Author: kerrizane

Day Four to Chagos – breakage and a fix!…..

29 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

Dear F&F,

The miles are clicking away, but overall this passage has been fairly slow. We\’ll most likely do around 155 miles today. I always do my planning on around 170 miles/day. The reason is squalls. We get 20-22 knots for several hours, then a line of squalls come by and the wind is 9-15 OR 27-28. So we must sail accordingly. Overall, we\’ve kept the amount of sail we carry down in case a big squall line blows hard and would then otherwise stress the sails and rig.

Speaking of which. We went to reef the main (make is smaller) in expectation of the above conditions. Fortunately we decided to do this well before dark. When we were taking in the first reef, the down reef control line just snapped in two! This would be a potential disaster as without this line we cannot adjust the size of the main sail and as you know, we\’re along way from the marine chandlery. Also fortunately, I could reach the roller drum and knew how to replace the line. Good fortune has us having at least two line up for the job of the correct diameter and length.

I used a spectra line we used to use for a former main preventer system and we began the minor surgery. First, we removed the 10\” diameter cover off the roller drum mounted about 7 feet up the mast where the boom connects. It\’s this high as the deck in front of the mast is where we have to access the plate. Carefully removing the four screws and cover, we exposed the line wrapped around the furling drum. I then counted 29 wraps of the line around the drum as I removed it. Nikki and I fed the new line in place, threaded it back through the leads and rope clutch and we were back in business. The furling system has a lock on the drum which I normally do not use. I will use it from now on to remove the stress on the furling line. It also held the boom mandrel in place which enabled me to swap out the lines. All done within an hour and before dark. We then finished taking in the reef we\’d started to test it; all worked well.

Currently, it\’s 6:45 a.m. local time and we\’ve about 890 nm to go. A squall is coming by and the wind is shifted to the east (temporarily) and has dropped to 12 knots. Rain\’s a commin\’!

As I send this blog to be posted, I\’ll be picking up our GRIB weather file from saildocs. This file is a a computer generated map of the expected wind and sea conditions for up to 5 days ahead. It\’s usually quite accurate in the open ocean. It often under estimates the wind speeds by 2-5 knots.

Position report will be posted in about an hour. We\’ll be half way this time tomorrow, now expecting an approximately 10 day passage.

KIT, Scott and of course, sleeping Nikki

Weather Delay…Cocos Island

Dear F&F,

We did some relaxing and touring around in the dinghy yesterday awaiting the latest weather to see if we\’d be off today for Chagos. We tried to find the local (one and only) Dugong here at the western edge of Direction Island, but no luck. We then took advantage of the very calm conditions to motor over to Horsburgh Island (at the entrance to the lagoon). We did not go ashore, but saw the WW2 big gun that was to protect the entrance to the lagoon in case of a Japanese invasion. We also went to Turtle Beach (no turtles) on Home Island and a lovely trip over to Prison Island. Prison Island can be walked around in about 5 minutes. It\’s a small, lush tropical setting with sugar white sand beaches inside the lagoon. A lovely day all in all.

Bruce/June and crew aboard s/v \”Ainia\” left this morning for the North of Madagascar direct. Their route will initially take them south of here and keep them away from the unsettled squalls which would be following us to Chagos if we left today.

Hence, we\’re on \”weather delay\”. It seems that if we wait 24 hours (possibly 48), we\’ll be back in settled average trade winds for our journey. Of course, weather is always subject to change! There is a very strong low pressure system right off the Antarctic coast at the moment. You ask, why should that concern us? The long tail on the front (which is very weak up in our latitudes) is causing unstable, moist air to mix in which will cause squalls. This is rainy/dry, windy, no wind and a bit aggravating after awhile. As my Mom used to say, \”discretion is the better part of valor\”, so we shall sit.

Standing by for weather window…May take another day trip to West and Home Islands.

KIT, Scott and Nikki

Cocos-Keeling Island…..

19-21 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

Dear F&F,

We arrived at Cocos-Keeling Island after an exactly 3 day passage from Christmas Island. It was uneventful and a nice sail.

Upon arrival, we noticed the 150 Australian Customs vessel and two small boats which had come in with boat people from Sri Lanka. Apparently, the Sri Lankans head their clients here as it\’s closer than Christmas Island. We learned that the going rate from Sri Lanka is about $8,000.00 pp/US. AND, no crew comes along on any of these \”Leaky Tiki\’s\”. If crew come, they are arrested and prosecuted. So at the last minute, someone aboard is given essentially a hand held GPS and \”follow that line\” instructions. Wow! No experience and sent 1500 miles out to sea on questionable vessels. The boats themselves are taken out to sea and burned by Australian Customs. This is another reason they get a premium fee as the boats are \”throw away\”.

