Author: Stephen

Greetings from the fine yacht Flyer, now only 330 NM due south of Dutch Harbor, AK. This will be a fast/scattered update as we have our hands full fixing things and trying to keep Flyer going fast! 

It’s been a bit of a race against time here lately. The weather forecasts have evolved every day to make it clear that as we move north there will be a big area of no wind forming right on our path. If we can keep our speed up, we’ll be able to sail right through it before it forms. If we can’t stay sailing fast, we’ll get caught in the windless zone! Nothing like the potential of motoring (or a little drifting) to light a fire under our butts!

With Cameron aboard we feel more comfortable pushing the boat harder, more consistently. This has translated to keeping more sail up as the wind builds, and sailing a little less conservatively at night. It has paid off, as we’ve stayed slightly ahead of our predicted performance, and for the most part have stayed with the breeze.  But pushing the boat has not come without its consequences. We’ve had some excitement aboard lately… and here are a few highlights:

We did our first full accidental gybe aboard Flyer!

We were sailing along nicely under full sail and a poled out genoa in 20kts of wind when the breeze suddenly built to 30. Cameron was on watch and came to get me so we could put a reef in quickly. As I got on deck only a few seconds later, we found the boat had gybed and rounded up into the wind, with the mainsail fully aback, restrained by its preventer (as it should be!). Our trusty autopilot had likely just been overwhelmed by the gust and the swells. Head to wind with the mainsail as a brake, Flyer came to a complete stop. So we set about easing the main across using the preventer and sorting out the mess of genoa sheets that had wrapped themselves in all the flogging. We got things under control, got the boat moving again, gybed back to port, and got the reef tucked in and were back on our way… only to discover the next day that we had bent a forward aluminum lifeline stanchion with the preventer! I quickly bent it back but have made a note to myself to have it replaced soon (as repeated bending will weaken the aluminum). Phew!

We discovered a broken batten!

Back in Honolulu I replaced the bottom batten with one of the proper length. The one I purchased from the local North Sails outfit was a segmented batten, as it’s cheaper for them to ship a few 6’ sections than one long 16’ section. This segmentation though requires a mechanical splice, and it appears our batten broke at the splice point. Duh! Currently the problem seems well contained and we will monitor it as we progress, as the batten pocket is very well reinforced and it’s on the leeward side of the sail. With the wind forecast to build soon, we’ll likely put our 1st reef in which will also take a lot of the load off of the broken batten. We’re still not sure how we broke it but it could have been in one of the gybing maneuvers we made trying to avoid ships… which brings us to our next highlight:

We’ve had some close calls with ships!

We’re now in a major international shipping highway, which large ships use to transit between Asia and North America. There are ships all over the place up here, and while we can see them coming from a ways away, it cramps our style of sailing fast! To top it all off, our AIS (the automatic identification system on board that allows us to transmit and receive positions of nearby vessels also equipped with AIS) has been malfunctioning lately and isn’t transmitting or receiving reliably at longer ranges. So, we’ve been making do relying more on internet based AIS (info published via satellites to the web) and then waiting to see the vessels on our radar and finally received by our troubled AIS system.

All this makes collision avoidance even more tricky when we are in the fog, as visual sight of the other ship helps confirm the data we’re seeing is correct. Our process for managing these situations is as follows: wait until we’re within VHF hailing distance (around 40nm) and call the vessel on the radio. We then ask for their coordinates, and give them ours to get a more accurate position (we’ve learned web-based AIS, while ‘received’ as recently as 2 seconds ago, can be up to 30 minutes behind reality!). We then do some plotting and calculations to determine if we can pass in front or go behind them. We’ll then tell them what our intentions are and see if they’re okay with that… which they usually are.

However, last night, in a first, we had a ship captain tell us he wanted to change course so HE could pass behind US! I thought he was crazy (it takes a long time to turn a 700’ long ship) but given he likely has more hours behind the helm than I, I accepted his offer. We passed easily in front of him, at least according to our AIS… we couldn’t see him even with decent visibility only 5 miles out. 

All the while we’re still all doing well out here, enjoying our time at sea and getting some good chill time when we’re not trying to keep the boat from being a soggy mess! While Flyer is fully insulated, she does still collect condensation on cold surfaces, including bulkheads (against the centerboard trunk in particular where cold water makes the aluminum and then wood cold) and also the floors (where there’s no insulation below the waterline). And the sea surface temperature is now down to 46f! The air outside is a bit warmer than that, but not much. It’s so cold that our passage routing software is giving us wind chill warnings!

We’re now about 2 days from the Fox Islands (where Unalaska and Dutch Harbor are) and the anticipation aboard is building… the betting is in on our arrival time and we’ll see who the winner is this time! Fingers crossed we make it there safely. Until then, SV Flyer sailing fast and standing by!

For the first time since December, the crew on Flyer are wearing socks again! The air temperature has been dropping precipitously since we passed through a front almost 36 hours ago. The wind picked up from the northeast and with it came a welcome blast of cool air. 

We’re currently moving along better than expected under sail, heading north west with 8-12kts of breeze at between 4.5-5.5kts of boat speed. The skies have cleared this morning and a lovely cool breeze is washing over us. For the first time since California, back in October, we have most hatches closed because it’s too chilly to do otherwise! A few of us are donning long underwear and long sleeve shirts, and we’re all cuddling up under comforters and blankets in our bunks when we’re sleeping. Pelle has even been snoozing in her cabin (a tiny locker near Kristen’s side of the bunk) and emerges with a spring in her step when she arouses for some attention, or more likely food. 

