Category: October 2019

Fiji, Life At Sea, New Zealand, October 2019, Passage Making, South Pacific, The South Pacific

The Hits Keep Coming

Rated NFM (Not For Mom)

Days 2 & 3 Fiji to New Zealand

Before we begin we’d like to apologize that there are no pictures with the last couple of posts. Our Iridium Go seems to be giving us some trouble getting them uploaded. We will post a gallery of pics from this passage when we reach New Zealand and have regular internet again.

I awoke from my post watch nap on the second day of our journey to a much different world. There was sunshine,15 knots of wind and nice easy swells between 1.5 and 2 meters. Wow! What a difference a few hours can make out here on the open ocean. It was truly a beautiful day with brochure sailing. We were making 5.5-6 knots and enjoying a wonderful day at sea. It was so nice that I spent most of the day in the cockpit and even stopped to make some chicken salad and Dan & Grape Ape’s favorite meal, Fijoles de la Hoya. That evening when my watch came up I was actually happy to be going on deck. It was simply spectacular out on that moonless night with a crystal clear sky and millions of stars that could be seen from horizon to horizon. Ahhhh! THIS is my idea of sailing!
But, as luck would have it I went to bed after my watch and awoke on the morning of day three to another blustery day with choppy seas and three meter swells, Lord of Lord, would you please make up your heavenly mind?

We were getting tossed around quite a bit and while I was much calmer than I was on the first day out I was still miserable and could think of nothing more than having this trip be over! I just wanted to be back in New Zealand sitting in a pub with a cold pint of ale in front of me. Add to this I had a raging headache which is an ailment that rarely afflicts me.

After giving Dan a couple of hours to take a break and sleep I came back down below and headed for the bunk. Even though it was bouncy and I would literally be lifted off the mattress several inches every few minutes I found a way to sleep and I slept for several hours. I was secretly hoping I wasn’t coming down with something as I’d been sneezing a lot the night before. On passage is no place to get sick. Dan needs me out here. Later I would realize that my headache was caused by dehydration. The first couple of days on a passage are sort of difficult to manage in the best of weather and with the weather we’d been dealing with I simply was forgetting to drink my share of water or even eat well. Two things for which Dan would chastise me for later.

I woke up from my slumber around 1500 because it sounded like holy hell was being unleashed outside. The crashes and booms in the bunk were loud and terribly unsettling. I slowly made my way to the companionway being sure to hold tightly to the hand holds and anything else I could grab to keep from being knocked down. I poked my head outside and Dan said we weren’t making much progress at all. From the looks of the sea I could understand why. We were beating into the swells with the engine hard on it and only making about two knots. Soon after our conversation he decided it wasn’t worth beating us and Dazzler up for so little forward progress so we decided to hove to. That’s like parking in the ocean.

Hoving to is a maneuver that allows sailboats to ride out bad weather and/or slow things down so you can make repairs, cook, sleep or whatever. If you plan to sail the open oceans mastering this skill is a must! When you hove to you place the boat at just the right angle to the swell then lock the wheel and the sail in place. This creates a slick in the water in front of the oncoming swells. This slick actually disrupts the forward motion of the wave and calms it down so the boat glides gently over top of it. You cease making any forward way and move ever so slowly in the direction of the wind and current. It’s actually pretty cool to see and experience it. We’ve done it many times in our travels.

We decided we would hove to until the wind and swell clocked around later that evening. I know this will sound crazy but once we were in position it was literally like being at anchor. The swells were a little over two meters and we just floated over top of them so nicely. Dan and I relaxed below for a bit and then he took a nap while I harvested ice, read a little and started dinner. We actually stayed hove to for six and a half hours!
Around 2230 while I was taking my pre-watch nap Dan decided the weather had changed enough that he fired the engine and we were on our way. The firing of the engine woke me up but it was the crashing into the waves that got me out of bed. I crawled up the companionway stairs and opened the hatch. “I thought we hove to so we didn’t have to get beat up like this.” I blurted out. Dan replied, “It’s better than it was and we are able to maintain five knots.” Not liking the answer I grumbled under my breath and headed back to the bunk to see if I could get a couple more hours of sleep.

