Almost Home

LAST LEG TO SYDNEY

The trip to Sydney was uneventful for the first week and a half. 

We settled back into the routine of six hour watches, doing maintenance, cooking and lots of reading.  We were watching our grib files anxiously as we could see front after front moving across the Australian continent.  In winter, the low pressure systems move northwards so we knew we were likely to meet one of these fronts. 

The one we did eventually meet travelled up the coast as far as Mackay so we were not going to miss it.  Our choice was to turn for Fiji or somewhere north of Brisbane or battle it out.  Neither could we find shelter as we passed Norfolk Island nor were we happy to go through the narrow channel at Lord Howe Island on the day we passed by as by then we were experiencing 3 meter waves and decided that it would be too dangerous. Sure enough, the front hit us exactly as predicted, two days out of Sydney.  We were reefed right down in anticipation, only flying a tiny bit of main and a little staysail, which eventually we had to furl as its outhaul line lost the outer sheath from all the flogging. We motor sailed, at almost full revs but because we were sailing close hauled, (almost directly into the wind), we were being knocked back by the waves. Our speed kept being reduced from around 4 knots, right down to 1.5-2 knots so our anticipated ETA in Sydney went from 3am. all the way to 7.30pm. a delay of 16 hours.

As always happens, urgent repairs need to be done just when the weather is at its worst.  Sure enough, at 2am. on Sunday morning, our engine began to overheat.  We discovered that the fan belt had broken. The first thing we did was switch off the engine, put some more sail up to get control of the boat and changed course to decrease the violent motion. With a bucking boat we retrieved the spare fan belts, right at the bottom of the storage locker they were in, replaced the broken one with a new one, replaced oil and coolant and after an hour, were once again on our way.

At around 11 am. on our last day, Arti was thrown across the cabin and sustained injuries to her chest, arm and hip, equaling those Dimitri sustained on our first day out of Sydney!

We had just above ¼ of a tank of fuel at the beginning of the blow, with just 250nm. to go.  This would normally be way more than we would need for this distance but with the boat being knocked back by the waves every few minutes and our having to keep the motor at high revs. to make headway, our fuel was disappearing at an alarming rate.

Passing Lord Howe Island

Australian Border Control require one to inform them of yacht arrival at least 96 hours before arriving.  We had contacted them while in Tonga to let them know our ETA.

We radioed in to Customs and Immigration to tell them that we had been delayed because of the bad weather and Arti’s injury.

To our surprise as we entered Port Jackson Heads, Sydney, a police boat was waiting just inside the harbour to escort us to our berth at the Royal Sydney Yacht Club. .  They later told us that they were waiting in case we needed a tow.

Customs and Immigration were waiting to help tie us up and process our paperwork and the Ambulance Service was waiting to check Arti out.  We have never had such a reception and service from officials anywhere else in the world!

We were delighted to complete our circumnavigation.  Our children and grandchildren were all waiting to congratulate us, complete with awards and cards and our little stowaway gnome was at last repatriated with the grandchildren who had hidden him on Artemis V on our departure.

Home at last

TONGA

We left Raiatea in a brisk wind and were very quickly doing 8kt. with reefed sails.

A rain squall hit us and suddenly we had horizontally driven, icy cold  rain hitting us in the cockpit.  We were soaked through, shivering with cold and tacking back and forth to stay on course.  Suddenly, during one tack, the boat stopped dead.  It felt as if we were anchored.  Nothing we could do would make the boat turn to one or other side and we drifted like that for about fifteen minutes trying to decide what to do.  We realized that we must have been snagged by a fisherman’s lost net. We could not switch on our engine for fear of our propeller snagging the net and making things worse and were discussing the unsavoury prospect of  diving to cut ourselves loose.  We tried one last manoeuvre to bring ourselves round, facing 180 degrees back to Raiatea, when suddenly we started moving again.  We were loose and on our way again!

All was well and we had some brisk sailing for the first 300nm.  One morning, just after we had set a reefed main and staysail, we heard a bang and one of our lower shrouds on the port side came tumbling down to the deck. Our mast was now compromised so we quickly tacked to the opposite side and took our sails down.  We were afraid to sail with the decreased support to our mast so we ended up motoring the remaining 1,000nm. to Tonga.

