From Cedros Island we headed down the coast towards Magdalena bay. We were beset with problems right off. The first night out of Cedros in the middle of the night we heard a loud bang. At first I thought that Darrell's fishing pole had fallen off the top of the solar panels onto the wind steering vane. It turned out to be much worse than that. The entire vane had come apart and we were in danger of losing it overboard. Darrell managed to get some ropes on it, and we changed course towards Abres Ojos, arriving there the next day. We put the vane back together and took off again the next day. That evening we hit our first squall. These things hit with a sudden fury and in the pitch-black of night you have no warning that they are coming. Before we knew it the wind was blowing at thirty knots and we were struggling to roll in the jib. Darrell came out and told us to pump up the backstay to depower the main, which we did while we rolled in the jib. Then again in the middle of the night in pitch blackness we heard another bang. At first it looked like the jib had come out of the foil (holder) and was flapping around on the deck. Again it turned out to be much worse that that. The forestay had come apart and without a support to the front we were in danger of losing the mast. We took a spinnaker halyard and connected it to the foredeck and made an emergency forestay that worked. That was good because at the same time the engine decided to malfunction. We could idle but anything more and the engine would die. We limped into Magdalena Bay and with the help of another boater we talked to on the radio managed to get to the anchorage and anchor in the dark. I met the other cruisers in the anchorage over the radio and they all came to visit us. This was the start of the cruising that I had read so much about. The first people we met were Glen on Mitri, and Dave from Reani. They were part of a group of cruising families that had informally come down the coast together. Dave and his two teenage boys suggested that we go try to spear a halibut he had seen off the beach earlier. So we dinghied over to the beach for a delightful afternoon collecting shells and talking to other people who had just quit their jobs to go sailing. We collected a bucket of clams for dinner but no fish. Meanwhile, Darrell did not want to go swimming so he stayed behind in case Gregario , the local port captain came by. That afternoon while we were getting ready to swim, Larry Mosher and his crew on Snow Goose pulled in and anchored. Later that evening we met them on the beach and shared more time together. We stayed in Magdalena Bay a couple of days, which gave Darrell a chance to put the forestay back together and make engine repairs. The highlights for me were the whales that came into the anchorage the last night. I had gone topside to fix a couple of halyards that were swinging loose when in the darkness next to me I heard a heavy WHOOSH. It was a whale that had come to inspect the boat. He was swimming on the surface and as he passed in the reflection of the moonlight, I could see that he was big, really big. Looking and listening around, the whales could be seen and heard swimming around all the boats. The next day I asked if anyone else saw them. No one else did. I was a very lucky person.
After Magdalena bay it was off to Cabo. Mostly light winds, we motored most of the way. By now I had the hang of the ham radio and was making regular contacts with the folks back home. One night my signal went over the entire United States and I literally had hundreds of people try to call me. It's nice because we can do phone patches to all of our family.
San Lucas was a mixed blessing. It was an experience learning the checkin procedures. First you take your crew list and boat papers to a copy store and make five copies. Then you walk about a mile to the immigration office where you show your visas and get the copies stamped by the immigration officials. Then you walk back the same way you came and go a half a mile the other way to the port captain's office. The trick is you have to do it by two o'clock, which we did not. The next day Lorie and I finished checkin, while Darrell ran errands. It wasn't too bad and Irma, the lady in the port office, turned out to be very nice and helped us get everything in order.
In as you might expect, there is a bar that caters to the cruising population. If you are a cruiser you sign their book, they write your boat name on the wall, (we were the 397th boat to check in this year), and they give you a card that is good for 2 for 1 drinks anytime. The price for beer was 8 pesos or about 1 dollar, so at 2 for 1 this was the place to go. They also had a restaurant and good prices on fish tacos and Mexican food. One note, the owners Phil and Lucienda won people's choice in the San Lucas chili cookoff last year. They framed the write up from the chili newspaper on their wall. Well who else's names were on the same paper than Mike and Maria Austin, my good friends from San Bernadino, who cook all over the West. Didn't expect to see or hear of any friends once we left. So go figure.
At Cabo we had planned to stay a few days but that stretched into weeks as we needed an autopilot "overnighted" to us. Became a drag , a big touristy town, and we were ready to leave.
