My sailing bio - by Karin My first bluewater cruising in 1989 was on a 30 footer, no GPS or autohelm, no fridge and no head! Durban to St Maarten via St Helena, a year cruising the Caribbean, then to the UK via the Azores. In 2000 I bought a 34' ferrocement boat, cheap, with a partner and took my kids cruising for a glorious 6 months, departing Cape Town for Brazil, Trinidad, Bonaire and Curacao. Back in South Africa, the thought of cruising the fabulous isles of the South Pacific took hold and I started looking for a boat going there. The process of trolling the 'crew wanted' sites, engaging in correspondance, taking some contacts so far as meeting (once in the USA, once in the UK) for an interview, was interesting but proved fruitless for a couple of years until I'd pretty much given up on the idea. In early 2007 I had a positive contact with a skipper who was ready to leave for the Marquesas and would I be able to join the boat....in Mexico! The short story is, I did and had a wonderful seven months cruising the Marquesas, Tuamotos, Society Islands, Suwarro, Samoa, Tonga and ending up in Opua in October. Back to Cape Town, back to work, buy a car.....coconuts, flying foxes, Papeete, Bora-Bora, Napoleon wrasse, blacktip reef sharks, South Pacific Games, all the memories started fading so quickly. Then circumstances changed unexpectedly, my employer passed away, I had a mail from my previous skipper to say there was a boat in Opua planning to go to South Africa needing crew, I'd started seriously thinking about completing a circumnavigation (I'd be short the bit between Curacao and Mexico or Marquesas...!) so I threw caution to the wind, paid the airline another serious chunk of money and after two 12 hour flights (never again, but I said that last time too) I was back in Opua and on board beautiful Blue Stocking! She's a wonderful boat, by far the nicest boat I've cruised on, I love the spacious cockpit, the practical layout down below, she's extremely comfortable and easy to sail, even in tough conditions like the 3 day gale with gusts of up to 70 knots we had between NZ and Tonga. Best of all, I truly appreciate how Paul shares and imparts his knowledge of her and her many systems, a great oportunity for me to learn and grow as a sailor and cruiser. Next, the Indian Ocean. Landfall at Durban where my cruising started will be a real highlight. I'm going to claim a circumnavigation,....almost!
Port Vila, Vanuatu to Cairns, Australia
We made 400 miles in the first 3 days of sailing, 23 -30 knots of wind, 3 metre swell, it took me about that long to get my sealegs on! Just the two of us now that Brian has gone home, I do miss the 'kids'. There's a well established routine on board, we share the night watches (21h00-09h00) 3 hours on, 3 hours off. During the day it's a bit more flexible and we both like to spend some time in the cockpit playing scrabble, reading or watching the ever changing sea and sky. Lots of birds around, boobies, gannets, terns, tropic birds (a few), petrels and a couple of frigate birds following a big mixed flock diving on a school of fish, 40 miles from the nearest reef. Quite a few times now boobies have tried landing on the boat, endlessly circling and coming in for landing, feathering their tails, aiming for the spreaders, only to veer off at the last minute.One did manage to perch briefly on the spreader where it slid from side to side with the roll of the boat. Another rode along backwards, perched on the pulpit rail, doing a good job of preening. Caught a weird fish; long and extremely thin with a large businesslike mouth studded with teeth plus 5 or 6 bladelike long upper front teeth. Threw it overboard, sorry to say. We've seen a number of freighters as well as a cruiseship, pop up to have a good look around every 12 minutes on watch. We are eating like kings, meat almost daily, in a bid to use up the meat we had bottled in Opua for the long haul from Vanuatu to Mauritius. Glad that plan has now changed with having Australian visas, not too sure that quarantine will allow the meat in.....down to the last few fresh carrots, apples and cucumbers. Made rather nice chocalate chip brownies using some Fijian palm oil margarine that Paul had bought to use as a spread but turns out it's not that good tasting. Fine for baking though. We've left the Pacific ocean behind and I'm feeling rather nostalgic, wondering if I'll ever revisit those wonderful islands.
