Cruising with Soggy Paws

Diving in Vavau, Tonga

2012-01-28T09:11:00.000-10:00

Our friends Amy and Roger from s/v Shango arranged to get their PADI dive certification here in Tonga last week. After talking with all the dive shops in Neiafu, they chose Karen from Dive Vavau.

Karen working with Amy and Roger
We got an opportunity to go diving with them on the last day. We rounded up Gary and his crew Linda from s/v Sea Flyer and the 6 of us had the dive boat to ourselves (plus the Dive Vavau crew). While Paul drove the boat, and Karen worked with Amy and Roger, Izzy showed us around the dive site.

Exploring a Cave
We did 2 dives. In Vavau, the #1 attraction is diving with whales. But the whales are frolicking in their summer home off Antartica this time of year. So no whales. The other attraction around here are caves. Being part of a volcanic ridge, Vavau has a lot of caves. Both of our dives originated near the mouth of a shallow cave, and after we got through exploring the cave, we went out on the wall.

Linda Playing with a Basket Star
We didn't see much in the way of big fish, but some pretty little fish, some very colorful fans and soft corals. The water was warm and visibility was pretty good. A great way to spend a day.

Roger is Enjoying the Underwater World
Sherry Exploring the Wall
Newly Certified Divers, Roger and Amy

More Photos in our Picasa Album

Dealing with Convergence

2012-01-26T10:15:00.000-10:00

Rain, rain, rain, rain...that's the short story.

The long story is that the South Pacific Convergence Zone has been hanging over us for over a week, and looks like it is hanging out for another week.

The South Pacific Convergence Zone is an area where the NE winds from the northern hemisphere meet the SE winds from the Southern Hemisphere, and cause an area of 'convergence' that generally means clouds and rain. The SPCZ is quasi-stationary, but does move north and south a little bit, usually seasonally. Unfortunately, right now it has parked right on top of Tonga.

Yesterday's Satellite Picture
This is actually the weather we expected this time of year, but we were spoiled our first week back with just beautiful sunny weather. Now we're not spoiled. Starting to go a little crazy with the constant rain. Hoping it will continue to drift eastward and clear out some. And hoping that none of the marching string of low pressure areas develop into anything worse than a little more rain.

The Surface Map from Fiji's Weather Service

The winds have been an unusual direction... N-NW... for about a week. While the SPCZ hangs over us, the forecast is really unreliable. So much depends on where it wiggles.

Even with the rain, we'd like to go out cruising a bit, but it's hard to tell what the conditions are going to be--to pick a good anchorage for NW winds (but maybe switching to E unexpectedly).

So, for now, we are sitting in Neiafu harbor enjoying internet, and socializing with the people who are here. Only about 5 boats we know of are still in this area--the other ~300 boats who passed through here in the fall have long ago left for Fiji, Australia, or New Zealand.

Yesterday, we attended an Aussie Day celebration at the Balcony Restaurant--about a dozen ex-pat Aussies were there in mufti, and about another dozen non-Aussies who were designated Temporary Aussies for the celebration. We drank Fosters beer. practiced our "G'Day" and had a good time.

Back in Tonga

2012-01-10T08:22:00.000-10:00

We had a long but uneventful flight and arrived yesterday about 4pm. A few minor issues aboard, but nothing we can't handle.

We took a sunset swim in the nice warm water. Sunny skies and gentle breezes, at least for now.

Cyclone possibility seems to have dissolved, but watching the wx carefully.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Hanging out in Tonga for cyclone season!
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 01/10/2012 6:12 PM (utc) our position was 18°42.58'S 173°59.24'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Goodbye America, Hello Tonga!

2012-01-08T02:36:00.000-10:00

We are leaving on a jet plane... (sung to the tunes of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and 1970's hit song).

We take Air Tran from Atlanta to LA, then Air Pacific from LA to Fiji and then to Tongatapu. From there we take the local airline, Chatham's Air, to Neiafu. About 36 hours of travel time. With the date line and time zones, we leave on the morning of the 8th and arrive on the afternoon of the 10th.

Unfortunately, the long range GRIB file for the area shows a cyclone starting to brew up almost on top of us. We'll have about 12 hours after we arrive (if the current forecast holds) before things start getting nasty.

Follow the weather in our area, here:

Samoa IR Satellite

Fiji is on the left of the picture, Samoa is in the middle near the top, and Tonga is a sprinkling of islands running north and south, below Samoa and east of Fiji.

or here:

Fiji Cyclone Center

Happy 2012

2012-01-01T14:02:00.000-10:00

We spent the day with son Chris and his wife Sandy, going over all the old McCampbell/Heliker photos. Lots and lots of photos and memorabilia. I'm still scanning!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

2011-12-24T12:18:00.000-10:00

Busy month, busy year--no time to do justice to it right now, but I did want to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to our friends and family around the world!

Racing on Fast Lane

2011-12-10T09:18:00.038-10:00

One of the best things about being back in the Melbourne area is the chance to go sailboat racing with my old racing friends. This time, everything came together so I got a chance to race with on my old boat, with (partially) my old crew, and against some of the skippers I used to race against.

Fast Lane and Crew Waiting for the Start
Cheryl, Lilly, Marlene, Amy, Winnie, Nancy, and Me
We only had one crew member aboard who is currently regularly racing (Cheryl, on Foredeck), and we had 2 aboard who had never been racing before (Lilly and Nancy). The rest of us were really rusty. So, no, we didn't win. But we got the spinnaker up and down, gybe it a few times, didn't embarrass ourselves, and had a GREAT time.

Spinnaker Up!

The fleet has changed a lot since I last raced... when I left, there were 3-4 Lindenberg 28's racing, so it was almost "match racing". Since then, those skippers have swapped out their L28's for much simpler (fewer crew required) J/24's. There is now a fairly large J/24 fleet in Melbourne.

We're In the Lead, But Not Winning
The neophyte "I can beat them with one hand tied behind my back" skippers have all 'grown up', and they beat me today handily. Glad to see the Women's Racing in the Melbourne area still going strong.

Checking Out Carisma

2011-12-05T05:13:00.006-10:00

Our friend Jim Yates has been 'Getting Ready to Go Cruising' for a couple of years now, but he's gotten pretty serious in the last few months.

Dave and I and a couple of friends went to visit s/v Carisma in the yard.

Checking Out the New Davits
Talking about Rigging
Jim has made a lot of progress in the last year, but is still 'almost ready'.

Good luck, Jim, keep working at it. Remember, you never really FINISH the list! At some point, you just throw the rest of the stuff aboard and leave. Can't wait to share an anchorage with you and Nancy!!

Jim's Website: http://yachtcarisma.com/

Racing on Oriyo

2011-12-05T04:10:00.004-10:00

Our friends Winnie and Ralph invited us to race with them on their boat Oriyo in the Indian River Yacht Club 'Race of Champions'. We had fun!

Dave Enjoying the Race
Dave and Ralph Checking Rig Tension in the Middle of the Race

Bottling my Mr. Beer

2011-12-03T11:08:00.003-10:00

Well I'm halfway through the beer brewing process on my first batch of Mr. Beer.

I bought the Mr. Beer Deluxe Edition Home Microbrewery System on a whim, from Amazon.com, when I was ordering some other stuff. I started my first batch about 2 weeks ago.

After brewing for 2 weeks, it smelled like it is supposed to smell like--flat beer.

To bottle it, I used recycled Gatoraid Bottles instead of buying the plastic beer-looking bottles from Mr. Beer. They recommend using plastic for your first few brewing attempts--improperly brewed beer can explode.

So now I have to wait at least a week to try my first bottle. I have my bottles in the closet in a cooler--both to help keep the beer at the recommended temperature, and to enclose the mess if they explode on me. Once a day I put a bottle of frozen water in the cooler to try to keep them near the recommended temp of 70 degrees.

I've started a new batch with a different flavor. This one is the Vienna Lager from the Mr. Beer 3-Beer Mix Variety Pack.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

St. Pete Boat Show

2011-12-03T10:41:00.003-10:00

We drove over yesterday to the St. Pete Boat Show. We had no pressing needs but went to look around, and also keep in touch with some of our friends who were showing there.

By the time we drove 3 hours over and 3 hours back, we only had 3 hours there. But since we were NOT in the market for a boat, or any major systems, that was plenty of time to go through the 2 tents and see what we wanted to see.

Dave enjoyed talking with Travis at Mack Sails, and a couple of the watermaker vendors. We are still trying to find the right hose to replace the leaky high pressure hose that goes between the pump and the membranes. Our current hose, only 4 years old, sprung a pinhole leak and sprayed salt water all over the engine (oh NO!!). Dave was NOT amused.

So he doesn't want to replace that hose with hose from the same source. But of course that's OEM-branded (Village Marine) stuff and hard to find out specs and part numbers. There is a LOT of inexpensive hose made for the pressure-washer (car wash) industry, but it's not 'FDA approved'. We don't want to save $20 and poison ourselves (or gum up our membranes) with inappropriate stuff. Our search is complicated by the fact that Dave wants to be able to re-use the expensive 'reusable' fittings he bought with the first hose, so we need hose of the same diameter and thickness.

The guys at Cruise RO Water have been the most helpful. Their pitch is that all their stuff for their watermaker kits are 'off the shelf' and they don't try to hide who the manufacturer is, so you HAVE to buy the replacement from them. These are good guys who understand the problems we have out cruising in remote areas. If we can't soon find the right hose that meets our needs, we'll buy replacement hose with additional fittings from them.

We also had fun talking with the young man from Lithium Ion Batteries. He's selling 12v RV and Marine batteries that look like they have a LOT of advantages of the traditional Lead Acid batteries. They are pricey, though. But if we were planning on renewing our batteries, we'd have to take a hard look at it. Our Rolls Batteries are doing fine after 5 years of heavy usage, so we're not shopping yet.

Thanksgiving Turkey

2011-11-25T04:57:00.005-10:00

We drove over to Largo yesterday morning to spend Thanksgiving with Dave's cousin Bryan and his Aunt Eva Nell.

Our Turkey
Usually I try pretty hard to be somewhere where someone ELSE is preparing the turkey. Traditional Turkey Dinner prep totally violates my 'If it takes longer to cook than to eat...' rule.

But Eva Nell is an invalid and the two guys are pretty hopeless in the kitchen, so it fell upon me to pull the dinner together. Fortunately, Bryan and his aunt's part-time caretaker, Terry, had done some prep of the turkey, so all I had to do was pop it into the oven. And Terry had thoughtfully pre-cooked the neck and innards, so gravy was easy.

Dave Carving
So all I had to do was actually cook the turkey, prepare the gravy, and make the sides. It was fun, the turkey came out great, and the guys cleaned up after dinner while I rested.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Dave's USNA Weekend

2011-11-21T01:35:00.002-10:00

Dave missed the official Naval Academy Class of 1970 40th reunion last year, but he managed to round up some of his classmates for a mini reunion of the 31st Company this weeekend.

We drove over from Melbourne to Lakeland on Friday to meet a couple of the early arrivals, and go visit the Florida Aviation Museum at the Lakeland Airport. Dave specifically wanted to visit because his Dad was inducted to their Hall of Fame in 2009.

David McCampbell, Navy's Top WWII Ace
We found his plaque easily on the Hall of Fame wall. It's a pretty impressive group of people that Dave's Dad is keeping company with.

Florida Aviation Museum Hall of Fame
If you're into airplanes, the museum is fun to visit. There are tons of actual and model airplanes with an emphasis on pioneers and experimental designs.

The weekend was organized around the annual Plant City Pig Jam, a BBQ competition that classmate Marc Farris attends every year. Marc Farris is the founder and primary force behind BBQTV BBQ TV.

On Saturday and Sunday, while Marc judged and filmed at the Pig Jam, the rest of the guys played golf and then had get-together at Marc's camper. (I went back to Melbourne to help with Race Committee for the ECSA sailing race).

Marc's BBQTV Production Studio

Breakfast at the Waffle House

By Sunday night, the group had dwindled to 3 classmates and had moved to Jim Neale's 'ranch' in the Green Swamp (home of the Florida Aquifer). I joined back up with Dave at Jim's house for one night. Marc and Jim put on a big spread for us.

Final Dinner at Jim's Ranch
We're headed back to Melbourne today for another round of doctor visits, and to get ready for Thanksgiving. We are planning to make a day trip south to Boca Raton on Wednesday to see our friends on Visions of Johanna, who are visiting Florida for a wedding, then over to the Heliker Hotel (Dave's cousin Bryan's house) in Largo for Thanksgiving weekend.

Traveling to Pitcairn as a Tourist

2011-11-14T09:28:00.003-10:00

I received the following information from Jacqui Christian at Pitcairn Island, where we visited last year:

"As you know Pitcairn is a small place and has been quite difficult to get to in the past. Recently, my partner Leslie and I have started Pitcairn Travel with the long term goal of providing regular travel to Pitcairn to facilitate more small groups of visitors to boost the economy and share our beautiful island. As you are probably aware, we do not have much of an economy and over the past 7 years we have had to go into budgetary aid from the UK. We are trying hard to build an economy based on small niche market exports and tourism in a scale that will be manageable for the island. As we have no airport, we are unlikely to have mass tourism here so since the final leg of travel is still by boat, we will probably always be for the adventurous at heart. However all we need is about 500 people a year so it is not much in global terms."

"Would you please have a look at our website, www.pitcairntravel.pn and if you like what you see, please share it with your friends so that those who want to come, may find that it isn't quite so difficult now."

"We are also looking for travel agents to work with in helping to book tours if you know some in the adventure travel business. The descendants of the Mutiny on the Bounty are still alive and well and fighting for our future!"

"Warmest regards from Pitcairn,

Jacqui Christian
Pitcairn Travel
PO Box 3, Pitcairn Island, PCRN1ZZ
www.pitcairntravel.pn
+64 9 9840163"

I hope everyone has a chance to go visit this really unique spot in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean!!

The 2011 SSCA Gam

2011-11-12T07:17:00.003-10:00

We are again at the Seven Seas Cruising Association's annual Gam.

Dave gave a talk yesterday morning called Pacific Crossing Primer. We'll get his presentation (and mine, more of a travelogue) posted on our website here:

Soggy Paws Presentations

Though we could probably give 75% of the Gam presentations ourselves, we still enjoy attending the presentations by others--I've learned at least one new thing at each one.

We are also enjoying meeting old friends and new friends. We organized another CSY Breakfast at Memaw's Barbeque

The 2011 CSY Breakfast Gang

Our New Kia Sportage

2011-11-12T06:25:00.004-10:00

Last December, just before we left to go back to the boat, Dave got hit by another driver, and our old 1999 Kia Sportage was totalled.

December 2010 - Dave Wrecks the Kia

So one of our first priorities on arriving in Florida was to find a new car.

2006 Kia Sportage LX
We had been thinking in the $5,000 range, but ended up looking for a newer lower-mileage model, and spent about double that in the end.

We looked at about 20 cars in the small SUV range (Ford Escape, Toyota Rav/4, Honda CRV, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage). We used 4-5 websites (Cars.com, Carmax.com, eBay, etc), checked specs, reviews, etc, and talked to a dozen used car salesmen. And we slowly narrowed the field down to a Hyundai Tucson or Kia Sportage 2005-2007, under 75K miles. Though we started out looking at RAV/4's or CRV's, we liked both the design and price of the Hyundai/Kia (essentially the same car).

We finally settled on a 2006 Kia Sportage--it looks brand new, and only 65,000 miles. And it drives like a dream.

Aaahhh!! Back in Florida

2011-11-05T06:54:00.001-10:00

Though we really enjoyed visiting with family in Atlanta, Georgia and Charlotte, North Carolina, it was kinda cold up there. We were happy to see the Welcome to Florida sign.

We stopped off at the Florida Welcome Center for our traditional free cup of Orange Juice and a free Florida map.

At my cousin Fred's house in Charlotte, we gave a presentation at his yacht club on Lake Norman, entitled Soggy Paws Pacific Adventures. Just a travelogue slide show.

We spent last night in Hawthorne, outside of Gainesville, with my brother, John. It is still kinda nippy even there--the low temperature last night was 40 degrees F. BRRRR!!!

We are now drive south through the Ocala National Forest, and looking forward to the warmer temps of Melbourne.

Back in the USA

2011-10-31T03:51:00.000-10:00

Well, we had a busy last week in Tonga preparing to leave Soggy Paws. We stripped her completely in case an early-season storm brews up while we are gone--roller furling sails down, mainsail wrapped tightly with rope, solar panels down, dinghy lashed on deck, all the misc deck stuff removed and stowed below.

We spent about 2 days with Larry, the guy who rents the moorings, surveying the moorings and helping him do a little preventive maintenance. We added a second heavy line to our mooring, and carefully inspected the existing setup. Fortunately, our friends Roger and Amy on Shango had a hooka rig (a setup that provides a constant supply of air to a diver, from the surface), which made working on the moorings much easier.

We left Soggy Paws a couple of days ago and started our 40 hour journey back to the States. Our route took us first by dinghy, then by taxi, then small turboprop from Neiafu to Tongatapu in Tonga. We had a 6 hour wait at the aiport in Tongatapu, and then on to Fiji, where we caught a 747 that took us overnight direct to Los Angeles. We had been braced for a 10 hour layover in LAX, but our flight from Fiji got in 90 minutes earlier than anticipated (must have been a helluva tailwind out there!), and we managed to catch an afternoon flight from LAX to Atlanta.

Everything went pretty smoothly, and we actually managed to sleep some on the plane. The only hitch was that our bags were a few pounds over the limit--we took the opportunity to offload some stuff from the boat--and we paid some overage fees. None too exhorbitant until we tried to check in on Air Tran in LA. They wanted $46 EACH for bags that were about 2 pounds over the limit. Naturally we rummaged in the bags and took out a couple of books and hand-carried them aboard, avoiding the overage fees. We also found that we couldn't activate our insurance on a weekend, so got my sister to come pick us up at Atlanta airport instead of renting a car then.

We fortunately were not affected at all by the big snowstorm that hit the NE US (watching the news about one plane where the passengers got stuck onboard for 8 hours on the ground).

So this week we plan to make our way from Atlanta through North Carolina and down to Florida. Since our car was totalled last year just before we left (not our fault), we are in a rental car until we get a chance to buy something appropriate (anyone in FL have a small SUV for sale?)

We WILL be at the SSCA Gam in Melbourne Nov 11-12-13. Dave is giving a talk on Friday, entitled 'Pacific Crossing Primer'. After 3 years wandering the Pacific, and getting most of the way across, Dave feels pretty qualified to share some advice with other cruisers.

Hopefully we'll get a chance soon to add some pictures to this year's blog entries!!

Neiafu, Tonga Update

2011-10-21T08:23:00.001-10:00

My last update, nearly two weeks ago, left us just arriving in Neaifu, Tonga.

Neiafu is the big convergence point for all the boats who have been making their way from French Polynesia via various routes toward the west, so there are literally several hundred boats in the area. Fortunately, it is a big area, with lots of harbors. Similar somewhat to famous gathering places in the Caribbean, like the Marsh Harbor, Abacos area, Georgetown, Bahamas, and the Virgin Islands.

Neiafu isn't a big town, but it is (I think) the next biggest town in Tonga, besides the country's capital of Nukualofa. There is a huge (relatively speaking) population of english-speaking ex-patriots--primarily New Zealander's but also Aussies and Americans. So, for a small place, it is pretty yachtie-friendly. There is a morning VHF net that is run mainly by the local yachtie restaurant/bars. And they have a wide-area VHF system with a repeater on CH 26, which makes it possible for yachts in scattered anchorages out of town to keep in touch with everything.

There is internet here, though painfully slow and fairly expensive (about $3 US per hour). I have a long list of 'Internet To Do' items that won't get done here, that's for sure!!

We are near the end of the 'yachtie season' right now. All the boats around us are talking about weather patterns and what route they will take to New Zealand. Soon, there will be very few cruisers left here. Though the Kiwi's don't usually head back south until about December, all the first year boats are antsy to get to NZ and start getting work done (NZ is a big refit place for cruising boats). We have at least two friends who are already in NZ and a number of the Puddle Jumpers are on their way between Minerva Reef and NZ right now. Within a week, almost everyone we have met all year will be gone.

There is one contingent of Kiwi's hanging out for the last of the Rugby World Cup--the final match between NZ and France--which is this Sunday night (Saturday morning back in the U.S.). On Monday morning, the boats will be streaming out of Neiafu Harbor, cruising south towards NZ.

Ourselves--we spent a week in Neiafu, to get oriented, and then moved out to "Anchorage 11", Tapana, to hook up with Larry and Sherri on the Ark Gallery. These are some retired cruisers who have set out some 'cyclone moorings', and who watch boats for crusiers. We reserved a mooring here before we left Hawaii last April. And the plan is to stay in Vava'u for cyclone season. We have contracted a mooring for the cyclone season for the cost of 400 pa'anga ($250 per month). This comes with a little boat-tending... opening up when it's sunny, checking for issues on board, and running the engine once a month. Once we get back from our trip to the U.S., we will drop the mooring and do some cruising, keeping a close eye on the weather.

We are leaving Soggy Paws here in one week, and flying back to the U.S.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Hanging out in Tonga for cyclone season!
At 10/19/2011 6:11 PM (utc) our position was 18°42.58'S 173°59.24'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

The F/V Lesila Rescue - Followup

2011-10-15T08:08:00.001-10:00

Here is what happened after we dropped the Captain and one crew member off at Niuatoputapu (NTT) and sailed off into the night... The below information is pieced together primarily from conversations with Eric of s/v Secret Agent Man.

It turns out that the crew member was originally from NTT, so when the small boat that came out to pick them up off s/v Shango got back to the town dock, many people had gathered (news of the events had spread by word of mouth through town) on the dock, including several of the crew member's extended family. Some were crying in joy. Eric said it was quite moving, and that the villagers were so grateful to the cruisers for going out of their way to help the fishermen.

So presumably the people of NTT pulled out all the stops to house and feed these two guys, and get their part fixed. But there was still the problem of reuniting them with their boat, which continued to drift west with the other 2 crew aboard, at the rate of about 1.5 knot (approx 1.5 mile per hour). Every hour wasted on shore meant another mile further away.

But there still remained the problem of how to get the two crew back to Lesila. There wasn't a local boat in NTT capable of going to sea, nor any big enough to tow Lesila in. Conversations were started by the owner Nuku Alofa, 300 miles away, trying to find an alternate means. However, the ultimate solution was to press Eric on s/v Secret Agent Man into service. So Eric loaded up the two crew members and set out to rendezvous with the drifting vessel. A regular radio schedule was kept via SSB, so Eric knew where the boat was. By the time he set out, the Lesila was about 50 miles downwind of NTT (nearly a 10 hour sail).

Secret Agent Man finally arrived on scene just before dark, and the two men were transfered back to Lesila with the repaired part. Eric hove to to wait for the results. He also had to loan out a few tools. Eric said that it was a dark night, and the wind had picked up. The Lesila didn't have any lights on. He was afraid he'd run into it during the night.

By 9am the next morning, the Lesila had drifted to 16.29S 174.08W, 85 miles downwind from NTT. And the men had worked through the night trying to repair the transmission, and had finally concluded that they could not repair the transmission.

Here is Eric's emailed report (to the Police in Neiafu):

This is Eric captain of the SV Secret Agent Man. I dropped the men off on Lesila last night but they were unable to fix their engine. I spent the night on the radio with Nukualofa radio trying to get them a tow back to Nuiatoputapu. I am unclear what is happening. Please let me know. Their position as of right now 2000 zulu 900AM local is - 16.29S 174.08W

With a still-inoperable engine, and no certain rescue from the Tongan Navy, the Captain begged Eric to take them in tow into NTT or Neiafu. But it was now blowing about 20 knots right from that direction, and Eric's Cal 35 was not designed for that kind of work. He refused, and again offered to take the men off the drifting vessel to safety. But the men refused. By this time, a number of emails and radio contacts had been made, between the people in NTT, and the people in Neiafu, and there was some hope that the Tongan Navy would be dispatched to tow them in.

Eric couldn't do any more for them at that point, so he established a regular radio schedule with them, and set sail for Neiafu.

It was nearly a day later before a Tongan Navy ship was dispatched to tow the Lesila in, and yet another day before Eric got a report from the Captain via radio that they were under tow, headed home to Nuku Alofa. But they did eventually get rescued. Eric is here in the harbor with us in Neiafu.
-----
Sherry & Dave
At 10/10/2011 9:38 PM (utc) our position was 18°39.73'S 173°58.99'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Eventful Passage from Niuatoputapu to Neiafu

2011-10-12T12:23:00.001-10:00

After watching the weather carefully for several days, to pick a weather window that was not too light or too strong, we left Niuatoputapu early on Sunday morning.

Our friends on Dream Away had opted to leave on Saturday evening, planning a 2-overnight sail, in light winds, for the 170 miles SSW to Neiafu. My Maxsea routing optimization showed that we could conservatively leave on Sunday morning and get in to a reasonable anchorage before dark on Monday, if we got going early on Sunday.

So we were out the pass at 7am and under full sail headed south by 8am. Several other boats left just after us, so there was a parade heading south, on the east side of Niuatoputapu. As forecast, the wind was still a bit light and had a bit too much south in it for a great sail at first. But by 11am it had picked up a few knots and was swinging more east.

Around lunchtime, while Dave was snoozing in the cockpit, I heard a weak and scratchy voice in broken English on the VHF, saying something like "Can you help me, our engine is broken." At first I ignored it--it was so weak that, and the English broken enough, that I assumed it was far away and not intended for us. I heard nothing about a sailboat, so they couldn't be talking to us, right?

Then we chatted with our friends on Shango, they had heard it too, and so had Chesapeake, close behind Shango. Finally (somewhat reluctantly), I called on the VHF "Disabled vessel, can you hear me? Where are you located?" Then Dave took over, with is US Navy officer training... After several minutes of back and forth, with very poor copy (both because of weak VHF and because of heavily accented broken English), we established that it was an 11 meter (35 feet) fishing vessel with a broken engine, and they were located about 7 miles behind us. They had been broken down for a day already, and were basically nowhere near anything for at least several more days of drifting.

At this point, as much as we wanted to keep going, with a fair wind and things awaiting us in Neiafu, we decided that we must turn back and render assistance. It turned out that, good friends that they are, both Shango and Chesapeake turned back with us. It seems overkill, but it was nice to have company, and it turned out that all 3 vessels helped in some critical way.

Shango has an integrated Radar on his chartplotter, which was nice for finding the fishing boat. Shango and Soggy Paws both have active AIS, so it made it easy for us to coordinate our actions over the next few hours. Chesapeak is a pretty fast boat, and they sailed ahead of us to provide advance communications.

