Greetings from…

Pinniped’s log book, 1997

After the ordeal of installing the new engine in Papeete, we had one month to enjoy all of the rest of the Society Islands of Polynesia.  It also gave us a chance to work out the new engine.  We had a wonderful time in Huahine, Raiatea, Tahaa and, of course, the jewel of the Societies, Bora Bora. 

The Line Islands 

We finally left in mid December to head north out of the hurricane belt to the Line Islands of Kiribati.  These islands are just above the equator in a line between Tahiti and Hawaii.  They are the western most territory of the Gilbert Islands, now known as Kiribati. 

We arrived at Christmas Island on December 21, the weekend before Christmas.  We were trying to check into the country and get up to Fanning Island where 11 yachts were laying over for the season.  With the help of a local expatriate, Kim, who rounded everybody up for us, we managed to complete formalities, get fuel and a few supplies and get underway again in 2 days.  We had a beautiful down wind sail to Fanning with a favorable current.  We did the 158 mile trip in 26 hours, a new record for us.  Customs cooperated and quickly cleared us in to the island so we could join the rest of the fleet for a Christmas Eve Party.  We just made it because Fanning’s date is the same as the rest of the Kiribati on the other side of the Dateline.  It was tomorrow already.  We had lost a day in the process. 

Fanning is a truly remote Pacific island.  It is over 1,000 miles south of Hawaii and 1,200 miles east of their own capital of Tarawa.  There is a supply ship every couple of months.  There are 1,500 people living here, most resettled from the other overcrowded islands in the west.  It is the frontier.  There are no paved roads, very few vehicles other than bicycles, no electricity, no running water, no phone service and the people actually live in “grass shacks”.  Our only contact with the outside world was daily ham radio contact with a friend in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

What they do have is a very complex social structure and a “Coconut Telegraph” that is unbelievably efficient.  These are a very kind and generous people who live a simple existance but are by no means “poor”.  They have constantly given us gifts of fish, papaya, squash and coconuts in return for our help with simple repairs.  Money is not a basic motivation here.  This is the first time we have become extensively involved with the locals.  It has been a fascinating four months.  Our next stop is Penryhn Island in the Cook Islands, 1,000 miles back south.  Back to the South Pacific. 

Penrhyn Island 

We had a very nice sail down to Penrhyn Island from Fanning.  Long ocean crossings have now become almost routine.  If it isn’t at least a thousand miles, then it’s no big deal.  We have found that open ocean sailing in the South Pacific is actually much easier than San Francisco Bay sailing.  It certainly is much warmer.  

Penrhyn is the northernmost island in the Cook Islands nation.  Penrhyn is very different, socially, than Fanning.  Here everyone lives in western style houses, not grass huts.  There are phones, motor scooters, money and pearls.  Lots of pearls.  It is the currency of choice of the islanders.  The first couple of days here was a non stop line up of people wanting to trade for pearls.  We could have traded practically every item on the boat for pearls.  The big problem is-What do you do with them?  We have very little use for them, you can’t eat them.  If we try to resell them latter we would probably loose our shirts, not to mention all of that boat equipment. 

  So, most of the time we made no deals since we did not have the expertise to judge and value the pearls.  What we did do was sell things for cash.  Every boat has some left over things that you can live without and we are soon going to Pago Pago, American Samoa, the K-Mart of the South Pacific to re-supply.  While here, we traded our information about the Line Islands with another boat  for their information about Pago Pago. 

The Penrhyn Islanders have a well earned reputation as shrewd horse traders with their pearls.  You never see the good stuff early on.  We also played Yankee traders with our stuff that we REALLY didn’t want to trade but MIGHT be convinced to part with-for the RIGHT price.  It’s good sport and they do it to a fine art.   

There is a Marine Research Institute on the island that is working on increasing the pearl yield from the island.  We spent a morning there and learned a great deal.  Their chief engineer, an American, recommended that we only take pearls that we wanted to keep for our selves and not try to become pearl dealers.  Leave that for the experts.   

