All posts by stewart135

Hauling out in the Marquesas

June 15, 2016 stewart135 3 Comments

Up until last month (May 16), it was not possible to haul out in the Marquesas. Previously the first place you could do so in French Polynesia was at Apataki, one of the northern islands in the Tuamotos, 600miles W of the Marquesas or even further on, at the larger facilities of Tahiti.

You can now. And boy, do you get a view!

Vincent and his wife, Maria , the owners, have invested heavily in a brand new hydraulic trailer and tractor and now offer the ability to haul boats up to 25t out onto the hard by the jetty at Atuona. Vincent is the aircraft engineer at the Hiva Oa airport. The yard is set up in a old pit, mined out to supply spoil to build the breakwater. It is very sheltered.

They were hoping on getting two boats a month initially with the occasional other perhaps needing longer term storage.

What they have got is one boat out for the next eight months, four on longer term fixing projects in the yard and another twenty enquiries from yachts wanting out right now! Skylark is the third and largest catamaran on a short term (less than a week) haul. Plus the locals are starting to ask for an area for their boats too. It has taken them rather by surprise as they thought it would take two to three years to get the word out.

They are a little limited with suitable boat supports (again all brand new) and can safely prop up six boats but due to the interest they have had, have an urgent order in for more props. The yard is basic with free water (not potable – untreated and straight from the nearby river as most water is here) and electricity (240V only). It is a grass field that they have started to settle out with gravel but is still soft when it rains. They intend to concrete the road up to the yard as well but they are planning to stage costs with other projects. A shower and toilet block, internet and a small store are in their plans over the next year too.

There are limited yacht services as yet but Vincent can source most generic parts you need from Tahiti with a lead time of 4-5 days. My replacement gear cable was $100, only 15% more than I would pay back in the UK.

Price wise, it is very reasonable. We paid around 11 Euro per ft for a two day haul out and a wash down. Monohulls are a little cheaper at 9 Euro per ft.

Hauling is done at high tide on the harbour slip with the tractor using a winch set at the yard gate to help it pull up the initial angle of the slope. For catamarans, the trolley supports are set to the inner width of the hulls and are adjustable up to 2.4m.

We required to be hauled due to the worrying knocking of the rudders we had picked up on the way to Galapagos. Having dropped one of the rudders in Isabela with the help of the Starcharger crew and failed to dig out the old bearing, we needed to lift to get at it properly. Just as well. The old stb bearing was completely locked in. After several hours of cursing and helpful advice from everyone on the yard, it required to be cut out. The bearing housing needed a lot of repolishing too. I think that whoever put the bearings in originally didn’t know what they were doing resulting in a fair bit of damage. I eventually froze the new stb bearing overnight which gave it just enough wiggle room to fit back in to its seating. The port bearing was an easy fix and took all of 20 mins to remove and replace.

When we dropped the rudders out, we found another problem. The stb rudder was cracked. Left to itself, the rudder would soon come apart, as it had done for So What this Spring, requiring a rebuild. Thankfully we caught it early.

Having watched but not done fibre glassing myself before, Youtube became my friend. I learnt a great deal from a US model maker, whose lessons were supplemented by Sid, another French boat owner in the yard, who is in the midst of epoxying his hull with Copper Coat.

We needed three days to complete the work. Seems a long time to do what we did but we needed to allow the rudder to dry out, run around for the epoxy and hardener kit we needed to fix the rudder, then to allow the layers of glass cloth to cure and finally to repaint it. In between dodging the rain. The rainy season has come early to Hiva Oa this year and we were getting an inch a day easy. It made life a little difficult but we had Skylark to hide under to work so were better off than the monohulls.

Initial sanding and first coat of glass.

Second coat of glass and then two coats of primer. We don’t have any antifouling left. Nor is there any on the island. It will have to last until we haul in the Winter.

We also took the chance to refill the gas bottles, or rather, as much as you can using the technique below. Takes a while but we can get about half a bottle using this method. We should be able to get the US bottles refilled conventionally once we get to Tahiti. When Hannah wasn’t helping, then she was playing with Kimiora, Vincent’s daughter who was great fun.

Finally, whilst the sign on the gate may be a little rustic, I have to give Vincent and family a big thumbs up, both for having the gumption to set up a yard and for the help they gave us. I’m quite sure they will do well with their endeavour. I recommend them to you.

Update posts

French Polynesia–Hiva Oa and Tahuata

June 14, 2016 stewart135 4 Comments

We arrived at Hiva Oa to the anchorage of Atuona on the S side of the island after our long trip from the Galapagos. Our thanks to Ivan and An from Vaguebond for the photo of us coming in. We soon had our first visitors on board as well. Kathi and Wolfgang from Plastik Plankton came to welcome us, carrying a wonderful batch of banana cakes and two baguettes, which were hugely appreciated.

The bay is a well sheltered spot with a large wall and a concrete jetty for the island supply boat that comes in every Thursday. It is the primary port for the island group. It can get pretty rolly, says our long term resident neighbour Chris. If there has been heavy weather in the S and a swell develops from there, it can get reflected waves bouncing in. We have anchored with a bow and stern anchor out as there isn’t a huge amount of space and there is a strange current circling the bay leading to yachts on one anchor all clocking in different directions. The holding is good with a thick mud on the bottom.

The water in the bay is not clear but this is because of lots of stream runoffs bringing soil down into the lagoon every time it rains, which is frequently. There are huge numbers of fish and small sharks and the dock has locals line fishing every day from dawn to dusk. We are loving the large numbers of baby Manta rays, about 6 feet across, that dodder along at the surface beside the boat. And the view? Just wow. Waking up surrounded by palm trees, the smell of green and the steep sided hills around you is fantastic.

Every morning from first light, there are adults and kids doing race training on the outrigger boats they have here. There are one, two, four and six man boats. They all go fast

Booking in to another country can be problematic and we had been told horror stories of booking in here, with customs getting upset, huge fines, alcohol being confiscated and all the rest. For us it has been a pleasant experience. It is the same paperwork that we had to do in Martinique and Guadalupe but handwritten rather than on the computer and done at the Gendarmerie, who carry out immigration responsibilities, rather than at a cafe. There is no Customs inspection, simply a declaration by you on the Entry paper.

It is all the normal stuff. Passport numbers, registration details, owners address, boat type and then a declaration of what you have on board. Then the nice policeman, takes a copy, gives you one for your record and to show at the other islands, staples the paperwork together and asks you to post it to the address on the back of the sheet. Took 10 minutes and all done with a smile. You get a sheet back that you need to take with you and show to the Gendarmerie at any further island you go to, to prove you have booked in. One thing – all the crew need to be seen by the policeman to check off the passports.

A note on your Custom’s declaration. Customs here own one boat. That’s it. And that covers the whole of French Polynesia so your chance of meeting them is slight. Their main concern is people loading up, under declaring and then selling stock to the locals. Duty within the island for alcohol is steep and seems to be a major tax money spinner for the local coffers. As examples, a bottle of Famous Grouse whisky is US$60, Bombay Sapphire gin – $80, crap rum – $50 – bottle are 70cl, not litre. Beer? A small bottle of Heineken – $2. The cheapest 1l box of wine was $10 and bottled wine is a lot more than that. Not cheap.

If they find you in their travels, Customs can come aboard you to inspect your stores. Just make sure that you have properly declared the alcohol you have on board on arrival. The Gendarmerie don’t even bother looking at the form beyond ensuring it is correctly filled out. If you declare less than you have, then if they find you, Customs will cut up rough with you. If you have declared correctly, there seems to be no question of being charged additional duty.

For all you non-European “foreigners”, there is a little more paperwork and of course your bond paperwork but again, no one here in the bay has had an unpleasant experience. The Gendarmerie are pleasant and professional.

The anchorage is home to the petrol station where fuel is around $1.30 a litre for diesel. It is possible to get it tax free with a certificate via an agent. The cost is $120 for the certificate then half price for our fuel. The annoying thing is that the certificate is free for foreigners but you must go to the Port Authorities to get it, which is in Tahiti. The agent, Sandra (call on ch09 for certificate, internet and laundry at stupid cost) can facilitate but at her price……. We are hoping Vincent with his new yard can do this work at a more reasonable better price in the future. They are looking at it. Note the certificate lasts 6 months and is cost effective as long as you buy more than 55 US gallons during that period. It covers you for the whole of French Polynesia.

The petrol station shop which carries very basic supplies, has baguettes available from 0700hrs daily Mon-Sat. As always in French run states, bread is at the national price and here it amounts to less than $1 a loaf. Be there early – it has all gone by 0900hrs. There is a food wagon that runs an open air kitchen on the jetty from 1800hrs on a Fri and Sat night. It is excellent value, especially first night in when you don’t want to cook on board, and has a mix of Chow Mein, local fish dishes and steak, all for 1000fr or about $10 a dish. They are big portions. Be there early to order or expect a long wait. It is very popular with the locals.

The other surprise we have had is that there is now a small yard here with haul out equipment able to take yachts up to 25 tons. The equipment is brand new and the yard opened last month. On the basis that we won’t find another haul out facility for 700miles, we have arranged to be pulled to repair the rudders. Cost for a cat is 11.23Euro a ft for a two day haul and clean. Monohulls are 9.43Euro a ft. See our separate blog entry on this.

You will notice that I have used two currencies so far, US dollar and Euros, which are quoted so you don’t need to convert in your head and to give you a feel of the initial costs. However, I’ll add in the main one used here which is the French Polynesian Franc (XPF). This is the everyday currency. As of Jun 16, the conversion rate is near $1 for 100XPF and 1 UK pound for 150XPF. Dollars seem to lose out here. The official rate is a little better than that but the locals are smart enough to round down to a whole number in their favour.

The main village of Atuona is about a 45 minute walk way. It is pleasant walk but if you stick your thumb out, the locals are perfectly willing to stop for you. There is a taxi, rarely seen, and John, the driver, charges a 100FPF a head going in. He is a good person to know as his wife does laundry at $1.50 a kg which is the cheapest around.

The greenery on the walk into the village is staggering. Everything grows here at a tremendous rate. We passed the normal palm and coconut trees then the bushes covered with red chillis, star fruit, pamplemusse (think big grapefruit but sweeter), papaya, bread fruit, bananas, the list goes on. And endless flowers. So rich an environment!

The post office is the centre of all things here. it provides the only ATM, Sim cards, free internet room (the best internet by far on the island), internet scratch cards for the national provider and of course the post office that you send your immigration papers in from too. Look for the yellow building on the left as you enter the town, just opposite the first super market you come to. The Pharmacy is next door to it too.

There are three supermarkets. The first, opposite the Post office is poorly stocked and generally expensive. The second, 100m past the Gendarmerie and opposite the internet cafe, doubles more as a hardware store. The largest supermarket is further W along the street and 200m on the main road beyond the corner with the bank. Have to say, it isn’t badly stocked but you will find items generally expensive. The quality is good, particularly if the boat has just been in which is on a Thursday. I was surprised to find leeks for sale. Watch out for the red label ticket pricing in all the shops which means the item has been subsidised. French butter is cheaper here than in the UK. They also have a great selection of wine. Just be prepared to gasp when you see the prices!

Hiva Oa is the resting place of Paul Gaugin. We visited his grave, high on the hill above the village and then the small museum.

The islander people are friendly and helpful, largely tattooed (some great, great ink work – no surprise as the Marquesas are supposed to be the origin of tattoo). We have enjoyed their company and they are rarely without a smile. Although we have been tied up with trying to get the boat repaired we managed to get in to town for the Junior School’s concert which was just a hoot. It opened at 1800hrs with a variety of BBQs open for business before the serious stuff of the kids performing starting at 1900hrs. The locals love their food and cakes and we saw a huge supply of calories being ingested!

The kids had a great time. If you were in the UK, the local PC crew would be up in arms as the dancing here is very definitely boy and girl distinctive. The wee boys doing the Hakka was brilliant and the girls? Well, I’ll let you watch the video once I manage to upload it (small trouble there at the mo – not sure why). The crowd loved it.

VIDEO of dancing to go here.

They are very, very keen on holding on to the traditions here. Note also the necklace decorations some of the boys have on. It is all relevant to them and integral to their family’s standing within the community. The girls had a lot of facial “tattoos” painted on to copy their mother’s art work. Photos are courtesy of E and H who sat down at the front with goggle eyes! Eat your heart out, Grateley!