We  arrived at the island of Tongatapu  early in the morning and were greeted by two humpback whales frolicking close to the mouth of the passage through the reef.  We took this as a good omen.

There are no riggers in Tonga and we would have to wait for new shrouds to be sent from New Zealand or Australia.  This would mean a delay of two weeks by FedEx or two months by ship.  We decided that the best way to handle the situation was for Arti to fly home to Sydney with the broken shroud and return in a few days.

We anchored inside the reef at Pangaimotu Island,in front of the Big Mama Yacht Club. This is a yacht club in name only. There is a small restaurant on the shore and there used to be mooring buoys in front of it but these have been destroyed by hurricanes. Nearby was the hulk of a sunken ship, destroyed by a hurricane.  Tourists arrive at the island by ferry boat, for a meal, a frolic in the sea and a climb on board the hulk.

Floating dock which one pulls in to get to the beach.

Customs, Immigration and Health officials

We were told by fellow yachtsmen anchored nearby that we had to take our boat into the little harbour in the town, Nukualofa.  When we went to pick up our anchor, our windlass decided not to work. It is impossible to pick up 50m. of heavy chain by hand so we could not move the boat before fixing the windlass.  We looked for our replacement solenoid for the windlass to no avail so eventually took the dinghy across the bay into town and went to customs.  They wanted to see the boat so the customs, immigration and health officers joined us on the Pangaimotu ferry, back to the boat. All they wanted to see was our last track to ascertain that we had indeed come directly from the Society Islands and not stopped at any of the outlying Tongan Islands.

At four a.m. the next morning, we took the dinghy back to Nukualofa to meet Rachael, the taxi driver who had agreed to take Arti to the airport for a 7am. flight.

While Arti was in Sydney, Dimitri found and replaced the anchor solenoid, serviced the engine and genset and saw the pleasant capital. The Tongans were friendly, many (including all government employees) still wearing traditional skirts, with a shorter grass mat waistband, long skirt for men, usually shorter for women.

Tongan couple

Arti arrived with new shrouds at 2.30 am, we had some sleep and the next morning installed them. We then crossed the harbour and went alongside the stone dock to clear customs and get fuel. Clearance was uneventfull, and despite promising us fuel by noon, in true Tongan time the “Total” driver arrived at 4pm with a tank of fuel. By 5 pm we were ready to leave, and used the last of the daylight to clear all the reefs and head into a beautiful orange sunset sky, bound for Sydney, 1,950 miles away.

The Society Islands

SOCIETY ISLANDS

Bora-Bora Island

We set off for Bora Bora Island, 1,300nm. to the south west.  We skirted the edge of the Tuomotu Group of islands, previously known as the Dangerous Archipelago for its many coral reefs and poorly chartered waters. This is an unspoilt group of islands, the locals making a living from making copra and fishing.  One enterprising person flies a light plane to several of the Tuomotos each day to pick up the catches of fish to take to the restaurants of Papeete, Tahiti.

We were anxious to reach Bora Bora as soon as possible as our gribs. were showing a front due to arrive just as we reached the island.  Given that we had to enter through a channel in the reef, we wanted to be inside the reef when the strong winds reached us. We arrived early  in  the morning 

Arriving in Bora-Bora

and anchored in front of the Bora Bora yacht club, just around the promontory from Vaitape, the main town.

Bora-Bora yacht club

The island was named by the author James Mitchener as the world’s most beautiful island.  Today there are exclusive resorts on the outlying motus of the fringing reef. Cruise ships also arrive at the island from Tahiti. As a result, the island has boomed but has also become spoilt by the usual tourist  trappings. 

We had some lovely meals on the waterfront of the Bora Bora Yacht Club.  The kitchen is run by an excellent French chef who includes Polynesian flavours into the food.  The setting was superb with the distinctive twin peaks of Mount Otemanu as a backdrop and in the foreground the lagoon and the fringing reef and, of course, Artemis V lying moored just offshore.

Children played and splashed off the Yacht Club jetty and youths with beautiful physiques paddled outrigger canoes for sport.

