No Wind, No Travel

Mike's been here a full week, and we're still in Majuro. We've got a very
weird weather system around us. Absolutely no wind. For the past week we've
had less than 5 knots of wind in the forecast. Not ideal sailing weather. So
we've hung out here in Majuro, while we wait for the wind to return to push
us to our next stop, Aur Atoll.

No problem, we're still keeping busy and having fun. We went to our
favourite local hang outs - Eneko and Enemwanet. We snorkelled. We swam. We
lounged. We bbq'ed. We paddleboarded. Mike even wakeboarded.

Now it rains. Torrential, sink-the-dinghy kind of rain. Sheesh. And we just
bought water to fill our tanks. Figures.

Just Add Bubbles

Let there be Light!!

Nov 29

We are slaves to our battery bank. When it is sunny, and the solar panels
are putting in lots of amps, we are happy campers. But (and there is always
a BUT), Majuro isn't an especially sunny spot. I know...we're in the
tropics. Crazy. But still - not sunny. Hot? Yes. Muggy? Yes. But sunny?
Well, sometimes. Good for our water tanks. Bad for our batteries. So, John
happily gets to put our new generator and battery charger to good use.

As a result of the lack of sun, we are miserly with our power usage. We have
solar lights that we use inside the cabin to read at night. And we have a
solar garden light that we use as an anchor light. Both are not so bright.

But, we've found a solution. A local yachtie sold us two strips of LED
lighting. John attached one to a long cable and velcroed (is that a verb?)
it around the mast. The second strip he fitted into our existing anchor
light fixture at the top of the mast. Now, we have SUPER bright lights, and
we can be seen at night. Which is a good thing. Especially on Sundays. When
the locals might be just a bit tipsy. And might rage through the mooring
fields. Mighty Fast. Mighty Close. Sheesh.

Here's a pic of our new light wrapped around the mast, and a pic of the boat
John took while installing the anchor light on the top of the mast.

Labels: Majuro, Marshall Islands, weather, maintenance, gear, projects

Passage to Marshall Islands - Day 3

The sky is no longer clear, beautiful and blue,
The clouds have arrived, a grey and black stew.

We see the squalls and anticipate,
The accelerating winds, the sudden wall of hate.

All hands scramble top side and quickly lower sail,
We wrestle with the sheets, steady her dive to the rail.

Ahhh, we missed you - our beloved ITCZ*
How quickly we recall how fickle your weather can be.

As quickly as she rose, the squall is soon long gone.
We are left without wind in a slow and tedious calm.
-------
* Remember, I'm Canadian...so that should be ITCZ: AYE.TEA.SEA.ZEE.

Arrived in Abemama

We made it! We're now anchored off the village of Kariatebike on the island
(atoll) of Abemama. We made the trip in just under 7 days - averaging 5.8
knots, which is a great speed for us. In total we travelled 955 nautical
miles, a few more than the pass-to-pass distance of 907, as we had to gybe
back and forth of our course line after the loss of our whisker pole. A
great trip.

Winds were consistently 15-20 knots, although a bit lighter for the last two
days. The swell was irregular, and from 3 directions, the largest swell was
about 3 meters from the SE, but not close together. Easterly swell was about
1.5 meters and more regular. So the boat had occasional rolly periods, which
kept us (and our stomachs) on our toes. As a result, we didn't do much
emailing, with the exception of a couple of blog posts. HUGE thanks to
everyone who sent us emails in the last couple weeks. We really enjoy
receiving them and getting news from home - it really is the highlight of
our day. I'll work on catching up with our replies over the next couple
days.

Now that we've arrived, we'll have a quick nap. Our anchorage is (for the
moment) flat calm. We're about 1/2 a mile from the beach, as the coral flats
in front of the village dries at low tide. Apparently we can only go to the
beach during the 2 hours before and after high tide. No problem, today that
corresponds with dinner time...whenever possible, we like to celebrate a
passage with a meal out!

Oh, we found the 'spot' locater...so we can now send our position again. Not
very useful now, as I suspect we'll be pretty stationary for a while.
Friends of ours recently said that they like to stay somewhere at least as
long as the time it took to get there! Good philosophy, I think.

Our current position:
00 24N
173 54E

Kanton - lost in time

I don't really know where the days are going here. In fact, yesterday, I was
sure it was Thursday. But according to ABC news (Australia Broadcasting Corp
on the High Freq radio), it was definitely Friday. Great...another day lost.
I have no idea where.

