On the way to the Tuamotus
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Thu 17 Apr 2008 03:09
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11:13.804S 141:49.008W
Amazingly, our duty free fuel paperwork was ready
for us and we were able to fuel up as planned at 2pm and leave the Marquesas at
3pm yesterday. Since then, the sailing has been quite nice with the wind
on our port beam (left side) at a steady 10-15 knots. At this rate we hope
to arrive in the Tuamotus by Friday afternoon. We'll see though. A
lot can change between now and then and since all of the Tuamotu islands
are coral surrounded by dangerous-to-boaters coral reefs, we do not plan to
arrive in the dark. If it looks like we are going to miss our daylight
window on Friday, we will slow our pace down and target our arrival for Saturday
morning instead. It seems piloting a sailboat around coral islands is a
bit like piloting the space shuttle back to earth - you have to wait for the
right landing window. I'm not sure the highly skilled space shuttle pilots
would agree with this analogy, but it makes us feel special.
A few comments about our fueling experience
yesterday...
The fuel tank in Taiohae Bay is located
on a big concrete wharf where the big supply ships dock. It is
not particularly sheltered as it has no breakwall in front of it to break
the swell as rolls up the bay. We had been told by other boaters that if
we drop an anchor off the bow, back up the to the scary-looking concrete wharf,
tie off two stern lines to the wharf and keep the engine idling in forward gear
to keep the boat from bashing the wharf, we should be ok. Oh yeah, and do
all that at high tide so that the splash back from the swell hitting the wharf
doesn't shower us with salt water as we fuel up the boat.
Ok, no problem. We had planned to get fuel
when they reopened after lunch at 2pm, so we left the anchorage at 1:45 and
headed over to the concrete wharf. It was high tide, a gusty wind was
blowing and a fair amount of swell was rolling up the bay. As
instructed, we dropped the anchor off the bow and started backing toward the
wharf. So far so good. The fuel guy appeared and motioned for me to
throw one of our stern lines to him. Easier said than done, but after the
second try, he caught my less than perfect toss. Then the second stern
line - this time caught on the first less than perfect toss. Ok, now the
duty free fuel paperwork (3 pages worth) and the all important credit
card. At this point, the boat is moving up and down with the swell and we
are trying to keep the boat from bashing the wharf by increasing and decreasing
the throttle as necessary in time with the movement of the swell. There's
no way I can hand the guy the stuff because we are too far away. Out comes
a bucket and a boat hook. Don loads the paperwork and the credit card into
the bucket and boat hooked it over to the fuel guy. Meanwhile, I am
nervously sweating (it was about 90 degrees) while I worked the forward throttle
up and down in time with the swell to keep us from bashing the wharf.
Every few minutes calling out to Don, 'Are we ok??'. His answer was
always either, 'Yes, we're ok.' or a more panicked, 'More throttle!
Forward! More! More!'. Apparently the paperwork was ok because the
fuel hose showed up and was handed/tossed to Don who proceeded to fill our tank
(we needed just under 100 gallons) while I continued to move the throttle up and
down while sweating, watching the back of the boat and yelling every few
minutes, 'Are we ok?'. Forty-five minutes later the tank was full,
the paperwork, credit card and receipt were bucket-boat hooked back and forth
and we were ready to go. Thankfully, I turned over the controls to Don
while I went back to take in the two stern lines the fuel guy tossed to me
and we moved away from the wharf, picked up the anchor and were on our
way by 3pm. Well that wasn't as easy as it sounded when we got the
advice from the crew of Lady Kay over a few cocktails the day
before.
As we left the bay, Don and I both admitted
that we had been more nervous about the fueling up operation than we were
about the four-day sail across the ocean to the Tuamotus. As a matter
of fact, we were both glad to be sailing out in the open again with no
obstacles. My, how the things we fear (and the things we don't) have
changed.
Anne
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