APRIL 2015
Fall already?
It's starting to get
quite chilly again – long pants, sweaters and jackets are coming
out of the closet – it's time to move on before some serious cold
hits us here, now that the cyclone season in the Pacific is nearing
its end. Since coming back from visiting our family and friends we
were touring the South Island in a small camper van. Our trip started
with wine tasting in Marlborough region, where most of New Zealand
wine is produced. If you like nature this is a paradise for you, if
you like to ride a motorcycle this is a dream come true. Roads are
winding like a never ending snakes! Scenery beyond belief. Curve
after curve, km after km, rarely a straight line. From the wild West
coast bordering the Tasman Sea to snow-capped peaks, giant ferns,
flying albatrosses, billions of sheep, walking tracks indicated every
few kilometers, there is no way to get bored. We could have spent the
entire summer roaming this part of NZ but we had only three weeks to
spare and yet managed to log over 4,000 km while circling the entire
South Island •
Back in Whangarei we took Vanille
to the boatyard to finalize the last preparation for the coming
season – antifooling paint, hull wax, etc. – now we are back
floating and filling her up with supplies needed for the next six
months in Fiji. The last few days we spent exploring the three
supermarkets here and other stores for goodies and bargains on wines,
beer, boat parts spares, etc., and then trying to find a place to
store all this inside Vanille.
Who said we were retired! This is work! •
In a couple of days we will leave
this place, will go and play with the wind and sea, test all the new
equipment installed and then will seek a good spot and will start
monitoring the weather for
crossing to Fiji. With a bit of luck
and mother nature cooperation we should be underway before mid May.
DECEMBER 2014
Back to civilization as we know it
Vanille is tied up in a Whangarei harbour marina, some 20 miles up on Hātea River, New Zealand. This was our final crossing for 2014 and now Vanille and the crew are ready to take a land-dock break until April 2015 since cyclone season has already started in SW Pacific and will last until then. We chose Whangarei in New Zealand's North Island for its facilities and protection. This is a small town with medical clinics, dentists, big modern library, boutiques, three big supermarkets and any service a yachtsman could imagine will be available to him here. There are also trails within easy reach and we are amazed by hundreds of species of ferns and all kinds of for us unusual flowers. Here we are back to civilization as we know it with the same standards we are used to from North America or Europe. Yes we will be going to cinema as well and JP will be able to enjoy popcorn!! ...After more than 15 thousand miles we traveled in the last two years Vanille needs a bit of pampering as well – new sails are on the program, revision of the shaft alternator and motor starter is needed, outboard motor needs a good tune-up, rigging has to be checked,... etc,... etc. Every yacht that comes here to hide during cyclone season takes advantage of excellent service and a reasonable costs for numerous boat repairs after the long Pacific crossing. Australia has great service as well, but more costly than here in New Zealand. The next tune-up station to fix anything will be in South Africa, and that is not exactly next door! ...We also decided to rent a small camper van and will tour the South Island in February. This will be a nice change for us to travel by roads, although we will have to get used to driving on the left side – for now, one time out of two JP puts the windshield wiper on instead of the flasher – but could be way more dramatic-traumatic. ...Presently with the holiday season around the corner comes the time to visit our families. I'll be spending this time with my sister in mostly pleasant California weather, but poor JP will be facing ice and snow in Montreal. We were complaining of cold when we had a sharp drop from tropical heat to a NZ's spring, night temperatures were and sometimes still are around 10°C, day time is better, up to 18°C and now climbing up every day. After a month here we still have to heat in the mornings, although during the day with the sun up we are ready to complain about the heat!! ...hmm, is that just myself complaining? Knowing that we will be back here later in the full summer gives us courage to brace anything. ...We wish you all the joys of the season, a fabulous New Year and most importantly good health and best of everything!!
SEPTEMBER 2014
We lost a day... (Vava'u, Tonga)
JULY 2014
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air...” Emerson
After taking an advantage of the Salinas's yard
services to finish few projects we had in mind for a while and after
fixing the defective engine mounts we departed for the Marquesas
Islands, some 3,600 nautical miles away. The weather along the way
was great, sometimes even on the light side and we ended up wishing
just for a bit more wind. It took us 25 days to cover this distance
with about 12 hours of motor help when the wind got very light. As
almost always long passages come with some type of unexpected,
usually unpleasant surprise, and this one unfortunately wasn't an
exception. The rack and pinion system of our rudder wheel broke and
we ended up once again hand steering, this time only for the last 30
hours with just few gears left on the system, afraid we won't make
it, but at the end we did arrive safely in Nuku-Hiva and anchored in
Taiohae Bay. Nuku-Hiva is the largest of the Marquesas Islands and
Taiohae is the administrative capital, hence why this bay became our
choice for receiving the parts. The village is located in the centre
of a crater, half sunk in the ocean, with black sand beach, open to
the South. The trade wind at this time of the year is from South-East
and we ended up rolling almost as if we were sailing down wind! Not
the most comfortable anchorage! There has been about another 30
vessels of different nationalities rolling around with us, and I bet
at least half of them were waiting for some parts for repairs as
well! We were lucky as this is French Polynesia, our parts were
coming from France and surprisingly post office system was efficient
and we received what we needed in only eight days! Meanwhile, while
waiting, we investigated this sparsely populated volcanic island,
with razor-edged basaltic cliffs pounded by crushing waves, deep bays
with cobalt-blue water, dramatic tall waterfalls and many mysterious
looking valleys with lush vegetation that feel like the beginning of
the world must have looked like or like a countryside from the pages
of some fairy tale. The Marquesans are very welcoming and friendly,
women with flowers tucked behind ears, easy smile and both sexes
adorned with very artistic, tasteful, geometric tattoos. While
sailing around the island we were visited by very different looking
dolphins, and as we found out later this kind of dolphin, called
Electra, is only seen around this island. Since our arrival in
Marquesas we have been sailing together with friends we have met for
the first time in Morocco two years ago, then Caribbean and now here,
also owners of Amel sailboat, but 54 ft instead of our 46. We will
have to say good-bye to them soon – they, being French can stay in
French Polynesia for 36 months, we as Canadians only receive three
months and now we have only another two months left here and we have
to move on, while they can linger. Presently, since a week we have
been exploring Fakarava together, the second largest atoll of Tuamotu
islands. We snorkel every day, dove both passes here with
crystal-clear water, with very healthy corals of every color and
shape imaginable and fish so plentiful and colorful, one doesn't know
where to look first. Black-tip sharks (quite harmless) are one of the
main attractions here and we meet them everywhere we snorkel in this
lagoon. This is an unbelievable underwater playground with so many
species of fish we have never seen anywhere else and we wish we could
spend some more time here. However, soon we will have to lift the
anchor and be on our way. Next we will cross first to Papeete, Tahiti
island, before continuing westwards as we must...
