Category: Blog Post

Sitting in Anaho Bay in The Marquesas we were making final preps for the four-night passage down to Raroia.  We were delayed a bit because we had a leak in our dinghy, and it was taking longer than anticipated to locate it.  This little delay meant we were still in the bay when a French Customs boat rolled in to do some inspections.  They stopped at Lady Carolina first, and after boarding and being there about 15-20 minutes, they started heading our way.  A brief VHF chat with Steve included the advice to declare all the alcohol we had on board up front, even if it’s more than you claimed on your check in papers.  OK, no problem.  They came aboard, declined any sort of drink or snack, brought out a copy of our clear in paperwork and asked if this is what we had on board.  I said, “well, we may have a few more bottles of rum and vodka, and maybe some more wine too.”  I really had no idea exactly how much we had on board, so I was just playing it safe.  They started searching, but I quickly realized that they were only looking in the bilge compartments that have little finger holes to open them, and it just so happens we have only one of the three stashes of alcohol in a compartment with a finger hole (totally coincidental), so what they found matched pretty much with what was on our paperwork, and they were happy, and I was relieved.  Additionally, when they were searching the salon, the boys were in the middle of a chess game, and they had to move, and their game didn’t survive the moving process.  When they moved, they went down into Brenden’s cabin to play, so when the Customs Agents went to search that side of the boat, they just peaked in Brenden’s room, saw the boys playing, and moved on without searching so much as behind the door.  Maybe they felt bad about the earlier chess game, who knows.  Since our entire beer supply is in Brenden’s head, that meant we didn’t have to explain why we had more Pacifico than we declared either.  They left happy that we had declared everything and moved on to the next boat.  Afterwards, we learned that they found undeclared rum on Lady Carolina, but all they got was a lecture.  So, it ended up being a net positive since the rum had been missing for a while.  The silly thing, in hindsight, is that there was absolutely no reason not to declare everything we had on board when we arrived in Hiva Oa.  No one boarded the boat and there were no duties to pay, so going forward, that will definitely be my approach.  Declare everything.

Anaho is on the west end of the north side of Nuku Hiva.  The wind was blowing pretty much due east, so we had the options of leaving the bay and heading west downwind and the get into the shadow of the island as we headed south, or we could head east upwind and motor just a short while and then have a beam reach as we turned south.  I suggested the latter, it was agreed to, and, yeah, big mistake.  The winds came more southeast as we turned the corner so we either had to motor longer or make a big, long tack.  Plus, the seas were a mess from the reflection off the island.  Anyway, once we cleared Nuku Hiva it was much better, but then we had to pass the lee of Ua Pou, so we were in an island shadow anyway, so there turned out to be exactly no redeeming aspects of turning right.  So, from now on when asked which way we should go, the answer is always, “left, definitely left.”

The entire passage was a lumpy bumpy one.  Our first night we had winds in the 25-30 kt range and we were hard into it on the port side.  We weren’t really prepared for all the boat motion and things were rattling around and falling over.  I hadn’t put the fiddles on the stove, and we really needed them in order to get dinner going, and I got myself a little seasick digging those out and putting them on.  We were taking waves over the side, so we were appreciating our soft bimini around the helm as it kept that area nice and dry.  The cockpit took a few waves all the way up onto the table, though, and the worst part of all was Alex’s cabin hatch started leaking.  He came up while I was on watch, and he was clearly distressed, and he said water was pouring into his bed.  I went down to take a look, but immediately realized there wasn’t much I could do without getting immensely seasick, so since Alex swore the hatch was actually closed, I asked him to wake his dad for help.  Tim got up, took a brief look, came up and told me he thought the hatch wasn’t closed properly and that’s why water came in, and he promptly went back to bed.  Of course, with the next big wave water once again poured into Alex’s bed, and I wasn’t much help to him in figuring out why, so he just “put a band-aid on it” and put a rag near the leak to guide the water and a large plastic bin on his bed under the rag to catch it.  This worked OK for the rest of the passage.

