Tahiti, Moorea to Bora Bora

We tied up at the town quay, safe and sound!  Now we have to go about fixing Interlude.  It ended up that there was only 1 facility that could do our work, at least in our timeline.  The yard, Technimarine has a great reputation, so we were happy.  So now we have a plan and we are in Tahiti after all. 

They have an annual festival called Heiva:  we went to a night of the dance and chanting competition,  to a sports day, with activities such as javeline throwing, coconut husking and rock lifting! 

40 kg No Problem right?

 


Just aim for the coconut on a pole 100 feet away?

 

Even cruisers tried the traditional dancing

We took two days to tour the island, which was nice.  Most of the time you are at water level, pretty, but not spectacular, the highlights would be the waterfalls, view from Belvedere and for Cheryl the size of the fiddleheads!   We spent a day doing a walking tour to Papeete, which was a good deal of fun. 

Other than that we have been walking the town, going from hardware store to hardware store, chandlery to chandlery.  And eating some amazing food.  Somerset found an awesome restaurant that we have greatly enjoyed.  They have Roulettes, which is a chip truck on steroids, and they have a great range of food.  Cheryl came up with the best meal so far, a crepe with potato, sour cream and bacon!

We have been on the town quai three times now.  The location is great, right in the heart of Papeete.  As always life is interesting, we took out our below deck showers many years ago as it brings in too much humidity to the boat.  This really is normal for most warm weather boats and then you shower on the stern or in our case on the side of the boat.  Most people shower, in privacy, behind closed doors.  We shower on our deck, which is fine in an anchorage, but now we are in downtown Papeete, beside the boardwalk, showering in our cockpit!

We also spent time on a mooring ball at Taina marina.  You have an amazing view of Morea every morning and evening!  And great provisioning right around the corner, as there is a large Carrefour in walking distance.

We were hauled on Tuesday, with a scheduled splash time of Friday.  As is usually the case thing don’t always go quite according to plan.  They are putting the new anchor sprit on on Friday when they realize that they had not finished the bottom side.  So we were there for the weekend, as they don’t work on weekends!  On the Monday they have the anchor sprit ready and put on!  Now you have to reattach the forestay and it is blowing 30 knots!  There is such a curve in the forestay, due to the wind, so that there is no way of attaching it.  So they move us so we are facing down wind and it was much easier.  At 4pm they put in the 5200, which then needs to dry before we can test the windlass for alignment.  So we stay in the sling overnight and are launched by 7:15 the next morning!  This was the first time we were on the hard in winter, a much nicer experience than the heat you get in the summer.  And the view left little to be desired!

We head off to the town quai, again, to clean the boat as a yard is never a clean place and the water is a fixed charge.  Then onto a mooring at Taina Marina. 

As Karen was trying to wire the deck level running lights she noticed that a weld was missing on our new anchor sprit!  She takes pictures and sends off an email.  On Monday she calls the yard owner, no problem, will take an hour to fix.  So we let go of the mooring and head the 10 miles to the haul out.  They put us in the big boat haul out, put a barge in front of us as a work platform and do the weld, in just over 4 hours!!

We go back to the mooring at Taina Marina, to enjoy our view again.  Then back to the town quai as we have someone who is going to look at our SSB.  We can transmit 100 miles, or 1000 miles, but not inbetween!   So they fix a few connections and now we can only tune on the 2, 4 and 6 meg frequencies!!  We decide to move the tuner, that part of our installation is the problem, so half a day of part shopping and half a day to reinstall the tuner and now we cannot tune at all!!  The joys of boating!

On Monday the SSB guy returns, concluded that our fixing was OK, but our tuner is dying.  Yeah, we have a plan!

Tuesday we finish with water and move to Morea.  We go to Opunohu Bay, which has an extraordinary view.  We go snorkelling with the stingrays and black tip sharks, have dinner and head out for Bora Bora, an overnight passage.

We pick up a mooring ball in Bora Bora at the Mai Kai marina, which is really a restaurant with mooring balls.  Food at the restaurant is great, we have dinner there twice and lunch once!  We bike around the island, some 30 add kilometers.  Can you say bike butt?!  Some amazing views, but not the traditional Bora Bora views as the wind is too high and the coral of the water is very different.

We did do two dives in Bora Bora.  One just outside the path, while the coral was dead (thanks to a hurricane several years ago) the fish life were plentiful and varied, not to mention the large lemon shark!  Lionfish!!  Where is my spear?   But they are not a plague here (and not large enough to eat!)  The second dive was with the giant mantas, a worthwhile experience.

We walk the town, look at pearls and ready ourselves for the next passage.

Just a bit of math.  We did 1000 nautical miles from Panama to Galapagos.  Then 3000 nm to the Marquesas.  So we should be done, right?  Marquesas to Tuomotos is another 500, Tuomotos to Society Islands is another 300.  Now we have to go 700 from Bora Bora to Suwarrow, then 500 to Somoa and another 700 from Somoa to Fiji.  Added quickly, we have another 1900nm to go this season.

