So it’s tomorrow already

On Nov 15th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Milestones ? The Date Line

So we are officially over the International Dateline, although I must confess that this is because if jigs way East here to keep New Zealand all on the same day. So its now tomorrow here.

What does that mean on Evenstar? Not much, we tend to keep our local time unchanged until we get where we are going, though I do need to keep in mind the true date and time of course. But now it is Saturday outside the boat and will be when we update the clocks on arrival.

Unlike crossing the equator there aren’t any time honored rituals to obey, although apparently the seaman of old DID enjoy getting a day’s pay without having to work for it.

Still Going Upwind

This is slow. It is slow not because our boatspeed is slow, but rather because the wind has been from the West or Southwest for several days. This means we really can’t sail the direction we want to go.

Also there are some ocean currents which are not always favorable, in fact they affect your ability to closer to where you want to go as well.

We want to head Southwest, that is the direction to New Zealand. To do this, we must obvious sail South, and also sail West. Obviously the best way to do this is to sail South and West simultaneously, but we can not.

Our options are, with the current, are to either:

1) Sail West, while drifting a bit to the North and away from NZ, or

2) Sail South, which actually is East of South, thereby also sending us a but more East

Part of the problem of course is us, we aren’t sailing the boat like a race boat, trimmed to upwind within an inch of its life and hand steering every mile. We can’t, it’s exhausting and counter productive. We need to keep it a little cracked off from ?Max Point? upwind sailing, which allows the autopilot to sail the boat and us to get some sleep. So we’re tacking the boat through 100-110 degrees, not the 90 degrees the boat is really capable of. That 10-20 degrees slows us down when the wind is right from where we want to go.

The other problem is the current.

Ocean currents, unlike coastal currents, are quite insidious because you can’t see them too easily. Around the coasts you have tides, you can see current dragging on marks, current lines that form on shallow bottom contours, surface roils from the contours of the bottom and shore, things float by you that you can note current on, etc. etc.

Where we’re sailing it is 3-4 miles deep, there are no ?contours? on the bnottom to roil up the surface ? all the water looks like it is simply not moving. There really isn’t much floating around out here besides us, either. We’ve not seen another boat since we left Tahiti. But the water is moving, and in directions you can only see when your speed falls off or increases or your ability to sail in a certain direction is weirdly impeded.

We do have weather files downloaded that purport to tell us where these currents are and which way they are headed. If they are as accurate as the wind, right now they are near meaningless.

So we keep plugging away, our progress is slow but it is progress ? we will get there eventually. If the wind would shift we’d get there a whole lot faster though.

Posted in Milestones, New Zealand, passages | Comments Off on So it’s tomorrow already

Day Ten to NZ – Not Much Changed

On Nov 14th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Well some change, nothing broke and we didn’t do anything stupid today, so that is something!

However the conditions haven’t changed much. The wind is still from the Monstrous Pain in the Tuchas Zone, as I type this it has finally seemed to drop consistently below 22 knots. It is still from the Southwest though with no sign of direction change yet at least we’re not seeing the 30’s we saw this morning.

We’ve a bit of current pushing us North as well, so our options are 1) sail basically due South straight into it or 2) sail more West, faster and get pushed a little North. We’re going with West.

Either way there are steep irregular seas for some reason. Evenstar is heavy and can push through them but it slows us down. Eight foot speed bumps hitting you from different directions, if you will. With this wind we can make 7.5 knots or more in flat water but the waves can slam us back into the 5’s and 6’s repeatedly. Hopefully the drop in wind will soon correspond to a settling of the seas a well.

We did take a break for a while, we ?parked? the boat for a few hours using a technique called ?heaving to?. I won’t describe in detail how to do it, but it slows the boat to a knot or two and gets you a better motion with the waves. Pounding into waves and breeze all night on Starboard tack meant no one rested too well and the break let some us get some solid naps in and get a little regrouped.

That’s all for now. This trip is grinding along ? we WILL get there eventually but a break in the wind sure would make it more pleasant!

Posted in New Zealand, passages | Comments Off on Day Ten to NZ – Not Much Changed

Day 9 – Where to Start

On Nov 13th, 2014 Published By B.J.