Monday March 17 th we cast off the lines again, anchored in the harbor to clean the bottom. and at 2:OO pm sailed past the famous arches and set course for French Polynesia The start of leg two of our trip began on a benign note. Several days with little or no wind. In fact the first week and a half were frustratingly slow. We were supposed to average a hundred miles a day, when in fact there were several days that we only made 60 or less. At one point it looked like we might be six weeks at sea and having to deal with the possibility of running out of supplies. On the good side those first two weeks we regularly caught tuna which made the taste of the slow days at least palatable. Our shoreside contact Mike kr4eu, the weatherman for the Bag Ham Radio Net, reassured us that wind was right around the corner, and as we neared 10' n we should be in the NE trades. He hit it on the nose and that day the boat took off like a horse that had been cooped in his stall too long. Immediately we more than made up for our slow days and we were back on our 100 mile a day average. I had logged on to another ham radio net run by hams in Tahiti and Honolulu called the Pacific Maritime Net Roll Call. Each night these dedicated radio operators call each of the boats making the trip to the islands recording their positions and making sure all is well. As we neared the equator they told us, we would run into the Intertropic Convergence Zone or ITCZ, an area where the southern and northern air masses collide. This would be an area of unpredictably nasty weather and it would be best if we altered course and ran due South to try to punch through it as fast as possible. We took their advice to heart and will be forever glad that we did.
The first night of the ITCZ crossing was the worst and it took us by surprise. We had seen the towering clouds as the sun went down, but it soon became pitch black and mildly windy. We had been at sea for about two weeks and we had a routine. At 8 pm Lorie would take over at the helm, Darrell would go to sleep and I would semi-sleep in case Lorie needed help. The rain started in the dark with a couple of big drops, and then all at once came the downpour. Lorie and I were taken by surprise at how fast the storm got nasty. I tried to furl the jib but the wind was so strong that I could not pull it in. The rain was so hard that we couldn't see across the boat and my glasses were too wet to see anyway. With Darrell's help we eventually got the sails reefed and the boat under control, but it was still scary. Winds to 30 knots or more. When the lightning started I went below and disconnected the ham and vhf antennas from the radios, and we all put on lifejackets just in case. By morning we were through the worst of the ITCZ, but we still had four days before we would be completely out of it. We were getting good at handling the squalls that would come through. Reef the sails when we would see them coming, turn downwind, and ride it out for about 10 minutes. Then as fast as they started they were over. As we headed south the squalls become less and less frequent, but the pattern was the same, never lasting more than 10 or 15 minutes.
We crossed the equator on April Ist at 4:30 in the afternoon. We had planned an elaborate ceremony to mark the occasion, but the chores and work go on, and we only stopped for a few minutes to record the event. From here on the weather was hot and muggy all the time. Our clothes were wet and never dried out. The once or twice a day rain was a relief because we could wash with fresh water instead of salt and it felt real nice, however usually the rain was over before we could get our shampoo and soap out. As of right now it is Thursday, April 9, 1997 and we are almost in sight of land. We had hoped that our landfall would be today before dark, but the winds died for the last 24 hours and it looks like we will have to take down our sails and sit here so we do not arrive at night. On the ham radio we have been in constant touch with friends back home and those that have internet access have been Emailing my brother Steve with updates on our positions and progress. The ham operators that have been following us have been wonderful, and I look forward each night to saying hi. One thing I have done that has been fun is after my regular contacts, I have been putting out a call to anybody in America and talking to whoever comes on. Sometimes there are hundreds of people calling back so I have to limit myself to a couple of strong stations. I now have regular contacts with people I've never met, but have become almost like family There are three guys doing phone patches for us. Ralph Echsborn NGADJ, who has been the guiding force behind getting the whole communications net going, It would never have happened without his perseverance, Rich KGYGQ from my radio club who dug his phone patch out of the closet just for us, and Tony WB6D one of the first people who talked to me about getting a ham license. These three men have been instrumental in keeping us in touch with our families.
