Less than 100 Miles NE of New Zealand 28 Oct 2010 34.0450S 174.6741E

Actually I slept pretty well last night, I’m getting acclimated to watchlife, the seas are amazingly calm, and Frank gave me a break on both ends of my watch. As we get closer to land, Frank sleeps less, worrying about fishing boats and all. Despite the calm seas, we have good wind, so we continue to make 180-190 mile days. We’re staying ahead of the cats which has Frank in a perpetually good mood. But all this ends tonight sometime – at our current pace, it’ll be sometime around sunset. Then tomorrow, we face New Zealand Customs.

From what we understand, they have a very thorough customs process. Their list of banned products is longer than Santa’s and potentially touches any item in our pantry, and anything we’ve collected in our travels. They’re very protective of their island paradise, and it’s unique flora and fauna, so food and wood products from other countries go through an especially rigorous inspection. There may also be an element of market protectionism, not wanting us to import beef from other countries, or maybe they’re just worried we’ll invite their citizens aboard and intentionally feed them hormone-laden meat products.

At any rate, our larders are full, since we stocked up in Samoa expecting to stay in Tonga longer than we did, and expecting this crossing to take longer than it did. We’ve been eating like Polynesians for the past week, 3 big meals a day, bacon and eggs for breakfast, roast chicken for lunch, curried beef for dinner. We won’t be able to step over the lifelines to the customs dock when we arrive, due to the extra pounds. But there’s just no way we can eat it all. We caught a Mahi Mahi, and vacuum packed it and froze it solid in our new refrigerator – we’re hoping they won’t take that away. I’m sure we have pulses on board that have been here since way before the boat was built in ’88; I mean, who doesn’t have a bag of beans in their pantry from their childhood – or at least from their kids kindergarten class – you know that first Turkey project where they glue multicolored beans down. A boat is a small confined environment, beans are not high on our list when it comes to meal choices, but for some reason we have a bunch on board. Interestingly the one time we did have a bug problem it was weevils in the chocolate milk powder – I’ve never seen a single weevil in the beans – even weevils won’t eat 20 year old legumes. No chance of importing bugs in those bags, but they won’t be missed. I’ll look at this as an opportunity to clean out the pantry cupboards; but when I see the pile of food they toss, I know I’ll be kicking myself for not leaving it with a nice hungry Tongan family.

On the collection front, we’ve been sincerely trying to collect mostly pictures. In Samoa, we sent a few packages home filled with shells, seeds, baskets, feathers (anything containing organic matter). But this is a kid boat, and who knows what’s stuffed where, that could be a banned organic substance. I just noticed our sea urchin mobile is still swinging in the window, an old lure handmade with pearl-oyster shell and sprigs of what is probably horse hair, is hooked on a wire above Frank’s monitor a keepsake from early days fishing with an old Polynesian fisherman. I forgot about my fly tying kit, stowed with the fishing gear, full of feathers, moose hair and rabbit fur. We’ve heard they go through every cupboard, if any of you have seen our storage capacity, you’ll understand why that would be a daunting task on this boat. I should ask them to look for a list of things that have gone missing in my cupboard dance. I’m sure I had a copy of Cameron’s 1995 South Seas Adventure on board, and somewhere we hid quilts and warm sweaters – we could really use those now, it was 60 degrees out this morning.

I don’t know what they’ll find in the forepeak. I’ve been trying to stay out of that zone since we moved onboard – teenagers need their space and all. But we could be carrying toxic waste up there, what’s the sentence for transporting undeclared hazardous materials (month old half eaten candybars? dirty clothes? hermit crabs collected on a beach months back). I wonder if Kiwis imprison mothers who allow their children to live with beasts in squalor? Someday I’ll have to send you the warning sign Logan and Kennan made for the entrance to their zone, it includes a long and creative list of things one might find in the forecastle. I’m afraid the customs officials may not find it as humorous as we do, especially when they have to start digging through the pile. I hope my next post will not be from an Auckland jail begging you to donate to the Silver Lining Academy Legal Defense Fund.