The Engine Troubles

We didn’t blog about it when it happened, but we did lose the engine for a while last Sunday. We were concerned that a few people may be over worried about us if we made a big deal about it out here ? but after all the engine is the ?auxiliary? power; Evenstar IS a sailboat after all.

Last Sunday afternoon?.the bilge pumps kicked in. This is unusual and always a cause for concern as Evenstar is a very dry boat with little water in her bilges and the bilge pump rarely runs. When it does it usually means something is inappropriately emitting water into the boat. However, we’ve had the bilge pump go off from condensation from the air conditioning too so it’s not like we start running around like our hair is on fire when it goes on. We just look for the water.

The oil in Evenstar’s transmission is cooled by a seawater exchange like the rest of the engine. As a ?freshwater? cooled boat, Evenstar still uses sea water to cool the ?fresh? water (really coolant, just like your car) as well as the engine oil.

When we opened to the engine room to look for the water it was pretty easy to find. Right next to the catwalk next to the engine room door is the transmission oil cooler, water was coming out of it.

So we killed the engine and closed the through hull, and I had to disconnect some of the raw water plumbing and plug it to stop the water flow. In this condition the engine is inoperable, though I could plug it all back together within minutes and run with the leak if I needed to.

The extrusion for attaching hoses to the cooler had cracked at the base. It appeared to be tilting with the weight of the hose to open the crack so I secured it back up so the crack closed then sanded the area to remove the paint and get to bare metal. Then I applied a product called ?JB Weld? which is an epoxy like compound formulated to bond to metal in either wet or dry conditions and form a really tight bond that is proof against reasonably high temperatures and vibration. The oil cooler is always cool to the touch, so this stuff should do the trick as it is made for just this application.

All we had to do is wait 24 hours for it to cure then plug it all back together. Of course during that 24 hours the wind hooted up and it got really lumpy, so I deferred going into the engine room until this morning when the wind died off again. We’ve been running it all day, checking every hour with no signs of a leak.

More Computer Fun

This morning, already in a funk from an incident to be described later, I sat down to check e-mails and get some weather information. And the PC was off?what? We never turn it off while on passage as it runs Maxsea, our navigation package that talks to the instruments and helps with our weather routing, and I am constantly using it to send e-mails, check weather, and so on.

When I started it up I received a ?CPU Fan Error? on start up ? what the heck? The CPU fan wasn’t registering as there or on?great, just after I got the fool thing up and running a few weeks ago with a new motherboard! I prepared to get a laptop ready to go.

While we can sail without the PC it is our primary communications lifeline to land and family, and our means of getting weather. Our navigation and plotters work fine with out it, they just work better with it and it is a hassle not to have a PC that can talk to the world.

The long and short of it was after I opened the PC up and had a look the CPU fan had somehow sucked its own power cable in and tangled itself up! Fortunately some careful unwinding and I was able to free it up and it came back on, it didn’t burn out. CPU fans aren’t a spare I’d usually carry.

Then We Got Really Stupid

But the big downer that set the pall over the morning happened some time last night.

If you recall we flew the spinnaker for a while the other day in the light air. When we left we secured it on the stern, but when we set it we figured we’d use it again so we left it clipped to the lifelines up by the bow.

This was fine when it was light air from behind, and light air from the beam. It was not so fine when the wind hooted up and we had to sail upwind into bigger breeze.

At some point last night a wave swept our spinnaker overboard and it is now lost.

This is a bummer because it was so preventable ? at some point yesterday every single one of us thought that we should maybe move the sail back to the stern or tie it down more, but we didn’t act on it. This is the kind of mistake you aren’t supposed to make after two years of doing this.

The lesson learned is one we should know ? that just because something is secured NOW for these conditions doesn’t mean it is secured for all conditions. So everything should be secured for all conditions, because conditions change quickly and its human nature to forget things.

This is a painful loss because the probability of replacing it is low, and the spinnaker is a fun sail to use and at least half the boat enjoys flying it. But is really is a sail that we fly to avoid motoring in light conditions, it doesn’t come out that often. When it starts blowing harder from the directions the spinnaker needs it is easier to use the regular sails. The problem the is to cost justify replacing a sail that we rarely use ? and will use even less next year when Will leaves for college ? against all the other things we need and want to do to the boat.

