Recently in Weather Category

On Sunday, before leaving Aitutaki, we went ashore and used our scooters to go to the hotel Tamanu Beach which has WIFI for rent. Made some Skype calls home to our daughters, downloaded weather data, wrote blog posts, etc. Then we returned our scooters to the place we rented them from. After lunch the winds were finally calm enough for us to take the dinghy to the south part of the lagoon. There is an island down there called "Honeymoon Island" which is a small beautiful motu surrounded by pristine white sand beaches.

The ride south was an adventure in dodging coral heads. We even had to back up in some places to go around the shallow areas. You wouldn't want to do this on a day where you had poor visibility. As we got closer to the motus, we could clearly see over a dozen kite surfers plying the very shallow waters over a sandy bottom near the island. Aitutaki has the best waters we've seen to date for kite surfing. Well behind the islands was the reef with 8-10 foot waves crashing on the southern side.

We all enjoyed walking around the island and beach-combing for shells, while watching the kite surfers enjoy their sport. Then we saw a tourist boat take a load of snorkelers out to the lagoon. We followed them and did some snorkeling among the coral heads. There were a mixture of live and dead coral as usual, and a fair number of fish. Mostly the normal coral fish, although I did see a napoleon fish briefly when I first circled around one coral head.

On Monday, a rainy morning, I went ashore to do one more Internet update on weather and to do some online banking tasks. I walked 2 miles to the same hotel, but their Internet wasn't working. Ugh! They suggested another hotel which we had been told wouldn't sell to non-guests. So, I tried, and they sold me a card - their model is by the megabyte, which is weird. I got the banking and a couple of Skype calls in, and then walked back to the harbor. I was a bit bummed in a way, because this other hotel was close enough for us to reach their WIFI from the anchorage.

Next I went to customs to clear out. The Cook Islands really love having fees for everything. I had to pay (in NZ$) $50 for customs, $5/night for the anchorage, $20 for agriculture, and $20 for health. And, we still have to pay a $55/person departure tax before we leave the Cooks.

We waited until 1:30 to leave when the tide was higher. There was an approaching squall, but we got out the pass (without incident) before the squall arrived. We soon had our sails raised (with a single reef) and had a pleasant sail down the coast, and missing the squall entirely. But, once we got around the southern tip of the lagoon, we were exposed to the seas. The winds were higher than forecasted, and there were other squalls - which weren't in the forecast. So, it was a bumpy ride. Bumpy enough that for the first time since he joined us, Jason got seasick. We double-reefed before sunset to ease the ride and for safety.

Fortunatley, during the course of the night, the winds eased and after midnight the skies cleared of clouds. By dawn, we had Rarotonga in sight. We shook out the reefs in the sails and sailed in at about 8 knots. We were keeping an eye out for whales, but didn't see any. By 11 AM we were ready to enter the harbor at Rarotonga. We hailed some boats we heard on VHF, and heard there would be room for us. By 11:30 we were med-moored to the wharf between two boats we had seen in Bora Bora, thanks to help from their crews. After we got tied up, the other boaters asked us if we saw the whales. There were several nearby apparently. One of the other boats that arrived before us had seen three of them breech on his way in.

Rarotonga is a beautiful island with much more rugged terrain than I expected. The harbor is right near a town with lots of shops and stores. Scooters are cheap here as well. We look forward to a few days exploring this beautiful place. And, we hope to see the whales too!

Wednesday night started out with a beautiful sunset. There were squalls on the horizon with huge fluffy clouds lit up in a thousand shades of red and orange. The winds had started clocking around to the north as forecasted. We knew the winds would be clocking to the south and get really strong by the morning. I should have considered double-checking the two anchors holding us in the narrow channel between reefs and the sandbar during the day.

We had some dinner and then decided to watch a movie. About half-way through the movie and something seemed strange. Both Jason and I sat up and looked around. I hit the pause button and got a flashlight and we walked out to look around. The winds were now coming from the northwest. It was nearly pitch-black dark and overcast. Aitutaki has only a few lights ashore at night. Even the wharf has no streetlights. We walked to the bows and I shined the light into the water. The reef was directly ahead of us only a few feet away! I looked at the anchor bridle and it was behind us (meaning we were in front of our forward anchor)! Our stern anchor must have dragged!

I ran back to the helm and started the engines immediately even though we didn't seem to be moving. The winds were blowing at least 20 knots. I started backing us up and Jason started pulling on the stern anchor rode. We hollered to Lara and Karen to get flashlights and keep an eye on our position. I knew initially where we were, but it was very hard to know where we were situated in the channel in the dark with no reference points.