I wasn’t in bed a half hour when I heard a sound that made my hair stand on end and caused me to sit straight up. It sounded like the release of steam from an old steam engine. I came flying out of the bunk and as I reached the galley I smelled it. Something was hot…maybe even on fire. I hollered up to the cockpit but by that time Dan was already shutting her down. He came below and I told him what I heard. He could obviously smell the hot engine smell.

He immediately opens the door to the engine. I’m praying nothing is on fire and thankfully we didn’t see any flames but he can’t see enough to determine what’s actually wrong so he has to remove the cowling from the front of the engine. This requires also removing the stairs to the cockpit.
Last year when we sailed to New Zealand from Tonga we had the engine overheat and it was a bad impeller so that’s where Dan went to look first. Before he could take it out he needed to close the seacock so he had to dig into the quarter berth to open the door to the side of the engine. This is when things start getting messy in the cabin because all that stuff has to come out and sit somewhere while he works. It’s a mess with things laying all over the seats and floor and counters. I’m literally having to climb over sails and boxes and stairs to move about the salon. Finally I make a place to sit at the table and plant myself there.

Back to the problem at hand….as he reaches in to the close the seacock he sees a big hole in the engine exhaust thingy. It looked like the outside of a piece of metal that had a bullet pass through it. Aha! This could be our culprit. At least we were fairly certain this is where that steam release sound came from. The big question is how the heck are we going to fix it? At first he decides to use fiberglass but this could take a while to harden and we don’t want to be sitting here for any longer than necessary. Then he remembers this Minute Mend multipurpose putty that he bought in New Zealand earlier this year, This should work perfectly. So he gets the putty out and works it into the hole. It sets up in thirty minutes. While he’s waiting he decides that even though the impeller looked fine he is going to replace it just to be safe. Well, good thing he pulled it out because there were a few veins that had splits in them. Really? We just replaced this a year ago. Arghhh!

Once the new impeller was in and he putty had set up Dan fired up the engine to see if we were back in business. I was below with my head in the quarter berth door checking to be sure the putty was holding and not leaking and Dan was looking out back to see that the engine was peeing over the side. All was good on my end…not on his so he shut her down.

At this point I could no longer help so I went back to the corner I carved out for myself at the table and Dan set about on a process of elimination. He checked several things and finally pulled a hose off the top of the engine. He had me hold it while he fired up the engine to see if water came out of that hose. It did. He reattached it and checked some other things then fired her up and suddenly she was peeing again. Hooray! We’re back in business!
We cleaned up the mess and stowed everything back in its proper place and off we went. We decided that Dan desperately needed some sleep so I’d take the first watch. After all, it’s more important for him to be firing on all four cylinders than it is for me. He went to bed and up to the cockpit I went with my snacks and Coca Cola in hand.

It’s 0330 on Halloween morning. As I sit down and settle in tears begin to fall. I’m not sure why I’ve been so emotional on this trip but I am and I just can’t help it. Maybe it’s because of the two different stories we read in the past couple of weeks about boats that sank just outside of New Zealand. On one a man from Tauranga, NZ died while three others on the boat were rescued. On another, a German flagged vessel, they all were rescued after their boat had been demasted. Maybe these stories are sitting in the back of my brain feeding me with thoughts of doom. I don’t know but I do know I’ve been a bit of a wreck and I hate it. I’m not usually this way.

As I sit in the cockpit crying and talking to God I realize I’m being a baby and need to just stop it. I’m much tougher than all this and I know we will get there. These things are just part of the type of sailing we do. So I dry my tears and start reading my book. I could use a little humor at this point.