It’s been a few days since our last check in, and despite the rather quiet and sleepy atmosphere on board Flyer, there have been a few highlights:

We’re enjoying our new reefing system! 

Back in Honolulu I discovered our second reef line was severely chafed at the boom where it wrapped on itself to dead end the clew line. Our neighbor Yves on Zorba had experienced the same thing on that humdinger of a leg from Rangiroa, so he and I made a bulk express order of new, lighter but stronger lines from Fisheries Supply and within a couple of days I had it all rigged up. We now have much smaller, stronger, lower stretch lines in the simplified system which is a breeze to use compared to our old setup, which featured some clumsy, stiff nylon ‘ropes’ (I’ll use this derogatory term because they were that bad) finagled into some ‘design of convenience’ by the genius boom makers at Selden. It was a single line reefing system, which means that by pulling one line, one might be able to bring both the tack and the clew of the mainsail down simultaneously. Great in theory, but horrendous in practice, since it requires multiple parts of the line, turning around various blocks and sliding mechanisms within the boom to make it work. All this complexity creates friction which is your enemy when trying to wrestle a sail under control, or even when trying to shake it out. Now our new system feels virtually frictionless and we even get to pull the tack down with our bare hands too. A joy to operate and some pretty new colors to boot.

We caught a sweet skipjack tuna! 

Skipjack tuna are known for their dark red meat and were the original species that the Poke bowl originated with in Hawaii. Most skipjack tunas are around 6-8lbs, but we got a good one at around 15-20lbs. It must have been old since the fight was a pretty easy one (ha!). Paul had assembled a custom lure, which featured “a clear head with googly eyes, a clear and black dotted underskirt with a purple and blue underskirt, and a big 8-0 J hook, or something like that, dad.” Whatever it was, it did the trick!

After a fast initial run, the fish was quickly reeled into submission and brought to the boat without much fuss. Its death throes were something else though. After our humane brain spike, it went into a violent spasm and almost shot half its blood down the portlight above James’s bunk after it jumped into the cockpit! Luckily it was short lived and we processed the fish quickly for a poke bowl lunch. Fish tacos and teriyaki tuna bowls were to follow with the remaining the following days. Yum yum.

We went for a swim! 

As fate would have it, the wind and daylight finally aligned and gave us an almost windless spell on Wednesday. We had been motoring along for over 12 hours and decided it was time for a break. We shut the engine down, removed the windpilot from the swim platform, and dropped a line and throwable cushion overboard, and went to work. Given our two crossings of the equator and countless miles through the intertropical convergence zones, it’s surprising that our best chance to swim was at 31 degrees north! It was great to cool off (the water was about 71degF) and mind blowing to think there was over 3 miles of water beneath us. The timing couldn’t have been better as within 24 hours we had 30kts of wind, the sea surface temperature was 68degF, and the air temp was down to the mid-60s with no sun.

We’ve seen a lot of trash!

Sadly, this part of the Pacific seems loaded with floating plastics. We’re not far from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which lies a few hundred miles to our east, and as a result we’re likely seeing offshoots or soon-to-be-members of this unfortunate human stain on the ocean. From the research we’ve done, almost all of the contents of the Garbage Patch are plastics related to the fishing industry, as well as some additional domestic refuse from Asia. It’s sad to see and a good reminder for us of just how bad the international fishing industry can be for the world. For a deep dive into this, I’d highly recommend listening to The Outlaw Ocean podcast. Give this episode a go.

We have plenty of time to sleep! 

It’s so great to have Cameron here for many many reasons, but perhaps most fundamentally he makes our watch system very manageable. His additional help gives us all plenty of time to sleep or relax when the weather is agreeable- which it has been this whole leg more or less. We have defaulted to a 4 on, 8 off schedule so far, which is absolutely luxurious for me and Kristen compared to our standard offshore routine of 4 on 4 off. There’s surely some boisterous (and colder) weather ahead so it will also pay dividends to have more hands on deck when we need to adjust sail and maneuver.

We’re looking at a lot of weather maps!

This is the most challenging of our legs to forecast, so we wait with bated breath for every new weather model run (which happen every 6 hours or so). The challenges are concentrated in the northern half of this passage, which we are essentially in now, which I’d define as the zone between the NE tradewinds (that ended for us around 33 degrees north) and our destination in the Aleutians. This is the zone that the dreaded low pressure systems migrate through during most of the year, and the North Pacific High dominates in the summer. The high hasn’t become clearly defined quite yet and we’re getting remnants of weak low pressure systems moving across our track, giving us variable conditions defined by a series of fronts and pressure ridges. Our game right now is to figure out how to sail between the bands of wind, through the light wind areas as much as possible. We’ve already motored through one, and are looking at another one or two dead spots in the coming week or so. For now, the models seem to agree that by Monday we’ll be in some stronger southerly winds and making better headway due north towards Dutch Harbor. 

There’s a new run of weather models now! Gotta get on it… more soon!

Greetings from Flyer, now rafted happily on the Aloha dock at Hawaii Yacht Club in Honolulu. Apologies for this delayed (and probably overly lengthy) posting. We had our hands full in the final week of the passage with some spicy conditions, and arrival here has been a frenzy of formalities, feasting, and of course, boat projects.

