Pacific NW

Expeditions

Like cowboys riding for days across the open plain, we sail onward over the endless azure seas. Miles and miles and miles of Indian Ocean. Sunset, sunrise, sunset, sunrise, the days fly past in quick succession. Our closest known human companion is our friend John on S/V “Sapphire”, about 700 miles distant. Otherwise, we are quite alone out here! It’d be like being the only person in Minneapolis, Minnesota and having just one other “neighbor” in Dallas, Texas. “Privateer” has sailed us to the far corners of the planet.

We logged a solid 164 NM day, chugging along on our beam reach with a few hours of wing-on-wing in the afternoon. Except for moving the little piece of string that sets the course for the Monitor, and poling out the Yankee once, very little needed to be done sailing-wise. We played with Taz, napped, and even watched a movie. These are “easy miles” at sea.

This next week the winds and seas are forecast to freshen up to 25 knots with 4-meter seas for a few days before dying down again. If the GRIBS hold true we should have a pretty great sail. Now that we’re south of the rhumb line, we’ll have a good angle of attack for the new winds to come.

Our SSB propagation is starting to fade away and this may be the last post for a week or more, until I can load journals from the internet on shore. We use radio relay stations in Brunei and South Africa, but we seem to be entering into a no-man’s land between the two. All is well on board “Privateer” and we are enjoying the solitude and the wide-open seas!

We ended up getting a few light squalls on Kelsey’s watch last night, which cleared most of the salt crystals off the decks. Other than a few slimy flying fish in the scuppers, the decks are clean. The winds backed more easterly, and I rigged the downwind pole at sunrise. We spent the morning and afternoon flying wing-on-wing on a beautiful downwind run under sunny skies in 16-20 knots of good wind.

We’re sailing down south of the rhumb line in order to line up an easterly approach to Rodrigues. This will give us more flexibility in our sailing angle on the 2nd half of the passage, and give us a better chance of wind aft of the beam the whole way. It’s sort of like the larger version of the route we sailed from Christmas Island to Cocos Keeling. When the highs push through they throw up a wall of stronger S-SE winds for a few days before the isobars level off in an E-W line. Better to be sailing a course of 270 True through these winds. The passage distance is so great that we’ll be sailing through at least two of these “walls”. We left Cocos right after the first one leveled off. I’m sure to be boring people with weather-geek talk…but sailing has by necessity turned us into amateur meteorologists. It’s all-important to understand exactly what is going on in order to make the best (safest) choices at sea.

We’re really moving along at a steady clip–three 154 mile days in a row now. We’re back to a broad reach now, sliding down the waves at 7.5 knots. Taz was a bundle of energy today. We had some good fun kicking his bouncy ball around the cabin, assisted by the motion of the boat. He’s perfected his aim into his miniature potty, and he’s also interested in sitting on the real head now too. He gets upset when we diaper him up, so we’ve let him go naked. No pee on the floor today! He’s very proud of himself and clucks his tongue in satisfaction.

1/4 of the passage passed behind us today when the GPS mileage-to-go rolled back to 1500. We also crossed the 90E longitude, putting us a full 1/4 of the way around the world just from Fiji. It also means that Taz has sailed well over 1/4 of the distance around on board Privateer, not including his Pacific Ocean crossing inside the womb.

Tonight we are sailing over the “90E ridge”, a wall of massive underwater mountains that stretch for thousands of miles from Thailand to Antarctica. The summits rise to within 5,000 feet below us. The swells seemed a bit stacked up on the windward side of the ridge, no doubt due to the effects of the ocean currents flowing over the chain of summits.

Around 2am last night (“Ghost of Murphy” time) one of our Monitor control lines chafed through and snapped, causing the boat to sail to windward. The conditions were so gentle that we didn’t even notice until we’d sailed one mile after the break. Luckily Taz was asleep, and Kelsey helmed the boat while I monkeyed around at the transom, rigging a new dyneema line. We were soon on course again.