We will be crossing the lagoon to the village on the other side.  They have a reputation for being even more aggressive traders over there.  It is necessary to have one of us stationed on the bow reading the water all the way across the lagoon because there are coral heads in the lagoon that can rip the bottom out of your boat if you hit them.  The depth sounder is not so helpful because they rise straight up with no warning to the depth sounder.  You need to cross with the sun high and read the color of the water, dark blue is deep, light green is shallow.  The water is clear enough to see the hazards well.

 As we approached the other side of the lagoon, an aluminum skiff came out to meet us.  It was Daniel and Maui, who we had met on the other side.  They had checked us out to get the jump on their competition.  We barely had the anchor down when they were aboard.  They had a lot of wants, but we didn’t have a lot of need for their pearls.  We declined their initial offerings but kept talking and showing them all sorts of things that they really wanted to have.  Then other pearls started coming out of other pockets and the serious trading began. 

 After about three hours they had about a hundred dollars worth of tools, dive masks, kitchen knives and anchor line and we had over a dozen natural golden pearls.  It’s kind of like going to Reno, just don’t play with the rent money.  It was a fun afternoon.  We also did small trades for handcrafts.  Each side went away convinced that they got the better end of the deal.  Who knows.

 The following day we visited on the island with the local minister who had the unlikely name of Jubilee.  He had been on the boat with Daniel and Maui and had just wanted a padlock and key, for a pearl, naturally.  He told us that he had some carvings to show us and wondered if we had any wood working tools.  I ended up with a (too) large carved wooden bowl for an embarrassingly small collection of well used tools.  He was happy to get them.  I was also pleased to be giving him the help that he needed to make more carvings. 

 He had one other large, beautiful, intricately carved piece that I thought I could make a play for.  $1,000 he said.  Gulp!  Thanks, but no thanks.  The bad news was that it was probably worth it. 

We returned back across the lagoon to Omoku and were joined by our friends on “Syrena”.  We had first met them in Mexico and have subsequently met up with them in Pappete and in Fanning and now here in Penrhyn.  We will be tracking together over the next few weeks.  Cruising is like that.

 One of the interesting things that  we saw here is the Marine Research Center where they try to increase pearl production.  We have all seen movies where there is a modern secret laboratory hidden away in a remote location, usually run by an evil scientist. 

 Well, this is kind of like that except that: A) It’s no secret.  In fact, it’s wide open and quite welcoming.  B) They are having a hard time getting the oysters to cooperate and C) There is one man who works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day trying to keep things fixed and running.  Kind of like Scotty on Star Trek.  Electricity, computers, lab equipment, telephones and flush toilets are not native to this environment.   

The place reminds you of a laid back space station on another planet.  The scientist stroll around in shorts and tank tops with flip flops on their feet.  They allowed me access to their phone and fax machine in a time of need.  Nice folks. 

After two weeks it was time to pull up the anchor and  to move on to...

 Suvarrow Island

 We  sailed from Penrhyn on a relatively short 500 mile trip to Suwarrow Island.  Suwarrow is a national park of the Cook Islands.  There is one caretaker family that live on the island.  The interesting thing is that only foreign yachts can visit the island.  There is only one supply ship during the season.  The family lives there for the 8 month yachting season and then leaves the island for the hurricane season. 

Suwarrow has an interesting history.  It was discovered, but never claimed, by a Russian ship named the Suvarov.  It has never been settled in the formal sense but it did have a somewhat famous resident, Tom Neal, a New Zealand man who lived alone on the island, off and on, for 16 years.  He wrote a book about it “An Island to One’s Self”.  He hosted many visiting yachts over the years.   

We entered the somewhat tricky pass without  much difficulty.  We found only one other boat there, an Islander 36 “Blue Dolphin”  from Oyster Cove Marina in South San Francisco.  Small world.  We spent some time exploring Anchorage Island, the main island, and getting to know Margaret and her husband, Tommy, and their kids Justin, Eddie and little Mark.  We were later joined by Syrena who followed us in from Penrhyn.   

