Dead Fish

Well I thought I should write and let you all know where we are headed next. Today our 3 day visa expired at Palmerston. We hate to leave but the weather looks like it is just going to be getting worse if we wait and we aren't sure how long they will keep extending the visa, so tomorrow will be our departure date.

We had intended on continuing west and stopping at Niue and then on to Tonga but the problem is that Nuie is another open ocean anchorage and again there are only a few mooring balls available. Given the forecasted high winds we would much rather be in a well protected anchorage for the big blow coming through. We looked at options and we see that we could go straight North to a island named Suwarrow. It is part of the Northern Cook Islands. It is suppose to be stunning and deserted. There are only 2 park rangers who live there. It is also suppose to be a well protected place to stop. The problem with this option is that the seas/waves will be on our beam for the 2 day sail and this will be uncomfortable! We all sat down and made our pros and cons list and we decided on Suwarrow. Another pro is that we can then continue West and visit the American Samoa's and reprovision on some of the nice to have items we are running low on......such as chocolate, nuts, pickles and trail mix. It is suppose to be the promise land with Costco and Walmart style stores! We could also visit Western Samoa which is back to the beautiful beaches and great snorkeling. From there we would continue on to Tonga and back on course to New Zealand.

Tomorrow we will start out pointed at Suwarrow but if we find it to uncomfortable then we will change our plan and point West at Niue and put the wind and wave on our back! Regardless I would so much rather be heading off in reasonable winds. I hate leaving in 25+ knots of winds but it really isn't a comfortable anchorage here at sea and as the seas grow ....as predicted....it is going to get worse, so away we will go.

We spent today cooking and preparing for voyage. We know it is going to be rough and we don't want another repeat of the last trip. We made bread, chicken, rice and lentil burger's. We also made pizza and cinnamon buns but these all got eaten at dinner!

I know I already "OMG'd" you about the whales we saw yesterday but today they came right...and I mean right....beside the boat, huge humpback whales! The size of them is overwhelming. The huge tail fin is so beautiful as it come up and out of the water and then they plunge beneath the sea. Graham took some video footage. I hope it turned out. We just couldn't believe it as they swam towards us and then alongside Artemo and then underneath us and off to Simpatica. WAY COOL!

The winds blew like crazy today but Graham still managed to take the kids out for a snorkel on the outer reef. Our dinghy isn't inflated so it worried me to have them off so far with no way for me to rescue them. Luckily they are all amazing swimmers. They all came back saying how great the snorkel was. They said it was like fields of rolling hills of coral, that rose from the deep water up to the shallow reef. They said it was like nothing they had ever seen before. Oh the other thing they were able to do was have a look at the toilet intake on Artemo. Yesterday we notice a dead fish smell in the bathroom. Graham took a long stick and stuck it up the intake and a couple small fish swam out....they were alive....nothing else came out. I am sure there is one way up there and dead. The smell is getting worse. I spent a good amount of time tonight pumping and pumping, hoping to release it. It seems a bit better but still not perfect. I will see how it smells in the morning. If we have to start using a bucket as our toilet I may jump ship!

We will let you know en route how things are going and which direction we are headed.

Thinking of you
Julie

Little Hell for a Piece of Heaven

I can't possibly do these past 2 days justice in a blog. I would say though that they have been the best days of our cruising experience thus far. I will NEVER forget these moments. I will do my best to bring you all up to speed...

When we finally reached Palmerston there were no mooring balls but we were told that it should be ok to anchor. Basically Palmerston is a few small islands surrounded by a reef. There is a nice calm inner lagoon, as there has been on many of the other islands but the problem is that there isn't a large enough pass to get into the inner lagoon with a sailboat and the depth is only 4 feet or less in many parts. Given this, all the sailboats are tied up to mooring balls on the outside of the reef....in the open ocean! Since there were no balls left for us, we brought Artemo right up close to the reef and dropped the hook in 7 meters of depth and then the depth drops off to over 100 meters within only a few feet. Here in lies the problem.....if the wind shifts so that we are not being blown away from reef but rather on to it....then YIKES....we will have a huge problem. For now the wind continues to be strong and from the South East...so no problem! (knock on wood for us)

We anchored right beside a Canadian tall ship named Picton Castle. Graham could not believe our luck to be in Palmerston with the Picton Castle. Many years ago when this dream wasn't even a spark in his imagination he watched a Canadian documentary series called, "Tall Ship Chronicles". This show tweaked his interested in sailing and it was on one of these shows that they went to Palmerston...the first time he had ever heard of this place. Now all these years later here we were anchored next to them. You can imagine how special this was.