We gave them a scare the night we entered the ITCZ. We had a small leak somewhere, nothing big just a few drops, and I had radioed that as my last message before we entered the storm. That night our fuel pump clogged with debris and it took us a day to take it apart and put it back together again. In the meantime we could not charge our batteries to make radio contacts. When I missed my evening contact with friends, then missed the safety roll call net that night and missed the morning roll call the next morning, you can imagine what went through everybody's minds. By midafternoon I was able to get the word out that we were ok, but the ham operators are still talking about how scared they were.
For anyone contemplating a Pacific crossing it hasn't been all that bad, though it is very much different than a trip to Catalina Island. Our day generally starts at 7:30 am when I wake up Lorie (I have been on watch since 4 am) . She gets up, gets dressed and eats and at 8 am takes over at the helm (most of the time we let the windvane do the actual steering). I go below and make a morning report over the radio with about 10 other boats crossing to the Marquesas Islands. Then we try to get weather faxes off the radio and I fix a second breakfast . Usually Darrell or I will do the dishes and I stand by to help Lorie do sail adjustments. The next change of watch is noon when Darrell takes the helm. and then 4 pm when I take over. During the day mostly we read, play computer games or anything else that will pass the time. It is too hot and humid to do much else. At 6:15 pm I have 45 minutes of radio contact to friends and at 7:30 I check in with a safety net that calls each of the boats in the pacific. We eat dinner between 4 and 6 pm, and the whole process repeats at 8 pm when Lorie takes over for four hours. I usually sleep on deck on Lorie's watch. She sleeps on deck for Darrell's. At 3:30 am in the morning they wake me, I fix a quick breakfast of eggs and toast and at 4 am I take over until 8 am. Same routine day after day after day. About every three days we break the monotony a little by baking bread. I mix up the dough and let it rise. Lorie bakes it when she makes dinner. Lorie also breaks the monotony because she is an expert at cooking from scratch. In 24 days we haven't had the same meal twice. She cooks and Darrell and I do all the dishes and most of the laundry.
Well its 10:30 am, and the gps says 50 miles to go. If we get good winds we might just make it by dark. We'll see, but what's one more day on an ocean adventure?
Monday April 21 Taiohae Bay, Nuka Hiva Island, Marquesas Islands , French Polynesia We've been at Nuka Hiva for about 10 days now and we are experiencing paradise. The island reminds me a little of Delaware in the summer: hot humid and it rains most every afternoon, but aside from that this is like no other place that I have visited. This is one of the three primary entry points for these islands so there are lots of cruisers. It is a big bay and the boats are spread around so it doesn't feel crowded. Our first day we stopped the boat outside the harbor and waited until dawn to enter. After 25 days at sea without seeing land the first thing I noticed was the smell, a warm damp musty aroma that was like being in a forest after a summer rain. It was very fragrant also because Nuka Hiva is full of flowers, everywhere you look there are flowering trees , flowering bushes and just plain flowers. If there are no flowers then it is probably a coconut palm, which also grow anywhere the ground is flat. The island is volcanic and while the bay area is flat, all around us are sheer 1000 foot cliffs with knife edge points. And unlike California, the mountains are covered in green. It is very lush. Our first order of business after anchoring was to check in with the Gendarmerie. That is the French term for police and captain of the port. One of them spoke English the others did not, so we were able to communicate somewhat. I took French in high school but at this point I could remember almost nothing. So little in fact, that people looked at me quizzically when I tried to speak to them. This was hard on me because in Mexico I was just beginning to speak Spanish enough to get by. Most of the locals speak little or no English which made the first couple of days tough. (By the third day I had picked up enough French so at least the locals could help me along). Best Polynesian treat? French bread. Every store has French bread in the morning. My favorite are baguettes, long skinny loaves that you buy for about 40 cents. They are almost 3 feet long and are almost a meal in itself if you buy a little bit of cheese. At a restaurant one of the waitresses gave us some pomplemousse. it is like a giant green grapefruit. The rind is about an inch and a half thick making the fruit about the same size as a grapefruit. The taste is a little different, somewhat like grapefruit with lime juice squeezed on top. On Saturday night we joined up with the crew on three other boats to attend a buffet at the Kaikakanwe Inn. It was a traditional Marquesan feast. Expensive for our 500 dollar budget (25 dollars per person no drinks). It was among the most interesting meals I have ever eaten. We had breadfruit, banana pudding, roast bananas, roast plantains, taro root, roast pig, coconut milk to go on top of everything, a ceviche-like raw fish plate, lemon and coconut pies. Needless to say as with all buffets I don't know when to stop eating and it was good that we had to walk two miles back to our dinghy for the trip back to our boat. While eating dinner the largest rain shower hit and we forgot to close the hatches when we left so the blankets and bedding got wet. Now, everytime we leave the boat we close the hatches. At dinner we became good friends with Rose and Robert on Tillicum.