When we reached the fishing boat, we quickly decided that towing was not an option. We were 25 miles from Niuatoputapu, in fairly good seas, and Lesila, the fishing vessel, was a heavy steel boat. None of us felt comfortable risking our boats and engines taking him under tow. It turned out that his problem was a broken transmission. So the first thing we did was "loan" (give) him some tools he needed to take his transmission apart. Soggy Paws stuffed a socket wrench and 3 sockets of the required size into a gallon milk jug, and tossed them to Lesila as we sailed past. Then we all hove to to see if they would be able to fix the problem.

About an hour later, the captain announced on the VHF that the transmission had a broken part, and there was no way he could repair it on board. It needed to be welded. So Dave started talking to him about gathering up their passports and things, and we would take the 4 of them back to Niuatoputapu (NTT). The captain, of course, didn't want to leave the vessel. So we explored other options. First, we got the owner's telephone number in Nukualofa (about 300 miles to the south), and we called the number on our satellite phone. He wasn't in and wasn't expected until 7pm, and the person who answered had almost no English. About that time, the Pacific Seafarers Ham Net was gearing up on 14,300, and we called them for ideas. Basically, the answer was, 'You are so remote, and it's not a life and death emergency, it's not likely we could get any assistance for you, but let us know how it turns out.' We did get a few phone numbers for people in Neiafu and Nuiatoputapu to contact, but none of these panned out.

The captain finally suggested that we take him and another crew with us to Niuatoputapu, with the broken part. His plan was to get the part fixed/welded in NTT, and somehow get back to the boat. Meanwhile, the 2 other crew would be left on board, with the GPS and SSB radio, so it would be possible for someone to rendezvous with the drifting vessel the next day.

Shango volunteered to take the 2 crew on their boat, back to NTT, if we would go along for support. We knew at that time that we couldn't reach NTT before dark. We hoped to be able to get someone from the village (or one of the cruisers still there), to come out the pass in a small boat to take the passengers aboard, so that we could turn right around and head for Neiafu.

That seemed like a workable plan. The two crew jumped in the water and swam to Shango, with the part. Chesapeake went with us, sailing ahead and providing first contact via VHF with (eventually) Eric on Secret Agent Man. Eric then contacted Sia and Nico ashore and arranged for a boat to go out and pick the crew up off Shango.

We had a pretty fast sail back north--the wind had freshened enough, and was on the beam. But it was 10pm before Shango had managed to drop their passengers off and turn around. So, 14 hours after originally setting out, we again headed south. We were all pretty tired by then AND knew we had turned a 1-night passage into a 2 night passage. We also knew that bigger winds were forecast on Monday night and Tuesday, and we wouldn't be able to beat them into port as originally planned. *sigh*

Sunday night wasn't too bad, other than the fact that we were all tired.

Monday afternoon, however, the weather started setting in, and we had heavy rain and squally conditions all afternoon and most of the night. On my watch, I spent the whole time reefing and unreefing sails, with the wind varying between 'less than 5 knots' and 'almost 25 knots'. One time I finally gave up trying to sail, and started the engine to motor thru the calm, and not 2 minutes later shut down the engine and had to reef in again, as the wind was back to 20-25kts.

To put the final icing on the cake... Late Monday afternoon, when Shango went to turn his engine on to motor through a flukey wind spot, his engine wouldn't start. He and Dave did some troubleshooting over the radio, but they were unable to solve the problem. So, Shango had to sail through to squally conditions, conserve battery power, and rendezvous with us outside the harbor so we could tow them into port.

We all made it safely, and fortunately, by 8am when Shango sailed into view, the weather had abated a little. Without much trouble, Soggy Paws took Shango in tow for the last 5 miles into the harbor. Chesapeake, also standing by, went ahead into Neiafu harbor to get assistance with finding a mooring for Shango, and get a couple of dinghies lined up to take them onto the mooring.

It all turned out well, but is sure turned out to be quite a different passage than we had envisioned!!
-----
Sherry & Dave
Hanging out in Tonga for cyclone season!
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 10/10/2011 9:38 PM (utc) our position was 18°39.73'S 173°58.99'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Fun in New Potatoes

2011-10-12T09:48:00.000-10:00

We enjoyed our stay in Niuatoputapu (aka New Potatoes).

One fun thing we did was hike the ridge trail. We hitch-hiked early one morning down to near the 3rd village of Hihifo, found the path up to the top of the ridge (thanks to Avril on Dream Away's good directions), and hiked along the ridge top. We found viewpoints for every direction, and the weather was great for taking pictures.

Another fun thing was a 'pig roast' that Sia and Nico hosted at their house (for $25 pa'anga per person). They baked 2 whole (small) pigs and fixed some other traditional Tongan side dishes (taro, greens, etc). We had home-made mango juice to drink. And a fruit dumpling mix for dessert. About 8 boats participated--everyone ate their fill and had a good time.

Another thing that provided a lot of amusement was watching the animals around the village. It is springtime here, so all the animals have babies. As we walk thru the village, there are tiny chickens following the hens, little piglets capering behind their mothers, and even a (horse) foal wobbling next to its mother.

Finally, we had the chance to see the 'about monthly' supply ship come in. Most of the cruiser's dinghied in to the concrete quay to watch the fun and games around the supply ship. About 20 passengers arrived on the freighter, along with lots of cargo. Rumor had it that after the cargo was unloaded, the captain would break open the freezer and sell ice cream from his stocks, but we didn't stay on the docks long enough to watch the ice cream caper (it was hot as heck standing around watching). But later in the evening, we were amazed to see that all the town kids were shinnying out the bow line and jumping off the bow of the freighter. We couldn't believe the captain would allow that. But the kids were having a ball.

We also had a short snorkel on the reef one afternoon. The wind was down and the tide was up, and we actually were able to anchor the dinghy inside, and swim out over the reef, to get to the deep water. Much of the reef was pulverized during the tsunami 2 years ago. There is new coral growth coming back, but it is still fairly barren where we were. Lots of fish, and lots of interesting 'profile' (caverns, etc) on the reef.

There were whales about while we were in Nuiatoputapu. We saw them from the ridge while we were hiking, to the west of the anchorage outside the reef. And we saw them fairly close to the entrance to the anchorage as we were leaving. But we never got to go out and try to observe them up close.

We could easily have stayed a week or two longer, to take our time, do some more snorkeling, hiking, and meet more of the local people. But we do need to get down to Neiafu and get settled in soon, so we reluctantly left Niuatoputapu on Sunday morning.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Hanging out in Tonga for cyclone season!
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 10/10/2011 9:38 PM (utc) our position was 18°39.73'S 173°58.99'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Beautiful Passage to Niuatoputapu, Tonga

2011-10-05T11:13:00.001-10:00

The passage to Niuatoputopu, or "New Potatoes", as the cruisers call it, is 180 miles--just barely beyond what we could comfortably conservatively manage in an overnight passage. So the discussion was, do we be conservative, and leave late in the day and plan a 2-overnight passage. Or do we hang it out a little, leave early in the morning, hope the wind holds, push a little, maybe have to motor a little, and arrive at a strange place with a reef entry just before sunset?

I was pushing for the conservative approach, but Dave was adamant that we could make it in one overnight. If we didn't we'd just heave-to and wait for daylight outside the pass.

We ended up with perfect weather--we got a little more wind than we thought we'd get. It was only a few more knots than forecast, but it was enough to boost our speed from the planned 5 knots to 6.5 knots, and we had a BEAUTIFUL beam reach for nearly 30 hours. We arrived at the pass at 2pm, with plenty of good light for getting in and anchoring. Dave, of course, got a pat on the back for making the right choice.

We are now in Tonga, which, though still situated a few degrees East of the actual "International Dateline", is on a time zone that is on the other side of the dateline. So we shifted our clocks from "-11 plus DST" to "+13". That means we lost a day and gained an hour. Today is now tomorrow here.

I have changed my computer clock to match (somewhat reluctantly), so only god knows what date this blog is posting when I email it. It is very confusing... it is Thursday, October 6 here in Tonga, but it is only Weds, Oct 5, in the U.S.

We are enjoying Niuatoputapu (New-ya Tow-pu Tah-pu). It is a very small out-island, which was totally devastated by the tsunami 2 years ago. They have no running water and no central electricity--only cisterns and a few houses and government buildings have solar power. There are about 800 people living here in 3 small villages, with about 10 working cars/trucks. The supply ship comes here every 1-2 months. There is one small store that is out of all but the most basis supplies, unless the supply ship has been here recently.

But the people are friendly, and they all like to practice their English (thank god!). There is one local with a VHF radio and good English that helps organize things for the yachties. Last night we had a nice Cruiser Potluck at Sia's, and tomorrow she is organizing a pig roast for 25 pa'anga per person.

We are looking at the weather forecast, and must leave here on Sunday, in order to have reasonable winds for the our next hop, 160 miles south to Neiafu, Tonga. This will be our last ocean passage for about 6 months!!
-----
At 10/05/2011 7:39 PM (utc) our position was 15°56.49'S / 173°46.08'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

More Samoa Touring - Manono Island

2011-10-05T10:31:00.001-10:00

To complete our touring of Western Samoa...

After breakfast at Matavai Beach Resort, we drove to the Manono ferry terminal and took a small boat out to Manono Island, just off the western top of Upolu. Our information was that, if you waited for a ferry boat to fill up, you could go for the local's price of 2 tala per person. But, looking like the tourists we were, we were offered an immediate departure for the 4 of us, for 10 tala per person, round trip. In the interest of making the most out of our time, we decided to accept.

It was an easy ride (inside the reef) out to the island, in our little covered launch. Our plan was to walk around the island and find a place to eat. What we didn't realize was how hot and windless it would be, and that there seemed to only one place that you could request a meal from. After 1 hour of hot walking in the sun, we finally reached Sunset Beach View (or something like that). A small establishment that had a few bungalows to rent, and whom would make us lunch. We met the crew of s/v Mary there, a Dutch family with 2 small children. They had come by bus and on the ferry with the locals, and thought that leg was the best part of the whole trip. They had spent the night at Sunset Beach, and paid double what we had at Matavai.

We had an OK lunch of rice and vegetables for about $5 US apiece, and walked the rest of the way around the island to meet our water taxi driver at 3pm.

On our way back to Apia, we stopped at Aggie Grey's Resort out by the airport. This is a full-on US-style resort, complete with golf course (looking a little parched and empty in the heat), swimming pool, activities desk, and beachfront. We didn't even bother asking the price.

The next day was Friday, and we took care of the business of clearing out of Samoa first, as we were planning on leaving for Tonga over the weekend. Roger and Dave visited Customs, Immigration, and the Port Authority before coming back to pick up Amy and I to go sightseeing. With all the paperwork done, we headed out for Robert Louis Stephenson's house, where the famous author spent the last 10 years of his life, and where he died in his mid-40's, of Tuberculosis. It was a nicely done museum in RLS's original house. After visiting the museum, we hiked to the top of the hill above the house to visit his gravesite (about 2 hours round trip, nice hike).

Our final tourist stop was at the Indian restaurant for dinner. On our way home through town, we stopped and pre-ordered our meal (friends had warned us of long prep time if you waited to order when you sat down to eat). And then had great traditional Indian curry dishes for dinner. A nice restaurant, nice family, and good food for reasonable prices. Located across from Farmer John's grocery store.

Saturday morning we did a 'grocery run', and then turned the car in to the rental car company (Friendly Car Rentals, conveniently located right across from the marina). We spent the afternoon getting Soggy Paws ready for sea, for an early morning departure on Sunday.
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 10/03/2011 12:57 AM (utc) our position was 13°58.03'S 172°16.62'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Surviving Samoa

2011-10-04T07:02:00.001-10:00

Wow, I can't believe we spent 9 days in (Western) Samoa, and haven't made an update to the blog!

We were super-busy the whole time... between watching Rugby World Cup on TV, socializing, touring around, and a little 'touristas', the time just flew.

We arrived in time hang out with Dream Away and Quicksilver for 2 days until they left on Sunday. They gave Dave and I a cram course in Rubgy rules, as we watched the elimination rounds, including Samoa vs Fiji, Samoa vs South Africa, and England vs France. Avril from Dream Away also spent a lot of time with Dave giving him tips on where to go and what to do in Samoa.

s/v Shango (Roger and Amy) showed up on Sunday from Pago Pago, so we got together with them and rented a car for 4 days. Unfortunately, it took Shango all day Monday to get cleared in. So we set the rental car up for Tuesday morning. Then on Tuesday morning, both Dave and I came down with a pretty bad case of 'traveler's diarrhea'. We rented the car anyway, but I spent all day Tuesday very close to the 'head' on our boat. By Weds Dave and I were feeling better, so we set out with Roger and Amy to 'do' Samoa.

We headed west out of Apia on Wednesday morning to do a clockwise circumnavigation of the island, with planned stops at the major tourist attractions (about 4 or 5 in total). We also wanted to spend the night at a small place that rented 'Beach Fales', but had not made any concrete plans or reservations.

Upolu is a beautiful island, and much bigger than American Samoa. There are some nice low mountains and some pretty beaches. But (from a boater's perspective) there aren't many anchorages, even if you could get permission to go there. Unlike French Polynesia, the barrier reef is not far enough off the island to form a nice navigable lagoon.

The people outside of the the capital city of Apia are still living very traditionally, though not many of their fale's (traditional thatched houses) are not thatched anymore. Corrogated aluminum seems to be the norm, these days.

Unfortunately, driving by in a shiny rental car--we didn't get much chance to interact with the 'real people' of Samoa. And when we did (to ask directions, etc), it seemed they barely understood english. So we didn't get a great cultural experience on this island. The children, as always, were friendly. In one village, it was obvious that the children had been told to leave the ferangi alone. They stood wistfully 100 yards away and didn't bother us. In other villages, the children waved and shouted 'Bye Bye!' and in others, they boys ran alongside the car with their hands out yelling 'Money!'.

I don't know whether the children learned 'Bye Bye' because some adult wanted them to tell the foreigners to go away, or because of a general confusion about Hello and Good Bye. But the 'Bye Bye' seemed to be universal in the villages for the children, all over Samoa, all smiling and waving.

The people in the little villages seemed to very friendly, and as interested in us as we were of them. In the middle of the day, they were all hard at work--farming and keeping their houses and grounds neat and clean. Every house had breadfruit, mango, papaya, taro, and coconut trees. Sometimes a pig or two, and some chickens. Most fales had flowers ornamental shrubs planted, and the yard area kept swept of leaves and debris. We didn't see much evidence of fishing--without protected bays it would be difficult to get small boats out through the surf.

Though there are many buses in and around downtown Apia, we were surprised at the lack of buses out in the countryside in the middle of the day. This is in contrast to American Samoa, where there was nearly always a bus in sight, no matter where on the island you were.

Through a litte oversight, we left Apia with only a half a tank of gas. When we realized it, we were down to a quarter of a tank on the far end of the island from Apia. We called the rental car company on the cell phone, and asked them where the nearest gas station was. They told us there weren't any and we would have to return to Apia to get topped off (this turned out not to be true). Dave kept asking everyone we saw about where we could get gasoline (even people walking in remote villages who probably never owned a car in their life). We kept hearing that there was supposedly one in the SE corner, where we were headed. When we finally got to this small town, we found the gas station. It looked new. Roger and Dave (who should have topped the tank off before we left Apia), were relieved. But, alas, the shiny new pump was out of gas. 'Tomorrow' they said. But the nice attendant who spoke good (NZ-accented) English, told us where the next one was, and said we should have plenty of gas to get there (we did, barely).

But the rest of the afternoon was tainted by the fact that we needed to get to the gas station before it closed. We stopped at a couple of place on the south coast, but hurried past a couple more due to the time.

We did have a really nice lunch at a nice resort on a beautiful beach on the SE coast... Letia's. Another cruiser had told us she'd like to have spent the night there, and we considered it. But we still had half a day of sightseeing, and Letia's was a little more upscale than we had envisioned.

We finally reached the next gas station on the mid south coast about 5:30 pm. After filling our tank, we finally got serious about looking for a place to sleep for the night. We stopped at one or two likely places, but they were pretty pricey and not quite what we were looking for. Our search was complicated by the fact that to even see each place, we had to pay an 'access fee' to get into the beach area. The access fee was imposed by the village council who had leased the beach area to the resorts. We paid 5 tala ($2.00 USD) in one place, and 10 tala in another, and still hadn't found a place to sleep. The backseat drivers (me, mostly) were getting restless, and we decided "one more stop, and if that doesn't pan out, we'll go back to the boats (half hour away) to sleep."

But the last stop was golden. We stopped at a small grocery store, to ask the guy if he knew of any inexpensive beach fale's nearby. He directed us to the owner of another grocery store up the road, John Pasina, who's sister was running his 'resort', a small place place down on the beach. Dave and Roger negotiated a good price... 100 tala ($46 USD) per couple for the night, including dinner and breakfast (because there was no place to eat nearby). We ended up at John Pasina's Matavai Beach Resort, and loved it. (Resort is a bit of a stretch for this place). It wasn't mentioned in our Lonely Planet, or in the local tourist brochure, but it was in the Moon South Pacific guide, with not a very good writeup. They said you had to hike in 3 Km, and the water wasn't drinkable. But with our car, there was no hike required, and we had (and they also supplied) plenty of bottled drinking water. We did have to pay a 10 tala 'access fee' at the entry to the men guarding the beach road.

It turned out that Matavai Beach was recently the host for the main body of 'Survivor Samoa', which had just wrapped up a few weeks before. They had about 20 beach fales--little open air sleeping huts--right on the beach, and we were the only guests. We had our pick of the bunch, and they equipped each hut with a nice foam mattress, sheets, and mosquito netting.

We had a sunset swim in the warm water, a simple dinner, and crawled onto our sleeping platforms for a nice night's sleep. We slept well, with only the sounds of a gentle surf, and no dogs, and no roosters. It was pretty magical, overall.

On our way out, we stopped at the 'Survivor' huts on the adjacent beach, and took pictures.
-----
At 10/03/2011 12:57 AM (utc) our position was 13°58.03'S 172°16.62'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Safely in Apia Marina

2011-09-23T13:39:00.000-10:00

We arrived after an easy overnight passage from Pago Pago to Apia. The wind forecast was for very light north winds, but they ended up NW, and we actually t-t-t-tacked (once, after a long discussion).

At sunset the wind dropped from 10 knots to almost nothing, so we turned on the engine and motored the rest of the way to Apia (about 50 miles).

But the first few hours were a pretty nice sail. We saw whales several times, going around the southern tip of Tutuila (the main island of American Samoa). We caught one fish--a small tunny, which Dave threw back before I even got a picture of him. Between the tuna we got on our way from Suwarrow, and all the meat we bought in Pago Pago, we really don't have any room in our freezer anyway.

We arrived at Apia as planned just after 8am, and were tied up at the dock in Apia Marina by 0830. Clearing in here is easy--you wait on your boat and all the officials come to you...all 5 of them, one-by-one. By 1130 we were fully cleared. All the money is paid on exit, so I'm not sure the total fees for check-in/check-out here.

Staying in the marina is mandatory for yachts. And if there is no space in the marina, you can anchor out, but you still pay the marina fees. It is a very nice marina, with floating docks, water, electricity, cold-water showers, and a 24x7 guard at the gate. For our boat we will pay about $20 USD per night for the marina.

Our friends on Dream Away have been here for 2 weeks, so we will buy them a drink tonight and get the skinny on sightseeing Samoa. They rented a car and even took the car on the ferry to the neighboring island of Savai'i.
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 23/09/2011 10:02 PM (utc) our position was 13°49.67'S 171°45.56'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Fun in Pago Pago

2011-09-23T01:53:00.000-10:00

We had a good time in Pago Pago, and worked hard too.

The first item of business for Sherry was to get on the internet and check and update all the finances--we had been away from the internet for about 6 weeks, so there was quite a backlog. 350 emails, for one thing. Fortunately the Blue Sky wifi signal in the harbor is pretty strong, reasonably fast, and cheap ($20 for 1 week unlimited usage).

I didn't get a chance to back-post any pictures on the blog, but I did spend some time on Facebook. And I got 2 Compendiums updated (Societies, Cooks & Samoas). I also am working on figuring out how to make navigable charts out of Google Earth (Tonga's charts are a little off).

We also had time to do some sightseeing. On one day, we caught a bus up to the 'pass' southwest of town, and then hiked all the way along the ridge on the north side of the harbor, and down into the town of Vaitia, where we could catch a bus back to town. This was a really nice hike, but it was quite windless and hot the day we did it.

We went together with Amy and Roger on Shango, and rented a car for a day. We managed to drive to the extreme east and west ends of the island, do a little shopping, and stop for dinner at Tisa's Barefoot Bar.

On Saturday, we spent half a day at McDonalds watching college football games. Unfortunately, McD's only had ESPN (not ABC), so we didn't get to watch either of our teams play. But it was fun just watching any college team.

I spent half a day doing laundry--we had accumulated several changes of linens, plus about 2 weeks worth of dirty clothes. It was wonderful to go into a big, clean laundramat and get it all done in 2 hours (no wringing!!). It was worth going to Pago Pago just for the laundry...

We also spent nearly a day filling Soggy Paws with diesel. In Pago Pago, you have to prepay for your fuel at the 'business office' for the fuel dock (a little ways out of town). Then make an appointment, and then go fuel up. We opted to take our jerry jugs over to Shango, and fill when they fueled up. The fuel dock is made for bigger boats, so yachts need to wait for high tide to fuel up. Shango got bumped from their first appointment--a tuna boat was refueling until long past high tide. We asked the fuel dock attendant how much fuel the big new tuna boats take on, and he said almost $1 million worth of fuel. On the second attempt, Shango (with Dave and our tanks also aboard) got into the fuel dock without incident.

We spent several days provisioning... starting out with an initial survey of all the stores, in which we *only* spent a couple of hundred dollars. A few days later, with a rental car to help with the logistics, we spent almost $1000 in one day. We followed that up with one more $300 trip. We should be good for about 6 months now, except for fresh veggies, and bread and eggs.

Dave spent a day or two checking out the hardware stores. Pago Pago has both an Ace Hardware and a True Value Hardware store, plus a bunch of non-franchised hardware stores. The main thing he was looking for was high-pressure hose to repair a leaky watermaker line.

We thoroughly enjoyed Pago Pago--the town is MUCH nicer than it used to be (2 of the 3 tuna canneries have closed down, and the 3rd is obeying EPA regulations). We found the people VERY VERY nice. Everyone was friendly and a few people went way out of their way to help us out with minor issues. In spite of a report one someone's blog in 2008 about theft in the harbor, we know of no incidents at all this year, and everyone was pretty lax. We did, once or twice when the wind was right, get downwind of the tuna cannery. Phewie!! But it never lasted very long.

The harbor is still draggy... after anchoring in a recommended spot, and sitting just fine for about 36 hours, we dragged in only 15 knots of wind. Dave was off the boat, but two guys from neighboring boats came and helped me re-anchor. This time, it set well, and stayed fine after that. It was nice to have a nice light wind period to be in this harbor that is renowned for being terrible for anchoring. We got our anchor up without incident, too. There is a ton of debris on the bottom there, including one whole sailboat, rigging and all. Our friends on Two Amigos took hours getting their anchor up.

The last night in the harbor, we got 10 people together and organized a trip to Tisa's Barefoot Bar for their Wednesday night Pig Roast. We took the last bus out to Tisa's for $1, and they organized a taxi back for us at $2.50 each.

We did all this in 8 days! Our friends on Shango had their tongues hanging out, trying to keep up with us.

We left Pago Pago this morning, in spite of not much wind. It's time to get moving! We only have about 5 weeks before we fly back to the US from Tonga. In that time, we want to see Western Samoa, Niuatoputapu (Tonga), and Neiafu (Tonga), and get Soggy Paws settled on a mooring.
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At 14/09/2011 6:53 PM (utc) our position was 14°16.42'S 170°41.72'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Anchor down in Pago Pago

2011-09-14T09:21:00.001-10:00

We arrived yesterday evening after an easy passage. We have good internet!! Maybe some picture updates from the last month when I get a chance.
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At 9/14/2011 6:53 PM (utc) our position was 14°16.42'S 170°41.72'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Departed Rose Atoll for Pago Pago

2011-09-12T10:51:00.001-10:00

We are back on our way again toward Pago Pago (American Samoa), after a restful 2 days at Rose Atoll. We did a little beachwalking (being careful not to disturb the nesting birds) and some snorkeling. We found that the pass had almost no current at a little after low tide (where the incoming current negates the normal outflow), and a nice array of fish (and a few big sharks) in the pass.

We had almost as much fun snorkeling on the inner patch reefs--they are impressive bommies that come straight up from 35' to within 2' of the surface. Some have big overhangs and we even saw one 'swim through' down about 20'.

We did manage to get a reasonably close picture of copulating turtles. Again, we didn't want to get so close as to disturb the process.

In our snorkeling, we saws signs of research going on--some PVC tubes and small metal boxes strapped to the inner patch reefs in various places, and one tethered floating thing with a solar panel which was marked 'please do not remove from the water'. No sign of an antenna that we could see--so maybe it is just a recording box and not a transmitter. We scrubbed the algae off the surface of the solar panel, and otherwise left it alone.

We would love to have stayed longer, but it was time to move on. We did want to get into Pago Pago while the weather is still moderate. We are still hearing horror stories from our friends who were there in the last big blow--they couldn't get off their boats for 2 days due to crappy conditions and fear of dragging at any time. It looks like we have about a weeks worth of settled weather to get in and get out of Pago Pago. Should be plenty of time.

After that we plan shorts stops at Apia (Western Samoa), and Niuatoputapu (NEW-ya-tow-poo-TAH-poo) (15-56'S / 173-46'W) in northern Tonga, before settling into in Vava'u, Tonga for a few months.

We are sailing wing-on-wing downwind at about 4 knots, in 10-12 knots of wind. We hope to make Pago Pago before dark tomorrow night (Tuesday).
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Sherry & Dave
At 9/12/2011 8:33 PM (utc) our position was 14°32.71'S 168°17.00'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Even More Remote than Suwarrow

2011-09-10T09:23:00.001-10:00

We have taken a short break in our trip from Suwarrow to Pago Pago at a very remote spot called Rose Atoll.

This is about 150 miles east of American Samoa, and is a nature preserve. We got waypoints for the entry from our friends on Java who stopped here a couple of months ago. Technically we shouldn't be here--you are supposed to check into Pago Pago first--but we wouldn't make it back otherwise.

