Océalys

We are still in Australia but here are few pictures that we never had the time to post: Vanuatu October 2009

2010-05-04T02:42:00.000-07:00

Incredible volcano in Tanna; incredible welcoming in Malekula where all the village came on their canoes to great us and invited us to a traditional Laplap; incredible game fishing; a lot of great smiles. It was an unforgettable experience.

Things Australian

2010-03-18T17:07:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share a few pictures. One of the striking things about Australia is all the indigenous beasties they have. Like Plate Spiders. They're called that because they are the size of dinner plates...

Here's a picture of an Australian house cat. They're not that different from American house cats except the slightly longer aft legs:

This Saltwater Crocodile was *extremely* well trained and mellow. They also feed him a lot before bringing him out for the photos. Also, I think liability laws are different here than in the States:

This is a less well behaved "Saltie". He weighs more than 2,200 lbs. They don't let the kids near him:

A bit of civilization:

Landlubbers Down Under

2010-03-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the quiet spell. Lots going on here, but not much blog fodder.

So now the big news: We've sold Océalys! And we're ready to open the next chapter in our lives. Of course, what that chapter holds is completely unknown at this point. We start with a totally clean slate.

For now, we will be exploring the possibilities here in Australia. We'll continue to post here, although the stories might be less nautical in nature. We will try to relay what it's like for a couple of Euro/Yanks down under in the Southern Hemisphere.

So, g'day for now, mates. The barbie's waiting. (Look for a future post on the whole Australians and barbecuing thing)

Christmas Down Under

2009-12-24T14:38:00.000-08:00

Ho ho ho! It's Christmas Day here in Mooloolaba, Australia. We're the first ones in the world to celebrate (cause of the date line and time zone and stuff).

It's been a little hard to get into the Christmas spirit since it's 85º and extremely sunny here. We're making an effort nonetheless. Last night we enjoyed our big Christmas dinner. We had duck and cake. There was a bowl of green stuff on the table too, but I managed to ignore that in favor of a second helping of cake. Santa came by in his speedboat last night and left a pile of presents under our decorated artificial house plant. All the stores here were out of Christmas trees when we looked. Since they don't have real ones, the fake ones sell out early apparently.

The kids opened their presents in front of the California grandparents via Skype.

Now that all the presents are open, we're heading across the street from the marina to the beach for some surfing (Annabelle got a new pink bodyboard).

Merry Christmas!

Morning Day 5 to Brisbane- Arrival

2009-12-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

Ship's Time: 0545H
Date: Dec 16
Position: 26º 53' S 153º 34' E
Course: 245ºM
Speed: 7Kts
Wind: 10kts E
Distance Last 24hrs: 167nm
Distance to Brisbane: --
ETA: Weds Dec 16th, 1300H at Customs Docks

Light wind all night, we doused all canvas and motored.

Lots of traffic starting at 2300, requiring multiple course changes.

We're abreast of Cape Moreton now and only have fishing boats around
us as the sun is coming up. Next challenge is navigating all of the
shoals as we move into Moreton Bay. Then we will be in the major
shipping channel which will undoubtedly be very busy. Will send an
update tonight after final arrival.

That is all.

Re: Morning Day 4 to Brisbane

2009-12-14T22:59:00.001-08:00

Ship's Time: 1800H
Date: Dec 15
Position: 26º 38.47' S 155º 03.48' E
Course: 244ºM
Speed: 7Kts
Wind: 10kts E
Distance Last 24hrs: 180nm
Distance to Brisbane: 94nm (Distance to entrance of Moreton Bay. 40
more miles to customs docks)
ETA: Weds Dec 16th, 0600 (our intended target)

Wind has been light. Motoring all day. Sea has gotten a little calmer,
so things are more comfortable.

We're switching watches around tonight so I will do 9-12 and 3-6 so
I'll be up on the approach to Cape Moreton.

That is all.

Morning Day 4 to Brisbane

2009-12-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

Ship's Time: 0600H
Date: Dec 15
Position: 26º 23.24' S 156º 38.34' E
Course: 245ºM
Speed: 7Kts
Wind: 13kts E
Distance Last 24hrs: 180nm
Distance to Brisbane: 160nm (Distance to entrance of Moreton Bay. 40
more miles to customs docks)
ETA: Weds Dec 16th, 0600 (our intended target)

Wind lightened and backed overnight so we didn't make great time. This
morning it is dead astern and light, so we're motoring with the main
up (which is doing nothing but slatting around...).

Things are still pretty uneventful. No traffic spotted yet.

Sea is becoming a little rougher and a lot more confused, so we're
rocking and rolling a bit.

We expect tonight to be tough because of all the traffic. We may need
to put the other engine on today to keep to our timetable. It will
take us about 6 hours to get from Cape Moreton to the Customs Dock,
and we want to get there early enough to avoid overtime fees. Did I
already say all of this in a previous email?

Thanks to our friends the Smiths, Patrick has given me a shortcut that
avoids a very lengthy tour around the banks in Moreton Bay, shaving at
least 3 hours off our trip.

That is all.

Evening of Day 3 to Brisbane

2009-12-13T22:35:00.000-08:00

Ship's Time: 1730H
Date: Dec 14
Position: 25º 51.7' S 158º 14' E
Course: 242ºM
Speed: 8.8Kts
Wind: 16kts ESE
Distance Last 24hrs: 185nm
Distance to Brisbane: 271nm (Distance to entrance of Moreton Bay. 40
more miles to customs docks)
ETA: Weds Dec 16th, 0530am (our intended target)

Motored all morning and then the wind picked up around 1500 this
afternoon. We're starting to have to put the brakes on a little bit,
otherwise we will arrive in the dark. We have a full main up and the
genoa is reefed in to cut our speed down.
Sea was relatively calm today. Austin was more seasick than me, for
once! We went through a big squall but only got a few drops of rain.

No traffic sighted so far on the trip, but we expect tomorrow night to
be very busy as we approach Brisbane.

Everything is going well, but we are anxious to arrive.

That is all.

Re: Evening of Day 2 to Brisbane

2009-12-13T13:54:00.001-08:00

Ship's Time: 0600H
Date: Dec 14
Position: 25º 30.7' S 159º 47' E
Course: 246ºM
Speed: 6.8Kts
Wind: 7kts ENE
Distance Last 24hrs: 197nm
Distance to Brisbane: 338nm (Distance to entrance of Moreton Bay. 40
more miles to customs docks)
ETA: Weds Dec 16th, 0530am (our intended target)

Wind fell steadily overnight and is now down to 7 knots true and near
zero apparent. Motoring with Stbd motor turning for 7 knots but making
6.5-6.8 due to current. No need to rush now, or we will get to the
entrance of the bay in the dark, which will be dangerous.

It's getting warmer, even though we are heading further south. Sea is
relatively calm with a 1-2 foot swell running out of the SSE.
Otherwise things are uneventful. Just the way we like it.

3-hour watches are working out well. We trade off sleeping during the
day as well.

Nothing else to report.

That is all.

Evening of Day 2 to Brisbane

2009-12-12T22:43:00.000-08:00

Ship's Time: 1730H
Date: Dec 13
Position: 24º 3.05' S 161º 16.37' E
Course: 236ºM
Speed: 8Kts
Wind: 12kts E
Distance Last 24hrs: 200nm
Distance to Brisbane: 474nm (not counting detour for channel in
Moreton Bay)
ETA: Weds Dec 16th, 1000am (computer calculated)

Wind has been falling steadily all day. We motored here and there for
a couple of hours.

Flew the spinnaker for 2 hours and then lost it. During a luff it tore
down the whole shoulder, zzzzzzzttt. It went in the water but Austin
and I managed to pull it out before it shrimped or got caught in the
rudders. Not a big deal.

Right now we're doing 9 knots with 11 knots of apparent wind. We have
about a 4 knot current helping us along, so no complaints. The sea is
quite flat and comfortable. The wind is still dying down, so I fear
some mototring will be necessary tonight in order for us to keep our
schedule.

Austin is reheating curry for dinner.

Things have been slow on board. Biggest challenge has been fighting
the sunburns. Austin baked the top of his feet and one knee... I look
like a lobster in the face, despite lots of sunscreen.

That is all.

Morning of Day 2 to Brisbane

2009-12-12T12:17:00.001-08:00

Ship's Time: 0600H
Date: Dec 13
Position: 23º 57.8' S 162º 55.8' E
Course: 236ºM
Speed: 8Kts
Wind: 12kts E
Distance Last 24hrs: 212nm
Distance to Brisbane: 562nm (not counting detour for channel in
Moreton Bay)
ETA: Weds Dec 16th, 0730am (computer calculated)

Wind came down and backed a little al night with the lightest it's
been now. Hoping will pick up again as the sun comes up.

Little bumpy, but otherwise OK. Austin and I did 3 hour watches which
are easier to endure, but the sleep is tougher.

Will check in again tonight.

That is all.

Re: Departure from New Caledonia

2009-12-11T22:45:00.000-08:00

Ship's Time: 1800H
Date: Dec 12
Position: 22º 59.48' S 164º 33.6' E
Course: 235ºM
Speed: 10.9Kts
Wind: 25kts ESE
Distance Last 24hrs: 107nm (last 12 hrs)
Distance to Brisbane: 677nm (not counting detour for channel in
Moreton Bay)
ETA: Weds Dec 15th, 12:12pm (this will change as we loose our wind day
after tomorrow)

Excellent day of sailing with almost 10 knots average boat speed. We
have 20 knots apparent wind at 110º off port.

Mostly sunny, although a bit cool. This will be the first crossing
where I gain weight. Austin is cooking 3 major meals a day. Roast
chicken and potatoes in the oven now. Although if I keep typing much
longer, I won't be eating my share...

Sea has been beautiful with waves the color and shape of a Hokusai
painting. If we can keep this up tomorrow, we will have no problem
arriving in time for a clearance on the 16th.

That is all.

Departure from New Caledonia

2009-12-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

Ship's Time: 0455H
Date: Dec 12
Position: 22º 19.53' S 166º 19.1' E
Course: --
Speed: --
Wind: 10kts ESE
Distance Last 24hrs: --
Distance to Brisbane: 802nm
ETA: Weds Dec 16th, Afternoon

We are anchored at L'arégnère Island near the Passe de Dumbéa and we
are nearly ready to leave for Brisbane. Winds are forecast as
favorable for the first 2 days and then are supposed to weaken.

Austin and I will be leaving right after breakfast. There is a nice
panettone waiting on the counter.

So far it's a beautiful dawn and the wind is starting to pick up
already. We're expecting 25kts over the port quarter all day today, so
we should be making good time.

That is all.

Update On Our Wherabouts

2009-12-07T12:10:00.000-08:00

Logistics continue to be complex, so try to keep up. Austin and I are aboard the boat in Noumea. We're getting ready to sail to Brisbane, Australia in a few days. Sophie and the kids are in Noosa, just north of Brisbane, waiting for our arrival. They are staying in a fabulous beach house that our friends the Smiths have very kindly offered up for the sojourn. They continue to spoil us with repeated and lavish favors. Diana is still in Sydney and will be joining Sophie in Noosa at the end of the week.

The crossing to Brisbane should take about 4 1/2 days and the weather is looking pretty good, at least for the first half of the 810 nautical mile trip. We may have to motor towards the end. Once we get to Australia we have a lot of figuring out to do, first being where to spend the holidays. We plan to make our way down to Sydney during January and spend some time checking out that city which everyone, to a person, has said is just phenomenal.

We will be sending daily updates during our crossing. We plan to leave on Saturday morning. Meantime we'll be getting squared away here at our spot right in front of one of Noumea's busiest restaurant/bars...

London Calling

2009-11-30T16:18:00.000-08:00

We arrived in London last Saturday afternoon on the Eurostar, and Sophie's cousin picked us up with her driver in a silver Mercedes. For those of you that haven't been paying too much attention, we flew from New Caledonia to London at the behest of the United Nations International Maritime Organization to receive a medal for the rescue we did in Fiji last year.

Anyway, from the train station, Sophie's cousin took us to the Sanderson in SoHo to drop off our bags and then we went to have afternoon tea at one of the best spots to do so in London. Contrary to my understanding of the thing, afternoon tea has little to do with drinking tea, and more to do with eating dozens of different delicacies, mostly in the form of tiny little sandwiches with the bread crusts cut off. These are offered in all-you-can-eat fashion and followed by scones and clotted cream, so by the end we waddled back to the hotel and passed out for the night.

On Sunday we walked around our neighborhood and down to the river Thames. It was quite a treat for me to visit Trafalgar Square, an homage to one of the greatest seafarers ever. That evening we met with Lindsey and Ian from Maritime New Zealand to go over the details of the ceremony on Monday night. They gave us a wonderful welcome and took us out to a great little Spanish restaurant for tapas.

Monday was the big event at IMO headquarters just on the other side of the Thames. We arrived at 4:30 in the afternoon and waited in a hall while the Assembly was finishing up their business for the day. At 6:00 they shuffled us into the assembly room and we realized just how big of a deal this was. There were about 500 delegates from 126 different countries, a large stage with a podium, video cameras and a gaggle of photographers, with a battery of translators behind plate glass above the room. They were there to present the awards for Exceptional Bravery at Sea and a series of certificates to all of the navies that have sent warships to the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia to fight piracy. Aside from us, the front row was populated by admirals and CO's from around the world in full livery. They first presented letters of commendation and certificates to various crews of merchant and military ships for exceptional acts of bravery. Then our turn was up for the medal and they actually read a long account of the rescue we performed. Secretary-General Mitropoulos invited us up on stage and we shook hands with all of the dignitaries there. Mr. Mitropoulos was very generous in his praise and even asked me permission if he could kiss my wife. Once we received our medal I said a few words of thanks, especially for New Zealand–who nominated us for the award and sponsored our trip to London– and the NZ RCC which had been so critically helpful during the rescue, and we took our seats.

The second medal was given to AST2 Abram Heller, a US Coast Guard rescue swimmer who saved 8 people in harrowing conditions off the coast of Alaska. During a severe winter storm.

Later that evening, after the ceremony for the navies, we all went upstairs for a reception. We spent the time meeting some of the most powerful people on the sea and we got to hear some great sea stories. The whole time Lindsay and Ian took wonderful care of us and made sure we never lacked an audience or had an empty glass in hand.

On Tuesday night we were invited to the U.S. Coast Guard's reception aboard the HQS Wellington, a beautiful restored ship moored in the Thames. Again we met some very interesting folks, including the Commandant of the USCG who, we found out, went to high school in my neighborhood.

The next morning we took a flight back to San Francisco and we spent the 10 hours reliving this incredible experience in our minds.

Paris

2009-11-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

Last week we landed in Paris after a 22 hour trip from San Francisco. The extra fun-time was spent changing airports in London during a 4 hour layover, taking a packed train through Paris' less glamorous neighborhoods and finishing off with a taxi ride to Sophies' cousins' apartment. We had a wonderful welcome "chez les Tallepieds" who have a beautiful apartment with a close-up view of the Eiffel Tower.

We spent the next 3 days holding court to a steady stream of family and friends, some of whom came from quite far away to see us during our short stay. We even got to meet the newest member of the family: Ivan Riou!

I was hit with the worst jet lag I've ever had and spent most of my days nodding off impolitely, and my nights wide awake in bed, trying not to move or breathe too loudly so as not to incur Sophie's wrath, as she was sleeping soundly.

One night we had a particularly eclectic gathering in the Tallepied's living room which included a fashion agent, aerospace engineer, IT consultant, photographer and lighting designer, fashion strategist/guru, and the two of us straight out of the sub-tropics. At some point in the evening we realized that Sophie would be the first woman to receive the IMO's award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea, and the notion took off like wildfire. It was still early and the number of empty wine bottles didn't yet outnumber the people in the room, but suddenly everyone was yelling and fussing about the best way to get this important news out. Within minutes the French wire services were on the phone, press releases were being typed and finessed, and personal networks were being worked. Not sure anything came of the effort, but it was a lot of fun and a bit impressive to see all of these professionals, a couple of them at the top of their game in the Paris creative/fashion scene, go to work on a problem. Almost made me want to go back to work.

On Saturday morning we took the Eurostar to London. What a way to travel! Much more comfortable than a plane, and door-to-door, much faster.

Update on London will be next...

United Nations Award in London

2009-11-09T14:25:00.000-08:00

We're back in Noumea from our trip to Vanuatu. It's nice to be back in a marina surrounded by civilization. We must be getting soft. The rest of our trip was exciting, with visits to some wonderful villages, no more fish despite lots of effort, and head winds the whole time, so lot's of slamming into it and lots of motoring, rain, blech.

Here is a photo of the striped marlin we got on the way to Erromango, mentioned in the last post. Biggest fish of the trip.

Today's headline is that in 2 days we will be jumping on a plane (or series of them) bound for London where the United Nations will be awarding us medals for the rescue we did in Fiji last year (read about the rescue). The award is for "Exceptional Bravery at Sea". We were nominated by the New Zealand Government and they are very kindly sponsoring our trip out to London for the awards ceremony. Although we knew we'd been nominated, we were very surprised–and deeply honored–by the IMO's decision. The IMO (International Maritime Organization) is the United Nations' division which oversees all things maritime. Sophie and I will be sharing the medal with a U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer who saved 8 lives in severe winter weather off Alaska. We're humbled to be in that kind of company.

We will be stopping in California to drop the kids off, spend a few days recuperating from the trip, and then go on to Paris then London for the ceremony on the 23rd. Then back to California just in time for Thanksgiving.

We will post some pictures from London which, in November, will be quite a contrast from Noumea–where summer is just kicking off.

Un peu de français maintenant:

Nous sommes de retour en Nouvelle Calédonie après un mois super au Vanuatu. Nous avons reçu un accueil incroyable et découvert de nouveaux paysages. Les Vanuatais ont toujours un grand sourire et sont trés contents de partager leur culture. Malheureusement, le vent n'a pas toujours coopéré et nous nous sommes souvent retrouvés au pré serré ou le vent dans le pif! Nous avons également eu le plaisir d'avoir Coralie et son copain Greg à bord d'Océalys.

Nous nous envolons dans 2 jours vers la Californie puis Londres. Pourquoi Londres??
Et bien, nous avons eu la grande surprise d'apprendre que nous avions été nominés par l'ONU - pour être plus précise, l'IMO ( International Maritime Organization), branche maritime de l'ONU - afin de recevoir le prix "d'exceptionnelle bravoure en mer" pour le sauvetage du bateau Timela l'année dernière à Fiji!! Nous sommes donc invités à recevoir notre médaille à Londres. Bien évidemment, nous sommes vraiment trés honorés de recevoir cette distingtion. Nous voilà donc en route vers Londres.... la vie est pleine de surprises.

Sur un autre sujet, encore plus émotionel, nous avons remis les cendres de mon père dans ce lagon calédonien qu'il aimait tant. Après 2 années de voyage dans mon équipet, entre mes bonnets et mes chaussettes, il est enfin de retour au pays de ses rêves. Massimo et Annabelle sont convaincus que "grand-père" va se réincarner en dauphin. Après avoir débatu entre un requin, un poisson perroquet, une tortue ou un dauphin, ils se sont mis d'accord sur le dauphin, le plus sympa de tous! et qui ne risquait pas de se faire piquer par un chasseur sous-marin.
Une page est tournée et c'est avec un coeur allégé que j'ai dit mon dernier aurevoir à mon père.

More Vanuatu News

2009-10-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

We are now anchored in front of Oyster Island, a tiny island just a
few hundred yards offshore of Espiritu Santo Island. We're about 160
miles north of Port Vila. All is well, so I'll take a moment to catch
you up on our trip up here.

We left off our story with our arrival in Tanna Island in the southern
end of Vanuatu's island chain. We did indeed make the 4X4 trek to the
town on the other side of the island to clear customs and immigration.
It took about 2 hours each way. The standard mode of transport is 4wd
pickup trucks, and everyone rides in the bed in back. There's a little
wooden bench that surrounds the inside of the bed and everyone sits on
that and holds on where possible. We shared the truck with half a
dozen of the villagers from Port Resolution who were going into town
for market day. There was beautiful scenery along the road and we
passed many pretty, very well kept villages. The only downside was the
pouring rain. Luckily we grabbed raincoats as we left the boat, but
the soaking we got was thorough and by the time we arrived at Lenakel,
were all shivering violently. Checking in was easy and we had a couple
of hours to kill before the truck headed back to Port Resolution. We
found a family cooking on a small fire in a hut and asked them if we
could huddle by the fire to warm up.

Sophie got to ride in the cab with the 2 kids on the way back and I
got to enjoy some more rain in the back. We made lots of stops on the
way back. the locals would stop to buy vegetables from the villagers
selling them by the roadside. They told me they do this in order to
spread out the wealth of Port Resolution's village since they have
more money than the mountain villages thanks to the income from the
yachties. When we got back to the boat we made hot chocolate and all 4
of us cuddled in bed and watched Star Trek IV. You know, the one about
the whales. The kids got a big kick out of seeing the Monterey Bay
Aquarium where they'd just spent several days during our last visit to
the States.

The next evening we took the same pickup truck up to the volcano with
another family of yachties that had just arrived in the bay. It was a
45 minute trip up to the top of the mountain. The last 15 minutes of
steep, rutted road we were surrounded by a lunar landscape with no
plants or animals, just black rocks and sand. Once arrived at the
"parking lot" where there were several other pickups from the various
tiny "resorts" on the island, our driver got out, pointed to the top
of the crater and said "go Left, eh? Not Right. Left is good. I will
wait here in da truck." There were no railings, guides, signs, or
waivers to sign. Now this is the way to visit an active volcano. There
was a 10 minute walk up to the edge of the crater and then we could
see down into the bowels of the beast. It was still daylight, but we
could see a deep red glow down there. After about 10 minutes of
waiting, there was big BANG! and lava shot up into the sky right in
front of us. We'd been told to watch the rocks shooting up and coming
back down, and to get out of the way if one was coming towards you.
Huh. No kidding? The wind was howling, and was blowing the molten
boulders away from us, mostly, so we felt pretty safe. Except Massimo.
His two big fears in life are spiders and volcanoes, so he was
terrified. After three or four eruptions–which really were quite
impressive–Massimo screamed, That's it!! I'm out of here! So Sophie
took him back down to the truck. Annabelle stayed with me and we
waited until dark and headed down after seeing several more dramatic
eruptions. A couple of times we had boulders hurled over our heads and
landing less than a hundred yards from us. When we were on the rim, we
were only 60 or 70 yards from the center of the crater where the lava
was coming from. Massimo still talks about his experience daily.

From Tanna, we needed to make our way north to Espiritu Santo island
to meet our good friends' daughter Coralie and her boyfriend who would
stay with us all the way back to New Cledonia. On the way we had to
stop at Port Vila (the administrative center of Vanuatu and it's
largest town) to finish clearance formalities. We did a long day of
motoring and sailing towards Erromango where we planned on breaking up
the trip. About 2 hours out of Erromango, under full sail and going
8.5 knots, one of the fishing reels sang out. We slowed the boat down
a little bit by taking in the genoa, but with the min up we were still
doing better than 6 knots. The reel kept screaming, even with maximum
drag, and pretty soon there was barely any line left on it. I could
see a fish jumping out of the water several hundred yards behind us,
but I couldn't slow the line down. The reel was literally smoking and
smelled of burning oil. I clamped down on the spool with my thumbs and
finally the line gave way, sending me flying backwards on my butt.

About 15 minutes later the second reel rang and this time we made a
bigger effort to slow the boat down. The problem is that to do that
quickly can be a challenge for 2 people, but I was busy with the
fishing pole, so Sophie had to do most of the work. We managed to slow
the boat and an hour later we had a beautiful striped marlin gaffed
and tied to the transom. We gave it to the village at Erromango and
they were VERY happy.

We spent a couple of days at Port Vila, the capitol and main town in
Vanuatu. We found it very charming and enjoyed smoothies and internet
at the Numbawan Café (which took us a while to find since everyone
told us to look for the "Number One Cafe"...).

After Vila we visited Epi and the East Coast of Malekula on the way to
Espiritu Santo to pick up our friends.

More updates soon, hopefully.

New Outboard, Rough Crossing, and Beautiful Vanuatu

2009-10-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

We're now safely anchored at Port Resolution in Tanna, Vanuatu.

But first, let me rewind and catch up where I last left off.

I believe I was drenched in gasoline from trying to fix the outboard's
carburetor, throwing a tantrum out of frustration with Sophie looking
on mildly annoyed and the children hiding in case they somehow became
responsible for my difficulties. Actually Massimo is becoming helpful
as he learns the names for various tools and hands them to me, saving
trips up and down the transoms and in and out of the dinghy.