Tuamotos to Tahiti

Crossing the Pacific really changes your attitude toward distance.  (This is good as we still have a long way to go this season!)  From Nuka Hiva to Kauehi in the Tuamotos is just over 500 miles.  We left with as much prep as we normally would have for a day’s sail.  Which could also be that we never ‘unpacked’ the boat as the anchorages were rolly.

While we caught several very yummy fish crossing the Pacific, the Big One had eluded us.  As we approached Kauehi we had the line in and managed to catch a 24 pound skip jack tuna!  We did it all right this time.  Karen had the reel and Cheryl was ‘handing’ in the line.  We brought the fish in 50 feet or so, then let it out, brought it in, then let it out and only brought it in on the third try.  (Yes we finally heeded the fishing advice we had been given!)  Then Cheryl held the line with the fish almost out of the water while Karen got the gaff we had yet to use.  A swing and a miss, oops.  Second time lucky.  Gaffed the fish was on board!  Cheryl was using all her weight to hold the fish down.  Karen does the “Dexter” thing and puts a knife through its skull, hopefully through the brain so it is dead.  As we are too close to the Moto to clean the fish before entering we tie it up on the engine lift and put the 5 gallon bucket under it.

 

We made the passage with Somerset.  The Tuamotos are sunken islands surrounded by a coral reef.  So there is a coral ring around relatively deep water.  Most have passages in.  The wind and currents try to force water over the edge into the Moto, the current adds and subtracts from the flow.  As most of the entries are not that large the currents can get quite strong.  Kauehi is supposed to be a good training started Moto to go into, normal current is only about 4 knots.

Cheryl drove us in very nicely.  We did a wiggle as we hit the edge of the current, an eddy, but other than that it was fine.  We had 2 knots of current against us, but a little more throttle and we were through.  We drove to the South East anchorage and put the hook down.   A sandy bottom, no swell.  Jim on Somerset had been saving a bottle of Dom Perignon to share with us and this seemed the perfect time to pop the cork. 

We were in a beautiful anchorage and we could use our champagne flutes without worrying that the rolling of the boat would spill our wine!

We got many boat projects done, to the point that Cheryl has finished everything on her list that she has parts for!  We snorkelled and did one dive.  We will be a long time learning the names of the fish, there are so many, more colourful than in the Caribbean and more plentiful.  We walked into town, which was a great day.  We walked the beach, picked coconuts off the ground, burnt garbage and had many, many awesome meals with Somerset.  More importantly the morning was started with coffee and entertainment provided by mother nature.  As we were there for 2 weeks, we became a sanctuary for small fish, which means that each morning at feeding time for the tuna and mantas we had a good deal of activity around the boat, and the birds were there to pick up the spoils.

Then one day the forecast was from the North, that would give us 4 miles or so of open water, and it was forecast to move to the west, that would be 8 miles of open water.  This was forecast to not go above 20.  We thought that we could deal with this, but by mid-morning we were in 5 foot seas, so we decided to weigh anchor and go up by the village.  Karen starts to bring the anchor up and hears a crack. She goes back to tell Cheryl (too much wind for Cheryl to hear otherwise.)  Then goes back to the bow to continue bringing up the anchor.  The bowsprit cracks completely, the delta bow roller falls into the water!  Twice Karen lifts the chain back onto the windlass, but without the bow roller to guide the chain onto it it won’t stay.  All the chain goes out, no way to stop it!  Karen takes the Bruce off the bow, walking it back to the cockpit and calls Somerset.  Carol is already lowering the dinghy; Jim is over in a flash!  Karen now drives and Cheryl and Jim weigh anchor by hand!  Sore muscles prevail but all fingers accounted for!  300 feet of chain and a 45 pound delta weighed in 5 foot seas!  And no one was hurt! 

Now what do we do?  We could go to a moto with moorings, as we can’t anchor, but really we need to get Interlude fixed, so we deciding in 5 minutes to head 300 miles instead of the 30 mile passage to the next moot that we had been planning.  The forecast is max 20 knot winds, from a variety of directions.  Sounds reasonable.    We secure the boat as we drive out of Kauehi, Trouble is still in the davits along with its engine (we normally put Trouble on the foredeck for long passages, engine on the stern railing.)  Well that night we had over 40 knots.  We had only the head sail up and it was reefed to maybe 50% and we were still doing over 8 knots, once reading 9.6 for 5 minutes!  Then the wind moved to our nose and we spent about 2 hours going 3 miles.  Then the wind shifted again and it was on our beam for most of the rest of the trip, in the 20-30 knot range.  We made our way very quickly to Tahiti and paraded back and forth in front of the harbour in flat seas until daylight, when we could enter safely!

Now we are tied up at the town quay awaiting a quote to fix the bowsprit.  It will be stainless steel, so Interlude will be stronger than ever!   On the bright side, we are in the land of baguettes and brie, with boat stores full of exciting boat parts!