So no, we don’t *need* the sail and we may not have purchased one if the boat didn’t come with it. Fortunately our stupidity didn’t lose us one of the things we MUST replace, like a dinghy, its outboard, one of the primary sails, or some other expensive piece of hardware we can not do without. Its loss does not put us in danger, hurt our chances of making New Zealand safely, and it does not make us spend more money out of pocket we can’t afford.

It still stings though because it was so stupid and irresponsible. Will looked like I punched him in the stomach when I gave him the news this morning, he and I will miss that sail. Even Kathy will miss it, though she hated it she appreciated it when we flew it right, and our crew work was getting quite good ? on the way to the Marquesas we were the only boat in our group that flew our spinnaker without breaking it! But we always figured it would suffer some ignomious end being wrapped around the headstay and cut down, shredded in the rigging during a blow gybe or takedown, or shrimped under the boat and ripped apart. Nobody figured we’d just dump the dumb thing over board with no one even seeing it go.

Lesson learned.

Posted in broken things, New Zealand, passages, Stupidity | Comments Off on Day 9 – Where to Start

Day 8 to New Zealand – the Wind Zones

On Nov 12th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Well, we’ve got wind. Lots of it. But its not necessarily a ?happy? wind.

There are some welcome winds and some unwelcome winds, all having to do with the characteristics of how boats sail. Cruisers have a very different attitude about some of these winds than racing sailors might. Racers relish the challenging conditions. Cruisers are known to sail hundreds of miles out of the way or stay in port waiting to avoid the Unhappy zones.

The Unhappy Wind Zones

The ?Unhappy? zones on a sailboat are as follows. If you picture a cone from the front of the boat covering about a 90 degree arc that is the Upwind area. When you point your boat at your destination and the wind is from a direction in that cone you are unhappy. This is because you can’t sail straight upwind. So you have to zig and zag across the wind, and this sort of sailing makes your boat heel a lot. The closer to the wind you go the more you heel and the harder it is for an autopilot to stay on course. Living on a 20-30 degree angle and bouncing around a lot makes everything a challenge, from cooking and sleeping to using the heads (restrooms). The upwind Unhappy Zone is more the Really Unhappy Zone.

The other ?Unhappy? zone is a cone of about 90 degrees behind the boat. Again when you are pointed at your destination and the wind is from here you have to do more work. Sailing straight down wind is really slow and can be dangers, since you might accidently jibe which slams your boom from one side of the boat to the other. Also the sails in the front of the boat get blanketed by the main sail and aren’t too effective unless we take extra steps. So again, you have to sail less down wind so the front sails can do some work, which is away from your destination and all over the place. In addition sailing deep down wind with waves can be very frustrating with the rolling unpleasant motion that slams equipment around and backwinds sails to slow you down.

Racers deal with this in a couple of ways. Going upwind they take all the crew that aren’t actively doing anything and make them sit up on the high side of the boat to flatten it out. Except for off shore distance racing this isn’t so bad since most races don’t last for more than a couple of hours. Doing downwind they deal with more complicated sail arrangements ? spinnakers and the like. When I had a race boat we sailed with 10 or 11 people to handle these tasks.

Cruising?we have four of us. And we’re out here 24×7 hundreds of miles from land. We don’t like to take chances by making complicated sail arrangements. So we don’t fly spinnakers at night and we tend to do things like reef the sails (make them smaller) ahead of the dark so we don’t get caught up short by unexpected conditions.

The Happy Zones

Those are the rest of them, conditions known as ?Reaching?. There is Close reaching with the wind to the forward but not ?Upwind?, Beam reaching, where the wind is roughly perpendicular to the boat, and broad reaching with the wind aft but still to the side.

All of these are fast, pretty comfortable and pretty easy to manage. Most importantly ? these zones let you point your boat where you are trying to go and sail there in a straight line.

We like these zone, and we seek them out.

The Last 36 Hours

Heading from Tahiti to New Zealand is a trip that is mostly Southwest to one degree or another. For prevailing wind purposes it is recommended to sail West a lot with some South motion, but to approach New Zealand from the North to account for the prevailing conditions near shore.

We have been attempting to do this.

The wind has been attempting to prevent this.

We started sailing again a couple of days ago with the wind behind us (?Aft Unhappy Zone?) with a good amount of breeze from the East. Enough wind to go fast while still having to zig and zag a bit to keep our Westerly travel and not head South to early.

