And It Did Get Worse

Didn’t I say we were safe at the dock of Apataki village? And that we could sit this weather system out over there? Well, I was wrong. And, didn’t I say that things can always be worse? Here, I was right!

With all the rain, the dock was a bit cleaner, and with a steady north wind, the mosquitoes stayed away, while we were pinned to shore. Every three hours – day and night - we needed to adjust our fenders, because of the tides moving Irie up and down and the funky currents moving us forward and backward. But, it was flat and comfy. On our first day of planned rest, we discovered that our credit card was used fraudulently, somewhere in the US. Great… This seems to happen to everyone at least once, but how do you deal with it from the middle of the Pacific?

The advantage of “living” in a village is that you can just walk off the boat and enter the one phone booth. Unfortunately, in French Polynesia, you cannot call an operator for a collect call from public phones, as we found out soon enough. To make a long, tedious, patient and frustrating story short: it took us ALL day to get through to an operator from a landline of a friendly villager to call our US bank collect. After the last hour, we understood that they would send new cards to Mark Kilty, Poste Restante, Village Niutahi, 98762 Apataki, Tuamotus, French Polynesia! We will see if and how that materializes!

During the night that followed, a massive squall hit us. 30+ knots of north wind smashed us against the dock and churned up the channel. Generally a pretty well protected spot from the North, East and South, the combination high winds and funky currents created chaos and Irie was wildly pitching attached by four lines to a cement dock. Again, not a good scene and this time, there was no getting away, even if we wanted to. Luckily, the storm only lasted half an hour, but we learned our lesson.  

When I jumped ashore to fix the fenders again at 4:30am – straight out of bed, so buck naked – there was already a fisherman on the dock. Oooops.  In the morning – after retrieving the latest weather forecast with 20 – 30 knots of predicted northwest winds (add 5 knots to be more accurate) – we decided to leave once more. Just imagine 48 hours of what had been crazy and dangerous during 30 minutes. The only other alternative was an anchorage at the north end of the atoll, 15 miles away. We hoped to get there in three hours…

Since we needed to leave immediately, there was no way of waiting for less wind or slack tide. A few strong guys pushed us off the dock and there we went! In strong opposing currents of 4 knots, Irie was jerkily pushed left and right. Mark did a great job steering us through the eddies (little whirlpools) and preventing us to turn sideways. The small engines were on full throttle, while we tried to get out of the pass and into the lagoon. What followed was an even more hair rising experience to head north to safer grounds. We ended up having to motor for many hours, and it wasn’t one of those “turn the engines and the auto pilot on and relax” kind of trips! We don’t even like motoring in the first place.

No, the event was slightly more exciting. Maybe interesting to the adventurous spirit reading these posts, but less so for the ones being in the midst of them. Mark and I had to drive into the wind and into the waves the whole time with 100% concentration. He had to hand steer (the autopilot could not manage these conditions), while I was vigilantly on the look-out. No time to eat or drink, get sun protection or a rain coat. Before long, the full on storm and weather system was upon us. This is when a cruiser is usually safely holed up somewhere comfortable… We had left too late.

The wind was blowing 30 – 40 knots; the lagoon waves were 6 feet high and close together! During the constant squalls – with even bigger bursts of wind – the rain was driving down and pelting our faces and bodies. Waves were crashing over the bow and into the cockpit, swamping us. I was on deck, fully exposed to the elements (which included enough sun to filter through the clouds and burn my skin and scalp – I lost my bandana overboard early on - during those hours), with little visibility. While Mark focused on the instruments (our luck was having accurate charts of the Tuamotus!), I stared ahead, looking for pearl farm buoys, waiting to foul our propellers. And, this way we continued on, missing reefs and maneuvering around floats, while shivering from being cold and tasting salt water. For six hours! That’s how long it took us to cover those 15 miles. Do the math… I will not repeat here what either of us screamed during this dreadful day. All we wanted upon arrival in Apataki was to have some rest before starting work in the boat yard.

