Panama To The Marquises.

Sunday 20.04.2014:

After three full days of shopping and stowing it all away, we finally left Panama City on 18.04.2014. It was nice to see the City disappear aft. After having spend almost three months between Shelter Bay Marina and Panama City and have had to fight the Panamanians paperwork, excessive cost (ripping foreigners), poor work, scams, over prices, etc., it was high time for me to leave it all behind!!!! 

Our first stop was on the island of Contendora which is one of the northern islands of Las Perlas island group, about 40 nm south of the City. It is only about two km long and is considered the in place for the rich. There are many nice houses, but also some tatty old constructions. Most of the houses are at the water front and there are some very nice white sand beaches. But I did not find it all that exclusive and there seems to be little to do on the island. It was here the Shah of Persian spend his holidays and I believe stayed a while after he has ousted from Iran. 

On our way, we were visited by several huge Whales. Some stayed with us for a while and one liked to do the Dolphin play, by almost touching our bow with huge tail (about 3 m wide). At times it dived, but always came back and swam alongside us only a couple of meters away. Its size was, we believe, as long as New Dawn, if not longer. Others came as well and two even bigger Whales came and dived several times next to us. One of them, when it swam along side, turned on its side and we are sure it was looking at us, like we have seen Dolphins do. Amazing and at the same time frightening, with such huge animals so close to us. 

The second night was spend at the anchorage between Isla Chapere and Isla Mogo Mogo where the Survivor TV series is filmed. The anchorage filled up quickly, as it was the Easter week-end, and several people on water ski, but as the evening approached, most of the motor boats left, taking their loudspeakers with them and we were just three sailing boats left. Jon had bought a spear gun, in Panama City, and shot two fish, one of which was a nice Snapper, which he expertly cooked for dinner. 

The weather f’cast is for variable and little wind, but we felt if was time to get going and we set sail in almost no wind this morning. Only around 20:00 LT did we get a good wind from NNW and our speed went from 1 kn to 9.6 kn. But it will not last long. We have several Squalls and thunder storms, which I avoided by changing the course to the W and the largest Squall which 8 nm long and carried a huge amount of rain, almost stood still as we passed it to its W and slowly it disintegrated as we were only 1 nm away. Ugh that was close. 

We have started a 6 h on and 6 h off watch system, which should allow us to get the needed sleep, but 6 h watches can be very long, but only being two on board, we will try this system.

At the moment we are heading for the Marquises and will not stop in the Galapagos, unless we have to for some reason, as they are highly expensive to visit and need loads of complicated paperwork, which we are not interested in experiencing. We will thus have to sail about 4.100 nm (straight line) in one go and I expect it will take us about 30 days, depending on what the Doldrums will bring us.

Tuesday 22.04.2014:  Day 2.

Progress is slow as we are in the northern Doldrums (there are, at present, two Doldrums in this area). The last two nights were a mixed bag, with Squalls and thunder all around us. We had to zig-zag all last night to avoid them as the lightning intensified, as the night progressed.

We had sailed 235 nm the two days since we left the Islands and considering the light winds, this is acceptable. As usual we have had a number of birds visiting us.

This one was not scared and we could touch it and it tried several times to enter the boat, so we had to chase it out. We did not see it this morning, and wonder if it has hidden somewhere inside the boat, or that it has flown away again. 

Our course is 200-210° m and are thus heading south rather than west to the Marquises. The reason for this longer route, is that we wish to get out of the Doldrums as quickly as possible and try to reach 3-5° S, where I expect the Trade Winds can be picked up. These winds should, hopefully, give us 10-15 kn wind from the E-SE, but it can be tough to get there as the distance is about 600 nm through troubled wind conditions. 

I plan to cross the Equator at around 87° W and will therefore not get too close to the Galapagos Islands, where the visibility can be poor. Another reason to avoid the Galapagos, as mentioned above, is that they are now very expensive to visit. S/Y Bandit (friends from 2007) spend about USD 2.500 for ten days there on clearing in/out USD 850, a four days tour USD 1.200 plus agent fees, etc.. We consider it is not worth all that money, even though the wildlife is very interesting and unique. Too bad and we believe we will see enough further on.