Having had a week in Hiva Oa, most of the time on the hard fixing the boat, we left to go to Tahuata, a small island about 7 miles S of Atuano. The bay we visited, called Hanamoenoa is described by the Hitchcock’s as one of the three most beautiful anchorages in French Polynesia. I’m not sure about that to be honest. It is pretty and so nice after the muddy waters of Atuona but the barbed wire at the top of the beach and the signs saying private all over the place mean I’d take Shell Beach or the Lagoon (research the Outer Hebrides for all you non Scots) before it in a heartbeat. Endless white dead sand and an inability to land your dinghy due to surf doesn’t do anything for me either. Not quite Paradise, I’d suggest. We caught up with Sanuk, from Belgium who we had last seen in the Galapagos. Stefan and Ilsa came across for sundowners.

A pretty panoramic.

Perhaps I am just a little homesick at the moment. I hope to find better as we continue our travels.

We headed back to Hiva Oa, a short day sail, to pick up the gear cable which has finally arrived from Tahiti and then to head straight on to Ua Poa, 80miles to the NW, tonight.

Update posts

Crossing the Pacific–Part II

June 8, 2016 stewart135 7 Comments

Day 14 – Mon 23 May 05 20.310S 116 37.725W 141miles

We had a good run overnight but the wind diminished in the morning to a frustrating 9kts and went back into the ESE then later, ENE. Think I might just ignore forecasts from now on. We waited for it to settle down then threw the parasail up which has pulled us along nicely all day. We decided on the basis we hadn’t seen the wind go beyond 13kts true, to keep the parasail up for the night. We will sleep in the cockpit in case we need to get it down quickly. A great day’s sail on a wonderfully pacific sea.

We are starting to see some growth on the hull – not that we are stopping to clean it. We made use of a trick that I had heard of which is to drag a line along side the hull and just leave it to rub the hull around the waterline. It seemed to work although the line needs to be in the water for a couple of hours per hull.

It is no surprise when there is little to do on a long passage that meals become hugely important events. It was the same on my Atlantic trip I did where we lucked out with a Navy Lt Comd called Tim who was a brilliant amateur chef. After he took over the galley, life was very pleasant. We aren’t doing badly either with some great food coming out of our galley and, with some good planning by Lou, we still have plenty of fresh fruit and a small supply of veg left.

Eleanor made the dough for our bread this morning. We are making dough every second day and then mixing and matching what we make with it.

Lou has got a great inventory of bread types. Plain loaf, rolls, rosemary, flat, nan, coriander, pita, the list goes on and gives us a great variety to enjoy. There is nothing better than the smell of newly made bread wafting around the cabin. Today was a simple loaf. Added to that, she dug out a frozen pack of bacon so lunch was a magnificent bacon and egg butty. It’s the simple things in life! This evening’s offering was a rather good curry.

We transferred 25 gal of diesel in jerry cans to the tank today. We have been using the generator a couple of hours a day and the tank had just reached half full. Most of that diesel usage was from running the engines during the first couple of days when we needed to motorsail down to the trades – certainly the generator doesn’t take much. In this heat, I prefer to have as much fuel as I can in the tank to prevent any condensation that may occur.

I saw a falling star tonight. Not a shooting star, a proper falling star. I thought it was a flare at first. It burnt out just to the N of us. Quite beautiful.

Day 15 – Tue 24 May 05 52.856S 118 53.656W 127miles

Our first sail with the parasail up overnight went well. The wind ranged from 6 to 10kts from the ENE and it dragged us along beautifully at a 6kt average. It makes such a difference to the daily total if you can press on overnight. The daytime wind was no better. A light wind of 10-13kts from the ENE again. Thank you, Mr Parasail. If we didn’t have you, we would be having a tedious day of rolling. As it is, 5s and 6s is reasonable.

Dawn is getting later and later again. Nearly time for another time zone. I hope tomorrow to move to –8UTC. Then there will be just one more to go before we hit the Marquesas who are on –9.5UTC.

When we are sailing we always have the scale to include the boat and the destination. There is something very satisfying being able to go down a scale and watch your destination get bigger on the screen. Today we were able to go from the 1200miles to the 600mile scale. Still a long, long way to go but it brought a smile to my face.

I had a nice chat with Vaguebond this morning. Ivan was saying that he has been running under twin headsails for the last six days. He hasn’t had to touch them once! Nice way to sail. We have been running on a converging course for some days now and are about 40 miles NNW of him.

The girls did a bit of a clean up this morning. H found her missing sunglasses (what started the whole cleaning thing off), E brushed so much hair off the floor (is it true that girls moult? I have compelling proof…..) and their side of the boat now smells of lemon all purpose cleaner.

Hannah, a touch distracted, found lots of postcards that we hadn’t got around to writing. Sounds like a something to do this afternoon!

Day 16 – Wed 25 May 06 07.748S 120.47.476W 131miles TIME ZONE CHANGE to -8UTC

We had to change down to the jib just after midnight this morning as a huge black lump of nastiness rolled across us. It lasted a while so we decided to wait for first light to throw the parasail back up. As soon as we did the wind came back in beautifully and went back into the SE giving us a fantastic broad reach with full plain sail. A bit bouncy and bangy but fun as well. The wind dropped in the evening to 10kts, enough to make sure we are still moving at a respectable pace.

We should have really changed time zones yesterday but we waited for the 120W line. Only one more to go now.

Activities today? A chocolate cake (slightly over done), a loaf (perfect) and a bag of laundry using the the ammonia technique which seems to work so well.

Boat maintenance? I had to reset the solar controllers. I have three different controllers. Two of them automatically condition the batteries once a month and the Blue Solar controller for the main panels doesn’t like it. I’m sure there is a more elegant solution but at the moment I resort to disconnecting it at the batteries to reboot it. Seems to work. Whilst I was in with the batteries I checked water levels and refilled with a surprising amount of distilled water – over a litre between the four batteries. I’ll need more from Hiva Oa as I have only 500ml left. As I filled the batteries at Santa Cruz just a month ago, I think I’d better keep a closer eye on them. One cell was dangerously close to exposure. I may need to up the regularity of the checks.

We had luck fishing today. We caught a small 3kg Mahi followed 15 minutes later by this beast. Good eating for us for a few days!

Finally, Happy birthday to my best mate John! Hannah sang Happy Birthday, we ate cake and reminisced on a memorable day we had with John and Sharlene a while ago, walking down to the pub via the duck pond and then playing bananagrams in the evening. We need a repeat performance when we get home.

Day 17 – Thu 26 May 06 45.762S 122 52.136W 118 miles

The wind backed at midnight to ENE, leaving us with options of dropping the main or running a lot further S than we wanted. We ended up under jib until first light at which point the wind moved back to the SE, the main went back up and we started moving at more than 4kts again. I wish the wind would just stay in one place. The consequence of this fluking around is a small side swell that forms on the main long swell which then gives you a couple of hours of washing machine before it all calms down again. It is a right pain and meant a slow morning.

The wind was kind enough to come round far enough E to get the parasail back up. The difference in pace is a knot and a half. I think we will try and run it tonight as well, keeping a close eye out for squalls. The moon will be up at about 2200 local so we will have a couple of hours of dark before it gets light enough to see any rubbish coming in at us.

I had to clean the log again. I always find it a little worrying pulling the log and watching, just for that split second before you get the dummy in, the ocean flowing in to the boat through that hole in the hull! There was a little growth on it, quickly cleaned. It is still working flakily so there may be an electrical problem too.

No one was in a particularly good mood today. Little happened other than arguments.

Dinner tonight was some of the Mahi we caught yesterday.

Too much cloud and little wind meant long runs on the generator today.

Day 18 – Fri 27 May 07 12.104S 124 57.522W 129 miles

What a quiet night! The wind dropped and dropped to the point that the parasail was collapsing – a whole 4kts of wind – but came back enough that in the flat sea we had, we made some good mileage. First light saw us with 10kts from the ENE.

Lou and I are tired and we both need to get our mojo back. E and H stood watch for a couple of hours each whilst we tried to catch up on some sleep. They did well.

I repaired one of the fishing rods. After an unfortunate incident involving a winch, a jib sheet, the tip and Eleanor, the last 4” of the rod was broken. It was a simple job to grind down the end of the rod. Not quite so easy was to clean out the old tip but judicious use of the blow torch and brute violence stood me in good stead! I had a go at cleaning up the rarely used kid’s rods and reels. Perhaps we should have paid more than $20 for them as the reels, “precision engineered” (says so on the label so must be true) Chinese rubbish were rusted solid.

We have had the parasail up all day. We have decided to start worrying about the strength of the wind when the wind generator starts turning again. Light air sailing………

Comms seem to have gone for a burton. Manahi is supposed to be the closest and strongest station for Airmail that I can use but it just isn’t working. The only thing I have had from it was a message to email the guy who runs it and use his services whilst I’m there. Not very happy. It means I am trying to hit San Diego to get my email, which is taking time. I reckon I have had a lot more than my 30min a month this month. Think Quatra may have had finger problems. I got their posn email eight times today saying they were under a 1000 to go to Gambier but had no wind. At least we are moving.

Lots of emails from people we know telling us about the Marquesas. We can’t wait! Sadly I think we will miss Quatsino, already looking for a weather window to the “Tomatoes” (Lorna’s description!) and Free Spirit is well on their way to Tahiti already to get David back on a plane to Australia. I hope we catch up with both of them down the road.

Of note, my beard came off today. I had intended to keep it until we reached land but I was bored of the scratching. Although the girls find it funny, the three tone colouring (ginger, grey and white) is an odd look. I don’t think it suits me…….

Day 19 – Sat 28 May 07 30.532S 127 03.225W 118 miles

The wind stayed light for the night and we pushed with 5 and 6s. It strengthened in the morning to the point we really should have brought the parasail down but doing 9 and 10s was too much fun and in the gusts I bore away and ran to lessen the effect. The wind strengthened to 20kts in the afternoon and the parasail had to come down. We had a nasty side slop mixed with the main swell of 10’. We sailed with white sail initially but the angle was terrible and we had to go down to jib only.

I’m pretty sure we are losing at least half a knot with the growth we have on the hull. I have cleaned what I can off with rope and a scrapper lashed on to a pole but we are pretty gungy. Much as we had when we arrived in at the Galapagos, we have a brown scum line at the water – almost a spattering. I have no idea what it is. Whether man made or otherwise, it looks a mess.

We also got the wind generator working again for the first time in three days. Hopefully we can save a bit of time on the genset today.

Vaguebond told us to watch out for Chinese fishing boats, one of which he had had to dodge last night. We saw one of them that was going N. It wouldn’t talk to us which was a little disappointing as it is the first boat we have seen in over a week. It went by a mile behind us.

A quiet day otherwise. The girls watched something called “Glee” and much reading was done. Less than 700miles to go!

Day 20 – Sun 29 May 07 46.753S 128 55.377W 134 miles

There is, we found during the night, something called the wrong kind of wind. A crap mixed sea, lots of side slapping just killing our speed, an apparent of 15-18kts, jib only (just too much for the parasail) and 3 to 4kts of boat speed. Lou and I were near in tears trying to get something to work. Lou’s watch was shocking. 10miles in 3 hours. It has to have been the most frustrating 12hrs we have had.

By 0800L, the wind had calmed enough for H and I to throw up the parasail. It was cheeky sailing with gusts regularly getting up to beyond the theoretical maximum of the sail but we rode it out and the wind steadied as the morning went on. The rest of the day we fired along with 6s and 7s. We had expected to do less than 120 after the dreadful start to the day. 134 was a very pleasant surprise.

By the looks of the weather forecast, we need to keep firing on too. There seems to be a hole developing behind us which will make its way as far W as 132W in about 36hrs. We need to be on the other side of that line to make sure we have wind for the final leg into Hiva Oa. If we keep the wind for the next 24hrs, we should do it.

We finished the eggs today. Lou used them up for one last fahata with a side dish of cabbage and butter. Dinner was interrupted by the arrival of a big pod of dolphin, only the second pod we have seen in the crossing. We enjoyed their aerial display.

One thing that H has reinstigated recently and that we are all loving, is the evening bedtime reading of a story. Although both girls read prolifically, it is great that H wants to roll back the clock and be “little” again for a while. Note the luci lantern, still in our opinion one of the best inventions ever, tied off on the spinnaker sheet.