Jason and Lara managed to get the stern anchor up and out of the water. At about the same time, the winds shot up to 30 knots and it started raining like crazy. We were in the thick of a squall! Every time I backed off on the engine to avoid going too far back towards the sandbar, the winds pushed us forward towards the reef. We were at an angle to the channel because of the winds and the channel is only about 100 feet wide.

Jason and Lara were just getting into the dinghy to reset the stern anchor when the wind suddenly shoved Tahina sideways and moved us towards the reef. I tried to turn our stern back towards the wind to back up, but it wasn't working. Both Lara and Karen were hollering we were near the reef and I should move us sideways away. But, I just couldn't do that. Jason tried to pull us over with the dinghy. Everyone was yelling and running around with flashlights. And the wind was howling. It was really getting crazy. Finally, I left the helm to see what was going on. We weren't just near the reef, we were right next to it! I wasn't able to back up because our keel was probably on the lower part of it!

I turned the other direction and moved forward a few feet, then quickly turned us the other way and backed up. My eyes had adjusted enough to see the sandbar as a dim glow. Finally we were back in the channel closer to the sandy side. I managed to back all the way up until Karen said the forward anchor was tight. Fortunately, at this point the rain had stopped and the winds dropped to only 20 knots. Jason and Lara quickly got in the dinghy and moved to set the stern anchor as far back as possible. They got it right the first time and we soon had the stern anchor in tied to Tahina's stern cleats and it was holding us in position. Finally, we were holding fast.

Jason got his snorkel gear out and dove to make sure the anchors were set properly while I kept an eye on him in t he dinghy. Then he went to look at Tahina's bottom. The bad news is that we have some damage to the aft lower corner of our keel. About a 3" chunk was grinded away on that corner. There are also a few scratches along the side of the keel, and a few on the rudder. The good news is that the keel won't be hurt by the damage and can easily be repaired. The rest is superficial and can be easily painted over when we get to New Zealand where we already planned to have it hauled for bottom painting. Jason was surprised the damage wasn't more serious.

The next morning, we needed to reset the anchors to better position us in the channel. Despite having plenty of light, it was a real pain to set the anchors properly in the 20-25 knots winds we were experiencing. It took us nearly 90 minutes to get both anchors positioned well. But, they held through the next couple of days of strong winds. What a night! You can see where we were situated in Google Maps here:

We finally completed our 5 day beat upwind from Tahiti. But, we didn't end up in Amanu as expected. Our last day was the worst of all with 25 knots of true wind fighting us the whole way (meaning we were regularly seeing 30 knots of apparent wind) and very rough seas. We also had occasional squalls which caused even stronger winds. But, Tahina continued to bash her way through and after numerous tacks we finally arrived at Amanu around 1:30 PM on Friday.

It took us several hours once we could see the island to finally tack our way to the pass. They had a huge church and community center at the pass. This made us think maybe the population was bigger than it appeared when looking at the village in Google Earth. We went through the narrow pass and waved at the village people hanging out near the pretty pass and church. The houses looked less substantial than other Tuamotus islands we have visited. Tin roofs, few with glass winds (just wood shutters mostly kept open), and not many more structures than seen in Google Earth. It's clear the church is more important to these people than their own abodes.

The winds were still 25 knots and inside the lagoon there was a 3 foot swell and lots of whitecaps. As we feared, the village harbor looked too small, and the entrance was plastered by the swells anyway. Since the village is on the western side of the island, and the winds were coming from the east, the anchorage outside the village was not useable either. So, we had to check out a spot protected by some reefs just SE of the village. Unfortunately, after scouting with Tahina's sonar, we decided that spot was also not good. Too many coral heads and not enough room. The only other choices were to either attempt to find something on the eastern side of the lagoon (but, we had no chart data, and no really good spots looked available in our data).

So, we motored back out the pass and tried looking at anchoring in the lee of the village. There were too many live corals in the shallows outside the pass. So, that wasn't acceptable either. The villagers must have wondered what we were doing. But, no one hailed us on the radio to offer any suggestions.

It was already 2:30, and if we left right away we could get to Hao before sunset. Hao was our alternate choice for watching the eclipse and it's pass was just 16 miles away. Hao used to have an active French military base which housed personnel who conducted France's atomic bomb tests on islands east of here. We checked the tides and it would be just past high tide at the Hao pass. We had heard it has very strong currents.

