchorage.  We managed to find a spot to drop the hook and get the stern anchor out to hold us more or less bow on to the incoming swell.  Not the best anchorage but we experienced worse on the US west coast so no complaints.  Rested and wandered around a bit on shore on Sunday and spent a lot of time trying to figure out if it was worth it to use an agent to handle the clearance process.  After talking to some friends who had checked in a few days earlier, we decided to do it ourselves.  Monday morning bright and early we set off to walk into the village and get the process started.

First, you go to the bank to purchase a bond, equivalent to the cost of a air ticket to your country of origin, in our case New Zealand.  The banks are not quick here but it was air conditioned so waiting inside was fine.  It probably took an hour and a half there.  You pay the bond fee either in cash or by credit card and tell them where you want your bond refunded when you are leaving.  We decided to collect our refund in Bora-Bora.  There is a fee for the bond which worked out to 37 dollars each.  Once you have your bond paper work, you then go to the post office to purchase stamps for a 3 month extended stay visa.  You also purchase a 65 franc stamp to use to mail your customs declaration to Papeete in Tahiti once you finish.  The post office was pretty quick.  You need to purchase 3000 francs worth of stamps for each person, so 6000 francs worth of stamps for Cathy and I cost about 82 dollars.  Then it was off to the Gendarme to get our passports stamped, our visa approved, and our customs declaration done.  There were a few ahead of us but we were only there for about 20 minutes.  The gendarme was very pleasant and had no problems approving our 90 day extended stay visa.   There was no cost for the Gendarme.  Then back to the post office to mail our customs declaration form to Papeete (remember the 65 franc stamp).  So all in all, the process cost us around 160 dollars.  We get our bond refunded to us in Bora-Bora and will take a bit of a hit on currency conversion when we exchange francs to NZ dollars but not too bad.  The agents fee to do this was going to end up being between 600 and 700 dollars US so for a bit of patience and walking around, we saved a packet!!!

We did a bit of shopping, bought some baguettes, a bit of meat, fresh eggs, fruity an veggies and then back to the boat.  It was scorching by this time.  When we got back to the boat, the skipper on the Swan 51 behind us hailed me over and said that we were on top of his anchor and he needed to pull up his bow anchor.  I dropped our stern anchor to swing away, and he picked up his anchor and reset behind us.  We got ourselves sorted out again and then the Swan had to send a diver down to un-foul his stern anchor.  The authorities here have put wire cages/or bags full of rocks throughout the bay to break the incoming swell.  He had managed to hook his stern anchor under one of them.  When he got his stern anchor loose, he started to rift towards a nice Tayana 48 that was anchored beside him.  Well with four dinghies pushing him sideways we managed to keep him of the other boats until he could get his stern anchor reset.  He was most grateful and appeared on deck with a t-shirt for each of the dinghies.  It turns out he is going around the world and had a bunch of shirts printed to take with hi,  His web-site is www.oncearaound.org.

Tuesday saw me back into the village to the post office to get connected to the internet.  When I got back to the boat, Cathy had the laundry done and we had a new boat right on top of us, a big ketch from Poland.  For some reason, despite there being many better spots to anchor, dropped his anchor in such a way as to foul our stern anchor, and the anchors off a couple of the boats beside us.  I stopped and had a pleasant conversation with him suggesting STRONGLY that they move somewhere a lot safer.  His solution was let out a lot more rode on his bow anchor and move his stern anchor farther back.  He almost took out our wind generator while he was doing this and when he settled, he was so close to our friends on Toketie that at one point David could have literally stepped aboard their boat.  We finally persuaded them that they really had to move as by this time they had also tripped our stern anchor.  They finally agreed and again, with a few dinghies to fend them off various boats in the anchorage, they dropped there hook again.  This time they only managed to almost hit 2 boats.  After another hour or so of pleasant conversation, they finally pulled up both anchors and with help from Steve on boat called Elusive, they moved them to a nice BIG space in the anchorage, away from everybody else.  An exciting time.

Today, we hope to get out of here and head over to Tahuata and check a couple of anchorages over there.  The swell is getting a bit uncomfortable here so time to head on.  We have until July 20^th to leave French Polynesia so we have lots of time to explore.

 

Underway Again (Briefly)!