We start to settle into the routine and our watch system and hope in another 2-3 days time to have adopted to it. There are and will be sleep deprivation on a trip like this and this usually gets worth as time goes by, but if the weather will be kind to us, we should manage OK; after all we are both young and fir(?). 

For example this morning Jon called me up, as he had spotted on the radar two large Squalls with a lot of rain (meaning a lot of wind in them) and some ships. Eventually during the following hour the Squalls disintegrated and I could go back to bed to sleep for another hour until it was time for me to charge the batteries, make water, as well as to have a shower and breakfast, make the position Report for the Pangolin system, Nicolas and PPJ Rally people, before my watch started at 08:00. 

The winds are variable between 4-19 kn from north (right aft) and waves 1-2 metres also from the north. It is totally overcast and Squally, but it is, as expected, hot.

Friday 25.04.2014: Day 5.

The weather has being playing games with us. First we had light wind from N, i.e. from our aft. Then no wind at all and then right on the nose both with rather strong wind and variable winds, etc., etc.. We have had to tack a few times and that result in more mileage sailed, all to try to get south, and the last few days we have been closed hauled and not heading in the optimal direction as we are having too much west direction and not enough south. This was unexpected, as I had thought we would sooner be in the Trade Wind that is the case. It seems that we need to get even further S of 3-5° S before we can reach the Trade Wind, which, at the moment, comes from E-SE at 5-15 kn. 

We have sailed, so far, about 596 nm since leaving Panama City, and I assume we have about 3.600 nm to the Marquises, depending on how much more we will have to Zig-Zag, before we reach the Trade Wind. Thus, the trip, so far, has been slow and unless we can get south quicker and pick up more speed soon, I believe we will need more than the 30 days I had expected..

 Sunday 27.04.2014:  Day 7.

Until now the sailing condition has not been the Pacific sailing I had expected and, for example, yesterday it was so rough downstairs, that using the bathroom became impossible, and no shaving and showering were possible, before the evening and after we reduced the sails further. However, during yesterday evening it started to calm down and life went back into the pleasure mode. The night was even more pleasant and the wind started to veer to SE and we could ease the sheets and increase the speed, as well as getting the waves more from the port side, although we are still almost close hauled. It has been overcast for several days. 

This morning things changed and we now have a wonderful sun shine and a great sailing condition again. We are heading for our next WP located 3° S, 90° W, which mean that we should cross the Equator at about 87° W and this I forecast to be the coming night as we have about 92 nm to the Equator. At the moment of writing this we are at 00°56.782 N, 085°28.421 W and heading 214° m with a speed of 6.3 kn and the wind of 15 kn from SE. The WP is S of the Galapagos Islands. 

We have now sailed about 890 nm since leaving Panama City and as our route has been a bit of a Zig-Zag, we have thus done more mileage that the strait line would have given us.

Monday 28.04.2014:  Day 8.

The wind dropped last night so I had to wake up Volvo, to advance further south, as the wind was expected at 5 kn around Equator. We finally received the little wind late evening and I could put the Volvo back to sleep after exercising it for a couple of hours. OK 5 kn wind is not a lot, but we could set sails and it slowly increased to 8-9 kn from SSE and we ware back in business. 

We crossed the Equator today at 04:08 GMT at 086°27.012W.

The wind as I write this is now a satisfactorily 10 kn from SE-SSE and waves moderate, so speed (SOG) is a good at 6.5 kn. Hope this will continue for a while and until we will get to 6° S where the Trade Wind should be more stable. The sailing condition today has been wonderful and we are enjoying it 100%. Again we have sighted big Whales and this time there were 3-4 a little distance from our starboard side. Great but still worrying with these large Whales so close that we can hear and smell their breaths.

Wednesday 30.04.2014: Day 10.

We are now closing in on 3°S and have passed 90° W and the sailing conditions have improved. We are now averaging about 165 nm/24 h, but the wind is still unstable and the swell about 2-3 m.

Friday 02.05.2014: Day 12.

I am surprised of the sailing conditions we have had so far. It is a bit like sailing in the North Sea with loads of rain, huge waves and strong wind. It is almost impossible to write on the PC and even make the daily Position Reports are a real challenge. Last night during my watch, we received 28 kn wind from SE and waves of 4 m, as well as loads of heavy rain. On the positive side the rain was welcomed, so the decks could get a good fresh water wash.

