Plan A, Plan B, Plan C? Friday 31 July 2020

Well David made a splendid café latte for each of us today while Chris began drawing and making notes on our poxy little world map. Turns out our imaginations hadn’t really run as wild as we should have let them.

 

The first part of our master plan still remains. Stay in French Polynesia until May 2021 before heading west with the hopes of visiting Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tonga. Afterwards the plans diverge.

 

Plan A - head on through Fiji for a bit, then possibly New Caledonia or Vanautu before heading southwest towards Frasar Island, Australia. We need to be south of that area during the southern hemisphere summer cyclone season anyway, so why not cruise down the east coast of Australia, hop across the Bass Strait during a period of extremely calm weather then cruise around Tasmania for a few months. Australia offers plenty of opportunities to secure JollyDogs in a marina and enjoy some inland travel, perhaps fly back to the US and UK for family visits, and obviously visit the Seawind factory in Vietnam to see a new 1370 in the build process. Might as well fly into Phuket for a Thai food fix and a visit with our buds Brian and Charles. With the right weather window, we could depart Oz around May 2022 for New Caledonia and work our way to Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and on towards Papua, New Guinea. From there perhaps we head on to Indonesia for some more good cookin’. As long as we find our way out of the cyclone belt and eventually somewhere where JollyDogs will fetch a fair price we’re good! We reckon we’ll need to ship stuff to Lankawi to put on JollyDogs part deux, but we still don’t know when. Maybe we’ll just sail JollyDogs there and put our stuff in a shed. Depends when our new baby is going to be ready. Cruising around Thailand offers wonderful food, beautiful sights, friendly people. Maybe by then Vietnam will open up as a practical cruising ground! Who doesn’t love Vietnamese food? Anybody sense a recurring theme here?

 

Plan B - after Tonga sail northwest towards the Marshall Islands and then wander around Micronesia. Eventually still end up at Lankawi to unload our stuff.

 

Plan C – After Tonga sail to Minerva Reef and wait for a safe weather window for New Zealand. Figure out the route towards Lankawi after cyclone season ends in 2022.

 

We’ll probably hatch a Plan D etc. by tomorrow, but for now that’s what we’re thinking. Feel free to weigh in with your own adventure thoughts! Email us at jollydogsrcc@gmail.com. Heck, we’ve got some bandwidth right now.

 

Everybody has to be somewhere doing something. Might as well plan for success, fun, adventure, and mind-expanding cultural experiences. We’d do better if we had a big map to spread out on the dining table. Maybe we’ll bug our geographer pals and very close personal friends Mike and Tami to find us just the perfect map and bring it to us!

 

I think we’re leaning towards Plan A. Both of us are keen to spend time looking around Tasmania, and Australia holds a really special place in both our hearts, as that’s where we first met. With any luck this coronavirus thing will work itself out by next May and we can visit some of the more remote and “medical resource poor” countries on our way to the land of Oz. If things sort out a bit faster we’ll hope to fly down to New Zealand and enjoy visiting friends and perhaps a little America’s Cup action March of 2021 before launching west. Time will tell.

 

It’s a high-class problem to have, trying to decide what places to sail to next. Of course, trying to decide where to sell JollyDogs, who to sell her to and when, well that’s also a high class problem. We’re pretty fond of our girl, and she’s really working well in this environment. Looks like we got a few things right. Somebody’s going to be really lucky to call her their own someday.

Wow this place REALLY does not suck! Friday 31 July 2020

Huahine seems to be agreeing with us. It’s a gorgeous island, and down her at Avea Bay it’s pretty quiet. There are a couple of small villages in the area, a small beach resort and a nearby restaurant, and a lovely bay to enjoy paddling the SUP. We’ve got several pals in the anchorage with us, and more anchored at other spots around the island. Our buds on SV Maple are coming this way from Riaitea and soon it’ll feel like old home week.