The next morning we pulled anchor and moved to Daniels bay where we took our dinghy up a small river to visit Augustine and Caroline. We were told that he had a small fruit farm and would trade needed items for fruit. He spoke little English but by now my french was getting a little better and we bartered. He is a wood carver and we asked him to carve us a small tiki for which we gave a T-shirt and a hat. He said come back on Tuesday or Wednesday and it would be ready. Also, his son Carlos would guide us to the cascade, supposedly the second highest waterfall in the world. We left Augustine and motored back down the river to the boat, and then on to the beach at Daniel's house. Daniel is 70 years old and has sign in logs of every boat that has landed at his beach since the 1970's . Many of the boaters are artists and drew elaborate drawing and paintings in his book. Daniel is the most knowledgeable person we have met about the history of the islands. In 1554 when the islands were first discovered there were 60,000 inhabitants, but the Europeans introduced smallpox and wiped out most of the population. At one time, Daniels bay had 3000 inhabitants. Today there are only 12. We promised Daniel that we would stop in when we returned to hike the cascade.
We pulled anchor the next morning and returned to Taiohae bay where we cleaned the bottom and did boat chores for a couple of days. On Wednesday morning at dawn we pulled anchor and returned to Daniels bay along with our friends from Tillicum. By this time my french had progressed enough for Augustine and I to carry on conversations about many topics. It was enough for us to break the gap between us and become friends. His son Carlos guided us up to the waterfall. A journey into ancient Polynesia as one time there were thousands of inhabitants in the valley. Today there are only 12 people in four families, but the remains of ancient Polynesia are everywhere. The route to the waterfall follows the river and is a path about eight feet wide and was formed of hewn blocks. This ancient road was a mammoth undertaking and I wondered how many people it must have taken to move all that rock. All around us were remains of old houses and old rock walls. and at one point I could see an old aquaduct diverting the river water to some unknown location. The walls of the canyon are sheer and are full of little volcanic caves. Carlos said it is a burial ground and a very bad place to visit. I think he meant superstitious. I read in a book that in the old days when a chief died the elders would carve steps in the cliffs, haul the chief and his canoe up the cliff for burial in a cave, and on the way down they would destroy the steps so that the burial site would remain undisturbed. The waterfall was the most magnificent waterfall that I have ever seen. It is not unlike some of the gorges that are on the east coast of the US, but much higher. The falls are about 1600 feet high .Above as we looked up there were white birds with long tails flying about and the roar of the falls echoed all around. It felt a little mystical and I could imagine that it was a special place to the ancient Polynesians. We climbed through a tunnel to a pool at the base of the falls and went swimming. It was refreshing and was the first time since Mexico that we were able to rinse the saltwater off our bodies. On the return trip, whenever we got thirsty Carlos would reach down and grab one of the thousands of coconuts laying on the ground, hack it open with his machete and hand it over for us to drink the coconut milk. It was very refreshing. Augustine had asked us to join him for Marquesan coffee when we returned, but it ended up being a real feast. He fried bananas, gave us a little rum with lime juice, then came the coffee, which was Nescafe instant made with coconut milk as the creamer. Delicious! Finally, he pulled out a breadfruit out of the fire and we finished off the meal with a little corned beef and breadfruit. In the meantime, we talked and laughed and became, I hope, lifelong friends. On Friday he told us he would be going to Taiohae bay for an exposition of carvers and a Hula Hula party ,and he wanted us to come see his son Hula Hula. It sounded like fun so we said that we would go. We returned to Taiohae Bay on Thursday night and Lorie and I began our dive lessons on Friday.
