Paradise Found

The island of Fatu Hiva is the epitome of Polynesia with its spectacular scenery and idyllic village where the natives will trade fruit and crafts for perfume, lipstick, shampoo, pens, paper, bonbons, tee shirts, fishing gear, booze, sun glasses, boat fenders, life jackets, etc. We traded a tee shirt for a small tapa yesterday from a lady we met on the street (one of three). Tapa is a type of canvas made out of tree bark that has been wetted and pounded on big flat rocks which is then dried and designs are painted on and sold to tourists, or traded to the cruisers here, like Maggie Drum. There are no other tourists here. The island does not have an airport nor a seaport for the tourists. All goods come by freighter and are unloaded by smaller boats to shore. We watched the freighter Taporo IV unload here after our walk up to the waterfall in the jungle here.

There are cars here, and the roads are paved in concrete in town. The road to the bigger village is about 10 miles long and a total 4WD steep track that we walked part way on (and almost died from heat exhaustion from the steepness and humidity) but is actually only 3 miles by sea. We took the dinghy down to it but the landing was so scary we did not even consider going ashore. The island is right out of Jurassic Park with these knife-edge ridges going up a thousand or more feet, almost straight up. The village is nestled between these ridges and the other volcanic upthrusts. Actually, very pretty.

The anchorage is full of boats with many just over from the Galapagos and the Panama Canal, with most of those European - French, German, British, Italian and Spanish with some Australians thrown in. This may be one of the busiest cruising seasons ever in the islands. Of course, three of the other boats here are friends of ours from Zihua. We had a potluck on Oz last night with Ranger and White Swan where we all told stories about the crossing and other boats. Whistle Wing V has decided to go home for some personal issues that need dealing with back in the states. We will miss sailing more with them.

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Arriving Fatu Hiva

We left Hiva Oa this morning at 6:30am local time hoping to catch some favorable winds to Fatu Hiva, 42nm south of Hiva Oa, but no luck as the wind has been light and the wrong direction at that, so we have been using precious hand-carried in jerry jugs fuel. Fatu Hiva is supposed to be worth it though. There are supposedly only 8 cars on the island and all those at the largest village of Omoa which does not have a good anchorage, so we will be several miles north at Hanavane at the "Bay of the Virgins". It used to be the "Bay of the Male Part" but the missionaries did not like that so they added an "i" to the French word to make it "virgins". The bay is ringed by these upthrusting volcanic tubes and is alledgedly one of the most scenic places in the world. We will see it in about 30 minutes and will let you know.

We did laundry yesterday at the tap next to the outdoor shower. There is a faucet there and we did it in buckets and hung it out to dry all over the boat. The surge was so strong at the dinghy dock that some people were afraid to get in and out of their dinks there. Last night several boats drug (past tense of drag) their stern anchors and some did not sleep because of the big swells breaking on the rocks next to their boats with this enormous "whoomp" every 5 minutes. We had no problems because we are better than everyone else (not!!) but were glad to leave the increasingly rolly harbor. Some of our Zihua friends went to Fatu Hiva first before checking in officially at Hiva Oa and the local genderme (cop) chased them out and told them to get to Atuona to check in. So much for lax officials here. We are glad we did it the other way as it is way too far to come back to.

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Four Wheeling in Paradise

Today we took a road trip with a Marquesan named John in his Nissan 4WD double cab pickup along with our two friends Bob and Dianna from White Swan. Last night it rained buckets and we discussed cancelling but decided to hope for clearing later which it did, finally. We started at 8:30am and got back just before 5pm after a very long slow drive over extremely rough and steep terrain, which in parts was no wider than the truck - no guard rails and we slipped a bit on the muddy spots. John kept it in 2nd gear most of the way and many times put it in 1st gear to get up or down a particularly steep or rougher spot. We only went into 4WD a couple of times but other drivers would have kept it in 4WD the whole road.