We ended the day playing dodgems with another three enormous fishing boats. None wished to speak to us.

Day 21 – Mon 30 May 08 08.832S 131 11.131W 138 miles

What a lovely day. Or at least up to 1400hrs. We had been firing along at 6-8s with 15kts true from the ENE. The wind started to drop to sub 10kts true, then we had a squall, a touch of rain (a few spots rather than anything really wet!) and then back to 12kts true. Perhaps the weather gods are being unkind and the hole is forming early. We put the parasail back up and ran along at about 5-6kts. We have our fingers crossed that the wind lasts. To help us along, the sea is now running straight for the islands so is giving us a bit of a shunt too.

Eleanor made dough this morning so we had a cob loaf for lunch.

Minecraft mania has started again on the boat. After a couple of months of never ending discussion which died in Grenada, we seem to be back into the game with a vengeance. The girls are reciting data out of the Minecraft hand books and are building each other huge skyscrapers. It is keeping them occupied. Dad, of course, has joined in. He is in full combat mode rather than creative, has a big sword and is loving the mindless violence!

We had more luck with the rod this evening. A cracking black fin tuna, about 30lbs. We really need to get some scales to measure properly. We cut steaks off it. Once we had bagged it, we had enough meat for 8 meals for 4 people. On the basis we have had a bit more luck than they, we have promised Vaguebond some of the spoil.

The wind has dropped this evening. The sky was initially overcast but thankfully has gone clear. With the moon rising after 0100, it means a dark night which is a little worrisome as we intend to fly the parasail right through. We are hoping for a steady breeze to get us over the 133W line by the morning.

Day 22 – Tue 31 May

The wind died and died as the night went on to the point that the parasail was struggling to stay filled. We moseyed along doing 3-4kts. Frankly I gave up worrying and enjoyed watching the amazing dark sky above us. The Magellan clouds were so clear.

First light saw us joined by a small pod of dolphin. A great way to start the day. Dawn came a few minutes later – 0700hrs today. The sun was just able to peek out under the cloud that was rolling in behind us. This gave us squalls and rubbish for much of the morning.

Lou spoilt us for breakfast today, leaving us out some bacon with instructions to “use it all”. Happily, dear, happily.

Come morning the wind strengthened to 12kts from the E but we sailed into the hole at 1500hrs. The stb engine is on and we will run until the wind appears to be favourable again. It is about 40 miles to the 134W line. I’m hoping that the wind will fill in by then. If not, we will run further W until we do pick up the breeze. We have decided not to wait and allow nature it take its course. We want to be there now.

We had a real bouncing downpour today, our first prolonged rain since Panama. I had a great time cleaning the decks and then there was plenty rain left to allow us to each stand outside, strip off and have a free, warm shower. Lovely!

With the time of arrival down to less than 100hrs, the GPS has started to give us an estimated arrival time. About 70hrs at current speed. Fingers crossed…….

We are missing Ferne’s of Jade birthday. She turns 9 today. Hannah has already made her a present and in way of an apology for not getting to FP in time, she got to send Fern an email wishing her the best of the day.

We had enough light left for a bit of tomfoolery as well. Does everyone know Hannah has very, very tickly feet?

Day 23 – Wed 1 Jun 09 02.640S 143 43.350W 95 miles

I was thinking of doing one more time zone change to ready us for the –9.5 UTC setting on the Marquesas but as it means the morning radio traffic with Vaguebond then falls into the period we are using for the generator (and more importantly, my non-comms using wife’s watch!), we have decided just to stay at –8 UTC until our arrival.

We finally hit wind again at 0830hrs this morning at 134 28W, a bit further W than expected. Only 7kts but enough for us to get the parasail up and the engines off. Blessed peace! We haven’t seen anymore than the occasional sniff of 10kts, the av being 8 all day and we are running at 4kts. Not a fast day but we are moving.

We are now close enough for lots of questions on when we will see land. Unfortunately it looks like another couple of days before we reach land now unless our speed picks up markedly.

Tonight’s fare was a chicken pasta bake. Eleanor did us proud earlier with a no bake chocolate cookie mix which was so good, it didn’t last long.

We heard this morning that the main issue of no email we have been having, that of not being able to hit Mahini, is because Mahani isn’t working. They are waiting for new parts. Apparently there is the intention of putting a new station in on Hiva Oa as well, but this is some months off. Perhaps next time round…… We did talk to Vaguebond and Plastik Plankton (the couple that helped us through the Panama Canal) tonight. PP is waiting for us at Hiva Oa. We are really looking forward to catching up with Wolfgang and Kathi, two really nice people.

It looks like a clear night tonight. There is a little high cloud but the sky is already wonderfully clear. Stargazing is on the agenda tonight.

Day 24 – Thu 2 Jun 09 20.334S 136 11.448W 88 miles

I wish I could adequately describe the night sky here. I fell in love with offshore sailing many years ago when I helped my father take a boat from the N of England up the North Sea, through the Caledonian Canal and back down towards Oban. Being the youngster on board I had a night to myself, motoring 50 miles offshore on a mirrored sea, in what was probably my first proper dark sky, being amazed at the brightness of the heavens. The sky here is equally as awe inspiring with the Milky Way blazing overhead. We have Jupiter, Saturn and Mars up with us too and I can see moons on the first two. No pictures are possible whilst we are at sea as our camera is not up to it but I will try to take some long exposure pictures once we reach the stability of land.

The night’s passage was very slow with a 5-9kt wind blowing us along at 3-4kts. There is no sea to bother us. We had a beautiful sunrise with the E sky ablaze but little wind to go with it.

For our morning’s entertainment, the girls and I played Mah-Jongg. Hannah came out on top by some way. Kirsty will be pleased to know Hannah logged all the hands in her notebook for further analysis.

We trogged along during the day with the mileage slowly falling to less than 150miles. Far too slowly for Lou whose morale is shot. I think she needs gin…..

We gave up with sail at 1455hrs and switched the engine on. With 2kts true, we couldn’t fly the parasail. The wind didn’t make another appearance and we gave up even trying to motor sail. We headed towards Hiva Oa on a bearing of 248.

Vaguebond is 60miles out and should arrive tomorrow morning. We will be a day behind them as we will need to slow and will arrive Saturday morning now.

We had a memorable event tonight. Our log reached 10000 miles which means we have now travelled 8400miles since the start of our journey.

Day 25 – Fri 3 Jun 09 40.532S 137 51.632W 103 miles

The wind failed us again, blowing at 3-5kts overnight. Just tedious. I really hate motoring but with about a 100miles to go, I will be divorced if I suggest taking another a couple of days to drift in.

However, at 0615hrs the wind finally kicked back in with a steady 10kts out of the E. Parasail went back up and the engine went off. Strangely the girls both woke because of the sudden lack of noise so I was joined by them for sunrise.

Hannah has decided that she needs to get her tan back. It has flaked off in a rather amusing piebald way which she is not happy about. Her morning activity included lazing on the foredeck.

Finally – 1455 LAND HO! We could just see the end of the Hiva Oa rising out of the sea. There was a fair amount of excitement and jumping around.

By mid afternoon, we had but 60 miles left to run and plenty of time to get there for first light tomorrow. The parasail came down and up went the jib.

Our last evening meal was a doozy. A corned beef pie with fresh potatoes and beans on the side. If there isn’t any wind tonight, I’m sure the Henderson side of the family can supplement!

We decided that the last of the grapefruit, never our favourites, should be sacrificed to thank Neptune for a safe crossing. Ever hopeful, Hannah took it as an opportunity to model new boobs but we did get some throwing practise in too!

We talked to Kathi from Plastik Plankton and Jean from Out of the Bag this evening. PP will be waiting for us tomorrow morning and gave us an idea of the anchorage we are heading for including a good spot we should be able to take, single anchor only. Seems that the anchorage is quiet at the moment with few boats in.

Day 26 – Sat 4 Jun Time Zone change to –9.5UTC – Marquesas time

By midnight, we had a whole 20 miles left to run as we slowly made our way along the S side of the island, about 5miles off, under jib. There are no lights on shore at all and with no moon left, it is very dark tonight and the only reason I can make out the island is by realising I can’t see stars to the horizon to my N

The girls are sleeping upstairs tonight. Although we could see the islands of Hiva Oa and Mohotani as the sun set behind them last night, they were still a great distance off. They both wanted to make sure they are up to see land “properly” at first light. Which they did!

The weather for our arrival was not auspicious but gave us one last chance to wash the salt off Skylark.

We had one worrying incident as we came in. As we were positioning ourselves to anchor, the Stb engine gear cable ( the one that froze on us just as we left Galapagos – then freed itself) snapped with the engine in forward and I was unable to change it. I had to kill it which left us with limited manoeuvrability. Some very quick dropping of dinghy allowed us to throw a stern anchor out on our rode line, stopping us from piling in to another boat.

The anchorage is everything I dreamed off. A spectacular view with being overlooked by an enormous hill. The island is so lush after the dry, drought ridden Caribbean and Galapagos islands. Can’t wait to start exploring.

Skylark, arriving!

Summary

Departed 00 57.933S 090 57.700W Isabela, Galapagos on 10 May 16

Arrived 09 48.167S 139 01.866W Hiva Oa, Marquesas on 4 Jun 16

Total Distance by log: 2985 miles

Total time: 24days 21hrs

Av speed: 5kts

Update posts

Crossing the Pacific–Part I

June 8, 2016 stewart135 2 Comments

When we first looked at crossing the Pacific, many years ago, it was a romantic dream. Now we are at the point of leaving, it has suddenly becomes a huge and slightly worrying distance.

We think we have got everything ready.

Boat – prepared as much as we can. Sails ok. Rigging checked and we have balanced the boat. Bottom cleaned. Steering gear ok. Through hulls checked. Winches done. Lines checked. Rudders have some play but we can’t replace the bearings accurately until we get pulled out. Opinion of two other skippers I trust is that they should last no problems to the Marquesas. They will need to be watched.

Power – Generator and boat engines both serviced. Solar cleaned and wiring checked. Good output for all. Wind generator doing as it has done the last 3 weeks, sitting idol. Looking forward to getting into some wind

Fuel – diesel full. Gas bottles refilled.

Water – filled up and water maker ok.

Food – Enough tinned and dry for months. Fresh being loaded today. Far too many bananas for my mind but on the positive, I think we even found a couple of cauliflower.

Charts – E and paper checked and ready. We will switch chips to the central Pacific one as we leave Isabela.

Electronic gadgets – EPIRB, HF Radio, computer, Pactor4, spare GPS, even the damn inReach seems to be behaving…..

Grab bag and safety stuff – nearly all checked and packed.

Forecast – There is wind at 02 30S says the forecasts with 10-15knts from the SE. That would be perfect. A bit of slow stuff before we reach there though.

Think we are ready. Tomorrow is our last day in the Galapagos. We are going exploring on bikes and the kids will play with their friends for the last time in a while. On Tuesday, we take a deep breathe and go for it.

Day 1 – Tue 10 May Posn at 1200 local 00 59.231S 090 59.590W Distance travelled in day: 74 miles

We had a busy final morning. Stewart cleaned the hull of weed and lots of tiny crabs. Lou got the boat tidy, hiding away the 60 eggs she got yesterday, doing one last wash and cleaning the shoes of Galapagos dirt. We headed across to Quatra for a farewell coffee. Next time we see them will be Raitea in about a years time. Lovely people and great kids. I think that both girls will miss Arsene hugely. Hannah will also miss having “big brother”, Axel to look up to. And then we did exactly the same with Jane and Alex on Starcharger. We lifted the hook at 1115hrs and were honked out of the bay by Starcharger and Sanuk. The girls answered with the conch horn. Alistair and Gill managed an impressive shout out from the Volcano on the handheld as they watched us leave.

We have had about 5-8kts of SE wind for the rest of the day but have motor sailed throughout @ 230 to try and get down to the trades as quickly as possible. There seems to be a knot of current helping us. Long may it last.

We have seen some spectacular wildlife too. First of all, we nearly ran over a Manta Ray. Eleanor thought it was about 15’ across. Another two wandered past the boat, fins just breaking the flat water we had. We then saw one jumping twice and we could hear the splash at several hundred metres. Within an hour we spotted a huge dorsal fin and tail of a Whale Shark. It meandered away from us as we tried to work out how big it was. We decided sodding huge was an adequate description. We definitely lucked out seeing both of these. It was a great way to leave Isabela.