We are still heading at 234° (SW) and are closing in on our next WP (6° S/100° W), where I hope the conditions should improve. But according to other boats in that area, they also are suffering from the same conditions as we have.  We are at the time of writing (02.05.2014 at 14:15 GMT) at position: 04° 20 S/96° 16 W and have 241 nm to go to the WP and about 2.800 nm to the Marquises.

Technical items: The D400 wind generator is not working and I think it is the generator itself that is faulty, as I have not found anything wrong inside the boat; I will have to manually stop it as soon as the weather calms, as the cut off switch don’t stop it. It is spinning completely out of control. I have emailed the manufacture. This a big problem, as we will need to run the Westerbeke Generator much more and I had not planned the extra fuel needed for this. 

The Bilge pump is leaking again and as we heal, it drips. I think it is the membrane again, but don’t dare taking it apart while we are in this rough waters, as it is too close to the waterline.

I believe that the attachment of one of the radars are coming off, as Jon found a bolt on the deck, but it will be impossible to go up in the mast in this weather. Another item on the “To Do List”. I fear that we might have some down time while in the Marquises.

Saturday 03.05.2014: Day 13.

The last 24 h has been rather rough sailing and winds up to 28 kn from SE and huge waves of 4-5 m, which made life on board unpleasant.

I received the answer from the wind generator staff and they lead me to find the fault in the Generator. It was a corroded wire inside the mast/pole the generator is attached to. Jon was a great help and he emptied the Lazarette for all the fresh water we had stored there and also the mooring and other lines, so we could get to the wires. We ended up taking the wire out from the top, of the mast/pole, so we could get to the faulty wire, and that in 4 m waves. It had parted almost completely and thus no connection to the shunt and the batteries. In the meantime, we could not stop the generator and it was spinning almost out of control, as there could not be any load on it. Also in the strong wind and large waves coupled with rain, it was quite a task to get up on the pole, so I had to abandon trying to stop the generator while working in the wires. In any case, I managed to get a nice electric shock, before fixing the connection. And voila, it is now working great again.

The course is now changed to 252° which is the WP for Fatu-Hiva, about 2.394 nm from here. We have so far sailed about 2.000 nm TW (Trough the Water) and been at sea since 20 April (13 days) and are thus approaching the half way mark, which we should reach in about two days time. The run the last 24 h was 170 nm.

Sunday 04.05.2014: Day 14.

This morning the weather improved considerably. That is that we have a wonderful sunshine, but the wind is still fresh at 21 kn from SE, but the waves have moderated to 2.50 m, although they still come at a little over 90° to the Port side. This still give us the rocking and roll movements.

We hardly have seen any other boats and nothing seen for several days, since Jon heard on the VHF CH 16, a Bask Captain talking in his native language. He was very exited and called the Captain up. They had several conversations and it transpired that the Captain is from the same small village, where Jon’s family has a holiday home, close to Bilbao, in NW Spain. The Captain was part of several fishing boats sailing in the area and fishing for Tuna. Otherwise we have not seen or heard any other boats for days.

In Panama City, there is a Danish gentleman Karsten who has lived there for 46 years and is giving sailors his advise on local matters, workers and suppliers. He also run a weather and routing service and I had agreed with him that we would keep in daily contact when we would leave Panama. We email each other daily and I give him our weather, position, course, speed, etc.. He in turn give me his weather information and suggest WP for our way forward. He is following six boats at the moment and three of them are Swedish boats, and they are located a few days ahead of us. I have met one of them in SBM and Panama City. Karsten is a HAM operator as well and very keen on SSB/HAM HF radio. He has a call schedule each evening at 23:00 GMT where we discuss the weather, WP, etc.. He has of course Internet and thus access to more information that we can get on board, so it is very interesting and useful to be in contact with him. However, the propagation has been problematic the last few days and I might have to give up talking to him if it does not improve soon, and we will then only communicate via email.  

Current position is 05°33.60 S and 101°18.78 W. We have so far sailed about 2.000 nm since leaving Panama City and have about 2.242 to the next WP, namely the Island of Fatu-Hiva, Marquises. Our daily average sailed TW (Through Water) is about 142-169 nm. This is OK when considering the rather problematic weather conditions we have had so far.

Monday 05.05.2014: Day 15.

HALF WAY TO FATU-HIVA, MARQUISES!