What we learned the hard, Tuamotu way is that from the moment there is any kind of north wind, you motor north, into wind and waves, and, if there is any kind of south wind, you do the opposite. Point is, you always end up motoring head into anything blowing, because that’s where you will find protection. Or, you have to be really good at knowing what the weather men mean with their ambiguous forecasts and plan well ahead! At 4pm, we had enough light to drop the anchor away from the reefs – there might be some coral heads underneath us since we are anchored in 58 feet of water and can’t see the bottom – and had breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one. Then, we went to bed for our first decent night of sleep in ten days! At least we are safe and comfortable – for now! And, it seems to be pretty here as well! 

Trip Marquesas - Tuamotus: Pictures

Pod of dolphins showing us the way to the Tuamotus

Bye, bye Ua Pou and Marquesas

A winged hitchhiker

And in the morning, the boobie is still there!

One of many squalls

Not such a great way to start the night shift: surrounded by squalls

Pretty bad rainstorm

Day 4: becalmed!

With less than 5 knots of wind, we have to fly the spinnaker at night to keep moving (at 2-3 knots)

Passing our first atoll ever

Last sunrise before arriving at Apataki

 

Marquesas - Tuamotus: Day 4 - No Wind

:lat=-14.957350:lon=-145.346767:
Time: 1740UTC, COG 230T, SOG 3.0kts, Distance Remaining: 89nm

When we left Ua Pou on Sunday, we knew the wind would become lighter towards the end of the trip. That's why we needed to make some decent progress the first couple of days, and why we were disappointed we didn't. But, it can always get worse... the wind could die. Totally. Not something we expected.

After a pretty crappy night, we took the mainsail down and put the spinnaker up at first light (5:30am). The wind was light, but - by then - we were happy to do 3 knots. Most of the squalls went around us, until the one at noon. It was a big and nasty one, messing with the wind direction, creating
contrary winds, and dumping a lot of rain. Down came the spinnaker and on the engines. The massive cloud refused to move and we became trapped in it, until we decided to slow the boat down, so it could get ahead and leave us alone. That done, the bright sun came back.

The sky turned blue - not another cloud to be seen - and the ocean had an ever deeper hue of blue. It was hot. And... there was no wind. The squalls had taken it all with them. The prediction was still for 10 knots of wind, but instead there was zero. Nothing. Not a hint of breeze. The spinnaker hung limp on the foredeck and had to be taken down. Irie was floating on the calm water and it was quiet. No rushing of the waves, no spinning of the wind generator, no creaking of the lines, no whooshing of the sails. We were done!

Since the forecast called for ever lighter winds, this was not a good sign. We still had 130 miles to go and had come to terms with not getting there in four days. What we couldn't come to terms with was not getting there at all! We drifted for a few hours. Then, we turned the engines on. It was loud, super-hot and smelly. A sense of despair came over us. Motoring for 25 hours would empty the fuel tank, wear the engines down tremendously - and us even more - and would get us to the Apataki lagoon about 17 hours too soon. Off went the engines, and peace returned.

The slightest wisp of air was felt. A smile returned to our faces. The spinnaker showed her colors and - at 3 knots - we moved forward again. How happy one can be with such a small commodity as 5 knots of wind! And that is what it has been blowing ("fluttering" might be a more appropriate word
here) since last night: 2 - 5 knots. Irie is sailing towards Apataki at barely 2 knots an hour. We still have about 100 miles to go and need to do an average of 3 knots to make it there by tomorrow morning!

Marquesas - Tuamotus: Day 3 - From Fun to Frustration

:lat=-14.079483:lon=-144.466200:
Time: 1735UTC, COG 214T, SOG 4.0kts, Distance Remaining: 162nm

The first two days of a longer voyage are always the hardest. You have to get used to constantly being in motion, having to hold on to something at all times and staying up half of the night. All you really want to do is sleep; there is not much interest in anything else and the night shifts take forever. On day three some kind of routine has been established and you feel more inclined to do something productive, like taking a shower, making more fruit salad, or fish, for example.

