Month: October 2022

Vanuatu

Zero Winds, Squalls & The Purple Ape

We left our fearless captain and crew slowly inching their way across the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) in the Coral Sea looking for the ever elusive wind to sail by. The hero Grape Ape saddled on his perch at the spreaders suddenly shouted out “Wind Ho”. I’m not sure what he meant because I heard his fart vibrating the mast. Even over the noise of the engine rumbling at 1800 RPMs. I yelled out, “Get down here you purple ape and help me with the sails and sheets.” Kids! You have to monitor them all the time if you want them to grow up right.

“Grape Ape pull on that line would ya? Stop trying to Vogue while taking selfies and start helping.” Then I woke up from my off watch nap, dawned my life vest and crawled into the cockpit to relieve Jilly and Grape Ape. They do watches together because Jilly shares her Coke and granola bars with him. Okay back to the SPCZ.

Day Five

Day five finds us entering a new day for adventure with little or no wind similar to most of the night. The mighty Yanmar is still turning away at 1800 RPMs pushing us ever closer to our destination. Our fuel supplies are at a good level. I’m not a math wizard, but if my calculations are correct we might be getting somewhere between .6 and .7 gallons per hour with the reduced RPMs. That is good news as the weather reports are not giving us a lot of promising wind conditions. Luckily for us the different weather models I’m pouring over seem to be changing slightly every twelve hours so we are anxiously awaiting the next update.

The anxiousness factor about the SPCZ is that many a cyclone has been born in this region and if not born here it has certainly gained strength here. The CAPE reports a low possibility of lightening for the next several days and the BAR is wavering its pressure up to 1010-1012 during the day and drops back down between 1008-1009 during the evenings.

Influence from high and low pressure systems from Australia to New Zealand have a huge impact here as does the area just south of the equator and to our north. Let’s not forget the influence from the Solomon Sea, the Torres Strait, Azure Sea, Tasman Sea, the Indian Ocean, La Ninā and El Ninō. They all have their hand in the birth of cyclones during the season. Suffice it to say we’d rather not be here for that stork delivery.

For most of the day we have had 8-10 knots of wind 20° off the port bow. The sea state remained very calm despite any influence from the wind. At about 1330 hours the winds started to clock to the south from 220°T. With a few calculations and slight change to our waypoint. We were able to stop our faithful engine and switch to sails. We were back sailing and listening to life pass by at 5.5-6 knots. There really isn’t anything quite like the sound of the wind moving over the sails, rigging, lines and other equipment. A virtual symphony of sounds from the different pieces of boat equipment. A stark contrast to having to talk over and listen to our wonderful Yanmar while underway.

Time For A Change

Today we set our chronographs to +10 GMT to align our current time with our destination on the east coast of Australia. This means that the sun goes down an hour earlier now. Currently our night sky is void of any light from the moon as it is 0.0% waxing. I didn’t even know that the moon had hair that needed waxing. Why didn’t Neal Armstrong provide us with information of the hairy forest on the moon? Is it a conspiracy? What is hiding in it? Does the moon have fleas? Inquiring minds want to know. “Don’t worry Grape Ape. I’m sure that the moon fleas are not interested in you.” The stars however are so vivid and clear tonight. There are not too many clouds and the vista from horizon to horizon is incredible.

We’ve sailed all afternoon clicking off nautical miles and getting just a bit closer to our destination. We are now about sixty miles from our waypoint and our next turn. We will be turning a bit more southerly starting our descent in latitudes toward Australia. Tonight brings us continued 8-10 knots of wind on our port beam. Who doesn’t like calm seas and steady ocean breezes on the beam?

Chasing Boobies

Get your mind out of the gutter. We’re talking seabirds here. At dusk we manned our stations on deck to fend off the unwanted nighttime visitors. Apparently Boobies (a type of sea bird) like to attempt landing on boats for the night. Ordinarily I like the natural wildlife. However, once they land on solar panels, mastheads or other rails they are there for the night and tomorrow the only thing left will be all the poop they shat out from all the fish they ate the day before. “Hey guys! You got it from the ocean and you need to give it back where you got it. Not on my boat or on my watch this evening!”

Tomorrow is predicted to be a light wind on the nose day. Not quite sure what will actually happen. With an open mind and stingy attitude for managing our fuel reserves we will hope for the best. I’d like us to get at least 24 more hours of sailing in order to know we can make it if we had to switch on our auxiliary engine for the rest of the trip.

