Landfall in Paradise- Fatu Hiva

Emily Grace has dropped anchor after 21 days at sea and is enjoying blessed silence in the Bay of Virgins on the western side of the island of Fatu Hiva. This island was made famous by Thor Heyerdahl's book of the same name and the Bay of Virgins is considered the prettiest anchorage in the Marquesas islands.

The boat needs a good cleaning and the crew needs to stretch our legs on some firm ground. We expect to stay here for about 4 days before moving to the island of Hiva Oa for our formal check-in.

We have a battery problem that is making things less than pleasant. Apparently, one of the big house batteries developed a leak and leaked its fluid (yes acid) into the bilge. Once that happened it apparently overheated and cooked the water out of all the others. It was hard to notice since with the engine running, we had all the power we needed from the 200 amp alternator. As soon as we stopped the engine, the house bank went dead. I put a lot of water into the other batteries and am trying to bring them back. The icemaker is off and we are watching all energy use very carefully. I think the best I can hope for is to limp along running the generator a lot and get new batteries when I can find them. The next major port we come to is Tahiti.

Some voyage statistics follow:

Total miles covered - 2905 miles
Amount of diesel fuel at start of trip - 1170 gallons
Diesel fuel burned - 845 gallons
Amount of fuel remaining - 325 gallons
Average fuel burn at 1300 rpm - 1.64 gallons/hour
Number of minutes to change main engine oil & filter - 15
Courage needed to shut down the engine in the middle of an ocean - Lots
Home school lessons given - 7
Number of days sea-sick - 0
Number of days we wished we had flown - 10
Number of flying fish landed on deck - too many to count
Number of squid landed on deck - too many to count
Number of movies watched - 8
Number of buddy sailboats that beat us - All of them!

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. We all need a good nights rest.

Posted Via SSB

Tom

Far Out Man!

The crew of Emily Grace is way out there! As in we are mighty close to the one place on Earth that is the farthest away from any land. I googled that fact before we left the Galapagos and, sure enough, it's a spot in the Pacific Ocean. The actual spot is called Point Nemo or "The Pacific pole of inaccessibility" and we passed somewhat north of that position. But since they document that Point Nemo is 1670 miles from the nearest land and we were 1500 miles from nearest land, I'm claiming that we are close enough. This area is 8,650,778 square miles of ocean and is larger than the entire former Soviet Union.

I will attest that there is not much out here. After the first couple of days at sea where we dodged some long line fishing boats, we have not seen any other boats, planes or any signs of man. We have seen leaping dolphins, cruising whales and more stars than we thought possible, but no sign of man. I had heard that there is an area of floating trash somewhere out here the size of New York and are particularly happy that we have not seen that or any trash at all.

We are all well and our little ship is still putting along. We are whittling away at homeschool lessons, reading books, watching movies and cleaning the dead squid and flying fish off the decks in the morning. Emily spent one day re-creating some of our Galapagos friends in bend-a-roos.  Enjoy!

The Pacific Ocean is not as passive as we had envisioned. We have had several days of mixed 10 to 12 foot swells coming from both the south and southeast and it has made for an uncomfortable ride. The wind is still on our port beam out of the south and we were expecting it to be from the east by now which would make it almost directly aft. We have only seen a few light rain showers and no squalls or big winds to speak of. The winds are mostly steady in the 13 to 18 knot range with a few hours now and again up to 25 knots. We certainly don't feel in any danger since our ship is taking it all in stride. Although the crew does not feel seasick (and are not taking any seasick medications), we are a bit lethargic and ready to make landfall. We were collectively looking for the floating Dominos pizza takeout shop, but we have not seen it yet. Kim did make two tasty pizzas one night and mine topped with George's famous Soupy really hit the spot.

Tom
Posted via SSB

No Worries - We're still moving and Fine

We are almost half way into the passage and still moving steadily west.

The connection to the Panama HAM radio station that I use has been harder and harder to connect with. We are almost 1900 miles from there so I guess that is not surprising. What that means, however, is that my red position dots and reports for the blog can not be sent. I have spoken with a few other boats out here near us and they are finding the same problem. There is also a verbal HAM net that allows me to log a position report when I can hear them. I will do that when I am able.

So don't worry if you see fewer (or no) position dots or posts until we make landfall more than two weeks from now. So far we are fine and wishing we were there already.

On a happier front, we should not run out of food. I landed a longbill spearfish several days ago. It was about 5 feet long and my muscles were sore by the time I got her into the cockpit. I'm not sure of it's weight, but Kim filleted it into meal-size portions that filled a 5 gallon bucket. I was told that I am not allowed to fish again until we eat our way through most of this single catch!

We are chasing the setting sun and we will let you know if we ever catch it.

