We were headed for Hanaiapa but with 20+ knots on the nose we aborted and stayed for one night at Hanamenu, which was a pleasant anchorage. Hanaiapa is a village on the north side of Hiva Oa. We didn’t stay long, but we enjoyed a nice walk through town, and we met William at the “Yacht Club”
Depart Tahuata April 12 at 1020 – Arrive Hanamenu at 1312. Depart Hanamenu April 13 at 0848 – Arrive Hanaiapa at 1105
Logbook – April 12, 2014 (Tahuata to Hanamenu)
Passage Log Highlights
1000 Engines on
1020 Depart
1033 Engines off, Main + genoa
1234 P engine on (SB already on) + main
1312 Arrive Baie Hanamenu
Daily Nots
Changed propane to tank #3
TBV – 2 yellowfin tuna! yum!!! TBV and LC for dinner
Fresh water spring w/ pool on shore – beautiful and cold!
Hanamenu anchorage
Logbook – April 13, 2014 (Hanamenu to Hanaiapa)
Passage Log Highlights
0836 Engines on
0848 Depart
0904 SB engine off
1020 SB engine on
1105 Arrive Hanaiapa
Daily Notes
T – spearfish
Icarius II – Pete & Hugh – wine & beers on Exodus
Hanaiapa anchorageA waterfall on the cliffs as we were approaching the anchorageEntering the anchorageA ship that is half cruise ship and half freighter visits the islands every 3 weeks. It’s kind of funny that we are in this totally remote anchorage, and we are sharing it with a cruise ship
Logbook – April 14, 2014 (Hanaiapa)
Daily Notes
Shore excursion – Hanaiapa. Concrete wharf, nowhere to tie dinghy. Beach landing. Walk through town. Many houses, no services. Stopped at William’s “Yacht Club.” Hospitality in exchange for wine.
Drying coconut for exportA kitty at the “Yacht Club”The boys with William. He gave us lemonade and coconut and only insisted we give him alcohol in return.Just walking along with a couple bunches of bananas, nothing strange about that here
It’s only a “secret” because it’s not in the guidebooks. So, we didn’t have much company in the anchorage. We met a Marquesan family on shore and had a potluck with them. They were extremely hospitable, and we all enjoyed ourselves
Logbook – April 9, 2014 (Atuona to Tahuata)
Passage Log Highlights
1243 Engines on
1255 Depart
1520 Arrive Tahuata Island
Daily Notes
09 deg 53.6 S, 139 deg 04.93 W – Secret Bay
Boys to shore on surfboards
T – a little spearfishing. Giant rays and sharks
French bread pizza on Lady Carolina
Depart – April 9 at 1255. Arrive – 1520.The island of Tahuata has some of the few white sand beaches in the Marquesas (That’s Hiva Oa in the background)Lady Carolina at Sunset
Logbook – April 10, 2014 (Tahuata)
Daily Notes
Back to school
T – spearfish all afternoon
Boys – surfboards to the beach
Today is National Siblings Day Today is National Older Siblings Day Today is National Beat Your Older Siblings Day Today is National Get Beat By Your Older Siblings Day Today is National Please Don’t Get Beat By Your Older Siblings Day
Grilling with coconut husksBreadfruit on the barbieTim and Steve took all the kids for a ride in the dinghyMmmm… coconut and bananaBreadfruit’s ready!Here’s some turquoise water for youMeat party on Exodus
Email to family and friends dated April 12, 2014
Subject: Ile Tahuata
We left Atuona a couple days ago and we’ve been at a “secret anchorage,” meaning one that isn’t in the guidebook, on the island of Tahuata. When we were still in Atuona, Tim and Steve befriended a local guy who took them to fish and to get fruit and they came back with bags of coconuts, mangos, and bananas. Then he came back to Exodus and cook pork and breadfruit for us and our friends. He also left us with a whole side of meat (lamb, we think), so… yesterday Tim and Steve went to shore here to ask some locals if we could make a pit on their beach to cook our meat, and they welcomed us to use their BBQ, and we ended up having a big Marquesan potluck with the extended family staying at the beach. There were 5 kids, all in the same age range as our boys, and they all played on the surfboards together. Brenden has a harder time with the language barrier… Alex said he just told the other boys, “Don’t say, just do.” We learned that boiled bananas are quite good, and that coconut milk goes on everything. We grilled up some of the fish Tim caught, but I spiced it up a little too much for their liking. They were polite and tried our food too… my cucumber salad (made with banana vinegar) wasn’t such a big hit, but they seemed to like my banana bread. They were a really nice family, and one of the women spoke very good English, so we were able to talk and learn a lot about them and how they cook.
