Into the Blue

Riders On the Storm

jcraig234 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:39:00 GMT

We left Tonga with many fond memories of seclueded white sand beaches, pig roast's, coconut milk and snorkeling down into underwater caves. Aswell as witnessing the American Obama victory celebrations of the whole bar of people jumping into the water. Plus the nighttime visit to a megayacht by 2 crazy crew in a dysfuntional dinghy that would only turn circles in the pouring rain... but that's another story!

So we set out from Vav'au ,Tonga due south for the Bay of Islands, NZ some 1200 miles away. The bunch of banana's that I'd picked up for free in the Cook's had finally gotten quite ripe and so everyone was excited when I finally made some banana bread! Eli especially since he would come up from the galley with about half a loaf in his hand! Cooking at sea is no easy task so whenever this rare ocurrance did happen and everyone got something the person who cooked was immediately the best guy on the boat! Eli became know as the "goat" since he would eat anything, anytime and as much as possible which was fitting as he was a Capricorn (the goat)!

We had stocked up on about a dozen pineapples ( 50 cents each) and a lot of mangos and cabbage. Plus rice and tuna, but everyone was excited that with our new lures we just had to catch a fish. We were getting about a bite per day so we felt something had to happen sometime! For once we had 2 lines out, I was holding one, when suddenly Eli, who was taking a leaking off the back of the boat yelled, "hey there's fish jumping over our lines". Our intial reaction was yeah right this is just another bad joke! But suddenly the line began to go tight and we had 2 mahi mahi on the lines at the same time. At this point of great excitement we made the mistake of letting Dave know what was going on. Dave had been kept on a strict diet of rice and beans with an occasional bit of small bacon bits thrown into the pasta to get him out of his vege-depressions at sea! Needless to say once he heard there was not one but 2 potential fish steak dinners that could feed us for 4 days on the lines he went a little manic! The first mahi mahi to come in close to the boat was a difficult propect to bring onto the boat since we had no hook to hook it in the gills and hoist on board. Eli was given the difficult task of grabbing it with his hand's (a 30lb 5ft fish) whilst holding onto the ladder off the back of the boat! As he grabbed it, it jumped and pulled out the hook and dove back into the sea, much to the anger of the Cap'n who turned his attention to me since I was still reeling in the 2nd Mahi! He barked out order's of "Reel it in faster" "harder" and then just as the fish was in close "let go of the line" and I dropped the line in the sea without thinking to a classic shout of "Noooooooooo" from Dave. Thankfully Eli had already pinned the Mahi against the boat and pulled it one board. Whilst Dave immediately got down to the galley to prepare the rice and take orders on how everyone liked their mahi, I sheepishly reeled in the line and the other's filleted the mahi. Fresh mahi was excellent, especially to ravenous sea dogs, and we watched as the rest of the mahi's followed our boat for a while since apparently they mate for life.

It was an exciting interlude in the clamest seas we'd had for the whole passage. The sea looked like a mirror and we heard another boat talking about burning insence to figure out the winds direction. They actually ended up pulling another boat into Minerva reef which was the nearest shelter since they had no gas left to motor! Minerva reef was an interesting anomaly, a reef 20 kms across gave a weather window for other boat's heading south. Stuck 600 kms south of Tonga it was a beautiful blue lagoon like water with a sandy bottom and the best coral we'd seen. Snorkeling around we saw about 5 sharks in 30 minutes! Very cool spot.

The wind picked up again and we set off behind the main pack of 12 other yachts who set off a bit before us. We were sailing along at a good speed of about 6-7 kts in the wrong direction but were anticipating a wind shift so we hoped! The wind did come around and gradually increased and we were left out of touch of any weather forecast except another nearby yacht which relayed it's forecast onto us. Suddenly we had bad news there were 25ft seas and 60 kt winds headed our way. We were partly dismayed and excited at the same time, Eli and I began reading all the heavy weather sailing books aboard and questioning the Cap'n about setting up harnesses and maybe how to save some if they fell overboard. The weather seemed to be coming from behind us so we put up all the sail and even tryed to motor sail a bit to keep up speed and get beyond the storm. This worked well, the waves had increased to 8-12 feet but the wind stayed low and we surfed the waves up to 9 knots which feels fast on a yacht! (it's about 10 miles an hour) haha. We were only 100 miles off the NZ coast and had just been visited by a pod of dolphins which surfed by our bow when the wind began to pick up that evening.