Then the wind got light from the Aft Irritating Zone. Bring on the rolling and banging. In the middle of the night it actually swung to the North and spent a few hours in a Happy Zone, where I got to point the boat right where I wanted to and sail straight to my next mark.

Around dawn the wind got stronger and moved to the Northwest, closer to the Forward Annoying Zone. We headed down, then realized we had to douse the staysail if we wanted to keep heading West.

A couple of hours later a squall blew up and the wind shifted to the West (the Tick Me Right the Frack Off Zone) and got strong, gusting to over 30 knots. We now had to reef sails more and sail WAY off course from where we want to go. To add to the fun currents have been pushing us South, so we’ve been able at best to sail a little West of due South, when we really want to travel West.

You know, right where the wind is coming from.

So today has been hours of bouncy, tippy slow sailing in mostly the wrong direction. At least the rain stopped.

The good news is the wind is supposed to shift soon to start blowing right from New Zealand. Fortunately we are still more than 1,000 miles away and have plenty of sea room to zig and zag all over the South Pacific in the hope that the rather absent Southeasterly Trades will come back.

Its all part of sailing and making passages, but some parts are a lot more fun than others. The weather though is still decent, clear and not stormy and there aren’t any nasty storms out there, so I shouldn’t vent too much.

Posted in New Zealand, passages, Wind | Comments Off on Day 8 to New Zealand – the Wind Zones

More wind, but with rain…Days 6 and 7 to New Zealand

On Nov 10th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Well, as the saying goes ?Be careful what you ask for?? We’ve got more wind, which is good as we’re sailing again. But though it is strong (twenty knots or so) the direction is?inconvenient, and it is accompanied by a lot of overcast conditions, cool air and heavy rain.

We’ve been watching the weather carefully, ahead and a little to the North of us is a nasty low pressure system that should pass South of us before we get there. But a system like that spreads a lot of its bad weather cheer a long way and we’re getting some of the ripples with this rain along with the wind.

Weather predictions for the next few days don’t show anything really worse that we are seeing now, and by the end of the week we may be in another ?ridge? which is a long stretch of high pressure. This means clearing conditions, but little wind. We prefer clear with a healthy amount of wind, please.

It looks like our 12-16 day estimate for this trip is going to come around the 14-16 day range, but it is still tough to tell. Could be longer with lighter winds.

Today that we passed 1,000 miles of travel, leaving about 1,200 miles left to sail. We figure sometime tonight we’ll cross the halfway mark which is always encouraging.

When the weather is rainy and cold (COLD! I haven’t worn anything but shorts since January!) it dampens your mood somewhat. With the almost right behind is we have to zig and zag a bit to keep the sails full and the rain when it comes makes its way under the dodger and you can get wet. So we lay low, keep dry and warm, and keep the boat moving forward.

Posted in New Zealand, passages, Rain | Comments Off on More wind, but with rain…Days 6 and 7 to New Zealand

Small Wind, Big Fish – Day 5 to New Zealand

On Nov 9th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Well the wind is basically gone. Last night we decided around 2:00 a.m. that the wind was so light we were just banging the gear around and not moving very fast, so we fired up the engine.

When the wind gets light the sails don’t stay full. The rolls from the ocean then start flopping the sails around, backwinding them and causing them to flog. Even though we put a line called preventer on the main sail to stop this slamming it isn’t perfect and the sails take some wear as well as the hardware. Noisy, unpleasant, slow and hard on the gear ? not a great combination.

Combine with with struggling to maintain four knots of boat speed with occasional drops into the two’s and you start accumulating a lot of reasons to start the engine.

This morning the wind filled a little and we flew some sails, but gain four knots was a struggle. We put the spinnaker up and got our boat speed into the sixes but the wind didn’t hold. So we’ve been motoring ever since.

On the other hand the lack of wind and the flattish water at least encourages one to drop a line in. So we did.

In Tahiti we visited a chandlery with a good fishing department and Kathy had me pick out a new lure for one of my birthday presents. Still bemoaning the loss of my Hootchie Troll, we had an extensive discussion with the fellow there (in French) about what we were looking for. Something that would catch Mahi Mahi, and if something with nasty sharp teeth like a Wahoo took it we could still get it in. So he come up with something called, and I am not making this up, a “French Tickler” – a green bullet headed lure with eyes on it and orange and green feathers. The marketing guys that work for fishing tackle companies really need to graduate from middle school.