 

Last night Isabel knocked up a killer Thai curry with some of that dogtooth tuna we caught up at Fakarava. Chris and David from SV Taipan joined us for dinner – we had intentions of reviewing maps of Asia to do some cruise planning in the region, but things got a bit out of hand so we’ll do that today over a cuppa. Those guys provide a serious mentoring opportunity, as they’ve sailed almost the same route around the world that we’ve at least fantasized about. Like Behan and Jamie’s clients, its nice to have a coach that’s really gotten out and done it.

 

SV Agape was here when we arrived with Rachel’s dad on board – on Wednesday we all went round the corner to try a little kite boarding but it turned out to be a pretty stormy day so we pulled the plug on that endeavor. Wednesday night we had the thunderstorm from hell, complete with nutso winds from all directions and plenty of lightning. We hate lightning. A lightning strike on a boat generally does severe damage to rigging and electronics, something that takes $$ and time to correct, along with the hassles of the insurance claim. The risk of being struck is perhaps not so bad in an anchorage with other boats and high terrain nearby, but when we’re out at sea and our mast is the tallest conductive thing on the horizon it feels like we’re sitting ducks.

 

Fortunately our mooring held fine and the lighting spared us, so we’ll live another day. The rainstorm was pretty wild and as we used to say, it was raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock, so Thursday when we got up it was to a very clean boat – no salt anywhere. Quick – before we’re overcome by laziness whip out the polishing compound and paste wax and get to work. Gel coat loves wax, but in this sun it oxidizes pretty quickly so some light polishing compound helps bring it back. We got most of the topsides done, and will continue to hack away at it for the next few days until that task is complete. It’s a big job – nice to space it out a bit.

 

Our rule of thumb is each day should involve a task such as boat maintenance, some physical exercise and some adventure. Paddling the SUP is back on the list here as it’s a calm enough bay, and I’m even motivated to attempt the repair on the other board that got eaten by that blasted lemon shark. When the wind comes back kite boarding will be back on the list, but in the meantime there are some nice hikes and snorkeling and such, also plenty of socializing to be had so boredom isn’t a risk. The hammock calls to us in the afternoon, and that’s pretty much impossible to resist. Naps are good.

 

The cell network here provides enough data for emails and WhatsApp calls, so that’s good. It also allows us to look at the daily news, so that’s bad. The world is a bizarre place right now, between political and social upheaval and coronavirus. Our objective is to stay as far from all that as possible but participate in the political process as responsible citizens should. Let’s hope the current administration’s efforts to disenfranchise us aren’t successful.

Chillin at Huahine Wednesday 29 July 2020

Well we worked the deal with our new friend Ryan who sold us a gently used 12-meter Airush Union kite and bar/string set with a new leading-edge bladder that still needed installation. Our other new friend Yannick who installed the new bladder and tested the kite for integrity. Yannick is the Airush dealer for French Polynesia, a fun part time gig he has along with his full-time job as a marine biologist. Yannick came from France about 30 years ago to study the reef life and coral health, met a beautiful local woman, made a couple of babies and the rest is history. They’re both passionate kiters on the weekends and I was lucky enough to coerce Yannick into installing the bladder, a slightly technical and complicated task, especially for a newbie like me. He met up with me Monday morning to deliver the kite and we had a chance to talk about the health of the coral in French Polynesia. Yannick has seen a remarkable degradation in the coral life over his 30-year career here, obviously the product of global warming. We can argue about whether it’s a natural global cycle or man-made, but it’s definitely happening. We’ve seen a lot of bleached and dead coral since arriving and are always delighted when we find coral that’s live and healthy. Unfortunately, we’re almost surprised when we find lots of healthy coral. Glad we don’t have grandchildren, because they’ll have to look at pictures of live coral or see it at a coral zoo.

