Blogger is stopping support for the FTP service that I use to automatically upload my blog posts to our web server space. It has been too much of a hassle for them to deal with the vagaries of non-standard FTP and firewalls, etc (so they say).

I must either revert to the url svsoggypaws.blogspot.com or blog.svsoggypaws.com (I am still working out the details of this).

I think I will be able to keep posting the updates automatically as notes on Facebook regardless. Anyway, if you have svsoggypaws.com/blog bookmarked, get ready to change it. I will for sure update the links on our website as soon as I have something set (must be done by May 1).
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At 4/12/2010 5:00 PM (utc) our position was 23°01.09'S 134°55.21'W

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THIS is what we traveled 5,000 miles for!!

We left Rikitea harbor yesterday morning to go out to the outer reef and hang out for a few days. Bill on Visions of Johanna had gotten some waypoints from a French boat (Steel Band aka Asterix) for going up into the 'unsurveyed' part of the atoll. And we could see a light wind period coming up, for a few days.

So about mid-day, us and Infini and Visions and Steel Band all headed out of the harbor, east to the edge of the reef, and north along the reef. We left first and ended up in the lead. It turned out to be a 'no-brainer' for us (we don't need no stinkin' waypoints!)--the water is really clear and easy to read. It is mostly very deep--60-80 feet. There are brown spots that are submerged coral heads at about 20 feet.

There is a solid reef all along the eastern side of the Gambiers atoll, with periodic 'motus'... little sand/coral islands. A few have palm trees... they look JUST like that Windows background with the sailboat and the island.

When we arrived at the island that Steel Band had put an anchor waypoint on, we worked our way into shallow water. It turned out to be a little harder than we anticipated to find a good anchor spot. There are too many very shallow coral heads. We picked the largest open area and dropped our anchor in what we hoped was the middle. The depth was only 10 feet, nice sand, so we didn't need a lot of scope. When Visions and Infini arrived, they didn't like the shallow coral-studded area and went back out into deeper water.

Ooops... we forgot to factor in the weather. All we had taken note of was wind SPEED when we looked at the forecast. It turned out that the reason the wind is dropping off is because of an approaching front. Last night the wind backed about 180 degrees. It left us sweating how close we were to a specific coral head. Just at dusk we had the foresight to swim out a second anchor to help keep us centered--we ended up hanging on that anchor all night long.

Fortunately, this 'front' was VERY mild. We had one rain shower and clocked 20 knots, but it didn't last long. Though the wind was most of the night coming from across the atoll, it was under 10 knots and so not a problem. Now, 24 hours after we arrived, it has back on around to the SE, and we are now hanging behind the reef again.

We are still getting used to this 'upside-down' weather. The cold fronts come from the south. And when they approach, the wind goes NE-N-NW-W and then blows cold air from the South after the front passes. Weird. And there is no Herb/Southbound II or Chris Parker here to explain the weather to us. Once we get a little further west and north, there are more nets and some weather gurus, but especially in this part of the Pacific, it's just us and the GRIB files. We are finally in the French Polynesia weather area. But the weather we can get from Saildocs is sparse, for only 'today and tomorrow', and in French. Here's yesterday's forecast for our area:

GAMBIER
SECTEUR EST 11/16KT MOLLISSANT 07/10KT A MI-ECHEANCE PUIS REVENANT AU SECTEUR SUD-OUEST EN FIN DE PERIODE, RAFALES 25/30KT SOUS GRAINS, MER AGITEE DEVENANT PEU AGITEE, AVERSES EPARSES OU GRAINS ISOLES.

Yep.

Anyway, where we are is just GORGEOUS. Sand beaches, palm trees, aquamarine water, beautiful coral, warm water, sunshine. It doesn't get any better than this.
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At 4/10/2010 5:48 AM (utc) our position was 23°01.09'S 134°55.21'W

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We've been having WAY too much fun to stop and write blog entries...

We did have 2 nice days at the Hanga Roa anchorage, where the weather was settled enough that we enjoyed ourselves. We took an afternoon amble around the "moai" (big stone heads) near Hanga Roa, the main town, and we went to the Museum.

We also took a walk around town and scoped out things like dive shops, laundry, groceries, internet, and souvenier stands.

The next day we took a half day tour of the north end of the island, where the 'birdman cult' hung out. This is the Easter Island 'religion' that succeeded the moai-builders, and is centered around an extinct volcano crater and a couple of small islands offshore. To decide who next year's ruler was, a representative from each party would swim out to the island and wait for the seabird nesting to begin. The group who's representative was the first to bring back (swimming across a half mile of open ocean, and scaling a very tall cliff) the first bird egg, got to rule the island for the next year. The actual 'birdman' also got the pretty girl, we understand.

The next day, Saturday, was scheduled to be a 'work day'. Sue from s/v Infini and I went grocery shopping. We walked all over town and shlepped large bags full of meat, veggies, and other necessaries back to the dinghy. When we got back to the dinghy, wow, was the surf big. Getting in and out of the small boat harbor is an adventure on a normal day. Well, this turned out to be more of an adventure than we'd planned.