How do you lose a day when you keep a daily journal? Sheesh.
Kiribati is on the same side of the date line as Australia and New Zealand.
The date line take a huge right turn to encompass the country, so although
north and south of us is Friday today, we're one day away from another day
of church and another feast.

This week has been pretty mellow. We had a few quiet days in the anchorage,
but lately the winds have been picking up again, and we're once again
dealing with intermittent squalls with winds in the 30+ knot range. Not
often, but a couple times a day. It has been great for collecting
water....we were getting low on washing water!

But...because school here takes place in an old warehouse with a leaky roof,
school was cancelled because of rain. Too bad. I was planning a school visit
with the kids. Oh well. Next week is exam week, so not sure if I'll be able
to visit without being too disruptive.

It's been a good week, though. We've done some exploring, lots of boat
projects, sewing, shelling, reading, snorkelling, playing dice, etc. The
boys have been out each afternoon to be sure we have fish on the table for
dinner. In fact, the last grouper they got was humongous!

Kanton - A bouncy anchorage

We've had consistent squally weather since arriving here at Kanton Island.
Our passage was fast with fresh winds, and the winds have continued while we
have been here. Some days we prefer to stay on the boat to be sure that she
doesn't move from her holding. Or simply because a rough and wet dinghy ride
doesn't sound like fun. We've had a few days where the winds have blown over
30 knots and our two boats are bouncing up and down over the swells that
have built up in the lagoon.

Here we are, setting a second anchor

We have set a second anchor, and haven't moved, so we're feeling pretty
confident in the setup. To be sure, Eric dove on both of our anchors to
inspect the connections, and be sure they were well set. Our primary anchor
was buried so deep in the sand, it was almost invisible. At least we now
feel very secure.
Now that we feel better about our anchor, we're contemplating a bit of
windsurfing. Wow.

Day 7 - Hoping

Today is day 7. Day 7 of hoping to leave. Day 7 of rain. Yuck.
But...the sun shone for a brief moment this morning, so we are optimistic
that this weather system is moving on, and the typical tropical weather and
typical trade winds will be returning soon.
Of course, when there is no sun, there is no power from the solar panels. So
we have been thrifty. No excess computing/emails. No lights at night. No tv.
We've been reading a LOT. And napping. Exploring isn't too appealing in a
downpour, and we haven't been off the boat in four days.
On the other hand, we've read lots of good books. John played checkers with
me!! But...sadly I won (I didn't mean to), so I'm pretty sure we won't have
another game night for at least 6 months. We've also re-discovered James
Barber's One Pot Meals. Did you know that in addition to being a tv chef, he
also spent a fair bit of time playing on boats? Well...there you have it.
And his cook book that we have onboard has some good inspiration for us to
spice up our usual dinner fare.
When the rain stops...and we shove off...we'll let you all know. In the
meantime, don't worry about the lack of blog posts. No sun = no power = no
long drawn out blog diatribes. But...we still check emails, and love to hear
your news.

Not yet...

A small-ish coconut crab

We have not yet left Mopelia. For two days, we've had black skies and
constant rains, so we've decided to wait until this system has settled down.
Although we're anxious to move along and see our friends who are awaiting us
in Suwarrow, we're definitely not keen to endure this weather while sailing.
So we wait.

Was Our Pacific Crossing Typical?

So, you may be wondering if our trip across the big blue was typical, or if others had a much different experience. Prior to leaving Mexico, there was A LOT of discussion and speculation about an El Nino year, and the increased possibility of storms and higher winds. Although winds were said to be higher than usual, we didn't notice any adverse affects. Our crossing from the Galapagos Islands to the Marquesas in French Polynesia was a quick trip of 23 days, and we didn't hear of any boats who had trouble finding the wind on their way across. Most boats accomplished the crossing in fewer days, although in our defense, we are smaller than most boats! Of course, those who departed directly from Mexico, had to endure the ITCZ, referred to by some as the 'doldroms', but a few hundred miles of uncertain wind seems quite normal for that route also.

A summary was published in the Latitude 38 magazine, as they do each year. I find it interesting to look at the stats for a few of the boats and see how many days they were at sea, how many fish were caught, the types and sizes of boats, and what equipment broke! You can check out the summary of this year's fleet by downloading the September 2010 issue of the magazine here. Lat 38 also publishes profiles of the crews who are planning to make the crossing each here. Our profile was in the March 2010 issue, which can also be downloaded from the Lat 38 website.

You can also view the summaries from the past years on the Pacific Puddle Jump website here.