So the problem turned out to be a cracked float and a damaged little
rubber boot, both parts of the carburetor. I wasn't able to fix both
adequately. I think the main problem, since carburetors function
through a combination of 20% engineering and 80% voodoo, was that I
wasn't wearing any chicken feet around my neck while attempting the
repairs. Anyway, once we realized on-board repairs were not possible
and required spares, Sophie and I went through the options together.
The outboard is important to us. Without it we can't get ashore easily
(or at all in some places), can't go diving, exploring, etc. It's like
not having a car all of a sudden. We could either have parts flown in
from Australia or the US (there are no Honda distributors in New
Caledonia), but that would take at least a week with customs, etc. We
could spend a month in Vanuatu without an outboard, but it would be a
real pity to miss out on a lot the visit has to offer. The last option
was to pull out all the stops and get a new outboard. The challenge
wasn't just the money, but how to get an engine quickly without
delaying our trip too long. There was bad weather coming and we needed
to be in Port Vila by the weekend to take shelter. We decided it would
be worth trying to get an engine quickly and leaving immediately
afterwards in late morning.

I called my good friend Jean Paul who owns, among other things, the
Yamaha dealership in New Caledonia. It was 5:00 in the afternoon
(businesses are closed), he said he'd look into what was in stock and
asked where we were. I told him the bay we were in–which was somewhat
remote–and he had no idea where that was, despite being born and
raised here. That gives you an idea of just how remote the location
was. I told him we could move the boat to Yaté, where there is a road.
Ten minutes later Jean Paul calls back and says he has the motor we
want in stock (a Yamaha 25hp 2-stroke Enduro–the good kind, extra-
tough, that they only sell in developing countries). He could have one
of his guys drive it down to Yaté by 0900H the next morning with a
full tank of premixed gas. We could worry about the paperwork, etc.
when we got back from Vanuatu. Wow. How's that for service?! Call a
business after closing, and have an engine delivered 1 hour after
opening the next morning in a remote area. I'm sure that if we were
too remote to reach by road, Jean Paul would have had the motor
delivered by helicopter. I'm not joking. (As an aside, Jean Paul just
called me on the Sat Phone to tell me that there's another tsunami
warning. Apparently a volcano just exploded in Northern Vanuatu. So
far so good here...)

By 11:00 we were ready to head out to sea. We were in a rush because
we wanted to get to Tanna before dark the next day and the wind was
not going to be favorable. We started by motoring with calm seas and
very little wind. Now I'll let Sophie tell the story of the crossing
since it was even tougher on her than on me (which is unusual).

Well, let's say that it was one of the most miserable crossings - even
if it was a short one - for me and for the kids. The first day and
night went well but when we woke up the next morning, the sea was all
messed up and the boat had transformed in a washing machine!! The wind
had turned to be right on our nose and it was stronger than
forecasted, blowing up to 20 knots. Not a big deal but combined with
waves coming from everywhere, it was not fun. For the first time since
we started our trip, Massimo complained of being seasick and then
Annabelle and I felt the same way. I was still able to perform my
"duties" but that was painful. What kept me going was to thinking
about the house will have when we come back to live on land! It is
like when you deliver your second child: you keep asking yourself why
you wanted to have another kid when you knew how painful it could be
during the delivery..... never mind, you go through the pain because
at the end you know that it is worth it. Same thing for sailing.
We "survived" and we are now all super happy to be anchored in such a
beautiful place. We got our reward.

Tomorrow we will take a 6-hour round trip via 4X4 to the "town" on the
other side of the island to clear immigration. We're also planning to
visit the volcano here. It is apparently one of the only places in the
world where you can walk right up to an active volcano and peer into
it's lava-filled core. You just need to watch out when it erupts not
to get hit by one of the boulders coming back down.

Drat!

2009-10-04T23:10:00.000-07:00

We're still in New Caledonia waiting for wind. It looks like the nice
Southeasterly that was supposed to show up this afternoon and tomorrow
is not going to happen until the end of the week, and then it's a full
on depression with 30 knots and lots of rain. So the plan is to head
out tomorrow morning and if we have to, we'll motor.

In the meantime I've been trying to fix the stupid outboard. I found a
crack in the little float in the carburetor, which caused it to fill
up with fuel, which made it not float anymore. That causes the whole
carburetor to flood with fuel, etc. etc. I fixed it by filling it with
an epoxy/ultralight filler mixture and then painted over that with a
special epoxy paint which is supposed to resist fuels (after initial
inspection though, I am doubtful). After putting it all together this
afternoon, the outboard seemed to run pretty well with only a little
fuel seeping out.

We mounted an expedition to the beach and half way there the engine
starts to sputter and cough. We turned around and ran at 1/4 throttle
where it seemed to be happy. Got back to the boat and tore it all
apart again. The infamous little float is empty, but I noticed a
little rubber boot on the carb that was cracked open and that's
probably where the fuel was coming out. I've reached the end of my
patience and instead of doing the manly thing and coming up with
(another) "duct tape and spit" solution, I threw down my tools and
sent an email to my friend in Noumea who owns the Yamaha dealership,
and asked him for a quote on a new motor. Parts for Hondas are not
available in New Caledonia and certainly not in Vanuatu.

Once my tantrum wears off, hopefully I'll find a more sensible
solution. For now I'll return to my pouting. Sophie is being very
tolerant and the kids are a couple notches quieter than usual, fearful
for their lives.

That's today's update.

-MC

Off to a Semi-OK Start

2009-10-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we left Noumea to make our way to Vanuatu. Not long before
we were supposed to cast off, I noticed that one of the shower pumps
wasn't shutting off the way it's supposed to. An hour later the pump
was completely rebuilt and I climbed out of the engine room drenched
in sweat, holding tiny little piece of purple plastic that had caused
the problem. I don't own any purple plastic things...

We had a good motor-sail with the wind pretty much on the nose for 4
hours. The wind was light though and the water was flat since the wind
was coming from the shore. The weather reports showed that the wind
would be northerly for the next several days, which meant dead against
us on the way to Vanuatu, so we'd have to hang out for a bit before
leaving.

We made it to Port Boisé around 3 in the afternoon. Just as I turned
off the wind to head into the pass, my favorite Big Orange Cup blew
over and rolled down the transom steps into the water. It didn't sink
right away, so I made a lop around where it went in, but the water was
way too rough to see it. I bought that cup in Mexico and, with it's
brother Big Blue Cup which went overboard in New Zealand, it has been
key to my happiness on board. I hate drinking out of small glasses and
I can never get enough to drink unless I have a big cup that I use
throughout the day. Big Orange Cu was probably about 750ml and did its
duty serving up everything from hot ramen noodles, to my daily morning
tea. This morning I wandered around the galley, despondent, not
knowing what to have my tea in. So I found Big Measuring Cup. It has a
1 Liter capacity and a nice handle. It's a little too wide and tapers
outward too much to make it practical for long-term service, but it
will do until I find a replacement in Vanuatu. I think developing
countries have the best plastic tableware since it needs to be
inexpensive but last a long time.

This morning I have to keep trying to fix the outboard. We wanted to
go ashore yesterday, put the motor wouldn't start. I opened it up and
noticed that when I pumped the fuel bulb, gas would squirt out of the
carburettor. This is a bad thing. After disassembling it and putting
it back together 3 times, I finally tried to seal one of the gaskets
with RTV and let it dry overnight. On the positive side, I got to wash
both my hands and forearms in gasoline, so I know they're REALLY clean
now...

Today it's a beautiful day. The northerly breeze is still running, but
we might move to another anchorage a little further up the coast. From
there it's about 220 miles to Tanna, our first landfall in Vanuatu. We
should be able to do this with only one night at sea if the wind is
right. Looks like it will turn southerly on Tuesday, so we plan on
leaving early in the morning then.

Our new satellite system is working wonderfully. I'll write that up
later since a couple of you have asked me for more details. The only
hitch I've had so far is not being able to hook it up with our on-
board WiFi which would allow all the computers to access it and get
email, including my iPhone. How cool would that be, to read email on
an iPhone in the middle of the ocean? The real advantage being that it
compresses email to use less bandwidth, which means it costs us less
to use.

That's it for now. Have a great Sunday (or Saturday, depending on
where you are).

-MC

Pictures of Ile des Pins

2009-10-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

We're heading out in the next few minutes. The wind for Vanuatu is not favorable, so we're not sure what we'll be doing, we may stop on the way and wait for the wind to change, which looks to be Tuesday...

Here's some pictures of our trip to Ile des Pins and Annabelle's birthday a few weeks ago. I'm afraid you'll have to scroll down the blog to read all about it in previous posts. Inelegant to be sure but alas, wind and tide wait for no man.

Heading for Vanuatu Tomorrow

2009-10-02T02:41:00.000-07:00

We're setting sail tomorrow and loosing our "broadband" connection, so I wanted to post some pictures. We'll be able to post text along the way, but no pics, so here's a boatload of them to feast on.

I still owe you guys an update on my great week in Brisbane visiting Jean Paul's new boat, so I'll have to write that up soon, but I'll post some pictures now as a teaser.

The Gold Coast pictures first, then Iles des Pins will be next. (Oh, and you do know that if you click on one of the pretty pictures, the computer will show you a nice, big version of it, right?):

Tsunami Alert in New Caledonia: ALL CLEAR. ALL CLEAR.

2009-09-29T17:18:00.001-07:00

For the few of you that may have noticed, there was a big earthquake off of American Samoa this morning and a subsequent Tsunami warning went out for the whole neighborhood. The warnings here in New Caledonia said we'd be "hit" at 9:16 this morning, but they did not give any advice on how severe the "Tsunami" would be. I guessed that it would probably be minor, if at all present, but images of Thailand and Indonesia a couple years back kept flashing before my eyes, so we decided to take the most prudent course. Sophie took the kids to school, which is on high ground, and I took the boat out into the lagoon in deep water by myself.

9:16 came and went and there was no excitement, so I brought the boat back to the dock and tied her back up and settled back in.

For those of you who may know him, former Autodesk colleague, good friend and fellow sailor Wayne Hodgins aboard his yacht "Learnativity" was in Pago Pago harbor in American Samoa at the time of the quake and he is safe and sound (Wayne's blog here). There was a lot of damage from the tremors and a big tidal wave in the town there, so he is apparently helping out as best he can. Wayne is sending Twitter updates via his sat phone regularly. We wish everyone there the best of luck.

Sorry, Pas de Place

2009-09-22T13:30:00.001-07:00

When I wrote the very first posting for this blog, I was riding in a plane from Fort Lauderdale back to San Francisco. I had just put the boat aboard a cargo ship bound for Ensenada and I was going back home to pull up roots definitively. Now I’m sitting in a plane bound for Brisbane (Australia) from Noumea. It’s the same crossing we will undertake in the boat in December, except instead of 3 hours it will take us 4 days. Maybe 5.

Obviously the daily posting isn’t working out, despite some wonderful email support from 3 of you (thanks mom). So, I’ll have to take up where I left off. Now where was I?

Oh yes, Ile des Pins, a weird dream, generator trouble, and Annabelle’s birthday. Well, the update on those is that the generator trouble is probably fuel-related. I’m picking up new Racors (filters) in Brisbane. Mom analyzed the dream and it was all about the events of the other night when we bumped the reef in the night. Something about my super-ego being pissed off at my ego for giving me a hard time for being careless even though it wasn’t a big deal. Makes sense to me.

We’re back in Nouméa. Well, I’m 20,000 feet up, but the boat, Sophie and the kids are back there. We had a great sail back from Ile des Pins. Just the opposite of our last trip there, we got to sail with favorable winds there and back–which means the wind turned in our favor at just the right time. We were sailing with the wind at about 90º to 110º (meaning on the side and a little towards the back), and it was blowing a good 25 knots. We had all our canvas up for a while with the big reacher reefed in behind the blade (Solent). I think we averaged 9 knots for the 6 hour trip and did a good stretch of 10’s and 11’s. Not bad speed for a house with a washing machine and the inventory of a Toys ‘r’ Us.

We wanted to spend our last night anchored at a little reef called Mato, but when we pulled in it was still real windy and there wasn’t a lot of swinging room between the coral heads. No thanks. Had enough of the things that go bump in the night. So instead we went to the Amedee Lighthouse and took a mooring. We were the only ones there and got to enjoy the beach by ourselves right before sunset.

The next morning we sailed for 2 hours to Nouméa. Sophie called the marina to see if we could get a spot for 2 nights, and after insisting a bit, we got a “temporary” spot which we’d have to vacate immediately if the owner of the berth came back in from their trip to Vanuatu. Sure enough at 6:30 the next morning I peer out the window and cruising in is the big catamaran whose space we’re in. I hustle out on deck to tell the owner’s wife–who is on the foredeck giving me a hard look–that we will move immediately. At least this time I was wearing pants.

So, engines on, undo all the lines and water and power connections (which take me about an hour to set up each time), and off we go waving apologetically. One of the reasons we stay at the marina is that the anchorages in Nouméa are super crowded. I hate crowded anchorages, especially ones like these that have boats at anchor and some on moorings (much shorter lines, thus smaller turning circles when the wind shifts). This means all the boats swing in different ways and it’s very hard to predict what will happen when the wind changes. So, I start cruising around, heading for “that open spot over there” and when I get there I look at all the boats and go, Where’s that open spot?

After the fifth or sixth loopty-loop (which makes you look like an idiot driving around the anchorage as everyone is waking up and having coffee in their cockpits), I say f*ck it (hey, it’s 7AM and I haven’t had my tea yet), and we head to the fuel dock. At least they’ll let us tie up. We were out of water (the hose wouldn’t reach at the marina), and I don’t want to use the watermaker in the harbor. Plus I figure we’ll top off one of the diesel tanks to see if some extra pressure in the lines will help the generator (it didn’t). This way I can also save some face and take the time to plan my attack for when we’re back in the anchorage looking for a spot. 250 liters of diesel and 800 liters of water later, I head to that “Big open spot over there”, and it’s not actually that bad. Our goofy French microwave WiFi system even works there, so we drop the hook, just as the wind starts to come up.

The only downer for us in New Caledonia has been the lack of marina space. It’s a huge deal for all the yachties–visitors and locals alike. There are 280 boats on waiting lists for the 3 marinas which are all completely full. This creates a very strange atmosphere among the boating crowd and everyone is very nosy and suspicious. People rat each other out for breaking the marina rules so they get kicked out and free up a spot. It’s a bizarre vibe. In other countries, as visitors, we’ve always been given a spot, even if the marina is “full”. Here we’ve had to fight tooth and nail for the berths we’ve had. We’ve had to call in favors with all of our friends here, many of which are in high places including maritime organizations, etc. Still, no love. We got kicked out of our last spot with 3 hours warning. “Cette après-midi, vous dégagez! On a un super-yacht qui arrive çe soir, donc vous comprennez”. Only the French can tell you to f*ck off and leave you feeling as the one guilty of some vague impropriety. Well the super-yacht never showed, but we lost our spot and Sophie managed to wrangle a spot for 2 weeks in a marina that doesn’t allow liveaboards (we had to keep a very low profile).

I’m going to Brisbane to help out a friend from Noumea who just bought a new sportfishing boat (a Cabo 48 Flybridge, for those who know). The boat was delivered there from the factory in the States via cargo ship and now all the electronics and accessories need to be mounted on board. It’s quite a job with more than a dozen people working on the boat for a couple of months, so I’m just helping out with some project management, my passable command of the English language (although most the time I don’t understand what those Austrlian blokes are saying), and moral support. I’ll be gone for a week or 10 days, so it was critical for us to find a good spot for the boat while Sophie and the kids are on their own. We started asking about places more than a month ago. Sorry, full. Luckily, our friends aboard Celera, a beautiful 20 meter sloop (what most of you would picture when you think sailing yacht), have a spot at Port du Sud for the whole season. They happen to be going to Ile des Pins for 2 weeks during my trip, so they’re letting us stay in their berth while they’re out. Phew!

Yesterday morning at 11 I get an email from Patrick, Celera’s owner, that his oldest daughter has lost her passport so she and his wife will be delayed until Monda, and they won’t leave until Tuesday. Oh shit. I’m getting on a plane and Sophie can’t move the boat on her own–Marina maneuvers are the trickiest. We immediately started calling all the marinas and hopped in the dinghy to go over to Port Moselle to see if they would give us a spot.
We get to the marina office at 11:10.
Office closes at 11:00 on Saturdays.
Sophie calls the after hours number.
Sorry, no room (I’m looking at the guest dock. It’s half empty. Or half full. Either way, there bloody well is room).
We see a friend who runs a charter business there. He starts calling all over town.
Nothing.

Patrick calls me to work out details for dinner tonight. As soon as he realizes our predicament, he says, No problem, I’ll move Celera out to the anchorage and you can move Océalys in on Sunday morning before you leave. We’ll just spend a couple of nights at the anchorage before heading out. Patrick is a true gentleman. One of those rare ones. It’s a huge pain for him. He’s got to provision for 2 weeks with 10 people on board. He’s just flown in and surely the boat needs some looking after, which is always easier when you’re docked. He really saved us from a potentially huge hassle, Sophie having to ask someone from another boat to help her move the boat, etc.

So the boat is safely moored and I’m Brisbane bound. I’ll try to send an update from Oz.

G’day.

Daily Update: Three-for-One

2009-09-15T01:25:00.000-07:00

Alright. So much for my plan to do this every day. I'm not sure why,
but I can't bring myself to sit down and do it regularly. I guess I
don't feel like there's necessarily something exciting to write about
every day. I suppose we can take a composite of the last 3 days to
make something readable...

The weather finally started to calm down a bit after what, 4 days of
strong wind? There's been some rain from time to time, but overall I'd
call the weather pretty damned nice. The kids have been doing school
in the mornings until about 9:30 or 10:00. Today, for the first time,
I joined in and did English with Massimo. He did pretty well with me
and complained a little less than he usually does with Sophie. I only
had to threaten to throw his Nintendo into the water once. After
school we go for a dive. Despite being a popular spot here, there's
good fishing on the reef just outside the anchorage. We can always
spear a parrot fish or two for lunch. I speared a nice fat one this
morning, but the camera was apparently off when Sophie snapped a
picture from the dinghy.

Yesterday was Annabelle's 5th birthday so we had a party at lunch.
Massimo and Annabelle baked cupcakes and decorated them while I
cleaned and cooked a fat parrot fish. Annabelle got a huge doll house
(which I find absolutely ridiculous to have aboard a boat, but...),
and a Nintendo DS. A pink version of her brother's favorite toy. They
spent the afternoon networking them and sending each other messages
and drawings. Annabelle even got a phone call from grandma, but she
refused to talk to her (sometimes, like me, she doesn't like talking
on the phone).

Our friend Jaques aboard "Mamou", a Nouméa-based Outremer catamaran,
gave Annabelle a lobster for her birthday. We had it for lunch today
and it was delicious. I've never been good at hunting for lobster.
Takes too much patience looking in all those holes.

After diving and lunch, we usually have a siesta for an hour or so
while the kids watch a DVD. It's our only break from them. Afterwards
we usually do a bit of exploring in the dingy and then it's time to
cook dinner.

Interspersed through all this I've been doing a little bit of
maintenance and so on. I installed a small electric bilge pump in the
dinghy so we don't need to use the bailer and sponge to keep it dry.
Unfortunately the engine is not producing voltage the way it's
supposed to, so this has turned from an "install a new toy" project to
"troubleshoot the outboard motor" project.

Also, after not running the generator for a couple of months, it's
exhibiting some strange behaviour. It has a hard time starting and
then has a very rough, very low RPM idle. Then the RPM will slowly go
up, then back down, then slowly up to it's correct speed. Then the
thing runs fine. I suspect a fuel delivery problem. Feel free to send
an email if you have any suggestions. Could be air, but once the air
is out of the lines, the problem should go away (and it doesn't- it
comes back every time I start the thing). So my guess is either crud
in the injectors or crud in one of the fuel filters. I hope it's crud
in the filters, which I will change when we get back to Nouméa. Crud
in the injectors will require professional service and persistent air
in the fuel means an air leak somewhere which could be a nightmare...
Oh well, not really a big problem, just that it's nagging the back of
my mind all the time. I even devised (in my head) a scuba tank-powered
blower to clear out the fuel lines after I awoke from a bizarre dream
at 4am this morning.

I dreamt that I was riding a bicycle at the Berkeley Marina. The
fascist government there (that part's not in the dream, it's real) had
made it illegal to ride a bike on this 100 foot long stretch of trail.
Somehow I knew that, but the sign illustrating the interdiction was
faded and had graffiti all over it. I rode to the end of the little
trail, turned around at the dead end and started riding out. As I was
bout to exit the path onto the frontage road a barrier sprang up. It
was designed to catch violators, but it malfunctioned and only came up
about 12" above ground, then slowly came up the rest of the way. I
shook my head and was convinced that some group of militant Berkeley
Hippies had rigged the thing, so I pulled out a knife and cut through
the 3 cables that were stretched tautly across the path. No sooner had
I sawn through the last cord than a Berkeley Park Ranger SWAT team
descended on the scene. I won't bore you with the rest of the details,
but I remember being very stressed out when they pulled my mom's car
(the big one Mom, since I know you're going to analyze the beans out
of this) onto a flatbed tow truck to take it to the impound yard. They
also confiscated my bike, which I was upset about, but mostly I was
furious that they were making such a big deal out of such a silly
misunderstanding. I found myself spewing a wonderfully rich and
profane string of expletives at the head Fascist-Hippie-Park Ranger
protesting the idiocy of Berkeley's public policy. Perhaps deep down I
want to go home but just can't come to terms with the social climate
there.

I dove on the hull today to inspect the results of my mooring error
the other day. There are a few scratches in the bottom paint, but
nothing even into the gelcoat. Very minor. In fact the worst of it
seems to have been caused from that fishing lure I wrapped around the
prop on the way here... Never mind, another small error... $100 for
the lure and a clean spot on the hull where the taught line scraped
off the slime.

Since the weather's gotten nicer, we're going to stay here one more
day to wait for our friends aboard "Sol Maria". They're a wonderful
French-Canadian couple we met in New Zealand last year. In the morning
we'll have a mission to get fish and maybe some lobster of a big feast.

Now I have to go read the kids a story for bed, then off to bed
ourselves.

Bonne nuit from Ile des Pins.

Long Night, Bad Day

2009-09-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

I know most of you think that our day-to-day life is like an extended
tropical vacation. Yesterday is a great example of the difference
between staying at Le Meridien on the beach for a couple of weeks and
doing what we're doing. Plus, yesterday I made the first real mistake
since we left California.

After a 4-hour sail on Friday from Baie de Prony to Ile des Pins, we
arrived at the northernmost anchorage in Gadji. There's a small lagoon
surrounded by little islands. The whole lagoon is about 8 feet deep
and the entrance is a bit tricky. At times we had as little as 18"
under the deepest part of the boat. Running aground (hitting the
bottom) is one of the scariest things for a mariner, and our boat
isn't particularly suited to that sort of use. It was blowing about 25
knots as we came in, which makes it hard to go slow since the wind
tends to control the boat more than you. That's called not having
steerage.

Anyway, we pull into the anchorage uneventfully. There are 3 other
boats anchored here which makes it a bit crowded. It's the school
holidays so everyone with something floaty seems to be out cruising
for a couple of weeks. The wind was blowing out of the North so I
picked a spot towards the northern edge of the lagoon in order to be
blown towards the center, into deeper water. Sophie put out 200' of
chain so we could be sure of not dragging the anchor. We were in about
9 feet of water and the boat draws 4'3" (1.3m). The forecast was for
the wind to turn to the South during the night. I was aware of this
when we anchored, but for some reason I: a. Didn't really believe it
even though I knew it to be true, and b. I somehow got disoriented and
intuitively felt that when the wind was coming out of the South it
would have been coming from "that direction over there" which was
actually East. Oh great. Some mariner I am. I can't map the cardinal
points to the surrounding geography in my head, despite having paper
and digital charts right in front of me.

So, as predicted, the wind shifts 180º during the night and starts
blowing out of the South. Exactly out of the South at 20 knots, just
like they said. So instead of swinging directly away from the shore
and the patch of coral heads there, we swing right into it. Not only
that, but because I had laid out so much chain, we were way in towards
the shore.

