The time had finally come for the opportunity to head SE to the Tuamotus. Flyer had Kristen back from her quick trip to San Francisco and their new transmission was behaving. We were all provisioned and prepped and our friends on Dark Star, Kevin and Melissa, had left the day before. Unfortunately, they had an issue with their chart plotter and decided to come back rather than navigate their first atoll without their nav system. They got it to behave again and were ready to leave. All boats have problems sometimes!
Rocket Science had a tough decision to make because heading 600 miles SE with our slightly questionable transmission when we need to be back on Nuku Hiva to check out in a month isn’t a conservative thing to do. Weather is always an issue and the amazing Ned is now scheduled to fly down here to sail back to the Pacific Northwest with us on May 10th. After a heavy and fast downpour of rain during a last grocery run on the morning of April 15th, we made a decision, got our stuff together, and started chasing down Flyer and Dark Star who were on their way to the chosen atoll of Tahanea, just SE of Fakarava. Like so many atolls in the Tuamotus, it has a narrow pass to enter and lots of bommies to navigate inside, beautiful secluded beaches and motus, and no settlements. We were looking forward to spending some time in the dream-like waters there with our buddies.
The first 48 hours of the crossing were some of the most lovely open ocean miles we’ve enjoyed. The winds were light but enough to push us along towards Tahanea fast enough to make the 550 miles in 72 hours. We caught up to our friends during that first night and passed them in the dark. First, we saw their AIS signals on the plotter and then their masthead lights came into view ahead and then disappeared towards the stern.
The second day we fished a bit and got a bite, hooray! The line started running out so fast, I grabbed the pole and increased the drag a bit while Greg started slowing down the boat. However, the line didn’t stop running just as fast and maybe faster now… then we looked towards where the fish was and saw an enormous marlin/sailfish jump all the way out of the water. It was a huge S shape with its fin raised and long beak pointed up at the sky in a both picturesque and terrifying way that convinced me immediately to cut the line. There was no way we were going to be able to get that beautiful fish on board, nor did we want to even get close to it. Better to cut it fast before it took the whole reel along with our dreams of actually getting to eat anything we catch.
The next morning the winds got lighter and shifty. We needed to charge the batteries anyway so we started the engine and put it into gear. It didn’t take long for it to make a funny noise, I thought it was something vibrating in a cupboard at first. Greg slowed the throttle and it stopped, then he brought it up again. This time the noise was definitely coming from the back of the engine, Greg threw it into neutral and it stopped. This kept happening as we tried to put it into gear a few more times before we stopped and talked about our options. Clearly, we had a problem, it sounded like the transmission, and we were headed towards an atoll with a pass we hadn’t navigated before that would most definitely be challenging even with a fully functioning motor. We changed our course towards familiar Fakarava with its large comfortable pass, airport, and amenities. SIGH. Flyer and Dark Star continued on to Tahanea and enjoyed their time there with beautiful clear waters, anchorages without other boats around, and all sorts of shenanigans we got to hear about.
Fakarava was NE of where we had been heading and a bit further. We arrived in in the North pass the next morning just after dawn, started the engine just in case, and motor sailed through without any issue. We now looked like the crazy confident sailors zooming around inside the atoll, tacking upwind to the anchorage! The transmission behaved while anchoring but we now knew it wasn’t to be trusted anymore. We had already called and then emailed our buddy Mike at the shop who had our new transmission waiting to be picked up when we realized that it was a Saturday! Wishing it had failed on a weekday so it could already be on its way, we had to wait until Monday morning to get it out the door. Briefly, with the help of Steve and another amazingly helpful friend Randy in Seattle, we considered having it shipped via Tahiti Air. It would have required it to be checked in at the airport in Los Angeles by a friend or agent as well as somehow getting to LA. It could have been here relatively instantly but the issues surrounding that proved to be too much despite Randy considering flying it to LA for us, thanks anyway Randy! You’re amazing.
Monday morning, April 20th, Mike got the transmission out the door in Everett, WA and on its way to us with a scheduled arrival date of April 30th. All we could do was watch its tracking and think about how to do the job. The reason we hadn’t flown into replacing it earlier is because the shaft seal we have is extremely hard to compress and required a special tool back when Greg installed it. For those of you who are interested but aren’t familiar, our shaft seal is a water filled bellows that mounts statically to the tube that the shaft runs through into the water. It’s purpose is to keep the water out while allowing the shaft to rotate, so while one end is stationary around the tube, the other end has a graphite enhanced seal that the bellows pushes against to keep all but a few drops of water out. The tricky part is getting the bellows compressed the appropriate amount to make a tight enough seal to not leak and work as it should. It also has a vent to make sure that the space stays filled with water even when the seas are rough and air enters it. I didn’t understand how these things worked until maybe 10 years ago but since then we’ve been a little too familiar at times.
Beautiful Fakarava.
