Leaving Galapagos. On to Marquesas.
And remember. I had three weeks on passage to write this. It’s
going to be longer than the usual babble that I post. So grab a bevy or drop a
hit and let’s get on with it. 5000 word or so.
No critiques on the grammar or spelling though. Consider the
source.
Cleared out of Galapagos with no problems. Much to all our
surprise. Seems every time we had a run in with the authorities our extra
special treatment caused some form of pain or another. We kind of milled around
chatting a bit. Knowing that we were about to head out in a couple of hours and
would not see each other again for 3 weeks and 3,000 miles. We all wanted out
of Galapagos though. Common theme there. But we also knew that we would lose
contact as we went along. VHF range 20 miles or so. SSB range considerably
longer but a bit hit or miss.
So we are 39 boats. Three left early for various reasons.
One would not be able to leave due to mechanical issues and one had to turn
back at the start. Leaves 33 for the passage if I did the math right. We were in
the anchorage pretty tight with stern anchors as well as he usual bow anchor.
The bow anchors come up easy for the most part. The stern ones are a bit more
of a fight. Jonathan from Chez Nouz was running around in his dingy helping
various boats pull their anchors. Ours is a pretty good-sized one and we dug in
deep during the time we were there. Gave quite a fight. In the end Bob and Iris
were both diving on it setting trip lines to pull with the dingy. It had ended
up fairly close to the bow of a non-ARC boat that was there. They got it but it
probably took ½ hour of pretty tough dirty work. Without a complaint.
So we head out with the rest of the herd toward the start
line. Hit it just about perfect. Rounded the mark very close and off we went.
Our best start ever. Dumb luck. Full main and jib getting pretty good air. The forecast
called for a motoring dead air start so I think we were all pretty surprised at
the great conditions we got into. Very soon we were right up at the front. Top
5 boats. Then top three. Neck and neck. New crew Kyle did a great job of tuning
the trim. We learned a lot about how to get the last little bit out of Vivo. We
ran neck and neck with Nexus (another 60 foot cat). We were all pretty stoked
at how well we had hit it. Had a great day of sailing until about midnight when
rain and dead air took over. Dropped sails and started motoring. Then it became
a race of who has the largest fuel tank and wants to burn the most diesel on
the first day of a three-week, 3000 mile race. Which was not me. But it was a
lot of fun. We were all within VHF range for that day and night and a lot of
good humor was flying.
By day two we were getting pretty spread out and starting to
lose the VHF contact from the front to the back of the fleet. Also ran into numerous
long line net sets. Very poorly marked. Three boats fouled in the gear and had
to dive the boat to get freed up. One fellow took quite a few jellyfish stings
and had a bad day of it after his time in the water. Kept us busy trying to report
on and track GPS coordinates on both ends of miles long net systems. It is a
giant spider web for sailboats. We ran across three separate net drops and
three pangas tending them. This is the middle of nowhere. A hundred plus miles
off of Galapagos which is itself in the middle of nowhere. Cleared two nicely.
Third one we were running smack into the middle of. The panga chased us down
from quite a ways off. Much to Mercs dismay. Their intentions were not clear. It
was on her early morning watch and she was by herself. She called me up. As she
should have. They were waving and gesticulating. Finally they sped off in front
of us and parked parallel to their net set. The set was poorly marked by jugs
and flags. They had set up to block us. Warn us really. They were waving me off
so I did a 360 and parked it. Fortunate that we were motoring in pretty dead
air. That maneuver with full sails would have taken a lot more room. They
reached down with a boat hook and removed a float. Allowing the line to sink. Then
directed us through the gap where the line had sunk with hand signals that
looked like a referee signaling an extra point. They had no interest in us
getting screwed up in their gear. I relayed the location info and our
experience with the panga crew. Those guys are just trying to make a living and
here come 33 yahoos from they don’t know where plowing into their carefully
laid system of nets. Sorry fellas. Hope we didn’t do too much damage.
The back-story is that pangas are used extensively
throughout the Caribbean and this area of the pacific by both the good guys and
the bad guys. We don’t like being approached by fast moving, unmarked, unlit, non-radio
carrying boats. They are faster than us. More maneuverable. And mostly just
interesting in selling fish, bumming beer and cigarettes, or keeping us off their line sets. But there
is that oh shit moment. Every pirate story you hear starts with “the panga
approached”. It’s the water world version of the black Nova with the blacked
out windows.