Friday was uneventful except for the dive which was fascinating for me. I have been snorkeling for years and it was neat to be able to stay underwater. Friday night was the Hula Hula and Lorie and I went, but the cost was 500 francs which we didn't have so we left. As we were walking down the road who should drive up but Augustine and his whole family. Lorie and I piled in and they paid our way in. We got to meet his three youngest children, Raphael, Dom and Xavier, all around four to six years old. They live in Taiohae bay at the school. I took my video camera and filmed them and let them watch themselves. It was a lot of fun.
Saturday we took our second dive lesson, This time we were joined by a number of French speaking tourists from the Tuamotos islands to the southwest of us. Since they were experienced the trip was divided into an easy dive location for us and a difficult location for them,. In between we passed a school of dolphins and the dive master let everybody jump in the water to snorkel with them. There were hundreds of dolphins and the instructor explained that they came to. this spot every dat to feed during the day and every night they returned to the open ocean. They were scared however and moved away as we jumped in the water. The dive master then strapped a harness on us and one at a time lowered the harness to the waterline at the bow. He put the engine in gear at idle and as the boat began to move, all the dolphins moved with the boat . They did not seem to mind that there was a person in the water in front of the boat with them. What a sight, hundreds of dolphins swimming up to you almost within arms reach. When it was my turn my mask was too loose and kept filling with water, so I had a hard time seeing, but it was still the experience of a lifetime. Lorie had better luck seeing them but hit her leg on the boat and scratched her leg pretty bad on some barnacles. Sunday we dove again; this time we went to a point where the hammerhead sharks like to swim close to shore. The are very afraid of divers because the noise and bubbles scare them away. We swam down to 10 meters and held on to a rock overlooking a deep ravine. we only saw one hammerhead and he was too far away to see him well. On the way back a black tipped reef shark swam by. They also are a timid shark and of no danger to divers. The only dangerous shark around here is the white tip shark and even these are not too bad, but we never saw one.
It is now Tuesday the 22 of April We have been taking it easy for a couple of days. Lorie and I should finish our last dive today. Our ladder fell overboard yesterday and Lorie and I thought we might try to find it ourselves, but she couldn't clear her ears and with only four dives under my belt I did not find it comfortable to dive to 40 feet with no visibility. Instead we got William, a Frenchman on the yacht next to ours, to dive for it. I don't know what we will do to repay him. After a couple of dry days we are getting humid rainy weather again. Rose Corsair ,who runs the local cruiser hangout, said it is the usual pattern, a week of rain and a couple of days of dry, and then another week of rain. Still it is hard to tell the difference between a very humid day and a misty rainy one.
I guess that this is a very long letter so I better stop soon and mail it. Maybe someone could retype it to disk and send it to my brother or send it email to him on the home page. Barbara sounds like she is having a hard time keeping up the house and farm and Darrell is talking about a change in plans. I am not sure what he will do . Time will tell. Our next major stop will be Tahiti in about 3 to 4 weeks. In between are a couple of Marquesan Islands and the Tuamotos Islands. That will be our next mail stop and we are looking forward to hearing from all. If this makes it to the home page I would particularly like to thank all the Ham radio operators who have unselfishly given their time and effort to make this trip an experience that everybody can follow. Steve tells me that he has lots of E-mail from people he doesn't know thanking him for the home page and the work he is doing. Without the ham operators it would not have happened.
I would particularly like to thank Ralph NGADJ who is solely responsible for there being any contacts at all as he is the guy who set it all up. Right behind Ralph are Bob Petit W6PRA who has kept us technically alive and Tony WBGD who does the best phone patches this side of the US and K6YGQ Rich. Bill Chaffin KF6GAB who has kept the family informed. and Tony N9JTZ who has just been a good friend. I guess I am getting longwinded with the thanks. but I could write another five lines about ham operators that helped us. so from Taiohae Bay, Nuka Hiva Island, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia, we bid you AU REVOIR (I can pronounce it but I may have spelled it wrong)
Mike (and Lorie)
P.s. would everybody make copies of this letter and send it to everybody else.