From the moment the sun came up, we flew our spinnaker (colorful light air sail), while being able to keep the main sail in place. We managed to maintain five knots of speed in ten knots of wind and stayed on course. Not bad! It was a lovely day with sunshine and blue skies, void of squalls. The
sea was as comfortable as it gets, while still being "sailable" and we both enjoyed the ride. We did have to run the engine for a bit to charge the batteries, a necessary evil, but easier than rigging our little generator up.

In the afternoon, Irie drove through a big school of tuna. We did hook one: a fat and tasty yellow fin! But, from the moment we hauled him aboard, he got off the hook. No sushi for us - what a shame and disappointment. Luckily, we still had other food, which we cooked ahead of time. And, lots
of fruit, of course. :-)

Because of the light winds, we wanted to fly the spinnaker as long as possible during the day. Just as I finished up the dishes and we were ready to take the sail down, a squall surprised us with some wind and lots of rain; the exact situation you try to avoid when the spinnaker is in place (and the reason we take it down at night)... With fluky winds, it might end up in the water, where you can run over it, or in heavy winds, it might rip. In this case, we saved it from dipping in the salty ocean and managed to take it down. Everything - us included - was soaking wet, and enjoying turned into annoying.

The wind never restored itself and with the jib instead of the spinnaker we lost speed regardless. During Mark's shift, we moved 10° off course at 4 knots. At midnight, it was my turn at the helm and I was welcomed by a radar screen cluttered with squalls. One rainstorm after the other arrived, sucking out the little wind we had. For hours I sat in the rain and wished for the wind to come back. Floating on an ocean doing less than 2 knots is frustrating to say the least. Not only are you not making any progress, but - no matter how calm the sea - the incessantly flapping sails and erratically banging rigging would drive the most patient person crazy! Plus, no sleep for the person off watch either.

Finally, some breeze arrived, albeit 50° more northerly than predicted, which had us sailing 35° off course. Not something we could make up easily. I watched the phenomenon for another hour and then decided to get rid of the jib all together and adjust course. We had lost enough time and ground. And that's where we are at right now: sailing along at 3 knots and still 15° off course. When the sun wakes up at 6am, we will hang our spinnaker out to dry, if it is not too squally. The mainsail will have to come down and then there's hoping for another fun sail and making Apataki in time...

Passage Gambier to Marquesas - Pictures

Picture time! We finally have internet again...

Here are some photos of Irie's six day sail from the Gambier to the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, early this month. To read the daily stories of that trip, click on "older posts" at the bottom of this page and scroll down...

The first sign of a grey and rainy crossing - but it is a nice one!

Soaking up the first sunny day underway, albeit still with a lot of clothes on...

Sailing towards another squall.

The climate is getting sunnier and warmer.

Trying to stay ahead of a front behind us.

We had one nice sunset and enjoyed it!

Blue sky... yes!

The green tomatoes we were given by a local in Rikitea are turning red. Tasty and very special!

Grey sky... we were getting used to it.

Surprise front, coming out of nowhere, and in our path.

Good morning, Pacific Ocean!

And, finally, we caught AND retrieved a big and delicious tuna

Fatu Hiva, here we come (and stay)!

Irie Out to Save Birds (Or How We Failed to Sail to Bocas del Toro)

The Past

A Belgian magazine writer recently interviewed me about my (our) unusual life and one of the questions was “What is the weirdest/worst thing that ever happened to you on your trips?” This is a tough one to answer and required a lot of thinking. Mark and I have been on the boat for over five years and with some good planning, constant maintenance and a bit of luck, nothing really terrible has happened yet. We’ve been able to avoid massive storms, lightning strikes, important gear failure and other disasters – like hitting whales or floating containers. We’ve been through scary nights and temporary squalls and survived choppy seas, hence with a bit of puking on my part. Yesterday, I kept thinking about this question, because what we were experiencing was the answer to it!

The Present

One of the reasons Mark and I left the San Blas islands in October was to sail to Bocas del Toro – with a stop at the magnificent Escudo de Veraguas - and visit this archipelago near the border with Costa Rica. We hoped to spend the month of November there, exploring hiking trails, reefs, amazing beaches, and affordable restaurants. But, the rainy season (with November generally accepted as the worst month) brings lots of rain, thunder, lightning and squalls, and… light west winds – the direction we needed to go. The distance is about 170 miles and there would be no way Irie would motor this far. So, we waited for wind… and waited for wind.

