08/14/2011, West of Bora Bora
The race is on. Will we make it to Suwarrow Atoll by sundown tomorrow. As I said in the last post, arrival is key in any voyage. You always want to arrive while the Sun is up. Our location this morning at 0800 was 14 13.210S 159 58.739W heading 277 straight to Suwarrow. We were almost 200 miles away. If we make 6 knots all day long, we just might make it. Yesterday was a perfect day of sailing. The winds were off the starboard stern so we were heading off the wind and doing fine. Today was the big call. Can we get there while the Sun is up? We unrolled the entire Genoa sail at the bow and took off just after sunup. With it out, our speed increased to over 6 knots. With Tracy at the helm, we were zipping right along many times hitting between 7 and 8 knots. We ticked off the miles hour by hour. It's now 1500 and we have just about 150 miles to go(13 53.60S 160 37.041W). At a constant speed of 6 knots, that would put us at the atoll about 1600 tomorrow, well before the 1830 sunset time. Still a safe time to enter the harbor and get the anchor down. The true test that will decide the outcome is what we get for winds over night. If they continue as we have them right now, we just might make it. At the worst, we will have to sit off shore and wait through the night till the Sun comes up on Tuesday morning. I'll let you know how the night goes in the morning. My bet is that the wind will die off after sunset but you never know what Mother Nature will give you out here.
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08/13/2011, West of Bora Bora
It's been a much better day for sailing starting early this morning. At 1800 yesterday, we hauled down the spinnaker and put back up the main and the genoa and headed into the night with a beautiful full moon overhead. The winds were light but we sailed along at about 3 knots, sometimes dipping to 1.8 knots. By the 2300 watch change, the winds had come up a bit so we continued on. When I came on watch at 0300, it was time to change our course as the wind had shifted a bit and while we were moving, we were making little progress toward our destination of Suwarrow Atoll. I went out on deck(life jacket on) and disengaged our preventer. This is a line that attaches to the back end of the boom that gets lead to a cleat on the deck so the boom can't swing across if the wind shifts. I'd installed one on each side of the boom while we were still in Puerto Vallarta back in January. We use them every time we sail downwind. With it disengaged, we cranked in the boom and then moved Zephyr's stern through the eye of the wind till the wind moved the boom out the opposite side of the deck. That's called "gybing". I put on the preventer for the opposite side and then shifted the genoa sail to the opposite side and off we went. Much closer to the course we needed. Tracy headed below for a well deserved sleep. With our watch schedules in 4 hour sections, you get some sleep but no real "night" sleep. That's one reason that when you arrive at your destination, the first thing you do is hit the sack to get caught up on what you have lost. We sailed on through the night hitting into the 5 knot range and doing quite well even though the winds were still quite light--about 8 knots. When Tracy came back to relieve me at 0600 we were doing just fine as I hit the bed. We tuned into the 0800 SSB net to listen in as well as report our position and many of the boats were still becalmed either at anchor or while underway. We were fortunate to actually have some wind. It's now 1500 hours on Saturday the 13th and we are still sailing along having mad e good progress through the day. I just started the engine to charge up the batteries so with the prop turning, it will give a a slight boost in our speed. We only have 281 miles till we reach Suwarrow so we will be calculating our needed speed to arrive in early morning daylight when the coral under the water can be better seen. One of the boats out here spent the entire night going back and forth along the north shore of the atoll after they arrived after dark. Planning your arrival time is key to a successful voyage. We don't want to duplicate what they did. Meanwhile, the Sun is shinning and the winds continue at about 11 knots out of the northeast so we just keep moving along.