Since leaving the Perlas Islands, Panama 15 days ago, we have sailed 2.075 nm (average of 138 nm/day) and we have 2.062 nm to go to Fatu-Hiva Island, Marquises. Until now it has not been the expected Pacific sailing conditions, but it seems, judging from the last couple of days, that it is improving. I have heard from S/Y Bandit that they had hell when leaving the Galapagos Islands and only the last 1.000 nm became acceptable. But I believe they went by far too south trying to pick up the Trade Wind, and thus lost their flexibility in the course to steer in case of meeting adverse sailing conditions. I think that Karsten will agree to this? We followed Karsten’s advise almost to the letter and OK we had rough sailing conditions for at least ten days, but we avoided the very bad weather others have experienced. Only small change is that we cut a couple of corners, especially to obtain better wind angels, and thus speed, and keep the flexibility.

We are at present at: 06°01.70 S and 104°06.42 W. SOG: 7.5-9.3 kn; COG: 251° M; average last 24 h was: 166 nm. Another beautiful sunny morning and fast sailing, but we have both sails reefed, so far, to give a more pleasant sailing.

Tuesday 06.05.2014: Day 16.

Last night the weather started to settle a bit although during my watch I had a few squalls with rain, but not too much wind. This morning the waves moderated from the big ones we have had for a while, to now about 2.5 m from SSE. The wind also went to SSE and as our course is 251° M, at the change of the watches at 08:00, we pooled out the Genoa, which usually stabilize the boat and the rolling a bit. It also give a bit better speed, but the angel is, at the moment, on the limit as we have an apparent wind angel of close to 110°.

The daily runs starts to settle at around 165 nm, with the best one so far at 215 nm/22 h. This evening we have 1.839 nm to Fatu-Hiva WP.

Thursday 08.05.2014: Day 18.

We still running Wing-on-Wing and it is great sailing, although the wind is a bit unstable and, at times, we can’t hold the correct course, but have to alter too much to the north. That is not too bad on a long passage, as the wind will eventually – hopefully – veer to our advantage and we should be able to correct the course back to where we want it, even though it can takes days.

We have not seen any ship or yacht for the last ten days. nothing on the AIS and nothing on the Radar, even if we put it on 36 nm range. Nothing heard on the VHF either. So our horizon is the sea, sky and the horizon in between. The weather has improved and it is a nice sunshine the last days and only a few rainy squalls has come our way, generally during the nights. They are much smaller and less powerful the last few days, as compared to what we have had earlier. So, all in all, this is nice Trade Wind sailing and we enjoy it 100%.

Progress is also fine and we are now at 06°45.587 S and 111°26.917 W with 1.623 nm to go to WP Fatu-Hiva.

Friday 09.05.2014: Day 19.

We have now had a couple of days with nice Trade Wind sailing and with the wind coming from SSE to ESE and even this morning from E. So the sailing is pleasant and the weather is warm.

We have not seen any ships for almost two weeks, but this morning I noted Hamburg Sud container vessel. It came as close as 1.7 nm and passed us at 18 kn. The Captain called me up and kindly asked if everything was OK and if we needed any assistance. I replied that his call was very appreciated, but that we were fine and were enjoying the nice Trade Wind sail. We ended the conversation by wishing each other a nice trip and I told him that we were heading for the Marquises and he told me he was heading for Auckland with an ETA of 20.05.2014.

ALSO photos and videos taken these days.

As we are heading west we have set back our clocks three hours since leaving Panama. We are thus GMT –8 h and Luxembourg summer time –10 h. Before we get to the Marquises Islands we will have to set back the clocks a further 1.5 h.

It works well to be Wing-on-Wing and I find it stabilize the boat and minimize the rolling, which is contrarily to many other wise sailors writings. The system is that, we have fixed the spinnaker pole with its topping lift and installed a down-haul and an out-haul. That way the pole stays fixed all the time and we have the freedom to increase or decrease the Genoa’s sail area at will and if strong wind arrive we reduce the sail area, without touching the pole. It works well and I hope we can keep it that way for the remaining days and while we are in the Trade Wind.

INSERT VIDEOS.

