Author: kerrizane

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 26th, 2011 (Eastern Hemisphere)

Today marks 4 years since \”Beach House\” left Marina del Rey, California. Needless to say, much has happened.

Two days ago, we were having a brilliant spinnaker run which lasted 16 hours. At 4 a.m., the wind started to pipe up to 25 knots so prudence dictated dropping the spinnaker. For those of you who don\’t know, a spinnaker is the brightly colored sail that is used to go down wind…..fast!

We were making excellent time, averaging around 9 knots and occasionally getting into the low teens. When we went to lower the spinnaker, it wrapped up like a package on the staysail. We were able to sort this out pretty quickly but I had my hands full (literally) with the sail. Anja took the control line (called a sheet) and tied it to the lifeline as I instructed her to do. The only problem is, I didn\’t tell her to pull it up tight first. It looped under the starboard (right) hull and wrapped itself in the propeller seizing and stopping the engine. This cannot be fixed without going under the boat to clear it out. I often have the engines on at a very slow speed to aid in giving us quick maneuvering ability while making a big sail change. Next time, I\’ll not have the engines \”in gear\”.

After we got the spinnaker down, the wind calmed and we could have flown it another full day (which I wish we had!). Yesterday was slow because we were under powered using only the genoa instead of the spinnaker. It\’s 1/3rd the size and we were a bit under canvassed.

This morning at 5 a.m., I realized we were going to be lucky to get to Luganville today before dark. We motored on one engine and headed to \”Home Bay\” on the southwest corner of Pentecost Island.

Good thing I used my head on this one. I\’d thought of trying to free the stuck spinnaker sheet out on the \”high seas\”, good thing I didn\’t! I would have been pummeled under the boat bouncing around in the 6 foot (2 meter) swell.

Home Bay was flat as a pancake. It took 3 minutes to get 90% of the tangle out. I started with snorkel gear. Clearly, it wasn\’t going to be easy for the last 6 inches (15 cm), (is it ever? LOL).

So on went the scuba gear (to the rescue yet again!). I took a 6 mm allen key and removed the bottom screw on the propeller zinc and used a marlin spike to lever out the stuck piece between the front of the propeller hub and the zinc anode. I pulled it out, put the zinc screw back in and away we went. A local pulled up in a handmade canoe, wish I\’d gotten a photo. Anja may have snapped one. He wanted to help! Another local boat went by and waved. Anja was her usual terrific self and handed me the appropriate tools and kept the boat from drifting around.

All in all just another \”sea story\” with a happy ending. My favorite kind!

Pentecost Island is where the original bungee jumpers (vine jumpers) come from. Did you know about these crazies? They jump off a 100 foot (35 meter) tower with a vine around their legs….head first! The idea is to touch the mud at the bottom of the tower with their heads! It\’s a coming of age manhood ritual of some sort. I\’ll stick with the lunnie things I already do, like jump in the ocean to remove tangled lines from propellers!…ha.

KIT, Scott

54 miles to go, ETA local time around 9pm.

Dear F&F, September 21st – 23rd, 2011 (Eastern Hemisphere)

We went up to check and see if the nice dive sites off the end of Yasawairara were dive able, but the weather was just too strong. So instead, we set sail for the 12 miles back to Nanuya-Sewa. We had a brilliant ride in fantastic wind and calm seas.

Once we were anchored, Joe and Anja went on a dive to \”The Cabbage Patch\” which has large lettuce leaf shaped hard corals; even green in color.

I went into \”get the boat ready to sail off\” mode. Topped the fuel from our jerry cans, put stuff away, checked the weather, etc.

The next day, we were able to go with a local dive boat and did what would be our final dive in Fiji; \”Tom\’s Thumb\”. A lovely site which we did with a couple from Australia staying at a local resort. Nice lion fish, hard and soft corals, lots of large anemone\’s and I found a tiny Imperial Shrimp living in an anemone. A mantis shrimp was scene by our Aussie friends, but I didn\’t get to see it, darn! These look like a brightly crazy quilted and colored \”mini lobster\”. Be careful though, they can cut your finger off if you try to handle them!

Joe left with hugs and kisses on the Ferry and Anja and I went into super ready mode. Anja made some easy prepared ready to heat meals for the expected 4 day trip to Luganville on Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu. We would begin the 600 mile trip in the morning.

Upped anchor at 0800 local time and we\’re off!….. Watch for blogs posted remotely from our trip and of course I update our position while en-route.

KIT, Scott and Anja en-route to Vanuatu! Farewell Fiji, you\’ve been great.