What we'd been told is to idle at the dinghy dock and wait for a big "set" of waves to finish, then race out thru the surf zone in the calm that follows. Well, what we didn't know was that at this time, there was not going to be any calm. And we were in a hurry--the guys were waiting for the dinghy to go get diesel. So we idled out into the surf zone and somehow got 'committed' to going, and there was no calm. To make a long story short... we got flipped by a REALLY BIG wave... all our groceries in the surf... the dinghy and motor, and Sue and I. It was an exciting time to say the least.

Fortunately, there were lots of surfers nearby, and I think the locals are used to this drill. A couple of surfers helped Sue and I out. We (between crashing big waves) got the dinghy flipped back. Some of the guys were gathering up our floating groceries on their surfboards. And someone called the Chilean Coast Guard, and they were soon out in jetskis helping to collect stuff too. In the end, we lost about a third of our groceries. Sue lost a handheld VHF, and her camera, which was in a nylon 'drybag', is now toast. She was able to retrieve her bag that had her money and passport in it (though it was all soaked). My camera was in a better drybag, which one of the surfers retrieved. It got a few drops of water on it, but Dave cleaned it up and it's working for now. I did lose my small change purse with 3 credit cards in it, which was just in my pocket.

The bad part was that the dinghy motor needed to be worked on ASAP, to flush the salt water out. But the guys were stuck out on the boats--the conditions were too bad for them to come in. Fortunately, the Chilean Coast Guard mechanic volunteered to take the outboard back to their shop and work on it immediately--gratis. What a very nice gesture.

Sue and I sat on shore trying to dry our stuff out, and watching the surf, wondering how we were going to get back aboard. Finally, another cruiser with a small dinghy hired a fisherman to load their dinghy on his big outboard-powered launcha, and take them out. So when he came back, we negotiated a ride too. It was an exciting trip thru the surf--still huge waves--with our dinghy in the middle of the boat.

Mike and Dave, out on the boats, noticed a bunch of bananas float by, so they got in the 2nd dinghy and ran around gathering up whatever they could. They retrieved quite a few useful things too.

The next day we were supposed to have rented a car to go do a self-tour at the other end of the island. But while we were waiting for the surf to subside, I walked up and canceled the rental--the surfers and the dive shops said the surf would stay bad tomorrow too. And we saw from the GRIB files that a weather change was coming.

The next 36 hours were pretty bad as the swell built from NE, and the wind swung to the NE--a direction that isn't a good one anywhere on Easter Island. 3 boats opted to go ahead and leave for Pitcairn/Gambiers that evening, and the Chilean Armada guys were so helpful in coming out to the boats to clear them out of Chile.

After the 2nd really rolly awful squally night at Hanga Roa, with the wind backing more toward the north, we left at dawn for an anchorage on the south side of the island. It was Soggy Paws and Visions and Infini in a parade out of the anchorage, and then beating our way east against 20-25 kt winds. When standing off the Hotu Iti anchorage, which we had waypoints for, I could not believe there would be any protected anchorage there. But Visions, much faster than us, had arrived ahead and assured us that it was better than Hanga Roa, at least.

We spent the next 2 nights rolling our guts out at Hotu Iti. It is a pretty place, but we had gusty winds from NE and 6 foot swell rolling in around the headland. We were often sideways to the swell. Difficult conditions.

Visions decided to clear out for Gambiers, and called the Armada on VHF and asked if they'd come out with their paperwork to this remote anchorage, 10 miles out of town. Though we hadn't really had as much fun as we planned at Easter Island, faced with a forecast that showed more of the same difficult conditions for about another week, we decided to go to. Dave and Mike hitched back to town with the Armada guys, rented a car, and we spent all day running errands (filling diesel jugs, shopping, last minute internet, etc).

After another rolly night, the wind was finally starting to switch around to the N and NW, the sun came out, and the swell was calming down. But the Armada called us on the VHF and said more bad weather was coming, and we should leave.

So yesterday, Visions left Easter Island in the morning, and Infini and Soggy Paws left just after noon. The forecast shows west winds all across the direct route from Easter to Pitcairn and the Gambiers. So we are doing a tricky 'dive south' maneuver to try to pick up winds off a high pressure area south of here. We'll see how that works out.

We are sad that we didn't get to see all major sites on the island, and didn't get to go diving. Another 2 or 3 days of settled weather would have done it, but that was not to be.

We have a total of 1400 miles to go to our end destination--the town of Rikitea on Mangareva in the Gambier Islands of French Polynesia (approx 23S 135W). We hope to make an intermediate stop at Pitcairn Island, if the weather permits.
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At 3/24/2010 11:14 PM (utc) our position was 29°01.40'S 110°45.23'W

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(Too bad we're still motoring!)

Our friends on Infini have declared that they are not motoring in. They are still sailing. I envy them the tranquil sailing, but only time will tell who gets to actually SEE Pitcairn. Mike has been talking about Pitcairn ever since we started out on this trip. He just refuses to motor. We expect them to arrive just about the same time a 14-16 foot swell arrives. They are talking about heaving-to for a few days to wait out the bad swells at Pitcairn. Good for them.

For me, I'm ready for THIS adventure to be over. We're counting the days til we're in the Gambiers, in a nice reef-enclosed anchorage. And it looks like we're arriving at Pitcairn in a nice lull, so we'll actually be able to go ashore.