We had an ideal day of sailing in low seas and 16 knot breezes, hauling in another 154 NM in the last 24 hours. Easy miles! The boat is gliding along as if she’s on a string. During a few stretches of the day, we made 7.5 knots and it barely felt like we were even moving. We’ve been talking on the SSB to a few sailboats about a thousand miles ahead of us. One of them is experiencing 50-knot winds and 7 meter seas right now… it’s all about being in the right place at the right time!

In the late afternoon one dark squall came up on us from the south. I was hoping it’d nail us so we could rinse the salt off the boat, but it passed just ahead of Privateer and off over the horizon, and left us under sunny skies again. The Indian Ocean is the saltiest of the three great Oceans, and salt crystals are growing all over the boat. They look like little square snowflakes, sticking to all our stainless steel and covering the solar panels.

For the past few days the Monitor has been making a troubling creaking noise, which I finally identified today. One of the pendulum shaft bushings (plastic) was cracked and had almost slipped out of the tube. Luckily, I was able to push it back in, but there is still some metal-to-metal contact between the tube and the frame where the bushing collar is missing. We’ll have to sail the passage as-is, until we get to port and can remove the pendulum and replace the bushings with our spares. It’s not a critical repair and the Monitor should function just fine for the remainder of the passage. We’ll keep a close eye on it. I sprayed the hell out of all the moving parts on the Monitor with my trusty can of “Team McLube”. Plastic has no place on a boat in the tropics. It instantly turns brittle and cracks apart. All exposed plastic parts on an ocean-going boat should be considered as needing annual replacement. It goes without saying that the Monitor is the most important piece of gear on board, as it does the job of two permanent helmsmen. It gives us the gift of time–and sleep–and it allows us to do things other than steer the boat 24 hrs a day.

It’s funny the games you play in your head at sea on a long passage. The GPS started at around 2,000 miles and I’ve been watching the number decreasing, while imagining that our miles-to-destination number is the year, and thinking about what was happening in the world at that time. A few nights ago we were in WW2 (1943) and then soon the 1929 Great Depression. The 1800s were really great, and today we passed 1776, American Independence, and as I write this the year is 1626, but my mind draws a blank on that one. Counting down to the birth of Christ…

Time and days and nights begin to meld together on passage and we settle into our own little world out here. Passage time. Magic time.

Another day on the great blue railroad…we reeled in 150 miles on our beam reach in 22 hours. The day was hot, but we had to keep the cabin completely buttoned up to prevent spray from entering through the hatches. I tried to crack the butterfly hatch during the heat of the day, but ten minutes later several cups of seawater splashed down on our bed. The cockpit is continually doused by every tenth wave or so, so it’s kind of like being stuck between a hot and a wet place. Our consolation is that every day on this passage, we will sail a bit farther south into cooler latitudes. The nighttime temperature is perfect though, and I much prefer the starry night watch to the muggy days.

Taz is very proud of his new toilet skills, and he saves his urine like a dog marking many territories so that he can pee into his miniature potty as many times as possible. He prefers to pee standing up, and sort of clutches the wall as the cabin pitches back and forth in the waves. Now we can move on to #2 training!

It was a lazy day and I slept through most of it, peering out at the sparkling blue sea in between catnaps. We’ve got just enough wind to keep us moving along at high speed, where we can make 160 mile days with no drama. It’s perfect sailing except for the right-angle swells. I can tell Privateer is very pleased to be sailing the Indian Ocean–she’s made for exploring these exotic waters. Sails full and trimmed for beam reach. We continue on…

We are under sail! It feels good to be back out on passage again, after two relaxing weeks on Cocos Keeling. Last night I found a shackle pin on deck at the base of the mast–exactly the kind of thing you never want to see before going offshore. Where did it come from?? I finally found the culprit at the downwind pole hoist. It was an easy fix and I was able to lower the open shackle to the deck and re-connect it. It is a lesson that every shackle on board must be moused with SS seizing wire.