Our first sight of land after 23 days at sea. The Marquesas Archipelago, at last!! May 1, 2010.

Blown away by Apataki

We were blown away by the atoll of Apataki. Literally. But, I'll start at the beginning...

Our last day on Toau was spent at the northern end of the atoll, close to the pass, so we would have a shorter passage to Apataki - our next destination. We left Toau before slack tide, and had the excitement of dealing with the current opposing the winds as we exited the pass, creating large standing waves. The current was in our favour, so we were traveling quickly, but the large swell made it uncomfortable, even if only for a few minutes. We were soon out of the pass, hoisted our sails, and set our course to Apataki.

Although there is a small village on Apataki, there isn't a suitable anchorage at the village, so we anchored a few miles away, in front of a pearl farm with a few other sailboats. As it turns out, several of these boats had found paradise, and had stayed in the area for a couple of years! For the next four days, we wandered the beach, chatted with the locals, and tackled a few boat jobs. Pauline and Alfred live here with their parents and their children. They have a pearl farm business, and we were able to watch as they went about classifying the pearls into grades for sale and export. They've also started a boat yard, with a huge trailer and ramp. There were three boats in the yard while we were there, and one was pulled out on our last day. Although facilities were limited, it would be a great spot to haul out, if we just needed to paint the bottom! John's scraped foot was still a bit swollen (from one of his lobster 'hunting' expeditions with Strahan), so he chatted with a Doc on another boat and started a course of antibiotics, but is trying to keep it dry. Not easy.

Our friend Chris on SV Namaste had told us that the snorkeling in and near the pass at the north end of the island was fabulous, so after a few days, we moved up there to check it out. Only a couple hours after we dropped the hook, the wind started to pick up. Within only a half hour, the wind was howling. We checked our weather files, and saw a system was supposed to be developing near Tahiti, but wasn't really supposed to be this far north. Clearly the weather files were wrong. Because we were up against a lee shore, we didn't feel it was safe to remain here. So we upped anchor (with some difficulty, in the large waves that had instantly developed), and quickly made our way out of the pass into the safely of the open sea. We were sad to leave here without getting a chance to experience the snorkeling, but we looked forward to the Rangiroa, our next atoll...and the largest coral atoll in the world.

It was about 80 miles to Rangiroa, an overnight sail. Throughout the night, the winds continued to build. We don't have a wind meter on board, but we guessed it to be consistently 30 knots with gusts to 35 or so. It was the most wind that we'd seen while underway on our journey so far. It was definitely the only time that we'd had waves crash over the side of the boat and into the cockpit. We had our full BC rain slickers on! We had only a very, very, tiny bit of our genoa (head sail) out - and we still were going up to 8 knots in the gusts (3-4 knots in the lulls). And although we were worried that the furling system would buckle under the strain, we realized that our storm sails were even bigger than the tiny bit of canvas that we were flying. The boat handled the weather fine. And we made it to Rangiroa in time for the optimum tide. Although the tide was rising, and it should have been an incoming tide, we still had a couple knots of outgoing current.

As a note of interest, during times of heavy wind and waves, the current and tides in the atoll passes can change dramatically. Normally, there is an ingoing and outgoing current in the pass that roughly follows the tide. During heavy weather in some atolls, there is a lot of water pushed over and between the small motus (islets), filling up the lagoon. This can create a continual outgoing current in the passes, even when the tide should be rising!

Throughout the storm, there was chatter on the radio. Two other boats had decided to leave Apataki when we did, and there were at least three other boats en route to Rangiroa from elsewhere. It was great to know that other boats were nearby. And we also got to hear what their wind indicators were showing - winds of 30 to 35 with gusts up to 39. WOW.