As the light failed, we had a perfect cloudless sunset (sadly still no green flash) and our last sight of land for the next 3000 miles.

One issue today. The starboard engine control seems to have partly frozen. The engine won’t go into neutral unless clicked into by hand in the engine room. Hopefully just a lubrication issue.

Day 2 – Wed 11 May 02 26.742S 092 44.125W 127 miles

Over night we had a fog and very heavy dew. The free fresh water allowed us to get a lot of dirt off the boat but it felt clammy and cold. The girls did a good job killing the annoying flies left on the boat before, shock, horror, volunteering to do some school “because that’s what Tika does” – without argument. Thank you, Rusty and Greer!

Our first full day at sea and with it came the disappointment of a lack of wind. We have been running one engine for most of the day to try and keep us moving S in to the Trades. We thought we had reached them as the wind jumped beyond the 10 mark for 30 mins but it quickly fell away. Hopefully things will pick up tomorrow.

The only items of interest today are a Red Footed Boobie (to be known as “Breena” says H) that has come to stay awhile and a 150’+ fishing? boat of a design I’ve never seen before, sporting a very high spotting mast and crows nest and what looked like a couple of big chase boats on her back deck at an angle of 45. Strange looking thing. A whaling vessel?l

We managed to talk briefly to Tika and Jade this morning on the HF. Hopefully we will get a better chat with them tomorrow as we plan to move the timing later to get better atmospherics. We heard Free Spirit on the evening Magellan net. Most of the boats this evening seem to be moving along the equator using the current and will head SW to the Marquesas beyond 125W. A different approach to ours but then most are coming straight from Panama.

Dinner tonight is a fantastic smelling Pasta Bake. May as well make best use of the fresh whilst we have it!

Day 3 – Thu 12 May 03 23.571S 094 25.004W 111 miles

We hit the trades at about 0700local. At first light we had put up the parasail and we watched the wind gradually strengthen to a lovely 13-15kts from the ESE. The only disappointment is we seem to have lost the 1kt current that has been helping us up until now so we are making only 6kts @ 245. Eleanor has been working at her Competent Crew book and Hannah stood a proper watch (with Dad not so far away). Message received from Quatra to say their missing delivery boat, Seyla had finally turned up at Santa Cruz. Typically, I sent the message out trying to find her on the last message sent before I received theirs…… Cancel sent.

We caught our first fish – a very small black fin tuna that we threw back. We are hoping for something that would actually feed all of us.

We changed down from parasail to plain sail for the night.

Day 4 – Fri 13 May 03 50.744S 095 32.794W 72 miles

Where has the wind gone? It dropped to near zero through the night. Thankfully the sea went slack too but we had a couple of hours of unpleasant hours in a lazy sea slopping around before it did. We dropped the main at 0200local to prevent damage (and noise) and tied the jib out. The morning finds us with a F1 from the NE. Our saving grace is a 1.25kt current taking us W.

By 0900 local we had the Parasail up. It takes 4kts to set and we struggled to find even this throughout the morning. By early afternoon we had had enough of 1kt an hour so put the motor on to run SW. We continued to run SW to get into the 04S. GRIBs say there is wind there. Fingers crossed.

The light wind stayed with us right through the day. Picked up for a while in the evening but a poor day all told. 72miles only

Looks like our Boobie has finally left us this morning. Time to clean the deck……

Day 5 – Sat 14 May 04 13.097S 097 20.898W 140 miles

We had to drop the main as no wind and mixed seas were causing a lot of banging. Finally a Wave (the Pacific equivalent of a front but not associated with a clearly defined weather system) went through in the small hours, giving us some rain, a few mild squalls and an even more mixed sea.

The wind filled back in about 0630local back to 15kts and we have set course @260 with Main 1 reef (due to the crap seas – less banging and chance of damage) and Jib. We are hoping that the sea settles into something more regular and with a Pacific length. Flying along at 7-8kts. I’m hoping this is us properly into the Trades now.

Brownies were baked by E. Lou did a fine bread.

We lost two lures today. Our line to the excellent cedar plug of previous great success, fizzed out and then the line broke with enough pressure that it pinged the line back on to the bimini roof. The replacement lasted the first bite and disappeared as well. Not very happy. We need to make sure we can slow the boat quicker.

We are starting to see more deep water birds. Storm petrols, fulmar type and lots of large terns.

We heard that Lumiel reached Hiva Oa a couple of days ago. A quick passage!

Day 6 – Sun 15 May 04 27.307S 099 49.184W 130 miles

A good steady day with reasonable wind all day and 130miles over the day. The parasail went up early and we had a good run until early afternoon when the apparent jumped to close to 15kts – the max the sail can take. We took it down and replaced with plain sail and satisfactorily went along at 6+kts. The wind died as the evening progressed but we stayed with plain sail through the night.

INSERT DOLPHIN VIDEO HERE – needs to be done from Youtube account whilst online.

We were joined by a huge pod of dolphin that were a lot more energetic than the norm. They were having a great time!

We caught another Black fin Tuna today. Eleanor did the honours of gutting and filleting it. She is getting pretty good at this already. We are all hoping for a decent sized fish at some point. This one was no more than three kilos.

Lou is now trying to get through the eggs. Two bad eggs stank the boat out today. They were from an earlier buy but we are concerned that we may need to start getting through the remaining 60 a bit quicker than we are! Need to do some turning.

Had to change a gas bottle today. On the basis we had changed it a week before, the last one must have leaked badly. It should have lasted 6 weeks. Need to monitor the next one.

We seem to be averaging just over 5kts as we go along. I had hoped for a bit better. We moved waypoints today and our next, some 500 miles off only takes us another degree S. I’m slightly concerned that we have lost the advantage of the current again. The latitude we are is supposed to be where the best of it is. I’ll ask on the net tomorrow where others found it strongest. I’ve done the same with Taranga by email.

Day 7 – Mon 16 May 04 35.458S 101 48.699W 138 miles

The wind has steadied but the sea remains a mixed pain which is both slapping us and slowing us down. We ended up with the wind a little too S for the parasail so we stayed with plain sail all day. 6s and 7s for the afternoon and evening. Nice to be in the third digit of Longitude finally.

It is amazing how little change there is in the wind, either by bearing or strength, here. A big change is 5 degrees and that lasts normally for no more than an hour before it goes back to a ESE, around 110degrees. Long may the Trades last!

Little to report for on board activities today. Lots of reading done.

We had the tuna tonight seared and served with “special” rice – lovely.

We got mention of squalls at the 104W line by Out of the Bag, a boat in front of us. Something to look out for tomorrow.

Day 8 – Tue 17 May 04 55.570S 104 15.262W 139 miles

A day of squalls indeed. Sails up, down, changed side, washing machine rubbish. Not much fun at all. We had gusts to 30kts but most squalls topped out in the high twenties. We have been running @ 250-255 for most of the day. We really need a bit more W rather than WSW but with the number of squalls coming through we can’t trust the parasail up and as always, our downhill ability is poor, losing the jib if the main is up after the wind app goes more than 135.

I sometimes get jealous of other yachts we are out here with. Out of the Bag, with Bill and Jean, an Aus couple we met in Galapagos did 225miles yesterday. Very envious. Saying that, we have caught and past a monohull, Vanguard, up near the Equator we have been speaking to on the net for the last week. We aren’t doing too badly.

The discussion goes on about what the fastest route. A NZ weather forecaster, the Pacific equivalent to Chris Parker in the Caribbean is suggesting staying around the 5S line until 130W then heading straight for the last few hundred miles. Seems that is where the current ends. The difficult thing is that the angle to travel due W is not a good one with the seas as they are which is why we have been very slowly moving S. We may, however, just have to grin and bear it for the sake of the current. On the basis we are covering just over two degrees a day, that is another 12-13 days before we head S.

On the upside, we got some decent rain with the squalls too. The decks are cleaned of the squid stains and the crusty salt bits that were starting to show on the solar panels have all gone.

I think this is the first day where Lou and I have felt properly tired. There is no reluctance to head straight to bed after a watch. E is being a great help and is standing in for the odd hour here and there. It makes a difference.

Day 9 – Wed 18 May. TIMEWARP to –7UTC. 05 05.643S 106 28.372W 121miles

The hour before dawn is turning into the hour to watch. For the last few days, the wind increases for about 45 mins dramatically, then backs into the S before dropping away to less than 10kts for an hour or so. Today we had a sustained period of 28+ kts(F7). We had run through the night with 2 reefs in, still averaging 6s, which meant all we needed to do was tuck away lots of jib. Still, bursts of 10+kts with the boat as heavy as she is at the moment meant there was some serious force on the sails. For us the weather is a bit cheeky; for Out of the Bag with another 5’ of length and built for speed rather than comfort, they did a 240mile day. Sigh………

It does mean we are getting some beautiful sunsets and dawns. These are our last two. Red sky at night and all that doesn’t seem quite to be accurate!

After getting chucked down the stairs (lovely bruise on my backside and hip too), I got bored with the cross sea rubbish and the banging of the main so dumped it and ran under jib only with a far kinder tail sea, pulling in and out as the squalls came through. We have moved a little further N to try and stay in the best of the current. Tony on Tactical Direction, another boat on the morning net, got a full load down from his mate in Aus which says it is running strongest between 03-05S at the moment although there is positive current all the way down to about 09S. Happy days. Next update on Sunday.

The wind for the rest of the day has been around 12kts true. We had a couple of squalls miss us . With us going back in time and the moon waxing, we are starting to get a good moonlight for the night. A lot nicer than the black out we had over the first week.

We reached the 1000mile point today. It means Lou can now claim full membership rights to the Ocean Cruising Club and we are wondering if we should do the same for the kids. Is there a family membership available?

Another fish today. We seem to be doing well with small tuna. Enough for a meal but not enough for the freezer. May have to try another lure.

First cry of “are we nearly there yet?” today.

Day 10 – Thu 19 May 04 51.970S 108 20.767W 121miles

A comfortable night’s sail av 5kts with about 8kts over the deck. The current is definitely helping although another 5kts of wind would be helpful too.

We are having a bit of a set to over when to switch the generator on. We haven’t seen a huge amount of sun the last few days and the autohelm has been working hard. Even though Lou hand steered the last hour of her watch, at first light the batteries were at 12.1V, a lot lower than we want them. Looks like we need to set a cut off point and start up accordingly.

Task for today was to replace the topping lift which I had hoped would last a little longer. I partly replaced the line whilst we crossed from Panama but another part of the line shredded yesterday. We stitched the old and new lines together, pulled it through and up the mast – no problem. Our topping lift is now a pretty blue. Our thanks to Invictus for bringing us the line out from Panama.

Eleanor learnt a new trick this morning – how to do whipping. A marvellous morning was had, whipping everything! Watch out for lots of red at the end of all our ropes. Note for me – buy more No 4 whipping line – we are nearly out.

We have had a tedious day of too much wind, then nil, then just about enough and so around the loop again. And lots of very light showers. The parasail was up and down three times before we had enough and stuck to the jib.

Lou did an excellent tuna and noodles supper – v good.

Day 11 – Fri 20 May 04 49.489S 110 18.088W 115 miles

More showers and squalls overnight. Lots of cloud and few stars. It is safe running under jib only at night but it isn’t the fastest of passages.

Hey ho. I love my pactor4 modem. It really does do what it says on the tin. The email service is excellent – I wish Gmail was as quick and simple – and I am hitting Panama, now about 2000 miles away with ease getting about 3-5000bit per sec connection rate. I’m still needing to minimise what I send out as I only get 30 mins connection a month but it means my weather is always up to date (Airmail 3.5 has a great GRIB request format).

Eleanor did some baking and produced some excellent muffins today. Lou bribed the girls with the promise of M&Ms. It is amazing how spotless a bedroom can get when there is a proper incentive!

For the first time in days, a clear day sky equals good solar output, giving the batteries a good shunt. I’m hoping we have seen the last of the cloud for a while.

