June 28, 2012

Thursday at dawn we walked through a palm forest from our side of the lagoon to the ocean side. Masses of Fairyterns flying overhead, the Long-tailed Cuckoo real close, which I have been searching for since 2000, 3 shorebirds flying, probably Wandering Tattlers, the Reed Warbler heard but not seen, white & dark morph Pacific Reef Herons and a few sea creatures.  


Everywhere, big hermit crabs eating coconuts.  Barry brought some hermit crabs home and put them in a bucket to be used for fishing bait later.  I threw my apple core in the bucket and was amazed to find that Sunrise now is equipped with a garbage disposal! 


We snorkeled, re-anchored (only a 2 hour process this time) and went for a sunset cruise in the Rubber Ducky (our new Kiwi dinghy).  All the re-anchoring we do is so that Sunrise won't swing on her anchor into a coral head when the wind shifts.  We get good weather forecasts and know how much wind is expected and from which direction.

June 27, 2012

Since we arrived in Raroia, it has been windy and we have been doing chores on the boat - laundry, cleaning, maintenance, etc.  This morning, there was no wind and we went ashore in the dinghy at the crack of dawn looking for the "Crake"!  Alas, no Crake!  However, it was a glorious outing.  We walked across the narrow sandy beach to a tidal pool/stream that empties into the lagoon.  


On the southeast shore of the atolls, the motus are low or non-existent.  The waves crash on the reef, the water pours across the reef and into the lagoon, and then out the pass.  Since coral only grows fully submerged in water, the outer edge of the reef grows seaward, leaving basically dead reef behind it.  So the width of the reef here from lagoon side to sea side is about ½ mile. Walking it is like walking on lava - a'a to the nth degree.  The very rough salt surface at the Devil's Golf Course in Death Valley is about the same.  


As we walked across the beach and reef toward the ocean, we found a large number of interesting critters. First were the large hermit crabs.  As they grow, they need to keep moving into bigger shells.  Eventually, they get large for the moon snail shells and can not totally withdraw inside.  This makes it easy to remove them from their shells, once you know the trick.  Their nice soft tails that hold them into the shell also makes great fish bait.  Not only that, but the sharks do not recoginize the taste and will ignore the bait for a while.  I collected five and will try fishing for large grouper-type fish in the depths of the lagoon later.  There was also a large ghost crab, large drab land crabs, colorful crabs by the water.  


Then in the shallows of the tide pool/stream, we saw a beautiful emerald-colored Big Bellied Parrot Fish eating algae off a piece of dead coral, a number of Peacock Flounders and/or Tropical Sole, five sandy-gray colored moray eels to 4 feet, a black-tipped reef shark about 3 feet long, a 3-foot long coronet fish, hundreds of small, dark brown sea slugs and a beautiful fresh mollusk shell about 1 ½ inches long with nobody home inside.  


Soon, as the tide started coming up, the slow flow of water in the stream became much higher and moving quickly like a small river rushing down a canyon.  We saw the following birds:  Tuamoto Reed Warbler, black and white morf Pacific Reef Herons, Great Crested Terns, Blue-grey Noddys, boobies, Bristle-thighed Curlews, Tuamotu Sandpiper, Wandering Tattler, Sanderling .  It is for times like this morning that we live on a boat and sail 3,500 miles to get to a place like this.

We collected three plastic floats while beach coming to help lift our anchor chain off the bottom to preserve the coral clumps that slowly grow there.  These floats are used by the pearl farmers to suspend their oyster lines 6 or 8 feet below the surface.  The floats we collected had come loose, drifted away and been abandoned.

I got Venus figured out.  It is passing through Taurus.  Aldebaran is the red eye of the Bull.  


Yesterday: Long-tailed Cuckoo.  Big deal to us birders.

June 25, 2012

June 25, 2012  Oh, wow!  Now  you should check out the NE early morning sky.  From the horizon up at an angle: Aldebaran, Venus, Jupiter and the Pleiades. Thank God for the glory of the universe!  For some reason my Night Sky iPad app calls Venus Taurus most of the time. Is this a glitch in the program or is Venus also known as Taurus or just in the constellation Taurus now?  


We came into this lagoon on a Saturday and for as far as we could see there was nothing but sea, sky, motus, palm trees, birds and the occasional leaping fish.  Then we got near the buildings of the pearl farm near where we anchored but, again, nobody.  The only signs of life are a small dim glow on the western horizon at night where there is a small village on the opposite side of the atoll and a far away red flashing light marking the entrance to the pass into this atoll. 


Here's the Monday morning early report for our neighborhood: 3 people left the pearl farm buildings in a skiff to go check their pearl oysters,  big tropical fish hanging around under the boat, 4 Lesser Frigatebirds, 1 Pacific Reef Heron white morph, rainbow in the west, light wind from the N. With binoculars I can see boats at the village 6.5 miles across the lagoon.  I am guessing local skiffs and a fishing boat.

THE SPOTLESS CRAKE is here.  My 12 year long search continues.  As you know, everyone in our family has seen the Spotless Crake except me!  Barry has taken up telling outlandish lies to tease me about it.  "I just saw a Spotless Crake run into those bushes!  Did you see it?"  Or, "A Spotless Crake just flew over". (They are basically flightless.)

June 23, 2012

We now have a little wind, have chosen to go toward seldom visited Raroia atoll and are beating.  At first the wind was 2 knots, very light and we pick up a couple of tenths of a knot in boatspeed from the sails.  We need to get there by early afternoon tomorrow to time the tidal current going out the pass and give us enough time and good visibility to avoid the coral heads and islets inside the lagoon as we seek a protected anchorage  on the other side of the atoll.  That means that we need to average 6 knots over the ground for the next day and a half.  If only the destination been chosen and calculations been done a day sooner, when we were puttering along at three or four knots, we would not have to "push" the boat hard now.  The required speed is easy going down wind.  Going upwind like we are, it is not easy!  If we get there late, it means puttering around outside for 20 hours waiting for a chance the next day or sailing another day toward another atoll farther away.  By the time I go to bed, the wind is up to 10 knots, and the engine is assisting at a fast idle.  Things are looking OK. But we have used up 40% of our fuel and it may be quite a while before we find any more.  If we can find any before we get to Rangaroa, it will be expensive and also not be duty free.

Lynne wakes me up a few hours later.  We now are beating into 22 knots of wind and associated waves, the boat is way overpowered and healing 30 degrees.  The first thing to do is to roll up half of the headsail.  That is easy.  The next thing needed is to put at least one reef in the mainsail.  However, under the conditions of spray flying across the deck, nighttime, and the bow of the boat bucking up and down, I decide to wait on that, let the autopilot deal with the sail plan unbalance and overpowered boat and try to get some more sleep.  Nevertheless, I have to get up frequently and retrim the sails or adjust our course as the conditions change slightly.  When you are beating, the "groove" is pretty narrow.  Had I chosen to use the Monitor wind vane to steer, it might have done a better job of tracking the wind shifts, but sleep deprived zombies do not think very clearly.

By dawn, we can see the motus (islands on the atoll) of Takume, a sister atoll to Raroia.  We are not going there because the pass into the lagoon is only large enough for small boats.  One of the reasons that we have chosen Raroia is because the pass is on the northwest side and the wind is coming from the southeast.  When we get in the lee of the atoll near the pass, the waves die down substantially, I put two reefs in the mainsail, roll up the rest of the headsail and we prepare to approach the past.  There are two tall poles, called range markers, located inside the lagoon.  When one is lined up in front of the other, you are in the preferred part of the channel and on the proper course to go through the pass.  But the current going out of the pass is substantial and pushes the boat sideways.  My steering corrections to get back on the "line" are so substantial that Lynne is afraid that I am going to hit the reef on one side of the pass, then the other, again and again.  But our timing has been good.  There are no standing waves inside the pass and our boat speed motoring in is substantially faster than the current.  Hurray!  Sometimes the current is faster than your maximun boat speed and you have to dangerously hug the side of the pass to seek lower current, wait for a better time, or go somewhere else.

