YOTREPS: YES TIME: 2011/07/25 02:51 LATITUDE: 17-13.37S LONGITUDE: 178-58.03W MARINE: NO WIND_SPEED: 2 WIND_DIR: 088T CLOUDS: 70% VISIBILITY: 20 BARO: 1014 AIR_TEMP: 32.8C COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Vanua Balavu Island – \”Lau Group\” – Eastern Fiji.
Author: kerrizane
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POSITION REPORT
YOTREPS: YES TIME: 2011/07/21 03:48 LATITUDE: 16-43.86S LONGITUDE: 179-44.65W MARINE: NO WIND_SPEED: 5 WIND_DIR: 101T CLOUDS: 20% VISIBILITY: 25 BARO: 1010.5 AIR_TEMP: 31.7C COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Matangi Island \”Secret Spot\”. Dove today, Will dive \”Noel\’s Wall\” tomorrow.
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POSITION REPORT
YOTREPS: YES TIME: 2011/07/13 08:06 LATITUDE: 16-44.03S LONGITUDE: 179-53.30E MARINE: NO WIND_SPEED: 5 WIND_DIR: 101T CLOUDS: 60% VISIBILITY: 20 BARO: 1018 AIR_TEMP: 28.3C COMMENT: Beach House – MOORED – Viani Bay – Dove the \”White & Purple Walls\” today with Peter and Anja. Tomorrow, the \”White Wall\” and \”The Ledge\”. The \”White Wall\” is very special.
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2011-06 Kate, Sandrine & Scott
Kate\’s last week with us. Sandrine and Scott head from Western to Eastern Fiji……
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Hello s/v \”Quickstar\”……
July 6th – 9th, 2011 (Eastern Hemisphere)
Dear F&F, Friends Diana Young and Peter Bruckman of s/v \”Quickstar\” arrived today. They had with them Anja (An-ya) who is from East Germany. Anja is a PADI Dive Master and sailing instructor. She used to work for Sony\’s Play Station division in Germany and is on a year\’s sabbatical. As Anja wants to go DIVING, she\’ll come aboard for awhile so I\’ve a dive buddy until Sandrine takes the \”I\’m going to learn to dive plunge\”….
Diana, Anja and Sandrine went off on a \”gals junket\” by bus today to tour the island. Both boats should be off on Monday or Tuesday to head toward Taveuni where we hope to meet up with s/v \”Migration\” (Bruce and Alene). Some of Fiji\’s best diving is there at \”The White Wall\” and \”Rainbow Reef\”.
Both couples were at Cindy\’s memorial and Diana and Bruce spoke eloquently. I\’m glad to have them back in my aura.
We\’ll try a dive tomorrow with Koro-Sun Divers. Colin and Janine Skipper\’s operation. They had 100 hammerhead sharks today, a record for them. Anja is all excited, she\’s never seen \”hammies\” before. I may take the camera. Sandrine will snorkel at the surface interval.
I\’ll try and do updates at least weekly on the \”Ship\’s Log\”.
Currently, the video links on the archived original website are not working and will be fixed shortly (right Jeremiah????)…:)
KIT, I will… Scott with now Anja and Sandrine
Two new photo galleries will be posted as soon as I get ashore!…
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Bligh Water…..
July 3rd, 2011 (Eastern Hemisphere)
Dear F&F, \”Bligh Water\” is the area between the two main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu here in Fiji. If you look at a world map of the area, you\’ll see what looks like a nice passage between the two islands. It\’s actually extensively encrusted with coral reefs.
Captain William Bligh of HMS \”Bounty\” when cast adrift by Fletcher Christian and the mutineers, (sounds like a band from the 70\’s doesn\’t it?) sailed across this stretch of water.
He was cast adrift in an open 21 foot boat with half his crew, few provisions and virtually no idea of where to go to get to safety. Bligh (if you do some real historical research) wasn\’t the super bad guy portrayed in popular lore. Christian himself had some \”issues\” too. I\’ll let you and history be the judge.
In any event, Bligh sailed right through the middle of the Lau Group where cannibalism was in full force. They tried to land for supplies, but had to make sail and get away fast, lest they end up in some seriously large bellies of the Polynesian Lau. If I recall, Bligh lost one or two crew here to the cannibals. This of course made Bligh quite reluctant to stop anywhere else. He sailed 2400 nautical miles over weeks in completely uncharted waters and eventually ended up in what is today Jakarta, Indonesia. It was considered (and still is), one of the greatest sailing feats of all time.
We of course have modern charts, GPS, chart plotters and every advantage. Still, this is a bit of a \”keep on your toes\” voyage. Only 50 miles and as it turns out, extremely well marked, it\’s reef after reef after reef. At high tide, you can\’t see them. If the sun is from the East (which of course it was with our very early departure to get to Nasonisoni Pass anchorage before sunset), you can\’t see the reefs either! Overhead sun and clear skies are a plus.
After our \”bump\” as we left Viti Levu, it was actually an easy trip, but I could just imagine Bligh crossing our path with essentially no help, no water or supplies and cannibals to the left an right of him. Sandrine told me when she was in the Lau 18 years ago, they were still arguing about a land deal that was made in the early 1900\’s which was supposed to put an end to eating each other. However, they kept eating each other so the land deal is even today in dispute. Imagine fighting that out in a local court? \”Well, they said if I gave them this island, they wouldn\’t eat my family. I did, but they kept eating my family so I want my island back\”. Think I\’m kidding?…not so much!