I tried to get one of the ends of the main traveller today to check the rod size that my great friend, John McMenamin is getting me from Z-Spar back in the UK. It ended in abject failure with one of the screw heads pinging off, leaving the body of a screw still through the deck and end piece and another screw refusing to turn at all, costing me a screwdriver which, with a bit of swearing was thrown with some feeling into the deep blue Pacific………. There isn’t enough broken screw to fix said end back to the deck. Unable to shift it either by drilling it out (dangerous trying to drill out a steel screw held in an aluminium body as I found out) or a hammer, I’ve had to just put everything back together. Not sure what to do now….. Better drill and a bigger screwdriver I suppose…… It will need to wait to the Marquesas.

It was pretty rocky today. Jib only as I worked on the traveller then whilst we had mainly a 15kt ESE breeze it fluked up past 20 all too regularly for the parasail. We seem to be in a counter current at the moment and it feels as if Skylark is dragging an anchor we are going so slowly. We should be doing 5-6kts; we are seeing 3-4kts. Just tedious. Started to move a little further S with the main back up to see if we can push on a little.

Day 12 – Sat 21 May 04 47.811S 112 03.513W 118miles

We saw our first sign of human life for a while today. A big ship on route to Panama screamed past us at a range of about 5 miles. They will be there in 3 days said the radio op! I wouldn’t mind that kind of pace at the moment.

Moving S, we hit a westbound current again at 04 47S. Skylark suddenly felt as if she was moving properly.

The rest of the day passed very uneventfully. We watched some crap films. I had forgotten how bad David Bowie’s Labyrinth was but the girls seemed to like it. Hot Fuzz was deemed completely inappropriate for the girls but I caught H watching it, nervously giggling like a mad thing, more at the bad language rather than the story line.

Other than that? Not much today……

Day 13 – Sun 22 May 05 01.362S 114 23.476W 142 miles

Way to go! We have made the half way point with a good mileage too. “All downhill from here, dear” says I …… the Taia and So What crews might see the humour of that comment and guess the response I got….. Smile

Again not exactly a busy day other than the daily maintenance check of the rigging and sails. We do need to fix the sail cover and one of the sail cover pole stiffener fittings. We will be looking to borrow a sailrite machine when we get to FP. It is too much for our wee Singer.

The sails haven’t needed to be touched all day with a lovely honest and constant breeze which has set in from the SE. Up to now, we have had ESE wind which fluke around for an hour or so at first light. Says the forecast and in Vaguebond’s opinion as well, we should have this for about four days. I’ve also decided it is time to start heading on the rhumb line rather than try and use the strongest current. After losing a lot of mileage to a duff current prediction, I’m more in favour now of making sure the boat sails at a decent angle to get good boat speed, rather than the run with current we have been using for the last ten days.

With the wind in the SE, we can now sail on a beam reach on the rhomb line, which is perfect for Skylark. All plain sail set.

I have to admit to loving my HF set. We have an Icom 802 and the 140 auto tuner which, paired with a rope antenna and the KISS ground plane, is working beautifully. Saying that, the propagation on the morning net is getting difficult as we move further W and we decided that we would move it back to 0100UTC tomorrow to hopefully get a better signal. We are still managing to talk to Out of the Bag, some 1400miles in front of us but it should be easier from tomorrow. I’m still trying to get Lou to use the set. She isn’t keen. It must be some hangover from R Sig days!

I decided it was time for a haircut again. I like my short hair. Easier to maintain too. The girls took great delight in taking turns in clippering it off and Lou did the tidying up. My beard, which will remain on until we get to the Marquesas, is now longer than my hair.

Lou made a chicken pasty which went down extremely well. Note E’s sneaky hand coming in to nick a carrot!

Update posts

Pacific Crossing – Lessons Learnt

June 7, 2016 stewart135 Leave a comment

Final Thoughts and Lessons Learnt.

Our crossing was perhaps not as fast as we had hoped but we sailed conservatively and comfortably. We were hampered by several disappointing days with little wind and low mileage. However, when you are sailing with kids, if you can get there safely, still speaking to the wife and with nothing broken, I’d suggest that you can claim a successful crossing!

Here are a few things I would do differently next time and some comments on aspects that did go well too.

1. Repairs and spares. I wish I had stuck to it and replaced the rudder bearings in the Galapagos. It would have been very difficult to do, particularly to get the placement exactly right but it would have allowed me to get a good nights sleep. Listening to the rudders go bump, bump as they just moved enough to do so made me a worried man for a lot of the crossing. I dislike mechanical noise when I know it should not be there. I deliberately underpowered the boat on reaches to minimise the stress to the rudders. Hauling out, is amazingly, going to be less impractical in the Marquesas as I suspected with the opening of the new yard at Atuona (May 16). Even though the advice I got from two very competent engineers was the bearings were within safe limits and would easily get me to the Marquesas, which they did, I should have just sucked it up and got it done. Lesson learnt for simple peace of mind.

In regard to spares, don’t expect to find any decent chandleries beyond the Eastern Caribbean. Jamaica had a single store, Cuba – none, Panama pretended to have one but was very poorly stocked and foully expensive and even Puerto Rico was poor, being more in tune with stink boat types than sail. The cost to ship equipment in to any of these countries (other than to PR) is high in both import duties and time.

Make sure you plan well ahead and don’t stint. I nave been amazed at how difficult it is to find spare oil and fuel filters, impellors and anything engine or generator related since I left St Maarten. Stock up there or have it shipped in at PR and think long term again, which for us means two years. I am carrying spares enough for four impellor changes on each engine and eight for fuel and oil.

You can get through them very quickly. As an example of ill luck, Starcharger, who carried the same quantity of spares, had a problem with a squid up their water outflow pipe, resulting in huge backpressure along the lines. It took them three blown impellors just to find the problem. They ended up stuck in Galapagos waiting for more spares and had to give up their dream of Easter Isle and Pitcairn as they ran out of time. Occasionally shit happens and you need to be in a position with enough spares to deal with it.

Silly things like spare zincs. Trust me – you won’t find the size or shape you need easily. Carry a spare!

One item I should have added to the spares cabinet was adequate spare rope. I even talked about sharing a 500m drum of 10mm with Almost There which we would have had as a bulk buy for $800 total and would have given me the flexibility to replace halyards as required. We decided not to bother after they made their decision to head back to the USA. So short sighted. As it was, Invictus brought me a 100m of poorer quality line from Panama, the best they could find, after my topping lift broke on me, for $900. Ouch. Note that we have been told that decent rope is a premium in FP and is an excellent item to trade.

2. Sails. Down hill sailing is the name of the game for this crossing but there has been less light air sailing than I supposed there to be. We had the parasail which was excellent in lighter airs but for much of the time in the first half of the passage, we had too much wind apparent to fly it and ended up with jib only as I dislike trying to goosewing if it is too gusty. We learnt our lesson on that during our passage from Puerto Rico to Cuba – it cost us three new baton points and six weeks wait for parts from France after we got caught by a wind shift. Saying that, whilst Quatsino got caught with 40kts at one point, we never saw more than a single gust of 30kts, sustained, 25kts. As I have used before on monohulls, a small, heavy weight spinnaker rated to 30kts would have been a godsend to run with from 15-25kts. I’d also add a deep cut asymmetric or code zero if I could, to give me more options on reaching.

Talking to the monohull sailors, although there is a little roll, twin headsail works very well and if you have roller reefing, so easy to sail. Just sit back and do as Vagabond did. They didn’t do anything with their sails other to put a couple of turns in during squalls for three weeks!

3. Crew. If you can, take a crew. We tried and failed to get interest enough from someone at home to join us. Not really surprising, I suppose. Go to the other side of the world, take six to eight weeks off from your job to enjoy sitting on passage seeing very little! Our friends are not at the age where that is easy. We then talked to a few people, one of which sounded like a goer who let us down at the end when he was offered a slot on a super yacht. It was too late to find someone else by that point, other than one wee cocky thing who was determined to be paid for the crossing. I hear she is still waiting for a boat in Panama……..

Although Lou and I’s watch system worked very well for us (see our separate post on this), having a third or fourth person on board would take so much pressure off. Simple things like sailing with the parasail at night becomes easy rather than worrying that you need to sleep up top in case a squall comes through and you need to get it down quickly. The proper watch system becomes possible.

4. Power. I’m glad I serviced the generator before we left and it that it worked flawlessly. I had in my mind endless blue sky, lots of solar power from my 500W of panel and some wind whilst running downwind. What we got was an awful lot of cloud, wind enough to turn the wind generator but rarely to get good power out of it and the need to run the diesel generator up to three hours a day. Our electronic/hydraulic autohelm sucks power when you are running, as it has to work very hard. Unless you have crew enough for long periods of hand steering, make sure you have a reliable backup power source.

5. Gas. Make sure you have enough. I changed to a new 20lb bottle a week before we left. It would normally last for five weeks. I had to change it after just over three weeks. Food becomes the centre point of a lot of your activities. We have baked cakes, pancakes, bread, scones, brownies, pasta dishes, every evening meal is a hot meal and of course, every watch has to start with at least one cup of coffee. You will go through more than you expect. Plan for a 50% increase to your normal usage.

If you can, take a European adaptor to allow you to change from US to Euro fittings. I did have an adaptor, brought out by my Father as far back as BVI last year, but I gave it up to friends in Panama who broke theirs just before their Pacific crossing and couldn’t find a replacement. I have survived with inverted bottles and (see the Hauling Out blog for details) plan to last until Tahiti where I will be able to refill my US ones again.

6. Food stocks. It really isn’t that difficult to stock up with a good supply before you leave but you have to think long term, as in months in advance for supplies of your exotics. You have to make sure you do your last stocking in Panama which has good USA type supermarkets, if not before. The Galapagos is not the place to think of loading up. There is so little choice. We have probably overstocked, what with the enormous store of dried stuff that Almost There generously gave us when they went back to the USA, supplementing our own squirreled supplies. But we won’t be forking out for FP priced goods for the next year. Bear in mind that we started stocking up in the E Caribbean in November. For example, canned pates and jams were bought in Martinique, marmalade in St Maarten, we still over a dozen bottles of HP brown sauce (my favourite) tucked away, picked up in Antigua and we used and abused the US food stores in Puerto Rico for canned goods at Christmas.

You can get good fruit and veg at reasonable prices in the Galapagos. Lou packed carefully, used the “green bags” for veg, changing the paper in them regularly to remove moisture and avoid rotting. We even managed to have a few carrots, onions, cabbage and potatoes left when we reached the FP and we ate well throughout.

On the fruit front, apples, carefully stored and oranges, both lasted very well. Bananas did not – a few days only – but plantain did and we were still frying them, making them into chips with spicy seasoning, after a couple of weeks.

Eggs, bought just before we left Isabela, lasted about three weeks. We were rotating them daily and all were unrefrigerated. Two eggs only went bad on us out of the seven dozen we started with.

8. Comms. Our HF voice comms worked well throughout the passage and it was great to be able to talk on a net with anything up to another 8 boats (up to 1500miles away) for daily chats, position reports, weather updates, tall tales about your fishing prowess and generally keeping an eye out for each other. You can’t do that by Sat phone. Vagabond, who were within a 100miles of us for most of the passage, have become friends. E-mail worked well up to about 2/3 across the passage but then became problematic through no fault of our own.

Manahi is the Airmail station closest to us in FP and it has been constantly down. It meant that the only email back link that we could establish was either via Honolulu or Niue, both some 2400 miles away. We could hit both but with a weak signal, it took time to upload or download anything. You only get 30mins a month airway time and I have used it all up.

I think that I would look at the Iridium Go package again. Satcom is expensive but it would have been far easier to get GRIBS and mail, with 24hr coverage rather than the typical HF three or four hour decent propagation window. Saying that, my Pactor-4 and Icom HF set have worked great and we have had no real issues, other than airmail linkage, to worry about. There is no way I would give up my HF set though.

NB. We have since found out that the Mahani server has broken down and is waiting for new parts to be able to broadcast again. It explains a lot.

7. On Fishing. We had a pretty good time with the rod and line on this passage. Not in comparison to Jade or Taranga– wow, did they score big using multiple lines – but good enough against most of the rest. We fished daylight hours only for about half the days we were out and with one line only. We stopped fishing five days out having filled the freezer.

In the end, if we had heavier line and a better reel, I think we would have caught more. Note, the line I was using had a 60lb breaking strain so sizable!

The final score was

Skylark – Six. Two Mahi and four Black Fin Tuna – one thrown back. Total weight of fish about 70-80lbs.