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08/13/2011, West of Bora Bora
It's been a much better day for sailing starting early this morning. At 1800 yesterday, we hauled down the spinnaker and put back up the main and the genoa and headed into the night with a beautiful full moon overhead. The winds were light but we sailed along at about 3 knots, sometimes dipping to 1.8 knots. By the 2300 watch change, the winds had come up a bit so we continued on. When I came on watch at 0300, it was time to change our course as the wind had shifted a bit and while we were moving, we were making little progress toward our destination of Suwarrow Atoll. I went out on deck(life jacket on) and disengaged our preventer. This is a line that attaches to the back end of the boom that gets lead to a cleat on the deck so the boom can't swing across if the wind shifts. I'd installed one on each side of the boom while we were still in Puerto Vallarta back in January. We use them every time we sail downwind. With it disengaged, we cranked in the boom and then moved Zephyr's stern through the eye of the wind till the wind moved the boom out the opposite side of the deck. That's called "gybing". I put on the preventer for the opposite side and then shifted the genoa sail to the opposite side and off we went. Much closer to the course we needed. Tracy headed below for a well deserved sleep. With our watch schedules in 4 hour sections, you get some sleep but no real "night" sleep. That's one reason that when you arrive at your destination, the first thing you do is hit the sack to get caught up on what you have lost. We sailed on through the night hitting into the 5 knot range and doing quite well even though the winds were still quite light--about 8 knots. When Tracy came back to relieve me at 0600 we were doing just fine as I hit the bed. We tuned into the 0800 SSB net to listen in as well as report our position and many of the boats were still becalmed either at anchor or while underway. We were fortunate to actually have some wind. It's now 1500 hours on Saturday the 13th and we are still sailing along having mad e good progress through the day. I just started the engine to charge up the batteries so with the prop turning, it will give a a slight boost in our speed. We only have 281 miles till we reach Suwarrow so we will be calculating our needed speed to arrive in early morning daylight when the coral under the water can be better seen. One of the boats out here spent the entire night going back and forth along the north shore of the atoll after they arrived after dark. Planning your arrival time is key to a successful voyage. We don't want to duplicate what they did. Meanwhile, the Sun is shinning and the winds continue at about 11 knots out of the northeast so we just keep moving along.
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08/12/2011, West of Bora Bora
It's now Friday the 12th and the journey continues toward Suwarrow Atoll. It's been slow going for the last two days as the winds slow down. While we left Bora Bora in 15-18 knot winds, they have dropped to maybe 7 knots all out of th east. We've had the genoa and main up since we left and today switched over to the spinnaker as our only sail. We rolled in the genoa and then hoisted the spinnaker still in it's sock and then took down the main. It was so calm that we did it with Zephyr going down wind. That's not the norm by far. The usual is to head into the wind before you drop your main. With both the main and genoa down, I pulled on the line that raises the sock that encases the spinnaker and out she flew. The winds are still light so it doesn't stay flying all the time but she will at least keep us going in the 3 to 5 knot range. There are two SSB nets out here(8131 at 0800 Tahiti time and 6224 at 1630 Tahiti time) that most cruisers check into letting others that are out here know where they are at any given time. A safety thing. On any given net, a good 20 boat sign in--us included. At least someone out there knows where we are(or close enough) that should we suddenly disappear, someone has a reference point of where to start looking for us. During this mornings net, many of the boats that are enroute have started their engines to make better time. With the cost of diesel fuel approaching $8.00 per gallon out here, we have opted to sail as much as we can on this voyage. We do run the engine for about an hour each day to charge up our batteries. Since it is running anyway, we do engage the propeller so we do get something out of the diesel other than volts. Once we had checked into French Polynesia in the Marquesas, we only had so many days that we could stay(90) so we were forced to motor if our speed got to slow. Now being out on the ocean again with no restrictions on us, we can take our time. We had originally figured on a passage of 6 days since we normally do a good 130 miles each day. Not so now. It could take us an easy 8 or more to get there at the speed we are going. We're not even half way there yet. It's not like we will run out of food or water and we have plenty of books to read and movies to watch and music to play so we won't go bonkers. The forecast is for better winds in a few days, I guess we will see where we are at that time and make plans accordingly. As of this afternoon, we're at 15 03.078S 156 53.512W and slowly moving west northwest on our course.
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08/11/2011, West of Bora Bora
On our last few days in ora Bora, we went about getting checked out of the country. We'd hired and agent to handle all the check in and check out procedures before we even left Mexico. It made all the difference in the world as she got us all checked in and filed all the necessary paperwork for us. When we were about to leave Papeete, she took our paperwork and passports and got us all set for the final checkout. She asked us to email her and let her know what islands we were visiting so she could let the proper authorities know. She requested that we give her 10 days notice before we were actually leaving Bora Bora. No problem. We email her at each of our stops along the way. She had given us the necessary papers showing us checked out with just the exit port not filled in in case we left from somewhere other than Bora Bora. All we had to do in Bora Bora was show up at the Gendarmaries(police) and hand over the papers she gave us. Then they would do the final stamps on our passports and we were set to leave. I stopped in last Thursday to get their hours and what documents we needed to bring. The woman behind the counter told us that we would have to fill in the exact same paperwork again as what we had filled in was only to get us out of Papeete. Say what? I emailed our agent and she told us to just take in the pink form she had given us and our passports and that was all we needed to do. As we were planning on heading out on Monday, the Gendarmes told us to come back on Sunday at 0900. we showed up right on time and they took our nice pink copy of the form Cindy had given us as well as our passports and started making copies and stamping them. Then they asked us as to exactly when we were leaving. we'd changed our mind to Tuesday. OOPS!! You can only checkout 24 hours before you leave. OK, fine, we could come back on Monday and finish the checkout procedure.