Our Position (Apataki): 15°20.96'S and 146°11.66'W

Weather Bomb

Weather bomb...water spout...microburst...tornado...unstable cell...
These are just some of the descriptors that were being tossed around to describe a crazy weather "event" here in Banderas Bay (Puerto Vallarta) this week. We arrived in the La Cruz Anchorage to a very unusual rain storm, and hunkered down on the boat for the day, awaiting the blue skies that were sure to return.
But the weather gods had different ideas. At 10 that evening, the wind picked up suddenly, lighting bolts could be seen all around us, the boat was rocking violently from side to side, and the noise of the wind in the rigging was so loud that we could barely hear each other talk. All of this happened within only a few minutes.
As we were putting on our lifejackets and harnesses, to get up on deck to see what was going on, we felt the boat lurch, and heard the discomforting sound of another boat grinding alongside of us. Then on the radio - we heard a Mayday call of a boat on the rocks. Our hearts are now racing as we struggle to find harnesses, headlamps and rain gear.
John is up on deck first, and yells down to me in the cabin, "Brace yourself, we going to be hit", as he turns on the engine, and tries to steer the boat into the waves. All around us, other boats have dragged their anchors and are flying through the anchorage, which is now a bowling alley. The radio is abuzz with reports of wind speed indicators showing 70+ knots (130km/hr), and reports of boats dragging and collisions.
As John went up to the bow to let out more anchor rode, I worked the helm to attempt to keep the swells on our bow. It was an incredible experience to watch the bow (and John) fly up high into the air, riding the crest of the 8-10 foot waves, and then crash into the deep trough below. Of course, aside from keeping ourselves upright, we also had to watch for other boats, and 'dodge' the loose boats that came rocketing through the anchorage, as best as we were able. This was made all the more difficult, as I had become completely disoriented. As all the power on shore had been knocked out, I couldn't tell how close we were to the shore, or if we were in the same place as earlier in the day. The lightning lit up the boats around us, but many were very different that when we set our anchor - had they moved?? Or had we??
Within 30 or so minutes, the worst of it was over, and we stayed at the helm with the engine running as we caught our breath, and watched for another possible surge of wind. After some time, boats started to pick up their anchors and move into the nearby marina for shelter. We tried to raise our anchor and follow the fleet to safety, but regardless of how much we pulled and pushed, the anchor would not budge. We resigned ourselves to a sleepness night in the Bay.
In the morning, we successfully freed and raised our now polished anchor, and made our way into the marina, where fellow cruisers caught our docklines as we eased into a safe and secure slip. All morning the docks were akin to a crisis zone, and the remaining boats in the anchorage made their way into the marina, and cruisers walked dazed on the docks, looking at each other's damage, and sharing their version of the horror of the evening before. By afternoon, the docks were silent - crews were catching a nap in an effort to recover from lost sleep and general exhaustion.
It was a valuable learning experience for us. We learned how well we work together as a team, and we were both calm and rational throughout the ordeal. Once again, Renova's captain was up to the task of taking charge of the boat, and her crew, and guiding us to safety, with minimal stress. In hindsight, we were very lucky to have just arrived at the anchorage, and had not yet settled in. We still had the boat battened down for sea travel, so we didn't have any gear loose on the deck, and our dinghy was still tied down on the cabin top. The only thing lost from the deck was my new hatch cover, which will be easy to replace.
We were lucky - many other boats have more damage than us. And many lost dinghies, surfboards, gas cans, anchors, etc. We have some damage to one side of our bowsprint (one of the anchor rollers has been ripped off), but the local carpenter has already been down to make drawings, and we expect a replacement piece within days.
At first, we were pretty shaken. Once again, we toyed with the idea of staying for the season in the relative (perceived?) safety of the Sea of Cortez, while we worked up our courage to continue. But now that we've had a few days to process the events and put everything in perspective, we've decided to continue with our original plan - Galapagos then Marquesas.
Another 'event' is being forecast for later this week, so we'll stay put for now, fix the boat, and enjoy the good life - hot showers, fish tacos, and wi-fi. We were too busy to take photos, but others have also written up their impressions of the storm:

• Just a Minute
• Latitute 38 Magazine
• Saoirse
  

Surviving the Storm

After a night of howling winds and driving rain, I awoke to discover a new leak had been formed right over top of my computer and camera! Luckily, both dried out just fine. For the time being, I've created a little tarp above the area, but I hope to investigate further and see if I can figure out where the water is coming from. Apart from that, Renova is once again sitting pretty and basking in the glorious sunshine.

Batten Down The Hatches

The barometer is dropping like a rock, and all the talk at the marina is focused on an incoming storm. Forecasters are calling for 40+ m/h winds in the Bay and 70+ outside the Gate. Wow. I've spent the afternoon securing the deck, tightening halyards,
adding dock lines and bringing in the cushions. Renova is ready.

As I walked through the marina I realized that the marina was eerily empty - the usual hub-bub of activity had stopped. There were very few cars in the lot. The usual marina 'chatter' was escalating - the clanging of halyards and lines, the flapping of flags, the canvas and sails ruffling in the wind - and all were pointing to the storm that was coming. Now, the rain has started. Stay tuned...I'll let you know how it goes!