So, much to our disappointment, we raised sail again. The good news is that we had a fast sail on a reach and the waves were kind of with us. So, it was a much smoother and faster direct path. Such a relief from all the tacking to get to Amanu!

Once at the pass, we lowered sails and cranked up both engines to full throttle. Fortunately the current was coming out at an angle, and the pass was wide. We were able to avoid the large 4 foot ripples caused by the outflowing current, and half the current's effects by staying on one side of the pass. Once in the pass we experienced about 6 knots of current. But, with both engines we still managed about 3 knots through that part of the pass.

The sun was setting already at 5 PM. French Polynesia has a large unified time zone, so although we were 500 miles east of Tahiti, we were on the same time zone. As a result, the sun was setting an hour earlier. The lagoon was well charted to the town and we had no problem getting to the anchorage and setting our hook.

More details to come, and I'll have a few photos to post. [UPDATE: see photos in this album.] One good piece of news - they have an Internet provider in Hao. So, that will improve the chances of getting some blog posts up with a few photos.

[NOTE: This message was supposed to go out a couple of days ago, but missed being published.]

We are beating our way against 20+ knot winds. It's been a rough ride on all of us, including Tahina. First we had the problem with the outhaul chafing through. Now we have had a new problem.

Early this morning, we were surprised by a strong wind squall. We were more than double-reefed on the jib, and double-reefed on the main. But, the winds rapidly hit 35+ knots. I tried turning us away from the wind, but Tahina turned too slowly (I should have used the helm instead of the autopilot). Everything seemed fine after we made the turn, and we put away the jib quickly. After the squall blew away, we turned back into the wind and re-deployed the jib. But, I noticed we had a chafe mark on the furling line (the line which rolls up and deploys the jib sail). I went up and felt the chafe mark and could tell it was more than just the outside wrapping worn off. But, it still felt solid. So, we left it as it was.

The waves have been between 10 and 15 feet swells, and lots of "little" 6-8 foot sloppy waves in between. Since we're sailing at about 50 degrees off the wind, we are bouncing over and through these waves continuously. Normally, on a catamaran, you rarely have problems with things flying off the tables and counters. Catamarans are known for a stable ride - at least in downwind conditions. Not so on this trip! Not only have many loose items gone flying around the cabin, but all of the crew have been thrown around a fair bit. I found an unexpected bruise on a hip and a welt on a shin already. Lara has been dealing with sea sickness on and off the last two days. Everyone is tired because we haven't been able to sleep well with all the rocking, loud noise of waves bashing the sides, and the loud noise of the wind itself blasting through the rigging.

We have also had to deal with significant amounts of spray across Tahina for the first time since we left North Carolina. We've had hundreds of gallons of water be thrown across the decks at a time. Fortunately, I had us deploy our spray dodger before we left, and that has proved invaluable on this trip.

All of this bashing is taking a lot of wear and tear out on all of us. It's been over four days so far, and the last two have been really rough. I think at least three of the crew are really starting to wonder whether the eclipse is really worth all this. At this point, on Thursday afternoon, we only have 75 miles left to go towards our destination. Only, we'll probably have to sail 125 miles to get there because of the wind angles. I'm hoping I won't have "Mutiny on the Tahina" before we arrive. I'm also hoping we have good weather on Sunday for the eclipse, or I may have to row back to Tahiti in the dinghy!

For several weeks, we've been keeping an eye on the weather between Aruba and Cartagena. There's an area just north of Cartagena that is notorious for strong winds. A river comes out to sea near Barranquilla and the contrary currents and temperatures apparently churns up some wind. We've regularly seen gale-force (> 30 knot) winds appearing in this area in recent weeks. Our package finally cleared customs in Aruba on Tuesday afternoon (Monday was a holiday). We picked up our new anchor light, but it was too windy to go up the mast to install it. But, the weather forecast for Cartagena was looking pretty good for the next day. There were still some 20-25 knot winds in the forecast, and it was all following winds and seas. NOTE: this is a long post! We decided to stay well offshore to avoid risks of piracy sometimes reported out here, and to reduce the risk of weather effects closer to Cartagena. Check out the map of our GPS track below.

