40 Days, 211 Flying Fish Later, on the Illogical Route

Mid-ocean, Anna, takes the swell on a dead-down run.

‘Logic doesn't really have much to do with the salt-water universe.’

-Bernard Moitessier

THE PLAN WAS TO LAY A COURSE OF 180 DEGREES TRUE, more or less, for 31 days and 3,100 nm; this, we figured, would take us directly from Galapagos to Patagonia, bypassing Easter Island 600 nm to the east. Anna was half way to Easter Island, the westernmost outpost of Chile, before we realized that the plan we had envisioned had nothing whatsoever to do with the reality of the moment. Because after 40 days and nights at sea, and 3,401 nm later, we had arrived at Hiva Oa, in French Polynesia - bearing 270 degrees true; over 5,000 miles away, as the great albatross flies, from where we had determined we would go, 40 days earlier.

‘The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray’.

What had happened? How did we manage to stray so far away? The South Pacific high had happened; it had been uncooperative, stubborn, out of character, pesky, but more important, out of place according to the historical data we were looking at. In order for Anna to make progress in a southerly direction (after departing the Galapagos) the wind direction needed to favor the SE quadrant (i.e., east to east-southeast to southeast). And that is what normally happens in the month of December, off the west coast of South America, where we began our passage to southern Chile. But this year was an anomaly. True, it was an El Nino year, and a strong El Nino event can have a significant impact on wind direction, strength, and currents, but we don't believe that El Nino was responsible for the shift in wind direction over the SE Pacific Ocean, as it was questionable according to NOAA, as to whether or not El Nino had even developed yet (it was still early December 2014 and the prognosis was leaning toward a weak to neutral southern oscillation). We believe that the anomaly was simply a glitch, a snafu which had occurred, coincidentally, at the time that we were en route, near 11 degrees south latitude and 100 degrees west longitude.

Technically, a persistent, strong high pressure system was centered over 30S/110W and this had the effect of shifting the wind, in our general ocean neighborhood, toward the SSE, essentially heading us to the southwest and well away from our intended course. In fact, we had migrated far enough away from our intended course to land us at either Pitcairn Island or the Gambiers, in southeastern Polynesia, thousands of miles out of our way. What to do?

Anna en route to French Polynesia.

We had been beating hard to weather for ten straight days, shortly after departing Galapagos. The SE Trade winds were reinforced, and averaged over 25 knots just off our port bow. The seas were confused by a cross swell in addition to the short-period wind waves we were experiencing and their height was in the neighborhood of 3-4 meters on average. Anna happens to go well to weather, but we were only 1,000 nm into a 3,000 nm to 4,000 nm passage, and the forecasted grib files promised conditions to deteriorate with higher strength winds, and bigger seas, both from an unfavorable direction for at least the next week. We were moving well, but we were not moving in the correct direction, not unless we were agreeable to reaching Patagonia after a 6,000 nm ride, out just west of Gambier and then doubling back and riding the 40th parallel back to southern Chile - a tight beat to weather for the first third of the passage, then some downwind work in unstable air near the edge of the cyclone zone, followed a thousand miles later by erratic wind and waves, which might arise from any quarter and at any time - sprinkled with short but intense squalls, for the last third of the ride and confused seas to match.

Anna was taking a beating, and so were we, but she's tough and could take it. We on the other hand thought the time had probably come to take a right turn and continue on, downwind for a while. Our heads were spinning, no kidding, and calming life down a bit sounded like just the ticket. Ease the sheets. Re-group. We were at a crossroads so to speak, at the intersection of no and where, at least 2,500 nm from anywhere that we could actually land, drop the hook, take a walk, and sort things out. We had a new decision to make and logic told us that our new destination would be

Overview of Anna's route to French Polynesia.

either the Gambier group, in southeast Polynesia, or the Marquesas Islands, in northeast Polynesia. The Gambiers, at the time, had been experiencing very unstable weather conditions due to their proximity to the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ). The SPCZ was sending heavy rain and squalls toward the Gambiers, along with remnants of tropical storms and cyclonic winds that had moved in from hot spots further west. The Marquesas, 15 degrees and 900 nm to the north and slightly west of Gambier, on the other hand, seemed more care free. It would be a longer distance to cross to make the Marquesas from where we were, and the wind direction would be somewhat more difficult to negotiate as it would be dead down and require occasional long gybes in shifting winds (as opposed to a more efficient broad reach which the Gambiers offered), but all in all, and compared to what we had been experiencing, it would be easy-peasy to make the Marquesas. That is, until our Monitor self-steering device lost its water paddle to the sea, just before dark, and with over a thousand nautical miles to go. The prospect of hand steering the remainder of the way, before we would arrive at Hiva Oa, in French Polynesia, was daunting.