About a half hour into my watch I get a snout full of diesel fuel fumes. It’s strong, really strong and it’s filling the cockpit. I pull back on the throttle and call Dan. He felt us slow down and was already on his way up. As soon as he opens the doors the fumes smack him right in the face. For crying out loud what is this now? Haven’t we had enough already?

Dan puts on his clothes and foul weather gear and heads out on deck. Within moments he sees that one of our 50 liter fuel jugs has a crack in the side. He we go. We hove to for the third time in less than 12 hours. We will have to siphon the fuel from the jug into the main fuel tank in the dark. Joy oh joy! NOT!

Dan grabs the jiggler siphon doodad and we head to the port deck. The jug in question is heavy and just two days ago the handle broke. He’s going to have to untie and move three other jugs in order to slide this one down to the fuel hole on deck. I’m there to hold those jugs in place and keep them from going overboard, It takes twenty minutes or so just to get things ready and start the process of siphoning. The two of us are sitting there in the pitch black with just a tiny spotlight from his headlamp to light the project. We barely speak a word. I think we both are feeling a little beaten down and this is just the end of the third day. We still have nine more to go.

It took us just over an hour to get the fuel transferred, get the jugs re-secured, clean the fuel from the deck and get ready to get back underway. It’s just before 0500 when Dan heads back down for some much deserved rest. As for me, I hunkered down in the cockpit under the dodger where I sat watching the white ocean foam spill out from under Dazzler and pondered what in the world could happen next.

Until next time…
Jilly & Dan

Fiji, New Zealand, October 2019, The South Pacific

Please Make It Stop

This post is rated NFM (Not For Mom!)

If you read Captain Dan’s article from yesterday you read about the sporty start we had on our first day out of Fiji. The thing is, I read his account and just don’t feel he gave you a complete picture of what really transpired. No, he gave his typical straightforward, nonemotional account. So, let me tell you how it really was out there.

We left Momi Bay on the southwest side of Vitu Levu under a beautiful sunny sky. The bay was very calm but we could see that just outside the pass there were some decent sized swells. OK, no big deal….as long as they are not short frequency. Several miles away on our starboard side was a fuel tanker headed our way. We were both headed to the same pass through the reef only he’s doing just over ten knots and we’re doing five. Everyone knows these things don’t slow down or stop quickly so I was a bit on edge. To me the pass just didn’t look wide enough for both of us. Of course you know what they say about women and our ability to judge distance. We could see on the plotter that he would be passing us in about twenty minutes….just about the time we would be in the middle of the pass. Yes, Jilly was a bit on edge. Of course Dan said I was being nonsensical and I should just relax. Chances are he was right.

Before heading out of the pass we threw up the mainsail. We knew it would be a lot easier inside the bay. With the motor on and the tanker closing in on us we made our way to the pass. The tide was going out so the currents in the pass were rather strong. There were standing waves and whirlpool upwellings that were pushing us around like a toy boat in a bathtub. Believe it or not I wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about that as we’d been through atolls that were far, far worse. I just kept looking back at that tanker as it got bigger and bigger in our rear view. She eventually passed us just under two tenths of a mile to our starboard side. That’s a little too close for my taste but I do have to admit that Dan was right and I really had nothing to be nervous about.

When we hit open water the beautiful calm we experienced in the bay turned into 20 knot winds with 2.5 – 3 meter swells and they weren’t long pretty rollers either. In fact, the sea was rather choppy and a bit confused. Almost immediately we decided we’d need to put a reef in the main. This requires that we turn into the wind and swell. It’s my least favorite maneuver in seas like this because the boat rises high on the crest then slams into the trough of the waves. It’s hard to keep her in that position for long. While I’m doing that Dan is on deck hooking into the mast and tying the reefing lines down. If I fall off to much the boom could come slamming across the deck and throw him overboard so it’s a very intense moment. Since we’ve just started this journey we don’t yet have our vests out so he’s not clipped into the jack line making can me a bit more on edge. So here were are less than forty-five minutes into this trip and I’m already at my second stress point as I’m trying to control Dazzler while not taking my eyes off Dan. Fortunately Dan is quick to get the reef in and hurried back to the cockpit. I turn the boat back to our course while he starts working on the jib. Once the jib is flying Dan takes over the helm and I head below to settle in for the long trip.

