Category: Uncategorized

September 15, 2014

Fonuafo’ou is a very small island on the far southeast corner of the Vava’u island group. It was a gorgeous spot, but there wasn’t much protection from ocean swell making it a rolly day anchorage at best. I guess there’s a reason it wasn’t even given an anchorage number in the guidebook. However, we are happy we stopped there, because we were able to take Dad and Karen somewhere really far out of the way, somewhere that you definitely would never get to if you didn’t have your own yacht. We had a great afternoon there. Tim and Brenden spearfished, since Brenden has designated himself as “Dad’s new spearfishing buddy” (since Steve left). They went through a pass to the outside of the reef and came back with a grouper (coral trout according to our Tonga Wildlife Guide), and we had just about the best batch of beer battered fish ever. I went for a snorkel, and I must admit it was mediocre at best. However, I stayed in the lee side of the reef rather than venturing to the outside of the reef where there was likely better coral and bigger fish. There was still a lot of swell and once I learned to just relax and let it push me around rather than fight it, I enjoyed myself more. Dad and Karen took the Kayak and Alex took a paddle board to the beach where they easily circumnavigated the island. Twice. They scoured for seashells, and Karen brought back four nice ones only to find out later that they were inhabited as they started moving around. We went to throw them overboard when Brenden panicked and yelled, “No! They aren’t water breathers!” So, we kept them on board until Brenden could take them safely to shore in the next anchorage.

Originally posted on September 18, 2014, by cruisingrunner

Last year about this time we were cooking in the heat up in the northern Sea of Cortez. Backing up a bit, we left California end of February 2013 intending to rush down the coast and then do a relatively late Pacific crossing over to French Polynesia. When we got to La Paz, Mexico, however, we realized the infeasibility of those plans and we put on the brakes. Not crossing the Pacific was the easy part of the decision, the hard part was, OK, now what do we do for hurricane season? The options seemed to be Central America, way up in the northern Sea of Cortez, or back up to California. Central America had the advantage of being out of the hurricane belt, but we would have to cross the Tehuantepec at an unfavorable time of year and then would have to contend with the thunderstorms all summer. A lightning strike would have been the major concern.

The Sea of Cortez had issues too, including its own summertime convection (referred to as “Chubascos”) as well as the possibility of a hurricane, even if very, very remote. We never seriously considered heading back up to California, we had just left, after all. We considered all the pros and cons, and we settled on staying in The Sea of Cortez way up north in the vicinity of Bahia de Los Angeles (BLA). Hurricanes and Tropical Storms rarely go up The Sea and even if they do, they ALMOST never make it up that high. There is a natural “hurricane hole” nearby called Puerto Don Juan, so our plan in the event of something heading our way would be to retreat there, prep the boat, and hope for the best.

We had a phenomenal summer. There were beautiful anchorages up that way, and we had a lot of fun with the small group of cruisers who were up there with us. We had full moon parties, tons of potlucks, and even a “regatta” across BLA. We never got hit by a full blown Chubasco, and we never had the threat of a tropcial storm, so we never even had to hole up in Don Juan waiting for anything to pass. A phenomenal summer indeed.

Fast forward one year, and it’s unfortunately a totally different story. Not for us, we are safe and sound down in the southern hemisphere where the cyclone season doesn’t start for another couple months. But back in Mexico, the Baja Peninsula has been pummeled by Hurrican Odile. The news sources I read were focused on the cape area (i.e., Cabo San Lucas) which it seems has taken the worst of the destruction, but the entire peninsula has taken a beating. From a cruisers perspective, centers of activity on Baja during the summer include La Paz, Puerto Escondido, Santa Rosalia, and BLA/Don Juan. I don’t have any official information, but according to real time updates on various facebook pages and blogs, and a couple emails from friends, many vessels were damaged or lost in La Paz, Puerto Escondido, and Santa Rosalia and in La Paz there are even some people missing. As of yesterday, I still didn’t have any status of the fleet up in BLA, though. We checked out the storm track, and Odile went straight up the peninsula, right over BLA, up to Puerto Refugio, where we spent a fair amount of time last year, although the intensity lessened as it got further and further north.

