1. Tahanea Atoll
After our very slow, frustrating, drift/sail we arrived early in the morning and could see land 12nm out. We were a little early for the tides so we motored around for a bit doing some fishing, while we waited for the right moment to enter through the cut (as usual, nothing caught). With the sun out and good, clear visibility we went in through the cut, staying slightly to the left of the visible current. The turbulence in the water briefly blocked the transducers, and the depth read went blank momentarily! A little scary but thankfully short lived. We turned right as we came in through the passage and there was no one in the anchorage so we had our pick of spots. We were able to find a good patch of sand and deployed our chain floats fairly expertly. Ollie on Mai Tai was leading the way, anchored close by and jumping straight in the water to check out both of our anchors. Time to catch up on sleep.
Tahanea is an uninhabited atoll, a nature reserve. Although there are a few seasonal workers living here, fishing and harvesting coconuts for copra, there is no village, no phone signal, no shops. Just us and nature, plenty of sea life and birdlife. Sadly the native trees are being removed to plant coconuts for commercial purposes. Humans can’t seem to leave anything alone if there is money to be made.
Snorkelling the cut
We entered this atoll via the Teavatapu Pass, and this was the first pass or “cut” where we did a “drift snorkel” - a trademark experience of the Tuamotus. The cuts or passes are natural openings in the atolls where tidal currents flow in and out of the enclosed lagoons. Yachts can enter and exit the atolls of course, and the incoming water is rich in nutrients, so sea-life abounds in these passages. Here we can see colourful and healthy coral gardens and a variety of fish of all sizes, progressing up the food chain.
You have to time your swim so that speed of the flow of water is just right. Not so fast that your view is in fast forward, not too slow so that you have work hard to kick and swim. Just after slack tide, we took the dinghy to the outside edge of the pass to catch the incoming current. It seemed a bit rough at first so I stayed in the dinghy and watched the boys for a bit, but eventually jumped in and just held onto the painter. The timing was just right, very little effort required as the tide gently takes you along towards the inside of the atoll. It’s like a scenic railway with the underwater scenery passing below you as you drift slowly by. It’s interesting to see how deep the channel is after coming through it. Its shallow close to the shore where most of the fish and coral are, then it drops off steeply into the abyss in the middle. Next comes the challenge of getting back into the dinghy from the water. The trick here is to leave your fins on and kick like mad to propel yourself vertically upwards so you can get enough of your upper body over the edge of the pontoon. Then follows a rather undignified scramble to swing a leg over the pontoon so you can flop into the dinghy. That takes a little practice!
Ollie brought a fishing rod with him so we did a little dinghy fishing. Within minutes of casting a line he had caught a Sweet Lips but after deftly removing the hook, threw it back. He was concerned it looked too big and old and probably had Ciguatera. Ciguatera is a toxin that is produced by a marine algae that is eaten by reef fish, who are in turn eaten by bigger fish. The toxin accumulates in the food chain and the bigger and older a reef fish is, the more likely it is to have a good dose of the toxin. Ingesting the toxin leads to diarrhea, vomiting, numbness, itchiness, sensitivity to hot and cold, dizziness, and weakness. Symptoms can be quite severe and poisoning can even be fatal! Best to play it safe and stick to pelagic fish! Or like us, and never catch any fish…
Copra Shed Anchorage
When we arrived we were the only 2 boats, but now there are 14 boats! We decided to move down to the Copra Shed anchorage in the east, for a change of scenery. We upped anchor without major incident and had a really easy run down, good visibility and bommies were well marked on the charts, apart from one close to the start of the shelf. The sand patches are huge and bommies well-spaced so we could find a spot where we didn’t need to float our chain. It’s a stunning anchorage with an false cut and a sand spit nearby. There are some copra farmers ashore and one other boat here. After lunch we put the drone up to get a birds eye view, and then go for a SUP. Although it looks like a sandy beach ashore, it is actually coral gravel. Its really tough to walk on, even in reef sandals. We walk around the sandspit, and into the small lagoon between the fringing reef and the inside of the atoll. In the trees there are some boobies nesting and we spot one gorgeously fluffy baby bird that looks like a ball of fairy floss with a beak! I snorkel on some small coral bommies closer to shore and a couple of small black tips are swimming around the back of the boat. A group of 5 remoras has also taken up residence, waiting for scraps.
Overnight the wind switched north and the anchorage got pretty bouncy. With a westerly expected it was only going to get worse so we decided to move back to the East Cut anchorage. A few other boats have moved across here as well. We were expecting the trip back to be bumpy but it was ok, and again bommies were easy to spot.
We went for a drift snorkel through the East Cut. Water was flowing pretty fast but the amount of coral was amazing, even though we scooted past it so quickly!
The next day was very calm so we went with Ollie outside the atoll in the dinghy and snorkeled the drop-off on the windward side of reef. It was interesting to see as it really does disappear into the abyss. These atolls really are anomalies, shallow lagoons that emerge from the very deep waters of the pacific. There was more sea-life closer to shore in the shallows. Did another drift through the east cut as well, this time from inside to outside as the tide was going out and saw much more coral and life on the east side.
One more motu - off to Fakarava
Well it is time to leave Tahanea and move on to our final atoll in the Tuamotus. Having surveyed it from underwater as we snorkeled it several times, we agreed it was safe to exit via the east cut, even though it is not a marked passage on the charts. We motored out while I kept a lookout on the bow, the water was so clear I could clearly see the coral garden passing below us. We are heading to the northern end of Fakarava where there us town, as we need a few provisions and Ollie is out of beer. Its 90 nm so we will do an overnight passage at "normal" speed.
1 Comment
The Tuamotu Archipelago or the Tuamotu Islands are a French Polynesian chain of just under 80 islands and atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean. They lie between the Marquesas islands and the Society Islands and stretch all the way down to meet the Gambiers in the east. In Polynesian language Tuamotu means 'remote islands' and they certainly are isolated! They are the largest chain of atolls in the world, extending (from northwest to southeast) over an area roughly the size of Western Europe, although their combined land area is only 850 square kilometres (328 square miles) - about 1/3 the size of the ACT! This archipelago's major islands are Anaa, Fakarava, Hao and Makemo and we visited two of those as well as Tahanea. Australians and Kiwis will sadly be familiar with Muraroa Atoll which lies in the far eastern part of the chain. This is one of the atolls where the infamous French nuclear testing took place.
The Tuamotus have approximately 16,000 inhabitants and their own Tuamotuan language which was inherited from the Polynesians, the first known inhabitants of the island. Like the Marquesas, the Tuamotus are now a French overseas collectivity.
All of the islands of the Tuamotus are coral "low islands": essentially high sand bars built upon coral reefs. They are circular or oval shaped with the higher land on the north- eastern sides, and bare fringing reefs on the windward or southern sides. Not much grows on the poor soil, coconuts palms are ubiquitous however and the flesh is harvested to make copra which is made into coconut oil. The lagoons are an ideal place to grow oysters and a number of atolls now host pearl farms, which produce the famous black “Tahitian” pearls and of course tourism has made it to some of the atolls, although it’s easy to avoid when you have your own yacht. Underwater the beautiful coral reefs are teeming with colourful and unique fauna, some of the best snorkeling we have experienced outside of the Barrier Reef, and we very much enjoyed exploring these. Making The Cut
From our anchorage in Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva to the atoll of Makemo in the Tuoamotus is 503nm. Each of the atolls generally has one or more entrances or “cuts” which are channels of varying depths and widths that boats can enter into the lagoon, through a gap in the coral reef. The cuts are naturally formed so each cut is unique in terms of location on the atoll, its depth and width and consequently the effect of wind and tide on the way water flows into and out of the atoll. It’s important to ensure you time your entrance through the cut well. Some cuts are known to produce standing waves if there is a strong wind-over-tide effect and you don’t want to be pounding into that coming through a narrow gap! If you have ever been to the Horizontal Falls in the Kimberlies you will have experienced how quickly a large volume of water can flow through a narrow gap, creating rapids. Well its kind of like that in the cuts, although thankfully most are not so dramatic.
It’s not always as simple as approaching these cuts right on slack tide, as some atolls have a huge volume of water wanting to move out, so even at the turn of the tide, and sometime thereafter, water may still be flowing in or out quite quickly. Around the mouth of the cuts, on the inside and outside, water swirls and back eddies and can make it difficult to steer and to line yourself up with a narrow cut. You need to have both engines on and be prepared to use them in anger!
There is a lot of talk amongst cruisers about the best time to enter and exit each of the atolls. One clever cruiser with a lot of time on their hands has developed a very sophisticated “guess-timator” – as an excel spreadsheet it’s a work of art! We try to get our heads around it and figure out what is the best time to go through the main cut at Makemo, but give up in the end and take it with a grain of salt. Now we just have to time our arrival to be in daylight, as well as being no more than 1-2 hours after the tide turns… Yeah right! Making it to Makemo
We set off on Friday morning, about an hour or so after our boat buddy, Ollie on Mai Tai. He is sailing this passage solo so we aim to keep in touch with him on a regular basis along the way. We are two sail reaching with pretty good conditions but still we don’t catch him up until the following day. Great to get some photos of each other under sail. He continued to message us his position every 3 hours so we could keep track of him and await his arrival.
At 2am on Monday morning we put the motors on to ensure arrival in daylight and with a reasonable timing for the cut. Hooked a big bull Mahe Mahe but he jumped a lot and sadly we lost the fish, hook and lure. Dang! It would have been pretty good to see the look on Ollies face, as he didn’t manage to catch anything. It’s flat calm as we arrive so the entrance to the Makemo cut looks fairly benign. We can see some eddies and swirling foam on the water but wonder what all the fuss was about. As we come in we can also see some people “drift snorkelling” on the outgoing current in the cut, towing their dinghies with them. This will become a favourite pass-time in the Tuamotus. We anchor in at the township of Pouhava amongst the rocks and bommies, it’s not the best holding as the ground is pretty hard, but its calm enough for the night.
Are you yanking my chain?!
When you are anchoring amongst coral heads (bommies) it is important to avoid damaging the coral with your anchor chain, which can happen when the boat swings around and the chain rubs against them. The other potential problem of course is that your anchor chain can get wrapped around a rock or coral head, as the boat turns at anchor and this shortens your scope, or end up breaking something. It can be difficult to untangle this and lift the anchor when it comes time to leave, and it is not unusual for cruisers to need a diver to get them out of trouble.
So in the Tuamotus we have to do what is called “floating your chain” when I first heard about it I thought: you must be yanking my chain! What a palava! But it is totally necessary in these parts.
It involves:
With the anchor on ITIKI set back behind the trampoline, the chain is not readily accessible to reach down and clip these floats on to the chain. We consulted other Helia owners and came up with a system of using a guide wire (VB cord) to take the lanyards on the floats back under the trampoline and into the anchor well so I could clip them on just like I do with the bridle. Needless to say our first attempt at implementing this was somewhat comical. The float lines got caught on the wrong side of the bridle rope and a fair bit of poking and prodding under the trampoline with the boat hook, along with some creative language, was required to sort it all out, much to the bemusement of the rest of the anchorage. In the end we finally got 3 floats on and it looked sort of ok, although probably a bit excessive for such a shallow anchorage. As there was no pressure on the anchor though, the weight of the chain pulled all of the floats together in a bunch – this could get ugly. Once the wind gets up and we pull back on the full scope of our chain, some of the buoys get pulled under water. They are still doing their job of keeping the chain off the bommies though, and we have made some revisions to the process for the next attempt. There are some pointy nosed fish that come by and start munching on the substantial green growth on our bridle rope. I hope they stick around and do the hull as well.
Cruisers' Committee Evaluates the Weather situation
As soon as we are anchored and settled we are invited for 5pm drinks ashore. There is one boat that we have met before, all the other boats we are meeting for the first time but they are very welcoming. If you believed what you saw on Instagram you would think we have perfect weather all the time, however experienced sailors will know that is not the case. We have all seen the forecast strong winds that due from the SE in couple of days – we later find out it is known as a “Squash” – more on that later. Everyone plans to move to another anchorage, either east or west, where the holding is better. We will go east.
Makemo manoeuvres – time to play spot the bommies
Ollie arrives the following morning having done an amazing job going solo for the first time. We go ashore, for a shop and order fuel. I go for a snorkel in front of the boat while we are waiting for delivery and find some big coral bommies with lots of small but colourful fish. We leave around 2pm, which is getting a little late - everyone else has already gone, and for a while we could hear them on the radio working together to spot bommies.
This is our first time navigating inside an atoll. We have been warned that our electronic charts showing the location of bommies and shallows may not be all that accurate and may be missing information. We can use satellite images from Google Earth on our phones, whilst we have internet coverage, but there is no substitute for Mk 1 eyeball on the water. It helps that the water is crystal clear and sun is still overhead. I stand on the coach house and scan in front of us. Polarising lenses are a must and I also use the binoculars to scan further ahead. We have our sonar switched on, but unless you are going quite slowly its warnings are likely to be too late. There are bommies that appear out of nowhere and break the surface. On the electronic charts there are unlabelled circles that seems to correspond to the location of some of the bommies, and it turns out to be pretty accurate. That said, we can’t rely on a blank space being free of danger. We get into a rhythm of scanning, spotting and navigating our way safely to the anchorage at Makemo East.