Fish – Four lures, (a cedar plug, two squid type things and a heavier deep fish type) all with line broken by weight of fish.

For the remainder of the trip, I may look for a better reel and a heavy drag line just to tie off to the back of the boat to give us a second chance. We will see what the reel prices are like in FP but it might have to be a New Zealand purchase at Christmas.

8. Kids. Our kids, just as most boat kids are, are pretty good at dealing with their own entertainment and were amazingly resilient. They read huge amounts – Eleanor read the entire Harry Potter series in just over a week – and arts and craft gets a good seeing to as well. Endless pictures, cards and bracelets for friends etc etc.

We did do some school too but this was sporadic rather than scheduled.

We have also had them help with boat stuff too. Cleaning their rooms daily (God knows HOW they make so much mess), washing dishes, setting the table for meals, baking and cooking and then helping with watches as well, making sure they feel part of the sailing experience. They have both got a lot more confident on watch to the point I know I can just let them get on with it without Lou or I looking over their shoulders. Eleanor is developing into a good cook!

In short, keep them busy and don’t be surprised when the step up to the plate and do well.

Update posts

Galapagos–Isabela

May 9, 2016 stewart135 2 Comments

Having finally received the new bearings for the rudders, we were keen to leave Santa Cruz as quickly as possible. Lou phoned our agent, Irene and an hour later we were stood in front of the Immigration man who cleared us out of Ecuador. We needed to clear out from Santa Cruz as Isabela, although the most obvious island to leave from, 60 miles W of Santa Cruz, doesn’t have any Customs or Immigration facilities. We also got our Zarpe from the Port Captain, allowing us to move to Isabela. It is a bit of a strange system. Officially we have left the country but we have as much time as we really want in Isabela as long as Isabela was on the original Autografo. Some people without agent are given a time limit of just a few days by the Port Captain. We, with the excellent James Hinkle acting for us, Bolivar Pesante’s island representative, are treated a little different, I fear simply because money is seen to be going into someone’s pocket on the island.

We decided to travel overnight and had a tedious motor-sail into about 5kts of wind. It was very very dark with no moon and only the occasional glimpse of stars. We woke to the islands showing the form of a huge largely sunken caldera with boobies dive bombing around us.

We arrived at Puerto Villamil at 1115hrs, parked up beside Taranga and in front of Jade. The Port Captain’s representative was on board within 10 minutes. After a little bit of confusion, we fed him coffee, James spoke to him on the radio and we promised to bring all the paperwork ashore for James to present to officialdom. James is an American, who, having driven to Ecuador in the 1960’s, became one of the first Darwin Guides and married a local. After raising his family in the USA, he and his wife have retired back to Isabela. They are a lovely couple and of great help to us both here and in helping with some pushing of FEDEX when we were back in Santa Cruz.

A quick word on the anchorage here. Having got used to the surge and roll of San Cristobal and Santa Cruz, it was a delight to anchor in 5m of water in a wonderfully sheltered bay, protected by low islands and reefs. We have not had more than 10 boats in at any one time.

It is the best anchorage we have been in for months with no swell at all and even the monohulls sit unmoving beside us. It is also beautifully picturesque. Strangely, it reminds me strongly of some anchorages in Scotland. It is the only official anchorage that Charlie’s Charts doesn’t have a picture off. Trying to keep people away? Maybe. The other delight is the lack of traffic here. There are few tourist boats operating here and only the occasional taxi so there is very little wash.

The anchorage is full of life. Turtles, baby sharks, sea-lions and penguins. Tiny little things but real penguins. And Manta Rays. Great big enormous wonderful Manta Rays. One we caught a glimpse of, decided to have a tour around the anchorage. No photos yet but we are still hopeful.

As with all the islands, you are restricted from doing most things sensible with your boat. You may snorkel around your boat (but not clean it) but may not go across to the reef to where the iguana and penguins hang out as this is the main snorkel area for the locals to bring the tourists. If you want to go there, you need to pay. However, no one seems to bother you if you use a canoe. There are a couple of beaches ashore by the harbour that you can snorkel off which are well used but full of iguana, turtles and seals. The main beach which starts at the town and heads W is great. White sand, good surf and there is a good play park too. Close to the play park and across the road from the Captain’s office are public showers. The water gets switched on to them around 1700hrs daily for people to rinse off from the beach.

There is a dinghy dock here so you can get yourself to shore without the need of the rather expensive water taxi ($2 a head each way – for comparison, Santa Cruz was $0.80). Advise is to make sure you lock everything up and take the fuel hose with you. Our friends on Tika came back to find theirs had been stolen. Not impressed. Make sure you tie up on the inside of the dinghy dock too. The locals use the dinghies as big fenders as they crash in. Not real friendly. Returning to your yacht after night fall is a challenge as there is a reef, rocks and a sandbar between the dock and the anchorage. Make sure you take a BIG torch to allow you to spot the infrequent buoys marking the safe route and I’d advise having a good look at the route in daylight hours before you try it at night. Lots of people have either ended up crunching their propellers or running aground.

The town is a bit sleepy but I love the fact that other than a pompously wide road from the dock which stops short of town, the rest of the roads are either sand or volcanic gravel. There is a good selection of restaurants which are reasonably priced, particularly for lunch, and have a great selection of sea foods.

One note on money. There are no ATMs on the island so you will need to load up with cash before you reach here. The bank is a basic one and for locals to use, not tourists. Beware also the bars and restaurants with signs up saying that they can take credit cards. They can but there will be a service charge of 22%!! They know they have you over a barrel if you haven’t brought cash………

The girls have had an active social life here. We have had a couple of sleep overs and birthdays too. Grace and Evie, two UK girls travelling with their parents Adrian and Christine, by land around the world came for a stay. Evie turned 7 and had a birthday party of pizza and far too much sugar!

Then, having had Meriel stay (the girl with the interesting choice of headwear) the girls had a return night with her and Nerana, her sister, on Persevere. They had a couple of film nights there as well, watching on their huge TV – a 60” beast!

Then we continued the surfing education at a birthday party for Arsene off Quatra who turned 10. Audrey, his mum surprised us with a fantastic birthday feast on the beach.

The S end of the island can be explored by bicycle and although the sand tracks are hard work, it is great fun. We were joined on this trip by Pickles, Gill from Starcharger’s ever present childhood bear, who Hannah carried and introduced to a number of new friends! Watch out for him in the photos.

There are tourist trips to The Tunnels (volcanic tubes – now flooded) but you aren’t allowed to snorkel in them and we thought $80 a head was a bit steep. However, on the bike route we found a tube running down to the sea that we could explore for free.

We also visited the Wall of Tears, built by political prisoners between 1945-59 as something meaninglessly tedious to do. The island had a fearsome reputation and many prisoners died here. The wall is huge. Roughly 10m high, about the same wide and it is about 300m long.

The climb above the Wall of Tears to the three viewpoints is hot, long but worth it. We nearly broke the kids! You get a spectacular view along the S coast of Isabela and inland to the highlands. The gentle breeze at that height is a life saver too.

Having cooked on the bike trip to the Wall of Tears (there is a lot of uphill riding required), we were all ready to cool down. We visited two gorgeous beaches, Playa del Amor and La Playita, that we shared with more marine Iguanas than we have seen before and an awful lot of land crabs.

Although there is a “official” flamingo lake, a inland brine affair, the birds don’t like it! We were pointed to a pit near to the Tortoise Sanctuary just N of the town as a better place to go to see these pink marvels. We also saw some lovely little birds showing no fear of us at all. Twitchers – over to you to name them please.

Hannah found us a wild Tortoise, a rare find, dozing under a tree whilst she was looking for some shade on the bike ride out and it was still there on our way back to the beaches. By its size, we think it was about 50 years old. We also stopped in at the Tortoise Sanctuary to look at the work being down there. Currently there are about 800 turtles being raised, a mix of the five species of Tortoise present on Isabela. The great difficulty that the tortoise have is that rats, introduced from ships visiting in the past, eat the eggs and it has become more and more difficult for tortoise to survive to hatching, let alone the first few years. The Sanctuary raises the tortoise until their size can give them the protection they need.

We were recommended a good snorkelling site, El Eskro, by Gem, a London lass working at at the Surf and Bike shop. However, try and go at low water. There is too much surf at anything more than half water. We rented both surf boards and bikes from that shop and were impressed with the price and quality of kit. A handy map of the area is below.

We made the boat ready for the crossing with the last of the provisioning done in the small supermarkets here. The Farmer’s Market, held on a Saturday, was a disappointment with little in the way of offerings and poor quality. The problem is lack of rain. Produce just isn’t growing either as large or as plentifully as is the norm. Hopefully once El Nino has cleared things will improve.

With a significant amount of help from fellow OCC members, Starcharger (Alisdair, Gill, Jane and Alex) we tried but failed to fix the rudders. After all the palaver of waiting for the rudder bearings, once we dropped the rudders out to be able to get at the bearings, we found that replacing them correctly in alignment was near impossible without lifting Skylark out of the water. Further, the bottom bearing had been epoxied in and the top actually had a layer of fibreglass over it so even digging them out is a major endeavour. Foutaine Pajot’s name was taken in vain several times. In the end, we replaced the rudder and have tightened everything up as much as we could. There will remain a little movement in the stock and we will just need to monitor it and baby it as necessary until the Marquesas. We commiserated our failure with an excellent chilli and far too much rum.

We have our Zarpe to allow us to leave 24hrs either side of 9th May and we think we have prepared as much as we can. We are due light winds for the first couple of days but thereafter we should be in the trades. All being well our next post should be from The Other Side of the World.

Update posts

Galapagos–Santa Cruz

May 9, 2016 stewart135 1 Comment

We left after a week in San Christobal to travel across to Santa Cruz. It is about 40 miles between the two anchorages so we left at dawn with our new friends, Jade and headed out with no wind and a calm sea to get across in the daylight hours. It was a pretty tedious crossing other than seeing the breakers on the small uninhabited island of Santa Fe. We got a little close and got a good amount of reflected wave from the island.

It turned the water into a bit of a washing machine which wasn’t that pleasant. Lesson learned. Next time, go into the lee of the island and get a flat sea……

Santa Cruz is the main tourist island of the Galapagos and Academy Bay is the main anchorage. it is the home of the majority of big tour boats and the largest town in the whole of the island chain. Unfortunately the anchorage is exposed to the swell which predominately runs from the SW and the first few days here were unpleasant. Imaging sitting just outside the point where the waves break on a beach and you will understand the swell type. It caused lots of problems with a huge surge and roll for the monohulls and even the cats were bucking about. Taranga, our Danish friends were extraordinary lucky. In the middle of the night, they woke to a bang but finding they weren’t moving, they headed back to sleep. The next morning, the dived on the anchor only to find it wasn’t there anymore and their chain was jammed between two rocks. The surge had broken their anchor swivel and only sheer dumb luck had kept them from going onto the reef 50m behind them.

Thankfully the waters calmed after a few days but it is still the worst anchorage we have been in for a long time.

The first big plus of the anchorage is no sea-lions and the daily assault of guano on the nose has gone! There are, however, a large population of sharks with baby Hammerheads and Blacktips in the bay. The largest we saw around us was about 4’ long.

The town is the normal tourist trap with the bars offering happy hour cocktails, lots of poor t-shirt shops and a huge number of the “best Galapagos tour – ever!” signs. We have heard mixed results from those having gone on tours. Some are good but most have been a quick whip round and a charge of $100-160 per person per day. Not cheap and often disappointing. We, of course don’t have the kind of money that will allow us to go on lots of these trips but we have found the fantastic Tortuga beach about 40 mins walk away where we can see both plenty of wildlife and as a bonus, learn to surf. As you might see, the kids did somewhat better than their parents. Hannah has got it! We had a good crowd there with kids from Tika, Quatra, Jade and ourselves. Our thanks to Rusty from Tika for the lessons.

Tortuga Beach is lovely. The red flag flies there due to the rip which builds in heavy seas but we found that it was perfectly safe at the S end.

We did one small trip to the sink holes, tunnels and tortoise sanctuary. Well worth the value of $40 a head for the day. The sinkholes are particularly impressive.

We did find one very quiet beach. Nick from Jade had a wonderful time near drowning the kids. They loved it.