I woke up at 0300 because something felt wrong, it was pouring rain
and the wind was up. When I got out on deck, there was enough
starlight/moonlight that I could clearly see what was going on. Huh,
I'll be damned, I said to myself. It's blowing out of the West! (nope,
it was the South). We still had 9 feet of water under the boat but
just off to Starboard, there were two little reefs. Occasionally we'd
drift over the closest one. The sounder showed that we still had 4
feet of water under the boat. The sounder is in the hull, a couple of
feet underwater, so that made 6 feet of depth on the reef. I checked
the tide table in the computer and factored in the discrepancy between
the computer tables and the locally published tables that I couldn't
find. Remember it's 3 A.M., pouring rain outside and I'm groggy and
half-naked. Not to give you the mental picture or anything, but for
some reason when you're scrambling around on deck, being half naked
makes a difference.

I set an alarm on the depth sounder and decided to wait it out,
thinking that we could have cleared the little reefs if we eventually
did go on them and that the wind would change and push us the other
way anyhow. I must have fallen asleep around 0530 and was then woken
up by a gentle scraping on the skeg right under my head. The skegs are
like fins that stick down in front of the propellers and rudders to
protect them in case of a collision. They're very strong and can
support the entire weight of the boat. I got up, went outside and saw
that we were in the same spot and were occasionally heading over the
closest little reef. I still had it in my head that the wind would
change and push us the other way. I'm all for being optimistic, but
talk about wishful thinking. After a few more minutes there was a
healthier "crunch" as the wind shifted slightly and put us on top of
the next reef. I shot outside, started an engine and started pulling,
full throttle in order to swing the boat away from that reef. I yelled
at sophie to get on deck and man the anchor windlass. I wanted to pull
the anchor up and change spots. There was daylight now, so it was safe
to move around.

The problem now was that the wind, still blowing out of the South at
20 knots, was pushing us down against the reefs. As I pulled the boat
away, she would turn sideways to the wind, vastly increasing the
pressure exerted by the wind, which pushed us back down. We tried
letting out a bunch of chain, turning the boat violently and trying to
move away from the reefs in forward gear. There wasn't enough room to
do that and the chain was rubbing hard against the Starboard bow. So I
told Sophie to grab the knife that's kept outside in the cockpit for
emergencies, let out all of the chain and cut the piece of line that's
ties the bitter end of the chain to the boat. So we dumped the anchor,
which is a pretty big deal. It's kind of like pushing the emergency
"eject" button. Now we were free to move away from the dangerous
reefs. We moved to the windward edge of the bay and just kept the boat
stationary with the engines. That's very tricky because unless you're
moving forward, this much wind tends to push you down violently, so
you're always turning hard left or hard right under full throttle just
to keep the boat straight. Sophie had to do this while I got one of
the backup anchors ready. These anchors are stowed away and they need
to be deployed manually since we don't have a dual anchor setup on the
bow. I think it was around this point that Massimo was nice enough to
hand me a pair of pants.

It took me about 15 minutes to get the new anchor all rigged up and
then I "tossed" it overboard–the anchor and 40' of chain weigh more
than a hundred pounds. Another hour of trials and tribulations with
this anchor and finally we had it rigged so that we both felt
comfortable with me leaving the boat to go get the primary anchor. The
problem was that if this temporary anchor broke or dragged, Sophie
would only have a few seconds before we were blown onto the other
boats anchored behind us. We left the engines running the whole time.

Massimo and I got in the dinghy and with the help of a neighbor we
recuperated the main anchor and 300' of chain (which weighs about 1200
lbs). The chain was wrapped around the reefs and was bar-tight. We
started at the bitter end and pulled it up into the dinghy. Luckily
the water was only 8 feet deep, so it was easy to dive to the bottom
and we were only ever pulling on 8 feet of chain by hand. We brought
the whole mess back to the boat and threaded it back into the
windlass, and into the chain locker. After that we ditched the
secondary anchor with a bumper tied to the end of the line and re-
anchored with the main anchor in a better spot more suited to
SOUTHERLY winds. One more trip out to recuperate the secondary anchor
and then another hour of work to clean up and put everything away.

By now it's 11:00 in the morning and the kids have been holed up in
the boat behaving themselves because of the emergency on board, so
they're ready to go nuclear. We take them out to a little beach that's
so beautiful, with such fluffy white sand, that the morning's drama
just melts away.

All in all, it wasn't really that big of a deal since there was no
damage to the boat and no one was hurt. It's just frustrating to me
since there was a lot of action required because of a simple
misjudgment on my part, all of which put the boat at significant risk.
We all need a good wakeup call from time to time.

It's still blowing 20kts-25kts out of the South, but we're going to
try to hunt some lobsters for lunch with our neighbors who are locals
and know all the good spots.

-maurice

Baie de Prony

2009-09-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

We woke up yesterday morning to pouring rain and big gusts of wind in
our little anchorage at Ile Ouen. The wind started turning further and
further north, which made the anchorage more and more exposed. We
didn't want to go to Iles de Pins with such poor visibility. There are
dozens of reefs on the way, so good light is essential. We thought
we'd spend another day there, so the kids started school. Soon though
things got worse, so we decided to make the 16 mile trip to Bay de
Prony. It's a huge, deep bay with lots of little inlets that provide
good shelter in any weather.

Sophie wanted to get some practice handling the boat, so she was in
charge of navigating, driving the boat and making all the decisions.
We motored into more than 30 knots of apparent wind, but it wasn't bad
at all since we were in the lee of the big island so there was no
swell of chop. By about noon we dropped anchor at the end of Bonne
Anse, the first inlet in Prony.

Sophie made lunch for the kids. I was feeling crummy (which apparently
also affected my cognitive abilities) so I decided that having a bowl
of oatmeal with a dozen prunes in it was somehow a good idea. You can
imagine how I spent my afternoon.

That evening a couple more boats came into our small bay. The boat
that anchored next to us got the usual angry stares (from inside the
boat so they can't see). I don't know what it is. There's a strange
sort of territoriality that establishes itself at anchor. You don't
want anyone near you because if someone drags anchor you could
collide. On the other hand, the other guy has to anchor somewhere. I
always hate being the latecomer to an anchorage and having to be the
one anchoring "close" to the next boat. In fact, I'll often choose to
anchor elsewhere rather than squeeze in with the pack.

The wind did a complete 360º overnight and this morning the rain
stopped and we can see patches of sky. We're going to go for it and
head for Baie de Gadji at Ile des Pins (which the snobby cruisers
insist on calling The Isle of Pines in English since it was named by
Captain Cook). There's a good trolling spot on the way, so hopefully
we'll get a tuna or wahoo. It's a 7 hour trip, so we're in a bit of a
rush to get going as it's already 7:15 and we need to get there before
the sun is too low.

For our friends who are following our footsteps in the next couple of
days, we are anchored at: 22º 22.57' S; 166º 55.11'E
We are headed to: 22º 31.903'S; 166º 25.277'E

That is all.

-maurice

Ile Louen

2009-09-09T01:36:00.000-07:00

In keeping with the "day-in-the-life" theme, here's how we spent the
rest of our day today (presuming the SAT phone doesn't crap out here).

We finally managed to get everything stowed on board and left the
marina at 10:00 this morning. Not an early start by any measure, but
we didn't plan on going far. The wind was a bit out of the north, so
we decided to sail all the way to Ile Louen instead of going to Tombo.
If we had done that, then tomorrow would have been a tough slog to
windward to get here. It took us just over 3 hours since we were doing
up to 8 to 8.5 knots close hauled in 20 to 28 knots of wind. The water
was quite calm, so we just skimmed along uneventfully. We had to take
a reef at one point (reduce the size of the mainsail) since the wind
was steadily above 25 knts, which is when we take our first reef. We
take our second at 30 knots and our third, and last reef, at around 40
or 45 knots, but we've never needed it.

Sophie did some school with the kids and then some arts and crafts
before lunch. We had sandwiches and then the kids watched a DVD while
Sophie and I sailed the boat.

We arrived at our anchorage at around 1:30, cruised around the bay to
find a good spot and dropped the anchor. There's only one other boat
here. It was blowing a good 28 to 30 when we anchored, and there was a
lot of strain on the anchor chain, but the holding is god here, so I
guess I'll sleep comfortably. For the technical folks, we're anchored
in about 25 feet with 150' of chain out.

I took a 30 minute break while Sophie entertained the kids with books
and activities, then they came in to the cabin to play "Tarantula"
which is basically them piling on top of me and me fending them off
with tickles. 20 minutes of that and then we pumped up the dinghy a
bit and put it in the water, got everyone ready to go ashore, and
spent a couple of hours on the beach. There's an apparently defunct
hotel on the beach. It's clearly still being kept up–the grass is
mown, debris from the coconut trees neatly piled up, etc.–but there
was no one around. The beach was nice and sloped very gently so the
kids could run around a lot without getting into deep water.

We headed back to the boat and then Massimo and I got fishing gear
out. We wanted to head out to a little reef as the sun was setting to
try to get some cuttlefish. It was still quite windy and we didn't
have a technique for this type of fishing, so we did our best until it
was dark and headed back to the boat empty handed. Meantime Sophie and
Annabelle cooked up some dinner while Annabelle also did a bit of
school. Then it was Massimo's turn for a little reading (in French)
before we sat down to eat. After dinner Sophie did the dishes as I sat
down to write this. Now, at 7:30, the kids are getting a story read to
them and will go to bed shortly. I expect Sophie and I will be asleep
by 8:30. Maybe we'll read a few chapters of our books or watch an
episode of Battlestar Galactica–we don't often watch movies since we
can never stay awake long enough to finish them.

We have to set out by 7:00 tomorrow morning to get to the Isle of
Pines early enough to have the sun still high up so we can see the
reefs on the way in. Hopefully we'll catch a tuna as we cross from
Grand Terre (the main island of New Caledonia) to the Isle of Pines.

Goodnight.

Back to Work

2009-09-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

We're back in New Caledonia from our vacation in the States. We had a great 3 weeks there visiting with family and friends.

I started out by flying to San Francisco, via New Zealand, with the kids so that Sophie could have a week off on the boat by herself. The kids were awesome and handled the long flights like one big adventure.

Grandma and Grandpa took over the kids. They got intensely spoiled with daily trips to Marine World, various parks, pizza parlors, and toy stores (which has taken weeks to de-program). I got to hang out with friends all day, acting like I was 17 again. I spent my time eating at all my old favorite restaurants and touring car dealerships to test-drive all the good cars that have come out since I left.

Since spoiling just the kids was not enough, my mom took us all to Monterey for several days. She took us all shopping and we took the kids to the Aquarium every morning before the crowds flooded the place. Believe it or not, they got a huge kick out of it. Often they would point inside the tank and say to each other, Oh! You remember that time we swam with one of those in the Tuamotus? They got surprised looks from the other kids around them, especially when we were in front of the shark display.

Massimo had his 7th birthday party with his best friend Noah at the park he used to play in every day. The kids loved living a "normal" life, but by the end of it they were ready to go back to the boat.

I got a chance to talk about our trip at a PechaKucha night in San Francisco (www.pechakucha-sf.com). Coincidentally it was held in my old office building at One Market, which brought back a lot of memories–and people. It was a real kick to share our trip with the folks in the audience and I think most were pretty surprised to hear the stories in that context.

We're heading out of Nouméa for a 10 day trip to the Isle of Pines during the kids' school holidays. I'm going to try to do "day-in-the-life" updates to the blog during this trip as an experiment. There'll be no pictures since we're posting via satellite, but hopefully it will give you a taste of what we're up to.

In that spirit: Today the kids woke up at 0630, as usual. Sophie made them breakfast and then had to drive our borrowed car back to our friends' house. In the meantime I have been looking at all the weather websites for the coming week to try to plan our trip. Looks like we'll be OK, with a couple of rainy days at the end of the week. Now we have to do the final preparations on the boat, stow some things away, start the engines to warm them up and head out of our little marina. We'll either head to Tombo Reef for the night (16 nautical miles away), or over to Ile Louen (24 nautical miles), which won't be as nice, but will get us half-way to Ile des Pins, especially with the wind we have today.
Time to cast off...
-maurice

Taking a Vacation!

2009-07-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

We're taking a break from the hectic life of the tropics and coming home for a visit! The grandparents need a fix of the grandkids and we're looking forward to seeing friends for the first time in almost 2 years.

We're also looking forward to the sharp contrast that a 12 hour flight home will provide against a sailing trip that took 18 months. And yes, we are flying, not sailing. As they say, nothing goes to windward like a 747.

I'll be arriving with the kids on July 13th. Sophie comes in a week later after a week of R&R without the kids. We'll be in the Bay Area until the first week of August.

We look forward to catching up with as many of you as we can!

Whirlwind Tour to the Isle of Pines

2009-06-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

Just a day after our arrival in Nouméa, our friends McKenzie, Meewon and their son Ronan arrived for a 10 day visit. Our plan was to go south to the Isle of Pines, but we were delayed a couple of days by bad weather. We fueled up and headed out for a wonderful tour of the Southern reefs and l'Ile des Pins. We moved the boat to a new spot almost every day, and we came to learn that the wind here is always on the nose, regardless the direction of your travel. Lots of motoring...

My "big brother" Raymond had shown us all the good spots to explore and anchor. He even drew a circle on a chart and said, Here, you will catch Yellowfin tuna. As soon as we entered the circle, McKenzie and I started bitching about how awful this place is and even in the "fish catching areas" there was no fish... Right as we reached the center of Raymond's prescribed area, one of the lines sang out and a few minutes later, sure enough we had a Yellowfin on board. We landed a second one a couple of days later and speared a couple of Parrotfish to make "fish nuggets" for the kids. They'll eat anything fried (no comment on the Speedo and cubicle-induced pallor).

One of the highlights was the Isle of Pines itself. It's an incredible place with beautiful, very shallow anchorages. There were a couple of times we only had a foot of water under the deepest part of the boat, but I guess a foot is as good as a fathom as long as it's low tide.

We visited "la Piscine", a natural mini-lagoon full of tame fish that eat out of your hand. The kids loved that. It was great fun seeing Ronan get the hang of life aboard and in the water.

On the way back to Nouméa we stopped at the Phare Amedée and since we were the only people on the island, the keepers let us into the lighthouse for our own private tour. 250 steps up and we had an incredible view of the whole lagoon at sunset.

New Caledonia- Arrival and the One that Got Away

2009-05-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

After 5 days at sea, 4 of them motoring and one in a near gale, we were psyched to make landfall. The first 3 days were pretty cold and all of us were wearing every bit of clothes we had to keep wrm during night watches.

We got 30+ knots of true wind (up to 40 knots apparent as it was before the beam) for about 30 ours and made some great time. The boat was doing 9's and 10's. The benefit of making good progress was some pretty violent noise on board from the confused seas. Every minute or two there's an explosion, and if you're in your bunk, you get knocked sideways a foot or so. Despite horrified certainty on your part, the boat doesn't break in to pieces and things go on, mile after mile. Check out the video of us going along at 10 knots. Even though it looks like it's only blowing 15-18kts, it was actually blowing 30 or more during this clip. Amazing how the camera flattens the conditions.

On our last day, as I'd promised Austin, we put the fishing lines in the water for our final approach into Nouméa. About an hour away from the pass into the reef, one of the reels sang, and a few seconds later a HUGE marlin did 5 or 6 jumps across our stern, just 30 yards away. After that, the fish sounded and the fight was on. 2 hours of fierce fighting later- 1:55 with young Austin on the rod and me with a :10 turn- we got the fish right behind the boat. It was so big, none of us had any idea what to do to get it on board. Luckily, as we were bringing in the last few feet of 550lb test leader line by hand, it surprised us by swimming gently towards the boat and unhooked itself. We all stood there in awe at the great prodigious beastie. Estimates on board vary, but on the conservative end I'd say 8 feet long and 300 or 400 lbs (at times there were pronouncements like, Dude! It's at LEAST a THOUSAND POUNDS!!!).

The fish provided us with such an adventure that we forgot about the crossing and it really felt like we'd just been out fishing for the day.

Our emotional arrival was marked by the warm welcome we received from dear old friends here, the departure of our dear young Austin, and the arrival of McKenzie and his family (it's with McKenzie that I sailed to New Caledonia in '95 and met Sophie).

It's felt like a real homecoming.

We'll be taking our guests down for a trip to the Isle of Pines for a week, then we have to figure out what we'll be doing in New Caledonia and beyond. For the moment we haven't a clue.

Vive la Caledonie!

2009-05-28T16:09:00.000-07:00

Nous sommes maintenant a Port du Sud!! au ponton "visiteur".
Attendons les differentes autorites pour faire les formalites d'entree.

Bises a tous,
sophie

New Caledonia Crossing Update #5

2009-05-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

Position: 23º 03.77'S 166º 44.16'E
Steering for Waypoint "Amedee"
Distance to Waypoint: 34.9 miles
Eta: today during the afternoon
Course: 316º M
Speed: 7kts
Wind direction: SE

Land - ho! Nous pouvons maintenant voir les cotes de la Caledonie et
tout l'equipage est excite a l'idee d'arriver. Le vent a continue a
tomber durant la nuit ce qui nous a permis de passer une bonne nuit de
sommeil. Ce matin, meme chose, c'est petole! avec des grains de pluie
un peu partout. Les canes sont a l'eau et peut-etre feterons-nous
notre arrivee avec du poisson ce soir!
Nous arriverons a l'ilot Amedee en fin d'apres-midi ou nous passerons
la nuit. Nous serons a Port du Sud demain matin, apres on attendera
les douanes.
Grosses bises a tous et a tres, tres bientot!
sophie

New Caledonia Crossing Update #4

2009-05-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

Position: 25º 25.43'S 168º 18.49'E
Steering for Waypoint "Amedee"
Distance to Waypoint:201 miles
Eta: May 28th
Course: 312º M
Speed: 7.5kts
Wind direction: S

Wind died during the night. As far as I am concerned, I had a great
watch - mine starts at 6:30pm and ends at 10:30pm: wind was still up
to 30knts and Ocealys was Happy! and for the first time since we left
I wasn't freezing cold. Also, the sky was beautiful and full of stars.
Compared to the previous night that was very cold and pitch dark, that
was a treat.
So, we are motor-sailing right now to make sure we arrive tomorrow. We
are all excited to see Noumea and to be in T-shirt again! We'll send
an email when we arrive at Amedee.
See you sson,
sophie

New Caledonia Crossing Update #3

2009-05-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Position: 28º 26.15'S 170º 01.75'E
Steering for Waypoint "Amedee"
Distance to Waypoint:404 miles
Eta: May 28th
Course: 316º M
Speed: 9kts

Winds picked up during the night but was on the nose. This morning, it
is up to 25knts with some gusts up to 36knts and the wind's direction
is at 76 / 86 degre. Two reefs in the main with the jib. we are going
fast.

sophie

New Caledonia Crossing Update #2

2009-05-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

Position: 30º 40.02'S 171º 14.69'E
Steering for Waypoint "Amedee"
Distance to Waypoint:551 miles
Eta: May 28th
Course: 316º M
Speed: 7kts

Still no wind!! The engines are running and we are waiting for the 20
kts forecasted. All is well and last night was actually a little bit
"boring".... but I like boring during a passage.

Talk to you tomorrow.

New Caledonia Crossing Update #1

2009-05-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Position: 32º 54.66'S 172º 42.84'E
Steering for Waypoint "Amedee"
Distance to Waypoint:706 miles
Eta: May 28th
Course: 316º M
Speed: 7kts

Not much wind since we left 24 hours ago. Wind is over the stern, but
shifty in direction and force. We've had one engine on the whole time.
1/2 the night with no sails, so we're off to a slow start. So much for
a 4 day passage. Now hoping for less than 6 days, but not sure of it.
Didn't think fuel would be an issue, but obviously now we're
conserving, turning one motor at 2000.

Rudders are not staying aligned. Issue is particularly bad when
running just the stbd engine. They go way out of alignment in a few
hours. Under sail or port engine, problem isn't so bad. Suspect
leaking bypass valve on stbd side. No external leaks. We bled the
system before leaving Opua. Not a serious issue at this time.

Very dark last night. Sophie hit by flying fish on watch.

Will try to send update tomorrow same time, although not a lot going
on here, just hoping for wind to pick up to the promised 20kts.

That is all.

And we're off!

2009-05-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

The weather's good, the boat's sorted and we're ready to go! We'll be leaving Opua, NZ this morning after the longest stop of our trip so far.

Customs should clear us out at 10:30, so we'll be able to head out right after that. Hopefully there won't be too much of a delay since I expect a lot of people to be checking out today.

We will be sailing alongside our friends aboard "INTIAQ", another Catana 471. They are headed for Vanuatu, but that takes us along almost the same course. Like Austin says, Race on!

The last couple of days have been a bit busy since I discovered a leak in one of our hot water heaters. It wasn't really a discovery since I've been noticing this leak over what, probably the last year? But it got a lot worse during the last few days and required attention. After removing the heater and pressure testing it, we found a pinhole on a weld. We rented a car and went down to Whangarei to try and find a new one. We ordered something "close" and had it couriered up from Auckland for delivery yesterday morning. It arrived as promised, but "close" wasn't "right", and installing the new one would have required major modifications. So, back on the phone with the vendor in Whangarei and turns out they have one that should fit better nearby. They actually sold it to a boat in a yard, but the shop offered to go over there and "steal" it back for us. I grabbed a car and did a quick round trip to Whangarei (which, by the way, is pronounced Fangarei) leaving 3 hours of light last night to finish the install. Nothing on a boat is plug-and play, so after a bit of sawing and grinding into the brand-new heater, it was ready to go back in. All I knew was that, Damn the torpedoes, I was, after 3 days, going to have a hot shower that night! And indeed, we all did.

We've downloaded all our weather data. Looks like we'll have good wind first couple of days, then it will get light. Waves look pretty big, up to 20' with a short period, but from behind. We're hoping to arrive in New Caledonia around Friday morning (our time).

Hurry Up and Wait

2009-05-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

It's only been a short 6 months since I've posted. Thanks to Sophie for covering our entire 6 month New Zealand stay.

We're in Opua, a little harbour near the northern end of New Zealand. It's the main point of arrival and departure for yachties. 450 boats arrived this season, and presumably will all leave sometime in the coming weeks. Hopefully not all on the day we decide to finally leave.

We are basically ready to go. The freezers and pantries are stuffed with provisions, fuel tanks are brimming, and the boat is rigged for ocean crossing. Now we just need the weather to cooperate. That's the big challenge with NZ: It's hard to get to, and it's hard to leave. In order to have favorable conditions, we need all the stars to align because during the crossing we will go through two different major weather systems. So, either it's bad down here in NZ, or it's bad up in the tropics. Right now we're waiting for a nasty low to pass New Caledonia so that we don't sail right through it (see the picture). We're hoping to leave next Saturday and just skirt the back edge of it. If the weather models are correct, we'll have a lot of wind and big waves, but both from a favorable direction making for a fast, bumpy passage. 5 1/2 days to New Caledonia would be fast. 4 1/2 would be warp-speed (speaking of which the new Star Trek movie rocked).

In the meantime we continue to work on the boat getting more projects done. Austin has been re-stringing our Spectra trampoline with Vectran rope (a liquid-crystal fiber) lashings to eliminate stretch. Our trampoline is the envy of all the other catamarans in the marina here. Now I just need to defend against our neighbors' constant attempts to recruit Austin away from us...

New Zealand: End of a Chapter

2009-05-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

English (French below):

Here we are, it is time again to go back to the big blue Ocean. Our next destination: New Caledonia. We are sorry, it took us so much time to update our blog but believe it or not we were always pretty busy.

We spent the past 5 months in New Zealand and we had a wonderful and colorful stay.

First, it was very nice to be back in a western civilization and enjoy its infrastructure, its technology and its delicious produce and meat. We easily take for granted all these advantages or conveniences and after 1 year in the islands, I can tell you that we fully appreciated them. In brief, we enjoyed to have a "normal" life for some time: running water, permanent electricity, supermarkets, internet and we even bought a car! The kids went to school and they loved it. It stimulated them and suddenly everything that they had learned with their mom-teacher made sense and it was even useful. Massimo now reads fluently and he was able to behave very well at school, thanks to Mrs Lints, his teacher
who was so wonderful with him. We couldn't thank her enough for the care and love she gave to Massimo. Both Massimo and Annabelle made a lot of friends at school. Oh, and we also caught up on all the viruses we were not in contact with on the boat the past year and everybody in the family got a turn: welcome back to civilization!

One thing you have to know about NZ is its crazy weather: it can be very hot and sunny, then it can rain and even hail and suddenly be very cold all in the same day! It is completely unpredictable. We arrived during summer but it took us a while to realize it. Then, finally we had some decent summer temperatures after Christmas vacation. Unfortunately for Isabella and Ugo (Maurice's parents), they came to visit us for Christmas and the weather was still pretty harsh.