The second day the wind moderated a bit down to 23-24 kts and then after that it was a pretty consistent 15-20.  The worst part (other than the boat motion, of course!) was that we had to keep hatches closed due to water splashing onto the deck, so it was bloody hot in the salon and cabins.  We encountered many squalls along the way along with a new phenomenon we hadn’t encountered before.  On the backside of a squall after it had passed by us the wind would totally die.  I mean dead calm.  It was like the eye of a hurricane or something, and we even had to fire up an engine a few times to get out into the wind again.  Even with all of these “squall shadows,” as we started calling them, we made really good time.  We had planned for a four-night passage, and since timing our arrival for a slack tide was important for entering the pass, our fast speed early on was a bit concerning, and the rest of our buddy boats slowed down almost immediately.  At that point, we decided to proceed without concern for our arrival time, just reef for safety as we normally would, and as we got closer if it became obvious, we couldn’t make it in three nights then we’d slow down.  Going into the third night we were liking that decision because it looked like we’d make it at just the right time the next day if we could keep up a reasonable speed, which we did. 

Prior to leaving Mexico, I did a lot of research on the The Marquesas.  I knew which islands and anchorages were on my “must see” list and I knew what the best route should be given the predominantly ESE trade winds.  However, when it got close to leave The Marquesas, I was still pretty clueless about the Tuamotus.  The options were endless, and it was hard to keep the names of the places straight since they were all so unfamiliar.   Finally, I figured I just had to do some systematic reading, and I went through our two guidebooks and the “Soggy Paws Compendium” and made a list of each atoll along with a few other details like how easy the pass was, how big the village was, and what the fishing was like.  Then I connected the atolls into logical possible routes for us through the archipelago and down the Tahiti.  So, there were still a lot of options, but it was a bit more manageable, since I was able to eliminate a lot.  We decided we wanted to go a little off the beaten path, but not have to transit any passes that were crazy hard.  We also decided to just pick two atolls at this point, because they really are quite big, and there’s no need to rush.  If we ended up with time for a third, then we would revisit our options at a later time.  So, we settled on Raroia and Makemo.  Raroia was listed in the guidebook as a good option for a first stop for those not wanting to go the usual route through the more northern atolls of Manihi, Ahe, and Rangiroa (the capital).  We also liked the fact that it had a small village and the pass diving had been listed among the very best.  Makemo caught my attention because the fishing was supposed to be exceptional, and there was no ciguatera.  At one point I brought up the possibility of Kitiu, but that was shot down instantly by the rest of the gang.  It has a very narrow pass, and you actually end up anchoring IN the pass, so the others thought that a little too risky.  I’m usually quite conservative, but I was drawn to it by the write up of one other boat having an exceptional time interacting with the people in the village there.  Oh well, there’s always next time.  Tahanea, the third atoll we visited, was a last-minute decision after Makemo, and to be honest, I don’t even remember how that decision came about. 

Between The Marquesas and The Society Islands (where Tahiti is) is an archipelago of over 70 small, scattered islands.  Called The Tuamotu Archipelago, this group of islands was unofficially called “The Dangerous Archipelago” for centuries due to the high risk it posed to mariners.  Unlike the young, steep, lush islands of The Marquesas, the islands in the Tuamotus are nearing the end of their geological life cycle.  They are coral atolls, which are basically just a ring of coral, the fringing reef for a volcanic island long ago collapsed back into the sea.  There are typically motus (or islets) along the reef on the northern and western sides, and if there are any towns or villages this is where they would be.  The motus are totally flat with little vegetation except for palm trees and short grass.  The southern sides of the atolls are often just bare, awash coral reefs, so, as you can imagine, they can be difficult to see visually until you are right on top of them. They don’t give off a huge radar signature, so before GPS this entire archipelago was mostly avoided by cruisers due to the risk of going aground and being stranded or worse, sinking. 

Today, a small subset of the atolls have become common cruising destinations on the way from The Marquesas to Tahiti.  Others, while less common, can still find 10-20 boats per season visiting them.  Still, the majority are avoided either because they are way out of the route, because their passes are either nonexistent or too harrowing to consider transiting, or because they are too close to the restricted zone where the French used to do nuclear testing. 