Unfortunately we have found a leak in the fresh water system. Not sure where it comes from, but as I have problems filling the fresh water tank, I suspect it comes from a leaking hose. We see water trickle into the bilge, but can’t (yet) see where it comes from. There must be a leak aft of the saloon, but I have no idea where, and it will be difficult to find, but it must be found and repaired while at sea. Jon managed to squeeze into the bilge and take some photos through the tiny opening, but they are not conclusive. More to follow.

Sunday 11.05.2014: Day 21.

We have now been at sea 21 days and have 1.158 nm to Fatu-Hiva Island. Our average is about 155 nm/24 h and the best run was 215 nm. So far we have only seen one container ship and last night we spotted a small sailing boat about 6 nm ahead of us at 11 h, going rather slow and within the following 4 h we had overtaken it. I tried to hail them on CH 16, but they did not reply.

When we are at sea, New Dawn is a “dry boat”, meaning that we don’t drink alcohol at all. So all we drink is water (from the tank), coffee and tea. Once at anchor, this will change......... 

Tuesday 13.05.2014: Day 23.

We have now been at sea 23 days and so far covered 3.200 nm, with 830 nm to go to Fatu-Hiva Island. As expected we have hardly seen any ships and yachts, except for the Container Ship and the Sailing Yacht mentioned earlier. Otherwise nothing on the horizon. However, we know that there are three Swedish sailing yachts not too distance away, as Karsten is advising them on the weather and route. They are nevertheless too far south of us to get any VHF radio contact with them and the propagation on the SSB system is very poor at the moment, so no contact via SSB has yet been possible. In fact, we can hear each other, but a proper conversation is not feasible.

The poor propagation has also effected the use of emails and I have, for example, not been able to download emails during the last four days. The system is now so slow that I have had to give up receiving emails, so as to avoid using up my weekly 90 minutes allocation for fear of being blocked by the system. Unfortunately many that writes emails to me, have not read the last paragraph which Sailmail automatically add to each email, and that explain not to include the last messages when replying. This cause a lot of useless text being transmitted and a lot of transmission time is wasted. I might have to wait till I can get Internet to download the many emails that is now piling up and it might be two weeks before I can get Internet connection

What has surprised us is that there is hardly any wildlife in this area. After the massive amount of whales, dolphins, flying fish and various birds we noted during the first 1.500 nm, there seems only to be the flying fish left to entertain us and much less than previously around the Galapagos Islands, where the wildlife increased significantly. But it has since calmed and only the Flying Fish make their daily and nightly show for us. I believe some of them can fly about 50 metres, which is an impressive show to watch. Usually we would find a handful on the deck each morning, but at the moment we only get a couple, if any, and no longer the very big ones, but only the small ones.

The water leak we have noted during recent days is still there, but we just can’t see where it comes from. I might come from a pipe “after” the fresh water pumps, as it seems to drip faster when the pump is lid, and I have had troubles filling the water tank during the last weeks. We dismantled the floor boards, table, cupboards, storage space, and also under the shower and sink in the front bath room and fiddled around with the hot and cold water hoses. But we did not find any apparent leak. I am considering changing the hot and cold water pipes once we can get them, likely in Tahiti, just to be sure, but it will be a very big work, as many of these pipes are run inside the beams, or hidden somewhere.

The wind has become more steady and veered to the E and ESE at about 14-18 kn and gusting up to 28 kn. During Squalls it can get up to 28 kn, but at times the Trade Wind can drop to only 6 kn, which is frustrating, as the large swell and waves (2.5-4 metres) keep coming in and make us roll a lot and can make life unpleasant on board. However, I find the Pacific Squalls are different than those in the Atlantic, as they are generally smaller, carry less strong wind and less rain. In the Atlantic, a Squall can give a huge amount of rain and carry 47 kn wind. But here the squalls seems to approach us faster, but are less violent. So the good news is that they bring less rain and less wind.

The weather that last two days has been nice with a lot of sun and it is again nice warm. The sun can, like today, be very warm and we need t-shirts or we will burn. However, the nights are cool, especially if windy, and we need to wear jeans, jumpers, socks and a blanket to keep warm in the cockpit, when we are on watch. The moon is now full and we have it almost all the night, which is great as we can see the horizon and the clouds/Squalls better, but on the other hand, the stars are less apparent, because of the increased light.

Wednesday 14.05.2014: Day 24.