 

We made it across the BIG pond

ANCHOR UP YUP WE ARE ON OUR WAY

Our crossing was 25 days from April 20th – May 16th, and except for one particular squall, we had moderate winds, 10-15 kts a lot of the time and on better days (for speed), 15-25 kts. My impressions? The Pacific Ocean is very, VERY large, and we just covered a portion of it. It is a humbling experience to really grasp how much water we have on our blue planet and that it is water that dominates, not land.

We also were a bit surprised by the lack of sea life. Except for brief glimpses of dolphins twice, one Manta ray, and several turtles, we didn’t see anything. Fishing was moderately good (if our boat speed was higher we may have caught more fish), but tuna was hard to come by. Seems almost everyone was catching Mahi Mahi – which, really, who can complain about?!

So, what’s life on board like when making such a long passage? To start, and this is a very good thing, none of us got sea sick. Whew – that would not have been good, especially given all the awesome dinners we had (more on that to come). Mainly, life became very routine. Routines are set up and they are your friend, so that everyone knows what they should be doing, and when, and Interlude gets properly taken care of. We set up watches:

7-9:30 a.m. Jennifer

9:30 – noon Cheryl

Noon- 2pm Karen

2pm-4:30 pm Jennifer

4:30p – 7p Cheryl

7 – 10p Karen

10p – 1 am Jennifer

1am – 4am Cheryl

4-7am Karen
Keeping the boat clean – cockpit (aka the “Ledo Deck” ) and inside – and keeping salt out rather than in, was a priority. We had our “outside” and our “inside” clothing. This system worked very well. Keeping an eye on all boat systems, rigging, sails, etc., was also necessary and thankfully we only had the Genneker (cruising chute) halyard block shackle break. This slowed our progress a bit, but it was too windy and rough for Cheryl to climb the mast to do repairs.
We had all our meals together, eaten on the Ledo Deck. We ate really well on board (thanks Karen & Cheryl!). Breakfast was usually a variety of fresh fruit with yoghurt or some avocado on the side. Lunch was light and not very formal, sometimes just some soup with bread. Dinners were awesome! We had proper Sunday dinners and even throughout the week we had very yummy dinners. Definitely the highlight for me was the halfway-there & 15 year anniversary of K & C owning Interlude celebration dinner: duck spring rolls, spicy crab sushi and tuna sushi. Yum!

 

That was also one of Karen’s favourites. Cheryl was leaning towards the tuna in tangerine sauce dinner. So, we were not chowing down on ramen noodles, and we were not starving, that’s for sure. The fresh fish K & C caught were a delight to cook up.

“Fish on!” was the cry that just about trumped everything, including Cheryl’s nice end of day shower! We had a few Mahi Mahi that jumped the hook, but K & C with practice started landing the fish…whatever it took…like grabbing the tail, whipping the fish over the rail and slamming it down on the deck. Cheryl was the expert fish cleaner. But, so far, Interlude is not winning the SHIT fishing tournament (South Hook Invitational Tournament), but there is some argument as to when this tournament ends! Maybe K & C still have a chance
On afternoons when we weren’t napping, it was time for the PIG: Pacific International Games at which K & C excelled and I? Not so much. PIG consisted of games of Farmer’s Rummy, Farkel, and (so far), one lone game of Yactzee. Currently, C is ahead by one game of Rummy. I’m going for the consistently highest score of Rummy (not a good thing), but I somehow managed to win a couple of games of Farkel (How did that happen?!)

Another pleasure during the crossing was the twice daily SSB (single side band) radio nets with other boats making the crossing. At 7:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. boats would check in with each other, with one boat volunteering as the “control”. The net we were part of was “The Beagle Net” for boats that departed from Galapagos to Hawaii, Gambier Islands, Easter Island, and the Marquesas Islands in the 3rd week of April. This ended up being somewhat comical for Interlude because our propagation was not great (well, Patufa 900nm away enroute to Gambier Is could hear us), and K or C would be shouting into the microphone to no avail and we would end up needing a boat to relay our information to the net controller. We joked that the boat name had become “Interlude Relay”. During the net, we would give our position, wind speed and direction, swell size and direction, and any other pertinent info - like bragging about fish caught (-: Twice, we had boats close enough to talk on the VHF radio: once with Full Monty (couldn’t see them) and once with Kokomo (saw their sail off the port side).
It was Cheryl, around 2 a.m., who got to call out “Land ho!”
It was a rainy, overcast night and both Karen and I stumbled up on deck, peered through the plastic enclosure and harrumphed, “Is that it?” while looking at an unimpressive, low, barely visible lump 5nm off the port side. Meanwhile, Cheryl was doing her happy dance in the cockpit! K & I quickly disappeared below deck to sleep some more…leaving poor Cheryl celebrating alone.

Well, what a difference daylight makes. There, with jagged peaks, and cliffs plunging into the ocean was Fatu Hiva.
Very dramatic. Very green and lush. As we motored in towards the anchorage we realized that there was a very strong outflow wind. All the boats that had been on our net were there to welcome us with shouts, horns, and clapping. It was a WONDERFUL, awesome way to end the passage! A few came in their dingy to provide anchoring information. At this point the wind was honking through at about 35kts. It took a few tries, but we managed to get a hold!