We then started our "tourism" phase in New Zealand. Maurice and Ugo took the boat down from Whangarei to Auckland where we celebrated Christmas. Then by car, we went to a luxury Hotel on Lake Tarawera, close to Rotorua but far enough to be able to enjoy the beautiful and quiet settingwithout millions of tourists around. The tourism in NZ is very organized and easy so you may end up going where everybody else is going. However, just take a 4x4 trail and you'll find yourself alone surrounded by a beautiful nature and of course lots of sheep. Our stay at Tarawera was WONDERFUL. It was amazing to be in a luxury Hotel after living on Ocealys - even if she is a very comfortable boat. Just the pleasure of taking a bubble bath or just flushing the toilets by pressing a simple button instead of pumping.... after your kids! Lots of thanks to Isabella who organized everything and offered us such a nice present for Christmas. But I think that what the kids really liked was cartoon network and the helicopter ride!

Then, we went down to Wellington and we decided that it was one the best cities in NZ. There, we visited the Search & Rescue Center and we finally met the guys who were in constant contact with us during Timella's rescue in Fiji. Very nice and very professional people. It was impressive to realize how organized they are to respond to emergencies covering a very large part of the Pacific Ocean. People in NZ are very outdoor oriented and from sailing to surfing to hiking, to Helli-skiing, these guys have to be ready for the worst to happen in weather conditions that can be brutal. One of their efforts is to get the population more educated about the potential dangers, especially at sea.

After Wellington, we went back to Auckland and enjoyed the city and its harbor. Ocealys had a prime spot at the main Marina which gave us the opportunity to watch the Louis-Vuitton Pacific Cup. Also, some of boats that had to abandon the Vendee Globe race, stopped in Auckland and we were able to look at these strange beasts. On top of that, Auckland is a pretty active city and during summer there are a lot of festivals and activities. It was awesome to be in Auckland during that time. We particularly loved to watch the fireworks for Auckland Independence's Day from the trampoline!

My mum's came to visit for 5 weeks and we had some adventures together. We discovered the Coromandel Peninsula that is one of the most beautiful parts of NZ with its white beaches and beautiful transparent water.... of course, it has to be sunny. We
also drove on the black beaches of Auckland West Coast: impressive. We took my mum to some of the islands offshore of Auckland and had some beautiful hikes and even diving, despite the temperature of the water. Before my mum left, we took Ocealys back to Whangarei in Northland where we set up camp. On our way, we stopped at the famous
Great Barrier island where we had a feast on oysters.

After we said goodbye to my mum, we left Océalys behind and started our 3-week
car tour of the "world famous in New Zealand" South Island. The distances are very long and we spent many hours in the car. Not very "Berkeley" of us, but the DVD player in the car for the kids made the trip possible! Our first stop was in Nelson where our friends on New Paige invited us to stay on their boat for few nights. We had a great time and we loved it. It was like being in a luxury hotel.

We drove all the way down the West Coast, and then took the ferry to Stewart Island. A little outpost at 47º South Latitude populated by hard people accustomed to hard weather.
Very friendly though. On our way to Steward Island, we stopped to visit Ali, who was part of Timella's crew we rescued in Fiji. It was very nice to see her again and to talk about how life changing her experience in Fiji had been. She gave us a very warm welcome in her home and we all hope our paths will cross again.

The South Island is very beautiful and diverse. It goes from beaches to mountains, lakes, glaciers, fjords and enormous valleys. Again, depending on the weather, your eyes will discover different landscapes. We had good weather for the first part and then it rained pretty much every day! After 3 weeks on the road, we were glad to be back on Ocealys in Whangarei and see our boaty friends again. Free Spirit, a Catana 43 we met in Tahiti, stayed in Whangarei for the season too. Massimo, Annabelle, Seanna and Merric had a great time playing all together and they cried when they left for Fiji. We also met new faces like Real and Lucie, two wonderful people from Quebec sailing on their catamaran Sol Maria. I am sure our paths will cross again.... maybe Vanuatu or New Caledonia, who knows?

Austin and Diana joined us again aboard Océalys, and just in time too! Part of our duties in New Zealand was to perform the annual haulout that the boat needs, and we were greatful of all the help Diana and Austin provided. We had the boat out of the water for 1 week and Maurice and Austin worked like dogs to clean her up and fix few things here and there. The bottom was repainted, the engines serviced, all of the through-hull fittings changed, and the few surprises (some minor cracks in the bottom–way worse than it sounds) were dealt with. Most of the boats in the yard spend a month or more, and everyone, including the staff, was impressed to see us go back in the water 1 day ahead of
schedule.

Diana has flown to Sydney and Austin will be joining us for the next leg of our voyage to New Caledonia. We are almost ready to go back to sea, and we're waiting for the weather to improve (it's dangerously bad at the moment), and for us to fully recover from a really bad virus (Maurice had pneumonia and malaria-like symptoms for a week...) We're hoping to get going around the 15th of May for a 5-or-so-day crossing to New Caledonia. We can't wait to be back in the tropics. It's getting positively cold and rainy here.

We don't have firm plans for New Caledonia yet, so we'll be playing it by ear.

-------

En francais maintenant:

Et voila, c'est a nouveau le moment de reprendre la mer apres 5 mois en Nouvelle Zelande. Destination: le soleil et la Nouvelle Caledonie!

Notre sejour en Nouvelle Zelande nous a permis de decouvrir un pays sublime ainsi que d'avoir acces a tout ce que la civilisation peut apporter. Apres un an dans les iles, ce fut avec plaisir que nous avons retrouve l'eau courante, l'electricite a volonte, la nourriture fraiche, l'internet et meme une voiture! En gros, apres avoir amarre Ocealys a Whangarei ( Nord de l'ile du Nord), nous avons retrouve une vie "normale" de terrien. Les enfants ont rapidement ete mis a l'ecole - au grand soulagement de la maitresse de bord - alors que les parents essayaient de faire des plans pour l'avenir immediat. Les multiples questions ont trouve rapidement une reponse lorsque tout naturellement, nous avons commence a lister les divers projets a faire sur Ocealys...tous proprietaire de bateau sait que cette liste a une fin illusoire. Ocealys a recu une nouvelle Grande voile pour Noel et un nettoyage de fonds juste a temps pour l'arrivee des parents de Maurice pour les Fetes. Ce fut egalement le moment ou nous avons retrouve nos copains de bateau - Free Spirit et Damojo entre autes - mais egalement fait de nouvelles connaissances comme Sol Maria avec a son bord de vrais quebequois comme ils le sont toujours, super sympathiques.

Notre periode "touristique" a alors commence. Accompagnes d'Isabella et Ugo, nous avons parcouru l'ile du Nord apres avoir laisse le bateau a Auckland ou nous avons celebre Noel. Notre premier arret fut au lac Tarawera, pres de Rotorua ou nous avons apprecie notre sejour dans un superbe hotel juste au bord du lac. En decouvrant l'immense baignoire et les toilettes "sans pompe" de notre suite, les enfants ont pousse un cri de joie et... ils n'etaient pas les seuls. Il n'y a pas a dire, ca fait du bien de vivre dans le luxe de temps en temps! La partie preferee des enfants fut le tour d'helicoptere que nous avons fait au-dessus du volcan faisant face au lac. Pour ma part, ce fut le plaisir de ne plus avoir a cuisiner et a ranger en permanence! Bien sur, nous avons visite les sources geothermales du coin qui en font une des attractions les plus convoitees de NZ. Puis, nous sommes descendus jusqu'a Wellington. Nous avons alors decouvert une ville tres sympa. Une chose a savoir en NZ est que presque tous les musees sont gratuits et le Te Papa est certainement un des meilleurs avec celui d'Auckland. Nous en avons egalement profite pour rencontrer l’equipe de “Search and Rescue” de Nouvelle Zelande qui est basee a Wellington. Ils s’occupent de coordonner les urgences survenues en mer et a terre. C’est avec eux que nous etions en contact lors du sauvetage de l’equipage de Timella a Fiji. Ce fut tres interessant de decouvrir les coulisses de ce genre d’operations et bien sur, c’est avec plaisir que nous avons pu mettre un visage sur ces voix qui tentaient de nous conseiller et de nous rassurer durant cette nuit dramatique du naufrage de Timella a Fiji. Ils nous ont egalement appris que nous avions ete nomines pour notre “Exceptional Bravery at Sea” ( bravoure exceptionnelle en mer) a l’ONU (organization des nations unies).

L'ile du Nord est l'endroit ou les Maori sont le plus presents. Les deux cultures cohabitent tres bien et les Maoris sont respectes. Le Maori est d'ailleurs enseigne a l'ecole et Massimo a recu ses premieres lecons: "j'aime bien Maori mais je ne comprends rien du tout!" ce qui ne l’empeche pas de chanter regulierement l'hymne nationale! Cela m'amene a parler des Kiwis. Ils sont super chaleureux et acceuillants, c'est meme parfois un peu suspicieux. Nous avons rencontre des gens tres sympas, la plupart des etrangers qui ne sont jamais repartis de NZ. On comprend pourquoi. La vie est simple et pas compliquee. Les gens sont bons a ce qu'ils font et ils travaillent pour pouvoir partir pecher le vendredi a 3 heure. Un style de vie qui met l'accent sur la qualite et non la reussite financiere. Par contre, le revers de la medaille est que beaucoup de Kiwis quittent leur pays a la recherche de job mieux paye. La population restante est en grande partie composee de fermiers.

De retour a Auckland, nous avons dit aurevoir a Isabella et ma mere est arrivee. Ce fut vraiment tres sympa de passer un moment avec les grand-parents qui nous ont beaucoup gate pour Noel. Nous avons bien profite d'Auckland ou durant l'ete, les festivals se succedent. Massimo a decouvert les spectacles de rue et il adore! toujours le premier a se porter volontaire pour faire partie du spectacle.... De plus, nous etions aux premieres loges pour la "Louis Vuitton Pacific Cup" qui se trouvait juste en face d'Ocealys. Un de nos meilleurs moments fut le feu d'artifice pour la fete de l'independance d'Auckland que nous avons regarde de notre trampoline! Nous etions juste en-dessous. Nous nous sommes egalement balades dans la Coromendel Peninsula qui est sublime: eau verte transparente et sable blanc. Pour faire quand meme un peu de bateau, nous avons visite les iles du golf d'Auckland: tres sympa.

Il faut savoir qu'en NZ, le temps est completement imprevisible. Il peut faire beau et chaud, puis soudainement pleuvoir a torrent et meme greler et tout a coup faire tres froid dans la meme journee. Meme chose pour le vent. En naviguation, on passe son temps a prendre des riz et a les defaire! Bon d'accord, ca fait les bras mais apres plusieurs experiences musclees, nous avons decide de rester independant de la meteo et de prendre la voiture!

Apres avoir ramene le bateau a Whangarei, nous sommes partis a l'exploration de la fameuse Ile du Sud. L'ile du Sud est sublime et tres diverse. On passe de grandes plages magnifiques, aux lacs aux eaux tranquilles, aux montagnes enneigees, aux glaciers serpenteux, aux immenses plaines remplies de moutons – ce n'est pas une legende! - aux fameux fjords du Sud. Les paysages sont magnifiques et les distances enormes! Nous sommes descendus par la cote Ouest jusqu'au point le plus au Sud de la NZ: Steward Island qui se trouve a 47 Sud de latitude..... ou on commence a vraiment cailler! Cette petite ile est peuplee d'hommes et de femmes aux visages faconnes par le vent et le froid... nous, nous sommes rues au "general store" pour nous acheter des chaussettes et des bonnets! La, la faune et la flore est incroyable et l'ile est envahie d'oiseaux consideres en voie de disparition. Avant de prendre le ferry pour Steward Island, nous nous sommes arretes chez Ali, un des membres de l'equipage de Timella que nous avons secouru a Fiji. Ce fut avec emotion que nous la retrouvames et nous pument enfin faire cannaissance!
Durant ce periple de 3 semaines, nous avons eu de la chance et il a fait beau au moins la moitie du temps. Puis, il a plu quasiment tous les jours… Les paysages sont encore plus dramatiques quand il fait mauvais temps mais bon, nous fument quand meme contents de retrouver Ocealys a Whangarei!

Notre attention c’est alors completement portee sur Ocealys. Austin et Diana nous ont rejoint juste a temps pour nous aider durant le carrenage d’Ocealys. Maurice et Austin ont bosse comme des fous et ce fut bache en 1 semaine! Un record, compare a tous nos copains qui sont restes en moyenne 1 mois et demi au carrenage. Meme les ouvriers du chantier en ont ete etonnes et ils regardaient Maurice avec admiration. Les efforts constants de Maurice pour maintenir l’etat du bateau ont bien paye et Ocealys est encore plus belle qu’avant.

Voila, maintenant, nous sommes prets a mettre les voiles et c’est avec impatience que nous attendons une bonne fenetre meteo pour rejoindre le soleil. Le temps est horrible en ce moment et la Nouvelle Zelande se fait balayee par une depression tous les 2 jours, avec son comptant de pluie, de vent et de froid. Bref, non seulement ce n’est pas facile d’arriver dans ce pays mais il semble que c’est encore pire d’en repartir. Je pense que notre pensee de nous installer en NZ ne risquera pas de se materialiser et en grande partie a cause du temps. De plus, nous avons succombe a un mauvais virus et nous attendons toujours de nous remettre sur pieds….. vivement les tropiques!

Pour ce qui est du long terme (!), nos plans n’arretent pas de changer et pour le moment, la seule chose sure est que nous allons en Caledonie après…. on verra ou le vent nous emportera.

Arrival in New Zealand / Arrivée en Nouvelle Zelande

2008-12-15T22:44:00.000-08:00

English:

Well, we just love New Zealand. We had a good 6 1/2 day crossing from Fiji. Lots of motoring and then some really strong wind. By the end we were very ready to be on land for a long time...

Upon our arrival in Opua, we immediately felt that people were super friendly and getting things done was just easy. We are happy to be back in civilization and to be able to find some GOOD food. The kids have been dreaming of strawberries for the last year, and now they eat a couple of baskets a day. The produce, dairy and meat here are better than what we could find at the very best stores back home, and at a fraction of those premium prices.

After one week in Opua, we decided to go down to Whangarei.
On our way, we stopped in some beautiful islands and we went fishing for mussels and oysters…. we had a feast!

Everybody in New Zealand seems to have a boat , so we’re finding every part and service imaginable. The prices are reasonable and the craftsmen take a lot of pride in their work. It is time for Ocealys to have a mini-refit and for us to work on the boat. We’ve ordered a new main sail from a local sailmaker in Whangarei, and Maurice is working frantically on projects that we couldn’t do in the Islands. We’ll haul out right before we leave New Zealand to go back up to the tropics–sometime in April if our plans don’t change… It seems that each time we stop in a decent marina, we have to work like crazy…. Who said it was going to be holidays??

The kids go to local schools in Whangarei and they love it. They are making new friends and they are happy to have new teachers – oh, and I am very happy to take a break.

We’ve met up again with our good friends from Free Spirit and DaMojo and we’ve been catching up on stories and future plans.

Austin and Diana took off to start their new life in New Zealand. They came back up to see us for Thanksgiving as they are now part of the Ocealys family. They are amazing people and they have a special place in our hearts.

To complete our “return to civilization”, we bought a car. We’ve started to explore and have found some beautiful beaches that we visit on the weekends. Everybody surfs here from 4 years old to 99 years old. Of course, the water is pretty cold compared to Fiji but warmer than in the California. We also went to the yearly local Fair and we had a blast. Lots of animals and local products.

We’ll go down to Auckland for Christmas and Maurice’s parents will spend the holidays with us. My mom will also come to visit soon after. We are all very excited to see the grandparents again and to start exploring New Zealand by car.

En Francais:

C’est avec joie que nous arrivons en Nouvelle Zelande, a Opua. C’est une traversee reputee difficile avec des conditions meteo fluctuantes et qui peuvent etre assez fortes. De plus, la plupart du temps on se retrouve avec le vent dans le nez ou au pres tres serre, allure peu confortable!
Tout s’est bien passé avec seulement les deux derniers jours un peu “rock’ n roll”: 35-40 noeuds etablis et une mer agitee.

Le retour a la civilization est a la fois excitant et epuisant. On a plus l’habitude de courir a droite et a gauche pour faire les multiples choses que l’on pense avoir a faire. Mais c’est tellement bon de retrouver une bonne bouffe! Enfin du bon beurre, du bon lait, des yaourts, de la super bonne viande et des FRAISES! Sans oublier les huitres et les moules que l’on trouve en abondance.

A Opua, nous recevons un acceuil exemplaire et nous retrouvons beaucoup d’amis rencontres le long de notre voyage. Les freres de la Cote se retrouvent autour d’un p’tit verre et se racontent leurs aventures. Le Yacht club d’Opua nous fait meme graver une plaque pour notre exploit avec Timella…. mais nous avons deja mis les voiles vers Whangarei!

La Nouvelle Zelande est un pays de marins par excellence. Avec sa cote rocheuse et ses collines verdoyantes, on se croirait bien en Bretagne! Tout le monde a un bateau, que ce soit le petit dinghy pour aller au travail, le bateau de peche ou le voilier. Ils sont egalement tous Surfers de 4 ans a 99 ans!
C’est l’etape ideale pour travailler sur le bateau et nous nous sommes donc mis au boulot. Nous mettrons Ocealys au sec juste avant de repartir, d’ici quelques mois.

Les enfants sont a l’ecole et ils s’eclatent! Les enseignants sont tres sympas et habitués aux enfants de bateau. Massimo et Annabelle se font pleins de nouveaux copains en plus de tous les enfants de la Marina. Free spirit et Damojo, deux catas copain sont aussi a Whangarei et les gamins sont ravis de se retrouver.

Pour completer notre “retour a la civilization”, nous avons achete une voiture. C’est avec grand plaisir que nous commencons a decouvrir les merveilleux paysages de ce pays que nous comptons bien ecumer avant de repartir vers le mois d’avril….. si nous ne changeons pas nos plans d’ici la!!

Pour Noel, nous descendons le bateau a Auckland. Puis c’est la visite des grand-parents, d’abord Isabella et Ugo puis ma mere. Nous sommes ravis de les revoir.

TIMELLA RESCUE

2008-10-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

At 11:45 PM, October 13, we were woken by something that every mariner fears.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday..."

By the time I got to the radio, the second call was coming in. It was a woman's voice,

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the Sailing Vessel TIMELLA. TIMELLA. We have struck a reef and we need assistance. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday."

I waited for some seconds to see if someone more appropriate than us would answer, like the authorities, or a passing cruise ship. No answer came.

"Vessel calling Mayday. Vessel Calling Mayday. Vessel Calling Mayday. This is the Sailing Yacht OCEALYS. OCEALYS. OCEALYS. Do you copy?"

"Yes, we copy. This is TIMELLA. We've struck a reef and we are hard aground. The waves are bashing us against the reef. We need help."

TIMELLA is a boat we've met before. A little blue sloop with "HANCHARD CRANES" in big letters on the hull. We saw them in Niue and just a week ago in Suva.

"TIMELLA, this is OCEALYS. Roger that. What is your position? What is your position?"

"Stand by..." About a minute goes by, "OCEALYS, this is Timella. Our position: One-Eight, Three-Six Minutes South. Eighteen Degrees, Thirty-Six Minutes South... One-Seven-Seven, Four-Seven Minutes East."

"TIMELLA, I copy loud and clear: One Eight Degrees, Thirty-Six Minutes South. One-Seven-Seven Degrees, Forty-Seven Minutes East. I will plot your position. Standby one."

It takes a minute for our navigation electronics to turn on, and then I plot their position on the chartplotter. The position puts them right on top of a small, submerged reef about 12 miles ESE of our position inside the lagoon of Vatulele Island, about 50 nautical miles from Suva, the capital of Fiji. The reef's name is Takau Lakaleka.

"TIMELLA. TIMELLA. TIMELLA. OCEALYS"

"OCEALYS, TIMELLA"

"TIMELLA. I have your position. You are approximately 12 miles East of our location. We are two-and-a-half hours from you, best speed. Standby and I will relay your Mayday."

About 3 minutes have gone by since their first call.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the sailing yacht OCEALYS, OCEALYS, OCEALYS. We are relaying a Mayday for the yacht TIMELLA, TIMELLA, TIMELLA. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Does anyone copy? Over."

We repeat the transmission two more times and to my surprise hear no reply.

"TIMELLA. TIMELLA. OCEALYS."

"TIMELLA. Go ahead OCEALYS."

"TIMELLA, I have negative contact on the relay. What is your condition?"

"Standby OCEALYS..." A man's voice comes on with an Australian accent, "OCEALYS, this is Cameron. Yeah mate, we're on the reef. The waves are bashing us pretty hard, but she's a 40-year-old boat and she's built to take a hard landing. She's got 3 keels. We're not taking on any water."

"Yeah, roger that TIMELLA. Have you tried putting out a kedge?"

"Yeah, roger. We've got the anchor out, trying to get her bow-to."

"OK, roger that. What are you requesting at this time?"

"We're going to need to get pulled off this reef. I think she'll hold together, but no way we're getting off on our own."

"Roger that. Understood. I don't know if we'll be able to pull you off. We're trying to get a hold of the authorities. Standby and we'll update you when we have any info. Just hold on for now."

"TIMELLA standing by."

In the meantime, Sophie has been trying to come up with a list of options for help. We have a local cell phone, and surprisingly there's a strong signal here. Sophie finds the number to the single, exclusive resort on the island and makes the call.
There is no credit left on the SIM card.

We try calling them on the IRIDIUM phone, but there is no answer. Sophie finds that local emergency is 911, and she figures that the phone will work, even without credits. She's right, and she gets through to an operator. She explains the situation a couple of times. The operator is clearly not used to this kind of distress call. Sophie gives them our cell number and is told that someone will call us back.

Sophie also decides it would be a good idea to call the local Australian and New Zealand High Commissions and she finds emergency numbers in our Lonely Planet guide (this will turn out to be a critically important decision). I try Australia first on the IRIDIUM, and after lots of rings get a message saying they're closed, but if I know the extension of the party I'm trying to reach... I hang up and try New Zealand. A more detailed message at the end of which I'm relieved to hear, If this is an emergency, please call the Duty Officer on watch at....
I call that number and after 5 or 6 rings a groggy voice answers and I explain that a yacht with a New Zealand citizen aboard is in trouble and we need help coordinating a rescue. By now the man on the phone is completely alert and says he will set things in motion and call us back.

In the meantime on the VHF radio,

"Vessel calling a relay Mayday. Vessel... Mayday. This is... Cruise Ship...(their transmission is faint and broken)."

"Station calling, this is the Sailing Yacht OCEALYS relaying a Mayday for the yacht TIMELLA. TIMELLA."

"Sailing Yacht, this is the Cruise Ship.... We are... position... Thirty Nautical Miles South... yacht...Over."

"TIMELLA. TIMELLA. TIMELLA. OCEALYS."

Only a short pause and Cameron answers. I feel bad calling him. I imagine he has much more important things to do than talk to me.

"Go ahead OCEALYS."

"TIMELLA, we want to give you an update. We've contacted emergency services in Suva. They are forwarding your request for aid to the Navy. They will call us back with more information. We have contacted the New Zealand High Commisioner's office and they are also contacting the authorities in Suva. We also have VHF contact with a cruise ship 30NM South of you. The High Commission needs your names and nationalities. How are you doing?"

"We're still getting bashed around pretty good..." Cameron's voice is concerned, but calm. "...Hold on, I think we're going over (I can hear a roaring crash). No, we're good. We're still up... hold on, there's a nother big wave... we're going over... (boom in the background)... No. No, we're good. We're still up. She's holding together. We are three persons on board. Two Australian, one Kiwi. I'm Cameron Slagle, Sam-Lima-Alpha-Golf-Lima-Echo. Elizabeth Schoch, Sam-Charley-Hotel-Oscar-Charley-Hotel. Alison Timms, Tango-India-Mike-Mike. Timella is Tango-India-Mike-Echo-Lima-Lima-Alpha."

"Roger that TIMELLA. Standby one, we're getting a call on the phone. Hold on, we'll get you an update."

By now the cellular phone is ringing every few minutes. We cannot place calls, but can receive them.
The police in Suva keep calling for updates from us and to let us know they've alerted the Navy. We keep trying to explain that we are not the boat that is in distress, and that no, we have not arrived at the boat in distress. We cannot safely navigate the reef in the lagoon where we are in the dark, and we cannot safely render aid to TIMELLA at their location. Ok.Ok Mr. Maurice. We understand. I will call you back...

