Pacific Crossing
Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia April 22nd, 2012.
Time to go home after 12 months tied up at the marina Taina, Papeete, Tahiti.
The balance of the Pacific crossing is circa 3,500 nm, and we are on a delivery trip to the best country in the world – bar none. Home is where the heart is of course, but us lucky Aussies have riches in spades in just about every respect.
I’m now too old and very impatient to do so much more in life, so this is a purposeful trip to get just get home. Will miss being uplifted by the beautiful people, always smiling, no aspirations at all for anything that we hold as a norm, but won’t miss other aspects such as boring anchorages all looking the same.
Our first port call after 4 days was Rarotonga in the Cook Islands to visit Richard Barton and his wife Willi.
Richard had us playing croquet on the lawn of their beautiful waterfront home, nice meals, and down to the Yacht Club for Sunday afternoon sport – racing miniature radio controlled yachts around the lagoon.
I managed to drown mine, but pledged to do this in the future. All the fun of sailing without getting wet, and your competitor can hear every bit of abuse you throw at them. “Mast abeam”, on a leeward mark in a polite voice, and a response of “rubbish, or bullshit”
On the side of the road in Raratonga, Richard and John purloin provisions to fight off any scurvy.
Further on from the Cooks we visited Vava’u in northern Tonga, and spent 3 days at Port Denarau in Lautoka, Fiji.
This was a nice marina and had a Jazz and Blues festival on at the time, but can’t figure out how so many rockers made the bill.
Refueling incident, Fiji
An interesting experience happened here when we fueled. We were at a day ferry fixed wharf and had to fill up before the ferries returned from an excursion out to the Islands. When we take on a lot of fuel we have to alternate tanks being filled every 500 litres (this time we needed 6000 litres) because we start to list badly, but this wasn’t strangely noticeable until we found we were actually hanging off the fixed wharf by a dock line, and reckoned I cut the rope just before it would have exploded.
Fiji I have been to many times when the kids were young, but in spite of political coups going on all the time, it is the best country in the Pacific without question because of the beautiful islands, and guess what – they speak English.
Our last stop on the voyage before home was Port Vila on Efate Island in Vanuatu, just 6 days from far north Queensland, our destination.
Here we enjoyed catching up with a great French family, Marc Besson, his wife Constance, and two young boys, Alexi and Nicco, who have recently sold their 70’ pilot house sailing boat, to a Taswegian of all people.
They have decided to settle in Port Vila until the boys need more serious schooling in a few years.
I tied up next to these guys in Cairns Marina three years ago on my Oz circumnavigation, and we hit it off really well.
Marc, for a Frenchman, has an Aussie sense of humour and took us to a wine shop that carried a brand that he say’s was named after him – “Arrogant Frog”.
Marc was a merchant banker at the highest level in London, and every night he trades – from home, in a completely tax free paradise.
As I write this I’m listening to that great singer of songs for people that go to sea – Eileen Quinn. She sums it all up perfectly with complete honesty, revealing in clever verse the ups and downs of cruising the world in a pleasure boat.
One that brings a tear to Marg’s eye is about “Grandma & Grandpa – went to sea” sung from a grandchilds point of view and says’ “when will they see me”.
John with our first Mahi Mahi, taken between Tahiti and Raratonga
Back to the vessel SKIE. She let out her final demonstration of vengeance for being neglected for so long, and told her full compliment of batteries (17) to expire 12 hours before lines were slipped in Tahiti to head home. Five years is what you are told to expect from your Lifeline AGM batteries, and the five years had ticked over almost to the day. What an absolute bummer.
This means that we source electrical power via the main engine alternator when it is running, the generator, or shore power, which will be scarce until we get home and await our full compliment of batteries from the (US $10,000 worth) Ouch! If I bought the same batteries in Oz, just double the price.
I’ve often vowed I would like to become a consumers advocate one day, and being a retailer who only imports, I know the ropes and numbers down to a dollar. I’m aware that carrying stock needs some margin, but not carrying it, and charging the margin is highway robbery, borne from the big boat owners who have far more money than sense.
