Category: 2016 August Blog

12 October 2016 (+12 on UTC) Not across the date line yet, but \”politically\”, we\’re in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Dear Friends and Family,
We had brief 4 days in Niautoputapu (Forbidden or Secret Island), but it was quite interesting. This island only gets about 20 visiting yachts a year and that\’s a lot more than they used to get. We\’re probably the last to visit this season as Cyclone time will be upon this area soon.

This is an island that was badly damaged in the 2009 Tsunami and we got to see the evidence and hear some of the stories first hand.
We\’ll blog on that with the photo blog when we can catch up on the internet.
We left this morning around 8:30 a.m. local time and are about 1/2 way to Vava\’u, 165 miles due south of Niautoputapu.

We met a lovely young couple while we were there, Mana and Bulu and their two young children born after the Tsunami. They survived by being on the neighboring \”Volcano\” island. Their home on the main island was destroyed in their absence. Only 800 people inhabit this island.

We also weathered a pretty severe low pressure system and had a bit of a hurry up to relocate the boat in a 30 knot squall. All went according to plan and after that and a bit more rain, the weather has turned down right delightful. We had to make the decision to leave this morning as if we didn\’t, we\’d be bucking against the trade winds trying to get to our next destination, Vava\’u. This is the where most of the cruising boats head too along the main \”milk run route\” and the now, lack of wind after the storm is allowing us to motor the 165 miles overnight to arrive there tomorrow before mid day.

Tonga stretches about 600 miles, north to south in 4 island groups. Niuatoputapa is the most northerly and most remote. The Vava\’u are the second most populated and most interesting for the \”yachties\” due to their extensive cruising grounds, whale watching opportunities and good anchorages. Next further south is the Ha\’aapi (my favorite) and finally, the jumping off group is Tongatapu; the Capital and most populous.

These islands are one of the primary humpback calving grounds in the entire southern hemisphere and I\’ll be surprised when we arrive if we don\’t see several whales as we are now arriving at the height of the season. The Ha\’aapi usually has the most whales and for some reason, cruisers don\’t often stop at this most remote group. I suspect it is because the anchorages are not as well protected and the reef systems are more complex. It\’s also one of active underwater volcanic areas on Earth. Pumice can frequently be seen on the surface. The second deepest part of the ocean in the world is adjacent to these islands, the Tongan Trench. This is where the earthquake and volcanic activity arise from. You could fit Mt. Everest in the Tongan Trench and it would still have water above it.

We hear there is a lot of boats now in Vava\’u, mostly waiting to get a weather window to head South toward New Zealand for the coming South Pacific Cyclone season. We and some of the other boats will continue on West into Fiji before heading to Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Lord Howe Island and finally into Sydney, Australia.

Vava\’u is noted as the best \”hurricane hole\” in the South Pacific as it\’s completely isolated from the ocean with 300 foot hills ringing in the 1/2 mile long by 1/4th of a mile wide bay.

There is supposedly decent internet available and if so, we\’ll try and catch up with some photo blogs. Hope springs eternal.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/10/12 07:50
LATITUDE: 17-15.88S
LONGITUDE: 173-57.07W
COURSE: 185T
SPEED: 6.6
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 8
WIND_DIR: SE
SWELL_DIR: E
SWELL_HT: 1.3M
SWELL_PER: 6
CLOUDS: 30%
VISIBILITY: 20
BARO: 1013.6
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 28.3C
COMMENT: Beach House – EN Route – Vava\’u, Tonga

12 October 2016 (+12 on UTC) Not across the date line yet, but \”politically\”, we\’re in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Dear Friends and Family,
We had brief 4 days in Niautoputapu (Forbidden or Secret Island), but it was quite interesting. This island only gets about 20 visiting yachts a year and that\’s a lot more than they used to get. We\’re probably the last to visit this season as Cyclone time will be upon this area soon.

This is an island that was badly damaged in the 2009 Tsunami and we got to see the evidence and hear some of the stories first hand.
We\’ll blog on that with the photo blog when we can catch up on the internet.
We left this morning around 8:30 a.m. local time and are about 1/2 way to Vava\’u, 165 miles due south of Niautoputapu.

We met a lovely young couple while we were there, Mana and Bulu and their two young children born after the Tsunami. They survived by being on the neighboring \”Volcano\” island. Their home on the main island was destroyed in their absence. Only 800 people inhabit this island.

