Aug 19

Written by:
8/19/2011 10:43 PM 

7/10/2011 – Anchored off Isla Amedee, New Caledonia

I slept like the dead last night. Jargo slowly rocked me like a child in a crib through the night riding to the anchor in a gentle breeze. It was the first night I’d anchored out since picking up the hook in Tonga so many, many months ago. Much time has passed since the anchor has bitten into the sea floor and I’ve almost forgotten what I am supposed to be doing with myself. Waking this morning I remember, enjoying the peacefulness that abounds in and around these shallow, blue waters.

I’ve just finished a relaxed breakfast of hash browned potatoes, fried eggs, an orange, and coffee. Van Morrison’s Moondance is motivating me to action from the stereo. Another coffee then I’ll tidy up a bit and sort a few things that still need stowing before heading further South in this massive reef complex. My friends on s/v Arctic are still somewhere to the South of me. Looking for them gives me a reason to go poke my stem into a few more anchorages until I find the next one that suits me. Last night found me in the lee of an 1880’s French lighthouse. Beautiful.

I’ve been terrified I’d completely lost the urge to write. I was pulled to the keyboard this morning and I couldn’t be more thankful for the return of the words.

7/12/2011 – Waiting on a breeze

Wow. The water here is cold! The sun is hot and I wish the water was a bit warmer, but the combination works. I spent a pleasant evening with Arctic doing in a box of French wine and killing my standard dish for company, Thai red curry. I’ve moved a bit further South and Arctic is anchored just behind the reef to get some surfing in. Sadly, I’ve no skills for reef breaks and had to bow out of the surfing safari. I’ll make up for it in Bali. Per is the same guy I bought a board off of back in Tonga. It is a mini Malibu long board and perfect for me. There is a pretty well known school in Bali and I think some lessons are probably in order. Plus it gives me an excuse to stick around for awhile.

I’ve been pulling weather fax down almost daily until today when I may have killed my computer. It works, kind of, but I accidentally transmitted while connected to the radio and I think the 100 watts of outgoing power fried my computer’s sound card. The images are a bit fuzzy but workable. We are still in a big flat pressure zone with little wind. Maybe day after tomorrow I can jump. SE Asia is calling like the sirens to Odysseus. I think it was Odysseus….

7/14/2011 – ON Passage!

It feels like I just got hit with a ton of bricks. I’d been planning the offshore jump to Chesterfield Reef for many days now. All available weather said the winds would build to a 15 knots today making for a perfect 550 mile run. I woke up ready to rock and roll and sticking my head out to greet the sun found no wind at all. Now what?

Five knots did eventually show itself like a civilized breeze should after morning coffee. Having no desire to act like a coral and stay put I upped anchor and ghosted along at 3 knots North. If I couldn’t sail offshore I’d ghost along in the right direction inside the reef anyway. Luckily the wind built all day and by the time I’d run the 25 miles back to my lighthouse I had two hours before dark. What the hell, right? Normally I do reef passages at slack water or with the tide in my favor. No such luck if I wanted to go now. I usually also douse all sail just to make sure no lines can foil my plans or trip me up unexpectedly. With tide against me I used all sail to reach along at six knots through the pass. Waves were breaking on both sides of the pass and the current slowed me down to 4 knots but we pushed through and now I am rolling gently in the offshore swell. Amazing how nervous I get before a passage. Now that I am out here in deep blue water the stress has fallen away and I’ve relaxed. Chesterfield, here I come.

7/20/2011 – Rewards for the Adventuresome

Paradise. Heaven. Nirvana. Utopia. There are a great many words mankind has used to describe that perfect state. Chesterfield should be added to the list. This atoll has maybe a dozen tiny islands and a rather large barrier reef. The guidebooks say nothing of the place and one can enter as long as you are brave enough to go off the beaten track. My friends on s/v Arctic and I are anchored in crystal blue waters teeming with fish of all kinds surrounded by a vibrant, healthy coral reef. The islands serve as a rookery for thousands and thousands of birds. Walking on the broken shell beach the faces of boobie birds stare out with their blue beaks highlighted against the green background of the struggling foliage. Frigates, terns, and storm petrels perform acrobatic maneuvers in the sky just above us that any dog fighter must envy. They have no fear of us and float on the sea breeze not 18 inches above us. This place is magic.

Yesterday I was sitting on my side deck drinking a strong coffee and day dreaming. Whoosh! I knew the sound, and I saw the beast, but I still couldn’t believe my eyes. Not 100 yards from our boats a massive humpback whale cow and her calf were lazily swimming through the waters of the atoll. I’ve seen a dozen or so of these gentle giants, but the childlike exuberance that fills my heart with each encounter never fades.