Interlude is in the South Pacific! So what did it take to get her and her crew there?

• We went 2993.5 nautical miles from Santa Cruz in the Galapagos to Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas (another 1000 from Panama)

• We ran the engine a total of 56.25 hours, for power and to move the boat.

• We used 45 gallons of diesel, good mileage!

• Topped the diesel underway

• We saw 12 boats (only 1 sailboat)

• We caught 7 fish: 1 big eye tuna, 1 skip jack tuna and 5 mahi mahi

• We lost 4 lures!

• We averaged 4.8 knots, our best day we averaged 5.9 knots.

• Dinner Menus: Day 1 - Meatloaf and Scallop Potatoes, Day 2 – Eggplant Lasagna, Day 3 – Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce a la meatloaf, Day 4 – Chicken with rice and veggies, Day 5 – Chicken and Shrimp Phad Thai, Day 6 – Interlude’s pesto surprise Pizza, Day 7 – Spicy Thai beef with Eggplant, Day 8 – Canned tuna and tomato sauce over pasta, Day 9 – Sunday dinner, stuffed pork tenderloin with potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and onions, Day 10 – Fresh! Mahi Mahi with an avocado crab salad, Day 11 – Poached Mahi Mahi, with steamed broccoli and couscous with peppers, Day 12 – Tangerine Tuna with small potatoes in a butter rosemary garlic sauce and a green salad, Day 13 – (Rough seas, supposed to be our halfway dinner) Penne a la vodka with spicy sausage, Day 14 – Halfway dinner – Champagne, Duck salad rolls, Spikey Crab and tuna sushi, Day 15 – Black Bean Burritos with a side of cauliflower, Day 16 – Sunday night dinner, Cordon Blue Chicken with scallop potatoes and a salad, Day 17 – Sheppard’s pie, Day 18 – Curried Tuna with red wine vinegar, Day 19 – Salad Nicoise (with fresh tuna), Day 20 – Stuffed chicken with sundried tomato, garlic and tarragon, baked potatoes and asparagus with red peppers, parmesan and butter, Day 21 – Tuna salad rolls and noodles, Day 22 – Stuffed eggplant with a Marie rose sauce and fresh skip jack, Day 23 – Sunday Dinner – Lemon Grass Beef over noodles with a cabbage/carrot/onion salad with a Thai dressing, Day 24 – Tuna Casserole, Day 25 – Mahi Mahi in a red Thai curry sauce with rice and veggies, Day 26 Mahi Mahi in a ginger/garlic sauce with potatoes and canned corn. (Note we had some near disasters as we had nicely plated meals that occasionally travelled to unwanted spots in the cockpit.)

• Things that broke: gennicker block shackle (of course, at the top of the mast), Port deck navigation light, steaming light, thread gave way in two spots on the dodger and chafing on one of the stack pack lines.

• Daily Routines:

o Checking the fruit and veggies for what was going bad, required before dinner menu could be established

o Walking the deck, checking for flying fish and squid in the am and chaffing

o Sending spot tracking or messages or in reach

o SSB net twice a day

o Checking for leaks (bilge and steering quadrant)

• Food that kept well: radishes, celery and carrots (in the fridge), tomatoes, peppers and watermelon, onion, squash and potatoes all kept in netting, pears, apples, tangerines, limes, grapefruit all lasted until used up.
A quote from Cheryl:

All the prep is like Christmas, your rush, prepare and the day comes to cross the Pacific. You are scared nervous and glad. Then you see the wild open blue, the awesome expanse of the sea. And nothing can describe it! The stars, the wind, the seas are magnificent, life is good!
A quote from Karen:

You look out and see water, many shades of blue and white, a different colour with a big wave cresting versus a small wave, and on she rolls. Amazing! I sat on the box on the stern, fresh air all around you, nothing for over a thousand miles! I got the girls to join me, the first time either had been out of the cock pit since we started. It was an amazing site, one that needed to be shared.

The anchorage in Fatu Hiva is very dramatic, very beautiful, with the little village tucked between cliffs and an old crater opening up behind it. The locals are friendly (and speak French). The village is small, but well maintained and housing is of good quality. There doesn’t seem to be much to do here, for folks to make a living, so we assume that the French Government subsidizes them well (hello brand new white Toyota pick-up trucks – a probably less than a couple of miles of road!). There are no proper shops.
Our first day there we went to a cruiser’s lunch potluck on shore and got to meet everyone who had previously just been a voice on the radio. We spent a few days getting the boat cleaned up and washing the hard green gunk off the hull. Things got rearranged for cruising mode rather than ocean passage mode. Then we took a hike inland to a lovely long waterfall with a pool at the base. Karen went for a refreshing dip along with some of the other cruisers. There are fruit trees galore all over the place – grapefruit especially, and it is very sweet.