We also weathered a pretty severe low pressure system and had a bit of a hurry up to relocate the boat in a 30 knot squall. All went according to plan and after that and a bit more rain, the weather has turned down right delightful. We had to make the decision to leave this morning as if we didn\’t, we\’d be bucking against the trade winds trying to get to our next destination, Vava\’u. This is the where most of the cruising boats head too along the main \”milk run route\” and the now, lack of wind after the storm is allowing us to motor the 165 miles overnight to arrive there tomorrow before mid day.

Tonga stretches about 600 miles, north to south in 4 island groups. Niuatoputapa is the most northerly and most remote. The Vava\’u are the second most populated and most interesting for the \”yachties\” due to their extensive cruising grounds, whale watching opportunities and good anchorages. Next further south is the Ha\’aapi (my favorite) and finally, the jumping off group is Tongatapu; the Capital and most populous.

These islands are one of the primary humpback calving grounds in the entire southern hemisphere and I\’ll be surprised when we arrive if we don\’t see several whales as we are now arriving at the height of the season. The Ha\’aapi usually has the most whales and for some reason, cruisers don\’t often stop at this most remote group. I suspect it is because the anchorages are not as well protected and the reef systems are more complex. It\’s also one of active underwater volcanic areas on Earth. Pumice can frequently be seen on the surface. The second deepest part of the ocean in the world is adjacent to these islands, the Tongan Trench. This is where the earthquake and volcanic activity arise from. You could fit Mt. Everest in the Tongan Trench and it would still have water above it.

We hear there is a lot of boats now in Vava\’u, mostly waiting to get a weather window to head South toward New Zealand for the coming South Pacific Cyclone season. We and some of the other boats will continue on West into Fiji before heading to Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Lord Howe Island and finally into Sydney, Australia.

Vava\’u is noted as the best \”hurricane hole\” in the South Pacific as it\’s completely isolated from the ocean with 300 foot hills ringing in the 1/2 mile long by 1/4th of a mile wide bay.

There is supposedly decent internet available and if so, we\’ll try and catch up with some photo blogs. Hope springs eternal.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/10/12 07:50
LATITUDE: 17-15.88S
LONGITUDE: 173-57.07W
COURSE: 185T
SPEED: 6.6
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 8
WIND_DIR: SE
SWELL_DIR: E
SWELL_HT: 1.3M
SWELL_PER: 6
CLOUDS: 30%
VISIBILITY: 20
BARO: 1013.6
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 28.3C
COMMENT: Beach House – EN Route – Vava\’u, Tonga

Dear Friends and Family,
First, congrats to all our friends in Florida for surviving Hurricane Matthew. We had a report of about 100 mph gusts in Stuart, Florida!
Another bit of excitement, we heard a medical emergency on another boat about 500 miles west of us. He was being assisted by the ever present and ready Pacific Seafarers Net (Ham Radio 14300 at 0300 UTC). We\’ll find out the hopefully happy resolution this evening if we are on the net.

We had a pretty rough night. Wind on or just forward of the beam with a short sloppy chop, winds 17-25 knots.
Crew had a few reefing drills. We were told the channel here would be very narrow with a few bommies right on the leading marks.
It wasn\’t that narrow and the bommies are properly marked – not on the leading marks. Navionics Charts were spot on as were the \”leading marks\”.
Just before we entered the channel, we had a bit of a start when our port engine wouldn\’t start. We think the battery is the issue and were able to start it with our cross connect from the starboard engine and the chargers on. I\’ll keep it charged now daily when we use the generator.

As we expect a \”blow\” here (top of the tail from what will develop well south of us), we will move to Motu (small island) \”Hakautuutuu\” and hide behinds it\’s southern flank. Go ahead and say that name 10 times real fast.

Nice depth over there and completely ringed in a large swimming pool of a reef. I don\’t expect more than 30 knots and that only briefly, but who knows!
The weather models don\’t agree. We should be about 550 miles north of the system and \”best of\” to our friends in Tongatapu which looks to be more or less ground zero (so far?). If the weather cooperates, we may move the one day sail down to Vava\’u, Tonga (after the blow) as Nikki really wants to see \”whale country\”.