The wildlife was great too. A great collection of birds, land crabs and Marine Iguana, an animal we have decided must be in the running for the laziest in the world. Watching the Storm Petrol’s seemingly walk on the water as they feed is a special sight. See below for a collection of exotic birds (sorry Jane and Gill!).

I’ve also been enjoying the diving. Whilst the dives I did in San Christobal were just about ok, we didn’t really get to see a huge amount. Here through? Wow, just wow. We were lucky that as the sea calmed down on the anchorage, so did the visibility improve generally around at the dive sites. I dived at Gordon’s Rock, just off the NE corner of the island and rated as one of the two best dive sites in the Galapagos chain. We dived twice to no more than 60’ and saw so much wildlife. Galapagos, Black Tip and White Tip sharks, sea lions coming to play, rays, turtles and so many pelagic fish. The highlight was the sudden appearance of a school of Hammerhead, sodding huge things, which had us racing for the safety of the rock face. Glorious, if a bit nervy! I came up after the 2nd dive with just 200psi left in the tank. Guess I was breathing heavily!

Sadly most of my photos didn’t come out well but we pooled our photos once we got back to the shop. These are some of the best. Mia from Taranga was my dive buddy who provided more than half of the photos below. It was great to be back diving with an expert, something I’ve missed since we left Almost There and Robert’s kind tuition. Mia will be joining Skylark for a month in the Marquesas so I’m hoping we will be able to get some more diving in then too.

We have spent a little more time than we were intending here due to our wait for replacement rudder parts from France. Not that we are complaining. There are worse places in the world to get stuck in!

Whilst I’d love to point the finger purely at Ecuadorian Customs administration, the inefficiencies of FEDEX have been exposed here too. Our parcel left France on the 20th Apr and arrived in Ecuador on the 24th and we got a mail to say the parcel was in Customs. We found out on the 29th that FEDEX had raised the customs paperwork for the parcel on the 22nd but never got around to sending us a copy with the amount or who to pay. They are impossible to talk to here in Ecuador. It took a week of badgering and help from a local to get a bank account number to pay the 70% odd duty. We may get the parcel on 3 May, fingers crossed.

Update posts

Galapagos – San Cristobal

May 9, 2016 stewart135 Leave a comment

The first morning saw Stewart take one last dip to scrub the bottom before we were inspected, on advice from friends. Having heard so many tales about checking into Galapagos, we were relieved to find that the process was relatively straightforward. Eleanor had baked brownies and yoghurt cake ready for the event and the kettle had been boiled. Our bottom was inspected and passed with flying colours. The environmental inspector came and had a look on board but seemed quite happy after a very quick look around.

In all we had nine immigration, customs and divers on board and the cakes disappeared very quickly. We then had to leave the boat as they were going to fumigate the boat with something that would not have looked out of place on the set of Ghostbusters. But we had passed! We paid our fees and we were checked in to Galapagos.

We spent about a week at San Cristobal. It is a lovely island but this being Galapagos, unlike every other set of islands we have visited, we were not allowed to explore it by using Skylark. We had paid for the most anchorages we could use, which was three. They are Wreck Bay on San Christobal, Academy Bay on Santa Cruz and the Puerto Vilamil on Isabela.

The restrictions are understandable – maintaining the environment is key in everything the locals do here.

On the first afternoon ashore, we finally met the crew of Jade. I had put a plea on Facebook for kid boats doing the Pacific this season and got in touch with Michelle and Alex, who have an eight year old daughter and a ten year old son – perfect! We had been in contact since Jamaica in January so it was like meeting a pen pal. With no option of returning to our respective boats, we had no other choice than to find a local establishment and have a good chat over a few drinks. Nick, their American crew member, decided to that we would be drinking US style and so ordered shots of rum with every beer. Needless to say it was a good if messy afternoon.

There are plenty of free hikes and things to do on the Galapagos without the need to sign up for expensive tours. The first hike we did was through the excellent Interpretation Centre (which we decided to redo in detail for a school field trip another day), up to Cerro Tijeretas. From the summit we were able to look across to Wreck Bay and out to the ocean. The track down then leads to a bay with a swimming platform where we went snorkelling with sea lions, turtles and plenty of fish. We then completed the trail past the Charles Darwin statue and an artillery piece. We were joined on the hike by the crew of the French boat Quatra, Audrey, Adrien, Axel and Arsene. Eleanor, Noah and Arsene hit it off straight away.

Day three saw us in search of a local beach which was meant to be good for surfing, offer snorkelling opportunities and home to the famous marine iguanas. The route round the coast took us through a military camp and when we tried to gain access we were told that only surfers (carrying a surfboard) were allowed – a strange rule but who were we to argue. A long, hot detour finally saw us get to the beach and so the search for iguanas began. We found one – a lazier beast we have never come across!

The following day we had organised a taxi tour of the island. For the reasonable price of $60 ($10 an hour), we were taken to El Junco, Jacinta Gordillo Tortoise Breeding Centre, Puerto Chino and had a bonus visit to an amazing tree house tacked on to the end. El Junco is a volcanic crater that is home to a freshwater lake which the frigate birds use to wash the sea water from their wings. It was an easy walk up to the top and it was nice to stretch our legs after seven days at sea. There was plenty of birds and a great view across the island. The three wind turbines, parked up on one of the high points of the island provide an impressive 50% of the island’s power requirements.

Jacinta Gordillo Tortoise Breeding Centre is a very organised facility with a small information centre. They keep the tortoises there until they are seven years old, at which age they are able to fend for themselves in the wild. The tiny one month old tortoises were very sweet and I reckon they would make a good boat pet as they seem to grow very slowly – just don’t tell Hannah I said that! The tortoises were brilliant and moved surprisingly quickly; I could almost hear the Johnny Morris voiceover.

Onwards to Puerto Chino, where we all had a much-needed dip and the hunt was on for the infamous blue-footed booby.

The final stop was a tree house, La Casa del Ceibo, built in an impressively large Ceiba or Kapok tree. It is actually possible to stay in the treehouse itself overnight; it has a flushing toilet, kitchen area, mezzanine sleeping area and the longest fireman’s pole I have ever seen. The kids had a great time exploring. Nick was the first to brave coming down the pole, although he admitted that once he was on there was no going back, even if he had wanted to, as his rucksack meant that he could not manoeuvre back into the treehouse easily. Fearne then bravely went next and after that all the kids wanted a go. There is also a route for them to climb the tree with someone belaying from the foot of the tree. Hannah was first up and as the youngest there, meant she had to be followed up by all the rest of them.

Stewart did some diving here but wasn’t tremendously impressed. The water is very cold here, around 16 -17C, so you need to borrow at least a 5mm suit from the school you go with. Kicker Rock is supposed to be one of the best dives in the Galapagos. Try and get a day with decent visibility as the reviews talking to people having done it were mixed indeed. His one night dive was interesting but the single large ray he jumped in on top off entering the water was the most exciting thing he saw.

Shopping here is basic but there is an excellently priced fruit and veg market. There are a couple of supermarkets but the prices reflect the fact that everything has to be shipped in. An add in note now we have visited all three islands. Buy your memorabilia t-shirts here. The shops on the front beside the ferry dock have the best quality and collection of anywhere in the Galapagos. The embroidered t-shirts here are the same price as the printed ones elsewhere.

Although San Cristobal is pleasant, I have to admit I got very bored of the continual stink of sea-lion poo and the fight to keep said beasts off the boat. It is a losing battle but the straw that broke the camels back was the one that got into the cockpit. Lou surprised it as she opened the door and then yelled at it. It pooed itself and then, in bouncing around in its panic, slapped the liquid faeces pretty much everywhere. At 0200hrs, we spent half and hour trying to rid the boat of the stink. Truly, truly foul.

Santa Cruz is the next port we are allowed to visit. We hear there are few Sea-lions there……….

Update posts

Panama to Galapagos

April 19, 2016 stewart135 Leave a comment

Final look at Central America as we leave for Galapagos.

Eleanor gutting and filleting her first fish. Good job too!

Fishermen in the Las Perlas Isles

Enjoying the dolphins playing at the bow

Now that’s a sunset. Kissing the sea……..

Yet more dolphin

My gorgeous little waif.

Twitters! over to you. with us overnight. A bit lost I think

A red Footed Booby. Decided we were home for 24hrs. Parked up at the front of the boat, occasionally went fishing, shat everywhere and slept a lot

Sometimes the sky simply takes your breathe away. Dawn 400 miles from land

Pelicans – lots and lots of these around…

NO! My boat! Now bugger off.

Turner maybe. Roof of some Renaissance chapel by Michelangelo? No, wait.. real time… Wow

No more polliwogs on this boat! Shelbacks!!!

Being short of anyone who had sailed across the Equator, Lou decided that Dash (from Indonesia to UK) must have done so and traveled by boat and therefore should stand in for Neptune. Triton (his son) is on the left……

Shellbacks!

We left Panama City on 3 Apr with the aim of getting to Las Perlas, a group of islands about 50 miles S to stage through to the Galapagos. Ben, the Panama Net weather guru had declared that from the 4 Apr the weather looked good for the first time in a month with plenty of wind pushing S from Panama, giving anyone leaving for the islands a good push towards them. Having spoken to Lorna on Quatsino II, her friend on a 70′ cat heading straight for the Marquesas had left three weeks before and had taken all that time to get 150miles W of the islands at an average of 45 miles a day, we knew we would be mad to miss the window.
The Las Perlas islands are lovely and we would have really liked to explore them. However, having missed an obvious weather window once before (a crossing from BVI to St Maarten – boy, did we get a kicking), we knew we simply didn’t have the time to. We sailed at a reasonable rate and immediately ran into fish. First something very large that simply wasn’t for playing. I sat, tightened reel, cut fingers and watched it slowly strip line out, taking its time and not getting anything back. In the end it thankfully got off. Should have got a bigger reel…… Not long after a Spanish Mackerel of a more moderate size bit that we got on board with no trouble.
We anchored in the channel between Mogo Mogo (used for the “Survivor” programme) and Chapera. Good holding but a lot of current. Starcharger, another OCC boat parked behind us. On the back of our good fortune, we were to have Lumiel and Starcharger on board for a BBQ. In the end, Lumiel hosted – just as well as we would have run out of deckspace. In excellent company, our fish (baked in a oil, worchester sauce and lime mix – lovely) and steaks went down well as did a beer or two.
We wanted to scrub the bottom to make sure that we didn’t fall foul of the bottom inspectors at the Galapagos (really anal these days apparently…) so after H and I explored Mogo and found the camp used for the TV programme, we moved Skylark around to a bay on the W side of the island. 2/3 of a tank of air later and the bottom was clean.
We left Mogo at 1100hrs in good wind and headed S, out the island chain and then got on course. We had decided to go the more northern routing which is near a rhumbline course.
From our daily email

Day One.

On the drag stag but loving the fact I am steering with clear skies, the Milky Way blazing and the Southern Cross in front of me! Wind good (about 20kts true) and running at about a 6 av. Jib only.
We did have the parasail up earlier but won’t be flying it at night. Lou scared by dolphin coming up to the boat stirring up so much phosphorescence, they looked torpedoes! So much more obvious life here than in the Caribbean. Lots of birds, dolphin and people radioing in whale sightings.

Playing dodgem with the big container ships heading for Panama. Should clear them tomorrow.

Only issue so far was that the topping lift shredded today. Had to cut 15′ out. Replaced with another line tied in with bowline. Not pretty but will have to do until I get more line and a chance to get up the mast.

Fishing is going well – 2 Spanish Mackeral – big things. E very pleased to announce she gutted and filleted her first fish all by herself.

Day Two.

Expanded the distribution list for today. Into day two towards the Galapagos and we are going along at a fair lick. We only managed an hour with the parasail this morning as the wind, having dropped after first light strengthened again. I lost my nerve watching us go along at 12.5kts with 21 true so we are back to the jib only, running at av 6-7kts.

After a slow start, 145Nm in first 24hrs. Fast enough. Wind this evening seems to be moderating and dropping which is line with the forecast.

News today? Woke up to lots of mini squid on the deck. Lou refused them for breakfast! No more container ships so must have passed the shipping lanes from the US W coast. Boat holding up well with no issues today.