Today was a picture perfect day, but the wind is still decreasing. And to make matters worse, it has gone to the NW, so it is now too close to the nose to be sailing. We finally pulled in the genoa an hour ago. We're hardly getting anything but stability out of the mainsail.

Dave just went to take a picture of the calmness. It isn't yet 'flat dead calm'. There are ripples on the water, and still the big swell. But it is long period and isn't bothering us at all. I'm having fun cooking a real dinner tonight! (Shrimp Stir Fry... yum!)

We're in the process of making 80 gallons of water. I did a little laundry--about 10 days worth of underwear--in the sink. We have enough T-shirts to last a lifetime, so underwear is the only thing we get a little stressed about. The last time we did laundry was about Feb 28! We wanted to get our laundry done at Easter Island, but never got the chance before weather chased us out.
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At 4/2/2010 1:32 AM (utc) our position was 25°05.39'S 128°23.26'W

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Here is our April Fool's Joke: We have beautiful sailing conditions, but we are motoring. :P

Dave and I "discussed" all afternoon yesterday whether and when to turn the engine on. Dave's argument was that we'd come almost 3,000 miles to see Pitcairn, and we had a good weather window to do so coming up, and we should motor like hell to get there and make the most of the calm weather. My argument was that this was the best sailing weather we'd had in 4 weeks, and we should enjoy it. His logic prevailed over mine, and we cranked the engine right after dinner last night.

We motorsailed all night in 8-10 knots of relative wind (part of it being made by the forward speed of our engine), making 6 knots straight toward Pitcairn. We are now pretty certain we will arrive between 8 and 9am local time tomorrow (Fri). (ONLY 24 more hours of 'rrrrrrrrrr' of the engine!).

We both got caught up on our sleep last night, both off watch and on watch. The conditions were tranquilo (et tranquil en francais), we haven't seen another vessel in weeks, and we were pretty fatigued from the ordeal of the last week. Each of us slept through at least one 'wake up' alarm while on watch!

This morning, I fixed a nice 'Sunday Breakfast'... scrambled eggs, grits, and toast, and we put up the cockpit table and had a nice civilized breakfast, complete with orange juice (boxed).

With engine on, we've got lots of battery power, so we will likely catch up on computing tasks and charge all the rechargeable batteries on the boat. We might even watch a video of 'Mutiny on the Bounty' this evening.

History Lesson: Pitcairn Island is where the Bounty mutineers ended up after they cast Captain Bligh adrift in one of the longboats. They chose Pitcairn because it was remote. They were (rightly) afraid of being discovered, and hanged for mutiny. Several missions to locate the mutineers were dispatched by the British Admiralty after news of the mutiny reached England.

The descendents of Fletcher Christian and the other mutineers, and the Polynesian families that accompanied them to the island, are still living on Pitcairn. It is now a British protectorate.
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At 4/1/2010 4:20 PM (utc) our position was 24°59.43'S 127°29.04'W

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Ahh, this is the cruise I signed up for!!

In the wee hours of the morning, the wind started letting up. We have had a really nice sail all day long. Clear skies, 15 knots of wind, sunshine.

Our friends on Visions of Johanna reached Pitcairn this morning. We are anxious to talk to them on the radio tonight to hear what they have to say about the anchorage. It looks like we've lucked into a very nice weather window for visiting... the winds are dying and it is supposed to be calm for the next 2-3 days.

We have the full genoa and main out, with wind on our quarter, and sailing along in reasonable seas at about 5.5 knots. Dave is itching to turn on the engine, because he calculated that we need to make 6 knots to arrive at Pitcairn at 8:30am Friday morning. I'm resisting. But the wind IS forecast to die off tonight, and when it does, we'll have to motor.

We'll have to motor about 36 hours. We hear that the cost of diesel in Gambiers is $5/gallon, when it is available. (!!)

But we hope to spend Friday and Saturday at Pitcairn. We've come all this way, it's worth a few bucks to make the most of it. Then we'll take off on Sunday for the last 300 miles to the Gambiers. The forecast is for some reasonable wind for that leg.

Tomorrow while we're motoring, we'll have time to do some housekeeping... make water, do laundry, wash down the boat. We haven't done laundry since just before leaving the Galapagos Mar 1. I'm running out of underwear! (but not T-shirts!)
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At 4/1/2010 2:04 AM (utc) our position was 25°01.79'S 125°59.45'W

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I keep thinking of Jimmy Buffett's song that goes "The days drift by, they don't have names."

It is Tuesday, March 30th, and it's hard to believe that we've been out here on our second leg of this grand journey for 8 days already. With a 24 hour watch schedule, the days just kind of blend into one another. If we didn't have watches with the day and the date, it would be really hard to know how many days it had been.

We have been running almost straight down wind for 2 days now. We started out with a triple reefed main and the genoa, but even that tiny main was blanking the genoa when we tried to head more down wind. So we took the main down early yesterday, and we've just got the big genoa up, without the pole. We've gybed twice over the last 36 hours, taking advantage of minor wind shifts... the wind started out SE, then E, and now is a little north of East.