It is hard to express the emotions at work in me right now. I cannot fathom what people went through, and what they may be going through right now. We can only hope that those who are missing are located soon and those we don’t know the status of are all safe and sound with a good story to tell. I know I’ve already written a blog post about luck playing a role out here, but holy crap are we ever lucky! We missed it by a year, a single season, a blink of an eye. And what a huge difference a year has made for me personally. We’ve been through enough and I’ve heard enough from others to know that stuff just happens sometimes. If something like this were to happen to us now, even if Exodus sank and we had to be rescued, AS LONG AS ALL FOUR OF US CAME THROUGH IT OK (huge caveat, of course), I think I could take it more or less in stride and move on. It would be tragic, yes, but it wouldn’t be end of the world earth shattering or anything. Last year would have been different story, and the more I think about it, the more I’m recognizing my growth in this respect. If this had happened to us last year I would have been scarred. My cruising life would be over, and I probably would have blamed Tim in one way or another, so who knows how it would have affected our marriage. I wouldn’t have been able to take it. I’m not saying it would easy now by a long shot, but I could take it, and move on. I wonder how many other newbie cruisers were out there this year, just like we were last year, and I wonder especially how they are doing. My heart goes out to them, and everyone affected by this devastation.

-D.

Originally posted on September 16, 2014, by cruisingrunner

I took about 5 days off from running, because last time we were in town I ran 2 days in a row on the road and had a fair amount of foot pain. This morning I was back at in on the trail at Port Maurelle and fortunately had no issues, not even any numbness. I did a little internet research on my symptoms and came up with this:

From Active.com
“The most commonly affected site is the outside of the third toe and the inside of the fourth toe. Known as a Morton’s neuroma, the nerve slowly develops a thickened coat of scar tissue. Numbness while running develops from pounding the pavement, cramming the forefoot into a narrow shoe, or crowding the forefoot by the gradual, almost imperceptible swelling. The runner can try simple measures to reduce the pressure. These include choosing a shoe with ample toe space and using a pad in the shoe placed under the forefoot. This can gently spread the offending bones apart. Next, a cortisone injection may help give relief.”

This sounds like it to me, but of course, diagnostics can be tricky, which is why we typically go see a Doctor, you know, someone who’s actually been educated in the complexities of the human body, rather than diagnose ourselves based on what we’ve read on the internet.

From wikipedia
“Too often all forefoot pain is categorized as neuroma. Other conditions to consider are capsulitis, which is an inflammation of ligaments that surrounds two bones, at the level of the joint. In this case, it would be the ligaments that attach the phalanx (bone of the toe) to the metatarsal bone. Inflammation from this condition will put pressure on an otherwise healthy nerve and give neuroma-type symptoms.”

I suppose when we get to New Zealand I may go to a doctor and get a proper diagnosis. Of course, there is medical care here in Tonga, and I don’t think it’s expensive or anything, but I just can’t bring myself to go in. It seems like such a “first world problem,” doesn’t it? “Excuse me, Doctor, but I get a little numbness and soreness in one of my feet when I run for recreation.” It’s kind of embarrassing when you think about it, since a lot of the world works hard just to exist and has limited access to decent medical care. There’s nothing debilitating about my numb/sore foot, so I’ll just manage it by not pushing it too hard and sticking to trail and sand running (i.e., soft terrain) as much as possible.

-D.

Between the time when Lady Carolina left and Papa and Nana arrived, we occupied ourselves socializing in Neiafu. For an evening, we broke out of the kid boat circle and joined a potluck on Novae with Pamela, Kaijasong, and Scotia. Of course, since there were still kid boats in the vicinity, our boys opted out and joined Dafne and Field Trip (another kid boat we met way back in Tahanea) at The Aquarium Cafe for pizza. On Novae, it turned out to be amatuer musician night. Dennis (Pamela) brought his guitar, and Stefano brought out an electronic keyboard for Gary (Kaijasong). Also, both Brenda and Hugh (Scotia) serenaded us with Scottish folk songs. No, I didn’t sing, but I did provide the clapping whenever it was needed.

We also went to a potluck on Dafne with Field Trip and Breeze. Breeze is yet another kid boat that we had also met earlier in the trip, back in Papeete. So, this was a great evening getting to know a few more kid boats a little bit better.