Today we aren’t going back to Hiva Oa, but to an anchorage on the Northern side. We are all out of baguettes and there’s a little village there, so hopefully we can replenish.
Love and miss you all,
-D.
P.S. Just a reminder for everyone… This email is coming via HF radio, and that means VERY low bandwidth. Remember 96k modems? So, it is important that correspondence using this email is necessary and not too large. So, please don’t forward anything to us, don’t send us any attachments, and anything that can wait until the next time we have internet access please send to our regular email accounts. We love you all and we want to use this email to stay in touch, but we also use it for the very important task of downloading weather.
OK, all that said, we LOVE hearing from you. Short text emails download quickly, so please don’t let my little lecture above keep you from dropping us a note every now and then letting us know what’s going on with you too. We really do like staying connected with what’s going on back home, so please say hi once in awhile. Especially Andrew. 🙂
—–
At 4/12/2014 4:12 PM (utc) our position was 09°53.62’S 139°04.91’W
This was our first port of call in French Polynesia, and we stayed a full week enjoying the town and the arrival of all our friends.
The Island of Hiva Oa. Atuona is on the South side.Baie Taaoa (aka Traitor’s Bay)
Logbook – April 3, 2014 (Atuona, Hiva Oa)
Daily Notes
Shore excursion
Smells remind me of Hawaii
Giant bag o’ French bread
Snack Makemake
Gendarmarie, Bank, stores, Pan de chocolate
The valley at the head of the anchorageThe town of Atuona was a one hour long walk from the anchorage, but it was well worth it. And it was pretty easy to hitch a ride if you wanted toA quick drink at Snack Make Make
Logbook – April 4, 2014 (Atuona, Hiva Oa)
Daily Notes
Chara and LC here!
Mankini
All day happy hour on Exodus, no dinner
Good morning Hiva OaChara’s arrivalLady Carolina!What the hell is Steve wearing?!? My eyes! My eyes!!Brenden was so happy when Lady Carolina arrived, he hopped on the paddle board to welcome themWe met another kid boat, and they were doing repair to their forestay
Logbook – April 5, 2014 (Atuona Hiva Oa)
Daily Notes
Potluck w/ Chara, LC, Mojombo – seared ahi, yum!
Playing footballBrenden built himself a fort on the beach
Logbook – April 6, 2014 (Atuona, Hiva Oa)
Daily Notes
Welcome TBV! Drinks and snacks on Exodus. Mankini part 2
Boys made ramen for dinner
True Blue V’s arrivalSince True Blue V missed the “man-kini” the first time, Steve gave them a personalized welcome. My eyes! My eyes!!Bread delivery!
Email to family and friends dated April 6, 2014
Subject: Atuona, Hiva Oa
We are still in Atuona where we arrived last Wednesday. We have been having a great time welcoming the rest of the gang here… Lady Carolina and Chara arrived on Friday, and True Blue V will arrive later this morning. There is also another kid boat here with a 14-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl, so we also had them over yesterday evening. We will probably leave here tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on whether we can arrange for an island tour tomorrow. Today is Sunday, and the island pretty much shuts down. You can’t even get baguettes on Sunday!
The town is really nice even if it is quite a walk from the harbor. We’ve been to town twice but have yet to make it up to the cemetary (where Paul Gaugin is buried), and I’m getting to the point where I think that may have to be a solo activity for me. Provisions here are very good, and contrary to what you hear you CAN get eggs here. Lady Carolina brought 20 doz. and Chara brought 16 doz. with them from Mexico and covered them in vaseline. I just couldn’t bring myself to do that… I brought enough for the passage and if we really couldn’t get eggs here we would just go without until Papeete. The roosters crow 24/7 here, so I knew there must be eggs… Since we had been out of fresh fruit for over a week, the tangerines we found in town were quite a treat. I bought 10 the first day and the boys devoured them. So, I bought 25 yesterday, and those are almost gone.
The checkin process was very simple and easy. No long waits. No drama.
Love and Miss you all,
-D.
—–
At 4/4/2014 2:25 PM (utc) our position was 09°48.18’S 139°01.85’W
Logbook – April 7, 2014 (Atuona, Hiva Oa)
Daily Notes
Tim & Steve – full day adventure with Steven – Ka Oha
Boys on LC all day
D – 3 hrs of internet – walk to town and cemetery
Rebel Heart 😦
Potluck – LC, Chara, TBV, Eleutheria (Lewis/Alyssa), Steven, breadfruit, pig. Mucho, mucho, mucho alcohol. Kids and dinghies to LC. (No midnight fishing).