We contemplated putting the pole on the genoa. But our pole is huge. 4" in diameter and about 20 feet long. It would be an adventure getting that sucker rigged up at the dock, much less doing it on our foredeck running downwind in 8 foot seas! But I have never seen it done on Soggy Paws, so Dave and I promised ourselves that we'd rig it up at anchor sometime soon, so we can both familiarize ourselves with the process. If the winds were lighter, we might want to wing-on-wing with the main, and we'd for sure want the pole up then.

The wind is still blowing close to 20 knots out of the East. This afternoon the waves were huge, but not bashing us around as much as yesterday, for some reason. Down here at 26° South, we are not that far from the famous 'Roaring Forties' (the very 'boisterous' area at 40° South). Our wide-area GRIB file extends down that far, and we can Lows pushing into the Highs, and big squash zones with 45 knot winds. We can see where the large confused sea comes from down here. There always seem to be 3 different wave trains, no matter which way your current wind is blowing.

Dave thinks we'll be at Pitcairn on Friday morning, April 2nd. We have about 24 more hours of good wind, and then the wind is supposed to peter out when we are still about 180 miles away from Pitcairn. If we want to take advantage of light winds to actually be able to visit Pitcairn, we'll have to crank up the 'iron genny' (our engine) and motorsail the last day into Pitcairn.

We plan to spend a day, or maybe two, at Pitcairn, if the anchorage is not too bad, and then head for the Gambier Islands, 300 more miles west of Pitcairn. Looks like it could be a beam reach in moderate winds between Pitcairn and Gambiers.
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At 3/31/2010 5:01 AM (utc) our position was 25°47.88'S 124°08.00'W

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20 knots, for the non-sailor, is about 25 mph. That's a lot of wind. We've been 'messing about' in 20 knots of wind for the last 2 days. But wind isn't the big deal. Wind is actually a good thing. Wind makes the boat go.

What IS the big deal are the seas. Over time, as the wind blows, the seas get bigger and bigger. Right now we have large waves--about 10 to 12 feet in height. Those are pretty big waves... almost twice as big as the average Satellite Beach wave (they are usually in the 5-6 foot range). Waves this big are really awesome.

We are 'running downwind' right now... that means going with the wind. The significance in sailing is that we are not heeled over. That's nice. But we are surfing down these big 10 foot waves, and rolling from side to side.

You cannot sit anywhere aboard, without bracing yourself to keep in place. To walk from our cabin to the main cabin, and then to the forward bathroom, you have to move from handhold to handhold (all conveniently spaced about 3 feet apart, just for this purpose). You have to time your walk with the roll of the boat.

You cannot put ANYTHING down and expect it to still be there in 5 minutes. Anything with any weight will get hurled across the cabin on the next roll. So we have to keep everything put away in cabinets or drawers (all specially designed to be self-locking, so they won't fly open in conditions like these). For a temporary spot to put things, we have a nice deep sink. But stuff slides back and forth in the sink too.

Cooking is truly a challenge. Just simple things like cutting up vegetables is an adventure. Put the knife down for a second, and it goes flying. Chop a piece of carrot off, and IT goes flying. There aren't enough hands to hold on for yourself, hold the knife, and hold on to the pieces of what you're cutting up. The stove is designed for this... it is built on a pivot to stay level when you are heeling (leaning over when sailing). Pull a couple of pins and, voila, it's level. It also has some brackets that you can attach to hold the pans in place, so THEY don't go flying.

In conditions like this, we eat in the cockpit, one-pot meals served in a bowl in our lap. It takes a lot of of inventiveness in the galley (kitchen) to come up with more than one 'delicious' one pot meal in a row. They tend to all start tasting alike after a couple in a row.

We normally drink water from a water bottle--it tends to hold its contents better than a cup when vaulted across the cockpit, and means we have one hand left to actually eat with.

Sleeping is also an adventure. The boat is pretty noisy when we're sailing in 20 knots of wind. Everything is creaking (not just the rigging, but the woodwork inside the boat). As we are going through the water, there's a lot of water pounding on the hull. And there's the sound of the wind and waves going by. The bed is moving in a pretty lively fashion, and it takes some creativity to get yourself wedged in where you can relax in that kind of movement, and sleep. We are usually braced on the downhill side with a foot or two, and spread out on the bed to stabilize things.

Yep, we are having fun out here!
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At 3/30/2010 2:13 AM (utc) our position was 27°12.00'S 121°54.77'W

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Well, we ended up motoring for just over 24 hours. We stopped once or twice to try sailing, but it just wasn't possible without slamming the sails (and us) around. We finally found sailable wind yesterday morning at about 11am (just as forecast).

The wind slowly built yesterday afternoon to about 15-20. At first it was not steady and drove us crazy... we'd get everything (3 sails, autopilot) all trimmed up for one windspeed, and then the wind would drop off to 8 knots, and we'd be all screwed up again, with the sails slapping and the boat rolling. When running downwind, as the wind speed changes, everything changes.

Fortunately, by last night, the wind steadied up at about 15-18 knots. We've got a triple-reefed main, staysail, and a scrap of genoa out, and are mostly doing about 6 knots. The seas are pretty big and are slinging us around some, but as long as the wind stays steady, it's not too bad.

The skies cleared last night, so we were able to enjoy a nice bright moon, and we have a pretty crystal blue day today.