Whilst on the subject, if you take a boat to sea and wish to have a job done – get an itemized quote down to the finest detail – and never leave the boats side as it ‘s being done. It will be rare to see a final price that isn't substantially more than the quote.
Before I left for Alaska I had the boat hauled on the Gold Coast for a full workover e.g. antifoul, cut and polish, etc. I stayed on the boat and scrutinised every job being done, and presumed my presence kept everyone on their toes.
However the final job was an interior clean, expected to take one day, so headed off home south to Melbourne. When I found a bill to do this clean turned out to be $4500, I gained a powerful lesson. In the business world, and particularly from Lawyers, this is called "papering the file". The company that did all the work on my boat probably wondered why a N55 booked in with them that had just arrived from Europe for a full workover, finished up in an opposition yard.
Current issues we have at time of writing is a faulty stop solenoid on the generator, and a sticking float on the low water bilge pump that needs a tap with a hammer to shut off. This is piddling normal boat stuff, and I have gone through the past five years virtually free from any major issue. When my original salesman Brad Smith from Nordhavn said that Dave Harlow the project manager would build me a great boat – he was right.
Now to the deep confession that I’m a typical Nordhavn owner that has a wing engine (emergency) that is treated like a poor relation, i.e. it’s never used. Firstly heading down to Mexico I started her up but she wasn’t dispelling any raw water from the exhaust, and overheated.
The intake valve from the seachest was calcified and as tight as a fish’s arsehole, which we know is watertight. Next time was in Tahiti when we found that the huge raw water exhaust elbow was clogged shut with calcium deposits also. Next time we started the wing up just out of Tonga, the packing in the stuffing box seized to the shaft and we had the stuffing gland rotating at 1500 rpm in sync with the shaft.
Our secret weapon on board was Johnny Thomley who is worse than a dog with a bone, when fixing anything, and nothing will beat him – nothing.
From diving overboard to stuffing rag into the shaft aperture so we won’t sink, to lying on his guts in the engine room for hours picking out rock hard packing, we (sorry he) finally got it fixed, but won’t test it finally until we get much closer to home.
If I ever had another boat I would have hydraulics off this wing engine for anchor deployment/retrieval, anchor washdown, and thrusters, so this poor relation engine can be exercised as it was built to do.
Main engine (God bless it) has over 4400 hours and the wing 48 hrs, which is sheer neglect on my part.
We are currently heading for Airley Beach via MacKay (Customs clearance) just south of the wonderful Whitsunday Islands in far north Queensland where we plan to winter SKIE each year in the warmth, which is most appreciated when you live down south in Melbourne.
Marg will meet us there after a couple of days being defrosted at the Hayman Island resort.
My ship board mates, John Thomley (Mr fixit) from San Diego, and close Melbourne friend John Poulakis, have provided such wonderful company, plenty of laughs, and cooking meals, which borders on decadence. If I never eat Mahi Mahi again cooked every possible way, I will die a happy man.
I have caused a coup in the kitchen by pushing lamb chops, steaks, chicken, Asian stir fries, mashed potatoes, pasta every style known, - just normal food.
Getting home will see the end of this blog as my priorities in life have taken a different direction now that I’m staring down the barrel of three score and ten on the clock next year.
The last 12 months off the boat has given me some new interesting challenges which I have enjoyed very much. Apart from being very involved in the family business, my hobby has been creating theme gardens on our 22 acre weekender. The first one was a 1000 sqm succulent/cacti rockery, which has been filled with everything I can source from around the world. Now is this a sign that maturity is really kicking in? If so, its sure taken it’s bloody time.
My epilogue will be written on this blog for the final post to try and briefly sum up the whole adventure from planning the boat build in 2006, and being on her on the water from 2007 to 2012.
I will be really content if some reader out there may have gained some insight as to what is involved in taking a boat to sea and rack up 30,000 nm – an unabashed, slightly edgy (I hope), and really just an honest account , with hopefully no banging on side - just warts and all.
This final post will be devoted to my beautiful and loving shipmate wife, Margaret who I remember like it was just yesterday crying out from the kitchen at home in 2007 – “Hey, you told me it was costing a million less” as I sheepishly found something trivial to distract me from a reply.