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A Few Comments about Vanuatu
Vanuatu is a small Pacific island country with a half dozen good sized islands, all former (or future?) volcanoes. It was known as the New Hebrides by Westerners until just recently and was administered as a colony by England and France together. The people are Melanesians , which is the ethnic group you tend to see from Fiji westward in the islands. Until colonial times, Vanuatu had no common language and even today the first language in the villages varies not only from island to island, but within the islands as well, so that people who are living fairly close to one another are unable to communicate in their native tongues. The colonial/missionary period exposed many locals to education in English and French and in the towns an English speaking visitor will feel right at home. Among themselves, though, most people use an invented language (I don't know its history) called Bislama. This seems to be mainly phonetic English as spoken by the early Ni Vanuatu, as they refer to themselves. The advertising signs and other signs in Port Vila are often only in Bislama. for example: "Toktok plante blong Digicel." Toktok equals talk. Plante equals plenty and means, in context, "as much as you want" and Digicel is a big telecom company that has been just blanketing Vanuatu and Tonga in recent months. "blong" is used in just about every sentence, and seems to be an all purpose preposition and can mean "with", "of"," "to", and probably lots of other things too. "long" is used in just in just about every phrase. It means "a" or "the" and I'm guessing it derives from the French "la" and "le." Very amusing to listen to spoken Bislama on the local radio station, especially in the ads, which were half Bislama and half untranslated English advertising phrases. My favorite Bislama word, though is "joij". Not obvious when written, but speak it aloud. Then add the word "Methodist" in front of it.
We didn't really get out into the rural regions, for a number of reasons, and I feel some disappointment about that. But I am very glad to have gotten the chance to be exposed to the Vanuatu ethos, even just in the "big city." It's never a great idea to over-generalize, but we were all struck with the friendliness, cheerfulness, cooperativeness and gentle curiosity of the locals we encountered. And we encountered a lot, because locals, especially young men, often initiated conversation, and never (as far as I could tell) with any obvious commercial agenda. They were just interested and friendly. Port Vila was a happenin' town when we were there, perhaps because of the Independence Day celebration which is approaching. The big event was a huge reggae concert staged (of course) by Digicel. I'm talking big time, here, with a massive stage, and massive sound system, football stadium-style TV billboards, even a VIP tent which we almost blundered into. Half the population of the country must have been there, kids and all. They generally did not really seem to know what to make of it all, but they stood and watched politely for hours at a time. Right down on the harbor front, near where we were anchored, there was a band stand and park, with live music on the weekend evenings, principally a local Celine Dion clone. They played her CD all afternoon and I was a bit sick of it by the hundredth hearing, I admit. (I don't even like the real Celine Dion all that much!) Karin and I walked by her show and then across the street to a gallery of a Frenchman who lives in Vanuatu and Australia. I'm no art critic, but I am here to tell you they knew how to make an absolutely disastrously good rum punch! We always were comfortable walking around Vila at night (even though often there was no lighting and lots of young locals--maybe a fraught situation in some places). On the other hand, there was a big prison break on the island when we were there with a number of murders of local victims, so I guess like the rest of society Vanuatu has its dark side. We did not see it, though, I'm pleased to say.
My last contact with Vanuatu was one of the nicest. I had taken the bus/taxi up to the Customs office at the commercial wharf to "check out". This went pleasantly and smoothly, although it's a formal business and takes a bit of time. It didn't seem likely that a taxi would appear going my way on the way back (this was the end of the line) so I was hoofing it. Car stops and offers me a ride. The driver is friendly and talkative--lots of intelligent questions about the voyaging life. The passenger was the pleasant shy young man, Mr. Frazier, who had checked me out. TGIF! Not a big deal, but characteristic. Karin and I spent our last few vatu, as the local money is called, on some nice locally-made ice cream, and we rowed back out to the boat to watch the sunset and get the boat ready for the 1200 mile passage to Australia we are enjoying right now.