We\’re the only boat here and we\’ve got to go scrounge up customs/immigration as it\’ Saturday and no one seems to be much around ashore.
KIT,
Full Reports later,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/10/07 21:39
LATITUDE: 15-56.50S
LONGITUDE: 173-46.09W
COURSE: 206T
SPEED: 0.6
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 15
WIND_DIR: ESE
CLOUDS: 15%
VISIBILITY: 20
BARO: 1016.6
AIR_TEMP: 31.7C
COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Niatapatopu, Tonga

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/10/07 00:14
LATITUDE: 13-59.68S
LONGITUDE: 172-15.09W
COURSE: 217T
SPEED: 8.8
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 20
WIND_DIR: SE
WAVE_HT: 0.4M
WAVE_PER: 6
SWELL_DIR: E
SWELL_HT: 1.8M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 40%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1013.7
AIR_TEMP: 30.6C
COMMENT: Beach House – En Route – Apia, Western Samoa – Niatapatopu, Tonga

We\’ll give a full report on our tomorrow morning arrival. We really enjoyed Western Samoa
We\’ll be staying there till Wednesday when a big blow is passing by Southern Tonga.
A bit of a bumpy close reach, but tomorrow we\’ll be in safe harbor.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

COMMENT: Beach House – DOCKED – Apia, Western Samoa

So far, a very pleasant surprise. We heard the marina wasn\’t particularly nice, but we think it\’s just fine! We got the last slip too! There are only about 8 so far.
They are putting in lots more. There is 220V/50 hz power which we can use on \”Beach House\” and we can keep the batteries up and the small air conditioning unit on at night. It\’s 90 degrees F right now (32.7 C) and it\’s 6:30 pm as I write. The docks are nice and clean with good power. The facilities look good (from afar). There is a small restaurant here as well.

When we came in the harbor, there were 4 Chinese Rust Bucket fishing vessels moving hodge podge all over the harbor. We felt like we were playing a bit of dodge ball and we were the ball!

We left at 0410 a.m. this morning and arrived here at 5:15 p.m. This included a two hour time change (later time – as they are on Daylight Savings) and are +14 on UTC!

As such, this is the new land (as of 2012) where the new day begins (Politically at least….:-)). We hope to spend up to a week here and so far, it looks like we might find a bit of gem? We shall see!
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

TIME: 2016/09/29 04:06
LATITUDE: 13-49.65S
LONGITUDE: 171-45.57W
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 14
WIND_DIR: ESE
CLOUDS: 30%
VISIBILITY: 20
BARO: 1009.7
AIR_TEMP: 32.2C

Beach House – En ROUTE – Apia, Western Samoa – Now +12 on UTC and skipping a day ahead.

We had a nice stop over in Pago Pago, but are glad to be on our way. American Samoa is really sort of a \”shop/fuel/propane – take a quick look around\” and go type of experience. The Starkist Tuna Cannery is the major employer and as the smell of fish being cleaned out of their boilers permeates Pago Pago Harbor, I was just as happy to move along. We did a taxi tour of the island and shopped at a \”Cost U Less\” which is similar to Costco in the US and K.S. Market, which was close to it and well stocked. The bus system here is very inexpensive and the taxi\’s are like New York! We did three jerry can runs in the harbor for fuel, took a taxi to the markets and the propane filling station. There is an old aerial tramway that had a horrible accident back in the 1980\’s here. At a \”fly by\” the aircraft clipped the wire and all were lost aboard the aircraft. There is remnants of the old station next to the tuna cannery and on the opposite side of the bay. Some lovely colonial archetecture and of course some evidence of the 2009 Tsunami.

Pago Pago is notoriously rainy and the mountain next to the harbor is called \”Rainmaker\”. We had been led to believe that the Customs and Immigration was US Customs, but it is definitely NOT. The uniforms and badges are very similar, but it is strictly a local affair. Customs charges 100.00 USD on leaving and the harbor fee was 53.00 USD. I would not check in over the weekend or I suspect those fees would double. Pago Pago is also notorious for junk on the bottom of the harbor. One boat, \”Scoots\”, told us the Tsunami of 2009 added to the mayhem with tons of rubbish on the harbor floor. They pulled up a huge plastic bag of baby diapers on their anchor. Fortunately for us, as we left at 0400 this morning, we had only mud, no worries.

We\’re currently half way across the 37 mile wide channel en route to Apia, Western Samoa. Western Samoa, is linked extensively with New Zealand and as such, they have recently changed which side of the road they drive on and have become the Western most nation to politically choose to be in the Eastern Hemisphere, time and date wise to coordinate better with Australia and New Zealand. So when we arrive, we will change the clocks to +12 on UTC instead of -11 and jump ahead a day. The actual date line is still some 450 miles to our West, we\’ll cross that when we get to Eastern Fiji.