Sophie tries calling several resorts at a larger neighboring island, Beqa, on the IRIDIUM phone, but no one answers.
Mike RANDALL, at the NZ High Commission in Suva calls back and says he is in contact with Fiji Search and Rescue and also with SAR in New Zealand.
Moments later we get a call from Neville at the Something Something Search and Rescue Coordination Centre in New Zealand (it's hard to hear details on these calls, and frequently the VHF is going at the same time and we're trying to follow both closely.)

Neville is aware of all the details that we have- the exact location of TIMELLA, time of the first Mayday call, actuation and location of their EPIRB beacon, our location and the name of the island where we are, and he asks for a few more details.
I relay the request to TIMELLA via VHF, and Neville can hear their responses directly over the phone. He tells me he will coordinate with the Rescue Team in Suva and will keep us posted. Then another round of calls from the Police in Suva and now the Fijian Navy as well.

At about 0200 Cameron comes on the VHF and sounds stressed for the first time,

"OCEALYS. OCEALYS. TIMELLA."

"Go ahead TIMELLA."

"Yeah, OCEALYS. We're starting to take on water here. We're starting the pumps. We'll see if we can keep up with it."

"Roger that TIMELLA. SAR in Suva are mobilizing. We do not have an ETA for you at this time."

"Roger that."

About 0215

"OCEALYS. OCEALYS. TIMELLA"

"Go ahead TIMELLA"

"Ah mate, we're not keeping up with the water. The hole's under the engine, and it's not accessible. There is no way she's going to be able to hold on. We are definitely sinking mate. We're going to keep pumping as best we can but the batteries are going to be underwater soon."

"I copy that. What are you requesting Cameron? We are 2.5 hours away at least and I'm not sure what I can do when we get there."

"No mate, we are requesting an airlift. That's the only way we're getting out of here. Don't put yourself at risk. We're clear onto the reef at this point. They're not going to be able to get to us by boat. We need an airlift."

"OK. Roger that. We copy you request an airlift. Standby and we'll get back to you as soon as possible."

Neville is back on the line and we tell him that TIMELLA is taking on water and the crew is requesting an airlift. He says that's not going to happen. Fiji has no rescue helicopter, but it's better not to give TIMELLA that information at this time.

Still no ETA from Search and Rescue in Suva, but at least they're making an effort and staying in contact . The Police also keep checking in, although their questions indicate they're definitely not accustomed to dealing with maritime emergencies.

About 0245
"OCEALYS, TIMELLA"

"Go ahead"

"We are sinking. The batteries will be underwater in a few minutes. We're going to lose contact. We're getting the dinghy out and putting the liferaft canister in the dinghy. We've got extra fuel, water and we're getting some food ready."

"OK, roger that TIMELLA. Do you have any flares?"

"Yeah, they're floating around here somewhere."

"Do you have a handheld VHF?"

"Ah, negative on that. Negative."

"Roger that. We understand that SAR in Suva is mobilizing, but we still have no ETA. You're going to have to hold on a while longer."

Lot's of back and forth on the radio and on the phone, mainly with Mike Randall in Suva and Neville and Dave in New Zealand for the next 15-20 minutes. The guys in New Zealand advise us on specific actions that the crew of TIMELLA need to take, including donning life jackets, keeping the EPIRB on, etc. and we relay that information to TIMELLA.

At about 0300 we have our final exchange by radio,

"OCEALYS, TIMELLA."

"Go ahead, TIMELLA."

"We've gone down mate. I've got water half-way to the cabin-top. The batteries are under a meter-and-a-half of water. I don't know how we're still transmitting." Cameron is still calm and rational on the radio.

Sophie and I look at each other and start talking about the real options. Based on her conversations, it's clear that Suva SAR is not launching anything until daylight and they're having trouble finding fuel and crew. They are 50 miles from TIMELLA's position. The wind is blowing 25 to 30 knots (in their favor, against us), and the seas are rough and confused. I estimate it will take them 5 hours to reach TIMELLA if and when they depart. New Zealand SAR is on the phone and they're telling us they have no response on the Mayday they've sent via HF/SSB radio, they no longer have a fix on the EPIRB. The cruise ship from before has gotten back to us and we now understand their position is in fact 130NM miles to the South, putting them well out of range. We decide we have to go to TIMELLA. We believe we are their only viable option.

"...We're getting into the dinghy and will stay with the boat as long as we can. I don't expect the batteries to hold out much longer"

"Roger that TIMELLA. We still have no ETA from SAR in Suva. We are coming to you. We will weigh anchor now. I estimate ETA to your position two and one-half hours. We will stand off the reef and wait for daylight. We may not be able to help, but at least we will be there. Just hold on to the boat."

"Roger that OCEALYS. What's your name man?"

"It's Maurice. Maurice."

"Yeah, it's Cameron here. Good to meet you. We love you man. I definitely owe you a beer or two when this is all over."

"Roger that Cameron."

A few minutes later we call to check in again as we get ready weigh anchor,

"TIMELLA, OCEALYS"

No response.

"TIMELLA. TIMELLA. TIMELLA. This is OCEALYS, do you copy?"

No response.

"Nothing heard. This is OCEALYS standing by on channel one-six."

At 0300 we got underway. Sophie made one last call to Mike Randall at the NZ High Commission and told him that we had made the decision to go out to TIMELLA. That way someone would know we were out there too in case we got into trouble. Mike went silent for a moment and then repeated we should be careful and not take any risks. Sophie told him we had two small children on board and did not intend to take any risk that would substantially put their lives at risk. Sophie thanked him for all of his support.

Luckily the anchor came up without snagging on one of the coral heads under the boat and we started making our way out of the reef. The pass into the lagoon was windy and poorly defined with shallows and coral heads scattered about. In the dark, the only way to get out was to follow the track we had made on the way in on the GPS. You figure if you didn't hit anything then, you won't hit anything now. It took almost half an hour to get out since we were going slow and it was more difficult to keep the boat right on track than I though it would be. Sophie was on the bow, keeping a look out and trying not to get launched as we started to pitch aggressively. She could only see a few feet in front of the boat, but might have been able to warn me in time to stop the boat and back up before damaging a prop or rudder.

On the phone, Sophie and NZ SAR agree that they will call us every 20 minutes for updates. NZ SAR also confirms that at this point, we are TIMELLA's only chance.
It was a 2-hour motor into the wind and waves to TIMELLA's position. We fired two parachute flares on the way to let TIMELLA know we were coming.

We arrived at Takau Lakaleka reef just as the sun was coming up ahead of us at 0530. Sophie spotted the reef first, and it was less than 300 meters away. The sea was rough and the breakers on the reef hidden behind the ocean swells. We did a full, slow turn around the 1/2 mile circular reef but saw nothing. No wreck of TIMELLA, no dinghy, no liferaft, no flotsam, no oil slick. Suddenly both Sophie and I came to the grim realization that this might not end in the straightforward fashion we had both been imagining: Get to the reef, see TIMELLA's crew, they take their dinghy out to us, and we bring them aboard.

At the end of the first lap, Sophie spots a plastic jerry can floating in the water. Dave at NZ SAR calls and we give him a progress update. I tell him we're going to draw up a vector on this piece of flotsam and follow it down wind, but maybe I'll take another lap first. Just in case. That's a good idea, says Dave. The reef is small and we're only 50-100 meters from the edge of the big breakers. I'm certain I would be able to see a person floating in the middle of the reef, let alone a liferaft or shipwreck. I've underestimated the size of the breakers sweeping over and reflecting around the reef.

One the second, and final lap, I glimpsed something right in the center of the reef. Sophie's got the binoculars and focuses on the spot but sees nothing. I take the binoculars and nothing. I'm certain I saw them though. Three little black dots poking out of the water. It takes thirty seconds of staring right at the spot before they pop up over two waves, then they're gone again. But they were definitely there. I shake my head and look at Sophie. They're in the water. I don't see a liferaft or the dingy. They were just bobbing there waving their arms, meaning they'd seen us. The only option was to go into the reef with the dinghy, pick up the crew, and bring them back out to OCEALYS. Sophie is worried about the risk, but I'm comfortable I can get in and out safely with the dinghy and I know that this is their only chance.

I get ready to go and I'm thinking that I need to be self sufficient. If something goes wrong, I can't become a liability. I don a drysuit, a harness, duct tape a strobe light and VHF radio to it, stuff a couple of rocket flares in a pocket and throw a bunch more in a dry bag in the dinghy with fins and a mask. There is less fuel in the dinghy's tank than I'd like, but it's too rough to refuel.

It's very difficult to get the dinghy in the water when it's rough. Sophie and I have to work together to drop it in freefall from it's davits and get it clear of the boat's stern. Once in the dinghy I have to set it loose immediately before I try to start the Honda outboard. It starts on the first pull. By then I'm already 100 meters away from the boat. I radio Sophie and let her know that the dinghy is good. The seas are no problem at all. I feel very good and I'm going in. I take the dinghy onto the reef through a spot that doesn't have any big breakers. It looks shallow, maybe 4 feet, and the wave action is very confused, but the outboard's prop never touches. Only once I'm well inside the reef do I spot the crew of TIMELLA again, about 50 meters away. All three are in the water with life jackets, clinging to a deflated and partially sunken dinghy. I can see the wreck of TIMELLA as a dark shadow just behind them. As I arrive, the three of them are alert and responsive. Cameron grabs a hold of the dinghy and pulls Ali to me and I pull her right into the dinghy. Liz is next, but we've drifted a few feet away from the sunken dinghy she's holding on to so Cameron swims to her and brings her to me and we get her aboard. At his turn. Cameron looks at me and says, I'm just warning you, I'm a pretty big guy. He is a very big guy, but he pops right into the dinghy like a sea lion. From the time I arrived on scene, to when the three of them are lying on the floor of the dinghy, no more than 90 seconds have gone by. A line from some movie I saw once popped into my head and so to ease the tension a bit I say, Good morning ladies and gentleman. My name is Maurice and I'll be rescuing you today.

In the meantime Sophie has been holding the boat in a stationary pattern as close to the reef as is safe. It's very difficult to do because there is a strong current swirling around the reef (it's even noted on the charts) and with so much wind, the boat wants to do 5 knots, even with no sails up. I come up to her and over the radio (it's too windy to yell, even only 10 feet apart) we coordinate the approach of the dinghy. It's a particularly dangerous stage because a wave could slam us against OCEALYS and throw someone in the water, or worse, crush them between the two boats. Sophie found a perfect heading that resulted in a nice calm area between OCEALYS' sterns and we were able to unload with little incident, although Cameron almost got a leg caught between the two boats, pulling it up just in time to avoid a serious injury.

Once everyone was on board and the dinghy was secured, we headed for the coast of Viti Levu. Ali was suffering from moderate hypothermia. She was coherent, but exhausted and was no longer shivering (a bad sign). Sophie stripped Ali and Liz of their wet clothes and put them under a hot shower. She got Ali into dry clothes and into a sleeping bag as quickly as possible. Ali requested some coffee but was given decaffeinated tea instead. She had apparently been seriously seasick for the previous 24 hours. Cameron had suffered second-degree burns to his face and arms after trying to repair his engine during the day before striking the reef. The three of them had also suffered cuts and bruises on their feet and legs from coming into contact with the reef. Cameron was alert, calm and in relatively good spirits. Liz was in a similar condition. The three of them drank, ate and rested while we navigated for 4 hours in 25-30 knot winds to Likuri Harbor. We offloaded them a short time later at Robinson Crusoe Island Resort, where owner Captain Paul, after being contacted by Mike Randall (ahead of our arrival), had graciously offered to clothe, feed and house them until they could get their bearings and make their ways home. After sorting OCEALYS out, we went ashore and gave Cameron an opportunity to buy us that beer he had promised and we toasted to Life.

Notes:
We were the only vessel that heard TIMELLA's mayday on VHF channel 16.

We usually turn off our VHF at night due to the unfortunate social hailing made by other cruising boats on channel 16. There were no other boats at Vatulele Island. The radio was silent and thus I forgot to turn it off.

The actions of the New Zealand High Comission in Suva, Mike Randall in particular, and the New Zealand Search and Rescue Coordination Centre in Wellington were instrumental in the success of this rescue. Their professionalism, effectiveness, ability to coordinate communications, and situational awareness were impressive. Having regular contact with them over SAT and cell phone permitted us to make a series of rational, well thought-out decisions based on good information which minimized risk and maximized the probability of a successful rescue.

The local authorities in Suva, both the Police and the Navy, clearly made the best possible effort they could. They were crippled though by lack of resources. The SAR team was literally scrambling to find fuel and crew for their boats.

Links to some media coverage including news video:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/CampbellLive/tabid/367/articleID/75954/Default.aspx#video
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=646676
http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=103423
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4728317a6011.html?source=RSSsouthlandtimes/headlines_20081015
http://www.fijilive.com/news_new/index.php/news/show_news/9715

Bula from Fiji! (Pour le francais, voyez plus bas)

2008-10-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

After our arrival in Fiji, everyone expelled a big sigh of relief and anticipation. The crossing from Tonga to Fiji is infamous for being littered with unmarked reefs and strong currents. The last 24 hours were tough on everyone and navigation was particularly challenging as we entered the reef system north of the Lau Group of islands.

The wind was blowing 30 to 35 knots and we were getting pelted by repetitive rain squalls. Austin was happy to finally arrive: His girlfriend Diana had been waiting for him in Savu Savu for the last week since we'd been delayed in Tonga due to weather. Joel was ready to start his surfing safari before returning to the States, and the four of us were looking forward to some "quiet" family time exploring these wonderful islands, while Diana and Austin, who would come back aboard for the crossing to New Zealand, explored by land.

Fiji has been our favorite overall visit. The people are incredibly friendly and welcoming. The land is beautiful and varied. The diving is consistently excellent, and it's about 17 times cheaper than French Polynesia. Granted, the bread was a lot better over in Tahiti.

Voila le francais:

Fiji fut une etape incroyable et une des meilleures de notre voyage jusqu’a present. C’est un pays sublime peuple de gens extraordinaires! Chaque rencontre est precedee d’un joyeux BULA!, (qui veut dire Bonjour) et tres rapidement l’envie de faire partager sa culture et son histoire se concretise en une invitation a boire du Kava entoure d’amis et de musique. Le Kava est une racine qui a des caracteristiques calmantes et autres.... Tout le monde est toujours tres cool a Fiji… no wonder why! Pour notre grand bonheur, les fijiens, qu’ils soient indous ou melanesiens, adorent les enfants. Durant notre halte a Waya, dans les iles Yasawas, Massimo fut invite a l’ecole du village. Tous les enfants sont venu l’acceuillir. Apres quelques heures, Massimo a decide que cela suffisait, alors sa classe entiere l’a raccompagnee sur la plage pour appeler a grands cris ses parents sur le bateau!
Les paysages sont tres divers et l’on passe des iles paradisiaques de sable blanc aux forets tropicales denses, aux villes importantes comme Suva. Les fonds marins sont d’une grande beaute du a la variete des coraux et a leur couleur incroyable. Nous avons ete etonnes de voir si peu de requin, ce qui a rendu nos plongees d’autant plus relaxantes. Nos meilleures plongees furent dans les iles entre Vanua Levu et Viti Levu. Le groupe des iles Kadavu fut aussi inoubliable. Nous sommes restes plusieurs jours mouilles devant une ile deserte, entierement pour nous!
Bref, nous nous sommes regales les yeux mais aussi le ventre avec poissons, langoustes et cigales de mer.
La decouverte de Suva, la capitale administrative de Fiji nous a comblee. Cela faisait longtemps que nous n’avions pas marche dans une ville aussi grouillante de vie. Apres la pauvrete des Tonga, le marche de Suva apparait comme un paradis sur terre avec tous ses fruits et legumes de toutes les couleurs! Pour quelques pieces, les “garcons- brouette” suivent les acheteurs afin de porter tous leur achat.. C’est avec joie que nous avons redecouvert les Magasins!

Puis, evidemment l’episode du sauvetage de l’equipage de Timella qui nous marquera a vie. Je n’ai pas traduit l’histoire en francais car elle semble vraiment trop authentique en anglais. Un petit resume, pour ceux qui rechigne l’anglais: nous avons sauve l’equipage d’un petit voilier, Timella, compose de 3 personnes, qui s’est echoue durant la nuit sur un recif en pleine mer. Nous etions au mouillage dans une petite ile a 12 miles du recif et avons entendu leur Mayday a minuit. Deux heures plus tard, Timella a coule laissant son equipage dans l’eau. Realisant que nous etions leur seule chance, nous avons decide de lever l’ancre et de nous porter a leur secour. Apres 2 heures de moteur sur une mer bien formee par des conditions meteos fortes, nous sommes arrives au recif. Il nous a fallu du temps pour reperer l’equipage car les vagues nous empechaient de les voir. Enfin, nous avons pu aller les recuperer avec le zodiac. Maurice fut un vrai hero et tout s’est bien fini pour ces australiens et neo-zelandaise….. qui furent tres, tres pres d’y rester.

Tout peut arriver. Chaque seconde de notre vie est sacree. La vivre pleinement, saisir les opportunites du moment et savoir etre heureux est la grande lecon.

Fiji nous laisse avec un merveilleux souvenir et nous pensons fortement retourner dans ce petit bout de paradis un de ces jours.

Austin et Diana, sa copine, nous ont rejoint pour la traversee jusqu’en Nouvelle Zelande. Cela s’est tres bien passe. Ce sont vraiment des petits jeunes supers!

The Kingdom of Tonga

2008-10-03T16:58:00.000-07:00

We had high hopes for Tonga, having changed our original plans of sailing to Samoa after hearing so many good things about the place. We visited the Vava'u group of islands and geologically it was truly stunning. Unfortunately, Nieafu–the main town–is overrun by cruising yachts. There were more than 60 boats in the small bay when we were there. It was impossible to keep the radio on, there was so much chatter that subtle indifference. Perhaps just not the overflowing friendliness we'd experienced to date. Combine that with the fact that the pyou literally had to wait your turn to hail someone. This was the first place we'd visited where we didn't feel particularly welcomed by the locals, both in the town and in the villages. No one was ever rude, but there was a vibe oflace had been really hyped up by a lot of different people we talked to and we were a bit deflated on the place. On the other hand, there were definitely some potent highlights. Sophie and I swam with humpback whales (a first for both of us), we free dived into a submerged cave that opened into a sealed cavern, and best of all, Annabelle had her 4th birthday with a big party on Océalys with tons of kids, face painting, balloons, a big cake, and some great presents from her friends on other boats (including a necklace with a big black pearl from the Tuamotus). It was the best kid's birthday party I'd ever been to.

Beveridge Reef

2008-10-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

I posted earlier about this amazing and very remote place. We only spent 18 hours there on the way to Niue, but we had a great time feeding a big bull shark that came to visit us, and it was an intense feeling being anchored in the middle of the ocean. We had to move on quickly to avoid being hit by some very bad weather that was coming our way though.

The Tiny Country of Niue

2008-10-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

The island nation of Niue, about 300 miles east of Tonga, is the world's smallest country. We enjoyed it for it's friendly people and stunning geological formations. The limestone island rises straight up out of the ocean and is riddled with caves, caverns, chasms, and other types of holes.

We rented a car with our friends from Timshel and undertook the grueling 60Km circumnavigation of the island to explore the various trenches, cavities, and craters under pouring rain. We very much enjoyed our stay (despite the minor inconvenience of having to crane the dinghy in and out of the water every time we went ashore), but we were stuck regardless since we were waiting out the aforementioned bad weather. A couple of boats came in several days later having gotten caught out in the depression and all had suffered damage and reported seeing some frightful conditions. Austin, Joel and I also got our Niue driver's licenses.

Palmerston Atoll, Cook Islands

2008-10-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

Palmerston Atoll, between French Polynesia and Tonga, is a beautiful and very weird place. Part of the Cook Islands, it was populated by a single man and his three wives. William Marsters, an English trader arrived at Palmerston in the late Nineteenth Century. He established three separate families on the island with strict rules governing intermarriage.
Today, the island is populated with his direct descendants. There are about a dozen adults on the island and 24 children, although based on their complex and formal infrastructure you'd think there were a couple of hundred people on the island. They get a supply ship every 3-6 months and families compete to "adopt" visiting yachts. Our new foster family took complete charge of our time in Palmerston. They cooked our meals every day (including a feast of "Bosun's Bird", which were baby birds of paradise), took us lobster hunting at night, helped us tie off to a mooring when we arrived, and shuttled us back and forth to shore. In exchange yachties provide all sorts of supplies, from cooking oil to outboard parts and fishing gear. We had some incredible diving and spearfishing there with some of the most aggressive sharks we've seen. It's the first time I've ever yelled, Everybody out of the water, NOW. Joel and Austin practically levitated into the dinghy.

Océalys in Mopelia

2008-10-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

August 8-20

Our last stop before finally leaving French Polynesia was Mopelia (Mopihaa). It's an atoll about 150nm west of BoraBora. 3 families live spread out on the island and there are no tourists besides yachties like ourselves. We decided to go there after hearing some good reports from others, despite the notoriously harrowing pass. We arrived early in the morning and did some circles while the sun came up to give us better visibility of the reef. The pass was indeed narrow. About 18 meters wide, straight with the reef steep-to giving a nice clean edge on both sides going from 40 feet to a foot under the surface. There was a 6 knot current running out of the pass so we headed for it with both motors at full throttle, giving us a little over 4 knots made good. Once again, our good Océalys let us do something that another boat would not have been up to (we would have had to wait for a tide change).

We spent 10 days at Mopelia. We'd planned on stopping a day or two at the most. It was a magical place. There were only two other boats there when we arrived, and by the time we left, we were alone. We made friends with one of the 3 families and had some wonderful moments with Sophie and Calami and their grandson Tatuanui, who became great friends with Massimo and Annabelle.

Our first night there they invited all the yachties to their house on the beach and cooked up a feast with fish, dozens of lobsters and even a big coconut crab, which nowadays are very difficult to find, even in the most remote areas. We went spearfishing with Calami in the pass and I had one of the best dives of my life. It's a stunningly beautiful pass. The current was so strong that you couldn't keep a gun pointed across it, so you had to shoot while sweeping the gun sideways, and there were a lot of sharks following our progress, which added to the fun. We filled the dinghy with fish and had a big BBQ on the beach in the afternoon.

Sophie and I went on a coconut crab hunt at night with the local Sophie and were lucky enough to bag a good size one. We brought it back to the boat and I decided we'd keep it alive on coconut meat and maybe eat it in a few weeks. We put it inside a live bait tank that I assured Sophie was impossible for the crab to escape from and we named her Jessica. After going to bed, I had to get up and move the tank to the foredeck because the damn thing was making so much noise moving around in there, we couldn't sleep. At about 3 in the morning I shot bolt upright and said to myself, Damn. Jessica's loose. I could hear her walking on the deck all the way forward. I ran up and sure enough she was making her way to high ground towards the bimini top. We squared off for a while and I certainly thought twice before doing anything as I stood there, naked. These crabs can tear a mature coconut to shreds with their claws. They're also aggressive and fast-moving over short distances. I was certainly the more intimidated between us. Suffice to say that Jessica made an incredible dinner for us the very next day with her delicious, smoky/coconut flavored flesh.

We had such a wonderful time in Mopelia that we decided not to go to Suvarov, which I felt would be very similar to what we had just lived, except a lot more crowded with cruisers. Instead we opted for the more southern route to Palmerston Atoll and then on to Niue, the world's smallest country.

Really the Middle of Nowhere

2008-08-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

Today I write from a REALLY remote spot. We're anchored inside
Beveridge Reef (20º01.01'S, 167º45.20W). It's a roughly circular reef
that is always submerged. Nothing comes up over the surface except one
ominous wreck. Without GPS–and the hand-drawn pirate map we found with
corrected coordinates–the reef is nearly invisible until you're on top
of it. There's a relatively easy pass into the reef and the anchoring
is not too bad... my teacup is next to me and hasn't spilled yet, but
the boat is making her "at sea" sounds.

We got here yesterday afternoon after a 2 day sail, or should I say
motor, from Palmerston Island (which deserves an entry of its own.
Definitely a unique experience there). After a good nap we had some
friends from the only other boat here over for tea, and then we played
with a 9' bull shark, feeding it jacks that Massimo and the boys were
catching off the stern. It was one of those "Don't fall in the water
now, kids" moments.

There is some very bad weather coming so we need to cut our visit here
short and get to some shelter as soon as possible. There are 35 knot
winds and 30' seas expected, and we won't be able to make it all the
way to Tonga, so we'll stop at Niue and hope for the best. The
anchorage there is poor, but should abate most of what's dangerous, if
not provide much comfort. We have a short, rough 24 hours ahead of
us, and we'll leave after doing a quick dive in the pass. It would be
criminal not to get in the water at least once here...