Once inside, the current is minimal.  We decide to go to the opposite side of the atoll to anchor up behind the palm trees on one of the motus.  It takes an hour and a half of zig-zaging between the large coral islets and strings of pearl oyster bouys to cross the lagoon.  Lynne steers while I stand up on the ratlines giving directions, hanging on as the boat bucks and sways a bit.  When we get there, my hands and feet have paid the price.  We anchor up just offshore behind a motu densely covered with cocunut palm trees, sheltered in flat water and only 10 knots of wind.  It is beautiful!  We are both so excited and grateful to be here.  We "made" it.  We make a great pair.  I "swim" the anchor, tell Lynne to back down on it some more while I watch it finish digging in the coral sand and then make note of the "stuff" growing on the submerged part of the boat.  We can go to bed early!  Together!  Sleep soundly!  Life is good!

June 20, 2012 Summer Solstice

Controller Bay

It is 48 hours after we left the Marquesas' Controller Bay. We spent about 12 of those hours sailing and for the rest, there is NO WIND. No wind = no cool breeze = sweltering + engine noise & heat = CRABBY. I will say that with no wind the seas are flat which means things you set down stay there.  We are spending lots of time trying to get the Furuno Weatherfax to work.  Also, lots of time trying to figure out where to go in the Tuamotus. That's right. We have 78 atolls spread out over a thousand miles and we haven't chosen a destination yet. We now must factor in obtaining fuel, gazole to be precise.  We are hot and tired.  I forgot to tell you; in the Marquesas there are baskets filled with tern eggs for sale.  Why can't they eat the eggs of those stupid chickens?! They could do with a few less roosters crowing.

Whose dumb idea was this, anyway?!

Wow! Check out Jupiter and Venus in the NE low 0430. The sun has made a yewy (U turn) and is headed our way. We don't need it but the people in NZ will appreciate it.


Position :  9 13.20' S, 140 00.28' W
Speed : 4.6 knots,  Course : 184 degree

June 16, 2012

Nuku Hiva

Saturday, June 16: We get up at 4:30 am to get to the local farmer's market by 5:30. We scored - even leafy green veggies.  8 am:  Nuku Hiva Island Tour with Richard, an expert birder, archeologist, geologist, historian, anthropologist and general all around fine Marquesan.  Birds: many Pacific Reef Herons (dark morph is the only morph in the Marquesas), 6 White-capped Fruit Dove, 3 Nuka Hiva Pigeons, 3 White-tailed Tropic Birds, many Brown Booby, 20 Lesser Frigatebird, 20 Great Frigatebird, 100s Sooty Tern, 30 Brown Noddy, 100 Blue-gray Noddy, 1000 Common Fairy-tern, 500 Little Fairy-tern, 100 Rock Dove, 50 Zebra Dove, 10 Marquesas Swiftlet, 3 Marquesas Reed-Warbler.

Voting day was today, Saturday, in French Polynesia along with Friday. It's mainly a contest between the Autonomy and Independence Parties.  Currently Fr Pol is an Autonomous Region of France which means France pours in money, but Fr Polynesia has their own president, legislature, local officials.  The Party in control elects the president and changes about every 6 months which means a new president every 6 months.  Richard, not one to be shy about his opinions, says whenever the Party which wants complete independence has been in control the economy sinks.  Furthermore, the constant changing of presidents is bad for the country.  He is of the Autonomy Party.  He must know everyone on the island and shared his political affiliations with everyone we passed on the road.  Regarding religion,  the Marquesas are 80% Roman Catholic with the rest Protestant. They are getting more "Jehovas"  which he doesn't like, he says, because they come to your house all the time, even on Monday when they should be working.  Speaking of work, a person's garden is a reflection of their life - if your garden is a mess so is your life - so people work constantly at keeping their gardens clean and tidy.

The archeological sites are being restored and are currently used this time of year for contests and festivals.  The sites were used by priests for ceremonies, human sacrifices and dances. There is an overall resurgence of Polynesian culture including dance, drums, tatoos (some say the most beautiful tatooing in the world is Marquesan) and songs from the ancient culture. Cannibalism has not had a resurgence.  Geologically, the islands are similar to Hawaii, with volcanos forming islands as plate tectonics cause creeping of the ocean floor over a hot spot.  He says the N Pacific Ocean plate is tilting upwards with a tilting downwards in the S Pacific causing the S Pac islands to be sinking.  Because the islands are the remains of volcanic craters, the sides are very steep. This means each island has several very high waterfalls. Historically, before the arrival of Europeans, there was not disease in the Marquesas - infection, but not disease.  Gauguin is an example of a European bringing syphilis.  He had a preference for 12-13 year old girls.  The population of the Marquesas went from a healthy, thriving 100,000 to 8000 after the European's arrival.  Presently, the Marquesas gets most of its income from copra harvesting (exported to get coconut oil and subsidized by France) and noni juice.

Richard worked for the Survivor production company when they were at Daniel's Bay in 2002.  He thought the production of the series there was good for the people and the economy.  On our way home, he gave us pomplemousse, papaya and mangos from his parents' (neat & tidy) garden.  Yum.

The locals put on a fundraising dinner and dance show Saturday night.  Dinner was so-so and a good example of why many Marquesans are obese - pig fat, meat, meat, meat but no plant foods except mountains of white rice and Coke. The children's dancing and drumming, on the other hand,  were superb.  Barry took movies for you.  90% of the attendees were Marquesan; most of the rest were cruisers who were seated all together by the hostess.  Fun and inspiring to meet each other and hear the stories of our counterparts.  Sunday, we went to the Cathedral of the Marquesas in Taiohae Baie.  We think the bishop was also a cardinal; at least he wore a red yarmulke-type cap.  All the people's part of the service was in Marquesan, the Gospel was in French and Marquesan and the sermon in French.  We had a Marquesan language service folder which the very sweet lady behind us translated for us - into French!  The Cathedral is famous for its many pieces of wood and stone art, but we thought the little church in Hane had much more beautiful wood carvings.  All the service was filled with the most glorious singing on this earth.  Compared to Polynesians, most white people can't sing!

Monday morning we were supposed to pick up our dry laundry at 8.  We didn't think that trying to ferry dry laundry out to your boat that someone else did for you would cause anything untoward to happen.  But you know what happened, don't you.  Yes, a couple of hours of downpour!  When it finally cleared, we fetched the laundry and bought a new internet card.  We spent a few hours trying to read a few emails.  (Be SO thankful for your high speed DSL and cable connections.) We visited Sam and Marilyn, talking more boat talk.  Monday night, we had an excellent dinner at the best hotel in the Marquesas with Marilyn & Sam and new friends Rick & Connie from San Clemente.  We arrived at the hotel at 5 and left at 11!  Not our lifestyle at all, even though the friends and food were wonderful.

Catharpin Blue enticed us with their reports of Controller's Bay, where they saw mantas.  So Tuesday, we prepared the boat and went to Controller's Bay.  The most exciting event of the day was the large pod of tiny Pygmy Killer Whales that we sailed through and photographed.  Smaller than any dolphin I've ever seen.  In Controller Bay, I (Barry was asleep) saw 3 mantas, one performing right next to our boat.  The part of the bay where we anchored is at the mouth of Taipivai Valley - the vai of Taipi (pronounced Tie Pee) which is the "Typee" that Herman Melville wrote when he jumped ship and landed here.  Richard told us that Melville was treated well only because he was skinny and the Taipi tribe of cannibals was trying to fatten him up for eating.  This morning, Wednesday,  we left at 0130 for our long passage to the Tuamotus.  At sea: Bulwer's Petrel, Brown Boobies, Frigatebirds, unknown species of petrel or shearwater, Fairy-terns.

