Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Diving in Fakarava, Te Ava Nui

So, we left the Fakarava behind us, and are currently on the way to Tahiti. We should be arriving some time tomorrow afternoon if the wind stays steady. Oskar's flight comes in early the next day, so we do have a deadline to meet. We had a great time in Fakarava, and I could easily have stayed another week. We were anchored right outside the dive shop, so we tied the dinghy up there. I dove three times with the two very friendly French guys that runs the place, and the last dive was probably the best I ever done. We dove in the big pass, right when the current was about to switch from going into the lagoon to going out, so the current wasn't too strong. It is one thing to be weightless, which by itself is great when you dive, but if you add a 2 knot current and canyons, you really feel like you are flying. At a few spots you position yourself close too the coral to avoid the current and just observe the large amount of sharks and ocean fish that are just circling the area. The sharks come right up to you and there is so many of them, but somehow you feel totally safe. The last dive it was just Mark and me and the two instructors, one was taking photos for a French magazine, since the conditions were so good. If there are some divers reading this, I can just say that you have to go there, after diving in a lot of places in the South Pacific, this is definitely one of the best. The Italian lady Martina stayed with us for the reminder of our stay there, and we had some great times at sunset on the boat. The sunset in a lagoon is just spectacular, and if you mix it with good friends and some cold Hinano or good wine, well, you have a winner.

Take care,

Fredrik,

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Saturday, June 24, 2006

Fakarava

Maiken is swaying on anchor inside the lagoon of Fakarava, and me and H�kan spent yesterday snorkeling and appreciating the beauty of the atoll. Later on today we are scheduled to go diving on the reef outside the pass, and hopefully do a drift dive in the pass tomorrow. There is only a handful other boats here a three of them is Norwegians. Everybody have telling us about their fantastic diving experiences, so we are really looking forward to this afternoon. The drift dive is a fairly technical dive, and since neither H�kan or myself have been diving that much the last few years, we thought it would be better to start of with a easier dive. We have kind of teamed up with a young Swiss guy by the name of Mark, who is sailing on a British boat. Nice guy, and it is always more fun to have more people along when snorkeling or diving. By chance we also ran into a young Italian lady by the name of Martina, who is staying for a week on the atoll. She swims out to our boat and hangs out or go snorkeling with us, a fun loving woman who spent last night on Maiken, and swam back ashore in the morning. Most boats in the anchorage is monitoring the weather closely, as everyone wants to time their next passage when there is wind but without too much ocean swells. The French radio warned about dangerous swells today in the southern Tuamotus, and the wind is supposed to die out in the next few days, so you really have to find a window when the compromise between swell and wind is okey. Fakarava is very laid back and the people very friendly and there seems to be a lot of kids around. The women are more beautiful here than in the Marquesas, and people cycle everywhere. We will probably be here until Sunday or Monday, when we sail on to Tahiti.

Take care,

Fredrik,

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Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Don't you fish in that blue lagoon.....

Lat; 15 deg 35' S Long; 145 deg 12' W 14.05 local time June 20 2006

We are now in the Tuamotu's archipelago. A dangerous place, many atolls have wrecks on their coral reefs. Despite modern navigational aids like the GPS, it's still considered hazardous to navigate here. The atolls are very low, the palm trees being the only thing visible at a distance. And since most of the atoll's circumference lack palm trees to mark its boundaries you can imagine that it's easy to get too close, and even bump into a coral head. And that's not good for you or your boat. If you manage to avoid the coral reefs you still have the challenge of getting safe through the passes into the lagoon. Tides create strong currents with breakers and the narrow passes are lined with razor sharp coral heads so you better pick the right time for passage. We are sailing really slow to get to Fakarava in the morning when the tide is right.
This vast area encompassing roughly half the size of western Europe consist of two parallel chains of atolls running from northwest to southeast. With it's 76 atolls, of which 41 are inhabited, it's the largest group of atolls in the world. Rangiroa, the second largest atoll in the world is here. As is Raroia, the atoll that Thor Heyerdahl and his raft Kon Tiki landed on 1947 after crossing the Pacific from South America. The Tuamotu's is also home of the Mururoa atoll, known for numerous French nuclear tests. The few people living here traditionally made a living from selling copra and fishing. Today pearl farming is the main industry. Although there's a lot of fish in the lagoon many of them can't be used for food because of Ciguatera, a nerve disease caused by a toxin produced by Gambierdiscus toxicus, a one-celled dino-flagellate algae, that small fish feed on. Reversal of hot and cold sensation are one of the symptoms. Fancy that! Just think what those toxins can do. Numbness and tingling around the mouth and extremities are also common. In my practice back in Ume� that symptom is almost always due to hyper-ventilation. But here you have to think of intoxication. So Fredrik and I will stick to fish from the open ocean. Yesterday we caught a Wahoo again. And now Fredrik is making brownies. Yummy!!