After an all too brief stay on Fatu Hiva, we pulled up the anchor this morning bound for the Atuona on the island of Hiva Oa. We will do our official clearance here into French Polynesia. We had an absolutely amazing experience on Fatu Hiva and hope that the rest of our stay throughout the islands are as good. What really blew me away was the generosity of the other cruisers, a New Zealand couple in particular, Paul and Gina on their boat "Solace" We met them on Thursday afternoon when they stopped by to say hi in their dinghy. We invited them on board and as we were talking, I mentioned the problems we had with our radio. They knew about it from hearing us and Toketie on different HF nets and then they offered to lend us their spare antenna tuner until we could get ours replaced (hopefully in Papeete). It turned out that they had a complete spare radio setup on board. Well I went over to their boat that evening and we tried their spare tuner on his ICOM radio (same make and model as ours). The tuner worked so the next day Paul uninstalled it from their boat, brought it over, I put it in place and made the appropriate connections, and voila, it worked!. I managed to get all our backlogged emails and last night I spoke to the net controller for the Pacific Seafarers net in Hawaii and his comment was that he had never heard me so clearly. Obviously our tuner had been failing slowly for some time and finally gave out on the long passage. The pain in the butt of all this is that in order to get a warranty replacement I have to send the tuner back to the place of purchase (Victoria BC) and then they will ship a replacement to me. I will try and see if I can ship it off from Hiva Oa this week and get the process started.
The other major highlight from Fatu Hiva was our hike up to the waterfall yesterday. A good 50-60 minute uphill walk that brings you to this stunning grotto surrounded by vertical cliffs with the water flowing over them. It was absolutely amazing!! We had a bit of a birthday party for David last night to honour his 60th year and then a short nights sleep to get underway by 06:00 this morning. We have sailed most of the way but are motoring the last 10 miles to get the batteries fully charged before we squeeze our way into Atuona

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Fatu Hiva, Hanna Vavau Bay (Bay of Virgins)

We arrived in the anchorage at Fatu Hova yesterday morning at daybreak. We were actually here a couple of hours before dawn but hove to until first light. There were 10 boats already here and with us and Toketie, that made 12. We are anchored in deep water (25-30 meters) and have over 100 meters of chain plus some anchor rode out. We are very comfortable. The anchorage is stunning! Steep sided, lush, with craggy rock pillars. We are taking lots of pictures and will post them to the web site when we can. Shortly after we arrived, a couple of guys from an American boat "Argonut" came by and said that they were organizing a dinner on shore, hosted by one of the local families. 25 USD per head. After some encouragement from Cathy we said OK. There were 6 boats in all with maybe 16 people in total there. The food was great. During the meal, the couple hosting the dinner pulled out a guitar and ukulele and played traditional Marquesan music for us. Little to no English is spoken here. The first language is Marquesan and everyone also speaks French. Despite being pretty tired after over 28 days at sea, we had a great time. The village itself is wonderful. The French Polynesian authorities have invested heavily in infrastructure and it shows. They have built a stone and concrete breakwater with a launch ramp for the local fishing boats. There is a medical clinic staffed 4 days a week, a church, school, power, telecommunications, water etc. The houses are small but tidy and the people we've met so far are very friendly. I can't help reflecting on how things have likely changed with the adventy of more and more boats making the jump across the Pacific. 10 years ago, maybe 20 boats in total would have made the trip in a given year. There are probably closer to a 100 this year!

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Still Sailing After All These Days

Position as of 06:00 UTC 07°36'S, 135°07'W
We are still sailing. What else is here to say. We have been averaging 4 knots for the past 2 days and the winds look like that is what we will continue to average. We are sticking with Toketie, as they are still reporting us into Pacific Seafarers and hence our position is updated in Yotreps. David said to day on the radio that if we wanted to charge on ahead, don't worry just go. We decided not. We have come this far together, lets finish the long journey together as well. We cold be going faster with the drifter up but as Toketie does not have one, we take a comfortable pace. We will order a new antenna tuner as soon as we get somewhere with some internet coverage. Hopefuly we can arrange to get it sent to Nuku Hiva using Polynesian Yacht Services as the broker. We'll se how it all plays out. The boat has been under the control of out autopilot for the past couple of days as wehave had trouble getting the wind steering to handle the boat in these light winds. I played have it set up now and it seems to be managing pretty well. Hopefully we will be able to leave it as is. The autopilot we have was never designed to be used continuously for long periods and I really don't want to burn it out. On the other hand, it has performed really well and as long as I give it a bit of TLC at the next anchorage, all should be well.

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What Can I Say?

