Our upwind sail from Fakarava to Nuku Hiva started out well for being in point mode. There were some squalls, even a few at night, but we had a conservative enough sail plan out to just furl the jib more or less and carry on through it. The first few days were nothing to write home about, just another short ocean passage. While out there on the wide open sea I jotted down some notes. They don’t flow and but they lend some insight to life out here so here they are:
Looking over the ocean, I see football field sized waves from peaks to troughs to peaks again. I imagine that they would be fun to ride your bike on if the water was solid and you could coast down, gather speed, and then just barely get over the next peak. The distances in view are hard to grasp as the boat goes up and down and the horizon nears then hurries away again. The deep cerulean blue water is mesmerizing. It is only darker than the turquoise atoll because you can see down so deep that the light disappears. The color and perception of depth is hard to describe, it feels infinite, peaceful, and mysterious.
Boobies (the pelagic birds) consider our mast head as a possible landing spot but Griffin screams at them and in doing so he nearly loses me instead of the birds. At least the instruments up there are safe until the next pass at landing is made. One boobie finally manages to land on the lower windward spreader and rides for a while. It’s perpetually harassed by other boobies going by and eventually gives up its seat, a short lived victory.
I rinse the salt spray from my skin before laying down for my 3 hours off but I’m still damp and itchy, sweat replaces the sea quickly. Exhausted from not being in the groove yet but thrilled to be out here. Weather is practically perfect and even though we’re healed over and going slower than we would be if we could be headed a different direction it’s extremely satisfying to be out at sea again. Passages seem so difficult yet when you’re actually out there you only have one choice and that is to survive. Your level of sailing perfection and efficiency doesn’t matter much as long as you make the next landfall.
The third day there was a wind shift that did not help us. It knocked our course further north and we needed to go even further along that course to make our tacking angle better. By then Griffin and my Scopolamine had worn off. I was fine but Griffin felt horrible. I’ve mentioned this before- at sea, on passages, the obvious is not so obvious. Instead of giving Griffin more meds which we obviously should have done, I thought we’d be there soon and he would probably feel better after sleeping too. The next day which was day 4 (I think?) Griffin said “I feel bad for Rocky, I keep barfing all over her.” Shoot. We get tired and don’t feel up to doing simple things that we could. When we switch who is on watch, we don’t want to keep the other person from resting by making things complicated. It’ll be really nice to have Ned on board for our way to Victoria, everyone will be more rested and thoughtful.
At 2am on the 5th day the wind died, then did a 180, then died again. We were due west of our destination about 25 miles so we dropped the sails and pointed our bow where we wanted to go, a small bay we had visited with Flyer and Dark Star on the west side of the island called Anse Uea.
We’d been motoring while I napped in the cockpit for maybe a half an hour when the horrible, miserable, dreaded noise from the engine happened again! Greg nor I had any words for quite some time after he had shifted into neutral and it stopped. He tried it a few more times and got it to sound normal at a lower RPM. We hobbled into the anchorage slowly over the next few hours as daylight broke, hoping our exhausted minds would come up with some reasonable explanation for what the noise was if it wasn’t the transmission, or why the brand new transmission was making the same noise the old one was.
After getting bit of rest and food and consulting those smarter and more experienced than us we decided that it was never our transmission making the noise. Well, except that one time when the seal around the shifting arm died and all the fluid leaked out. That noise was horrible and loud, but maybe a bit more so than the current noise? This noise, we think, is air in the shaft seal. Or, better said, air getting stuck in there, possibly due to some algae/barnacle/marine growth in the shaft tube and vent. That vent on the shaft seal is supposed to let air out quickly so the sealing surfaces that spin against each other are always a bit lubricated with water but they could make some bad noises if they were dry. We swam, watched the mantas, missed the dolphins, and slept soundly in the lee of the glorious isle of Nuku Hiva and let that possibility of the problem sink in a bit. While swimming we attempted to clean out the shaft tube. We re-led the vent tube and blew water, air, and assorted cleaners through it, we’ll plumb it to have pressurized water so air isn’t an issue again.
It’s tough to have perspective on problems sometimes and while the easiest answer is often the solution, it can be hard to know what the easiest answer is!
A few days later we motored cautiously around the SW corner of Nuku Hiva, again, returning to the glorious anchorage of Taiohae. No bad noises occurred, whew.
How strange to be back here in the more crowded with all the incoming boats for the season looking forward to their adventures. I have an urge to chat with them all and try to encourage them to have their best adventures, even though I have no way of knowing what that might be. I want to tell them: Coordinate gatherings on the beach, everyone likes to meet and hang out with other boaters! Order new batteries sooner than later! Don’t save too many stores for so long! Ask locals in small villages where to get fruit! Have friends from home visit! Meet local friends and lots of other sailors too, don’t be shy!
We have met a bunch of people here now, there are more Americans than we’ve seen in a year. Usually you can tell the U.S. boats because they don’t have a big flag on their transom. There are 3 Canadian boats anchored near us now, and tonight we had happy hour with a couple from Leavenworth who know “the original” Mara. What a small world.
Ned arrives to sail home with us tomorrow. We’ve been knocking out all sorts of small projects, have all the fuel tanks full, and there are a bunch of pre-cooked meals in the freezer. We’ll be looking for a good weather window to head North to make landfall in Victoria sometime in the next week! The next update will be from the high seas.