When we last left off, Flyer was just getting into the groove of our reach through the NE tradewinds, a few hundred miles south east of the Big Island of Hawai’i. The breeze had built solidly over the previous several days and Flyer was making good speed, dodging small rain cells that tended to accelerate the wind another ten knots from the baseline mid-twenties. The water rushing over the deck was impressive, peeling up and shattering two of our stout hatch covers over the course of a couple hours! Unable to open any hatches to ventilate -for fear of taking even more water below- life on board was muggy.

By 4pm on the 23rd we were about 75nm south of Hawai’i and darker clouds were beginning to loom on the horizon ahead. All day we had been straining our eyes to catch a glimpse of land (supposedly the island is visible from as far as 140nm away) but the accumulation of clouds to our north quickly shifted our focus to the incoming weather. We were seeing frequent gusts to the low 30’s with our staysail and 2nd reef when we decided to put in 3rd reef in the mainsail (a first for us on Flyer). The timing could not have been more perfect. As I was carefully making my way aft from the mast towards the cockpit, the wind jumped to over 40kts. We were happy to have a handkerchief sized mainsail now!

We kept this sail configuration through the night as the wind continued between 30 and 45kts. And as dawn broke we caught a glimpse of Hawai’i under a rising sun. The wind speeds dropped precipitously and by 6am we had raised the mainsail to full hoist. By 7:20am the engine was on and we were powering our way through some sloppy, windless seas. 

We were firmly in the lee of the Big Island, and for the first time in quite a while we were feeling thankful to hear the engine on to help us through the calm. With the sun rising, Kristen and I set about some housekeeping work, airing out some soggy clothes and towels on deck, and addressing a few maintenance items. 

The evening before I had noticed one of our batten cars -the shuttle that attaches the batten in the sail to the mast- had broken free from the sail. The car for the second from top batten was still there, and so was the batten receptacle, but its attachment seemed broken or missing. With the mainsail down I was able to inspect more closely and found the securing bolt had dislodged itself and the swivel joint had come loose. I quickly found a sufficient temporary replacement bolt and put it back together. I was glad the solution was so simple – having to carry on with a missing mainsail car so high in the sail plan would have been a risky prospect.

Around 8am a pod of humpbacks lazily swam by us, about 200m to our south, and we almost had the feeling that we had arrived… 

But of course this respite was short lived. Within an hour, the seas in the lee of the island became extremely confused. The heavy trade wind swell wrapped around the island on both sides and crossed itself about mid-way through the calm, and as we motored through it, the pitching on board – despite almost no wind- became violent. The swells were easily fifteen feet from trough to crest, and we regularly buried the bow in their steep faces. Our 60hp diesel engine, which normally gives us 6.5-7.5 knots of boat speed, struggled to push Flyer through the 4 knot barrier. For the first time years I felt nauseous! Kristen and I agreed we far preferred the gale.

The geographic effect of the Hawaiian islands on the tradewinds is significant. The prominence of the island volcanos funnels the wind between them, intensifying the wind and waves and making for some sporty sailing conditions. The swell conditions had been a forewarning, and we knew the  wind wasn’t far behind. As we reached the top of the swells we could see frothing whitewater in the distance, and we knew the wind wasn’t far away. At 1:30pm we raised the mainsail with two reefs tucked in, and by the time we had the lines cleaned up and the reefed genoa set, the wind was already in the mid-twenties. It was time for round two!

The next fifty miles across the Alenuihaha Channel were some of the roughest I have sailed through. Through this stretch we sailed between 80 and 110 degrees true wind angle, meaning the wind was coming at us from either just ahead of our beam, or just aft. It was hard to tell which was more violent – going a little high meant leaping off of the swells and sending water all down the decks, while heading a little low meant the occasional breaking swell into the cockpit. 

Either way, we were moving quickly, making between 7 and 8 knots of speed, and it was wet. We were overpowered with our two reefs, but were making do with a severely eased mainsail. Flyer’s full-length mainsail battens work wonders in managing the luffing sail, and the prospect of putting the third reef in amidst these swells just seemed too daunting. We knew the conditions would ease again before too long. It was a raucous afternoon and as the sun set we could feel the breeze beginning to ease, as the swell backed further behind us and made the sailing slightly more comfortable. 

By 8:30pm the sun had set and the wind had eased to a downright gentle 20-25knots. In the lee of Maui, Lanai and Moloka’i things were a little different than in the lee of Hawai’i. The seas weren’t as confused, and we saw two brief spells of calm during the night. We ran the engine for a short spell of about 45 minutes, and before we knew it, we were seeing wind speeds between 25 and 35 knots. By 4am the wind died down to 12 knots, then slowly built as dawn broke. By 5am it was time for round 3. We were solidly in the Molokai Channel and could see the flashing white light of Diamond Head Light in the distance. 

The last few miles were great fun. The sight of our destination put a spring in our step and we powered up our mainsail to eek a bit more boatspeed out. Flyer moved quickly in the gusty 30-40knots, surfing diagonally down the building swells. As the swells built they began to break, and after a couple close calls, one finally had our number. A large breaker hit us broadside, sending Flyer deep onto her port rails in what was as close to a knockdown as we’ve experienced! I didn’t get a list of the items that found their way loose in the cabin down below but I’m happy to say the cat litter remained in place. 

After a few brief calls and texts to family, we fired up the engine as the breeze slowly backed off in the lee of Diamond Head. As we reached Waikiki, we rounded up, dropped our mainsail, and headed into the channel at Ala Wai, eager to see what Oahu had in store for us.