The scenery was spectacular to say the least. The jungle here is true jungle but with every kind of fruit tree and flowering trees and bushes you can imagine. There are coconut palms, bananas, papayas, and mango trees growing wild, and on "farms" everywhere. The farms look like the jungle with only specific types of jungle trees. Chickens (and ever present crowing roosters) are also wild in the jungle along with goats and pigs. Cows and horses used to be wild here too, but the wild ones have been penned up. They go pig hunting at night and shoot the pigs from the trucks in the lights on the road (illegal in most US states).

The road wound up from sea level and went 45km (about 27 miles) up and over the volcanic plateau and ridges from when the island was formed thousands of years ago. The ridges are knife-edge sharp still with deep, deep valleys in between, all covered in jungle. The appearance of the different kinds of trees and bushes gives it a highly textured appearance. Very pleasing on the eye balls, and very exotic. We bumped along the road past the airport outside of town, then east up and up to the highest point of the road, about 2000 ft up, with gorgeous views of the coastline on the other side with the surf crashing in the far distance. There are just a very few houses along the main part of the road with some "villages" along the coast at the bottom of the other side. The biggest village has 80 people and a tiki site with some of the best preserved tikis in all of the South Pacific. Tikis are stone statues from the old religions. (They are mostly all Catholic now in the Marquesas because of the French and many of the tikis and old religious sites were severely vandalized by the missionaries trying to, and succeeding in, destroying the native religion.) The missionaries also brought diseases which wiped out most of the population, making it easier to convert the ones left. The ones who complained, they just killed. Very compassionate.

Our guide brought a BBQ grill and part of a large wahoo fish that he had caught the week before and we grilled fish and ate a superb lunch on the beach at our final destination. We got stuffed and could not finish all that was provided. We stopped at a fruit farm along the way and we couldn't even get to those items which we brought back to the boat for another day. It was not cheap, but nothing is here. And on the way back we stopped at a woodcarver's house in the village and we bought a wooden tiki made out of tau wood. The carver's face was almost completely covered in the Marquesan style tatoos. These tatoos are very popular here and several cruisers have had new ones from a really good artist here.

So it goes in Hiva Oa. We will leave in a day or so and go to Fatu Hiva, south of here, and stay a few days. More is happening but can't get it all on the radio emails. We miss all our friends and family but also enjoying it here. We still have to pinch ourselves to believe we are here.

At Anchor in the Marquesas!!

We have been at anchor at Atuona on Hiva Oa in the southern Marquesas for three days now. We were exhausted the first two days but went out the first night for pizza with about 15 other cruisers and then passed out dead tired that night. The next night was a potluck on shore with more cruisers. We have tried to get email out but we are in a tight little bay with very steep, and beautiful, mountains between us and the radio stations we sign in on. So we have not been able to get a blog post out.

It is stunningly beautiful here. Tropical to the max, including the humidity, but the foliage is right out of any book or photo you have ever read or seen of Polynesia. It seems strange that the locals all speak French but they do so we can't even deal with buying things in the stores very well. It is very "rural" and small here. The stores are small like you would find in any very, very small town in the US, but one is fairly well stocked but with items we are not familiar with. We have not been able to check in yet because we got here on a Saturday and today was a holiday (Monday) but will try tomorrow. Then we will take off for other anchorages on Hiva Oa.

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3 More Days

What an awesome, awesome day today. I touched the sails twice - once this morning to unroll one reef in the jib, and once this afternoon to put it back in. The full, full moon is getting higher and higher in the sky and is so bright I can read my book by it. The wind is about 20 knots and Maggie Drum, as heavy as she is, is doing 8 knots over ground. Amazing, especially at night. As usual, getting around on the boat requires much care or you will end up with more than just the bruises we both have from banging into the bulkheads constantly. The boat is tilted over so much that you can't wash your hands in the aft head because the water pours out of the faucet over the side of the sink rather than in to it.