The price was appalling, but I guess sport fishermen commonly put down money for these types of things. These are custom rigged, the fellow in the shop put it together with a hook, a short steel leader (eat that, Wahoos!) and a longer nylon leader. Its the first lure of this sort that I’d bought but it was a present so why not. Usually I’m too nervous spending big money on fishing lures, having come from a background as a freshwater pond fisherman and a salt water surf caster where lures and gear lost to rocks, snags, trees and broken light tackle are commonplace.

So today we took out the “French Tickler” and rigged it up. It was out for much of the day – nothing. When trolling I typically check the lures from time to time to make sure that they haven’t picked up seaweed or fouled. I re-set the lure and sat down with the family to listen to our current audiobook and work our way through some of the nice French cheeses we must dispose of before we enter New Zealand customs. This is course is when the fish hits – me with a mouthful of bleu cheese sitting back in comfort.

From the I could see it was a big one, it jumped several times flashing a brilliant blue. It was work to haul it in; this Mahi Mahi had to be close to five feet long. It is the first one we’ve caught that has been too big to just lift from the water, I had to hand the pole to Kathy and gaff it to get it in. Then the fun begins!

The back deck of a sailboat is…suboptimal…as a fish cleaning station. You are working on a teak deck, flat on the ground on your knees with the fish. In this case the fish was awkwardly large, one couldn’t easily say, grab the tail if you were kneeling by the head. Too far away.

This particular fish had come in already bleeding too, it had swallowed the lure deeply and between that and the gaff it was a bit messy. “Ew, I got fish blood on me,” Kathy said.

I took a look down at my legs, hands, and shirt and thought about what I felt hit my face as this thing thrashed around coming on board. That’s cute. Turns out some of the blood was mine though, I think I got finned in the struggle or something.

When you bring the beast into the boat you try to subdue it. We’ve read that an ounce of alcohol (vodka) applied to the gills of a fish like this will kill it instantly and subdue it quietly. This is utter bollocks, I’ve dumped half a liter of vodka (watermelon flavored, a gift, which makes the fish cleaning process smell much more weird) straight on to the gills of smaller fish than this one without apparent effect. At least not rapid effect, I think eventually they just die from the abuse. This particular fish was large enough that Kathy was having a hard time holding the tail down while I was trying to get the booze into the gills. The last of the watermelon vodka didn’t work (flop-flop-flop-flop) – GET ME SOMETHING ELSE!. So Kathy came back with a bottle of Absinthe that we’d carried around for a long time and tried on my birthday; no one much cared for it. Well, perhaps if we can’t kill the fish we can at least drive it insane so I grabbed the Absinthe and went all Toulouse Lautrec on it.

Now, when the fish is still flopping I tend to not consider it dead ? and I much prefer to fillet a dead fish over a live one. After the watermelon vodka and the Absinthe, well frankly I’m surprised the fish didn’t barf right there, but it was slowing down. Finally.

So dinner tonight was blackened Mahi Mahi, with enough more into the freezer for two more meals!

Posted in Big Fish, New Zealand, passages | 1 Comment

Passing Rarotonga – Day Four to New Zealand

On Nov 8th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Beautiful weather and conditions today, sunny with wind on the beam. Our noon to noon distance was just shy of 200 miles ? 198.1 miles.

This evening after dinner as the sun was setting we spotted Rarotonga in the distance.

A straight line course from Tahiti to New Zealand passes only a few miles from Rarotonga, which is part of the Cook Islands and is administratively part of New Zealand. Yesterday we crossed the line from French Polynesia to New Zealand waters, but unless there is some sort of emergency the difference is pretty academic.

We’d plotted a course to pass North of Rarotonga in case we wanted to stop there, it only added a few miles to the whole trip. It is a natural breaking point in this trip, and if we had concerns about the weather facing us it is a great place to duck into to wait for better conditions.

But the conditions so far are good and there is nothing nasty on the horizon yet so we are pressing on.

Although Rarotonga is supposed to be a lovely place to visit, the harbor doesn’t sound too great. With more time it would be worth a stop over, but we want to get to NZ and get ourselves settled in there before the regional weather patterns start to deteriorate for the cyclone season.