Under the aluminum dodger in a rain squall.

It is said that stainless steel is great, until it isn't...that is, until it suddenly fails, catastrophically. It was puzzling, if not shocking, how we could have lost this critical piece of gear, which essentially acted as an ocean-going mechanical autopilot that would self-steer the boat according to the direction of the wind (as opposed to a compass course). The reason we have a mechanical self-steering device is to eliminate the possibility of an electrical failure, in the circuit boards of an electronic autopilot (something which often occurs at just the wrong time), from interrupting our ability to steer automatically - it is the same logic that a ship’s navigator might use to insure that if there is an electrical failure, the ship's paper charts can be used to complete the journey.

A serious mechanical failure of a stainless steel wind vane isn't a common occurrence. We have used our Monitor self-steering device for fifteen years and made multiple long-distance ocean crossings of the Pacific without incident. However, it should have been no surprise to us that stainless could in fact fail, and it should go without saying that if it does fail, it will occur at mid-ocean. Stainless, even 316-grade steel, will corrode after prolonged exposure in the harshest environment on earth, the ocean. Hidden crevice corrosion had apparently occurred in the exterior portion of the stainless tube, which runs through the Monitor's water paddle (rudder). It's very hard to detect this type of crevice corrosion and actually do something about it in advance of its failure. It is for this same reason that insurance companies require stainless rigging to be replaced at least every ten years when writing an insurance policy for a yacht that is going to cross an ocean. Failure of the standing rigging is much more serious than losing the use of a self-steering device. Nonetheless, the loss of a self-steering device, mid-ocean, is no picnic.

The rudder of an older Monitor with a lot of years of exposure to the elements – such as our circa 1987 model, which was constructed with 304-grade stainless steel can simply shear off and vanish into the abyss if a hidden hairline crack develops over time. And even though 316-grade stainless is less corrosive, and used in more recent versions of Monitor wind vanes, we think that close inspection of the lower parts of the device that are in close proximity to - or actually submerged - in the ocean, merit careful inspection for signs of crevice corrosion before the passage begins. Try loosening the lower bolts on the brackets that secure the Monitor’s frame to the hull. If the head of the bolt shears off, or if the bolt is corroded and won’t come out, it’s time to replace the hardware and very carefully inspect the hinge assembly and rudder tube for signs of pending trouble. Jury-rigging a replacement rudder may be difficult to impossible, especially in seas of any size while underway.

In our case we were left with only two options: either hand steer Anna, 24/7, for the next thousand miles (i.e., nonstop, for days and days with only a crew of two - grueling), or jury rig a system of bungee cords to help tweak the steering a bit by gently holding the wheel in place and keeping the boat, more or less, on track. To do this effectively, however, requires that the sail plan be perfectly balanced - hard to do when moving dead downwind in a cross swell with continual shifting winds and squalls that wreak havoc with the course and require constant correction. That said, we managed to rig a balanced sail plan, although it did require less sail area up than we would normally have liked. We were tracking well (without having to hand steer), but we were moving very slowly (about 3 knots, sometimes less), as a result of the necessary reduction in sail area to balance the rig, in fluky conditions. With a self-steering device it is much easier to sail with a sail plan that isn't optimally balanced. The Monitor can compensate quite a bit. But unfortunately, we no longer had that option available to us. However, Anna has a long keel and tracks very well downwind on her own if the sails are balanced. She is a forgiving boat and helped us out - made it possible for us to relax, sleep when we needed to, while she managed to steer a straight line under non-optimal conditions. 

Anna zigzags to the west, in shifting NE to SE Trades.