Jack Brel’s gravePaul Gaugin’s grave
Logbook – April 8, 2014 (Atuona, Hiva Oa)
Daily Notes
Tour across the island w/ Marie Jo. Pamplemouse, dried bananas, star fruit, limes, breadfruit, peppers, tikis
French toast for dinner after dishes for 2 hours
Piled in the truck for the Hiva Oa Island Tour
For more about the Hiva Oa Island Tour adventure, follow this Link.
1045 Oh crap! engines on, sails down – up to 40 kts, gusts to 47
1322 Arrive Hiva Oa, Atuona, The Marquesas, French Polynesia
Daily Notes
Brenden says, “It smells sweet, like pollen”
2000 Spanish wine
Land Ho!Squalls on the port sideSqualls on the sternSqualls aheadThe pink blobs are radar returns from the squallA gray and stormy day to make landfallRaising the Q flagEntering the harbor at AtuonaThe boys went out to adjust the length of the line on the stern anchor floatAnchors set and ready for the safe arrival cocktails…
Email to family and friends dated April 2, 2014
Subject: PPJ Day 23 – The End
Departure from Punta de Mita, Nayarit, Mexico: 11 March 12:12 (UTC – 6 hrs)
Arrival at Hiva Oa, Iles Marquesas, French Polynesia: 2 April 11:52 (UTC – 9.5 hrs)
Days at sea: 22 days 1 hr 10 min
We had a hell of an arrival, though. We had a lot of squall activity through the night. On my first watch I was faced with a parade of squalls and was trying to run parallel to them, but the last one in the line nailed us and I saw heavy rain and a max of about 28 kts, with full canvas. Not ideal, but not terrible. On my second watch I was faced with another parade of squalls, this one longer and with bigger pink blobs (on radar), so even though Tim had asked me to wake him at sunrise, I still had to wake him early because I didn’t want to get nailed again. I reefed the head sail alone, but needed Tim to reef the main, so I got him up, and we reefed, and… the squalls dissipated. Of course.
When we were close to the island, all the squalls on radar were behind us moving across our path, so we were clear and in the home stretch. I even turned the radar all the way off, not standby, off. When we reached the tip of the island the wind shifted suddenly and hard to the NE, which meant the squalls were now being blown right towards us. We got hit suddenly, and a little bit flat footed, with a doozy. We saw low 30s with full canvas before we put one reef in the main and 2 in the genoa. Then we got seriously nailed. Sustained 40 kts with gusts up to 47. (Sound familiar?) The second reef still wasn’t an option due to a fully chafed line, so we needed about a half a second to decide to just engine up and drop all sails. We were so close, we did NOT need this drama. Turning into the wind and dropping the main was a bit of a hobby horse ride, but we are a pretty well oiled machine at that maneuver by now, so it wasn’t too bad. However, we really weren’t prepared for that maneuver in terms of the mess all around the boat, and the boys were awesome at tending to the fishing pole that almost blew out, and the BBQ cover, and the dinghy painter that was trailing behind us (which would have been a disaster had it fouled an engine)
After that, of course, the wind subsided. A bit later, I take a seat at the salon table, glance at the electrical panel (which we all do by habit, now) and notice a bilge pump is running. What!!! A quick inspection reveals the head on the SB side (mine and Tim’s side) is full of water and it’s splashing out and into the bilge. Luckily, the bilge pump does its job and we are able to pump most of the water out of the bathroom through the shower drain pump. It didn’t take long to realize that the small portal in our shower was left open. Stupid, stupid, stupid. So, when we turned into the wind to reef, and then to drop the main, sea water just poured into there. We should really be pulling everything out of the bilge and drying it out now, but we’re not. That will come tomorrow.
Just minutes after anchoring and turning our engines off an alarm on shore went off. We poked our heads out, looked around, and no one was reacting. Colin had emailed us about the quake off of Chile yesterday, so we had Tsunami warning on our minds. So, I radioed our contact on shore that we are going to check in with tomorrow to inquire, and luckily, she told us it was just a test the do on Wednesdays.
We’ve met a few new people already even though we haven’t ventured off the boat yet. All are from Europe and have come via the Galapagos. Would you believe it that one guy told us that we had good timing, that the entire anchorage was evacuated yesterday for, yes, you guessed it, a TSUNAMI scare.
All that aside, we are in paradise now. And we are soaking it up. We arrived to a VERY crowded anchorage, in fact, we were the 12th one in here and everyone is stern anchored, so we all fit. All eyes were on us as we threaded the anchorage to the very back near shore and dropped stern and bow anchors. NAILED IT!