Stats for our Suwarrow to Rose trip: 324 nautical miles, 12.6 engine hours, 58 hours.

The sail was fantastic until the last 12 hours, when the wind eased a little bit, and if we kept sailing, we'd not make it in before dark. As it was we motored hard all day and barely made it in before dark. Coming into a strange anchorage, through a narrow pass, without an accurate chart, at 5:30pm, is a little risky. But we did have waypoints from friends, and a boat that we knew who had entered in the early afternoon. So we felt it wasn't too risky.

Java had told us to make sure we kept our fishing lines in all the way to the entrance. That was a great tip. We hooked a big Mahi Mahi about 2 miles out, but unfortunately didn't slow down (because we were racing sunset and an approaching squall) , and he eventually spit the hook (or we tore it out of his mouth, Dave says). Dave wanted to take the line in then, but I reminded him that Evan had said to keep the lines out til the last minute. We then hooked a nice ~ 20 lb Yellow Fin tuna right at our north waypoint, and managed to boat it without spending too much time.

Though there are sharks here in the lagoon--we came in with a bloody tuna hanging off the back, and cleaned it right at anchor--we only had 3 sharks circling us. Many fewer than we would have seen at Suwarrow.

Shango, the other boat who is here with us, who doesn't have their head in their computer and is therefore looking around the anchorage, pointed out a turtle gang-bang going on close off our stern this morning. One poor female being mounted by a male (we assume) and 2 others waiting in the wings. A little too far astern for pictures, but we'll have to keep our eyes open for other action.

It's beautiful here, and we plan to spend a day or two here before heading on to Pago Pago, 150 miles further downwind. We'll be taking only pictures and leaving only footprints.
-----
At 1899/12/30 12:00 AM (utc) our position was 14°32.82'S 168°08.94'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Samoan Weather Forecast

2011-09-09T07:59:00.001-10:00

We have started to request the American Samoa weather forecast out of Pago Pago. We were interested to see that it comes in both English and Samoan.

The Samoan version...

LE ASO...SAVILI MAI SASA'E 10 I LE 15 NOTE. SAMI E 7 I LE 9 FT.
E TAAPE NAI TIMU.
PO NANEI E OO I LE PO ASO FARAILE...SAVILI MAI SASA'E 10 I LE 15
NOTE. SAMI E 7 I LE 9 FT O LE A FAAITIITIA I LE AOAULI O LE ASO FARAILE
E LATA I LE 5 I LE 7 FT. E TAAPE NAI TIMU.
ASO TOONA'I E OO I LE ASO GAFUA...SAVILI MAI SASA'E 10 I LE 15 NOTE.
SAMI E 5 I LE 7 FT. E TAAPE NAI TIMU.

Look at all those vowels!!

Translation:

TODAY...EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS 7 TO 9 FT. ISOLATED SHOWERS.
TONIGHT THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT...EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS
7 TO 9 FT SUBSIDING TO NEAR 5 TO 7 FT FRIDAY AFTERNOON. ISOLATED
SHOWERS.
SATURDAY THROUGH MONDAY...EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS 5 TO 7 FT.
ISOLATED SHOWERS.

We are still having a great sail. Clear skies, a few small puffy clouds, and about 14 knots of wind. We saw a green flash at sunset tonight, and the moon was already up as the sun set. It will be nearly full tonight.

It doesn't get much better than this!!

There is a nasty low passing well south of us (causing the big swell), but the forecast for where we are is for settled weather for the next week.
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 9/9/2011 6:05 AM (utc) our position was 14°07.25'S 166°05.75'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Saying Farewell to Suwarrow

2011-09-08T08:25:00.001-10:00

We left Suwarrow finally yesterday morning, after nearly 3 weeks of hanging out.

After the stormy weather, we were blessed with 10 days of beautiful stable sunny conditions.

We had a great time there hanging out with James and John, the Rangers. We snorkeled with Manta Rays, we took a reef walk out to a motu with nesting birds, we learned how to open coconuts the Cook Islands way. We watched the shark feeding several times. We explored some dive spots, and made one very very nice dive.

Suwarrow is a special place. It is so remote that only sailors can visit it--made famous by Tom Neale who came there to live, to experience fending for himself alone on an island. He wrote a book about his experiences called 'An Island to Oneself'. The Rangers are deposited on the island in April with a 6 month supply of basic provisions. They augment their provisions by fishing, by collecting coconuts, growing their own vegetables, and by socializing with the cruisers.

Just sitting in the anchorage on a sunny day is a fantastic experience--the vivid green of the coconuts on the island, the beautiful beach, the turquoise water, the frothy white surf on the reef, the curious black-tip sharks that hang about the boat. It is hard for a picture to convey how nice it was, but Dave got a couple of really good pics, which we will share when we have time and internet.

In Suwarrow we had 'anchorage sharks' the way there are 'anchorage barracudas' in Florida and the Bahamas. It was a little startling to go up on deck and see 2-3 sharks hanging about. It is really intimidating to newcomers to the anchorage, but I snorkeled all over the anchorage area with no problems. These little (3-4') guys are just looking for handouts--which the Rangers have forbidden. They request that all garbage come ashore and go onto the compost pile, and any fish cleaning be done at their station. They then take the fish carcasses and throw them to the sharks on the reef on the other side of the island. Though Charlie's Charts talks about 'aggressive sharks in the anchorage', we have found them to be curious, not aggressive, and have heard of no incident between sharks and cruisers.

With Graham and Avril on Dream Away, we took the dinghies one day up to the Seven Islands area for a snorkel. We found two great snorkel spots (following John on Sete Mares' guidance). It was a bit of a bash in the dinghies, even in moderate winds. Would have been nicer to take a big boat up there, towing the dinghies, the way we did in Mopelia. But the Rangers forbid anchoring anywhere but behind 'Anchorage Island'.

We spent a couple of days there where there were only 2 boats in the anchorage... this was after the 'population' peaked in early August at 28 boats. But a few days later, after the next weather window opened up in Bora Bora, about 8 boats dribbled in over 2-3 days. A whole new group of friends!!

In the lull between groups, we had a chance to sit and talk with James quite a bit. He's a unique individual. In spite of his pot-belly, topknot, tattoes, and toothless smile, he is a very intelligent guy, and very committed to environmental protection of Suwarrow and the Cook Islands. Dave spent quite some time trying to help him with the antenna to his donated VHF--so he could hear incoming boats more than a mile out (without success, unfortunately).

We had one last Sundowners on the Beach to welcome the new boats, and then on the final night, a very nice potluck.

We are now 24 hours into our trip west toward American Samoa and having another beautiful downwind sail.
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 9/8/2011 6:21 PM (utc) our position was 13°38.17'S 165°08.55'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Breakfast with Mantas

2011-08-31T09:20:00.001-10:00

There is a reef area within a short dinghy distance of the anchorage that is supposed to get regular visits from Manta Rays. But in the two times we had visited in the afternoon, we had not seen one. But friends of ours went a different time fairly early in the morning (for us), and had seen several.

So we broke our normal routine and got going off the boat at 09:15am. There is a buoy on the reef, placed there by the Rangers for our use, for hooking your dinghy to. As soon as we were hooked in, we could see Mantas below us. Everyone (3 dinghies worth) eased into the water to watch. We eventually had about 5 Mantas swimming around below us. They didn't seem to be bothered by our presence, though everyone was pretty good about not trying to get too close.

Unlike the Mantas we saw in Toau last year, these did not seem to be feeding. Instead, we think there is a 'cleaning station' there on the reef. They seemed to be slowly circling the same coral head, each with a couple of little cleaner fish swimming around their body--into their mouth and gills even. We swam with them for about a half an hour until all of us had had enough.

We had our camera with us, and Dave did a great job of capturing the Mantas on 'film', which we hope to share with you some day!!

For those coming behind us, the Manta reef is at 13-15.21S / 163-06.73W. It may or may not be marked with a buoy next year.
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At 8/24/2011 8:00 PM (utc) our position was 13°14.86'S 163°06.47'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Better Days

2011-08-29T08:21:00.000-10:00

It took several days, but the wind has finally eased off and backed a little bit more to the east. (105 degrees T in the GRIB forecast is OK, 100 and less is better, higher than 105 and the chop is in the anchorage).

We had nearly one full day where the wind was in the 30 knot range and about 115 degrees. Nobody left the boats and we had both GPS's on with the anchor watch set tight. One boat dragged quite aways, dragging his anchor out of the shallower area into 50-foot deep water, but he was dragging back towards a reef. Finally at about 4am he stopped moving. In the morning he had a friend take out a second anchor upwind. Amazingly, for the conditions, no one else had any significant problems.

The broken anchor was finally retrieved. It turns out to be a 44-lb stainless steel "CQR" of unknown origin. It does have "CQR" on the shaft, but it looks like it was cobbled together 20 years ago by some workmen that didn't know much about working stainless steel. (pics coming when we've got internet)

The young couple on Saviah are on their first cruise and are really very green. The boat came with that anchor, a nice big heavy plow. So they had no idea what a risk they were taking trusting their boat to that anchor. Another cruiser in the anchorage was overheard saying "Both my primary and my backup are stainless steel anchors and look just like that!" The break occurred at the end of the shaft just in from the shackle, but in looking at all the rust, cracks, and crevice corrosion around the blades and the head-to-shaft connection, it could have let go anywhere.

Latitude 38 should have a separate Puddle Jump seminar on anchors and anchoring techniques. Our advice is "Leave the fancy electronics at West Marine and instead invest in a '2 sizes up' anchor, chain, and windlass system." For our 44-foot somewhat heavy somewhat beamy cruising boat, we have an 88-lb Delta anchor, heavy chain, and swivels and shackles sized (breaking strength-wise) for the bigger anchor. If we were buying a new anchor, it would be about the same size, but probably one of the newer designs like the Rocna or Bugle.

THEN, you have set your anchor WELL. Make sure it is in sand, upright, and BURIED. Back down at full RPM for about a minute, making sure the anchor is under full strain before you ease the throttle. If it drags under those conditions--great--you know you would have dragged at 2am in a squall. Reset it until it is set. Visually inspect it to make sure it is set (every time, if possible). Put out at least 4:1 scope. Then, if in heavy coral, put some buoys to hold the last 50% of the chain above the coral. (That heavy anchor will do no good if your chain snaps due to being wrapped up short around a coral head in a heavy chop). OK, off my soapbox.

With the nicer weather, we've finally been able to go snorkeling again. Yesterday, since it is still somewhat choppy, we stayed close to the anchorage. We found some pretty nice coral and small fishies around the reef behind the boats. Better, in my opinion, than 'Perfect Reef' 3 miles away. Today we hope to go further afield--people keep telling us that the area up by 7 Islands has some excellent snorkeling and diving. But these are 3 miles away across the open lagoon, and we can't take the big boats (due to park regulations).

With the break in the weather, several boats are leaving today. The current boat count is 14 boats, and it has been holding pretty steady around this number, with boats dribbling in and out. We understand from friends in Bora Bora that there's a new slug of boats holed up in Bora Bora waiting for a break in the weather to head this way, so they should all arrive in a group in 5-6 days. Boats seem to move in waves around this area--centered around the short periods of settled weather. We are going to hang here for probably another week. We have decided not to go to Niue and Beveridge reef, which would have been 500 miles out of our way, and so we have plenty of time to enjoy Suwarrow and the Samoas.
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/24/2011 8:00 PM (utc) our position was 13°14.86'S 163°06.47'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Finally Calming Down

2011-08-26T07:45:00.000-10:00

We spent nearly 24 hours with the winds blowing here at 25-30 knots, with the highest gust recorded at 42 knots. And from a direction in which we are getting no protection from the near reef--only from the rim of the atoll several miles away. Our friend Kennedy on Far Star, a single-hander, dragged about 80 feet in the middle of the night, but fortunately he had dragging room and did finally stop dragging at about 4am. Once daylight came, he, with the help of a friend, set another anchor.

The broken anchor has been retrieved. It is an older stainless steel plow, and got hooked sideways on a coral head and then pulled hard at 90 degrees to the blade. It snapped right at joint between the blade and the shaft. There are obvious signs of 'crevice corrosion'. Those stainless steel anchors sure look pretty hanging off the bow, but they have no place on a cruising boat as a primary anchor.

By yesterday morning, the winds had calmed enough and switched to about 120T (from 135T) and we were getting enough protection that the waves weren't too bad. We were still getting periodic squalls through, but the wind between the squalls was 'only' 20 knots.

Once the weather broke a little, we continued with the cruisers-helping-cruisers activities. Dave from Soggy Paws and Jerry from Challenger held a mini refrigeration seminar over on the big catamaran Sete Mares. The two of them had just finished reviving Jerry's plugged evaporator plate refrigeration system.

Meanwhile, Avril from Dream Away and I were swapping Tongan cruising guides, waypoints, and utility programs. We also managed to brave the heavy chop in the anchorage to go ashore and help James, the head Park Ranger, with his computer issues.

The forecast shows continued easing of the wind, and a little more backing to the NE. We are looking forward to enjoying more of the charms of Suwarrow in the coming week.
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/24/2011 8:00 PM (utc) our position was 13°14.86'S 163°06.47'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

One of Those Nights

2011-08-23T23:30:00.001-10:00

If today was one of those days that defined much of the best part about cruising, tonight provides a stark counterpoint, reminding of us of what all of us hate about cruising.

We have had a pretty mild summer, weather-wise. And in the last 2-3 weeks it has been exceptionally fine--winds less than 15 knots and sunny skies.

But tonight, sitting here in this remote atoll of Suwarrow, we are having the worst night I can remember of this whole cruising season. The wind is howling at 25 knots, it's drizzling rain off and on, and the wind direction is such that we're not in a very protected spot. It's a pretty good anchorage in winds anywhere from NW to ESE, but tonight the wind has gone to SE, and we've got nearly a 5 foot 'chop' rolling into the anchorage.

The wind was pretty nasty last night, but eased off during the day. However, the forecast for the next 24 hours is for really crappy conditions. In the late afternoon, the wind started to come back up again and swing more SE. And just at dusk, when most of us had already gone ashore for a potluck (scheduled before the weather forecast was announced), one boat actually broke their anchor. They actually snapped the shaft of their 'CQR'!!! Wow, that would really be a bummer. Fortunately, it happened while they were aboard, and during daylight. So it was only a 'fire drill' and not a disaster that would have put their boat and their dreams on the rocks. The 'engineers' in the fleet haven't had a chance to look at the anchor, but they surmise that it was one of those cheap Chinese knock-offs that are not properly hardened. Fortunately they were still onboard and noticed their boat adrift. They have re-anchored with a backup anchor, but that's pretty unsettling.

We have our big '2 sizes up' Delta anchor out. It is well set--buried in deep sand and checked and double-checked this afternoon. We have heavy oversized chain, and 2 snubbers on. And we tied a second line off to an old submerged mooring that I found while snorkeling around the boat. I wouldn't trust my boat to it, but there's chain down there, around a coral head, and a big line coming up. So it's a backup attachment that we hope we'll never have to test. So we should be sleeping well.

But the wind is howling in the rigging, and the boat is pitching. We are surrounded by our friends, all of whom have most of their money and all of their dreams invested in their boat. Some of whom are maybe not as well prepared as we are. It's one of those nights where boats break lose. We are all on a "lee shore" right now. It would be a bad time/bad place to break lose.

None of us will sleep well tonight...
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
At 8/23/2011 10:09 PM (utc) our position was 13°14.87'S 163°06.47'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Collaboration in Remote Places

2011-08-23T21:40:00.000-10:00

Today has been a day full of illustrations of one of the great things about the cruising lifestyle--that of "cruiser helping cruiser". In today's modern world, especially in the litigious USA, having someone take time out of their busy day to help another, just out of the goodness of their heart, is a rare thing.

Here are the cooperative activities that have gone on in our anchorage of ~12 boats just today:

- Loose Pointer's dinghy painter parted in the high winds last night, and they asked for someone to take them down to where they could see it beached to leeward, to retrieve it. Kennedy on Far Star volunteered and spent an hour or so helping them retrieve the dinghy and get it operational again.

- Far Star's watermaker isn't working, and he's out of water. He has been offered multiple containers of water from Challenger and Zephyr

- Jason on YOLO has an intermittent problem with an engine alarm on his boat, that he can't seem to find the source of. Several guys went over to YOLO at his invitation to go over what he had done and offer advice. Several other guys, not very diesel-savvy, also went over to listen to the troubleshooting discussion for their own edification.

- Saviah called on the radio and said they had several severe wraps around coral heads that they had been unable to clear, and was there someone with tanks who could help out. They want to move to a better spot for tomorrow's big winds. Dan on Loose Pointer volunteered to snorkel and give directions while they tried to clear it (a 3rd hand is critical), and Warren on Night Fly offered to dive on it if that didn't work.

- Night Fly has fuel problems--he got a bad lot of fuel somewhere in French Polynesia and his engine quit coming in the pass. Several boats have loaned empty fuel jugs so he can empty his diesel tank out. Loose Pointer loaned a small hand pump to help pump it out. Dave on Soggy Paws loaned his Baja filter (Warren's is no longer filtering properly), and some biocide to kill the growth in the tanks.

- Eden has a problem with their outboard motor--the battery on their electric start is dead. Several people offered advice on both reconditioning the battery and starting manually. Jason on YOLO offered the loan of a small battery for a few days.

- Marie Andree on Sete Mares has been nearly disabled by back problems, so Jo on Blue Moon has been giving her daily massages.

- Jerry on Challenger has refrigeration problems, so half of his refrigerated goods are in Soggy Paws' freezer, and half in Far Star's refrigerator. Dave from Soggy Paws has been helping Jerry with his refrigerator issues, with Jason from YOLO looking on, trying to learn. They borrowed a set of 134a gauges from Dreamaway.

- Zephyr is looking for help getting the AIS input into their computer charting program. Sherry on Soggy Paws has volunteered to help out.

- Tomorrow Dave is holding a 'Refrigeration Troubleshooting' session on Sete Mares (a big catamaran with a big cockpit), and anyone who's interested is welcome.

- Several food swaps have gone on
- Soggy Paws looking for saltines
- Rhythm looking for whole wheat flour
- John ashore looking for a cucumber

- And of course there are the information swaps--discussing routes and weather and anchorages. Soggy Paws is regularly handed a 'thumb drive' and asked for a download of our 'Pacific Cruising Info' folder, plus weather updates, and utility programs.

- There is a book swap here, in the Ranger's area. But if there wasn't a convenient one nearby, someone would arrange a book swap on the beach at happy hour. Nowadays cruisers are also swapping DVD's, music, and ebooks on a regular basis too.

Anyway, it is precisely this spirit of community that is one of the big things that we love about the cruising lifestyle. Used to be pretty common in America, but it is pretty rare now.
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/23/2011 10:09 PM (utc) our position was 13°14.87'S 163°06.47'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to Suwarrow - Day 5 & Arrival

2011-08-20T14:02:00.001-10:00

As of 0800 local August 20
Miles today: 125 Total Miles Behind Us: 628
Miles to go: 0
Wind ESE at 15 kt Large Southerly Swell

We came in the pass at Suwarrow at 0800 this morning. We spent the night lollygagging around trying to sail comfortably without arriving too soon. It really is hard in decent winds to slow down. If you pull in too much sail, the boat rolls uncomfortably. So it is always a challenge to slow down. But we managed to jog along at about 4 knots for most of the night, with teh wind a little aft of the beam.

We originally thought we'd go around the south side of the atoll and hang out on the 'back side' for the night. But the winds picked up later than forecast, so we would have arrived at the south end of the atoll too late. And, on more thought, it would mean we'd have to be very vigilant on watch because of our proximity to the reef. So we changed our plan at midnight, and decided to reach up on the east side, a comfortable 10 miles east of the reef, and gybe at around 5am and reach back for the pass. This meant we had to take the spinnaker pole down (15' long and 4" in diameter) in the middle of the night. But with a moon and reasonable conditions, it was no big deal.

Dave hates to handle the pole at sea--we normally set it before we go out into the ocean, and wait to take it down until we arrive. But we did need to get it down. And with our big pole, one end is permanently affixed to the mast. So the 'pole dance' isn't a real big thing. Dave handled the controls at the mast and I handled the outboard end of the pole--assisted with the foreguy and afterguy. We bring it down until the pole end is at the lifeline, attach it to the lifeline to stabilize things, and then get the topping life, foreguy, and afterguy all sorted out. Our pole stores on the mast, so once all the lines are detached, Dave hauls up on the pole and I attached it to the ring on the mast. Simple (in 15 kts and 5' seas).

We had a good set of waypoints for the pass, and though it was a little early for 'good light' the reefy points we needed to avoid in the pass were all breaking, so easy to see. I would have hung out for another hour, but Dave wanted to go in.

By the time we got the mainsail down and went into the anchorage, the sun was up a little higher and we could easily see the bad spots around the anchorage.

Our anchoring was much facilitate by the fact that about 5 boats pulled out this morning, leaving some nice gaps for anchoring. A few weeks ago the boat population peaked at 29 boats. We now have only 11 boat, including us.

We anchored once in deep water (55'), but once we learned that a couple of catamarans were leaving that were closer in to the island (and therefore better protected from the 20+ knots forecast for tomorrow), we pulled our anchor and moved closer in to take their spot.

The Rangers in their nicely accented (Australia/NZ) Cook Islands accent, came on at 0830 with a short VHF net. They said goodbye to the boats leaving and welcome to the boats leaving. They told us to come in when we were rested to do the formalities (clear into the Cook Islands). Can't wait to meet them!

Passage Statistics, Anchorage to Anchorage
------------------------------------------
628 miles
5 days
Avg speed: 5.2 knots
Eng hrs: 21.5
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/21/2011 12:01 AM (utc) our position was 13°14.87'S 163°06.47'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Windows Activation in the Middle of the Pacific

2011-08-19T12:09:00.001-10:00

Last night on Dave's watch, our navigation computer, an older Dell laptop that we've had for a couple of years, suddenly came up with a Windows Activation Alert. Dave swears he didn't do anything unusual. He said he accidentally shut the computer down (instead of sleeping it as we normally do when underway). When he restarted it, the 'Windows Activation Needed' banner came up and stayed in the lower right corner. This computer hasn't been connected to the internet in about 2 years, and we've never had any activation warnings before. It is a Dell we bought used and has a Windows XP sticker on the bottom that looks legit.

So I wasn't too alarmed until I rebooted it again, and a warning came up that we'd have to activate in 3 days or Windows would stop working. !!!! There was a convenient 'Click Here to Activate' button.

Well, of course the Activation process requires internet or a telephone. Fortunately, we have a Sat phone, and the conditions aboard were calm and we've got a good signal on the phone. So I called the number listed--first the 'no toll free' number, which is no longer valid, and then the 'toll free' number. The Sat phone doesn't recognize toll free numbers, and so I got the warning that I'll be billed 'international rates' for the call. *sigh*

Anyway, holding my breath that we wouldn't move out of the Iridium 'cell' and drop the call in the middle of the process, I interacted with the voice-prompt computer to say the 54-digit number that was displayed on my Activation screen. It was easy, with the computer prompting for each number group in turn. The only hitch was caused by me mis-reading one of the numbers, but 'he' gave me several chances to re-read the number. Then the computer read off my activation code. Again, slowly, clearly, and in groups that matched the fields on the screen. Click to finish, and Walla! I was activated again. Guess we're good for another 2 years.

Sheesh--fortunately, even if we couldn't resolve the problem--we have 3 other computers aboard, all configured to be able to plug and play as the Navigation computer. But what next, Microsoft!???
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/19/2011 10:08 PM (utc) our position was 13°28.71'S 161°49.28'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to Suwarrow - Day 4

2011-08-19T11:43:00.001-10:00

As of 0800 local August 19
Miles today: 125 Total Miles Behind Us: 513
Miles to go: 96 (1 more day)
Wind ESE at 10 kt Large Southerly Swell
Sailing WNW at 5kt
Sail Config: Genoa poled to port, reefed main vanged to stbd, staysail sheeted in the middle

We motored all day yesterday in mostly glassy conditions until 1am. At our 'change of watch' time, the wind had come up to about 8-9 knots out of the ESE. Since we knew we'd arrive after dark tonight no matter what we did, there was no need to keep motoring once there was enough wind to move at all under sail.

So we set the sails in our nice stable 'Dead Down Wind' configuration, and were surprised to be moving along at nearly 4 knots. We had a nice quiet sail the rest of the night.

Now we are going too fast. Our current ETA at the current speed (10am) of 5.5 knots is about 2am tonight, and the wind is forecast to build to the 15 knot range, so we will probably go even faster. The problem with slowing down is twofold... First, we have been bitten before by slowing down, then have the weather change. Second, to slow down you have to reduce sail, and reducing sail in seas means that you roll more. So we'll keep on at a reasonable speed, and plan to tuck up behind Suwarrow whenever we get there, and heave-to or sail slowly back and forth until daylight. (Dodging our 2 other friends who will also arrive after dark).

We do want to get in as early as possible tomorrow (Saturday), because the winds are building, and the sooner we get in and get settled, the better. The forecast for Sunday is for winds over 20 knots from the SE. Hopefully there will be plenty of room in the anchorage for us to tuck up into a protected spot for the higher winds. The boat count at Suwarrow is now about 12-15 boats, and our little group's arrival will add 5 more. And the normal anchorage is a little exposed to strong SE-ly winds. If the normal anchorage is too crowded, we understand we can get permission from the Rangers to move to a place a short distance away called 'Seven Islands', which is well protected from the SE.

Still having a pleasant sail in mild, sunny conditions. Looking forward to our arrival in Suwarrow!
-----
Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/19/2011 9:28 PM (utc) our position was 13°29.00'S 161°45.98'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to Suwarrow - Day 3

2011-08-18T11:54:00.000-10:00

As of 0800 local August 18
Miles today: 126 Miles Behind Us: 388
Miles to go: 214 (approx 2 more days)
Wind NE at <5 kt Seas confused!
Motorsailing WNW at 5.5kt - 1 reef in the main, full staysail

Well, we had 2 1/2 days of perfect sailing weather. But the wind started to drop last night (as anticipated), and at 6am Dave couldn't stand the slopping of the sails any more, and turned on the engine. We anticipate having to motor for at least 12 hours, maybe 24, before the wind fills back in. We still expect landfall sometime Saturday.

Right now (11:30am), the sea is glassy and what sails we do have up are hanging slack. But it beats 20-25 WNW that our friends are having further south.