Our luck continued and the next morning the Picton Castle invited everyone from the island and all of the cruisers over to their boat for a huge goodbye celebration. I made up a batch of chocolate gooey's and we were off to the the tall ship. We were the last people to arrive. There must of been over a 100 people total onboard. We were all a bit overwhelmed as we climbed up over the side of the huge ship. I stepped on deck with my bowl of chocolate gooey's and I looked around for where I could put them...each step I took the islanders grabbed cookies....I was surrounded in a mass feeding frenzy....totally crazy moment. Finally I was able to put the bowl down and leave the crowd and take everything in. HOLY....so totally wild. The ship is totally traditional...even the stove is from 1863.....big old black thing. The ship was packed with the town and all the crew and many familiar cruising friends faces. A number of dances were put on and the ukulele's and singing accompanied them. The kids made fast friends with all the local kids. They were all so lovable. During one of the dances I started to look around at the crowd. I could see the happy young energetic crew members excited to be heading off on their voyage later in the day. I could see many of the islanders with tears in their eyes since one of the girls was going with the Picton Castle on a 14 month circumnavigation. I could see the small children singing along and doing the dance steps....even though they weren't up in front of everyone. I could see above me....up on the top of the ship...Amelia and Alex with many many kids looking down at the show.....huge smiles on their faces. I could see our friends Louis and Jules from Simpatica on the other side of the ship with their arms around each other as they watched. Finally my eyes found Graham in the crowd....he had found a nice spot for himself in the back and I watched as he took it all in ....he looked so happy....made me feel so good for him to be a part of this. The universe is constantly surprising me.

After the party we were brought into the island. The way they work it here is that each sailboat is hosted by a family on the island. The family takes care of you while you are here. Their generosity is really unbelievable. Our host families names are Edward and Shirley and their two kids David and John. Edward shuttles us back and forth between our boat and the island while we are here. When we are on the island we are his guest.....basically the same way family would be if they visited. We went to his house and we sat and visited. Then Edward and Shirley went to work preparing us a huge feast. Their son David took us on a tour of the small island. The island has a cool history and it is definitely worth a google. One of the things that I find the most interesting is that they have no problem giving away their babies. Shirley gave her sister her baby girl and she said it is really common. Often times children will even give their first born child to their parents. When I ask the kids how many brothers or sisters they have....many of them answer...that they have so many brothers and sisters, and so many cousins who are living with them like brothers and sisters and also so many feeding brother and sisters".....the feeding kids are basically just kids who come and eat all the meals with them but don't sleep at their homes. Needless to say it has been a VERY interesting couple of days. They welcome you into their lives and expect nothing in return. Shirley had me bring in all my laundry today and let me us the washing machine....again...no charge...and before I realized it she had even hung it up for me. She took me aside yesterday and told me how much she loved my chocolate gooey's and apologized for eating so many on the Picton Castle. I had to laugh. I told her how happy I was she enjoyed them and that I would make her more.

Today we brought in a huge chocolate cake for Alex's birthday party and Edward and Shirley made another feast. We had a birthday celebration that I don't think Alex will soon forget. We were invited to the school and we had such a good time there. Alex played soccer with the boys. The smaller children climbed all over Graham. A really cute boy took me into his outdoor classroom and showed me his desk and all of his work. He was just so proud. Another girl with quite the sense of humor told me how she was the oldest child, so she was basically everyone in her families slave! She said that if she didn't do everything just right then she would get a beating (she didn't use the word beating....it was a word that started with an s....like a stitching...or something) ....anyway she said she would either get the belt, the broom, the palm frawn, or a wooden spoon. I asked which she preferred and she said the broom since it sprung back. Yikes eh.

Later in the day we went for a snorkel. The underwater world here is beautiful. Right off the beach you can see beautiful coral, sharks, rays, turtles, grouper, parrot fish and the list goes on. Amelia and I snorkeled until we came across a shark and then we began making our way back. The boys said they saw 2 aggressive white tip sharks. Most often the sharks don't even take notice of you and just swim away. They said that these 2 began to circle them and one got his back curled up. Graham and Alex kept their eyes on them and backed out of their territory. Alex said it was the first time he felt a bit scared by a shark.

