Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Foreshadowing

According to the dictionary, a "warning or indication of a future event".

Our original plan, confirmed many times with the boat yard here in Raiatea, was to haul out yesterday. That would give us today to tidy up New Morning in her cradle on dry land and work with the woman who will be her caretaker.

Last Friday we saw the wheels had been removed from the carriage used to haul the boats out of the water (old school - the boat floats onto the carriage, then they pull it all out of the water with a winch and tractor). Over the weekend Fay expressed some concern that being hauled on Monday meant we would be the first boat hauled after the "repairs" which made her a little nervous.

Then while talking with Jerry over the weekend, a retired navy doctor now cruising in a small sailboat, he cautioned us that the haul out schedule could be a little soft and could easily slip by a day or two.

None the less Monday dawned clear and sunny. Karin (the admin who runs everything) advised us we'd be coming out about 1pm when the tide was highest. In the morning they would haul another boat which had a shallower keel. No problem as 1pm gave us plenty of time to get a few last minute things done and then we'd have all day Tuesday to finish up. At 1pm the other boat had been pulled from the water, but the carriage was barely out of the water and the workers were still at lunch.

By 2pm I double checked with Karin, but she was still confident, telling us that they would shortly be moving the other boat to its storage location. At 3pm Karin came by to say that things were going slower than expected and they would have to haul us on Tuesday. Jerry's guidance had become reality. But no problem we were ready to go and could still complete everything on Tuesday afternoon before flying out on Wednesday morning.

At 4pm Karin came by with additional news. The carriage had broken under the weight of the previous boat and they would not be able to haul us at all! Wham, Fay's comments foreshadowed the problems with the morning boat. And as we walked by the morning boat it was clear that all was not well, though the yard was carefully using what they had to get it safely positioned in its cradle with a combination of a forklift and a small TravelLift from the adjoining yard. We were glad we were not the first boat after the repairs.

So now they are only going to haul boats up to 15tons (we are 20 metric tons). However, the week before the Christmas break they will be completely rebuilding the carriage to handle heavier boats so they can haul us in January. And they will be happy to have us stay in the water until then.

So New Morning stays in the water until January, at which time they will haul her out and store her on dry land. "The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go oft awry…".

Friday, October 21, 2011

Work, work, work

We've now been here for a week and it's been a full week of work. No snorkeling, no fish pictures, no sailing, just work. New Morning is now incredibly clean, probably cleaner than when she was launched. Every locker, all the stainless, the decks, the lines, the hatches, dingy, outboards, you name it it's been cleaned!

And after almost three weeks of rain every day we've had two days of clear sunny weather so we got everything dried out and put away. We have a few things to do on Saturday, then we'll take Sunday off and haul out on Monday. Then end of almost a full year of cruising. Just in time for winter in California.

But don't stop reading just yet. I've got a lot more pictures to post so you can see the full season. And then I'm going to be adding some pages on equipment ratings. Equipment to buy and equipment to avoid. So if you're a cruiser or sailor you may find our equipment experiences useful. And I'll probably update a few other sections as well. But first, time to finish getting packed up here and catch a flight home.

Friday, October 14, 2011

In the Marina

Well we're in the "marina" at CNI. It's pouring rain, it seems the rainy season may have started early as we've had rain every day for the last ten days, but today is particularly heavy. Check out the "Where's New Morning" and the satellite picture shows our location on the dock.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Poisson du jour

Tahaa trigger
Amazing snorkeling today. The coral river adjacent motu TauTau is just phenomenal. These are a few of my favorite fish.

First is the Picasso Triggerfish. It's obvious what inspired the Picasso part of the name.

Next I was able to capture two nice fish in one picture.



Tahaa checkboard wrasse
The lower fish is a Rabbitfish and above is Checkerboard wrasse. The Rabbitfish looks sort of like brain coral or a maze. They're monochromatic, but still striking. Entirely the opposite is the wrasse. The coloring on the wrasse is hard to capture, it's absolutely iridescent. I think the amount of checkerboard versus green and hot pink waves changes as they develop as we saw them a more or less checkerboard.