Day Three
Well, I suppose our luck with the wind had to run out which we haven’t seen since this afternoon. 148miles yesterday but currently at 04 43N 82 46W with <3kts wind. Have the engine on tonking SW to try and get out of this hole, which I am hoping will be around the 04N line. Tedious.
GRIBs say I should have 8kts. GRIBS are lying!
Today’s efforts have been centered around some bread making, more dolphin visitors (x2), Lou making cerviche with the last of the mackerel we caught and lots of reading.
I’ll send personal emails once we hit internet and a faster connection but in the meantime…
Soren – we can’t be that far behind you unless you have managed to jump into more wind.
Robert – safe riding and love to Dani from the girls.
Taia – yes go for a chat tomorrow morning.
W&K – fingers x’d for a swift fix on the metalwork.
No answers required. Love to all. Hx4
Day Four
Cloud overhead and glassy seas…. Lots of dolphin. We have had 4 pods so far all come for a look. Unfortunately a problem. We noticed a knocking sound. Took a bit of tracking down (also found the main sheet track was loose and needed new rods – more knocking) but root cause seems to be the port rudder lower bearing. Not good. Most likely needs to be replaced urgently says Calder. Gulp. Epoxy putty and the rest out and on immediate standby.

Day Five
Day of the Red Footed Boobys. What is the spelling for that?? Ended up with three of them all parked up at the front of the boat croaking away at each other and shitting in quantity. The adult spent 24hrs with us with a couple of fishing trips away, the jouvenilles the night and all provided us with piles of guano.
Day Six
The wind is dying away now. Lot a lot about so we have decided to cheat a little and motorsail. It also allows us to point straight forthe islands rather than being knocked down wind from them. Now we have Boobies around we have had to pull in the line. 2 birds have tried to take the lure. Foolish beasts. Even managed to get some school done this morning. Very long flat sea.
Day Seven
We crossed the equator at 0053hrs this morning! We waited until Lou was up then had a wee ceremony for the girls and presented them with certificates. No more polliwogs on this boat! The wind is coming and going. Occasionally 10kts; more often 6-7. Still, moving along in the right direction. Saw what we think was a whale (huge green phosphorecence lump) during the night. Confirmed whales in the area in daylight when one surfaced a couple of hundred m behind us.
Day Eight
Land ho! Had a morning of mist and a very wet boat with heavy dew. Had dolphin come for a look, a monster Tuna whose dorsal fin and tail we could see at 300m then saw turtles playing on the surface. Stopped the boat to have another clean. Waterline covered in brown scum (whale poo? Squid ink? not sure) which came off easily. Then, finally, land ho! Spotted the huge cliffs at the N end of San Cristobal. We ran down the side of the island within a wind acceleration zone. Reached Wreck Bay at 1730hrs local and dropped hook in 40′ of water. Lumiel welcomed us with a beer.

Update posts

Port Antonio, Jamaica

March 14, 2016 stewart135 1 Comment

Our entrance into the bay, going past the lighthouse.

An impressive pipe collection belonging to a Swede on a 23 ft monohull that he sailed across the Atlantic!

Hannah with a group of local girls who wanted to play.

Beach fun!

Repairing the raft.

A bit of help from the experts.

Ready to launch.

Off they go – across the oceans!

Marlene the hairdresser!

The ruined resort on Navy Island.

The creepy crab in the disused swimming pool.

This is about as close as the kids wanted to get to the crab – you can just about see it in the bottom left of the photo.

Eleanor and Ramona trying to solve the puzzle in the ‘Teepee of Doom’.

A rather macabre gate guard in the entrance to the ‘Teepee of Doom’.

Exploring the trail on Navy Island.

The lighthouse on a particularly blowy day. We were glad to be in the safety of the bay.

Dodging waves.

Happy Birthday Mike!

Building the model Medieval Village that the girls got from Auntie Emily for Christmas.

Lego fun on Skylark.

Hannah’s lovely shot of the rainbow.

The fair at the cricket ground.

Aahhh – the chicks. The kids just couldn’t put them down.

Eleanor with chick.

Playing chase with the local school kids.

Coconut selection prior to the competition.

Coconut husking – removing the husk from a coconut by bashing it against a wooden spike.

The ladies having a go.

Banana dancing – the first one to drop the bananas loses!

The winner!

Hannah concentrating trying to win a prize.

Lincoln and Eleanor having a go.

Dinner at Piggy’s.

The locals playing dominoes.

The kids having a go.

A bit of expert tuition.

Reach Falls

Entering the Falls.

Stewart and the girls at the Falls.

It was a bit nippy but one of the warmer falls that we have been to.

Stewart preparing to go through the Falls.

A helping hand for Hannah.

Stewart and the girls emerging out of the top of the Falls.

There she goes!

Hannah and Daddy go for it.

Stewart leads the way.

Lots of fun had launching themselves off absolutely anything.

Exploring.

This is our pool!

Hannah.

Stewart just chilling.

Exploring upstream.

In she goes!

At the top of the Falls ready to explore upstream.

One, two, threeeeee!

Looking downhill from the Falls.

Cockpit cushions – before.

Cockpit cushions – after!

SSB installed and ready to go.

Shiny new solar panels.

The crossing from Cuba to Jamaica was not particularly pleasant as we found ourselves in an uncomfortable, sloppy sea that made for a tedious passage, not helped by the problem of being only able to fly the jib, due to the damage we had taken South of Haiti on the main. We arrived into Port Antonio with grey skies and 3m waves crashing against the lighthouse. Once inside the harbour, though, it could not have been more different. The West Bay is extremely calm and very well sheltered by the Blue Mountains that stand to the S of us, so much so that we have had to run our generator pretty much every day as the wind has been non-existent and it has been particularly cloudy.
We came alongside at the Errol Flynn Marina so that we could check in. It was quite a paperwork heavy procedure but the actual check in was pretty painlessand good natured, with Stewart chatting to the Customs and Immigration staff in depth about the West Indies U19 World Cup win at cricket. They were far more concerned about talking cricket than checking the boat although they were surprised a Scotsman could have an interest in the game!
Once checked in we moved off the dock onto a mooring ball at $16 a night as there is no anchoring allowed in the bay. It did give us use of all their facilities, including excellent showers, washing machines and the swimming pool so it has been a good deal. Note this goes up to $25 a night from 1 Apr after Paul the General Manager here went on a conference to find out what other marinas charged in the West Caribbean and realised he was cheap. It is still a good deal but obviously more than before.
It is hard to believe that we have been here in Jamaica for a month. The original plan saw us stopping only for a few days, if at all, but with the requirement to order spares and fix the main we decided to head to Port Antonio, where Paul is the Ocean Cruising Club Port Officer. I was concerned about the security of the country and had never felt a strong desire to visit but we found that we were very pleasantly surpised. Port Antonio is a really friendly, laid back town where the locals passed the time of day with us and we were made to feel extremely welcome. It is regarded as the safest town in Jamaica. They are quite rightly proud of their somewhat manic town and are keen that you enjoy your stay. We never made it to Montego Bay but having spoken to several of the cruisers here, we aren’t missing much, an overpriced ‘expat’ supermarket being the main attraction. Here we are off the typical tourist path so it does not suffer from hard sell experienced elsewhere in the island. Shopping is basic but adequete and there is a very good market for fruit and veg.
Our time here has been spent mostly doing boat jobs. Unfortunately this has meant a good deal of time waiting for Jamaican customs to clear in (expensively) some parts and as a word of advice, I’d say never, never try and get parts sent to Jamaica. The buracracy is extreme, so pointlessly over the top and difficult that it would be better sending it anywhere else instead. However, it is better than Cuba and for us, needs directed that we suffer.
We have installed our SSB radio and pactor modem (hit Texas with the first sailmail email exchange – 1300miles – yah!), installed our two new 100w flexible solar panels on the bimini, had our hulls polished cheaply by the excellent Rudy and ‘Hulk’, we have made new cockpit cushions and finally fixed our mainsail baton points with parts that had to come from France. It feels like we are finally nearly completed with our projects, which is a relief as we start looking at our Pacific crossing. Now down to routine maintenance…….
Since we left most of our boat kid friends in St Martin in December and said a very sad farewell to our friends on Almost There in Puerto Rico in January, we have increasingly noticed the need for the girls to find friends and their happiness at seeing old friends and familiar faces. WIth our transient lifestyle, it is completely understandable. We met John and Trish from Lumiel in Cuba before we left and the girls were beyond excited! They rushed down the dock and could not stop chattering away. Once we arrived in Jamaica they latched onto any and every child on a boat they could find. Age, gender or nationality were not an issue. Hannah spent the day with four year old Ollie and his family on the beach building a raft, they both swam with and looked after Marlene and Juliane (aged 4 and 2) from SY Invictus and they had great fun swimming and exploring the trimaran of the 2 yr old daughter of Ashley Chapman from SV Jade. Ashley holds three current World Record for free diving including 63m with no fins. https://vimeo.com/41599967. Ashley and her husband, Ren, were a lovely couple and she is as hard as nails – 5 minutes plus on a single breath……. They already have their two year old swimming and practising head down swimming. Amazing.
Two weeks into our visit and our old friends, Paul and Fiona, on Gone Walkabout arrived amid much excitement. They were closely followed by Julia and Mike on Sasquatch and all of a sudden there there were more boat kids than you could shake a stick at. The girls had a great time exploring Navy Island, swimming in the pool, having sleepovers and generally having lots of fun (and late nights) – as did the adults with plenty of rum being drunk! Mike on Sasquatch celebrated his birthday with a little get together on the dock, which meant our boats were not ransacked by lots of kids.
Rudy and ‘Hulk’ had told us there was a ‘not to be missed’ fair at the cricket ground with pig-chasing, so decided that we must not miss it and took the kids along. The fair consisted of stands from various island businesses and government initiatives. The kids were very taken by the boxes of baby chicks that turned out to be offered up as prizes for the various competitions. A very hopeful Lincoln pointed out to Fiona towards the end of the day that if you took up a box you could take home some of the leftover chicks with you. Fiona calmly responded, ‘Off you go and find a box then!’ Fortunately one was not to be found and so Gone Walkabout remains chicken-free. Competitons were entered into wholeheartedly and varied from coconut husking, pig chasing (yes, chasing – we thought it was racing until we saw the poor pig being oiled up!), dancing with a big bunch of bananas on your head and so on. The support from the crowds was great and the kids had a blast.
Having finally received our spares, we then found ourselves waiting for the weather. As we fixed our main on the Monday, the winds picked up and as a result so did the seas. We did not fancy swells of over 2.5m so the decision to wait was made. Thursday came and we all checked out in preparation to set sail on Friday morning; Gone Walkabout and Sasquatch were headed to Cuba while we were going South. Stewart and I then started discussing the anchorages near Colon in Panama, which are not particularly safe, and the marinas, which are pretty expensive. Staying put for the weekend was not a hard decision to make and it meant a couple fewer days paying for a marina, which is always a good thing.
The bonus of staying put was that we finally made it to the fabulous Reach Falls. We decided to forego the US$150 dollar taxi tour and take the local bus at a much more reasonable price of less than US$10 for all of us for the return trip, an hour each way. We weren’t sure we were going to fit in the already overcrowded minibus but this is the Caribbean. We were then amazed to see the bus stop several more times for pickups – they managed to squeeze the 22nd person into the 15 seater minibus without the bat of an eyelid – there is a different definition of personal space here!
All things given, it wasn’t a bad trip! We then declined the offer of a guide to take us on an unofficial tour of the falls, which turned out to be a good decision as the backpackers that did take the tour were not actually allowed in to the Falls themselves. The walk up to the Falls from the main road took us about 45minutes and entry cost US$10 for adults and US$5 for children. It was well worth the fee as we spent a good three hours there swimming, exploring the caves, jumping off rocks and exploring up the river. The girls declared it their ‘best day EVER’ and I think I pretty much agree!
Jamaica has been a blast. Endless reggae wherever you go, clubs blasting music out over the bay to 0400hrs Thursday through Sunday and some of the more extreme variants of car entertainment systems I’ve seen. But everything is done with a smile. We have had the question, ‘What’s that smell, Daddy?’ to which we have had to reply, ‘Weed, dear!’ There are lots of happy locals here! We have had the local kids playing on the beach, kids being kids and just wanting to have fun and ask questions. We’ve met some really good people and made some good friends.
Port Antonio has been brilliant, safe and somewhere I’d be happy to recommend to those that follow us. Jamica – One People!