By 8am we made our starboard dock lines fast against the Aloha dock at Hawaii Yacht Club, and were warmly welcomed by the members who call this club home. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves for a couple hours before being rightfully humbled as an 18-year-old joined us on the dock. Ollie Bergquist arrived just a few hours after we did, having made the trip from northern California single-handed on his boat Covenant, a Contessa 32! Our boats spent a couple days rafted together and it was fun to hear a bit about his trip and see his various teenage fan clubs stop by. Paul promptly declared he would do the same journey by age 14!

Our time in Honolulu over the last four days has been busy to say the least. There are several projects we are trying to get done while here, and there’s so much for us to see! We’ve slept well in this virtually motionless berth and we’re still in a bit of shock, absorbing all this American opulence after a few months of, shall we say, South Pacific austerity. Parts are on order from all over, guaranteed to arrive within just a few days, and… the grocery stores! The restaurants! The rental car! Wow… it’s all so easy here.

We’ll be here for another few days before our next move, and will try to be more diligent in updating everyone here… until then, Mahalo!

Ha! if only we’d read the instructions before we went sailing. 

Good day from the fine yacht Flyer, now securely in the grips of the NE trades, 650nm SE of Oahu. We’re now entering our twelfth day at sea on this passage. 

We’ve been a bit quiet lately as we’ve been adjusting the boat, sails, course, living conditions, ourselves, and our expectations to life heading into the wind on a close reach in 25-30kts. The boat is heeled more than normal (about 15 degrees of heel right now) but the slamming and rolling are at times cacophonous, often dangerous inside. Despite hand holds and a harness in the galley, we’re being tossed around the inside of the boat when we least expect it, often landing on each other or (god forbid) Pelle, who has taken her share of steps on the tail. Mountains of water are cascading down the decks, keeping us from ventilating the boat and trapping all our heat inside. It’s a nice time to go sailing!

Flyer is moving along briskly at between 7-8 knots, despite the challenging sea conditions and gusts well into the 30’s. What explains all this? Well, the standard NE trade winds have a bit more northerly component to them right now as a result of a large (but weakening) high pressure in the N Pacific. This means that not only is the wind coming from more ahead (north) than we’d like, but that there’s an even more substantial fetch for the wind-driven swells to build up. Add to this some changing currents, and you have moderately sized seas that change frequently, are often steep, and regularly breaking. 

We are doing our best to make our way up through the swell, deliberately aiming a bit high (to the right) of our course, to give us a better position so the final few hundred miles will be more comfortable with wind behind the beam, we hope. 

This angle to the waves brings huge amounts of blue water down the decks every couple of minutes, and with it, a few unfortunate scaled souls who almost inevitably meet their end lying on our decks. Last night I heard a loud ‘thwack!’ against the foam top surfboard lashed to our weather rail. A severely concussed large flying fish was subsequently washed to my feet in the water entering the cockpit, but he was still showing signs of life, so I sent him back home overboard. If only the others could be so lucky.

At the very least, being high of course will give us options if the wind continues to veer left on us, giving us a better chance at making it to Oahu, where cold beer and poke bowls surely await us!

Speaking of food, we’ve had a bit of a tough go of it in the culinary department lately. First off, we learned that our extermination efforts to rid Flyer of the Marquesan cockroaches back in the Tuamotus was not successful. A few days ago Kristen discovered a couple baby roaches in some of our dry goods (items that had already been opened) so they were promptly gifted to King Neptune. When fully grown these beasts are large enough to make a dent in our stores and probably would even require a passport for entry into the US. We’ve done our best to channel my mother, whose Bermudian childhood gives her the nerves of steel to nonchalantly pluck them by the antennae and gracefully place them in a toilet to be flushed. We opt for the Makita vacuum and a quick discharge overboard. Effective but much less impressive.

Secondly, we’re running low on anything ‘fresh’ in the food department. We knew this would happen on this leg given the tight supply of fresh foods in Rangiroa, but still, it’s a tough time to be so low on fresh goods considering our conditions. I think we may have a small part of a cabbage, a few onions, a couple apples, and a handful of potatoes that might barely qualify as fresh. But regardless, if you know Kristen, she will not give up trying to make something new and delicious, and she continues to delight with the things she dreams up. Last night she made an artichoke pesto (from canned artichokes) that was immediately declared “the best thing I’ve eaten on this entire boat trip” by Paul, and promptly gobbled up by us all. 

Thirdly, we’re almost out of flour, which means no more fresh bread or even Kristen’s famous sourdough pancakes. Sad times indeed.

Regardless we are remaining stoic and maintain a positive attitude when the conditions try to get us down. We’ve taken our fair share of waves down hatches and (worse yet) through port lights above the boys’ bunks, but every time the cleanup and de-brief somehow are accompanied by a smile or two. 

Flyer takes all the beating in stride, and it feels good to be on a boat so aptly suited to rough conditions. We try to keep it all in perspective, and remind ourselves of just how hard sailing this route would be on a Polynesian canoe! Heaps of thanks to Kara from Sentjin for lending us “Hawaiki Rising,” an incredible book about the rediscovery of Polynesian sailing craft and their remarkable navigation, as well as the resurgence of Hawaiian and Polynesian culture in the late 20th century. It’s been a wonderful read on this leg and instills a real sense of awe and amazement at what the early navigators of the Pacific could accomplish. Much respect.