We continue to hear grumblings from other boats about this aspect of cruising. Believe me, if you have only cruised along the coast, you have no concept of what it is really like to do this for days and days on end. Tonight my dinner was creamy chicken and rice soup and I was lucky to have Cindy heat it up for me. You are probably tired of hearing about it but cooking in the galley is a nightmare. If you let go of anything, anything at all, it will be on the cabin sole in a microsecond. I often come down to just help hold something while she cuts it, or stirs the pot, or whatever.

The ocean out here is so clean though. My sense of smell is totally different. I think it is because my sinuses are finally clear of the dust, smog and other junk you get in them on land and around towns and cities. I never really noticed Cindy's deodorant before, but now when she puts it on, it assaults my nose in the strongest way. That's interesting because my own BO doesn't seem to bother me. Imagine that, me being a guy an all.

Less than three days now. If we average 6 knots we will get there early afternoon on Saturday. We wonder whether they will charge us extra to check in because it will be Easter holidays. The people are very religious there and take Easter very seriously, and Monday is a holiday like it used to be in the US.

Full Moon, Wind is Back

Conditions can change so fast here. We finally gave up on wind yesterday at our latitude, especially after talking to the main weather guru, Don on Summer Passage, who has told everyone that the only wind would be below 5 degrees south latitude and we were in the mid-threes with zero wind. So we motored all night and I woke up hearing Cindy (on watch just before dawn) turn off the motor and put up the sails. The wind has built from there and we are definitely back in the tradewinds with 20kt winds out of the east, and waves to match.

It is hard to describe the exhilaration of sailing in these conditions. It makes life on the boat a living hell as far as sitting down, lying down and certainly moving around, or worse, cooking. Cindy has been a saint. We had a great sausage and spaghetti meal tonight but she warned me that tomorrow would be out of a can if conditions are the same. I said fine. Working in the galley is almost downright dangerous with the boat bucking and heeled over so far.

I did manage to fix the oven burner on the stove this morning so that was good news.

We had some drama over the last two days. One boat declared an emergency with the skipper in intense pain from a pinched back nerve. He was incapacitated and his one crew was standing 24 hr watches. They asked for a medevac by helo which is not possible this far out. Today they called it all off after the skipper got some relief from Vicoden. Don't know why he did not take it before. The US Coast Guard and the French Navy got involved and they diverted a Russian freighter with a doctor on board. But they called them off and are now sailing in to Nuka Hiva to the hospital there which is what they probably should have done to start since, as painful as it is, a pinched nerve is not life threatening.

Glad all is better for them though. The crew is a very experienced sailor.

I have been very frustrated with the radio and sending and receiving emails. Reception is not great and the stations are often overloaded with all the other boats. It can take an hour just to get a connection. Any of you sending emails, please, please, keep them brief as we are timing out on our limits daily and it literally takes two hours to do the mail. We do like getting the mail though, so don't stop. We miss everybody but are doing fine.

We should be at Atuona on Hiva Oa by this weekend, which is Easter.

Bad Winds, Sloppy Seas

The last two days have been a trial. The wind has either died or is coming from the wrong direction (due south) and changes direction constantly. It also is raining off and on. We have to close the overhead hatch in the main cabin when it rains which really heats things up down below. The weather forecast is for La Nina (opposite of El Nino). In a La Nina, the ocean water temp is higher than normal near the equator and it really weirds out the normal weather patterns. There is almost a 600nm stretch with little or no or pure flukey wind with rain squalls. We have motored more than I ever would have imagined, and we have been trying like crazy not to.

One bit of excitement today - a boat ahead of us has asked for a helo to medevac the skipper who has a pinched nerve in his back and is in serious pain. We helped get the info to a stateside contact who passed it on to the US Coast Guard who will pass it on to the French Navy in the Marquesas. They are too far out for a helicopter though so they may have to tough it out the last 400-450nm.

We are just going through each day with our normal routine except doing lots of sail changes trying to milk some headway from the wind. We actually can't sail south which is where we need to go. Maggie Drum is a great boat but does not sail to windward very well at all.