We are sailing at 6 knots right toward Pitcairn (for now).

Our friends on Visions are now about 120 miles ahead of us, and they are getting beat up pretty badly. They are closer to the warm front we've been worrying about, and are seeing winds of 25-30 knots. (YUK!!) Infini is about 50 miles behind us (they don't motor as fast as we do), and have the same conditions we do.

We are ALL tired of this... if I could just say "beam me up, Scotty" I would (as long as the Enterprise wasn't under fire from alien forces).

605 miles to go to Pitcairn, and then another 300 miles after that to get to the Gambier archipelago (part of French Polynesia). There we hope to find a calm, enclosed anchorage for the first time in over a month.

This sure is a big patch of ocean down here!

We are not sure we'll be able to actually STOP at Pitcairn...but the current forecast looks like it might be possible. Pitcairn has an even worse anchoring situation than Easter does, and conditions have to be pretty near perfect to be able to stop there AND actually get off the boat and go ashore (safely). We're keeping our fingers crossed!
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At 3/28/2010 4:11 PM (utc) our position was 28°09.07'S 119°20.91'W

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It seems to be always too much wind or too little. We've gone from 20 knots to 5 knots to 25 knots to 5 knots, with very short 'reasonable' periods in between.

Right now we have about 5-7 knots from the SE, and we are headed WNW (almost dead downwind). We could almost sail this if the seas were as flat as the wind. But we still have about 6-8 feet of swell coming from the SE. We can't keep any sail full. Here is my logbook entry for the last hour:

Engine off, main and genoa out, making 3 knots.
Genoa in, Code Zero out
Main down (trying to keep the Code Zero full)
Code Zero in (can't keep it full)
Main up and engine on

Each of these line items entails about 15-20 minutes of screwing around with sails.

At least it isn't hot. Air temp is 70 degrees at night and 75 degrees during the day. Yesterday we spent all day in 100% overcast but today at least we have a nice sunny day with a few puffy clouds.

At our weather conference last night (among our 3 boats), we discussed the next big weather event--a low and a cold front approaching from the west. We're now heading for supposedly north of the NE end of the cold front, to try to stay out of the 25-30 knot winds forecast further south.

We are all thinking longingly of sailing in the tradewinds, where the wind is more or less steady.

I am trying to get a GRIB file in to see what the revised weather outlook--unfortunately we are so far 'out there' that it's difficult connecting with any of the Sailmail stations at this time of day. The closest and easiest station to connect with is Chile, but it is having internet issues and quite often just doesn't pass traffic. I've given up using it, and the rest of the stations are too far away. Thank God we thought to get the Iridium phone as a backup.
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At 3/26/2010 6:31 PM (utc) our position was 28°46.71'S 114°58.00'W

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When we were at Easter Island, desperate to get moving to the next 1100 miles further west, the weather for going west didn't look very good. Most of the wind on a direct line between Easter and Pitcairn was on our nose and/or very light.

Our friend Bill on Visions of Johanna, said, "No problemo, lets just head south, cut across a dissipating cold front, and ride the winds between the High and the Low." He has a fancy program (Expedition) that will take the GRIB file forecast and plot out a route. He has also paid a weather forecaster to give him advice on routing for this trip. (Ken at locusweather.com)

We were a little desperate while sitting there at Easter Island, with bad weather where we were and worse weather coming, and nowhere else to go. But seriously, next time I contemplate chasing wind in a Low, please kick me!!

We spent all day yesterday motorsailing SSW in very light air. The latest GRIB file showed the Low receding, and we were worrying about ever finding wind. Then, all of us a sudden (about right where it was supposed to be), we had the wind we were looking for. Beautiful ESE winds at about 10-12 knots. We turned off the engine and piled on all the sail we could muster, and were making 6 knots in the right direction under sail alone.

At our evening radio schedule at 1915 (7:15pm local), Bill, who was then about 50 miles ahead of us and further south, reported that they'd been in 20-30kt winds for hours, and to "watch out, don't come so far south". I changed course from SSW to West immediately, while Dave was still talking on the radio.

Thankfully, forewarned is forearmed, and when just 15 minute later we were hit by the first puff of 20-25kt wind, we knew what it was and rolled in the big genoa. 5 minutes later we were fully engulfed in Bill's 20-30 kt winds. As it got dark, Dave took in a 3rd reef in the mainsail. It was exciting, but with the right sailplan, not dangerous.

We sailed all night in 20-30 kts winds, with just the triple-reefed main and the staysail, making 7-8 knots! The waves were huge, and we were surfing down the face of the waves most of the night. The air temp dropped to a chilly 70 degrees and we had rain off and on during the night.

We started this trip pretty sleep-deprived--the last couple of nights at Easter were pretty sleepless. And the last 2 nights at sea were pretty challenging. We didn't take any day naps during the day yesterday, worrying about whether we'd ever find any wind or not.

Now we need to delicately feel our away along the isobars, trying to stay in wind, but not too much wind. Very far north, and the wind dies completely and/or becomes a headwind. Very far south of here and conditions get much worse.

But we are OK. We are in a sturdy boat, built to take this stuff. "Janet" (our CPT autopilot) is working her little heart out to keep us going in the right direction. No major failures to date.