In the pre-dawn hours, Privateer was tugging on her anchor chain in good breezes, signaling she was ready to go. At daybreak I fashioned UHMW wedge supports for the Monitor wind vane brackets and hose clamped the entire assembly to the frame, effectively fusing all the parts together. I am pretty satisfied with the outcome, and I am knocking on wood that this holds for our Indian Ocean crossing. Next I dove over the side and scrubbed the whole bottom of the hull, back to bright blue bottom paint. The fish gathered under me to eat the barnacles as they sifted down through the clear waters. With some sadness, we leave this coral atoll with it’s white powdery sand bottom behind. It’s amazing to be anchored in this turquoise aquarium.

We made one last trip to shore to clip our nails, as it is bad luck to do at sea and forbidden on board. It’ll be at least two more weeks until we can clip them again, so better to start the voyage well-trimmed. Taz ran along the beach and into the surf, and swung in a hammock under the coconut trees. After returning to the boat we ran down the list of all that needs to be done to prepare the boat for the open sea. We’re getting pretty good at it now. Here at Cocos, the transition from enjoying the placid anchorage to heaving through the swells under full sail only takes about ten minutes, so you’d better be prepared. The most amazing thing was that Taz went down for his afternoon nap just before we weighed anchor, and remained sound asleep all the way until we were clear of the atoll, flying along under Monitor vane and out to sea. It was the perfect scenario! It allowed Mom and Dad to give full attention to navigating out the lagoon, hoisting the sails, and setting our course.

Privateer is rolling along at 8 knots on a beam reach, in 18 knots of wind with #2 reef Main, Storm Staysail, and #2 reef Yankee. We leave the Main sheeted loose on a beam reach, almost luffing, and the helm balances out nicely. The Monitor then just acts to keep the boat on course. We’re steering a bit south of the rhumb line to set ourselves up for an Easterly approach to Rodrigues, 2,000 miles distant. The GRIB reports look great, but we’ll see how much they can change.

We’re starting the anticipated 2-week passage on the new moon, so we should enjoy a full moon approach to the Mascarene archipelago. It’ll be a dark first few nights this week. Privateer is looking good, all squared away and ready for sea work. The wind generator is putting out good amperage on the beam reach, charging up our battery bank and keeping us going day and night. The motion is slightly uncomfortable as the swells from the great Southern Ocean roll up from the S, broadside to Privateer on this passage. But we are making great speed and can’t complain for now. Just settling back into the sea routine.

P.S. Just a quick note regarding e-mails: If you are receiving this log to your e-mail inbox, hitting “reply” to the admin@svlogbook address sends your message to the website administrator (our friend Mark on s/v “Tuuletar”) and not to us. You can log onto the website www.svlogbook.com/Privateer/ and leave a comment on a log post if you like (visible to all). Otherwise, just send e-mails to our regular Gmail inboxes: 13.frost@gmail.com and/or kelseyboesch@gmail.com. We are able to check our emails pretty regularly when we are on shore in this age of iPhones and SIM cards. Mark has forwarded the lost batch of e-mails to us which we have just read. To Bruce & Deb and everyone else that has sent us emails to the admin@svlogbook address, we love to hear from you and will answer you soon! Please keep your comments/e-mails coming.

Our good winds continued, and with it our speed, and we knocked out 165 miles in 24 hours on a 20-knot beam reach, reefed sails. In the early afternoon she got pretty boisterous, with a swell filling in from the South and wind waves building a foamy sea. Privateer rocketed through the swells. In the late morning, the white superstructure of a freighter loomed up from behind the swell, ironically approaching on a dead collision course. We radioed the freighter and they altered course 10 degrees to pass astern of us. It’s quite striking to go days without seeing anything, and suddenly there’s this huge ship right next to you! We were sailing along on our beam reach, keeping right on our rhumb line, to insure we didn’t get blown north of Cocos Keeling, fast approaching.

Our approach to Cocos Keeling atoll was a rough and windy one–the seas were dancing as the palm trees popped up on the horizon. It was all a bit surreal. I am extremely thankful for the daylight entrance. We got there at 1430 hrs! Plenty of daylight to see the many, many hazards. We were throttled by the wind as we dropped our sails and motored straight into the the entrance. Kelsey wrestled the staysail down on the foredeck, and got a complete and thorough soaking. Taz wailed from his perch below, while I was at the helm shouting commands above the winds. Our little hand-held radios we normally use to communicate from bow to helm weren’t sufficient against the shriek of the wind. Every landfall is a bit different, but each one always requires quite a bit of work to go from open-ocean sailing one mile, to motoring into the anchorage the next mile. It’s a quick change of scene.

