Author: kerri

Dear F&F, September 27th – 29th, 2011 (Eastern Hemisphere)

We arrived at Luganville\’s \”Segond Channel\” just about 8 pm local time. It was completely dark and all the navigation lights on the charts either were not working or had changed their light patterns! Welcome to navigating in the \”back of beyond\”!

We came in through this very famous body of water in nice calm conditions. It was here that Admiral McCain (Grandfather of U.S. Senator John McCain) flew over this island and declared it would become the forward base in the Pacific to halt the Japanese advance in early 1942. This channel once had over 100 Allied ships anchored including Air Craft Carriers and Battleships. Over a half a million Allied personnel came through here during the war years. It is home to two famous ship wrecks; both lost to \”friendly fire\”.

\”SS President Coolidge\” struck two mines while entering the channel and has become a diving/tourist Mecca for this remote island nation in the Southwest Pacific.

The Coolidge is in between 65 feet (20 meters) and 200 feet (60 meters) of water and offers potentially days of diving to completely explore her.

See: https://svbeachhouse.com/photos/09-10-2011-vanuatu-underwater-topside-tanna-island-volcano/

The \”USS Tucker\” was also unaware that mines had recently been laid (24 hours before her loss, two weeks before the loss of \”Coolidge\”), violently exploded and sank at the opposite end of the channel. Two men were lost on Coolidge and six men on Tucker. Due to the loss of equipment being shipped on Coolidge, it caused a several month delay in resupply and rotation of U.S. Marines at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands; about 700 miles north of here.

Anja and I did the first dive as a \”check out dive\”. Despite our experience and advanced certifications, the dive operator is very prudent on a first dive on Coolidge. Divers have been lost on this wreck! Our second dive would also be our last as we do need to move on to Port Villa 150 miles to our south starting tomorrow. We passed on the other famous dive here, \”Million Dollar Point\”. This site and point were so named as departing US troops shoved millions of dollars of mostly heavy equipment into the ocean before departing at the end of WW2.

On our second dive on Coolidge, we entered the ship\’s forward cargo holds #1 & #2. Here we saw small tanks, air craft fuel tanks, heavy equipment, gun shells and lots of military equipment.

These dives are all decompression dives and guides are required. A decompression dive is an advanced dive where to remove excess nitrogen build up from our bodies, we have to wait at set depths for a period of time to \”out gas\”. This prevents us from getting \”the bends\”. I had a required 10 minute stop on both dives, more than sufficient air and no worries. My dive computer is extremely conservative. Some of the divers had NO required stop times on their more liberal dive computers. We were quite tired after our sail here and I wanted the next day off. Anja used the time to do some land touring which I\’ll hear about later tonight.

We had a lovely gathering of M/V \”Oso Blanco\”, M/V \”Mystery Ship\”, S/V – can\’t remember, will add later! and S/V \”Beach House\” crews. We all had drinks and puu puu\’s aboard \”Mystery Ship\” and dinner at the local Aore Island Resort.

Today I\’m getting \”Beach House\” ready for our last 150 miles to Port Villa where we will start out tomorrow via Malakula Island and perhaps Havana Harbor on Efate Island before arrival at Port Villa. Port Villa is the capitol of Vanuatu. A mini surprise will then be revealed!….

Stay tuned, Scott with touring Anja!

Dear F&F,

September 25th, 2011 (Eastern Hemisphere)

Day 2 run: 180 nm Position: 16 deg 29.5 min South 170 deg 48.2 min East

Speed: Ave = 7 knots Wind: 21 knots, ESE Swell: 6.5 feet (2 meters) Air: 81 deg F/ 27.2 deg C Baro: 1015 steady

Yesterday was so nice out here, we set the spinnaker at noon, the wind was about 18 knots. We carried it with one reef in the main till 4 a.m. and it started to blow 25 knots. First we got a wrap (around the furled up staysail) while taking it down, that cleared easily and then we discovered we\’d gotten the spinnaker sheet wrapped around the starboard propeller. Ah, the cruising life! Currently, we\’ve a full main and genoa poled out to port, running before the wind right on course. We should see Ambryn Island to port and Pentecost Island to starboard at day break tomorrow. Once we get inside the islands, we\’ll drop sail and motor on the port engine into the lee of Pentecost and I\’ll get to go for a swim to free up the line from the propeller. It\’s happened before, but not on a passage. No worries, it\’s all just part of the game.