Take care out there.
Remember that old Eskimo saying; Nanook! - Don't you go were the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow!
In the local pacific variant it will be; Tetohu! - Put away that toxic fish, the lagoon's catch is not a proper dish!

H�kan

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Sunday, June 18, 2006

Lovely sailing

12deg52.983S 143deg16.903W 19:15L

We are currently on the way to the atoll of Fakarava. The sailing has been lovely so far and we are making really good speed. The wind and sea is dropping for every hour that passes, but we still have enough for Maiken to glide ahead in 5 to 6 knots. It has been really hot the last few days, and pearls of sweat runs down your back as soon as you try to do some chores inside. We have begun to listen to the cruiser net on the SSB radio in the morning, it is a bit more interesting now that you know some of the people that are reporting in. We have caught 3 small tunas the last two days, and that is after just having the line in the water for a few minutes, it is almost absurd. H�kan has been making sashimi and tuna curry, it has been nice that the fish has been of a smaller size, so that there isn't so much waste.

Take care,

Fredrik,

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Friday, June 16, 2006

We are sailing again

Today we left the Marquesas Islands behind us and set sail for the Tuamotus. We had sailed from Daniel's Bay yesterday, to provision and upload some pictures in the main village. Most of the boats in Daniel's Bay had decided on leaving at sunrise today, after been waiting for the strong winds and swell to settle down, but still have good wind all the way to the atolls. This was the first time H�kan and me really participated in the cruising community with all the talk on the VHF and SSB, although we didn't do much talking, just learning from the more experienced sailors. It was a rush to head out from Daniel's Bay and encounter fairly large swell right on the nose as they came funneled down into larger bay that feeds into Daniel's Bay. We had a great evening onboard the Norwegian boat Uterus the other night singing to Henrietta's guitar and putting the rest of the anchorage at a standstill, we were that good. We will most likely sail to Fakarava, the second largest atoll, which is supposed to have some amazing snorkeling. It felt really good to be sailing again, and Maiken is making good speed in the 15 to 20 knot wind. Right now the only thing missing is a fish on the line.

Take care,

Fredrik,

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Thursday, June 15, 2006

This is Daniels place and the two pickup trucks used on the beach. Another rather typical Marquesian home. Every little village has it’s own telephone booth .It’s warm like in… but the NoNo’s makes you keep some clothes on. Still happy though. Every little village seems to have a chapel as well. This is the waterfall from some distance, best viewed that way. This is some of the boats in Daniels bay, at the back to the left there’s Uterus from Bergen. Very nice people Benjamin and Henrietta.








Chilli for water.

On Monday we hiked to the local waterfall through the jungle on a muddy, slippery, rocky little path that crossed the stream several times. After a while the crossings became a welcome opportunity to cool off. It took two and an half hours to walk to the bottom of the water fall. Very nice cliffs there hiding most of the water fall. It was more like hearing it and feeling the cold drizzling air. From distance along the path there was a good view of the fall though. Beautiful, very high, but not so big. Our water bottle was almost empty due to an unfortunate leak so we felt rather lightheaded from dehydration when we got back after five hours. Later in the afternoon we visited Daniel, who lives with his wife in the bay, to get water. Daniel is well known among Pacific sailors for his hospitality and good water. We gave Daniel a couple of packages of Staggs chilli in return for the water .He showed me a guest book filled with hundreds of names of visiting sailors . I have a total of seven guest books he told me. I asked about the two relatively new pickup trucks on the beach, and if there was a road leading from his bay. Oh no, he said, there is no road connection to the rest of the island. They use the cars to drive along the 500 m of grass road that goes along the stream. The cars came by ship. Daniel and his wife are the only permanent residents here but sometimes as much as ten people stay here. We saw a few of them, moving their lawns and chopping threes. Among the few houses there was a telephone boot and a little chapel with a statue of Maria Magdalena.
In Daniels bay there are 17 yachts, all the same the last three days. I guess we're all waiting for the swells too vane.
Right now Fredrik's baking a cake! It's H�kan today, my names day, something that usually goes by unnoticed. But today it seems like a good reason to make a cake.

May the sun shine on you.
And let there be shaded places for you to hide from it.

H�kan

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Sunday, June 11, 2006

Just another day...

God day to U all!