The weather gods have suddenly been favorable for our passage. After almost 48 hours of listening to the diesel Yanmar churn under our feet the winds returned. This time from the west northwest. The seas however are rolling from the west southwest combined with a nice little .5-1.2 knot current on the nose. Slowing us down just a bit. Jilly shut down our engine about 0300 hours this morning and we’ve been sailing nicely in lumpy seas abated by a little nose current.

Getting Closer To Oz

We are now about 235 NM from or destination. Some open sea and at least one large storm cell to traverse through. It looks like we should arrive early Monday morning local time. That should make all the government officials happy that our arrival is during regular business hours.

Regarding our fuel situation, we had enough onboard to have motored the rest of our passage. But, with the winds so favorable, why? The comfort level of our trip has taken a down turn with the lumpy seas and sleeping is difficult to do when you are trying to be a magician and levitate yourself off the bunk while trying to sleep.

Grape Ape and I have gotten it down really well by putting a couple extra dive weights in our pockets. It keeps us more stable and allows us more head contact with the pillow. Unfortunately Jilly is still struggling with finding a way to get comfortable which tends to make her a little less than pleasant. Apparently a lack of sleep is something that gets the nag cycle fired up.

The winds are beginning to change yet again as we approach the storm cell. They are clocking around to our nose. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t get some squall type downdraft from the cell. “Grape Ape! We are not going to fly a kite like Benjamin Franklin to charge our batteries. Dude! Go count the popcorn kernels again.”

Now south of the storm cell by a few miles we are back to scattered clouds and large patches of blue sky. The wind has been about 7 knots on the nose for a few hours now. But, as predicted it is starting to clock to our port side. We wait for it to clock a bit more to the northeast so we can switch back to sailing without motor assistance. Patience is a virtue they say. Who are these they people anyway? And why are we always listening to them?

The weather for the remainder of our passage looks to be uneventful. So, I will leave you with this thought. If your imaginary Purple Ape has to take off his shoes to count popcorn kernels, is that okay or do you teach him to use a calculator?

Our next post will be from the land down under. G’day mate! We’ll throw another shrimp on the barbie for ya.

Cheers!

Captain Dan

Australia, October 2022, Vanuatu

One Dazzling Passage

One Dazzling Passage
Published 2022-10-28

The time has come to leave Vanuatu behind and make our way toward Australia for the coming cyclone season. Making passage in the South Pacific Convergence Zone presents its own type of challenges. Click below to find out more.

This year we have been making up for lost time. It just goes to show you that even the Vid can’t keep us down forever. New Zealand to Fiji, Fiji to Vanuatu and now Vanuatu to Australia. We’re making one dazzling passage yet again.

The time was right as we have come to the end of another cruising season in the South Pacific. It is time to head to a safe area to hole up and avoid tropical cyclones. We are off to a hurricane safe dry storage on the east coast of Australia to put Dazzler on the hard for a few months. We joined one of the popular cruising rallies known as the Go West Rally. The fee to join the rally covers almost all of the cost for the Australian check-in process and helps facilitate contact with the Australian Government Officials for clearance into the country.

Part of those included costs is for a timber inspection. We’ll wait to see how that goes as Dazzler’s interior and exterior has the lion’s share of a teak forest. Additionally, there are marine supplies and services discounts available to participants as well so it’s a very good deal for us.

Time to Say Goodbye to Vanuatu

Every day for the month we’ve been guests in Vanuatu we have experienced rain. Sometimes it seamed like the bottom of a lake in the sky had opened up and dropped buckets of liquid sunshine on top of us. Other times it just kind of misted on you like an incessant and irritating nag. The interesting thing is that the mist dries so quickly that you don’t need to wear a rain shell.

We made all of our Customs and Immigration clearance preparations on Friday morning. In Vanuatu they give you 24 hours to clear out of country. Other countries we’ve visited will literally watch you untie and leave the dock to verify your departure. Saturday morning we were busy onboard Dazzler finishing up last minute details while being treated to more rain. Luckily I completed everything on deck and was ready to go. I had enough forethought to remove the mainsail cover Friday afternoon so we wouldn’t have to store wet Sunbrella down below.