Tommy and the boys took us across the lagoon in their aluminum runabout to an island on the other side to gather coconut crabs, coconuts and to do a little diving and spear fishing.   We went through the jungle with machetes is search of the blue crabs who lived in hollow logs and under trees.  These crabs are the size of main lobsters and look like the model for the movie “Alien”.  After we came out of the jungle hot and sweaty we returned to their boat and went to one of the reef areas inside the lagoon.  I have now been diving in many areas in the South Pacific, but this was spectacular.  There were coral canyons and spires, caves and passages.  The bottom was sand at about 35 feet.  It was like a fairy land.  The only problem was Suwarrow’s most famous residents-sharks.  Lots of sharks.  You only dive when you have a spear gun, even if you’re not fishing.  We were, so we stayed in a group and some of us hunted while others stood guard.  When any one got a fish, he went immediately to the surface, climbed up on to the reef and held the fish out of the water while he waited for the boat to come over and get the fish from him.  The sharks can hear the injured fish and they come immediately to the area.  Most of the sharks were the, relatively harmless, Black Tips.  The ones that you really had to watch out for were the big Gray Sharks.  They are very territorial.  If they see you at all, you’re in their territory and they let you know it.   

We were successful in our hunting and had a big feast on the beach that night with Margaret’s family and all three yachts to celebrate our visit.  Suwarrow is a magic place and our stay was too short, but now, on to Pago Pago, 450 miles to the west. 

 Pago Pago, American Samoa 

We sailed to within 50 miles east of Samoa from Suwarrow when the wind died.  We ended up motoring on the very last of our fuel.  American Samoa is sensual pandemonium. The harbor is surrounded by steep hills so densely wooded it is nearly impossible to tell where one tree ends and another begins.  As you approach the harbor there is so much green that your nostrils twitch anticipating the sweet jungle fragrance, your ears strain for the rustling whoosh of wind in the trees; sounds and smells that have been absent during the ocean crossing from Suwarrow.  You enter the harbor and with a suddenness like a slap in the face you are assaulted with the gagging stench of rotting fish and garbage from the fish processing plants and your ears feel as if you curbside at the airport listening to the main power plant. 

     In the couple of weeks we’ve been here, the sound never quits or recedes into the background.  The stink, however comes in waves.  So occasionally it’s possible to take a deep breath.  We arrived in Pago Pago and   it took us two full days to complete check in.  Welcome back to American bureaucracy.   

We quickly took care of the immediate basic needs, fuel and water, and then went exploring.  Pago has many of the things that Americans take for granted that we dearly had missed, US mail, telephones, television, stores, it even has it’s own version of Price Club called Costs-U-Less.  Locally called Cost-U-“More”.  It has all of the large quantity purchases plus frozen and canned food that we had been wanting after being in the outer islands.  We enjoyed fast food and satellite TV and saw a lot of our cruising friends again.  Almost every yacht in the harbor was waiting for something to be shipped in.  Pago Pago is nicknamed “The Waiting Room of the Pacific”. 

We were fortunate to be befriended by a local American fisherman, Tim Jones, who took us to a lot of the stores in his pick up truck.  He is intrigued by the cruising lifestyle and is thinking about it for after his kids grow up.   

We celebrated Daniele’s birthday with a nice dinner ashore and returned to find our dinghy missing from the dock.  We called the police and reported the loss and also called our friend Tim who immediately came down and took us out in his fishing boat to search the harbor.  We were unsuccessful in the search, even though there were three other dinghies out searching as well.  The thought of the expense of replacing the dinghy and outboard engine was very discouraging since we are uninsured.  We resumed the search the next morning.  We finally located the dinghy at the far end of the harbor on the beach in front of the Pago Pago Yacht Club.  It was unharmed and nothing was missing.  It had been Grad Night and the dinghy became the victim of a simple joy ride.  We started locking the dinghy every time after that episode. 

    Hurricane Kelly 

Our time in Pago Pago, American Samoa was filled with getting things repaired and provisions replenished.  It is not a tourist destination but a supply point and it did that very well.  We had deliberately stayed north and waited to come to Pago Pago  to avoid the threat of the hurricane season.  We were here for two weeks when a hurricane warning was posted for the harbor.   

Predictions called for winds of 75-100 knots in the harbor from Hurricane Kelly.  Everybody stripped the decks of their boats in preparation.  We were at anchor, unlike most yachts who were on moorings.  Several of the anchored yachts rafted up on the big commercial moorings that will hold a freighter.  We were hit that night with winds of ONLY 35 knots from the east.  Everyone stayed up that night on watch.  The radio was busy with yachts watching out for each other.  By about 3am, the storm stalled but stayed nearby. 