Talking about lack of wildlife. this morning, as my watch started, we had four white birds circling over us and making a lot of noises. I concluded that it must be the “Radio Bird” giving the latest bird news and what have been happening in the Bird World last night. They did not stay too long though.

Again a wonderful morning with bright sunshine, only a few clouds and 18 kn eastern wind. But the swell and waves partly spoiled the picture as they are still 2.5-4 metres. But as we have full sails set and are wing-on-wing, this configuration tends to stabilize us somewhat and we roll more controlled –as long as it will last.

“The best moments in once life, are those that are still to come”. This I have often thought of and as I was watching last night the moon, stars, clouds and sea, it was very satisfying and peaceful with no one to disrupt my thoughts, as New Dawn was sailing steadily and silently through the Pacific Sea, heading for the Marquises, all new territory for me.

As I mentioned earlier, we know from Karsten, that there are three Swedish boats heading for the Marquises at this time and they are supposed to be well ahead of us.A week ago they were all about 450-650 nm further west than us, but I suspected we could catch up on them. This morning I call them up and received an answer from Steve on S/Y Frideborg. After exchanging coordinates, I noted that we had overtaken them and they were about 30-40 nm behind us, so the VHF communication was at its limit. But we could make some sense of each other. Steve told me that he thought the other Hallberg-Rassy S/Y Liv, whom I had met in Panama, were the most ahead of the three and likely had 3 days (250-300 nm) to the Marquises and thus too far away to reach on the VHF It was fun to speak with Frideborg and to hear an outside voice again, as it is now many days since we last spoke to another ship; the last one was the container ship Spirit of Auckland, a while ago. I learned that the there Swedish boats has a daily Net on the SSB (8182 Hz) at 15:00 and 03:00 GMT (07::00 and 17:00 LT) and I was invited to join them, which I will try to do, unless I will be a sleep, as it is my off watch time.

Thursday 15.05.2014: Day 25.

Last night I joined the Swedish Net and it was fun to hear how they had been sailing and their position. Again this morning I joined the Net and we all gave our updated information. S/Y Liv should arrive Hiva-Oa during the coming 24 h. They do not dare going straight to Fatu-Hiva, where we are heading for, as some books warns that this can cause problems for boats as that island is not for clearing in. I told them that my friends (S/Y Bandit) had just been in Fatu-Hiva and reported to the Mayor, who gave them at least four days stay, if they so wished. I think both S/Y Frideborg and S/Y Litorina are now considering following our example and sail first to Fatu-Hiva. The advantage of this first stop, is that it is a natural stop considering the wind direction and one only have to continue on a broad reach to get to the following islands. S/Y Liv will have to go against the wind to get from Hiva-Oa to Fatu-Hiva. Apparently Fatu-Hiva is considered one of the very best and most beautiful islands in the world, so it is a must to visit.

Friday 16.05.2014: Day 26.

This morning was tough sailing during my watch. We received loads of rain, large squalls and a huge system covering 60% of the horizon, which ended up lasting about four hours and gave us Gale force wind of 8 BF and gusting to 38 kn. I reduced the sails to nearly nothing and the speed was high. Maximum speed was 11.2 kn, fully reefed. It felt a bit like sailing across the North Sea and was not expected for the Pacific at this time of the year. Well at least it was a welcoming boat wash. Only after my watch at 14:00 LT, did it calm down and Jon was happy for that when he took over.

This evening was a bit stressful, as Jon – who is a keen cook – created again a nice meal and was ready for dinner at 18:00, but I messed it up his timing as I still had to join the Swedish SSB Net at 18:00 and thereafter I had to transmit and receive the emails containing the weather forecast. Again the Sailmail was problematic and very slow. So before we could sit down for dinner at was 19:30. I must try to find a way to coordinate these activities better in future, if that is possible. But the Net’s timing is fixed and the SSB works best around sunset (18:00-19:00 LT), so it is problematic.

We discovered that one of the many disturbing noises in the SSB comes from “AUTO” each time it moves the rudder. I have no idea how to get rid of this noise without changing loads of things on board, as the wires, the copper ground plates, are all close together and passing Auto's Computer by about one metre.

We put back the clocks another hour today. We are now GMT –9 h and Central European Time (CET) –11 h. When we arrive the Marquises we will have to put back the clocks another half h and will then be GMT –9:30 h or CET –11:30 h.