The water here is clear as crystal, and when the boat passes over a coral patch, it looks like you’re sailing over the rocks–very unnerving. It was all very short-lived, however, and we are now anchored safely in 13 feet of water in the inner lagoon at Direction Island, white sand bottom. I dove down to the bottom and kissed the anchor, buried in the sand. The anchor was holding fast–how cool is that to be able to dive down and touch the anchor? A visual check like that ensures a very good sleep. I also dove down and stood on the snow-white lagoon bottom with my hands pushing up on the bottom of the keel. It’s like swimming around in a giant aquarium!

We have the whole anchorage to ourselves, except for one other single-hander from Canada on a Westsail 32. This place is what we call the “Screen-saver” anchorage–glowing turquiose waters, thick strings of coconut palms growing along the perfect sandy beach. We are very grateful to be safe in harbor, making it in just before things got wild on the ocean! I enjoyed watching the swells smash up and vaporize into the air from the protection behind the reef, snug in the inner lagoon. It was a really great 3.5 day sail from Christmas Island. Solid beam reaches, and our southern dogleg strategy worked out perfectly for the wind shift we experienced on the final 24 hours of the passage.

And now–time to rest and pause, think about how far we’ve come, and to put our minds to readying the boat for the next major leg of the voyage across the Indian Ocean. (And snorkel and swim and drink coconuts!)

Early this morning we reached our southern waypoint, on latitude with Cocos Keeling. The strategy is that this will allow us a better wind angle when the winds shift more southerly in the afternoon. We ran down the latitude wing-on-wing throughout the morning and into the afternoon. I was a bit disappointed with our speed–still in the high 5s but we need to average 6.2 knots to make the entrance to Cocos in daylight. It was a major concern, and I spent the morning fiddling with the calculator and fretting about our speed. We normally heave-to and wait offshore if approaching land at night, however the winds and seas are forecast to continue building up to 30 knots during that night. We’d rather be sitting in the duck-pond lagoon at Direction Island and recounting our passage, rather than remaining offshore in building seas.

In the afternoon we saw the classic high mare’s tails clouds and a giant halo around the sun–a sure indication that a warm front is approaching. I pulled out my weather books and read up on what to expect. Luckily, the associated low is to the north of us, and in the Southern Hemisphere this means that we are on the side that should experience little rain and not much temperature difference. Despite the lighter winds this afternoon, we kept a double-reef in the main. Kelsey made an excellent Falafel for lunch, our “last supper” at sea she called it, as it will likely be too rough to cook tomorrow.

Sure enough, in the late afternoon the winds shifted 90 degrees to the south and freshened to 18-20 knots. Our routing strategy has paid off, and we are able to hold a beam reach. As the front drags through the winds will build more, but should back more to the SE again, and we can have the winds abaft the beam (more comfortable sailing). The Monitor vane bracket seems to be holding fine for the moment, but there is still movement at the bracket. I’m going to try and stabilize the brackets with hose clamps and bolts when we get to Cocos Keeling. Just keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t have to do hand steering if we have another bracket failure. These brackets are a major weak point on an otherwise robust design.

We’re into the 8s now on boat speed, making “piles of miles” as I’m calling it. With the improved speed, we are targeted to arrive around 1500 hrs tomorrow afternoon, which should give us a good daylight entrance. Fingers crossed!

We spent the whole day and night beam reaching in 15-18 knots of wind. It was perfect sailing, other than the fact that we had to keep all the hatches and portholes battened down as the spray shot over the rails. Any time the wind is on the beam or forward of the beam, it can get stifling hot down below in the cabin in the middle of the day. Today was no exception, as we are still only 11 degrees away from the Equator. We clocked out a whopping 165 miles since yesterday’s noon, and I feel a bit better about our approach to Cocos Keeling now.