September 8 – October 2, 2014

We spent a couple days preparing in Neiafu, and then Dad and Karen (Papa and Nana) arrived on Wednesday, 10 September, and the next day we went out to our spot on the island of Nuku for just one night. Then we made a quick day stop to Port Maurelle in order to snorkel at Swallows Cave before heading back out to our favorite spot out amongst the reef at Kenutu Island (anchorage #30) in order to catch up with Dafne and a couple other kid boats.

After a few days of hiking, kayaking, paddle boarding, and coconut shucking, we made a day stop at a tiny island to the south, Fonuafo’ou, and since the anchorage was quite rolly we went back to Port Maurelle for the night. The next day we went back into Neiafu for some internet, restaurant food, and land tourism. On Thursday 18 September, we went back out to Nuku, once again to catch up with the kid boats. We spent just one night at Nuku before moving around near anchorage #16 to grab a mooring at Lape Island in order to go their famous Tongan Feast. On the way we made another snorkel stop at a small island of Lua’ofa (just of the tip of Nuapapu). When we left Lape Island we went to ‘Ovalau Island (anchorage #40) where we caught up with Novae. Our last stop while Dad and Karen were still with us was back at the Hunga Lagoon, and on the way, we did one last day snorkel at the island of Ovaka.

We went back to Neiafu where we enjoyed a couple more restaurant dinners (including an early birthday dinner for Brenden) and then sadly said good-bye to Dad and Karon on 24 September. The next day was Brenden’s actual birthday, and he requested to go back to anchorage #11 in order to buy a painting from the Ark Gallery for his birthday present. Then we sailed back to Neiafu in order to organize our inter-island group clearing out and do some provisioning. After we cleared out, we enjoyed one last dinner at The Aquarium Cafe then motored at dusk back to Nuku. Before finally leaving the Vava’u island group we made two more overnight stops at small islands to the south: Lua’ui Island (anchorage #34) and Fonua’one’one (anchorage #36). We said our final good-bye to Vava’u on Thursday 2 October and departed for the Ha’apai island group.

We said good-bye to Lady Carolina in early September, because they went to Fiji while we stayed in Tonga. At the time, we had no idea it would be such a permanent good-bye. They were planning to head to New Zealand for cyclone season just like us, but while in Fiji they changed their minds and stayed there. The following is a small tribute I wrote on my cruisingrunner blog page to The End of an Era.

Inherent in the cruising lifestyle is that friends come and go rather quickly. You meet people, hang out for a while, part ways, and then often meet up again down the road at a different anchorage or town. There are always email and SSB nets to help you keep track of people you particularly like, but often it’s the luck of the draw when you will encounter each other again, if at all. Well, that may be the way it typically goes, but that’s not the way it went with Exodus and Lady Carolina. Lady Carolina is our best buddy kid boat, and they have 2 boys near our boys’ ages. We met in June 2014 and spent the summer as the only two kid boats in the northern Sea of Cortez. Through that experience, we basically became inseparable, and we’ve been hanging together ever since, with only a few short breaks from each other. Unfortunately, they recently decided to abandon us and visit Fiji while we stay in Tonga for the rest of the cruising season. Likely, we’ll meet up again in New Zealand for the cyclone season, but even still, it feels like the end of an era.

So, in no particular order, here’s a list of good memories and inside jokes that we shared along the way. Sorry that they will mostly be meaningless to you if you are not Exodus or Lady Carolina, but at least you can get a sense of the good times we have had. Good times, indeed. 

-The plane crash in Agua Verde

-Pocket fish

-Hot wind in Candeleros

-Shirts optional

-Who has the conch (or ketchup bottle)?

-Wahoo, Tuna!

-The Exodus pose

-Any Exodus’s underway wishing to check in?

-SHUSH! (During the Chubasco report)

-crackle-static-“Topolobambo”-static-“So, those of you up in BLA”-crackle-crackle-static-“Any questions?”

-Mitlan. Enough said.

-Joel, the Grand Pubah

-Good fishy. Sleep, sleep.

-No fish here

-Doudou rum

-You left the trash on Geary’s doorstep?

-Clamming and scalloping

-Ho hum, another lobster dinner

-Why is the rum always gone?

-The last carrot

-The paddleboard game

-Stephen, your friendly neighborhood Marquesan

-Double halyard rope swing

-Feeding the puppies

-Australia man!

-You owe me food!