Last night Edward brought us back to our boat just before sunset. We were all just trying to come down from such an awesome day when we heard over the radio....."we got whales out here!"....We all jumped out on deck and way off on the other side of the anchorage we see the big spouts of water but they are quite far. Alex stays up on deck and the rest of us go back down. A while later Alex calls us ....."they are right behind our boat!!!" OMG....HUGE whales.....3 of them. We all stood at the back cheering and clapping and jumping. The whales came up and down and up and down and spouts of water....everything I had always hoped for. WOW, what a day. I called Louis on the radio and told him that Palmerston was everything he promised it would be. He replied in his fantastic Texan accent...."Darlin, sometimes you have to endure a little hell to have a piece of heaven!"

ps...We went through all of our supplies and put together a bunch of stuff for Edward and Shirley. They haven't had a cargo ship here in 8 months so supplies are running low. We were happy to be able to give them sugar, flour, rice, cake mixes, drink crystals (would you believe that this was on the top of their list), muffin mixes, candy and a bunch of gasoline. I am finding it hard to sleep at night, so many thoughts going through my head......at the top of the list though is....I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful

Storm Warning

Crappy, crappy, crappy weather. Let me try and describe the past 30 hours.....Everything began with an email we received from our friends who were about 100 miles ahead of us enroute to the same island. The email was titled..."Storm Warning"...we watched as each byte was slowly downloaded. Finally we could read it and it said:

"Hi Guys,

We thought we should let you know, we were just in a storm of about Beaufort 8-10 for around an hour, we are 130 miles at 70deg from Palmerston and it would be travelling at around 10-15knts on about 220deg, so should miss you, unless it turns a bit. We're OK, minor damage to a couple of bits. Don't want to worry you, but might be worth keeping and eye on the radar."

Well the email did scare us and it wasn't long after that the sky filled with cloud, the wind picked up and the rain began. After a few hours of this the seas also grew. We reefed Artemo way down and flew under only a tiny spiff of main sail. I couldn't believe how fast we were going under so little sail. Winds were high. Things got so bad I heard those dreaded words from Graham's mouth last night...."I can't make dinner tonight!" ha. We ate crackers, kobasa and cheese. He tried to make lunch and we had the pot of soup securely latched to the stove top and the stove is also gimbaled but since the back and forth smacking is so intense the hot pot of soup flew. To risky to cook now.

Right now the harsh reality of life on a monohull is right in our face. The small amount of floor space we have is covered in wet rain gear. The cockpit cushions are strewn across the table. The front v-birth bed has a blue tarp overtop of it but it came off during the night and the bed is soaked from a couple of small leaks up there. In order to step outside you have to climb over the companionway door and ensure you have full rain gear on as the cockpit is soaking wet. Once outside you have to quickly tether in. Our feet and hands are all shrivelled up and sore......basically WE ARE LIVING THE GOOD LIFE! ha ....NOT..but somehow in this chaos everyone maintains their spirits. I hear Graham and Alex talking in the cockpit about our speed and telling stories about when we use to tree plant. Amelia is watching Madagascar and I am typing. When it gets really bad we just reef right down and come down below and rest.

I am dreaming of arriving and for this hell to end but at the same time....I couldn't put a price on these moments. We are about 35 miles away from our destination but unfortunately we have heard that there are NO mooring balls left. We are praying a boat leaves today and there is room for us to stop. If there isn't we have to just keep on going to Nuie. I can't tell you how upsetting it will be to not be able to stop and recoup. Everyone think positive thoughts for us and visualize us safely on a mooring ball in Palmerston!!!!

We will keep you posted.

Julie

ps.....Alex is still fishing, so if you could also visualize him landing a huge Mahi to that would be great! :-)

4 Minute Fix

We woke up Friday morning in Mopelia (our final French Poly isle) and we readied Artemo for departure to the Cook Islands. At about 9am we listened to the weather on the morning SSB net. We heard that there were basically two camps on how the weather was shaping up. Some felt that it would be fantastic sailing conditions with about 15 to 20 knots of winds and others felt that it would be kicking up to 25 to 30 with thunderstorms and showers. The various weather sites were contradicting each other. We conversed with our friends on Simpatica and Ceol Mor and Graham and I decided that we really weren't in a hurry, so why take any risk of crappy weather. We got out monopoly and started the kettle for our morning tea. At about 10am we got a call from both Simpatica and Ceol Mor letting us know they had decided to go. Louis made some good points. He said that if we waited for a few days we might have light winds but we would have huge seas from the high winds previously. I was tempted to go but we continued to play. Once we saw them both pulling anchor both Alex and Graham were wanting to go to. We decided why not and away we went.