Tahaa Picasso
And then finally the Orange Lipped Triggerfish. One of the drawbacks of this location is the abundance of urchins. There were hundreds of these long spined black urchins, lurking under every clump of coral.

Some of the fish names are so obvious. Like Big Eyes that have - you guessed - big eyes! But I don't know who came up with Rabbitfish or Triggerfish.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Read my lips

Tahaa clam
For the last week our weather has been dominated by a very slow moving low. First there were 3-4 days of southerly winds. Those made the mooring in Bora Bora uncomfortable, but we took advantage of them to sail to Tahaa. Today the low is quite close so last night and today we had almost no wind at all. That made our last anchorage a little problematic since drifting to the east had the potential for wrapping our anchor chain around a mooring. So we moved south a couple of miles to Baie Tapuamu opposite Motu Tautau (or Islet Tautau). We had tried to visit Tautau yesterday but a few miles straight into the south wind at 10-15 kts and 1' - 2' chop in the dinghy was just not going to be in any fun so we turned around and went north to the village of Patio which was a more protected trip as we headed around the north shore. Then the wind died last evening and today was almost flat calm. From our new base in Tapuamu it was quick trip in flat water.

Tahaa Motu Maharare
We snorkeled between TauTau and Maharare in the "coral river". The water was very shallow which was challenging, but the fish were amazing! Several kinds of trigger wish we hadn't seen before, some new wrasses that looked absolutely psychedelic and lots of clams. Fay got some great clam shots, but this is the one she likes the best.

Then back at the dingy I shot this "screen saver" view of the southeast tip of Maharare looking north. Not much I can add, I think the picture says it all!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Tahaa

Today we took advantage of a south wind, which had made the mooring field in Bora Bora uncomfortable, to make the short passage to Tahaa. About an hour of motoring out the pass and then into the wind and seas at 6kts before we rounded the SW corner of the reef, eased the sheets and took off for Tahaa with the true wind at about 80 degrees for a close reach.

Even with the slow start we were able to average 7.8kts for the trip. And sailing New Morning was so enjoyable with Chuck Paine's hull powered by the rig from Offshore Spars and the wonderful running design developed by Scott Easom. Probably the last sail of the year and it as a delight.

We'll spend the next week or so exploring Tahaa, then head to Raiatea. Check "Where's New Morning" for our current location.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Bora Bora catch up

Huahine fire
Wow, way behind. Lots of stuff to catch up on.

At the last update we were escaping the fire in Baie Avea. So we'll pick it up there with a picture of the fire. This hill is quite steep and the fire is burning down the hill which seemed unlikely to me, but that's what it did. It blew over the ridge from the windward side of the island and then burned down the hill. It doesn't look too impressive here, and it probably only burned 10 acres in total, but it was enough to put a lot of ash and burning embers into the air and drive all the boats out of the anchorage.

Huahine blue eyed eel
So we moved to Fare, the big town on Huahine. It's still very small, but Huahine is a small island. We rented a car and toured the island, driving every road on the island in about three hours. The highlight of the tour was the sacred blue eyed eels. These are fairly large, probably 4' - 6' in length and 6" - 8" in diameter. They were living in a partially concrete lined creek of fresh water. And they do have blue eyes! Fay fed them some canned mackerel and at the same time some local girls showed up and were feeding them pieces of fish. The eels are supposed to be "sacred", but the girls seemed to have fun scooping them up (hard to really grab an eel) and tossing them in the air. I don't know if the eels like it or not, but it doesn't seem like the thing do with a "sacred" animal.