So! Here we are in Fakarava, again. Having explored this area pretty thoroughly already, we hit up our favorite snorkeling spots and the pearl farm snack bar, beach, and nurse sharks. We found some sailors we had met on Nuku Hiva and spent more time hanging out with them. Juliet and Gordy on Matatoa had picked up a friend and were here, Flyer’s friends from Mexico on a cool steel boat also had a friend on board, and there was a big Nordhaven with a really awesome couple too.
In some other anchorages we’ve been in someone has arranged a cruisers get together on shore that were always fun. I went around and invited a bunch of boats and many of them came! It was so fun to chat and hang out while the sun set across the atoll.
Another boat, Sophie, we had met in Taiohae, hails from Vashon Island in Puget Sound also came to the beach gathering. It was super fun getting to hang out with them, they have to fly home for a bit this summer and we’ll try to connect with them in Port Townsend where they live on our way back home to Seattle in July.
Meanwhile, tracking our tranny has been painful. It arrived in Tahiti 4 days before it was supposed to get to us in Fakarava. Our paperwork was all done and turned in and it should have gotten on plane fairly quickly. Instead, it sat and sat until someone decided it should go by boat instead of plane (not what Fed Ex had arranged). We got a notification on Thursday afternoon and that Friday was a holiday. Grrrr.
We were distracted from our woes for a bit because Flyer arrived! It was so good to see them again and hear about all the fun in Tahanea. Ironically, Dark Star arrived the day we found out that the transmission was stuck over the three day weekend and officially late. No one wanted to be trapped in the busy town and when it became clear that the timing of our tranny’s arrival was completely ambiguous still, Flyer and Dark Star headed off to Toau, the atoll just to the north where we’d spent some time. It was sad to wave goodbye to our friends and while we knew we’d see the Flyer crew in Seattle in the fall after their Hawaii and Alaska adventures, we wouldn’t see Kevin and Melissa for a lot longer. Hopefully their travels will go on successfully and we’ll stay in touch as they explore wherever their hearts desire. We got to squeeze in a big birthday dinner for Caroline at a local restaurant that had a great little band, fun!
As I waved a final goodbye to Flyer with a few tears in my eyes, Griffin came around the side deck and started climbing onto my back. I let him do it to avoid the sadness overcoming me… but then his knee knocked my hand holding my phone which fell and bounced off the sheet winch, then the upper deck, then the cockpit floor, and slid down the transom. I saw it sinking as I was shaking Griffin off my back and determined I wouldn’t be able to catch it and would likely lose my glasses too if I jumped after it. What A Horrible Day. Greg, the quick thinker, grabbed the dinghy anchor and a float to mark where it sank and Griffin zoomed over to ask if Siebe or Anne-Marie would be willing to dive to go get it. Siebe found it quite quickly, but it had been at almost 60 feet and didn’t turn back on. We had a spare phone that Ann had left us, the SIM card worked, and I had my case back too. How kind that Siebe could come to the rescue so quickly! I lost a bunch of photos from the last few weeks since we don’t use cloud storage out here, hence fewer photos of this time documented here.
Waiting for the transmission and hanging out with the napping nurse sharks at the Pearl Farm with the Paradiso crew.
The kindness just kept flowing from the Paradiso crew when our tranny finally arrived May 5th. We got a message from Fakarava Yacht Services at 9:30am that it was on a plane that had just landed, surprise!
Old and new transmissions in the cockpit with Griffin and Siebe and the new one in place.
We sprung into action and Siebe dawned his dive gear again and spent the afternoon helping us underwater by plugging around the shaft so we didn’t sink the boat. We uncoupled the shaft from the transmission, slid it back while Siebe kept the wax and rope seals in place underwater, removed the old transmission, switched the mounting bracket, and bolted the new set up into place. The coupler ended up keeping most of the water out even though it wasn’t held in place, that was good. With more thanks to Siebe, we finished up for the day and got the countertop back in place to have dinner and fall asleep.
The next day we got it running and tested it a little at anchor and everything worked well. We like the much more distinct feel and sound of shifting in and out of gear. We could leave Fakarava finally! Unfortunately, the weather was about to get bad and we could either hole up in a corner of an atoll or start making our way back to Nuku Hiva which made more sense even though it was so sad to leave. We had learned that while our visas expire on 5/15, that they can roll into a normal 90 day visa without doing much. We asked Ned to delay his arrival so we had time to get ready for the passage back to the Pacific Northwest once we made it back to Nuku HIva.
Paradiso was headed to Toau to hide out in the weather, Pandion was taking their newly arrived guests down to the south corner of Fakarava for diving, and it was again time to say our goodbyes. I really hope we get to see our Dutch friends again and look forward to following their adventures.
We left Fakarava the next day and pointed our bow as close as it could be to Nuku Hiva and started beating back into the waves and wind. It’s about 600 miles in a straight line but we’d either need a big wind shift or to tack a bunch to make it there. Better get started!