Our friends on Dreamaway are in sight, about 3 miles ahead of us. We are amazed that we've stayed so close together without really any collaboration. We've had trouble staying this close to Infini after 3 days of sailing in the past, when we've been TRYING to stay close!

I've just finished reading Tom Neale's "An Island to Oneself" about his stay alone on Suwarrow in the early 1960's. Interesting reading, and especially poignant when approaching 'his' island for a visit ourselves. He once spent 13 months without visits from any boats. But now, with GPS, and the internet (sharing of cruising information), they regularly have ~120 boats a year visit. The island is once again uninhabited, except seasonally, 2 Park Rangers are placed on the island to watch over and facilitate cruisers' visits, from April to November.
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Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
At 8/18/2011 9:52 PM (utc) our position was 13°58.89'S 159°49.66'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Southern Cooks vs Northern Cooks Route

2011-08-17T20:44:00.001-10:00

Folks might wonder if we're going to interesting places like Palmerston and Aitutake, as well as Suwarrow. We are not.

The Cook Islands are scattered all over the middle of the South Pacific. Cruisers going between French Polynesia and Tonga generally need to make a choice between the Southern Cooks route, which include either Rarotonga or Aitutake, and then typically Palmerston, Beveridge Reef and Niue. Or via the Northern Cooks route, which includes Suwarrow, and usually a stop at American Samoa and/or Western Samoa.

We could spend a month out here and hit them all, but these islands/atolls are about 300 miles apart, so it would be logistically difficult and a lot of sea miles. Plus we'd be dodging cold fronts this time of year.

We chose the northern route for two reasons--Tom Neale's "An Island To Oneself" is set in Suwarrow, and so it's a cool place to stop. It is now a park, and two Cook Island Park Rangers stay there during cruising season to shepherd the passing cruisers through the atoll. They make it a point to show the cruisers an interesting time. Our friends have just raved about the experience.

The second reason is that the northern route seems to be north of the passing cold fronts. We are congratulating ourselves tonight on our choice, after hearing friends on the radio enroute from Aitutake to Beveridge Reef going through a cold front with 25 knot NW winds. Yuk! We, on the other hand, have 12 knots of gentle northeasterly winds. We are about 350 miles north of them, headed more north, and should not get much weather from the passing cold front. (Remember that we are in the Southern Hemisphere, so north means warmer down here...). The season right now is 'late winter'--the Northern Hemisphere equivalent of February.

If you're totally interested and want a geography lesson, here are some approximate lat/longs of some of the Cook Islands:

Suwarrow 13-13S 163-04W
Palmerston 18-04S 163-12W
Aitutake 18-55S 159-46W

Get out your Google Earth!
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Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/18/2011 6:41 AM (utc) our position was 14°32.64'S 158°44.28'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Chocolate Ice Cream in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean!

2011-08-17T19:27:00.001-10:00

Our new freezer is doing a great job off keeping ice cream cold. Dave loves chocolate ice cream so much that we finally broke down and bought some in Bora Bora. We are enjoying the sunset and eating ice cream, on a beam reach. It doesn't get much better than this!
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Sherry & Dave
On our way from French Polynesia toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/17/2011 10:01 PM (utc) our position was 14°47.50'S 157°58.57'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to Suwarrow - Day 2

2011-08-17T11:39:00.001-10:00

As of 0800 local August 17
Miles today: 135 Miles Behind Us: 262
Miles to go: 333 (approx 3 more days)
Wind NE at 13 kt Seas confused!
Sailing WNW at 6kt - 1 reef in the main, 80% genoa, wind slightly aft of beam

We have had a lovely 24 hours. The wind has been pretty steady at 12-14 knots, and shifting in a favorable direction. The seas have been going down, the weather fair, and we have a full moon for most of the night. We've hardly had to touch the sails in 24 hours, and the only messing with the autopilot has been to tweak it to point more at our final destination.

We are still in VHF contact with Dreamaway, who left about 45 minutes behind us. They are about 10 miles ahead of us.

We've been monitoring and checking in on several SSB nets. First, the afternoon 'South Pacific Cruiser's Net' and the morning 'Pacific Reef Runner's Net'. These two are nets set up by different groups of boats that are 'puddle jumping' this year. So they are moving nets that will likely disband as the boats arrive in Samoa and Tonga and form up different nets for their onward passages to NZ or Australia. We have also been checking in on the evening Pacific Seafarer's Net--our old friends based in Hawaii, California, and NZ who track Hams on boats all over the Pacific.

Plus we tried to tune up the Fiji-based 'Rag of the Air Net' (8173 1900z) this morning--but copy was poor--maybe it will be better tomorrow as we get closer to Fiji.

Our current sailing conditions are fantastic, but they are forecast to get really light tomorrow. We have about 24 hours of barely-sailable wind, as a front passes south of us, and then they should fill in for our last 24 hours to Suwarrow.

Though we are sad to miss hooking up with many of our friends in Suwarrow, we are happy to hear that the big wave of boats there has started to move on to American Samoa and Tonga. They set a new record of 29 boats in Suwarrow at the same time this year, about a week ago. We have been dragging our heels on the way there, hoping that the numbers will be down by the time we get there. It's a remote place that should be enjoyed by 'less than a mob'. And of course, anchoring will be easier in the deep water with fewer boats to worry about.

We are sad to report that one boat we are acquainted with, Ri Ri, was lost on the reef at Palmerston Atoll yesterday. We haven't been able to get all the details, but Ri Ri was on a mooring there and apparently broke free. (no word yet on whether it was mooring equipment that failed, or boat-based equipment, and how they got so stuck so fast that they couldn't get off). A huge effort was made to pull her off the reef, but they eventually gave up that effort and started just trying to salvage stuff inside. So Frank and his girlfriend are fine, but are sitting on a pile of used boat gear in Palmerston, wondering what to do next. Very sad. As always, a number of cruisers are headed for Palmerston to help out as much as possible--and one has already promised them passage on to Tonga when they are ready.
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At 8/17/2011 6:09 PM (utc) our position was 14°55.01'S 157°38.41'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to Suwarrow - Day 1

2011-08-16T07:45:00.001-10:00

We had an easy exit from the pass at Mopelia. Conditions in the pass were better than we'd seen it since we'd been there. The current was still ripping out at 3-3.5 knots, but there was no incoming swell, so it was flat calm. We flew through the pass at close to 8 knots, with no incident.

After a "Man Overboard Drill" to retrieve Dave's hat (outside the pass, in the calm waters) we had the sails set and on our way by about 9:45am.

It was a beautiful day, with about 15-16 knots of wind, well south of east. Of the 5 boats that set out around the same time (Soggy Paws, Dreamaway, Loose Pointer, Blue Moon, and Night Fly), all set out on port tack to take advantage of the southerly direction of the wind. The forecast is for the wind to back to the NE eventually, so staying a little south of the rhumb line will enable us to gybe to starboard tack when the wind goes NE.

We didn't bother fishing--too many other distractions, and Dave doesn't like cleaning fish underway. So we fish when coming into an atoll, but not on leaving. Though from our diving, the fishing near the pass should be fantastic. We saw Wahoo, Tuna, Jacks, and big Snapper on our dives.

We set up in our Dead Down Wind (DDW) configuration, with the Genoa poled to port, the Main vanged to starboard, and the Staysail sheeted in tight to starboard (to stop the rolling). In 15 knots of wind, this is a very stable and reasonably fast configuration for us. In the last few downwind hops, we have tried other configurations and none has worked as well. (Genoa alone on a pole, genoa and reefed main, etc). With this configuration, we have about 45 degrees of directional latitude, so we could accommodate the slow wind shift without a lot of sail handling.

We sailed like this all through the day and until our 1am watch change, when the wind had backed around to a more easterly direction, and we threw the main over to sail on a starboard tack broad reach, in a WNW direction. Unfortunately, the wind had eased during the night and we're slopping around a bit, but it's not too bad. Our speed is down to about 4.5 knots.

Current ETA Suwarrow is mid-day Saturday. 457 Miles to go.
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At 8/16/2011 5:42 PM (utc) our position was 16°14.19'S 155°50.92'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Leaving for Suwarrow Today

2011-08-15T07:25:00.001-10:00

We have had a wonderful time here at Mopelia (aka Mauphaa). The wind has been calm, the anchorage lovely, the friendship and activities outstanding. Boats here: Soggy Paws, Don Quixote, Night Fly, Loose Pointer, Dreamaway, and Blue Moon.

We have had campfires on the beach every night, and every day there was another activity--diving, snorkeling, beach walking, coconut crab hunting, lobstering (at night), and always someone to do it with. We could easily stay here for a month.

But the wind has filled in and there's a good weather window for the 4-5 day trip to Suwarrow.

Don Quixote left yesterday for Aitutake, and everyone else is leaving today for Suwarrow.

I hope to get back-post more details and pictures from our time here. But for now... have to go get ready to haul anchor!
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At 8/15/2011 5:12 PM (utc) our position was 16°46.69'S 153°57.07'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Mopelia - A 'Not To Be Missed' Final Stop in French Polynesia

2011-08-10T15:10:00.000-10:00

Almost all of our friends have hurried out of French Polynesia--mostly because their 90-day visa is up, and there is NO EXTENSION POSSIBLe once you are 'in country'. Some have set off on the Southern Cooks route... Aitutake - Palmerston, etc. Others have set off on the Northern Cooks route... Suwarrow. One boat has actually gone north up to Penrhyn, and then on to Suwarrow.

But there are two seldom-visited places at the tail end of French Polynesia (after we have checked out)... Maupiti and Mopelia.

Maupiti is only 25 miles from Bora Bora. But it is a little problematic this time of year--the pass faces south and if there's much of a southerly swell running, it can be impassable. We wanted to go there, but with the current weather, we could get in, but might get trapped there for a few days. So we chose instead to go directly to Mopelia.

Mopelia is 130 miles downwind from Bora Bora. There used to be a village at Mopelia, but a large cyclone in the 90's swept the town away. Now there are only a couple of families living in the southern motu. There is no store. There is no supply boat. There are no charter boats. There are no tourists.

Our friends on Don Quixote made an unplanned stop here a couple of days ago and have said "we may never leave". It is a Tuamotu in the Society Islands--far from the tourist crowds--almost unihabited--great diving--beautiful beaches--clear water. (See Don Quixote's blog link on the left).

We made the overnight jump last night, and came in the pass an hour ago. We too think we have arrived in Paradise. Arriving boats can pick their own half mile of deserted beach to pull up in front of. We are anchored in 20' of sand, near some nice snorkeling coral heads, off a beautiful palm-studded white sand beach. Another boat here, Loose Pointer, just made a dive outside the pass and said it was the best diving he has done in a LONG time.

The weather will be too light to head NW to Suwarrow for 4-5 days. So we are 'stuck' here til at least the 15th. Darn!!

Bonfire on the beach tonight--full moon. Wish you all could be here with us!!
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Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/11/2011 1:08 AM (utc) our position was 16°46.70'S 153°57.07'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Underway for Mopelia

2011-08-09T19:53:00.001-10:00

We worked hard for 2 days--even passing up a chance at a hike and a scuba dive--to get ready to leave this morning.

Sunday was spent reorganizing our boat for 'at sea' conditions, and putting away the toys (kayaks and bicycles) we got out for Fred & Suki's visit. Early Monday morning, we left our nice mooring (and good wifi) at Bloody Mary's and headed for town, where we fill up with fuel, got groceries, and checked out of French Polynesia for good.

Once we got our town chores done, we moved to the pretty anchorage west of the north end of Motu Toopua. This is a really nice spot--pretty, somewhat remote from town, and with OK wifi. Wish we could have stayed there longer. But it was time to move on.

We sailed out the pass at Bora Bora at 0845 this morning, and saw a couple of whales!! What a nice start for a passage.

We have been mostly running Dead Down Wind (DDW) all day. We are using the 'Tom Service' configuration--genoa on a pole to windward, main vanged out to leeward, and the staysail in the middle. This is surprisingly stable, even in pretty big seas. Our autopilot will hold a course with this configuration pretty well, and it's the maximum sail area we can spread.

In the late afternoon, we tried going over on a starboard tack for awhile. It worked for a bit, but then the wind came around, and we went back to our DDW configuration.

The wind is only about 12 knots, and the seas are calming down. But we would like to make the pass at Mopelia by about noon, so we are hoping for a couple of more knots of wind. For awhile we were only making 3.8 knots, and that wouldn't cut it, but we are up to about 4.5-5kts, which will do fine.
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Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 8/10/2011 5:48 AM (utc) our position was 16°35.94'S 152°37.74'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Almost Done in Bora Bora

2011-08-07T07:48:00.002-10:00

We had a great time with my cousin Fred and his wife Suki here.

Fred and Suki on the beach in Bora Bora
This was Suki's first ever experience on boat this size, and the first time she had ever slept onboard. But both Fred and Suki were very adaptable and were great boat guests. They are welcome back any time.

A Sailing Canoe (Tourist Version)
They pretty much got to see the whole island. You can't circle Bora Bora in a sailboat--the south end of the island is too shallow. But we went diving and the dive boat actually gave us a pretty good 'lagoon tour'.

Cousin Fred Underwater
Fred did a refresher dive one afternoon, and the next morning Dave and I and Fred did a Manta dive and a Lemon Shark dive, while Suki hung out in the dive boat. We did see at least one Manta and a number of lemon sharks.

Manta Ray
The Manta dive is inside the lagoon, and so the water was a little murky. Dave did a great job with the camera to get this shot.

Big Fat Lemon Sharks
But the visibility for the Lemon Shark dive, outside the reef, was really nice. It's been awhile since we've seen such clear blue water!!. For those who are wondering, it costs $150 for a 2-tank dive, which includes pickup from any hotel or your boat. We used Bora Diving, and liked them a lot.

Swanky Hotels in Bora Bora
On their last night, Suki had booked a room in the 5-star Le Meridien Hotel. So we anchored off the hotel the night before and took them in after lunch to check in. They got one of those neat bungalows over the water, with a glass floor. You can snorkel right off your porch.

Our Dinghy Under Their Bungalow
We enjoyed their nice hot shower and sundowners in their room, and then went to the seafood buffet with them. After dinner was a 'Tahitian Dance' thing, but we thought it was even lamer than the one we saw at the Community Center in Huahine. Maybe it is because it is after Heiva has ended and everyone has hung up their grass skirts for the year.

We left them yesterday to enjoy the luxury of their hotel on the last day, and took Soggy Paws back around to the west side of the island. We ended up at the World Famous Bloody Mary's Bar. They have free moorings if you come in for a meal or a drink. We had 2 beers and 2 delicious designer cheeseburgers. It cost nearly $50, but was worth it. Late in the afternoon we went for a good snorkel in the dive area E of Pt. Matira. (see the Societies Compendium for specific waypoints for anchorages and dive spots).

Most of our friends have already left for points west (mostly Suwarrow). So we are ready to move on too. We can't check out until Monday, and we need to do some provisioning and refueling on Monday too. Then we will try to leave fairly early Tuesday. The weather looks good for a 24-hour run to Mopelia, the last atoll in the Society Islands.
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At 8/6/2011 9:54 PM (utc) our position was 16°31.69'S 151°44.64'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

In Bora Bora for a Week or Two

2011-07-30T09:18:00.002-10:00

I still have several days of Raiatea / Tahaa adventures to relate, including a scooter ride around Raiatea and two great hikes, one in Raiatea and one in Tahaa. But I am getting so far behind, I'd better at least continue with what's happening right now.

We crossed over from Tahaa to Bora Bora a day or two earlier than we originally planned--there were big winds forecast and we didn't want to get stuck making the crossing in 25 knots and 12' seas. It's only about 25 miles, and downwind, but still... no point in getting all salty if you don't have to.

The cruiser-friendly facilities in Bora Bora are in a state of flux right now. The facility everyone talks about in years past is the Bora Bora Yacht Club. But the cruiser-friendly couple with the lease (Teiva and Jessica), who have overcome several setbacks to build the BBYC into a going concern over the last few years, have been hit with another cyclone and had a falling out with the owner of the property (one issue, we heard, was the liquor license that wasn't). So they have leased another facility closer to town, maybe less cyclone-succeptible, and are in the process of renovating the building and setting up moorings. This new place is called the Mai Kai Marina and Yacht Club.

Right now, the 12 new Mai Kai Moorings are free (until Aug 1), so they have been chock-a-block with freeloading cruisers. There are no shore-side facilities yet at Mai Kai. But the anchoring area near town is 85 feet deep, so anyone who can get a mooring wants one, especially since it is free.

We haven't been down to the Bora Bora Yacht Club yet. But we understand is still sort of operating... they are charging for their moorings, so they are everyone's second choice, and they are further from town. We heard from the grapevine that Teive and Jessica actually own the moorings that are still at the Bora Bora Yacht Club, and they plan on moving them to the Mai Kai eventually. Plans are for a total of 30 moorings eventually at Mai Kai. We don't know about the long term prospects of the BBYC.

We crossed over from Raiatea on a day when everyone else was getting ready for the 25 knot winds in the forecast, so all the moorings were taken in both places. We motored around and scoped out a place behind Motu Toopua that looked good for weathering a blow. But Dave really wanted to get settled close to town, so we could pick up our incoming guests easily.

We finally found a 'shallow' spot in 'only' 65 feet, close inshore by the Mai Kai Marina, and a short dinghy ride to town. Once we got anchored, we feel comfortable enough here that we have passed on several opportunities for mooring buoys. We are actually better protected where we are than we would be on the moorings.

We have spent the last 2 days with our nose to the grindstone--working on clearing out the V-Berth for our incoming guests. We have been so busy in the last 9 months that we have just been jamming stuff in the V-Berth, and it was time to go through everything and organize it better. After 2 days of work, we have reduced the 'stuff' from 6 Rubbermaid tubs to 4, and refreshed our memories about what's in all those tubs. One is 'boat spares' that we have no other place to put. A second is 'new projects'--things we have bought but haven't gotten around to installing. A third is 'computer stuff' (spare monitor, old hard drives, etc) . And the fourth is half-full of food, and topped off with miscellaneous items. These 4 tubs fit on the forward half of the port side setee without taking up too much room.

So the V-Berth is clear, and I've thoroughly cleaned and aired it. It got pretty wet up there in our bash down from Hawaii.

My cousin, Fred Twogood, and his wife Suki, are coming for a week. They flew into Tahiti last night, and are flying here tomorrow evening. We have 6 days of 'fun in Bora Bora' planned for them. Thankfully, it looks like the 20-25 knot winds will start abating tomorrow, so we should be able to explore the whole atoll with them without too much trouble.
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At 7/28/2011 1:26 AM (utc) our position was 16°30.06'S 151°45.17'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Motu Nao Nao, Raiatea

2011-07-20T06:03:00.000-10:00

After a quick jaunt in to see the marae, we picked up anchor from our 'pinnacle' and motored SE around Raiatea. It was a beautiful sunny day with light wind. We hooked up the watermaker and made water all the way to our next stop--Motu Nao Nao on the southern tip of Raiatea.

The West End of Motu Nao Nao
We had heard from others that this was a nice spot, and we were glad to find it was even better than expected. You would think that by now, anchorage off a nice beach would be pretty ho-hum. But really, it is not. Though French Polynesia is beautiful, it really is lacking in nice sand beaches. Many that look sandy in the pictures really are crushed coral and not so nice to walk on.

The West End of Motu Nao Nao
But, my was it shallow in the anchor spot we had from our friends on s/v Nakia! But Nakia has a slightly deeper draft than we do, so we knew that if they got in there, we could too. We had to stall a bit out in deep water until we got full sun to see our way in. We could tell visually that the water went from 'very deep' (over 100 feet) to 'very shallow sand' (under 10 feet) in the space of a boat length.

As an aside, our depth sounder has been acting wonky lately--we're still trying to figure out what happened to it. It reads OK in depths from 10 feet to 90 feet, but gets messed up in shallower or deeper water. We can live without the deeper water readings, but not having an accurate sounding in shallow water is nerve-wracking.

So we edged slowly up to the sand bank, with Dave on the bow with his polarized sunglasses on, and me in cockpit reading off depths. Once we got on the bank, the depth sounder was flashing again (grrr!). But occasionally it would stop flashing and display around 8 feet. So we were on, not aground, and it looked like the sand was about the same depth around us. So we threw the anchor out in the lee of the little motu, just off the nice sandy beach, and I jumped in to sound the water around us. Feet on the bottom, hand in the air--if my hand is under water, it is over 7' deep. Fins outstretched adds another 18 inches. So we were in 8-10' of water--plenty of depth for Soggy Paws' 5.5 foot draft.

Ahhh!! Beautiful! Unfortunately, this spot is on the charter boat circuit, so later in the day, two other boats came in and dropped anchor near us. But we knew they would only stay overnight. Though we only planned to stay a day there, we ended up staying two. That meant we would have skip a spot on the west coast of Raiatea for the next anchorage (to stay on the rough schedule we had worked out). But it was worth it just to rest for a day and catch up on laundry and small chores.

The wind was still blowing in the 20 knot range, and forecast to continue to do so for a couple more days. But west of Motu Nao Nao, all was tranquil. We were out of the wind, out of the chop, and anchored in deep sand. We felt fortunate that we were in such a comfortable spot, when we heard our friends on the radio talking about the conditions in their anchorages.

The snorkeling on the coral heads out behind the boat, and ahead to the right, was pretty darned good for this part of French Polynesia--the best we have seen since we left the Tuamotus.
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At 7/20/2011 6:29 AM (utc) our position was 16°55.15'S 151°25.91'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Anchored on a Coral Pinnacle

2011-07-19T19:38:00.001-10:00

July 18 - Marae Taputapuatea, Raiatea

Marae Taputapuatea
By the time we got out of the river, it was close to 2pm. We made a quick stop at the house of the guy who helped Dave with the dinghy in the morning, to drop off a few presents (fishing lures, and a stuffed animal and alphabet book for his son), and then picked up anchor. We really didn't want to spend another night in the wind tunnel.

Our friends on Endorfin were anchored 5 miles away off the Marae Taputapuatea (Polynesia religious platform). They said they were in a 15' foot deep sand spot and the conditions were OK. They said there was another sand spot that looked good just next to them. So we headed out there. It turned out there were 3 of these 'sand spots'. Another boat had taken the bigger one next to them, and there wasn't room for us to anchor there too.

So we went to the 3rd spot and looked it over. The depths went from 100' to 65' to 15' in about the length of Soggy Paws. The water was very clear and we could see everything on the top. It looked like good sand with only one low coral head. So we dropped the anchor somewhat toward the windward side of the sand spot, in the middle (left and right-wise). We backed down hard, and it seemed to be holding fine. So I donned mask and snorkel and went to look at the set. If we dragged off the pinnacle, there would be no-resetting.

Nope--that 'sand' was NOT sand, but white-colored sheet rock. We had only about an inch of the point on our 88 pound Delta anchor in a small hole. Definitely not good enough. I criss-crossed the top of the pinnacle and there wasn't 10 grains of sand on the whole thing. But, there was a very nice ledge, that, if I could... just... drag... the... anchor... Nope--I could easily drag Island Time's 60 lb anchor and 50' of chain around, but this beast (with 150' of chain out) I couldn't budge.

So I swam back and told Dave we had to move the anchor about a boat-length further to windward, and drop it just off the edge of the pinnacle. That sounds easy--clear water, and we're hardly moving it, but with the 20 knot winds, it was hard getting into just the right place. The next time we dropped, we were just literally 2 feet short, and the next time only about a foot short (Dave didn't want to drop it over the abyss, so he was a little short each time). Each time, I had to jump in the water and go visually check the anchor. Finally on the 5th time, we got it over the ledge and the point and the whole fluke area were set well into a nook. And honestly we weren't screaming at each other. We both knew how important it was to get it right, and how difficult a thing we were trying to do. Fortunately, with our big strong electric windlass, it wasn't too much of a chore.

We still spent a somewhat uneasy night, with the wind still blowing 20-25 knots (but fortunately not gusting to 40 like the previous night). We have our old Garmin GPSMap 76 hand-held GPS mounted in our cabin, and had it on and zoomed in, and the anchor alarm set. I could sit up, turn on the backlight, and verify we were still in the right spot, without hardly waking up.

In the morning, we felt comfortable enough with our set that we dinghied ashore and walked around the Marea for an hour or so. This is an extensive group of stone platforms--the largest and most sacred in the Society Islands. There were some nice plaques in English, with illustrations, describing the marae, their purpose and construction, and a little about the social structure in the Societies. Because the Polynesians never had a written language, most of what we know of their history comes from the detailed accounts from the first explorers, especially Captain James Cook, who made 3 trips to French Polynesia. It was interesting to note the footnotes on the sketches on the plaques--one was drawn by Captain William Bligh, and most were done by Webber, one of Captain Cook's 'resident artists', who were carried on board just for such documentation of culture, plants, and animals they discovered.

Also in the Taputapuatea area, they were holding an Agricultural Fair. We took some pictures of the strange stuff they had on display.

At 7/18/2011 3:27 AM (utc) our position was 16°49.77'S 151°21.59'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

The Faaroa River Trip, Raiatea

2011-07-19T08:41:00.001-10:00

We did finally do the Faaroa River trip. Some friends who had met James, the guy who gives the free 'Botanical Gardens Tour' by kayak, the day before, had told him we were coming.

At the Botanical Gardens
So he paddled out to our boat to let us know he was there. We told him we were coming in soon. He said he'd go back inside (it was still blowing 20-25 kts out in the bay), but he made sure that we knew the way in over the river bar... between the two sticks and then to the left of all the dead tree trunks.

Following James in the River
On the way in, we kicked our motor up partway, and I sat on the bow of the dinghy dipping with the oar. It got down to about 2 feet at one point, but deepened quickly again after we were over the bar. Once in the river, the water clarity was good enough that we could see the shallow spots.

Another Dinghy Adventure
James met us just inside the river and motioned for us to follow him. We never did quite figure out James' role in the river and the 'Botanical Gardens'. His command of English is limited, so we had a hard time asking him questions other than about the plants. And sometimes the answers to THOSE questions were only partially understandable. But nonetheless, he made sure we stayed in the deep part of the river, and took us all the way to the end. Then we backtracked a little to a small side canal, where we parked the dinghy and went walking through the 'gardens' with him.

Cat's Whiskers
It was a fantastic array of native tropical plants, from vanilla beans to star fruit, and including things like baslil, tiny Polynesia chili peppers, citrus trees, taro, coconuts, and many flowering plants. For each plant, he stopped and gave us the Polynesian name as well as the common English name, and then explained what its uses were in the islands.

Ginger?
Many of the flowers and variegated plants were in the garden because they looked good on Polynesian dancers, or smelled good, or made baskets, or...