Tom
Posted via SSB (maybe)

Galapagos to Marquesas -Not a Straight Line

We are a few days into this long passage and all is well. The ocean is remarkably calm and we are plodding along. I say plodding since we have not yet seen the favorable current that we expected. We are making about 130 miles per day, but we are hoping that number will increase when we find the west-bound current. We did get one report over the SSB that there was good west-bound current at 1 degree north (above the equator), but since that would cost me fuel and another bottle of champagne, we are continuing along.

Some of our more observant Dear readers may have noticed that the Shiptrak red dots are not exactly in a straight line. Even though I have not yet seen them, I would expect them to be in a gentle upward arc (like a smile) that will become more evident as we progress. Since we all learned in basic geometry that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, is this a sign that the captain is lost or has at least lost a few of his marbles?

I assure you that this is not as it appears. Somewhere buried back in my geometry class, I learned that a Great Circle is a line formed when a plane passes through 2 points on the surface of the sphere AND the center of the sphere. Most of the nautical charts and maps we look at are called Mercator projections. This is a technique that map makers use to show a sphere in a flat rectangular way. While accurate at the equator, distances are distorted as you move north or south towards the poles. A Great Circle line appears curved on Mercator projections even though it is the shortest distance.

For any Dear readers who have not yet fallen asleep, there is a type of chart called a Gnomonic projection where a Great Circle would appear as a straight line, but they are not too common.

In any event, this captain will entertain any notion or theory that will make this 3 week passage a bit shorter.

Tom

Isabela Stop and We Are Off

We are not allowed to visit islands other than San Cristobal without special permits which are extremely costly. However, all ports around the world will provide safe harbor for as vessel with a problem regardless of other rules. The Capitano del Puerto has the authority to allow any vessel to stay as long as needed by its Captain to facilitate repairs. Isabela Island has famous penguins and happens to be on my direct path to the Marquesas.

   

We left San Cristobal and sailed west through the night. After 85 miles, just as we were nearing Isabela, we had a malfunctioning autopilot. Thinking quickly, the Captain pulled into the nearest harbor and dropped the hook. I had no sooner set the anchor, unscrewed the instrument panel exposing all the wires when we were visited by the local police. I invited them aboard with my electrical multi-meter in hand and explained the "situation" in Spanish. After a friendly meeting with the Capitano del Puerto, we were welcomed to spend a couple of days to fix my problem. Kim and Emily watched the penguins swimming around the boat and the blue-footed boobies on shore while the Captain found someone on Easter day willing to replenish the fuel we had used. The fuel was delivered to the boat at $2.50 per gallon (the autopilot seemed to cure itself!) and we had a lovely stay.

  

We strolled to town this morning to stretch our legs on the last tierra firma that we will see in a while and we pushed out to sea just before noon. We met a couple of Kid boats in Isabela and one of them left for the Marquesas with us. The boat is from Australia and named Grace. We are taking that as a divine sign that this voyage will be blessed.

So as I write this Grace and Emily Grace are separated by 3 miles and heading toward the setting sun together. Wind is light and the seas are gentle. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we attempt to cross 3000 miles of Pacific Ocean. Stay tuned, Dear reader, as the adventure continues..

 
Tom
Posted via SSB

Galapagos Reflections

Next week our 20 days will be up and we are readying our ship to go. The Admiral is making lists of last minute fresh food that we will buy and bring aboard for 3 weeks at sea. The Captain has all the fuel tanks filled to capacity and has another 200+ gallons of fuel stored in drums on the deck. I dragged out the SCUBA gear today and changed all the hull zincs and scraped off the bottom growth. It seems like I just did the zincs in Trinidad, not so long ago. But a look at my maintenance log tells me that it has been 14 months ago…wow time flies.

What a great place this has been. Galapagos is unique, with several species that can only be seen here. It is exotic, with the enormous tortoises, colorful Sally Lightfoot crabs, winding lava tubes from the volcanos and swimming iguanas. And it is historic, with the history of Charles Darwin and the many voyagers that have passed this way.

The most lasting impressions of this place, however, are surely the wildlife. Although the Sea Lions are not unique to the Galapagos, their extreme lack of fear of humans is refreshing. The pups would play with Emily daily around the boat and we had 3 visit us while I was cleaning the boat on SCUBA. On several occasions they would touch my air tank and brush against me as I worked, twirling around me and playing in my exhaled bubbles.

The tortoises were completely comfortable around us and the finches would hop within inches of us as we visited here. And it was not that they were used to free food since we found this same fearless attitude in the more remote places we ventured.

As we ready our ship and ourselves for the longest sea journey of our circumnavigation, we all feel a few butterflies. It is a mixture of fear of the unknown and sadness for leaving this magical place. The entire crew will carry the special memories of this place and time with us as we continue our journey….

We will again let you know when we push away from land toward Marquesas and will drop a few breadcrumbs on http://www.shiptrak.org/ and even try to send in a few text-only posts via the SSB.

Tom