 

The weather forecast promised a nice overnight passage to Huahine, our leeward Society island objective about 90 miles away. We departed the anchorage about 1300 even though that was a bit early – apparently we’d both had enough jet ski and tour boat traffic to last a lifetime. Soon we were tooling along nicely with full main and jib, looking at the miles melt away and thinking “we don’t really want to arrive at the pass before dawn”. Before supper we put a reef in the main to try and slow down a bit, as JollyDogs was galloping like a racehorse for the finish line, and we were looking for something more like a cow heading to the milking barn. We were on a beam reach with 12- 14 knots of wind, and the trouble with a Seawind 1160 is it’s a serious sailboat, not a condomaran, and she wanted to go!

 

Isabel crashed after supper and by 2300 I noted that we’d likely arrive well before sunup, so put another reef in the main sail, Jamie Gifford style. No reason to come head to wind with all that flapping and drama – just drop the main halyard about 20 centimeters, haul in on the reef line, and repeat until the sail is down where I want it. Once all looks good, clip on to the jack lines and get on the cabin top to clean up the sail that’s spilled out of the lazy jacks and bag, then we’re off to the races.

 

I woke Isabel up around midnight and she stood watch until it was just cracking dawn and then fetched me to the helm. We had arrived at the pass around 0430 and she’d hove to for a bit, working to avoid another boat “SV Lef” that was doing exactly the same thing. I stumbled up into the cockpit and she handed me a steaming cup of joe and we motored in towards the pass, finding an opportunity to drop the main as we motored in.

 

The pass was a cinch, and soon we were touring the anchorages near the village of Fare, not finding any available internet hotspots so we continued on down to the South end of the channel, about 1 ½ hour’s journey. There we found our close friends Chris and David on SV Taipan, who pointed out a fine mooring that we could take. Well heck, we’ll just keep the anchor dry and warm and tie up to that sucker. David launched the dinghy and helped Isabel nab the mooring line, and soon I had set up a bridle system using our long dock lines and chafe protection.

 

After shifting into housekeeping mode, we launched our own dinghy and joined David and Chris for a pancake breakfast, yakking about this and that until mid-day, then returning to JollyDogs for a nap.

 

Let the games begin!

What is next? Sunday 26 July 2020

Well we escaped from Papeete, mostly motoring into a headwind then a little motor sailing as the wind came round, dropping the hook in Cook’s Bay, Mo’orea mid-afternoon. Get everything settled then off to the fuel station with 8 jerry cans – 7 for diesel, or gasoil as they call it here, and one for gasoline, or essence, that what makes the dinghy outboard go. Present the duty-free exemption papers, pump the fuel, load it into the dinghy, pay the bill and voila! Back to JollyDogs to decant the diesel into the main tanks along with a bit of Biobor JF to make sure nothing grows in our fuel tanks. Gotta be careful of diesel in a tropical environment. With a large air volume in the tanks and the warm, moist air, without additives to kill the beast, icky stuff can grow in diesel and choke the fuel lines, filters, and fill the tank with sludge. Our pals on SV Leela recently had that experience and lost propulsion while motor sailing from Mo’orea back to Papeete. Got a tow into the marina, cut an inspection hole in the tank, had an access panel machined for a few hundred bucks, then spent the next week cleaning out their tank, scrubbing the fuel, etc. My borescope and extra jerry cans came in handy for that project, as did the trusty Makita jigsaw and Honda generator to run it.

 

Papeete was smelly and noisy. We returned to the boat each day covered with dust, and with sinuses clogged by diesel soot and 2-cycle motor scooter exhaust fumes. Access to cell data and local wifi meant that we could check email and international news at our whim. Trust me, that’s a bad thing.

 

Visits to civilization are a necessary evil. We checked lots of blocks. Got stuff done. Bought a new boat. Took care of business. But all the internet access was putting snakes in our heads, Jack. Remember that redheaded lady security guard you met in Truth or Consequences?

 

It was time to escape.