A few days ago the Intertropical Convergence Zone treated us to quite a series of rains, and we took the occasion to do some more laundry and take some long showers. James and Paul really enjoyed sitting under the mainsail’s stack-pack bag, which on Flyer includes hose bibs for occasions just like this!

OK that’s it for now, back to maintaining a mildly tidy living space and bow pointed towards Oahu! Until next time…

Greetings from the fine yacht Flyer, 6 degrees south of the equator and 147 degrees west of the Greenwich Meridian! We departed Rangiroa, French Polynesia on Friday afternoon, two days ahead of schedule. Unlike previous departures, we did not struggle to leave on-time. I’m not quite sure exactly why – perhaps it was our ‘continual passage’ mode that we’ve been in since departing Nuku Hiva, or perhaps it’s our general growing comfort with being uncomfortable… or, heaven forbid, maybe we’re just getting better at this thing?

We departed ahead of our original May 10 target date because a strong frontal boundary had been approaching (and is now hitting) the Tuamotus, creating a large area of calm to the north of the archipelago – just where we needed to sail through. On Thursday a neighboring boat in the Rangiroa anchorage had heard that we were departing for Hawaii shortly as well – a 40’ catamaran named Zorba with what appeared to be a very seasoned French crew- and they confirmed our suspicions that departing as soon as we could (not on Sunday!) was a wise move. 

After brief introductions from their dinghy and discussions of our plans, Zorba promptly lifted their anchor and sped off out of the pass. So we followed suit, put the pedal to the metal in Rangiroa, expedited our check-out process with the Gendarmarie (a lovely group of people hold down the fort there, thank you for your help!), and were blessed with the assistance of Olivier as our driver and local luminary to help us get provisioned quickly. We buttoned things up Friday morning, had one last French Polynesian swim, and got underway. 

So far this passage has been more eventful than I had anticipated. We had one particularly memorable moment a couple of nights ago, on our 3rd day out of Rangiroa.

I was on deck getting the boat situated for dinner time. The breeze had recently died completely on the back side of a small rain cell, and Flyer was bobbing around making a meager half-knot of boat speed. Kristen was boiling seawater for pasta while the boys were catching up on their internet time (LOL). The stars were visible through a few breaks in the low level clouds. Other than the hum of our watermaker running, it was nearly silent on deck. 

Between the occasional slap of a wave against the hull, I began to hear some very heavy breathing just off of our starboard side. It was a deep, low breath, clearly coming from a blow-hole, of what sounded like a very large marine mammal. I called everyone up, and with our jaws on the deck we listened as the breathing got closer to Flyer. It came to within just a few feet of the cockpit. Its large breaths were frequent, separated by only a couple seconds each. It was barely moving in the water, slowly inching along the starboard side forward towards the bow, over the period of a couple of minutes. 

I was beginning to get nervous, knowing that large whales have wreaked havoc on small boats, whether out of coincidence or intent. We felt like a sitting duck, bobbing in the ocean with no engine on and no way to see what this creature was or what it was doing. I called Kristen and the boys back from the edge of the deck to stand with me under the doghouse overhang, in case something unexpected were to happen. My heart rate hadn’t been this high since I last went for a run (in Monterey, me thinks?!).

Then, in the faint glow of our starboard running light, I made out what appeared to be an extremely large porpoise! It was very light in color, had a beak, as well as a soft, medium sized curved dorsal fin a little more than half way down its back, and it was now slowly swimming towards us from just off of our starboard bow. Surprisingly it appeared much smaller than it had sounded. Given the depth of its breathing I had assumed that it was a large grey or humpback whale, easily the size of Flyer or larger. But this creature was significantly smaller than that, maybe only 15 or 20 feet in length, and more nimble. 

I quickly became much more curious than cautious. We got out our high-powered flashlight, and -after setting it to low-power mode- we tried to make out the creature with more clarity. No such luck as I should have known; the glare from lights at night is more apparent than the objects you’d see underwater. But we could barely make out the light toned top of the whale as it slowly swam back towards the cockpit area and then dove beneath the boat. After appearing on our port side several seconds later, it remained next to us for another couple of minutes. Then it disappeared into the dark. 

Kristen dashed to get out our copy of Marine Mammals* and I – being the only one to get a good glimpse of it- set about trying to identify it. The closest match I could find is an cetation called the Longman’s Beaked Whale. This is a very rare creature that Marine Mammals says “represents one of cetology’s gretest long-standing mysteries” whose distribution is apparently “restricted to tropical pacific and indian oceans” in waters warmer than 79 degrees F. It is “often called the ‘tropical bottlenose whale’ (which) may in fact be Longman’s Beaked Whale.” 

Whether it was truly a Longman’s Beaked Whale, I’m not certain, but it’s the best possible match we can find given what we saw. No matter who this creature was, to be in the midst of this mysterious breather, in the middle of the pacific at night, was a truly magical experience we won’t soon forget.

Our general approach for this passage is to make the most comfortable yet quick passage to Oahu. This means sailing a bit ‘high’ for the first thousand miles or so, taking advantage of the slightly southern component of the southern hemisphere trade winds. Then, crossing the equator and the ITCZ with minimal thunderstorm activity, although that may prove very challenging here soon. And once we’re through the ITCZ irregularities, bear off to the NW on a more direct course to Oahu. This will hopefully make for more comfortable sailing in the stronger, more established ENE trade winds in this portion of the Pacific. All of this of course is subject to change as we see what we get. So far the wind has been more northerly than we had hoped, making our NE progress painful and difficult at times.