Position as of 11:00 UTC 07°03'S, 134°10'W
We have had a slow day or so with light winds and calm seas. We are currently deep reaching at 3.5 - 4 knots. The antenna tuner is more or less shot. If I get it to work again I will be surprised so this will not get posted likely until we are well and truly landed. We hope to get to Fatu Hiva on Tuesday but unless we get some wind it will be a close thing. We will likely only be able to stay until Thursday or Friday and then we will have to move on to Hiva Oa to formally check in. Our plan is to arrange to get a replacement tuner sent to Nuka Hiva, the administrative centre of the Marquesas. It will be a logistical challenge and I am not sure how it will work yet. Our existing unit is under warranty and I have asked ICOM to send a replacement but I suspect that they will want to get the old one back first. We will see how it all shakes out.
We are certainly not breaking any speed records on this passage. The winds have been unusually light, despite the doom and glom predictions of various weather gurus that we will experience "directionally enhanced" trade winds. Since we crossed the equator, the winds have been extraordinarily light and variable. We ran wing on wing for most of the day with winds from the ENE. Odd direction for the SE trades to blow!! Hopefully things will steady out in the next little while.

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Trade Winds (trade you for some wind!)

Position as of 10:00 UTC 04°47'S, 131°33'W
We have been sailing slowly southwest in light variable "trade winds" since we crossed the equator. Tonight has been the first night in awhile hat we haven't been harassed by squalls so perhaps we are finally out that zone. The winds have been strange with shifts of 10-20 degrees. We spent all day yesterday beating into a southerly wind in order to keep to our course and not get too far west. I thought we weren't supposed to go to weather any more. Once again, it just proves that I am just ain't no gentleman. The winds have finally clocked around to the east and if the weather charts are half way accurate, we should keep this wind for the next few days. We have had a good day and night (so far) sailing and should put some decent miles behind us today. We have been averaging only about 100 miles a day but that's not too bad considering we have had 10 knots o wind during the day ad less at night. We are currently about 550 miles from Fatu Hiva where we will sneak in for a few days before "officially" arriving in the Marquesas in Hiva Oa. The radio continues to plague and sometimes I get it to work for a few hours before it all packs in again. I got it working today by thumping the tuner rather hard. The engineers last resort! It worked, a least long enough to get email. Will try and get it working again tomorrow as we could not check into Pacific Seafarers and for some reason Toketie didn't check in tonight either. The VHF decided to act up the other day as well. I spent a wonderful morning tearing that apart to find a broken wire from the microphone to the radio. Of course is did not break in the easy to repair places so we now have this Frankenstein configuration for the microphone. Ugly but it works.

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A Dark and Stormy Night

Sunday April 6, 2008
Actually it was a dark and WET night. It rained steadily and incredibly hard most of the night. The wind associated with the cells that we went through however was, for the most part, light. We motored, we sailed, we drifted for awhile. At one point we got within a mile of our buddy boat Tokatie so we headed off west to put some distance between us. We got to the limits of VHF range before we turned due south to try and intercept them. Well, we did. It's actually kind of fun to try and track another vessel around the ocean based on projected course and speed. By morning, the winds started to drop and we ended up rifting slowly south at around 1.5 knots. By 10:45 local we started up the motor and stated the long motor through the doldrums to the equator. At our current rate, we should reach the equator mid afternoon today! With luck we will get some wind before then as well. I poured the last of the diesel from the jerry cans we carry on deck into the tank today and it raised the level to 7/8 of a tank. We figure that gives us about 90 hours before we are sucking fumes. We have set a limit of 50 hours to leave a reasonable margin. We will see how we go.
I have pretty much given up on the HF radio. I am certain that the antenna tuner is at fault. I made a direct connection from the tuner to the backstay antenna yesterday and everything worked for about 15 minutes then it quit. I have been unable to get it to "tune" again. Oh well, I will likely look into the tuner one more time before I finally quit. I am quite prepared to get a replacement but we will likely have to get to Papeete before I can arrange it. Oh well. It's a bit weird being cut off from email. It makes you wonder how we ever managed to communicate before. Perhaps this is god for us?
By 05:30, the wind came up and we were able to sail, an unexpected bonus. I was sure that we would be under power to the equator. This is the nice part of having a fin keel boat. We are close hauled and comfortable in 7-9 knots of wind, sailing at 4-5 knots. No diesel being used, and most of all it's QUIET. Our engine is actually quite quiet anyways but after a few hours, you do get pretty tired of it.