We had to first travel across the wide open lagoon which is riddled with abandoned oyster farms. These are basically many buoys attached with ropes. It would be a very bad day if we snagged one of these ropes around our propeller. Alex was at the front and Graham was up on the Granny bars and they were both yelling directions at me......"Hard Port....Neutral....Starboard....forward now". A bit stressful. The other thing was that we wanted to stay close behind Simpatica and Ceol Mor since then we could follow their tracks through the very NARROW and dangerous pass. I noticed we were falling behind so I gave Artemo a bit more juice. We were quickly approaching the reef surrounding the atoll. The wind was directly behind us at about 20knots. All of a sudden the boat just stopped going!!! Even though I had it in full throttle, we weren't getting any power. I was terrified. We still had plenty of forward motion since we had been going so fast and since we had no throttle we had no steerage. The reef was so close. I yelled to Graham...."We have no power, no power!!! The throttle is full on and we are getting NOTHING!!"

Graham jumped down below and began assessing the problem. I radioed our friends and let them no we had no motor. Simpatica was already through the pass but Ceol Mor had enough time to abandon there go at it and circle back to us. I wasn't sure what assistance they could provide but I was happy to know they were there. I told Ceol Mor I was giving Graham 2 minutes and then he was going to have to get up on deck and we were going to have to go sail back to the anchorage. The problem was that the reef was very close and we would be going pretty much directly at the wind to the anchorage.

Now this is the unbelievable part....within 4 minutes Graham had the stairs off, the door to the engine room open, the problem discovered and a new throttle pin lock wired on. Just as I am beginning to have a full on panic attack....he says the words I have come to love..."All fixed!" It wasn't a moment to soon. I gave it some throttle and voila. Unfortunately now as my heart is still racing, we have to navigate the trickiest pass in the French Poly. It is basically a narrow zig zag with reef lining both sides. I shudder to think what would of happened if we had lost our throttle 5 minutes later. Graham says that he could of just gave us throttle from below with his hands without installing the fix. It still freaked me out.

Once we were out of the pass Louis from Simpatica called over and asked us if it was Friday.....OMG. I couldn't believe it. It was Friday. We have a rule on Artemo. We never set out on a Friday. Louis is always joking about how we are superstitious that way. Go figure!

Once we were out the fun continued. We have our old main sail on and she is a wee bit wrinkly so she sometimes gets bunged up in the furling. This was the case today and we proceeded to spend the next few hours with Graham up the mast in rolly seas and Alex and I working the lines trying to get her out.

We said our goodbye's at sea to Simpatica and Ceol Mor. We are all heading to different Cook Islands. We have had unsettled weather. Last night as I was sitting alone in the dark on the cockpit floor in full rain gear, cold and tired....I thought...these are the pictures you don't see. Ha. Artemo is safe and sound in the big wind. We just reef her down and she handles great. It just isn't any fun though. You wish and wish for it to be over. We have had two nights of weather like that but luckily the days have been nice. We are thinking we will arrive in Palmerston on Tuesday.

Today we celebrated Alex's birthday on board. He popped his head up on deck at about 6:30am this morning. He was all excited. He looked the total opposite of how I was feeling but I tried really hard to be excited with him. I let him know we had a rough night and asked if he might give Dad and I a few more hours sleep before we got into presents and breakfast....being the very mature 14 year old he is he totally understood. At about 8 we all got up and watched as he opened his gifts. Amelia made him 3 different necklaces and we gave him a mars bar, huba bubba, gummy bears and kinder surprise. Amelia wrapped each one individually. We then let him know that we were going to pay for a chartered dive for him in Nuie. We downloaded all the brochures on the computer and right now he is reviewing all the different options. He said that he is totally satisfied! Graham made eggs benedict for breakfast and the day has shaped up pretty good.

How lucky am I to have a guy who can fix a throttle in 4 minutes AND make eggs benedict?

Strange World

Where to begin....so much has happened in the past few days. When night comes I am so exhausted that I can barely keep my eyes open through dinner. I think I last left you in Maupiti. We had a really awesome day there. We had our dinghy all deflated and stored down below, so Simpatica suggested that we all spend the day together in their dinghy trying to circumnavigate the island and having adventures along the way. Louis said he would pull along their two kayaks and bring all their snorkel gear. We all packed snacks and drinks and away we went.