Most of the guests at dinner were fellow yachtsmen and there was a lot of traffic with dinghies coming and going in the yacht club’s tiny dinghy harbour.

Our dinghy at the Bora-Bora yacht club

Vaitape, the main town has a sheltered harbour where cruise ship passengers are offloaded from their transfer boats, tourist boats leave for diving and snorkelling tours and where yachtsmen tie up their dinghies.

At night we heard drums and singing as the Polynesian locals entertained the tourists in the resorts on the reef.

We left Bora-Bora at last light, with its distinctive twin mountain silhouetted in the setting sun.  We wanted to reach our next stop, Raiatea, early the next morning.

Raiatea

The island of Raiatea and it’s sister island Tahaa are surrounded by a common reef and it is possible to sail around both within the reef. Both are mountainous with high peaks and dense emerald green vegetation on the slopes of the mountains.  They arise from a common sea mount. The shore is fringed by coconut palms and beautiful white, sandy beaches.  There are many lovely holiday homes along the shore, complete with boatsheds, jetties and speedboats.

Raiatea was the ancient Havaiki and was used as the base of the original Polynesian migrants for their later dispersal to Hawaii, the Cook Islands and New Zealand. It was the last of the French Polynesian islands to be taken by the French.  It is not as popular with tourists and remains mostly unspoilt by tourist trappings.  It has an airport and the main town of Uturoa has a good supermarket and fresh produce market. We saw quite a few people with hiking packs.  Mount Orotaio would be quite a challenge to climb.

There are two yacht charter companies on Raiatea and the little harbour was totally full.  We picked up a mooring just outside and for it we were charged a six-pack of beer/day.

While there, we discovered that a weld had broken on our mast and that had to be fixed for the safety of our rig.  We spoke to an ex-pat. American who lives on a boat for six months of the year, making a living as a shipwright.  He spends the rest of the year back in America with his wife.  He arranged for a welder to come down to the dock next to the petrol station with his gear to do our job.  All went well until he tried to use our generator to power his welder.  That immediately shorted our fuses.  Try as we might, we could not get it to work.  He went home to collect his generator but the welder shorted that out to.  As a last resort, we asked the petrol station to give us power.  The welder shorted that out too, but after several attempts, he managed to complete the job.  We filled up with fuel while we were there.

In the meanwhile, while the welding was taking place, Arti made three visits to the customs office, to see if our  clearance documents had arrived from Tahiti.  We had requested our clearance early on the Thursday morning when we arrived in Raiatea and were told that it would take five days to get it from Papeete as their internet was down!  We needed these documents  before we could go to the bank to get our bond back.  We managed to get the documents and get to the bank just in time before they closed for the weekend.  We filled up with fuel and went back to our mooring, passing the beautiful Club Med. sailing ship tied up on the outside of the little harbour.

We had made friends with a couple on a New Zealand flagged vessel on the next mooring, he Canadian, she from NZ, who had found out that  a nearby Polynesian centre with restaurants, a small amusement park and large tent- like hall was having a Polynesian festival on our last night. We collected some wine and glasses from the boat and joined them for the festival.  There were only a few non-Polynesians there. It turned out to be  an amazing night. The performance was by several large dance groups with their accompanying bands, drums etc, doing traditional regional dances in traditional  dress, ranging from brief grass skirts to Mother Hubbard dresses. The dancers ranged in age from 5 years to grandparent age! Entry was free and everyone had great fun. The performance lasted three hours.

 

Next morning, we woke with the sun, set the boat up for a long passage, and once again took to the sea.

We had entered the lagoon inside the reef through the Paipai Passe, half way along the length of Tahaa so we decided to do a half circumnavigation of Raitea to the Rautoanui Passe. It was a beautiful calm morning as the island sheltered us from the wind and we enjoyed the passage down the shoreline of Raitea.

Once outside the reef and out of the lee of the land, it was a different matter.