We will sleep well tonight.
—– At 4/2/2014 6:30 AM (utc) our position was 09°48.18’S 139°01.86’W
Logbook – April 1, 2014 (Punta de Mita to Hiva Oa)
Passage Log Highlights
1209 main + genoa
1706 D–>B main + genniker
2307 T–>D main + genoa
Min TWS 14 kts E
Max TWS 19.4 kts E
Daily Notes
Day 22
No photos
Email to family and friends dated April 1, 2014
Subject: Day 22
We’ve had steady SE trade winds for 2 days now, making our last days at sea quite a sleigh ride. We should make landfall by sunrise, and I told everyone I would be waking them up. You know how when you don’t like something but you know you are going to have to endure it for awhile you can do all sorts of subconscious mental gymnastics to not even acknowledge it. Like if you don’t actually think it it’s not actually bothering you? Well, I fell off the balance beam today, figuratively and somewhat literally. Today, for the first day, I absolutely could not tolerate any longer not being able to stand or move about or do pretty much anything without holding on!
It was a good school day, because you don’t usually have to hold on to sit down, but you do have to keep your core muscles engaged at all times. Brenden finished his second test lesson today, which means he’s 1/4 of the way done with 5th grade.
I made homemade mac and cheese today (with bread crumbs on top and everything) and it was a huge hit. Boxed mac and cheese is one of the few packaged food items I have not relented and used on board. Oh, that and boxed mashed potatoes. So, it had been over a year since we’ve had mac and cheese. It was a huge hit, but kind of a pain to make, since it didn’t follow my usual rule of dirtying only one dish (it used a pot and a casserole dish). The boys, who do the dishes, didn’t actually mind, though.
—–
At 4/2/2014 6:30 AM (utc) our position was 09°02.56’S 137°49.21’W
Logbook – March 31, 2014 (Punta de Mita to Hiva Oa)
Passage Log Highlights
0632 main + genniker
2319 main + genoa
Min TWS 10.1 kts E
Max TWS 14.2 kts E
Daily Notes
Day 21
B – test lesson 40
Awesome pork tenderloin dinner w/ coffee tequila night cap
Squalls
No photos
Email to family and friends dated March 31, 2014
Subject: PPJ Day 21 – Week 3
Nothing much to report other than we are under 2 days away and flying along at 8 kts right now. I’m up for my 11pm watch, and I barely slept a wink, mostly due to waves crashing into the hull jolting me wide awake. We had the most awesome pork tenderloin dinner, if I do say so myself. I don’t know if it really was the best tenderloin I’ve ever prepared or if it had just been so long we forgot how wonderful it was, but wow, did we enjoy it. So much so that it called for an after dinner drink, and we lifted our alcohol ban to enjoy small glasses of the coffee flavored tequila I bought when we went tequila tasting in Puerto Vallarta. We are dodging squalls tonight and getting a little bit of rain, so it’s nice for Exodus to get a bit of a shower before we arrive. Tomorrow we will tidy up and make final preps for a (hopefully) Wednesday arrival.
—–
At 4/1/2014 6:28 AM (utc) our position was 07°16.44’S 135°34.70’W
Logbook – March 30, 2014 (Punta de Mita to Hiva Oa)
Passage Log Highlights
1200 D–>T main + genoa
Min TWS 10.3 kts E
Max TWS 14.9 kts NE
Daily Notes
Day 20
No photos
Email to family and friends dated March 30, 2014
Subject: PPJ Day 20
Distance to waypoint = 356 nmi. We should arrive Wed afternoon or Thurs morning. I am looking forward to exploring the town. French bread and pastries… mmmmm
I did a tally of our engine usage, and it hasn’t been all that bad. We’ve run one engine on four occasions totaling 11 hours, 34 minutes. Our approach has been that we run one engine when both of the following two conditions occur: 1) Light winds, such that we would be traveling < 3.5 kts, mas o menos, over ground. 2) It’s time to charge the batteries and we would need to run the generator anyway. If you’ve got to burn fossil fuel, might as well burn the one that will also propel you forward.
Yesterday’s GRIB files showed that we should see 10-15 kts of wind the rest of the way, so if that holds up, we won’t need to run the engines anymore. Of course, right now it’s blowing about 8 kts. We had a strange wind shift in the afternoon to the ENE, that certainly wasn’t in the GRIBs, so you just really never know what you’re going to get.