Meanwhile, another boat in the anchorage, named m/v Antipodes, came over and invited us out for drinks. Jim and Lara's boat is a motor trawler live-aboard, and they have come from San Diego to Aruba in the past few months. They plan to attempt a circumnavigation as well. Only 18 motor trawlers have ever made it apparently. Their boat is registered in North Carolina, so naturally we had to meet them. They also have worked in the information technology business as well. And, the most amazing coincidence is that they know Pat and Ali from s/v Bumfuzzle (an amazing couple who I followed on their web site when they circumnavigated a few years ago). In fact, they met them in person a few times. I really enjoyed hearing their first-person accounts of what they are like.

I spent the rest of Tuesday preparing a route and planning our arrival in Cartagena. We got up Wednesday and first sent me up the mast to install the light. That went very smoothly and it worked perfectly. Next I drove Coconut down to Barcadera port and cleared out of customs. One more trip to town to take in trash and get some cash. Then we got the dinghy up and prepped for departure. We weighted anchor at about 10:30 and headed out. Shortly after we left, we had two dolphin swim over and join us at the bows a bit. I always consider it a good thing when they visit us on a passage.

We intended to go back north to Bequia this week to pick up some stuff we had shipped there. We ordered a maintenance kit to fix our leaky fresh water pump, and the new laptop will be coming hopefully later in the week. On Monday we left Tobago Cays and moved over to Union Island to check the Internet, get the Monday post out, get fuel for Coconut, and make some calls. The anchorage off the reef there is actually pretty nice, so we decided to stay the night.

The next morning (yesterday), decided we would leave. But, it was kind of rainy when we got up and the Internet was behaving better. So, we stayed until almost lunch time. It was still a bit squally and the winds were a tad strong (about 20 knots), but we were going to go slow to make more fresh water with our water maker.

We put up the mainsail with two reefs (greatly reduced sail), and let out two reefs worth in the genoa as well. We were going to have to be on a reach (going a bit against the wind), so the winds would be strong. It wasn't too strong though, the strongest gusts we saw were up to 30 knots - and that only happened a couple of times. Because of the reduced sail, we were going a modest 6 knots or so most of the way.

We were about 3/4 of the way and the winds had reduced below 20 knots for some time. So I had let out the genoa sail. We were considering letting out the main. But, the edge of another squall caught us and we started speeding up. I noticed the winds getting up to the mid-twenties and told Karen we needed to reduce the genoa. In fact, the winds got up to the high twenties at that point. So, we immediately put two reefs in the genoa. Since it was raining, we went inside the cockpit, and a minute later I heard an unusual bang.

I stuck my head out to look, and noticed the genoa was all the way out again. I looked down and saw the furling line was somehow below the drum of the furler. I went up to look and realized the whole drum was lifted up a few inches. Uh oh! The squall had already passed at this point. I told Karen to fall off the wind (go downwind) and we took the pressure off the sail. I untangled the line a bit and then we rolled up the furler manually. Obviously the drum mechanism attachment had either broken, or come loose somehow (I suspect broken).

Having the furling mechanism broken on this essential sail is not good. So, we'll have to get it repaired or replaced quickly if we want to sail. Otherwise, we're just a motor boat. In fact, we had to motor the remaining 1.5 hours to Bequia where we dropped anchor. We grilled some cheeseburgers for dinner and made some Skype calls home during the evening. Today we plan to investigate the broken furler, extend our stay a few days in the Grenadines, check to see if the part arrived, and maybe upload more photos.

After a frustrating 3 days trying to get Internet in Basse Terre (the capitol of Guadeloupe), we decided to move Tahina to the beautiful tropical islands of Iles des Saintes just about 12 miles south of us. These hilly islands are a popular tourist destination with many ferries coming from the main island every day. Iles des Saintes is home to Fort Napoleon - located on the top of Terre de Haut, the main island of population here. This is where the main anchorage is located and was our destination of the day.

We got up and prepared to depart our anchorage at Basse Terre. We've been through this route before, so we knew that the winds can accelerate around the southern tip of Guadeloupe. We raised the sails with two reefs. A good thing because we almost immediately got over 30 knots of wind as we started sailing (just a gust). The passage to the islands is normally a tight reach to the southeast. Our trip was normal in this respect.