Iles Marquises also known as Marquesas Islands

MARQUESAS ISLANDS

We settled into life on board.  Our daily routine became coffee at around 6.00 a.m. as we watched the sun rise.  Arti couldn’t resist the wonderful sunrises, and sunsets, so we have many, many photos of them both.   After coffee came breakfast, our usual bowl of homemade muesli and yoghurt.  Thereafter it was dishes, tidying up the bunny blankets and harnesses etc. which we had used in the night, showers and doing any repairs necessary that we were able to do while under way.  Thereafter we settled down to reading, downloading weather gribs, Arti did some knitting and we caught up on sleep.  We always needed daytime naps to catch up on sleep after night watches.

On the way to the Marquesas

We  alternated 6 hour night watches, one night doing the early watch, 6pm. to midnight and the next doing the midnight to 6am.  The swell on this leg was very uncomfortable.  It became impossible to lie along the length of the boat as it was rocking side to side too violently from the beam swell and we had also developed a knocking in the back cabin, so we could not sleep on the bed there which was the best position for the beam swell.  We hunted high and low to find where the knocking was coming from.  The inside of the boat is like the inside of a musical instrument, in which the sound radiates. We eventually decided that the noise was coming from our steering gear, the gears of which are under the bed in the aft cabin.  We managed to contact a technician from Lewmar the maker, who suggested we tighten all the bolts. This did not help either. 

Swallow tailed gull which flies at night as well as during the day

We resorted to putting a mattress down sideways on the floor of the saloon and there we both slept for the rest of the three week journey, until we reached an anchorage to fix it

.

We arrived in Taiohae, the capital of Nuku Hiva, the main island, early in the morning.  We slowed the boat over the last night so that we would arrive in daylight.  We were looking forward to calm water as we were very tired of the beam swell but unfortunately the bay we anchored in was open to the south and the swell continued rolling in.

Taiohae, the capital of Nuku Hiva

We had once again snapped the halyard for the Code Zero sail during this leg so Dimitri needed to go up the mast to replace it.  This is not an easy feat when the boat is rolling as the pendulum effect is magnified up the mast.  Arti tried to keep the nose of the boat into the swell while Dimitri did this but still he was thrown around and come down bruised and battered. The anchor chain was still down in all this so manoeuvring was limited.  We could only move a little forward before having to reverse again.  We had neglected to tie the dinghy on the side of the yacht and with all the reversing, the dinghy line got snagged by the propeller shaft and was cut.  We did not notice our dinghy floating away until a boat further out hailed us and said they had our dinghy.  We were very grateful to them as our dinghy was on its way out to sea, with no chance of acquiring another until a ship arrived from Papeete, Tahiti, several weeks later.

We took a tour of Nuku Hiva with a French expatriate lady.  She was very knowledgeable, telling us the Polynesian history, explaining the ancient ruins to us, showing us various plants that were used as poisons, hallucinogens and dyes and pointing out the various tropical birds. The Polynesians used to be cannibals. When they captured their enemy, they would drug several with a hallucinogen and then choose one for sacrifice. They would lie his head on a curved block of stone and then bash his head with a war club.  The important people, king and nobility, would then eat his eyes, heart and liver.  The eyes were considered the font of knowledge, the heart bravery and the liver strength. After this, they believed, droughts would end, fishing get better, be healthier or whatever the current need was. His remains would be put into a Banyan tree, which in the east is considered a link between the heavens and earth and thus sacred. We saw the platforms, prison pit, curved stone and Banyon trees. To avoid a family losing all its males, every family would bring up the first born male as a woman, in case all remaining males died in battle or were sacrificed so as to keep the family line going (only captured male warrior enemies were sacrificed, hence the need for constant raids and warfare), These feminized male individuals are highly sort after today, as they continue this custom, as cooks, cleaners and waiters.

Another feature of there culture is tattooing. They were a stone culture, and some stones on tattoo platforms had holes for the plant based ink. The tattoos would illustrate the achievements of the individual, and were on both sexes.Circumcision and tattooing would indicate passage into adulthood. At this stage, they would be give a pony, in Raiatea a canoe, and in Tonga, land.

 Because of the high rainfall, Nuku Hiva has many waterfalls.  The day we took the tour it was raining quite hard and many waterfalls had appeared along the way where they had not been the day before.  Once we moved off the coast, the rain settled and we had a wonderful day, walking about in villages, seeing the Polynesian influence in the churches and we had a lovely Polynesian meal on a beachfront.