Fatu Hiva is not an official port of entry, so after 4 days we raised anchor and motor sailed over to Hiva Oa to check in with the local Gendarme (an efficient, pleasant experience), replenish our fresh food supplies, change money, and make arrangements for my flight out. And, of course get some baguettes – pain really. The bigger grocery store has an impressive assortment of frozen meats and seafood, cheeses, etc., and being French Polynesia, pates too. It is not cheap here, but the quality is generally very good.
Then the rain really set in. There had been showers in Fatu Hiva, but Hiva Oa was rain, lots of it. We woke up on May 22nd, Karen’s birthday, to torrents of rain and wind, and we were socked-in (felt like I was in Vancouver still!). It didn’t let up all day. Luckily our major provisioning had been done the day before, so Karen was treated to mouthwatering meals all day, starting with banana buttermilk pancakes in the morning and ending with lamb chops, quinoa, and squash for dinner with a yummy apple crisp for dessert. The champagne and red wine flowed!

Next day didn’t look great, but there were blue splotches here in there in the sky, and off we went on our Island Tour, with John as our trusty driver and guide. Trust is the operative word here when you see some of the “roads” we took and the hairpin turns John negotiated. Hello having to go into reverse to be able to get around a cliff corner, complete with muddy tire tracks going over the edge! Don’t look, don’t look ;-) But the sun came out and the views were spectacular. We went through a few very small villages, checked out some bays on the north shore of Hiva Oa, went to a Tiki site, and had an awesome, delicious lunch before turning back for home.

Next stop was Hana Moe anchorage on Tahuata Island. It is a beautiful little bay, with a proper palm-fringed sand beach. And it is SUNNY! We have been able to dry out. The water is super clear and there are fish hanging out around the coral. This anchorage has been the highlight so far, especially due to the Manta rays that come to feed early every morning. Our first morning here we all jumped in the water shortly after 6 a.m. as we had already spotted the ray’s ‘wing’ tips on the surface. There were 3 of them gliding so gracefully through the water, feeding on plankton. They didn’t seem to mind us – just went about feeding and sometimes coming very, very close. Cheryl almost got kissed! When they feed, their mouths open very wide and they use their mandibles to help funnel water in. We were easily in the water for an hour enjoying the view. Later yesterday afternoon, we went to the beach to play bocce with friends from Somerset (Canadian-American) and Iolea (Australian). There is no village here, but there is a little “house” and the young Marquesan couple (his family owns the whole beach/bay and area behind) came over to talk with us. Marquesans are very friendly and generous people, with a good sense of humour. They are also very helpful. It was no problem to come ashore and he even invited us to use the flat area behind is home for bocce.
The final stop for me is here in Hanaiapa Bay, back on Hiva Oa. We motor sailed over yesterday and shortly I will leave for a flight to Tahiti. K & C will carry on to Nuku Hiva and then on to the Tuamotos and the Society Islands.
It has been a wonderful experience doing the passage and seeing some of the Marquesas Islands. Starting in Galapagos was also a treat – on of the best things of Puerto Ayora was the fish market and the seals / sea lions hanging out there for a treat. All in all, a great trip. Thanks Karen and Cheryl and fair winds for the rest of your Pacific journey.

Santa Cruz...Isabella....Santa Cruz

Okay you know when you wash your car it rains, we have a new twist.  You just wash the boat and Pelican comes over and sits on the pulpit and ok he looks so cute with those little eyes and the way he turns his head right around to look at you.  Then he lifts his tail and leaves a lovey present, and then the next day he leaves you a fish as a thank you for cleaning his toilet.  Well Galapagos has been a real wild life experience, a sea lion on board and now a pelican, who knows what while be next, an iguana perhaps. 

So after leaving San Cristabol we ventured over to Santa Cruz a more tourist island.  Our welcoming was a champagne cocktail on Sommerset with Carol and Jim.  Then the next day they had arranged a dive to North Seymour and a tour around town to get the lay of the land the following day.  Hey this is great.  What a way to get to know the island.  The north seymour dive started very very early with a water taxi ride to shore then a land taxi to the other end of the island then a dive boat to the site, and in the water by 8:30 am did we mention we started early.  Karen and I had to do a check out dive first, we both passed but Cheryl’s  BCD sprung a major leak so she sunk like a rock.  With a borrowed BCD off we went for our first dive:  we saw hammerhead sharks, mantas, green turtles. Sea lions, and a Galapagos Sea Robin way cool.

 

Galapagos Sea Robin

Scorpionfish

  2 dives done and we were only frozen for a little while as Jim offered to share his body heat so hugs all around for the 3 of us.   We did 6 dives in Santa Cruz and the second time was to Floreana a little island 2 hours away by boat.  It was our best dive yet in the Galapagos.   Our surface interval was spent snorkeling with baby sea lions, got to love it!   Then on our second dive we dove with the sea lions, if you did circles they would imitate you (or maybe we were imitating them!)  As you looked at shelves on the dive you say the white tipped sharks napping and if you looked closely you saw dozens of scorpionfish. 

 Gordon rock was the 3^rd dive with lots of hammerheads way off in the distances the visibility was not great so we think they were hammerheads.  Spotted eagle rays flew by and a Manta.  Here the surface interval was spent cruising around the rock, looking at the nesting sites for blue footed and Nasca boobies and sea lions sunning themselves.  