We had tried various sail configurations underway, that is, different combinations of mainsail (with first, second, or third reef set) combined with a working staysail, or a storm staysail, or a Yankee jib, or a code-zero drifter when conditions went light. To our surprise, we found that keeping a second reef in a centered main, and sheeting it flat, in combination with a working staysail, also - and illogically - centered and sheeted flat, seemed to balance out the rig and track well. It was slow going, granted, and normally we would never sheet in a staysail or main, especially in light air, when running dead down, but no other combination was as care free and hands off. With this sail plan we had no need to hand steer at all, even with fluky, variable winds and heavy sporadic gusting and confused seas. We never would have imagined this to work, and it was by accident that we had stumbled on to it. Anna even gybed herself, in the shifty squalls, and without incident, when the wind suddenly backed and set her on a new course, as she zigzagged her way west. We weren’t moving very fast, but it worked out, and it got us where we were going, a thousand miles dead down, without the benefit of our Monitor and more important, without the need to endlessly hand steer.

Of course we had not intended to end up in French Polynesia. If we had, our route would have been much shorter, that is, not so roundabout. After all, no one intentionally heads in the direction of southern Chile for a better wind angle to French Polynesia. We would have followed the rhumbline from Galapagos, west-southwest to the Marquesas, an easy broad reach almost the entire way from about 5 degrees south latitude. And at the right time of year, say April, instead of December, it would likely be a much faster ride with favorable, stronger currents to boost the speed. It could have taken us about half the time. But since our intended destination was southern Chile, by the offshore route, we had gone much further south than would normally be required to lay the Marquesas. The result was a long, squally 40-day passage with unstable weather for at least half the ride. In fact, it would probably have taken less time to get to northern Patagonia if the South Pacific high had been even modestly cooperative.

In any event, in the end, we simply went with the flow. It was all we could do. To mentally and physically shift, from gearing up for the chilly climate of southern Patagonia, to the polar opposite of steamy weather in the Polynesian tropics, took some getting used to. But we have been acclimating.

After almost six weeks at sea we were getting down on our stores of fresh fruit and vegetables - we had degenerated to eating popcorn and snorting black label whiskey by the time we finally pulled into Hiva Oa. When we arrived we were greeted by another sailor who stopped by to deliver a fresh baguette and a couple of ripe mangoes to Anna, after seeing her pull in with heavy algae and barnacle growth along her waterline - a sure sign that a sailing vessel had just arrived from somewhere far away, and probably had nothing of interest left in her lockers to eat or drink. 

Getting around the anchorage at Hiva Oa.

The trees on Hiva Oa are filled with exotic fruit and the French, of course, take their cuisine seriously. It's been a while, years actually, since we've seen people walking around with fresh baguettes sticking out of their backpacks. The baguettes are subsidized by the government and cost 50 cents apiece. The local shops are stocked with good cheeses, and a selection of delectable foods and bottles of wine. We even had exquisite crepes one afternoon on our way into the village, a thirty minute walk from the anchorage, up and around the bay, along the road which skirts the ocean and climbs high into the hills before opening up into a vista of massive, towering, verdant peaks that overlook the small village of Atuona. Hard to believe, that located on a small, remote Polynesian island in the South Pacific Ocean, a thousand miles away from Tahiti to the south and west, and thousands of miles from anywhere else to the east, where we had just come from, all this civilization existed, seemingly under the radar.

To pass the time on our voyage from Galapagos, each morning we had a ritual, which included amongst other things, such as recording data in the ship's log and downloading weather info through our HAM radio set, walking the decks and inspecting the rigging and sails and general state of affairs after the night watch was over. And inevitably, we would find, scattered around the decks, flying fish that landed - to their great surprise and demise - on Anna's topsides, and couldn't manage to make it back through the scuppers, into the ocean from where they had emerged. Our final count, after 40 days, was 211 flying fish that Anna had managed to catch. That's quite a haul, and with very little effort, we could have eaten a seemingly never ending supply of fresh fish without ever dropping a line over the side.