Sailing almost due north is an interesting thing. We’re about 400nm from the equator currently, and every night we are seeing more of the northern hemisphere’s constellations. We’re also seeing about 5 more minutes of daylight every day in these latitudes. By the time we reach Oahu, we’ll be gaining an additional 8 minutes of daylight every 24 hours. All told, we’ll have added an hour and a half of daylight to our days during the time of this passage. Pretty wild to think about, but I’m getting ahead of ourselves. We still have so many more miles to sail!

_______________________

* The National Audubon Society’s “Guide to Marine Mammals of the World” is a great reference we keep aboard.

Greetings from Tahanea! Flyer and her crew arrived here yesterday (Sunday) and dropped our hook on the far southern end of the atoll around 1p local (Tahiti) time after a mildly eventful end to our 540nm passage from Nuku Hiva.

Our passage was a good -if light and slow- one, averaging about 135nm per day. The conditions through the first two days were a pretty consistent ENE breeze between 9-15kts, and very minimal sea state. We did quite a lot of eating, reading, podcast listening, laundry and cooking. And on Thursday we celebrated James’ 14th birthday! While it wasn’t in his ideal setting, nor with his closest friends, we are certain it will be a birthday he won’t forget anytime soon. Kristen baked a cake and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset from the cockpit while having dinner.

By the third day we had a better picture of our potential arrival time at Tahanea, and we began eyeing an 1130 slack tide at the atoll’s middle channel (on it’s north/east facing side). This suddenly gave a charge of certainty to our timing and served to raise our concerns about making this window as the breeze dropped in velocity and clocked to a more NE direction, making sailing aboard Flyer painfully slow.

Atolls are like big bathtubs that are partially submerged. When the tide goes up, there’s a big rush of ocean water pouring into the tub around it’s varied edges, and when the tide goes down, there’s a corresponding rush of lagoon water pouring out into the ocean. This turns the passes into tidal gates, and given the relatively slow speeds of sailboats under power, one needs to time their entry and exit of the atolls at slack (between tides) water. It would seem this is a pretty predictable exercise from a timing point of view, however the wind direction and strength of the preceding hours or days can greatly affect the amount of seawater that rushes in or out of the atolls… it’s a bit of a black art to getting the slack tide time correct. As it turns out there is a cool tool that some other cruisers have developed to help the average joe like us, and it’s aptly called the Guestimator. (NERD ALERT – it is a project that’s worth learning about if you’re interested in tides, navigation, and home-built electronics and sensors!)

After a couple of minor rain squalls passed we decided to fire up the engine, and on it stayed for the better part of 11 hours. It was painful but it allowed us to motor-sail at around 7 knots and get us further down the track until the breeze hopefully filled back in. And fill back in it thankfully did. Late on Saturday we were back to sailing with a fresh 16kt easterly breeze pushing us along at 7 knots. The sailing was so good overnight that Kristen was able to bake a new loaf of sourdough.

It felt at this point that we had the passage sealed up, but as usual, it ain’t over until it’s over.

Minor rain squalls continued to pass us by but a few hit us directly over night. Winds weren’t terribly strong in these, in fact within a few of them the breeze backed off considerably.

Around 0700 I was fast asleep when I was awoken by Paul to come help. Just 2 miles to our east, Dark Star had radioed to warn us of more wind coming in the squall they were experiencing. And like clockwork, just as I got on deck, the wind hit us, quickly spiking to 35knots. Thankfully we still had 1 reef tucked into our mainsail, so Flyer took it in stride. I disengaged the autopilot and ran before the gusts while Kristen and Paul reefed in the genoa. I got a good shower while driving (there’s nothing quite like multitasking), and within 15 minutes it had moderated to 20kts.

Now running a bit ahead of schedule, we spent the remaining 5 hours moderating our speed, keeping the mainsail reefed and continuing to furl up the genoa until it was gone completely. By 1030 we had hove-to just a mile and a half from the atoll entry, biding our time. A gigantic, ultra-luxe cruise ship had staked out a spot right in front of the pass, belching 25’ zodiacs to swarm the surrounding motus. We made our way around it and swiftly through he pass, with a favorable 3kts of current pushing us through. Even though we were 10 minutes ahead of anticipated slack water, the tide had already turned significantly!

The remaining 8 miles were spent on full bommie watch as we made our way through the middle of the atoll. Bommies are coral heads that are peppered throughout the atolls, hosting spectacular wildlife while raising the blood pressure of boaters. Some are 10 or 20 feet below the surface, while others are merely inches from the top. Some are marked on charts, but most are not. And we quickly learned why it’s best to transit these waters not only in daytime, but with the sun behind you. Bommies are easy to spot when lit from your viewing direction, and virtually impossible to see in the reverse setting!

After about 20 minutes of hunting for a good anchorage (which requires finding a big open sandy bit with minimal surrounding bommies, in just the right depth), we found a great spot in about 4m of water and dropped our hook, replete with the requisite chain floats and all!

Once our hook was set, as if on cue, a black-tip reef shark showed up and curiously circled Flyer as Paul nearly lost his marbles in excitement. Paul has been studying sharks this last semester (a self-initiated project for both school and floating-home) and has a particular affinity for these medium-sized predators. They’re big enough to feel like proper sharks but small enough to be considered cute, I suppose. They’re all around us here and seem to be unphased and not particularly interested in these human interlopers.