The Marquesas Islands are very beautiful. They are mountainous and densely covered in vegetation. They have a lot of rain and the islands are dependant on rainfall for all their drinking water.

Fishing boats come into the port in the morning and the fishermen then fillet and clean the fish on the dock.  When we were there, they had beautiful tuna which they were selling for $2-3/kilo.  They were throwing the left over bits into the water.  Silky sharks have learnt that they do this at a particular time of day and several large ones were there, eating whatever was thrown into the water.  It would not  have been a good time to take a tumble off the dinghy!

Filiting tuna on the dock

When we cleared into French Polynesia, not being Eu citizens, we had to pay a bond which came to approximately $2,000.00 each. This we would only get back if we did not overstay our visa and we had to nominate the island of departure from French Polynesia.  We chose Raiatea as we were sure that we could get fuel alongside there.

The Galapagos Islands

GALAPAGOS

Ahead of us lay the vast Pacific, the world’s biggest ocean, more than double the size of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans put together.

Our first stop was the Galapagos Islands, a World Heritage National Park.  This was an eight day sail from Panama, 1,200nm.  We arrived early in the morning and anchored in Puerto Bahia Baquerizo Moreno at the island of San Cristobal and were told that Customs and Immigration would come to the boat in two hours.  We could see sea lions on the beach.

Ferry dock

Blue footed boobie

 This gave Dimitri the opportunity to dive on the boat and give the hull a quick clean before the officials arrived, together with their diver who inspects the hull.  If the hull is not clean enough, they send you 50nm. offshore to clean it before you may return.  
This happened to a French boat which arrived the day after us.  While Dimitri was diving on the hull, he was joined by two inquisitive little sea lions, which frolicked around him.

We passed inspection and were given a stay of 20 days, albeit at just one island, San Cristobal. One has to get an “autografo” (more money) to be allowed to go to other islands with a private boat.

Customs and Immigration San Cristobal Island

We found the high speed inter-island ferries, which turned out to be powerful speed boats carrying 30 passengers packed like sardines to be a much quicker and easier option.

On our way to the Galapagos we found our gennoa was beginning to come apart.  It was tearing at the leach end and had numerous areas of fray.  We discovered that there are no sailmakers, boatyards or yacht chandlers in the Galapagos and the best we could do was a shoe repair/upholsterer who took on the job of repairing our sail. We had to go to another of the islands, Santa Cruz, the main town, to see him.

High speed ferry to Santa Cruz Island

 We took this as an opportunity to take a tour of this island and stayed for a few days.  Here we visited the Charles Darwin Research Institute. At the institute they conduct special breeding programmes for all the giant tortoises from all the islands and conduct research into the local ecosystem and. the introduced pests e.g. fly larvae which have endangered the survival of the Darwin finches, which are unique to the Galapagos.  We visited a tortoise breeding farm.  

Tortoise breeding farm

There are very few tortoises in the wild, most being in farms where they are microchipped and hand fed. A fun thing we did was go through a 500m. larva tunnel.  Parts of it were very low so we had to crawl through.  We got rather muddy!

Crawling through the larva tunnel

Shrunken head in Santa Cruz museum

 Back at San Cristobal, we did some touring while waiting for our sail to be repaired.  We climbed a high hill, an extinct volcanic caldera in which there is a fresh water lake.  Here frigate birds come to dip their wings into the fresh water,  to clean them and get rid of parasites. 

We delighted in the sea lions at San Cristobal. It was breeding time and there were many suckling pups with their mothers on the beaches.  

Beach shared between sea lions and people

A visitor on the back of our boat

They found the sugar scoop on the back of  our boat a most convenient spot to sleep and needed to be prodded to leave when we wanted to transfer on and off the ferry. The night we arrived back from Santa Cruz, after a three day absence, we found a large male sea lion had taken residence on our back deck. He would not allow us to pass to get to the cockpit and lunged at us, teeth bared. It was only Arti’s terrified shriek that persuaded him that it was time to find another resting spot.  On the brighter side, we went snorkelling in a rocky cove and were joined by baby sea lions who frolicked around us.