In order to get into the lagoon within the coral ring of an atoll, there must be a pass that is safe enough to transit.  Before I say a little about the passes, I want to point out that some of the atolls are HUGE, like 10-20 miles long and 5-8 miles across.  So, if you are like me, when you think of the word “lagoon” you are thinking of a small pool, but no, these “lagoons” are massive.  The passes are basically just gaps in the coral and they come in all lengths and widths.  Some atolls have more than one pass, but many have only one.  As the tide rises and falls it affects the current through the passes as the lagoon fills with the incoming tide and then empties with the outgoing tide.  The ideal time to transit a pass is at slack tide with little to no wind.   The worst conditions would be with a strong current in one direction and a strong wind in the opposite direction, because this creates the condition of standing waves, and sometimes they can be huge and therefore quite dangerous.  Among our buddy boats (and I’m sure among most other cruisers) a lot of effort and energy went into trying to predict when slack tide would be for a particular pass.  We would take the tide tables for Rangiroa (The capital of The Tuamotus) and then estimate based on difference of degrees latitude and also what the prevailing weather has been like.  For example, if the wind has been blowing hard from the south, the lagoon may be fuller due to water coming in over the reef, so the outgoing tide may be more predominant and slack tide in the pass would be offset from what is predicted based solely on the tide tables.  In fact, we went to an atoll that never has an incoming current in the pass (but that story won’t come until we get to The Societies). 

So, first we would all try to predict, then we would consternate, because of course we would all come up with different answers, then after more stewing and calculating we would reach some sort of agreement on when we thought the best time to transit the pass would be on the day we thought we might arrive.  Then, we had to actually arrive at that time.  That’s a trick.  We learned we could predict fairly close, but nothing beats getting out the binoculars and observing the pass conditions with your own eyes to determine if you think it’s safe or not.  I don’t think we ever transited a pass at exactly slack tide, and we did usually encounter small standing waves, but we never had anything close to a scary moment.

Inside the lagoons is what may at first look like a huge pool clear water to sail about as you wish without the ocean swell to roll you about.  However, in reality, the lagoons are littered with coral heads, many, if not most which are not charted.  So, in order to move about, you need good visibility and a constant lookout posted on the bow, or higher up, if possible.  You want the sun out, not clouded over, and you want it directly overhead or slightly behind you.  The worst sun condition is to have it shining directly in front of you.  Generally, the coral heads, affectionately called “bombies,” are near the surface, large, and easy to spot.  But you never know when that small one not right at the surface but shallower than your draft would find its way in your path, so you had to stay diligent and maintain a good watch.  Alex and Brenden proved that standing on the bow watching for bombies for hours at a time was not exactly their strong suit.  “C’mon Brenden!  At least have your eyes pointed somewhat in the direction of the water!”

This is actually an excerpt from an email sent out by Steve from Lady Carolina.  He writes much more than Tim, so he’s given me permission to include things like this when he describes things he and Tim do together.

On a completely different note: Catching Lobsters. To tell you the truth, I am not much of a lobster coinsure, I can take them or leave them however Kyle and Carolina LOVE them. This means that we go lobster fishing every now and again.

There are several methods of catching lobsters. One, you dive during the day and look for their antenna sticking out of rocks, you then dive down and spear them in the face with a pole spear, drag them out and put them in a dingy.  There are a few problems with this method. Firstly, they really do not want to be found and tend to hide really well during the day. Tim and I have dove on reefs for hours and never saw any signs that there were lobsters there. At night on a full moon, just before the moon rises however, they do come out a bit more and are easier to spot.

Secondly, when you stab a lobster in the face it’s pretty much game over for them and it is difficult to tell the sex before you stab them. Also, during the stabbing process the lobsters have a bit of a freak out (understandable) make a lot of noise and flop around violently. Freaking out, making noise and flopping around are the top three items on any shark’s ToDo list. In other words, spearing lobsters attracts sharks.

So, what Tim and I do is dive a night with flashlights. Search around for them clinging to walls or moving from den to den (they are surprisingly hard to see and are camouflaged very well) then you sort of gently swim up and try not to disturb the water around their antenna. If you do, they are gone. Right now. Amazingly super-fast. If you touch their antenna? Gone. It is quite a sight to see how fast they go from zero to out of grasp to out of your view.

We dive, locate and grab them. (The big ones take two hands to grab, and you seriously have to use your feet to pull them off the rock after you grab them.) After we have them secure in our hands, we straighten the tail to see if it is a male or female. Females we let go, males, well, sometimes it’s hard to be male. Bring them to the surface and put them in the dingy. Typically, 2 divers down and one person in the dingy floating along close to the rocks.

Oh, yes. And wear gloves, thick gloves. Those prehistoric spiney spear defenses they have are certainly painful……even with gloves if you grab them the wrong way!!!

