After 10000 Miles

Sometime running between Vuda Pt. and Musket Cove we put 10000 nautical miles under the keel since departing Humboldt Bay. At present we're in Port Vila, Vanuatu moored in what seem to be pretty darn cosmopolitan circumstances. We're a short dinghy ride from several very nice restaurants. We have friends around us. The weather is quite nice, and when it isn't, we're well protected. Life is easy.

But leaving Fiji was hard. We loved the people and the place. We hadn't seen enough but the choice was to spend the season there or move on to Vanuatu and Australia. We went up into the Yasawa group again for a couple weeks and had great experiences. We snorkeled with the manta rays south of Naviti. We had a wonderful time with the sweet people of the village of Malakati on Nacula. We spent several nights at the beautiful anchorage of Navadra. There were plenty of good reasons to stay on in Fiji. We changed our minds several times but ultimately decided it was time to move on.

So we pushed off early August 18th from Vuda Pt. bound for Port Resolution, the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. This was a voyage of about 490 nautical miles and turned out to be about one third broad reach in rough and rolly conditions, one third motoring in flat calm and two thirds pretty much hard on the weather. Oh well. We caught a nice Wahoo and wrapped a genoa sheet around the prop shaft during the fish fight. I dove the shaft and got the wrap off but the shaft strut got torqued and is seeping a little water so we'll fix that here in Vila next week. It was three days, 18 hours en-route to one of the most beautiful land falls we've ever made. Something about the red glow visible in the night from 35 miles out, the glow being from the erupting volcano above the anchorage. Or maybe it's the lush green beauty of the nearly land locked anchorage with no sign of development. Or maybe it was the guys in dugout outrigger canoes who came out to greet us politely.

Port Resolution is a place which should not be missed. We went ashore and made arrangements with the local village spokesman to get a ride across the island to check in with the authorities and to ride up to view the volcano that evening. The one truck in the village is the vehicle to reach the final path to the rim of Mt. Yasur. This has been a continuously active volcano since before Cook visited in 1774 and named the bay after his ship 'Resolution'. Shall we say the 'roads' are rough? Hiking up to the volcano rim in late afternoon and watching and listening to the thing blow molten rock lava bombs hundreds of feet into the air as darkness falls is a very, very memorable experience. They do restrict access when levels of activity are extreme but the normal levels are pretty impressive. The local guys reassured us by saying no one has been killed there since 1995 when a couple Japanese tourists got hit by the same lava bomb.

We took the truck over to Lenakel, the main village on Tanna, to check in. After our volcano experience we brought boat cushions for the truck ride. Since it's almost two hours each way over another Tanna style 'road' the cushions were one of our better ideas in awhile. The ride was a steep trek over the central mountains on the island through heavy tropical forest. There are tiny villages here and there and people live on a subsistence level pretty much as they have always. But cannibalism officially disappeared in 1968. Now how that date was arrived at we're not sure....The Tannans used to raid the nearby island of Erromango for human victims. Pigs were the reward and the going rate was ten pigs in trade for every Erromangan a Tannan warrior could bring to the the pot. This a still big joke amongst the Tannans, but we haven't met any Erromangons anywhere.

Check in at Lenakel was very smooth and the town, since it was market day, was bustling and colorful. We enjoyed a couple more days in Port Resolution and then sailed in the company of our friends Jamie and Christine Tate on "Morning Light" up to Port Vila. This was another bumpy 24 hours but we were getting over nine knots occasionally with the genoa, stay'sl and a reef in the main. Fast for us.

So now we're enjoying the comforts of civilization in Port Vila. The Waterfront Bar and Restuarant is another classic yachtie hang out. We'll haul the boat next week and fix the strut leak. Then the scheme is work north through the island group to Espiritu Santo. Probably sometime in early to mid October we'll depart from there direct for Australia. We'll make port in Bundaberg, put the boat on the hard, travel a little on land down to Sydney, and then be home in November. As they say in the cruising community, "that's the plan".

Love to all,
Bill & Janet
SV Airstream

Engine Replacement in Paradise

Hello to all,

We're back at Musket Cove after more than a month at Vuda Point Marina getting the new engine installed. Vuda is not necessarily a bad place, the yacht club bar is very picturesque, but it's hot and sticky, windless, buggy, poorly run in some respects and most people get real tired of the place in a hurry. We were no exception. Since the boat was pretty much uninhabitable during the engine swap we took advantage of the 'yachtie special' at a nearby resort called 'First Landing' and stayed there for two weeks. Other than the nice pool and some air conditioning, the above description of Vuda Pt. pretty much applies to First Landing. We're glad to be back at Musket Cove. And we're only at Musket long enough to sit out a little weather, take delivery of a couple spare engine parts that weren't in stock and then we'll be off up into the Yasawas for a few weeks.

