Stuck in a hole
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Fri 30 Jul 2010 09:21
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Friday July 30th 2036 Local 0736 UTC
18:41.96S 174:07.67W
I still haven't worked out quite how there can be
13 hours difference - I can only imagine that clocks here must move forward for
some kind of daylight saving time - or maybe I just have the times wrong. In any
event I have been far too busy to be concerned about these things.
I have to confess that over the past week or so I
have been wilting somewhat under the burden of so many things to do on the boat
while keeping moving while keeping in touch with business matters and having to
look after family and friend. I have probably failed on all counts. I am
sure my sense of humour has, I hope temporarily, departed me and of course
despite your protests my blog has again fallen way behind.
Yesterday after having what seemed like an
avalanche of issues to deal with, the autopilot started flashing "calibration
required" and was, when asked, taking the helm but pointing us in crazy and
unpredictable directions. I took a deep breath and decided it would be an early
start the following morning (today) while at our anchorage and that Craig
and I would wade into the jobs to try and get on top of them.
Blog readers who have followed our progress on-line
may recall that we lost our autopilot and gained a whole load of other
electronic problems on Christmas Eve in the BVI's. Our autopilot is powered
from the course computer and we could get neither power nor data round the
network. With the help of the Raymarine agent in Antigua in January he and I
"jury" rigged a set up where power was introduced directly into the network and
I moved the autopilot controller next to the course computer which was able to
send data short distances only. This solution, while not ideal, and with
some dangers due to not having the autopilot next to the helm (I do however have
a remote control) has kept us going till now and I was loathe to strip out
the course computer and re-build the electronics network while in the
remote pacific, preferring to wait until near to experienced
technicians in Australia.
However it was not to be. The electronic gremlins
were in the ascendency and now needed to be tackled head on. I was very nervous
about starting the job and started planning it last night. However I was
determined and focused and got on a roll and started the job there and then. I
reconfigured and rearranged the network and then went for the (no turning
back ) job in stripping out the course computer. To cut a long story short
we now have a fully functioning electronics network and autopilot with
everything where it should be and (though my fingers are crossed ) it all
seems to be working fine for now. I do however expect issues to surface becuase
no job like that goes smoothly. I'll let you know....
The autopilot was very much weighing heavily on me
after speaking with a chap who had, many years ago, set up the Moorings in
Tonga. He was tacking upwind with a borrowed boat for the day, yesterday, when
he discovered the autopilot was on and couldn't get it off or the engine on in
time before he smacked straight into an island, badly cutting his face and
denting the boat in the process. Sobering ............
Since I last wrote what was an uncharacteristically
brief blog on Monday we have been enjoying Vava'u, or as Trish calls it
Vava'vum. It is a great sailing area and shelter can easily be found from all
wind directions. However it has been fairly poor weather with a lot of rain and
cloud cover and winds up to 25 knots. Between jobs we have made the most of
it all with the kids wakeboarding most days and a little bit of spear fishing
and snorkelling here and there. We have been sailing around the island tacking
up and down and it was great to have the helm in string breezes and flat
water. Rhiann in fact sailed Rhiann Marie, all the way up the channel into
Neiafu until she was finally headed by over 25 knots of wind wher the channel
narrowed dramatically. We decided to concede our attempt at sailing up to
anchor (something we have had fun doing several times recently) when the lee
shore seemed just too close and more importantly perhaps in full view of the
village. That is no place for such an error so we motored the last couple of
hundred yards to the anchor but I was very impressed at her helming skills on
the surprisingly light helm under sail.