So, I haven’t shaved my legs since we left Mexico.  My first dabbling with unshaven legs was way back in college, just after Andrew was born.  We became good friends with Angela and Uwe, a couple from Germany who had a son just a couple months older than Andrew.  I noticed that she didn’t shave her legs, and that totally appealed to me at that time in my life.  I was busy, mostly focusing on Andrew and school, and mostly not focusing on how I looked, so I embraced my newfound granola-ness.  I also became a vegetarian around that time, but that’s for another story.

This time, I mostly stopped shaving out of practicality.  In order not to waste the fresh water, I typically shave sitting on one of the back swim steps using sea water, and you can’t really do that while underway, so I figured for the long passage, I would abstain.  But then we got to the Marquesas, and I learned that hairy legs have a very real benefit that comes in most handy in the tropic, that is, as mosquito repellant.  Not really repellant, per se, but more like shield.  Tim has always commented that he has a natural mosquito barrier, and now I do to.

Fun fact: It is now the year 2022 and I’ve lived back in San Diego for 5 years, and I still don’t shave my legs.

We spent 5 days in Taiohae, the capital of The Marquesas.  Here are my memories, in no particular order:

1. Busy, crowded, rolly anchorage

2. Hours and hours at the coffee shop at the dock for internet.  Buy a $2 coffee, and you get all the wifi you want.  I would often purchase a fresh squeezed pamlemousse juice too.  Mmmmm.

3. The dinghy dock ladder.  First, if you parked too close to it at low tide your dinghy could get caught underneath it, and then as the tide rose it could pop your dinghy.  Second, the sides of the ladder stopped at the top wrung, so there was no higher leverage point to pull yourself up with.  It made for very awkward dinghy deboardings.

4. Fruit and Veggie market at o’dark thirty on Saturday morning.  Chaos.

5. Bad burgers, but good brick fired pizza.

6. Tim is becoming quite the seamstress.  He made a cover for our generator.

7. Finishing all of my chores before Tim was ready to leave, so I had a full day to take a solo walk around the entire bay.  It was a holiday and there were many families gathering for picnics and fun.

As cruisers we are no strangers to being jolted awake during a peaceful slumber.  Sometimes it’s a gust of wind through the rigging or sometimes its rain falling into our open hatch, and still other times it’s a little bit of boat motion at anchor that makes you jump up and check the time because you are sure you are underway and must have overslept your watch.  This particular morning at anchor in Controller Bay, we were awakened by a voice on the VHF radio asking for assistance.  Steve on Lady Carolina was first to respond, and it turns out it was someone he knew, a single hander, from back in Mexico.  The vessel is called Grace.  From what I gathered during that initial transmission, Grace’s engine was not working, and he was coming up on the rocks that were just at the entrance to the very large bay.  He suspected he was possibly out of fuel, but maybe the fuel gauge wasn’t working, so he wasn’t sure.  Steve responded that he’d launch the dinghy and be out to help him as soon as possible.  Shortly after, Craig on True Blue V responded that he’d be out to help too. 

At this point I got on the radio and asked Grace what his position was, so we could see how far away from us he was and how close he really was to rocks before we entertained going out in a dinghy to help.  Seconds after that Steve got back on the radio and resumed his conversation, so I just listened, but didn’t really gather any new information beyond his position coordinates that I had asked for.  Tim quickly plugged those into his iPad, and responded with, “F that.”  Grace was just at the edge of the bay and nowhere near the rocks.  It’s about as big as any anchorage ever gets, and he should be able to sail in and anchor no problem. 

I don’t remember exactly how it went, but Tim got persuaded to go out and help.  True Blue V’s dinghy outboard is only 8HP, so it wouldn’t be practical for the trip, so Tim and Craig went in our dinghy and Steve and Kyle went in their dinghy.  At some point I suggested they take some diesel, in case that’s the problem.  Tim was very cranky about all this and refused to go too far out in the anchorage until it was clear that 1) Grace actually needed assistance, and 2) There was anything an additional dinghy and 2 people could do to help.  Following the VHF traffic, it appears that Grace started sailing away from land, and at that point Tim absolutely refused to follow.  Grace was clearly out of danger of any rocks and was clearly moving under sail. 

Steve and Kyle went after him, though.  And to make a long story short, Steve boarded Grace from his dinghy and left Kyle in the dinghy being towed, since that was safer than trying to board.  Grace’s skipper did not seem to be firing on all cylinders and seemed to be more interested in serving tea and chatting then doing anything about the situation.   Steve helped him sail all the way NOT to our bay, but to the next bay over, Taiohae, which is the capital of Nuku Hiva.  He helped him anchor, and then he and Kyle drove all the way back in the dinghy.  He believes that without his help Grace may have just sailed back out to sea and something bad could have happened.