Posted in New Zealand, passages | Comments Off on Passing Rarotonga – Day Four to New Zealand

Day Three to NZ – Good Weather and Wind!

On Nov 6th, 2014 Published By B.J.

I’m a little fuzzy on how exactly to count these days – is our first “Day” our first day on the water that we left (Tuesday) or our first complete day after 24 hours on the boat? I’m not going to belabor the point with technicalities – Day 1 was Tuesday, Day 2 Wednesday, Day 3 Thursday (today) etc. I’m not even going to try and account for time zone differences, and when we cross the International Date line in a week or so? Fuhgeddaboudit! I’ll let someone else do the math on that one.

After a day and a half or weird sloppy seas, rain and clouds the weather has cleared a bit. We still have decent wind but the worst of the awful chop has settled out. We’re not back to that long gentle and fabled “Pacific Swell” we were hoping for, but our water glasses seem to be launching themselves about the cockpit with considerably less regularity so I will take it. With the waves slamming us about we’re making better time, we’ve put up our first couple of 8+ mile hours and about time at that.

Early today we crossed out of French Polynesian waters and into those claimed by New Zealand, who does the administrative management of the cook islands. No change in the scenery, but it felt like progress. The generator is still behaving and Kathy is preparing Italian sausage and peppers for dinner. So far today, life is pretty good!

Posted in New Zealand, passages | Comments Off on Day Three to NZ – Good Weather and Wind!

First Day to New Zealand

On Nov 6th, 2014 Published By B.J.

The Trip so Far

Well, we’ve been under way for more than twenty four hours and so far all is well. We ran the generator successfully to recharge the batteries, which is huge, and we’re moving along under sail power with only minimal motoring done so far.

On leaving Tahiti we had decent but strange wind ? from the North ? which we knew would not last. We rode it as long as we could, then it died preparatory to shifting back to the South/Southeast as is more typical of the trade winds that are around here.

The weather so far has been not entirely pleasant. Not awful, it can be a LOT worse out here. But overcast, cool and rainy. Though the unusual wave patterns are what affect us the most. One usually associates sailing in the South Pacific with long rolling swells to the waves. They are often far enough apart so you don’t really notice them as the lift you up and put them down. But since leaving Tahiti the waves have been in very short, confused and sharp patterns.

What this means is the boat (and the occupants) get tossed around a lot. The boat slams into waves and gets slowed down, it rolls around and sometimes backwinds and slams the sails, and there is occasionally some violent and strange motions ? corkscrewing rolls or pitching about. We had to adjust the sails somewhat to compensate for it, but we’re doing OK.

False Start from Tahiti last Friday

Our original plan was to leave Thursday and we cleared out and did our paperwork, only to find out on our way out that the fuel dock closed earlier than expected, and we were stuck until first thing Friday AM to refuel.

We left early Friday and sailed North around Moorea in hope to see whales one last time. In the morning before leaving we ran the generator since the batteries were run down over night, and had to motor when we left Tahiti for lack of wind.

As we reached Moorea the wind picked up ? quite a lot ? so we started sailing. After an hour of this with us flying along in almost thirty knots of wind on our quarter I decided to resume running the generator since we still were not well charged up.

Once started then generator began running very roughly the moment I put any charging load on it. It ran so roughly that it stalled out and died. Several more attempts to start it later we realized we had a problem. It was also getting rougher and was not a really optimal time to climb into the engine room and start taking things apart. So we had a call to make.

Our options included to stop illegally in Moorea and try and solve the problem, return to Tahiti and legally sort our paperwork and sort the problem, or continue on.

Continuing on seemed a bad idea, with a major system failure evident in the first 20 miles of a 2,200 mile trip. Stopping in Moorea posed its own problems ? if we could figure out what was up and continue we’d be fine. But if we had to stop we’d then be in the country illegally and not likely to GET legal easily since it was a weekend coming up and a holiday to boot. Explaining our return and failure to re-clear in four days after the fact could expose us to some trouble.

Heading back to Tahiti we knew would be an automatic four day delay as well. Clearing out of Tahiti on a weekend is just not done, the offices are closed, and Saturday was All Souls Day so even normally open offices would be closed. Sunday is right out. So the likelihood is that we’d be stuck for paperwork until Tuesday no matter the problem with the generator.