APRIL 2014
Galapagos via Ecuador!
OK, so quite unexpectedly we find
ourselves in Puerto Lucia, Salinas, Ecuador, although we already
covered about 1/3 of the way to Galápagos islands! But I am jumping
too much ahead, since our last entry was in January! So first,
beginning February we set the sails from Jamaica to Shelter Bay,
Colón to prepare Vanille for the Panama Canal crossing. The
wind was perfect, the sun was shinning, and just as we settled
ourselves for a pleasant uneventful crossing, we suddenly heard a
very strange noise and then silence! For few more minutes Vanille
kept its course and then sadly the sails started to flap...yes, our
20 years old automatic pilot died a sudden death only one and a half
days out of Jamaica and so for the next three days we became real
sailors, each taking one and a half hour shifts, day and night, round
the clock, steering Vanille with our own hands and muscles!
This sailboat was constructed to run on a pilot and the steering
station is not the most comfortable place to sit for a very long
time! - but we survived –
good thing just before this happened I have read that the sleeping
cycle for most people is 90 minutes and that did seem to work really
well for us. Once in Panama we ordered not one, but right away two
new motors to have a spare!! wouldn't want to steer by hand across
the many miles separating the islands in Pacific! When we finally
entered the Panama Canal we noticed some vibration from the motor but
suspected that was due to Vanille's obesity –
with all the provisioning we did for the Pacific, for sure we were
about one ton heavier than before! but a closer look on the way to
Galápagos we realized that the silent blocks for the engine and the
transmission are at the end of their life as well and that made us
change direction to Ecuador and to take care of it here, since the
next place where we could do something about this is Tahiti, and that
is many, many miles away! Well, hopefully after this there is nothing
too old to brake in the near future. We had stopped here four years
ago and took an advantage of the yard here to spruce up interior of
Nikan (after which we sold it
in Chile), and we are quite amazed that everybody remembers us here,
even our names – we have never had such a warm welcome anywhere
where we stopped for the second time before! So I am not sorry to be
here right now...hopefully the next leg of our journey will be
smooth with no unexpected surprises, and since we are already almost
at the end of April we will most likely skip Galápagos and go
directly to Marquesas Islands, some 3400 nautical miles away. This
will be our longest passage so far. We will try to be more regular in
our postings, although we are going to be entering islands of rare
Internet, slow Internet, no Internet –
I don't expect anything too efficient before New Zealand – and do I
ever wish that I was wrong about that prediction!!!
JANUARY 2014
Island hopping
Since our last blog entry from Beaufort, due to an offshore weather pattern, we made several coastal jumps to West Palm Beach and from there we finally crossed the Gulf Stream directly to Nassau. The route to Puerto Rico has to be taken from the latitude of Beaufort or higher, otherwise it becomes a struggle against the wind, and so we just decided to see Puerto Rico another time... Although we visited the Bahamas five years ago, with over 700 islands and 2,400 cays there is always a new cove to drop the anchor in, a new coral head to snorkel over, another shade of turquoise water to admire or some new island where to enjoy an ice cold beer. Our final stop was Clarence Town, Long Island, the perfect place from where to await an opportunity to move on, and where you find probably the most easygoing people on Earth! On the way from Clarence Town to Île à Vache, Haiti, we made another decision to change our plans and now here we are, in Port Antonio, Jamaica. I am very happy we finally didn't go to Île à Vache, as we have met here few boats who didn't have a good experience over there, although there are others who loved it. Amazingly Port Antonio is now very quiet - on our last visit reggae music blasted over the whole port 24/7! After the Bahamas this NE corner of the island is green and full of flowers, receiving rain daily, brought in by a steady flow of warm and humid trade wind stacking up against the Blue Mountain range. Shortly after our arrival, Compagneira, a motor sailor that we have met in Ecuador three years ago, entered the harbour and so we explore the island together, while catching up on the sea adventures and news of old friends. Although the weather for the next passage for now is not too bad, we are awaiting a bit calmer sea to sail to Colon, Panama. The heading of about 100 degrees from the wave direction could make this passage quite rolly in 12 to 14 feet wave! Meanwhile we relax and enjoy the company of friends and fellow cruisers... and the time flies by...fast... too fast...
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