June 15

Friday, 15 June 2012  We arrive at the dinghy dock at 8 AM with our two empty 5 gallon diesel jugs.  By 10 AM, we have 50 gallons of duty-free fuel on our deck.  However, we have to make another trip to the gas station with a third form that they need to have a copy of for the duty-free fuel.  It is a race to get the 40 gallons of fuel in the borrowed jugs into our tanks.  I decide to use a drill motor operated pump to transfer the fuel from the jugs to our strainer funnel and into the tanks.  But first, I have to go through our assorted pieces of hose to find suitable inlet and outlet hoses.  Fortunately, I have the hose I need.  I sit out in the hot sun transferring fuel.  The new system works well at first, then the pump starts leaking and one of the impeller blades break off and partially plugs the outlet port.  Will this be a one use pump?  By 11:45, the borrowed jugs are empty and it is a race to the dock to return the borrowed jugs before they close at 12 for lunch.  After lunch, I transfer the 10 gallons in our jugs to our tanks and make another trip to the gas station for 10 more gallons.  By the end of the day, our tanks are nearly full to the brim and I am exhausted and sun-baked.  "Yes, we have some gazole!  We have some gazole today!"

June 14, 2012

Thursday, 14 June 2012  Grandpa's birthday.  We leave beautiful, peaceful Baie de Haavei in the morning.  Expecting strong wind, we put a reef in the mainsail and run toward  Nuka Hiva with good boat speed.  As the day progresses, the wind moderates and SUNRISE assumes a more leisurely pace.  Declining the go to the trouble of putting the whisker pole out on the opposite side of the boat as the mainsail, the genoa headsail is useless in the wind shadow of the mainsail.  As we near Nuka Hiva, we note that the supply boat, Taporo 9, is following us and going faster.  Nevertheless, we enter Baie de Taiohae well before le cargo.  The east side of the bay, near the old wharf and some shops, is full of cruising boats, about 25.  We anchor in the vicinity of the three other boats at the west side of the bay.  We have more peace and quiet and privacy here at the cost of a long dinghy ride to the dock.  There is a small business "Yacht Services" by the dock.  We go there with our laundry.  They will wash and dry it.  They will take us to the gas station the next morning to get diesel fuel and deliver it to our boat.  They sell  us an internet access card.  They sell us tickets for the local fund-raiser dinner and dance show.  They make arrangements for a driver/guide to take us on a tour of the island.  They sell clothes, but that we do not buy.  I imagine they can provide a number of other services.  They have a good business for the 4 or 5 months that the cruisers come through Nuku Hiva.

June 13

The Voice of America had an item about protecting your internet security.  The piece was presented by the United States government and an arm of the BBC called Internet Uncensored.  It was aimed at the people of Syria so that they could use the internet without the government's knowledge .  Of interest to us is their recommendation that gmail has the best email protection and Mozilla the most secure browser.  Always erase your browsing history, blah, blah.

These volcanic islands are spectacular with their highly eroded mountains, dramatically sculpted bays and cliffs, sort of like the Grand Canyon with the ocean next to it.  If you like geology, you would love these islands.

Barry always liked a "Far Side" cartoon that  shows Darwin arriving in the Galapagos, looking at the iguanas and saying, "Oh, wow!! Lizard City!"  So on our last trip when we arrived at a spot with a lot of something, Barry would say Oh, wow!! Moray Eel City! or Urchin City or Octopus City or whatever.  Yesterday we were at Fairy-tern City in Hane Bay.  They nest in the trees of the town of Hane and surroundings. It must be mating season because they flew in pairs dancing closely.  Or maybe it is always mating season given their abundance.  


Getting ashore looks a bit dicey here.  We leave the camera and guide books behind.  Yes, Barry had an interesting time in the dinghy trying to land.  He declined to use the beach the locals use. There a reef just off the beach blocks the upcoming waves.  After his "interesting" experience at his chosen place he successfully lands at the local spot and two burly local teens helped him carry the dinghy up off the beach away from the shore.  Lesson learned: next time do as the locals do. We walk into town and stop at the small museum.  It is closed, but we look through the windows to see what is there.  Some very nice items.  We visited the magazin. After a prescribed amount of time that they give you to struggle with your French they decide it is less painful to use the little English they know.  I think they are shy about using their English.  Next to a box of moldy carrots was a box of new potatoes in excellent condition.  Barry is thinking "potato salad".  We picked out some and inquired about fruit.  They went home and got a handful of  their personal bananas to give us.  


We always check out the churches in these little out of the way places.  This Roman Catholic one had fantastically beautiful wood carvings.  The pulpit was carved from the root stump of a large tree  getting more finely detailed as you rose from the stump. Mary & Jesus were Marquesan. The altar was natural stone. This island is known as having the best wood and stone carvers in the South Pacific and this Catholic Church showed their skill at the highest level.  On the way back to the beach, we visit a wood carver working away in his outdoor covered shop.  He was finishing an 18" high tiki made of rosewood.  It was a carefully proportioned copy of an ancient stone tiki.  The carver had an old book published by Hawaii's Bishop Museum full of pictures of tikis and other artifacts.  His workmanship was of the highest quality.  After we launch the dinghy and row back to SUNRISE, we look at the guide book.  The wood carver was the caretaker of the museum.  DANG!  That night we fall asleep to the drumming and singing of Marquesans practicing for the festivals and contests which occur in French Polynesia during June and July.  This has to do with Bastille Day, July 14, which has been turned into a celebration of Polynesian culture.

Our next anchorage was at the SW corner, Baie de Haavei, and was a birder's paradise.  The bay is guarded by 2 islets, nesting grounds for Sooty Terns and Blue-gray Noddies.  There were several hundred birds.  On one islet local bird egg gathering is allowed, the other off limits.  I think the fact that locals take the eggs explains strange behavior we observed; the birds would circle and mill around in a disorganized fashion high over our boat.  I think they were frantic that we had come to steal their eggs.  What do you think? The anchorage was not recommended but we found the sweet spot for the anchor and  were secure all night.  Very, very beautiful!  We were alone in a peaceful paradise of birds, stars and islands.

Watermaker is working again

Hot dog!  The watermaker ran normally when we turned it back on last night.  I read the troubleshooting guide and determined that it must be a clogged intake.  In fact, when we were in Fiji, many people had trouble with sea snakes getting in their intake holes.  So my theory is that the sea snake I couldn't find took a liking to our sea water intake and when we left Tahuata it bailed.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Do you have a better explanation?  Anyway, it would be inconvenient, to put it mildly, to do without a watermaker. It would involve schlepping water from town spigots, purifying it, carefully pouring it into our tanks on a rolling boat. Washing with saltwater. We'd have to skip most of the Tuamotus which are dry islands. (The few resorts in the Tuamotus use desalinators and the rest of the population uses cisterns filled with rainwater collected off their roofs.)

Just a little bit

Pre-dawn: Scorpio prominent in the West, Jupiter rising in the Eatst. Baie de Hane, Ua Huka: goats East on vertical cliffs, horses West on hills. Teeny tiny town to the North, Fairy-terns, noddies & terns at sea, South. Important: good holding!

June 12

We did chores all morning then spent the afternoon snorkeling.  Barry saw my Black-tipped Reef Shark and I saw his sting ray.  Together we saw coronet fish,  sea pincushions, guitarfish, a large turquoise-spotted octopus slithering over the rocks,  puffer fish, huge parrot fish and the usual reef fish.  I searched for the sea snakes to no avail. Our snorkeling is best when the sky is clear and the sun is overhead so that you get the most sunlight down through the water. Under these conditions the thousands of fish beneath us  sparkle more than any jewel I've ever seen.  Returned to Sunrise for a bath, a nap and great music - thanks Sheryl.