In short, the problem with the generator is not something we could fix easily or quickly in Tahiti. We believe that we are experience another Main Stator failure as we had in Panama. The symptoms are the same. But until it fails completely we still have enough power production from it to charge the batteries if we baby it. If it fails completely the generator can still run ? it will not make A/C power to run the battery chargers but it WILL still charge the batteries with the on board alternators. So we can recharge, albeit slowly.

So we’re back on our way with some decisions to make about our generator when we get to New Zealand.

Posted in New Zealand, passages, Tahiti | 1 Comment

The Fun Stuff in Nuka Hiva

On Oct 14th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Note: This is one post of several where the pictures we have are mostly locked away from us in the short term …now I can finally revisit them!

Nuka Hiva wasn’t all about grinding out the school work!  We did actually go out and see and do some cool stuff.

Car Rental and Island Tour

One of the more interesting days we spent was with our friends Jack and Jan from Anthem, whom we originally met back in the Galápagos.  We’d spent some time with them there and enjoyed their company, so when Jack mentioned they were thinking of renting a car to check out the island we were ready to jump in and share.

Fortunately, Jack was willing to do all the driving.  This will be important later.

Before leaving Taehoie Bay, Jack had gotten some rough directions and a map of a route around the island.  The planned stops included an archaeological site that was long abandoned by some of the native tribes that lived on the island and featured some reproduction buildings as well as original stone carvings or Petroglyphs.  Also on the itinerary was a stop for lunch in a village on the North side of the island at Chez Yvonne, a drive through a couple of other villages, a visit to the bay where Herman Melville jumped ship from a whaling vessel, and a drive around the long way to the airport.  The “long way” drive was purported to be a bit rough going but very scenic.IMG_6936

It goes without saying that the roads on Nuka Hiva aren’t exactly super highways.  The island is largely mountains and the roads thread their way through the peaks and valleys through numerous switchbacks, loops, curves and climbs.  Even the paved roads can be tricky like that with hairpin turns and blind corners being the norm, not the exception.  Oh, and horses are very popular in Nuka Hiva and they often run around loose in groups and just might be in the middle of the road around the next turn.

The Ancient Village

IMG_6863

Keeping our eyes peeled for a “Huge Banyan Tree” with some signs nearby we found our first stop with only a couple of false starts and track backs.  There was no one there and you could feel the age.  This site had been the community center for about five tribes in the area, where they came to meet, trade and apparently have some excellent dance parties.

This “Village” was, according to the sign, really more of a meeting place.  There were remnants of the large social platforms in the rock and ancient pictographs carved into some of the rocks as well.  Though the huge banyan tree was most impressive, from the feeling of age here this tree probably wasn’t even around when the site was in use.

One of the Petroglyphs

One of the Petroglyphs

Comptroller Bay

Comptroller Bay is known primarily as the place where Herman Melville jumped ship from a whaling vessel when it stopped in French Polynesia. It’s a pretty spot with some nice scenery.  Boats don’t seem to anchor there often, which I suspect has as much to do with it’s exposure to the swell as the lack of any real landing spot or town.  But it is a “must see” on the island.

Lunch at Chez Yvonne

IMG_6870The Village of Hatiheu is home to a beautiful church, and the restaurant Chez Yvonne.

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Outside the village there were these craggy cliffs and hills…

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Look closer at that spike of rock…someone put a statue up there!

We’d eaten at a few restaurants on Nuka Hiva and they were quire good.  But this place was something else.  It was a recommended stop – apparently because it may well be the best restaurant on the island.  The view of the water across the street wouldn’t really matter because the food was so good.

The Drive Around the Island

As it turns out I was really happy that Jack offered to drive, and also that he declined all my offers to relieve him.

Our plan included a drive around the “back side” road, past the airport and then back to town.  Most of these islands have a ring road around them of some sorts, in many of them it is even paved all the way, or at least wide.  Not so much so on Nuka Hiva.  The far side of the around the island drive would make the goats nervous.

You drive along the top of that ridge...