BTW, we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary last night, with cold spaghetti in our laps. (Some anniversary cruise Dave took me on!!) We ARE both thankful to be here, and to be here with each other.
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At 3/25/2010 2:32 PM (utc) our position was 29°05.46'S 112°28.40'W

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We left Easter yesterday after a very rushed morning clearing out and getting the boat ready. The winds were honking along the south coast of Easter as we sailed west... 20-25 knots. It wasn't too bad until we cleared the west end of the island and got exposed to the full sea. Big waves!! We had several waves break and wash green water over the top of our dodger.

Things gradually calmed down last night--except for a few 30 knots squalls. This morning the wind went to nothing (something we expected) and we turned the engine on and started motoring SW. We are hoping to find good winds on the other side of the Low that we're motoring across (but the latest GRIB weather files show the windy area receding almost as fast as we're going).

There is a complex group of highs and lows in this area and we're trying to thread our way underneath a low and over a high, but NOT in a 'squash zone'. We are amazed at how relatively accurate the GRIB files are way out in this remote corner of the world. Thank goodness for Sailmail and Saildocs (how we get our weather files).

This could be a long trip!

It is saying a lot that I got a better night's sleep last night on passage than I did the last 3-4 nights at Easter Island.

That's what we call 'Adventure Cruising'!!
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At 3/24/2010 11:14 PM (utc) our position was 29°01.40'S 110°45.23'W

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Our second day on Pitcairn was as full and rewarding as the first one.

It started early with a call from Infini on VHF as they were (finally) approaching the island. We guided them in to a good anchoring spot.

At 9:30, Brenda Christian and 'Radio Dave' Brown were out in the skiff to collect us and Infini. We went with them to Brenda's house, and enjoyed more warm bread and Pitcairn honey at Brenda and Mike's, while Infini filled out their paperwork.

We organized lunch at Betty Christian's Cafe, with Dave's help, and then set off with Brenda and Mike on 2 quads for the quick tour of the island. We had already seen a couple of the sights yesterday with Bruce, but were happy to go again. Brenda encouraged us to make the hike down to 'Down Rope' and see the Polynesian glphys carved in the rock face. It was a near vertical scramble down and back up, but worth it for the look at the glyphs and a chance to beachcomb a little. We visited Ship Landing Point and St. Paul's again, this time with Infini. More pictures!! Sue and I actually followed Brenda way out on the 'nose' of Ship Landing Point (see photo when posted, which Bruce took from his house below). We also went to 'Highest Point', which has the famous signpost showing how far it is to everywhere important. More pictures!!

Another great lunch at Betty's Cafe. Dave loved the huge smorgasbord. I loved sharing lunch with such a variety of people, including Tom and Betty Christian, both direct descendents of the mutineers, and their daughter. There were also a couple of the passengers from the 50' sailboat Southern Cross, who makes passenger trips to Pitcairn from Mangareva.

After lunch, Infini went to see the museum, post office, and town area, and Dr. Bruce came to collect us again and we set off for the other end of the island. We stopped at John Adams grave (the only marked grave for a male member of the mutineers). John Adams was the last surviving male mutineer, and converted the rest of the islanders to Christianity, after learning how to read from the Bible. The whole 'on Pitcairn' part of the mutiny is a fascinating story. If you're interested in reading the whole saga, look for a copy of the Bounty Trilogy. It details the pre-mutiny, the mutiny, life on the island, and life on Captain Bligh's longboat after being set adrift from the Bounty.

Then Bruce took us out toward 'Tedside' and (???)'s Ridge. The ridge gave us a great lookout over the town and the boats at anchor. The attractions of Tedside are 'Mrs T', a Galapagos tortoise who roams there--originally brought by Irving Johnson on one of his circumnavigations, and a blowhole. The blowhole is caused by big waves forcing themselves thru lava tubes.

We had a nice cup of tea with Bruce and his wife, and then Bruce ran us back to the landing area.

We had asked if there were fruits and veggies available on the island. We ended up with literally 20 lbs of bananas, some ripe and some not, and a great deal of fresh garden veggies including cucumbers, sweet potatoes, passion fruit, carrots, corn, a pumpkin etc. Several people had donated to our pile on the quayside, but again, special thanks to Carol, Brenda, 'Radio Dave' the banana man, and Bruce & his wife. Anyone want a banana??

We had been on the fence all day about whether to leave in the evening or not. Each islander we met asked how long we were staying, and we'd waffle every time. Each of the cruisers were facing the same question and all were waffling as well. The islanders were pooh-poohing the forecast we had of big swell coming.

But when we got back to the landing area and saw the anchorage, our minds were made up "Let's get the heck out of here.". Brenda took us back to the boats, thru the surf, and we had our anchor up within an hour. Infini at first had said they were staying, but after an hour aboard at the anchorage, they also decided to leave. The only boat left at sunset was Zephyrus, who were firmly committed to staying, no matter what.

We loved Pitcairn. We loved the island, and thoroughly enjoyed the people. Would have loved to have stayed longer. Would love to come back some time.