And the new engine? The Yanmar 4JH4AE runs beautifully, very clean, quiet and smooth. The installation turned out very well and we have reasonable hopes for many years of trouble free service. Although the rated horse powers of the two engines (55HP) are the same the Yanmar seems to be putting out a lot more power. We're using the same transmission (it was almost new) and the prop (a two bladed fully feathering Max Prop) was set at 18 degrees. That setting gave me a maximum RPM of 3400 with the Perkins, a recommended setting. The Yanmar was pulling it's governed speed of 4000 RPM with that setting so I upped it to 22 degrees. It's still pulling 4000 RPM. Since Yanmar wants the prop set so that the engine is pulling 3200 at full throttle I've got some more prop adjustment to do and the boat is definitely going faster and accelerating more rapidly as it is. This is good. For those folks who are considering having some boat work done I will give Baobab Marine at Fuda Pt. a high recommendation. Brian Smith, the owner, is a South African who runs a meticulous operation. His shop is a first class organization and his people are very good and have a great attitude. As Nadeem, the lead mechanic, put it, "I want you to be happy in your heart with this." The price of the engine itself was way less than prices I was quoted from sources in New Zealand and the US. The total installation cost was also much less than in just about anywhere else the work could be done. And, as I said, I think the installation was as good a I might expect from KKMI near San Francisco or Windward Yacht Services in LA which I consider to be two very good yards. We did have some discussion about the labor estimates. When we were considering the job Brian estimated "a conservative estimate" of 24 hours labor. This seemed pretty low to me and I questioned that and was assured it was his best estimate. Of course there was way, way more labor than 24 hours and we were billed for much of it. However, I did keep a little count of hours spent and we were still billed less than the time spent, a fact which Brian pointed out in our discussions. So ultimately, since we had to replace the engine, we were lucky it happened here. And again, I recommend Baobab Marine. Brian was fair, I expect a guy to make money, and his people are very good. I would suggest that if you do something as complex as as engine replacement that you go with your own estimate of the labor that may be involved and be prepared for more.

So I've spent the last month "working on the boat in exotic places", a common definition of cruising. Janet was a little more social and made several trips into Lautoka with friends and one major girl trip with nine other women to spend a couple days in Suva and take in the first ever professional Fijian opera production. It was "Carman" sung in English and Fijian with an all Fijian cast. I'm told the singing and the whole production was quiet wonderful.

Much of my socializing has been with the mechanics during the job and they were great fun. These guys are all Muslim Indians. They're bright and funny and we had some good talks. Since they're Muslims and the subjects of rum, kava and wives were a frequent thread there was a lot of kidding going on. One guy likes his rum, another his kava, and I was assured that the Koran allows alcohol as long as it's 'not to excess', and kava isn't mentioned at all. They are allowed seven wives but these guys all had only one. "Seven wives, seven times the trouble, seven times the expense!"

Right now it's blowing 25-30 knots with gusts to 44 and we're sitting it out on our mooring nice and cozy with lots of friends around. We'll be off in a few days into the Mamanucas and Yasawas dodging reefs (another boat, a female single hander, was lost a few days ago off one of the out islands) diving with the Mantas and back to having fun.

Love to all,
Bill & Janet
SV Airstream

The good, the bad, and the expensive….life on the boat in Fiji!

Hello to all,

The times since the last blog have been generally pretty good but, as you may read, there has been an expensive development.

Julie and Russ, my niece and her husband, visited us and we had a wonderful time. The weather cooperated. That hasn’t always been the case when special guests visit. Loren and Mary Halverson had to sit out a lot of rain and storm conditions last year in Tonga. But this year the weather gods smiled and we had sunny, breezy days and cool nights. We snorkeled the Musket Cove reefs and explored Malololailai Island. We sailed north to the southern boundaries of the Yasawa Group. Russ and I engaged in minor boat repairs. Janet and Julie had some great shell hunting. The snorkeling was very good. When their island hopper commuter aircraft didn’t show for the return flight to Nadi the local ‘agent’ arranged a boat to take them the fifteen miles across the Nadi waters to Denerau where they would catch a cab to the airport. When the boat’s engine crapped out half way there (at night of course) they managed to get things running again in time to get to shore and make their flight home. A little adventure is good.