The ecosystem of the islands varies with the water available. The higher islands have trees, many introduced species, and bushes. At sea level, it  is dry and full of volcanic rocks, so hard going to walk through, but they have made a host of easy paths for tourists. There are unique cactus ‘trees’ which are very attractive. On land there are only birds and reptiles, including the marine iguanas.

Marine Iguana

 All the animals are not afraid of humans and let you come close. The surrounding seas are fed by the cold Humbolt current and is full of sea life, including the worlds largest concentration of sharks, especially hammerheads. When we went snorkelling, we were surrounded by schools of fish, parting around us and our friendly sealion cubs.

Larva rock on San Cristobal Island

Cactus trees abound

On a sadder note, the Ecuadorians have licensed over 25 fishing vessels, classifying them as ‘artisan fishing’ to get around the world heritage listing. There is no decent refuelling dock and diesel is inevitably spilt as it is transferred by jerrycan, the locals throw a huge amount of plastic in the sea, and there are a host of introduced plants, animals, and insects. The Ecuadorian government is considering private sale of land to foreign developers. At the moment, only Ecuadorians are allowed to stay longer than 3 months.  We were sad to see how settlement of the islands has increased over the years. There are private farms on which land has been cleared and is being farmed with cattle, sheep, goats and horses and the  towns are complete with dogs, cats and rats.  There are now 10,000 people living in Santa Cruz alone and we saw both a village and cattle in the National Park.

Our sail arrived back from Santa Crus and the repairer had done a terrific job. We put it up and set sail for our longest leg of the journey, 3,000nm. to the Marquesas Islands.

Georgetown, Grand Cayman

Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island.

Our next stop after Cuba was Georgetown, Grand Cayman.  We picked up a mooring buoy near the cruise ship anchorage and were met by a customs boat which took us to shore to do our clearance.  Once again, as with just about everywhere we have been, the people were all friendly and helpful.  Once we had done our clearance, they took us back to the boat, passed all the cruise ship tourists waiting in line for their boats back to their ships.  They must have thought we were pretty special getting our private launch back…

Baby turtle at the breeding centre

While in Georgetown, we visited the turtle farm where turtles are being bred and released back into the wild.  We were amazed at how large the adults were.  They have a beach for them at the adult breeding area where we could see the huge holes the females had dug to lay their eggs. 

Greeting a stingrau

A special thing we did was take a tour to swim with stingrays.  The tour boats all go to the eastern side of the island, at the mouth of the channel leading out to sea.  The water is only waist deep and crystal clear.  Here, stingrays accumulate to be fed.  They have been doing so for many years, since the time when fishermen coming back through the mouth of the lagoon would discard the unwanted remains of their gutted fish.  Today the stingrays are fed squid.  They come up to the tourists and mill around, tolerate being picked up, patted, kissed and lifted out of the water, as they know they will finally be rewarded with squid.  This they suck into their mouths with quite a force. We also snorkelled in a deeper area of the lagoon, amongst coral heads with beautiful fan coral and many multicoloured fish.

From Grand Cayman Island, we made straight for Panama.  The weather steadily became more humid and once we reached Colon, Panama, we were plagued by tropical rainfall every few hours and extreme humidity in between. We had engaged an agent, Roy Bravo, to do all the paperwork and arrange for our transit through the Panama Canal.  We were measured the day after we arrived and given an “early” slot to go through the canal.  This was a week and a half wait instead of 2-3 weeks which is the usual  wait. It is pretty expensive going through the canal, the fees all up for us, including the wait in the marina, coming to around Aus$5,000.00. Bearing in mind that we would have had to go around Cape Horn (the wrong way i.e. against the wind), if we didn’t use the canal, it was cheap at the price.  Large ships pay between US$250,000 - $800,000.

While we waited, we did our usual maintenance and repairs and took the marina (Shelter Bay) shuttle bus in to Colon to do some shopping.  The road from the marina is full of potholes and runs through dense jungle.  We saw locals along the road collecting migrating crabs (like on Christmas Island) and apparently caymans cross the road at a certain spot, although we were not lucky to see one.  Dimitri was very pleased that he didn’t see any, given that he spent two mornings under the boat in the marina, changing anodes and cleaning the bottom, ready for the Galapagos where they insist on a spotless hull. What we did see was a sloth in a tree in the marina. Every night we could hear the loud screams of howler monkeys.