Even when nature is calling to come play Jargo still has her own way of demanding my attention. As I went to brew the coffee mentioned above I discovered a seriously dangerous failure. Turning on the propane solenoid I heard the subtle but deadly hissing of leaking gas. Luckily, the hose had ruptured just below the hose fitting where it connects to the stove. A slight panic set in as I faced the possibility of needing to either return to New Caledonia for repairs or brave 2000 miles to Darwin without the ability to cook. Neither option was acceptable to my morning mind that was still screaming for its coffee. Weighing the options, I decided I’d have to break the oven further to rig a fix.

A sharp knife took the end of the broken hose off easily. A hacksaw is what I took to the gas pipe on the stove to remove the threaded pipe fitting that now stood in my way. Lucky again, the outer diameter of the gas pipe on the stove was roughly equal to the inner diameter of the gas hose. Three hose clamps now secure the coupling and everything seems to be working. Some soapy water was added to the connection while in service and no tell tale bubbles were born. I’ll have to find a welder who can replace the fitting I hacked off once I reach Darwin, but for now I can carry on. Thank God for coffee.

It isn’t the sailing part that’s hard about this long distance cruising. It is the constant engineering and troubleshooting that really makes it a challenge.

7/23/2011 – It’s good to have friends.

Our first anchorage got really choppy when the wind shifted out of the SSW and forced us to find a more protected spot. After a quick trip ashore to say goodbye to our new booby bird friends we set sail for the Western Islands of the Chesterfield Reef Complex. It took most of the day to get across the system and frustration set in when the planned destination turned out to be unsuitable. Scattered, shallow coral heads made the anchorage difficult and wrap around swell from a nearby passage in the reef made it extremely rolly. The trick to safely navigating these shallow waters is to do it when the sun is high in the sky providing good visibility into the depths. Not at 4:30 p.m. when you get an eyeful of glare.

In quick order I started heading SE down the reef keeping the sun behind me so that I could at least see the dark masses of coral below even if I couldn’t tell how deep they were. With minimal light left I dropped the hook in 30 feet surrounded by coral heads. Nothing for it, but to jump in and swim the coral heads to see just how deep they were. To my great delight I easily had 10 feet of clearance over each nearby head. Not only was I safe, but these coral heads are spectacular. Each head is alive with red, green, and blue polyps. Sea fans adorn the figures like jewelry. Numerous large grouper, snapper, and shark swim around and around the heads and along the clean sand bottom. I only had a quick look to check my anchor, but there was a fix for that.

Per, my buddy on Arctic, has two sets of diving gear on board and a compressor to refill the bottles. Lucky for me his only crew member isn’t a diver. Down we went in 12 meters to hover along and inspect the coral, fish, and bottom dwellers in neutrally buoyant comfort. It has been more than a year since I dove Gordon Rocks in Galapagos and what a welcome treat it has been. The only real frustration we’ve found, if any at all, is the lack of the spiny lobsters that are supposed to feed here in droves. We’d been told by a cheeky Australian that all you had to do was flip over a few rocks and the cook pot would be full with the tasty red crustaceans. Even with bottles of air on our backs we couldn’t locate our elusive dinner. Maybe tomorrow, or with a bit of courage, on a much discussed night dive.

July 25^th, 2011 – Ciguatera: Curse of the reef

Per, his Polish crewmate, and I are all a little under the weather at the moment. There is a dinoflagellate called Gambierdiscuss toxicus that grows on marine algae. Small reef fish eat the algae and begin to concentrate small doses of the toxin. Big fish eat little fish and a classic case of biomagnification ensues. Usually it is advisable to be the biggest link on the food change. This little bastard is a game changer.

The bigger the fish, the greater the concentration of ciguatoxin. Per is a fish killing machine with a spear gun. For several days we’ve been eating beautiful steaks from snapper shot just on the coral heads below our boats. After concluding a night scuba dive we all ate a huge meal on s/v Artic and we must have hit the critical dose for the toxin to take effect. It varies a bit between us all, but I was down all day yesterday with muscle ache, fatigue, diarrhea, itching, and severe tingling in the hands set off by cold objects.

The symptoms will fade over time and I am already much, much better. It is a shame that the reef teeming with life below us is in fact a toxic wasteland. Two + weeks out of Noumea we are pretty much out of fresh protein and low on veggies. The fresh fish was a real bounty for the dinner table. Back to canned tuna and corned beef until we are offshore again catching clean pelagic fish like tuna, mahi mahi, and wahoo.

Some reefs have this toxin, some don’t. There is not yet a test that can be done to find out if the reef you are anchored next to is clean or toxic. If you could commercialize a cheap, disposable or reusable test for the toxin it would be on every boat with a fishing line or spear gun.

July 26^th, 2011 – The Ciguatarians

This sucks. Muscles ache, skin tingles and itches, and anything cold touching my hands still sets me off. It is a little scary to be out here in the middle of nowhere knowing a toxin is playing havoc on my nervous system. I dove into my onboard library and sadly even my medical manuals had next to nothing on this illness. Finally, The Cruisers Handbook of Fishing filled in a few gaps in our knowledge. Turns out, lethal doses can be fatal by shutting down the respiratory system. Red snapper, our last eaten species, in the Indo-Pacific region is the worst offender for ciguatoxin. Luckily our cases appear to be of a less severe nature. Normally, local knowledge seeps in and lets cruisers know what fish are safe and which are dangerous. With no inhabitants of Chesterfield Reef we rolled the dice and lost.

