06/29/2009, Mecharchar
We finished up Ulong this morning and headed over to Mecharchar. Mecharchar is the group with the famous Jelly Fish Lake and not so famous, but very cool, Clam City. We got about half of the place surveyed today. There is a large pass on the east side between Mecharchar and Ngeruktabel suitable for big boats. Some of the islands in this area have the most lovely beaches. It was a beautiful day so we got a lot of great photos for the book (and the web site when we get to a decent internet connection).
We are anchored in the back of Mecharchar which is tricky to get into. Strangely there are coral bars blocking every path to the back part of Mecharchar. We know of two passes but are hoping to find a better route usable at low water tomorrow. We shall see...
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06/28/2009, Ulong
The cruising guide is taking shape. 140 pages as of last night. We put the polish on Ngeruktabel today. Nice to be done with that monster. We are now polishing up Ulong and anchored in Swiftlet Lagoon. It doesn't get much nicer. It rained all around us today but we managed to stay in the blue sky bits. Got some good photos of a big piece of Yapese stone money. Tomorrow we wrap up Mecharchar.
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06/27/2009, Ngeruktabel
We are back in Ngeruktabel. It is a huge collection of Rock Islands. We are trying to anchor around as many places as possible, our anchorage tonight is Cross Roads, so named for the many different ways into the area. It is a pretty place in 50 feet of sand/marl.
It has rained almost all day but we managed to get onto the Sam's Tours dock at around 11:00 to fuel up. It being Saturday, all of the locals were hanging around, going out fishing and what have you.
We had a nice dinghy track recording session in the late afternoon and finished up Ngeruktabel. Tomorrow we move on to Mecharchar. We have don a little work there but have much more to do.
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06/17/2009, Ngeruktabel
We stayed the night last night in Fish Net anchorage (some locals fish in the back of the bay from time to time). We spent a long sunny day surveying the southwest side of Ngeruktabel. Lots of great spot to anchor, wonderful hurricane holes and the like, the big problem is that many have reef bars across their entrances. Still plenty to choose from. We ran through about 7 gallons of gas today so we are going to have to wrap up tomorrow and head back to civilization for more fuel.
The dinghy sounder is working out great. I almost like the little Garmin GPSMap 276C (about $300) better than our Raymarine E120. The Ram handle bar mount mount (about $39) snapped right onto our Saint Croix Euro Helm console. It was a bit of work fishing the sounder cable and the GPS power/data cable through the helm pipe but it worked out nicely. The Garmin sounder (about $79) is mounted on the transom and we have an on off switch that turns on power to the sounder and the GPS. The GPS will run on battery of course but with the magneto on the Yamaha 25 ESH everything runs as long as we have gasoline.
The Garmin records tracks complete with depth. This has allowed us to run tracks and then download them into the computer day after day. We have a huge amount of bathymetric data in the computer now and is makes putting the satellite charts together much easier. The GPS has never filled up though we've had the track memory up into the 70-80% range after a long day. Once into this stuff I was amazed at how little the E120 could do. We have it etherenetted to the PC with Raytec software running, but I can't even get a track downloaded to the PC and I have not been able to get one to save to a card either. From what I can tell there is no sounding data with the tracks anyway so it doesn't really matter. Now when we go to move the big boat we tie the dinghy on a bridle, jump in, setup the GPS and turn on the dinghy sounder, then drive off with the dinghy recording the track. Silly but fits nicely with our process.
The little motorcycle battery we had in the dink bit it in Gizo. We were starting the outboard, then driving for three seconds to the dock and shutting it down. I didn't really think about it at the time but the battery was never getting enough time to recharge. We tried to get a replacement in Palau but they really didn't have the right thing. No maintenance was a must and I was hoping for an AGM. We ended up with a big $275 monster AGM from Napa that required a new battery box.
Another problem with the old set up was that the battery box is just behind the helm seat and thus takes on water through the vent. The gas tank is under the seat and there's really no room to move the batter back. It rains so much here this time of year that the box was flooding. I figured that since the battery is seals and pretty robust I'd be better off with a drain, so we drilled a hole in the bottom of the new batter box. Works great, now as long as the dinghy itself doesn't flood, which is a risk, we're good.
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06/16/2009, Ngeruktabel
We stayed the night last night in an anchorage we call Tarzan (lots of vines hanging down from the rock islands). We spent most of the day surveying the central part of Ngeruktabel. This particular group of rock islands is fairly large. Perhaps 100 sizable islands. We are hoping to at least finish the group before we run out of gasoline (perhaps two days nigh, three at the most). We moved down to the southwest corner of the group today. It is a very protected area with great holding and plenty of room.
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06/15/2009, Ngeruktabel
We are still surveying Ngeruktabel. This is a crazy batch of rock islands. Secret harbors, winding channels, one rock island after the next, many almost the same profile. Easy to get lost. Lots of caves too. We found one filled with fuel cans from WWII today. Lots of wrecks here to. We snorkeled an unidentifiable shallow wreck while running soundings today. Looked old. We've been seeing lightning for the past two nights but at least we're not hearing it tonight.
Our chain is supposed to arrive next week. We can't wait to setup our own mooring. Much better than getting kicked out of the harbor when the weather turns. That said, some of the hurricane holes we've found are much better than the harbor.
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06/14/2009, Ngeruktabel
Rain and thunderstorms all day. Stayed in and worked on Cruising Guide.
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