The trip up to Waya, the southern most island in the Yasawas was a special glimpse of good things to come. Waya is a rugged, precipitous, volcanic island, very green and lush with dramatic rock outcroppings and lovely white sand beaches. It’s shaped like a vertically elongated X with deep bays on the north and south. Since we had a nice easterly trade blowing and would have for several days we reached north from Musket Cove and thirty two miles later dropped anchor in the southern bay off the village of Yalobi, well protected from the prevailing winds and seas. We took the dinghy ashore and did SevuSevu with the village chief although in this case it was the chief’s brother-in-law.. SevuSevu is the Fijian custom whereby a visitor asks permission from the leadership to be present in the village. The custom upon arrival at a village is to make yourself known, and they will see you coming, and ask to meet the chief. Someone will greet you in a very friendly manner and take you to a meeting place where you are greeted formally and where you make a present of about half a kilo of Kava root (which you have in stock for such occasions) to the chief. He, in return, grants you the freedom of the village and the surrounding waters and the village takes responsibility for your well being during your visit. You may end up drinking Kava with an assembled group, we didn’t in this case, or it may not be much of a meeting at all. It varies a lot from village to village. So we visited Yalobi which is a very sweet and unspoiled village. There was no sign of tourism and not much contact with the outside world. We went to a nice church service the next day which was partly in English for our benefit. That afternoon we motored a little north up the west side of the island where we anchored off a nice beach and a simple but lovely resort called ‘Octopus’. There was great snorkeling off the ‘Octopus’ reefs. We spent two nights there and returned to Musket in time for Julie and Russ to enjoy a couple nights at the Musket Cove resort and make their flight home. We had a great time with them.

You’ll note I said we ‘motored’ a little north. I’d been a little concerned about that engine since leaving Half Moon Bay in NZ. There had been a little work done by the local diesel outfit there and things had been ‘different’ ever since. It began making smoke and it became hard to start sometimes. It had never acted that way before. The oil usage I had always considered normal for that engine (a Perkins 4-108) seemed to stop. I changed oil and filters a couple times. I thought because I was using a new brand of oil the characteristics of the engine had changed. I thought maybe I had overfilled the oil but it seemed to be making oil. This can be a very bad sign but there was no indication of water in the oil. Gradually we became convinced there was fuel in the oil and we headed over to Fuda Pt. to get the engine looked at by Baobab Marine which is owned by a South African guy with a very good reputation. We made it into Fuda Pt. with a low oil pressure warning occurring at low RPM and got established in this nice place. The next day we attempted to start the engine and it had seized up solid. After the engine had cooled down things just wouldn’t rotate any longer. Sayonara faithful Perkins! So the question became; Do we spend a lot of money on an old (6000 hrs) out of date English diesel or do we spend a little more money on a new Japanese Yanmar 4JH4AME? Janet likes the idea of a new, quiet and reliable engine. So do I. So the new Yanmar is supposed to be here tomorrow and in the boat the next day. We talked with two boats who had the installation of the same engine done here and they were very pleased. The price for the engine is less than we would pay in the US and the installation labor, even if it goes way over estimate, will be much less. So it could be worse. If things go as forecast we’ll be out of here soon. Stay tuned, the action starts tomorrow.

Love to all,
Bill & Janet

PS: We had very good scuba diving off the reefs around Malolo and the Manmanucas.

Flash! Nemo attacks Janet

Hello to all,

Anemone fishes (subfamily Amphiprioniae) (Dusky Anenome Fish, Amphiprion melanopus to size 12 cm) live in close association with one or more of ten host species of sea anemones. They are protected from the anemones stinging cells by their mucus which carries the anemones chemical signature. This inhibits the stinging cells from firing and is acquired by the larva during settlement at the anemones base. Anemone fishes are protandrous hermaphrodites, that is all mature as males, then some may reverse sex later. Not unlike some humans. The female is the largest most dominant fish of each colony, and her presence inhibits the sex reversion of the males. It has been proven that these fish will attack human females. Especially pesky, nosy, aggressive types who go around sticking their fingers into the host anemone to "see what it feels like". The bite has been described as a "vicious attack, shocking". However, it does not break the skin and serves only to panic the victim into spitting out her regulator at a depth of ten meters, hmmmm.... Anemone fishes feed primarily on zooplankton and filamentous algea and are among the hardiest and most popular of aquarium fishes.

Soooo...obviously Janet is here and the fun has begun. Her flights went very well and she arrived in only a mild state of shock and seems to be settling in nicely. We've started doing some diving and have an almost daily snorkel around the local reefs. The weather has been the tropical mix of sunny trade wind days and occasional rain. The diving is very good with great coral and a nice mix of fish species.

Many of our cruising friends from last year are in the area and it has become very social for now. Two days ago our friends on Meridian and Tin soldier left Opua for Fiji and we're told almost twenty boats are enroute. Soon the fleet will spread out again. We had ten people on the boat last night for sundowners including Steve and Wendy Bott and their son Alan. Their boat, Elusive, sunk at sea on the voyage up from NZ and they were taken on board by friends near enough to reach them before they had to abandon ship. They arrived a few days ago and have been reordering their lives. You can read about the Elusive sinking in the most recent "Lectronic Latitude" from Latitude 38. This has been quite a shock to the group. The Latitude 38 article says all that is known and the rumors running around that they had identified the keel bolts as the problem are definitely not true. They don't know what caused the boat to start taking on water and probably never will. And these are experienced and skilled people.

So we're hanging out in a pretty nice place until our family (my niece Julie and her husband Russ) show up on the 4th and then we'll be off to prowl around the Mamanucas and maybe as far north as the Southern Yasawa Group. Life is pretty good.

Love to all,
Bill & Janet
SV Airstream