Update from Mopelia

2008-08-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

We've been in Mopelia (Maupihaa) for the last couple of days enjoying
what could very well be our favorite spot of the trip so far. The
atoll lies 125nm West of BoraBora and there are only two other boats
here with us. It's absolutely beautiful here. The pass is VERY narrow
(about twice our beam, or 50'), with a 5 to 7 knot outgoing current,
but it was well worth the stress getting in here. We've made friends
with one of the 4 resident families and have been living one adventure
after another together. Yesterday they invited the 3 boats ashore for
a feast of lobsters, coconut crab and fish.

Today we moved Océalys from the anchorage in front of their house to a
spot right next to the pass. Sophie and the local Sophie took the kids
ashore (with 7-year-old Tetuanui) to collect tern eggs. Calami, the
McKown Brothers and I went spearfishing in the pass. It was one of the
most memorable dives of my life hunting for 2 hours in a 5 knot
current with a *lot* of sharks about. We lost 2 fish to sharks tearing
them off our spears after they'd been shot, and I had to fend off an
aggressive Gray Reef shark with jabs from the butt of my gun until it
was convinced I didn't have any fish on me. Austin is really getting
the hang of spearfishing and Joel is starting to get the hang of it
quickly.

After fishing we moved Océalys to the other end of the lagoon with
Calami, Sophie, and Tetuanui aboard so we could have a BBQ on the
beach at their "other house". Grilled fish, poisson cru (raw fish in
fresh coconut milk), breadfruit, and coconuts to drink. We ate all
afternoon while the kids played in the water. We're back on board and
the kids are ready for an early bedtime after feeding Jessica, our new
resident coconut crab. We just hope she doesn't get loose at sea as
she could easily take a couple of fingers off with her powerful claws.

We're still debating our next series of stops, but so far the only
decision we've made is not to leave beautiful Mopelia yet. Just a
couple more days...

2008-08-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

Today we're setting sail to leave French Polynesia for points west! We've had a wonderful 3 months here that at times seems like it was a year, and at others, like a week. We've visited all the main islands (Tahiti-Moorea-Huahine-Tahaa-Raiatea-BoraBora) and made lots of new friends.

In favor of a lengthy text, this time we'll just share lots of pictures.

Next for us are Maupihaa, Suvarov (Cook Is.), Niue, Tonga, and Fiji by about September 15.

Tuamotus

2008-07-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

After a wonderful stay in Nuku Hiva, our next destination was the Tuamotu Archipelago. These are among the most remote atolls in the world, and many are completely uninhabited-a rare occurrence in this day and age. We spent 3 weeks visiting several of these islands that have a striking, harsh beauty to them. Geologically they are very old, the original volcanic peaks sank long ago and all that's left is the fringing coral reef that never stopped growing. Maximum elevation on the islands is a couple of feet, not counting the coconut trees!

For me it was a stressful time, although punctuated with some incredible moments that I'll never forget. The navigation in these islands is very difficult, and small mistakes can be quickly punished with the loss of the boat. Apparently a couple of cruising boats are lost here every year. The first challenge is just seeing the bloody things. If there aren't any coconut trees, the "land" can can be invisible only 2 miles away if there's a modest swell running. Even with the trees, they drop below the horizon only 7 miles away, so you bloody well better know where you are all the time.

These days with GPS and electronic charts, that's easy, unless the skipper gets really confused for some reason and misinterprets the data. So unless the electronics suddenly crap out, we know exactly where we are all the time. The charts here are accurate, unlike Mexico where they were up to 2 miles off, so that helps a lot. The second challenge is that you have to enter the atolls through a pass that varies in width from several hundred meters to about a boat width and a half (7 feet of clearance on each side!). Depth is usually not a problem, especially for us, but there is always a current running. One time we had more than 9 knots, which created huge standing waves and swirling whirlpools that tossed us around quite a bit. It would have been downright harrowing in a smaller monohull with only one engine. Once you're inside, the anchoring is difficult too. The bottom is a thin layer of light sand over hard coral, and it's interspersed with coral heads. The anchor won't hold in the sand, so you have to wrap the chain around a coral head, which abrades the steel and can actually break chain. The good holding is paid for with very difficult retrieval of the anchor and we often had Austin in the water diving and yelling directions to Sophie on the foredeck who would relay the info to me at the helm. We put a 30º bend in the shank of our 60lb CQR anchor pulling it up one day, but otherwise made it through the whole chain of islands unscathed.

On the other hand, the rewards were well worth the "extra attention" I had to pay all those nights...

After a good 3-day crossing with mostly light winds from NukuHiva, we arrived at Makemo atoll, around the middle section of the archipelago 16.5ºS, 143.8ºW (check it out on Google Earth-they have phenomenal imagery of these places). We made the crossing around the same time as our new friends aboard the Catana 471 "DaMojo", a wonderful Australian family with 2 kids aboard. Our first anchorage at Makemo was in front of the village and we spent a few days diving, exploring, and provisioning. We moved to the uninhabited western pass and tucked in behind a reef with DaMojo. There was beautiful snorkeling just 10 feet off the stern, great windsurfing and kiteboarding , and incredible diving in the pass.

We did lots of drift dives with the kids, where you start at one end of the pass and just let the current take you to the other end (while you hang on to the dinghy). The visibility is so good that it feels like you're flying over the bottom, suspended in 80º water. The kids love it and Austin got his first real dose of sharks. Sharks are very abundant in the Tuamotu, and they can be a little intimidating until you get used to them. We had a pack of 6-10 of them that would hang out behind the boat. They'd swim right up to the transoms whenever they heard someone walking around on deck or using the hose to wash the decks down, hoping for some scraps to eat.

Our next stop was Motutunga, 55 miles to the SW. This is a really remote atoll and doesn't even have a navigable pass leading into the lagoon. We had to anchor the boats in the pass itself, which was a real adventure. DaMojo got there first. It was an upwind sail from Makemo and because of the way their rig is set up, they are fester upwind in medium to light air (for the sailing geeks, they have a single headstay with a traditional genoa vs. our double headstays with small solent and gennaker). We came in a good hour behind them and they were still trying to get tied up. It took us about 5 hours to get fully secure. We had an anchor out onto the reef off the port bow, one line to a chain wrapped though a hole in the reef on the other side of the pass, 2 lines going to a little abandoned concrete wharf on shore, and an anchor off the stern. We had 40 feet of water under the boat, but a few feet on either side of the boat were vertical walls that came right up to the surface. There was a constant outgoing tide with a 3-6 knot current, and wind blowing us sideways at up to 25 knots. On the other hand all we had to do was hop over the side for some of the most beautiful diving I've seen in a long time. The kids are really getting their snorkeling down and they had a blast pointing out all the different species of fish. We had a big bonfire one night and ate dogtooth tuna that "Enzo", a friend visiting aboard DaMojo, shot outside the pass.

From Mototunga we went to Tahanea and continued on the theme of incredible diving, strolls along beautiful beaches and more tuna... We made a quick stop in Faaite in a harrowing anchorage. The bottom was 40 feet deep, but it was littered with coral "skyscrapers" that came straight up to within a few feet of the surface. The weather was starting to turn bad and when it's overcast, the light becomes flat, the sea turns the color of lead, and you can't see the dangerous coral, even with someone up the mast.

The next morning we headed out for Fakarava, just 11 miles away. We had to delay our departure because of a few squalls coming through, and then we powered through the pass with a 9 knot following current. We were being hit with qualls on and off, but as we got closer to Fakarava, they got more intense. By the time we got to the southern pass, it was pouring rain with gusts to 30knots and the visibility dropped down to less than 100 meters. We zig-zagged slowly back and forth, waiting for an opening in the weather to get through the pass. It was a good, wide pass and was supposed to be well marked, but there was a strong swell running which was breaking heavily on either side of the entrance, so no way I was going in without better visibility. It was exactly the kind of situation boats are lost in. On deck we had to wear our dive masks in order to see in the rain and spray. Finally, after an hour or two--it seemed like a day--the rain eased a bit and the visibility opened up to about 1/4 mile and we made the turn to head in. DaMojo went in about an hour before and said the approach was straightforward. We got in with white knuckles, but no other drama. We dropped the anchor, I shut the engines down, took a breath and looked up to see Austin rapt. He was staring at the boat next to us. We were anchored next to the Maltese Falcon, the world's largest sailing yacht.

The southern pass at Fakarava is renown for shark diving. They have a resident population of several hundred reef sharks and we did some phenomenal dives there. There's a tiny resort, and in the shallows under the bungalows there are two huge Maori wrasses that come for food when you wade into the water. Jo-jo, as the locals called him, was so big that half of his back was out of the water when he cruised over the shallow sand. Jo-jo almost had my fist and most of my forearm for lunch one day as I fed him and greatly underestimated the speed with which this apparently gentle, lazy creature could move. The kids had a great time in this spot, swimming surrounded by sharks just inches away.

We left Fakarava for an overnight sail to Tahiti. This felt like a major milestone in our journey, to finally arrive in Tahiti. We had a tough time getting here though since there was very little wind and we were VERY low on fuel (we ran out on one side). We tried to get every tenth of a knot out of the boat. At one point we were motorsailing with the spinnaker up!

Tahiti feels like an overwhelming, bustling metropolis to us, especially after the Tuamotu. There's great provisioning here, but it's incredibly expensive. A box of cereal costs $10 and a chicken's around $15. We did some damage to the boat in the marina here. By "marina" they actually mean what we would call a "quay" in the U.S. You have to drop your anchor and then back in toward the quay to tie up. Our spot was very exposed, especially to the wake of all the speed boats going by right in front of the boat. Our gangplank got loose while we were away from the boat and tore a hole through the transom. Not a huge deal, but it did take a bunch of my time away from all the other projects I have to do while we're here and before Sophie's brother and his family come for their month-long visit. One funny note is that there are no fewer than 4 Catana 471's and a 431 here in Papeete.

Next we'll be cruising the Society Islands during July.

As usual, please feel free to send us your news and thoughts.

-Maurice

Balade dans les iles Tuamotus (in French now)

Le passage de Nuku Hiva aux iles Tuamotus a dure trois jours. Apres etre restes presqu’un mois tranquillement a Nuku Hiva, le retour au grand bleu fut un peu dur et il nous a semble que cette traversee n’en finissait pas! Tout s’est bien passé et malheureusement nous avons du avoir recour a la risee Volvo faute de vent.

Les iles Tuamotus sont des iles coralliennes qui emergent a peine de l’eau et qui se caracterisent par de nombreuses cocoteraies. De loin, la seule chose que l’on voit sont les cocotiers!

La premiere ile que nous avons visitee fut Makemo qui se trouve au Nord de l’archipel. Apres avoir aisement traverse notre premiere passe, nous avons decouvert un paysage idyllique de mer bleue transparente: simplement sublime.

Des que l’ancre fut mouillee, nous avons plonge dans cette eau delicieuse pour etre tout de suite accueillis par nos premiers requins Tuamotus. Ils ne nous quitterons plus! Puis, nous avons fait notre premiere “drift dive” dans la passe. On plonge en se tenant- ou a cote - au Zodiac qui se fait entrainer par le courant de la passe. C’est super on a l’impression d’etre superman et de voler dans l’eau!

Ce qui a rendu notre sejour aux Tuamotus inoubliable fut la compagnie de la famille australienne de Damojo, un catana 471 comme le notre. Nous avons passé des moments supers avec Tris, David, Dior (6 ans) et Kai (8ans). Bien sur, Massimo et Annabelle furent aux anges d’avoir des petits copains avec qui jouer pendant tout un mois d’affile. Tris et David naviguent depuis pas mal de temps et ils ont deja ecume de nombreuses cotes. Ils font de superbes films sous-marins. Ce sont des gens extraordinaires que nous sommes heureux d’avor rencontrer. Nous avons aussi eu le plaisir de rencontrer Sheiley et “Enzo” de visite sur le Damojo. Tous les deux travaillent sur “l’Octopus”, un de ces megas Yachts qui parcoure le monde en permanence au gres de leur proprietaire. Tous etant des plongeurs emerites et experimentes, nous avons passé notre temps dans l’eau: plongee libre, plongee en bouteille et chasse.

Austin a egalement decide de prolonger son sejour avec nous et nous en avons ete tous tres contents! Il fait maintenant parti de notre petit equipage. C’est l’equipier ideal qui non seulement remplit parfaitement son role mais qui est aussi devenu un ami et meme le grand frere surfer de Massimo! Massimo qui maintenant parle comme un vrai sufer californien: “sweet dude!”

La flore et la faune aux Tuamotus sont extraordinaires car peu visitees. Le corail est magnifique ainsi que toutes les sortes de coquillages que l’on peut trouver dans le Pacifique Sud: porcelaines de tout type, gros “7 doitgs”, …. etc. Au niveau poisson, nous avons vu, entre autre: d’enormes napoleons - certains venaient meme nous manger dans la main – des poissons unicornes, tous les petits et gros poissons de recifs et une quantite de requins non negligeable! Requins de recifs mais aussi les plus gros requins gris. J’ai decouvert un peu plus cet animal fascinant avec Tris et David qui les etudient et les photograpient depuis des annees. Maurice et Austin sont parti plusieurs fois a la peche au gros sous-marine avec David et Enzo. C’est une technique bien particuliere et ils ont ramene des gros thons.

Notre deuxieme etape fut Motutunga et la, ce fut l’apogee! C’est un tout petit atoll inhabite pendant la plupart du temps. Quelques pecheurs s’y arretent seulement de temps en temps. Ce fut tout simplement magnifique.

Nous avons du mouiller dans la passe – qui ne faisait pas plus de 8-10 metres de large et ou le courant etait particulierement fort, 6 noeuds - et ce fut toute une expedition que de s’ancrer. Entre les deux bateaux, nous avions probablement 6 ancres, plus des bouts amarres a terre!

Les plongees furent sublimes. Massimo garde un souvenir enthousiaste de nos “drift dives” dans la passé et de tous les gros poissons qu’il a vu!

Puis, nous nous sommes arêtes a Tahaena ou la, nous avons retrouve les plages de sable blanc. Ce fut definitivement l’etape “plage”. Il y avait des “patates” de corail magnifiques tout pres de la plage ou nous avons passé la plupart du temps. Les enfants etaient ravis de retrouver leurs pelles et leurs seaux!

Nous ne sommes restes qu’une nuit a Faaite ou le mouillage fut super stressant: pleins de “patates” de corail partout et un vent qui est monte jusqu’a 25 noeuds….. bref, une nuit horrible! Le temps ne s’est pas ameliore le lendemain et nous avons du retraverser une passe pas mal agitee. C’est alors que la pluie a commence a tomber a grosses gouttes!

C’est dans ces conditions que nous avons traverse la passe sud de Fakarava, une des iles principales des Tuamotus. Nous avons du attendre une acalmie a l’exterieur de la passe pour avoir un peu plus de visibilite puis nous sommes rentres….. pour nous mouiller a cote du mega voilier “Faucon Maltese”!!

Nous sommes restes plusieurs jours au Sud de Fakarava ou la plongee fut a nouveau fantastique. La, au bord du rivage, deux napoleons enormes ainsi que des requins de recif – au moins une quinzaine - viennent se faire nourir dans quelques centimetres d’eau par les locaux et les quelques touristes de passage qui logent dans un petit Gite. Les requins vivent en grand nombre – des centaines – dans ce coin et ce fut des plongees interessantes!

Les Tuamotus nous ont laisse un souvenir tres special. Ce sont a la fois des iles splendides ou les elements sont purs mais peuvent aussi se montrer tres durs. C’est la sensation permanente d’etre en pleine mer avec en plus l’incertitude des mouillages et une meteo qui change du jour au lendemain.

Bref, beaucoup plus dur que d’etre en mer! Ce fut une experience fantastique mais egalement eprouvante pour l’equipage et le bateau.

Voila, nous sommes desormais a Tahiti ou nous en profitons pour nettoyer le bateau et faire quelques reparations necessaires. C’est a la fois sympa et un peu “too much” d’etre de retour a la civilisation. Nous attendons avec impatience l’arrivee de mon frere et sa famille qui nous rejoignent dans quelques jours pour passer le mois de juillet avec nous dans les iles de Tahiti: Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, Bora Bora, Maupiti.

Iles Marquises

2008-07-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

Let's do French first and then English-

L'arrivee a Nuku Hiva a ete extraordinaire. L'odeur epaisse de terre mouillee nous a tout de suite enveloppee et ce fut magique que de voir l'ile se dresser devant nous dans les brumes du petit matin. Massimo a pu crier le fameux "Land HO!!" ou encore " Terre, terre!". Privilege de rencontrer la famille de ma tante, Maite et de mes cousins Flora, Teaki et Roger. Ce fut une rencontre inoubliable qui a d'ailleurs prolongee notre sejour aux Marquises.

Tatie Josee, Vanina, Pierre et Viri nous ont tres chaleureusement acceuilli et nous avons passe de tres, tres bons moments tous ensembles. Tatie Josee m'a particulierement troublee par sa beaute, sa douceur, sa generosite et son sourire toujours present. C'est tellement bon de se rendre compte que de telles personnes existent encore!
Cette rencontre nous a mis en contact avec la vie quotidienne et la culture marquisienne. Les jours passaient rythmes par les rencontres, les rires et... la peche. Les enfants se sont fait beaucoup de petits copains et ont passe de longues heures a jouer sur le quai. Oh et autre detail, Maurice et Austin, apres leur rencontre avec Jean-Yves, le tatoueur local, seront a jamais marques par les Marquises!
Nous avons ete combles de fruits, ce qui est le plus precieux cadeau que l'on pouvait nous faire. Mangues, pamplemousses, corosoles, bananes... etc poussent en abondance dans les jardins prives et donc aucun besoin de les vendre en magasin. Pour les legumes, il faut etre a 5h du matin le samedi au marcher - qui commence a 4h! - pour faire le plein et en passant, profiter pour acheter des viennoiseries et des baguettes bien fraiches. A 7h, quand l'activite commerciale s'arrete, tout le monde se relaxe et prend son petit dejeuner au snack sur le quai - cela m'a rappele la Grand Rive, les dimanche matin d'apres fete! C'est alors que les ukuleles entonnent leur melodie et peu a peu les voix s'elevent dans cette ambiance magique - - moment simple de bonheur qui restera grave dans ma memoire.

Le tour de l'ile en 4x4- une bonne journee - nous a permis de decouvrir ses paysages si varies: terre aride, pinede de pins - on se croirait en Suisse! -, foret tropicale et luxuriante, plateau "normand" d'un vert intense ou paissent tranquillement des vaches normandes.
La beaute de l'ile nous a epoustouflee.
Puis, nous sommes partis decouvrir la belle baie d'Anaho. C'est une des seules plages de sable blanc de Nuku Hiva et c'est un endroit magnifique.... bien sur, sans compter les nombreux nonos blancs et noirs qui se sont vite mis a table lorsqu'ils nous ont vu arriver! La baie etait remplie de raies mantas et nous avons pu nager avec elles.... impressionnant. Les daupins etaient egalement au rendez-vous et les temeraires ont plonge avec eux dans le bleu profond!

Nous avons tellement aime le mouillage d'Anaho que nous y sommes retournes pour une journee avec Viri, Pierre, Vanina et les enfants. Ce fut une super journee d'autant plus que la peche fut fructueuse et que nous avons fait notre propre poisson cru pour le dejeuner - merci Viri pour ses talents de cuisinier.

La peche a Nuku Hiva fut incroyable et nous avons rempli le friseur de thon - gros yeux - et mahi-mahi. Nous nous sommes regales!

Viri nous a accompagne a la cascade de Hatieu. Impressionante roche verticale d'ou tombe l'eau de pluie accumulee et qui se termine en "piscine" dans laquelle nous nous sommes baignes. La balade fut tres sympa et en chemin nous nous sommes arretes afin de saluer un des oncles de Viri et nous avons partage une collation de fruits - autre moment inoubliable.

Le moment du depart est arrive et apres avoir assiste a une demonstration de danses marquisiennes envoutantes, Ocealys retrouve le grand bleu. Direction les Tuamotus a 3 jours de naviguation.

AND NOW IN ENGLISH:

Our arrival in the Marquesas was magical: the sun was rising and we saw the vertical peaks of the Nuku Hiva piercing the clouds. The smell of dirt jumped to our noses.... finally land. The whole crew was really excited and Massimo got to yell "Land- Ho!".

We spent a few days recovering from the crossing and then we started to explore the island. We rented a 4x4 and drove all the way around Nuku Hiva and we discovered its diverse and amazing landscapes: desert; beautiful tropical forest; pine forest - on the high plateau it looks like Switzerland, and with green prairies like in Normandy. It is such a beautiful island.

What made our stay in Nuku Hiva unforgettable is our encounter with my relatives. One of my aunts, Maite, is from Nuku Hiva and with my cousins, Flora, Teaki and Roger, they come back home on a regular basis. We met Maite's sister and her family and we felt privileged to spend some time with them and understand the marquesan culture a little bit better. Tatie Josee, Vanina, Pierre and Viri were wonderful with us and offered us tons of fruits - the best gift we could receive. Mangos, bananas, grapefruits, corosoles and others grow everywhere and are delicious. On Sunday, we went to the beautiful church in Taiohae and we were treated to a wonderful chorale with a distinctly polynesian flare. One big difference with Europe is that the church was full of colorful and beautiful flowers which gave it a very peaceful and inspiring atmosphere.

We went to discover the beautiful bay of Anaho: one of the only white beaches in Nuku Hiva. The only drawback in Anaho are the nonos - invisible little flies whose bite is very painful; some of my bites lasted 1 week! Fishing was very good and we got a lot of big eye tunas as well as a mahi-mahi.... all delicious! Massimo and Austin got very excited about fishing! We invited the whole family to come to Anaho with us for a day and we had a wonderful time.

Viri guided us to Hatieu water fall and again the sight was incredible. It's the 3rd tallest waterfall in the world. We were surrounded by huge rocks and we swam in the "swimming pool" at the bottom. The kids were able to do the 4 hour hike through the jungle, thanks to Viri and Maurice who carried Massimo and Annabelle when needed.

One of my best souvenirs of Nuku Hiva is the market. It starts at 4 am on Saturday mornings so it was a little bit harsh at first to wake up but it is worth it! You can get your fresh produce, fish if you don't fish (!), local cooked specialties and fresh baked viennoiseries. All the vendors are out of goods by about 6:30. Then, when the market is done, everybody relaxes and has breakfast at the Snack on the quay. Then, while you are watching the sun rise and you are enjoying your coffee with 'filifili" -local pastry - , the ukuleles start playing and beautiful marquesan songs rise in the air.... a magical moment!

After three weeks in Nuku Hiva, Ocealys went back to the big blue for another three days, towards the Tuamotu Islands.

Don't hesitate to send some news!

Next chapter: The Tuamotu Islands

Crossing the Ocean

2008-05-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

Once again, apologies for the delay in posting the story about our crossing, but we've just been having way too much fun in the Marquesas for me to sit down in front of the computer to write down the many thoughts and memories swirling in my head. As you know-from reading our previous post-we arrived in the Marquesas after 16 days at sea.

Overall we had a wonderful crossing. Remember, wherever you see latitude/longitude coordinates, you can paste them into Google Earth for a bridseye view. If you haven't tried this, it's a worthwhile experience.

Day one of the crossing and Isla Socorro is already disappearing in our wake. It took us 2 days to get from Los Cabos to Isla Socorro and we had a pretty rough run. It was windy, the seas were confused and short and we didn't have our sea legs yet. Every man jack aboard was seasick and we were relieved to get a break at Socorro. We didn't have permission to visit the Revillagigedo Islands, ~300 miles off the coast of Cabo San Lucas, to the commandant of the military base there gave us special dispensation for 24 hours while we rested and worked on a watermaker problem. We couldn't dive or fish, but still the rolly anchorage was a welcome haven from which to postpone the final leap.

Day 3. We're starting to get into a routine. The weather's been really nice. Much more gentle than the first 2 days from Baja to Socorro. We've even had to motor at night. We're not making great time, but it's much more comfortable, nobody is seasick and the kids can play outside.

The kids spend most of the day outside when the weather's like this. They wear their harnesses and have to be strapped in if they leave the salon into the cockpit. They're not allowed out of the cockpit onto the deck unless an adult's with them.