Anchoring goes much better this time. The water is just so crystal clear it is easy to find a good patch of sand and position ourselves well between the bommies and rocks. We find a larger sandy patch and nail the anchor, the floats go out smoothly and I swim the anchor and check it. With some weather coming we are much better off here, nicely dug in.
Makemo Mayhem
It’s the morning of the day the “squash” is forecast to arrive – what can we expect? how strong will the winds be? What time will it come? How long will it last? Looking at the forecast animation (I wish I recorded it) we see Makemo in a zone of no wind (blue) but coming up from the south-south-east is a sharp edged, dark, angry, red front where the wind goes from nothing to 35+kts. In other words it is going to hit like a bulldozer, pushing some nasties ahead of it.
A squash zone forms when an east-traveling high pressure system is very strong and/or moves very close to the tropics. The isobars on top of it are "squashed" together and the resulting trade winds are pretty strong. These southeasters generally arrive with a nasty cold front after the convergence zone or trough has passed.
We wake to a lovely, calm and sunny morning and go exploring on the SUPs while the weather is fine. It starts to clag in around 11 am and it starts blowing and raining. Not much we can do but sit tight and spend the day on the boat, catching up on jobs and keeping an eye on the anchor and bouys. The wind picks up overnight and the following day would have to be the worst conditions we have ever had at anchor. Fortunately we have never experienced anything like this whilst underway. The low atolls, even with a thick covering of tall coconut palms, provide little in the way of protection and the wind wraps around the bottom of the motus (the thin strips of land on the windward side of the atoll). We had thunder, lightning, torrential rain and incredibly strong winds. There were short, sharp 1-2m+ wind waves pushing through the anchorage as well and bouncing everyone up and down like a hobby horse. It was blowing 30-40kts consistently for several hours and occasionally gusting to 50+ kts. The strongest I actually saw was 58kts but would not be surprised if it went higher, I was just too scared to look at the dials! We just sat and watched and listened and kept checking our position. I will admit that at the height of it I felt like curling up in the foetal position and sucking my thumb.
A boat nearby us broke their anchor bridle and lost a heap of chain through their windlass. We thought they were dragging as they were getting closer to us, but they managed to get it under control. They tried to call us on the radio to tell us what was happening, but with all the noise of the wind we didn’t even hear them. We decided to let out some more chain as well, which was pretty tricky given the blow, but in a brief “lull” of “only” 30tks managed to perform the manoeuvre. Given the circumstances we didn’t put any extra floats on our chain so our floats all disappeared below the surface, dragged down by the weight of the fully stretched anchor chain. Least of our problems at the moment.
It was pretty scary stuff, really uncomfortable, stressful and unsettling, but the anchor didn’t budge and we rode it out. We had been concerned that floating the chain might compromise our holding, but that wasn’t the case. The wind started to back off in the afternoon and 20kts now felt like a gentle breeze. It was a mentally exhausting day even though we didn’t get much done. Everything is wet, our feet are cold and wet. The bimini is leaking pretty badly as well, as the fabric has aged and lost its water-proofness. ITIKI has kept us safe again though and we are so grateful to have such a great boat and a fantastic anchor. I should mention that we also had the moral support of all the other boats around us too as everyone tuned into the same VHF channel and checked in on each other regularly as we all sat around on anchor watch, wondering what was coming next. Although we had some nasty conditions it seems it was even worse further east. We heard from friends in Raroia atoll that one boat got hit by lightning and lost all instruments. 70kts was the highest windspeed they recorded! Although I would not want to experience those conditions again it showed us what we and ITIKI are capable of managing.
Adrift in the storm
Not long after the wind had peaked, Warren from VA (another Helia) put the dinghy in the water to retrieve one of their brand new cocktail deck cushions which blew off the top of the boat. As he was picking it up a wave hit him and he flipped the dinghy. He was now sitting on the upturned hull of his dinghy, drifting through the anchorage in 25+kts. Somehow he managed to flip it back but of course he had lost a fuel tank and the cushion and the engine would not work so he was frantically paddling to try and reach one of the other boats in the anchorage, as the wind swept him onwards. He was already too far from us to retrieve him, Ollie was standing by with a rope, he missed that too and ended up at Sea Bella, the very last boat at the back of the anchorage. They looked after him well by all accounts and bought him back later when the wind had backed off.
A few underwater scenes: The water is oh so clear!
Magical Makemo
The following day our world was a different place. The weather is back to normal, paradise weather, sunny skies and gentle breeze. Ollie had spotted a bommie on the way down here that looked interesting and marked it on the map. We took off in the dinghy to try and find it, anchored the dinghy and went for a snorkel to explore. Ollie took his spear gun which made me slightly nervous but I am soon distracted by a really colourful reef, beautiful coral and lots of brightly coloured, fluorescent giant clams embedded in the rock. The water is crystal clear too. Its good to get back to doing something nice and normal after the trauma of the last couple of days.
The next day we took a morning dinghy ride to the east of the anchorage where we found a sand-spit, beached the dinghy and went for a short walk. The sand is quite pink here, in fact it is pinker than more famous allegedly pink sand beaches that we have visited elsewhere, including the Madelennas in Italy. The sand is coarse, more like shell grit and your feet sink in in when you walk on it. Middle Makemo
Its time to head west, via the town anchorage, but Ollie on Mai Tai had a huge issue getting his anchor up. His chain has seemingly tied a clove hitch around a couple of rocks! He is on his own this takes quite a bit of manoeuvring to undo. The rocks and coral heads can be shaped like a mushroom so when your chain gets tucked underneath it can be very challenging to lift it. Keith went over in the dinghy to push Mai Tai this way and that, and it took about 30 minutes of fiddling to get it unravelled. We had a few minor issues getting our floats up, one of the fenders was split and full of water having been submerged during the Squash. Heading back to town we could essentially follow the track we came down on, but it only takes a meter or two difference in course and you can be on a bommie, so we still had to keep a good lookout.
We continued on the Makemo Central anchorage (Punaruka) which is 17nm from the main town. Again full concentration required to keep an eye out for bommies, particularly on our starboard side as the sun was coming from that direction. We anchored in close to shore amongst the bommies and our chain floating again went quite smoothly. The water is crystal clear and we have one bommie quite close to the back of the boat – checked the clearance with the boat hook - all good! It’s great to have a snorkelling spot so close to the back of the boat, in fact the water is so clear you dont even need to go in to see the fish! In the afternoon we went for a SUP and walked along the beautiful beach. There is a house here, a barking dog and some chickens running around. Quite a few hermit crabs walking along the beach too. They seem to have all the best shells!
It is so still in the morning the water is like glass and the reflections are amazing. We decided to re-anchored back just slightly to the right to get more clearance on the bommies. As it was so clear we could see the marks where the anchor was dropped originally. Of course we are now swinging close to different bommies but we checked the depth again and clearance is good.
I went for a SUP to take some pictures of ITIKI and had some small reef tip sharks swimming around me and under the board. Ollie caught a fish from his dinghy so we enjoyed some sushi. We do have to be careful eating reef fish though as they can carry a toxin called Ciguatera, which can build up in your system and make you quite ill. Exit Stage Left
We left our anchorage at Punaruka mid-morning the next day, planning to anchor close to the Makemo West cut for the night and leave there early the next morning. The distance to our next atoll, Tahanea is only 66nm so if we leave early in the morning we can arrive in daylight. Great plan, however when we got to the western anchorages they were just no good. To the south of the cut there were 2 boats, and one of them contacted us by radio saying there was no clear room to anchor. We headed over to the north of the cut and took a look at 2 possible anchorages, but one had too many big bommies and the other was too deep to know what the bottom was. We went back over to the south anchorage to take a closer look, taking a shortcut across the channel of the cut and clipping a rock. Oooops! Left a little anti-foul paint on that one@
The south anchorage was even worse than the other two. The two boats that were there said that they were not anchored but had their chains wrapped around bommies. Hmmm not a great practice. We were between a bommie and a hard place, literally! It was too late to safely return to last night's anchorage so we conferred with Mai Tai and decided to head out of the cut and do a slow overnight passage to our next atoll, Tahanea. We stayed in close contact with Mai Tai throughout the afternoon and could see him most of the night as well. Our poor autopilot was working hard to steer given our slow speed, we were making 2-3 kts with just a reefed genoa. It is actually really hard to sail slowly when there is enough breeze to go at normal speed, but we definitely didn't want to arrive in darkness and have to wait around at the cut for enough light to go in. Makemo was our first atoll, first time navigating the infamous passes into and out of the atolls, first time anchoring around bommies and floating our chain and definitely the first time we have seen 58kts at anchor! All in all a great learning experience and we are ready to tackle the next atolls so stay tuned for more! Oa Pou & Nuku Hiva
The northermost islands of the Marquesas are a little further away so we have an overnight passage to get to the next island, Ua Pou. After some dinner and rest we head off again at 9pm from Hanamenu, Hiva Oa. Had to motor for a good 4 hours before we got clear of the lee of the island and enough wind to hoist the kite. It was a little twisted from the loft pack, but Keith managed to sort it out and we got it up at around 1am in 10 kts. The repair looks fairly neat and strong. We held the kite overnight, gybing once. It was challenging at times as wind was light and shifty but it was good to see our Parasailor in action again.
OA POU ISLAND
We decided to take a look along the west coast of the island of Oa Pou, rather than going around the east side to another town. As dawn broke we could see land, so nice and novel to do such a short overnight passage! Held the kite until we lost the wind in the shadow of the island and motored close in to take a look at anchorage options. Had huge pods of dolphins come and play with us twice as we travelled up the coast. We ended up in Baie de Vaiehu which is deserted and surrounded by a spectacular rocky shoreline. The water in the bay is a little murky, stirred up by the strong swell and with some foam. Later on we did a tour of the shoreline by dinghy. There are some amazing rock formations, blow holes and caves. Had cocktails to celebrate our anniversary and the last of our Martinique duck for dinner.
A couple of other boats arrived as did Mai Tai so we stayed an extra day, exploring the bay on our SUPs and catching up on news and drinks. NUKU HIVA ISLAND
From our anchorage at Oa Pou it’s a relatively short hop of 32nm to the final island we will visit in the Marquesas. We sailed across most of the way to Daniel’s Bay anchorage, with Mai Tai not far behind. There is quite a swell running, crashing into the rocky shoreline. The entrance to the bay is difficult to spot at first as there is a channel which doglegs around a headland. The channel is well charted and once inside the bay opens up to a spectacular vista. I have used the word “spectacular” a lot to describe the anchorages in the Marquesas I know! The towering mountain peaks that shelter these bays really certainly have the “wow” factor. Here we have all round protection and once we are tucked into our anchorage we can’t see the entrance anymore. The water is clean but is not crystal clear and we see a few small and curious reef sharks around the boat. We are anchored on the eastern side of the bay, where there is a beautiful white sand beach. West of us is another beach which is black sand. Not quite sure how that works!
HAKAUI WATERFALL
Dinghied over to Hakeata bay (the black sand beach) to take a walk to the Hakaui waterfall. There is a small fee to pay to access the trail which passes through private property, and the caretaker offers us some juicy fresh pamplemousse for the journey (with a promise of more on our return). Passed a small restaurant along the way so we booked in for lunch on way back. The walk was quite a rugged path, with several creek crossings so we are glad we wore our Tevas. We got to a sign that said “access interdit” and it took a while to figure out where the path went next. We had to cross the creek halfway before we could see the rock cairns up on the opposite bank. Keith slipped and dropped his last pair of good sunglasses into the rapids, cursing as they made their way downstream, never to bee seen again!
We have now entered a narrow part of the valley surrounded by high cliffs and looking up the sky through a very narrow opening. There is a reasonable risk of rock fall here and we were warned to stay quiet. There is a small rock pool and we can see the waterfall through a crevasse in the cliffs. We walk through the mud, around the pool and scramble up onto a rock to get a better view. You can swim through the canyon to get right under the waterfall, but we decide to watch some others do that instead, eating some pamplemousse to sustain us for the walk back. It's pretty juicy and messy but delicious. The walk back is a quicker as we know where we are going and we are ready for lunch at the local restaurant, Kua et Taikai. The food is delicious. Fresh Tuna marinated in herbs and river prawns, caught this morning and cooked in fresh coconut. We buy some bananas and mango from the restaurant. On the way back to the dinghy we stop at the caretaker’s house and as promised he gives us a heap of pamplemousse and limes. I fashion a makeshift shopping bag from a sarong – these suckers are pretty heavy! What will we have for sundowners tonight? You guessed it – pamplemousse gin. CIVILISATION AGAIN
After the weekend, and the May Day public holiday it was time for another taste of “civilisation”. Its only 4nm around to the main town of Nuku Hiva, Taiohae Bay. It was pretty bouncy coming out of the bay and still quite rough until we got into the lee off the headland at the east of the bay. The bay and anchorage is huge – there are plenty of boats and lots of room - quite a swell in the bay with surf breaking loudly on the shore. Getting into the dinghy is challenging with it bouncing around and we have to be super careful. We head ashore for a reccie, the supermarkets are dire in terms of fresh fruit and veg, but we find the fresh markets near the dock to be pretty good. We have also managed to organise haircuts, which is a real treat as those selfies are looking a bit shabby!
The dinghy dock is probably the worst I have ever seen. A dozen or so dinghies surging back and forth against the high concrete pier - ouch. The fishermen are cleaning their catch along pier and tossing the scraps into the water, which attracts a good number of fair sized reef tip sharks for a feeding frenzy. A couple of dinghies have swung quite close to the fishermen, so I hope they don’t return to find fermenting tuna in their boat! ROAD TOUR OF NUKU HIVA
We have hired a car for the day to do a road trip with Ollie from Mai Tai, and up into the steep hills we go. The roads are windy and we climbed through numerous switch backs. There are regular stops for panoramic views of the bay, and we can almost see ITIKI! In the next valley we come to a village, where there is some kind of school carnival taking place. All the kids and teachers are in colourful, traditional costumes with different groups and themes. We watched a tree planting ceremony which has accompanied by some drumming and traditional singing, all in Marquesan language. This was followed by some dance routines, story telling different teams taking turns. We stayed and watched for a while - such a lovely, chance encounter.
Back up into the hills again and over the next ridge we came down into the valley to visit a historical site, a ceremonial meeting area of which there are a few remains. The valuable items have been removed but there are some replicas in place. Continued on to another small village, with a lovely church and a black sand beach. Hatiheu Bay is wide looks like a good anchorage surrounded by dramatic cliffs and rock formations along the shore. We stopped for lunch at the only restaurant, Keith had goat and Ollie had pork – both suspected road kill. I had curried fish, much better choice.
Up into the hills again and took another turn off towards the airport for some more winding, switchback roads. Stopped at one view point and then continued on to another, called the Grand Canyon. We are now at the highest point on the island and it is cold, windy and damp up in the clouds. We can see down along a vast canyon into the middle of the island. It is lined with fir trees and all very green and fertile.
On the way back to we stopped via the one supermarket we had not yet visited and were quite excited to find Aussie WeetBix! Yee haa! Only other cruisers truly understand the excitement and significance of such a supermarket find...
When we got back we found our dinghy had been moved and the prop was smashing on the concrete ramp. Great! One last stop to get dinghy fuel, pick up a gas bottle and load all of our shopping (mostly Ollie’s beer) into the dinghy and bounce our way back to our boats, thankfully getting all on board without losing any people or goods. We now have to say “au revoir” to The Marquesas as the clock is ticking on our 90 day visas and there is so much more to see. Tomorrow we have an early start to make the 503nm to Makemo, our first atoll in the Tuamotus. THE MARQUESAS
French Polynesia is made up of 120 islands and atolls, stretching over 2,000km in the South Pacific Ocean. There are 5 main island groups: The Marquesas, The Tuamotus, The Society Islands, The Gambiers and The Australs. Each island group has a unique language, but French is taught in schools and is widely spoken. We are allowed 90 days in French Polynesia, as non-EU citizens so we plan to visit the first 3 mentioned groups and to divide our 3 months equally between them. That should be plenty of time, right?!
France in the South Pacific
Tahiti was made a French protectorate in 1842 and a colony in 1880. French missionaries went to the Gambier group in 1834, and in 1844 a French protectorate was proclaimed, followed by annexation in 1881. The Tuamotus were claimed as dependencies of Tahiti within the protectorate by France in 1847 and became part of the colony in 1880. In the Marquesas, Nuku Hiva was annexed to the United States in 1813 but the annexation was never ratified. French occupation of the group followed the landing of forces from a French warship, and in 1842 the chiefs ceded sovereignty to France. The islands were administered as the French Colony of Oceania and the territory went on to become autonomous in 1984. In March 2003 France changed the classification of French Polynesia from overseas territory to overseas collectivity. Nowadays tourism is a big money earner throughout French Polynesia and the French government still kicks in significant financial support.
Les Iles Marquises
The Marquesas Islands group is our first stop in French Polynesia and one of the most remote in the world. It lies 4,800 km west of Mexico (the nearest continental land mass). It is thought to have been formed by a centre of upwelling magma, called the Marquesas hotspot. The islands are characterised by towering, craggy peaks and lush green vegetation. The islands were colonized in the 10th century AD by voyagers from West Polynesia. Over the centuries that followed, the islands have maintained their unique cultures and languages.
Our arrival
It's mid-morning on our 18th day at sea when we start to see land - the cloud-topped mountain peaks of the island of Hiva Oa - at about 33nm out. The wind had been backing off, as was our boatspeed, which had fallen to 3.8kts – our ETA was getting later and later. We decide to put the engines on for the last 30nm so we can arrive in daylight. The anchorage at Atuona Bay is a tricky one, very tight and subject to swell and swirling winds. It also has to accommodate large supply ships on a regular basis, so we are hoping we can find a spot! As we get closer to the anchorage we can see a large monohull moored outside the bay, where it is a bit rolly. Turns out to be friends on VooDoo a Hylas 70 that we met in Bonaire and spent Christmas and New Year with in Santa Marta. We wait for a large ship (The Aranui V, a combination supply ship and cruise ship) to come out of the anchorage before heading in. The anchorage is tight but we somehow find a space. A few boats have stern anchors set to stop them swinging around. We find Glam as well (also friends from Bonaire/Santa Marta) which is lovely. We auto-connect to their WiFi as we go past them and our phone start pinging with lots of messages! Voodoo drop by in the RIB to say hi. So lovely to be greeted by friendly faces after such a long journey.
We have lost track of time on our journey but it turns out its Easter Saturday in this Catholic country so we can’t check in until Tuesday! A few bonus days to add to our 90 day allowance. We send off a few emails notifying family and friends of our arrival, and hit the hay fairly early. It’s nice to move back into our own side of the hull.
Tahuata Island
We up anchor mid-morning and head the 12nm to the anchorage of Hanamoenoa on Tahuata. It’s a popular anchorage for cruisers, with a beautiful white sand beach the obligatory coconut palms. A welcome change from Atuona harbour and much more like what we expected to find on our arrival in Polynesia.
Despite averaging 6.8kts across the Pacific, we have a huge amount of growth on our hulls, including some reasonable-sized goose-neck barnacles. The brown goo spreads high above the boot stripe and it’s a dead give-away that a boat has just arrived in French Polynesia - along with the yellow flag of course! This is a great place to start trying to clean it off - it takes a fair bit of work and in some places it starts to stain the gelcoat. The water here is beautiful, warm and clear and we tackle a section each day. We head ashore in the afternoon for drinks on the beach with fellow cruisers. The beach is quite steep so you have to anchor your dinghy outside the breaking waves and swim ashore. Everyone floats around in the surf, chatting, getting dumped and giggling. Where are the dolphins?
We have been told about a bay where a pod of dolphins live and that we can swim with them. Not really sure about the location but it seems like a good idea. Glam head off and we follow, finding a nice enough bay (Hanetefau) that we think is the right one. Apparently the dolphins came in the morning, so we missed them and will have to wait. Glam team come over for coffee and banana cake instead. The next morning we don’t see any dolphins and decide it’s time to head back to Hiva Oa to check in and restock the pantry.
Checking in and getting stuff done
Atuona, Hiva Oa, is not a lovely anchorage, however here we have access to supermarkets, fuel, chandlery, sailmaker etc and we need to officially check into French Polynesia. As businesses open up again on Tuesday we reluctantly head back to civilisation. The town is 3.5km walk from the dinghy dock, slightly shorter if you cut across the beach and detour up the goat track, but our legs are a bit out of practice and there doesn’t seem to be any taxis. I spot the couple from the boat anchored in front of us getting into a rental car and in my best, very rusty French manage to cadge a lift into town. They are quite obliging, taking us around the key land marks including the gendarmerie, bank and supermarkets. Very nice of them. We go to check in which is relatively painless. Then we have to go to the post office to post our own customs form to Tahiti – less painless... The PO is only open in the morning as they are short staffed and the queue is a mile long. Not sure how it works though as people seem to come and go, seemingly other people have held their place for them. Finally there is general consensus amongst those waiting that it is our turn. We also get some local SIM cards so we are now back in business and can reconnect with the world. Of course the pantry is pretty bare, particularly of fresh foods, so we do the rounds of the supermarkets and buy way too much to carry. There is one restaurant in town and we struggle there with our booty and order one of two options that has not been crossed off the menu. Delicious curried prawns with frites and green beans. Meals are pretty pricey but we have since come to expect that in FP, eating out is expensive. The restaurant folk kindly offer to take us back to the port with all our shopping.
Kite sewing and sight seeing
There is not much to do or see in town, but our legs need some practice so we tackle the hike. We cut across the “beach” at the head of the bay, taking a big leap across a stream and then finding a steep, goat track up to the road. There are mango trees along the way and we help ourselves to some healthier looking specimens. In the town there is a Paul Gauguin museum which displays many copies of his artwork, stories of his time in Hiva Oa, French Polynesia and a recreation of the studio where he painted. Like many artists he died in poverty while his works went on to sell for $$$. He died in 1903 and is buried here in Hiva Oa.
After seeing the sailmaker to discuss our repair, and picking up our package, we head back to our now favourite, lovely beach anchorage at Hamanoenoa and wait for our boat buddy, Mai Tai to arrive. We spend a couple more days here, just enjoying the surrounds, with SUP trips ashore and walks along the lovely beach. Mai Tai arrives just after lunch so we take some fresh fruit and beer over to help them celebrate. Later we head ashore for sunset drinks so they can set foot on dry(ish) land. Great to have a debrief and celebrate their achievement.
Fatu Hiva
From our anchorage at Hanamoena Bay its 51nm to Hanavave on the island of Fatu Hiva. Many cruisers make landfall at Fatu Hiva to avoid the windward sail to get here from Hiva Oa. It’s not possible to check in at Fatu Hiva so doing this risks running foul of authorities and we had decided we did not feel comfortable with that, although after our passage here we could totally understand why people do it. We sailed down under main and Genoa, close hauled. Sea state was pretty bumpy with swell coming from two directions, a very short chop and quite unpleasant. We sail as far as we can but 12 miles out we are 7nm off course and going to miss the island completely, so we put both motors on, furl the genoa and head directly to our destinations. Had some dolphins drop by briefly to greet us, but it was too rough to go to the bow to watch them so they did not stay too long. Motoring into it wasn’t much fun either. Glam are already here and other friends and fellow cruisers arrive from their Pacific crossings whilst we are here, so we enjoy lots of celebratory catch ups.
The anchorage is spectacular, surrounded by lush green and very high hills on each side, with rocky outcrops that look like the famous easter island statues. Amazing! The bay used to be called the Bay des Verges (=penis) but the missionaries didn’t like this so they decided one of the rock/statues looked like the Virgin Mary and changed the name to the Bay des Vierges (=virgins). Nice one missionaries!
There is not much ashore, a small village and one shop, which wasn’t open very often. We met a local chap (Poi) who offered us some fruit and to take us on a tour of the island. We got some pamplemousse, limes and avocados and bought a bone carved necklaces from him, the Marquesas symbol. Walked up into the hills as far as the road would take us. It’s very green and fertile, with spectacular views through the valley and back down to the bay.
So many fellow cruisers have arrived, so we invited a few people over for drinks. They packed their kids off to Glam for movie night and the adults joined us. It got a bit ugly when Angus pulled out the Martinique rum… So lovely to hear everyone’s stories from their crossings.
Vaieenui Falls
We joined the gang of “kid boats” for a walk to the waterfall, it’s quite a crowd with all the kids but lots more fun. We weren’t paying attention and ended up taking a wrong turn but came across a pretty amazing tree with lots of roots. Doubled back and found the right path, which was pretty obvious, and walked through a farm past a very large bull who was sitting down calmly. The waterfall is a very high, shear faced cliff with not so much water falling. The water in the pool is clear and clean and everyone is in for a swim – so lovely and refreshing to swim in fresh water. We find a few eels and yabbies around the rocks. The kids and their dads decide to jump off the rocks into the water. On the way back the bull is up and about and being rather aggressive but we manage to scoot past him, fortunately his tether held him back! Later we pass some barking dogs and one of them goes for little Matilda. Keith runs at it, shouting and waving his hat and it runs off. She was quite rattled.
Back in the town we visit a lady who is making banane sechee or dried bananas, in her yard. This is a traditional Marquesan treat - the bananas are peeled, sliced in half and sun dried, then wrapped tightly in a bundle, tied with banana leaves (traditionally) or cling film (not so traditionally). We bought some of these as well as some local honey and also helped ourselves to some fresh rosemary from her garden.
Road trip, Fatu Hiva
There are only 20 odd kms or road on Fatu Hiva, nevertheless we can go for a road trip. We met Poi a couple of days earlier when he offered us some fruit and also to take us around the island. The roads are naturally very steep and negotiating the switch backs requires some concentration and a couple of 3 point turns. We stopped at a few different places to admire the views which were spectacular.
Poi explains about the “le trou d’amour” which is a small hole in one of the soaring cliffs overlooking the island. Legend has it that lovers had to go here to consummate their relationships otherwise they would not be accepted by the village. In reality though it is quite impossible to get to, even for mountaineers. The interior is rugged and the mountains steep and rocky. About 400 people live on the small village of Hanavave where we are anchored, a few more live in Omoa the southern village.
As we wind down the other side of the island the landscape changes - different types of trees here and it is much warmer and drier. The village is only slightly bigger than Hanavave but there are a couple of shops. We visit the community gathering area, a feature of many Polynesian villages, and here there is a great collection of stone Tikis. Some have been are gifted to Fatu Hiva by other Marquesan islands and show characters from legends and fables. We visit the church with its stain glass windows and beautifully carved wooden lectern and sacristy. Next it is on to see an artisan couple that makes tapas – not the Spanish foody kind! These are tattoo style ink paintings that are done on bark. The bark of the bread fruit tree (l’arbe a pain) and another type of tree are used. The bark is pounded until it is flat, thin and pliable, almost like a stiff leather, it can be white or fawn. We buy a white one of course, a lovely souvenir.
Poi tells us his wife is currently in Tahiti to give birth to their 3rd son. The health system pays for her to go but not him so he needs money for a ticket, which is quite expensive. We pay him the money for the tour and he promptly buys a bottle of rhum… Swimming with Mantas
In the afternoon there was much excitement on Miles Away, who are anchored nearby, as there were some manta rays swimming around the boat. Keith and I took a break from boat jobs and jumped into the water with camera and snorkelling gear. They were amazing to swim with, sometimes coming directly towards you with their huge mouths open. The water here is not so crystal clear so it seemed like they just suddenly appeared out of the darkness.
What exactly is a pamplemousse anyway?
On our walk around the village one day we came across an artisan making stone tikis. He had the chain saw out and was carving some red rock. We stopped to watch for a while and got chatting to him. He showed us an amazing chess set that he had carved from wood, each of the pieces was intricately done and the base of the table was carved into the shape of a turtle. He will be exhibiting this at an up-coming Marquesas expo in Tahiti in a couple of months’ time. It has taken him several years to complete the chess set, and he is still working on a couple of chairs to go with the table. He is responsible for a couple of the Tikis we saw over at Omoa as well including the lovely one of the couple back to back on the waterfront.
As seems to be tradition here, he generously offered us some fresh fruit. He disappeared for a few minutes and came back with several large pamplemousse which were growing in his garden. What is a pamplemousse? Well in short it is French for grapefruit, but these Marquesan pamplemousse are no ordinary grapefruit. They are at least twice the size of the standard yellow supermarket variety that we get back home, and at least 3 times as juicy and delicious. Just the right mix of tart and sweet. They grow like wildfire in these parts and wherever we go we are offered this delicious fruit, often for free. It takes a bit of practice to peel and pith them, the skin is very thick and each segment is covered by fibrous pith, but the rewards are worth it. Pamplemousse gin becomes a new cocktail our favourite around the anchorage!
Back to Hanamoenoa, Tahuata, again
Well it is such a lovely spot, it became our base to return to. Set out around 7am and the sail was much better than the way down, with swell from only one direction, it would have been good with the kite but that’s still with the sailmaker, so we had to goosewing instead with main and gennaker. Domino (a 35’ mono) who left around the same time, have an asy up doing good speeds and over took us at the bottom end of Tahuata. I got some photos of them with the kite up which I sent later. We get to Hamanoenoa and head to the beach with Ollie for the Mowzer twins 10th birthday party, complete with pamplemousse gin for the adults!
We spent the rest of the weekend here going ashore on the paddle boards, doing circuits with Zoe and Yoga with Erin, nice to get back into some physical activity.
A hard day & night
Hanamoenoa, Tahuata Island to Atuona Bay, Hiva Oa (8nm) to Hanamenu Bay, Hiva Oa (15nm) to Baie to Vaiehu, Oa Pou Island (65nm) – sometimes we just like to push ourselves!
After yoga ashore we head off to Atuona, Hiva Oa to collect our Parasailor. The bay is full and it’s difficult to find a place to anchor with boats swinging every which way. We end up near the mouth of the bay, not ideal and very rolly, but good holding.
The boat is a bit of a shit fight but with missions accomplished there is no need to stay in this horrible anchorage so we fire up the engines and head off, hot and exhausted already and its only lunch time. We manage to pull out a sail for a bit but as we get closer to our destination, and around the western-most point of Hiva Oa where the wind turns onto the nose as it wraps around the top of the island. We have wind over tide, short sharp chop which is uncomfortable but only for a couple of miles. The anchorage is a long bay, deserted and seems well enough protected. There is a statue of the virgin Mary perched precariously, high up on the cliffs above us. I don’t think she gets too many visitors.
How we crossed the ocean
From The Galapagos Islands of Ecuador to the Islas Marquises of French Polynesia will be the longest single leg of our journey home in ITIKI, at 3020nm (that's 5,600kms)! After a very easy run down from Panama to Galapagos, and after a lot of discussion and reflection on how far we have come, the passages we have done, the conditions we were expecting, we decided not to take on any crew for this passage. It would just be the two of us. We felt confident we could do it, mentally and physically, although in the back of my mind I knew it would be challenging for me if something happened to Keith. We felt we were pretty well prepared though, and although you can’t control everything on balance we were quietly confident.
To put our journey into perspective, this 3,000nm leg to the Marquesas from Galapagos is nearly 5 x the Sydney to Hobart yacht race (which is 628nm). Since we picked up ITIKI in La Rochelle we have done 19,000nm (34,000km) as far as the Galapagos. The furthest point east we made it was in Turkey, which is now 7,150nm away (13,240kms, as the crow flies) from Galapagos. Our home town of Sydney now lies 6,950nm to our west. Once we arrive in the Marquesas we will be only 3,900nm (7,200kms) from home!
How do you prepare for 3 weeks at sea?
We expected the Pacific passage to take just under 3 weeks in total, assuming we would head south to pick up the easterly trade winds and then turn right to have a down-wind run. This leg is known as the Coconut Milk run after all. Preparing for any long passage, the main focus is on safety of course but comfort has to come into it as well. We have a checklist of standard preparations, here are some of the key points:
And we are off!
With the Galapagos exit inspectors gone, we have a final cup of tea and can delay no longer. We lifted anchor about 11:30am, John and Gill from SV Mehalah waved us off. Bearing in mind we are still in the area called the Doldrums, we expected some lightish conditions before getting into the solid and reliable easterly trade winds. We were advised to head south to 4-5 degrees latitude, before turning right to run downwind. We have a good SE breeze initially steady at 12kts so it's perfect for the gennaker. Seas are flatish initially with good current in our favour so we are making great speeds. The wind soon built to the limit of the gennaker so took it down, and didn’t lose much in speed at all with the genoa.
That’s been a long time coming!
Just before 4pm, just to the south of Isabela, we heard a sound that we haven’t heard before. Yes the zing of the fishing rod! I bring the boat up head to wind to slow her down while Keith tries to reel it in. We were doing 8s and I dropped her down to 4s which seemed to be enough. Keith thinks we have lost it for a while but as it comes closer we see the unmistakable shape of a Mahe Mahe, and a good sized one too. I frantically rifle through the lazarette to find gloves, the gaff, the woefully inadequate net and finally the big blue plastic bucket. The fish is really fighting as he gets the transom, Keith gets the gaff in but it is not a fatal blow. Sadly it is not a quick death and we both really feel for this creature. We tell ourselves we will honour it by savouring its flesh…. As it dies the bright yellow colour slowly fades. I manage to take a few pictures and get a message off to Ollie from Mai Tai, whose rod we are using, and TheWildThings, who gave us our most recent fishing lesson. Keith manages to kill our catch with the filleting knife and eventually hacks off the head and removes the intestines without puncturing them. I find the fishing book and open it to the filleting page and set up the BBQ/filleting tray. Keith does his best to skin our catch - all up landing the fish and getting it filleted took about 1.5 hours. I am sure we will get better with practice! Anyway that’s dinner sorted tonight, and tomorrow night, and 2 more serves in the freezer. I am glad I didn’t rush to the fish markets this morning! It was also lucky we had the genoa up and not the gennaker as we probably would have had to furl the latter and probably would have lost the fish and all the line!
Strange Currents
On my watch around 3am we go through a very strange patch of water. It was dark but it suddenly sounded like we were sailing through rapids. I put the torch out and saw flatish whitecaps even though we only had 8kts TWS. Wind over tide it seems as the current was 2kts on from our starboard side, on the beam, whilst the wind is directly opposite on our port beam! The torchlight picks up hundreds of tiny fish (or maybe even squid) jumping and occasionally something larger chasing them! I also see some floating plastic bottles. This lasts about 20mins and we are back to normal seas again. Very strange.
Later that afternoon I see some whale blows about a mile away, then some dorsal fins and later 2 small whales breaching. Its lovely to see them but the recent experience of SV Raindancer I mentioned earlier puts a dampener on the experience. Sunset is spectacular with the clouds on the horizon looking almost like trees. There is a sliver of a moon just above the coral coloured horizon which sinks not long after the sun. The sky is fairly clear most of the night and stars are magnificent. Rinse and repeat
As the journey rolls on, the days start to blur and become repetitious. It is a little boring, which actually is a good problem to have! With just two of us, we keep a pretty standard 4 hour watch system. It goes like this:
We keep the same times and fall into a routine. During the day when there is good visibility we rely on the autopilot and use the time to do odd jobs, prepare meals, catch a few zzzzs etc Once the sun goes down we are stricter about keeping a look out. Fishing boats become rarer, but they are often not on AIS and so we keep a lookout for lights on the horizon. When off watch, catching up on rest and sleep is really important. On shorter, overnight passages through busy traffic areas the “off watch” person sleeps in the saloon on the sofa to be close at hand, but on this longer passage where there are few other boats around, its nice to sleep in our own bed, even though we are not in it at the same time. The only problem is that the autopilot is on the starboard side and the intermittent and irregular groaning coming from the hydraulic arm of the autopilot is enough to drive one crazy, as it is right next to your head. So we make up the bed in the port aft cabin and that is where we end up sleeping when off watch. Lovely and quiet!
WE FIND THE TRADE WINDS - Parasailor up!
The are 10 degrees to the north and south of the Equator is known as the Doldrums. In this region, the winds can be fickle and at times non existent. We have been fortunate that we have had enough wind to sail all the way from the Galapagos.
On the afternoon of day 4 we hit the jackpot – we find the trade winds at around 4degrees south. The wind angle is now perfect for us to turn right so we changed to the Parasailor. This involves furling and stowing the gennaker, putting engines on so we can come up head to wind, dropping the main then turning downwind again onto course, hoisting and launching the Parasailor. We love our Parasailor, its easy to manage and in calm conditions it can keep us moving along nicely. We hoisted it in light winds, which were directly from behind. Progress was slow at first, it’s not our fastest angle of sail, but the creak and flog of the mainsail was gone and the sail just looks after itself. It rotates from side to side as the wind direction shifts through a few degrees, or the angle of the boat changes as we are picked up or nudged along by waves. It makes for very pleasant sailing conditions. We are sailing on apparent wind hold which keeps us trimmed to take advantage of any wind shifts. We are making great progress west and slowly creeping southwards as well as westward.
After dropping the main we noticed that the outer sheath of the 1st reefline had chafed through – again! This line has been chafed through, chopped off and re-led several times now, each time we think we have figured out and bypassed the problem but it seems not. This time Keith puts a Technora sheath over where we think the chafe point is. Let’s hope we have nailed it now.
Loved to death!
Fast forward to day 17 and we started getting some blustery conditions with the wind becoming increasingly shifty. We had to intervene a bit too often, changing course to ensure that the kite stayed full and trimmed. Sudden wind shift collapses the kite before the autopilot, or the person on watch, can react. This happened a few too many times and we should have seen the writing on the wall, but sadly after one big collapse, the force of refilling the kite ripped the top of the sail horizontally, just above the wing. I was on watch but Keith heard the bang of the wind refilling the sail and was quickly up from the bed to investigate. He was standing in the saloon when I told him we had ripped the kite but he was looking very confused like he didn’t believe me. From where he was standing he could see the bottom half of the kite still flying perfectly trimmed! Meanwhile the sky was visible through the top half!
Regular readers will recall that we shredded the lower half of the kite on our Atlantic crossing. This lower half was ripped up so badly it had to be completely replaced with new cloth. Thankfully this part is still intact, as is the wing. The upper section was the original cloth and had clearly seen more sunshine, moonlight and good times! We were able to snuff the kite and change to the main and Genoa (both with 1 reef) in time for sunset. Squally conditions continued throughout the night with dark, dense clouds passing over is, bringing more wind and some rain. We passed a freighter going the other direction whilst in the midst of a particularly nasty patch so had to hold a tight course. Shifty and gusty winds made for a busy and bouncy night. Our milk run has turned into a milk shake as seas are quite big too but all is well on board. At least we are making good speed!
Parasailor in the sail loftOut of sight, out of mind
It was about 25 miles from Isabela, Galapagos, when we lost sight of land. We essentially went 18 days and nights without seeing land. The further we went into the Pacific, the further we got from land and civilisation. Once we reached the middle of the Pacific, we were 1,500nm or 2,780 km) from land, which is way further than the International Space Station at 408km from Earth! Have you ever wondered what that feels like? Me too. Amazing, daunting, somewhat unnerving, but we don’t really spend too much time dwelling on it. I think that if you did you could very easily become unhinged. At sea level it is 3 miles to the horizon, so looking all around us we see a 6 mile diameter circle of sea, our planet, our world. Our universe crunches down to our 13.3m x 7.6m space called ITIKI. A bit like the 2 weeks of quarantine in the early days of CoVID, except no Netflix and no sending out for Uber eats. Alot of yachts have got StarLink now but it’s actually quite nice not having internet, a good reminder of how much time you can waste going down rabbit holes.
Instead we are living in the moment, focusing on keeping the boat moving and systems running smoothly. We get occasional messages via the Sat phone from other boats nearby, and the novelty reminds me of the early days of dial up internet! A well oiled Machine
We are carefully monitoring the battery levels and managing our power. We need to keep our fridges and freezers running but also keep the autopilot working, so we don’t have to hand steer! If we don’t get enough power from the sun because of cloudy days or shading from the sails, we need to run the generator. We make water every few days to keep the tanks nice and full, and keep up with the washing. There are always odd jobs to do, and we regularly check the boat for wear and tear, chafe or compression on lines and we rock the Parasailor Halyard every second day.
I make bread every second day, yoghurt twice a week, and am often planning and cooking meals etc. We make sure we look after ourselves, it’s important to eat well and drink plenty of water. We listen to podcasts, our late afternoon ritual which has replaced “sundowners” - working our way through the gripping BBC podcasts “13 Minutes to the Moon” and “The Lazarus Heist”. We read, do Sudokus, sort out photos and try to catch up on blogs. What time is it?
We end up crossing several time zones on our way across the Pacific. Friday night is usually marked by a Cosmopolitan so in keeping with tradition we enjoyed the “on passage” version of this classic cocktail, listened to a podcast and watched the sunset. It’s easy to lose track of time when the Parasailor and autopilot are doing all the work! I was officially on watch but it was lovely to share time together at the helm rather than being ships that pass in the night!
Keith did the 8pm til midnight watch while I slept. When I woke and checked the time on my iPad I saw I had overslept by 40mins! Why had he not woken me?! That’s the rules! When I got up there was much confusion as the chart plotter was showing 1 hour earlier than our phones. Keith was insistent he had not extended his watch, and indeed had only ticked off 3.5 hours. Hmmm… It seems that the chartplotter had changed time to 1 hour earlier but when? It took us a while to realize that it had done this during cocktail hour without us noticing! All very confusing but at least we had shared “the long watch”! Over the rest of our journey the chart plotter changed time zones several times, until we finally got into Marquesas time, there were a few longer watches which was a bonus for whomever was off watch! Weather conditions
Well over a period of 18 days of our passage we obviously had a lot of different conditions, but overall it was a relatively easy passage. We managed to sail pretty much all the way from leaving Galapagos at one end, to seeing land at the other end. We never lost the wind completely as some yachts did. We always had more than enough breeze to keep moving. The only time we motored was to take down the mainsail and change to the Parasailor, and on sighting land 33nm out. Sometimes keeping us moving entailed a fair bit of work and concentration, playing with the wind angle to get the most out of our sails, other times we just sat back and let the autopilot do all of the work! Sometimes we were grateful to just be moving at 2-3kts. For the first half of the trip we had a good 1-2kts of current with us which was a real bonus. At the other end of the scale, we rarely had gusts over 25, and if we did it was short lived. We had the odd squall but interestingly, whilst we regularly saw thick, low, dark cloud they often did not show anything on the radar, rarely lifted the wind considerably and brought little to no rain and – thankfully – no lightening. We know of one yacht that copped a direct hit from lightening mid-Pacific which took out 90% of their electronics including main and back up autopilot. What a nightmare!
There were times when the sea state was less than pleasant, rather than the nice easy following sea we expected. At times we had waves hitting us on the beam, not coming from the same direction as the wind. This usually means that the wind direction has changed recently and the wave systems have not caught up. We had around 20 hours of really nasty swell and rough seas but nowhere near as bad as our Atlantic crossing – just not fun. And suddenly its over!
Its mid-morning when we start to see land. The island of Hiva Oa is quite high and we are about 33nm out. The wind has been backing off and we are doing 3.8kts of boatspeed, and the expected arrival time is getting later and later. We decide to put the engines on for the last 33nm so we can arrive in daylight. As we get close to the anchorage we can see a large yacht moored outside the bay, where it is a bit rolly. Turns out to be our friends on VooDoo a 70’ Hylas which is just too big for the tight anchorage. We wait for Aranui V (well known, cargo / cruise ship) to come out before heading in. The anchorage in Atuona Bay is pretty tight but we find a space in the middle. A few boats around the fringes have set stern anchors set. We find SV Glam here as well which is lovely (especially as we can get onto their internet!) Voodoo drop by in the RIB to say hi, everyone is heading to another nearby anchorage tomorrow as we can’t check in until Tuesday, because it is Easter Saturday in this Catholic country. We send off a few emails and hit the hay fairly early. It’s nice to move back into our own side of the hull.
The 3,020 nm from Santa Cruz, Isabella took us 18.5 days (factoring I the time changes) and we averaged 6.7kts boat-speed. We have zero fresh fruit left and vegetable wise, half a cabbage and a potato, but plenty of meat, lentils and cans! The Parasailor was our only casualty and we can get that fixed in Hiva Oa. All in all it was a very easy and satisfying journey and importantly we are still speaking to each other! To read our daily log, check out our journey on noforeignland via the link below:
Santa Cruz is the final island we visit on our tour of the Galapagos. It’s the most developed island, quite a tourist hub offering tours to all of the other islands, and providing a pick up point for the small cruise ships that ply these waters. It is also the best place to provision for our upcoming Pacific Ocean crossing. Having seen all of the iconic Galapagos animals it feels like our visit is winding down as we shift focus to the next stage. Nevertheless Santa Cruz was well worth exploring as two important questions remain unanswered: 1. Do those marine iguanas really swim? (and if so what stroke do they do?) 2. Can Lynda fit inside a giant tortoise shell? Read on to find out.
Isabela to Santa Cruz
From the island of Isabela to Santa Cruz is 40nm heading NE. The forecast was for very little wind but filling in by the afternoon but as we were getting 8kts of breeze by 9ish in the anchorage we decide to up anchor and go for it. We had a pretty good sail for a while with the gennaker, but eventually lost the wind and motored the last 3 hours. Lost 2 lures along the way and caught nothing. We arrive into the anchorage to meet up with the crew of Miles Away, Mowzer and WildThing2, part of the Santa Marta crowd. Everyone is sympathetic about our fishing woes, our reputation is by now well known in these anchorages, its embarrassing, however it does mean we are regularly donated recently caught fish by those more proficient than us (and whose freezers are full!) In this case Mahe Mahe from The WildThings, who also offer to give us a much needed fishing lesson!
The town here in Santa Cruz is a much larger, more developed and substantial town than San Cristobal, lots more supermarkets, tourist shops and restaurants, not to mention paved streets. We walk up to the Darwin Research Centre, which hosts researchers studying the unique flora and fauna of the Galapagos. There is a small exhibition hall with a big whale skeleton and some tortoise shells we can look inside. It’s super hot and we are getting very sweaty – so we check out a couple of beaches along the path. The sand is lovely and soft and the black lava rocks are teeming with marine iguanas – so far none seem that interested in giving us a swimming demonstration though.
Tortuga Beach
One afternoon we walked across to Tortuga beach – a reasonably long walk on an undulating concrete path to a beautiful, long white beach with the softest sand. It is fringed with black lava rocks which hosts the now familiar marine iguanas. The strong waves and current make it challenging for swimming but we managed to cool off in the shallows. The marine iguanas have heeded the warning signs, and again none of them are up for a surf. It’s a super hot day and as much as we enjoy walking, it is really draining so we have to stop for an ice cream on the way back. There is no savouring it though, you have to eat it really quickly or it is running down your arm!
Into the woods
We joined Gill and John from Mehalah to take a taxi tour up into the hills. Our first stop was Los Gemelos (the twins) two really big craters side by side. These are not volcano craters but were formed by the collapse of lava tunnels beneath. The craters are deep and heavily forested, and we have a lovely walk around them and through the rainforest. This area is famous for its lava tunnels and we visit one that we can walk all the way through. The tunnel is well lit and about as wide and high as a subway station - there is one short, section where we need to get down on our hands and knees to crawl through and of course this is where the water collects so it gets a little muddy. The tunnel looks fairly stable although here and there we can see where a large chunk of rock has fallen some time ago (we hope). It is interesting to be in a cave with no limestone, no stalactites or stalagmites, it is all lava rock. Our final stop is the Rancho Primicias which is actually a cattle farm which provides a large, free range area for giant tortoises to roam about. They have a great display of a tortoise skeleton with shell as well as a shell that you can climb into. Yes! I can fit into a giant tortoise shell! I manage to do a couple of push ups with the shell on, which is pretty impressive as the shell weighs around 80kg, which is more than me! No wonder those tortoises are so slow getting around. We walk around the grounds with a guide and he points out some of the regular tortoise visitors. The animals are not fenced in and are free to come and go as they please, it’s not a breeding or rescue centre, just a safe place for them to roam. There are some pretty big tortoises here, and although we have seen them before they are still very impressive and special. It’s a much wetter environment for them than on San Cristobal and they seem to enjoy wallowing in the water and feasting on the lush vegetation. They come to the ranch to hook up with mates and breed, but then the females then head down to the lower and warmer ground to lay their eggs. The parents don’t take any care of the young so once the eggs so they are on their own.
Puerto Ayora (Academy Bay)
Academy Bay is the main anchorage in Santa Cruz. As with the other islands, taking your own dinghy ashore is not the done thing. Water taxis are the best way to get around, although getting bulky shopping back on board, and past the seal defences on your transom can be challenging when the afternoon swell kicks in. It’s a really bouncy anchorage but the water taxi drivers are very handy and fortunately we avoided any mishaps. The seals in the harbour have not really paid us much attention, having moved on to easier targets. WildThing2 is an Outremer with large sugar scoops who have used their SUPs to create a barrier, leaving a small area exposed – the seals seem to prefer this to ITIKI. The main public dock is a great place to hang out and watch the aquatic wildlife including turtles, small reef tip sharks and YES marine iguanas swimming around. We finally see our first swimming specimens in action. They are much more streamlined and gainly in the water than on land, using a funky, latin-inspired hip wiggle to give them momentum, they cruise around the bay very elegantly.
Fun times with families and friends
After a day of boat jobs in preparation for the next leg of our journey we joined some fellow cruisers for an evening of R&R ashore. There are 3 "kid boats" all anchored nearby and it was quite exciting getting aboard the water taxi with kids and scooters and explaining in our dodgy Spanish to taxi driver that they need to go to this boat, then that boat, then back again because someone forgot something and then finally unloading everyone and their gear at the other end. There is a street set back from the waterfront which is buzzing in the evenings and lined with great value restaurants serving local fare. They display today’s catch on ice and we chose one that can manage to organise a table for the 10 of us. We enjoy a lovely meal of local seafood, lots of talk, sharing plans, tips, tall tales and plenty of laughter – followed by ice cream on the way back and a little more fun getting tired kids (and emotional adults) and scooters back to our respective boats. Such a fun crowd to share great times with and we know we will meet again soon in another anchorage, in another country.
Playa Alamanya
Went ashore one Sunday morning to try to visit Las Grietas, which is an river canyon where you can swim and snorkel, similar to Los Tunnels on Isabela. Enjoyed a walk along a path to Playa Alamanya (German Beach) which is a mangrove lined beach, then walked on to the entrance of Las Grietas to find that the 10:30 tour was full and departed. Its very busy today being a Sunday and locals can go for free so we book in for the 11:30 tour, pay our money and go to the beach for a swim. The shores are lined with mangroves and the tide is coming in so the beach will soon disappear, but the iguanas seem to like it and we see several of them swimming around - pretty cool! Sadly the 11:30 tour to Las Grietas did not eventuate, Sunday is not a good day to do it as it’s so busy. Clearly it wasn’t meant to be. We caught up with some fellow cruisers on their return from a tour to Isabela, where they had hiked the volcano. Had a drink and said our farewells and continued onto have a lovely dinner at the Midori Sushi Pub, Japanese food with fresh local tuna.
A little bit of diesel
As we are about to head across the longest single stretch of our journey, 3000nm to French Polynesia, we want to make sure we have full fuel tanks. Getting diesel in the Galapagos is a bit of a saga and can be quite expensive. Of course the supply is strictly controlled as it has to come a long way from mainland Ecuador. We refuelled on arrival, organising it through our agent to be delivered to the boat, but the cost was double the price at the pump! We also had to deal with unwieldy 15 gallon drums. Having realised we already paid for a “fuel permit” we pushed our agent to provide this for us, so we could go directly to the pump and fill our own Gerry cans at the pump price. If only it were that simple… Having been given the run around and drip fed information about the process, we eventually managed to piece together the puzzle. The permit will only be issued by the agent within 24 hours of departure, once we have booked our exit inspection, so we have to wait until we are sure we are leaving, confirming weather etc. On the appointed day/time, we head to our agent’s office with our empty Gerry cans, drop off our passports and we are escorted to the fuel station by our agent’s offsider in a taxi to the gas station. Our permit papers are scrutinised and stamped in triplicate. They refill our 5 x 5 gallon jerry cans, managing to fit 29 gallons in… They only take cash so I whip out the $50 notes I brought for the occasion, only to be told they don’t accept $50s or $100s! We managed to scrape together the $99 we needed from smaller notes and coins before dropping the agent back to his office and being off loaded at the cargo dock with our loot. Getting the Gerrys cans back to the boat was fun as there was quite a swell running. Keith jumped onto ITIKI while I handed them up to him. I think we surprised ourselves that we managed to get them all back on board without mishap! We are now officially read to leave the Galapagos and head to to Hiva Oa, French Polynesia, 3020nm away.
Oh but wait!
The morning of our departure we were up early and trying to remember everything needed to do for final preparations. Well we cant just up anchor and sail off into the sunset. We need to have an exit inspection. The official Inspectors, along with our agent rep, arrived just after 9 and filled in more paperwork, walked around the boat in their hobnail boots and took pictures. I guess that they need to make sure we are not souveniring a tortoise or two! A few more final preparations, removal of our Galapagos garbage signs, some mindful breathing exercises and it was time to depart on our longest single passage since launching ITIKI. Lifted anchor about 11:30, John and Gill from Mehalah waved us off and that was it, we are on our way. Spoiler alert, we made it to French Polynesia – a full report of our passage is coming soon!
Iguanas to the left of me, Boobies to the right...Wreck Bay, San Cristobal to Puerto Vilamil, Isabela
From Wreck Bay in San Cristobal island we sailed the 83nm to our next stop, the western most and largest island of Isabela. This made for a very long day trip, by-passing Santa Cruz. We will back track to Santa Cruz to do our provisioning and check out (which can’t be done on Isabela). Lifted the anchor just before 6am to discover that our anchor chain counter had stopped working. Seems that our quick-fix, cheap and nasty magnet has rusted away and destroyed the sensor. We have a work around though, which is a piece of electrical tape on the windlass. I have to count the number of turns, each of which is 40cm… I am hoping the next anchorages are not too deep, as I imagine becoming hypnotized, very dizzy or something weird like that.
We had enough breeze to put the main up and unfurl the gennaker and we were able to sail a lot of the way. As the breeze shifted onto the nose we unfurled the genoa and could come up a bit. Eventually though it was too high and we had to stick the motors on and push into it. As night fell and I came on watch about 7pm it started raining. We had squalls on and off for the rest of the evening and it was quite cool. The bimini has started leaking and so I put some plastic sheet under the frame. We have a hard top bimini on our wish list for when we return. There is a reasonable amount of light despite the cloud, as it is a full moon. I started to see the outline of the a few of the smaller islands and rocks in the gloom and then some lights from the shore around 10ish. We ended up anchoring at Puerto Vilamil, which is on the south east coast of the J-shaped island of Isabela, at about 11:40pm. There are 4 other yachts here, all monos and we set to the west of them, a little bit exposed to the swell. It’s quite shallow at 3m and of course tidal.
Even though we have only come 80 odd nm to another island in the same group, in the same country, we have to do a formal, local check-in process. Manuel our agent, came over at 8:30am the next morning with the Port Captain for our local check in. It’s much easier than the initial check in, just filled in a few self-reported details in a ledger which the skipper signed and stamped. Wind has gotten up significantly and we are getting 21Kts from 230 degrees. It’s very bouncy in the anchorage and we decide rest up and get settled in before going ashore. After the onslaught of seal invaders at San Cristobal we still have our defences in place, but there are not as many seals here. We just had one come by and have a little sleep on our transom for a bit.
Downtown Puerto Vilamil
Isabela is the largest island in the Galapagos group, famous for its many volcanos. We are told the most recent eruption was only a couple of weeks ago! Ahh ok. The small population lives mainly around the town and few of the roads are paved. The hinterland is thick with vegetation and barely habitable.
Unlike San Cristobal, you can actually take your dinghy ashore and there is a dinghy dock, although it’s not much chop. We hit a couple of rocks on the way and taking a chunk out of the prop on the way in, as we didn’t keep a wide enough berth as advised. The dinghy dock is on a floating pontoon that the commercial boats and water taxis use for pick up and drop of. We only take the dinghy ashore once, next time its water taxis! Ashore we can see a few seals on the pier, but not as many as San Cristobal. The town is pretty basic but there are quite a few cafes and hostels as well as souvenir shops and tour booking offices. There is a church with some lovely painted scences with saints watching over the native fauna. We walk up to the obligatory tortoise sanctuary, completely missing the path through the wetlands and walking along the road instead. It’s a small sanctuary and we are obliged to take a guided tour at $10, but we learn a few new interesting facts. They feed the tortoises 3 times per week on a plant called Elephant Ear, which is close enough to cactus that they would normally eat. Luckily this is a feeding day so they are a more active than usual. There are tortoises of varying ages as well as some mature ones from the mountains of Isabela. The mountain tortoises were rescued when there was an eruption, and a couple of them bear the scars from burning lava that must have hit them during the eruption. Their shells are much flatter than the other lowland tortoises and they their necks are shorter, as they feed mainly on the lower, mountain vegetation. The mountain area of Isabela is quite rugged and inhospitable so finding the tortoises after the eruption was challenging, then they had to be sedated for the trip by helicopter to a waiting boat and finally by road to the sanctuary. They will eventually be released back to the same place, a costly and onerous undertaking! Further up the road there is a small lagoon where there are some flamingos, well four to be exact, and they dutifully posed for photos. Back in town we have lunch at Cesar’s which was really good value, 3 course menu dias for $8. Los Tunels
The highlight of our time in Isabela was a small boat tour of the site called Los Tuneles, which is west of our anchorage along the southern coastline of Isabela. There are quite a number of small boat tours departing around the same time to different destinations and the port police are making a big show of regulation, checking everyone has a life jacket on, taking pictures etc. It’s a small power boat, maximum 10 people, but with big, outboard engines and we have the company owner on board, as well as a guide and skipper. There is quite a swell running from the west, so we are bouncing into it. Our first “stop” is Union Rock which is a large vertical volcanic rock sticking out of nowhere. There used to be more of these rocks but as water level rises, and they erode away, they disappear. There are some black footed or Nazcar Boobies here and one, lone blue-footed one. We learn that the foot colour is due to their diet. Red-footed boobies have a diet of squid, blue foots eat Sardines and black foot eat pelagic fish. The populations don’t compete with each other for food. Our skipper slows down as he spots an enormous Manta Ray, it must have been the size of the boat! We watch it swimming around for a while before continuing on. We arrive at Los Tunels and it is like another world – we enter a natural lagoon which is very protected from the swell. There are lots of low, black lava rocks in the water and some of them form tunnels and archways. There are some tall, skinny cacti on some of them. We motor around them, its like an aquatic, lunar landscape, with a bit of desert-like vegetation, before tying the boat up to a rock and walking ashore.
Los Tunels was formed during the last ice age when the water level was much lower. Isabela is a highly volcanic island with several volcanos, a couple of which are still active. The lava flows dried on the outside due to the cold, and underneath the lava kept flowing out, eventually leaving hollow tubes as it ran out. When the sea level rose the water could come in, creating this unique habitat. I was really excited to see the small colonies of the Blue-Footed Boobie and it is mating time so they are doing the boobie dance. Its amazing to see it. The male lifts his feet, marching up and down on the spot and also raises his tail in a polite but evocative curtsey. The male and female clash beaks and sometimes he will pick up a small stone and offer it as a gift or just move it around. He has to work pretty hard, dancing at least twice a day for up to 1 hour at a time. He also has to build a nest, so even though he might win over a mate with his fancy footwork, once she gets to the nest she may be disappointed and give him the flick!
We can see that some of the birds have brighter blue feet, apparently this means they are getting more sardines, and are better at fishing. Males with bluer feet are more attractive to the females. We also go snorkeling here with our guide, which is weird because the water is not that clear and not all that warm either, even though I hired a wetsuit this time. Still there is a lot of sealife, including large turtles who are oblivious to us. We also see small white-tip reef sharks sleeping in the mangroves and caves, and a few rays cruising around as well. Our guide finds a small seahorse, sleeping attached to something on the bottom. It’s a pain snorkeling with such a large group as everyone is flapping around, scaring off the fish and one guy with a life-ring keeps banging into everyone. The guide takes a lot of photos which is good as my GoPro wasn’t charged and I missed a lot of stuff being at the back of the pushy group. We have a bite to eat on board as we head back to town, and the trip back is a lot quicker with the wind and swell behind us. The Wall of Tears / Muro de Las Lagrimas
We hired push bikes for the day and rode a well maintained coastal trail up to the Wall of Tears, stopping to look at some wetlands along the way. Passed one giant tortoise crossing the road, why?! Ask the chicken! The Wall of Tears was constructed by prisoners as a bit of a pointless, hard labour exercise. It’s quite a substantial dry stone wall but it serves no function whatsoever and is just in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say many suffered and died in the process, and that may have been the objective. Its wickedly hot here now and in the full sun, breaking rocks would have been brutal. Although the ride was fairly flat there were a few sections we had to pedal hard to get up and over, and let’s just say our butts are not really cycle-fit! We made a few stops on the way back checking some beaches, white sand contrasts with the with the black lava rocks that the marine iguanas frequent. We see a couple of them fighting in the sand (or maybe they were courting – where is David Attenborough when you need him?!) We are yet to see them actually swimming so Keith tries to encourage one into the water, unsuccessfully. Well that wildlife experience will have to wait until we get to our next and final stop at the island of Santa Cruz.
Seals to the left of me, tortoise to the right
After arriving in San Cristobal and passing our inspection, we are free to explore, as long as we follow the rules! One of the many rules here in Galapagos is that it’s not permitted to use your own dinghy. Frankly you wouldn’t want to as the surge on the docks is pretty bad so there is really no where safe to leave it. In addition we see the local boats here using barbed wire to keep the seals off, so any dinghy left at the dock would be fair game. To get ashore you hail a water taxi (or taxi aquatico) on VHF14 - US$1 per person. The drivers nudge their wooden boat into your transom and you jump on/off, we got very good at this by the end of our three week stay. I think our pronunciation of “taxi aquatico” even became quite convincing!
The small town is fairly colourful and chilled out, not too crowded. Kinda has a holiday / back packer feel. The Seals have the run of the foreshore taking up most of the available seating along the pier and lounging around under them as well. The famous marine iguanas are sunbathing on the black lava rocks which line the foreshore as well as wandering happily along the street, completely oblivious to humans. I guess they know they are protected! There are numerous statues of Charles Darwin around the town and we also visit the Darwin interpretation centre, which gives some insight into the flora and fauna of the islands, as well as Darwin's travels and time here. The centre is also a gateway to some walking paths around the headland.
The headland walk from San Cristobal is really lovely, although challenging in the heat. We head all the way up to a mirador (lookout) facing north west. We can see kicker rock and down along the west coast of San Cristobal island. The lava rock paths are wide and mostly shadey and the walk takes us down to the largest statue of Darwin, overlooking a few of the iconic animals of the Galapagos. The beautiful white sand beach at Punta Carola provides a quiet place for the marine iguanas to bask in the sun and watch over the light house. There is no postal service in The Galapagos so to send mail (postcards mainly) we must rely on other travelers to take mail back with them and deliver it by hand. No stamp required but no idea how long that might take. We pass one of these on our walk and check the contents, but no mail for Australia... The walk back takes us via Playa Mann, the beach facing the anchorage, and its time for a refreshing swim and to relax and watch the young seals frolicking in the surf. They just dont have a care in the world, and are fortunate that we feel the same!
HIGHLAND TOUR
The Galapagos taxi is actually a twin cab ute (don’t ask me the brand) and the three of us fit comfortably in for a half day taxi tour of San Cristobal island. Fantastic. The tour takes us through the centre of this volcanic island and across to the east coast.
KICKER ROCK
A highlight of our stay on San Cristobal was a day tour by small power boat to Kicker Rock. It lies off the north west coast of San Cristobal, not far from the coast, and we passed it as a distance as we came in. We motor slowly through a small, protected lagoon along the coast of San Cristobal where we see some frigate birds in the mangrove trees. It is breeding season so the male's red throats make them stand out. They puff these up to impress the females. Of course we see plenty of seals resting on the rocks and then our first sighting of the famous blue-footed booby! So exciting, hopefully we will see more of these in the coming weeks. We anchored off a beautiful white sand beach and were ferried ashore by dinghy for a walk along the beach and a swim in the pristine waters. Here there are plenty of marine iguanas sunning themselves in the sand and dipping their toes in the water. They are very hard to see on the black lava rocks and I almost step on one as I try to get a photo of another one. There are turtle nesting areas on the beach so those are off limits but there are clear turtle tracks heading across the sand. There was a small reef shark swimming in the in the shallows.
On to Kicker rock for a snorkel, the water is freezing! I mentioned that Galapagos is at a convergence between two currents. One minute you are swimming along and the water becomes freezing cold, and just when you think you can’t take it any more you swim into a blissfully warm patch, which hopefully was not generated by the person in front… Snorkelling is not that great and I bail out early. We went back to the boat and the skipper went chasing dolphins, which were playing around with the boat for a while. We also saw some hammerheads sharks swimming on the surface and were able to follow these for a while. Super large turtles as well. I went back in the water a little later and rejoined the group and I am glad I did as I saw reef tip sharks and a hammerhead swimming around below us. Also followed a turtle with lots of fish stuck to its back. We had a simple lunch on board and on the way back Keith went up to the helm and the skipper gave him the wheel! Arrived back at 3 and had a rest before heading out to a farewell dinner - Morrie’s treat for his last night. Had a wonderful meal at Midori, sushi restaurant. Excellent food and a great way to end our time in San Cristobal.
A very Special Place
The Galapagos Islands (also known as the Archipelago de Colon), consists of 13 major islands and several minor ones. They are volcanic in origin with the oldest rocks estimated to be 5 million years old. The island group is a province of Ecuador, administered by the forestry service and protected by UNESCO as a world heritage area. Of course all of the animals and plants on the islands are protected as well. The islands are physically stunning, the black lava flows contrast with turquoise water, white sand beaches and green mangroves which are teeming with wildlife.
Nowadays tourism is a major part of the economy and small cruise ships are a popular way to visit the islands. The ships stay in Galapagos waters with passengers flying in from mainland Equador. It is possible to visit in your own yacht however it requires commitment: it is expensive, heavily regulated, overly bureaucratic and there are limited ports that you can visit. Use of an agent is mandatory and government and agent fees are high. Food and fuel all have to be brought in from the mainland and are also relatively expensive. Once you are there, you can find a range of different tours including snorkelling and diving, visits to different islands and self-exploration. So was it worth visiting in ITIKI? Absolutely, we loved every minute of it (well maybe we could have done without the stress of the hull inspection, but more on that later)!
The islands lie on the equator at the convergence of the El Niño and Humbolt currents and in the “path” of the doldrums. Sailing the 880nm from Panama can be challenging and many people find themselves motoring a bit too much or getting caught with currents pushing them in the wrong direction. Fishing boats with long lines and drift nets can also be a problem and fellow cruisers in a monohull told us their story of getting one caught around their keel and having to dive in to unwrap it. We were expecting a challenging passage and decided to take on crew to share the fun! Morrie joined us in Shelter Bay marina, came through the canal with us and would continued on to Galapagos with us, before returning home to the US. He did a great job as crew, line-handler and hull cleaner and his fluent Spanish was a bonus!
Preparations
There is a fair bit of preparation work to be done before departing for the Galapagos and we had sent this, along with a good deal of cash, to the agent before we left Panama. We used Johnny and Gian Carlo Romero of YachtGala. The main things we needed to prepare were:
Panama to Galapagos
From Isla Chapera, the Las Perlas Islands of Panama, to Galapagos, Ecuador is 880nm. After a last minute check & clean of the hulls and sail drive we set off. Full main and genoa on a beam reach with wind 12-14kts, then peeled to the gennaker. Once we crossed the busy shipping channel, dodging ships heading into the Panama Canal, we changed to the spinnaker. We were making 7.5kts VMG for our first waypoint off the SW tip of Panama; here there is another big shipping channel, with lanes East-North bound and West-South bound, with a separation zone. We cross (at night of course) the westbound lane at right(-ish) angles and have to dodge a few ships powering through on the eastbound channel. We chugged on throughout the night but our dream run had to come to an end, with breeze dropping from 20kts down to single figures. Wind direction was shifting 30-40 degrees south of forecast. With the light weight of the Parasailor we managed to keep moving in the general direction of Galapagos, thanks in large part to 2.4 kts of current in our favour. The zing of the fishing line brought some much needed excitement one afternoon. Pretty quickly all our line was gone though and of course so was another lure! We saw a marlin leap in the distance and can only assume he was the culprit! We also had a few avian hitch-hikers as you can see below:
Overnight we lost the wind completely and had to snuff the kite and motor for a bit. It filled in again in the wee hours but with a bit more south in it so we hoisted the main and unfurled the gennaker. We have had just enough wind to keep moving and fortunately seas are fairly flat. The current is still being kind to us and pushing us towards our destination. Lost yet another lure but at least they are biting!
We are well and truly into the Doldrums. The wind is fickle here, very light and shifting through 80 degrees now. In the olden days the square riggers might drift for weeks waiting for wind in this zone. To the north and south of us are the “horse latitudes”. These are so called because ships would reach this zone around 2 months out of England and the paid crew would throw the “dead horse” overboard! Fear not animal lovers! The dead horse was the term given to the period of time when a sailor was working off his advance pay (usually money left with his wife back home so he wouldn’t blow it all before he got back!) The expression “flogging a dead horse” comes from this time, there is no use trying to get more work out of crew who have already been paid! But I digress…
Although we lack breeze we still have good currents with us, not to mention a couple of Volvo D2 50s and a tank full of diesel! The Parasailor has been up and down like a bride’s nightie, but somehow we keep moving.
At 15:12 on the 26th February 2023 ITIKI and crew crossed the equator. We are now in the southern hemisphere and the South Pacific! King Neptune’s representative made an appearance on the foredeck and performed a "crossing the line" ceremony so that Morrie and I were officially transformed from Pollywoggs to Shellbacks! Of course we were painted with "mermaid's blood", had to go for a dip to complete our baptism and finish with a tot of rum! Great fun. It’s a slow finish to our journey with no wind now so we motored the final few miles.
We arrived in sight of land (San Cristobal Island) early Monday morning. Once it was light enough we stopped the boat and the boys went in to clean the hull again. Its amazing how much had grown in the 5.5 days of our passage! The Moment(s) of Truth - The Inspection
We anchored in Wreck Bay at around midday and immediately the seals came to do a preliminary inspection. We have transom protectors to stop them invading, however they are very quickly taking up residence on the bottom step of the transom.
They clear out when the official inspectors arrived at 3pm. Six inspectors including immigration, health, quarantine, national parks and port captain, plus our Agent Gian Carlos came aboard. A diver arrived separately and went straight into the water to check our hulls. They took our temperature, looked at safety equipment and first aid kit, picked us up on our expired flares, looked in our fridge and freezers, inspected cupboards and wardrobes, took selfies as evidence…. It was quite a party. Well we passed muster and we are allowed to stay-phew! We can start breathing again - and we can start our Galapagos adventure! Seals vs ITIKI
Seals rule this particular bay and port. As soon as a new boat arrives they are over to check you out. It is quite novel at first, they are so cute when they look at you with those big brown eyes. The transom curtains/protectors I had made on the way down, essentially to stop a following sea “pooping” us, were still in place and we thought this would be adequate to keep seals out. They started by taking up residence on the bottom step, which we thought was fine, but overnight we had a big, fat, emphysemic old seal coughing, snorting and farting outside our window for most of the night. Every time he jumped on and off the step, the boat shook and it woke us. Also they leave a smelly brown stain of their sweat and fur on the deck. They like rubbing themselves on the roughness of the non-skid deck. We looked around at other boats in the morning and decided a horizontal fender on the bottom step would deter them… No, it worked for about 5 minutes and then it was used as an aid to reach the next step.
One day when we had been out we returned to find a seal in the cockpit, fortunately just on the floor. He quickly exited when we arrived, jumping over the top of the transom covers. Little bugger – he knew he was in trouble as he moved pretty fast. We reinforced our transom defenses putting in extra fenders, surely this will defeat them! The ladder on the port side seemed to be acting as a deterrent initially, however they soon figured out how to wrap themselves around it. Surely that is not comfortable! They are using the dinky transom protectors to give themselves a leg up, those things finally have a use! The next day we return to find not one, but two seals in the cockpit. One of them was lounging on the centre seat cushion, the other had the decency to stay on the floor. Again they were quick to depart, pushing through the transom covers and breaking the side clips! Took a couple of days and several washes to get the smell of seal juice out of the cushions.
When we are on the boat they are playing around the back and between the hulls. It sounds like someone is snorkelling under there. They have also taken to rubbing their undersides on the hulls. I am guessing they are enjoying the rough finish of the Coppercoat antifoul. Thank goodness we don’t have ablative or it would be all gone!
Our fortifications became more and more elaborate. We used our 20L emergency water Jerry cans to block the transom to prevent them pushing through and getting into the cockpit. The passarelle made a re-appearance to stop them jumping over the top. There were also ropes laced back and forth across the transom, making it almost impossible for us to get on and off the water taxis – we were prisoners of the seals in our own boat. It seemed like they were learning to evade our defences more quickly than we were learning how to keep them out! Eventually though we figured out that the vertical fenders worked best. If you have enough of them and lace them together they can’t just push them aside, and they can’t climb up them. Still it makes getting on and off a little difficult, particularly if you are carrying a load of shopping! I think the ultimate score of this ongoing battle was Seals 4 vs ITIKI 1. Seals definitely rule here.
The Panama Canal, the path between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a channel between the North and South American continents. A marvel of “modern” engineering and a real thrill to have the opportunity to transit in our own yacht!
We left Shelter Bay Marina with an air of nervous anticipation, we were well prepared and had an experienced crew on board but an 11th hour hiccup almost put an end to our well planned transit. Read on to find out what happened in that gut wrenching moment. A bit about the Panama Canal
The Panama Canal opened in 1915, having been built and initially managed by the USA, who basically had sovereignty over the canal and several miles either side of it. It has remained almost continuously operating since then. From 1977 to 1997 the management of the canal was progressively handed over to the Panamanian government. Panama used to be a province of Columbia, but peacefully seceded in the early 1900s in order to secure American support for completion and management of the Panama Canal. Panama remains a neutral country with only defensive forces, which given the significance of the canal is a crucial point. Ships from any country can go through the canal - we learn that an Iranian naval vessel transited the week before us.
The Panama Canal provides important access for shipping between the west and east coasts of America and of course between Europe and Asia with ships able to transit in both directions. It is the prime source of income for Panama, and because of the canal Panama is a key International shipping hub, connecting North and South America. There is continuous maintenance going on to ensure the canal operates smoothly 24/7 and major works are always in progress to add more locks, widen the narrow parts of the canal (including the Gaillard Cut) and further increase the capacity of the Canal.
For ITIKI the Canal is the last physical barrier between us and our “backyard” of the Pacific Ocean. For any cruiser the transit of the canal is a big deal, exciting and a little daunting at the same time, with of course some bureaucracy and logistics to get through. We chose to use a canal Agent, Erick Galvez of Centenanrio, to smooth our way through this process and we are glad we did. It takes the stress and work out of figuring out the system, making payments, scheduling and dealing with Spanish speaking officials. The Agents know the system and know how to work with it, although they certainly can't control everything.
Every yacht that goes through the canal needs to have 4 sets of heavy mooring lines to use to attach to the lock walls. Large fenders are also required and both lines and fenders can be rented from the canal agent. We also need to have 4 line-handlers on board. There is a great network of cruisers around Shelter Bay area who are ready and willing to “pay it forward” and do a transit ahead of their own to help out others. We were fortunate to have new friends and fellow cruisers as “line handlers” to help us out as well as sharing the adventure. A big shout out to Tad and Robyn of SV Bisou, fellow Helia 44 owners who line-handled for us, and had already done it once before. Also to Morrie, our crew for the leg to Galapagos, who had also transited on another yacht. It seems Keith and I the only “Canal virgins” on this trip. We were also delighted to have our well chosen boat buddies - Ollie and the team on Mai Tai (a Lagoon 40) coming through the Canal with us. This turned out to be a very good choice of transit companion, but more on that later.
Getting Ready
The transit process starts with a boat being measured. After leaving Guna Yala we stopped into Shelter Bay Marina which is located at the entrance to the Port of Colon, the gateway to the Panama Canal. Our Agent has organised a time slot for ITIKI to be officially measured. Whilst it is possible to be measured in The (New) Flats Anchorage, its much easier for the busy admeasurer to just walk along the dock to the next boat. The process itself as simple as there are only two size categories: < 65’ and > 65’ and as a 44’ cat we easily inside the first category. The admeasurer outlines the transit process and provide some good advice for the skipper. We will have an advisor on board who will sit with the skipper, and work with the advisors on the other yachts in the ‘raft up’ as well as the Canal operators to get us through safely. Once measured, we book a transit for 14 February via our agent, along with our boat buddy Mai Tai.
Off to Bocos
With those boxes ticked we have some time to head west to Bocos de Toro for a few days, and return with plenty of time for our transit.
We had some "throttle issues" we discovered on our way back from Bocos. We were confident these were now fixed and the engines were working well. Keith also had change the oil filters with Ollie before we left for Bocos and the engines had been starting and running smoothly for over a week now. A few days before our transit date we were back in Shelter Bay Marina, feeling pretty relaxed, when I got a message from our agent saying that our transit date was moved forward by one day! It would now be on 13 February - unlucky for some but fortunately we are not superstitious…
But now we had to get our skates on! I spent the day cooking up a couple of evening meals which would give me more time as we went through the Canal. The advisors expect “proper meals” and rumours abound about unhappy advises calling out for Uber eats at Skipper’s expense if he doesn’t like what’s on offer. Our agent even provided some pictures of what proper meals look like! I think I was more stressed about this than any other aspects of our transit. I also have our line handlers and crew to feed for two days.
The Big Day Has Come
And so the moment has arrived. There are three yachts going through today, two cats and a mono. Cristobal station called us on channel 12 to confirm we should head out to The Flats (Anchorage) and wait for the advisor who would step on board at 2:30 pm. So off we go, we anchor and wait, it’s blowing 20 kn and its not the nicest of anchorages but the advisor, Guillame, is on time and with some great manoeuvrings from the pilot boat he jumps aboard. Gentlemen, start your engines…
Then it comes.... The "OMG that’s all we need” moment… We are about to transit THE PANAMA CANAL, busiest shipping channel in the world and the @#@$%& STARBOARD ENGINE WOULD NOT START!
It spluttered and coughed but would just not catch. Keith quickly started the port one and that was fine. After our “double trouble” with the throttles, that was a relief. We try to stay calm in front of the advisor and I quickly messaged Ollie our boat buddy. At this point we were quite sure that the advisor would pull the pin on our transit. Having a mechanical problem transiting the Panama Canal would have a knock on effect for the other vessels and screw up their all important schedules. Fines would also be issued and deposits lost and we would have to start the process again, join the back of the queue! We played it down as much as we could… “yeah bubbles in a few lines will work their way through” … act casual it’s no big deal… We quickly upped anchor and got going and as we were making reasonable speed with one engine, the advisor seems happy to continue. Perhaps he also had his mind on that “proper” meal. Phew!
We liaise with Ollie from Mai Tai who as luck would have it is an amazing, highly experienced “engine mechanic to the stars” with the blood of of McGyver in his veins! What a great choice of boat buddy! Meanwhile the advisors confer and we agree that as our Port engine is working fine we will be the port side of the yacht raft. The mono will be in the middle and Mai Tai will be on the Starboard side.
We’ll head off separately towards the Canal entrance passing under the Gatun Bridge, which looks a little like the ANZAC Bridge in Sydney. In front of the entrance to the first set of locks we start to form the raft. Mai Tai and the mono join first but they struggle with a strong beam-on wind. Once they straighten up we can join them but the professional line handlers on the mono make a meal of it and we copped a nasty scratch in our gelcoat. Into the Gatun Locks
Finally we are moving as one and heading towards the first lock. Yachts enter the first set of locks behind a freighter and our lock buddy is already in place. Freighters don’t use their engines to move them through the locks. They are towed through by locomotives on rails on either side of the locks lateral walls. This means that there is no prop wash for the boats behind them. There is barely enough room for a fender between the side of the freighter and the walls. Panamax class ships are built to fit exactly in the Panama Canal with no space wasted.
The linesman on the shore throw us the messenger lines. These are lightweight hemp lines that have weighted monkey fists on the ends, and land on the foredeck (eventually). Our heavy mooring lines, supplied by our agent, are already in place and we attach them to the messenger lines so they can be pulled up by the linesmen and placed on cleats high above us on the lock wall. And then the gates close behind us. The water level starts to rise and our line handlers gently take up the slack on our lines, keeping the raft centred in the lock. Although we have plenty of fenders out, we really don’t want to bounce off those nasty looking concrete walls!
Action man!
As soon as the gates of the first lock close Ollie springs into action, hops across the mono and onto ITIKI, clutching a length of fuel line and with a gleam of confident determination in his eye. The clock is ticking… With the calm air of an ER surgeon, Ollie directs Keith to place a jerrycan in the engine bay, find a cable tie and a weight that will fit through the opening of the jerrycan. Keith watches in awe as Ollie adeptly McGyvers up a system to take fuel directly out of the jerrycan into the engine, bypassing the fuel filters, which are the suspected cause of the problem. Meanwhile the line handlers, Morrie, Tad and Robyn do their stuff while I try to keep the advisor amused and distracted in the skipper’s absence. The water level rises in the lock, which takes about 15 minutes. Keith fires up the Starboard engine and voila! It works like a charm! In the blink of an eye Ollie is back to Mai Tai in time to drive the raft to the next lock. Clever man!
Once the lock is full and we have reached the top, the gates open into the next lock. We are to follow the freighter in front of us and the instructions from our advisor. The shore linesman lower our mooring lines to us. We hold the messenger lines gently as we motor through to the next lock, whilst they walk along the wall beside us, holding the other ends. When we are in position they take the mooring lines upwards again to the high lock wall and cleat them off again. The gates close behind us and up we go again. There are essentially two boats in each lock, the freighter and our yacht-raft. If we weren’t here there would probably be two small freighters, so they are probably not making as much money from this transit as they could be.
The advisors on each of the boats don’t seem to be communicating very well and the coordination of the raft process and the movements from lock to lock is left to the skippers. The advisor on the middle boat should be taking the lead, but we are not even sure we know which guy is their advisor. At one stage Mai Tai gets a bit too close to the starboard of wall and is struggling to drive the raft to port. We only have a port engine on which doesn’t help matters. Our line handlers try to compensate by taking up extra slack to pull the raft across to port.
We have one more lock to go so we repeat the same process one more time to come up to the level of the lake and once the freighter is out and clear we can emerge from the locks and into Lake Gatun. It’s now getting close to 4:30 in the afternoon. The freighter will continue onto the Pacific side and complete it’s transit tonight. Because we are not fast enough to keep up, and don’t have professional crew, we will stop and spend the night in the lake before continuing on the next morning. I prepare an early dinner of spag bol for the canal advisor who is ready for his “proper meal” - I wonder how often they get spag bol? He will get off tonight and we will get a new advisor morning to take us down through the Pacific side locks.
The Lake between the Americas
Lake Gatun was formed by damming of the Chagris River and catches the substantial rains that fall through this mountainous area in the wet season. Why are there locks? Why not just go through at sea level, as the original French consortium had planned? Just like the Suez, right? Well, its all about the tides. On the Atlantic side the tides are in the order of 40 cm between high and low. On the Pacific side however, the difference between high and low can be up to 4 metres. The other factor of course is the variation in the water level in the Gatun Lake, between wet and dry season. All of this needs to be managed. The flooding of the lake is part of managing this tidal difference, but it also avoided a much more extensive excavation and moving of mountains that a sea level canal would have required.
There are some super large ship’s buoys in the lake and we head towards them. As Ollie needs to do some more work on our engines the advisors agree we can raft up with Mai Tai overnight. It’s not allowed to use the dinghy in the lake so we can’t take separate buoys and have Ollie make a house call! Swimming is not permitted either and rumours of crocodiles abound in case anyone is tempted.
Mai Tai attaches to the bouy first. Because of the size of the buoy, yachts moor alongside them rather than taking a line from the bow and swinging around. They take a line from a mid-ships’ cleat to to start with, and then fore and after lines as well. Evan jumps onto the buoy to catch the line as their first lasso attempt missed. I think he saw this on a YouTube video.
Meanwhile our engine woes continue. The jerrycan that was feeding our starboard engine is now empty and the engine has conked out. Its not that we have used 25L of diesel in such a a short time, but just that the excess fuel return has been going back to the main tank rather than into the jerry, so the jerrycan ran out very quickly. We now have more fuel in the main tank than when we started! We make an attempt to come alongside Mai Tai on one engine but it failed. It is quite windy in the lake. Rather than risk a failed second attempt, Keith hands the helm to Tad (great to have another Helia skipper board) and grabs another jerrycan of fuel to replace the empty one. We are back in business with 2 engines and successfully complete the raft up process.
The pilot boat comes by and picks up the advisors and Ollie is back on board ITIKI. Before we know it his prosthetic leg is on the deck with the tool box and he is down in the engine bay. This time he upgrades our fueling system to V2.0, with the fuel return coming back to the same jerrycan so we don’t run dry so quickly.
We have our own “proper meal” of curried chicken saving a portion for tomorrow’s advisor, and a celebratory drink. We are halfway between the earths two biggest oceans, floating in the lake between north and south America watching massive cargo ships go by all night. How incredible is that! And now for the Pacific Side
We are up early to find the boat covered in ash from a fire that has been burning ashore. As the lake is freshwater we can use the “seawater” wash to clean the deck - Nice one! The new advisor arrives at 7 am and there is no mention of yesterday’s engine problems. The starboard engine starts perfectly. We have 20 nautical miles to travel across the lake, through the Culebra or Gaillard Cut to the entrance of the next set of locks. Our advisor, Harold, is quite a talker and is full of interesting information and history about the canal. He has prepared a series of quiz questions which he poses over the course of the day. I have included these to make sure you were listening!
Harold sets a cracking pace which will get us to our meeting point at Gamboa, well ahead of schedule. We follow the clearly marked shipping channel watching huge Panamax freighters heading in both directions. It’s the smaller tugs though that cause us the most grief, as their bow waves hit us side on, sending the dish rack onto the floor on one occasion. We arrive well ahead of time and use one of our large mooring lines to the lasso the cleat on a large buoy so we can sit and wait. Mai Tai comes next and finally Illimite, our mono friends. We are also waiting for our new lock body, a freighter that is making its way from Gatun locks to join us in the next set of locks. This time they will be behind us. This is to avoid the risk of them being pushed back onto our raft as the lock gates open on Pacific side and salt water meets fresh water.
From Gamboa we part company with the Chagris River and what has been the mainly natural path of the river. The Chagris continues north and we head south east and enter the Gaillard Cut. It’s 7.5 nautical miles to our next lock, the Pedro Miguel lock. The Gaillard Cut (formerly known as the Culebra Cut - culebra means snake) is where the major portion of excavation for the Canal took place. It was carved through the rock and shale of the Continental divide and is currently 152 m wide. We pass Gold Hill with its pyramid shaped, stepped-sides and golden yellow vegetation, and continue on under Centenario Bridge before arriving at the entrance to the Pedro Miguel lock. The Gaillard cut is the section most susceptible to landslides and the largest one which occurred in 1915 was the only one to ever cause the canal to close.
First quiz question: How many times has the Panama Canal completely closed to traffic? Tackling the Pacific side locks
Our raft up procedure goes much more smoothly this time and we are thankful there is no wind to push us around, and that we have 2 engines. We entered the Pedro Miguel lock in unison and this time the advisor on the centre yacht introduces himself and coordinates with the other advisors from the yacht foredeck. Then our lock buddy snuggles in behind us, it’s a huge brown, steel hulk looming over our helm station and dwarfing our little raft. I hope this is the closest will ever come to the front of such a huge behemoth!
In these locks we will be taken down to the level of the Pacific Ocean so to start with we are level with the top of the lock walls. The messenger lines with monkey fists arrive on our foredeck and we send across our mooring lines. The freighter is towering over the canal walls and we see small wooden boats take lines which are lowered from the ship to the waterline level. They then convey these to the shore to be attached to the little trains.
The water level starts to go down and this time the lines are eased as we go. I have decided to have a go as a line handler as I am not too busy making proper meals, tea and coffee etc. I take care of our forward line. The lead advisor calls out commands and blows his whistle to get attention. Harold continues chatting away and the quiz continues:
How many screws are there in the gates of the Pedro Miguel lock? We reach the bottom, and the gates open in front of us and we (the ITIKI-Illimite-MaiTai raft) move out of the lock and into the Miaflores lake. We have 2 nm to traverse to reach the final two locks. Next quiz question: Why is there a gap between the Pedro Miguel and Miaflores locks?
We reach the end of the first of the Miaflores locks and have some time for photos while our lock buddy the freighter catches up. He fills the entire lock and we have no chance of seeing the gates close behind us. The water level goes down over about 10 minutes, and then the gates open into the next and final lock. We motor forwarded holding the messenger lines before the mooring lines are sent to shore for the final time. Once again the water level goes down and the gates open. And just like that we are in the Pacific!!
Quiz question: Lake water is used to fill the locks. What percentage of the lock water is recycled?
Somehow I expected a bit more of a fanfare, streamers, balloons, marching bands - a bit like the olden days (ie the 70s) when The Empress of Australia left Devonport for the far flung city of Melbourne…
Instead we retrieve the mooring lines, untie the messenger lines and they are whisked away. We move off to port, release the raft and we are free! The McGyver’s V2.0 engine repair is working well - the final fix will be done when we find a calm anchorage somewhere. For the time being with the fuel return going back into the jerrycan the supply will last much longer. It’s another 4nm of motoring, passing under the Bridge of the Americas (which looks remarkably like the Sydney Harbour Bridge) before we reach the Balboa Yacht Club. Two chaps in a panga come out to greet us and we return our rented orange fenders and blue mooring lines, tipping them the mandatory $12.
The canal advisors on the other yachts are quickly picked up by pilot boats, but somehow Harold is left cooling his heels for another 10 minutes, while we circle around. Maybe he is in someone’s bad books. Finally he is off and we can drop anchor outside La Playita Marina. It’s a bouncy anchorage with a lot of local traffic, with tourist and pilot boats creating wash as they past too close and too fast. We can relax now though and enjoy an evening meal with the crew and celebrate or successful canal transit. Meanwhile the crew of Mai Tai are also celebrating and provide some entertainment with their disco lights and dancing on the foredeck.
Oh so what about the answers to those quiz questions? Send in your answers in the comments section and we will see how well you score!
|
AuthorAfter more than 5 years of (minus time off for Covid) and more than 27,000nm Lynda has finally got the hang of this cruising life Archives
January 2024
Categories |