The main town is Neiafu and has lots of little bars
restaurants and a few shops. This is all relative, mind, we are in what is close
to a third world country and Neiafu relative to the remote island villages we
have been in seems like a metropolis. One day we took the morning to go on
a kart safari. Rhiann, Amy Craig and I and we had a blast. The Karts were
dune buggy type affairs and we covered about 40km of rough terrain. Highly
recommended! As Neiafu and Vava'u in general are more developed for tourism it
is perhaps more difficult to interact fully with locals. We however had
the local cook in a resort spend the morning sailing with us and spending
time showing us round Neiafu which was nice. He told me that he got paid 7
P'anga per hour and that some of the waiting and unskilled staff were paid as
little as 2 TOP (Tongan Pa'anga) per hour. Approximately divide by three
for sterling. I will dedicate a blog soon to telling you more about Tongan
culture. We have mostly avoided the "canned" toutisty hotel type shows in
various islands, prefering to find local dancers performing for ceremony or
local audience. On Wednesday night we viewed a family group of student dancers
who performed for us and it was excellent and unlike some of the hotel
shows, unpolished, but also more natural. We enjoyed it a lot and particularly
Amy's attemp at the "polynesian hip shake" on the way back to the boat wearing
the waist wreath she was given by one of the dancers.
Today Craig and I tried to skorkell into
several caves none of which seemed to have been the famed Mariners Cave. If we
can get out of this lagoon we are in tomorrow morning we may try again. If!
Before entering the pass at Hunga I briefed the crew that this would be the most
challenging pass we had tackled. The local pilot book warned about it but other
boats were in so we would get in too. And we did. Just. The pass was about three
boat widths wide so absoltely no room for error in the strong outflowing rip and
22 knots of wind. Outside the pass I spoke to a local dive operator who told me
it was 6 metres deep, and it was, until the bit that was 2.5 metres
deep. My able crew on the foredeck seemed to lead our keel through two
large rocks which had about 3m between them and were too shallow for us, (that
is precision that I fear we cannot repeat tomorrow). That was the easy bit. With
my sounder still showing 0.9m under us the keel touched the bottom. It
must be the delay in the information coming back to the instruments. I will
investigate further! There was a strong head wind and outflowing current
and no room to turn, so guessing it was a sand bar due to the colour of the
water we gave it the full welly and ploughed our way in - through the
bar.
All this was far too close for comfort and I hadn't
expected the problem with depth. Avoiding the coral, yes, but we have had to do
a lot of that so I was not overly concerned about that. We snorkelled on it once
we anchored and I have to say we were lucky to get through. Tomorrow morning we
will snorkell on it first and fit plastic bottle markers to the two rocks
and we will wait in the lagoon until the very top of the tide - I think, I
hope, we have anothe 6 inches or a foot more to get from the
tide, which is only 3 foot range at springs. We will also anchor the dingy at the side of the extremely narrow
pass and Craig will be snorkelling in front of the boat calling the directions
to see if we can pick up our furrow in the bar, which turned out not to be sand
but broken mostly loose coral, and to guide us, thread us, through the coral
heads. All this is fine, well it is not really fine, in fact it is not on at
all, but we have a strong wind right up our backsides. So I think I will have a
slightly unsettled sleep tonight.
While snorkelling the pass we took the spear guns
and hoped to add to the fish I got yesterday for the coconut fish and papaya
curry I was going to cook this evening.
The snorkelling was fine but there were almost no
fish of edible size - then Craig spotted a big octopus. That would be great to
barbeque I thought and down I went. He was on the side of a lump of (dead and
bleached) coral - all of which was riddled, warren like, with nooks, crannies
and cavities. I got him first shot, right through the head, but he went bananas,
or whatever it is octopus do when speared through the head. I yanked at the
spear to pull him off the coral and he yanked back, but harder. I pulled and
pulled, but by this time he was on the march back into this little hole in the
coral. Eventually I ran out of breath and had to surface to gulp some octopus
fighting air. Down I went again and by this time only a foot or so of the
spear was sticking out of the hole in the coral, of course with the gun attached
to it being dragged ever lower below the surface. I swear I had both feet
against the coral and both hands on the spear and could not pull him or the
spear out of the hole. He continued to pull the spear in and in to the hole. My
arms and wrists, cut and grazed on the coral, were no match for
him. So I added extra papaya and onion to the curry to bulk it
out......
And so it is after the euphoria of the electronics
and autopilot being fixed both my spear and my boat are in holes in the coral
that are going to be extremely difficult to get out
of!
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