In the morning it was dead calm.  We thought about putting things back out on deck but the weather people said that the storm was still nearby.  We all made quick trips to the market and waited to see what would happen. 

That night it blew at up to 47 knots from the other direction, first west, then south as the storm moved and we started to drag anchor.  John went out on deck in a wet suit and dive mask to retrieve the two anchors that were out.  Using walkie-talkies, John stood on the bow and guided as Danielle steered Pinniped through the crowded harbor.  She couldn’t even see out the windshield.  We re-anchored again, not far away and rode out the balance of the storm.  One other boat also dragged anchor.   

Oddly enough, the boats that sustained damage were the ones that were “safely” tied to the big moorings.  These moorings were holding up to 8 yachts at a time.  The damage came from the yachts bashing and grinding into each other during the high winds.  Even though we dragged, we were  much safer anchored alone.  We were all fortunate not to get a direct hit by the storm.  This storm hit well after the end of hurricane season.  You never know. 

We finally ended up spending two months in Pago Pago, the Waiting Room of the Pacific.  It has unfortunately become an American welfare state.  The local government is full of graft and corruption and the local islanders, while friendly on the surface, have no interest in mixing the cultures.  Unlike other island lands, we made almost no native friends in the time we were here.   

We are now off to Apia in Western Samoa for a visit before going south to Tonga.

It’s time to move on to new ports of call in our second year in the South Pacific.  There are plenty of new islands to visit this season.  On the horizon is the kingdom of Tonga, the Fiji Islands and New Zealand.  The northern island group of Tonga is only 325 miles to the south, so the long ocean passages are over for a while. 

Apia, Western Samoa  

After two months in Pago Pago, we finally got on the road again for Apia, Western Samoa.  It is an easy 75 mile trip on a beam reach.  We left at noon and arrived late the next morning.  Apia is the capital of Western Samoa and the only good harbor.

 On our first day in town we stopped in the tourist office and met Emma.  She works in the gift shop section and we got to talking.  She introduced us to her boss Stephen and he invited us up to visit his studio in the mountains above Apia.  He and his family make all of the beautiful art work that was for sale in the shop.  We became friends with all of them and spent a lot of time visiting with them at their studio.   

We had broken a large wooden piece on the boat, the boom gallows, and Stephen offered John a beautiful piece of Samoan teak to replace it.  John was able to use all of the power tools in Stephen’s studio, while working in the tropical forest overlooking the island and the sea.  It was better than in the movies.  To return the favor, John installed Stephen’s car stereo system in his truck. 

After a couple of weeks in Apia, Emma invited us to come to Savai’i Island for the weekend to visit with her family.  Savai’i is the more rural and traditional part of the country.  Custom is very strong there and John got some long looks with his mustache and long hair.  With Emma to guide us, we did our best to follow local customs, including wearing lavalava skirts.  That is the way everybody dresses on Savai’i. 

 On Friday night, Emma took us to the village fale (meeting house) for a fund raising dance.  We got to hear modern Samoan music played on electric guitars and electric organ and drums.  John, of course, got involved with their sound system and gave them some professional pointers.   

The next day we hiked inland to a waterfall that was out-of-this-world beautiful.  It is on a private plantation and not a tourist destination.  On Sunday, we went to church with Emma’s family, after they had provided us with suitable Samoan clothing to wear.  Her family couldn’t have been kinder to us.  On Sunday afternoon, after sad good byes, we took the ferry with Emma back to Upolo Island and back to Apia.

 As usual, we stayed longer here than we expected.  It gets hard to leave when so many people are kind to you.  We have been very fortunate, as we travel the Pacific, to be accepted as travelers, not as tourists.  We don’t do the usual tourist things and we participate in the communities we visit.  As a result we have made many good friends as we have traveled through the islands.

 The Kingdom of Tonga

 The trip to Tonga was a lumpy and cloudy five day trip that had both of us experiencing unusual bouts of seasickness.  When we arrived at the Va’Vau Group the weather opened up into welcome sunshine and we sailed into the friendly islands of Tonga.   

