Category: Fiji

To be honest, I’ve been trying to do another blog post for about the last three weeks. I start them, even finish them, but then can’t seen to find a time when the internet connection is good enough for long enough without interruption to actually upload everything. Then we are onto something else. Besides, this part of the journey is different than the previous couple of years. Then, like people going for a walk in the woods and wanting to go a little farther to see what’s up ahead; to maybe find that storied hidden glen they’d heard so much about, only to get there, see it, and then discover that the woods have grown dark behind them when they turn around to head home in time for dinner. Well, we sailed our own boat across a big chunk of latitude until the sun was in the north and the moon was upside down. We made it to New Zealand, saw it, did it, even bought a few T-shirts. But now we gotta get back home to mow the lawn and finish painting the house. That means that this part of our trip is for an entirely different purpose. It’s all about sailing back home. It’s all about moving an old boat from Point A to Point B. Sure, we did give a thought or two about selling the boat. But hey, what’s the fun in that? We got ourselves this far into the woods, we’re going to get ourselves back out.

It hasn’t been easy so far. This is the tail end (we hope) of the wet and hot season in Fiji. Being from Seattle, those seem like opposite weather concepts, but here the heat and humidity literally takes your breath away. We both had some first-hand experience with that. On the Thursday before Easter, we had two—or three if you count the taxi driver—groups of hired help doing physical labor for us. A couple guys washed, waxed and polished the upper hull—so easy while just about everything below the waterline is in a pit (actually, more like a trench), no ladders required. We had another group emptying our rented storage unit and loading everything into the back of a taxi. Then the taxi drove it all to the boat, and the guys unloaded everything and put it up on the deck. The distance was only a few hundred meters, but it sure beat lugging it all by hand like we did last year (right, Robyn?). Besides, all the rain had turned the road into pretty much a gooey, slippery mess. In addition to the hired help, Bill from the boat Ballena (Martin’s dad) had offered to help us with a few of the projects, such as getting the self-steering system back together, reinstalling the wind generator on the mizzen mast, and best of all, helping us fix a problem that has plagued us since the beginning of our trip: a liquid (okay, sewage) leak in our marine head. Marine Sanitation & Supply in Seattle had supplied us with a few parts and several suggestions, but Bill did the really hard physical heavy hitting. Literally, pounding with the biggest, heaviest hammer we could borrow from the guys in the boatyard workshop. In the middle of this productive and successful day, Julie was the first to have trouble. Suddenly unable to continue working, lying flat on her back and feeling sick, she asked for water and then started dumping it on herself. A little later it was my turn. It hit suddenly. I could not catch my breath. I was breathing hard, way too hard, but it was almost like I was getting no oxygen. I needed to sit down, but we were in the middle of something, and questions needed answers. The hard breathing continued and still I couldn’t catch my breath. This was not normal. I had never felt like this before. It went on and on, and I actually got a little worried that I was going to pass out and keel over. I had never felt like that before, either. We all called it a day, cooled off and went to the marina restaurant for lunch and cold drinks.

Finally, the day came. After the travel lift spun its wheels in the soft ground, only getting traction after enough shovel fulls of gravel, old tires and chunks of wood were thrown in front of its wheels, all 26 tons of Mysticeti was lifted from the pit and moved to the water’s edge where it was put up on stands beneath swaying palm trees in full view of the South Pacific sunset so that more hired help could put on another coat of bottom paint (plus a little extra leftover donated by our new friends on Crazy Love) while we bolted on the last remaining missing replacement piece of our Saye’s Rig self-steering: the broken off and sunk tiller arm. Not knowing the dimensions and bend angles of the stainless steel tiller arm that had been custom fitted during the original installation in the early eighties, all we had to work with was a few key measurements and whatever photographs we had taken over the years that just happened to show the original tiller arm. From that, we spent much of last January with a computer making a scaled drawing that, to the best that we could know, closely matched the dimensions and bend angles of the original. Then we gave it to Tim at Meridian Stainless, in Port Townsend, WA. We picked up his finished creation a few days before we flew back to Fiji. We haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, but it fit the rudder perfectly without any tweaking or screwing around.

We have a plan to sail back home. Of course, we had a plan last year too. But a few things will be different this time. For one, we got rid of the SPOT tracker. It had given us something to do: push a button twice a day. But it didn’t have enough satellite coverage away from land, and it would only keep our positions for six days. We never really knew if it was working or not. We plan to stick with the Farkwar map, if it still recognizes us. We won’t spend as much time around land as we did before, so we won’t have as much internet access, and we’ll rely on SSB Sailmail, and a new Garmin InReach. We plan to sail (or power, since it’s likely upwind) from Fiji to Apia, Samoa. We hope to only stay there just about long enough to refuel, refill the water tanks, and provision for the long haul. From Samoa it is hopefully a direct shot to Hawaii, with a potential stop along the way if necessary. We already have a marina reservation on Oahu, so we have to be there. And after Hawaii, we should be home in early August. Another new thing this year is we have a third crew. Her name is Jan, she came to us after spending time in Central America.