James Gets Us a Coconut
At the end, James cut us down a stalk of bananas and climbed a coconut tree Polynesian style and threw us down a couple of coconuts. If we had wanted (according to other cruisers) we could have purchased from one of the local farms, fruits and veggies as a very reasonable price. But we had just stocked up, and were only lacking bananas.

Sherry & James
We gave James a 'gratuity' of 1000 CFP (about $10) for his time and the bananas, and felt it was well worth the time and money.

At 7/18/2011 3:10 AM (utc) our position was 16°49.07'S 151°24.87'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

The Amazing Flying Dinghy

2011-07-18T08:00:00.002-10:00

We are on the 10 day plan for Raiatea/Tahaa. Dave has read all the guidebooks and wants to do 'everything'. The first stop was the bay of Faaroa, a long narrow bay directly shoreward from the Passe Iriru Ou Maire. The attraction here is a trip up the only dinghy-able river in French Polynesia. Previous cruisers have written about making this dinghy trip and receiving a 'botanical gardens tour' and copious fruits and vegetables, while up the river.

I wasn't so sure this was a good idea. With a NE wind blowing 20 knots into a NE facing bay, opposite a break in the reef... and the bay goes from 100' deep to 60' deep to 25' to 5' in the space of 100 yards. Didn't sound that good to me, but Dave really wanted to do this river trip, so in we went.

It took us twice to get properly anchored. The first time we congratulated ourselves on finding a 25' spot to drop the anchor. But once things settled out, with the proper amount of scope out, we were just touching the 5' (or less) spot. I could feel our rudder bump on something occasionally.

Our Windy Lee-Shore Anchorage
So we pulled it all in, and re-anchored further out. But with such a steep slope, and the need for appropriate scope, we ended up having to drop the hook in 60' of water... and still were only a couple of boatlengths away from the 5' shelf. But we backed down hard, and knew we were hooked up well. We set our anchor alarm (an old Garmin GPS mounted in our bunk where we can hear it), and went to sleep.

The wind increased during the night from 20 kts to 25 with gusts. We kept a close eye on the GPS but felt we were securely anchored, and were mostly sleeping. Then at 4am, I heard this 'whump' sound. Hmmm, wonder what the heck that was? I looked out our porthole on the side of the bunk and there was our dinghy floating past, shining bright in the moonlight. "Dave, there goes our dinghy!" And he says "Oh shoot, I untied it yesterday afternoon, thinking we were going to launch it right away." The 40 knot gust had somehow gotten under our dinghy, which was stowed for sea upside down on the foredeck, and flew it completely free of our boat, almost without touching anything else onboard, and landed it upright in the water with a "Whump". Wow! The power of the wind!

We scrambled out of bed and went up in the cockpit to watch our dinghy sailing away downwind in the moonlight. We didn't even need a spotlight to watch it go! The wind was blowing really hard, so thoughts of jumping in after it only lasted a microsecond before sanity took over. Fortunately, fortunately, we are in this nice cul de sac, and we were fairly certain that the dinghy wasn't going very far. What more could we do but go back to bed and wrestle with dinghy rescue plans in our sleep? (And, of course, Dave spent the rest of the night kicking himself for not at least clipping the bowline to the lifeline). (We both were thanking our lucky stars that we didn't have 2,000 miles of open ocean behind us that night).

The big problem was, for recovering it, that the wind forecast was not good--we expected 20-25 knots for the next 3 days. We have kayaks aboard, but they are really lightweight inflatables--not suitable for going anywhere in 20 knots. They are barely usable in 5 knots. And, in only the second anchorage since we left Hawaii in April, there were no other cruisers in the anchorage with us.

As soon as it got light enough, I went out with the binoculars to scan the shoreline. I expected to be able to see it easily behind us, but no sign of the dinghy!! Our white RIB should show up against the trees like a neon sign. I finally roused Dave. He didn't see it either. So we discussed search and rescue options. We finally settled on digging the inflatable kayaks out of deep storage under the V-Berth, and sending Dave out in one kayak and a handheld, to look for the dinghy. Since we were in a cul de sac, the worst thing that could happen was that he'd get blown ashore and have to swim back out.

Dave Sets Out in the Kayak
I was to stay aboard and try to contact friends on the HF radio, in case we needed help, but also stand by with the VHF and the second kayak in case Dave needed help.

Before he launched out in the kayak, Dave took one last look with the binocs, and thought he saw the dinghy under the trees behind us, at the water's edge. We felt that even though he couldn't tow the dinghy back with the kayak, he should be able to walk along the shore with it, to some houses off our beam, and either row back from there, or get help from people on shore.

So Dave set out in our very light blow-up kayak in 20-25 knots of wind. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture until he was too far away). Meanwhile, it was time for the SSB net, and I got on and made contact with our friends on Endorfin, only 5 miles south of us. We confirmed that we were close enough for VHF contact, and they volunteered to come help, if we needed it. But I told them to hang out for awhile--I thought we could handle the rescue ourselves.

And sure enough, within a few minutes, Dave had extricated the dinghy from the swampy area under the trees, loaded the kayak in the dinghy, and was wading alongshore towing the dinghy. He got to a point 200 yards abeam of Soggy Paws, at someone's house with a small dock. While he was tying it off, a woman came out, and I could see him trying to explain, in Polynesian, how the dinghy flew off in the night, and that the wind was blowing too hard to row the dinghy back to the boat. A few minutes later, she came back with her brother who at first offered to help Dave paddle out. Then as they stood there and watched the wind blow, the final solution was to get a motor boat and tow Dave, the dinghy, and the kayak out to Soggy Paws.

This they did, and by 8:45 am, Dave was back safe and sound with the dinghy. YES! The only thing we lost permanently was our dinghy bimini, which had been resting on top of the dinghy. A pretty cheap price to pay for another new lesson. (Tie the dinghy down, mate!).

The ironic thing was that we'd had dinner a few nights ago with our friends on Dreamaway, who were celebrating recovering their old tiny Avon, which had blown off THEIR deck in the Marquesas. It had finally turned up at a Gendarmerie a few weeks later (after they'd left the Marquesas for the Tuamotus), and friends had loaded it up, and it had only just arrived in Papeete a few days before. We wondered how anyone could be so stupid as to let their dinghy blow off their deck...

At 7/18/2011 4:18 AM (utc) our position was 16°49.07'S 151°24.87'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Our Last Night in Huahine

2011-07-18T07:49:00.001-10:00

July 16

We had originally planned to spend about 2 weeks in Huahine, relaxing and gunkholing. But we had dinner with our friends on Dreamaway, and got to talking about the trip to Suwarrow. Graham reminded us that it's really nice to have a full moon for a passage. So then and there, Dave decided that we want to be on our way to Suwarrow with the next full moon.

Originally, we had planned to have some leisure time in Huahine, and skip Raiatea/Tahaa, meet my cousin in Bora Bora on 31 July and then double back to Raiatea/Tahaa after they left on the 6th of August. Now, Dave wants to squeeze in Raiatea/Tahaa before we go to Bora Bora. Back to double-time again!! (Life with Dave, never dull...)

Anyway, so we moved back from Avea Bay to Fare early on Friday, loaded the bikes in the dinghy, and headed ashore to bike over to the Marae (old Polynesian stone structures) at Maeva. After Nuku Hiva, I'm still haven't been impressed with any of the Society Islands Marae. More rocks. But we had a nice bike ride out, and then a hike up into the hillside over the Marae.

The best part of the whole day was Happy Hour at the bar next to the Dinghy Dock in Fare. Pints of beer for only 250 CFP (about $3). This is a huge deal in French Poly. AND, the folks on Don Quixote bought us a beer, and so did Bruce and Clark on Two Amigos... (both of whom, being good cruisers, figured that cheap beer was a great time to discharge that 'I owe you one' feeling).

The next morning, we made a quick trip ashore to buy a few more baguettes and a few other necessities, and then hauled anchor and sailed the 20 miles downwind to Raiatea.
-----
At 7/16/2011 4:18 AM (utc) our position was 16°42.77'S 151°02.38'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Avea Bay, Huahine

2011-07-15T08:26:00.001-10:00

We have had a beautiful time here anchored in the SW corner of Huahine. It is just a gorgeous location. We are anchored in about 25' of very clear water, behind a huge sandbank that is only 3' deep, and then there's the reef with the breaking waves on it out ahead of us 1/4 mile. If the sand were just a little bit deeper, we'd be out there with the catamarans, anchored in the aquamarine water.

We got here a couple of days ago. One day we went on the short hike up on the ridge to take pictures of the bay. Unfortunately, the Australian Pines are growing up in the middle of the picture--we had a hard time finding a clear shot. I was disappointed that none of the pics we took really convey what a stunning place this is.

This time of year, there are always 7 or 8 boats anchored here--a couple of charter cats and the rest cruisers. The charter boats usually anchor up ahead in the shallower water, and only stay one night. The cruisers come for a couple of days. But the bay is so huge that we could put 30 boats in here and not feel crowded.

Another day we went exploring in the dinghy, east around the point. We were looking for a good snorkel spot, plus exploring the pass and the town. The pass was breaking across, so we didn't go outside, or even just in the pass. The town is tiny, but we did find an open grocery store and bought a couple of baguettes for lunch. The coral we found was alive but only in about 3' of water. Lots of sand. Lots of clear water. Not what I'd call great snorkeling. The best we found was actually between the 2nd and 3rd stakes that mark the way around from Avea Bay to the town of Pareo.

Yesterday, we took the bikes ashore and ended up riding all the way around Huahini Iti--about 20 miles on good mostly-flat paved roads. Yesterday was 'Bastille Day', basically the 4th of July date for France. So nearly everyone was home in their small houses on the water. The 2 or 3 small 'magasins' (stores) we passed were locked up tight, and traffic was very light A few tourist restaurants and boutiques were open. We enjoyed seeing the variety of homes and waving at the people we passed. Nearly every one had carefully tended gardens--some just ornamental, but most a combination of flowers and food--including taro, yucca, pineapple, banana, coconut, papaya, mango, green beans, melons. And of course, everyone has a few chickens hanging around. Most of the homes had 'million dollar views', even though some were just barely shacks. We envied them their simple lives, and I'm sure they envy us in our big boats and shiny new bikes.

We would like to go to the east side of Huahine, where there are more beautiful behind-the-reef anchorages. But you have to go outside the reef and beat your way around to get there, and enter through the reef on the east side. And the wind forecast in the next few days is for 20+ knots. So we'll skip that. We got a pretty good sampling of that side just riding the bikes around yesterday.

Today we head back up for the big town of Fare in the NW.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 7/11/2011 11:46 PM (utc) our position was 16°48.72'S 150°59.63'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Fare, Hauhine

2011-07-11T07:17:00.000-10:00

We arrived here Saturday morning after an overnight passage.

The main harbor here is at the small town of Fare, with a big, wide, easy pass to come in. There is a town dock for the dinghies and other small boats, with a big welcome sign and a map of the island. There is also a small 'freighter dock' where the inter-island freighters pull in to load/unload. Steps from the dinghy dock is the main street of Fare, where one can find a reasonably well-stocked grocery store, fresh baguettes, and the morning fresh fruits, vegetables, and fish market.

To put it in perspective for my Florida friends, the town reminds me a little of Green Turtle in the Bahamas.

Like the other French Society Islands, Huahine is an old volcano with an encircling barrier reef. So it seems to combine the best of the Marquesas Islands (the beauty of the mountains, more rainfall, some arable land, cooler temps) with the Tuamotus (better harbors, snorkeling, surf).

The challenge in the Societies is finding anchorages shallower than 80-100' and deeper than 2'. But Huahine has a number of spots where there is a good sand shelf in 10-30' of water. We are anchored in what's known among the cruisers as the 'town anchorage'. Off a nice beach, in 30' of nice sand. We can see the best surf spot in Huahine from our boat, and hear the pounding of the surf on the reef. But our anchor spot is very tranquil.

Huahine is nice, we think, because tourists rarely come here. There is an airport, and of course, the freighters. But it is well off the beaten path. It IS within reach of the charter boats who operate out of Raiatea (Moorings, Sunsail, Dream Yacht), but few boats have the time or motivation to get over to Huahine. So, the inhabitants are less 'touristed', and therefore more friendly and welcoming of strangers.

On Saturday night, we heard there was a 'Heiva' dance festival at the arena outside of town, and a bunch of cruisers said they were going. We missed one group who left before us, and another group was still eating dinner. So Dave and I walked out on our own. We had asked directions in my limited French, and so we knew what road to take, and that it was about a 15 minute walk. But it was after dark and it seemed we were heading down a dark road to nowhere. After 10 minutes of walking, we heard drums and music, and I said "See, we made it." But it turned out to be someone's loud music in their house. So we kept walking. Fortunately, not many dogs here. Another 10 minutes walking and we could hear music again. We came around the bend and saw cars pulling into a big area, and knew we were there.

We paid 500 CFP (about $5.50) each to get in. A dance group was already in the middle of a number, so we found our friends in the bleachers and sat down to watch. This was, I think, a regional competition for the island, with each group of 20 or 30 people performing native song and dance, with judges. The winning group goes to Papeete for the 'finals' next weekend. A local told us that last year, there were 8 groups performing, admittance was free, and the stands were packed. This year, we saw only 2 groups, and the stands were very sparse. Many of the locals were hanging around outside, complaining about the entry fee. French Polynesia, like everyone else, is really suffering in the economic downturn.

The singing, dancing, and music (drums, ukelele's, etc) was entertaining, but not as good as what we saw on the beach at the Puddle Jump Rendezvous. And all of us had just been on an overnight passage. I saw more than one head nodding as the second group was finishing up. So we were not much dismayed when it was over.

As we were walking back as a group, someone with a larger car stopped and asked if we'd like a ride back into town. "All 7 of us?". Oui, I have a friend. So he got on his cell phone and got a friend to stop, and we all piled into two cars for the short ride back to town. THAT's how friendly the locals are.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day--a beautiful sunny day, not too hot, not too windy. We should have been out exploring the island in the boat. But it was Sunday, and I insisted on a 'day of rest'. We have good internet here, and no schedule pressures until we have to be in Bora Bora on 1 August to meet my cousin and his wife. Bora Bora is only 50 miles downwind, so we have time to relax a little and explore here, and be in Bora Bora a few days before they get there.

So we spent the day hanging out on the computers and watching the boats come and go (cruisers, charterboats, and locals). A church just off the beach had a nice church service with lots of music that we could hear onboard. We made a big breakfast and enjoyed a day of leisure. Late in the afternoon we hopped in the dinghy and went exploring. We were primed to take advantage of the half-priced happy hour at the bar by the dinghy dock, but they were closed on Sunday, so we had some friends over for Sundowners. All in all, a nice Sunday.

Today we plan to head out of town for the SW corner--Avea Bay, which is supposed to be the nicest anchorage on the island. We are looking forward to some snorkeling, hiking, and bicycling down there.

At 7/9/2011 8:05 PM (utc) our position was 16°42.77'S 151°02.38'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Overnight Passage to Huahine

2011-07-10T13:09:00.001-10:00

We were finally ready to move on from Moorea to the next island, Huahine. Huahine is pronounced 'Wah hee nee' (just like the Hawaiian Wahine). We had pretty much 'done' Moorea, and we had the weather we'd been waiting for--15 knots from the east and settled weather.

The trip from Moorea is only 80 miles, so we spent the day rearranging things after Jim's visit, and getting ready for the passage. At 4pm we motorsailed out the Opunohu pass, and pointed for the north end of Huahine 305 degrees, 80 miles.

We had a pretty nice night, except that Dave really wanted to have the main up in addition to the Genoa. He thought our genoa-only trip from Toau to Tahiti was too rolly.

With the mainsail up, we couldn't quite make our course, because the main would blank the genoa. So we had to sail about 320 degrees all night. There were about 10 boats on passage, plus two inter-island freighters that passed us during the night. Fortunately, the freighters had AIS, but almost none of the other boats on passage even had receivers. So there were a few close encounters, and a lot of 'are you the boat to my south?' conversations during the night, some quite comical.

Many of the 'Puddle Jumpers' who arrived in the Marquesas in April are running out of time--their 90-day visas are expiring, so they leaving Tahiti and Moorea in droves, hurrying west, trying to see a little more of the Society Islands before they have to leave.

Though it was really a nice night, I didn't really enjoy this passage much. I stubbornly refused to accept that we couldn't make the heading I wanted, and Janet, our autopilot doesn't steer well on that point of sail. She wandered all over and flogged the genoa frequently. And the swell was still pretty big from the huge swell a few days before, and it was slewing us around quite a bit. By the time it was Dave's watch, I was pretty grumpy and ready for sleep. When Dave called me up to gybe for Huahine at 5am, I was sleepy and even more grumpy--I was not very nice to him. These short passages are hell!!

We gybed at 5am, and once we got close to Huahine the wind got really light and we gave up and motored the last 7 miles around to Fare.
-----
At 7/9/2011 8:05 PM (utc) our position was 16°42.77'S 151°02.38'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Hike to the 3 Palm Trees

2011-07-10T12:27:00.001-10:00

July 8, 2011

After Dave saw Jim off on the bus to the ferry, we moved Soggy Paws around the corner to anchor up inside Robinson's Cove, deep inside Opunohu Bay. This is a totally different sort of anchorage than the Opunohu Beach anchorage, which was off a palm-studded beach in aquamarine water. Robinson's Cove is in a deep bay with high mountains on all sides and a lush vally 'ahead'. The water is not that clear, because of the stream emptying into the bay, but it is a beautiful anchorage.

When we anchored there, only our friends on Dreamaway were anchored in the cove, so we felt very remote after the crowded and busy beach anchorage. Though friends had told us there was no internet up inside the bay, we were delighted to find an open wifi spot (seemed only to be turned on in the afternoon and evenings).

We had a great dinner aboard Dreamaway, with fresh shrimp from the shrimp farm on the way to Belvedere. Over dinner we made plans with Graham and Avril for our hike to the '3 Palm Trees'.

It's easy to get to the 3 Palms lookout using the path from the Belvedere, but Avril wanted to try getting there using one of the other paths shown in the Lonely Planet, and come back down the easy way.

We set out from the boats at about 9:15, and walked up the road toward the Belvedere. We had a little trouble finding the starting point of Avril's alternate route. It seemed to be at the right turn-off just before the 2Km marker on the way up to the Belvedere. This is actually part of the agricultural school. When we asked some people working there how to get to the 3 Cocos, they pointed up the road to the Belvedere. But we didn't want to go that way, so we wandered off on our own.

After hiking across the ag school property, through pineapple fields and past the pig farm, generally heading toward the lone palm tree on the ridge, and trying to follow the directions in the Lonely Planet, we eventually stumbled on the start of a path going the right direction. We found a few pieces of red and white tape fluttering from tree branches as we walked along, so we were pretty sure we were on the right path.

Eventually, after a long way hiking through huge mape (map-ay) trees, and crossing the stream a bunch of times, our path merged with the one from the Belvedere, and we met a couple of other hikers who confirmed we were on the right route.

Finally, at 1pm, we emerged on the ridge. We had brought lunch with us, so we enjoyed the view and ate our lunch. There were a couple of scraggly young coconut trees where we were eating, but not 'the' coconut tree that is so visible from down below. Where was it? Dave said we had, in our last scramble to get to the top, must have passed right by it and didn't even notice it. We must slow down and take notice of it on our way down!!

The way down was easier, of course. But we still somehow blew right past the lone coconut tree without seeing it. We remembered one level down in the vegetation, but it wasn't visible. I know it's there, but we never saw it!

For the route down, we went across to the Belvedere first. This was a much easier route, because it was mostly going across the face of the hills and not up and down the hills. We stopped again at the Ice Cream shop on the road down from the Belvedere.

We were really dog tired by the time we arrived back at our dinghies--at 5pm. We'd been hiking for 8 hours!!

And 10 boats had moved into our 'private' anchorage, due to gusty winds out in the beach area.

A Long Way Home

2011-07-10T12:15:00.001-10:00

July 6, 2011

Dave's friend Jim Neale left today for his 40-hour trip back to Florida. Here was his route:

- Dinghy trip to the beach (09:30am)
- Bus on Moorea to the Ferry Dock
- Ferry to Papeete
- Shopping and lunch downtown
- Bus to the airport (last bus leaves at 6pm)
- Overnight Flight to LAX (departure 11pm)
- 12 hour layover in LAX
- Flight to Orlando

He arrived on Friday morning, and was picked up at the Orlando airport by his friend Rene. Then he had to make 2 stops for us before he could go to sleep... one in Orlando to drop off an electronic device for repair, and one to the Post Office to mail a package for us.

He had a great time visiting us for 2 weeks in Tahiti and Moorea, but I think he was ready to head home by the time he left. (Life aboard with Dave can be kind of exhausting!)

Safely Back in Opunohu Bay

2011-07-05T06:57:00.000-10:00

We did manage to get out of Haapiti 2 days ago. We checked the pass twice in the dinghy, and then waited for the most propituous time (high tide, good daylight, lessening seas), and battened down the hatches tighter than we've ever done for almost any passage. The wind was starting to pick up as forecast, and we were feeling pretty isolated. We did NOT want to get stuck there for the next 5 days of high swell.

We put a single reef in the main, and then hung on tight and motored at about 4kts out the pass (with an additional 2 kts of current behind us). We had huge breakers about 100' either side of us, but the pass WAS clear. It was scary in anticipation, but the end result wasn't as bad as we had feared. All went well, and we only buried the bow once or twice, and not that bad. (It was much much much worse, as far as water over the deck, 2 or 3 days out of Hawaii when we were beating to weather in 20-25kts).

Once we cleared the pass by 1/4 mile, all the excitement was over. We put some more sail up and had a nice sail for the 10 miles around to Opunohu. The huge swell wasn't bad--it was a very long period swell and no bid deal. We didn't see any whales, but once we were free of that pass, it was a beautiful day.

Opunohu is crowded again--back up to about 24 boats in the outer anchorage and 10 or so inside each of Cook's Bay and Oponohu Bay. Many boats left the Marina Taina anchorage in Papeete because of the weather forecast.

Today we're heading out for a 'bus adventure'. We will go out and try to take the bus around the island. It's a little more difficult than it sounds, because the bus only goes halfway--to the ferry terminal, and then doesn't go all the way around on the other side. And the schedule is erratic--it is timed to the ferry schedule, according to Lonely Planet. But it should be a great adventure. Our friends tell us that hitchhiking, if you get stuck, is a pretty good solution in Moorea.

Trapped Inside the Reef!!

2011-07-03T10:48:00.001-10:00

In the middle of the night we could hear the noise of the surf pick up. And it belatedly occurred to me that I'd never gotten around to checking the swell height forecast along with the wind. Sure enough, when I pulled down the day's forecast, though the wind forecast was still for under 10 knots, the swell height had jumped from 1.6 meters to 3.9 meters overnight. This is from a deep low down in the 'Roaring Forties'--600+ miles away from us.

And, guess what? Our 'deep pass that rarely breaks' was breaking all the way across. And, there's no other way out of this area. And there's no really good spot to get out of the winds that are forecast to blow up to 20-25knots in the next couple of days. And, there's no real town here, or internet. Sheesh!

We checked the pass by dinghy as soon as we got through breakfast, and it was definitely too bad to get out safely. By mid-day when we checked again, it was even worse, and we had a roaring 2 knot current now in our nice quiet anchorage. This is caused by the waves breaking over the reef pouring tons of water into the lagoon, and the only way out for the water is via the one deep pass. Quite a different scene from when we came in the day before.

We saw only one local fishing boat go out early in the morning. And there were no surfers out in the pass at all. The surf out in front of us was booming on the reef all day.

There was nothing to do but hang out and enjoy the scenery and hope the waves subside as forecast. We did re-anchor, inching a little further onto the sand bank, to let out more scope and still be out of the deep area, which was very agitated because of the current.

This is a nice enough anchorage now, but the seas are forecast to go even higher in the next couple of days, and the wind is supposed to pick up and blow for a few days in the 20 knot range. There isn't any protection from the wind where we are, so we'd really like to get out of here to a more protected location.

The forecast for today is that the wind will pick up some--to the 15-20 range, and the seas will subside a little, before starting to pick back up again tomorrow morning. So we are hoping to get out at midday. We took a peek by dinghy this morning and the pass does look marginally passable--scary as hell, though, motoring out in a slow sailboat into seas like that. We are waiting for a few more hours before attempting to go out at high tide. If we don't make it out this afternoon or tomorrow morning, we'll be stuck here for 3-4 more days.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 7/1/2011 10:54 PM (utc) our position was 17°34.42'S 149°52.13'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Exploring Moorea's West Coast

2011-07-03T10:43:00.001-10:00

After a few days of hanging out in Opunohu Bay, Dave got itchy paws and wanted to go exploring. So we looked in our guidebook (Cruising Guide to Tahiti and the French Society Islands by Marcia Davock), for a less well-known anchorage. Though this guide was last updated in 1985, it is still the best, most complete cruising guide for this area.

The weather was perfect for exploring--sunny skies, light and variable winds and slight seas. The forecast was for 2 more days of these nice conditions. We headed out of the Oponohu anchorage on Friday morning, headed 11 miles around the corner to the west coast of Moorea. We were headed for Passe Matauvau and the town of Haapiti.

Several of the west coast passes were marked with 'shallow and often covered with breakers', but Matauvau is supposed to be wider and deeper and more of an all-weather pass. The Davock guide shows several possible anchorages inside the reef near the pass, and starts the writeup with "Port Haapiti is our favorite anchorage on Moorea's west coast."

It was another gorgeous day, and we motored slowly down to the pass, making water as we went. Jim was on the bow looking out for whales, as July marks the start of whale season in French Polynesia. We did see a 'whale watching boat' out with tourists, but only spotted a few porpoises nearby.

The Matauvau Pass is well known among the surfers as a great surf spot (which is not always a good recommendation for an anchorage), and we saw a number of surfers and surf-watchers in boats hanging out on the south side of the pass as we approached. The surf on the edges of the pass looked pretty awesome, but the pass was OK, and we motored right in.

With no wind for 2 days, the lagoon inside the reef was flat calm and crystal clear, and it was easy to find our chosen anchor spot in 8-9' of sand at 17-34.43 S / 149-52.14 W. Our choice of anchoring depths were 8' or 60', so we chose the shallow sand bank. We contemplated taking Soggy Paws further south into another anchorage shown in the guide, but we decided to anchor in the easy spot and take the dinghy down to check out the anchorage first--the way south was in a narrow channel through coral, and the sun would be a factor if we didn't like the anchorage and wanted to backtrack. There were 3 other sailboats anchored right off the town. We figured they were surfer boats. One of the three loaded up a surfboard and left right after we arrived.