The air is so clear here that when we watch the sun go down looking for a green flash, it is too bright to look at.  The sun is bright orange, not the dimmer reddish-brown we are used to in terrestrial environments.  There were clouds just above the western horizon, but the sun peaked out below them as it set.  And so, we were treated to another nice "green flash" this evening.

Just after sundown, we spring into action to prepare the boat for sea - dinghy tied down on deck, covers off of the dodger and mainsail, all hatches other than those opening to the cockpit closed, sink drains closed.  We pull up the anchor as it gets dark (dark comes fast near the equator) and head to sea.  After all of the anchoring gear is stowed, we turn back into the wind to put up the mainsail.  Since we want a leisurely trip tonight to arrive at our next island of Ua Huka after dawn, we tuck in one reef in the mainsail and use no headsail.  Heading out in the dark, I get the sails trimmed, wind vane adjusted to hold a good course and settle down for the evening.  The motor is also running to make power since it is time to run the freezer compressor and make some water.  Not long after starting, the watermaker starts sounding different and stops making water.  Shut it down, to worry about tomorrow.  We still have plenty of water in the tank.  After the motor is off, the wind has died down a bit and I put out the headsail to regain some lost speed.  As usual, I check the radar, then turn off the lights inside the cabin and go into the cockpit for a visual 360 degree look.  Also as usual, there is nobody out here but us chickens again.
The distance from Tahuata to Ua Huka is too far to complete during the daytime.  Since we do not want to enter an unfamiliar place at night, we are doing this passage at night so that we arrive in the morning.  It is a beautiful evening with no clouds or moon.  There are a gazillion stars out, the air is refreshingly cool in the cockpit.  In the starlight, the silhouette of Hiva Oa and the horizon are barely visible.  White foam is rushing past the hull and also pleasing to the ears.  Every time the wind changes direction a bit, I need to adjust the self-steering system to compensate.  I am dialed into nature tonight.  No TV for me to watch.  We are headed north northeast and in the early evening the Big Dipper is pointing the location of north on the horizon.  The wind is forward of beam and we are on an easy close reach.  It always amazes me that humans have developed the technology of sailing boats into the wind, even if not directly.  It is not new technology.  I do not know how far back it goes, but Europeans could not do it when they first explored Polynesia.  However, as they watched the Polynesians in their lantern-rigged proas rapidly sail in circles around their slow square rigged ships, they thought, "Look at those ignorant savages!"  It took another couple hundred years for "Western" cultures to figure it out.

Proa

June 10, Bay of Virgins

Brad and Debra loaned us a book by Tristan Jones: One Hand for Yourself, One for the Boat.  In it he describes the rewards of the cruising life in a way that is true for us:  " being close to nature, watching the workings of the universe, seeing the real wonders of the real world,  the different cultures and customs, and meeting up with many wonderful people and many other ocean voyagers, the most magically alive people on the face of the globe".

This is just how we felt as we sailed into the beautiful and spectacular Bay of Virgins in Fatu Hiva.  Little teeny bay with Marquesan children playing in the surf, a white church with a steeple (the steeple always placed and used as a navigation aid by the locals) fishermen coming and going and 7 other cruising boats.  All this is surrounded by towering volcanic cliffs rising straight from the sea with giant phallic lava pillars all around.  We were feeling all rosy about this when the night from hell began.  A young couple next to us was in the process of re-anchoring. Another boat was pulling up their anchor and leaving.  All the boats were extremely close to each other and tension was in the air.  Just as the young couple were doing, Barry  "dived the anchor" to check out the holding.  Our anchor was sitting upside down on top of rocks.  He swam around the anchorage looking for a good spot.  We pulled up the anchor, motored farther in, farther than anyone else, and reset the anchor in what Barry determined to be mud.  It is now getting dark and there is no seeing the anchor.  A few hours later we all went to bed.  During the night there was howling wind.  We kept sleeping.  Several hours later I hear a repeated urgent whistle (loud and strong like Noelle's).  I hear it again even more desperately.  I go outside, see another boat approaching us and think what in the world are those people doing getting so close to us.  My brain is asleep, Barry is sound asleep and I am totally disoriented.  I am getting more and more worried about the approaching boat.  When I feel the situation is very dangerous, I wake up Barry AND his brain and he quickly assesses that our anchor is dragging and we are being blown back into the boats behind.  He runs to the anchor windlass, I start the engine and motor forward out of  danger as he pulls up the anchor .  (You can't go motoring around other boats or anywhere with your anchor dangling down in the water ready to snag on someone else's anchor line or rocks or trees or whatever.)  I was still so disoriented in the dark, the dodger cover blocking my view out the window, cloudy, no star or moon light, strange place, that at one point I put the engine in reverse when forward was urgently needed.  I recovered with less than a hair's width to spare.  The most terrifying thing to me was how disfunctional my brain was!!  I thought of the poor people in the hospital who get sundowners.  Anchor down,  Barry went back to sleep and I stayed awake, totally traumatized, and figured out how to use the electronic chart program to set an alarm if we stray out of a set boundary.  After setting the boundary circle, I try to go to bed too.  The chart program (Rosepoint) keeps sounding an alarm but not because we are moving but because our friends' boat has not only an AIS receiver but a transmitter so that they show as an AIS target.  They are moving in the wind also so when they do (plus GPS reasons) the computer program tells you that an AIS target is approaching, beep beep, AIS target, beep beep, AIS approach, beep, beep, no sleep, beep beep , no sleep . . .  I never went back to sleep and at 5 Barry woke up and agreed to get out of there.  By 0540 we were sailing away from the terrible Bay of Penises.  Penis? I thought you said virgin.  Our books say that the bay was named the Baie of Verges  because of the obvious shape of the lava turrets surrounding the bay but that Catholic priests changed Verge (penis) to Vierge (virgin).  I think if you google you can find a photo and judge for yourself.  Oh, and the reason our anchor did not hold?  We think the mud was the consistency of  chocolate mousse.  Don't even tell us all the mistakes we made.  We already feel bad enough.

We had a fast sail back in good wind and now we are back in our old spot, recuperating and preparing for another island.  Upon returning we both snorkeled,  I with a Black-tipped Reef Shark- Don't worry, it was smaller than I am and whatever it is that they eat doesn't resemble humans.  I found no sea snakes nor sting rays.  After, I was taking a shower when we were approached by a speeding shore boat.  I leapt down below to grab a dress while Barry greeted the young couple from the catamaran in the next cove over .  They were totally comfortable coming to visit a naked lady bathing in her cockpit - my kind of people.  We had a nice chat in spite of the fact that they don't speak English and we don't speak French.  They are from Nice, France and I said lavender, they said Wauquiez (our boat is French) and we said oui and the rest was sign language and pointing.  It was great!  They showed us a nice fish that they had just caught.

Yesterday I realized that you can save yourself a lot of dirty dishes, heat from the oven, unhealthful ingredients and hassle if you just pour Trader Joe's cornbread mix straight on top of your soup instead of going to the work of cooking it!

June 9

Laundry Essential

We asked for news and the top item so far is that Click and Clack are quitting! That IS unsettling. Please send your news items to our yahoo address and Sheryl will forward.  Or send to her.

Oh, you were wondering if Barry outwitted Murphy?  Of course, he did.  And by trial and error he discovered that you can't put your Garmen GPS antenna next to your Simrad GPS antenna because the Simrad antenna interferes with the antenna for the Garmin GPS.  Fortunately, there was just enough slack in the Garmin wire to move that antenna a foot to the side and it now works nicely.  News to us, but Marilyn & Sam said, "Oh yeh!  Everyone knows that GPS antennas can't be next to each other."