So KIT, we\’ll still do our update on our wonderful few days at Rose Atoll in the next few days.
A lovely day out here, just passing the Cargo Ship \”Pacific Forum\” en route to Pago Pago.
Scott and Nikki

TIME: 2016/09/29 20:05
LATITUDE: 14-11.12S
LONGITUDE: 171-05.04W
COURSE: 302T
SPEED: 6.7 (motoring)
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 9
WIND_DIR: E
SWELL_DIR: N
SWELL_HT: 1.0M
SWELL_PER: 10
CLOUDS: 30%
VISIBILITY: 20
BARO: 1012.5
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 32.2C

25 September 2016 (-11 UTC)
COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Pago Pago, American Samoa (total run 149 miles – 23 hours)

We had a brief spat of wind last night, but a false alarm and as such we ended up motoring the entire distance from Rose Atoll to Pago Pago, American Samoa. Pago Pago is pronounced \”Pango Pango\” (Why? who knows). We were within 8 miles of the Manu\’a Islands of American Samoa which might be interesting, but going back against the trade winds is against my personal belief system.

The main feature here is the Starkist Tuna Canning facility and the tuna fishing fleet in this very large natural harbor. We noticed the McDonalds as we turned toward the anchorage for the small boats which is tucked way inside. This harbor has a reputation as being very deep and lots of junk on the bottom to catch your anchor on. I recall a story from \”Amadon Light\” where they said they pulled an old railroad two man hand car up on their windlass! – Yikes. We\’re however in 27 feet of water (which is not deep) and hopefully won\’t pick any flotsam up off the bottom when we go to leave. The water here is not clear as the bottom is muddy from the high mountains that surround this natural \”hurricane hole\” harbor. There are 10 other boats here, all seem of the local liveaboard type except for \”Scoots\” which we have heard of, but never met.

The trade winds are very light now and are expected to remain weak and along about 20 to 30S. The trough is NOT often this far north and is weakening all the trade winds. This will end mid next week. We hope to be headed for Apia, Western Samoa about that time which is 88 miles from here. This is where will spend most of our time in Samoa – we expect up to a week there.

Our main reason for being here is, other than to see this famous place, to take advantage of the supposedly nice USA shopping. There is supposed to be a Costco and many other nice food markets here. We suspect a Wednesday departure will hopefully be in order. US Customs is closed today (wouldn\’t find that in the 50 States!) and as such, we are sort of quarantined aboard till they open tomorrow. We see wifi and if so, we\’ll try and connect for our first internet in a couple of weeks.

I\’ll put out a final report on the wonderful time we had at Rose Atoll within the next few days and update you on our experience here.
KIT,
Cheers,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/25 19:28
LATITUDE: 14-16.37S
LONGITUDE: 170-41.87W
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 5
WIND_DIR: E
CLOUDS: 70%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1014.5
AIR_TEMP: 30.6C

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/25 07:34
LATITUDE: 14-25.16S
LONGITUDE: 169-27.57W
COURSE: 275T
SPEED: 6.9
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 16
WIND_DIR: ENE
WAVE_HT: 0.1M
WAVE_PER: 10
SWELL_DIR: E
SWELL_HT: 1.2M
SWELL_PER: 10
CLOUDS: 80%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1012.3
AIR_TEMP: 28.3C
COMMENT: Beach House -EN ROUTE – Pago Pago, American Samoa (68 miles to go)

We departed Rose Atoll after two lovely days there and I will write about it all when we arrive in Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango).
We may be stuck on the boat for a day as US Customs there is closed on the weekends.

Most of today has been a motor boat ride with light winds from astern and as Nikki\’s asleep and it\’s quite dark out tonight, I won\’t wake her to set sail, we\’ve only 10 hours or so to go. The wind just came up.

We are currently just south of the islands of Ta\’u and Manu\’a which are part of American Samoa. We also passed an area a few hours ago where it was marked \”Volcanic Activity\” (last reported 2001). Glad the water wasn\’t too hot!..:-)

Looking forward to some good old fashioned US Provisioning. There is a McDonalds and Carl\’s Jr. here as well as a Costco! Who knew!
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/22 20:00
LATITUDE: 14-32.88S
LONGITUDE: 168-08.89W
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 7
WIND_DIR: N
CLOUDS: 25%
VISIBILITY: 20
BARO: 1013.3
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 32.2C
COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Rose Island, Rose Atoll, American Samoa

What a Magic Place!
We were met by dozens of Boobie Birds outside the reef for the last 9 miles and we actually spotted Rose Island at about 10 miles out. Easily picked up on radar at 10 miles as well.

