Category: Ship’s Log

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

20 September 2016 (-10 on UTC)

Dear Friends and Family,
We spent three days and nights in Suwarrow and overall it was quite interesting. One of the big attractions for the cruising crowd is to walk in the steps of the late Tom Neale. Neale was a Kiwi ex-pat who had moved to French Polynesia and then Rarotonga, the Capital of the Cook Islands.
The Cooks are a group of 15 islands spread out over an area roughly larger than 1/2 the size of Australia or the USA. Their total population is about 16,000 of which most are on Rarotonga and one or two other islands. Several are either very lightly inhabited (less than a hundred people) or like Suwarrow, uninhabited.

In the 1940\’s a Canadian ex-pat whose last name was Frisbie grew copra on Suwarrow and wrote a book on his adventures there. I must try and find a copy. It was Frisbie who in a chance encounter in Rarotonga met Tom Neale and inspired him to try and make a go of living on Suwarrow. Neale first was able to live in Suwarrow for just under 2 years when he had a most unusual episode where his back went out so badly, he had to leave. He was very fortunate that one of the (then), very rare sailboats ventured by and helped rehabilitate him before he was taken off the island a few months later. It took him six years to return.

The second time he made it 36 months alone but due to his age and health, he felt it was time to go back to Rarotonga despite his mixed feelings on departing. He frankly feared a lonely death at Suwarrow and (not in the book), he did die of stomach cancer about 14 years after he departed.

There is a statue to his memory on the island placed by his estranged family and his main house (really a room) still remains as well as his kitchen located next to the house. There is now a 2 story wood built house, open air on the ground floor, made for the Park Rangers in 2001.

The two Rangers were father and son. Harry and Pi. Harry has been there six years, this was his son\’s first stint on the island. Pi is a strapping young chap who is into guitar and fishing. The two mega yachts that arrived (all with full crew and no guests), also had several musicians and a beach jam session took place at the BBQ. They were actually quite good!

The unfortunate thing for we far flung sailors is that in essence civilization\’s hand has reached out to Suwarrow. Despite the fact that it\’s uninhabited 6 months of the year, during the cruising (non cyclone season) from May to November, no one is allowed on any of the other motus (small islands). The official reason is that they are bird sanctuaries and they don\’t want any invasive species or rats re-introduced which they have eradicated. It means of course, we stay at only the main \”Anchorage Island\” and have limited movement. They also do not allow Scuba diving. You can take your dinghy and anchor anywhere, but not your main vessel. There is a manta ray cleaning station 200 meters out of the anchorage with a buoy to tie your dinghy too which several of the cruisers enjoyed and we missed the one day trip with the Rangers to \”Perfect Reef\”, an area inside the lagoon about 4 miles from Anchorage Island that has some of the best snorkeling inside the reef. The others who did go, said it was worth the ride. Speaking of others, we were the 5 th boat when we arrived, the others all being smaller monohulls. Then an Amel 54 arrived followed by a 100 foot sailboat and then a 143 foot sailboat! These \”mega yachts\” were on delivery, both to eventually arrive in New Zealand. A crew of 6 aboard the 100 footer and 8 aboard the 143 footer. A good time was had by all.

Despite the fact that we have little wind, we\’ve decided to move on to try and enter Rose Atoll. Rose is a part of American Samoa and has only two motu\’s inside the reef and about 1.5 miles at it\’s longest. The motu\’s are quite small. We\’ve heard good reports second hand from people who have visited here and it is more or less right on our way to Pago Pago, American Samoa.

Winds are currently from the NE at 11 knots, directly behind us and as such, we\’re motoring. Predictions are for the wind to swing a bit north and drop to 7 knots by tomorrow, so this maybe a 40 hour motor boat ride? At least when we get to Rose, conditions should be ideal. The inner lagoon is plenty deep and the entry is marked at 31 feet or just less than 10 meters.

That\’s all for now, we will of course post a photo blog on Suwarrow and Rose at our next internet stop.
In the meanwhile look for our Ship\’s Mini Blog\’s and Position Reports.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/17 02:52
LATITUDE: 13-14.91S
LONGITUDE: 163-06.47W
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 9
WIND_DIR: E
CLOUDS: 85%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1011.6
AIR_TEMP: 32.2C
COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Suwarrow Atoll, Cook Islands
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