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Logs & Stories -  December 2005

Pago Pago

December 5, 2006

Bill:

It was early December, we'd completed our tasks in American Samoa, hurricane season was approaching and it was time to get going. On December 5 we left Mike's mooring and set sail heading north.

December 24, 2005 -- part 4

Bill:

I write this as we're anchored at Christmas Island in the Line Islands.

We left Pago Pago expecting to end up in Majuro in the Marshall Islands, a 2000-mile passage. We spent two days motoring northward in calm weather, in a hurry because tropical disturbances had started forming near the equator and moving southward and we really weren't interested in being hit by one. Getting in one of these lows didn't necessarily imply a life threatening experience: the order of increasing intensity is 1) tropical disturbance, 2) depression, 3) storm and then 4) hurricane. After those two days of motoring, a disturbance had formed in the vicinity of Samoa, pulling the winds from the northwest and making the passage to the Marshall Islands a beat, an unpleasant prospect.

For some time, I'd been fantasizing about going to the Marshalls, then to Kosrae in the Caroline group and ultimately settling in Ponape, about 2500 miles from Samoa. While in Samoa, though, several things had started to grate on me:

1) Ponape and Kosrae are very rainy, warm places, and we'd found the rainy, humid weather in Pago Pago to be unpleasant (Karryn particularly so); 2) I've been concerned about getting the kids in school, so we'd been pondering checking out Ponape for an extended stay, but the experience being at anchor in Samoa's rainy weather, dealing with the logistics of getting to the beach dry, made this seem less palatable; 3) We believed that if we decided not to stay in Ponape, the most reasonable thing to do seemed to be to return to the US. There are two paths available for this -- first, an intimidating 5500-mile downwind trip in westerlies across the gale- and fog-ridden North Pacific, or second, a challenging 4000-mile upwind slog along the tropical equatorial route to Hawaii before making the final 3000-mile passage from Hawaii to the West Coast. Longer, but warmer and less scary than the North Pacific route.

When we encountered the headwinds we had a discussion about our future plans, and came to the conclusion that it made sense to shorten the return home by turning northeast toward the Line Islands and Hawaii. During the remainder of the passage to Christmas Island, the winds continued to cooperate, gradually clocking from northwesterly to northerly until we were at the same longitude as the Line and eastern Hawaiian Islands, then suddenly shifting 90 degrees to easterly and making it possible to get here with a single tack. We pretty much made out on the wind shifts; I have the impression we were supposed to come here.

The passage from Samoa to the Line Islands is generally one of the gnarlier ones in the central Pacific, 1300 miles straight into the wind. Because of our change in plans we sailed sub-optimally, spending the first two days going in the wrong direction, but managed to make it to Christmas Island going 1800 miles over the earth's surface in seventeen days. Because of the lucky wind shifts we were able to avoid beating at tight angles, able to crack off just a little and make the boat's motion through the ocean swells and waves a little more comfortable. Ah, the magic of calming the storm.

Even so, it was challenging. As I mentioned earlier, the first two days we motored in a calm, waking up one morning in a completely glassy ocean, an amazingly beautiful visual image. The next four or five days we transited the South Pacific Convergence Zone, a band of ocean where we experienced continual squalls, some of them lasting as much as ten hours, some with lightning (yikes!).

December 24, 2005 -- part 2

Bill:

During our transit of the South Pacific Convergence Zone we alternated between sailing and motoring, using the windvane occasionally but generally favoring the autopilot. We wanted to keep the boat moving, get through the convergence zone as quickly as possible, so when the wind died between squalls, we'd crank up the engine. The vane does a great job steering when the wind is steady, but when the wind direction changes, the boat's direction changes, too, unless you alter the vane. Alternatively, the autopilot steers a consistent compass course. When the wind dies completely, the vane doesn't work at all, so the autopilot was generally a more agreeable tool.

Both devices attach to the trim tab, an underwater foil attached to the back end of our transom-hung rudder, and used to alter the rudder's direction as necessary. The trim tab is connected to the directional devices (vane and autopilot) via a couple of tiny stainless steel cables, and one day one of these cables parted. We needed to replace it. We've replaced these cables before, an act requiring that you hang off the transom of the boat, one foot placed on the step I have mounted on the rudder, and hang on the ladder attached to the back of the boat. A little tricky but not overwhelmingly challenging, but I'd never done this when Seafire was in motion. "Hmmm..." I thought. "Do we stop the boat or not?"