Catharpin Blue (the name of Marilyn and Sam's boat) has an instrument which measures sea surface temperature and outside air temperature.  35 degrees Celcius both.  95f
How do you do laundry on a boat?  Bring Tide and Oxyclean, and a huge bucket and a brand new toilet plunger.  The most important item is a hand-crank wringer, which we temporarily mount in the cockpit .  The plunger is the agitator, the wringer is the spin cycle and the clothes line is the solar dryer. You know what hanging your laundry outside will bring, don't  you.  Rain.  This is only the 2nd good rain we've had in more than a month.  Unhook the entire clothesline from the shrouds, forestay and solar panel/bimini (with the clothes still attached) and mount inside the boat.  Adds to the décor.    

Today, Saturday, we are headed to Fatu Hiva to the S. We have waited for this moment - a break in the SE tradewinds. Last trip we tried unsuccessfully going to this beautiful island but beating SE into SE wind just beats up you and the boat. Today is perfect.

June 8, friends!

Fatu Hiva with its Bay of Penises

We thought we were alone here in our little cove but yesterday afternoon, voila, we saw un cheval on the crest of the hill and heard a rooster in the far distance.  Pardon my French! I don't have a French dictionary - how dumb is that?  Anyway, I learn the words on a CD but don't have a way to look them up.
Today was  laundry day.  Got everything all hung up on the clothes lines and were almost dry when - you know what's coming, don't you!  Rain.  The 2nd real rain we've seen in more than a month.


It's just too weird to have crossed an ocean all by ourselves, to have come to an extremely remote island in the middle of nowhere and end up next door neighbors to the person who introduced Barry and me back in 1963.


Tomorrow we leave here for the spectacular Fatu Hiva with its Bay of Penises. It is SE of  us and the wind is from the SE so not good.  Tomorrow early there should be very little wind so we'll have to motor but at least not get beat up getting there.  Just before sundown we saw the spires of the 50 mile away island of Ua Pou sticking straight up out of the water, - an amazing sight.  Tonight we also saw the lights of lobster fishermen on the shore.  We were sitting in our cockpit with Marilyn and Sam drinking the bottle of water(!) that they brought over, chatting and enjoying macadamia nuts, when the spires became visible for the first time since our arrival, the weather being just right.  After sundown, we all marveled at the Southern Cross and the Big Dipper at opposite ends of the star strewn sky. Polaris is no longer visible. A few days after Fatu Hiva, when the winds return to normal, we'll sail north to Ua Pou and Nuku Hiva.


We've had our rain now, thank you, so the next thing on our list is gazole which is French for gas oil which I think is imperial for diesel.


Position :  9 54.88' S, 139 06.56' W

June 7

June 7, 2012  The Transit of Venus was an almost 5 hour long marvel!  Barry's bino filters worked so well that we could see perfectly.  He finally got the idea to put the filter on the camera and he got some great photos.  Then we got out the iPad and the Nightsky app had Venus right on top of the sun.  We also used the iPad as a chart plotter when we neglected to properly install the So Pac chip in the $4000 chart plotter and its appurtenances.  So the iPad is off my **** list.  

Flopper stoppers

The iPad's view of the sky is stable now because Barry deployed a device to keep the boat from rocking called a flopper stopper.  A few other people use flopper stoppers, and the one we bought worked moderately well.  It consisted of a pair of hinged stainless steel plates that you hang over the side of the boat.  When the boat rolls to one side, the plates fold and sink.  When the boat roll to the other side, the plates open and dampen the roll back.  The problem is that nothing kept the boat from rolling on the other side and when the plates opened, the boat "jerked" when trying to roll the other way.  Barry decided that we needed one on each side, but we didn't have the space for a second one.  So he cut the one we had in half and now there is one on both sides.  Ingenious, he is.

I got up at 2 am (I go to bed at 8:30 and take long deep naps) and started cleaning and organizing the boat while it's cool and lovely.  Cleaning and organizing are real spirit lifters for us. While I cleaned Barry worked on the malfunctioning windspeed and wind direction instruments and one of the GPSs. He thought he had them all working but then their functioning became intermittent. He said Murphy was punishing him for his hubris in thinking he had fixed them all. As of this writing Murphy still has the upper hand. 

Midday we took the dinghy out for a snorkel.  Here's the critter report: sea snakes!!! We hear there are mantas to swim with also. I made Barry promise to take one excursion per day.  Someone said our baie is the most beautiful spot in the Marquesas.

Our friends, Marilyn & Sam, arrived from the Galapagos and will do the same as we are - fix the boat in this lovely setting.  In fact, that is one definition of cruising: fixing your boat in exotic places.  The other definition is: the art of going nowhere, very slowly, at great expense while feeling ill.  On the other hand, we are constantly amazed at what a well built boat we have.  She took us safely almost 3000 miles without a major failure and we are grateful indeed.

By the way, our Voice of America news only covers Asia so would you please send to our email what you consider to be newsworthy. Your emails to us are our only contact with the outside world. We have no internet, no Dish TV, no DVR, no regular radio, no newspaper nor magazines and we see only people who are in the same boat we are. Boden & Colby, please send news also.

Position :  9 54.88' S, 139 06.56' W

More on June 5, one month since departure

June 5, 2012  There is one thing I could never ever say in French,  "La grenouille est sur la feuille."  Speaking of French, don't tell anyone who has lived in France like Dan  & Brenda, Chantal or Mim but we bought a baguette, ate it with salmon and tomatoes (sooo good) and then finished eating  the baguette the next day.  We know we should have thrown the bread away after 12 hrs, like a proper French person, but we didn't want to walk in the heat back over the hill to town to buy another.

While in Atuona last week we met a family from Australia. They bought a catamaran, Cat Weasel, in the Caribbean a year ago and are sailing it home to Australia.  They had 2 boys ages 9 and 12.  I said, "What do you think of this sailing life?"  It's OK they said but it's much better to go to a real school instead of being home schooled on a boat.  The mother said she and the children all hate the schooling.  I've heard this many other times that the home schooling program that the sailors use is extremely difficult and tedious and time consuming.  I'd like to know what the children on Totem use because I don't hear bad reports from them.  Other than that the Cat Weasel children loved the sailing life.

It has been a month. We left on May 5.  During all that time Sunrise has only been salt free for about 15 min. once after the only downpour we've had.  Right after, whack, she was hit with waves that sent salt water completely over the top - we could see it flowing over the hatches.  That's the trouble.  The heavy rain goes hand in hand with big seas and beaucoup wind. I hate to be naggy but we could really use a nice downpour without damaging wind.  All we've had, save that one, is Ridgecrest type 2" rains with drops 2" apart.

BP 119/73 pulse 66. "Genetics loads the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger."

June 5, Transit of Venus

June 5, 2012 Today, we are watching the "Transit of Venus".  This occurs in pairs about every 130 years.  The pairs occur about 8 years apart.  Today is the second of this century's pair, the first occurring in June 2004.  Basically, it is the same as an eclipse.  We are looking at the sun's disc, with a small black spot on it which represents the dark  side of Venus.  We are watching with binoculars which have a "solar filter" taped over the front.  This filter is very, very  dark.  We cannot see anything except  the sun's orange disc through the binoculars.  There are also six small black sun spots visible besides Venus.  Since we are on a rocking boat, it is hard to acquire the sun in the field-of-view of the binoculars and keep it there.  In addition, the boat is constantly yawing in the wind.  Sitting in the cockpit, the sun frequently disappears behind the boom or solar panels over our head.  Watching would be easier on the beach of the bay we are anchored in, except for the fact that there is a little surf hitting the beach today.  The likelihood that we could make both a successful landing and subsequent departure from the beach in our dinghy while keeping the binoculars dry is not convincingly high.  Instead, it is a, "I don't think so".

Why are we interested in this?  Well, history for one, and also our joint interest in astronomy.  One of the prime scientific assignments on one of Captain Cook's four incredible voyages was to view a transit of Venus in Tahiti.  For that transit, astronomical teams were sent to a number of locations around the world.  The plan was to take precisely timed measurements of when Venus just started to obscure the edge of the sun and was first entirely within the sun's disc, and similarly when exiting the sun's disc.  Analysis of the data would provide astronomers with a measurement of the distance of the sun from Earth.  Realize that at a number of locations, it was cloudy at least part of the time and also that clocks were not very good during that era.  This was before Harrison built the first successful chronometer.  The transit data would be used in conjunction with other astronomical observations to calculate books of tables that mariners could use to calculate their longitude in the world.  

Point Venus, Tahiti....
I think they chose wisely to skip it.

When we sailed across the South Pacific in 2000, we anchored next to Point Venus when we were at Tahiti.  Point Venus is where Cook's team made their measurements.  There is a large monument commemorating the event.  We considered being there today in our planning earlier this year, but decided to spend the bulk of our allowed 90 days in French Polynesia  in the Tuamotu atolls and not go to Tahiti at all if we could avoid it.  Why only 90 days?  Because after 9/11, the USA limited tourist visas to only 90 days.  The rest of the world responded tit-for-tat.  Same reason US citizens now pay for expensive  foreign visas that used to be free.  So, if we have whetted your appetite to personally view the next two transits of Venus,  they will occur on 11 December 2117 and 8 December 2125.  Mark your calendars!  We plan to be there.  Hope to see you there, too.

June 4

June 4, 2012  Big day astronomically speaking. Full moon, lunar eclipse (which we missed because of brain inadequacies) and preparing for the transit of Venus across the sun.  We'll give you a report on that event tomorrow.  Our last neighbor (next cove over) left today.  Hurray!  We think the whole pack has moved on.  Barry thinks the boats come in waves depending on the weather window leaving Panama and the Galapagos.  We met 2 other boats who came from CA - from Half Moon Bay - 33 days, the other from SF via Catalina -21 days from Catalina. (We were 23 days...This comparing is a cruisers' thing.)  Everyone we have met so far has been friendly and helpful (well, the petrol station woman not so much).  This afternoon I am going to do the chart plotter tutorial while Barry works on his electricity.  I went for a snorkel at noon - lovely fish, warm clear water and good exercise because I had to swim quite a ways from the boat.  Barry gets his exercise changing zincs and cleaning the bits of the boat that got growth which takes a lot of exertion even though 90% of the bottom stayed clean.

Flying Squid

If you want to know about flying squid, Patti sent this link. Flying Squid

About sea birds

We have a great advantage identifying the birds because we can photograph them with the long lens and compare the photo to the book.  Even so, the petrels are usually far away and impossible for us to identify.

Leo & Angie wanted to know about the habits of the birds we saw and here is my answer:
I wondered the same thing about the birds. I did a brief look at my books as we were sailing & they nest on N Hawaiian and tropical Pacific Islands then spend months at sea feeding. I think the albatross don't land but we saw the boobies and shearwaters dive & also rest on the water. I think they fly back and forth to their nesting island each year and the rest of the time they are just out looking for fish. I use Pratt's "The Birds of Hawaii and the Tropical Pacific" and Harrison's "Seabirds of the World". When you find out would you let us know, please?

I started reading Buckley's engrossing book but it will have to wait; I have too many books to read for essential learning - like what birds do all day, how do squid get on deck, where are we going and how do we get there. Next I am going to read a book about alternators so that I will have something to say when Barry talks to me about them.

I have a bigger bird book w more info: Seabirds An Identification Guide by same Peter Harrison. It says of the Order Procellariiformes (albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters, storm-petrels, diving-petrels): most return to land only to breed, and are thus seabirds in the true pelagic sense. Of most: Pelagic distribution poorly known.  Of albatrosses: Both birds incubate and feed the chick, on a rich oily substance regurgitated from the stomach. The ability of the parents to convert food and store it in this way, without fear of deterioration, is a tremendous advantage and gives them an immense foraging range. Some parent birds have been found 3200 km from  their chicks, who can take up to 4 lb of regurgitated oil in one sitting.

We have a great advantage identifying the birds because we can photograph them with the long lens and compare the photo to the book.  Even so, the petrels are usually far away and impossible for us to identify.

June 3

We would like a downpour to wash all the salt off our boat and do some wash.  No howling winds with it please.

Bird reports and free advice

Bird report for Atuona & harbor June 1: 30 Fairy-terns (White Terns), 80 Black Noddies and 20 Great Frigate Birds & 15 dark morph Pacific Reef Herons. In town, 1 Myna, 11 Rock Dove (Pigeons), innumerable Zebra Dove.

Bird, etc report, Ivaiva Iti, June 2, 2012: Brown Booby, Reef Herons, giant ray (4 feet across, 7 feet nose to tail), millions of tiny jelly fish, school of silvery fish, school of black fish.  2 or 3 wasps. A few NoNos (sand flies that bite bad, look like fruit flies).

Free advice:
1)    If you find squid on your deck, do not put in your freezer for future bait. It might go in a part of your freezer that does not freeze solidly  and your freezer will soon smell - awful.
2)    If you need a ground for your Iridium antenna, put the hockey puck antenna with the magnet on your oven tray and take it outside away from your mast.  The oven is about the only magnetic metal on the boat, all other manufacturers going to great lengths to make their boat equipment non magnetic so that it won't interfere with compasses on the boat.
3)    If it is 90 F inside, get your hair wet, spray yourself with water and sit under 2 fans. Wait for the sun to sink lower in the sky.  Use the heat of the day to nap and work at night.
4)  If you want to stay bug-bite free for the rest of your entire life, stay married to me. I spoke too soon. Nonos are biting me as I am the decoy, totally avoiding Barry. It is like this with every bug in the entire world; even the leeches liked me better than Barry.
5)  Forget about using your iPad to identify stars and planets (even the moon!) using the Night Sky app. As the boat rocks the view of the sky on the iPad rocks and you can't read anything. Last night I finally figured out that was Saturn next to the moon but the other bright star I couldn't read.


Position :  9 54.88' S, 139 06.56' W

May 30

30 May 2012  First thing in the morning, I change the oil in our diesel engine.  We are trying to do the most ecologically sound thing.  Our agent told us to put the used oil in the trash and it would be burned at the dump.  We had no idea what would happen to trash at the smaller villages we will be visiting later.  We leave SUNRISE at 0745 to be at the Mobil station when it opens at 0800 to get the first 10 gallons of diesel.  SUNRISE has used up a lot of fuel motoring part of the way from California and running the engine to charge batteries and running the compressor for the frig and freezer.  Lynne wants to get dropped off at the dinghy dock and she will carry the two empty diesel jugs to the Mobil station.  On the way to the station, Lynne drops the gallon jug of used oil in the trash can by the dinghy dock.  I take the dinghy past the station to the launch ramp, get out and pull the dinghy up onto the ramp.  While walking back to the Mobil station, VOILA!  There is a big tank for collecting used oil.  Too late now.  While we wait, we use the limited amount of French that we know trying to figure out which pump to use - the vert (green) pump dispensing "SANS PLOMB" (lead-free) or the jaune (yellow) pump dispensing "GAZOLE".  Eventually, we figure out they call diesel fuel "gazole".  The station eventually opens at 9:10.  That is when we find out that they have no gazole.  "Maybe when the next supply ship comes at the end of the week."  DOUBLE DANG!!  That is when we find out that the supply ship in the harbor when we arrived two days ago would have sold us a minimum of 50 gallons directly from the ship.  That would have filled our tanks to the top.  No ferrying two 5-gallon jugs from SUNRISE to the Mobil station and back in the dinghy and pouring the fuel from the jugs into our filler ports.  Repeat five times, assuming that they had gazole and would sell us 50 gallons.  DANG, DANG, DANG, DANG, DANG.  We  return to SUNRISE at 0945 with no gazole.

We spend the rest of the morning finishing our chores, get the dinghy on deck, and prepare SUNRISE for sea.  Man, do we miss the "dry heat" we are used to in Ridgecrest.  Here, we use up a lot of paper towels wiping up the perspiration dripping off us.  It is hard to drink enough water to pee several times a day.  On the other hand, we don't have any problems with dry, cracking, lizard skin anymore.  No need for hand cream here!
We are now in "fuel conservation" mode.  We give up on going to Fatu Hiva.  There are a number of volcanic plugs surrounding a bay there and it is supposed to be spectacular.  The locals originally called it the Bay of Penises.  When the Roman Catholic priests first arrived, they did not like that name and changed a letter or two in the French word, turning it into the "Bay of Virgins".  Instead, we decide to go to Tahuata, the next island close-by to the south.  The guide book says that the wind howls through the channel between Tahuata and Hiva Oa.  We head out with a double-reefed mainsail and no headsail.  In the channel, we never see more than 14 knots, eventually shaking out one reef and having a leisurely sail to the west side of Tahuata to be in the lee of that island.  This was the light-wind day to beat upwind back to Fatu Hiva.  (The simplest thing would be to go to Fatu Hiva first and then the other islands down wind of Fatu Hiva.  The problem is that Fatu Hava is not a "Port of Entry", so you are not allowed to go there first.)

At Tahuata, the first two coves are packed with boats, so we drop anchor in the third cove and are by ourselves.  No herd instinct on this boat.  In contrast to Atuona, the water is pretty clear here.  I get out my swim suit and snorkeling gear and swim over the anchor to see how well it is set.  Looks pretty good.  The bottom of SUNRISE has remarkably little growth.  I will scrub off what is there tomorrow and replace some zinc anodes that are nearly used up.  No longer being confined in a small bay surrounded by mountains and tightly packed with other boats, we now lie on just a bow anchor.  SUNRISE can point into the refreshing breeze and the inside of the boat cools off nicely.  About time!  Life is good.

May 29

Tuesday, 29 May 2012  Roosters! I almost forgot.  Lucky we learned to sleep through rooster-crowing in Penryn.  They are really big into free range chickens in French Polynesia.

L's blood pressure this morning: 120 over 76.  Pulse 67.  A result of eating Sientje's salt free healthy food, lots of exercise trying to stay upright on the boat and B being an angel.  I quit my child's dose of lisinopril 2 weeks ago.  So far we are bug-bite free.  All in all, all is well.

We wait around in the boat this morning waiting to hear from our agent by email about going to the gendarmerie to check in.  Eventually, Barry pulls out the file about our agent.  We are supposed to contact her on Channel 11 on the VHF radio.  Our VHF has been set on the US hailing Channel, 14.  So I hail her on the radio and VOILA, she responds.  We agree on a time to meet at the dinghy dock to go check in.  With a little surge in the water, Lynne has a hard time climbing out of the dinghy onto the concrete dock and pulls a flank muscle and scrapes her shin.  Not a good start.  We have a large trash bag full of all the plastic that we cannot toss overboard at sea.  We also have a smaller plastic bag full of some shopping bags, a water bottle and we cannot remember what else.  Both bags end up in the trash truck.  Our agent drives us to the gendarmerie.  In 2000, we had to walk the mile and a half up hill to get there  We quickly check in, as the agent goes to the head of the line.  Then we go shopping for produce.  The farmers market has one vendor and we score some nice tomatoes, a tiny pineapple and a papaya.  Then, to the first magasin (store).  We get some bananas.  After 3 more magasins, we have scored some carrots and a baguette.  There were potatoes in two of the magasins but they looked pretty dodgy.  So no potato salad will be made, even though one magasin has celery from Oxnard.  Can you believe it!  We get a taxi back to the harbor.  We are very, very thirsty by now.  We can hardly recognize Atuona from our visit in 2000.  There must be 20 times more cars and trucks this year and many more houses dotting the hillsides.  There is a covered, open-sided warehouse at the wharf filled with bags of cement for more construction.  There is the taxi service now.  There is a Mobil station by the wharf.  They must have run out of fuel before the supply ship came yesterday, since there are about 40 vehicles lined up to get gas and diesel in the morning.  Atuona has hit the big time!

Our agent reluctantly agrees to fax our paperwork to Papeete this afternoon so that we can get our copy back by the end of the working day.  One of the papers will allow us to get duty-free fuel.  We get the papers about 4:30 PM.  At that time, our agent informs us that the local Mobil station does not sell duty-free fuel after all.  DANG!  That was one of our incentives to employ the agent.  By now, we have discovered that the Mobil station had already closed for the day at noon.

May 28

Monday, 28 May 2012  Dawn is the beginning of a glorious day.  There are five major islands visible.  From right to left, Fatu Uku, Hiva Oa, Tahuata, Mohotani and Fatu Hiva.  The first and last are just barely visible through the marine aerosol haze.  We spend most of the morning approaching and then passing along side Hiva Oa, as the anchorage is near the west end of the south side.  A pod of dolphins becomes the welcoming party to Hiva Oa.  They cavort on the bow of SUNRISE for about 10 minutes.

Nearing the anchorage, I start to de-rig the boat.  I remove the preventers on both sides.  These lines go from the cockpit to blocks near the bow of the boat and back to the end of the boom.  They hold the boom out and forward, preventing unintended gybes (the boom swing across to the other side) and stabilize the boom to minimize chafing of the sail on the shrouds and spreaders.  Having the preventers go back to the cockpit allows me to tension or slacken the one being used from the cockpit so I can change the trim of the mainsail, or gybe to drastically change course..  I remove the foreguy and afterguy, lines used to locate the outboard end of the whisker pole that is sometimes used to hold the aft end of the headsail out away from the boat.  I remove the 4:1 tackle in the cockpit used to tension the so-called "runner", a check stay that pulls the mast backwards at the upper spreader, counteracting the inner forestay pulling it forward.  Between the two, they stabilize that part of the mast, keeping it from "pumping", wobbling fore and aft.  There is a runner on each side.  You only use one at a time, the one on the side opposite the side that the boom is over.  The bottom end of each runner is connected to a loop of small diameter line going between the cockpit and the base of the shrouds.  The loop allows me to deploy or retract the runners without leaving the cockpit.  I have to go to the mast to reef or un-reef the mainsail.  When I do that, Lynne is in the cockpit tensioning or un-tensioning the mainsheet and vang that control the location and height of the boom.  Some modern boats have been designed so that "slab" reefing can be done from the cockpit.  However, our boat wasn't.  We looked at implementing cockpit reefing and decided that it was not good for SUNRISE.  Many modern boats have a spindle in the mast or boom on which the mainsail is rolled up.  This makes it easy to change the amount of sail being utilized.  As with many things is life, "There is no free lunch".  Roller-reefing mainsails have some drawbacks, including being more expensive, and a lot more expensive for "conversions".  From Lynne: Sunrise would not like sails that slow her down like in-mast roller furling ones.  This trip Barry has resisted the temptation to go on deck in bad weather and he almost always listens when I suggest preventative reefing.  We are now older and wiser so our sails are fine.

Time to put on clothes and drop the mainsail.  As we tuck into the small tight bay, we have returned to civilization.  The supply ship is in port and there are 31 cruising sailboats packed like sardines in the small bay, all with a bow and stern anchor out to keep from banging into each other.  The only spot left is at the shallow end.  Fortunately, SUNRISE has a shallow draft.  There is only one catamaran behind us.  We get the dinghy in the water and start getting ready to meet with our "agent" and the authorities.  Another cruising couple come over in their dinghy and gives us the bad news - it is a holiday.  Check-in will have to wait for tomorrow and we are stuck on the boat for the rest of the day.

May 27

Sunday, 27 May 2012  Less than 24 hours to go! We will be just short of 3000 nautical miles by the time we reach Hiva Oa and I think maybe 7000 by the time we get to New Zealand.  There is a beautiful hotel on the island with WiFi and gourmet restaurant and AC and showers and baths and soap and clean sheets and a swimming pool and someone to wait on me and it doesn't try to fling you out of the bed and…

Tonight is the last night on this passage.  There are just a few small clouds, the waxing moon is almost at quarter and the sea sparkles in the moonlight.  The brighter stars cover the sky on this most beautiful evening.  The Big Dipper points to a spot on the horizon that is due north and behind us.  On land, I do not pay a lot of attention to the night sky unless something special is supposed to occur.  Out here, I climb out into the cockpit about every 10 minutes to check for lights from any smaller vessel that does not show up on the radar screen.  I often stand there a while cooling off and enjoying the motion of SUNRISE plowing through the water at 7 knots, a rapid clip for sail boats of our size and vintage.  The wind speed goes up a bit and down a bit, but the direction has been so constant the last few days that I rarely touch the self-steering system, and then, just a slight tweak.  We have been reaching for Hiva Oa for days and SUNRISE just wants to stay on the rhumb line.  No steering issues, few sail handling issues, few squalls, no major boat issues.  As Huel Howser likes to say, "It doesn't get any better than this!"

If you believe that the islands are where they are on the charts, at least roughly, and that the incredibly wonderful Global Positioning System and the receivers work as advertised, before dawn the radar screen should show a blip up ahead to our right.  An hour before midnight, I go to the cockpit to checkout the situation, as the wind has veered and we are headed too far west.  Thirty degrees off the starboard bow, there is a bright orange light under a cloud significantly above the horizon.  I watch and realize that there is fire on the mountain of Ua Huka, an island to the north and west of Hiva Oa, and 80 miles away.  This is one tall island.  A minute later, the flare up has died out and nothing is visible in the dark, now moonless sky.

May 26

Saturday, 26 May 2012.  Just another day, rolling along in an empty ocean.  Of other boats and ships, that is.  We are seeing a few birds and flying fish, as usual.  Wind speed is in the mid-teens on the beam as we draw closer to Hiva Oa.  Two hundred and fifty miles to go.  At the rate we are going, we arrive midday on Monday, maybe earlier.  Good timing!

We have a Crew Overboard Pole on SUNRISE.  It is about 14 feet long, weighted on one end with a float about 3 feet up.  The other end has a flag on it.  The bottom end sits in a PVC pipe lashed to the stern railing.  If someone goes overboard, the first thing to be done is to pull the pole up out of its mount and toss it overboard.  The pole pulls a floating strobe light off the transom and a sea anchor stowed in a bag tied to the boat.  There is a tubular cloth cover for the flag tied to the boat.  In the seas out here, it would be very difficult to spot a head bobbing in the water 200 feet from the boat.  A flag 10 feet above the water, or a strobe at night, can be spotted a lot farther away.  This morning, I go into the cockpit after getting up.  I notice the flag cover is dragging in the water behind SUNRISE.  I look at the pole.  The bottom half is sitting in its mount.  The top half has broken off and gone to Davey Jones locker.  I guess I will just have to make sure that I stay onboard.

This evening, as sundown neared, the western sky was ablaze with color and the clouds were above the horizon.  Lynne says, "Might be a Green Flash night".  We try to remember to check every night.  The setting sun is orange in color because all the blue and violet is been scattered out to the side while the sunlight is passing through many, many miles of atmosphere.  That is why the sky looks blue in the daytime.  If not for that scattering, the daytime sky would be black.  You only get these many miles at sea or over a very, very flat terrestrial horizon.  From a high mountain top or airplane looking over a flat horizon, you get double the effect.  When the last sliver of orange sun still appears to be above the horizon, the sun has actually already set.  The sun's light is refracted in the atmosphere because of the air pressure gradient and bends around the surface of the earth slightly.  Shorter wavelengths refract more, so those colors are the last to disappear at sundown.  Since the green is the shortest wavelength still being weakly transmitted through the atmosphere, there will at least be a thin layer of green and yellow above the orange.  So when the last of the orange sun has set, the yellow and green is still there for an instant.  We get the camera and long focal length lens out and ready.  As the last of the sun starts to slip below the horizon, I start recording images.  If there was a green flash, it was hard to tell.  For a "good" green flash, you need a strong inversion layer.  Lynne downloads the images on the computer.  The bad ones are deleted and I blow up the good ones.  When you get down to the pixel level, you can only see a thin band of yellow-green above the orange.  Alas, tonight, there is no inversion layer.  Hence, no bright "Green Flash".  The same thing also happens in the morning, although rarely seen.  It is easy to tell when to look with the setting sun.  It is harder to tell when to start looking several seconds before the first bit of the sun rises in the morning.  But I did see a great "Green Flash" in the morning on a previous voyage and am proud to have seen it.  Years ago on the island Bon Aire, I looked at the setting sun with a 40-power spotting scope Lynne had brought along for bird watching.  With almost all of the aperture covered to prevent my eyeball from being burned, I watched the sun start to set.  There were multiple inversion layers that evening and the sun's rim looked very jagged.  With that much magnification, I could barely see a tinge of blue above the green above the yellow above the orange at each one of the jagged points on the sun's disk.  Unforgettable.  God's creation is awesome to behold, especially when you know when and how to look.  Last night, as the moon set, the horizon was cloud free.  I got out a pair of binoculars to see if I could see a green flash as the moon set.  With the boat rolling so much, I could not keep the moon in the field-of-view.  So looking for a green flash from the moon will have to wait for another time, when I am not on a passage.  OK, folks, that's your physics lesson for today.

While Barry sleeps we have a rain squall.  Squalls produce gusty winds and churning seas which means Sunrise is buffeted about.  Fortunately, we are both to the point where we can sleep through that kind of being tossed about and all kinds of noises. I suppose if we heard leaves rustling in the wind, it would startle us awake.  After the squall passes (or we pass it) is when we have seen the most birds - 30 at one time. We continue to see birds almost every day.

Now that we are on the south side of the equator the weather EGCs on the Inmarsat come from Fiji and New Zealand rather than the US.  That is a milestone signifying that we have made it to the South Pacific.

One of the most beloved pieces of equipment on this boat are the fans.  It is always pleasantly cool in the cockpit with the breezes.  Below, we would be miserable without our 7 Hella fans.  As a result of poor pre-departure planning, we neglected to get the cowls for our two small dorades conveniently stored from their normal storage location.  We did not need them in Oxnard.  For now, they are still buried under the strapped down ice chest under the port settee.  We will need to be at anchor before we dig them out.

I have not felt fear or anxiety for this entire trip.  But now that we are approaching the day when we may have to tie up to a rough concrete dock to get fuel, when we will have to put out  fore and aft anchors in a crowded rolly anchorage and when we will have to keep from toppling over when we step on stable land,  I can feel the anxiety starting.  Sunrise is not happy about this either.  She loves the wind and going fast in the vast open spaces - it is for that life that she was created.  In a confined harbor, she is kind of clumsy and out of place.  She is a strong, safe, fast and beautiful boat but not agile in tight quarters like those coastal/marina type boats.  She hated it when we were stuck in that windless little high (as we left CA) and she let us know it.  She moaned and groaned and flogged and flopped and banged us around.  So now that we are almost in the Marquesas, we promised her that we would move out of that tight anchorage in Atuona ASAP after checking in with customs and immigration and getting re-fueled.  We will go to another island where she can be free and feel the wind and we can give her some well deserved TLC.  Sunrise would also like you to know how much she loves Simon Willis of Kerikeri, NZ, and the sails he made for her.  Simon is a great sail maker and racing sailor and all around fine Kiwi.

Toilet: counterclockwise! Sorry but I read that the characteristics of the particular toilet bowl, the way the water enters and exits has more influence than Coriolis.

Radar: quelque chose - a ship 6 miles away.  Thank you, Chantal and Brenda.  My French lessons say paquebot for ship but we think that is a cruise ship.  What about a container ship or cargo ship?