Ironie's Pacific Adventures

Vessel Name: ironie
Vessel Make/Model: cumulant 36 ft. steel sloop
Hailing Port: nantucket
27 April 2010 | Majuro,Marshall Islands
05 September 2009 | Port Villa
24 April 2009 | luganville,vanuatu
07 January 2009
30 November 2008
04 November 2008
02 November 2008 | (western) samoa
01 October 2008 | american samoa
09 August 2008 | american samoa
05 July 2008 | bora bora to pago pago
13 June 2008
06 June 2008 | bora bora
29 May 2008 | raiatea anchorage
26 May 2008 | raiatea,french polynesia
Recent Blog Posts
27 April 2010 | Majuro,Marshall Islands

Vanuatu,-Kiribati/Marshalls

I don't know if anyone out there is still following my adventure as I have blatantly

05 September 2009 | Port Villa

Vanuatu

Hallo to all from beautiful Vanuatu!!Ironie has now been in Vanuatu for 4 months and loving it.After

23 June 2009

Marshall Islands to Vanuatu pt. 2

Marshall Islands to Vanuatu Continued:The next day,after a good nights sleep May,Tony and Eva came out to Ironie.Tony told me that there was a better

24 April 2009 | luganville,vanuatu

marshall islands to vanuatu

Greetings to all Ironie blog followers from the island of Espiro Santo,Vanuatu!Another sailing season

04 March 2009

Marshall Islands/Majuro atoll

Hello to you all from Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands!!May and I arrived here about a month and a half ago from Butaritari

07 January 2009

Kiribati

After spending 2 weeks at Funa Futi lagoon in Tuvalu, it was time to move on.Tarawa atoll in the Kiribati Islands would be our next destination. we had watched as our friends on Creola,Rubicon and the Katey