Wish us luck, xoxomo

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400 Miles NE of New Zealand 26 Oct 2010 29.3259S 177.4896E

You can call us Zanyatta! We’re still ahead of the two catamarans, but only by a little bit. It takes some air to get 20 tons of steel and stuff moving. If the wind dies down, they’ll have the advantage on us. But it’s fun while it lasts. Frank is on deck hand steering and doing micro adjustments to the sails, in order to convert every nano-knot of wind into boat speed for Silver Lining. He’s really amazing at sail trim. Whenever he comes on deck, he’ll take in or let out on one of the four sails, sometimes only an inch or two, and you can feel the autopilot relax a little and stop zigging and zagging fighting the push or pull of one of the four sails. He just intuits, which one needs attention when, or whether a course adjustment will do the trick. I won’t even have realized there was a wind shift or a wind speed increase which has changed the presentation of the sails to the wind, and he’ll go straight to the one that needs a flatter or fuller belly. On my own watch when there’s a shift that’s too obvious to ignore, I’ll often try to adjust course or sail trim a little, but I get the same feeling I get when I start to mess up a water color from fussing too much with the sky or the trees – the sails start vibrating too much, the autopilot starts fighting back and getting all swervy, and I wish I could just get a clean sheet of paper and start over. So if we loose ground to those catamarans hot on our heals, it’s probably happening between midnight and 4 in the morning; the dogwatch trim is for the dogs.

This is paradise for Frank though. If any of you still need reasons as to why we did this, just come on board and watch his glee, not just when we trade positions over the radio with the boats around us, or when he does our noon position (today was a 190 mile noon-to-noon day), but his whole demeanor and being thrives with this wind, this boat, this place, this now. I appreciate the beauty and the contemplative space, and the speed, power and grace of the boat; but I do get a bit annoyed when I have to dry out the pages of “the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo,” because a rogue wave just jumped into my lap as I was calmly reading, minding my own business. I did nothing to that wave to deserve a dousing, she just hopped in my lap, like an uninvited cat, a very wet cat – la garse. For Frank, there is no downside to a day like today. There’s not much more gratifying in life than witnessing your loved ones follow their passions and having the space and time to follow your own.

At our current speed, our ETA is only 2 days away, but lighter winds are predicted as we approach land, so it’ll likely be 3-4 days.

xoxomo

P.S. We just got the call “Albatross” from the cockpit, we haven’t seen Albatross since leaving Baja. Our current latitude is almost equivalent to San Diego, we’re grappling with the new and strange sensation of long pants and shirts, and even polar fleece under our foul weather gear at night. It’ll be strange to have my fall birthday with spring buds, new lambs, and tulips when we arrive, I usually get pumpkins, straw and dried corn decorations.

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Just to clarify, in the message I just posted, I had a subject line that may have sent alarm bells down my parent’s spines by saying “Just “off” Minerva Reef,” I did not mean to imply that we had ever been “ON” Minerva reef; only that we were a little ways off, or not far from, or already past, didn’t stop at the reef, didn’t kiss the reef, didn’t touch the reef, didn’t even see the reef. All is well on board.

xoxomo

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SW of Minerva Reef 24 Oct 2010 24.6465S 178.9351W

Lots of lines to cross in this ocean. We passed the Tropic of Capricorn a degree of latitude ago, and we’ll pass from the western hemisphere to the eastern, a degree of longitude from now. We would be passing the dateline for the first time here, if the king of Tonga hadn’t decided that he would rather be the first king on the planet to see the sun rise, than the last king on the planet to see the sun set. Rumor has it that he decreed the dateline should go around Tonga for this reason. I don’t know which king (the current king has only been in place for 5 years or so), and I’ve only fact-checked this with my onboard walking Google (Frank), so feel free to verify this one for yourselves.

We’re flying along right now, with 25 knots of wind, and a boat-speed of 8-9 knots (peaking at 10 when we surf down some waves). This with just the jib and a partial staysail (our mainsail and fisherman are stowed) There are two catamarans behind us, and Silver Lining is like that famous old heavy hipped mare someone mentioned recently that has everyone all excited, the one that won’t let the younger, faster, svelter guys win in the final stretch. Silver Lining is barreling through these seas making mincemeat of any swell that tries to slow her down. Course, that means some of that liquid mincemeet is finding its way through hatches and holes and dripping into the cabin here and there, but a small price to pay for getting to New Zealand in time for my birthday. Normally this 1200 miles would be about a 10-12 day passage for us. But if this weather window stays wide open with the breeze a blowin’ through, curtains flying in the wind, we could make it in 8. Gotta love a good weather window.

xoxomo

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SW of the Ha’Apai Group, Tonga 23 Oct 2010 20.8525S 175.9168W

That may have been a record short stay in a country for us for this voyage. Less than a week and we’re off to NZ. We would have loved to stay longer, but the weather window for a southbound journey looked just too good. So after only a day of beach play and snorkeling in tremendously beautiful coral reefs, we went back to the village, checked out of the country, and headed to an island on the western edge of the Ha’apai group Thursday. We were followed for a long time by 2 adult whales and an eager spyhopping baby. Then Friday morning we scrubbed the hull, so Silver Lining would slide across the ocean faster, hauled in the anchor, and headed out to the open ocean at noon.