This morning it felt like we've seen enough of Taiohae bay for a while so we set sail for Hakatea bay 5 nm to the west. This short voyage will be remembered for the enormous swells from southeast we encountered. A humble guess is 14 feet high swells, they sure made life interesting for a while. We didn't check the weather for just such a short distance. Not that it had mattered. Hakatea bay is crowded with boats most of them we recognize from Hiva Oa and Taiohae bay. The Norwegian boat Uterus and Interlude III from Australia to mention a couple. The bay is surrounded by steep cliffs, the nearest being some 570 m if my trigonometry and Sextant reading can be trusted. In the morning we will walk up to the local waterfall two km away, The Akuii with 350 m fall height. Today I've started on the rope ladder that we need to get up in the rig to get a good view when sailing the Tuamotos with it's reefs and narrow passages. I must say I long for the clear water and snorkeling that awaits us in Rangiroa. And it's time to do some serious fishing. The last two days we've eaten deep frozen meat filet's imported from Uruguay. I hope You liked the pictures we posted. It will probably be at least another two weeks to the next posting with pictures.

Take care

H�kan

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Ice cold Hinano and slow internet connection

As you can see, we were finally successful in uploading some pictures to the blog. The internet cafe here is very primitive, and the connection gets really slow at times. We plan to sail to the Anaho Bay on the other side of the island tomorrow morning, and stay there for a few days. A few people have asked what the best way to contact us is, and as long as you keep it to small emails, you can use wdc8342@sailmail.com. We got really lucky to be here in Nuku Hiva while the small county fair was going on, it has been really nice to see the locals come out and enjoy themselves. We were joined by another Swedish boat here in the harbor yesterday, a nice couple from Gothenburg, we had drinks with them tonight and they definitely had a story to tell. They sailed in from Vancouver yesterday after been cruising the coast of Alaska for a summer.

Take care,

Fredrik,

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Saturday, June 10, 2006

Nuku Hiva

Some pictures from Nuku Hiva. First a landfall picture and a picture showing the weather, it rained a lot the first two days. The old quay was crowded with dinghies so you had to climb over other dinghies to get ashore. The kids in Nuku Hiva sure know how to amuse themselves, by surfing the local waves in the bay and by jumping from the bridge into the water. Football seems to be big too.
One of the first things we do getting ashore is a trip to the local magasin. Here’s Magasin Larson. Pain riche and cold beer and deep frozen meat from Uruguay were the choice today. Some pictures from a local market by the shore. They sell everything from bananas to expensive cars like new Defenders. A band played and there was some food stands. Nice. Fredrik bought a nice handy crafted walking stick. Good to have when he gets older I guess.

















Friday, June 09, 2006

Hiva Oa

First picture shows Hiva Oa from 10 nautical miles away, the first sight of land in a month! As you can se I’m pretty excited. You can really appreciate that it’s a volcanic island seeing these high cloud embedded mountains. Atuona to the left and the airport to the right, there are daily flights between the islands. A lot of rain but this day clear skies and a beautiful view of the local bay and mountain. A picture of Maiken in the more secluded Hana Menu bay and the only real house left in Hana Menu bay. Deserted as far as we can tell. It rained a lot and after a couple of hours you can se the sediment rich water coming into the bay from the local hillside river.











Passage- the sea and the sky

Sailing makes you spend a lot of time watching the sky and the sea, both for the beauty of it but also to learn about the coming weather. It’s fascinating how different the sea can look under various conditions. On a sunny day you can really understand why it’s called “blue water sailing”. The sea can be almost ridiculously blue or as in one these pictures it can look like melted lead or clay. The sky pictures speak for them self.









Passage- some underway pictures

For the sake of good luck, Maiken and the Pacific Ocean had a toast of this fine Champagne as we left the Californian coast. The second picture shows the GPS plotter with our position marked as a round ring. You can see us getting close to the equator and the white “terra incognita” behind. Here I try to establish our local noon, and the suns declination using the Sextant. And this made it possible for us to find out what we already knew by means of the GPS. But still, interesting! As you can see it wasn’t all hard work making the passage. Here’s Fredrik in the Hammock on foredeck reading a book. And we always kept clean and tidy; you never know when there would be company. Not that we’ve seen any mermaids yet, but still.





Passage- some fishing pictures

In Sweden we have a saying that a fisherman always exaggerates when describing his catch. These pictures show only a fraction of the fish we caught, but perhaps some the most beautiful specimen and only the fish Fredrik reeled in. I haven’t taught him to use the camera yet. First there is a fine Tuna, a Mai Mai and then a Sailfish. Beautiful fish!
Last a picture of some of the fly fish that landed on the boat during the night.
The fresh fish meant a lot to us after the first couple of weeks when the supplies of fresh food diminished rapidly. Here you can se Fredrik enjoying the Sashimi and Nigri sushi I made for him. On the last picture we have filet of Wahoo and scalloped potatoes. Yummy!!