So we move on to settle into watch routines and some
fishing. Read some books. Learn some card games from Iris that are completely impossible
to comprehend. Merc and I think by the time three weeks are up we might have
some idea of what is going on. But on day two not so much so. Caught a couple
small yellow fin tuna. They will be good eating. Merc is not too fond of the
bloodbath that ensues after a catch is made and cleaned. Iris jumped right in
there and cleaned both of them. A job I am quite happy to surrender anytime
someone wants it. All around us were Dolphins, Sailfish, and shoals of tuna.
One boat saw a shark jump clear out of the water five times. No idea what would
cause that. Thought South Africa was the only place where sharks flew.
I am on the midnight watch now. Quite boring. I have my tea,
my banana and a gooball to keep me company. I was joined by a red-footed boobie
for a little bit. Hit it with the floodlight and it squawked and flew off. The
light does not bother the ones we call the grey ghosts and I thought it was one
of them again. Sorry boobie. If I knew it was you I never would have. You know
how I feel about….. Wasting floodlight
time. What were you thinking?
Speaking of Ghosts. (We were speaking of Ghosts you say?)
There is a boat in the arc called Ghost. (Now you see where I was going with
that) Very nice couple. Very British sense of humor. Great folks. They had a
run of it leading up to the restart. A local tourist boat dragged down on them
in the anchorage. Completely the other boats fault. Did some ugly damage to
their pushpit. The stern rail system on the boat. 18-month-old pristine boat.
So then the arguments fly. Local boat vs. yacht passing though. They had a go
of it with the Port Captain and eventually got a reasonable settlement. But
they are certainly out on the whole thing. Like getting hit by an uninsured
driver. Then the day before the restart he does a routine run up of all
electrical and navigation systems. Looses all 12-volt navigation systems and
smells an electrical fire. Turned out to have burned up a voltage converter.
Another boat had a spare and loaned it. Advantage rally. Who the heck carries a
spare 24V to 12V transformer? A boat named Hebe did. Also very nice folks. So
they got their legal issues settled in and several people threw in behind the
electrical problems. Had some issues that caused the burnout that needed to be
corrected.
Had a strange one just happen a bit ago. On watch I was looking
out forward. It is a rather dark and moonless night. Lots of stars but its
still darker than the inside of your hat. There was a very bright white flash
up above me. Not a little flash. It was big. Made shadows on the helm station. To
me it seemed like it came from the masthead. We have all the sails up so from
the helm station you do not have an angle to see the top of the mast. The mainsail
is in the way. I thought we must have blown up the masthead light or something.
Which would be odd because it is a very low amperage LED light. Or maybe clear
air lightning but there was no accompanying sound of any kind. Maybe a shooting
star illuminating the sails or something. Or maybe the red-footed boobie got
himself even with me! No idea. Maybe I spent the rest of the night doing some
quality time with the aliens but seems like that was the extent of it. I will
never know what it really was.
The bioluminescent creatures are out in force tonight. I
don’t know what causes them to want to congregate in one area or another. To me
it looks like a few thousand square miles of same old same old. But they seem
to be in these localized flotillas. They get caught up in our bow waves as we
bounce through the swells leaving a bluish green wave of surf. They get churned
up under the keels and come up out the back in a swirl of marble sized chunks
of light. It’s hypnotizing to watch. Especially on a night as dark as this one.
The glow goes on for a couple of hundred yards and then fades out. I wonder if
they are all scratching their little glow in the dark heads and thinking, “What
the hell was that? I feel like I got hit by a truck”. And don’t ask me why they
would know what a truck is. That is just another one of those mysteries.
So I go back to my tea, banana and gooball. I have another
80 minutes to kill before I can go to bed for a couple of hours. Nice night
though. Hope it keeps up.
Iris has a recipe from the Marquesas’ from the last time she
was there. It’s a local moonshine brew. It’s illegal to make, have, or sell,
but everyone there has it. Some form of prohibition there I guess. Anyway, we
made up a batch of it and it’s brewing in the galley. Merrily bubbling away. If
its works I am going to start a whole new business. VivoShine, the moonshiners
for the ARC rally. We will be very popular.