Beautiful sailing tonight, full moon, 15 knot winds on our beam. An easy 6-7 knots of boat speed. The males are asleep, and I’m off to enjoy this dog watch.

xoxomo

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Ha’Apai Group, Tonga 20 Oct 2010 19.8449S 174.4162W

Why am I writing so much less? A scattered combination of reasons probably. Sometimes I feel my creative well has dried up, and I’ve nothing more to say that hasn’t been said better by others. Sometimes it’s that the culture mixes intra-cruiser, intra-local, and the interactions between the two groups are so complex, that it’s difficult to pick one aspect to describe well, and any examples of these interactions can get personal fast. Sometimes it’s the busy moments of chores, school and socializing that make up all of our lives, which then generates a tremendous lethargy when there is a free moment. A lot about life now is very present and personal, and a confessions blog is not the ship’s blog I’d envisioned (well that’s not exactly true, as I did not really have anything envisioned when I started this).

If you could have joined us for dinner last night, you would have heard other’s voices on the variety of topics that rattle around in my brain on my own dog watch. The kids were all on one boat, and the adults all on our boat, so we had lots of room for conversation. While we ate Frank’s delicious meal of beef coconut curry (with freshly scraped and squeezed coconut milk), the conversation floated across the realm of ideas. We discussed recent trials and tragedies other boats have endured, from encounters with reefs to rescues at sea. We talked about weather, and the general sense that it’s looking like Cyclone* season will arrive early this La Nina year. We shared fresh snorkeling and fish tales, sea snakes are appearing more frequently here, is that related to the weather? We traded fix-it advice for a variety of boat systems. We shared homeschooling tips and war stories.

Over the delicious cucumber and goat cheese salad an American couple brought, we chatted about the impact of missionaries, and westerners on these islands, on the whole is it good or bad? People here are very poor and don’t have a lot of political power, and we discussed possible reasons why they seem so unmotivated to improve their general conditions, and asked ourselves why do many in Tonga no longer have the basic skills necessary for island survival (swimming, fishing, canoe building etc.). Tongans wonder why we are here, and not in our cities bustling with economic energy and possibilities, where they dream of going. We struggled at fundamental cultural questions, are missionaries creating a culture of beggars, preaching the evils of a material life, and causing locals to avoid entrepreneurial efforts as dirty and low? Yet the people are poor, theirs appears to be an economic crisis, hampered by a monarchy that limits ownership, little local industry, and a musty, very traditional educational system. Government jobs tend to go to friends of the king, many of the wealthier government officials we met were not from the islands we’ve visited. The American couple met a Peace Corps volunteer here, who was trying to decide if she should recommend that they maintain a Tonga presence, there’s obvious poverty and need, but were their efforts having any impact, or just contributing to their notion that “God will provide” (in the form of westerners coming with aid). Is there a healthier path to religion and capitalism, a healthier balance or approach???

Over a tasty apple clafouti the French couple brought, we talked about the conundrum of enjoying meeting other boats, yet all of us are seeking quieter anchorages with fewer boats. And we talked about all the crazy, wild and frustrating choices other boaters make (the most frustrating being the choices they make when they impact your own boat and crew’s safety and comfort). And we did some Monday morning quarterbacking on our own bad choices, or just bad luck. As I drifted off to sleep I thought a lot about the role of politeness out here. It can get you in trouble, in a big way, sometimes a very brusk straightforward opinion may seem rude, but can save the day – and sometimes stepping back and staying silent is the better path, even if you know the other needs help, and assisting would be the polite thing to do, by jumping in to help you can accelerate the growth of the “incident pit” (where one bad event leads to another, and pretty soon you don’t have one boat in trouble but many).