We are also trying to learn the new constellations in the night sky when the clouds are not out. The Southern Cross is a dominating sign of our southern progress and it points to due south like Polaris does up north. The stars out here are brilliant even at sea level with the high humidity. No smog!

Across the Equator

We are now officially minions of the great King Neptune having crossed the equator and duly offered our best libations to him. We asked for his protection in the Seven Seas, for Maggie Drum and for us. We crossed at longitude 129 degrees 32 minutes West under a sunny sky with the spinnaker still up from yesterday. Seas are calm with gentle rollers. We are about 800nm out from the Marquesas and our first landfall.

To celebrate our crossing we opened the bottle of hand-crafted Raspberry/Current wine that Bruce - El Gitano - gave us for the occasion at our going away bash at Fisherman Bay at Lopez Island in Washington's San Juan Islands. Thanks Bruce - good vino! That was 6900nm ago. Wow! Seems incredible and we feel very fortunate to have our health and enough resources and friends to get us this far. Of course, we will be absolutely broke in the very near future. Oh well.

I forgot to mention a key friend that helped us get this far, and that was Bill Lemley. I met Bill at a Starbucks coffee shop in Denver about 9 years ago and he told me about his sailing adventures in the Pacific Northwest and to Mexico and back and I was hooked. Bill helped us move to Anacortes and to move Maggie Drum from her previous owner's marina.

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Picture Postcard

Today was one of the finest, nicest days we have had, and just before the equator. The wind is starting to die down now and I will have to go deal with the asym spinnaker in just a moment as it finally cannot find enough air to stay full. No worries on a wrap today though since we have been close hauled all day with about 10 knots of wind from the SE and doing 3-5 knots all day. The only clouds have been the very small, light, fluffy cumulus clouds spread far and wide over the distant horizons. The moon was spectacular tonight as well and promises to be near full when we get to Hiva Oa, our first landfall.

However, I made a tourist, rookie mistake and got myself a nice little sunburn despite the sunscreen I put on. The tube was old and may be pass it "goodness" date. We are both pretty tan, and me most of all, but the sun will get you here, very quickly.

We have been reading - I finished Dana's great sailing book - "Two Years Before the Mast", then "Pompeii" and I just started another. We have a floating library here though and aren't likely to run out on this leg, or next year for that matter. You can't open a cabinet or locker on this boat without books falling out.

Have to go check for boats and the sails. Today we had a big bulk cargo carrier, fully loaded and low in the water, pass just in front of the bow in the late afternoon. We turned on the radar to watch his path and he adjusted his heading to give us a wide berth but a ship that big (the Atlantic Laurel) gets your attention. That is the third ship (out of 5-6 total) that has passed us close enough to be ready to change course, and two of those changed course to avoid a collision. You definitely need to pay attention out here. I am not sure how single-handed cruisers, who have to sleep some, ever make it.

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Mixed Day

I could not get a radio connection so today's blog and yesterdays will hopefully get out tonight. I just started my watch and we are ghosting along at 4-5 knots. Earlier we were down to ZERO knots and turned on the iron genny (sailor slang for motor) and motor sailed for a few hours, as much to get going as to make juice for our depleted batteries. We had to start using the electric/hydraulic autopilot again. I found the control lines chafing on the wind vane pilot again and upon closer inspection found that a bolt had fallen off the bottom of the frame where it joined to the strut attachment to the hull. Not a good thing. So I found a new bolt, lock washer and washer and replaced it (with Loctite this time), which was no mean feat, again lying on my chest and stomach on top of a very painful deck fitting hanging out over the stern watching the water go by two feet below. I was proud as punch to get that done without dropping anything. Then...I noticed that the welds holding one of the control line blocks had failed and the block was about to pull completely out. I can't fix that on the way without a TIG welder so packed it up and went to Plan B - the backup autopilot which uses electricity.