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On Course for the Marquesas

Position as of 22:30 UTC 02°11'S, 127°59'W
We crossed the equator at 13:14 Pacific Daylight savings time on Sunday April 6, 2008. We hove to just across the line within haling distance of Toketie and toasted Neptune and picnicked in the cockpit. A very civilized rest on the way south. We have been sailing ever since and the winds are generally picking up and we are about into the SE trades no. We have had 10-15 knots all day and that is what we will expect for the next few days. Hopefully this will send as I managed to get the radio working again (temporarily I'm sure). All's well and we are 800 miles from the landfall

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The Rain Blog

Position as of 16:00 UTC 04°52'N, 124°39'W
Rain, rain, rain. We saw our share of rain yesterday evening. Around 19:00 local time, the squalls started marching across form east to west. There was not a lot of wind with them but the wind was clocking all around the compass. We spent a busy hour and half tacking and gybbing trying to stay on a southerly course. We even hove-to for a while to wait for one of the big cells to pass. The rain was coming so hard you could barely see the bow of the boat. One advantage of the rain like that though is that it hammers the seas flat. We finally gave up around 200:30 and started the engine, pulled in the headsail and motored straight south. At that particular time the wind had backed to the south so we weren't making great time but we also were not heading north as we had a few times the previous hour. By 02:00 local time this morning, the wind had come back to the NE and we were able to turn the engine of and sail between 3-4 knots straight south.
On the radio front, we have been able to use the radio more in the past 18 hours than we had for the past week. I fuddled around with the connection between the tuner and the backstay yesterday and hopefully it will last until I can get the unit serviced or replaced. In the meantime, we will stay sailing with Toketie and are in contact regularly during the day.
I have been thinking about a few comparisons that may make understanding what life on the ocean is like for us on a small ship.

6 Reasons Why sailing is like Being 1 Year Old
1) You can walk but you really have to hang on to something or you fall down
2) You get to eat all your food out of a bowl, usually with a spoon
3) Going to the toilet is a major accomplishment, usually followed by a feeling of satisfaction that you didn't knock yourself out
4) You get to sleep every 3 hours or so, nap time is VERY important or we get all cranky
5) When you are one year old, you drink out of a spill proof "sippy cup". When the boat is pitching and heaving around the ocean, you drink everything out of spill proof "sippy cups"
6) You get to speak in a language that no-one else understands (talking about the ITCZ with HAM operators on your 802 with the AT140 while dealing with lots of QRM) If you can decipher that sentence congrats, you too can cross the ocean!

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Sailing South

Position as of 03:00 UTC 06°14'N, 124°36'W
Well, we have been sailing south for the past day and a half and are again approaching the ITCZ. The bloody thing moves north and south quite quickly. April 1 when we decided to run straight south we were in the ITCZ, we got hit with quite a few squalls but winds never reached more than 22 knots, so no issue there. Lots of rain which was nice, got 2 weeks worth of salt spray of the boat. The night watches also went quicker as you were constantly watching the radar to see the squalls. The idea is to reef the headsail in BEFORE the squall hits and then let it back out after it passes. We have left the main sail with 2 reefs for the past 2 days and are quite comfortable with the motion of the boat. We have come more than halfway to the Marquesas and assuming things stay about the same and maybe a bit better we should reach landfall 28 days after we left (departure March 18, you figure it out!). I have narrowed the problem with the radio down to the antenna tuner, definitely. I can make it work for email so I will restrict communications to that and hope it holds together. Will either have to get it fixed or replace in Papeete Tahiti as that will be the easiest place to get one shipped to. We will see how it goes. Last night was absolutely beautiful. Clear skies, no moon and lots of stars. We know we are sailing south as we have the southern cross directly in front of us. It's been a long time since we sailed with those stars and they are nice to see again. Life has settled into a pleasant routine. We stand 3 hour watches at night and then we sort of both keep watch during the day. I spend most days working on the radio and Cathy plans and prepare most of the main meals. Come 19:00, I get an hours sleep then on watch for 3 hours, off for 3, etc. We are both rested which his important as it's easy to make mistakes when you get tired out here.

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More fun with Radios

I tore apart the boat to cannibalize the power cable that ran from the shore power system to the staring battery. I used that as a replacement for the cable from the antenna tuner to the backstay. Got it all hooked up, turned the radio on and it tuned up. OK, so I sent and received a bunch of emails on different frequencies and it all seemed good. So next up is a call to the Maritime Mobile net on 14300 and as soon as I spoke into the mic, the radio lost its tune on the frequency. Needless to say, I'm getting more and more frustrated. I find a problem, fix it and it still doesn't work. I will run up new long wire antenna tomorrow on the of chance that the insulators on the backstay are suspect and that in conjunction with the corroded wire was causing the problem. I'm not holding my breath.

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