This has been an extremely pleasant sail with very moderate seas and nice normal trade wind conditions from the ESE. The prediction is for more of the same. The new spinnaker pole has been yet again a blessing, keeping us headed right down the waves and on course. This makes the passage very comfortable and our efficiency at keeping a course with good speed has dramatically increased.

We\’ll be pressing a bit, but hope to make Luganville, Espiritu Santo Island before dark tomorrow (Our Monday).

KIT, Scott with off watch, sleeping Anja

Dear F&F, September 24th 2011 (Eastern Hemisphere)

End of Day one: 175 nm 312 mile to Pentecost Island Passage, 380 miles to Luganville, Espiritu Santo Island – Vanuatu 16 deg 41 min S 174 deg 21 min E

A lovely first days sail, we put the spinnaker up mid day today, winds are SSE at 12-18 knots. 5 foot (1.5 meter) seas from the SSE. Air is 79 deg F (26.1 C) As we are headed almost due west, we\’re getting a nice push.

Calm, comfortable and really nice so far. As usual, on these longer passages, Anja and I don\’t see much of each other. She is currently napping \”off watch\” and I\’m minding \”The House\”, listening to music and watching this incredibly gorgeous day progress.

I\’ll check in with the Pacific Seafarer\’s Net (via amateur radio) at 0330 GMT. This is a \”safety at sea\” net which monitors voluntarily any boats who wish to participate. I\’ve done so ever since we left California.

Of note, a minor fridge issue which I know I\’ll be able to resolve in one of our next ports.

I just caught the \”ship\’s log\” up to date and it should be posted on the home page at: www.svbeachhouse.com

Feel free to drop a note anytime! Scott with sleeping Anja!

Dear F&F, September 18th – 20th, 2011

We headed up the coast to Yasawa Island\’s Narara Beach. The anchorage was perfect. The water a calm cobalt blue to turquoise in color. We dove \”Paradise Point\” and the reef off Vawa Island. Paradise Point is also a surf spot, but was calm today and offered a great dive in both hard and soft corals.

New friend Gayle Van Leer even emailed me a Google Earth map shot of exactly where we were anchored and the dive spots. Thank you Gayle!

The beach here was gorgeous too and Joe said \”you ain\’t seen nothin\’ yet\”! The next day we traveled the 8 miles up to the most northerly of the main Yasawa group; Yasawairara Island. Yasawa in Fijian means, \”The Islands Over there\”. Yasawairara basically means, \”The end of the islands over there\”.

So we again had a beautiful anchorage and went ashore to do \”sevusevu\”. After which we got a lesson from Joe in all things coconut (photos not yet posted).

We had a lovely walk on \”8 month beach\” and saw a beautiful group of young kids coming from school. (photos soon!)

8 month beach is so called because of the sands. They are so fine (I kept some!), that the locals say if you get it in your hair (not my problem!…ha), it takes 8 months to get it all out. This was indeed the finest sand I\’ve ever felt. Silk comes to mind!

From here, we upped anchor and headed to Champaign Beach….. It was here the beach scenes from the movie \”Contact\” with Jody Foster were filmed. A stunning 1/2 mile of sand, one private home back in the trees and the anchorage all to ourselves. We did the view hike and walked the beach. It was quite melancholic for me as I\’m sure you can understand. This entire area was a \”Cindy experience\”. I needed some alone time, hiked up to the top of the hill and took some photos. (Posting soon!) The sands here were nearly as magical as those at 8 month beach. The experience of the water, the anchorage, the isolation and the beauty were priceless….

Tomorrow, we\’d be off back to Nanuya-Sewa for a last attempt at some dives and farewell to Joe before heading on to Vanuatu.

See Photo Gallery: 09-Western Fiji & Yasawa Group

Scott with Anja and Joe