We took the opportunity of the wait to visit Panama City by bus.  From there we went to the Mira Flores locks on the canal where they have an extremely interesting museum on the building of the canal. We also watched several ships and yachts go through the locks so at least we knew more or less what to expect. 

We were given a departure time of 3am. to go through the canal.  This was changed at the last minute to an afternoon departure, which meant a two day transit.

We left the marina at 3pm., complete with three tough local line handlers, six huge fenders and thick, 150m. long lines and collected our advisor at the designaged spot, just before the entrance to the canal.  We were one of three small boats and  followed a large ship into the first lock. We were nested together, the catamaran against the wall of the lock, us in the middle and a smaller yacht on the outside of us.  

Lock gates closing

Rafted up with another yacht for transit

The gates closed and the lock filled with water, lifting us 30m. in an amazingly short time.  There were some anxious moments when the ship put its engines on to move out of the lock but we managed to keep our position without anyone being damaged.  We all moved on to the next lock and the procedure was repeated again.  The ships are actually dragged by little locomotives called mules and we were walked by four line handlers on the shore, hence the very long lines.

We went through three locks and then found ourselves in a large lake, Lake Gatun.  Here many ships were anchored, waiting their turn at the locks.  We tied up to a large buoy for the night and our advisor was taken back to shore by launch. It was our responsibility to feed everyone food acceptable to them, ie it had to include meat. Arti obliged with curry, spaghetti, and bacon and eggs, with beer and juice. To our horror, our toilets both broke down, one due to flooding by the passangers, all the way to the bedroom. Fortunately we repaired them both fairly quickly.

Going through the Panama canal.

The next morning we awoke to the sound of howler monkeys.

Our advisor arrived at 7am. the next morning and we motored through Lake Gatun and then at last to the second set of locks.  This time we were being dropped about 30m. at a time.  It was a much more gentle exercise than on the previous day. We were put into the lock in front of the ship so did not have his backwash and there is much less turbulence as the water is drained out of the lock than when it is filled up.

While in our locks, a big cruise ship, “The Amsterdam” was in the second set of locks next to us and the passengers were lining the side watching the procedures.  Someone on the ship saw our flag and pulled out a large New Zealand flag and waved it to us.

Ship behind us with the Amsterdam in the adjoining lock

We arrived in Bilboa at around 3pm. where we tied up at the yacht club, dropped off our line handlers and all the equipment and met our agent with our clearance papers and passports. We were also able to fill our jerrycans with water to replace the water we lost when one of our line handlers managed to flood the toilet.  All’s well that ends well.

We had a last shore meal at the “yacht club”, and that evening we left for the Galapagos. It was a balmy tropical evening, with huge flocks of birds coming home to roost, the light of Panama city (a huge city) in the background, as we threaded our way through the myriad anchored ships waiting for their turn to transit through the canal. A long passage awaited us.

Birds going home to roost

Florida and Cuba

We arrived back in Fort Lauderdale in early April and it was almost as if we hadn’t left for our month’s visit to Australia.  We began work almost immediately, putting the boat back together for sailing.  Our new fitting for the pulpit was ready and the new code zero sail arrived a week later.  We had to revarnish our woodwork which took us the best part of 5 days to complete.  For this we moved off the dock and onto a mooring buoy so that the fenders would not rub the new varnish.  We were right next to the Las Olas bridge and we watched it open and close every half hour to let boats through. It became our defacto clock as we worked on the deck.

The night before we left we had a wonderful dinner with our extended family who had been so wonderfully helpful and kind during our extended stay in Fort Lauderdale.

Our last dinghy trip from Jim’s house resulted in a bit of a hiccup.  When we tried to lift our little anchor, we found it dug in too deeply to lift.  Fortunately it was near low tide and I took a quick swim down and managed to lift it on the first attempt.

We departed around midday on Monday, 16^th April, bound for Havana, Cuba. We had light winds so it was a good opportunity to try out the new sail.  All went smoothly until the late afternoon when our halyard snapped, dropping the sail into the water.  Fortunately we still had daylight and the sail is made out of very light-weight material so we were able to retrieve it without too much trouble.