On Saturday, November 3^rd, we set out with a weather forecast of east winds 10-15 knots. Once outside of Portobelo harbor, the wind came from the west, at less than 10 knots! We tried to sail, but after two hours of not making any progress in the right direction, we returned – making nice speed with the wind at our back – to our familiar spot in the anchorage. Monday, November 5^th, predicted east-northeast winds 10-15 knots and we had a better feeling about trying the trip again. The boats in the anchorage faced northeast and so did all the cargo ships in front of industrial Colon, based on our chart plotter’s AIS signals. We were good to go!

The wind was perfect, coming from the right angle at a decent speed, to try our spinnaker out for a longish trip. We rigged the big, light sail up and had two reefs in our main sail as to not block the head sail and to have a sail up for steerage when taking the spinnaker down. The engine was only on for a few minutes, before we headed west under sail. The following 7 hours were wonderful: we were speeding along, talking about going all the way to Bocas and doing Veraguas on the way back. The waves were manageable, the sun even peeked out for a moment, and I was not seasick. We wondered whether we could do this for 30 days straight next spring – the circumstances were comparable to the course and following seas in the Pacific Ocean. Life was good!

After 45 miles things changed. The wind turned more north, which was OK with spinnaker down and jib up, no reefs in the main sail. But, the seas became very steep and choppy. We had the predicted NE swell and a weird counter chop from the west. When the two sets of waves collided under Irie, she almost came to a halt. This kept going on for hours as we felt like being in a washing machine. The answer to the sea state was explained, when the wind turned due west! The massive black cloud above us must have been the cause. We tried to sail away from it, through it, around it and even started the engines to try to get to the other side. It was impossible. After another hour, we thought we did it, only to find out that there was another one of these huge squalls, and eight more on the radar… They were unavoidable. In the meantime, three birds kept bugging us; one landed on my shoulder and startled me when I tried to put a warmer T-shirt on, another made its way inside the boat and the third one kept attacking the sails and lines! They eventually tried to hitch a ride to shore.

We could not make any more headway (there was also a 1.5 knot current against us) and the chaotic sea made me seriously sick. By now, Mark was frustrated, I was puking, the boat was stuck in turmoil and it was dark! To top it off, we ran into a pile of invisible tree trunks – twice - and the lightning around us became more threatening. Listening to massive blocks of wood scraping and bumping against your boat with every movement on the water is not something you want to hear! And, there is nothing you can do, but hope no damage was done. While I, queasily, took over the helm, Mark went inside Irie to check the bilges for water coming in. This was truly one of the worst moments of our sailing life. Everything appeared fine, but we urgently need to get into the water to check the hulls more carefully. It is just too muddy to see underwater everywhere with all the run-off from the rain.

We started to believe that this Bocas trip was not meant to be for us and – once again, this time halfway to Veraguas – we turned around, sailing east. From the moment we escaped the clouds, the wind turned north once more and a couple of hours later, the seas calmed down. We had skipped dinner and I had retired into the horizontal position, while Mark took care of the boat the rest of the night. It was a lot of work, trimming the sails endlessly in fluky winds becoming heavier during squalls and lighter in between. While we managed to bypass the huge amount of cargo ships in front of the Panama Canal entrance going west, this proved to be very difficult and nerve-wrecking at night. Mark spent a few hours changing course and avoiding massive freighters near Colon. At 4am, after circling around waiting for another rainstorm to diminish, we arrived back into our old anchoring spot in Portobelo, exhausted and soaking wet. Only once before in five years have we had to anchor at night, and only once before have we turned back, before setting out the following day.

The Future

At least one bird managed to sleep on the lifelines without falling off during the whole sail trip back, and found its way to a new jungle home. It left us a nice present on the side of the boat. One more Panamanian common swallow saved!