We had a nice time exploring by dinghy--but were glad we'd anchored where we did. And we took a nice snorkel in the shallow sand and scattered coral heads.

As we were enjoying our 'sundowners' and admiring the sunset, we were surprised to see the other two boats pick up anchor and leave. But the next island in the chain, Huahine (pronounced Wah-heenee), is only 80 miles away, and so most boats leave late in the afternoon for the short overnight passage. And they did, in face, head off in that direction.
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Anchored off Haapiti in Moorea
At 7/1/2011 10:54 PM (utc) our position was 17°34.42'S 149°52.13'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Hanging Out in Oponuhu Bay

2011-07-03T08:00:00.001-10:00

June 25-July 1

After the Rendezvous was over, the 50 boats that had been anchored off the beach thinned out rapidly. Many boats went back to Tahiti to finish provisioning and checking out. A good number also headed west toward Huahine, the next island downwind. We stayed right where we were and enjoyed ourselves.

One day, we got together with Mike and Sue from Infini and Neil and Ruthie from Rutea and made the hike up to 'The Belvedere' (belvedere is French for scenic overlook). We dinghied deep into Opunohu Bay itself, locked our dinghies to a couple of trees, and hiked up to the Belvedere. This route is on a pretty nice paved road, and only takes about 3 hours round trip. The road goes right past the Agricultural School, which has a little stand out front, and makes a nice potty and ice cream stop. We stopped both ways. They also sell a variety of tropical jams, and also fresh pineapple grown on the island. We bought some of each.

Also, on the way up, the road passes two 'Marae'--old Tahitian stone structures that have been excavated by archaeologists and partially rebuilt.

Once up at the Belvedere, Dave talked with a helpful tour guide, who told us about two short side-hikes... one to the '3 Pine Trees' and one to the '3 Coconut Palms'. Both are on side paths through the forest in either direction. He said the 3 Pine Trees was only 30 minutes, and provided a nice look down into adjacent Cook's Bay. So we went off in that direction. The tour guide was off by a factor of 2--the round trip out to the 3 Pine Trees took us another 2 hours, but it was a very nice walk through the cool forest. We were pretty hot and tired and thirsty by the time we got back to the dinghies.

Another day, we borrowed a 3rd bike from another cruiser and toted all 3 bikes ashore for a nice afternoon of bicycling around. We cycled over to Cooks Bay, stopping along the way at several places, including a 'Gump Scientific Research Station' (google Gump Moorea for more info). We met up with Mike and Sue from Infini, who had moved Infini over into Cooks Bay for a couple of days. We took the coastal road on the way out and the 'Pineapple Road' on the way back. The coastal road was flat but had periodic traffic. The Pineapple Road was much quieter and scenic--off the beaten path--but required a little hill work, which none of us was in shape for. But the coast down the hill at the end was great!

On another day, we dinghied downwind about 2 miles inside the reef for snorkel stops at 'The Stone Tikis' and the 'Ray Feeding Station'. Both were kinda cool. The stone tikis are a bunch of 3-4' high stone statues (traditional carvings) sunk in 8' of sand. Not sure how they got there or why, but probably some tourist-minded person put them there to give us something to go look at!! And the Ray feeding is a shallow sandy area off a resort where people hand-feed the big stingrays. These rays are about 3 feet, wingtip to wingtip, and do have a stinger at the base of their tail. They are so used to being fed that when we arrived in our dinghies, they immediately congregated under our boats. There are boatloads of tourists coming and going all the time. Swarms of people shuffling in the sand among the rays. We took a can of sardines to feed them and they would come and almost crawl up your body trying to get to the food. A little creepy.

I kept looking at the stingers on the rays and thinking about the Crocodile Hunter getting stung in the heart. Methinks he must have been doing more than just observing the rays to get stung like that (or those rays have their stingers in a different location). The only way you could get stung by these would be to actually step on them, at the base of their tail.

Our final adventure, when the wind got really calm, was to go snorkel on the wreck of a German warship in the pass. The wreck is pretty old and broken up. Some structure is visible on the reef itself, in very shallow water that usually has surf breaking on it. But the interesting parts of the wreck--the huge old engine, and the anchor, were out by the green marker in the pass.

We also ran out to the mooring buoys outside the reef, where we'd seen dive boats coming and going. We hooked up on one and snorkeled around to see if it was worth a dive. But it was pretty barren. I would hate to pay $100/dive to see that. Apparently they had a really really bad Crown of Thorns outbreak here in 2008, and then a cyclone (hurricane). The reef is still struggling to recover. There is supposed to be some interesting rose-like coral at 150 feet, but we didn't want to dive that deep.

I could easily have just hung out for a few more days there, but Dave got 'wanderlust' and wanted to go exploring more of Moorea while the wind was down.

Tahiti Moorea Rendezvous - Day 3

2011-07-03T07:18:00.001-10:00

Sunday, June 26

Day 3 of the Rendezvous was set aside for 'Fun and Games on the Beach'. We were on the beach promptly at 9am, when the canoe races were supposed to start. Since we'd been the first team to sign up, we knew we were in the first heat. Of course, after hustling my team off Soggy Paws and onto the beach at 9am, we didn't really get started with the canoe races until about 10am.

We had high hopes of winning our heat, but even though we paddled our guts out, we only came in 'not last' (3rd) in our heat of 4 boats. Dave blamed it on our boat, after someone pointed out to us that our boat looked a little wider and heavier than the others (a slightly tourist-ized version of the traditional outrigger canoes). But in a later heat, our boat won with a different team, so maybe it was just our tired old bodies.

25 4-person teams ended up signing up. The local team canoes hold a total of 6 people, so they put 4 cruisers to a team, with a big strong Tahitian in the bow to set the pace and another in the stern to steer. The Tahitians stayed with the boat in race after race. Except--after awhile two of the canoes' bowmen just disappeared during a crew changeover, so it ended up 5 cruisers and the guy steering. With 7 heats planned, I would imagine the Tahitians just got a little tired. There were enough 'Kid Boats' in the anchorage that they did one heat of just kids, which everyone thought was pretty cool.

The original race plan was to race from the beach out around a bouy and back. But then as we started asking questions about making the turn, etc, they decided that it would be better to make it a shorter, straight line race from the buoy, along the beach, and finishing right off the beach where everyone was gathered. It was fun--both participating and watching.

Since the last heat only had one boat, they asked if anyone who performed poorly in an earlier heat wanted to go again. Our team volunteered, but when we went to get in the boats, a kid team materialized out of nowhere and commandeered our boat--they were faster than us to climb in, and we were only half-interested in going again. But Dave ended up going as their bowman. Unfortunately, these were the smallest and skinniest of the kids, also on their second try, and they ended up in last place in that heat.

In addition to the canoe races, (which went on almost all day, with 7 heats and semifinals and finals), they had lots of other things organized. There were ladies doing more craft demonstrations--making lei's, making elaborate flowered hats, making tie-dye and batik pareus, and even a black pearl jewelry stand. For the men, there was a Tahitian rock carrying demonstration, and the 'fruit carry race'. One team member from each team got to compete in the fruit carry--2 heavy bunches of bananas on opposite ends of a pole--pick it up and race around the grounds. The 20-something guys inevitably won each heat of the fruit carry. Jim represented our team and did an outstanding job (but didn't win). A tug of war was listed on the events, but I guess they ended up scrapping that, and nobody missed it.

They also organized an impromptu swim race. They were talking about having us swim from the beach and out around a buoy, and back. Dave suggested instead, a straight line race in to the beach starting in the water from the nearest boat. This avoided the 'around the buoy' which could involve contact, and made the race shorter. But the organizer misunderstood and made it from the beach, out to the boat, and back. That was about 200 yards. Dave can easily smoke me in a short race, but I can beat him in a longer race. So I did beat him. But another guy--who looked like just another overweight cruiser when we were getting ready for the swim on the beach--smoked both of us. A ringer! 3 or 4 other people participated, and all barely made it back to the beach (no one but the winner was ready for 200 yards of hard swimming!)

We had paid an extra $25 for a 'Traditional pig roast meal' for lunch, but that was kind of a bust. They may have roasted a pig, but not where we could see/watch/participate. The meal came in a truck in large vats and was served cafeteria style into styrofoam plates. Hardly what we'd envisioned when we forked over $25 each. It was convenient having a meal ashore without having to make it on board, but at $25 wasn't a good value, to me. Much of the meal was 'traditional' starchy Polynesia stuff like taro, which tastes yucky to me.

They had drinks available after lunch, and I was being lazy and let Jim and Dave bring me refills. It was several hours later that I went for a refill myself and realized that the drink stand had both 'Juice' and 'Punch'--where the Punch had rum in it. My guys, non-party animals that they are, had been supplying me with straight juice, not punch.

The days festivities ended with an informal awards ceremony officiated by Stephanie, the Tahitian Tourist Board representative, and Andy Turpin from Latitude 38. They had a bunch of giveaway prizes, and a nice carved pearl shell memento for each boat. And everyone who didn't already have a lei on got lei'd.

A great time was had by all! Hopefully, pics coming soon!
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Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 7/1/2011 10:54 PM (utc) our position was 17°34.42'S 149°52.13'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Tahiti Moorea Rendezvous - Day 2

2011-07-02T07:25:00.001-10:00

Saturday, June 25, 2011

We left Tahiti Yacht Club at 8am Saturday for a 9:30am start off the main channel going into Tahiti Harbor. We opted to exit out of the TYC mooring area using the entrance to the west, which turned out to be very tricky. It wasn't bad for us--we had a good chart and good light behind us, but I would choose the other channel (on the east end) in other conditions. Two other boats followed us out (baaa... like little lambs). Fortunately, even though they didn't stay close enough to really follow us, they managed to negotiate the hairpin turn with a little cross current with no problems, and made it out safely too.

Because of organizational issues and (I think) wind conditions, they announced after we had dropped the mooring that the start was delayed until 10am. So we hung out off Tahiti and finished our breakfast. Unfortunately, what we thought was going to be a nice downwind sail in reasonable winds, turned into a beat in 5 knots of wind. (Local land effect combined with generally light air). There was a huge starting line, but one end was about a half mile closer to Moorea than the other, so the start was a zoo with about 25 cruising boats trying to cross the starting line in the same 2-boat length area (and not sailing well because of the very light air). We decided to be safe and just cross the line on the other side of the committee boat--not technically starting, but who cares. But the committee boat--which was not anchored--because it was over 400 feet deep--obligingly stretched the line to include us too.

After an hour of drifting around and obviously not in any contention for the lead, we turned on our engine and motored the rest of the 18 miles to Opunohu Bay, Moorea. Only 9 boats out of the 42 registered actually sailed the whole way. The wind finally filled in some in the middle of the channel, but died again as the boats approached the finish. The boats that sailed finished around 4pm.

As we approached Opunohu Bay, we said "Holy Moley, look at all the boats!" But there was still plenty of room and we eventually had about 50-60 boats anchored there. We made our way to the very head of the anchoring area, where the water was very shallow (9' deep). We knew that most of the California boats (which are the real cruising newbies out here, and also 7' draft) would not venture into such shallow water. We got a lovely anchorage, away from the crowd, inside the reef, in 9' sand and good holding. If the wind picked up--no one would drag down on us. Eventually (2 days later) the wind did pick up and 2 boats dragged through the fleet--they had anchored in 25' on short scope and not set their anchor.

Since we motored in early, we missed the welcoming canoe race that was supposed to start at 3pm--when all the boats were SUPPOSED to be finishing. But we got there in plenty of time for the music and drinks on the beach. It was fun meeting lots of people we had been talking to on the radio, but hadn't met in person yet.

They put out the signup board for the activities the next day, and we signed up "Team Paws". We recruited Kathy from Endorfin to be our fourth person.

Andy Turpin in his welcome speech the night before had mistakenly said that there would be dinner on the beach on Saturday--but the handout didn't mention dinner. So we were hoping for dinner, but I also took something out of the freezer just in case. It turned out that no dinner was forthcoming as part of the Rendezvous, but we were tired and ready for showers and the quiet of Soggy Paws by then anyway.
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In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
At 7/1/2011 10:54 PM (utc) our position was 17°34.42'S 149°52.13'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Tahiti Moorea Rendezvous - Day 1

2011-06-30T07:32:00.000-10:00

Friday, June 24, 2011

The Rendezvous, organized by the Tahiti Tourism Council and Andy Turpin of Latitude 38, kicked off with a briefing and cocktail party on Friday night. The briefing included a bunch of useful information (in English) about facilities and anchorages in the Society Islands. In addition to French Polynesia information, the Tahiti Tourism bunch have partnered with the New Zealand Opua bunch, and there were representatives from several businesses in Opua, NZ handing out packets of information about NZ and answering questions.

They also had a few spots where Tahitians were doing native craft demonstrations (making lei's and etc). After a blessing of the fleet by a Tahitian in an impressive traditional costume, they served up a nice rum punch. The final step was to lead the PPJ crowd down to the Quay-side, to the Roulotte area, and where there was to be native dancing after dinner. Someone in our group wanted 'steak frites' (steak and fries), so we chose a roulotte with some good-smelling steak and fries. We all had a great time.

We had been stressing about transportation back after 6pm when the buses quit running, and had even toyed with coming around from TYC in the dinghies. Because of weather fears (rain/wind) and navigating the channels at night in the dinghies, we decided to take the bus in and taxi back. We easily found a mini-bus taxi on the water side of the roulottes that agreed to take all 5 of us (us, guest Jim, and Mike & Sue on Infini) back to TYC for the standard fare of 2,500 CFP (about $30). A little steep, but safer than the dinghy option.
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Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 6/26/2011 12:56 AM (utc) our position was 17°29.30'S 149°51.05'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Two Weeks in Tahiti

2011-06-26T07:51:00.001-10:00

I can't believe that we spent two weeks in Tahiti and I never got a chance to post an update. We've been busy busy busy with all the things you do in a new port... customs/immigration, provisioning, repairs, sightseeing, meeting new people--both cruisers and locals, and getting ready for the next port.

We went in with our friends on Infini and rented a car for 3 days. They needed to get their son Matt (and all his stuff) to the airport, and taxis are ridiculously expensive, and so they decided to just rent a car to get him there. At the time of committing to rent with them for 3 days, we thought the rental price was a great deal at $35/day. Well, when we got to the airport to pick up the car, we found that too-incredible-to-be-true price WAS too incredible. The real price ended up about $120/day!! That booking price was only for the car--and included no mileage and no extra insurance for an international rental.

The mileage cost was going to be 54 CFP per kilometer. When you do the calculations for the exchange rate and mileage, the cost ended up near 70 cents a mile!!! (without considering refilling the gas tank at $7/gallon). So we ended up switching to an unlimited mileage rate, which was quite a bit more expensive, but worked out better for us in the end.

We did, however, get to see every major road on the island...we drove all the way around Tahiti Nui (the big half of Tahiti), and all the way down both sides of Tahiti Iti. We also attempted to, but did not succeed, in driving over the top of Tahiti Nui. This is a route that a friend of ours told us about, as a 'not to miss' experience. The Lonely Planet said that the road was closed, but a couple of locals we consulted said it was open. So we attempted it. A very bad road--gravel--full of potholes and lake-like mudpuddles--and 2 river crossings... in our tiny Peugot rental car. It took us 2 1/2 hours to go the 20K (12 miles) to the top of the mountain. Then it started raining. And the small hotel at the top of the mountain told us the road down on the other side was blocked. So we turned around and went back the way we came. But it was a spectacular drive up through a gorge in the mountains of Tahiti. We did get a chance to hike for an hour up into the rain forest during part of our drive, and also see the Paul Gaugain Museum and the famous surfing spot on the SW corner of Tahiti.

Next was provisioning--checking out the grocery stores and markets, and trying to figure out what we need to restock with and can afford. Fortunately there is a huge Carrefour--the French version of a Super Walmart--2 blocks from the Yacht Club. So this made everything easy. And the end of the bus ride into town is at the big downtown fresh-air market.

The only thing that took a little extra effort was taking advantage of the opportunity to buy duty free liquor... we had to get paperwork from our agent and make several trips to the duty free liquor place. But we'll have some $5/bottle wine, rum, and liqueur delivered to Tahiti Yacht Club this morning. Unfortunately, beer, even duty free, is not a bargain here. The cheapest deal was Hinano, the local beer, by the case, on sale at Carrafour, at 3500 CFP/case in cans. Ouch! At the current exchange rate, that is about $43, or about $1.75/can. A few boats still have beer from Mexico or Panama, but everyone else has cut way down on their beer consumption!

We also did a little gift shopping in downtown Papeete. Nearly every store is selling black pearls of every shape and color. Since we had already bought plenty of pearls last year, we were not really buying much. But did get a few gifts. The least expensive deal--a non-perfect pearl of moderate size on a string--runs about 1500 CFP (about $19), and the prices go up rapidly from there, according to the quanitity and quality of the pearl(s) and the necklace and finishing. There was one shop where you could buy very blemished pearls by the gram. And another where you could pick your pearl (for varying prices) and pick your setting, and they would set it for you 'while you wait' (in a few hours). There are also loads of beautiful wood carvings, etc. All expensive, though. But it was fun looking and touching.

Finally, we just enjoyed hanging out at Tahiti Yacht Club. It reminded us somewhat of our own Melbourne Yacht Club--lots of sailing going on, and children in prams taking classes, etc. After a few days, we found that the bar which advertised a daily special lunch at $16-17, also had a hidden 'snack' menu, where you could get a cheeseburger and fries for about $10 (a pretty good deal in French Poly). Also, this was the first place (except Hawaii) in about 4 years where we could actually do our own laundry in a machine--wash and dry a moderate load for $8 total. Another bargain.

We were also able to top off our fuel at duty free prices, with the 'Yacht in Transit' paperwork from our agent. Instead of paying about $6/gallon for diesel, like the locals do, we only paid about $4/gallon. Nice.

We have been trying ever since we left Florida to get Dave's Naval Academy roommate to come visit us. He was signed on to do the Panama Canal trip with us, but a medical issue forced him to cancel. So finally he has realized that we are getting farther away and more expensive to visit by the week, and he decided to come meet us while we were still in the Tahiti area. He told us 2 days in advance that he was coming (with our approval, of course). So in what was supposed to be the lull between arrival and departure from Tahiti--we were getting ready for a visitor.

Jim arrived without problem--in spite of the fact that, because he was arriving at 5:30am, and taxis are so expensive, Dave declined to go meet him at the airport. He made Jim take the bus. But Jim managed just fine. Tahiti is a pretty friendly place and everyone was helpful to him. And we had given him good instruction--"Write the name of your destination on a piece of paper, and show it to everyone you see." That worked well.

So, on Friday, we officieally joined the Tahiti Moorea Rendezvous, sponsored by Lattitude 38 Magazine and the Tahiti Tourism Board. That kicked off with a nice informational briefing and a welcoming reception by the mayor of Tahiti. 42 boats officially joined the Rendezvous. In previous years, this was free, but this year there is a $25pp entry fee--times are tough here in Tahiti as well, and they couldn't muster enough sponsorship to make it free this year. The event includes a 'rally' to Moorea, 15 miles away, and a day of fun and games on the beach in Opunohu Bay.
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In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
At 6/26/2011 12:56 AM (utc) our position was 17°29.30'S 149°51.05'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Nous sommes arrivee a Tahiti

2011-06-13T11:42:00.001-10:00

We (along with about 15 other boats on passage at the same time) arrive in Tahiti early this morning. We managed to be the first ones at the Tahiti Yacht Club and have gotten on a mooring. Though we emailed them a couple of times, they will not reserve moorings. What we heard was 'come in and if you find one, take it, then register in the office'. We are liable to be kicked off at any time if a member returns, but the manager, Michel, did not seem fazed when we told him we were hoping to stay for 10 days.

Our friends on Infini, who arrived from Rangiroa yesterday and anchored overnight at Point Venus (made famous by Captain Cook), arrived right behind us and also got a mooring. Two other boats we met in Toau are also here (Songline and the Dutch boat Libis).

Our first order of business was breakfast (omlettes ashore at the 'snack' next to the yacht club), and then the grocery story. We have notified our agent that we are here. We have 48 hours to complete our formalities, and may go ashore in the meantime.

The moorings at YC de Tahiti are 900 CFP per day (about $10) per day, and come with hot shower privileges. There is a laundry here too, which costs $8 for wash and dry.

Most of our friends proceeded on downtown to the 'Quai de Yachts' or to the moorings/anchorage off Marina Taina.
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At 6/13/2011 9:18 PM (utc) our position was 17°31.42'S 149°32.17'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Au Revoir, Anse Amyot

2011-06-11T21:52:00.000-10:00

One of the biggest downsides of traveling as we do is eventually having to say goodbye to special friends we have met along the way. It was with genuine tears in our eyes that we hugged Valentine and Gaston one last time this morning, and started preparations for a two-day trip to Tahiti.

The last week has been frustrating for the 15-18 boats bottled up at Anse Amyot--waiting first for some wind, and then waiting for the wind to stop blowing. We went from literally zero wind to 25-30 knots within a few hours last Saturday as a cold front swept in, and it has been blowing like stink since then, until late yesterday.

Before the wind started blowing, we took advantage of the calm conditions to do a lot of diving. We made at least one dive a day, and on the really calm days, two dives. We explored along the wall further in both directions--finding a few more neat dive spots. We usually had an entourage of several dinghies following us--some new friends. One a diver, and another couple were avid snorkelers. It was nice sharing our favorite dive spots with everyone, and it's always safer having at least one extra dinghy along when going outside the atoll (it's a long drift to Tahiti!!).

Once the wind started blowing, we mostly stayed on the boat and caught up on chores. I finally got the courage to upgrade the hard drive in my laptop. I had bought the drive back in February, but never had the time while we were in Hawaii to get it installed. Our friend Gene on Reflections, on a mooring with us at Toau, gave me the encouragement I needed, and also loaned me his drive enclosure and a disk cloning program. That made the job really easy.

Dave did Preventive Maintenance on the dive compressor, and also lots of other similar chores around the boat. Together we spent one whole afternoon removing and re-bedding the port genoa track--which leaked like a sieve on our way down from Hawaii.

In addition to the boat chores, we enjoyed socializing around the small fleet. We had several happy hours ashore, as well as other social gatherings for important functions like burning trash and swapping books.

Today when the weather finally calmed down, Anse Amyot emptied out. 14 boats scattered to the wind--3 went south to Fakarava, 1 went north to Apataki, and the rest headed west for Tahiti. We were the last of a group of 4 boats who left around 3pm today. Everyone is joking about having to keep a proper watch on this trip, because so many boats are headed for Tahiti right now.

Anyway, all is well. We are looking forward to getting to Tahiti and checking out the big grocery store we have heard about. We are almost out of bread, and are down to our last tomato.
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At 6/12/2011 7:50 AM (utc) our position was 16°05.37'S 146°43.16'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Heading for Papeete this Afternoon

2011-06-11T14:42:00.001-10:00

No time to write right now, but just want to report that we are heading out this afternoon for a 2-night passage to Papeete. ETA Papeete early Monday morning. More later!!
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In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
At 6/12/2011 12:41 AM (utc) our position was 15°48.19'S 146°09.17'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Thumbs up for New Solar & Frigoboat

2011-06-11T06:47:00.001-10:00

Now that we've had some time to watch and observe, we are really ecstatic about the upgrades we made in our solar charging system, and our refrigeration system in Hawaii.

On a sunny day, our solar array now handles all the electrical requirements and has the batteries topped off by early afternoon. This is in the South Pacific winter, where our days are only about 11 1/2 hours long, and the sun never gets properly overhead. At 7:30 am, we are generating over 10 amps into the batteries, and at mid-day, we are generating a peak of 30+ amps. Even on a fully-overcast day, we are charging 8-10 amps mid-day.

The Frigoboat systems have been performing well too. Our freezer stuff is rock-solid, and the fridge is adequately cold to keep everything nice. We still have a small bit of lettuce, green peppers, celery, cabbage, and carrots, as well as some apples left in the fridge after 6 weeks. Plus all the butter, cheese, eggs, and milk products. Fridge run time varies quite a bit depending on how often we get in the fridge. Both units combined are using approximately 80 amps in 24 hours.

The 'Smart Speed Control' on the Frigo systems has not been as useful as we'd thought. One problem is that the Danfoss compressors (or their controllers) make quite a bit of SSB noise, so we turn them off at the circuit breaker frequently when we are on the SSB. This resets the 'memory' on the SSC--so it seems they are always running full bore rather than at slow speed. We can manually force it to a slower speed, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of the SSC. And we have to manually reset it every time we turn the power off. I think if we had to do it over again, we wouldn't bother with the SSC and would use instead the Danfoss speed control module, or a very inexpensive (about $30) manual switch. We have both of these as spares and might switch out at some point.

But all-in-all we are very happy with both systems.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til August, then west toward Tonga
At 6/7/2011 11:10 PM (utc) our position was 15°48.18'S 146°09.17'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

At Work and Play in Toau

2011-06-02T07:51:00.001-10:00

We have been here a few days now and are really enjoying the 'idle time'. But we haven't been completely idle.

We have been diving every morning outside the atoll on the drop-off. So far we have only visited the sites we had found last year. But the wind has finally dropped off to nothing, so today we will go further afield and find some new spots. I also have been snorkeling the reef beside the anchorage every afternoon. The water is only 8-10' deep, with coral heads that come up to within a foot of the surface. When the tide is coming in, it is crystal clear. All the pretty fishies are playing around the coral heads--hundreds around each big head. I like to just drift around watching them feed and play. After I snorkel, I go back to the boat and leaf through our copy of Reef Fish of the Pacific Ocean, trying to become familiar with the names of all the fish.

In one of these lazy snorkels, I discovered tiny pipe fish--only about 4-5" long and as big around as a piece of yarn. They look like little short snakes, but with a funny goose-like beak. They hang out in clusters in the mossy areas around the top of coral heads. Now that I know where to look, and what to look for, I see them on almost every head with moss growing on it. I like to just hang motionless and watch them 'grazing' on the moss and swimming around.

The 'work' part of my day has been disassembling and cleaning our big genoa winches. On our last passages, under heavy strain, our starboard winch started squeaking a little. As the 'sailing master' aboard Soggy Paws, it's my job to keep the sailing equipment shipshape. This is a nasty dirty job--we clean the old dirt and grease off the winches with a pail of kerosene. These winches (Lewmar 48's) have about 10 gears inside, and every gear has to be soaked in kerosene and patiently scrubbed with a toothbrush and a metal pick to get all the old caked grease and dirt from between the teeth in the gears. Then it has to be reassembled and every square millimeter of surface area coated with a thin coating of new grease.