Day 6. We've started to get our first squalls. There's a lot of rain, but so far no real wind in them. We can see them coming on the radar and usually steer around them. Sometimes though they materialize right in front of us, dump a bunch of rain and ten dematerialize in the space of 10 minutes. The sea is weird here. There are 3 swells running, each from a different direction. They form pyramids that throw Océalys off balance and knock her about. They're not big or dangerous, just unpleasant. Down below the cacophony is deafening. That's one of the disadvantages of a catamaran-the noise. Waves hit both hulls at weird intervals and the bigger ones smash against the bottom of the boat with a huge BOOM! It sounds like she's coming apart, but I've looked around for hairline cracks in the gelcoat and I put my hand where the cabinetry is grinding against itself noisily and decide that the motion's not that significant. Just really loud. I think back to a conversation I was having with my dad just before leaving about the properties of different materials. An advantage of the composite plastics (like the fiberglass, Kevlar and carbon that Océalys is made of) is that they don't really care about cyclic loads, much unlike metals. That's a good thing, because I've been watching that padeye that holds the windward mainsheet and it pulls the whole stern quarter of the boat up a good inch every time the mainsail slats on a roll. I haven't found a solution for that yet... Just hold together another 2000 miles, baby. We dropped the spinnaker in the water when we doused it after dinner tonight. The sock got stuck at the top, so we had to do a normal douse. We couldn't get it to luff and it shrimped in the water. Sophie let the whole guy fly (we'll have to re-reeve it through the deck) and Austin and I heaved the thing aboard. No large tears apparent. We have to start dousing it earlier so that if we have a problem we're not so tired and there's still light left.

Day 7. We're still getting some crappy weather, but the rain is usually intermittent. Even in this gloom, Austin keeps his spirits up. In fact, he's excited about seeing all these varying and intense conditions in the middle of the world's biggest ocean. It's been great to have Austin on board. He's turned out to be a better crewman than I could have designed from scratch. He's always eager to work on the boat, he knows what needs to be done without being told and he's great with the kids. He even goes about his duties aboard Océalys in a gingerly fashion which would warm any captain's heart: since damage to the ship is dangerous at sea and costly in port.

Day 8. The weather's cleared for now and it's getting warm on board. Broke the "Olympic" pool out for the kids and they had a blast. They've adapted to life at sea wonderfully and watching them you'd think they'd been at sea all their lives. They haven't even started the "are we there yet" routine. Occasionally one will ask "How many more days?" or "How far are the Marquesas?" and simply say "Oh, OK." when they get the answer and then they continue about their business. Sophie is absolutely amazing with the kids. She's got great patience and devotes 80% of her daytime energy to their demands without complaining. This would be difficult for me back home, let alone while crossing the Pacific on a tiny sailboat that never stops moving. She's also cooking most of the meals and stands a full night watch (4 hours) on her own.

4.28.2008
An entry from the Ship's Log:
01:13 Zulu.
Position: 1º19.21N, 123º29.85W
Miles to go: 1,169
Miles made good last 24: 115
COG: 228ºM
SOG: 8kts
Barometer: 1012millibars. Steady.
Wind SE 15kts, PCloudy, ATemp 80º, WTemp 80º
Port Engine running 1600 RPM. Sounded 55 Gallons Port tank at 1310 Engine Hours.
Sailed close hauled almost all day with all upwind canvas flying including both solent and gennaker. Just turned Port motor back on because we slowed to 4kts. At 1700rpm we're hitting 7's and some 8's. Wind is up to 16kts apparent, but without the motor we slat from the short, confused seas. Told Sophie to wake me if wind holds steady at 18kts and we'll douse the gennaker. Maybe shut off engine if we can point high enough and keep up speed. I need to stay above 230ºM, which is the beeline for the Marquesas. I'm worried about not making enough Southing at this point. Looks like some squalls in the distance, but they're downwind of us. Unless the wind backs, we won't make the Equator tomorrow.

Day 10: EQUATOR
4.29.2008. Today we crossed the Equator at noon. It was sunny all day with a light breeze. Austin got us revved up to celebrate the crossing with a party to honor Neptune. Sophie made costumes and the crew dressed up as mermaids and mermen and the Captain dressed up as Neptune, as is the custom. It was the first equatorial crossing for everyone but me, but I spared them the ritual keel-hauling. Instead, everyone went for a swim behind the boat. The water was a wonderful 80º. We tossed champagne and rum to stay on Neptune's good side and had a festive dinner that included brownies (I can't believe Sophie found the energy to bake too).

The next 6 days are pretty uneventful. We celebrated Austin's 25th birthday on the May 2nd and Sophie baked another cake. We had some bumpy and uncomfortable weather for a couple of days. I'm getting more seasick than I've been for the whole trip, even though the weather's not particularly rough. We've got a couple of small tears in the spinnaker and a couple of delaminations in the gennaker, both of which we can fix in Tahiti. The main on the other hand is showing some pockets of delamination that are a bad sign and this weighs on me during my watches. It's not dangerous, in fact only slightly affects performance, but it means we'll have to replace the main within a year, which is a very major expense. One of the refrigerators is acting wierd, and the watermaker is still not making very good water. The mood on board is a little heavy, the crew is getting tired and they're ready to be in the Marquesas.

Early morning on May 5th, after 16 days at sea, we spot land. Nuku Hiva rises black and precipitous out of the ocean. No barrier reef, the oceanic swells beat directly against her volcanic sides. The breeze is carrying her rich earthy smell to us while we're still well offshore and spirits on board soar. By 10:00 we're anchored in the bay in front of the main town, and our South Pacific adventure begins...

OCEALYS Has Arrived In Nuku Hiva

2008-05-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

Hello all.

After 16 days and 2,500 miles at sea, we arrived at Taiohae Bay, Nuku
Hiva in the Marquesas on May 5th at 17:30 Zulu. We had a great
crossing with no major incidents or damage to the boat.

We're getting settled in to a different routine in this beautiful, if
not secluded bay. We're surrounded by about 40 other cruising boats!
So much for this being the middle of nowhere. The weather's warm, but
not uncomfortable and we've already begun exploring the village

We'll post a more thorough update in a few days, but we just wanted to
let everyone know we've arrived safely.

You can resume sending emails now that we're not counting on the
connection for critical weather and safety information. We love
hearing from you. Please send text only with no enclosures, images, or
goofy signatures with animated graphics.

More details soon...

The crew aboard Océalys.

update 5/2/08

2008-05-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

2 May, 16:45 Zulu

Position: 04º10.92S, 131º58.91W
SOG: 10.5kts
COG: 230ºM
Wind (T): E 20-25kts
Seas: S SWELL TO 8'. S WIND WAVES 3-6'

Happy Birthday Austin!!!

Much better last 24 hours. Lots of squalls yesterday during day, but
wind also, so we've been pulling 9's and 10's. Now we're doing 9 to 11
knots and the boat is moving around a LOT. It's hard to type.

ETA is the 4th or 5th now, if we can keep up this kind of speed.
556nm to go.

All is well aboard.

OCEALYS CLEAR

Ocealys update 4/29 --EQUATOR--

2008-04-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

29 April, 16:45 Zulu

Position: 00º13.26N, 124º52.90W
SOG: 7.6kts
COG: 192ºM
Wind (T): SE 15kts
Seas: S SWELL TO 6'. S WIND WAVES 1-3'

We are out of the doldrums and into the SE trades! Not sure why the
doldrums have such a bad rap, it was probably the best part of the
crossing so far. Calm seas, not too hot and we just gently motored
along for a couple of days, dodging the squalls showing up on radar.

Now we're sailing close hauled with every stitch of canvas up, boards
down and hitting 8 knots. We're finally steering a straight course for
the Marquesas.

Today we will cross the EQUATOR! The kids made costumes yesterday for
the Neptune party and they're getting presents ready now. Austin
brought a good bottle of rum to give to Neptune, and we have an '85
magnum of very good champagne for him...

Hoping for an arrival in the Marquesas on the 5th or 6th, but that
will depend a lot on the wind now.

All is well aboard.

OCEALYS CLEAR

Crossing Update 4/28/08

2008-04-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

28 April, 15:00 Zulu

Position: 1º58.25N, 122º23.052W
SOG: 5.5kts
COG: 182ºM
Wind (T): S 10kts
Seas: N swell, S wind seas to 2'
Motoring, port engine 1950rpm

Yesterday we had a great day of motoring through calm seas here in the
doldrums. Everyone slept well the night before, and it didn't get too
hot aboard.

We've gotten really good at reading the squalls that surround us with
the radar, and have managed to dodge all of them in our path in the
last 24 hours.

We're past the 1/2 way mark now and really settling into a routine.
Since it was calm yesterday we set up an inflatable pool for the kids
in the cockpit and they splish-splashed for a couple of hours. The
manlier thing to do would be to go for a dip in the 84º water, but
we've been regularly spotting sharks following us, so maybe not this
time around...

At dinnertime a grey gull landed on deck to take a break for a few
hours and we fed her steak from the dinner table.

We should be crossing the equator early tomorrow morning with all of
the pomp and festivities appropriate for the occasion.

All is well aboard.

OCEALYS CLEAR

Ocealys Crossing Update 4/26/08

2008-04-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

26 April, 15:30 Zulu

Position: 5º47.30N, 121º37.61W
SOG: 5.3kts
COG: 170ºM
Wind (T): 12 kts NNE
Seas: Mixed swells 6' to 8'. 3 different swells running. Bumpy

Officially entering the ITCZ in about 50 miles. Passed squalls last
night and this morning with slight increase in wind and light rain.
They show up clearly on radar, so was able to avoid one last night.
Saw a fishing boat around 0400.

Spinnaker sock got stuck last night when we went to douse it after
dinner, so we had to bring it down without. Spinnaker went in the
water and we had to let go of the guy completely to keep it from
inflating under the boat. Managed to get it back on deck without any
apparent tears, and will have to figure out how to re-run the guy
under the deck. We will be dousing it earlier in the evening so that
if we have problems, we're not dealing with them in the dark. Boat is
noisy below decks at night when we're not under spinnaker and it's
hard to sleep.

Kids have been doing really well the last couple of days and Sophie is
doing a great job taking care of them and keeping them busy.

Austin has been an immense help and is wonderful to have aboard.

It's getting warmer and everything on board, above and below decks, is
wet.
We are past the 1/3 mark with 1,400 miles to go. We currently estimate
arrival between the 3rd and the 7th.

All is well aboard.

OCEALYS CLEAR

OCÉALYS CROSSING UPDATE

2008-04-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

20 April, 16:00 ZULU

Position: 17º07.361N, 112º14.339W
SOG: 6.4kts
COG: 212ºM
Wind (T): 8.5kts N-- 7kts Apparent at 120º
Seas: Mixed swells to 8'

Left Socorro yesterday at 1400 local time. Sailed with spinnaker then
screecher until dinner time, then doused canvas and motored all night.
Wind was less than 6 kts. Motored 6.5 Kts w/ 1 engine at 1800RPM.

Just put the spinnaker up after doing 4 kts all morning with main and
screecher.

Steering for a waypoint at 7ºN, 120ºW. 760 Miles and 5 days to go at
this speed. That's the 1/3 mark.

It's been an easy start to the crossing. Skies are clear and
temperatures are already climbing. Sea temp is 76º.

All is well aboard.

OCEALYS CLEAR

The Big Crossing Begins

2008-04-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

>>NOTE: Please do not send OCEALYS email for the next 25 days. We are relying on email for critical weather and safety communications<<

Hello all. Today we leave Mexico to cross the Pacific to the Marquesas Islands. It's 2900 miles and 20 or so days at sea. It is the longest crossing we will be doing on this whole trip.

Austin (known as Awesome Austin on board) joined us a couple of weeks ago in LaPaz to help us get the boat ready and make the crossing to the Marquesas. He's got a ton of racing experience and will surely help us get an extra knot or so out of the boat (which would mean shaving several days off the crossing). So far it's been wonderful having him aboard. He's great with the kids and is always jumping in to help on the boat before we even ask.
We even had a couple of days of proper "cruising" on the way down from LaPaz, and caught a Sierra with which Austin made a wonderful dinner.

We will likely make a short stop at Isla Socorro, 250 miles South of Cabo San Lucas. It will allow us to rest up a bit, have a decent meal and do some fishing.

We will try to send occasional updates via satcom while we're at sea.

- Maurice and the Crew aboard OCÉALYS

s/v OCÉALYS
23º03N, 109º40W

Et maintenant en francais:

Voila, nous partons aujourd'hui du Mexique pour la grande traversee de l'Ocean Pacifique!
Apres 2900 miles et 20-25 jours, nous arriverons aux Marquises. La vraie aventure commence!

Nous avons embarque Austin notre equipier a La Paz. Il est super et nous sommes vraiment tres content de l'avoir a bord pour cette grande etape.

Nous posterons des nouvelles de temps en temps sur le blog. Check it out.

Grosses bises et a tres bientot!
Sophie et l'equipage d'Ocealys
s/v OCÉALYS
23º03N, 109º40W

Friends, Puffer Fish, and Killer Whales

2008-04-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since our last update. We've found that our satellite connection is not nearly as reliable as we'd hoped. Plus we've been "busy". How can that be, you ask? We don't need to rush out the door at 7:30 to get through the traffic to get the kids to school and catch the 8:34 train in to the City. Prepare for the first 2 meetings of the day on the train ride in. Dive into work, come up for air during a 15 minute lunch. Dive back down and get home at 6:30 exhausted and just in time to make dinner and get the kids to bed, etc. etc. Yet somehow the time on board does go by quickly and although every day I think about what I should write on the blog, bedtime comes before we know it and another day has passed.

Over the last month we had some wonderful visits from back home. Our friends Candace and Nathan came down for 10 days with their 2 boys Noah and Ambrose, who are the same age as our kids. (They also brought along a huge duffel bag with parts and critical supplies for us, including Trader Joe's pancake mix and an anchor. Thanks guys!!)

The kids were very excited to see each other and happy to spend the time together. We spent half of their visit at a beautiful anchorage in San Juanico, North of Loreto.

We went fishing and diving and hiking every day. On the trip up there, on a completely calm day, we ran into a small pod of killer whales. They swam slowly around the boat and one even went between the hulls and turned over on her back to have a close look at us. Quite a treat!

My dad came down to Loreto for 3 days and we spent most of our time reviewing technical details on the boat in preparation for the crossing. Some of the issues were resolved, and others remain mysteries (like why the autopilot keeps throwing "rudder response error" alarms. Grrr). He also insisted that I bring him fish to eat every day, which Massimo and I managed to do.

Massimo has gotten really good at fishing with his rod and reel. Just a month ago he could barely handle the rig and now he's casting on his own. He spends hours on deck fishing for whatever will take his lure. If he doesn't catch anything in 5 or 10 minutes he gets bored. But thanks to the great congregation of puffer and box fish under the boat, he pulls something up every 2 or 3 minutes. Then one of us needs to go out with a pair of pliers to set the beastie free. The puffers seem to be particularly dense since Massimo will catch the same one 2 and 3 times over. Yesterday evening he caught a small Cabrilla (a sort of grouper). It was too small to keep, but it put up a good fight nonetheless. This morning Massimo caught a big needlefish that was almost as long as him, and during his Grandfather's visit, he caught a red snapper, which we ate. He's still getting used to the fact that we have to let most of the fish go...

Recently Massimo's been coming with me to spearfish. He rides on my back and looks down with his mask over my shoulder. He takes one breath every 30 or 40 seconds, then plunges right back in. We managed to shoot a couple of small snappers from the surface together.

The other day we had a real treat for dinner. The kids were jumping up and down and yelling in unison, Broccoli! Broccoli! Broccoli! I never thought I'd hear that.

Annabelle's obsessed with horses. This morning she kept telling me that horses eat carrots and fish. Carrots and fish. Carrots. Fish. She can't wait to get to the Marquesas because we told her she might get to ride a horse there.

My mom's been aboard for a wonderful 2 week visit and the kids are thrilled to have her. It's really hard for them to see the people they care about come and go, but that's a part of this nomadic life that they'll have to learn to live with. On the other hand they're already learning to make friends with new kids very quickly.

One of the most special parts of this trip for me so far has been watching the kids grow up minute by minute. Thinking back I can't imagine what it would be like if we had kept going the way we had been, spending an hour or two in the evening with them, and then weekends crammed with activities. Now the farthest I've been from them since we left is when Sophie takes them to the beach and I'm working on the boat. But I still watch them fly their kites through binoculars...

Maintenant en francais:

Voici notre correspondance mensuelle avec un peu de retard.... les journees en mer passent a toute vitesse et entre, la voile, la peche, la plongee, la plage, l'ecole des enfants et les multiples taches quotidiennes la vie est dure!! Just joking!

Nous avons passe le mois de mars en mer de Cortez en remontant jusqu'a San Juanico (nord de Loreto). Ce fut le mois des visites et l'equipage au complet gardera de merveilleux souvenirs de ces moments d'amitie. Nos amis Candace et Nathan sont venus nous rejoindre a Loreto pour 10 jours avec leurs deux enfants Noah et Ambrose, du meme age que Massimo et Annabelle. Les enfants etaient ravis de se retrouver et une fois la marmaille couchee, les parents appreciaient les bonnes coversations autour d'un peu de rhum et de cookies....

Nous avons aussi eu la chance de voir des orques. Une famille d'orque est venue tout pres du bateau et ce fut une rencontre inoubliable. Surtout quand le mere a commence a foncer droit sur le bateau avec ses yeux hors de l'eau pour nous voir et puis au dernier moment elle a plonge sous la coque! Je dois dire que j'ai eu un petit moment de doute...

Isabella et Ugo, les parents de Maurice, sont egalement venus nous rendre visite et c'etait vraiment sympa de les avoir a bord. Maintenant que nous nous sommes acclimates a notre nouvelle vie, pouvoir parler a des gens qui ont deja fait ce que nous faisons est vraiment sympa et enrichissant.

A la fin de chaque visite, c'est le drame pour les enfants. C'est vraiment dur pour eux de voir les amis et la famille partir mais cela fait parti du quotidien de notre nouvelle vie. D'un autre cote, ils ont appris a se faire des copins rapidement et des que nous croisons d'autres bateaux avec des enfants a bord, le "playdate" a la plage s'impose. Cela nous a egalement permis de rencontrer des gens tres sympas.

Nous sommes de retour a La Paz ou nous preparons la prochaine etape et non la moindre: la traversee du Pacifique. Nous comptons partir mi-avril. Pour moi, c'est une etape importante et je mets desormais toute l'energie possible a la preparation logistique et psychologique permettant de passer 2 a 3 semaines en mer. Rajouter a tout cela une dose de petoche et vous obtenez mon portrait actuel!!

Gros bisous a tous!

Sophie,Maurice, Massimo et Annabelle

Some Pictures...

2008-02-25T06:58:00.001-08:00

Finally, since we've got "broadband", I've uploaded a few pictures. Proof for the fish stories... Click for a larger view.

- Maurice
s/v Océalys
LaPaz, Baja California Sur

Estamos en La Paz

2008-02-24T19:07:00.000-08:00

Estamos en La Paz!

We are now in La Paz where we have to refill on food and other stuff. We found a beautiful bay - Puerto Ballandra, right before La Paz - full of brillant, sandy beaches so we stayed few days there before going to the big (!) city. We spent few days at Cabo on our way up. The coast is striking but what a zoo!!!! The boat traffic is insane and the prices are through the roof. However, the kids loved the beach because - I am quoting them - "there were a lot of people" !

We are all happy to finally get some warm and sunny weather on the Sea of Cortez. We are now in T-shirt and shorts. The sea life is amazing: lots of whales and dolphins. The kids became
experts at spotting them. Fishing is excellent and we got some huge fish: a 25 pound red snapper that Maurice got spear fishing and which was delicious; and a 42 pound yellow tail we got trolling with a fishing line! The kids are really excited when it comes to fishing. Massimo is getting pretty good at choosing the right lures.

Overall, life is good and we love our boat! She is strong and very comfortable.

Some of you asked what was a typical day on board. In fact, time is an interesting notion on board: our days are organized around eating times and sleeping time! Everything else depends on the weather. I guess we are back to the basics of life: good food, good weather and
when at least one of these conditions are fulfilled some love!! If we are sailing, we start our day pretty early to leave the anchorage as soon as possible. Then, we eat our breakfast and we start School. Usually, it lasts 2 or 3 hours. Of course if Maurice needs me for a maneuver I drop everything and go help him. Massimo and Annabelle are both doing very well at school and they are making a lot of progress. Massimo is strating to read and he likes the French
program. I do both the English and the French curriculums. However, I have to be on top of Massimo constantly to stay focused.... oh well, at least, if I don't feel like teaching one day I just say that it is the weekend.
Then, the kids play together for a while. They mainly invent games and play Legos. One of the favorites of the moment is that they pretend to be on a boat and there is an emergency, meaning the boat is sinking!
They take all the sleeping bags they can find to make the boat and they scream orders to save it...

After lunch, it is nap time / DVD time.... everybody relaxes. Usually, we arrive at the next anchorage in the afternoon that way we have some time to start exploring the new spot. All that depends if the weather is good or not. If we are not sailing, we go to the beach or we go spear fishing with the dinghy. We have also been eating a lot of lobsters that we
exchange against toys / sweets / cokes and other "luxury" goods with the local fishermen.
As we start our day with the sunrise, we finish it with the sunset and everybody is ready to go to bed at 7pm!
So far, we only had to sail twice during the night. The routine is then very different. The kids go to sleep and we start our watches. Maurice starts at 6 pm and we take 4 hour watches. At first, I was apprehensive about the night sailing but then the second night went very well. I only saw one boat compared to the previous sailing night when I saw 1 cruise ship, 1 cargo and several fishing boats; way too much traffic for me! Also, a lot of dolphins came to keep me company
and it was amazing. During the night, you see them very well underwater with the phosphorescence. They look like glowing green torpedoes.
Anyway, time flies by and it feels like we left yesterday. It has already been more than a month.

Another important point in our adventure, we finally tried our washing machine and I love it! At first, Maurice wanted to get rid of it to save some weight. I almost agreed but thankfully, Isabella, my mother- in-law told me to keep it and see how it worked out. I am so grateful to her that she gave me that advice. It saves me so much work. The washing machine works very well and we will surely keep it!

Next, we'll go up to Loreto where our friends Candace, Nathan and their kids will meet us for a week on board. Then, Isabella and Ugo will join us in Loreto come back down with us to La Paz. We are all very excited to get some visits! We haven't met too many people on
other boats yet. Once we met a couple on another boat, Massimo and Annabelle were so happy to talk to new afces and they kept asking when our "friends form the other boat" will come back to see us.

We are still planning to cross the Pacific to the Marquesas at the beginning of April. Stay tuned.

et maintenant en francais:

Nous sommes arrives a La Paz! C'est une des plus grandes villes de Baja California - moins grand que La Rochelle - et egalement le repere des "naviguateurs". Les marinas sont pleines et les gens diverses. Des notre arrivee, un zodiac est venu nous accoster. C'etait des francais qui avait repere notre Catana et son drapeau francais et venaient nous saluer! Avant d'arriver dans la "grande" ville, nous avons trouve une superbe petite Baie - Puerto Ballandra -avec ses plages christallines de sable fin. A la vue de ce tableau, nous avons jete l'ancre et sommes restes quelques jours. Maurice a du plonger pour changer les anodes de l'helice et j'ai emmene les enfants en expedition sur ces plages magnifiques. Cela valait le detour.En descendant la cote, nous nous sommes egalement arrete a Cabo mais seulement quelques jours. Les paysages sont extraordinaires mais c'est un vrai zoo touristique! Je n'ai jamais vu une circulation de bateaux
aussi intense. Les enfants ont eux adore car, et je les quote, " il y avait plein de gens sur la plage" !!

Nous avons maintenant notre petit rythme et les journees defilent a toute allure.
Lorsque nous naviguons, nous levons l'ancre assez tot histoire d'arriver au prochain mouillage encore en plein jour. Apres le petit- dej, commence L'ecole pour les enfants si le temps le permet. bien sur, si Maurice a besoin de moi pour une manoeuvre, l'ecole s'interromp et reprend plus tard. Cela dure en general 2 a 3 heures dependant de l'humeur de tout le monde! Je fait le cursus anglais et francais avec le Cned. Massimo aime bien le programme francais et tous les 2 parlent de plus en plus francais meme si ils se parlent toujours
anglais entre eux. Ils font beaucoup de progres. Massimo commence a lire en anglais.
Puis les enfants sont livres a eux-memes et jouent ensemble. Pour le moment, leur principales occupations sont les jeux de role et les Legos. Leur jeu de role favoris est de pretendre qu'ils sont dans un bateau et qu'ils sont en train de couler!!! Ils ramassent tous les duvets qu'ils trouvent a bord pour faire le bateau et ils crient des ordres a leurs peluches pour evacuer le navire en ordre!!! Si nous ne naviguons pas, nous partons a la plage ou a la peche avec le zodiac au moins une fois dans la journee. Nous nous levons et couchons comme les poules: tout le monde est pret a se lover dans son lit a 7 heure. Nous sommes en general pas mal creves de nos journees.