 

So now we’re anchored on the reef West of Oponuhu Bay, getting more business done. Yesterday was make new friends day. Nice folks! Kite gear to sell. Today was take the gear to the local “dude” for inspection and repair. Great guy! Trust his judgement. Tomorrow is collect the gear, pay for the repairs and gear, then prepare to blast off. We cleaned the props and hull today. The passage weather forecast looks good. We’ll blast off for the short overnight passage to Huahine tomorrow afternoon after mission accomplished. Can’t wait to spend some quality time with Chris and David on SV Taipan. There’s still time for them to adopt us, or perhaps we’ll adopt them!

 

We don’t feel settled right now. Both of us long for that quiet, calm feeling we had during the isolation at Raroia or our month of bliss at Tahanea. Time to get the hell out of dodge and reduce the noise floor. Yoga in the morning. SUP paddling. Kiting in the afternoon. Snorkeling on the reef. Chilling out with friends. Learning to play on the new Yamaha guitar we bought at Magic City in Papette. Back to a sensible existence, rather than total consumerism.

 

It was necessary, but all a bit too much. We need to return to a simpler life. You can keep your 24/7 news cycle; all it does is jack everyone up. I can’t imagine how many shrinks the news services must employ to make sure they can manipulate folks. Gotta keep ‘em checking in, seeing those adverts, eating that political red meat.

 

It’s all a load of BS.

 

It has all made us anxious to not be so damn restless and unsettled.

 

Back to just “being”.

Sucked into the Papeete vortex! Saturday 25 Jul 20

Well the sail from the south pass of Fakarava to Tahiti wasn’t the fastest we’ve had, but it was quite pleasant with no squalls, and apparently the speed was just right for a meter long mahi mahi to gobble up the fishing lure Carla on SV Ari-B made for us. We haven’t caught a mahi mahi since we were in Mexico and were pretty chuffed!

 

For the most part the wind was on the stern and we flew the twin headsail rig, but eventually it crept up enough and the seas were flat enough that we were able to fly the main and screecher and make some good speed before finally furling the screecher and rolling out the jib for the last few hours of the trip. We rounded Point Venus at the northwest tip of Tahiti around 0830 and proceeded on down to the main harbor entrance, slipping on the inside of the arrival pontoon around 1000 on Sunday July 5^th 2020. It had been nearly a year since we’d taken a marina berth but a marina employee caught a line and soon we were safely moored. Marina Papeete was still charging low season rates, so about $20 a night for us plus any water we used which was cheap.

 

The arrival pontoon accommodates about 16 vessels and is in front of the new facilities which include the marina office and a bar / restaurant, but the covid pandemic has delayed the grand opening, now scheduled for early August. It’s an impressive waterfront development. What’s the best thing about marina life? Unlimited potable water! Let the long showers begin! Feels like when we visit a hotel these days. . .

 

Our objectives in Papeete were to get routine annual physicals, dental checkups, dermatologist inspections, and to visit the US Consular official to get a US Notary Public stamp on a legal document. Mission accomplished, and perhaps more about that another time. Also on the list, repair and upgrade parts for JollyDogs, spear guns, fishing lures, some clothing, and lots of serious provisioning. Welcome to the “land of plenty”. The veritable cornucopia of fresh fruit, vegetables, and the weekly Sunday market features “pork products” as Isabel likes to call the various barbequed meaty goodness that the vendors only bust out on Sunday mornings.

 

For folks like us who had spent months in the Tuamotus with access to only coconuts, fish, conch and crabs when we could catch them, going to Papeete is like being a kid in a candy store. We walked about a mile down to the Carrefour and slowly wandered up and down every aisle, marveling at the vast selection of everything we could imagine. Wine! Cheese! Charcuterie! Real, fresh butter rather than the tinned stuff! My French isn’t so good and my Polynesian is awful, so I’m sure I missed the “clean up on aisle 5, aisle 6, aisle 7, aisle 8” announcements over the store loudspeaker as we stumbled up and down each aisle, drooling like mad hatters at the dining and adult beverage possibilities.