But we are now 15 hours into a 55 hour passage to Mangareva, Gambiers. This is the SE tip of 'French Polynesia'. Since we did so much motoring to get to Pitcairn, we turned the engine off as soon as we cleared Pitcairn, and drifted along at 2 knots most of the night. But now the wind is a good 10-12 knots and we are making good time toward Mangareva. ETA Tuesday morning sometime.
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At 4/4/2010 6:10 PM (utc) our position was 24°30.19'S 130°54.85'W

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We dropped anchor at 10am local time. We are now officially on Pacific Time, 8 hours behind UTC.

We had called ahead on VHF channel 16 and made contact with Dave Brown, whom we'd been talking with on the Ham Radio for a couple of weeks. And we also talked to Brenda, who is in charge of handling the 'formalities' at Pitcairn.

Soon after we had the anchor down, Brenda and Geoff, the local policeman, were alongside in their 'canoe'. This turned out to be a good sized skiff with an outboard motor on it. We were ready for them, and quickly jumped aboard. Even in this benign weather period, there is a pretty good roll in the anchorage, so the skiffs don't tarry alongside very long.

They brought us in to the landing area, through a swell that could become a surf zone when the waves get higher. There is a quayside, and then they pull the boats up a long ramp to get them above the tidal zone. (pictures to follow later).

Ashore, we were met by the young guy responsible for the Agricultural inspection. We had to fill out a short questionaire, and he inspected the apples we brought ashore, but otherwise this was pretty painless.

Then Geoff and Brenda loaded us and the crew from Zephyrus, who had arrived the night before, onto their 'quads' and whisked us up to Brenda's house to complete the paperwork. The main mode of transportation on Pitcairn is a 'quad'--the 4-wheeled ATV. They are perfect for the dirt roads and hill country at Pitcairn. Everyone has a platform on the back that will accommodate 2 passengers (hanging on for dear life).

Brenda and Mike Christian's house is up on a hill overlooking Bounty Bay. They have a killer view, and today was a beautiful sunny day. The sea below was crystal clear and very tranquil. While Brenda fed us hot bread fresh out of her oven, and lathered with Pitcairn honey, we filled out paperwork, got our passports stamped, and got a briefing on all the things to do on the island. She made arrangements for us to go to Betty's Cafe for lunch (you must call ahead).

The islanders were all abuzz with the fact that there were 5 sailboats at one time in the bay. Someone said they thought that was a record! (in addition to us and Visions of Johanna, we also had the British boat Zephyrus and the Canadians on Pursuit IV, and a charter sailboat out from Mangareva named Southern Cross.

While down on the wharf, Bill from Visions introduced us to Bruce, who is the doctor on the island. Bruce is an Australian who has contracted for a year to be the resident doctor. Bruce has only been at Pitcairn for a month, but is already in love with the island. The islanders provide the visiting doctor with a house and 2 quads, and a nice clinic from which to operate.

Bruce had kindly offered to show us a few places on his quad after lunch. So we climbed onto the back and roared off up into the hills. We stopped at Ship Lookout and took pictures of the sailboats in Bounty Bay. We stopped at 'Down Rope', which, after a steep hike down the hillside, it's possible to see some ancient Polynesian rock carvings. We didn't actually hike down, but we did take a picture down the hill. And then we went to St. Paul's Pool, where we hiked down to the pool and watched the southerly swell crash and spill over into the pool.

Everywhere we went, there was lush vegetation and absolutely stunning views of the island and the ocean. It felt like you could see 100 miles in any direction.

After our tour, Bruce dropped us off at the town square about 4:30 pm. Brenda had arranged for the Post Office and the Museum to be open for an hour or so, just for us. We bought a fantastic array of Pitcairn stamps at the Post Office (about $60 worth, a set for us and one for Infini--just in case they are unable to get to the Post Office). And then we went into the little museum. It was small, but full of fascinating bits of Pitcairn history.

We lucked out in being at Pitcairn when the islanders were having their about-every-3-weeks Friday night social get-together. It's a big potluck in the town square, and just about everyone on the island attends. For this occasion, a traveling Christian musician from India named Benny Prasad was going to perform in the church after supper. We had a really nice typical potluck supper, and got to just sit and chat with many of the islanders.

Benny's story is that God told him that he was going to send him to every sovereign country in the world to play music and spread the word of God. He is only 15 countries short of visiting every country in the world. It's an amazing story and he's a very interesting young man. You can read more about Benny at www.bennyprasad.com

Somewhere between the potluck and Benny's performance, we went with Dave (VP6DB) up to his house and his ham shack, and did a quick check-in with the Pacific Seafarer's Net, to confirm our 'safe arrival' at Pitcairn.

We really enjoyed listening to Benny on his unique 'bongo guitar' in the church.--Nice acoustical guitar music, with a few of Benny's stories about his travels interspersed. Then we went with Dave and the other cruisers down to Christian's Cafe, a nice cafe/bar, where we had a couple of beers. By this time, Dave and I were absolutely dead on our feet, so we begged off and got Dave and Brenda to ferry us back to the boat.

What a full day! What an amazing day! I think we've met fully half of the islanders. What a friendly and interesting bunch of people. We could easily spend a couple of weeks here, if there was a safe anchorage to do so. I am so sad that weather will force us away before we've really had time to enjoy the island fully.