That brings us to the present, where I’m sitting at our cockpit table trying to bang these words out before I stop again just to stare and drool at these surroundings. As Kristen says, this place looks like the Gary Larson version of a deserted island, except it is our new reality. And also excepting the fact that we’re not here totally alone. Tahanea may be one of the uninhabited atolls of the Tuamotus, but there are still 6 other boats within a couple miles of us here, including our good friends on Dark Star! Rocket Science has made a detour to Fakarava to address some maintenance needs; more to come on that in a future post. We’re looking forward to reuniting with them before too long, but in the meantime we’re here to soak up as much of this remarkable, remote bit of the world as we can.

Greetings from 10 degrees south, 141 degrees west! Flyer departed Taioha’e Bay, Nuku Hiva yesterday mid-day after a couple of days provisioning between torrential downpours. We are currently sailing in a light easterly breeze at 6 knots, about 150nm into the 540nm reach towards the Tuamotu archapelago. The past couple of weeks have been busy, full of logistics, sweating, and some unexpected extended local cruising (waiting).

Flyer’s new transmission arrived on Good Friday as anticipated, 2 weeks after order from the UK, during which time we were able to explore a few of the island’s more remote anchorages. Given the complexities of getting such an awkward package delivered to a remote Pacific island, we were thrilled to see it arrive on time, thanks to the help of Kevin Ellis at Yacht Services Nuku Hiva. Kevin runs a pretty lean outfit in Taioha’e, supporting cruisers like us with a variety of needs when they are in the area. There’s no question that his assistance was essential in getting the delivery to us on time.

Once we got the tranny aboard, Kevin (of Dark Star), Greg (of Rocket Science) and I got to work immediately and had the new tranny installed in about two hours on a hot and sweaty High Holy afternoon. It’s a one-person job in a good conditions but in the sweltering valley of Taioha’e it was a lifesaver to have two sets of hands to bang it out with. We saved the fun part for Saturday, installing the new flexible coupler and sorting the propeller shaft out by mid-afternoon.

The following Monday, Kristen departed as our family’s sole ambassador for a family wedding in the Bay Area, leaving me and the boys to keep Flyer in good order while continuing to explore the island. To get to the wedding, she took a taxi 1.5hrs to the airport on the NW corner of the island, then flew a small Air Tahiti plane for 3 hours to Tahiti, and spent 6 hours exploring Papeete before boarding a United red-eye flight direct to SFO! I need to take a nap just thinking about it all.

After she departed, the boys and I took Flyer to Daniel’s Bay with Rocket Science and Dark Star, and spent a few days there enjoying the swimming, local fare, and the spectacular setting. Daniel’s is one of the most beautiful anchorages we’ve been in, with 1,000 foot tall ridges rising from the lush green valley. We were sad that Kristen couldn’t share it with us, but happy to have been able to spend time there with such good friends.

During our time there the weather took an even more damp turn, delivering some major downpours at an estimated 2” of rain an hour! The valley came alive with cascading waterfalls down the cliff faces, and the runoff was so significant that we had to abandon our plans to hike to see the place of the former home of the King and Queen and the Vaipo waterfall as the risk of falling rocks is significant from the elevated running water.

On Monday, Kristen returned to her soggy vessel from SF only to find the crews of Rocket Science, Dark Star, and Sentjin enjoying a break in the rain with a swim party aboard Flyer. There was much rejoicing as she opened her 70lb checked bag full of goodies from the US, including some new running rigging for Flyer, an underwater camera apparatus and blender for Dark Star, and four sorely needed USB-powered fans for her sweaty family!

While back in Taioha’e for our third and final visit, we were so happy to reunite with our friends Kara, John and Dean aboard Sentjin, who we last saw in Monterey! They were such gracious hosts while we were there, taking us surfing and loaning us the family car for errands, and we’d been hoping to share an anchorage with them again since September. In the intervening months they completed some refit work on Sentjin, sailed south to Ensenada, and delivered an aluminum expedition powerboat from the Cape Verde islands to Ushuaia in what sounded like quite the ordeal. They were just a few weeks behind us in departing Mexico, so we were thrilled to see them in the Taioha’e anchorage when we returned from Daniel’s on Sunday. Late Tuesday we convened for a rope swing party aboard their famous aluminum boat as the sun set beyond the western ridge of the Taioha’e valley and talked about our time ahead in the Tuamotus.

So, that’s the expedited update that brings us to the present. It’s a gorgeous day out here and the forecast for the passage is more of the same. Paul just had what appeared to be a massive fish on the hand line which managed to bend the hook back entirely and get away. We’re looking forward to some fresh fish soon regardless. And it appears that lovely sailing conditions, mostly clear skies, and some of the world’s best stargazing hopefully await us for the remaining 400 miles! More to come from the South Pacific aboard Flyer in the coming days…

Greetings from Baie Marquisienne on the west end of Nuku Hiva! We arrived at this rarely-visited small bay yesterday afternoon following a bumpy, rainy motor down the island’s southern coast. And we awoke this morning to a frantic Griffin visiting Flyer on his dinghy to report there were a dozen mantas swimming around our boats. Before we could eat breakfast all of us were in the water communing with one of nature’s most graceful creatures.

