It takes time, every time, to get the
rhythm of our watches. With short-ish passages about the time you really find
your rhythm you’re there and it seems you have spent far too much time trying
to sleep and far too little time actually sleeping so often arrive exhausted.
On longer passages there are always external pressures that throw a whammy on
the schedule –bad weather, catching a fish, making a set schedule for talking
with friends on the ham radio, engine or fuel problems or bits of maintenance
or repairs that must be taken care of immediately. This trip we were affected by fishing, heat
and then in the end weather. Oh and a
repair problem that sprang up on us before we had even left.
We were ready to go. Groceries bought and
stowed, check. Chickens roasted, check. Boat cleaned, check. Fuel and water tanks topped off, check. Life
jackets out and ready, Epirb tested, jack lines ready check, check, check. We
had just finished our official clearing out procedure and had one hour to leave
Fiji. All that was left to do was secure
the outboard, lift and stow the dinghy on deck and let loose the mooring lines
and we would be ready off in time for our 4pm set departure. Not so fast…what is that smell and what is
that puddle at the bottom of the companionway steps. &^#$%*&^&%^!!!!
While we were checking out a sight tube-a
piece of hose that lets us see how full a tank is- had broken and had begun
emptying one of our diesel fuel tanks directly into the locker that houses our
water maker. The floor of the passage
way to our aft cabin was awash in diesel and the puddle was creeping under the
companionway stairs and forward into our main cabin and was leaking through the
floorboards and into the bilge. And the
clock was ticking. Suddenly all of our
focus was on getting the leak stopped and then the hose repaired and the mess
cleaned up. Amazingly we barely blinked
an eye as we waded through the mess and began the cleanup and repairs. It could
have been worse of course –it could have been an ordinary day where we were off
the boat for hours and come back to a much fuller bilge and a much bigger clean
up. Instead an hour after scheduled we
were calmly motoring out of the anchorage but the stench of the spilled diesel
would be with us for the entire trip.
The weather window we had been waiting for
never really appeared. We had hoped to
have south winds which would allow us to sail the 236 miles but finally settled
for little or no winds and a passage that promised to be mostly a motor
sail. No wind and motoring is far better
than winds on our nose and miles of beating into a rolling sea.
A highlight of the trip was the
fishing. Bill had been busy making
homemade fishing lures. He cuts the top off of a pop bottle cap so all you have
is the mouth of the bottle and the screw on top. Then he punches a hole through
the lid where the line will be strung. He cuts strips of shiny plastic bags
–think lunch box sized bags of Cheetos or chips – folds them over the lip of
the bottle cap and then screws the lid over the bottle mouth. The high test
leader line goes through hole in the cap and then the bottle top gets screwed
down over the mouth of the bottle. We use heavy duty double hooks on a leader line
that’s set off the bottle mouth with a few beads and viola’ a very enticing big
fish hootchie lure for the price of the hooks and line! They look like shiny
squid and the fish love them. Thanks to Chuck on S/V Jacaranda for the great
idea.
The lures have been paying us back in
spades. Midday of the second day we
caught two yellow fin tunas and a short time later a slight coarse shift to was
taking us over a very promising looking shoal. Having just finished catching, cleaning and
stowing two yellow tail tuna Bill was below sleeping as I charted our progress
toward the shoal. As we closed in on the shallow patch I could see birds
working the water and soon saw small fish shoaling the surface. I checked each of the lures trailing behind
the boat for seaweed as we approached and was standing on deck in the sunshine
watching behind us as we began passing over the bulls-eyed spot. I could see
more small fish running on the surface and then a few pan sized fish running
towards our lures. Then in a space of a
minute four big fish were racing across the top of the water towards the three
lures being drug behind the boat. I
watched as a huge fish hit one of the lures and came flying up an easy four
feet. The huge fish hit and flew up and out of the water a good four feet with sparkling
water and bits of cookie bag flying in a huge arc before the fish slammed back
down into the sea. In the blink of an
eye I had all three lines running with very large fish, each big enough to run
and fight and all three crossing back and forth behind us. One fish successfully fought his way to
freedom but with Bills help we soon had two large fish on board –a four foot
Wahoo and a twenty five pound Big Eye tuna!!!!
Bravo, bravo! Of course that meant a good hour of work. First the fish must be….dispatched and then filleted. Then Bill scrubs up the huge mess that always
results from killing and cleaning big fish on deck while I work below in the galley
where a bit of fillet fine tuning gets the pieces portioned and bagged and
ready for meals and the freezer. For
dinner we had a taste test of the earlier caught yellow fin tuna and the big
eye –both amazingly delicious but the
big eye won out in the sashimi test. The
only bad part of the whole deal is that the freezer was now full and until we
were somewhere where we could give fish away poor Bill was going to have to
stop fishing.
Thirty hours after leaving Savu Savu we had arrived
at Fortuna. The anchorage there can be very rolly and uncomfortable with a
south swell and that was just what was predicted for the following day along
with winds on our nose going back so our choices were clear, stay for several
days in the rolly anchorage or leave straight off. Add to that the fact that we had no French
Polynesian francs and there is no ATM on the island so we wouldn’t even be able
to have a meal off the boat or splurge on baguettes and imported French cheese.
Plus it was astonishingly hot even in the early morning. So a quick in and out it would be. We dropped the dinghy off the deck and
paddled in to the wharf to a short walk to Customs and Immigrations and then on
to the Gendarmerie. Passports were stamped and papers filled out then right
back to the boat for a quick lunch and in no time we were raising the anchor
and off on our way back to Fiji.
The whole trip so far had been dry and hot
and that’s what we got going back. Right
up until I heard Bill say “Kat, come up on deck and look at this sky.” It was nearly six pm and we had just clearing
the Somosomo straight -the reefy-est part of the six hundred plus mile
passage. Ahead of us was a bank of black
clouds that spread completely across the skyline. At the bottom of the line of ink black clouds
was a strip of lighter color clouds that were rolling and boiling. The storm front was still many miles away but
within moments the seas were up and Island Bound was rocking and rolling in
short steep wind waves. By the time we
got our dodger/bimini side and door pieces in place the rain drops were falling
and suddenly we were in some of the worst seas we have ever sailed
through. Luckily the winds were not too
bad –an easy 25 knots with gusts up into the mid or even high thirties. The
rain was fierce and the seas were like a washing machine. The soon to set sun was
obliterated and we were suddenly sailing into the night rolling and plunging
and trying our best to stay dry.
In the end out of a sixty hour passage the
last 12 were pretty uncomfortable. Not
scary because the winds didn’t get too bad but rough and wet and not much
fun. It was too rough to really sleep or
move about the boat so by the time we hove too outside of Savu Savu to wait for
sunrise we were both completely exhausted. Our concern as we sailed into this
weather front had been for the reefs between us and Savu Savu and the lack of
anywhere safe to stop and wait out the weather.
As uncomfortable as the end of our passage
had been we had been concerned for friends who had left Savu Savu a day and a
half after us. Behind us they would be
facing this weather in the open ocean and were likely to see higher winds and
bigger waves. Leanna and John on Ref Sky
and Charlene and Ernie on Lauren Grace struggled through much higher seas and
winds over 50 mph! Red sky blew out
there main sail and had the fresh water pump on their engine go out leaving
them without an engine and beam on into very high seas while Lauren Grace a cat
had an easier ride of things but blew out the bungee cord that attaches the
trampoline on their foredeck and both came limping into Savu Savu with tales to
tell. I was glad we had picked the
weather window we had. Out here you can run but you just can’t hide. Fair winds, Kat.
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