Tonga seems to have been designed as a cruising destination.  The waters are surrounded by dozens of islands so there is flat water to sail on.  There are anchorages around every bend and in every direction.  The main town, Niafu, has reasonable provisioning, good drinking water, cruiser hangouts, plus phones and faxes, if you need them. 

 The Moorings charter company has a base there and it provides many services to the cruisers.  They have a cruising guide to the Va’Vau Group that numbers the anchorages on their chart.   Everybody uses it, even the local natives.  “Hi, come visit us.  We live at #16.”  There are 41 anchorages in an area that is only about 10 by 15 miles.  We visited every one of them in our time there.  Each area has it’s own personality.  Some are totally uninhabited, others have primitive “resorts” on them.  There is great diving, jungle walks, underwater caves, beautiful reefs-a whole world of things to do.  It’s one of the few places that we have been to that we actually did “recreational” sailing rather than just passage making. 

Many of the islands had causeway connections so that it could be a whole days sail just to get to the other side of an island.  Niafu town was never more than a few hours away from anywhere since it could be accessed from either side of the island.  People would sail in, get a few supplies and take off again.   

When the weather would get rainy, the cruisers would hang around Niafu and visit with old friends.  We would simply wait out the weather, unlike the poor charters who took off and went sailing because they get no rain checks and their time was running.  They tried to experience in a week or so what we feel we barely scratched in a month. 

Our favorite place in Tonga is “Club Hunga”, an island resort on the lagoon hidden inside of Hunga Island.  The entrance is a narrow passage in the cliffs that gave us only two feet under the keel at low tide.  It is so narrow that it’s invisible until you are right on top of it.  When you approach it, you think “This can’t be it!”, but it is.  It looks a lot smaller than it is.  You inhale as you go through.  Jules Verne would have loved it.  We went out with a tape measure at low tide, the entrance is exactly 98’ wide.  That’s not seawall to seawall but sharp volcanic rock to sharp volcanic rock.  Whew! 

FIJI 

The trip from Tonga to Fiji became an unexpectedly rough trip.  We broke tradition and left Hunga Island on a Friday.  Yes, we should have known better.  We had a trip that became mostly downwind in lumpy and confused seas.  We had timed our trip to catch the full moon and also to arrive at the Fiji Lau group of islands in daylight.   

The Lau group is notorious for low and poorly charted reefs scattered inside and around the islands.  There was heavy cloud cover and also heavy currents that run through the islands that made your position hard to be sure of.  If you were using celestial navigation it would have been a nightmare.  Thank God for the GPS-both of them.   

As it turned out, it was weather that got us.  We had several squalls blow up quickly that caused some damage to the boat.  During one accidental jibe, the main sheet caught a stanchion and ripped both it and a section of cap rail out with it by the roots.  We also had our furling jib jam on the sheets in heavy seas when it was half way in then we couldn’t get it out.  For the next two days, the sail flogged and shredded.  We radioed Suva Radio for special permission to enter one of the Lau Islands so we can make emergency repairs.  This was a problem since we had not officially cleared into the country, for one, and the Lau Group requires a special permit issued only in Suva, 300 miles west, for another.  We were finally given permission to go in for 24 hours and no going ashore.   

We found directions in the Pilot for entering the Ongea Levu Island reef pass.  Our chart was based upon the survey of Captain James Cook in 1797.  We got there in late afternoon and with the sun behind us and John in the rigging, we safely entered the reef pass.  We anchored in the lee of the island in crystal clear water and immediately started untangling the mess.  It took two hours to get the sail down.  We fortunately had a spare sail to replace it.  We had a quick dinner and settled in for an uninterrupted nights sleep at anchor. 

In the bright sunny morning, we decided to cruise around the lagoon a little to check it out, as long as we were there.  It was unbelievable.  There were hidden lagoons, tucked away anchorages, tons of fish and we couldn’t stay there or go ashore!  It was forbidden paradise.  We never saw any inhabitants, though we later

found out that the village was on the far side of the island.  The weather settled down for the rest of the trip. 