Here on Cocos, there is essentially two communities. One on Home Island, former copra plantation of the Clunies-Ross family, and the other is West Island where most of the ex-pats live and is the center of the small tourist industry here. There is a ferry that goes from Home Island to West Island every day, several times a day, but only comes here to Direction Island, twice a week. We took the Ferry to Home Island yesterday and found out about topping the diesel off, grocery shopping (pretty weak!) and paying our $50.00 Australian for a weeks right to anchor here.

We did a big walk and got an internet fix at their small business center. We had a rice/noodle lunch at their one and only cafe. After that, it was back to Beach House and Nikki has been working on her Celestial Navigation skills. First two sites were worked out and she did virtually a perfect site. Beginner\’s luck? Naw, she\’s good!

This morning, Peter from Germany aboard s/v \”Mango\” and I took our dinghy with jerry cans to fill up on Home Island, about a 20 minute trip. The weather has turned a bit nastier and I got pretty wet on the ride. We\’re seeing our first rain in three months here! It looks like it will be a bit unsettled for the next few days as well, so we\’ll plan our departure accordingly.

We were going to go back to Home Island with the dinghy today and take the ferry to West Island, but we\’ll leave that to be \”weather dependant\”.

There are 8 boats here now. One from the UK, three Americans, one Canadian, one German, one South African en-route to OZ (a power cat!) and one unknown.

The water here is perfect. Warm, clear and lots of fish and well trained black tip reef sharks. These are the \”hamsters\” of the shark family and only hang around to see what goodies we might throw off the boat. If we go swim with them, which I may later, they\’ll flee very fast. However, if you spear fish around them, they\’ll steal your catch right off the spear. As I don\’t do any of that, no worries. Friends John and Paula on \”Mr. John\” recounted when they were here years ago how the black tips would come in when they saw a diver spear fishing. Not so dumb animals after all!

Stand by, hope to tell more before we\’re off…. KIT,

Scott and Nikki (working out those sun shots…:-)))

It\’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…..

13-15 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere)

Dear F&F,

We arrived at dawn on the 13th having just passed our friends on s/v \”Ainia\” who left 28 hours before us!  We had a record 235 mile day as we benefited form a lovely 2-3 knot current pushing us here.

We pulled into Flying Fish Cove and picked up a mooring provided by the harbor as to not damage their coral. How nice!  The water was clear and warm.  No rubbish in the bay, what a pleasure.  We checked in with Customs and Quarantine and set off for a walk about town.  Having gotten \”sorted\” as they say here, we arranged for a \”hire care\” (rental) and got a good old \”UTE\”.  We used this to top off with lovely Aussie Diesel fuel and do a major marketing for food as this would be the last stop for groceries for about 6 weeks. We had a lovely meal out at Rummah Tinggi (Toll Booth in Malay) and enjoyed the calm anchorage. The population here is a mixture of Anglo Aussie, Malay and Chinese. Only about 1500 people live here.

The next day, I booked my ticket from South Africa to London to L.A. for just before Christmas (how ironic!) and did lots of inter-netting at the local visitors center.

An interesting feature here is the \”Asylum Detention Center\”. DETENTION:  At least 10,000 people a year come from Indonesia by boat, literally hoping to be taken into custody by the Australian Maritime Patrol or Aussie Navy. Apparently, they catch near 100% of them Why?  These are mostly middle eastern Arabs and Iranians WITH money, trying to get political asylum in Australia.  They frequently fly first class from their home country into Indonesia with family and possessions. They then pay an exorbitant fee, risking life and limb to take a leaky tiki boat from there \”toward\” Australia.  There are very few Indonesians, just middle easterners.  Apparently over 99% of them are successful in gaining asylum, which of course keeps encouraging it. It is very unpopular in Australia oh btw! The hitch is, it takes 3-5 years to go through the process; the entire time, they remain in the detention centers.  There are several around Australia and several have been out-sourced to the island nation of Nauru which is strapped for cash.

We took a 4WD land tour of this tropical island and it\’s rain forest. The high light was the blow holes on the west side of the island. We went by the detention center which looked like nice clean army barracks. There was a guard and no photos or entry allowed. The locals who work there even tell you that they cannot tell you much about the place. We met a gal at a restaurant who works there during the day as a yoga activities instructor ad teaches English….

Soon we\’ll be off to Cocos-Keeling Island, 550 miles to the southwest. Cocos-Keeling is also an Australian island, but much more like the Tuamotus of French Polynesia as where Christmas Island is much like Niue in the South Pacific.

The weather looks good and we expect the trip to take about three days. Stand by,

Scott and Nikki, \”Ute-ing\” around Christmas Island