We were sailing along pleasantly at around five knots. Stopping the boat would create more work and require dropping the sails, parking for perhaps a half hour, all the while bouncing in the swells. It might actually be easier with the boat moving, head down a little and dampen the motion a little. Might even be a five-minute job. The trick was, if I screwed up and fell off the transom, Seafire would be moving along as I was drug through the ocean by the tether of my harness, or worse yet, I might be treading water and watching her transom grow smaller.

Well? I was feeling brave and lazy. I got a replacement cable and my sailing harness, and then put the harness on. I went aft, clipped the harness onto the backstay, and climbed down the transom ladder. Jackson was standing on the bunk in the aft end of the boat with his head and shoulders out of the hatch to assist me, and Karryn was in the cockpit steering gingerly so that if I put a finger in the wrong place the rudder's motion wouldn't cleave it off. I pull the broken cable off, then, carefully, as the boat rode through the waves and Seafire's wake brushed past me, threaded the new cable through its conduit. Five minutes later, the job was done.

Since breaking my back, I've thought of myself as being a bit of a cripple, challenged by walking. But the thought crossed my mind: how many people have I known who would have been up to the task I just completed? A few certainly -- I could probably rattle off a half dozen names with no problem -- but not a lot.

December 24, 2005 -- part 3

Bill:

Our last day in the convergence zone was memorable. Most of the squalls had been relatively minor, short in duration, maybe a half hour with top winds only about 20 knots generally aft of the beam and no lightning immediately around us. Early in the day we sailed in and out of one of these, and the wind started to die. I looked over and perhaps a half mile away was another squall. Wanting to keep moving, I started the engine and motored into it, thinking it wouldn't be that challenging.

Wrong. It lasted seven hours. The wind wasn't particularly high and was aft of the beam, but the rain pounded down. About a half hour into it, Karryn was scheduled to come on watch. Our foul weather gear, leaky from age and baking in the tropics, didn't keep us very dry, and I thought it would be a lot more pleasant for her if she started her watch during a rainless spell and delayed becoming waterlogged as long as possible. I kept thinking, "This must be about to end."

But it didn't, the rain kept pounding down, the wettest squall we'd experienced. Being opportunistic, I grabbed the buckets, held them under the sails and managed to catch 25 gallons of rain and subsequently overfill the water tank.

After about six hours we came to the edge of the squall. I headed off about thirty degrees, sailing off-course but toward the nearest rain-free zone. We sailed out of the squall and the rain stopped. Briefly. A monster in motion, the squall grew a long gray arm to the north of us, reached out and grabbed Seafire, wind increasing and rain pounding down once again. I endured further, motivated by the thought of a dry, happy Karryn. Then, finally, the rain stopped and we exited the convergence zone permanently.

But we didn't stay dry. While we'd generally been able to reach or run in the convergence zone, we were now going more to weather, heading east in NNE winds. Downwind, Seafire's central cockpit is a safe, comfortable place, but going to weather in a swell you end up wishing you had another twenty feet of boat in front of you. During the final eleven days, we generally had winds in the 20-knot range, creating wind waves that had a tendency to shoot buckets of water into the cockpit. In this leg of the trip, Karryn probably had the most hellish watch, getting soaked every few minutes. At one point I looked out into the cockpit from the pleasantly dry aft cabin, and watched wave after wave splash on Karryn's head. Sitting there stoically, she looked absolutely miserable. But after my heroic act in that seven-hour squall, I felt empathy but no guilt.

And, ultimately, each of us shared her experience. Naomi probably took the worst drenching; sitting in the front of the cockpit, her small body took a particularly large splash, perhaps ten gallons in one enormous drop of water.

December 24, 2005 -- part 4

Karryn:

The four-to-five days of transiting the SPCZ (South Pacific Convergence Zone) were the worst weather we had experienced in terms of duration -- the gale off the Oregon / Northern California coast was much worse, but it was also much shorter. In the SPCZ the squalls were intense in terms of rain (the wind was usually not too bad), and not infrequently there was lightening off in the distance (this usually translates to over 30 miles, but after our lightning strike in Mexico any bright flash gets the adrenaline flowing). A few times there was lightning close by, once right overhead, which begs the question: how fast can one unplug every currently non-essential electronic device on the boat?