When we returned on Monday, we got the same woman we got last week. She wanted all the papers filled out all over again even though the officers didn't need it the day before. This was HER way of doing it. I tired to discuss(insert argue here)it with her but there was no budging her. Tracy grabbed my arm and took the forms and sat down and filled them out. I was violating one of the primary rules of cruisers---never argue with the police or immigration people. With the same form filled out all over again, she stamped our paperwork and told us we had to go the post office, buy a stamp and mail it to immigration in Papeete. We did as directed and off it went. In a later email to our agent she said not to worry that Immigration would have two copies of our exit papers. At least that job was done and we were finally out of French Polynesia.
Next, on to the banks to get what we had left in francs changed over to New Zealand or US dollars. The first back had a sign on the door--"we only exchange money for our clients". The second bank only had $10.00 New Zealand(not enough). At the third and last bank, I ran into Avril off Dream Away. She had been smarter(cruising much longer than us)and placed an order with the back for New Zealand dollars on Thursday of the previous week. She was there to pick up her dollars with lots of French Francs in her hand. Surprise!!!---the bank now refused to do the exchange!!! Seeing this, I just left. I ran into her later and she said it took her over an hour and lots of talking before they would do the exchange. No real reason was given as to why they had changed their minds since they had the New Zealand dollars in the bank. Since they were about to close for their two hour lunch break and she wasn't leaving until she got her money, they finally gave in and got them for her. I don't understand what their reasoning was as they would make money on the exchange. We took what monies we had left and bought lots of things we didn't really need but were sure we would use later in the voyage(chips, cookies and cokes, etc)and I finally walked out of the store with only 8 francs in my pocket--about 10 cents. Not bad and we have lots of good snacks to eat and entertain with later in the voyage.
So there you have it--Bureaucracies and Banking at it's finest.
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Hope to see you soon....with chips in hand???
08/11/2011, West of Bora Bora
We left Bora Bora on Tuesday right on our schedule. We headed out the pass and with the winds off our starboard stern, we raised the main and rolled out some of the Genoa. After an hour or so of that, we decided to pull up the spinnaker. We rolled in the Genoa and up went the spinnaker. We got hit by a gust of wind that almost knocked us over. The port side rail was well under water coming up to our port holes. I don't think we have ever healed over so much. Off came the spinnaker and out came part of the Genoa again and off we went. So far, it has not been a pleasant sail. To go the direction we want, the winds would hit us right on the stern. That angle of sail is almost impossible to maintain, we we've had to jockey back and forth with the main and genoa. We have it out over the starboard side for several hours and then over to the port side for a few hours. We're making lots of boomerang shapes on our chart plotter as move along. The winds are about 10 knots so we're not going as fast as we would like, but it beats going slower. Every now and then ,a gust hits us the the boom jerks out to the ends of the lines with a resounding boom. All day and all night. It makes sleep a bit harder to get. Tracy's prep of the meals before we left was a smart idea. All she has to do is reheat and serve. Much easier than hunt up all the ingredients and try and make it out here with Zephyr rocking and rolling from side to side. We ended our 24 hours at 15 46.801S 153 16.200W having made 102 nautical miles. In the last 24 hours, we are now at 15 24.008S 155 04.571W having made 117 miles and a total of 219 with 485 to go. One boat that is going to the same place we are, got to the outside of the reef during the night and spent the rest of the night sailing back and forth along the north side of the island. It's not well marked for a night entrance. We'll start making our arrival calculations when we are about 2 days out so we get there during the mid morning. It's easier to see the coral bommies below you as you go in the pass.
So that's what is happening here as of 0915 Tahiti time(-10 hours UTC). We'll let you know how the day progresses.
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