Each topic we discussed is deserving of multiple blog entries or even entire books, and many of these same topics are the base of my own daily ruminations. I wish you could join us to continue the discussion, maybe Friday night? But even if there were a direct flight from anywhere in the US to the Ha’apai Group, we may not be here till the weekend. The latest weather report is painting a rosy picture for a New Zealand crossing – It’s really early and we barely just arrived, but when will the next rosy picture be? And if indeed we have the potential for an early Cyclone season (I think Nov. 6 was the earliest storm last year – an El Nino year) – maybe this is our weather window. Maybe it’s time for a change in scenery, time to exchange all these coconut trees for deciduous trees, and exchange all these pigs for sheep. Maybe an 8-10 day crossing will give me time to wax eloquent on some of these topics. Maybe.

xoxomo

I have a correction from one of my last messages where I referred to “Hurricane season,” actually here in the Pacific they call them Cyclones which are defined as Tropical Storms with Hurricane force winds (sustained winds over 64 knots and a storm forming an eye, yes Cyclone shares with Cyclops the common greek Kuklos = Circle). We’d like to avoid Cyclops in our Odyssey – there are no olive branches nearby to poke him in the eye.

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Ha’Apai Group, Tonga 16 Oct 2010 19.7994S 174.3556W

We arrived in Tonga late morning today, now Saturday October 16. All is well aboard, it was truly a beautiful sail – a wild thunder and lightening storm early this morning, with flukey but reasonable winds. We are all content, back to the future, back to exploring, back to anchorages with lots of folks we know, back to bed.

g’night, xoxoxomo

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En Route from Pago Pago 14 Oct 2010 14.2735S 170.6953W

I’m cheating and putting this morning’s position in Pago Pago harbor since I just realized that I never sent an “arrived” message. Once again I left you hanging as soon as we made landfall. It was a busy nearly 3 weeks, but we now have more reliable refrigeration, a new wind vane, and a new watermaker, as well as the latest Pokemon for the DS, a new electric toothbrush and snacks and supplies to last another 6 months. We should probably stay away from land that long to give our cruising kitty a rest. A huge thanks to Marc for all the shipping and ordering assistance, we’d have been stuck in Pago Pago for months without your help.

We made good headway on school, did many loads of laundry, filled up on salads, beef and fries, tackled a number of big and small boat projects, but we lost lots of precious time to visit Tonga. It does not look like we’ll make it back to Niuatoputapu as we’d hoped, and there’s no way we’ll see all that we hope to see there. But there’s always next year.

While you’d think our schedule should be wide open, we have this looming event without a precise date called “hurricane season.” Our goal is to leave the tropics before it starts. Generally they do not occur in October, but have occurred on rare occasions in November, and the rarity goes down December, January February, then they start getting rarer again in March. The trip to New Zealand is a balancing act with a departure date squeezed between the beginning of hurricane season here, and the end of winter storm season there. They’ve had a long and late winter, but that can change quickly, and there seem to be some indications that hurricane season could start early here. I’m sure the two are related, and all is related to the end of el Nino, and a predicted La Nina year ahead. Frank’s been reading about this in depth. I’ve been trying to pay attention, but knowing Frank is on top of it, makes me less academic in my own research and education. Originally he’d said we need to start watching the weather patterns carefully starting October 25…now only 10 days away. In my own ignorance it seems a bit like reading the tea leaves; I know there is a science to it, but weather is never an exact science. It does amaze me that in our short stay in Samoa we went from lots of strong east trade winds and only some rain, to light winds from a variety of directions with lots of rain. The potential, that we may now only have 10 days in Tonga is depressing. But with all these boat projects done, maybe we can spend some time exploring the beautiful cruising grounds of New Zealand, before diving into major maintenence mode again. And who knows, it could turn out to be another month. We shall see. What’s the saying from Karate Kid, “Bend like a tree grasshopper”? Well I need my own, “Migrate like a mackerel Mo”

Do mackerel migrate? My own walking Google, Capt’n Fraingck, is sleeping while I’m on watch. It’s 1:30AM October 14…or maybe 2:30AM October 15, I’m not exactly sure where that dateline is, it does a weird jog between Samoa and Tonga. I don’t think that means I get to wake him up early, but I can brag about having the longest dogwatch ever. Yes we’re going back to the future.

xoxomo

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En Route to Pago Pago 21 Sept 2010 14.9365S 171.7975W

After ten days in Niuatoputapu, and after much waffling we decided to head up to American Samoa to provision, before continuing back down south to see the rest of Tonga and New Zealand. So yesterday we pulled anchor, headed out to sea, swimming upstream when all the other boats are swimming down. Less than an hour out, the clew on our jibsail popped right off the sail. The jib is our most efficient sail going upwind, it’s the knife edge that keeps us pointing high. Trying to sail upwind without it is like trying to cut an apple with the back of the knife, slow and sloppy. But if we’d turned around we would miss a good weather window to even attempt this hair-brained provisioning run. After a failed try at moving the staysail to the jib position, we dug out our stormsail (a little bit smaller proportionally than a speedo on a Sumo Wrestler), cranked up the iron genoa (the engine), tightened the fisherman and the main and settled in for a long sewing session in the cockpit and a longer passage than expected.