-Don’t worry guys, I’m here.

-Coconut crabs

-Pub crawl

-Should we go to the net?

-Huh

-Jo-el, Ky-le!

-Doorknob

-Bang, Dead.

-Zen

-Tim time or Steve time?

-Suiting up? Diver down.

-Terra forming

-Who cooks popcorn on the stove, I mean, really

And last but certainly not least…

-The mankini!

Originally posted September 2, 2014, by cruisingrunner

We are anchored in the lee of Kenutu Island, which is a small island on the far eastern fringe of the Vava’u island group in Tonga. On the other side of the island is the vast Pacific Ocean, where winds are blowing and surf is pounding. The cliffs are steep and you can look down to watch the surf crashing over the reef below. If you’re lucky, you can look down and see turtles swaying back and forth in the swell and big fish swimming around taunting you since it’s not a viable place to go spear fishing. We know all this because we took the short hike up to the ridge yesterday and enjoyed the wind in our faces and the sound of crashing waves, all of this reminding us of some of the more rugged coastlines in California.

But on this side of the island we are buffered from all that. Here, we have so little wind that yesterday we drifted around on our anchor and got up close and personal with the catamaran anchored next to us, another kid boat with three girls. Our cockpits were so close to each other we pretty much had breakfast together. On this side of the island, I went for a run this morning along the approximately half mile beach, and I was actually hot without a cool breeze to accompany me. In this buffer zone, we were able to have a fantastic 10th birthday party for one of the kids on one of our buddy boats, which included a bonfire, hot dog roasting and capture the flag. We can constantly hear the sound of the Pacific on the other side of our buffer zone, but it is distant and content to exist in the background, even if it is really not too terribly far away.

That’s not the buffer zone I wanted to write about, though. There is another buffer, a figurative one, that has a tendency to separate the cruising community from the people and culture of the Kingdom of Tonga. Like Mexico, there is a huge expatriate population here that has figured out how to immigrate and start businesses in order to serve the cruisers and other tourists that come here to visit. Unlike Mexico, these expats are primarily from Australia and New Zealand as opposed to the U.S., but that point, while maybe interesting, is largely irrelevant, so I digress. These expats cater to all of our needs. They have most of the restaurants and dive operations in town and they run many of the resorts scattered amongst the various islands of the Vava’u group. They provide internet, laundry, and provisioning services, and they even run a daily VHF cruisers net which lets us connect, ask questions, get help, find boat items, and listen to their commercials about all they have to offer. French Polynesia, in contrast has a very small, if nonexistent immigrant community. France controls this very tightly, and it seems to be fairly effective in preserving the Polynesian culture there. While we thoroughly enjoyed the immense amount of interaction we had with the local population, it was, at times, difficult or frustrating to figure out all of the everyday stuff like where to get propane filled or where to take laundry.

So, when we arrived, all of the services offered by this expat community, particularly the daily VHF net, was a welcome change. Starting from day one, Mike from the Aquarium Cafe helped us by telling us what to do to initiate our check in procedures with the Tongan Customs officials. He also gave us flight status information when our friends were arriving by island hopper from Nuku’alofa, the capital of Tonga. However, not long ago it became obvious to us that our experience here has been a bit different. Tim hasn’t gone spear fishing or lobstering or harpooning with any locals, we haven’t been invited to anyone’s house for dinner, and there haven’t been any local kids using our paddle boards or jumping off the bow of Exodus. We’ve eaten at American, Spanish, and Swiss restaurants, and even the Tongan Feast we went to was run by an Australian woman. The only Tongan businesses I’ve supported are a bakery (with yummy cheesy bread) and the laundry lady, although most cruisers take their laundry to an Australian establishment (that’s also an internet cafe). Now that we’ve identified and acknowledged this buffer that we’ve allowed to exist between us and the Tongans, we need to do something about it. There are many, many small villages amongst these islands, and that may need to be our starting point. We’ve walked through a couple of them, and people seem friendly and helpful, but so far we haven’t connected with anyone. Perhaps we connected with people in French Polynesia out of necessity some times, and since all our needs have been easily fulfilled by the expats, that impetus isn’t there. Our impetus will simply need to be our desire for a richer experience here. It’s hard for us, because we are all naturally shy people, but perhaps the effort could be well worth it.