Sommerset introduced us to a few bars and the Waterfront restaurant, were we all had lovely tuna dinners.  Carol took out a leg of lamb and Karen stuffed it with blue cheese, roasted peppers and such and according to Jim, it was the best lamb he ever had. 

White tip shark 

So Santa Cruz for us on this visit was about great friends, diving and food!

We went to the Sat morning local market it was great lots of great veggies and fruit.  We will be back in Santa Cruz to pick up Jennifer who will be joining us to go across the pacific so we will explore the land later.  

 Off to Isabella

Islabella is a little more rustic then the other 2 islands with its dirt streets and laid back atmosphere. We arrived and set our hook and 2 boats dingied over to tell us the lay of the land.  One told us that he will be leaving later and we will want to move to his parking spot as it is less rolly so we waited and moved as soon as he left and boy was he right.  (Thank you Spruce!)   We wondered the streets of the town one day and then next day a hike to the wall of tears, we took a taxi up to the wall, it was built by the prisoners who were in incarcerated here yup it was a wall.   The walk back was the highlight we race the tortoises meandering on the road.  We gave them a head start.   There were side trails that we took on the way back; were we went in to lava tunnels, an iguana nesting area on a beach and a lookout tower with 200 stairs to climb, yup Cheryl counted.

Another day we walked to the tortoise breeding centre and saw the tortoise porn!  The walk is nice, 1.2 km over a board walk passing two brachish ponds.  Best of all, the walk started at the Iguana Crossing sign, and yes, the Iguana were crossing there!

We took a trip to Sierra Negro and the Chico Volcano.  We almost missed the trip as we had just a time getting a water taxi, in fact JC (our agent in Isabella) rode his bike to the pier and came out in a water taxi as he had been monitoring the channel and new we were having trouble.  This was a huge disappointment, not to mention the fact that Cheryl sprained her ankle rather badly and had to walk out, two and a half hours walk on very rough ground!

We organized a tour of the West Coast of Isabella.  This was an awesome day, the trip there was broken by some tuna fishing, and, yes, tuna catching!  Two tuna were caught in some 5 minutes!  The captain and his helper, Whisky, made some great ceviche for lunch.  We snorkeled in an inlet with the Galapogas penguins, we should mention that penguins like cold water; it was so cold the top of my head hurt.  We also stopped our trip west to take pictures of the pod of Orcas, Cheryl had the camera, Karen kept shouting to get the white bits!  After lunch we stopped on the way back to snorkel with the sea turtles, believe it or not, the water was even colder, but the sea turtles were amazing and happy to let us swim with them.  Probably the most amazing site was the tunnels.  This is an area were the lava flowed into the sea, the outside cooled as it touched the water, leaving tunnels.  We got in by going behind an amazing surf, as all were cruisers on board, we were cringing!  The water was so clear you could see the sea turtles swimming by along with other fish.  The blue footed boobies were dancing, trying to attract a mate.  The scenery was just spectacular and peacefull.      
   

Sun Tanning

Our last afternoon in Isabella was spent at Hausers farm.  He is an Austrian married to an Ecuadorian who moved there some 10 years ago and has a restaurant.  We had arranged this for the anchorage and had 18 people sitting down to lupper.  The food was amazing, the view was lovely and I got Callalou (called otoi here) to make soup!

We did an overnight passage back to Santa Cruz, overnight as it was just the wrong distance to do in a day and get in before dark.

We picked up Jennifer our 3^rd crew on Monday and we are starting to watch the weather for our date to make the BIG LEAP……

LAND YEAH

San Cristobal Galapagos

We had the anchor down by 11am.  Then we had to wait until our agent Bolivar came out with the Port Captain, sanitation, the navy and another official.  They put our plants into quarantine, which is good, as the other option was to have them confiscated.  There was a good deal of discussion as to what Shadow Benny, or razor cilantro is called in Spanish.

After the inspection of the boat we had the rest of the night off!  Time for a good night’s sleep.  Bolivar is supposed to be by the boat at 10am.  Ooops, we forgot about the time change.  Regardless he did not arrive until the early afternoon.  Then we could go ashore.  So we did.  We walked a good bit of the town and then over to the visitor centre.  It was informative.  Town itself is cute.  They have benches everywhere, which are most often occupied by sea lions!  The rules of the park (all of Galapagos is park) is to not go closer than 6 feet to an animal, hard to avoid with the sea lions sleeping on the ramp from the water taxi!

We took water taxi’s in, as if you take your dinghy, you are just providing a new home for a sea lion!

A sea lion made it up onto the boat, this would have been a jump of 5 or so feet!  Cheryl chased him off before he could smell up the foredeck!

We walked to a beach called La Lobriera.  Past the beach you came to a cliff which we walked along quite a ways.  You see the track of the marine Iguana as they go by day to the rocks, spending the nights in the vegetation near the shore.  At the cliff we saw nesting Blue footed Boobies (unique to the Galapagos), Tropicbirds and a night gull, not to mention the views of the shoreline.  Awesome!