Y a pas a dire, le grand air ca fatigue! Lorque nous devons naviguer de nuit, nos quarts commencent a 6 heure et durent 4 heures. Maurice prend le premier. Au debut, j'apprehendait les quarts de nuit surtout que la premiere nuit, la circulation etait assez intense: cruise ship, cargo et pecheurs. Beaucoup trop pour moi! La seconde nuit a ete beaucoup plus sereine d'autant plus que des dauphins sont venus me tenir compagnie et c'etait extraordinaire de
les voir nager sous l'eau grace a la fluorescence.

Je reserve un paragraphe special a la peche, histoire de faire baver certains lecteurs/lectrices - notamment mon frere! Au debut, nous attrapions essentiellement des bonites que Maurice
n'aime pas tellement alors nous les relachions, au grand regret de Massimo! Lorsque la temperature a monte, Maurice a commence a plonger en libre. A sa premiere plongee, apres 20 minutes, il nous a sorti un Red Snapper de 25 pounds - 12 kilos! Quand Maurice plonge, je le suis en zodiac avec les enfants et ce jour la, ils furent legerement apeures du monstre qui leur arrivait sur les pieds. Le Red Snapper est un poisson delicieux et nous l'avons partage avec
un des autres bateaux qui etait au meme mouillage. Les enfants etaient ravis de voir debarquer de nouvelles tetes a bord. Ils n'arretaient pas de parler et de raonter leur vie. Plusieurs jours apres, Massimo me demandait encore quand "nos nouveaux amis" allaient revenir nous
rendre visite. Deux jours apres, nous avons attrape a la traine un Yellow Tail de 42
pounds ou 20 kilos: une grosse bete. La aussi, nous avons partage la prise avec d'autres bateaux. Bref, je suis bien contente d'avoir un congel!

La vie marine est ici incroyable et nous voyons beaucoup de baleines et de dauphins. Les enfants sont devenus experts a reperer le jet des baleines.

Voila, en gros tout va bein et nous apprecions pleinement notre nouvelle vie. Ocealys est un super bateau, solide et comfortable, elle nous mene ou nous le voulons.

Nous remonterons jusqu'a Loreto ou ous allons commencer a recevoir de la visite. Nous sommes tous tres contents de revoir nos amis et famille.

Stay tuned pour le prochain episode!

Sophie, Maurice, Massimo et Annabelle

Now We're Cruising

2008-02-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we completed our first overnight crossing. We left Bahia
Asuncion and about 190 miles later arrived here at Bahia Santa Maria,
just north of Bahia Magdalena on the Western Baja coast. This is our
last stop before arriving in Cabo San Lucas. It's a huge bay lined
with a 9 mile beach. We're mounting an expedition to go explore it
this morning if we can figure out a way to get the dinghy safely
across the surf breaking on the shore...

So far the anchorages have been getting better and better, the weather
a little sweeter- not so cold anymore. We had a memorable stop at Isla
Cedros. The anchorage was exposed and rolly, but the island is
beautiful and we were just a couple of hundred yards off a series of
small, rocky beaches that were home to Sea Lion and Elephant Seal
rookeries. There were lots of baby Elephant Seals there and between
the expected honking of the adults they would scream and wail in an
astonishingly human voice. At night it sounded like there was an
asylum ashore full of crazies screaming their heads off. It was so
weird it was more funny than annoying.

A local fisherman came by and gave us 8 lobsters for some granola
bars, a plastic truck
and 4 cans of Coke. Needless to say we had a right feast, and the kids
decided whether or not they like lobster (one does, the other doesn't).

Then, in the middle of the night I woke up with a terrified start. The
kind you have when you think there's been an earthquake, or you've had
too much Thai food for dinner. I jumped out of our bunk and heard it
again- a great hammering on the bottom of the hull. Holy shit! We're
aground... I scrambled on deck and all around could hear loud
breathing. A quick look and we obviously weren't any nearer to shore
than we should be, but we were surrounded by young Sea Lions playing
with the boat. Somehow they found great entertainment in going under
the boat and blowing huge bubbles- which, when they hit the hull, make
the aforementioned thunderous scary noise. They made up for the
indiscretion the next morning when, as we were pulling out of the bay,
they swam within inches of the transoms and the kids got to wave
goodbye to them while looking right in their eyes.

We're still easing into the rhythm and activities that make up our
new, very different life. Sophie's getting the kids used to a regular
school schedule. Annabelle is taking to it, Massimo, like me when I
was his age, is not. It's a question of threats, bribes and brute
force to get him to concentrate, but even with that, he's progressing
faster than he would at school. In a couple of months he'll be
reading. He caught his first fish, and he's learning how to steer the
outboard on the dinghy. Pretty sure they don't cover that in
Kindergarten.

We're still concentrating on getting South, so we spend most of our
time at sea, although we're starting to slow down a bit and enjoying
the scenery. I still have projects on the boat- some new and some
maintenance. The other day during a passage one of the engines sprang
a major oil leak and sprayed it's entire contents all over the machine
room and into the bilge. Luckily it was a 15 minute fix, and several
hours of cleaning up... Otherwise Océalys is doing well. We just
logged our first 1000 miles and we continue remarking what a great
boat she is.

Tomorrow we leave for another overnight trip to Cabo. We will have to
check in with the Port Captain there, buy a few groceries, then we'll
head up towards LaPaz. Once we round the corner into the Sea of Cortez
we'll be doing some some diving and spearfishing, and hopefully
settling more into the cruising rhythm.

You can always send us email at ocealys *at* ocens *dot* net (written
out to avoid spam bots- replace with "@" and "." And it is spelled
"ocens", not "oceans").
Bandwith is very expensive for us, so please don't send images, HTML
emails, or enclosures. Messages larger than 50K will not come through.

We'll post some images as soon as we have Internet access...

-maurice

s/v OCÉALYS
via SATCOM

First Night on the Hook- Puerto Santo Thomas

2008-01-31T17:41:00.000-08:00

We left Ensenada this morning after clearing in and completing all
formalities yesterday. We decided to start our trip South with a short
hop to Puerto San Thomas, about 35 miles South. We were looking
forward to some good sailing, but alas we had to motor the whole way.
The way things have been going, we'd have been better off with a
powerboat! Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

We're anchored in a little bay that's not very protected. There's a
swell running outside, which curves around the point and comes in, but
the motion is gentle and not uncomfortable. Thank God for a catamaran.
We'd be rolling +/- 25 degrees in a monohull...

This was our first time anchoring, so it took a bit of extra time. The
new anchor roller and windlass setup seems to work well enough, and we
rigged the new bridle. I'm a little concerned about the way the lines
lead, so we'll keep an eye on that. The anchor didn't set on the first
two tries and we pulled up a big ball of kelp. Third try was a charm
and she held fast with both engines backing at 2000 rpm.

We did some fishing with the kids off the stern. No luck, but the kids
had fun. We'll have to catch something sooner or later to prove to
them that fish can actually be caught... Their doubts are
unfortunately mounting. Worst case I'll go spearfishing, but the
water's 56.1 degrees here, so I think I'll wait till we're further
South.

Tomorrow we've got a long shot (95 miles) to Cabo San Quintin, so
we've got to be underway at 0500 and maintain 8kts minimum. Hopefully
we'll have a good breeze to push us along.

The kids have been great and really getting the hang of things. They
wore their harnesses all day and roamed around in the cockpit. We
spotted some whales spouting and Massimo gave direction as we
maneuvered to avoid a cruise ship.

Ocealys Actual
via SATCOM
31º 33.1708'N
116º 40.688'W

And we're off!

2008-01-28T21:12:00.000-08:00

We've made it... we left the Bay area 2 weeks ago with all our belongings to meet Ocealys, our boat, in Santa Barbara and sail her to San Diego.

It was pretty funny to see the minivan we rented. It was so packed that the kids couldn't even move in their seats. Our first trip with Ocealys went pretty well, although there was no wind whatsoever so it was a diesel trip! The kids saw their first dolphins and it blew their minds. Here's Annabelle's quote: 'Can we ride them, please?".

Arriving at San Diego Yacht Club, the preparation of the boat and the crew went on: various mecanical, electrical,....etc tasks related to the boat itself as well as organizing ALL the stuff that we have on board and of course buying and putting away our food provisions.

Everybody had their list, even the kids. Massimo's mostly included fishing lures to catch BIG fish; Annabelle's needed more stuffed animals just in case!
Oh, and we also started home schooling, which everybody is still getting used to.

We are leaving the US tomorrow morning for Baja California. We just celebrated and had our last american dinner at the Yacht Club: no tacos for us but big hamburgers and ice cream! We are all very excited to start the real trip.

The plan is to go down the coast of Baja and then up to Loreto. Then, in two months we will go down again to start the most important part: making the crossing to the Marquesas.

We will be checking email via satellite, so write soon.

Sophie and the rest of the Ocealys crew.

Pour les francais:

Enfin des news! desolee mais tellement de choses se sont passees ces deux derniers mois que nous n'avons pas eu l'opportunite de donner beaucoup de nouvelles.
nous sommes partis il y a maintenant deux semaines de la Baie de San Francisco. Le mini-van que nous avions loue pour embarquer toutes nos affaires etait plein a craquer.... meme il debordait! Nous avons rejoins Ocealys a Santa Barbara, bourre le bateau et largue les amarres direction San Diego. apres 2 jours de naviguation, nous sommes arrives a destination sans probleme. Il n'y avait pas un pet de vent et ce fut donc grace a la risee "volvo" que nous nous avons atteint notre but. Le clou de la traversee fut l'apparition de dauphins. Les enfants etaient ebahis et je dois dire que d'etre sur un cata a rendu cette rencontre encore plus sympa. Arrives a San Diego, les preparations du bateau et de l'equipage ont reprises: divers travaux a effectuer sur le bateau / organisation de l'interieur et bien sur les courses! bref, on a reussi a tout faire rentrer.

Et papa est toujours tranquillement installe dans son equipe avec pour compagnie un vieux paquet de goldo que j'ai trouve sur le bateau....!

Nous quittons les US demain matin, direction le Mexique. Finalement, notre vrai trip va commencer et nous sommes tous tres excites! Nous avons fete cela en s'empiffrant de hamburgers et de ice cream au Yacht Club de San Diego. Tout le monde a porte un toast et nous nous couchons avec le ventre bien rempli et le bonheur plein la tete!

La suite tres bientot pour vous faire partager notre nouvelle vie.

N'hesitez pas nous contacter.
Grosses bises a tous!

et maintenant en Francais!

2007-11-25T16:57:00.000-08:00

Notre voyage a donc rellement commence il y a 6 mois quand nous avons decide de vendre notre maison et de nous mettre a la recherche du bateau ideal pour notre aventure. Ceci dit, cela faisait quelques annees que nous parlions de ce que pourrait etre notre prochaine aventure et cette fois-ci avec nos deux enfants!

Tres rapidement, nous avons conclu qu'un catamaran semblait repondre a tous nos criteres. Apres avoir navigue sur des monocoques, la stabilite, le confort et l'espace vivable des catas nous ont seduits. Maurice a entrepris des recherches detaillees sur les catas pour en conclure que les Catanas etaient les plus serieux. Lors de notre sejour a La Rochelle il y a 2 ans, nous avions contacte les grands constructeurs de catas en France et nous avions visite de multiples bateaux. Le plus dur a ete de trouver un Catana aux US. Les multicoques sont beaucoup moins populaires aux US qu'en France donc peu nombreux. Nous avons opte pour acheter un bateau d'occasion compare a un bateau neuf.... le change de l'euro nous a tres vite refroidi!

Avant d'avoir vendu la maison, Maurice avait deja repere Ocealys, un Catana 471. Lorsqu'enfin, nous avons eu l'argent disponible pour l'acheter, il etait deja en vente. Cependant, peu de temps apres nous avons eu l'occasion de faire une offre car l'offre precedente etait tombee a l'eau. Ainsi, la procedure de vente a pu commencer. Ocealys etait aux Bahamas. Il appartenait a un couple francais avec 3 enfants qui a sillonne les Caraibes en famille. Lors des diverses transactions, ils nous ont paru vraiment sympas.

Maurice s'est alors rendu sur place pour faire les multiples expertises et demarches. Lorsqu'il a fallu ramener Ocealys aux US en Floride, il s'est avere que le mat avait recu un coup de foudre... tous les appareils electroniques etaient foutus et nous etions nous aussi foudroyes par la nouvelle!

Maurice et Alexis, le broker qui representait Ocealys, sont quand meme partis et ont fait de la naviguation a vue. Arrive en Floride, ont alors commence de longs mois de negociations puis de reparations. Durant tout ce temps (2 mois), Maurice est reste en Floride et moi en Californie a bosser et a gerer le quotidien de la petite famille... pas toujours facile! J'ai alors pleinement realise a quel point cela doit etre dur d'etre mere seule a elever ses enfants... un grand coup de chapeau a ma maman qui a connu cette epreuve!

Finalement, Ocealys est parti de Floride en Cargo au debut du mois d'octobre pour arriver a Ensenada au Mexique vers le 22 octobre. Maurice est alors alle receptionner le bateau pour le ramener aux US a San Diego. McKenzie, notre ami de longue date avec qui Maurice a beaucoup navigue l'a alors rejoint pour l'aider.

Maurice a poursuivi la preparation du bateau a San Diego et nous nous appretons maintenant a le ramener dans la Bay Area / Berkeley. J'ai pris les enfants sous le bras et nous sommes descendus a San Diego pour rencontrer Ocealys pour la premiere fois. Les premieres 45 minutes ont ete assez douleureuses: les enfants se sont casses la figure plusieurs fois et moi j'ai fait tombe un tiroir sur le beau plancher.... bref, Maurice nous a regarde avec un air de decouragement. Puis tout le monde a pris ses reperes et nous avons vraiment fait connaissance avec Ocealys. Les enfants ont essaye leur premiere canne a peche et nous avons regarde le phoque qui passait entre les 2 coques!

Au niveau logistique, nous nous sommes bien partages les taches: Maurice s'occupe de la remise en etat et de la preparation du bateau et je m'occupe du reste: administration et papiers divers; preparation de la scolarite des enfants quand nous serons a bord; liste de vetements, equipements, jouets, livres,etc....; information et situation medicale de toute la famille; nourriture a bord.

Voila, le depart se rapproche a grands pas et il me semble qu'il y a encore une tonnes de choses a faire mais le plus gros est fait!

It's a Long Way to San Francisco

2007-11-16T19:54:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago, the m/v PAC ANTARES finally arrived in Ensenada with our precious cargo. She was several days late, due to heavy weather in the Gulf of Mexico and off Costa Rica. I was fretting around the house with my bags packed next to the door for those last couple of days. My good friend McKenzie- who I sailed around the South Pacific with for 2 years- actually took a whole week off work and family to help me bring Océalys back to San Francisco (thank you Meewon). It's the wrong direction and the wrong time of year, so I really appreciated his help and experience.

We flew down to San Diego and my broker Ron was kind enough to drive us from the airport to the border. From there we walked across into Mexico and took a bus to Ensenada, an hour away, for $11. It was a really nice bus with a TV showing some movie with Johnny Depp dubbed in Spanish. We had a hotel right next to the marina where we were going to berth Océalys the next day, and we could see the cargo ship across the harbor. The next morning, after breakfast, we were brought alongside the cargo ship,and Océalys was already in the water. We spent an hour or so getting her ready and then we just waved to the crew and motored away. Funny, no one checked any paperwork or even asked us anything before we cast off the ship.

There was no apparent major damage (big relief) except a bunch of what appeared to be rainwater got into the salon and drowned my printer that was on the floor. Heading towards the dock though, I noticed some white smoke coming from the Port engine. We spent the rest of the day making ready and headed out of Ensenada at oh-dark:30 the next morning. McKenzie had laid in GPS waypoints all the way to San Diego, and we figured out how to get the autopilot to follow all the waypoints automatically. If all went well, it was to take about 10 hours. It was a beautiful day, without a breath of wind.

My first log entry aboard Océalys:

OCT 25. 0530HRS. Exited Ensenada hrbr. Full Moon. Seas calm. Winds calm. Running stbd engine only. Port engine water pump suspected faulty. Nav lights inop. Stbd alternator charging > 8 amps.

0730HRS. 31º55.59N 116º51.782W. Course 292ºM.
Steaming to wpt MX001. 7knots, 2200rpm stbd engine. Wind 5kts. Seas calm. Raised mains'l.

Aside from having only one motor, we made it to San Diego after a pretty uneventful, sunny and warm day. The seas and wind were calm the whole way. McKenzie caught a little bonito, and U.S. Customs buzzed us in a high-speed boat, asked us a few questions and waved us on. (By the way, be advised that this blog will be choked with images of all manner of beasties fished, hunted and trapped :-)

We checked into the U.S. with Customs and got a cruising permit for Océalys, since she's French, that allows her to stay here for a year. We'd also called ahead for a mechanic, and he came aboard the next morning to have a look at the Port engine. We found an obstruction in the salt water intake, which we dislodged, and that seemed to make things better. We got some fresh food and planned on leaving at 0430 the next morning.

The weather off the coast of San Diego was still calm, although colder, and we made our way out of the harbor as planned. When we turned North at the exit of the channel, we found ourselves in the middle of a huge, very dense kelp patch which stopped the boat in its tracks. Once there was a little more light, we saw a path out and with some sail up, drifted slowly out of the Star-Trek like "ship trap". We motored a little further and the Port engine started smoking again. I sent an email to Wayne and John- sailing buddies- to help diagnose, and they got back to me right away. What we were looking at, combined with their feedback and the rough weather that was in front of us made me take a decision to turn around and go back into San Diego. The problem was going to need to be fixed somewhere. Might as well be before we try to go around Point Conception...

2007-10-08T20:24:00.000-07:00

WESTBOUND
Port Everglades, Florida
October 8, 2007

I’m sitting on the tarmac in Florida at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, Westbound for Oakland, California. As the wheels lift off, I finally feel like we have completed the first chapter of our journey. I’m thinking about all of you that will read this. Some of you have been following our progress, others have been part of it, and for a few of you, it will be a bit of a surprise…

I’ve been in the Bahamas and Florida on and off for the last 3 months to complete the purchase and refit of our new boat OCÉALYS, which we plan to sail across the South Pacific for the next couple of years- or however long it takes.

It’s been an intense process: 100 or so days, 4 haulouts, 5 surveyors, 4 brokers, U.S. Customs, the French Affaires Maritimes (OCÉALYS is a French-flagged yacht), a lightning strike (!), 600 hours of work at the boat yard, and finally a hoist onto the deck of a cargo ship to bring her Westbound to Ensenada, Mexico.

Here’s the story so far…

As much as one can trace this sort of thing back, I think Sophie and I decided definitively that we’d undertake some sort of grand adventure about 3 years ago during dinner at a Japanese restaurant. We knew we had to do something to break the routine, get some contrast and perspective, and expose the kids to a broader set of experiences. We brainstormed for a while and decided that there was no better way for us to do that than go cruising on a sailboat for a couple of years.

Next was the question of timing: we felt that Annabelle, our youngest, had to be at least 3 years old to do this safely, so that gave us our timetable. Annabelle’s third birthday was last month, and we’re hoping to leave in December. January at the latest.

The next big step was finding the right boat. We decided pretty early on that we wanted to go cruising on a catamaran this time. The room, stability, and speed were very compelling. The disadvantages are cost (it’s almost like buying two boats), and that in heavy weather they can be difficult to handle. After some research we decided that the French-built Catanas had the right mix of performance and blue-water passage making ability. We started looking for 43’ to 47’ Catanas built from 1998 to 2002 with help from our 2 great brokers in San Diego and surprisingly good resources online.

The boat we wanted turned out to be difficult to find and we had to broaden our search to the East Coast, the Caribbean and South America (the boats in Europe, because of the strength of the Euro, were out of our reach). I’d seen OCÉALYS, a 2002 Catana 471 online when I was doing research and getting ready to shop seriously. But when we finally sold our house and were ready to buy a boat, she was in escrow. I was really disappointed since OCÉALYS just felt like the boat for us, even though I’d only seen her on the Web. The following couple of months didn’t turn up any other promising boats, so I decided to call the seller’s broker on the off chance we could come in with a back-up offer. I had a short and very pleasant phone call in French with a gentleman named Alexis (who would later be instrumental in making the deal go through and became a friend) and we put in a backup offer in case the current deal fell through. It did. Our offer moved in, and I flew to Grand Bahama where OCÉALYS was lying in storage out of the water.

We had her surveyed and did a sea trial of sorts. There was no wind and we had to back down on the engines just to fill the spinnakers to have a look at them. We accepted the boat and moved on to final negotiations. We made the deal and started the remainder of the purchase process. Half way through that, Alexis and I were supposed to bring her across to Ft. Lauderdale—about a 12 hour trip.

The evening before leaving we went aboard to get her ready, but none of the electronics or electrics were working. We figured that the minor electrical issue we knew about had gotten worse, and that we’d go ahead with the crossing. So at 0500 the next morning with no lights, no GPS and no radio to call for clearance, we headed out of Freeport for Fort Lauderdale. We would have looked very suspicious to anyone paying attention. As the sun came up and the top of the mast became visible, Alexis (pictured) noticed the absence of various antennas and wind instruments, and we figured out that the electrical problems were the result of a lightning strike which must have occurred during a thunderstorm the day before. Talk about bad luck. It was pretty quiet on the boat for about an hour as we both dealt with this news internally.

Eight hours later we arrived at the entrance to Ft. Lauderdale’s harbor, and 2 more hours of motoring got us up the New River to Lauderdale Marine Center, which would be my home for the next two months and the beneficiary of a surprising amount of our money.

At this point the purchase was stalled, and it took about a month to deal with the lightning strike: insurance companies, inspections, surveys, estimates and tests for damage. A lightning strike can be devastating to a modern cruising boat. Because Océalys’ mast–and the rest of her spars–are carbon fiber, there was a lot of concern about the effects of the lightning strike.

We had to fly out an expert from the West Coast to do an Infrared Thermography of the mast. If you believe in the results, the mast has a clean bill of health. Both lightning strikes and carbon fiber spars are not completely understood, so when the two meet, I think there’s a bit of black magic and snake oil involved in making assessments.

Once the purchase was finally complete, work on the refit began in earnest. All of the electronics, and the entire electrical system had to be replaced because of the strike, but lots of other stuff needed to be done to get Océalys ready for sea. I won’t bother you with the 247 item list, but she has new rigging, new electrics and electronics. Both engines and the generator were serviced. New alternators, new canvas (awnings, covers, etc), a new Solent, new dinghy and outboard, a couple of new windows, new ground tackle (anchor and chain), new windlass, new toilets and attendant hoses (a fun project I saw to personally), leaks fixed, lines replaced, hull graphics changed, topsides spit-shined, and stainless polished. There was a real advantage being in Ft. Lauderdale for all of this work since it’s a major marine center. All of the vendors for the entire refit were literally within a 10 minute drive of the boatyard.

The bulk of the work that I didn’t do myself was done by Nautic and Co. of America, a small, family-operated company at the yard. Eric and Chantal are originally from France and with Eric’s brother Thierry, maintain an amusingly strong bastion of Gallic culture. They answer the phone in French and even start conversations on the phone and with their English or Spanish-speaking employees with several words of French before finally giving in to the lesser, if not appropriate English language.

They spent a lot of time with Océalys, and by the end of it I think felt a little attached. Thierry even came down the river with us to load her onto the ship, and was tweaking throttle cables and such the whole way. He called me the next morning and said, Maurice, I had a dream that a small diesel leak at the generator kept going and flooded the boat and caused a huge problem.
In fact we’d forgotten to shut off the fuel, so we called aboard the transport ship and had it taken care of.

Loading Océalys aboard the M/V PAC Antares was quite an event and a bit stressful. One of the deckhands was nice enough to reassure me, Don’t worry, we haven’t dropped one yet today... My new, but already dear friend John came down for 3 days to help me get OCÉALYS ready for the shipment. I don't know if I would have made the ship without his help. Everything had to be stowed and lashed down in case the ship runs into heavy weather. There are a couple of hurricanes brewing in it's path...

2 weeks from now hopefully she’ll arrive healthy and in one piece in Ensenada. I’ll keep you posted.
-maurice