16º 58.351s 145º 29.821w
Mon Sep 30 2019
As
Mike Tyson used to say, “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the
mouth”. We departed Moorea Friday morning with the loose intentions of sailing
to the false pass on the Northwest corner of Tuahu. Lovely place, good snorkeling
and plenty of fresh coconuts to be had. I even know where a big grouper lives,
one without ciguatera, so it’s safe to eat. Mr. Weatherman made it look like
the sailing angle would support that decision, only we would have to motor for
the first few hours of the journey to get through a big blue hole.
Well,
that worked out to be about 20 hours of motoring, and when we did finally get
sailing conditions we found that our initial Southeasterly course had set us up
to sail a course almost to the Southeast corner of Tahanea, an atoll we hadn’t
yet visited. Heck let’s go! Tahanea is South and East of Tuahu, and the atoll
of Fakarave with both a North and South pass is in between. We needed a good
Southeasterly to lay Tahanea, and if that didn’t work out we could always fall
back on Fakarava as a fine compromise. Lots of pretty fishies and sharks to
swim with there. Between Fakarava to the Northwest and Tahanea to the Southeast
lies another atoll called Faaite. We haven’t considered it as an alternate stop,
but certainly we need to avoid hitting it and becoming another boat load of
hapless sailors who weren’t fully informed about or didn’t show proper respect
for their operational environment.
There’s
this darn schedule that’s driving us onwards towards Nuku Hiva in the
Marquesas, and come hell or high water we have to be there by October 14th and
hopefully much sooner. Shawnee hasn’t experienced any of it and we do want to
be good hosts; as well getting there a bit early will be a lot less stressful
and lower the risk of bad decision making driven by an aggressive schedule.
At
the end of the day, Mr. Weatherman drives our decisions, and as the conditions
evolve, so must our decision tree. The last couple of nights have served up
numerous squalls, the first night (Friday) on Isabel’s 0100 -0600 watch, and
last night (Saturday) on my 1800 – 0100 watch. Last night I put in reef 1 when
the wind built and the ride got rough, and then reef 2 as the seas built and
the ride got rougher, even though the winds had steadied out. Sometimes it’s
best to just slow the boat down and let folks sleep, as Seawind likely built a
tougher boat than our moms and dads built their sons and daughters. At least
that’s how it feels after several days of sleep deprivation.
Last
night Isabel even sailed along for a bit at only around 1 knot in the wee hours
as there were still squalls around and she didn’t want to shake the reefs out,
and she didn’t want to burn diesel just to get to our destination too early.
Recall that each of these atolls has one or more passes to enter the lagoon
through, and that entry must be timed with the wind and tidal flow. So, when I
arose this morning she was in the process of shaking out the reefs, and she was
obviously exhausted and unable to understand a problem with a tangled reefing
line. Off to bed Isabel, you’ve done your duty but you can’t think straight
anymore! Nothing to be ashamed of, happens to all of us and its why flight
crews have mandatory crew rest requirements.
Reefs
out, I spent the morning dodging squalls and keeping the boat speed under
control. Eventually Isabel and I put a reef back in the main Jamie Gifford
style, and that settled things down so that we’re moving along nicely without a
lot of bashing and crashing, and funnily enough Isabel noted that the boat
points a little higher as she’s reefed down. Going to have to study on that one
a bit.
PredictWind
serves up fresh weather twice a day. Where we are the forecast is new and
wonderful at 0900 and 2100, and we never neglect to read the news. This
morning’s weather update showed a big blue windless hole developing in another
day and a half, so after much pondering of our navels Isabel and I hatched a
new plan to continue our voyage a bit further Northeast to Makemo, an atoll
with 2 passes with a more Northeast exposure which should allow for safer entry
during these Southeast wind and swell conditions. We’re lucky that the wind
conditions aren’t even requiring us to tack, so we’re laying the course nicely.
Turns out slack water at the Northeast pass will be around 1300 tomorrow, so
we’ve now adjusted course and our attitudes AND Shawnees expectations to
experience this new atoll, an exciting opportunity because it’s one we’ve got
on our list to visit anyway. Looks like the blue hole will last a couple of
days, so current plan is to explore the atoll for a couple of days while we
also rest up, then be spring loaded to launch the 400+ nautical miles to Fatu
Hiva around Wednesday afternoon.
That
leg may involve some motoring in dead conditions, but that might give us a leg
up on what’s to follow, an unwanted Northeast breeze that will force us to beat
upwind all the way to the Marquesas. We much prefer a beam reach, but we must
get there so we’ll be watching closely and considering all our options for a
safe passage. I hate schedules.
Anyway,
as my old friend and work associate Sonny Ellis used to say, “if you can’t
handle inconsistency and dynamic rescheduling, you don’t belong in the flight
test business”. Ten to one everything changes again in another day and we’ll
have new actionable intelligence. We’ll roll with it, and not worry about the
things we can’t change.
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