 

We did a 2 tank dive at Kicking rock.  It was much more than a two tank dive.  We had to be checked out, so we did that, then went for a snorkel.  Karen got pictures of a marine iguanas in the water!  Then the dive!  Hammerheads, a great variety of new fish, or old shaped fish with new colours.  And finally a frog fish, something we have been searching for for 4 years!   Visibility wasn’t great and but the surge was!  Look out here comes the wall, again!

We took a local taxi and had a marvelous island tour.  We started visiting the oldest residence, the Tortoises.  We hiked to the volcano, which holds a fresh water lake, circumnavigated it.  And finished with the Cieba tree treehouse!  An awesome day with wrinkled residence and spectacular views!

The usual, went shopping, wandering, had dinner with 5 other boats in town, waited a day for our Zarpe and then moved onto Santa Cruz.

HEART RACING START

Cheryl waiting for a fish

Yup we are on our way, anticipation is over, the heart rates is rising as we pulled up anchor before 8 am and were on our way to the Galapagos, our longest passage yet, with 4 other boats.  All is well for hour one, Karen is down below checking in with the Panama net while Cheryl is at the helm; all of a sudden Cheryl hears a zing!   It is our new fishing rod telling us we have a fish.  Karen yells up and asks for the latitude and longitude and Cheryl yells back we have a fish.  Now how to use this new rod and reel, it was easy in the store but now we have a fish on, our 2 minute fishing lesson from others came into play….let the fish play itself out.  Sure but how do I stop this Damn thing from taking all my line.  Karen comes up to help or at least give some encouragement…not sure for who, the fish or Cheryl.  So who will get tired first Cheryl or the fish?  Karen has the Gaff in hand.  Fish looks tired and Cheryl starts to reel it in, nope it not tired yet, Yup it’s tired, nope, yup okay who is tired Cheryl or the fish.  I can hear my fishing coaches in my ear saying “let it play itself out”.  Well finally it looks like Cheryl is winning…Karen has the seaweed wrap on standby for sushi and our menu plans have changed to fresh fish for dinner…so all we have to do is land this sucker…It jumps, it dives, it jumps and dives this fish is an endurance fighter for sure.  15 feet from the foot the boat.  Wasbi is now out of the cupboard, Gaff posed…it jumps it does a full twist with a half pike and smiles as it spits out the hook.  Fish one…Cheryl zero but her heart rate is up, who needs a fitness class?

We are travelling along a huge pod of dolphins come to say hi, with winds picking up and seas with it we are zizzing along.  It is a bit rough as the seas are coming from 2 different directs so not so comfortable.  Around 9 pm Cheryl is down sleeping or trying and Karen is at the helm when we hear a big bang actually a couple of them Cheryl leaps out of bed, to see what happen, we search for what hit us or what we hit but we can’t see anything as the seas are high and of course it is dark, we check to make sure we don’t have any leaks, all is well.   We try and get our heart rates back down again.  We had seen a lot of tree branches and tress floating so figure that must have been it. Now the fun begins, to try and sleep while holding on as the seas are still all over the place and the wind has increased as expected.  Day one done, 6 to 7 more days to go. 

We had two days of 20-30 knot winds, from behind, which was the forecast.  Add the current and we had a good number of miles under our belts.  Then a calm day, the seas subside and it is easy to sleep, even it if means that we have to run the engine.

Liward get a new forecast from Chris Parker, we should have wind for the next 2 days, 7-10 knots.  OK, we can move with that with the Gennicker up.  By now we are 70 or so miles behind the larger boats.  They get the 7-10 knots, we get 20knots, a few hours were we were probably closer to 25.  So the seas are back up and sleeping is again difficult.

What is it we actually did, we modified Jimmy Cornell’s route for the expected wind, we went further west than Jimmy recommends and it turned out well for us.  But that was with constant weather input.

Karen starts to calculate the possible arrival times; we do not want to arrive in the dark.  At 6 knots we get in at 3, at 5.5 we get in at … Well I didn’t figure on us averaging over 8 knots for 6 straight hours, so we had the anchor down at 11am!  6 days and 3 hours.  LAND HO

Our top speed was 10.4 knots!  We averaged 6 knots.  Saw a lot of dolphins, caught no fish!  As to sailing we had a bit of everything, head sail only, Gennicker only, engine only and motor sailing.   881 miles under our belt, only 3,000 left to go to the Marquesas! Fastest speed 10.4 knots.

We had to get the boat ready to enter the Galapagos, so Karen made pesto, Cheryl made Mojito mix, expecting that they would confiscate the herbs and citrus.  They put the herbs in quarantine (in the V-birth bathroom), so maybe we didn’t need to worry so much. 

We crossed the equator in the daylight.  We toasted Interlude and Neptune and dined on Smoked Salmon and smoked mussels with our Champagne!  In fact we are looking at planning more equator crossings!  We didn’t go for a swim as we were just moving too fast.