I thought I had the manual for our winches downloaded from the internet, but found it doesn't properly cover our older Lewmar 48's. There was one part we couldn't figure out how to take apart. But fortunately one of our CSY friends back in Florida, with directions in hand, actually took their winch apart so they could try to figure out what I was talking about (thanks Warren!!). It is very difficult discussing technical assembly instructions without being able to share diagrams, which we can't do on our Sailmail. But after several back-and-forths via email, we finally got it figured out. As I took everything apart, I took pictures of each gear assembly before I dismounted it from the main drum, and then took it apart. These were invaluable in getting the darned thing back together correctly. But I finally finished both winches--they are back together with no pieces left over, and they are operating smoothly!!

Dave, meanwhile, has been splitting his time between keeping up with boat-related maintenance, being 'mooring field manager', and social director for the boats here at Anse Amyot. With the help of Bruce and Clark from s/v Two Amigos, they finished restoring the last mooring to 100%--just as 2 more boats came in and took the last two available moorings. We now have 11 boats on moorings here. There is currently only a catamaran mooring available (in shallower water than most monohulls would be comfortable in).

Valentine and Gaston (the family ashore) are as gracious as usual, but also as disorganized as usual. So trying to make arrangements for all the boats coming and going to pay their mooring fee by having dinner with them (at $30 per person) gets a little complicated. Plus we've had 2 charter boats drop in unannounced and want to have a meal 'now'. So twice the cruiser dinners have been pushed back. I'm not quite sure how Dave ended up as Mayor of Anse Amyot again, but he obviously relishes the position.

Today Dave has arranged with Gaston to lead an expedition into the lagoon to see if we can find the Manta Rays. We had a great time on a similar expedition last year. But when we tried to find them ourselves last year (after the trip with Gaston), we couldn't. If we can't find the Mantas, we'll head east to a part of the atoll where we found some good shelling.

A few of the guys were supposed to have gone out lobster hunting on the reef last night at 1am. Dave and I passed. In this location, it's difficult to get to a good spot in the outer reef without running through coral heads. And blundering around at night with the outboard in a reefy area is a sure way to wreck your prop.

Though we are really missing the boats that were here with us last year (Visions, Nakia, Whoosh, Bluebottle, Sidewinder, etc etc), we have made new friends. We have been leading an entourage of dinghies out to our favorite dive spots.

The wind, which has been howling through the anchorage day and night since we got here, has finally dropped off to 5-10 knots. The unsettled weather that has been hanging over us for a week has dissipated. Today looks like it is going to be another drop-dead gorgeous day in paradise!!
-----
Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia til end of August, then onward to Tonga
At 5/28/2011 12:55 AM (utc) our position was 15°48.19'S 146°09.17'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

In Anse Amyot, Toau

2011-05-28T10:08:00.000-10:00

We had a nice sail for the 80 miles from Manihi to Toau.

80 miles at our planning speed of 5.5 knots is 14.5 hours, and there are only about 12 hours of daylight here right now. So we had to decide whether to make it an overnight or mostly-daytime trip, with arrival at night. I favored the overnight plan, but Dave felt we knew Toau well enough, and the entry was simple enough, that the daylight plan would work. The deciding factor was the wind forecast. If we left in the morning, for the daytime run, we'd have mostly 15 knots. Waiting til evening for the overnight run would possibly change the conditions up to the 'near 20 knots' range.

So we pulled anchor in Manihi at first light (5:30am) and crossed our fingers that our carefully-laid anchor would come up easily. It did. We had used our 'Fishfinder' when anchoring the day before, to find a less-contoured spot on the bottom in which to drop our anchor. It took 3 passes to find the best spot, and then get the anchor to the bottom in that spot, but it was worth the effort.

According to our tide calculations, the tide should have already turned in the pass as we exited. So we were expecting a couple of knots of incoming current--no big deal. But we found we actually had a couple of knots of outgoing current. The only explanation is the higher winds (and waves) push more water into the atoll over the low reefy parts than can get out in the pass on the leeward side. Manihi might be one of those atolls where, in high wind/sea conditions, the current never turns. (But we weren't sticking around to find out).

We trolled a fishing line all day. We got one hit, but the fish got off before we started pulling it in. No more strikes. We are finally eating down the stuff in our freezer and have some room for fish, if we catch one.

We had a great sail--the wind was in the 14-18 knot range, and almost on our beam, so the rough hard-on-the-wind trip I envisioned turned into a very nice fast sail. We reefed our genoa to keep our speed under 7 knots. We got our first squall just before dark (and it's been squally on-and-off ever since, so we made the right decision to go).

Getting in at night, though, was a little dicey. Anse Amyot has a lighted range, but one of the range lights is out. So we had to rely only on our GPS, which we knew was 'spot on'. No moon out at all. With the GPS screen radiating too much light in the cockpit, even in 'night mode'--I couldn't see a thing, but just had to rely on instruments. Dave was on the bow, though, with a spotlight, and he could see pretty well. He told me to keep on coming, and eventually spotted the two unlit entry markers. We fortunately finally reached a boat in the anchorage on VHF before we came in--they saw our lights wandering around outside and turned on their VHF. They put their spotlight on an available mooring that they knew had a floating 'tag line', near them. This made it easy for us to pick up, and in a couple of minutes we were secure. So in the end it wasn't that hard. (Dave thinks it was easy, but I wouldn't choose to do it again.)

Since we arrived, the wind has been blowing pretty hard, so we haven't gone diving yet. We did spend yesterday morning looking over the moorings--checking the chains around the coral heads were still OK, and looking for wear in the lines. Dave has a list of maintenance items to make all the moorings servicable again, which we'll help with over the next few days.
-----
At 5/28/2011 12:55 AM (utc) our position was 15°48.19'S 146°09.17'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

A Visit to the Manihi Sailmail Station

2011-05-27T06:45:00.001-10:00

One of the last things on our list before leaving Manihi was to visit Xavier Michel and the Manihi Sailmail station.

Because we didn't really arrange this ahead of time, we were most fortunate to find Xavier at home, with his VHF on, when we got back from the Blue Lagoon. We called him on Channel 16 and he answered right up, and invited us in for a visit.

Xavier is retired from the French Navy, and in his last post he was in charge of the entire Pacific for the French Navy. He didn't say so, because he is a very modest man, and we forgot to ask, but he must have been an Admiral to achieve that post. His wife is still practicing as a Maritime Lawyer in Tahiti, so they split time between their home in Tahiti and the very nice place they are building on one of the motus in Manihi.

Xavier has one of the most energy-independent places we have seen in French Polynesia (or anywhere, for that matter), and we enoyed getting the 'engineers tour'. He has a big wind generator (it looks a little light an Air Marine, but 2-3x the size), and large solar array mounted on a swiveling platform with an automatic sun tracker, AND a water generator that runs in the shallow pass next to the motu. Plus, of course, a huge bank of batteries. This has all been professionally designed and installed in and near his 'utility building'.

The utility building also houses the radio and computer equipment required for automatic operation of his Sailmail station. It was also neat and tidy. During cruising season, his station is almost constantly in use from the cruisers passing through French Polynesia, and in fact we saw a connection complete while we were standing there.

We were interested in how he had come to be involved in Sailmail. Usually these stations have arisen from some radio-friendly sailing cruiser moving ashore, but it was obvious that this was not the case here. Apparently he met Jim Corenman and a couple of the other Sailmail guys at a cocktail party in Papeete given for a sailing rally that was passing through. They were lamenting the fact that the Sailmail network really needed a station somewhere in northern French Polynesia. So Xavier said "Where do you want it?" and set about to handle the formalities. On the other side, Jim and Shea Weston helped engineer the station setup and equipment, and when all was ready, Shea flew out to Manihi with his wife and spent a couple of weeks installing and training Xavier. The result is a very reliable and important 'node' in the Sailmail network.

We also got a tour of Xavier's home and grounds. They are still putting the finishing touches on, but it's a lovely island-style home, open to the breezes, but very well constucted with many elegant touches. The island comes complete with a small chappel out by the ocean, where Xavier says he spends a few minutes each day in the evening 'clearing his mind, remembering the things that do matter, and forgetting the things that don't matter."

What a nice man! And very interesting too. We were sad that our schedule required us to move on without getting a chance to know him better. But we are hoping we might get a chance to visit with him in Papeete when we are there.

As we left, we again thanked Xavier profusely for maintaining his Sailmail station for the benefit of us cruisers.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/25/2011 8:10 PM (utc) our position was 15°48.12'S 146°09.19'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Up at Manihi's Blue Lagoon

2011-05-23T07:52:00.001-10:00

A couple of boats told us that they were headed up inside Manihi to what the locals call 'The Blue Lagoon'. Our friends on Infini and Slipaway had been up there a few days ago via lancha for a picnic with Fernando and his family, so we wanted to see it too.

None of us really knew the way--the directions that Fernando gave were "Follow the red and green markers until there are no markers, and then you are there." We did this and it was pretty easy, though once or twice there were pearl bouys in this path that we had to avoid. But all the major coral outcroppings were marked and the shallowest water was saw was 25'.

Our Maxsea/CM93 chart has no detail inside Manihi, and is off by about 200 yards, so our track went right down the motus on the south side of the lagoon. The 2008 Garmin Mapsource chart DID have a blow-up of Manihi and was pretty darned accurate--even showing all (or most) of the small coral outcroppings that need to be avoided. However, the markers (which are fairly new according to the locals) are not on the chart.

A Canadian boat, Lady Meg, had preceeded us the day before, so when we got to where they were anchored (about 3 miles short of the end of the lagoon), we stopped too. We are not actually positive that we have reached what the locals call 'The Blue Lagoon', but I think so. There is a small curved sand beach (better than the crushed coral that is in the rest of the atoll) and a thatched tiki hut. The anchorage is a little better than down by the town... only 20-25' deep and many fewer coral heads, with the same pretty good protection from ENE-S winds. But it is not MY idea of a 'Blue Lagoon'. Methinks this is just in answer to Rangiroa's advertised 'Blue Lagoon'.

We went ashore by dinghy last night and had a small happy hour on the beach with Lady Meg and Pacha II.

I think we are leaving Manihi for Toau tomorrow morning. Looking at the tides (for slack current in the pass) and the weather, the sooner the better, as the forecast shows the wind building over the next couple of days. So we will head back for town today--still need to stock up on baguettes before we leave, and get our last bit of internet for a couple of weeks.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/23/2011 4:21 PM (utc) our position was 14°24.24'S 145°52.79'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

The Un-Anchoring Dance

2011-05-23T06:54:00.001-10:00

The designated anchorage for yachts in Manihi is OK from a protection standpoint. We have pretty good lee from prevailing wind conditions (SE-ENE) in a pretty little curve in the lagoon with (what looks like) a sand beach and lots of palm trees. The only habitation is a small shack that doesn't look inhabited right now (probably only used when they are harvesting the palm trees).

However, it is a terrible anchorage from the standpoint of anchoring in coral. It is 40-60' deep with (dead) coral heads that come up 10' from the bottom. The water inside the lagoon is not clear enough to see the bottom (only about 20' visibility), so you can't see where you are planting your anchor. If you are lucky when laying your anchor (and careful), you will back straight back with your bow pointing East into the wind (a very difficult maneuver if the wind is blowing at all), and your anchor chain will only hang on a few coral heads. If you are not so skilled/lucky, your bow goes all over and you have just 'pretzeled' your way into a very secure anchorage--one which takes a SCUBA tank to extricate you.

We were pretty careful AND used a pair of pearl bouys snapped onto the chain about 75' from the boat to 'float' our chain above the coral, and we STILL had to use a tank to get ourselves free.

We started the morning by going over to help another boat, Pacha II, retrieve their anchor. They had been trying to leave the day before, but couldn't get their anchor up. They called Fernando, the 'go-to' guy in Manihi for a local diver to come, but it was the Sabbath, and he said he couldn't come til Monday. So we took pity on them and offered to help them. )Dave volunteered me, actually!)

I first tried to snorkel their anchor situation--just a recon trip to see how hard it was going to be. It was so deep, and such poor visibility, that even free-diving to 40', I couldn't see what was going on. So we hauled out the dive gear. They were really pretzeled--their heavy chain S-turned around several large coral heads (and numerous small ones) 60' deep. In the process of moving their anchor to a spot that wouldn't get hung on another coral head as they pulled it up, I smashed my pinkie in the joint where the head and the stock join. Ow! Blood at 60' looks a weird color of green. Fortunately the water was murkey enough that I couldn't see the sharks circling and licking their lips!

Once we got Pacha II free, we went back to Soggy Paws to try to do the same--we were going to follow Pacha II up to the 'Blue Hole'--about 12 miles ENE of the town. We were only in 40', and I had previously been able to trace the chain all the way back to the anchor. We were in pretty good shape--pretty much a straight line with only low coral heads, and our bouys were doing the trick of keeping most of the chain off the bottom. But, we had had a pretty good wind shift early in the morning for an hour or so, so we weren't sure how it was--I should have gone right then and cleared the chain, while I was still wet!!

We got the chain about halfway in and it was stuck under something. We wiggled left and we wiggled right and let the chain in and out--normally if you are patient, you can free it. So I jumped in, sans tank, to just take a look. I could see that we were just caught about 6" in under a low shelf. Looked like we could free it by just going a little further left. (This maneuver complicated by the fact that there was another boat who ended up hanging almost over our anchor, so we had to get him to turn his engine on and move up a boatlength while we were maneuvering.) And, because we had the dinghy only half-hoisted, it was blocking our swim ladder and I couldn't just walk up the ladder. Dave had to climb down on the swim platform, and I had to 'monkey bar' up with Dave's assistance (sheesh!).

So back to trying to extricate the anchor--we motored left, and we motored more left harder, and we still couldn't pop it out from under the tiny shelf. Part of the problem was that the bouys that were halfway down the chain were pulling up on the part of the chain that went under the ledge. So Dave giving slack at the windlass wasn't doing any good. We finally gave up and I put the dive gear back on and went down to free it. I carefully laid a second 'at risk' portion of the chain up over another coral head, and looked at the anchor--it looked like it would come up just fine. Another monkey bar maneuver to get back aboard, so I could drive while Dave worked the windlass... And we still had another 15 minutes of struggling to finally get the whole chain and anchor aboard. (double sheesh!) Meanwhile our friend on the other boat has probably really pretzeled his chain, motoring up to stay out of our way!

But, we did get underway finally, and headed ENE up to what the locals call 'The Blue Lagoon'.
-----
Sherry & Dave
In French Polynesia!
At 5/23/2011 4:21 PM (utc) our position was 14°24.24'S 145°52.79'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Anchor Down in Manihi - YAHOO!!

2011-05-20T08:47:00.001-10:00

After 20 days 14 hrs, and 2403 nautical miles, we are safely at anchor in Manihi. There are 8 cruising boats from 4 different nationalities here (US, Canadian, Australian, French) right now.
-----
In French Polynesia
At 5/20/2011 6:46 PM (utc) our position was 14°27.89'S 146°02.22'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Entering the Pass in 30 Minutes

2011-05-20T07:23:00.000-10:00

We have been drifting around north of Manihi all night. We are now 2 miles from the entrance to the pass and plan to go in in a half an hour. We have already talked to our friends on Infini and Slipaway, and they plan to send a contingent out in the dinghy to help us get in. (Slipaway has been waiting for Dave to arrive to help them diagnose a problem with their SSB radio). Hopefully there will be fresh baguettes in the pilot boat!!
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Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/20/2011 5:22 PM (utc) our position was 14°27.60'S 146°04.65'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 20 - LAND HO!

2011-05-19T21:37:00.001-10:00

Miles today: 111 Miles Behind Us: 2,376
Miles to go: 12
Wind ENE at 8 kt Seas 1'
Sailing S at 1kt - Triple-reefed Main, Half Staysail

We continued to have excellent weather--winds light but sailable. We averaged a pretty respectable 4.6 knots today, considering the wind never got over 10 knots.

We saw our first land in 20 days at about 4:45pm--just the tops of the palm trees at 7 miles. But as expected, without heroic efforts (ie motoring a lot over the last 24 hours), we couldn't make it to Manihi in enough daylight to run the unfamiliar pass and get safely anchored inside the coral-studded lagoon. So we have opted to just hang out over night and go in around 8am in the morning.

At about sunset, we arrived at our holding point--12 miles NE of our waypoint on the NW corner of Manihi, and set the boat up to "Heave To". This is a maneuver that, when correctly done, sets the boat up at a comfortable attitude to the waves and wind, without actually sailing. And minimizes drift to leeward. We have actually never done this before on Soggy Paws. But it is taught in the ASA Sailing classes, so I have actually done it once or twice in another boat.

According to information we got from another CSY owner, we should be able to heave to easily with a reefed main and the staysail. So Dave triple-reefed the main and we set the staysail up, and tried to heave to in the normal fashion--with the staysail backed to windward, the helm hard over, and the main somewhere in the middle. Well, with 5-8 kts of wind, our big boat with all its windage, and such tiny tiny sails, it didn't work very well. There's not enough force on the sails or motion through the water for the rudder to keep the nose pointed ~60 degrees to the wind, like it is supposed to. We essentially were 'laying ahull'. Not unpleasant, but not the desired maneuver. The solution would be (we think) to put a little more sail area up, but that's too much trouble, according to my chief reefer.

The second problem, besides the too-small main, is that we have a little over a half a knot of current pushing us west. So if we just drift, heave to, or lay ahull, we will end up 6-8 miles downwind of where we are--not really where we want to be.

So we decided to stick with the minimal sail theme, but actually sail along as close-hauled as we can hold it, which somewhat counter-acts the current. The compass says we are currently sailing on a course of about 110 degrees (ESE), but the GPS says we are actually a making a track of about 185 degrees (S) at just under 1 knot. The large difference between where we're pointed and where we're actually going is mostly because of the current.

The GPS says we'll arrive at our waypoint at about 9am. So sometime around sunrise, we'll put up some more sail and try to be outside the pass at about 7:30am. High tide is supposed to be about 7:30, and the slack is about an hour after that. We don't have to wait for full slack to go in. We can manage with a knot or two of current, as long as there's enough daylight to pick out the coral heads. The channel is well marked and we have plenty of waypoints from our friends who have preceeded us.

Can't wait to finally get the anchor down!!
-----
Sherry & Dave

At 5/20/2011 6:59 AM (utc) our position was 14°15.57'S 146°01.88'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 19

2011-05-18T20:40:00.001-10:00

Miles today: 123 Miles Behind Us: 2,265
Miles to go: 121 (approx 1 more day)
Wind ESE at 9 kt Seas 3'
Sailing S at 5.3kt - Full main, Full Genoa, Staysail

We had another good night last night and good day today. As of 8am this morning, we were making 6.5 knots and counting our chickens on arriving at Manihi in time to get inside the lagoon before dark tomorrow night. However, the wind slacked off during the day, and we couldn't keep our speed up without turning on the engine. Dave and I then had a heart-to-heart conversation of both the wisdom of motoring for 24 hrs to make it in before dark, and the folly of going in to an unknown place on the wrong tide at sunset. We decided NOT to start the engine, and just accept that we'll have to hang out overnight tomorrow night, just outside our destination, waiting for daylight. Under the current conditions (light winds and slight seas), it's no big deal to spend another night outside. It isn't worth risking the boat, or spending $200 on diesel fuel, to get in 12 hrs sooner.

The wind picked up a little this evening, boosting our speed again to the 6 knot range. Again tantalizing us with 'maybe we can make it'. We'll see, but probably not.

Dinner tonight was a delicious stir-fry, again served with the table up and real plates and knives and forks. We ate dinner in the cockpit and watched a spectacular moon rise. It's going to be another beautiful night in the South Pacific.

I just finished another good book. This one is Lost on Planet China by Maarten Troost--the same guy that wrote The Sex Lives of Cannibals. Maarten goes to China, travels around a lot, and writes an interesting travelogue and fairly insightful commentary on China today. Now I'm reading In Retrospect by Robert McNamara--a look back at the mistakes made regarding our involvement in Vietnam while McNamara was Secretary of Defense. My varied reading selection is a result of an outstanding book swap at the Rainbow Bay Marina in Pearl Harbor. The book swap was in the Laundry Room, so every time I did laundry, I had a couple of hours to browse the selection. The table and shelves were always overflowing with books, so I helped myself. No time to read while in port--I am now catching up. Unfortunately, my bag of fiction books is LOB (Lost on Board) somewhere in the V-berth, so I have been reading through the non-fiction selection.

Having plenty of time to read has always been one of the things I love about cruising--ever since spending summers on my Dad's boat cruising the Bahamas (many, many years ago!).
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At 5/19/2011 6:38 AM (utc) our position was 12°41.63'S 146°20.81'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 18

2011-05-17T21:21:00.001-10:00

Miles today: 129 Miles Behind Us: 2,141
Miles to go: 242 (approx 2 more days)
Wind E at 9 kt Seas 3'
Sailing S at 5.3kt - Full main, Full Genoa, Staysail

It doesn't get any better than this! Since the wind came up at 7pm last night, we've been sailing, averaging 5+ knots. This in a time where the wind forecast was for 7-8 knots and we expected to be motoring. (Thank you, weather fairy!)

We started out last night with the big light-air Code Zero, but about 4:30am the wind had come up enough that it was getting to be too much for the Code Zero. So Dave woke me up and we rolled it in, and rolled out the slightly smaller, but much heavier construction, genoa. We averaged about 5.5 knots all night, and about 5 knots all day. The wind slacked off a little about mid-morning, but has still held in the 10 knot range.

This is really pleasant sailing!! Wind just right, seas not bad, sunny skies during the day, full moon at night.

Our full moon story for tonight is that Dave said "Sherry, we have a ship on the horizon." Just about dusk. He was kind of freaked out, because (a) our AIS didn't go off and (b) it appeared and got closer pretty fast. However, a minute later he laughed and said "It's just the moon again.". The moon rising was partially blocked by clouds on the horizon, and only 3 bits of bright moonlight were showing through--looking just like a freighter not very far away.

We are hoping we might be able to make it in to Manihi before dark on Thursday. It will be a little dicey going in late in the day--the slack current on Thursday afternoon is going to be about 1pm and then not again until 7pm (after dark)--so if we arrive about 4:30pm, the current in the pass will be at max flood--running in to an unknown harbor with a 4kt current, late in the day with poor light... I'm not crazy about the idea, but Dave thinks it's no big deal, and he's got 'barn syndrome' really bad. We do have several friends who have gone in in the last few days, with waypoints, and the offer of a 'pilot' costing about $30, if we want it. Or we can hang out overnight and come in on the morning slack the next day.

The wind forecast keeps saying it should be lighter than what we're seeing, and if the wind dies, we'll probably just slow down and sail in, arriving Friday morning.

On the domestic front... With the mild conditions, I did laundry today in a 5 gallon bucket. I am running out of underwear--after 18 days underway, I am on my last pair today. We dress minimally at sea, but underwear is mandatory (for me). I keep a 2 week supply on hand, but this passage, our longest ever, has exhausted that.

We had a nice barbecued pork loin (in the oven), mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables for dinner tonight. Though we ate the last of the brocolli and fresh green beans tonight, we still have quite a few fresh fruits and veggies packed away in the fridge--celery, green peppers, carrots, tomatoes, avocados, cabbage, lettuce, and apples. Plus onions, potatoes, garlic, and bananas in bins outside the fridge. My practice of washing everything in a mild chlorine solution, air drying, and then wrapping each item in a paper towel and storing in a 'green bag', seems to be working well. I am not sure the science behind the 'green bags', but they work for me.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/18/2011 7:17 AM (utc) our position was 10°44.02'S 146°27.05'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 17

2011-05-16T20:12:00.000-10:00

Miles today: 135 Miles Behind Us: 2,012
Miles to go: 366 (approx 3-4 more days)
Wind ESE at 9 kt Seas Calm
Sailing S at 5.0kt - Full main, Code Zero

We motored all night last night in basically no-wind conditions. This morning, we spent about an hour moving 45 gallons of diesel fuel from 4 jugs on deck into the main tank. We also rigged up our big Code Zero sail. And we finally shook the last reef out of the mainsail. With the full Main and Code Zero, we have almost 1500 sq feet of sail area. If only we had some wind!

Still, the wind was too light to sail at a reasonable speed, so we kept motorsailing. By midafternoon, the wind dropped to the point where we couldn't even keep the 3oz Code Zero full. An hour later, the wind died completely and it was literally like a millpond--completely glassy as far as the eye could see.

Just at sunset, we saw a really weird phenomenon. At first, Dave thought it looked like a breaking reef (about 45 degrees off our port bow). Unless there's some unexpected sub-oceanic volcanic activity, there's no way it could be a breaking reef. I keep telling him it was reflections off the clouds, on the glassy sea. Then a couple of minutes later, it looked like a UFO in the same spot. A very bright glowing on the water. Or, maybe a giant squid phosphorescing just under the surface. Really really REALLY weird. We could not figure out what it was, even with the binoculars. And it wasn't moving. wooo-ooo-oooo. Dave proposed that we motor over and check it out. But I said "Heck no!"

Well, it turned out to be the bright full moon--hidden from us just behind a cloud, but shining brightly and reflecting on the water. Whew! Pretty!! And the sunset in the other direction was gorgeous too. I took a picture of both the moon rise and the sunset, but not sure how well they turned out.

The best thing of the whole day happened at dinnertime. Just as we started eating a delicious taco salad, the wind came up. I wanted to leap up and put the Code Zero out immediately, but Dave insisted on finishing dinner first.

The wind has held--at least long enough to get the big sail out and the engine off. Wow, peace and quiet for the first time in 2 days!

The forecast isn't looking very promising. The highest wind in the next 3 days is 10 knots. And the average is about 8 knots. So I guess we'll have to be a little less choosy about what wind we sail in.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/17/2011 5:29 AM (utc) our position was 08°29.08'S 146°30.00'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Becalmed

2011-05-16T07:15:00.000-10:00

It figures that after everything else, we would get becalmed 3-4 days from our destination. However, we left Hawaii with a large supply of diesel fuel, so, for now, it is "Mr Perkins to the Rescue!".

There isn't even enough wind, with us motoring, to keep our big genoa full (it is built too heavily). So we may actually break down and put up our 'Code Zero'--an even bigger 3oz Dacron roller furling sail. This is the sail that rescued us in the 8 days of calm on our way to Ecuador.