Every one who cruises knows that cruising is just fixing boat problems in exotic places. We are really cruising! I was a little in the dumps yesterday though. We had torrential rains last night on my watch and when you are going downwind, it blows right into the cockpit where the watchstander (me) sits and you get very wet, very quick. And everything else out with you. And the insides of the main cabin when the watchstander forgets the main cabin top hatch is open. Cindy was not amused when she woke up.

This may be a record breaking year for yachts going to the Marquesas from Mexico - the longest average time to get there ever. The weather pattern is totally abnormal and some of the other boats are obviously not happy. No reason to be though - out here you get what you get and the only normal thing is that every day is different. It may take us an extra week to get there over "average" but we have lots of food. I would like a newspaper though.

We have been reading about the Marquesas and it is obvious that we could spend longer than the time our visas will be good for there. You only get a max of 90 days (30 + 60 extension) if you are US, and that is for all of French Polynesia - Marquesas, Tuamotos, and the Societies (Tahiti, Bora Bora, Moorea, etc.). We could spend 60 in the Marquesas and 60 in the Societies but will have to plan our travels for 90. We are totally psyched and amazed we are really doing it, and thankful that we are able to.

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Calmer today

Short note today. The wind has died down a bit and the seas are less but still with a big rolly swell (our life for a while). We continue to pick up flying fish on deck as well as squid. The larger squid would be excellent fishing bait but we are not fishing. Right now the Honda 2000 watt generator is running on deck to charge the batteries although today the solar panels are getting some sun. We are making water too.

Life on board is in a routine. At night we are standing 3 hours on and 3 off for the 12 hour nights. The off watch sleeps with ear plugs in to deaden the banging and groaning of the boat. We spend quite a bit of time trying to find the squeaks and bangs and fix them. During the day we trim sails, have meals (Cindy is a saint to cook down below for her hungry skipper), work on the occasional project, make water, do emails, check in on radio nets, look at the ocean and birds and flying fish, read books (especially about the islands in the South Pacific), and have some naps. I need to start putting together a comprehensive list of all our gear on board for the Customs officials in French Polynesia. It has to be all inclusive or you will have to pay duty on what they find not on the list, and what is missing at the other side, as if we are bringing stuff in to make a profit. The French are very "official" about everything so we are going to hire an agent to do the worst of the paperwork (in French of course).

In three days we should get to our waypoint to turn due south to cross the ITCZ and the doldrums, which are supposedly 600nm across right now. I don't (or don't want to) believe that. What happens, happens. We just have to deal with it.

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Special Thanks to Friends and Supporters

We are cooking along with high winds and wild seas at just above 10N and just west of 122W. We have come over 1250nm from Zihua and closing on our first waypoint. So, I thought it would be good to give a big thank you to some of the people who have helped and supported us along the long way getting here, and not in any particular order of most or least or best help:

** Terry & Diane Emigh, and Bryan and the guys at Anacortes Marine Electronics
** John and Linda Gratton on S/V Nakia for help with the blog and just being there
** Dave and Debbie Lenartz on M/V Megabyte - tech help and good friends, fishing mentor, and jokester par excellence
** Buzz & Lynn Barrister in Anacortes
** Don & Pat Odegard in Anacortes
** Clark & Joanne Craig on Whitby Island
** Thomas Daoust at Fisheries
** Richard & Betsy on S/V Qayaq
** Paul & Marie on S/V Ranger
** John & Audrey on S/V Oz
** Chuck & Linda on S/V Jacaranda
** Susan & Bob Nettinga in Rancho Santa Fe
** Anacortes Yacht Club
** American Boat & Yacht Council (I just passed the recertification exam!)

****** and a Big, Big Special Thanks to North Harbor Diesel for hiring an unskilled yahoo and allowing him to learn about boats the hard way, and to get Maggie Drum ready for the passages to date and ahead. To Howard, Fred, Bob, Randy, Roy, Jim, Dave, Tammy, Terry, Jennifer, Sonny, Joe and the rest. What a great, totally functioning dysfunctional group of people who are the very best. I owe you a lot, especially Bob who had to show me the electrical ropes. No regrets guys.

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