You drive along the top of that ridge…

As we drove further from town the road became smaller.  We were climbing and dropping, passing steep switchbacks and stunning vistas.  It was one of the more unnerving roads I’ve ever been on.  Both narrow and twisty, it ran along the sharp ridges and mountain side on the craggy coast of the island.  Often one side of the road was a sheer drop off to the valley or water below.  Sometimes both sides were; there were places where the car climbed a ridge and we couldn’t see over the top.  We could not see whether to go left (to safety), straight (over a cliff) or right (more cliffs) until we reached the top.  I was quite happy to not be driving!

Eventually the glorified goat path turned back into road, and took us to the most surprising ecological niche on the island – a cool, misty pine forest!  At the highest points in the island the palms and tropical plants disappear and you are suddenly transported.  It no longer feels like the tropics, but rather someplace cool and remote like Maine or Michigan, with a crispness in the air and stands of tall pine.

Seriously. This is the South Pacific.

Seriously. This is the South Pacific.

We rolled the windows down and noticed the drop in air temperature, it had gotten chilly and we were heading into the clouds and fog this high up.  We didn’t expect this at all.

Descending from the clouds and pine forest the return to “the tropics” seemed almost anti-climactic – though no less beautiful!

The Fisherman’s Cooperative

As we reached the end of our stay in Nuka Hiva we found out the local Fisherman’s Cooperative was hosting their annual fundraiser.  This was to be a weekend of dancing (and dances), meals, canoe races, fishing tournaments and other activities.  We decided to stay through for it.

In June throughout French Polynesia dance teams are preparing for the Heiva – a month-long celebration of Polynesia culture, including many dance competitions and cultural events.  Each island has a dance team, in some cases more than one.  As we learned later this starts very young and is very inclusive.  But for our first exposure to French Polynesian traditional dancing was at the Cooperative fund-raiser with members of the local Nuka Hiva dancing school performing in practice for the later competitions. DSCN6956

Although their dancing didn’t have the polish of the $100+ a seat “Tiki Village” tourist attractions you can find near Tahiti and they had to dance amongst the buffet tables, this had the advantage of being true and authentic.  These women were going to be dancing whether or not there was a handful of visiting tourists, they were dancing for their family and friends.  We were privileged to get the same smiles and charming welcome.DSCN6954

Our only regret is that no one had the wit to carry a camera in to dinner on Friday night, but fortunately the women were gracious enough to dance again at lunch on Sunday so we could get a few snaps.

Daniel’s Bay (Hakatea Bay)

After some time in Taiohae Bay we decided to take a break for a few days.  It had been rainy and we wanted to just get away from school and everything else.  Hakatea Bay, about six miles down the coast, seemed just the isolated spot to go.

For years a gentleman named Daniel welcomed cruisers to Hakatea Bay, offering hospitality, local information and water.  To cruisers this became “Daniel’s Bay”, though Daniel passed away about seven years ago.  His grandson still lives in the area but no longer carries on all of Daniel’s traditions.

There is a waterfall back there, if you look.

There is a waterfall back there, if you look.

On this short little trip we found ourselves caught in a surprise squall that came on us quickly and shot the winds up to almost 40 knots!  We suddenly found ourselves plunging to the entrance of this harbor at high speed and had to bail out until it passed.  Because the entrance looks scarier than it really is.

The bay actually has two lobes to it, with a large promontory of land sticking out between them.  To get in you sail right at the land, then hang a hard left so you are again sailing right at the land.  You turn again, then before the water shoals in front of you…after the end of the promontory…you turn right into the very protected and enclosed bay.  As we were coming in the waves were up, we were surrounded by manta rays, and we were still shaking off the squall.DSCN6916

One of the major attractions of Daniel’s Bay is a waterfall that can be walked to, one of the tallest in the islands.  We went ashore to try and get too it, but the rains had swollen the little river that needed to be forded and we opted not to wade out into the fast moving waist/chest deep current to find a way across.

But…no internet, no cell phones…no school.  We spent a pleasant couple of days watching turtles, exploring around the cove and relaxing.

Mantas

Did I mention the Manta Rays?  When we arrived at Nuka Hiva we saw some on the outside of the harbor.  Later they came into the anchorage several times, cruising around under the surface and feeding.  Not the really huge ones, but still very cool to watch!

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All in all we passed a very pleasant couple of weeks in Nuka Hiva.  We found restaurants we liked, sampled the local market, and got our bearings and rest from the passage.  As always we were a little sad to leave it, but the rest of French Polynesia was out there to explore!

Tiki!

Tiki!

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