After a few days in Huahine we moved on to Bora Bora. Bora Bora is an even smaller island with a dramatic mountain and large lagoon. We toured all of the leeward side of the lagoon in our dinghy and saw a number of hotels that had been shuttered and closed. All of French Polynesia (and much of the world) has suffered economically the last few years, but Bora Bora has gotten a 1-2-3 punch that has hit it very hard. First the general economic situation has led to reduced spending on vacations. Then the reefs were impacted by an invasion of the crown of thorns, a type of starfish with a voracious appetite for coral. Then cyclone Oli hit the island in February 2010, destroying most of the remaining coral on the outside reef and a number of buildings.

Our primary reason for coming to Bora Bora was to meet friends that were flying down from California which gave us an excuse to get off the boat and stay in a very nice hotel on shore. So last Monday - Saturday we did our part to help the local economy and enjoyed a wonderful hotel, great food and time with our friends. Not content to just stare
Bora Bora snorkeling
at the white sand and crystal clear turquoise water, we also enjoyed some water sports. First was paddle boarding. This is a growing activity that someone will probably turn into a competitive sport. Basically the idea is to stand on a big wide surfboard and paddle around. It takes some work to balance on the board while stroking the water with a very long paddle. Fay and I both did this on two different days and became reasonably proficient. Still undecided is whether we'll take this up as a new form of exercise in the 54 degree waters of Richardson's Bay!

Next we did some snorkeling. The hotel had created a sort of man made lagoon. It was quite large with several different areas and arms that snaked through the grounds. It was fed by a 4' drainage pipe that connected to the ocean and brought a strong flow of sea water into the lagoon. Then at the other end it flowed out into the main lagoon. My expectations were pretty low, but it turned out to have a number of excellent fish, like the orangespine unicornfish pictured above.
Bora Bora Manta III
The hotel has also created a number of structures to encourage the growth of coral and there was definitely new coral growth and a new eco-system being created in the man made lagoon.

We also did some diving. The first dive was inside the lagoon to see the manta rays. The coral here was in good shape. I'm guessing that the location so far inside the lagoon had protected it from the pounding of cyclone Oli. The visibility was fair, not outstanding, but the manta rays were fantastic. The first photo with our friend and his camera gives you some feel for their size.
Bora Bora Manta
From wing tip to wing tip I think they were 8' - 10' and our fish book says they can be as large as 22'! They are impressively large in the water when they swim by. The area where we were diving is known as a "cleaning station" where the rays swim in and a small wrasse cleans any growth off their skin. It's a classic symbiotic relationship where the ray gets cleaned so they swim with less drag and the wrasse gets fed. The rays use their large mouth to capture the water and strain out the plankton, they are no threat to humans. None the less as they swam towards me, mouth wide open, I couldn't help but wonder. But then they would gracefully turn away, sort of like watching a 747 practice landings. Just watching the manta's swim around made the first dive one to remember.

Next we went to the outer reef, just outside the pass and dove a little deeper.
Bora Bora Lemon
But even at 70' the coral was devastated, a gray wasteland of broken coral. But there were a surprising number of fish and the water clarity was excellent. Just after we finished our initial decent a lemon shark came by to check us out, complete with a remora attached to his left side. The Lemon sharks actually have a slight yellow tint to their skin and are also identifiable by their very small eyes. This one did a few slow laps then swam away, apparently we weren't very interesting which was fine with us!

Bora Bora Moorish Idols
The rest of the dive was mostly small reef fish, and an eel. Then as we were nearing the end of the dive we found a collection of Moorish Idols which got right in our faces. Normally these fish stay our of reach and ignore us, but these were right in our masks which led us to conclude that somebody had been feeding them. Bathy's Dive center, a big chain of dive shops in French Polynesia, is known to feed the fish to give their customers a better experience, a practice we don't agree with. We're pretty sure that these fish have been trained to think that divers mean it's feeding time.

It's been raining on and off for most of the last two days. New Morning is getting a nice fresh water rinse and we're taking stock of what we need to do over the next couple of weeks before putting New Morning on the hard for cyclone season. We expect to be here a couple more days then leave for Tahaa before heading to Raitea where we'll haul out on the 24th.