So, we’re out of the pit and back in the water. Still working to prepare the boat, we’ll be in the marina for a few more days. Then we’ll sail around a bit to test things out before checking out of Fiji and heading toward Samoa.

Posted by John

I’ve read more than once that going cruising means working on your boat in exotic places. I’ve also read that if you go cruising, you will, sooner or later, run aground. More recently, I’ve been told that you never really say goodbye to the other cruisers you meet along the way because you’ll keep running into them again and again further down the road. Now, after two years of being a cruiser, I can see the truth in these sentiments.

It seems like we’ve certainly done our share of boat work, but, so far at least, we haven’t run aground. However, there is something somehow disturbing about seeing your boat sitting on the grass like some tossed aside pool toy. Could this count as our grounding?

The idea of the pit is that boats shouldn’t fall over—as boats up on stands sometimes do during cyclones—and start a domino effect with other boats in the yard. We saw a boatyard in Mexico where that had happened. Many of the boats were still there, lying on their sides, on top of each other. It was troubling to see.

On the other hand, the boat on the left above really did run aground on a reef in Musket Cove. That’s why it’s pointing in a different direction than the other anchored boats, and its bow is sightly out of the water. It was floated free on the next high tide. Lucky for them, their inevitable grounding is now behind them, and they didn’t appear to suffer any serious damage. That was not the case for others. We heard the drama unfold on the radio on three different occasions as boats went aground and their crews were rescued. The first happened early in our trip, when a fishing boat ended up on the beach on the wrong side of the jetty at Westport, on the Washington coast. We don’t know the ultimate fate of that first boat, but the other two were cruising sailboats, and were destroyed. One happened in Mexico during the Baja Ha-Ha rally, and the other in French Polynesia. All three happened at night.

From day one we’ve been frustrated with breakage, finding replacements for things and having to make repairs. The first thing to go was part of a latch on the forward hatch. We drilled out a rivet and put in a screw to fix it. By the time we got to San Diego the list was up to thirty-five items that had failed, broken or had accidentally gone overboard. We stopped adding to the list. It was just extra work to keep it up. But if we had, the list would be hundreds of items long by now and include everything from badly corroded, crumbling metal parts on supposedly “marine grade” products, to multiple repairs on each sail, including the complete replacement of one. We even had to replace our dinghy. It seems that just as we repair one problem, a new one turns up. Even our bottom paint failed. The Vuda boatyard manager had the local representative for the paint company come out and look at our boat. We’ve heard from others who also used the same paint and collected a ton of barnacles in a short time. It shouldn’t happen like that. High cost bottom paint is for preventing barnacles in the first place. It’s supposed to last longer than four months.

After two years in Mexico and the South Pacific, we’re not sure what an exotic place to work on the boat would be anymore. But Vuda Point seems like it would qualify. Plus it’s scenic, and feels less industrial than most. There’s even a picnic spot with a gas barbecue and a great view of the sunset.

Of course, if you don’t want to do all the work yourself, you can always hire a crew of “casuals.” For us, that would really be exotic.

As much fun as our nice little cottage with the backyard clothesline was, we had to move out (someone else had pre-booked it). But we moved into the twice-as-big apartment instead. That’s it, the whole upper floor of the brown building on the left.

The deck on the apartment is big, sits above the open air restaurant with its live music on Fridays and Sundays, and overlooks the boat traffic in and out of the marina.

And here comes Jeff and Katy on Mezzaluna, back in from a sea trial. They’ve been working for weeks, including three travel lift round-trips, trying to solve problems with their propeller shaft, motor mounts and transmission. One thing leads to another. They finally have it down to some minor remaining vibration. Katy is on the bow talking with Ingmar from the Swedish boat Hakuna Matata, who we ran into a number of times in French Polynesia, and who has some professional experience with vibration problems in a former working life.

When we first arrived here, we shared a taxi into town with Jeff. We noticed curious train-like rails along the road. They were too small for a real train, and looked like something you’d see in an amusement park. Jeff said they were for the sugar cane train.

Having seen the small rails, when he said sugar cane I immediately thought of “sugar plum,” or maybe “candy cane,” and imagined Santa Claus hanging out of a tiny locomotive pulling tiny train cars. I had to see one of these for myself.

The locomotives are bigger than I imagined. The operator fits completely inside and doesn’t hang out at all. Still, they’re pretty small. The tracks all lead to the sugar cane processing plant in Lautoka.