-D.

P.S. In my first paragraph I said that the other side of the island is not a viable place to spearfish. Since I wrote that, my husband and his buddy have headed out there to do just that. Not surprising, he and I have different opinions of “viable” sometimes.

Originally posted on September 1, 2014, by cruisingrunner

When you are having a potluck, and you make a pasta salad that is WAY too big for the number of guests, what do you do with the leftovers?

At home, I probably would have saved just a little for my own lunch the next day and tossed the rest. Well, that may be getting ahead of myself a bit, because at home it would be unlikely I’d be having a potluck at my house in the first place. In contrast, out here, potlucks are a way of life. And so is not wasting. There were a lot of valuable provisions that went into that pasta salad, and some would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace, like a can of hearts of palm from the U.S. or a can of salsa from Mexico. So, I resolved not to dump it, and once that decision was made, the first task was to figure out how to fit the HUGE bowl into our tiny fridge. Fitting things into the fridge is often like a big puzzle, and I can usually find space for that one last item. But this time, the puzzle could not be solved, so the lettuce and the bok choy had to spend the night on the counter in order to make room.

The next task was to figure out how to serve so much pasta salad to a crew who is lukewarm to pasta salad in the first place. The first afternoon, I went the straightforward approach and told the boys they had to eat it for lunch. Leaving the last two loaves of bread in the freezer so they couldn’t make sandwiches instead was my only hope for success. For dinner, I made chicken Milanese, and I tried to pass off the pasta salad as a side dish with some red sauce on top. Not disguised enough. So, the next night for dinner I upped my game. I put the pasta salad in a baking dish, topped it with red sauce, sausage, cheese, and herbs, and then threw it in the oven for some sort of baked pasta casserole. Winner! The boys loved it, and the pasta salad was finally gone. No wasting.

Food isn’t the only thing we waste less of out here. Out here, you never waste an opportunity, and this applies to a whole variety of different things. If you see something you want or need at the store, grab it right away, you never know if it will still be there or be restocked when you go back. If you want to do a particular hike or snorkel, do it as soon as there’s good weather or good sunlight, do it then, because the clouds can roll in any time. If there’s a highlight of a particular anchorage or town that you don’t want to miss, check it off the list first or you may end up leaving or missing your chance. If there’s fuel at the fuel dock, go now, because there might not be any tomorrow, or they might be closed because of some holiday you, the foreigner, didn’t see coming. If there’s a good place to run, run everyday, because the next anchorage may have nothing but a rocky beach. OK, you get the idea.

Yesterday’s run was along a spider lined trail again, but I pressed on and did it anyway, and I even did a bit of speed work. Turns out to be a good thing, because although we are in an amazing spot on the outer eastern edge of the Vava’u island group with nothing but a small island and a reef separating us from the pounding pacific ocean, and we get to hear waves as we drift off to sleep at night, there is sadly not much running room. So, yoga, paddling, and swimming will have to hold me over until we move again.

There may be little to no correlation between the fact that out here we waste less, and we also want less, but I thought I’d take advantage of the tired ole cliche anyway.

-D.

Exodus was pretty much ready to cruise at the time of purchase, but every once in a while, Tim makes a small improvement to make things a little easier or more comfortable. This time, it was an improvement to our 12 Volt Electrical Panel. First of all, our VHF radio was on the same switch as the rest of our entire navigation system (instruments, radar, GPS, depth sounder, etc.) so, while at anchor if we wanted our main ship’s VHF radio on, we would have to keep the entire nav system on, which is a bit of a power draw. We had gotten in the habit of just using a handheld VHF at anchor, but this significantly reduces our range. So, Tim took this opportunity to put the radio on its own switch, which has been really nice. One of those things we wish we had done sooner. Tim also added another 12-volt outlet at the nav table as well as a secondary 12-volt panel also at the nav station. The main panel has a switch to provide power to the secondary panel, and then the secondary panel has switches for: 1) The Main VHF Radio, 2) Charging the handheld VHF, 3) The Salon LED lights around the bench that we use when we need/want low lighting, 4) The cockpit low level LED lights, 5) The Wifi Router, 6) The Bullet Router, 7) The previously mentioned new 12-volt outlet, and 8) The compass light. There also 4 spare switches in case we think of anything else.