Technical Note. Sailomat self-steering or Got My Mojo Workin'
As continuing readers are aware, self-steering for Blue Stocking, both the electronic and the windvane types, has occupied a great deal of my thought and attention during the voyage. I started out in Cape Cod with an old but never-used RVG windvane Janet's brother had given us. It did not have enough steering power (really not any steering power that I could detect.) and it got left behind in North Carolina. The Raymarine Autohelm under-deck autopilot already on the boat served well until the run between Tahiti and Rarotonga, when the actuator arm packed up. Three days of hand steering among three people (eight hours a day each) reinforced my belief that a reliable self-steering system was a non-negotiable necessity. We got the original actuator arm fixed in Rarotonga, acquired and installed a new and much ruggeder one from home while we were there, and bought and installed another windvane system, this time a Hydrovane, also while on the wharf at Raro. Arguably, overkill. But, as it happened, not so much. The Monitor windvane had a noticeable steering effect, but nowhere near enough to be generally useful. I had bought it "on approval" and returned it to the seller when we were both in Tonga a few months later. The new, ruggeder actuator arm failed on the way down to New Zealand, as did the "repaired" original arm. Raymarine couldn't or wouldn't give me much guidance as to why the new arm failed, how to avoid it in the future, or how to repair it in the field. They were however willing to replace it under warranty, which they did. It took more than 2 months to get it to NZ from England, but as it happened, there was no actual hurry, as I wasn't going anywhere. (I had the original arm repaired there again and it seemed to work OK for light duty, around the bay use. ) I re-installed the new ruggeder electro-hydraulic unit and made some changes in the installation that made me hope at least that it would not fail right away; it has been working fine, knock on teak.
But ultimately, I decided, I had to continue my quest to acquire and master a windvane self-steerer because I just did not see how I could get BS home without one, especially since I had no crew at that point. I had concluded that BS required the kind of self-steerer that worked by turning the boat's own rudder, as opposed to the type the first two units represented--selfsteerers with their own "auxiliary" rudders mounted on the transom. I had been doing some research on the net in Opua when I learned that my friends Mike and Joann on Destiny (who have had their own parallel struggles with their autopilot) were selling their Sailomat unit, which is an "own boat's rudder" kind of system. The price was fair (and less than half of a new unit) but it was a LOT of money for me to put out at that very shaky and anxious time in my life, especially my financial life. I also knew I was not making the best decisions all the time at that point, so I wasn't that confident. But I did it. There were some comical aspects of the installation in January in Opua (in an earlier post), but I got it on the boat and at least nominally working. But, installation and initial testing completed, I was doubtful that the system would have the power to turn BS's wheel as much as it has to be turned in certain circumstances (at least a full turn against a fair amount of resistance. We all had pretty sore shoulders by the time we got to Raro!).
I didn't play with the unit on the way to Tonga. Didn't seem like a good idea with all those people on the boat; the system uses some room in the cockpit when it is in use. I started experimenting on the way to Vanuatu. It seemed to basically work, and, although it obviously needed some refinement, I was encouraged. On a breezy night, though, the vane itself, a notebook-sized thin plywood "sail", broke off and carried away. It was a prototype Mike had made to deal with a change in configuration on their boat (ultimately why they sold the unit, I think) and I already knew it had a major crack (my doing) and might fail; it was already scheduled for replacement (M and J had included a nice big piece of plywood in the deal--enough for three vanes) so that was no big deal. In Port Vila, at a funky little hardware store (one guy was sitting at a desk, another was squatting on his haunches behind some shelving "doing inventory" and fast asleep) they had spools of beautiful 4 mm. stainless steel wire they were selling by the meter, and I bought 2 meters. I had already been considering a plan of using wire as a frame for the vane, filled in with fabric. This was because my vane will always be vulnerable to being whacked by the mizzen boom in a jibe; even though one always tries to control jibes, I for one do not always succeed. I figured a wire frame could get smacked a time or two and merely bend. I made a free-form squarish frame and we laced on a piece of clear plastic like the cockpit dodger uses for window material. Funky but elegant. I also really sat down and studied the slightly arcane (but ultimately informative) owner's manual and started on the refinement process. (Getting a copy of the manual was a rollicking tale of its own. Thanks again to Dean and Trish on Olwen for their help.)