We left at 9 and didn't get back until late in the afternoon. We snorkeled, kayaked, reef walked, hiked over an island, played on a cool teeny tiny sand spiff out in the middle of the lagoon in crystal clear water, fished, swam and played on the beach and LAUGHED. Totally great day. The kids were in heaven. Louis let Alex drive and even pulled out the tiller extension for him. Alex was so happy. He is always envious of all the other cruisers standing up in their big dinghy's with their big long handles. Finally he was on the other side of that picture! Louis let the kids ride in the kayaks and we pulled them. They got up on the huge wake we were making. It was so funny because after a while Louis just unhooks them both and drives off. They were in shock. It took them a while to realize that they should start paddling. I thought for sure Louis would go back for them but he just kept right on going and went for quite a ways......maybe 2 miles. We then anchored and waited for them both. They had to come against a current and the waves. When they finally arrived they were so mad. Louis was laughing. He kept yelling at them as they were getting closer..."We are over here."....they weren't laughin. I told them that the reason they like Louis is because he is unpredictable and crazy.....sometimes though these characteristics might work against ya! HA. Didn't take them long to forgive him and Alex was off with his spear gun sitting on the back of the kayak with Louis paddling to get up close to the outer reef.

The next day we headed out to an even more remote island named Maupihaa. Only one family lives on the island. The guide book says that it is the trickiest pass in the French Poly islands. We left Maupiti with 4 other boats. We were shocked to find that Artemo was going tbe fastest! We were only getting 8 knots of wind from behind and we were able to do almost 5. It was really shocking and so glorious. We arrived first at the pass the next morning. Just as we are about to get all lined up to go in Alex tells us he has hooked a bird with his line. My first reaction was to just cut the line. Luckily Graham and Alex thought this was a bad plan. Alex went and grabbed a towel, needle nose pliers and wire cutters. Graham reeled in the bird. He then lifted it on deck and Alex covered it with the towel. As soon as the towel was over top of the GI-normous bird it quieted down. Graham then got to work removing the hook from its web foot. Once he had it out he backed away and then instructed Alex to remove the towel. The bird then just stood on the back deck. It was so odd. The bird had a long blue beak. It was a boobie bird. It didn't seem to have any injuries it looked like it was just taking a break. I was flipping out. I have a fear of birds, so weird eh? We had to slow right down because there was no way I was going through the pass until the bird was gone. Finally 15 minutes later the bird crawled through the lifelines and flew away. This is when I started to breath again.

We then proceeded up to the pass. We got up close and Graham yelled from the front of the boat that he just wanted me to have a look and circle around and come back at it again. I was "in the zone" and didn't want to circle around again. It was time to DO IT. I told him I was going for it. The sun was perfect and we could see the reef on either side and the coral heads. I navigated Artemo brilliantly and before we knew it we were safe and sound inside the lagoon.

We arrived on our 19th wedding anniversary. Graham and I made a deal last year to take turns organizing the festivities on this date each year. This year was his turn. He kept asking how I was going to top a deserted French Poly island next year! Lucky for us Simpatica took the kids for the night and Graham totally outdid himself. We had a romantic sunset walk on the beach with wine in hand. We then drifted back in our dinghy to Artemo and enjoyed an awesome Green Curry dinner. Really perfect evening. He did good.

In the morning we all decided to move our boats to the other end of the island where we had heard the family lived. The kids stayed on Simpatica and Louis let Alex take the helm all the way to the next anchorage. He was pretty happy. Louis and Julie went in and met the family and the family offered to take us all lobster hunting tonight. We spent the day exploring the reef and a few of the abandoned houses on the beach. At one point today I was pushing the dinghy out of the shallow water with Graham, Alex and Amelia in it (since we couldn't put the engine down or it would hit coral) and I see this black tip reef shark circle me! I jump up on the dinghy and Graham is laughing at me and razing me....about barely escaping attack (obviously dripping with sarcasm). I was so mad.....I am like..."geeesh you guys if I am the only one pushing the least you can do is look out for sharks". What a strange world we are living in!

Everyone just got back from the night time lobster expedition. I hung back to have a little "me" time. They said it was a lot of fun and pretty cool to be doing in the dark. They said the family was so happy to get the huge bag of candy I put together for them and they dug right into it. Unfortunately they only got one tiny lobster and the family kept it but it sounds like it didn't matter the experience was cool enough to make up for it.

We may leave tomorrow for Palmerston. Not sure what tomorrow will bring. We will see how everyone is feeling in the morning. It will be about a 4 night sail and the winds look good right now. We will keep our position reports updated. Thanks for all the nice Happy Anniversary emails. (I sent a few replies from our SSB email since we don't have internet. You may want to check your junk boxes....the email address begins with VA3PRY.)

Julie