Leaving Palmyra
28 September 2012 | same
Darn, its sprinkling again. We hope its sunny to head out the pass.
Well, no murders were committed here but the curse continues as a skipper of a delivery had to be medevaced off Palmyra with a head injury, staff infected leg wound and exhaustion.
He left behind a 65 ft. wooden schooner that he said leaked like a water hose if it heeled at all. He was trying to take it from HI to NZ with two other personnel but they 'got off' on Fanning Island so Capt. Rob tried to motor sail it back to Hawaii by himself and no autopilot.
That event went from 545am when Honoulu remotely sounded a Tsunami Warning Alarm to have Palmyra personnel go assist him, to 6pm when the Coast Guard landed and took him to Queens Hospital, Hawaii. Yesterday we went with the island admin. to look over the hull and rigging and help remove all the soggy paper products molding on the boat. Scott doesn't feel you could trust sailing the boat back to Hawaii and I couldn't stand the constant leakage. There were no fans on the boat so being down below was unbearable.
The picture you see is our contribution to the Yacht Club wall. We also enhanced our picture from '89. It was fun to see drawings from people we have met since '89 along our circumnavigation.
On the brighter side, we loved our short stay, walked all the paths with their self-guided tour paper, saw coconut crabs, tons of birds, ugly huge spiders, lots and lots of hermit and land crabs, old military buildings and more. Our one snorkel showed off the reef sharks, pretty coral and moderate fish. We needed to go further out to see big fish but it rained almost every day so we didn't fit in a #2 snorkel. While in our dinghy, we came up behind a 5 foot reef shark who had two tiny yellow pilot fish that didn't leave the area just in front of him mouth. We both circled each other at least 10 times before we laughed and went on. In the lagoon we saw some huge sea turtles and manta rays came to the shallows where a light was shining because the plankton are drawn to the light and that's what they eat. Be sure to check out the gallery.
All the fresh food is gone but made new friends and although we told them the $250/$350 will deter many sailors, we're glad we bit the bullet and came. Having endless internet allowed us to post this and let people know we came and went. Thank you, Palmyra.