At midnight during our second night, the autopilot suddenly failed. It showed our little boat moving backwards on the screen! It took us a while to work out that we had not in fact turned around on a heading back to Florida.  Fortunately a reboot sorted out the problem.

We arrived at Marina Hemmingway, just 20nm. west of Havana, at the little town of Santa Fe. We received a wonderful reception. Seven officials, all dressed in white tops and army green trousers were lined up along the dock to meet us. Accompanying them were two sniffer dogs. The five ladies came aboard to perform the paperwork and then  two sniffer dogs and their handlers came aboard and did a search.  Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, they were efficient and our clearance was complete within the hour.

We were directed to tie up along a long  canal where there were another twenty odd boats.

Marina Hemmingway

Taxi tour of Havana

Cuban art

 There was water and electricity alongside and a very nice Chinese restaurant at the marina where we ate on the first night. There were also many signs of decay though. Just next to our boat were two large flat areas of cracked concrete which had been tennis courts in days gone by.  Water pressure for showers was only to be had in the mornings.  We discovered that water is brought in daily by tanker so if you didn’t get in early, you had no water with which to shower. Only one toilet in the ladies change room had a seat, the men had none.

Everywhere in Havana one sees 1950’s cars.  They are used as taxis. You can either get one as a private taxi or hail one which does a fixed route and picks up passengers along the way. Some are in original condition, others have been lovingly restored with new diesel engines in them.  Most have been passed down from grandfather to father to son. They charge 25CUC (equivalent to US$25 to take you into town.  Bearing in mind that the average salary is CUC$10.00/month  it is a good way to make a living in Cuba.

Taxis in Havana

 One of our drivers turned out to be a gynaecologist who is now driving a taxi and working the land to earn a living.  A few years ago the government granted farm land to those who wanted to work the land and he took this up and is growing lemon trees in his spare time.  He says he did this as around 8 years ago there was extreme malnutrition in Cuba and he felt that having land was the best way to prevent his family from starving. He says that the 30% of land owned privately produces 70% of the produce.

Havana is a treat.  There is hustle and bustle, people everywhere, all with big smiles on their faces, laughter, music and dancing everywhere. There are many street bands playing Cuban music and jazz and many of the restaurants and coffee shops have live bands and dancers who encourage the clientele to get up and dance too.

A lovely aspect of Cuba is the safety.  There is virtually no graffiti, no pedophiles and punishment for any crime is very harsh, especially if it is against a tourist or if drugs are involved. It is safe to walk about alone at night. The people are all very helpful and although they are all very poor, nobody hustled us for money.

An interesting thing that Cuba has done is to have two forms of currency. There are pesos for the locals and Cuban Convertible pesos for foreigners, which are worth 24 times more than local pesos.  It is illegal for foreigners to use the local currency so they pay MUCH more for everything.  That ensures that the locals can still buy things although not very much on CUC10/month.  There is virtually no produce to buy from shops. The government gives the people food stamps so that they can survive. Everyone is thin in Cuba, but having said that, nobody looks malnourished and all are dressed well in clothes that are not faded or shabby.

Havana must have been the jewel of the Caribbean in the 1800’s.  There are beautiful old Spanish style mansions which were the homes of the wealthy sugar barons. They are now being used as museums, government offices and libraries. 

1800 Spanish baron's home

Education and health has been a priority of the present government and literacy is 100% and they have a very good hospital.  Out of the hospital though, one cannot buy pharmaceuticals in Cuba, only herbal medicine.

While in Cuba, to fix the snapped halyard of our code zero sail, we dropped a line down the mast with a fishing sinker attached.  As luck would have it, this line became tangled with something inside the mast and we could not retrieve the sinker.  On leaving the port, to our consternation we discovered that this line was acting as a pendulum and the sinker was hitting the inside of the mast with a loud clang with the least movement of the boat. We knew we had to do something about it as there would be no rest for either of us if it stayed there.  Luckily while in Florida, we had bought a fish trace (steel wire with a hook on the end) to pass the wire for our aerial to the new Iridium system down the targo arch. We used this and managed to snag the line and retrieve the sinker. All is quiet again!