Mark and I have concluded that sailing the Panamanian coast in the rainy season (June-November) – especially at night - is hard, if not impossible, and uncomfortable. We will never attempt it again. Most boats motor wherever they go this time of the year. Bocas del Toro is not in our future and – unfortunately – doubts are creeping up about the Pacific Ocean. If we just wait a few days and let our minds and spirits (and my stomach) settle down, we will realize this was a – hopefully - one time and uncommon event not to be repeated…

While in the San Blas islands we obtained a little wooden statue called a “nuchu”, made and owned by the Indians to fend off bad spirits. Since we have this little guy on board, we have only had bad sailing experiences. Not that we are superstitious, but this man might have to find another home. Or, maybe he didn’t like the little ceremony – involving champagne and kisses on the head – we had for him on SV Reach before we left the islands…

Feeding el nuchu, who we named "sahila", after the Kuna chiefs, champagne

Approaching the busy area of Colon with the Caribbean entrance of the Panama Canal

All the triangles are traffic (with AIS system) in and around the Canal! There are at least 85 cargo ships.

 Logs of this size have bumped Irie in anchorages before. Imagine sailing into and over tree trunks even bigger...

Weather in Portobelo

Summer Storms

Depending on where you live, you might be familiar with the following situation. It’s summer and the air is heavy. It is so hot and humid that you can barely breathe. You move slowly, trying to run your errands without much motivation and you so wish you could take a nap or read a book, because that is about all a human body can handle in a climate like this. But, it is too hot to sleep, unless you don’t mind waking up in a puddle of sweat, and who has time for sleeping anyway? On stagnant days like this, a massive storm is bound to happen from the moment the temperature cools down a bit. On stagnant days like this, you might have actually come to expect some thunder and lightning, and a healthy dose of rain by nightfall. The plants will be happy; nature needs it, you think. Tomorrow will be a nice and crisp day again!

Stagnant days like this, is how the summer in the San Blas islands looks like, feels like and tastes like. Every day. The best way to cool off is by jumping off your boat in the magnificent blue water. Again and again. But, how about the storms? Ha! Even though it is very hot and humid every day, this doesn’t mean it rains every day/night. Nobody would cruise or spend whole summers here otherwise, right? The storms are unpredictable. They might arrive during the day, they might be visible only in the distance, they might approach and engulf you, they might come from the east, west, north or south, or they might not arrive at all for a few days.

Usually, when they do arrive, this is what happens: Mark and I would see some lightning in the distance, likely over the mountains on mainland Panama. This is nothing special. Then, the lightshow moves a bit closer and we watch in awe, high up above, in the clouds. As if continually lit by an amazing spotlight, the sky turns white-greyish, all around us, every few seconds. The spectacle becomes even more intense, when the thunder is audible. Soon enough, the first raindrops fall and we retreat inside, where we base ourselves near a porthole or other window. Then, the wind arrives, but we don’t worry about that. We have good and oversized ground tackle (anchor and chain). With our faces pressed against the glass, we have a good view of our surroundings every time lightning strikes. By now, we sometimes see the eye blinding lightning bolt hit the water. We count… How far away was that? Let’s hope no boats were anchored there!

Sometimes, we hold our positions for hours and pray to not get hit. Sometimes, we think we can’t do anything about these storms and go back to bed. The deafening thunder vibrates through Irie and makes her shake. Lightning brightens the night sky all around us. I use the powerful flashes to locate the glass of water or find my way downstairs. Who needs lights in this “illuminating” weather? Finally, unannounced, it is quiet and dark again. The squall has passed, sometimes for five minutes, more often for a few days, until the next one arrives. We, our boat and our electronics survived another San Blas summer storm and we even collected fresh rainwater to clean our sweaty bodies!

From Curaçao to Colombia

We couldn’t wait to leave Spanish Waters in Curaçao, after being anchored in the dirty water for almost two weeks and being very busy with boat projects, checking in and out procedures, the dinghy, internet problems, daily errands and a couple of days of pleasure. So, from the moment there was enough wind predicted, we left, first thing in the morning, through the narrow, unmarked entrance. The trip to pretty Santa Cruz Bay, along Curaçao’s west coast, was only about 25 miles, but we both had the urge to start early and get out of there. To avoid getting to our next anchorage too quickly, since you are technically not allowed to stop anywhere along the coast anymore after checking out (so the later you get there, the less likely you are to get into trouble), Mark and I only flew Irie’s jib and had a nice, relaxing sail to our overnight stop.