At first blush, it might seem that Tim was being cold and heartless.  But after doing an objective assessment of what happened, it’s clear that Tim was being sensible.  And I’m not the only one who thinks this.  Leann, from True Blue V, took this as a learning opportunity and put together a checklist of things to ask and do when responding to any sort of call for help.  Being nice and helpful is a good thing, but not at the expense of putting yourself or any of your own crew at risk.

One of my reference books actually says the following:
“Anyone who encounters another person or vessel at sea who is in need of assistance must render that assistance as long as it can be done without endangering the passengers, crew, or vessel rendering aid.”

In hindsight, Grace didn’t really need physical help.  His problem was he was out of sorts a bit after completing the Pacific crossing alone and while hand steering most of the way (his autopilot failed).  Perhaps with a little more careful handling of his initial VHF call for help we could have calmly talked him through it and could have led him safely to anchor in our anchorage by voice.  I don’t know.  I wasn’t there.  I did not personally assess his state of mind.  I do think, however, that understanding the facts a bit better before rushing out of the anchorage in the dinghies would have been the more prudent thing to do.

I learned a lesson that day, and I’ve taken Leann’s checklist, added my own thoughts and commentary, and I keep it in my comms notebook.

And I’m so very glad Tim was as levelheaded as he was that morning.

While in the village of Taipivai (called “Typee” by Herman Melville) we took our dinghy into the river (at high tide so we could get through the shallows) to the town and tied it up to a concrete wharf.  We walked around a bit and checked out the few stores.  At one of the stores, we ordered bread for the next day, and they wouldn’t let us leave without also taking a box full of bananas, “gratis.”  It rained on us a bit, but we still enjoyed stretching our legs and getting out a bit.  When we got back to the dinghy, we noticed something was missing.  Our dinghy painter!  The painter is the bit of lined used to tie it off to a dock or whatever.  However, they were thoughtful thieves, in that they didn’t just take the painter and let our dinghy drift away.  They took our spectra harness that we mostly use when anchoring the dinghy and tied that to the dock.  They took our very cheap Home Depot painter and left the very expensive spectra harness.  We got a good laugh about it.

The next day our friends on True Blue V parked their dinghy on the beach and tied their painter to a tree, so it wouldn’t float away when the tide rose.  Would you believe that when they got back their painter was also stolen.  And the thieves were thoughtful enough to pull their dinghy up higher on the beach to avoid the tides.

Our next time to shore we all brought extra line and just set it on the dinghy for the thieves, but I guess they had fulfilled their rope needs, because they didn’t take what we left.  Or maybe they just don’t like handouts.

The beautiful white sandy beach offered more than fun in the surf and sun.  All four boys (Alex & Brenden & the two Lady Carolina boys) were playing on or near shore with their surfboards, when Tim and I hear Brenden start yelling, “Mom!  Alex needs help!”  They are close to the boat at this point and Brenden is paddling Alex back on one of the surf boards, and Alex is in obvious distress.  Once he was on board, we could see that he had pink welts all over his chest, stomach, and one of his arms.  He was crying, and saying, “it hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” and Alex doesn’t cry.  I obviously gasped or made a face or something when I saw the welts, because Tim yelled at me, “You’re not helping!” 

We went about putting vinegar all over his welts, but this didn’t seem to be helping, so we tried baking soda and ice.  This really seemed to help the pain, so we kept this up for a while.  He was in pretty much agonizing pain for about 30-40 min, and then it seemed to lighten up for good.  He rallied and even went over to Lady Carolina with us that evening for a potluck.  He got to show off his welts.

Reading up a bit more after the fact, the first aid book said to initially put a paste of baking soda and sea water on the welts in order to scrape off any loose tentacles that are still attached and possibly still releasing venom.  However, it says, absolutely do not use fresh water since this activates the venom already there, so we blew it by using the ice, I guess.  Then it said to use vinegar to continue neutralizing the stings.  The ice seemed to help since it numbed the stings, but maybe it would have passed more quickly overall if we hadn’t used fresh water.  Of course, there were lots of jokes all around about who would pee on it next time it happens.  I guess we can thank the sitcom Friends for the fact that it is now common knowledge that if you don’t have vinegar, you can use pee instead.