We've been underway now for almost five days and the Sailomat (I call it Mojo in honor of its original owners) has been in charge for about 80% of the time. The wire-frame vane, by the way, is a complete success. [one day later--it got whacked in a jibe today and was restored to its original shape in about five seconds of massage.] Right this minute, as I write, Mojo is in his element: we're on a beam reach, with a nice breeze and not too much sea, making 5 to 6 knots. Butter wouldn't melt in Mojo's mouth as he maintains a (reasonably) steady course through quite a range of wind velocities. At the other end of the spectrum, when we have been sailing dead downwind, there has been a fair amount of yawing (our heading swinging from side to side as if our helmsman, ahem, was not all that sober) and requirng a little preventive action by human personnel every hour or two. Not great, but way better than hand-steering for the same period. When the boatspeed has gotten under about 3.5 knots (with my erstwhile budget, I would motor at that point, but not now) the electronic autopilot has taken over. All in all, Mojo pretty much meets my fondest hopes! It took the two of us to set the system initially--one to steer and one to play with the control lines and the vane's angle of attack. I've been working on this issue in the last few days. Now I set the angle of attack (requires a trip to the after deck--don't forget to wear your harness!) while the boat is on autopilot. Then, back at the wheel, autopilot off, I can steer with one hand and adjust the two control lines, one at a time (they determine where the wheel is when the steerer is in the neutral position, allowing a constant rudder offset for helm, usually weather helm) with the other hand. Another funky-elegant solution: I tied knots in the end portions of the control lines at three inch (or so) intervals and then slip the rope stopped by the "right" knot into a wooden "comb" or pair of slots I made and mounted at the end of the traveller track. Right now it's attached with a carpenter's clamp, but it will soon get an honest to goodness stainless throughbolt of its very own! This part of the system works, as Maximum John likes to say, like a champ! It also makes it very easy to quickly release the system from the wheel, which is a basic safety aspect.
Speaking of safety, working on the system while underway has had its moments. I discovered that the steering arm on the unit itself (a lethal strip of 3/8" stainless steel) might make a pretty effective guillotine, and I barely got my arm out between it and the stern rail before really proving this proposition. Similarly I came within a trice of cutting one of my fingers off while working near the hub of the steering wheel. The power this system has under certain circumstances is genuinely awesome. Twice warned, thrice cautious, I hope.
I am feeling a lot better now about self-steering on BS and my chances of getting her home. If I don't use the autopilot very much, and generally when there is not enough wind to use Mojo, it should last a good long time. Using the windvane to steer required a return to first principles of sailing, which I was working on to Brian's frustration on the way up from NZ. Basically the system works best when the boat is a little under-powered and very well balanced in its sailplan. I've come up with some new (to me) approaches for getting the best performance out of the boat with the least sail area. One does pay a bit of a price in speed, but I think it's well worth it. Our daily runs on this leg, have been 135, 130, 135, 115, 99, and 120 miles--perfectly respectable numbers for the stately BS, although maybe a bit less than usual. There is also an aesthetic aspect (I am not immune to this, even though obviously no traditionalist): it is pretty amazing to watch this device, which is basically made up of sailboat elements--a sail, a rudder, ropes and pulleys--more or less automatically controlling this powerful and somewhat balky sailing lady as she makes her way across the Coral Sea and, ultimately, if the fates allow, around the world. Transistors are kewl too, though!
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Been a while since I checked in with you, Gentle Readers--time for an update.
We had a pleasant time in Tonga with a visit to the "big city", Nuku'alofa, a leisurely cruise through the middle islands of this north-south oriented chain, called the Hapai group, and finishing with a few weeks in the yachtie/tourist center of Vavau. We were sad to say adieu to Wendy and Aurelien in Vavau.
They had a week or so in Vavau and we did some exploring and sightseeing in the outer anchorages before they flew out. The visit to Mariner's Cave (underwater entrance) was a real high point for the three of them. Sadly, the next event was a low point for me. We were towing the dinghy in the protected Vavau group. When we anchored for the night in an hour or two Brian pointed out a disaster: the dinghy outboard had gone AWOL. It was properly clamped on, with safety line, and even a padlock; but the pivot bolt which connects the bracket to the engine proper apparently lost its nut and worked its way out. Bye Bye, sorry I didn't get to see you off! Not having the outboard (and there is no prospect of replacement, financially speaking) shrank our world a little bit, especially with all five of us. On the plus side, we are appreciating the extra exercise of rowing.
Back in town, Brian, raconteur that he is, soon made a new friend and recruited her as shipmate for the next leg--the delightful and charming American traveler and adventurer (all of 19 years old), Hanna.