Before dawn, we left for Aruba, 57 miles away, doable in a long day trip. The wind was cooperating until around 11am, when a massive squall hit us. We decided to take the mainsail down and continue just with the jib. We were still doing 5 knots, which was awesome, even though the seas were pretty big. Once we reached land, our speeds went down drastically, but we didn’t mind too much, since we planned to anchor for the night around 5pm in the hopes of nobody disturbing us. On the way to our preferred anchorage near the airport, the Aruba Coast Guard “stopped” us and sent us to the Customs and Immigration dock, where a mandatory check-in is required, even if you only spend one night to rest… Now what? We contemplated continuing on to Colombia, but that was an extra 135 miles we hadn’t counted on quite yet. We were both tired and my stomach wasn’t so happy. I prepared Irie for a stop at the dock and Mark checked in and out at the same time right before dusk. We’re not sure whether we were then supposed to leave the country again, since they normally don’t let you do both procedures at once; you ought to bring the big boat back to the dock before checking out and leaving. Anyhow, we spent one night in the airport anchorage to catch up on sleep.

The following morning, it was time for a bigger trip to Cabo de la Vela in Colombia. There was barely any wind (just a little bit from the NE), way less than predicted, and the seas were massive, coming from the NW which created very confused waters around us. It was not comfortable at all and the rigging was slamming unhappily, while we were tossed around for hours. Then, the squalls hit. We rode them for a while, getting soaked a few times, but our speed increased immensely. It was good fun and exhilarating to accelerate and ride the waves. Irie hit a new record at 11.3 knots for 2 seconds! During the night, we decided to drop the mainsail, but still managed a decent speed. It was a very bumpy, wet and pukey night. Along the Colombian coast massive tankers crossed our path on this busy stretch of ocean. Our AIS receiver came in very handy! Tired, but with an accomplished feeling, we dropped anchor in Cabo de la Vela before lunch on Monday, December 5^th. One more stretch to go before we’d find some peace, rest, comfort and friends in our next port of call!

Cabo de la Vela has a massive “bay”, where we –and two other cruising boats – anchored out pretty far away from shore in 15 feet of water. From the moment we were settled a fast fishing boat with four Colombians came by and asked many questions (in Spanish) about our catamaran. They seemed intrigued. Later in the afternoon, more local boats passed by with families and children. They waved, stared and some women took pictures with their cell phone. It seemed to be a fun outing for them, to weave through the anchorage and check out the new boats and crews.

The trip from Cabo de la Vela to Santa Marta was another 140 miles long and we started mid-morning, under engine. There was a decent amount of wind predicted, but it sure took a while before it actually filled in. After two hours of motoring – and getting worried about having to do this all day and night without enough fuel – and another two hours of bobbing along at 2 knots with the mainsail as well as the jib tied down to prevent damage, there it was…. A perfect breeze accompanied the bright sun and the relatively flat seas, now that we were moving. The rest of the sail was very pleasant and comfortable until about midnight; one of those moments when you think: “This is why we are doing this”. To top it off, a small pod of dolphins kept us company for quite a while.

At night, main sail tied down and safely cruising along with the jib, the squalls hit again. One of them hung above Irie for four full hours dumping massive amounts of rain onto our bodies. It was foul weather gear time! Our speed diminished, until the massive dark cloud finally disappeared well before the sun came up again. The rest of the trip was rainy, with Colombia’s mountains covered in mist and clouds. We arrived in Santa Marta around 10:30am on December 7^th and were greeted by two pleasant gifts: the clock was set back an hour (we love extra time in a day) and … our good friends Axel and Liz from SV Gudrun welcomed us to the marina! Time for some fun (after some well-deserved rest)!

Surrounded by squalls...

Reaching Santa Marta in Colombia.