Knowing we were going to have a good deal of wind the first few days we planned the dinners, we had seafood pie (prepared ahead of time).  We had scalloped potatoes and ham, chicken stirfry, and beef stroganoff.  While Karen had made bagels ahead of time, we had enough fruit for fruit salad of breakfast each day.  We had wraps, and left overs for lunch.  (Meals are important underway, as they pass the time!) Now we are off to explore the island after lots of sleep.

Las Perlas, Panama

The highlights of the Las Perlas was catching up to some of our friends that we met in the San Blas and Bocas plus catching our first fish trolling in our dingy.  Our excuse for not catch many fish is that the water was so cold because of the Humboldt Current, which comes up  each year for 2-4 weeks, straight from Antarctica burrrrrr.  We also had the red tide, that apparently often follows the Humboldt Current so just imagine a blood red sea and that is what you see in the water. Not so good for swimming or fishing. So we only went swimming 3 times.  We did get to go clam hunting with Kaija from Kaija’s Song who taught us which clams to eat and where to find them. Boy do you need a lot of clams to make a meal.  Now that is our type of hunting and fishing, clams move very slow okay they don’t move at all.  It was fun wading in the tide looking for the little fellows and getting off the boat but we all decided that that is one creature we will leave alone and will now truly appreciate canned clams.  So now what do we hunt?

Interlude

We arrived at this little island called Pedro Gonzales where we visited the little town which their main event on a Saturday night is cock fighting, not our cup of tea so we move around the island to this anchorage with a beautiful sandy beach with palms.

This end of the island is being developed for condos and hotels, but they still let us wander around.  So off we go into the jungle, not really, as they have made roads for their heavy equipment but they have left lime, mango and papaya trees still standing, all in easy access for our foraging.  Then one night one of the boats beside us had their dingy engine stole right off their davits, yup it was locked but they still got it.  So our beautiful little anchorage was spoiled. That night all of the boats set up alarm systems or spot lights just in case they came back for more.  But all was well and the next day we decided to have a BBQ on the beach and forget about what had happen and continued to enjoy our island paradise all arranged by our new friends on Liward. 

Fish for dinner

After doing our final wifi and foraging and restocking courtesy of Minnie B and Limbo who brought out some more fruit and veggies from Panama City, we left Pedro Gonzales.  Off to San Jose singing “Do you know the way to San Jose?”

We heard about this private resort that has a restaurant and they let the riff raft like us come ashore to use their facilities so we thought what a great place to have a last night dinner in Panama and boy was it beautiful: between the parrots, macaws and the toucan there to greet you and great food and an awesome view, all four boats went away full and happy. The island is privately owned by the family who owns Air Panama and one of the largest hardware store chains in Central America. But you would never know it was private they treated us very well or maybe because we all dug out our best boat clothes. 

Can I take your order

On the wetside we still have to get used to the tides, as we were heading into make reservations for the dinner we misread the swell going into shore with our dingy and got swamped, in fact there was more water and sand in our dingy than in the sea.  Well, lesson learned.  We are still getting rid of the sand in Trouble.

That night the swell came in which made for a very uncomfortable nights sleeping, that is, if you could sleep.  It certainly gave a new meaning to tossing and turning. So at 7 am we pulled anchor along with Limbo and off we went in search of some more diesel.  Next island is supposed to have the largest village so they must have diesel right??  Sort of.  As we are just going around the corner our autohelm acted up, so on the phone to our reps.  It is a mystery again.  We turn it on and off ‘it works” then on and it doesn’t must be a loose wire or gremlins,  okay we will deal with that later.  We anchor off the town Karen and Rita off of Limbo go off to find diesel while Don and Cheryl go back to the big boats and empty some of the jerry cans into the big boats tanks.  We get the call from the girls, they found diesel.  It was quite a search, you can see some big fishing boats and power plant on the island so they must have diesel right???.  Karen and Rita asked the fishermen, the people at the tiendas and finally found a gentleman who was happy to sell us Diesel.  So off Don and Cheryl go back to shore, Don and Cheryl decided it was best if one of them stays with the dingy as we don’t want to leave the dingy unattended plus the tide is coming in so off Don goes with 5 jerry cans to find the girls and only got stuck once in the mud on route.  Cheryl had some kids come to visit her on the dingy who wanted to go for a ride but she only allowed one kid on the dingy who helped her move the dingy as the tide was coming in.  Don found the girls and the diesel was purchased but we think they actually sold us the diesel that they store and use for the generator plant.  Well, mission accomplished and off we go to Spirito Santos for the night.  What a very peaceful night no rocking and rolling.  We said our “See ya” to Limbo as they are heading around South America and we pulled anchor and headed to the bottom of Isla Reye to get ready to leave the next morning for Galapagos. As we had read and heard the Las Perlas is defiantly a place to spend more time in, but it is time for Interlude to move plus a weather window is calling us and all of our friends that are in Galapagos are telling us to get our butts over there, so we said goodbye to Panama.  That night we called our buddy boats and found out the info for check-ins and the final  weather report then we cracked open a bottle of Champagne to welcome Interlude to the Pacific, to toast our next adventure and to share a glass (okay a drop or 2) to Neptune.  Tomorrow the big jump!!!!