 

Marina life is also very social in nature. Friends we’d made since arriving in French Polynesia were in various slips around the facility, so sharing happy hour and meals aboard various boats was the order of the day. SV’s Leela, Rapture, Sugar Shack, Ari-B, Long Temps, September A.M., Yamaya, and more came and went during the course of our stay. We even had an evening at the local craft brewery, Les Trois Brasseurs.

 

We were in the marina for a total of 19 days, a fun and productive time. We accomplished all our major objectives, filled JollyDogs up with enough dining options to weather a zombie apocalypse, and identified major resources that will make life better in future. Such things as the variety of chandleries and the Technimarine shipyard where we’ll likely haul out for fresh bottom paint before departing French Polynesia next May.

 

Yep, with all the craziness in the world and the countries to the West still mostly closed or all horked up with quarantines and such, we’ve pretty much decided to spend another year kite boarding and spear fishing in these parts. Well why not?

Where's the fireworks? Saturday 4 Jul 20

Well I got Isabel up for her watch at 0200, about 2 hours later than I used to. Turns out that brownies have sugar which gives one a buzz. Combine that with the brain stimulation provided by House MD episodes and remaining awake late into the night is easy. Who’d a thunk it? Got 2 of my needed blocks of sleep, 1.5 hours each, and found myself awake about 0545. Another block of sleep would have been great, but the whistle of the kettle and the smell of fresh coffee got my motor running. That’s one of the problems sailing with wind on the stern – coffee aroma wafts into the master cabin and turns my brain on. Anywho, up I came and found Isabel relaxing in her favorite watch position, kicking back on the stern bench seat where she could see the world going by, and our most successful fishing lure already deployed.

 

The first couple of days at sea on a long passage are the toughest, then we get our resting rhythm going. The worst passages are single night or 2-night trips, just enough time for one’s body to get confused but not enough time to establish necessary rest patterns. Whatever, we’re not going to slow the boat down to make the trip longer, and we can’t make the wind blow harder than it wants to. Overnight and right now the wind is lighter than forecast which is a bummer, but we’re still averaging around 4.5 knots or more and should arrive just around dark tomorrow night at the latest. I’ve alerted the marina to enquire about their night lighting and slip availability, but if we’re running a bit late we’ll sail into the bay on the leeward side of Point Venus and drop the hook. It’s a nice sheltered anchorage, black volcanic sand bottom, and it’s not unusual to see mamma whales and their young’uns in there during the calving season.

 

We’ll find our way into Marina Papeete by Monday morning at the latest. Last night the PolyMagNet SSB net had a number of vessels underway checking in, several of which were headed to Tahiti. We seem to be leading the pack, and as it’s a dead downwind sail for almost all of us we’re likely enjoying the most pleasant sailing. Monohulls roll like nuts in these dead downwind conditions when they’re sailing wing and wing, but for us we just putter along with our simple little simbo rig, doing around 45 – 50% of true wind speed. We ride up and down the swells as they pass under the stern moving forward and the gentle motion is quite relaxing. Yay catamaran!

 

There will be a forecast update on Predictwind at 0910 local time. Let’s hope it shows a steady 15 knots from the East for the remainder of the voyage, and that the real weather actually behaves like the forecast. For now we’re just kicking back thinking about that next fish we’re hoping to catch, wondering if the solar input will top up the batteries today, considering what we ought to eat for breakfast, etc. Ours certainly is a high pressure world.