I began to feel like we were a 40-foot squall seed, like the stuff used to seed clouds to hopefully produce rain. In our case, we didn't want squalls in the least, but to our frustration there were many times when the radar image would show a 10-to-16-mile-diameter squall with us dead center. If a squall showed up, eventually it would find us, surround us and then stay there for what seemed like a very long time. Twice Bill attempted in vain to get us out of a squall before letting me out for my watch, both times spending many hours in utterly drenching downpours until he finally had to give up and let me share in the experience. An A++++ for effort, but an E for results (Bill interjects here to suggest a more favorable grade might be beneficial for marital relations: can we settle on at least a C?).

After three days of this, I finally decided to call in the experts and sent an e-mail to Bob McDavitt, a New Zealand-based weather guru who does once-a-week weather overviews for free but will also do specific passage advice for individual yachts for a fee. No more than half a day later, we had our forecast with advice for exiting the SPCZ: head due east. We'd been trying for northeast, and east was actually a more comfortable point of sail, a little more off the wind. A number of hours later, after the monster squall Bill wrote of, we sailed out of the SPCZ and were happy. While saltwater baths are not nearly as comfortable as freshwater ones (and much harder on clothing), the weather was now consistent and we were nowhere near any lightning!

The inconsistency of convergence zone weather, with its lulls and squalls, was really tiresome. On our earlier downwind passages we'd been able to have Jackson and Naomi on watch much of the daylight period, but in the SPCZ Bill and I were kept fully occupied: on watch, working (usually cooking or cleaning up) or sleeping. Because it was so wet, the kids tended to stay in the forward cabin reading. The few times we took advantage of an hour or two of decent weather to relax together as a family, one or both of us would pay later on.

I remember all of us sitting in the front of our cockpit dodger during one of the rare sunny periods, watching a very large pod of spinner dolphins swim alongside Seafire, thinking I really ought to be sleeping (it was Bill's watch). Of course, later I was on watch with Bill, as the weather had deteriorated and both of us had to be on deck. I was tired because I had spent a large part of my off-watch with the family in the sun, and Bill was tired because his watch should have ended already.

The trip from Mexico to the Marquesas had been delightful its good weather, and I slowly came to realize that, as far as passages go, it seemed we'd had the best one first. I've had a few experiences like that in my life (where the best one comes first), and I've learned it leads to perpetual disappointment. Fortunately, the thrill of landfall seems to be increasing each time, which helps. Somewhat.

December 24, 2005 -- part 5

Jackson:

Naomi and I stayed in our bunks most of the time and read or slept. During the drier periods, we occasionally came up and stayed in the cockpit for a while. Because we stayed inside (on earlier passages we had mostly eaten meals in the cockpit), Mom gave us a box full of cheese and crackers so we weren't stuck in the forward cabin with nothing to eat. Often when we were outside in the morning we had to wait for breakfast anyway, because one of the grownups was sleeping.

This has been a problem for Naomi and me ever since Mom and Dad started sleeping in the aft cabin a few years ago, because all the food that isn't in the ama is in the aft, and we can't come aft until they're awake and out of bed. This means that from the time we go forward to go to sleep until they decide to get up, we have no food. Inevitably we are hungry when we come aft, because there is nothing to eat but my months' old supply of Christmas candy I have saved.

Note: Mom talks about how before we left Seattle she would have to throw out my Halloween candy after a couple months because I wouldn't eat it. Yet, as I write this it is the 18th of February and we are in Fanning, and most of my Christmas candy is gone already because there is no snack food to take up forward, due to the fact that the only snack food Mom will let us eat is the Kiribati Cabin Biscuits -- which aren't that appetizing -- because she wants to save everything else for the next passage.

On the passage to Christmas, when we were stuck outside with no breakfast we ended up eating all the chocolate chips out of the container of trail mix Mom and Dad keep in the cockpit as snack food for nighttime watches.

[Editor's note: What Jackson meant to say is that I would have to throw out year-old candy from his Christmas stocking, Easter basket and plastic Halloween pumpkin when it came time to use them again! And those Kiribati Cabin Biscuits are sort of like the dog biscuits of crackers, but we have a lot of them. The kids basically ate two months' worth of good crackers during this passage because the weather was often too rough for me to cook regular meals.]

[Note from Bill: Also, note that the kids managed to eat a great deal of candy on this passage, not something most ten and thirteen year olds would find a painful experience. Beats the hell out of sitting in the cockpit getting doused by buckets of water. Also, you'll note that when Jackson and Naomi got ahold of the gallon container full of trail mix, the chocolate chips managed to disappear while all the nuts and granola stayed put. Childhood is hell.]