I can’t believe the amount of plastic we are seeing in the Indian Ocean. At any one point, within one boat-length of us, a flipflop or oil can or plastic bag will drift by the hull. We passed through a few garbage gyres where I could see about 500 separate chunks of plastic floating within view on the horizon. Truly, the ocean has become completely saturated with plastic–it is a witness-less tragedy. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that we’re still relatively close to Indonesia. It’s a strange feeling, being this far out here, and seeing manmade objects everywhere you look. Akin to skiing to the South Pole and finding a field of Snicker’s bar wrappers and bottle-caps there, I suppose.

We’ve been using the electric tiller-pilot in lieu of the Monitor these past two days, in order to save wear and tear on our jury-rigged repair of the broken Monitor bracket. The tiller pilot complained a but today, however, and decided to unscrew itself both at the end-cap tiller attachment point and also inside the unit at the recirculating ball-screw drive. Both detachments required a quick “all hands on deck” moment. Kelsey quickly plopped Taz into his high-chair with a jar of applesauce, and took the helm while I set up the Monitor vane and fixed the electric tiller pilot. We’re back to using the Monitor now, but I am unhappy with the bracket still–there’s a bit of deflection that will eventually lead to another failure in the future. Our friends on the “Beguine” are sailing two spare brackets to us in Cocos Keeling, but in the meantime I may try to rig up a more solid turning block attachment by bolting the blocks directly to the caprail. Ahh, the joys of circumnavigating…

We’re really looking forward to Cocos Keeling! It’s one of those places we dreamed about as we planned our voyage route. We’ll use our time there to rest up and put Privateer in top shape for the big sail across the Indian Ocean to Rodrigues.

It was hard to leave Christmas Island, after spending two weeks among the trillions of crabs that swarm the island and meeting some of the friendliest island folks we’ve encountered on the whole voyage! We’ll post journals soon of our exceptional adventures there.

We slipped the mooring lines before first light and sailed out into the Java Trench. Within several hundred feet from the anchorage, the depths plunged off into 1000 feet, and then to 15,000 feet just a few miles from the island. For the 530 NM passage to Cocos Keeling, we are sailing over a massive chain of extinct underwater volcanoes. Christmas Island is the only summit in the chain that breaks the surface, and it is said that it is taller than the mass of Mt. Everest, when measured up from the sea floor. From underwater, Christmas Island would look something like the scale of Mt Rainier, “Privateer” anchoring on the rim of the summit.

As we left the lee of Christmas island we picked up the swells and got battered by a few gentle squalls and heavy rainfall. It actually worked out pretty well, as the hard rain washed the yellow phosphate dust off the boat, which we had a heavy dusting of after anchoring downwind from the mine loading operation in Flying Fish Cove. The winds went light in the wake of the squalls so we did an hour or two of motor-sailing, topping up our battery banks and making more water with the water-maker. The gloomy morning finally gave way to a sunny afternoon and the trade winds have filled in nicely now. We’ve been making 7-8 knots with 15 knots of wind on the beam all day and into the night.

We’re angling down to the south right now as the trades are predicted to intensify and veer more S-SE on Tuesday evening. We’re hoping to keep the wind aft of the beam on our final approach to Cocos Keeling by using this tactic. Hopefully, we will keep up the good speeds through the passage in order to arrive at Cocos in daylight. I had originally wanted to leave Christmas Island at sunset for better timing of a morning Cocos arrival, however the winds at sunset yesterday were strong with a ferocious sea tearing past the island. Presently, we are looking at an evening Cocos arrival, which is less than ideal. We may have to heave-to and spend another night at sea if we cannot make the entrance in daylight. Time will tell–we’re still 400 NM away. Such are the thoughts and worries that a ship’s captain bears…

I’ve been growing out my beard again, as this gives me friendly reception with the Muslim populations on the islands. Today Kelsey looked up at me from the companionway and noted many grey hairs on my chin! I suppose it’s from looking out at all the swells and “greybeard” seas in my sailing career. I’m glad to be growing older out here at sea, with my family, bounding over the waves.