—–
At 3/31/2014 12:31 PM (utc) our position was 06°03.73’S 134°03.15’W
Logbook – March 29, 2014 (Punta de Mita to Hiva Oa)
Passage Log Highlights
0510 SB engine on 1600 rpm
0752 SB engine off
0910 genniker only
Min TWS 4.7 kts E
Max TWS 11.2 kts E
Daily Notes
Day 19
No school – baked bread and cookies
Alex & D drop the main
No photos
Email from family and friends dated March 29, 2014
Subject: PPJ Day 19
We had decent wind yesterday and most of the night, but around 3am it died and never came back today. We ran the engine for a couple hours in the wee hours of the morning since we would have had to run the generator anyway to charge the batteries. But once the sun came up I could no longer justify it, so I shut it down. Then we were going a blistering 3 kts (half of that due to the current in our favor) so Alex and I dropped the main sail since it wasn’t helping and was only flogging. Yes, that’s right, Alex and I dropped the main without Tim. I know it’s been over a year already, but there are some (OK, most) sail changes that I just don’t do alone. I contemplated waking Tim up, but after I thought it through, I figured Alex and I could do it. And it really wasn’t one of my most stellar parenting moments. A little less yelling and a little more coaching would have gone over a lot better. I hadn’t already coached him on the new main halyard, which has A LOT more friction than the old one and twists and knots up much more easily. I’ve told Tim a few times that it concerns me if we ever need to get the main down quickly in deteriorating weather, but I digress. Anyway, Alex had a hard time paying out the halyard. And I was not mother of the year today. Perhaps a bit out of guilt, or laziness, or both, I let the boys talk me into no school today. To celebrate getting out of the counter-current… yeah, that’s it. So, we baked bread and chocolate chip cookies and pretty much did nothing else all day.
Just another day at sea.
P.S. Perhaps I should provide a little more detail. When we drop the main, usually I am on the halyard and Tim is on the hard bimini top guiding the sail down into the stackpack. So, today, Alex was me and I was Tim. Yes, I had my harness on, and yes I was clipped on, but while Alex was struggling to pay out the halyard I was getting knocked around by the boom and trying to pull the sail down. Fun times.
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At 3/30/2014 6:08 AM (utc) our position was 04°04.18’S 131°48.59’W
Logbook – March 28, 2014 (Punta de Mita to Hiva Oa)
Passage Log Highlights
0909 main + genoa
Min TWS 9.1 kts SE
Max TWS 13.4 kts SE
Daily Notes
Day 18
No photos
Email to family and friends dated March 28, 2014
Subject: PPJ Day 18
We made it out of the countercurrent finally once we got to about 2 deg, 45 min south. The sea state has settled down and we now have about 1 kt of current in our favor. We had good winds all day in the 8-12 kt range and we are now just pressing on a course directly to the Marquesas.
The boys have each started new reading books for school, and as usual, I read them too so I can be prepared to discuss things with them. Coincidentally, both of the books are survival stories about boys who have been left alone. Alex’s is set in medieval England, and Brenden’s is set in 18th century northern New England. The boys aren’t left alone because their parents have died or are negligent or anything. They are left alone because life is hard and times called for the boys to shoulder a bit of responsibility. And it made me start thinking about how sheltered kids are today. I’m glad that out here cruising the boys have a bit more independence and have a bit more responsibility than they ever did at home, but sometimes I’m not sure we go far enough. I guess I still need to work on taking off ALL of the bubble wrap. 🙂
All is well on board, we are about 5 days away if the winds cooperate (which they aren’t right now, though).
—–
At 3/29/2014 2:22 PM (utc) our position was 03°34.48’S 130°55.20’W
Logbook – March 17, 2014 (Punta de Mita to Hiva Oa)
1318 main + genniker
Min TWS 9.4 kts SE
Max TWS 14.3 kts SE
Daily Notes
Time change UTC – 8
Genoa repairs – All Day!
More squalls
More sail repairs – this time the genoa
Email to family and friends dated March 27, 2014
Subject: PPJ Day 17
We find ourselves stuck in the equatorial counter current, which is knocking off 1-2 kts from our boat speed. We’ve been trying to get as far south as possible to get out of it, but today that just didn’t work out. We had to pull down the genoa, and Tim made some repairs to it. During that time, we flew the genniker, which simply cannot point that high to windward, so we spent the day going more west than south. But Tim did a fine job on genoa sewing, and we got it back up before dark, so we’ve been able to point a little higher so far through the night. We made another time change today, so Exodus time is now UTC -8 hours. We are in the home stretch, and it feels good.
—–
At 3/28/2014 7:00 AM (utc) our position was 01°39.83’S 128°58.55’W
Gresham Family Exodus 