However, we have serious 'barn syndrome' now. After seeing the difference in arrival time when dividing the miles to go by 5.5-6 knots vs 3-4 knots, it may be hard to get Dave to turn the engine off.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/16/2011 5:12 PM (utc) our position was 07°28.55'S 146°33.27'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 16

2011-05-15T19:39:00.000-10:00

Miles today: 121 Miles Behind Us: 1,877
Miles to go: 492 (approx 5 more days)
Wind E at 5 kt Seas Calm
Motorsailing SSE at 5.5kt - 1 reef in the main, staysail

At approximately 8:30pm last night, we gave up trying to sail and turned the engine on. We've been motorsailing ever since. Most of the night, we had some wind, and so left all the sails up. This morning, the wind went to nothing and we reeled in the genoa. By late this afternoon, the sea was glassy.

We motored through some nasty looking cloud banks--but got neither wind nor rain out of them. We even changed course once to try to motor through a shower, but by the time we got there, it was gone. We are really salty, and could use a good rain water rinse.

Though we hate the noise and the expense of running the engine, it is so much more civilized traveling this way... rather than sailing 'on our ear' and bouncing through the waves, splashing salt water everywhere. And we are going faster than we have been going, bashing to windward--mainly because the big seas really kill our speed.

This afternoon, Dave un-pickled the watermaker, which has been laid up since we got to Hawaii. In a little over 2 hours of motoring, we made 90 gallons of beautiful fresh RO water. That is about 12 days of water for us. We carry a total of 170 gallons of water, and always maintain about 40 gallons in reserve. We normally use about 7 gallons a day, and our watermaker makes 40 gallons an hour, so running it an hour once a week keeps us in plenty of fresh water.

The last boat out here with us, Reflections, is arriving at Manihi tomorrow morning. We will still be a couple of more days--probably arriving Friday morning.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/16/2011 5:32 AM (utc) our position was 06°24.07'S 146°41.94'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 15

2011-05-14T20:27:00.000-10:00

Miles today: 94 Miles Behind Us: 1,756
Miles to go: 608 (approx 6 more days)
Wind ENE at 9 kt Seas ESE at 2'
Sailing SSE at 4kt - 1 reef in the main, staysail, full genoa

Ahhh... why can't it always be like this?? (Well, it wouldn't be very good if we were trying to go downwind). But for us, right now, hard on the wind, today couldn't have been better. Most of the day we had about 12 knots of wind, and made very nice progress right in the direction we wanted to go. The conditions remain sunny with little white puffy clouds.

Late in the afternoon our perfect wind started to get a little lighter and go NE, of all directions we didn't expect. I was off watch and Dave was reading in the cockpit and not paying attention, and the wind vane got confused and we spent about 2 hours drifting SW. Fortunately I woke up before we lost too much easting, and got us back on course. We almost turned on the engine, but decided to wait until after dinner.

The wind has come back a little and now we are now sailing nicely SSE at almost 5 knots in nearly calm seas. Yay!! It is nice when we have calmer seas, because we can open our hatches and get some ventilation down below. It gets pretty hot down below when we have to keep everything closed up tight because of the seas.

We have nearly a full moon out tonight, and we had a nice 'real' dinner in the cockpit, with the table up, plates and silverware and everything. I fixed a delicious sauteed lamb with mint jelly, fresh spinach, and a baked potato. Yummmm!! This is only our second 'sit down at the table' meal in 2 weeks. In more boisterous conditions we have a couple of heavy bowls with handles on them, and we've been eating mostly 'stoup' (stew/soup)--easy to fix, easy to digest, and easy to clean up after.

We have been trying out a new watch schedule on this trip, lengthening the nighttime watches to 6 hours each. This gives us each one long block of time where we can get a really good sleep. So our schedule now is roughly this:

7pm-1am - Sherry on Watch
1am-7am - Dave on Watch
7-11 - Sherry on Watch
12-4 - Dave on Watch

We are usually both awake from 8-9am, 11:30-1:30, and 4-7pm. This has been working well for us. It is certainly significantly better than our original (4 years ago) 3 hr watches, from a sleep perspective.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/15/2011 5:48 AM (utc) our position was 04°28.09'S 147°14.89'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 14

2011-05-13T21:38:00.000-10:00

Miles today: 97 Miles Behind Us: 1,662
Miles to go: 705 (approx 7 more days)
Wind SE at 15 kt Seas SE at 6'
Sailing S at 4.5kt - 1 reef in the main, staysail, 1/2 genoa

The wind came up to the 15-20 knot range today, and more southeast than we would like. We spent all day crashing to windward, with the genoa partly furled to keep us from burying the bow in the building waves. Every time we hit a wave, a wall of water washes down the deck, we stop dead in the water, and the bow slides off down wind.

We are really sweating whether we'll be able to make it to Manihi without spending an extra day or two out here trying to tack eastward. For most of the day we were only able to make good 195 degrees--at that angle we will miss Manihi and end up in Tahiti (220 miles west of Manihi). I spent hours in the cockpit today tweaking sails and our course, trying to get that last little bit of speed and pointing out of our big heavy cruising boat. Just this once I wish we had a boat with a 7' keel.

At dusk, the wind eased a little, and went a little more east and we are almost able to point toward Manihi again. The forecast shows a few days of SE winds (not good), a couple of days of E winds (good) and some really light winds (not bad--we don't mind motoring).

Our little weather angel tells us we are clear of all the ITCZ stuff just in time--there's a big nasty system laying right across where we went through just a few days ago. Now if we can just get our weather angel to conjure up a week of East winds at 10-12 knots, we'd be in Fat City.

I finished another good book today, A Voyage in the Sunbeam. This is a firsthand account of one of the first cruising families to circumnavigate--Lord and Lady Brassy, in 1876. The Sunbeam was a custom-built yacht of 530 tons, and they took their 4 children, 2 dogs, 3 birds, and a kitten on an 11-month trip around the world. The entourage that went with them totalled 40 people, including a doctor, kitchen staff, 19 sailing crew, 4 engine crew, and 7 'personal servants'. Pretty amazing stuff.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/14/2011 7:02 AM (utc) our position was 02°58.46'S 147°17.70'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 13

2011-05-12T20:54:00.000-10:00

Miles today: 107 Miles Behind Us: 1,563
Miles to go: 780 or 850 (approx 7-8 more days)
Wind ESE at 10 kt Seas ESE at 2' with a SE 8' long-period swell
Sailing S at 4.5kt - 1 reef in the main, staysail, full genoa

About 5am Dave had to turn on the engine because the wind got too light. But the light spell only lasted a couple of hours, and at 8am we were able to turn the engine off and sail again.

Nice sailing again today, except that we lost the NE wind--replaced by an ESE wind. Still nice sailing, but we are now only able to sail straight south. We didn't make it all the way east to 145 degrees longitude as we had hoped--we are only at 147, and currently not able to sail any further east without t-t-tacking. We are mulling over the alternatives and the weather forecast. Our distance to go reflects that uncertainty.

Our destination, Manihi Atoll in the Tuamotus, is now bearing 175 degrees. Right now, with the current wind (ESE), the best course we can sail is about 185 degrees.

The wind forecast for the next week is for only 9-13 kts varying between E to ESE. If that holds (we'll check the forecast again in the morning), we can probably just keep sailing the best course we can make, and cross our fingers that we can make Manihi without a tack. We will be very hard on the wind the whole way, but in light winds, that's not too bad. There are several light spells forecast in which we might end up motoring anyway. And, we can always throw in that tack the last day, if we need to.

The only thing that would really be bad, is if the forecast is wildly wrong, and we end up having to try to tack east in 25 knots of wind.

Our friends on Infini made it to Manihi today, and Sea Flyer plans to arrive tomorrow. They both left 10 days ahead of us. We are highly envious, as we are REALLY READY for this 'adventure' to be over with!!!

The good news is, this will be the last really long passage for the next couple of years. From here to Tonga, the next longest passage is only about 500 miles.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/13/2011 6:39 AM (utc) our position was 01°19.98'S 147°03.71'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Back in the South Pacific

2011-05-12T07:29:00.000-10:00

We crossed the equator last night at 00:19 Central South Pacific Boat Time. We crossed at latitude 147-35.44W.

Dave was off watch asleep. I woke him up a few minutes ahead of time, so we could do the proper ceremonies to Neptune.

We also took this momentous opportunity to cast a few ashes of a good friend of Dave's, as we crossed the equator. Henry "Mike" Mikelait, whom our windvane is named after, is finishing his final lap around the world aboard Soggy Paws. We have instructions from his daughters to leave a little of Mike in his favorite places around the world as we go.

Welcome to the South Pacific again, Mike.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/12/2011 5:24 PM (utc) our position was 00°22.89'S 147°15.38'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 12

2011-05-11T21:15:00.000-10:00

Miles today: 112 Mile Behind Us: 1,458
Miles to go: 901 (approx 8 more days)
Wind ENE at 9 kt Seas ENE at 2' with a SE 8' long-period swell
Sailing SE at 5kt - 1 reef in the main, staysail, full genoa

Since we turned the engine off this morning, the wind has stayed pretty steady at about 070 at 8-10 kts all day. We've been sailing between 3-5 knots steadily southeastward. We are currently aiming for a waypoint at 02-30S / 145W. Once we get there, we should be far enough east to turn south and start heading for Manihi. But this waypoint is still 2 days away, and the wind could die or turn SE on us at any time.

We have thankfully picked up the east-bound current that Winnie the Weather Guru foretold. Every little half a knot helping us eastward is good. It should stick with us (and get stronger) for the next day or two, until about 2 or 3 South. Winnie also said that our current fair weather conditions should hold for another day or two.

Now that we're in the lighter winds, we're getting enough sleep and eating well. Dave finally shaved his 10 days of stubble off yesterday. I got a picture of him before he shaved it off, and hope to back-post it here someday.

We had a pleasant sunset with a real sit-down meal (Baked Salmon, Couscous, Canned Corn). Except "Henry" (the wind vane steering) tacked us in the middle of dinner. He has been rock solid all day but just in the last hour or two has drifted off in one direction or another. We're not sure exactly what's causing it--maybe too much genoa and not enough main. Dave (who doesn't want to shake the last reef out of the main) thinks it is the large swell. We had to start the engine to drive us around in a circle and get back on course (easier than actually tacking the sails twice).

So that was the big excitement for today on Soggy Paws.

It looks like we might cross the equator in the middle of the night sometime tonight. It's hard to tell exactly when because we are heading SE. As our course and speed changes (with the changing wind), our ETA at the '00' point changes drastically.

We'd hoped to cross over during the day--Dave wants to heave-to and go swimming in 15,000 feet on the equator.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/12/2011 6:21 AM (utc) our position was 00°12.45'N 147°46.28'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Motoring at 10 Cents a Minute

2011-05-11T11:32:00.000-10:00

The wind died last night about 1am, so Dave turned on the engine. We were making pretty good time under sail until then.

With the price of diesel pushing $6/gallon in French Polynesia... motoring has gotten kind of expensive. At 1 gallon per hour, or $6/hour, that's 10 cents a minute!!

This morning at 7am, the wind was back, and also out of the direction we wanted--NE. It is only 10 knots, but with our huge genoa, we are averaging about 5 kts, and going in the right direction. We are finally using the entire genoa, but still have 1 reef in the mainsail--mostly because we are lazy.

We'll keep this up--motoring when it gets too light, and sailing when it's right--until we get through the variables and into the SE Trades (a couple of days at least). We are still heading as east as we can--hoping to reach at least 146 West before we head for Manihi. (Our friends who left from Hilo went all the way to 141-20 before they headed south--they have been able to ease their sheets a lot on the trip to Manihi, and would have been able to reach the Marquesas without too much trouble, if they'd had time to visit there. But they spent a day or two tacking east of Hawaii to get that far east).
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/11/2011 9:30 PM (utc) our position was 00°38.69'N 148°12.64'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 11

2011-05-10T19:53:00.000-10:00

Miles today: 118 Mile Behind Us: 1,234
Miles to go: 1,002 (approx 8 more days)
Wind ESE at 10-12 kt Seas ESE at 3-4'
Sailing SSE at 5kt - 1 reef in the main, staysail, 2/3 genoa

We had an absolutely gorgeous day aboard Soggy Paws. The wind has been 10-12 knots all day, the sky is mostly clear with no threatening clouds in the last 24 hours. This is the kind of passage-making that everyone dreams about! (and which actually happens oh-so-seldom!)

We spent a lot of the mid-day period today (when both Dave and I are awake) playing with sails. The wind is light, and we are still hard on the wind. We're trying to maximize speed and our pointing ability, while retaining comfort. As I told my friend who emailed me, kidding me about all my sail trimming ("You're not racing." he said), on a passage this long, the difference between 5 knots and 5.5 knots is 2 whole days!! And the difference between making a course of 160 degrees vs 165 degrees is possibly missing your destination by 200 miles.

You would think that after 15,000 miles, we would have it all down pat. But this point of sail--hard on the wind--is our least favorite, and we avoid it like the plague. Whenever it's possible, we wait for the wind to drop and motor like hell to get where we are going upwind. Though the CSY 44 is a very sturdy boat, it's not particularly fantastic going to windward, and ours, with the Tall Mast and Shoal Draft, is worse than others. We are also still somewhat inexperienced when it comes to sailing with the Monitor wind vane (our self-steering mechanism).

So we had fun experimenting--let a little genoa out... did that help? Nope. How about sheet the main in? Nope? How about let the main out? etc. Achieving 'balance' on a sailboat is always a little challenging. Especially one as big as ours, where you can't really feel the changes in the helm, and the little burst of speed you get when you do the right thing, is delayed, and/or masked by wind and wave action. And our problem is compounded by the fact that Dave's new sails are too big for the boat. So we keep them reefed in most conditions. This alters the designed center of effort, and the boat balance isn't as easy to achieve as might otherwise be possible.

Anyway, we had fun--we're going to windward as close as we ever have, still going 5 knots in 10 kts of wind. And the best part is, we're hardly heeling at all. And "Henry" is happy and steering well. The nice conditions enabled me to make a nice dinner tonight--shrimp scampi. All is well aboard.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/11/2011 5:50 AM (utc) our position was 01°37.71'N 148°49.03'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 10

2011-05-09T20:13:00.000-10:00

6pm Hawaii Time
Miles today: 118
Mile Behind Us: 1,234
Miles to go: 1,108 (approx 8-9 more days)
Wind E at 10-12 kt
Seas E at 3'
Sailing SSE at 5kt - 2 reefs in the main, staysail, 2/3 genoa

We had another big squall hit last night at 9:30pm--almost the same time as the previous night. Dave had a couple more small squalls pass by on his watch from 1am-7am.

But this morning, the daylight revealed a beautiful tropical morning--blue skies with small puffy clouds. Wind about 12-15kts. We have had a great day of sailing.

We passed the halfway mark early this morning. We are still a long way from Kansas!!

The wind is starting drop, so we've nearly got our whole genoa out, but are really enjoying sailing quietly along at 5kt. By tomorrow the wind is forecast to be less than 10 kts. The wind has gone more E than NE, and so we are struggling to make our waypoint. We'll decide once we get to the really light air whether we need to motor east for a bit to get set up for the right angle to make our destination of Manihi.

Our friends on Infini caught an 80lb yellowfin tuna yesterday. Wow! We talked about putting a line out today, but Dave has added a new one to his list of excuses "I don't want to catch one too big." Maybe tomorrow.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/10/2011 6:10 AM (utc) our position was 03°24.00'N 149°02.30'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 9

2011-05-08T19:15:00.000-10:00

6pm Hawaii Time
Miles today: 114
Mile Behind Us: 1,116
Miles to go: 1,220 (approx 9-10 more days)
Wind NE at 12-15 kt
Seas NE at 7'
Sailing SE at 5.5kt - 2 reefs in the main, staysail, 1/3 genoa

At 9:30 last night, we got hit by a big squall with gusts to 30 knots. I was reading in the cockpit and not paying enough attention, so the 25 knot opening blast was a bit of surprise. But within a minute or two, I had the genoa completely furled. Dave came up and we eventually furled some of the staysail too, and eased the main a little. We were fine. The accompanying rain was nice--it washed all the accumulated salt off.

After the squall passed, the wind got pretty light and shifty. I spent the next several hours on my watch cranking the sails in and out as the squalls passed. Fortunately, none were as bad as the first one. But I played it pretty conservatively, so we had a pretty slow night. When Dave took over at 1am, we were down to about 2.5 knots, so we decided to crank up the engine. Dave had a pretty uneventful night on his watch, with the genoa furled and the engine on.

When I took over for Dave in the morning, the wind had come back. So I shut down the engine and we've been sailing along 'smartly' ever since. Still dodging a few squalls, but nothing really bad. Nice trade-wind conditions.

It looks like we may have skated through the dreaded ITCZ. Winnie the Weather Guru tells me "Your entire path to French Polynesia is now free and clear, maybe some clouds and low topped showers, but I don't see any BFSs lurking about". (BFS is our term for Big Fat Squalls).

The boats ahead of us (Infini, Sea Flyer, and Reflections) are reporting good conditions in the South Pacific. Kind of like "Ahhhh!" Looking forward to getting there ourselves!
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/9/2011 5:10 AM (utc) our position was 05°11.85'N 149°49.76'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 8

2011-05-07T19:42:00.001-10:00

6pm Hawaii Time
Miles today: 132
Mile Behind Us: 1002
Miles to go: 1,327 (approx 10-11 more days)
Wind NE at 12-15 kt
Seas NE at 6'
Sailing SE at 5.3kt - 2 reefs in the main, staysail, 1/3 genoa

We had another pretty good day of sailing--mostly sunny, mostly steady tradewind conditions. We pulled out a little more of our genoa and averaged 5.5 knots for the last 24 hours. Fairly respectable considering we are still pretty hard on the wind, and HEAVILY laden.

Conditions were reasonable enough that we finally got "Henry", our wind-vane steering system hooked up and steering. "Janet", our electric autopilot has been doing a great job, but Janet takes electricity, and Henry only uses wind power. Though we had Henry mostly rigged when we left Pearl Harbor, the first 2 days of motoring and the past 5 days of rough conditions, kept us from climbing out on the stern platform to finish the setup.

Our friend Winnie the Weather Guru has been watching the big picture weather for us. She warned us of a big "blob" on the ITCZ that we need to be concerned about (that's a technical weather term). It is really difficult crossing the ITCZ without getting slammed. Weather systems just appear and disappear around the equator, and no one can forecast them. The only method is to watch the satellite photos, which Winnie is doing for us. We are hoping we can thread our way between the two blobs in our path.

This time of year, the ITCZ (aka the Doldrums) is moving from it's wintertime position at about 5 degrees South latitude to it's summertime position about 8 degrees North latitude. And right now, there's ITCZ-like activity both north and south of the Equator. Our friends on Infini, who thought they were in the clear, got slammed yesterday and today with some horrendous convective activity. It will take us 5 or 6 days til we are completely clear ourselves.

Dave is feeling nearly himself today. He made lunch for the first time on this trip, got on the radio, and did some small maintenance tasks around the boat.

We finally are getting close enough to the Tuamotus to pick up a new cruiser net we just heard about. Called the South Pacific Cruiser's Net, on 6224Mhz at 0230 UTC (4:30 Tuamotus time). We are finally hooking up with the main body of the Pacific Puddle Jump group who left Mexico 6-8 weeks ago.

With not much to do while on watch, I've been reading about a book a day. Today's book: The Sex Lives of Cannibals. It's a true account about a guy and his wife who take a job on Tuvalu, a tiny atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Well-written and funny. Tuvalu is in the Gilbert Islands (part of Kiribati), and we may well stop there on our way from Fiji to the Marshall Islands next year.
-----
Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/8/2011 5:26 AM (utc) our position was 06°46.28'N 150°41.58'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 7

2011-05-06T19:45:00.000-10:00

6pm Hawaii Time
Miles today: 112
Mile Behind Us: 870
Miles to go: 1,457 (approx 11-12 more days)
Wind NE at 15-18 kt
Seas NE at 6'
Sailing SE at 5.3kt - 2 reefs in the main, staysail, scrap of genoa

Well, after the worst night we've had, we had the best day we've had on this trip. This morning dawned clear and sunny. The wind dropped just a little bit. The waves spaced out a little. And we had reasonable sailing most of the day. Amazing the difference a few knots of wind makes.

Just before he took his evening shower, Dave went out on deck to check on things--inspecting the rigging and other stuff on deck. He only found a couple of minor issues. The cover on our anchor windlass had come off--one explanation for the larger than normal amounts of water we had in the bilge. Even though I was trying to slow down while he was out on deck, Dave still got hit by one big wave while he was on the bow. (Hence doing the inspection BEFORE his shower).

We saw one fishing boat today. The AIS beeped when it entered our 'guard zone' at 15 miles. It was a 115 foot fishing boat from Japan. At first, it didn't look like we were going to come at all close to him, but he stopped and sat drifting almost right in our path. They did not answer our radio calls on the VHF. But he didn't move as we sailed past. Dave thinks he was maybe parked there on purpose--protecting one end of his net from us. We eventually passed in 1/2 mile away. We could track him on the AIS for several more hours--he was 26 miles away before we quit receiving his AIS signal.
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Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/7/2011 5:34 AM (utc) our position was 08°33.78'N 151°52.89'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Where is this wind coming from?

2011-05-06T07:23:00.000-10:00

We had the worst night ever last night. Though the skies are mostly clear--no real visible squalls--just passing clouds--the wind has been up and down to 25 knots all night. We spent the whole night with the genoa completely furled, and the staysail partly furled--and still going too fast for comfort. Neither of us got much sleep.

This wind is not reflected on the weather forecasts, and there are 'no significant features' on the surface map. We expected to have LIGHTER winds once we got south of 10 degrees north latitude.
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Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/6/2011 5:19 PM (utc) our position was 09°25.13'N 152°22.09'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 6

2011-05-05T19:39:00.000-10:00

6pm Hawaii Time
Miles today: 126
Mile Behind Us: 758
Miles to go: 1,565 (approx 12-13 days)
Wind ENE at 15-20 kt
Seas ENE at 6-8'
Sailing SE at 5.3kt - 2 reefs in the main, staysail, scrap of genoa

Today was much better than the last two days--mostly sunny with no squalls. However, the wind is still up and down, so we're constantly having to trim to keep us moving as fast as possible, as close to the wind as possible, without totally burying the bow in the big waves. Just about the time we get everything trimmed up just right, the wind changes and we have to re-trim all over again.

For those of you wondering what we eat in conditions like this... we have been having a hard boiled egg and some fruit for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and stew or soup for dinner. I pre-cooked several days worth of stew before we left, and also pre-cooked a bunch of chicken and froze it in meal-sized ziplock bags. So it's easy to make a 'hearty chicken soup' with a few bits of fresh veggies, Ramen noodles, and chopped up chicken. When in calms down as we get closer to the equator, we'll have a few more normal meals, and then go back to easy meals for the last leg into Manihi.

We still haven't seen any ships--either visually, or on the AIS. But we're not positive the newly-installed AIS is working correctly. As we were leaving Honolulu, our friends on Windy City said they couldn't see us transmitting from 7 miles away, though we could see THEM. We think we're receiving OK, because I had 20 targets while we were in the vicinity of Honolulu, and our last target as we left Hawaii we were receiving from 24 miles away.

We are hoping it's just an installation issue--we installed the new AIS with a fancy splitter to use the mast-top antenna for the VHF, did a quick transmitter check with a boat down the dock, and didn't do any more testing. Neither the AIS or VHF seem to be transmitting properly (any distance), but we've been in too boisterous conditions to check anything out further. The AIS does have a built-in SWR warning, which is NOT being displayed.
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Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/5/2011 9:45 PM (utc) our position was 10°47.78'N 153°04.45'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Enroute to the Tuamotus - Day 5

2011-05-04T20:51:00.000-10:00

6pm Hawaii Time
Miles today: 127
Miles to go: 1,715 (approx 13-14 days)
Wind ENE at 15-25 kt
Seas ENE at 6-8'
Sailing SE at 5.3kt - 2 reefs in the main, staysail, scrap of genoa

The cloud cover showed signs of breaking up at little this afternoon, and the sat pic I just received confirms that we should be coming out of it soon. But we're still getting squalls.

The good thing is that it looks like the ITCZ is not looking too active ahead of us. But we still have 2 weeks of hard-on-the-wind sailing ahead of us.

We have found lots of new leaks as the waves crash over us and occasionally engulf the deck. We can stay reasonably dry in almost everything except the worst of the squalls, as long as we can keep the boat speed under about 5 kts. Faster than that and we punch some of these steep, closely-spaced waves and send a wall of water washing down the deck. However, keeping the boat speed under 5kts is s-l-o-w and extends our trip by 1-2 days. We are shooting for 5.5 knots, which is fine until a squall comes by, then the wind increases and our speed goes to 6.5 knots, and the waves get bigger. Then we take a big one.

Dave made me reef in a little when a big wave dribbled cold salt water on him while he slept on the couch in the salon.

Are we there yet?
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Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia
http://svsoggypaws.blogspot.com

At 5/5/2011 6:47 AM (utc) our position was 11°57.23'N 153°34.58'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm

Snotty Weather

2011-05-04T12:10:00.000-10:00

Our little squall at sunset last night has turned into a steady stream of squalls all night long and lasting into the morning.

The wind varies between 15 and 25 knots, and it is challenging to keep the boat moving without going crazy when the squalls hit. Fortunately they are not Florida-thunderstorm-60kt type squalls--but bad enough. The sat pic shows this persisting until about 10N (another 160 miles)--we won't be out of it until sometime tomorrow.

The satellite picture (a 3-4 minute download on the Iridium sat phone of a tiny B/W sat pic) shows we are under a band of clouds that looks like a trailing end of a front or trough. It doesn't show on any weather map we have, and the GRIB files say the wind today should be 15-17kt. Ha!

We're also watching a blob of weather down near the equator (02N 142W)--though we're still about 700 miles/5-6 days from the equator, we need to track the movements of the major bad areas to make sure we avoid where it's going to be.

Our friends on Infini, who left about 10 days ahead of us, just crossed the equator last night. They are motoring again in light winds, and seem to mostly be clear of the ITCZ.

Here's the sat pic we are able to download at sea, using the Iridium (its ~82K)

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/satellite/cp_1200_ir.gif

A much better one can be found here:

http://weather.hawaii.edu

The upper right picture on this page is a pretty nice sat pic if you have reasonable internet.
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Sherry & Dave
Headed South for French Polynesia

At 5/4/2011 9:42 PM (utc) our position was 12°41.27'N 153°48.30'W
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm