2018 October Samoa to Wallis

Now that we are heading east towards Wallis we are finally making some speed although with the wind directly behind us it is hard to hold the course.  Despite 6 years on the voyage, I have not actually had a lot of experience sailing a course, so this is good practice.  We have a new wind gage, right at eye level in the cockpit which not only gives wind speed but shows where it is coming from in relation to the boat.  All I have to do is hold it in position and we are good.  There is of course a small problem, the wind vane is not working  Apparently at some time during our last season in Vuda we smashed against the concrete wall while stern in and bent the wind vane.  It had not been a problem while we were going into the wind but now that we were going downwind, It would not work right so it was back to hand steering with the help of tiller ropes

A day and a half  later we are off the coast of Wallis.  The entrance is through a narrow passage which needs to be run on the slack tide in the day time so we heave to to sleep until daylight and wait for the tide.  The passage through the reef went smoothly and once we were inside the reef the seas calmed down.  In typical French fashion, the channels are marked with well maintained, highly visible markers which we followed around to Gahi Bay where we dropped anchor at last, 10 days after leaving Fiji.

It is Sunday here.  Even though we are on the other side of the 180 line the International Date Line wanders all over the place out here.  Monday morning we gather our paperwork, launch the dingy and head to shore to clear customs.  We are not actually anchored off the town, but in a more sheltered bay about 10 miles west.  According to our trusty guide book we just walk up the hill and catch a ride with the friendly locals.   We are met as we get ashore by a lovely woman and her two children.  She asks if we have any “pourbelle” and once I figure out what the word means takes our bag of trash from us and gives us a large bag with bananas and papaya.  It is so different from Fiji.  Instead of small houses clustered into villages there are lovely homes set on wide lawns  with beautiful landscaping.  As promised, shortly after we come to the main road we get a ride to the main town.  

The rest of the day was a series of irritating misadventures.  First, we arrived at the Gendarmerie at noon so of course it was closed for the traditional two hour French lunch.  We decided to see if we could find an ATM while we were waiting so we walked down the hill to the post office to ask for directions.  Unfortunately, we misinterpreted  the directions (remember, our French is minimal) and walked half and hour in the wrong direction.  Once we got turned around we caught a ride to the one and only “shopping center” on the island.  It consists of an large hardware store, several boutique clothing and fabric stores, a grocery store under construction, a small cafe  and the bank with an ATM.  The only ATM on the island and it will not recognize any of our 3 debit cards.  Of course the bank itself is closed until 2:00 and it is raining.  I had brought along some US dollars, just in case, so when the bank reopened I went in to see what I could do.  First the clerk went back with me to the ATM to be sure it was not just out of cash.  It was not.  When I produced my American dollars she said that yes, they could change them but only in the morning tomorrow.  Not today.  So here we are, low on food.  No wind or beer on board and no way to get any money.   

Now the it was after 2:00 we headed back to the gendarmerie.  Luckily the pelting rain had stopped because there was no ride forthcoming this time.  Back at the gendarmerie the officers were friendly and helpful.  They confirmed that the only way to get around the island was by hitchhiking.  There are no cases or taxis here.  Apparently the French subsidies their cars somehow so everyone has a fairly new car.  We also learned that the government officials  are sent from France for a 3 year tour of duty.  We were quickly stamped in and told the we now needed to go to customs on the dock to complete the paperwork there.  Turned out they closed at 1:00 for the day.  Next stop, the post office to see about wifi.  Turned out they had closed at 4:00. It is now getting late and we are tired.  We had passed a grocery store just the other side of the gendarmerie so we tracked back up the hill once more.  Luckily they would take our credit card so I got some bread and pate and shrimp and beer and a few other odds and ends.  I did not find any wind.  This time we did get a ride back to Gahi and made our way back to Rhapsody.  After a lovely dinner of garlic shrimp on pasta we turned in early for a long night’s sleep.  

Next day we ended up just staying on the boat.  The weather was lousy, the outboard won’t start and we are tired.  In the late afternoon the local outrigger racing team showed up to practice.  So lovely.  Too bad Fiji does not have outriggers any more.  The older we get the longer it takes to recover from one of these adventures.  Wednesday we headed back to town again to try our luck at the bank where we were finally able to exchange dollars for Polynesian francs.  With coins in our pockets we hit the cafe for French pastries and cafe au lait.  Our next ride took us to La Cave au Wallis (the liquor store), waited while we shopped and then drove us down to the wharf so that we could finally clear customs.  Unfortunately the customs office was out so while we waited we walked back to the Post Office to see if we could finally get onto the internet.  After a few false starts we purchased 2 passwords, one each, good for 24 hours each for $10.  We finally sorted out the log on process and then discovered that it would only work in the immediate vicinity of the Post Office.  Not in the shopping center and definitely not in Gahi.  Alan went back to customs to finish clearing in while I went back to the market and bought baguette, pate, cheese and cornichons to make a picnic lunch.  We sat on the lawn outside the post office and had lunch and checked email and updated Facebook so people will know we are safe.  

The next several days we just stayed on the boat, reading, doing odd jobs and watching the weather .  The weather here is lousy.  Wind and rain every night, clearing slightly around 10am and then clouding up again in the afternoon.  Sunday and Monday it poured but Tuesday it cleared up a bit and we decided that it was time to leave.  Once more into town to check out with the gendarmerie and customs.  After asking several different people and walking a good way down the street we finally found what seems to be the only restaurant in town.  Alan is determined to have a good French meal before we leave here.  The palace was packed.  The portions large and the food good.  Also expensive, especially compared to Fiji.  We made one last stop at the market to stock up on pate and pickles. Unfortunately they were out of bread.  I never did find a produce market.  Hitchhiked back t the boat one last time rowed out,  hauled up the dingy, folded it and tied it down on deck.  Next morning we left Wallis on the tide. 

2018 October Fiji to Samoa

By noon of day two we had gone 100 miles and still had the engine on.  There was still one more area of reefs to pass but the seas have changed to deep ocean swells.  At 3:00 we finally turned the engine off and put up the rest of the sails.  Then we called Chris.  He had not gotten any of our emails and was totally unprepared to be our security contact and was on Vacation at Bryce Canyon but eventually we got things sorted out and set up a schedule to call. 

 With the engine off, our speed has dropped to 2 knots and we are headed too far north and not enough east.  It is stormier tonight and at one point Alan tacked south to avoid a large storm cloud full of lightning.  By the time I came back for the midnight watch we were headed north east again and the sky had mostly cleared.  I could use Orion to steer again.  Just at dawn the crescent moon rose. Huge and beautiful with the shape of the dark moon clearly visible in the arms of the crescent.  We won’t see the moon again for several days and then it will be setting at dusk.  

With the sky so clear during the day we were in serious danger of sunburn and heatstroke so I dug out a piece of shade cloth that I had picked up in Mexico and rigged an awning over the cockpit.  Not elegant but it does the job, at least on this tack.  We discovered later that on a downwind run it blocks the view of the sail.   When the wind got down to 7 knots we took the sails down and turned the engine on and headed east for several hours.  With the engine on we use the Raymarine auto pilot. We usually don’t use it under sail because it uses so much battery power.  With the sails up we use the Monitor wind vane which has it own problems.  

Finally, on day 5, the wind shifted and we were able to head mostly east and a good speed.  At one point we actually got up to 7 knots.  Unfortunately it did not last and by midnight we were once again battling NE winds with gusts to 20k and short choppy seas.  So on we slogged, getting closer but still way too far north and not enough east. Our preferred course takes us along the southern edge of the island and through a fairly narrow pass which looks to have a lot of shallow spots. Then it is a run down the north side to the harbor at Apia.  The weather forecast shows a fairly strong blow coming in 2-3 days we needed to be in the harbor at Apia by then.  We are within 100 miles so we decide to turn on the engine and make a run for it.    

Unfortunately at this point everything started to go wrong.  The wind had build to 15-20 knots directly on the nose with accompanying swells.  Shortly after I came on watch at midnight, the autopilot went completely off course and when I put it on standby so that I could hand steer I still could not hold the course.  It was like something was wrapped around the rudder or under the keel pulling us north.  Alan had just gotten to sleep but he came back up to see what was going on.  We disconnected the autopilot completely and checked everything we could think of to see if something was caught or dragging.  I even took the boat hook and prodded along the rudder to see if I could feel anything.  As far as we could tell, everything was fine.  Eventually whatever it was seemed to let go and I could once more hand steer.  Poor Alan had once more just settled down to sleep when I realized that the jib sail had come loose from where it was tied down to the bowsprit and was dragging in the water.  Alan took the tiller while I went forward to drag it back on board.  Luckily it was the light weight Genoa and not the heavy mizzen and also very luckily the sheets were still secured to the winches so they helped to hold the sail down and also did not themselves flip into the water and wrap around the prop.  No sooner was the sail secured than I realized that the anchor was starting to come loose.  Once more Alan got up and staggered forward to secure it.  

Shortly after dawn, we gave up and hove to.  We are too tired.  We still have 100 miles to go and are only making 1-2 knots headway against the wind, even with the engine on.  The weather forecast still shows a strong front coming through just about the time we will hit the narrow pass and we are likely to run out of fuel at this rate.  On top of everything else I seem to have caught a cold just as we left Savusavu which is making me more tired than usual.  We got several hours sleep, ate breakfast, discussed the situation and decided to give it up and head for Wallis, directly west.  We are so close but we are not going to make it.  We called Chris and turned around.

  

2018, October Leaving Fiji

Leaving Savusavu, October 6, 2018.

We finally set out from Savusavu just at noon on Friday, Oct 6 after days of bad weather.  The sea was still choppy but not too bad. At 3:00 I took over the tiller while Alan went below to check in with the Pacific Seafarers Net.  About half way through the transmission of our position, the radio suddenly stopped, dead.  Nothing he did could get it to work again.  He finally figured out that we had blown a fuse but not what had caused the fuse to blow.  So now what?  Even if we turn back there is no one in Fiji who can fix it.  We already spent weeks trying that  We will be passing close to Taveuni and several of our friends should be at Paradise Resort.  If we stop there, maybe they can help us figure out the problem.   By now  the sun had set, there was no moon and it was very dark  Taveuni has about 6 mooring balls very close to a steep rocky shore.  We knew several them would be in use either by our friends or by the resort dive boats.  We altered our course to take us closer to the island but the closer we got the more we did not want to try to get a mooring ball in the dark.   We  tried to get them on the radio but we were still too far out.  Then we tried to see it there was an internet signal but again we were too far out.  

Another possibility was to use the sat phone to call Chris once a day and give him our position which he could then post to my Facebook page.  Eventually that was what we decided to do.  If we stopped we would loose at least one, maybe two days. So we altered course again and headed on to Samoa. The sea was calm and there was alight wind.  We had sails up but kept the motor on and were making 6 knots.  Just as were passing Taveuni the iPad quit working.  It was the dreaded 180 again.  For about an hour we were without a chart plotter.  Luckily we were in open waters and had a good compass course.  Eventually it came back on again and we were perfectly on course.  It was a beautiful clear night with lots of stars to star by.  One by one they rose ahead of us and a new one took the place to the previous one.  Eventually I realized that I was steering by Orion.  At 3:30 a lovely huge present moon rose directly ahead of us and by 4:30 the sky was starting to lighten.

We have never actually settled on a watch schedule but it goes something like this:  “You look really tired, I’ll take over.  You go sleep as long as you need to”  Typically I go to sleep early, shortly after dinner and sleep for 4 or five hours.  Alan is ready for bed about midnight and needs 7-8 hours of sleep to feel rested.  As long as conditions are benign this works well for us.  Sometimes he will spell me for an hour or so about 4am and then go back to bed until 7 or 8.  He makes breakfast and then I get to go to bed.  If conditions are rough, watches can be as short as 1 or 2 hours each but then neither one of us is rested and we start to make mistakes.  If we get too tired we heave to and both sleep.  

While we are underway we can use the sat phone to get weather reports.  I is a complicated and time consuming process but usually works.  I requires having the phone outside with a direct line of sight to the satellite, challenging if the weather is bad.  Once a signal is established we use the iPad to download the grid files into Predict Wind.  This can take as long as 15-20 minutes.  Once the file is downloaded everything is disconnected and put away and we have the weather report to study at our leisure.  

2018 Feb Smoking engine

In the last minute scramble to prepare for cyclone Kimi, Alan started the engine to run the windlass to tighten the anchor chain  Suddenly clouds of white smoke came pouring out of the exhaust.  It looked like we were on fire. To make matters worse, Alan could not get the engine to turn off.  We were instantly surrounded by people wanting to help.  Adam, the marina manager, actually jumped into the water, swam over and climbed up over the side.  Several other staff jumped on board.from shore.  Someone brought  a fire extinguisher. All of the other yachties came running from their boats.  Alan dashed down below to try to cut off the fuel supply to the engine.  Finally, after what seemed forever but was actually only a few minutes, the engine  quit and the smoke cleared.  The water was full of thick black oil but there did not seem to be any damage.  No fire, no smoking engine, no leaks.  The marina crew squirted deterrent into the water and the oil broke up and drifted away with the outgoing tide.  Everyone went back to finishing cyclone preparations before it got dark.

What the heck had happened?  The only thing Alan could discover was that there seemed to be way too much oil in the crankcase.  Had he somehow put in too much last time he changed the oil?  Had the excess oil over pressurized the engine and blown a head gasket? Nothing to do until after the cyclone passed.  Then he brought in a good mechanic who diagnosed the problem as a bad lift pump.  Somehow it was pumping fuel into the oil where it naturally caught on fire.  That is probably also why we were unable to kill the engine..

So now we need to fix the problem.  Of course the lift pump is in an almost inaccessible place.  After 3 days of greasy struggle Alan finally got it off.  Now we need to fix or replace it.  The Perkins parts supply shop in town assured me that if they just had the number they could get it from Suva in a week.  Of course none of the numbers we gave them matched anything in their computer system.  When Alan finally took the part in to show them, they actually could not get a replacement.    There is a possibility that a shop at the other end of town can rebuild it but now it is the weekend and we are scheduled to be hauled out on Monday, so it will be Tuesday  or Wednesday before we find out if they can do the work

Hoses

Boats need hoses, to wash the deck and fill the water tanks.  At home, when I needed a new hose I simply went to a hardware store, bought one, came home and screwed it on.   Not so in Fiji.  First of all, not all hardware stores carry hoses and the ones that do may or may not have them at any given time.  I was actually looking for an expandable hose since they are much easier to store onboard.  One month they were every where.  The next month there were none to be found and the sales clerks could not even remember what they were. 

But most disconcerting, none of the hoses have fittings on them.  They are just bare pieces of hose.  Adaptors are sold separately and come in several pieces and various sizes.  Apparently the faucets in Fiji  are not standard so you need a number of adaptors to fit the various sized  faucets and I suspect that hoses also come in a variety of sizes further compounding the problem.   Putting the pieces together in the right order to fit your particular faucet and hose is a major production.  And then if you move to a different dock or different marina chances are good that you need a different set.  Of course, none of the boats coming in from other countries carry the right sized hose so there is a constant scramble to find adapters.

Hose adaptor theft in the cruisers garden at Vuda is a ongoing problem.  If a hose is left screwed on to the faucet overnight, chances are good that at least one piece of the fitting will be gone in the morning.  Getting a new adaptor involves a bus trip to town a, a hunt through all of the hardware stores again and most of the day.   The security staff actually has a stash of various sizes but they seem to disappear on a regular basis too.  I finally just got into the habit of taking the hose from the boat every time  I need Ito water the garden  Unfortunately,  the garden faucet is a different size from the one on the dock so every time I take the hose to the garden I have to change the adaptor and then change it back when I need to fill the water tanks

It is always the little things that make travel and life in another country challenging and interesting.

Hot Bread

One of the things I miss most in Fiji is decent bread; sourdough, baguette, olive and rosemary, multi grain, all the wonderful breads that are so common at home.  Crisp, chewy flavorful.  Wonderful bread, toasted with fresh butter and home made jam for breakfast or grilled with garlic butter with dinner.

In Fiji the Hot Bread Kitchen dominates with outlets in every town and village.  Occasionally there are other bakeries but they all seem to use the same recipe.  There is really just one kind of bread, a soft loaf of white bread that only lasts a day or two before it sprouts  yellow, orange and black mold.  You can get it sliced or unsliced.  There is a whole wheat version that is a darker color but pretty much the same flavor.  Sometimes there is a “french stick” that is really just the same dough in a different shape, long and narrow like a baguette but without the crisp crust. .  Sometimes there is multigrain, at triple the price.  Basically the same bread rolled in a variety of seeds so that the “multi grain” looks good on the outside while the inside is the same soft dough.  There is also a cheese bread.  Again the same dough, flattened and sprinkled with cheese.
To make a sandwich, the locals cut an entire life lengthwise and fill it with canned tuna flakes.  Every once in a while I stumble on some real bread in one of the markets or hotels catering to the super yacht crowd and we eat bread 3 times a day until it is gone.

There is definitely a business opportunity for a good European baker here.  Meanwhile I am trying to master sourdough bread making.  Definitely a challenge with no oven and no refrigerator.

Indian wedding. Engagement Party

 Way back last June I was invited by my hairdresser to attend the engagement party of her nephew. There have been a number of engagement parties at the marina but none where we were actually invited guests so we were looking forward to it.

The party was held in  a community hall in the hills above Lautoka.  We had the name of the area (the Rifle Club) and a phone number but no actual address.  They just do not use addresses here and are lousy at giving directions.  Our taxi driver  set out as if he knew exactly where to go and then admitted he really had no idea where we were going.  Lucky we had that phone number.  After repeated phone calls and several dirt roads he  managed to get us to the right place.  We had been invited for 7:00 and it was now 7:45 but this is Fiji so nothing had really happened yet.  Luckily I had decided to wear the lovely Indian dress that I bought for Chris’ wedding.  The women were all dressed in the most magnificent saris in brilliant colors, covered in jewels, dramatic make up, high healed shoes.  The men were a different story.  Except for the grooms family, they were mostly wearing t-shirts and sandals.  Women were seated in rows of chairs set up theater style while the men gathered at the back of the room to drink kava. 
The happy couple finally arrived to the music of horns and drums and were escorted to the front of the room by dancing women and seated under an elaborate canopy.  The Indian music actually reminds me of Scottish bagpipes. There followed a long and to us incomprehensible ceremony with chanting from the priest and speeches from dozens of men.  At one point a woman read the familiar English wedding vows and rings were exchanged but this was still just the engagement and the wedding would not be for 6 more months. 

Eventually young men passed down the rows of seats handing out Indian sweets  Even though the speeches were still going on, the women began moving to the side of the room where food was being served.  The dining set up was interesting.  There were long planks set up along the wall, one about knee level and another a few feet higher, two sets of planks with a three foot space between them.   We seated ourselves on the lower plank and used the upper plank as a table.  Servers, all men, passed up and down between the rows of plank tables, handing out plates and serving food; curry, rice pilau, cabbage salad, dahl, chutney, roti.  There were no utensils, everyone ate with their fingers using bits of roti to pick up the food.  This worked OK with the larger bits but not so well with the dahl and I ran out of roti long before the food was gone.  The other women managed to look elegant as they scooped up the food with manicured nails and bangles on their wrists.  I soon had food all over my hands and had used up the one small napkin provided.  Luckily the servers returned offering extra roti.  As each person finished, servers passed by to collect the plates and offer a bowl of water to wash sticky fingers.  As the first group finished eating and went back to their seats, more people took their place and the serving began again.  Eventually some of the men joined in but not all of them. 
 
Meanwhile the speeches continued, eventually segueing into a DJ who ramped up the volume on the sound system and introduced the dancers, pure Bollywood.  Alan and I decided that it was time to go.  The music was way too loud and not really our style and it looked like the party was going to continue until the wee hours. 









Indian Wedding Day 2 of 3

We had not expected to be here for the wedding in December, but here we are so when the invitation was extended again I accepted gladly.  The first event was head at the groom’s father’s house and the invitation was to come for a family dinner.  When we arrived it was obvious it was not just a family dinner but a full out event, complete with canopies, rows of chairs, a dining area, etc .  Once again it was up in the hills  The directions given were to turn at the new grocery store that is not open yet and then go just a little father and it is right there.  “Ask anyone for the house of Vijay’s hair salon.”  Numerous dirt roads, wrong turns and phone calls later we arrived at a lovely home on top of the hills.  And once again we were early, very early,  No one was there except two older men sitting on the porch talking in Hindi.  After some confusion about who we were and how we had been invited, they were delighted to share family stories with us.  They turned out to be the grandfather and uncle of the groom.  Their family had come here, actually been brought here, in the 1870s to work on the sugar cane fields.  They were not slaves but very close to it.  Little by little they managed to save some money and start businesses but Indians were not allowed to own land until very recently.  The fact that they now have a big beautiful house in the hills and enough money to throw an extravagant wedding was a point of pride.   Indians and Fijians by and large live in separate communities and have separate rituals and life styles.  There is bad mouthing between the two groups:  “Fijians are all ……”. “Indians are …” but no outright hostility   Mostly it is live and let live.

Little by little I have been piecing together the details of Indian weddings.  The first night the bride and groom’s family each hold a family dinner.  Night 2, the one we were invited to is a. night of preparation and dedication.  Again the two families are separate.  Night 3 is the actual wedding.  So here we were at night 2.  As before, the women are dressed to the hilt and sit in the front rows.  The men are much more casual and sit in the back and doing kava.  Alan joined the men in the back and they went through several basins of kava before the nigh was over.  The groom came forward, escorted by several family members, one of whom carried a shrine of Vishnu. They processed around the canopy several times, stopping at each corner.  Then the groom was seated and the various family members approached and rubbed his face and arms with a white paste, touched his head with oil and gave him a belt leaf.  When this ceremony was over they all processed back into the house. 

People relaxed and chit chatted.  And then a   little while later the horns wailed and the drums pounded and the whole ritual was repeated with different participants and with the groom wearing a different shirt.  I lost track of how many times this happened but I am sure it was over a dozen.  I found out later that he was trying on and displaying all of the new clothes that had been given to him.  Apparently the same thing was happening at the bride’s house at the same time with saris rather than shirts.  One of the frustrating things was that whenever I asked the people around me what was happening and what it all meant I was met with blank stares and told it was tradition.  Alan fared better.  He was seated next to a teacher who was delighted to fill him in on all the ritual.  Apparently the groom is considered to be the embodiment of Vishnu from tonight until after the wedding.  Unfortunately Alan is not as interested in this stuff as I am so there are still a lot of gaps that tI need to sort out.

Eventually it was announced that food was ready and the women began moving towards the long plank serving area.  Speeches continued and the DJ was setting up.   We decided it was time to go.  We had told our taxi driver that we would call him about 10:00 so he should have been waiting for our call to come get us but the phone rang and rang with no answer.  I finally tracked down our hostess and told her our plight.  She got her husband who found a buddy with a car and they took us back to the marina, drinking beer all the way.





Indian Wedding Day 3.  Wedding

Finally the actual wedding day.  This event was held back at the community hall at the Rifle Club where the engagement party was held.  After our abandonment by last night’s taxi driver we decided to track down Ali, our driver from the engagement party, on the theory that he knew where the place was.  Turns out he was on vacation but when I called him he said he would be happy to take us.  Actually he sent his son to pick up up and take us to his house where we transferred to his car.  Turned out he was also going to a wedding tonight but he could easily drop us and pick us up again.  It is a very small community in Fiji. 

All the elements were the same; women in the front, men in the back, planks for serving food along the side, an elaborate canopy on the stage.  This ceremony was much more religious and even more incomprehensible.  It seemed to go on forever with much chanting and singing by two priests in elaborate costumes.  Lots of processing and bowing and offerings to the gods.  Several time coconuts were split in half with a single stroke of a machete.  The bride and the groom each gave their seven vows.  And of course speeches and music and dancing.  Our taxi driver arrived when summoned and deposited us back at the marina before returning to his family wedding.