As I write this, it is 20:30 LT and we have about 300 nm to the Bay Of Virgins on Fatu-Hiva. I guess we can arrive – hopefully – before dark on Sunday 18 May, as I was told today that the Bay is quite full with 17 boats at anchor, which mean that anchoring in the dark and in a bay with deep water, is problematic.  So to make it while it is still light, we will need to keep a good speed the coming days, or we risk having to slow down and await light the following day. This is what we had to do when we approached Grenada’s south coast last November. In addition, on Fatu-Hive there are no navigation lights, which renders the Island a dangerous place to approach during night time. 

Sunday 18.05.2014: Day 28.

Today at 09:13 LT (18:13 GMT) the skipper hailed the crew with a “Land Ahoy” as we could see Fatu-Hiva 33 nm ahead of us. It is a high Volcanic island and its well over a 1.000 metres high was easy to spot, but we were surprised how small the island is. As Nicolas rightly said in a recent email, it is call “The most beautiful and the most inaccessible place/area in the world!!!”. There are only two small villages here and after we have done the needed work on New Dawn the coming two days, we plan to visit the village hare at The Bay Of The Virgins, and see if we can find any..... The hull is extremely dirty and I have never seen so much growth around the water line. It is not Barnacles, but these slimy things that resembles flowers.

It is a very beautiful bay and I will include some photos below. However the bay is very deep and we anchored in 32 metres and put out a good 80 metres chain.

Some statistics from the trip from Panama to Fatu-Hiva:

- Total distance sailed (through the water): 4.373 nm.

- Timing: AM on 20.04.2014 to 18.05.2014 at 16:00 LT.Equal to about 28.5 days including time difference.

- Waves high: 2.5-5 metres.

- Average nm/day: 153 nm.

- Average kn/h: 6.39 kn.

- Highest SOG seen: 11.2 kn;

- Best day: 215 nm on 04-05 May 2014.

- Worth day: 93 nm on 17-18 May 2014.

- Strongest wind noted: 38 kn (Gale 8 BF) on 16 May 2014.

- Ships seen: “Spirit Of Auckland (container ship of Hamburg Sud Line. They called us and we had a pleasant chat on VHF.

- Yachts seen: Three and the first one we overtook very quickly; they did not answer my calls. The other two was overtaken  slower at a distance of about eight nm S of us on 16 May 2014 and only seen on radar and one navigation light.  No VHF contact.

- Yachts spoken to (all Swedish): S/Y Frideborg from from Aahus, S/Y Liv (whom I had met in Panama city and SBM) and S/Y Litorina from Helsingborg. We over took Frideborg and Litorina without seeing them, as we were far apart. We joined their SSB Net on 8182 twice a day and exchanged position, weather, etc..

The route since leaving The Golfe Of St Tropez on 20 September 2013 was:

 Wednesday 21.05.2014:

Yesterday we launched for the first time my new toy, namely the Mercury 20 hp outboard engine. It has exactly the additional power I was seeking and although I can’t yet test it at full power, as it needs to be run in carefully, it seems to have all the power I had hoped for. So we will need to calm things for some weeks until it is ‘'run in”.

Today we went to a Marquises lunch, where the supposed “wild Pig” etc. are cooked for many hours under the ground. We were 13 in total from the anchorage to join and it was OK, although, I am not sure it is all that special. Well at least we have now tried that.

The husband was an artist and I bought a mast and a statute from him. Well I traded two perfume bottles with him to get the statutes. They seem to like to trade things for Rum, but it seems at very unfavourable deals and we were advised against this practice, as the men gets drunk, and it seems to disturb the family harmony. So the perfume deal I did seems more appropriate.

We also managed the big walk to the 62 m waterfall and I thought it would be an easy 30 min walk, but, as far as I remember, it was an almost three hours walk up the hill on slippery rocks. I almost gave up, but at the end managed to get there. It was a bit dissapointing as it is the dry season and not too much water caskading.

Sunday 25.05.2014:

We stayed almost a week in Fatu-Hiva and it was fine, although the anchorage was rolly and very deep. I went to a show they did the other day and listened to their music and watched the dancing. We traded a lot and ....MORE TO COME

We left Fatu-Hive this morning for Hiva-Oa.