Vanuatu

05 September 2009 | Port Villa
Captain Steve
Hallo to all from beautiful Vanuatu!!Ironie has now been in Vanuatu for 4 months and loving it.After
a rough beginning with the drama described my last blog entry,things have been cruising along in true Ironie form.
I changed out the motor mounts on Ironies engine and did an allighnment with assistance from Dan "The Fix-it Man"
in Santo ,which took up most of the first month here in the country.Many thanks to he Beachfront Resort for Ironies extended stay.
After dealing with Ironie's various mechanical issues ,my mind was getting back into cruising mode.It was time to see these lovely islands...
My first trip out of Santo was to the island of Maweo.i sailed about 60 miles due east to reach the beautiful perfect bay of Asanvari village
on the far south west tip of the island.New crew for this trip was Hiromi from japan.We had a light wind passage at night to asanvari arriving early in the morning and even catching a nice Wahoo on the way into the anchorage.
On arrival Ironie and crew had a much deserved swim in the clear(30 m vis) water followed by a fresh water wash in the anchorages waterfall.
Ahhhhh,the month I'd spent under Ironie's engine just seemed to melt away in the tropical sunshine and clear blue waters...a cure for all stressful muscles and mind...
We spent a week or so enjoying the anchorage and the village.We made friends with Beth and Meg, "Gap" teachers from Aussie and Wales respectively.
We also made friends with Chief Nelson and his son Nixon.
We left Asanvari to Penticost Island just 5NM south of Maewo.There were 30 kn winds in the channel between the 2 islands which gave Hiromi her first taste
of wind on Ironie,a 5 mile roller coaster...lol...fun We anchored in the river mouth of Batnavini village about halfway down the west coast of Penticost.We were
welcomed by the local chief and even were invited for Kava and dinner having the honor of being the first yacht to visit the anchorage this year!
We got a nice tour of the village by the local children,then had a great snorkel on the reef south of the village.Very,very beautiful corals in clear waters but not many fish.
The plan was to continue south but a strong southerly was blowing so plans were altered to make another visit to Asanvari and then head back to Santo were Hiromi was to catch a flight back to Japan at the end of July.
We enjoyed another nice stay at Asanvari and then had a challenging sail back to Santo under a very unusual 25-30 knot west wind!.Ironie weathered the bumps like a champ and once again brought us safe and sound into Santo.
We did make one more trip to Oyster Island Anchorage on the east coast of Santo which was a very nice calm bay.We hung out at Turtle Bay Resort which is managed by "Matt and Patricia". Matt is a professional cown and does a great acrobatics act that i got to see at the independence day celebration in Luganville...amazing!!!After Hiromi left it was back to Stevie solo mode.Days were filled with boat projects and shopping and usually would end with a few Tuskers(local beer) or some Kava at the local Kava bar.Kava is seriously strong in Vanuatu....not for wussies!!
Meeting lots of interesting cruisers like Rick and Annie from"Storm Girl" and Paul and Francis from"Sea Spray",John and crew from"Caca Fuego"Andy from "Kai"...Ahhh ,one motley cast of characters to be sure!!
It was around this time that I met Seamus O'brien from "Project Marc"(Medical Assistance to Remote Communities").Project Marc is a hand on aid organization that sets up and maintains clinics and aid posts as well as
village infrastructure needs for water and other things.Seamus is one of the directors for the group and asked me if i would like to volunteer mine and Ironie"s services to the organization to help with thier projects on the west coast of Santo,to drive a group of volunteers to the end of the road and also help with their bush
expeditions as their camp manager.Later i would be need ed to help get Seamus to Port Villa and then later still to transport 2 doctors to the Maskelyne Islands in southern Malukula.
I jumped at the chance to work with Project Marc as is seems like good organization and i could definitely use the money they would pay me for my help.The first thing I did was to help
with the west Santo trip as a driver.We had Seamus, myself and 4 volunteers and all thier gear to transport to the west coast of santo by truck.The roads outside of Luganville,the main town on santo
are pretty bad and get worse the farther that you get away from town.we made it about halfway to out destination in our mazda 4 WD rented truck when we were met by a river of mud.
We saw tire tracks in the mud so knew it was possible to pass so ,with Seamus behind the wheel we went headlong into the mud and promptly got WAY Stuck!!
The next truck that passed us while we were "axle deep" had twice the clearance we had and drove its wheels on one side of the road on the footpath that gave him enough traction to plow through the river of mud.
OHHHHH,that's how it's done...hahaha.Te next truck that came had some sympathy for the poor ,clueless white men and pulled us out with their far superior
truck.when we were free a decision was made for thr crew to hitch a ride the rest of the way in the far superior truck,as we were told gets worse not better farther up ,and i would spend the night camping at