Apparently someone has developed an onboard test for ciguataria. Once I get back to shore and find wifi I’ll be having a look at Cigua-Check at www.cigua.com. Apparently they sell a small lipid based strip you soak in alcohol with a small piece of a fish for 20 minutes. You then remove the strip to another solution that will die any toxin that has adhered to the strip. i.e. if the strip turns blue, eat corned beef sandwiches. This isn’t something I’ll mess around with again. The worst symptom is that my eyes burn every time I close them for long periods like when I try to go to sleep. Damn you delicious red snapper!

July 28^th, 2011 – Das Boot

Just watched the director’s cut of the old German WWII submarine movie Das Boot recut in 1981. It is three hours long, but very well done. There is one scene where the captain looks at the small quarters surrounding them and comments on how cozy it is. No telephone, no radio, wood paneling, why would you want anything else?

Sad, but I guess my definition of paradise is fickle. Ciguatera symptoms continue, but boat prep for passage is in action. I don’t want to stay here any longer. It has been cold and cloudy for a week, the water is too cool to swim without the sun to warm up by, the fish are toxic, and I recently found a couple ticks sucking blood on my neck. Must have picked them up from a tramp across the island. I don’t like the idea of sharing blood sucking parasites with a bunch of island birds, but all I can do is hope for the best. One toxic poisoning is about all I can handle at a time.

I did a transmission inspection today, retuned the rigging on the mizzen mast, changed the jib furling line, and completed my route planning to Darwin via the Torres Strait. Tomorrow I’ll check the engine fluids, rerig the spinnaker pole, and swim the hull inspecting the propeller. My transmission is a little tricky and it stayed in reverse when I came up to drop the anchor this last time. Since it was only an eight mile run I towed the dingy. Yep, I cut the dingy painter with the propeller. Fortunately, the anchor was well down so I just stripped down, jumped in, swam to the escaping dingy, and motored back to Jargo. Crisis averted. The plan is to weigh anchor day after tomorrow, Saturday. I am ready for warm weather. Heard it was 31*C in Darwin today on the HF. I don’t know what that is in *F exactly, but I do know it is hot. Damn hot. Bring it on.

July 30^th, 2011 – Here we go!

What an absolute treat. I woke up this morning to a sunbeam poking me in the eye. The mischievous character took every opportunity to momentarily look deep into my retina, but he was a welcome scoundrel nonetheless. I wish I understood a bit more about my relationship with the sun. When it is present I am full of energy and motivation to tackle any challenge before me. When several days of grey clouds roll in blocking my yellow orb from view it is all I can do to make a cup of coffee. I stop well short of calling it a depression, but a mild lethargy certainly takes hold and only gets scared off by that radiant ball of plasma.

The dingy is on deck, I’ve made a large Spanish tortilla for lunch and breakfast along with a pot full of home made beef stew for dinners. That should keep me well fed for the next two or three days while on passage. There are a few more odds and ends to stow and get ready for sea then I should be weighing anchor. The HF/SSB seems to be working well so s/v Arctic and I will be running the Ciguatera Radio Net once or twice daily in route to Darwin. This will be the first time I’ve ever had radio communication at sea. Should be nice. That and I finally found a weak BBC signal to catch a bit of news. Scary stuff in Oslo and with the USA debt crisis. Strange how far away such things seem when bobbing in a boat in the middle of nowhere.

August 4^th, 2011 – Rough Seas and Squally Breeze

I’ve already made 650 miles good towards the Torres Strait. The Coral Sea consists of steep to waves with short periods that make me long for the South Pacific swell. The winds are unsettled trades and squalls of 30 – 40 knots roll through at least once a day. I am still moving along at around 6+ knots under a double reefed main and about 60% jib.

I heard a cruiser say once that a cruising sailor should try to perform at around 85% efficiency of a racing boat. Bullshit. Fatigue can really set in on passages like this with uncomfortable seas and unstable weather. I let most of the jib out during the day, but do not hesitate to bring it back down to 50 – 60% at night. I could make better time, but more importantly I need to conserve energy in case it gets really bad. Not only may further sleep deprivation come due to weather, but I expect heavy shipping in the Torres requiring an almost solid 24 hour watch.

I’ve had twice daily radio contact with s/v Artic since leaving Chesterfield. The HF is great toy to have aboard. We call our little radio discussions the Cigy Net and is open to anyone sailing poisoned. So far no new comers.

270 miles to the Eastern Fields coral patch. That is the entrance marker for the Torres. I am ready to be done with the Coral Sea.