We stopped at Nasonisoni anchorage for the 1 1/2 mile trip through it\’s pass and onto Savusavu tomorrow. Stay tuned! Scott with Sandrine
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POSITION REPORT
YOTREPS: YES TIME: 2011/07/04 00:14 LATITUDE: 16-46.67S LONGITUDE: 179-20.06E MARINE: NO WIND_SPEED: 5 WIND_DIR: 311T CLOUDS: 60% VISIBILITY: 25 BARO: 1013 AIR_TEMP: 33.9C COMMENT: Beach House – MOORED – Savusavu. Lots of boats. Happy 4th.
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POSITION REPORT
YOTREPS: YES TIME: 2011/07/02 01:21 LATITUDE: 17-18.70S LONGITUDE: 178-13.77E MARINE: NO WIND_SPEED: 10 WIND_DIR: 090T CLOUDS: 40% VISIBILITY: 30 BARO: 1011 AIR_TEMP: 30.0C COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Northwest corner of Viti Levu. Will cross \”Bligh Water\” tomorrow to Vanua Levu, weather permitting.
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Manta Ray Bay…..More stuff…..
June 26-27-28, 2011
Dear F&F, Oh My!
June 26-27 We headed to Waya Island and found it frankly not overly interesting so we continued on to Manta Ray Bay Island to see the Manta Rays….not so much. We anchored next to friends on s/v \”Wetnose\” and settled in for the night. That night we went on a night dive and it was fun, but devoid of lots of the creatures I would have expected. Kate thoroughly enjoyed it; it was my first night dive in over a decade. I\’d forgotten how much I loved them.
That night, a low pressure system came over us and it started to BLOW! 25 knots steady with gusts to 40 knots. Our plan was to move to Somosomo Bay the next morning for protection and when we tried to raise the anchor, all heck broke loose. The \”geneker\” opened up unexpectedly and tore itself to shreds. It may not be repairable. I\’ll find out tomorrow from local sail maker Alan Marshall. The windlass again failed and we could not raise the anchor. We were completely safe and decided to call it a day. I dove the anchor to make sure it wasn\’t stuck on a coral \”bommie\”; it wasn\’t. So we will use \”lift bags\” in the morning to raise the anchor chain and anchor then put it away by hand.
June 28th We got up early, had breakfast and I went diving to buoy up the anchor. No drama and the gals helped me pull it up and stow it away. We\’ll have to head back to Vuda Point YET AGAIN to see if it can be fixed or move the stern windlass to the bow.
Upon arrival, Lorenzo of \”Baobab Marine\” determined it was a bent part on the windlass that was causing the problem. We\’ve fixed that and will thoroughly test it tomorrow.
Kate will be going on another catamaran off to Musket tomorrow and off to New Zealand by air the next day, we\’ll miss her.
When we came in Vuda Point, we got stuck on our starboard engine with a mooring line. I dove that to remove it…..life goes on.
I\’ll keep you posted on repairs and Sandrine and I will most likely head directly toward Savusavu over several days starting in a few days.
My phone was \”drowned\”, and I\’ll get a new one tomorrow.
KIT, Scott with the crew of s/v Beach House (Sandrine and Kate – for one more day)
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Musket Cove, Boat Projects yet again…..
June 21st, 2011
Dear F&F,
After Sandrine arrived at Vuda Point, the three of us went provisioning with our favorite taxi driver Abdul and then off to Musket Cove with the best of intentions to cruise the Mamanuca and Yaswawa Groups of Western Fiji. Kate will leave soon and wants to get in some more diving in (including her first NIGHT DIVE). We arrived as Musket, 2 hours from Vuda and spent a lovely few days diving the pinnacle and Sandrine got to \”fly\” in her aerial silks. (See PHOTO GALLERY).
Then we had another couple of \”boat problems\”. Ah, you remember boats?! Our generator\’s fuel starvation problem became worse to the point where it wouldn\’t stay running with any load on it. So, I went to Plan B and charged the batteries with the engines. The starboard engine then started to make this horrific sound. It was the high power alternator completely off the engine mount. I thought it was the new bearings gone bad, but wanted to check.
The next morning, I laid prostrate to the engine and did my slithering reptile \”boat boy\” best to put it all back into place. Started her up and……(drum roll). It sounded just the same! So back to Vuda Point we went after I took it all apart again.
GOOD NEWS all around: Generator. \”Atherosclerosis of the fuel lines\” Cleaned them out, changed filters, cleaned the filter housings and it works. This problem started a year ago, the guys here at Baobab Marine diagnosed and fixed it in 1/2 a day. Little did you all know that ALGAE grows in fuel. On your car, you use it so much and the gas stations tanks are so well used that water doesn\’t collect in their (or YOUR) fuel tanks. In the marine world, not so much! We don\’t use the fuel that fast as we store a lot and the humidity allows water in the tanks. Then algae grows and life can become miserable. We use biocides and water decontamination treatments, but after awhile, Mr. Bug (algae) can win. I had the tanks cleaned out in New Zealand, but the fuel lines and filter housings were forgotten. And now you know…..the rest of the story.
Alternator: The new bracket I had installed in New Zealand was rubbing against the belts. Re-shaped it, put back, we\’re good to go! Baobab comes through yet again.
Off to Navadra (pronounced Navandra) Island tomorrow.
KIT, Scott and the Crew of s/v Beach House (Sandrine and Kate)
Internet is not good here but I can download emails via sailmail at beachhouse51@gmail.com