Ironically our good friends on Kamaya were working on a similar repair to the clew on their main before we left the anchorage. Our last interaction with them was leaving them our sail needles so they could complete their repair. We did keep two “just in case” but now that the jib is nearly repaired, we won’t be able to raise it till we’re in port, due to a missing screw in the roller furling. All more technical than any of you would want to hear. The short version is that in the same way that no repair job on a house gets down without 3 trips to home depot (no matter how small), no repair job on a boat is ever one repair job. In fact, boatrepairjobs, should just always a compound plural word.

There were many good reasons for this side trip. They seemed much more important when safely anchored. But the winds are a light 15 knots, the seastate is relatively calm, we’re making good way and the sky is animated with puffy clouds – rats chasing dancing hippos, dogs kissing ducks (why do puffy clouds look like cartoon animals?). Not too much to complain about really. Among the reasons for this run, was the need to replace some electronics: electric drill, speakers and my toothbrush charger. Samoa would be the only place in the Pacific where we can buy electronics with 110 plugs. Frank had two drills, but lost them both in a day to an overeager Robinhood (we bought a small 110V gas generator in Tahiti hoping it would help with some refrigeration issues – Robin was the brand name). Mechanical equipment onboard quickly earns a human name, once they’ve earned their spot on the crew list. But apparently Robinhood only steels from the rich (us). Giving to the poor was not in it’s genetic makeup. As soon as Frank took him ashore, to help build Red Cross donated huts for the Tsunami survivors there, Robinhood stole away the two drills, one after the other, before Frank realized that without Friar Tuck, Robinhood is just a common thief.

Once we get some goods aboard, we’d like to stop back into Niuatoputapu, to leave some with the very kind families there who welcomed us into their little community – weather permitting as always. When every kid in the street is begging for pencils and books (and of course “Lollies”) it’s really hard to resist, so we’ll be adding some of those items to our list. Logan even went to school with one family’s kids. Their mom ironed up a Tongan school uniform for him, gray shirt and a gray cloth ankle length wrap. He did not wear the traditional woven mat that they wrap around on top of that, which as they explained was only for Tongans. All instruction is in English, but for Science the teacher read from the English textbook, and translated it into Tongan. He said the science textbook was not that great. Of course I think he’s growing a high expectation for science classes, after the lesson on the periodic table with Rhian from Zephyrus, and the physics of waves lesson with Tim from Kamaya, both presented their material with infectious enthusiasm. The dry reading in Tongan with no experiments was a big contrast. He said Tongan middle school was similar to the U.S., in that they have different teachers for different courses, but they all sit in one great room and the teachers come to them. He had a great time, but complained that it was “a lot of sitting” and his back was sore. I had not thought to add “freedom to walk about,” to the list of advantages of homeschooling.

Kennan refused to go, so I added a course on cultural integration to his school day – a one hour lecture on the merits to humanity of stepping out of our comfort zone to participate in other cultures. I’ll podcast it and add it to iTunes U or Google’s Lectures if you’d like;)

xoxomo

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Niuatoputapu, Tonga 9 Sept 2010 15.9413S 173.7692W

We are a day ahead of you now – we are the future:) We made landfall yesterday morning, and spent the day cleaning up from a roughish trip. Four very friendly customs, immigration and health officials, three of them women, came aboard to check us into the country. Then Frank went with them ashore to get Tongan Pahangas from the “bank” to pay the fees (the bank was easy to find – it’s the only house on the island with chicken wire on the windows). All the bank employees were women, I’m getting the sense that we are officially in a maternal society. Today Frank took off early to lend a hand as a day laborer (with the other men). This island was hit hard by last fall’s Tsunami (same one that hit Samoa), so there is lots of rebuilding, and few tools to do so. Apparently there is not a drill on the island, so the 3-4 yachts here in the anchorage are lending tools. Nine people here died (I don’t know the total island population yet, but it can’t be more than a couple hundred), and I understand there are many frightening survival tales. Provisions come infrequently by ship, and a small plane stops once a week. Needless to say, supplies are limited. While we’re here, we’ll do what we can to help, but I’m really wishing we’d stopped in Samoa to stock up and be able to share more – the tools alone seem to be most appreciated though.

Through it all, the people are incredibly warm, welcoming and upbeat. I’m really looking forward to getting to know these people and their still beautiful island.

xoxomo

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