December 24, 2005 -- part 6

Bill:

While we were going to weather, I was mindful of Seafire's rig. When I was ten and we were making the passage from Tahiti to Hawaii aboard Sorceress, at the point we were six hundred miles from our destination the mast collapsed while my dad was up it trying to get the mainsail down. The boat's wooden mast section was too small for the loads it was taking and would bend in high winds, causing its stainless steel sail track to kink and preventing the main from being reefed. Dad had gone up to unscrew a portion of the kinked section of track. We were fortunate that when the rig came down he didn't hit our trimaran's 24-foot wide deck or get impaled by a stanchion, but instead fell into the sea.

We pulled the mast from the water and spent a day wondering, "Oh, shit. What do we do now?" With six hundred miles to go, we didn't have enough fuel to motor all the way. We ended up sawing off the bottom, splintered portion of the mast and re-stepping the upper section, then hanging the jibs sideways and making the remainder of the passage to Hilo without further challenges.

Like our passage from Tahiti to Hawaii thirty-five years ago, this one was upwind. All of the offshore passages we'd made until this point had been downwind, far easier on the boat. When you're going downwind and a gust hits, the boat accelerates, moving faster with the wind and because of this the wind pressure felt on the boat diminishes once the boat's speed increases.

Upwind, the opposite happens: a gust hits, the boat accelerates, and the wind felt on the boat increases because of both the gust and the boat's motion against the wind, a compounding effect which amplifies load increases and ultimately causes the rigging to wear faster.

Waves have a similar dynamic -- as the boat moves upwind, you're bashing against the waves rather than being pushed along with them. As the wind increases, so do the waves, in both size and frequency. Going to weather in twenty knots of breeze means you're pressing the boat though a wave, an energy burst, every few seconds; there's a sensation of loading and unloading as this happens, the oscillations pressing the rig forward one moment, aft the next, back and forth. This too has a wearing impact on the rig.

Seafire's mast is a better-engineered appendage, stouter with more wires holding it up and far less likely to fail. Nevertheless, we resolved not to push things, heading off a bit to reduce wave pounding and the rigging load oscillations, frequently sailing under-canvassed with only a reefed main and a staysail to minimize risks. A broken mast in the remote, landless location we were in would force us back to Pago Pago for repairs, back to the southern hemisphere hurricane season.

I was also mindful of Seafire's centerboard. Over the years some of the biggest pain-in-the-ass repairs I've had to make have been to Seafire's minikeel, primarily because the repairs required hauling the boat out of the water. Keep in mind that I'd just made one of these repairs during our haulout at Raiatea in the Society Islands. With the centerboard completely down, Seafire's draft increases from forty inches to six and half feet, quite the lever arm torquing through dense, heavy water. I resolved to use the centerboard gingerly, putting it deep when the water was flat, raising it up a bit when the water was bumpy.

We also kept Seafire's speed through the water at a moderate level. Back at home, when repair facilities and parts were close at hand, I was in the habit of pushing her at eight knots upwind when conditions enabled it. Here, in the empty part of the central Pacific Ocean, we kept the speed under six knots. For one thing, in ocean swells at six and a half knots, wave tops started making themselves felt -- occasionally you'd plow into one of them, feel the force of the impact and the sensation of the boat decelerating. Again, I felt that the cumulative impact of these oscillating forces over an extended period of time wouldn't be good. Besides, it's hard to sleep during your off-watch when the boat is slamming into waves and shuddering. Not good for crew morale.

For a while, it wasn't clear what our ultimate destination was, the Line Islands or Hawaii, but fatigue started to make Christmas Island, the largest in the Line group, sound attractive. We had very little information on what it was like to be there on a boat and what little we had made us a bit nervous -- the roadstead anchorage described didn't sound very secure. However, our Lonely Planet guide listed the email address of a local dive-shop owner, so we sent off an email asking for island advice.

Quickly, we got back a reply from Chuck Corbett, an American by birth now living aboard his boat at Christmas' main anchorage (the dive shop owner had forwarded the e-mail to him). We arrived on December 23, early in the morning, greeted by Chuck and another boat out of Victoria, Freya, with Bjarne and Barb aboard. Chuck had arranged and coordinated visits from Immigration, Customs, the police and the Health Department, and we were able to finish entry formalities that afternoon.

It was a great relief to have the anchor down and the boat no longer under way. Making a safe landfall is definitely one of my favorite things, and the reality shift that happens so quickly -- from watches, not enough sleep, etc. to regular life on board -- was most welcome.