Reasonable luck with the fishing these first couple of days.
Couple of yellow fin tuna and one black fin. A small Mahi Mahi that I felt bad
keeping but he was hooked so deep he was a goner anyway. A fairly large shark
trailed a lure for a little while. Big black shadow about three foot under
water. Following us at 9 knots like it was nothing. Barely sweeping its tail to
keep up. We reeled that lure in fast to avoid a hookup. So all in we added
about 4 dinners to the freezer. Which is nice because we only had two fish
dinners in there and I am really tired of chicken and beef. You can’t get pork
anywhere. At least not in any form that I thought I could cook. Would love me a
nice big O’l pork chop on the grill right now. And some wine. We do crossing
dry and for the first couple of days it’s an adjustment that’s for sure. And
this is one LOOOOONG dry passage. Three weeks without? Haven’t done that since
my appendix tried to off me a few years ago.
Heading into our third night out. About 500 miles out of
3000 done. Everything running well. Sailing along nicely. In spite of forecasts
calling for very low winds and lots of motoring. We are sailing our asses off!
I was thinking today that maybe I should put dates on these
entries. More concise in its format. Then I tried to figure out what day it
even is. Good thing we have a log book that we keep. It required us to put in
for a date check every day. Otherwise I would have no idea what day of the
week, much less month, it is. You lose track very quickly. Days are good
sailing, or bad. Rough and no sleep, or nice and smooth and a lot of sleep.
Like last night. I slept 5 hours. Like a log. Feel like a new man!
Let me bore you with some additional particulars about the
radio communications. We have two types. VHF and SSB. VHF is Very High Frequency.
Short range. Line of sight. Once over the horizon, about 20 miles, you lose
signal. After three days we have no VHF communication with any of the other
boats. The other is Single Side Band. Also called HAM. We use the lower band frequencies
that do not need a special license. It is a very long range radio. Depending on
which frequency you use it can talk to the other side of the world. Or not.
Very much depends on atmospheric conditions a well as the rig itself. There is
a bit of magic involved. Some of the ARC captains are old timers with a lot of
experience with it. Tuning rigs and such. One fellow was a radio operator in
the military. Circa 1960s. Interesting to see how the fleets transmission and
reception varies. We are not that spread out yet. Only a couple of hundred
miles. About 1/3 of the boats need a relay call in or are not heard from at
all. Wonder what the stats will be once we get spread out by 1000 miles over
the next couple of weeks. Twice a day there is a radio net. A rotating,
volunteer, net controller calls each boat individually for a position and
situation update. Gets to be a highlight of some of the duller days. At the end
of the structured net is an open call in period where you can ask questions of
the collective or call out to specific boats. A giant party line. Can be kind
of fun. How did you use the catch such and such. Anybody got a new recipe for
chicken? I know I had mentioned this all before but I have a lot of time to
kill and thought I would put a finer point on it.
Learned something new today. This morning Iris says, would
anyone like some porridge? See, when I was growing up anytime my mother served
something that we kids didn’t like my father would say “feed them porridge for
a week”. Liver and onions! Echhh. “Fed them porridge for a week.” Except it
came out more like “feed m porridge for a week.” See, no the in them.
Its “m”. “Feed m.” So I say sure. I’ll have a bash at it. Turns out porridge,
at least the French version of it, is oatmeal. And I like oatmeal! So when I
was a kid I ate liver and onions, and lima beans, and peas when I could have
just had a bowl of oatmeal! WTF! Do Over! The things you learn on passage.
Time, Time, what time is it? Ordinarily on passage we keep
the clocks set to the time of the departure port. Everyone runs on boat time
till we hit the next port. Then adjust to the new time zone. This has been in one-hour
increments so far so its like daylight savings switch over. No big deal. But
this passage has a 2-½ hour time change from Galapagos to Marquesas. I didn’t
know they had ½ hour increments but there they do. So if we keep boat time we
will get more and more screwed up on our body’s rhythms as we go along. Eventually
sunrise, currently at 6:00, will be at 4:30. It will be dark at about 5:00 pm.