(Kelsey)
Christmas Island unquestionably belongs to the crabs. They occupy nearly every nook and cranny across the island, tucking themselves into the naturally occurring holes of pockmarked volcanic rock, clawing over the curved roots of the Tahitian chestnut tree, ducking into hollow, decaying tree trunks, and generally scurrying about the musty rainforest across a carpet of moss, fungi, a mess of leaves and a landscape of well fertilized dirt. The forest understory is scant as the land has little defense against these creatures. They’ve tilled and softened the earth with trillions of holes so that each step is an uncertain one.

The vibrantly colored reddish-orange crabs, of cross-island mass migration fame, are conspicuous against the forest floor while other crabs in shades of brown, blue and gray are often somewhat camouflaged. There are some 20 crab species on the island, including robber crabs (known previously to us as coconut crabs), nearly as big as basketballs and dwarfing the ones we’d seen in Fiji. Here they grow larger than anywhere else of earth. Immense, a bit intimidating, and apparently opportunistic, they live up to their name if personal effects are left unattended. Around these parts, you wouldn’t dare sleep out under the stars for a night.

Days of sporadic downpours brought the crabs out in hordes, to our delight. We’d been under the impression that we had to seek them out but, as it turns out, the crabs were simply everywhere and unavoidable. A few months shy of the November red crab migration, we got a sense of what a spectacular phenomenon it must be, undoubtedly one of the great wonders of the natural world. Looking ahead on the trail with a panoramic sweep revealed the forest floor alive with minute movements. Hiking about required a constant eye to the ground as we gingerly zig-zagged our way through the staggered line of crabs. Similarly, out on the roads we found ourselves cautiously swerving around them despite the foot-high metal barrier in place to keep the crabs out of harm’s way. Shame falls upon anyone who accidentally hits an enormous robber crab while driving. The fatality is added to the month’s total and broadcast on the community chalkboard, stationed prominently in the main roundabout for all to see as they drive into town. Crabs clearly rule here.

Outside of the town area, the island is nearly all national park, a rugged landscape of steep, jagged cliffs, remote beaches and interior rainforest home to many endemic plant and animal species. Without a 4WD little of the island’s thick jungle can be accessed, so we were lucky that some generous locals loaned us their Land Cruiser (even outfitted with a car seat), fit to navigate steep roads of loose gravel, skirt potholes, and straddle washouts. Initially we traveled along extra wide, flat gravel roads laid for the “land trains,” the multi-bed semi-trucks that transport the island’s phosphate reserves to the loading dock. Drooping vines gently swept across our windshield even along these more manicured roads. Pockets of trees rising tall and as wild looking as Dr. Seuss’ Lorax trees forced our view upwards along their spindly trunks. Spurs off of the main roads led to the island’s natural attractions and some of the most rugged driving we’ve ever done, with signs everywhere clearly indicating 4WD ONLY. Fortunately, our vehicle performed like a monster truck, tackling any potential obstacle with appropriate vigor.

Taz was a happy camper riding around in a car for a change, with a front seat (and very illegal) view. During our island tour he splashed around in the shallow waters at the base of a moss-laden waterfall, got misted by salt spray at the lively local blowholes, and poked into countless crab holes with his stick. Although he’s terrified of his wind-up crab on the boat, he showed no fear in approaching the real thing. Under the canopy of Arenga palms, and from the vantage point of his hiking backpack, Taz enjoyed spotting the obvious red crabs and counting them, “One, two!” or “Many!” We mistakenly left our mosquito repellant behind and he looked a bit worse for the wear at the day’s end, like the survivor of some backwoods boot camp. Fortunately we were more bothered by our negligence than he by the bites!

Along the roadsides, a strange sight caught our eyes–stakes with dangling sausages. From our conversations with park employees, we knew that these sausages were injected with a poison known as 1080, with the purpose of killing off the feral cats that are a threat to the endemic bird population. This long-term eradication program involves many employed in the day-to-day work of “cat baiting.” In a strange and disconcerting twist, we saw a coconut crab at one of the bait stations, aggressively swatting at the sausages. With its apparent determination and physical prowess, the crab likely made quick work of the poisoned meat.

Long live the crabs!