We hadn’t expected to run into Mezzaluna here, and they hadn’t planned to be here. They came because they suddenly needed repairs. Windrose never planned to still be here, expecting instead to be in Vanuatu by now. They’ve been waiting for repair parts for their engine. They loaned us their water hose and a cart. We gave them some of our food stores. Me Too was here, but is headed for the Marshall Islands where they plan to leave their boat next year while they go home and hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. They left early in the morning. Jill saw me sitting on the apartment deck and shouted, “Hey Mysticeti, get on Facebook.” Terrapin sold their boat and are leaving it here for the new owners to pick up next year. It’s hard to give up your boat, it becomes so much of your identity. Sky Blue Eyes dropped in for a couple days to pick up a new propeller for their dinghy outboard, and then stayed for pizza night. Elysium, another Westsail 42 which we had met previously, had been involved in an accident in Suva harbor and came here for repairs. We’re going home with a long list of things to figure out before we come back next year. For one thing, we need to find a new third crew member. Robyn has been formally removed from our official crew list.

Such is cruising.

No one ever really says goodbye.

Next up: ”Oh hey, you’re back. How was your trip?”

Posted by John

So we left New Zealand wrapped up in multiple layers of fleece, hats and gloves. We had decided we would leave when the weather looked right. We were not alone in our thinking. There were several other boats also looking for an opening.

We had been comparing weather notes almost daily with Anna Caroline, a boat from The Netherlands, that was moored just a few slips away. We were all looking at the weather models for a good five days out, and especially for agreement between the European and American versions. Not only were the outputs quite different between the two, but they would seem to change daily. Our Dutch friends told us more than once that they would be leaving in the morning, only to stop by later to say that they weren’t. It was like that for a few days: go, no go; up and down; not sure if maybe some seasonal weather window had closed. We even checked in with the local Customs officer to make sure our questionable immigration status wouldn’t cause a problem when it was time to go. He assured us that it “looked like” we had done all the right things. But also, we knew, he was Customs, not Immigration.

Then a window appeared to open. We decided to leave the next day, on a Monday. Anna Caroline said they were going to leave on Tuesday. They came back later to say they had decided to leave on Monday as well. The next day they departed for New Caledonia, and we left for Fiji.

Trying to take advantage of the southerly winds between a departing low pressure system and the next approaching high following it, the first night was on the rough side. The wind itself wasn’t too bad, but the swells from the passing storm were quite uncomfortable.

If something bad is going to happen, invariably it will be when it’s rough, and in the middle of the night. We had a randomly beeping alarm of unknown origin. It is my opinion that alarm manufacturers must all use the same tiny electronic beepers made by the same Chinese company. They all sound alike. We finally found the aft cabin carbon monoxide detector, with expired batteries, to be the source of the annoying beeps. A fresh set of double A’s silenced it.

We had a couple of squally days with lightning, rain showers and shifting winds before developing a new problem of a very different nature: almost dead calm. We started the engine and motored continuously for what seemed like days and days. Stuck in a high pressure system, we burned all but our most essential of fuel reserves. We droned on and on inside of a big blue bubble encompassing all we could see. We were on an ocean treadmill. Going, but perhaps going nowhere, it seemed. The GPS told us we were moving, but we could see no difference in scenery from day to day. At night, however, the Milky Way was spectacular, startling in its unexpected brightness.

Finally, satisfied that we were far enough north to not be bothered by the storm now affecting New Zealand, we shut off the engine and sailed, albeit slowly, across the Tropic of Capricorn. The hats, gloves and multiple layers had all come off by now, the sun rose sooner and set later, and the days turned into a frustration of, “Are we there yet?”

However, all was not carefree. Still a little gun-shy from our last outing, we noticed new creaks and noises in the boat. We had a nagging question as to why the wheel had to be turned forty-five degrees to the left in order for the boat to steer straight. And although the engine itself seemed normal, we had a new, definite vibration somewhere in the prop shaft or transmission. We can’t help but think that we have an old boat, and we’ve beat it up pretty good over the last two years. It’s frustrating when every day seems to bring a new problem or concern, and easy to dwell on them during endless hours of darkness, at night, in the middle ocean.

After 1,050 nautical miles, we entered Naula Pass and into the calm water behind the reef. We anchored in Momi Bay, on the Fijian island of Viti Levu. It was Saturday night, nearly two weeks after leaving New Zealand. On Monday morning, at the very first lightening of the sky, we raised the anchor and motored the 15 miles to Vuda Point to begin the day-long process of getting through Bio-Security, Customs, Health and Immigration before being squeezed into the odd (by our standards), circular marina.