So we are going to start to change time as we go across. Setting the clocks
back ½ hour every four days. But the radio net will still be at 11:00 AM and
8:00 PM Galapagos time. So we will have one clock and alarm for that and the
ships clock, which will gradually get set back. All this and I don’t even know
what day it is. By the time we get there if someone asks what time it is I
think the best I will be able to come up with is, March. I think.
A glorious night tonight. Its 2:00 AM and I could stand this
watch forever. Stars are out. We are making 8.5-9 knots on a beam reach. Nice
sea state. Just perfect. We are south of the rest of the fleet. Having run down
this way to try to find the steady trade winds. We have been lucky and had a
very unusual fluke of good conditions on the way down here. There is a “box” of
disturbed weather that we had to run through to get down to this latitude. We
didn’t get much bad weather but some of the boats got some rain and squalls.
The squalls will mess you up because they clock the wind all over the place.
Hard to keep a point of sail when its coming and going like that. Our weather
router said the favorable wind in the box is going to end and to get south as
fast as possible. 8 south latitude being the goal. We made it having done a
really nice 208 mile day. Might not sound like very far but when it’s a 56,000
lb four bedroom floating condo doing it it is something. Other boats stuck it out further north running
a rhumb line to Marquesas and are now languishing in dead air. The fleet is
spreading further apart. 390 miles from the front boat to the last. After 5
days. We are 80 miles behind and south of the front boat but his wind died. And
we are hauling ass. He can motor and keep up the lead but we have some sense of
satisfaction in knowing that we are getting there with the wind. The SSB radio
net has pretty well fallen apart. We could only make out 3 or 4 boats. Don’t
know what tomorrows morning call will yield. I suspect we are going to be
pretty lonely for the next ten days or so. We do trade GPS and SSB emails with
a couple of boats. But that’s not as much fun as playing radio operator. Yesterday
we had Iris answer our SSB net hail. She greeted them in French then gave our
position and status in English. Net controller answered… “Huh?” It was quite funny. And that shows you
how easy it is to entertain us after 6 days on passage.
Big excitement today. Iris has been saving and drying out an
old wine bottle to toss into the ocean. We did it today at the half way point.
1500 miles from Galapagos. 1500 miles from Marquesas. Not to sure there is
anywhere else on earth that you can be further from land. In any direction the
closest land is a couple of very small rock patches. 1500 miles off. Big
friggin ocean. We saw a boat a couple of days ago but in the last 1000 miles we
have seen maybe four total. So we all wrote a note and put it in the bottle.
Iris was very excited about it being the first message in a bottle she ever
launched. Pictures and everything. I will try to post a shot. So we said goodbye
and she tossed it. Wonder when we will hear from it again. We were going to bet
a buck each for the first person to get a message back from it. I’m pretty sure
I will know where Bob and Merc are whenever it might come about. Iris and Kyle
not so sure.
It has been a couple of days since I made any entries here.
Due primarily to the fact that there is absolutely nothing going on. One day
just bleeds into the next. If we didn’t keep a calendar on the nav station we
would have no idea what day it is. We were talking about it today amongst us
and asked how many days it seemed like we had been under way. To me it feels
like 3. It has been 11. With 6-8 to go. Depends on out progress. We are making 8.7
knots (its 1:30 AM) and the chart plotter says 5 days 7 hours to go. But
if/when the wind dies down that can go up by days. It works off of the
remaining miles (1145 at this point) and your current boat speed. It’s really
disheartening to see the data sometimes. You can go off watch with 5 days to go
and wake up 4 hours later and, because the wind and speed died, its 7 to go.
Plays mind games.
We’ve been fishing for days with no catch. The fleet is also
getting skunked pretty good based on the morning radio chatter. No one is
catching. No dolphins. No whales. One or two birds. Did see one shark today.
Cruse past our stern. Fin cutting the water. That was cool and a nice distraction.
So we play cards, and read, and play dominos, and guitar, and nap, and fish.
Maybe a little laundry to really spark it up some! There goes another beautiful
sunset. One could live forever like this. It would seem like forever anyway.
But I do wonder. How many flying fish have to die for this
dream to come to reality. Every morning we find maybe ½ dozen on the tramps or
on deck. To small to eat. Not much else to do but toss their little dead selves
back in. Some of them have done quite a flight too. They run into the rigging
and other boat surfaces and leave a trail of wings and scales and they self-destruct.