Tomorrow, we expect Infini to arrive early in the morning--we talked to them tonight and they were only 50 miles out. We hope to get a full day ashore tomorrow and do some more exploring. But the swell is expected to pick up starting tomorrow afternoon--so we're not sure how long after that we'll be able to stay.
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At 4/3/2010 6:35 AM (utc) our position was 25°03.98'S 130°05.69'W

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Another rolly anchorage!! More later...
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At 4/2/2010 6:03 PM (utc) our position was 25°03.99'S 130°05.69'W

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We were 15 miles away when dawn's early light revealed the fabled island of Pitcairn ahead of us.

We've been motoring all night in calm conditions. It is hard to believe that this is the same ocean that just 2 days ago was kicking the stuffing out of us. The surface of the ocean is glassy (though we can still see the big swell that never goes away).

Just after sunset, the stars were out last night by the billions, and then the full moon lit the way westward for us most of the night.

We've been communicating with a Ham Radio operator on the island named David, VP6DB, through the Pacific Seafarer's Net, and he was the first one to answer our VHF call this morning. We plan to be at anchor in Bounty Bay in 2 hours!

Infini finally started their motor when the wind dropped to zip. They are about 100 miles behind us, and expect to be in to Bounty Bay tomorrow morning.

To read some other info about Pitcairn...

Here is s/v Nine of Cups account of their visit last year:
http://www.nineofcups.com/pitcairn.htm.

And the Pitcairner's own tourism website:
http://www.visitpitcairn.pn
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At 4/2/2010 3:45 PM (utc) our position was 25°03.78'S 129°54.02'W

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We crossed the reef at the SE Pass this morning just at daybreak... in a squall. It was interesting for a few minutes (too much sail, wind, rain while crossing an unknown reef!). We were still wing-on-wing and so couldn't 'wave off' easily. But we knew the pass was wide and we had no problems.

We anchored in the lee of Akamaru island for about an hour, to get things sorted out, have breakfast, and wait for Infini. While we were there, a guy came up in a skiff, introduced himself, welcomed us to Mangareva, and presented us with a few huge 'pampelmouse'. These are the Polynesia version of grapefruit. Very tasty! Anchorage position: 23-11.289 S 134-55.466 W.

An hour later, having navigated across the lagoon using the very accurate CM93 charts in Maxsea, we dropped anchor in 45 feet in Rikitea harbor. Anchorage position: 23°06.91'S 134°58.05'W

We will clean up, have lunch, launch the dinghy, and go ashore this afternoon to the Gendarmeria to present our paperwork.

We are now on French Polynesia time, which is -9 from UTC, and -5 from EDT.

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The wind has remained steady all day at 12-15 kts from 080 degrees. We have the same sailplan as yesterday (haven't touched a thing in 24 hours)... slightly reefed main, vanged to port, genoa poled to starboard, and the staysail down the middle. Sweet!

Another nice sunny day in the tradewinds.

Tomorrow: French Polynesia at last!
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At 4/6/2010 2:53 AM (utc) our position was 23°41.33'S 133°48.37'W

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We left Pitcairn at sunset yesterday, in just a breath of wind. Most of the night we were doing 1.5-3 knots.

But this morning, as forecast, the wind came up to about 10 knots. We've been having a nice sail all day with a wing-on-wing configuration. We have the genoa poled out to windward, the main vanged to leeward, and the staysail sheeted tight in the middle. This is a great downwind configuration--very balanced, so it is easy on the autopilot or windvane. And the staysail provides a little roll control.

The wind has built slowly during the day, so now we have more like 12 knots. We are making about 5.5 knots directly for Mangareva.

We have about 195 miles to go. ETA at the SE pass at Mangareva is early Tuesday morning. We are REALLY REALLY looking forward to a nice calm anchorage. We have been underway or in dicey anchorages since March 2.
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At 4/5/2010 2:43 AM (utc) our position was 24°18.03'S 131°35.31'W

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We are in Rikitea Harbor, on Mangareva Island, in the Gambiers group of islands, in French Polynesia. We are glad to be back in the tropics. (This image is from a postcard)

We have a little bit of internet, but it is VERY VERY slow. We are asking all our friends to please please please DO NOT send us any attachments, or those cutsie email forwards.

We love hearing the news from back home and very much welcome emails, but we just can't take any big emails. Someone today sent me a 9MB email that would have taken us an hour to download (and we are paying by the minute for all our internet these days).


We got checked in with the Gendarmerie. It took us 15 minutes and a 70-cent stamp (to mail our paperwork to Papeete).


A supply ship came in yesterday, so we spent most of yesterday and part of today getting everyone topped off with diesel. We bought 6 55-gallon drums of fuel for 3 boats, and then pooled all our jugs and dinghies to ferry the jugs back and forth. What a process! And it 'only' cost $5.50/gallon. Our share was almost $500!! We are very thankful in these capers, for our ECSA siphon hose!!! Hopefully it is the last diesel we'll have to buy before we leave the Marquesas for Hawaii in September.

The wind is supposed to drop off starting this afternoon, so we are planning to go out somewhere to the edge of the reef behind a 'motu' (small island on the edge of the reef) and hang out and go snorkeling, etc, for a few days.