One more night of sailing to go and it was the worst! The waves had picked up to 15-20ft and the wind had began to howl, rain poured down and salty spray would lash across the cockpit giving anyone steering a mouthful. I had courageously tryed to cheer everyone up by making a gourmet meal in the galley of hot instant mashed potatoes and baked beaned with tinned turkey! I later discovered big cluster of bruises on my upper thigh from being bashed about in that tiny galley...

It was going to be a long long long night... the cap'n ordered us on double shifts and so I was up first to cheer up ol Dave who promptly fell into me as another great wave rocked the boat. Then a double whammy of 2 waves about 20ft each hit across the boat sending Dave back into the dodger and all the kitchen went to pieces, smashing cups and leaving a huge mess. I went down and found Eli angrily picking up the mess and putting it in the sink. At the back of the boat we had water swilling out of the lazarette into dave's room and the whole boat looked like a tornado had ripped through. After that Eli and I stayed up with Dave who was not used to watching at night was quite slow in holding onto something. He eventually lay down on the side of the cockpit for a bit and tryed to rest while Eli and I checked on the course and hoped the autopilot didn't go out since there was no way we could steer in this. Our next problem was to slow the boat down since it was still flying on the wave surge with only a quater of the jib up, we reefed it till about an eighth was left which helped. Meanwhile our piece of junk wind generator which had sat useless on the back of the boat broken began to make a awful howl as it spun madly in the wind. We started think it might actually come crashing into the cockpit since that was the way it was spinning! Suddenly the noise stopped, shining a light up, it had gone and we laughed with relief that the noise and danger had disappeared! We tryed to keep up spirit's by singing "Riders on the Storm", as the sea kicked the boat around, thankfully the 60 kt winds and 20ft seas were behind us so we were still able to hold our own fairly well.

The rain was freezing and so I went back below decks to dry a little, Marina was feeling sea sick and I made cups of tea for the other's above. I tried to sleep a bit but the waves kept jerking me out of bed. Suddenly a huge wave hit and about 2 feet of water crashed into the cockpit. I heard the water gush into the kitchen as the hatch was still open, more mess!

We finally got into NZ, the wind had died and we were in thick fog, Dave said "land of the great white cloud, great". I sang a bit of jimmy cliff "I can see clearly now" as the sun came out and began to burn everything off to cheer him up. In the distance the rugged islands of the Bay stuck out in the distance and we finally got out of the reach of the 12ft seas and into the shelter of the Bay to step ashore, kiss the dock and happily let the customs officials inspect our dirty boat, throw out our stinking cabbage in the fridge and the big bag of kidney beans that everyone was sick of! NZ was warm and inviting and 1 dollar hot showers were available for the first time in 2 weeks! whoohooooo

The Cook Islands. Tonga and on to NZ!

jcraig234 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:35:00 GMT

Ok folks,

Storytime from the South Sea's. Opua, Bay of Islands, NZ to be exact.

So, Rarotonga, Cook Islands we managed to dock in and then spent a few miserable hours fixing things on the ship. I got the illustrious position of fixing the ships head (toilet). One of those hand pump ones that takes about 25 pumps to clear! We all get a good laugh at Eli whenever he comes out of the bathroom cos he's always sweating profusely from the heat and pumping that funny ol head! Anyways so after completly dismantling the head and putting back together we were desperate for a shower and getting off the "Ferdy Turd" as was now called. The next day we discovered Rarotonga was a simple island, 32 kms to go right round and 2 buses one that said "clockwise" on it and one with "anticlockwise"! The main animal of this island was evidently the chicken as it was just about everywhere! A mother hen and her chicks would be right in the middle of town pecking outside the shops. The main ships dock was the place where all the local kids would hang out, jumping off the dock and pushing each other in when the other wasn't looking. Their favourite dive was the bellyflop which looked quite painful but seemed to be super fun for them!

The best of Rarotonga was zooming about on little mopeds which could take you all over the island to the best beaches. However, the worst part was having to share a ride with FD "fat Dave" on a tiny moped which was definitely way to uncomfortable/squashed to be worth getting to the beach on! Turning around made for an interesting ride in itself as Dave was almost falling over with himself on the bike let alone me. The silver lining was when I got 10 bucks to take the bus back but managed to hitchhike with a local lady who gave the boat a bunch of banana's that would yield some quality banana bread in due course!

Tonga...

The voyage consisted of some 800 miles and furthur disappointment in the fishing efforts. The main joke of the ship seemed to be the virgin Josh who would be presented to the king of Tonga for a suitable princess and show off his great dishwashing skills as a proof of his honor! Oh and of course the catch line of "Everybody nap now"! which is exactly what we gladly did!