Hoisting anchor in the rain is like cutting grass in the rain. Not much fun, but sometimes the task is not always about fun. We chose to head out of the Segund Channel past the Wambu River. Apparently so much rain had been dumped on Santo Island during the last day that the rich yellow brown color of the soil was so thick in the channel it looked like a coconut bowl full of Kava. I nicknamed it the Kava River.

We cleared the channel and entered the Coral Sea west of Vanuatu. We were on the leeward side of the islands and the Trade-winds had not filled in yet requiring us to motor just a bit further. Motoring, hummm. This passage is just short of 1000 nautical miles to our destination. The weather is favorable for our departure, however we expect to encounter several very light wind days. Including a few days with wind possibly on the nose. Dogs sticking their heads out a car being driven down the street may like wind on the nose, but don’t most sailors prefer winds on the beam or quarter with following seas? We certainly do.

I make this point to mention that we will have to watch our fuel consumption as we may have to motor for several days during this trip. In fact, we bought two extra 30 liter plastic jugs in Luganville and filled them with diesel to increase motoring range a bit.

About six hours into our trip we finally had the silence of the motor and we were sailing again. The wind was predicted to be on our port quarter, but in reality it was on our stern. Night was starting to set in and the clouds looked like more rain was in our immediate future.

The seas were seven to eight seconds with 1-2 meters swells and the wind was 17-20 knots on our stern. We deployed a single reefed main and the staysail and sailed at an angle off our charted course line to keep the sails filled. The first two nights brought several squalls that dumped buckets of sideways rain complete with gusts of up to 25 knots.

There was one thing I did not look at in preparing our voyage and that was the local ocean currents. We fought a 1-2 knot ocean head current until early Sunday morning. Sunday evening had come and the winds had seriously diminished to the point of firing up the Iron Horse or as our dear friends of SV Suan would call it, “Yanmar San.”

Trying to resist the urge of pushing the throttle forward while running at economy mode (1800-2100 RPMs) and only going 3.5-4 knots an hour was painful. But conserve we must and the result was a long slow night. We had dropped the sails to keep them from flogging and prevent any undo wear and tear on our equipment. This action resulted in our rolling side to side through the sea making someone an unhappy sleep camper. Apparently being rolled from side to side while in the bunk just really isn’t that comfortable.

Sunday night about 2200 hours I went down into the dark cabin to put my iPad on the charger. I thought Jilly was asleep on the settee on the starboard side where she was earlier. I didn’t turn on any lights because I didn’t want to wake her. What a nice man for thinking of her. When I put my hand down onto what I thought was a pillow around our table, I immediately realized that it wasn’t a pillow. Apparently, Jilly thought that the Kraken had come for her which resulted in screaming, mass hysteria, startled men, purple apes climbing the mast and even caused the oceanic white tip shark following along Dazzler’s wake to take notice and make a rapid about face.

After a few moments we all calmed down, caught our breath and I went back up to the cockpit to finish the last hour of my watch. Jilly was going to try to get back to sleep. About 10 minutes later, it was agreed that she would come on watch an hour earlier because there was no way she was going to get back to sleep after her near death experience with her husband mistaken for the Kraken armed with an iPad in need of a charge.

Enter the beginning of day three

After trying to sleep on the Tilt-a-Whirl ride I got up at 0300 hours for my watch. The sea state had calmed a bit more and the winds were still MIA (Missing in Action). After the sun started illuminating the cloud filled sky we could now see the squalls that were going to hit us instead of just watching their approach on the radar screen. The unhappy crew has made their complaint known and submitted it in triplicate to the captain, “I’m tired of all this rain. When are we going to have some sunshine?”

I’m sorry, but my crystal ball has been broken for years. I just shake it up real good turn it upside down and try to see the message on the bottom through that purple liquid stuff. The message reads, “Sorry, not enough data input.” Needless to say this wasn’t the answer the grumbling crew was looking for. As a side note Grape Ape sides with whoever is opening the cookie jar at the time. So, there is a fifty fifty chance as to which side he takes.

About two hours later, princess Jilly woke to blue skies, sunshine and 12 knots of wind pulling Dazzler gently along at 5-6 knots without the noise of Yanmar San. Someone was happy now. Grape Ape and I were glad to see someone happier. It’s amazing how blue skies and sunshine can help get you get out of a funk. It even has a built in memory blocker to help you forget what you were unhappy about just hours earlier.