It’s only just before 10 a.m. and I’m already thinking how much I’d like a beer to settle my nerves. Of course there’s no drinking underway so I’ll have to play some games or read to take my mind off the situation.

Now I realize that we’ve spent five months in Fiji making short, calm water passages so I do understand that I’ve probably lost my edge a bit but as I’m being bounced around like a pinball down below I’m wondering why we chose this particular weather window. I can’t sit around the table because we are on a port tack which means with every crash into the swell I’m being tossed out of my seat. I don’t want to go to the bunk because I want to be able to hear what is going on in the cockpit so I carve out a small space in the quarter berth at the nav station and curl up with my iPad. This puts me at the bottom of the companionway stairs so I can hear everything going on outside.

Of course I’m having a hard time concentrating as with every crash of a wave against Dazzler’s hull the boat is vibrating and if you’ve never been in rough seas on a boat, let me tell you something, the sounds down below can be truly frightening. There’s creaking and growning and even sometimes shrieks and I’m not just taking about what’s coming from me. Dazzler speaks a language all her own out here and it’s not always pleasant. Having logged over 15,000 miles on her I’m no stranger to her eerie cries but I will never get used to them.

After being crammed in the quarter berth for about a half hour I decide I’m going to try again to sit around the table where I can stretch my legs. I just get myself tucked in and wedged between the table and wall with pillows when I hear the loudest crash I’ve ever heard out here. It feels like a car hit the wall behind me and I’m tossed forward out of the seat. For a moment I thought we hit a container or whale or something. I let out a high pitched scream and looked toward the cockpit. The doors were closed and the hatch was halfway open. Before I can even call out to Dan I see a flood of water coming through the half open hatch.

I raced across the salon cussing like a, well, sailor while looking for towels. I’m grabbing iPads and phones off the nav station and tossing them into the galley to get them out of the flood on the desk. There’s papers and logbooks and other things there that are now sopping wet. Dan yells down to ask if I’m okay and somewhere between “Son of a bitch and holy hell” I manage to mutter, “Yes.” I spend the next fifteen minutes cleaning saltwater off of the radios, switch panels, pillows, floor, walls you name it. All the while I’m bouncing of the walls and stairs which will not doubt end in a Picasso of black and blue marks all over my body. I yell up to the cockpit, “I hate this! This is NOT the cruise I signed up for. I’m never making this passage again!” Poor Dan! I’m sure it’s not the cruise he signed up for either and now he’s got a screaming woman making it worse. Sorry my love.

Once my mess was under control I stepped up the stairs and looked into the cockpit. I see Dan leaning across to the deck moving things around, I asked him what’s going on and it takes him a second to gather his thoughts. He finally sits down under the dodger and tells me the entire cockpit was flooded with water like a bathtub. For the first time I saw a bit of concern and stress on his face. This puts me over the edge. Fear has now taken over and gripped me to my core. I look into Dan’s eyes and the tears begin streaming down my face, I can’t stop them. He looks at me with such helplessness because he knows there is nothing he can do about this. We have to ride this out and it’s going to be miserable for a while. He smiles at me with his handsome smile and says, “This is sailing Babe. It’s all good. Isn’t it fun?” As usual his comedic way of handling things makes me smile. It didn’t take away the fear but it did make me stop and take a breath. I know Dan is a highly competent sailor and would never put us through anything we can’t handle. I also know that Dazzler is made for this type of bluewater sailing. She can handle it. She’s a tough old broad. She actually looks like she likes it when we crash through a wave and the sea comes frothing up several feet on either side of her bow. It’s as if she’s saying “Look at me! I’m beautiful and strong! Just look at me!”