We left Vavau for a few days in the nearby rustic anchorages which gave Hanna a chance to see if she was going to like the cruising life--she seemed to.
At one of the anchorages, Karin and I decided to do a little bushwhacking on the basically uninhabited and jungly island. When am I going to remember, I'm a sailor, Jim, not a woodsman?! (a little Star Trek homage, there) Within an hour we got impossibly lost and confused in the trackless wilderness. The third time we returned to the same (wrong) beach on the wrong side of the island, I got a little bummed. Might I have considered bringing my handheld GPS along, duh? A machete would also have been helpful, although in untrained hands those always seem kind of risky! I didn't like being all tied up in little vines and continually untangling--claustrophobic. No scary fauna, though, or at least none that we saw!
We occasionally got glimpses of the sun through the foliage (it wasn't a very clear day) which helped us orient, and finally we arrived along what we were pretty sure was the right shore, based on the other islands we could see when we were able to get a glimpse over the water. It was the right shore, but it took an hour or two to move along it the half mile or so we were from the place we had the dinghy. It always looks so easy in "Lost". Karin seemed to find my land-aversion slightly amusing (endearing?) and saw no reason for alarm at any point. Brian and Hanna were very blase about our story on our return--sounded like everyday events to those more adventurous souls.
So Hanna decided she was up for the next step--the 800 mile passage from Tonga to Vanuatu. We checked out and bought fuel and headed out literally into the sunset. I don't remember any details of that passage, so it must have been pleasant and uneventful (other than the mahi mahi Brian caught!)from my point of view. Even so, it was a six day passage, so for one who has basically never cruised before, it was quite an accomplishment. Hanna had a few days' seasickness, but she never complained and maintained a steady cheerful attitude we all appreciated. (She had just finished a "NOLES" course in NZ--sort of an international Outward Bound, and she really knows how to make the best of difficult circumstances.)
We spent most of our time in the principal city of Vanuatu on the island of Efate, called Port Vila. At first the weather truly sucked--rain all day every day. We spent a couple days handling the usual business matters and then decided (weather or not) to "do" some anchorages before returning to Port Vila for Hanna's flight back to NZ (and on to Argentina for a family reunion, I understand). It was great sightseeing, but no one seemed to be up for much land exploration and the snorkeling we found was pretty disappointing. Some nice sailing days, though, and generally pleasant times on the boat and in Vila.
I had thought we would move north among the out islands of the chain and finish in the northern island of Espiritu Santo, but this involved some additional costs for me and for Brian, and we decided to stay in Vila. In fact, Brian decided to head home a couple of weeks earlier than planned (under a little gentle pressure from his family--he is starting law school in a few short weeks, after all). So we bid a fond farewell to Brian and in a couple of days were ready to head out, just Karin and I, for Australia.
Attentive readers will have noticed this is a major change in plan. Karin had been pessimistic about getting an Australian visa (South Africans have a little extra difficulty with this matter--not really fair, but there it is.) But we decided we definitely wanted the option to stop at Cocos Keeling (halfway across the Indian Ocean) which requires an Aussie visa. We had been thinking about Chagos Archipelago, but turns out they (Britain, basically) demand a very pricey (100 pounds, which is what, 5 zillion dollars?) cruising permit, which you have to get in advance, and, of course, no refunds if you never make it there. Anyway, we had time in Port Vila for her to apply for a visa, and, as it happened, there were no problems. The only difference between her and my experiences were that she had to pay $100 and wait a week. Mine was free and "on the spot." The people at the Australian High Commission, as the legation is called, just couldn't have been nicer.
Once we had that hurdle behind us, we started looking at the charts as you do, and it occurred to one of us that we might want to stop in Australia proper. Initially I thought we would duck into Darwin on the north shore, or perhaps into the lee of Gove Harbor, also on the north shore but closer. But eventually after a bit of cruising guide study we decided to enter at Cairns on the northeast shore, inside the Great Barrier Reef. We'll probably spend a week or two working our way up the somewhat protected waterway (and anchorage-rich) coast and take the inshore route around Cape York and into the Torres Strait. From there, we will probably head for Cocos Keeling, Mauritius, and Durban, three legs each in the range of ten to twenty days.
I am going to try to email this post tonight and work on Part II before we get to Australia--maybe tomorrow.
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