Actually brochure sailing makes everybody happy. Long rolling swells about eight seconds apart, steady trade-winds from the south by southwest, a full set of sails spread out catching the wind, sunny skies, fluffy white clouds dotting the blue sky and the glacier blue color of the ocean. Yes in deed this is brochure sailing.

After another night of mixed weather, sail changes and motor starts and stops we made it to day four. It appears that this area of the South Pacific is heavily influenced by weather patterns, ocean currents and sea temperatures. Apparently this year’s upcoming cyclone season has the potential to be active earlier than normal. The season starts November first. All the more reason to keep moving through the area as quickly and as possible.

Today we made our first fuel transfer into our main tank. We decided to empty the two new 30 liter jugs first. We have a few different ways of siphoning fuel from the plastic jugs without making a mess of trying to pour fuel into a 1.5” hole in Dazzler’s deck to her fuel tank. My preferred methods is the use of a Jiggler valve. Named after the motion you use to start the siphon action flowing. The tip is a metal cylinder that has a clear marble like bead about a half inch in diameter mounted on the inside. The tip is fit into a half inch clear hose that is long enough to reach both the bottom of the jug and slip about a foot and a half down the fuel deck fitting.

Tied to a marina dock makes this fuel transfer relatively easy. Out on the open ocean you need some calm conditions and fair seas to avoid any water contamination getting into the main tank during the transfer. The first jug went smoothly. Once it was emptied I moved the jiggler over to the next tank. I noticed that it was taking considerably longer to siphon. When I looked down into the jug I could see something cloudy near the end of the valve. As I pulled the jiggler out to the jug I could see a pice of clear plastic stuck in the end of the valve. I didn’t know what to think. As I looked down into the tank I could see more silhouettes of cloudy objects. My first thought was I hope none of these pieces of plastic got past the marble. My second thought was how can I get the plastic out of the fuel in the jug without having to try to pour the remaining 20 liters of fuel into the deck fill hole without making a mess.

Enter the grabber specialty tool and Jilly’s favorite tool on Dazzler. It is about 30” long, has a thumb button on one end and four pronged thin metal fingers on the other end that open up to about an inch when you push the spring loaded thumb button. It works great for pulling tools out of the bilge and/or it can entertain Jilly for hours playing Go Go Gadget Claw.

I used the grabber and was able to get enough of the plastic out that the jiggler valve extracted all but about two liters. The only reason I stopped it at that point was I could see more plastic in the bottom. Armed with a large funnel, Jilly’s help and a paper towel for a filter, I poured the remaining fuel through my makeshift filter system and extracted the remaining pieces of plastic from the fuel. Basically, we bought these jugs off a shelf in a hardware store in Luganville, went to the fuel station to fill them and then secured them on Dazzler.

Apparently, someone had placed a plastic bag and some plastic shards of a cup or something similar into the jug while it sat on the shelf. I didn’t even think to look into the jugs before they were filled at the fuel station. I opened the tanks to be filled and watched the fuel attendant dispense thirty liters of fuel into each jug. I guess I’ll have to be more diligent in the future.

Light Winds Continue

The winds were light and we flew the spinnaker for about four hours before the atmosphere became still and very warm forcing us to douse the spinnaker and fire up the motor once again. This lasted for several hours before the winds built up again and allowed us to stop the engine and hoist sails again.

Some passages have predictable winds that are steady and for the most part from one general direction. That is not this passage. This is not the Poppeil Set It And Forget It passage. Lots of sail changes, course changes and slow speeds. Thank goodness we have about a two knot tail current to help push us along. I told Jilly that if our fuel gets too low we can just drift along with the two knot current and get to Australia by December. LOL

Another night of squalls, light winds and a lightening show that passed about ten miles behind us. Not an easy feeling when your Aluminum mast projects about 55’ above the surface of the water. It kind of screams out, “Pick me, pick me, I’m right here.”

All things considered, I’d rather be right here trying to figure it out instead of stuck in six or seven lanes of bumper to bumper stop and go traffic on I405 in Los Angeles. That will be next month.

Stay tuned for the next installment from Captain Dan and crew on Dazzler making passage in the Coral Sea. Grape Ape! Get your finger out of there. We don’t know where it’s been. Kids!

Cheers!

Captain Dan