I also knew going into this that there are parts of this trip that will seriously suck! This trip is not for the faint hearted sailor. No, this is one for those who truly love sailing and are willing to take the bad with the good. Many cruiser wives refuse to even do it. Their husbands get crew and the women fly to New Zealand. But, I’m not one of those women. We are a team…Dan, Dazzler, Grape Ape and I. Okay, okay, so I know it’s time for me to put on my big girl britches, hoist up my bootstraps and dig in. I’m here for the long haul.

I won’t kid you. The rest of the day was still a tough one for me. I had moments where I just started crying. I tried to keep them from Dan as much as possible. He had enough to deal with in the cockpit. He didn’t need to be worrying about my sanity too. Two more times before the day was out we had water douse the cockpit so much that we ended up with it down below. Apparently the scuppers on the hatch are just too small to handle such large amounts of water coming in at one time.

The rough seas and high winds remained pretty consistent throughout the day. The winds reached up to 30 knots at times. I would poke my head out every once in a while to get some fresh air. We had to close up everything so it got a bit steamy down below. Twice when I came up we were seeing part of the pumice raft floating by. A couple of months ago an underwater volcano erupted near Tonga, it sent tons and tons of pumice to the surface. A cruiser I met at Musket Cove was one of the first to come upon it. It was several miles long and wide and in places it was so thick you could walk on it. That’s not something you want to take your boat through. If you’re running the engine it can foul your prop and clog your water intake. And the pumice is so sharp that it can literally grind the paint off your hull and cut into the fiberglass. That’s not a good thing. (Google 2019 pumice raft to see it. It’s amazing!)
While I wanted to see this with my own eyes I also didn’t want to see it. Fortunately what we saw was just ribbons of it scattered about the ocean. Sometimes we saw patches as wide as four or five feet square but that was few and far between. Of course after the day we’d had I was saying more prayers that this wasn’t just the beginning and that we weren’t going to encounter a large swath of it. Seems like at least that prayer was answered.

It was too rough to do any real cooking so we had leftover steak from the night before. I made Dan a steak sandwich or rather I made him a beef slab on a bun. I guess I should have cut it up but by this point in they day I’d had it. I slathered a little mayo on the bun and tossed on a whole slab of steak. I wrapped it in a paper towel put a granola bar with it and called it supper. Later he said he felt like some rabid animal tearing the flesh from a fresh kill. I told him that at least he got a bun. I literally stood at the sink in the galley with a slab in my hand tearing it apart with my teeth.

By the time feeding time at the zoo was done I was exhausted. It was time for me to go down for my pre-watch nap. The first night is always the hardest and as expected I hardly slept a wink. Before I knew it my watch was due so I donned my foulies, grabbed my Coca Cola, granola bar and apple and headed to the cockpit. This was going to be a rough watch. Dan said that four or five times an hour water was either slamming up against the port side and over into the cockpit or racing down the starboard deck hitting the winch box and pouring in on that side. Either way I’d be sitting under the dodger on the deck hiding out. It was too wet to have an iPad on deck and too rough to hold it anyway. For the next four and a half hours I would be sitting in the dark playing hide and seek from the ocean.

What does a person do for all that time? Well, I wrote this article in my head. I started to put a mental list together of things I want to get when we go to the states this year and I sang every song I could think of. Yep…I sang hymns, children’s songs, show tunes and even Christmas carols. And for the last hour and a half I not only dodged saltwater coming into the cockpit I dodged giant raindrops as we sailed through a few squalls, Oh yes…I also did an awful lot of talking to Mother Nature, Neptune and God asking them all to please calm the seas and make the rest of our passage go smoothly.

Yes, it was a really rough day out here and I feel better knowing you now have the full story. Hopefully I will be able to sleep and tomorrow will be a better day. Have I told you lately how much I love this sailing stuff?
By the way, where is that bottle of rum?

Until next time…
Jilly