The trip into Suva became interesting when we found ourselves approaching the harbor at sundown.  The weather had settled and we knew that the way was well marked with range lights.  The fact that the harbor is surrounded by reefs did concern us.  We had the additional problem of not having working radar.  The repair part was wandering around the Pacific somewhere trying to find us.  We did have a good GPS way point that was relayed to us by radio, so, we went for it.  We each sat on either side of the cockpit watching and listening, watching the range lights and listening to the waves breaking on the reefs on either side of us as we entered the harbor.  That was the easy part.  Once inside, there were so many lights from the city that we couldn’t find the navigation lights and ended up getting lost inside the harbor!  We finally found the anchorage for the Royal Suva Yacht Club and anchored for the night. 

The Royal Suva Yacht Club is a legend and an institution.  It’s the only club that I’ve ever seen that no longer exchanges burgees, there’s no place left to put them.  Fortunately, OPYC was already represented, perhaps by Tekin when Kevin and René Hartig were there.  We spent all afternoon going through a table full of cruisers mail.  We had given the club as a mail stop and found mail waiting for us for months there. 

Suva was the first real city that we had been in since Mexico.  It had all the big city thrills, noise, traffic, shopping, McDonalds and all.  It was fun to be able to go to the movies and eat out in restaurants again.  It was actually inexpensive, especially compared to Papeete.  What a difference from Tonga!  We actually had a big city and tropical sailing all in the same place.  What a concept! 

While we were there, we had a visit from Cyclone Lucie.  There was an evacuation plan in effect to move all of the boats across the harbor and up a river into the safety of the mangrove trees.  The yacht club never evacuated, but many of the foreign yachts did, ourselves included.  The route was a zigzag through a shallow bay and up a very shallow river at high tide. 

Once we were up there, it was just like being in the California Delta.  We seemed to be the only boat there with any “river rat” experience.  It was a zoo.  We had boats from 8 different countries there and swearing done in many different languages.  We were the last boat into a narrow slough and we were anchored and cross tied to the trees in just a few minutes.  Other boats were struggling for hours.  When the tide went out, we all were aground.  When the storm did pass us, we had gusts to 4 knots across the deck.  The trees were taller than the mast.  It was perfect protection.

 When the storm was safely passed, we were able to slip out easily and rejoin the rest of the fleet who rode out winds to 40 knots in the harbor.  The rest of the boats got out of the river, eventually, one by one, as the tide allowed. 

Lautoka

After our “shore leave” in Suva, we set out to see some of the beautiful cruising grounds that Fiji offers.  We left Suva at 11:30 on a Thursday night (no more Fridays for us!)  We immediately encountered squalls and rough seas but rather than turn back for another blind entry at night, we kept going.  We had timed our trip to arrive at Ono Island in the daytime but we were set off by the strong currents and we turned and went instead under the southern side of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji to arrive at the pass for Lautoka in the morning.  This time we rode the wind too well and we had to turn out to sea until dawn when we could see the pass, way point or no way point.  It was very uncomfortable and lumpy but we figured that hitting the reef would just ruin our whole day so we just did the prudent thing.  We waited for the sun to go higher.  We were told that one of the range lights was not working.  Another reason to wait. 

Once safely inside the reef, the water calmed down and the sun came out and we were in happy cruising grounds again.  Our first stop was the famous Musket Cove Yacht Club who sponsors a yearly regatta race to Vanuatu in September.  We joined the club, it only costs $1 Fijian (about US 70¢) for a lifetime membership.  If you sailed there, you’re qualified.  After a visit there, we went to Vuda Point marina, a “hurricane hole” shelter.  Vuda Point is interesting in its design.  It is in a circle with all of the boats bow or stern tied to the sea wall.  There are moorings for the opposite end of your boat and everybody climbs on and off as best that they can.  Pinniped was fortunate in that her bow sprit is designed to be walk on / walk off gangway.  For us it was easy.  We got a lot of envious looks from the other boats there.

In the event of a pending cyclone, every boat in the marina must turn bow out.  Each boat then removes it’s main anchor from it’s chain and a diver takes the anchor chain down to the storm mooring in the center of the harbor.  This storm mooring is steel and concrete and is 10 feet across and weighs several tons.  We saw it before it was sunk into position.  The normal stern lines are replaced with sections of chain that cross the sidewalk around the boats and attach to 6’ long railroad rails that are sunk into the earth.  Stern lines then attach to the chains after they clear the wall and the boats are positioned out away from the wall.  It all becomes an enormous spider web.