Here's the map showing our GPS track with some highlights, read below for some exciting details on the trip:

View Basse Terre to Iles Des Saintes, Guadeloupe in a larger map | or load the map in Google Earth

We had strong apparent wind in the upper 20 knot range with gusts into the lower 30s. As we approached the island, it was apparent we wouldn't make the entry between the islands we wanted without tacking further east. Not only that, but there were two squalls headed our way. So, we tacked a bit early hoping to go between the two squalls. Our maneuver worked almost perfectly. We caught the northern tip of the southern squall for a few seconds. You could see the wall of water approaching us and we were hammered with rain for those few seconds. We had 45 knot gusts briefly, but I turned us into the winds to take the pressure off the sails. Thank goodness we were double-reefed! Then it suddenly was over - we were in bright sunshine with a clear view again of Les Saintes, and the winds quickly dropped back to normal.

We soon tacked back towards the islands and had an enjoyable, uneventful, sail into our chosen entry, dropped our sails and motored to the anchorage. Another great sail and we were left pleased with our seamanship. As a reward, we quickly discovered we had WIFI Internet available in the anchorage and were soon gobbling up a much needed fix on the Internet and making posts left and right.

We have added a Map page for the Tahina Expedition web site that will let you check on our current position, our past passages, and will even show position reports while we're on a passage which are being made through a Twitter log. In addition, we'll make occasional blog posts during a passage to report on how things are going, and you can follow our Twitter at @GoTahina for short messages about how things are going. Hopefully all the new radio systems will work, so you'll actually see these reports and updates during our first passage starting tomorrow.

After careful consideration of all the factors - including weather - we've decided to make a change in our route. Our goal has been to start in the Caribbean with St. Martin. We have been planning to sail out to Bermuda and stop a few days because often the weather is better if you head toward Bermuda from the US east coast before heading south for the Caribbean. However, we have a weather forecast which gives us the option of heading straight to St. Martin.

Since we were delayed by about a week by weather, we have considered the option of going straight to St. Martin and by-passing Bermuda. Our crewmember Wilson would like to help get us to St. Martin, but he needs to be back home in time for Thanksgiving. If we go straight to St. Martin our route plan shows us arriving in 6 days. This would give plenty of time for Wilson to get home. And, it would give us more time to spend going through the islands on our way south. We plan to be in Grenada for Christmas.

So, we now plan to leave Saturday morning early. We'll still head east to insure the right winds for our route. But, we'll turn south sooner and therefore save lots of miles off the original route taking us to Bermuda. See the map of the two options here:

Keep watching the blog for updates. I'll probably make another post before we leave in addition to the subsequent tweets and posts during the passage.

The weather is still looking good for us to depart for Bermuda. In fact, we may be leaving Friday night now. The winds behind the departing remnants of Ida are making for some ideal conditions for a sail to Bermuda. We'll still have some large sea swells to contend with, but the wind conditions should be pretty good for sailing.

When we make long passages like this, we hope to have friends join us to help crew so we can reduce the amount of time each person is on watch. With three people on board, we can each get several hours of sleep while one person is on watch. This also gives the joining crew a chance to do a blue-water sailing adventure.

This time, we are excited to have our friend Wilson joining us as crew. We met Wilson during our sailing adventures on PatiCat back in 2002/2003 in the Caribbean. Wilson was on a catamaran called "Hotel California" with his family. Our families spent a lot of time together during our stay down there (see pictures, and read about our visit to St. Barts).

Wilson will be arriving at about 8 PM. We are going to put him right to work since it looks like we may depart by 11 PM.

We have officially moved onto Tahina, and are now making final preparations for departure. We had planned to be ready as early as Monday. We have to complete storing our final belongings, get provisions (food, water and fuel) for the trip, return the rental car, check all the boat systems one more time, and - once we have the right weather - we can leave.

The weather is the crucial part. Our first destination is Bermuda so that we can have a favorable route down to the Caribbean. Most sailors go this way in order to have favorable winds. If you try to go along the Bahamas you will have wind on your nose most of the way.

It takes about 3-4 days to get to Bermuda on Tahina from North Carolina - with the right winds. After we arrived at the boat, I started looking at the weather (I purposely waited because I didn't want to rush our final preparations). Unfortunately, the weather forecast is not looking good.

Hurricane Ida is in the Gulf of Mexico and it will soon be influencing the weather up north. A front is scheduled to come into the Atlantic off the East Coast of the US by Wednesday. And will rapidly make its way across towards Bermuda (in the current forecasts). It doesn't look like ideal weather for a passage currently for the entire week.

So, we may have more time to run some safety drills after all. We may even have a chance to relax and recuperate from the weeks of hard work leading to this point.

We'll keep an eye on the weather - these forecasts can change dramatically (especially with a hurricane out there). Hopefully things will change so we can leave earlier.