the local bible college and then taking the rent a truck back to Luganville in the morning. Seamus and his voluneers woud be in the bush for the next 3 weeks...
lol fair thee well friends...
I had a nice leasurely drive back to town the next day stopping at the most beautiful "blue hole" along the way.The blue hole is a natural fresh water spring with super clear fresh shockingly blue water
.I had a nice swim and made it back to town for the lunch hour.
The next couple of weeks I sailed around the north central islands of Vanuatu solo.I've never been into solo sailing because I don't think it's safe on longer passages and I also like to have company on the sails but I thought I'd give it a try as the
islands here in Vanuatu are close together and most sails are day sails anyway ,should be fun...
So off I went to my favorite anchorage Asanvari,which is also a good staging ground for sailing south. I had an uneventful night sail to Asanvari arriving early morning.I was hoping to be there in time to say goodbye to Beth and Meg the gap teachers
we had met the last time we were there.I arrived the night before thier going away ceremony and party...great...The girls were given
quite a party for sure.they had been living in the village for 6 months and were liked very much by the villagers,they would be missed.the ceremony started with
some speech making followed by a kava ceremony.the girls did well and downed their kava without pausing or puking.next the children at the school sang a song they wrote followed by the local
string band knocking out a few numbers.Next,all the members of the community lined up and said goodbye to the girls individually and bestowing gifts on them.Beth and Meg were drowning in locally made handicrafts by the end of he ceremony.
After the formalities,Beth kicked up some good ol aussie pop music and had the whole crowd
dancing line dance style ...more kava followed and everyone was happy with a good kava buzz to boot...fun was had by all...
The next morning I sailed for Penticost and spent one night anchored at Batnavini,moving on to Ambrym Island,where i hoped to climb to the volcano there,a 2 day hike from the coast.
As I was sailing down the west coast of Penticost i caught a very nice YellowFin Tuna...yummm...Then just as I came out of the lee of Penticost i was socked in with torrential rain on my way to Ambrym and the Ranon village anchorage.I needed the rain to let up to get a visuial fix on the anchorage
but it did'nt seem to want to stop so I inched into the anchorage under c -map electronic navigation and radar.I got in close enough to get a visual on the island and started getting
reasonable depth soundings .As it goes ,as soon as i got the hook down the rain eased up.
I was hoping to stage my trip up the volcano from Ranon but it turned out not to be a good anchorage at this time because the wind turned north east just after I arrived.The next day the wind was stronger still in the north so I abandon the volcano trip for the time being leaving
for the anchorage on the north west coast of Ambrym called Craigs Cove ut as I was sailing the beautiful north coast of Ambrym the winds backed into the north west which would make Craigs Cove untenable.It was about 3 pm and i had to find a place to anchor for the night.
The skys were getting dark and it felt like something was brewing so i opted for the very very safe anchorage Port Sandwich
on Malikula Island about 10 miles away.I started sailing towards Malikula.It was around this time that i checked the bilge and saw a bunch of oil under the engine!!woah!,what's this all about?!?As i was sailing I could'nt really pinpoint where the oil was coming from
.i figured i would wait to get into Port Sandwich and figure it out then.The weather got increasiingly stormy.Just as i was coming in to Port Sandwich the thunder and lightning was kicking in full time along with a nice heavy rain.I was anchored safe and sound in Vanuatu's best
hurricane hole,i was tired and needed some sleep i went down below... let it blow...
I woke up to a nice clear morning and a very wet boat and a engine leaking a shit-ton of oil.hummmm it seemed the oil was coming from a high pressure oil line.I wanted to go slightly north out of Port Sandwich to Banam Bay, a place Seamus had told me about.I figured I'd sail there and fix the
engine.I went under sail into Bamam Bay anchoring by just backwinding the mainsail to sink the anchor.I met some friends there from a boat called "Sabbatical 3"I had met them in the Marqueseas 2 years ago and here they were again. I hailed them on the VHF
and told them of my problem.Mark the skipper asked me if he could help and i asked if he could sell me a bit of oil since i was out.he was kind enough to do.Now all I had to do was to figure out how to fix a broken high pressure oil line.I asked another yacht there
what they thought about it and suggested fixing the line with solder and metal putty.I had heard of this method so thought I'd give it a try.My new friend Michael said he would give me a hand.So,we went to work on it...first we cleaned up the steel oil
line around where the crack had formed with abrasives and the carefully soldered the metal and then encapsulating the whold shibang in metal putty.The fix worked well and got Ironie back on the road.It seems that the increased vibration from