Rose is listed at 65 feet high and I estimate that there are at least 5000 birds on or flying over Rose Island. As an aside, there seem to be no bugs here as I suspect the birds eat them all? We\’ll see when we go ashore. It\’s hard to tell about the state of the tide, but I think it\’s low. The lagoon is absolutely flat calm. No \”twitch\” at all so far from swell coming over the reef. The conditions however are truly calm out at sea, so this may not always be the case.

We also saw at least 6-8 large Green Sea turtles, several mating as we anchored. The water is so clear, you can\’t tell if it\’s 5 feet deep or 35 feet deep. We\’ve anchored in about 35 feet of water as the shelf rapidly rises and gets very shallow. No worries and we put out 200 feet of chain. The conditions are gorgeous and calm, we expect them to stay this way while we are here. The winds should swing around in two days to the prevailing ESE, but not with any gusto per the weather files.

The entry was calm and generally straight forward. For those following in our wake, the Navionics Charts have you a bit closer to the Western Reef on entry than you might think (It is marked as \”Boat Pass\”) and then you\’ll need to go left as you get to the inside, then back right. If you want some waypoints, let me know. Shallowest depth was briefly 11 feet, but if you were a little more right of where we were on the inside, you\’d have been in 15 feet all the way. There was only that one shallower spot. Otherwise, 25-50 feet deep on entry. The entire lagoon seems navagable at 35-60 feet deep.

Since we arrived at Rose Atoll around 0900 Tahiti/Cook Islands time and we\’ll now move the clocks back to -11 on UTC. We\’re getting quite close to the International Date Line.

After a tidy up, breakfast and a rest, we\’ll head to shore wearing hats for \”bird\” reasons and give a full report soon.
This also seems it would be an ideal Humpback Calving spot, but alas, no whales….so far….:-)
From a sailing perspective, this reminds me in many ways of Beveridge Reef (which is only 335 miles south of here), but this has land which Beveridge does not. From here, any destination from Niue to the South, Tonga or Fiji to the Southwest and Samoa to the Northwest is sail-able.
Drop us a note,
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/21 19:02
LATITUDE: 13-51.31S
LONGITUDE: 165-33.63W
COURSE: 255T
SPEED: 6.5
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 10
WIND_DIR: NNE
SWELL_DIR: ENE
SWELL_HT: 1.3M
SWELL_PER: 10
CLOUDS: 15%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1013.3
TREND: -1
AIR_TEMP: 32.2C
COMMENT: Beach House -En Route – Suwarrow Atoll, Cook Islands – Rose Atoll, American Samoa (154 miles to go, exactly 1/2 way)

We\’ve motored the last 22 hour at between 6.5 – 7.5 knots. We haven\’t had any sail up at all until just now. The engines have been great, I note a slightly higher oil pressure on starboard than port. I\’m still a bit bitten by all that\’s gone on this season with the engines and as such pay paranoic attention to them. When we\’re motoring long distances in hot weather, having our stateroom air conditioner available (works off our inverter) is really a treat for the off watch. It\’s hot and sticky out here right now.

A very calm evening with isolated distant rain cells seen on radar which we can leave on all the time with the engines charging the batteries.

We\’ve finally got a bit of a sailing breeze at 10-11 knots from the N to NE which gives us a reaching condition. This is where the wind hits us from directly abeam; in this case from our port (left) side. We\’re sailing at between 5.5 and 7 knots. We do not expect this wind to last more than \”several hours\” and then it will really go flat according to the weather files. We want to give the engines a chance to cool and then I\’ll check everything really well before the home stretch to Rose Atoll.

Conditions are (at the moment) actually ideal in terms of sailing. The seas are flat, the wind fairly steady, boat moving along nicely with full main and geneker (our biggest headsail with the exception of the spinnaker used for more \”down wind\” work). We\’ve 154 miles to go and should be at Rose Atoll in flat seas and no wind tomorrow around 9 a.m. local time plus or minus.

We\’ll give an arrival report tomorrow once anchored (assuming we can enter – which is likely).
KIT,
Scott and Nikki