They were also constructing a wave break to go across the marina entrance.  That’s the plan, anyway.   

Lautoka is the gateway to the Yasawa Group of islands that offers more fabulous cruising.  People spend years cruising Fiji.  It’s big and there’s lots to see.  We only got a taste of it this trip.  Summer cyclone season means it’s time to head for New Zealand. 

The trip to New Zealand  

The trip to New Zealand was a long anticipated big one, 1,100 miles.  For weeks the cruisers studied the weather charts, talked to the Kiwis, and read the tea leaves.  When to go?  Which way to go?  The weather has a pattern of changing every eight days and the trip took 10 to 12 days.  Something was bound to get you.  The one philosophy that was universally shared was “Make it quick, don’t go below 5 knots, motor if you have to keep up speed. 

We filled our one remaining fuel tank, the other one had a crack in it, due to be fixed in New Zealand, filled our deck jugs and even put diesel in our gasoline jugs for more range.  When a high filled in over Fiji, we took off.  We had strong wind as we left the pass on our first afternoon and it continued on through the next day.  We had visions of a fast trip.  Things looked good.  Then the wind started to ease, just a little, at first, nothing to worry about.  By the third day it was down to 8 knots and we started motor sailing to keep moving.  Eventually, the wind just faded away and we were motoring with the sails down so that they wouldn’t just flap around.  We kept transferring fuel from the jugs to the tank until we got down to the last 5 gallon jug, our emergency reserve jug.  Still we motored on.  Finally, 300 miles from the Bay of Islands, the engine sputtered and died.  Out of fuel.  We had been motoring non stop for 5 days and nights. 

We were in twice daily radio contact with Russell Radio, a New Zealand based private HF radio service that monitors cruising yachts positions and gives them weather reports.  The weather was the same, a large high had settled in and was not moving.  We were forced to tack directly upwind in light air towards New Zealand.

We would report our position in the morning and tack east.  At mid afternoon we would tack west and by the evening our net gain towards New Zealand would be a whopping 15 miles.   

The Russell Radio operator, Des, would always hold out hope of improved wind “tomorrow”.  Always, tomorrow.  We were in no weather danger, except from boredom.

Each day we would roll the dice with Des and try to guess which direction to go to put us in a better position for when the winds would eventually fill in.

The biggest problem was using up the last of our remaining 5 gallons of diesel.  We still had to charge the batteries and run the refrigeration twice a day.  Finally, a German cruising boat diverted to us and transferred another 5 gallons to us by floating 2 small jugs across on a float line.   

Of course, within 6 hours of getting the fuel the wind returned.  We still needed the extra fuel to get in because 20 miles out of Bay Of Islands we got 20 knots on the nose.  It figures, 13 days of light air, then this.  We arrived on the night before Thanksgiving and celebrated Thanksgiving Day with a turkey dinner and all the trimmings with 60 other boats at the Opua Cruising Club. 

Auckland

 After two weeks in the Bay of Islands, Pinniped made the two day trip south to Auckland, still motoring!  We arrived in late afternoon and made our way to West haven Marina at downtown Auckland.  In the weeks that followed we readapted ourselves to civilization, cars, cell phones and, for John, a job.  

We stayed at Westhaven Marina for several weeks until moving across to the north side of the harbor to Bayswater Marina which is closer to John’s job. 

John and Pinniped got themselves adopted by the Richmond Yacht Club in Auckland as honorary members.  John has spoken at the club describing Pinniped’s adventures across the South Pacific.   

When winter set in, John moved off of the boat into a much warmer flat. So, dear friends, the adventure ends, for now.  Danielle moved on to new adventures in Australia then returned to the States and John begins a new life in New Zealand.  Pinniped is put out to pasture and a long overdue refurbishing and repairs while enjoying her life in a marina instead of at anchor.  She will enjoy her new life as a weekend adventurer exploring New Zealand. 

For those of you with E-mail, we have new addresses, 

JOHNBRAND@CLEAR.NET.NZ 

John also has a fax machine now.  That number is 011 (64) 9-446-0656 and his telephone number is 011 (64) 27-243-2750