the new configuration of the motor mounts had cracked the oil line.Ironie was sure keeping me on my toes these days...It was getting close to the time where I was suppose to meet Seamus
again in Santo so after a week or so in Banam Bay I headed back north to Santo where i could order a new oil line and meet Seamus for another land adventure into the Big Bay Bush where I would be Camp Manager for the next survey expedition.
I sailed the 80 or so miles to Luganville arriving at night around 3 am and anchoring back at the Beachfront.In the morning I was greeted by Rick and Annie from Storm Girl.Nice to see some friendly faces and beer drinking buddies.They were preparing for thier trip back
to Darwin Australia,where they are from.Seamus and crew were back from west Santo and were getting the new trip plans together.It seemed it would be Me ,Seamus,Amy,(a pharmacist from the hospital) and 2 Scottish student doctors(called "baby docs" here)named Amy and Caroline...so,
Me ,Seamus and 3 cute girls on a camping trip into the deep bush...sweet...lol should be fun!!
We had the hospital truck which was a Toyota Land Cruiser,a definte improvement over the Mazda!!We got our camping gear and supplied with food piled into the truck and off we went for a 4 night camping trip.This was a great treat for me having been living on the
sea for a year and a half a trip into the woods would be a welcome change.We got off the pavement and started on the rough roads to the interior.Alot of villages were having Independence
Day celebrations so we saw lots of people taking time off working in thier gardens to have a bit of fun.We came to the first major settlement named"Corner"
There were soccar games and music going on and food stalls and lots of colorful "Ni-Vans" having a good ol' time.We stopped for awhile and then drove on.Two in the front 3 in the truck bed.We made it down the Road and finally to our first campsite in "Butmus" where we were hosted by Jerry
and his family.We set up camp and the got the cooking done then got into Jerrys potent kava before eating...WOW,Butmus kava kicks butt!I could'nt even bring myself to eat after kava and just went into my tent and slept great until 2 am when the bloody
roosters started...ahhhh,I'd forgot abot these evil vermin in my time on the sea...ROOSTERS!
I truly hate them!!Oh well,life on land,some things you conviently forget about....The next few days we visited some very out of the way villages.The hospital truck was up and down the mountains and valleys.We took turns riding in the back.On the way back to Santo,the 3 girls were in the back and Seamus and I we serenaded
by an 80's-90's medley of pop hits with Amazing Grace thrown in when we passed a dead dog in the road.We all got back to the Beachfront for pizza and Dewars on the rocks courtesy of Seamus(thanks dude!!).I was happy to see Ironie right where i left her safe and sound in the anchorage.My land adventure was alot of
fun but i was very happy to return to the sea.Nice breeze,no bugs(or bloody roosters!!) and everything is relatively clean....home.
I was just waking up one morning and listening to the weather on the "Rag of the Air" ,a weather net out of Fiji,when I heard "Steve,Ironie!!"I came out and saw some faces from the past.It was "Tahaa" with Claudia and Eric aboard a father and daughter team i had met in the Marqueseas in 2007.They had been dismasted on thier trip to New Zealand
and tat was the last I'd heard from them.I thought they would be back in thier home country of Austria by now....Anyway,good to see some old friends and catch up.They had spent nearly 2 years in New Zealand fixing Tahaa ten had sailed her to Fiji then Vanuatu.When Claudia had come to visit me later she told me
she wanted to find another boat to sail on as her dad had plans to sail straight for Thailand with minimal stops and she wanted to spend more time in the Pacific.I told her she was welcome to stay on Ironie until she found the boat she was looking for but I'd be doing a trip south to
Port Villa with Seamus in a few day but she was welcome to join for the trip...done deal,insta-crew...
so,the next phase was getting Ironie all supplied for the next trip.It is'nt easy to get to Port Villa from Santo as the island chain is oriented southeast to northwest and the prevailing winds are from the southeast,directly where we want to go.
The plan would be to sail, yet again, to Asanvari and then to Malakula and then to Epi island and then make the shot to Villa.I told Seamus it could take up to 2 weeks without stressing out the boat or crew too much.We set out in an Easterly breeze which would'nt let me take my prefered course south of Ambae
island which lies directly in the path from Santo so we went North around the top.it was ok but gave up "flukey"winds in the lee of Ambae.In the morning we were
greeted by south easterly winds and stong winds and squally ,rainy conditions.We beat into it and Motor sailed for the last 2 hours into the anchorage.We
hung-out in Asanvari for a couple of days waiting for the weather to improve for our shot to Banam Bay on Malakula,but it was'nt going to improve anytime soon so taking a forecast of south east winds 15-20 we set out for Banam Bay around sunset.Once we were out of the lee of the island we had some chunky seas and snotty conditions and were pinching
the wind hard.Conditions remained the same all night and the next morning but I was able to