 

Thinking back to the 4^th of July fireworks displays we’ve enjoyed together, perhaps the most spectacular was in San Diego bay. In 2013 we joined Thad and Kristen and some of their friends on their boat, SV She’s No Lady to watch the amazing fireworks display launched from several barges around the bay. Everything was synchronized to the music broadcast by a local FM radio station – really well done. Perhaps the most unusual display, the one that really stimulated all our senses was in Silverton, Colorado. We were camping up there and had driven into town to enjoy the evening with new friends we had met in a boutique rum distillery. Silverton is at 9000 feet MSL elevation with lots of big steep mountains around and extremely crisp clear air. The fireworks would launch and go bang, and long after the visual stimulation was over the reverberation of the explosion sounds from the nearby mountains and cliffs were a treat for our ears.

 

Sounds like coronavirus is going to put a damper on festivities this year. Guess a great backyard BBQ with close friends will have to suffice.

Goodbye, Fakarava! Friday 3 Jul 20

Well the wind velocity, gust factor and direction relative to the reef and sand banks made for kiting conditions “not conducive” to Isabel’s learning and beyond my own envelope with our 10 meter Lithium kite, so Thursday 2 July we pulled the plug around 1030. Up came the anchor, out rolled the twin headsail simbo rig and we had a lovely, albeit quick sail down to the anchorage by the South pass. About the time we arrived it blew up a good squall so we used light motor thrust to hold position until the little storm subsided then identified a good place to drop the hook. Lots of bommies there so it’s almost luck to get the anchor into sand, but we pulled it off. The wind blew around 20+ all afternoon and most of the evening and it was from the East so there was big chop running through the anchorage. Still I slept like a baby last night.

 

This was the opportunity to SCUBA dive the big annual grouper spawning event along with the amplified “wall of sharks”. A French cruiser named Phillipe arranged for a group of us to go with Top Dive boat, NITROX and all gear included for only 5000 CFP, about $46. Smokin’ deal, and it included divemaster Dimitri who led us along the preferred route to see hundreds of sharks and more grouper than I’ve ever even imagined. Worth the price of admission!

 

Isabel wasn’t up for it – needs some recurrency training – and after I returned to JollyDogs mid-day she proposed we consider launching for Tahiti to exploit the most favorable weather conditions. Why not? We hustled to ready the boat and by 1300 the anchor was up and we were motoring towards the pass. Near the end of an incoming tide and with the wind moving in the same direction, the exit through the rather narrow pass was uneventful and soon we had the simbo rig set and the wind dead astern. Fifteen knots of wind got us around 7 – 7.5 knots SOG and with the seas dead astern there was nothing for me to do but go take a nap while Isabel deployed our favorite fishing lure (Carla from SV Ari-B made it for us). Round about 1600 we noticed the bungee was active, and soon I was pulling in a 1 meter long mahi mahi while Isabel readied the “bringing aboard and killing gear”. Soon I had that sucker gaffed and was hacking away at the gills so the fish would bleed out. Mahi mahi put up a pretty lively fight, boys even worse than the girls. Turned out this one was a girl, big enough after filleting to make about 8 meals for the 2 of us. That’s some seriously tasty protein!

 

The weatherman promised livelier conditions that we’re currently experiencing, but we’re still averaging 5 knots. If we can keep this up we should make landfall in Tahiti Sunday afternoon. It’s nearly 0200 now and about time to wake Isabel up for her watch. I’m the PolyMagNet controller tomorrow so after my morning show if it’s still this light we’ll be switching to a full main sail and schreecher, then bearing off a bit to make some speed. The geometry works out so that it’s still faster than sailing the rhumb line.

 

Isabel will have season 3 of Game of Thrones to keep her alert tonight. I ploughed through several episodes of House MD myself, as well as several of the brownies she baked while I was diving. The sugar buzz is starting to wear off – about time to crash.

 

It’s the 4^th of July here but the only fireworks we’ll enjoy will be catching another fish or 3. Fingers crossed we fill the freezer with high quality protein before we arrive Tahiti. I’ll take a yellow fin tuna and another couple mahi mahi, if you please. Nice compliment to the dog tooth tuna and sail fish we’ve already got in the freezer.