It's the Sailing Life

jcraig234 — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:58:00 GMT

Ahoy Matey's

So to catch up on the rest of our trip about 2000 kms from Tahiti to Tonga!

My new shipmates turned out to be Eli, also known as "Manimal" and Marina the 40 something Scot who is not afraid to tell you she is always right!
She's also enjoys to party a lot and reminisce about her days in the Caribbean on a party yacht which sold shirts saying "I came I saw I jumped of the Willy T naked!". Which you had to do to get the free t-shirt, one season they gave 22,000 of these away. And then you have me of course and our Cap'n who upon my arrival told me that some of his previous crew think that "the sun shines out his ass" while others regard him as a "anal prick"! So far he's not proved too popular with the crew who like to imitate his cries of "asshole" and so on in his nasally and annoying voice. So he definitely suffers from a case of Grumpy ol man syndrome which can put a damper on things. He's also a nudist which can be a little shocking in the mornings to wake up to and has a swollen foot to contend with from an old infection, but that's another story.

Life on a sailboat. I was intrigued by it, I came I saw and on the first day aboard got into the engine room in just my boxers to clean all the goopy oil and water out of the engine getting nicely coated in it aswell in the process.

This then led of course to the question of showers. "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" in the words of Dave. The shower on the boat is used for storage and since the boat can't make fresh water from the sea we are limited to the water supply of about 150 gallons on board. Joy! that's the dishwashing liquid that Dave uses, and so you jump in the water, get out add joy! and then jump back in to wash off, get out to rinse off with a little of the ships fresh water. At sea we go about 3-4 days before the showers are really needed. Dave seems to smell again after a couple of hours though!

From Tahiti we dashed across to the neighbouring ilse of Moorea which had great snorkelling and we managed to dive down and pick up a couple of big conk shells. The interesting part was trying to etract the conk who would keep trying to get away with it's on arm. In the end we boiled them and they slid out. Unfortunately Marina's conk had been dead a while and when it came out we looked up to hear gagging sounds coming from the galley and a super strong odor the cause of which was quickly ushered off the ship!

It was 600 miles to Rarotonga the capital of the Cook Islands and we set off after a sleepless night in windy conditions. My first sea passage! Woohooo! I was soon feeling the exact opposite as we hit a rainstorm and tough seas making me rather seasick! The reality of sea passage soon sunk in with each person doing 2 three hour shifts to watch the wheel and for other boats etc. I was given the 12-3 watch. At night you look over the side at the phopherescent plankton wake which glow when disturbed by the ship. Above the mooon is in a sideways position like a big smile of a chesire cat. Meanwhile you scan the horizon for any lights of ships or approaching squalls and try to steer the course without letting the forward sail called the jib to flap too much. Otherwise an angry naked man will appear to demand what your course is.

After 5 days in the twilight zone of eat, sleep, watch we sighted the peaks of rarotonga in the distance to cheers from the crew. None of us had yet succumbed to agrophobia- the opposite of claustophobia and none had yet fufilled Cap'n Dave's prophecy that by the end of the trip we would all be nudists!

Sailing Away on the South Seas

jcraig234 — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 09:13:00 GMT

Hey Everyone!

So I finally managed to get a bit of dairy blog thingamajig together so here goes from the kingdom isle of Tonga!

Once upon a time there was crazy Captain of the infamous pirate ship the Ferdinand who became the most famous Cockroach killer in the South Seas! But that's another story!

Anyways it was about exactly 33 days ago that I stepped off the plane in Tahiti and into the muggy heat of the night and breathed a sigh of relief as I passed customs and was waiting outside for my new captain to pick me up. I was introduced to Cap'n Dave by a French friend of his called Matt who had insisted on picking me up from the airport. Dave, (or "Dirty D " as he is more affecionatly known by the crew ) turned out to be a 61 year old captain, who'd been sailing the last 30 odd years of his life. Fairly short and rotund with a swollen foot and a fairly unkempt beard he cut an interesting figure next to his young French friend Matt who was driving us back to the harbour and ran the local wifi business. Once we arrived in the marina Matt took us over to his sailboat he was living on with his family, and said "alright this is my boat and this is Dave's" At which point he pointed to the digny next to his boat with about 2 inches of water in the bottom! It was a slow row out to the "Ferdinand" a 44ft Gulstar yacht from 1982 that was sitting anchored out in the bay.

Alright I'm running out of time so a bit quicker I met up with the rest of the crew a couple days later: Eli and Marina who actually came on the same flight, and were sitting across the aisle from each other but didn't realize they were on the same boat till they got off the plane and were waiting outside together!

To be cont'd soon