lay my course with out tacking but we were hard on the wind to be sure.We arrive in Banam Bay after about 70 snotty miles and were greeted by Seamus' Ni-Van pals.We rested most of that day and got ready for fun with dentistry!!Project Marc had another volunteer boat called "Couteasan" with doctor David and wife Heather aboard.
They were running a mobile dental clinic from thier boat and we were there to lend a hand.the next day after we arrived Seamus,Claudia and I hike to the outter villages to spread the word about the dental clinic.We hiked about 10 miles that day.It was a great hike and we got to see many beautiful villages.We made it back to the boat with loads of fruits and veggies given to us by the locals.
The next couple of days were spent helping with the dental clinic and hiking around.We were also keeping our eye on the weather waiting for an easterly to head south but the forecast was for continued stong southeasterlys for the next week.Seamus was in a bit of a rush to get to Villa as his other volunteer boat the "Alvae",a 3 masted steel pirate boat was waiting for him to facilitate the loading of building supplies,(concrete,tin roofs ,water tanks,etc...) that would be brought back to Bamam Bay and other places
So considering the forecast he decided to fly to Villa early the next week.Sunday was fun day
,as Seamus was leaving and doctor David was taking a day off.So ,we took a hike to the beautiful"Rasa" waterfall with Nellie Peters' son 2 daughters as our guides.Nelle is Project Marc's island contact for Banam Bay.We had a great waterfall trip and then a lovely lunch of "lap-lap"manioc made by Nellie and family,after which doctor David gave the local kids the tooth brushing talk...a very fun day...
Seamus left on the plane and then it was just Claudia and myself to get Ironie down to Port villa.We left Banam Bay and headed to Craigs Cove on Ambrym for a night or two,then back to the Maskelyne islands south of Malakula for a couple of nights and then to Lamen Bay on Epi island where we would wait for an easterly wind to make the shot to villa.I noticed an increase in motor vibration as we were coming into Lamen Bay and Found a broken Motor mount....ahhh the continuing saga...We were still able to motor so it was'nt a big emergency but would fix it asap in Villa...
Laman bay is a nice place but it's main attraction is the local Dugong(manatee) who is very friendly and not bothered by yachties
swimming around him as he dines in the bay on sea grass.We were getting ready to leave for villa one day when one of Claudia's friend came in the bay.It was Masimo and his family on "Frasimada" a big catamaran from Italy.She wanted to spend some time catching up with them so i decided to stay an extra day.the wind was still a bit strong and was suppose to abate the next day so we hung-out and waited.It was a good decision as we got to swim with the famous dugong that day AND we
had a great Italian pasta dinner that night on Frasimada prepared by Simone Masimo's wife.yummy yummy!!
We finally made our passage to Port Villa leaving in the afternoon and arriving in the morning...about 75 nm total with a napbreak in the lee of Efate Island where Port Villa is located.
Arriving in Port Villa was a bit of a shock to the system as I have 'nt been in a tourist place in a looong time and it is touristy!he good thing is that they always have cold beer and ice cream in touristy places so Villa ho!!
Coming into Villa is no big deal until you'r inside and there is nowhere to anchor,everyone pays big bucks to use moorings here....it's all rocky and deep where it is't....No sand to be had bu I had a bit of inside inf from my friend Francis from"Infini" who I'd run into in Asanvari on my first trip there.He is from Villa and told me about a mooring that he used here that
no one bothered him about...cool I'll give it a try...We tied up and so far so good...arrrrr mooring piracy...I ran into my buddy Ted from "Seaquester"here who'd helped me fix my SSB in the Marshalls.Good to see him and his partner Karen. On coming into the harbor
We saw "Alvae",Seamus' pirate boat and she is a looker for sure big steel ting with a square sail rig with big chunky raked back masts...cool!!!We hooked up with Seamus and sunk a few super-power kavas and he told e Alvae had a full machine shop on board and I should talk to Captain Evan and see if he could help me with my broken motor mount.Good stuff!!
I got to know some of the very cool crew of Alvae ,mostly young cool folks out for some adventure.Evan and his first mate Cat sorted out my mount without a though adding a 6 mm plate to the bottom to make the thing bulletproof.Needless to say,the big bottle of rum was bestowed on them for all thier help!!More good news is that Claudia found a ride on Frasimada and will keep Masimo company after his family flys back to Italy.Steve and Ironie will cool our heels here in Port Villa doing a few boat projects until the end of the month when we
will transport 2 doctors back north to the Maskelynes just in time for the Malekula cultural arts festival begining of October.Alls well onboard!!gearing up for more adventure and trying no to get too fat on beer and ice cream...big hugs and hellos to my family and friends!!!I miss you all!!Some people have jobs and some have cruising boats i figure....till next time...Ironie clear....
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