Its like a miniature motorcycle wreck with fish parts instead of bike parts. They
must see us and avoid hitting during the day because we rarely get one on deck
during daylight hours. But they party pretty hard at night. Hey fellas! Look at
me flyyyyy! Nice launch. Look out for the….
Ohhhhhhh, Whack! Nice splits! See ya Freddie. Was nice knowing ya. That’s what I think they say anyway. Its not
like I have actually heard them. Yet.
An ARC boat came into VHF range about 6 AM. Boingo Alive. German
monohull. Spoke to the Captain, Conrad, for a while. It was the first VHF
contact with another boat in several days. I think we both enjoyed the
distraction.
I got season 9 of the TV series “House” for Christmas. The
blood and gore medical drama. Turns out Merc and Iris are fans as well. We
watch one or two episodes a day. So how is that fun? Well, it was observed that
every episode has someone vomiting blood. So when we start a new episode we
place bets on how far into the show before someone vomits blood. Great fun. I
haven’t won yet but I think I am placing my bets a little two early into the
show. Seems it’s never in the first 11 minutes. So far anyway. Merc won a
couple of times. Iris once so far. But they did throw us a loop. One that will
help pass the time enormously. In back-to-back episodes they, A: Had no one
vomit blood, and, B: Had the same person vomit blood twice. So now we have a
veritable matrix to work with. First blood, second blood, no blood. Awesome. We
can entertain ourselves forever at this rate. Which is a good thing because we
are two weeks in and have a week yet to go. So it is forever for all intents
and purposes.
Had a nice sized pod of dolphins come to play yesterday. 50,
maybe 60 of them. Rather small species. Largest one less than three foot long.
Very agile creatures. Beautiful to watch. Very entertaining. Beats betting on
bloody vomit for sure. I have a new GoPro with a burst mode. Takes multiple
shots with one press of the shutter. Thought for sure I could get the elusive
breach for breath shot. Nope. Just a whole lot of shots of splashes. Next time
maybe.
I haven’t added anything to this for a couple of days now.
There is not much going on. No fish. Pretty good wind. Fresh fruit and
vegetables about gone. The moonshine is bubbling away in the galley. Its day 17
but It could just as easily be day 5 to me. We are about 200 miles from Hiva Oa
and the conclusion of this 3,000 mile passage. We heard on the SSB net that the
wind is dying down behind us. There are boats that are 750 miles back. They
were slow to start with and with the wind dying they are going to get even
slower. We are one day out. There are boats back there that still have 1 ½
weeks to go. We will not see everyone back in the same place until the
rendezvous in Nuku Hiva about three weeks from now. We are looking forward to
getting off the boat and stretching our legs some. The crew worked very well
together and there was no drama whatsoever. But we will be glad to be in the
company of others and as Iris put it “be able to walk more than 10 meters”. I
quite agree.
Last day. 128 miles to go. Ended a long dry spell on the
fishing front. Caught a 4 foot WhaHoo. OK, 46 inches. But I’m calling it a four
footer. Nice fish. 4 good dinners, some sashimi and some salt fish. Dinner
tonight is coconut curry Whahoo. My favorite fish. Thanks mother ocean.
Made it. 17 days and an hour or so. For a 21 day passage. We
are pretty happy with the time we made. Went onshore to clear in. After three
beers. Boy that island was rockin’. Very small crowded anchorage. Stern anchor
required. Tough to get settled in. We are going to get to know our neighbors
real well. There are a couple of small cruiser boats here who must be wondering
what happened to their little island paradise. All the ARC boats come storming
in. And land smells funny! After 17 days of sea air every little land odor is
magnified 1000 times. It smells like S#$T to me. Here for 5 hours and I want to
get out on passage already. I think I am allergic to dirt! But tonight I will
sleep the sleep of the dead. The last couple of nights were kind of busy. I
didn’t get much rest. I will not be woken up for anything. I hope.
But I have no clue as to what time it is. I think it is 3 ½
hours earlier that Galapagos time. 5 hours or so different than home. All I
know is I am very tired and I am going to sleep well tonight.
All for now and that was probably enough eh?
peace
Mike
