September 9 - 10, 2012 Going to Niue

We are having a great ride even though the wind is 20-25 k.  That is because Barry is a really good sailor/physicist.  I wonder if the lady with the husband with a short snubber is having a good sail.

Those of you who know Barry well: If he says he is setting about fixing his whisker pole, do you think it is fixed?  We have not put it to the test but it looks like new to me.  From Barry:  After cleaning up the diesel under the table, I decided that it was not continuing to dribble down there.  So after putting everything back under the floor and on top of the floor, I took everything off the settee cushion, and the cushion, to look at the top of the fuel tank.  No signs of a leak.  Wherever it is, it probably only leaks if the tank is full.  Now that we are back at sea again, with the fuel sloshing around in the tank, we may have some more leak out.  We will see.

Here's the news from Radio Australia: the Prime Minister's father died.  Japan and Korea are having a territorial dispute. Australia has negotiated favorable foreign trade agreements with I think Russia.  There were earthquakes in China and troubles in Iran or Iraq, I forget which. That's it!  That is the only news we know!!  Please send news.

Remember that diesel leak that we sucked up with the vacuum cleaner?  We found the source.  Now it leaks more so we have avoided using that tank but we'll need to use it for enough fuel to motor some on the trip to NZ.  This leak in the aft tank is not to be confused with the leak in the forward tank.

Sept 10 From Barry: I just fixed the 2 non-functioning alternators.  The V-belt on the smaller 70 amp alternator had worn to the point that the belt was riding on the bottom of the sheave instead of the sides.  When it wore to the point of being just a bit loose, it could no longer provide the driving power.  The kluge regulator for the larger 100 amp alternator overheated and the waxy potting compound was melting and dripping off.  It was replaced with another kluge regulator.  The third regulator for this cruising season.  What a relief.  The lack of alternators wouldn't have been so bad but it is a dark and stormy day which means no solar power either.  Now we can go back to keeping the radar on, the frig and freezer cold, using the computer, using Sailmail with the SSB, washing  hair and taking a bath (which uses power making the water) and listening to music, The King's Speech, and trying, mostly in vain, to find news on the radio.  And we can charge the iPad and iPod.

If we kept going 7-8 knots we would arrive at Niue in the middle of the night.  So now that the wind is down to 15 knots we have not shaken out the 2 reefs in the main and we left 1 and a half reefs in the genoa and still we are going 5.5 knots.  We expect less wind Tues-Wed. None of us - Barry, Sunrise nor I like sailing more slowly than we could be, but, hopefully, our strategy will get us there mid morning on Wednesday - just right.

September 8, 2012 Suvarov or Suwarrow

Sept 8 With mixed feelings we left Suvarov exactly at high tide with me steering.  It was gnarly on the windward side of Suvarov but the pass was smooth enough.  I call it Suvarov because a Russian found it in 1814 and named it after his ship.  The Cook Islanders want a Polynesian sounding name so they changed Suvarov to Suwarrow.  Now if Suwarrow was its original name I would call it Suwarrow but really the first name it had is Suvarov, as far as anyone knows, so I'm calling it Suvarov.  The mixed feelings come from sadness at leaving the amazing beauty, birdlife, clear water and thriving coral reefs mixed with relief from leaving a cruising style that many cruisers love but we avoid.  There were too many boats (30 at one time), too close together, too much partying and too many rules for our tastes.  The rules came, as most rules do, from people damaging this Eden.  We had to be accompanied by a ranger when we visited any motu but the main one.  That meant we went in groups.  All the anchoring was confined to one small area so that other areas would remain undisturbed.  We are happy to be free of all that.  We'll miss the wonderful people we met.  By the way, I have a Lonely Planet Guide to the Cook Islands and it lists the population of Suvarov as 2. That is an exaggeration because from Dec through April there is no one there.

This is the first passage we have made in the company of another boat, Aquamante, maybe Italian.  53' long and going 8.5 knots compared to our 38' going 7 knots.  The speed a boat goes rises as the length increases (as long as the boat doesn't get too fat).  10 boats left the last 2 days, half going to Tonga and half to Samoa except for us and Aquamante going to Niue.  Aquamante has a AIS transceiver which means we know its name, type of vessel, SOG (speed over ground), bearing and distance from us.  Pretty cool.

We enjoyed getting to know Ants.  He said he was chosen for the job mainly because of his ability to live off the land and sea in isolation.  In his home town of Whakatane, New Zealand, he spends half his time in the bush hunting.  They wanted someone who could get their own food and water, make a fire, put out fires, live outside and deal with the natural environment.  I thought you would have to be a good people person but he said, no, these other things were what counted.  He and Harry, the head ranger, "have their differences".  Ants likes to keep more meticulous records.  Ants likes to eat at the cruiser potlucks but Harry likes to cook his own food and go to bed early.  Ants likes grass and Harry "cleans it up".  They have resolved that issue by Ants and Harry dividing the property.  Ants has a plot with grass and flowers  and Harry has a clean bare plot.  I'll tell you one thing, Ants is no good at his birds.  He kept calling the Masked Booby a Northern Gannet (which they have in New Zealand).  I think he just couldn't believe there is a bird name booby.

I think our closest neighbors in the anchorage were not so happy as we are.  They had a lot of trouble with their anchor getting wrapped around coral and were often out in the howling wind hanging over the bow of the boat trying to deal with the chain.  I said we weren't having trouble and she said, "That's because you have a really long snubber."  She was right.  Barry had commented about what a short snubber line they had out.  One thing about Barry, he has a long snubber.  That, and 3 bouys which kept the chain suspended over (rather than snarled in) the coral heads.  I can't explain a snubber without drawing a picture, so you will just have to google it.

Snubber line, found on Google images for you

September 4-6, Suwarrow Birthday cake, Lazarus and diesel

Sept 4  We have been staying on the boat most of the time doing maintenance projects and financial office work, as the wind speed is still a bit high for going anywhere.  Every time it drops some, we talk about going somewhere.  Then before we get going, the wind is back up and we sit tight.  There was a cruiser potluck on the beach this evening and the wind moderated enough to get a large turnout.  Since one of the ladies was celebrating her birthday, Lynne baked a birthday cake, complete with candles. It was the 4th cake at the potluck but every crumb of every cake was devoured.  We'll blame it on the children.  It was an international celebration with people from Poland, Germany, Norway, France, Holland, Brazil, Sweden, Spain, Great Britain, Australia, Canada and the USA.  All this diversity is held together by the love of the sea and the cruising life.  There are 26 boats here now - the record.  There are many children in our fleet and cruisers of all ages.

Sept 5  We were scheduled to go on an outing to the Seven Sisters motus this morning.  Since the ranger's skiff was full, we would be tagging along in our dinghy.  Well, the wind speed was higher than we anticipated it would be and we forecast a wet and bumpy ride.  So we cancelled.  After lunch, the wind was down and we went a short distance away in the dinghy to a cleaning station for the manta rays.  A cleaning station is a place where the big rays come to have the parasites and other growth removed by small fish.  It works because the small fish get to eat and don't get eaten.  We tied up the dinghy to a mooring and jumped in to snorkel around and look for the mantas.  The water was about 30 feet deep, so looking at fish, coral and other critters was not so good.  Eventually, we were about to leave and go to snorkel in shallower water.  Just then, some other snorkelers spotted some mantas.  The one that I saw had a wingspan of about 6 feet, was all black on top with a white belly having a few black blotches on it.  The cephalic fins on either side of the mouth were silver and were tightly curled backwards, opposite to the direction they are usually curved when feeding.  I was able to get quite close without spooking the manta.  A magical moment, for sure.  Lynne swam over 2 mantas watching the graceful dance below and Falcon and Mike actually physically danced with them. The day ended with a perfect massage for Lynne from another cruiser who is a massage therapist.  I continued working on the mangled whisker pole, cutting off more of the bent tube, hammering on the end of the tube trying to get an oval tube round again and disassembling more of the pole to allow the re-assembly sequence to proceed.  The stumbling block now is an internal sheave that was demolished.  It was weakly made and nowhere near being able to withstand the loads that we put on it flying the whole sail in higher wind speeds.  We have a lot of extra blocks on the boat but none with a sheave mounted on a pin of the correct size that is suitable for this task.  If this whisker pole becomes usable again, even in a shortened form (about 5 feet have been lost due to the fold), its name will be Lazarus.

Sept 6  The ranger, Ants, took us and 8 other cruisers on another snorkeling excursion today to a reef inside the opposite side of the lagoon called Perfect Reef.  We caught several fish trolling to Perfect Reef.  Falcon was with us.  He was conceived, born, raised on a boat and lived all but three of his  24 years cruising.  When we got to Perfect Reef, he went off with his snorkeling gear trolling a lure on a hand line.  Caught himself another fish.  He calls it extreme fishing and was keen to teach his technique to the rest of us.  For a long time all of us including Ants were out of the boat snorkeling in the incredibly clear Suwarrow water with its incredibly healthy coral.  The finds included box fish, octopus, a newly seen puffy pink starfish and many new kinds of coral.  The boat was tied to a mooring buoy anchored to a coral head.  Lynne and I were the first ones out, later joined by two more cruisers and Ants.  After a while, it became apparent that we were no longer in the same place, but were moving across the reef and out into the lagoon.  The mooring line had chafed through.  Since we were in the skiff, no problem.  There were several other cruisers nearby, having come in their own dinghies.  A nice backup today.  But had the skiff departed with the wind, it would have been a long 4-mile swim back  to the anchorage.  On the way back, we made a number of detours past other reefs and around and in and out Suwarrow's pass  trying to catch more fish.  We caught several more nice fish trolling the hand lines.  Only a barracuda was a throwback, the others destined to be cooked for dinner that evening.  All-in-all, another long and fun day  on the water with lots of time to hear the stories of other cruisers all of whom were younger than we are and some much much younger!

Later in the afternoon, I emptied out all of the stuff stored on the floor under the table to get at a box of metal stored under the floor.  Along with the items stored under the floor was a puddle of diesel.  So, besides cleaning the diesel off the floor and all the items stored there, I have a leak to look for, probably in the fuel tank next to the puddle.  Always something to keep me busy.

There are now 29 boats here.

September 3, 2012 Up all night to ensure safe anchoring

Sept 3 News around the Suwarrow neighborhood:
Ants says this is the worst wind he has seen in the 6 months he has been here.  There are 24 boats in the anchorage now, the most Ants has seen since he's been here.  The other boats are on the VHF radio discussing with each other the weather forecasts, how there is too much wind to chance getting the dinghy off the deck and into the water for fear it will take flight and how no one is going anywhere and how they were up all night worrying about the anchor dragging, getting snagged in coral or someone else's boat dragging into theirs.  We were up all night the first night but now we sleep well because the alarm is working well and our anchor hasn't moved an inch.  Barry feels sorry for the birds trying to fly in this wind.  2 people have been injured and called for a doctor and found there are 6 doctors in our fleet of 24 boats.  Amazing!  We wonder what the social dynamics are that put doctors on boats.  So, bottom line, we are in Eden but stuck on the boat for the time being and if we need a doctor we're in the right neighborhood.

September 2, Hunkered down, doing maintenance and paperwork

2 September 2012  from Barry:  It is blowing like stink today!  The wind has shifted to the South-southeast.  Cooler, sub-tropical air.  We are no longer in the lee of Anchorage Island, the motu to the east of us.  Hence, the fetch of the wind chop hitting Sunrise is developing all the way across from the other side of the lagoon about 5 miles away.  At least the reef on the other side of the atoll blocks the ocean swells, which must be pretty significant in this wind.  Directly behind us about 200 yards is the reef on the north side of the atoll.  So our back is toward the wall, so to speak.  We would prefer to be anchored on the other side of the atoll, but the rules say this is the only place we can anchor.  Our anchor is in 70 feet of water, but with 200 feet of chain out, Sunrise is over 100 feet of water.  That means that the anchor is being pulled up by the boat but has to hold on to a bottom going down hill.  If the anchor drags, we will be on the reef behind us within a minute or two.  We are in a tenuous position and are paying a lot of attention to our situation.  If all goes well, will have more days to explorer this fabled place.  If disaster strikes, everyone will  say that we should have left Suwarrow as soon as the wind direction and speed made things dangerous.  It's a gamble!  We will probably never get another chance to be at Suwarrow.  Last night, as the wind varied in speed and direction, Sunrise moved forward and back as the curve of the chain straightened and sagged, and also moved from side to side.  Since the bottom is uneven, the depth of the water under the boat kept changing.  Hence, the alarm on our depth sounder went off repeatedly.  We also have a boundary circle set around the boat's GPS position on our computer's chart program.    Set at a 100 foot radius, that alarm also went off repeatedly.  After I set the boundary radius at 200 feet, that alarm was much less active, but would have been slower to respond if our anchor dragged.  I must have gotten out bed 10 times to silence the alarms and check our position.  Therefore, a very short night!  The couple on our closest neighbor boat have been at the bow of their boat repeatedly all day.  They say that their anchor chain is wrapped around a coral head sticking up from the bottom.  How that will resolve itself remains to be seen.  We could be wrapped also.  We may not find out until we try to pull up the anchor to leave.  We have gotten snagged before and have always managed to get free relatively easily.  Even with the clear water, it is probably too deep to see the bottom while snorkeling on the surface.  Sometimes, I can free dive deep enough to see the situation on the bottom.  We have one SCUBA tank that we carry just for such an emergency.  So today, we are hunkered down, doing maintenance and paperwork.

We are under a stationary front and it is cloudy.  Occasionally, it spits a few rain drops.  We have our clothes lines covered with salty bedding and we are hoping for a downpour to rinse out the salt.  What we do not want is a pile of wet salty bedding.  So the covered clothes lines are now down in the lee of the dodger.  That means that if the downpour comes, we will be out in it while putting up the clothes lines.  It makes us appreciate the washing machine and dryer at home.  Bigger boats (45 feet and up) often have washers, but very few our size have them.  Why?  The volume inside a boat goes up as the cube of the length, that's why!  You not only need room for the washer, but a 110 VAC generator to power it and enough water tankage or desalinator capacity to supply all the water.  Hey, we are doing good  just having a manual wringer!

August 31-September 1, 2012 Asleep before the party started....no surprise there.

You get a picture of a Starry Moray instead of birds because
Sheryl is much more partial to sea life than birds. 

We went to the motus on the east side of Suwarrow yesterday in the ranger's boat.    They are called the Seven Sisters.  The cost to us was 1 gallon of gasoline.  There was a Norwegian family (ethnic Nowegian father, mother of Bengali Indian origin adopted as a child and raised as a Norwegian) with two small children, a single handing Pole and a couple from Washington state with us.  First stop was a low, bushy motu/reef complex with lots of nesting birds.  Lynne says, "Take lots of pictures".  So it soon becomes Clicl!Click!Click!  The brown boobies  build a nest on the outside edge near the top of a bush.  Their chicks are large but still in the downy stage.  The Red-tailed Tropicbirds nest on the ground under a bush.  Their chicks are still very small and downy.  The adult's red tail feather is incredibly narrow, maybe only 1/16" wide and untapered.  Some adults do not have one.  There are eggs just sitting on the sand.  We do not know whether they are from another species or tropicbird eggs incubating in the sun.  We had to be careful where we stepped so we didn't step on any.  The Sooty Tern juveniles were nearly fully grown, no down left, and running around together looking for an adult to beg food from.  The Lesser Frigatebirds nest on very low bushes.  We saw chicks on nests from just hatched to fledgling stages.  Apparently, the frigatebirds to not steal the chicks and eggs of the other kinds of birds.  The Fairy Terns nest in the forested motus in trees, so are not here on the shrubby area.  It was incredible how many birds are nesting here and how close we could get to them without seeming to disturb them.  With little contact from humans and no depredation,  they can reproduce abundantly.  On the reef, we saw about half a dozen Starry Morays about 2 feet long, covered with black stars and speckles much coarser and darker pattern than the Peppered Morays we saw in the Tuamotu reefs.  These morays were again in water several inches deep, hiding under coral chunks or ledges.  None were out feeding at this time of day.  We now know how to find them.  Just look under a "rock".  We have seen about half of the 24 species of moray eels here in the tropical Pacific.

After visiting the bird rookery, we got back in the skiff and headed toward the eastern corner of the atoll to a large forested motu.  During the ride, some of us started eating lunch.  The Norwegian kids, Magnus and Selma, were a lot of fun.  They would offer others food items and shyly accept some of what we were eating.  They were a joy to be with.  We brought grapes and honey roasted peanuts which were very popular except with Ants who really only liked lollies (candies).

First activity was to go snorkeling.  The water was incredibly clear.  It was easy to see at least 100 feet.  The coral looked very healthy with lots of types and also a lot of small sponges.  There was a great variety of small tropical fish with few larger fish.  I saw no sharks but Lynne saw a Black-tipped Reef Shark.  There were many giant clams with a great variety of coloration on their lips - some patterns not seen before.  For example, brilliant blue with black spots on the outer lips while fluorescent green inside.  A couple were at least 10 inches long - monsters for this area of the Pacific.  We think that the "really big" clams are in the Marshall Islands, north of the equator.  It was fun to watch the Norwegian kids.  The 5  year old was swimming, free diving with abandon and taking pictures with a camera.  The two year old wore arm "floaters" but was looking in the water through a mask.

After snorkeling for an hour, we gradually migrated to the beach,  ate some more lunch and wandered around.  This motu with the tall trees provided nests for Fairy Terns and Brown and Brown and/or Black Noddies.  The task to be accomplished was to catch dinner - coconut crabs.  Our opinion was that seeing them was much more satisfying than eating them so we just watched.  Interacting with the other cruisers and hearing their stories was more fun than killing crabs.

We trolled for fish all the way to the Seven Sisters , had several strikes but no fish caught.  On the way back, we had more strikes, hooked three and caught two.  To enhance our chances, we would turn around and troll back through any area that produced a strike or hooked fish.  Part of the trolling was in the entrance pass.  Today, it was as flat as a mill pond, due to the light winds and seas coming in from outside the atoll.  We returned to the coral slab "wharf" about 5:30 and got back to our boat at 6.  A great day and we were pooped.  Lynne downloads the pictures onto the computer.  She says, "You took 478 pictures today."  Aren't the new digital cameras incredible!

The day ended with a potluck/drinking party on the beach.  Fantazia, the large, very fast catamaran with the 3 Aussie and 1 Kiwi men, created a Blue Moon Party and left invitations in everyone's boat.  The coconut crab people prepared their catches.  Was a grand time had by all?  We don't know because we exhausted and were fast asleep in our cozy little bed.

1 September 2012  I spent the entire day doing maintenance!  No weekends or Holidays for us out here!  Or looking at it another way, no five days to rest up between weekends!  The highlight (?) of my day was 2 ½ hours in the water cleaning the fuzz and scale off the prop and lightning grounding plate, scrubbing the waterline and wiping any the fuzz off the hull.  Having 6-foot long Black-tip Reef sharks frequently cruising by to check out the quality of my work provided some extra incentive for me.  I did not want them to "chastise" me for doing a poor job.  Eventually, they were satisfied and did not come back any more.  Despite lots of "stuff" floating by in the current, I could see the sharks at least 100 feet away when they were going away. On the other hand, they snuck up pretty close before I saw them incoming. Suwarrow is noted for having a very large population of sharks.  I would call it "Shark City" here.  Or sharky!

Position :  13 14.84' S, 163 06.76' W

Speed : 0.2 knots,  Course : 221 degree

August 30, 2012 Suvarov

Aug 30
All these bad boobies are Red-footed.

After a very fast, very windy and, at the end, very boisterous 5 day passage we arrived about noon in brilliant sun for the passage into Surrarow/Suvarov Atoll.  There are 21 boats here all in front of the rangers' quarters, the only place you are allowed to anchor in this Cook Island National Park.  The anchorage is not as small as I feared and we are not cheek to jowl.  In the first 2 hours here we had 2 as of yet unidentified sharks and a Green Sea Turtle come visit Sunrise. We took a little walk to the ocean side and saw about 15 White Tip, Black Tip and other sharks patrolling the shore.  Great and Lesser Frigatebirds, Bridled Tern, Black Noddy, Brown Noddy and Sooty Tern.  I took the bird guide book into the ranger's .  No fruit so no Fruit-dove, never seen the Spotless Crake, knew the sounds of the Bristle-thighed Curlew but not its name, no kingfisher.  There are very few species of birds at Suvarov, but what they have, they have in abundance.  No mammals. There are now introduced mosquitoes which have found me already.  As to our check-in, officials are always suspicious when we declare no booze of any kind, no tobacco and no meat.  Here, the officials  are the more serious one, Harry, and the joker, Ants.  Harry is a Cook Islander but Ants was born in Australia (looks like an aborigine) and spent his life in NZ.  He speaks Kiwi.  After we declared no alcohol on board he comes out with 2 Hinanos (beer) and, in the most serious tone of voice, says that they are his 2 last beers but that since we are such nice people he will offer them to us.  Barry says, in an equally serious voice, that we don't partake.  Then I say, "You Kiwis are a tricky bunch; you knew we wouldn't take them", upon which everyone breaks out in wild laughter.

The way our brains work is so amazing.  I couldn't believe how much French came back to me after 25 years.  My brain just popped up with it when needed.  Now my brain speaks Kiwi when talking to a Kiwi.  For instance,  when talking to Harry and Ants I pronounced Z as zed instead of zee.  I was actually surprised to hear myself say it.

Got to go get ready for excursion to outer motus with Ants today.