In almost six weeks at sea we saw very little human activity outside of our little world on Anna. One morning, about a week into our passage, a bright orange helicopter, with two men in bright orange life vests flew toward us, they were coming from the south with great speed, flying low and directly for our mast. When they approached, just after dawn, we were busy reefing our mainsail. They circled us twice and waved hello and as quickly as they appeared, they had banked hard to our port side and disappeared beyond the horizon, 800 miles south of the Galapagos. We tried to determine where they had come from or where they were going or what exactly, they were doing, but it remains a mystery. It seemed to us that they had a fuel supply that would allow them to fly at least 1,000 miles. That would have meant a departure from Easter Island if they were coming from the south, en route for the Galapagos. Either that or they had a landing pad on a large ship somewhere closer. Either way, they were a long ways from home, just like us. Another week had passed before we saw another boat. This time it was a large, commercial fishing boat about 25 nm away off our port bow and moving toward the north and east – no concern - about 1,500 nm offshore of Peru. They too disappeared over the horizon and behind the swells. About three weeks later, shortly after we lost our self-steering rudder, we spotted two more vessels about 20 nm away off our starboard bow. We tried to hail them on our VHF but had no response. Why would they be monitoring their radio with nothing but a vast disk of sparkling, sapphire seas for as far as the eye could see? And that was the extent of our human sightings for the entire time we were underway. 

211 flying fish landed on Anna's deck, mid-ocean.

As far as non-human life went, we saw a variety of sea birds out as far as 1,000 miles offshore. These included boobies and tropic birds and petrels and frigates. But the bird that really took the prize for long-distance foraging was the small, unlikely, papamosca, who never appeared to rest and could be spotted, all by its self - a loner - banking and swooping just atop the waves, for thousands of miles across the sea. As we once again closed on land, dolphins glided in Anna's wake, crisscrossing her bow endlessly and effortlessly. Once again the tropic birds began to appear and then the others, in increasingly greater numbers as we got closer to the archipelago. They were curious to see us bobbing along and began to circle Anna before getting back to the serious business of fishing. Flying fish were in a class of their own. They didn't start to appear until all the birds (with the exception of the papamosca) disappeared. The flying fish would suddenly emerge from the ocean and fly just over the spray of the waves. They could travel for a hundred meters or more and even change direction mid-flight, darting randomly every which way. They resembled the patterns that can be observed in particle accelerator imagery. They fly in massive silver, glittering schools, day and night, and occasionally end up taking a wrong turn and colliding with Anna, who takes great pride in capturing them.  

Final approach to Hiva Oa, Marquesas - rainbow at entrance.

Hiva Oa appeared as a dark, black blob on the radar (not unlike the target that appears when a heavy squall arrives) and then on the horizon, at twilight, on day forty. And as the morning continued to brighten, the landscape revealed its true nature. The Marquesas are an archipelago and some of the islands, such as Hiva Oa, where we happened to land, are spectacularly verdant and high and folded and sometimes shrouded in a low-lying, stationary, self-generated cloud bank, which may offer up rain showers that cool the land and turn it unfathomably green, lush, and occasionally, exotically steamy. 

Hiva Oa, Atuona harbor approach.

 The islanders are mainly of Polynesian decent and cultural heritage, very friendly, and have simple, elegant, traditional designs tattooed on various parts of their bodies. They speak a combination of French and/or Polynesian depending on who they are talking to. We are trying to learn a few words of local Polynesian lingo to break the ice, which, in the case of the Polynesian people, doesn't seem to be necessary. They are extremely low-keyed and happy to have us around. The island is remarkably clean. In fact the only refuse we have seen is organic - the fruit (mango, papaya, coconut, star fruit, and pamplemousse - a type of grapefruit - and of course the omnipresent banana) that have dropped off the trees and lay on the side of the roads. There is such abundance of tropical fruit here that the little stores in the village don't even sell fruit. It is simply picked or given away.

South side of Hiva Oa, lit up at sunrise, on final approach.

Life isn't hard to take here, in Polynesia. Maybe drifting radically off course, while en route to chilly Chile, and washing up on a small Polynesian island to complete more boat repairs, in yet another exotic location, wasn't so bad after all! Southern Chile just moved to the back burner. We intend to sail through the Marquesas to explore the archipelago in more depth as soon as we finish repairing our self-steering device. 

Hiva Oa approach after sunrise with rain showers ahead.

 We'll remain in the Marquesas until the end of March or beginning of April, when the cyclone season here in the South Pacific, winds down. We will then continue on, past the Tuamotus coral atolls, to Tahiti and the Society Islands, a thousand miles south and west of the Marquesas. 

A pensive Cat arrives after 40 days at sea.

The Marquesas are on the trailing edge of the eastern limits of the cyclone zone, which extends from Australia, in the west, to half way across the expanse of the southern Pacific Ocean, where we are currently located. It's rare to see a cyclone hit here, in the Marquesas...famous last words, in the illogical world of ocean weather.

***