The snorkeling in this little bay is really something special. Tall rock cliffs dive deep into the ocean, creating caves and shelves that support a remarkable amount of species of fish, coral, crabs and alien-looking invertebrates. And the mantas seem to love it too. Over a dozen of them, each no smaller than a dining room table, spend their days here just swooping around, gulping up whatever it is they love to eat. It’s a wild experience to swim with them, as they don’t seem to care much about us, sometimes swimming head-on towards us as if we weren’t even there.

Since arriving in Nuku Hiva a couple of weeks ago we’ve experienced a real mixed-bag of emotions. Shortly after our ebullient arrival in Taiohae Bay -and the treasured greeting from our besties the Rocket Scientists– we discovered that our engine’s transmission wasn’t going in and out of gear reliably. A quick oil change produced a glam-ish silvery nail-polish-like substance that at one point was transmission oil, a tell-tail sign of significant wear in the system. Without going too deep into some of our recent history in Baja over the holidays and early January, suffice it to say we are looking at our third engine transmission replacement in as many months.

Despite consulting with some of the most widely recognized experts in the world on the matter, as well as the supremely competent friends who surround us on Dark Star and Rocket Science, there is no clear conclusion as to what the issue is that is causing these transmissions to fail. I’ll save this story for another deep dive but the short of it is that at this point, it seems very possible that each unit has suffered a similar fate at the hands of different culprits.

So, what next? Somehow, in between fits of deep despondence (and deepest thanks and apologies to all who had to put up with me!) I was able to source one of the few available transmissions that meet our engine’s specs (in the UK) and have it shipped here, along with a new shifting cable (from Seattle), and a new flexible propeller shaft coupler (from France). All should be arriving in a few days time in Taiohae, thanks to our local liaison Kevin (yet another supremely helpful Kevin enters our life!). And as they say, the third time’s the charm, right?

In the meantime we’ve been able to make some minor adjustments to the shifting mechanism and perform a couple oil flushes through the system and it seems to be functioning well-enough for some poking around here. And the timing has been great, all things considered. The weather hasn’t been in a reliable pattern to make the crossing to the Tuamotus yet, and -as one might imagine- there’s a ton to see and experience here in Nuku Hiva. And we have great friends by our side to experience it all with! Dark Star arrived around a day and a half after we did, and it’s really fun to have them join our Seattle cruising gang for this special time together in the Marquesas.

Shortly after we arrived we did an island driving tour that Greg organized for us. The crews of Flyer, Dark Star and Rocket Science all piled into two trucks, helmed by our incredible local host and her husband. We made our way around many of the island’s sights, up and over some of the most gnarly and spectacular roads I’ve ever seen. We visited the recently constructed Cathedral of the Marquesas (built in the 1970’s), made our way see Taipivai (the valley featured in Melville’s book ‘Typee’) and Hooumi, both on the east side of the island. We then kept driving up and over another steep pass to see Aakapa and have a delicious lunch in the small village of Hatiehu. We completed our tour with a visit to Tahakia Kamuihei Teiipoka, one of the few remaining (and preserved) Marquesan cultural sites on the islands.

We have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the provisions found here, particularly at the Utile grocery store in Taiohae. The food is understandably pricey but surprisingly diverse, and our favorite findings include locally grown produce (lettuce! tomatoes!), fresh daily baked goods, and copious amounts of brie which we’ve found to be priced competitively with our home stores in Seattle! Utile brand potato chips are cheap and delicious too. And the local Tahitian beer has quickly become a favorite among the middle-aged males. 

The other local bounty is impressive as well. We’re now totally hooked on our daily pamplemousse – a large, sweet relative of the grapefruit. And the local mangoes are quite something too. While at anchor a couple days ago in Taipivai, Greg and Mara’s local friend Thomas had 3 large boxes of local fruits delivered to the beach, including the aforementioned as well as breadfruit and two gigantic stalks of Marquesan bananas. Even when split three ways, each boat was still totally overloaded with goodies.

And, not-to-be-missed, is the local fish being sold at the wharf in Taiohae. At $4/kilo, the yellowfin-tuna-caught-earlier-this-morning is the best deal around. We’ve had poke bowls and tuna steaks like you can’t imagine! What is also not-to-be-missed is the posse of juvenile black-tip sharks that stick to the sea wall there like glue, waiting for any large fish carcass (or is that a human toe?) to drop in the water. I’ve equated the boarding and de-boarding of the dinghy to a ‘Fear Factor’ stunt – navigate a slippery stainless steel ladder onto your violently pitching inflatable boat, or get eaten! In the time that Rocket Science has been here, at least 3 people have sadly found that fate, including one boy who lost his leg.

Now, onto the weather, which has been a bit of a mixed bag lately. We’re seeing bursts of very hot sun punctuating a mostly-cloudy, often rainy sky. This has continued to make life aboard Flyer sticky, but suffice it to say, we’re getting used to it. It’s great to have friends next door to commiserate with, because misery loves company, right? Turns out misery also likes portable USB/battery powered fans, which we are hoping to procure on an upcoming bout of family travel. Clearly Flyer’s six 12v Sirocco fans going full-bore just aren’t enough to keep this clan feeling comfortable.

Pelle has now permanently adopted the upside-down-kitty pose during the day, choosing to completely air her undersides out in hopes of a hint of cooling. She -like the rest of us- is finding life here a bit more lazy and slow than before, choosing to sit and rest more than explore the decks, though she has discovered that our foredeck tent -which we put up to cover the forward cabin hatches when open at anchor- as her new favorite hangout spot.