Get Lost On Purpose

Blog

  • Being thankful for what ‘cha got…

    I finally managed to clean up my pile of tissues that had accumulated from the two hours of torture I inflicted on Drew that was “the Notebook”. Not really, he took it like a champ. Wish I could say that we’ve been diving in the wreck or snorkeling amongst massive schools of fish but some higher power is set on keeping us inside Dosia for days on end. At night, once the sun has set and hopefully the moon is providing an illuminated view of the reef we hear forcefully pounding out our windows, I find myself quickly donning a pair of long pajama pants, a long sleeve shirt, and wrapping myself from head to toe in a blanket. It’s cold. Okay, okay…my “idea” of cold has changed somewhat since having lived in French Poly for three months. For here, it’s cold. So to be honest, should a day finally produce some sunshine around here I’m not so sure the water temps are going to be anything I’m prepared to handle. I’ve actually been perfectly content holed up with Drew for a few days. Days which we have filled with movies, eating, books, drinking wine, more movies, and yesterday we taught ourselves to play rummy. While he says it’s about “expanding our horizons and learning something,” I really think Drew was just tired of having his keester handed to him time and time again by yours truly in Uno! He successfully kicked my ass yesterday in rummy and today’s attempts to get even will no doubt be intense.

    So in living on Dosia my “idea” of things changes on an almost daily basis. I’ve learned to live without some things and some things I’ve just had to learn to live with in a different way of that which I’ve always been accustomed, all the while realizing that I’m lucky to have any of this AT ALL. For instance, the head, a.k.a. the toilet. On Dosia, you do your business, close the lid, and to your left is a handle. You proceed to pump the handle up and down, up and down, up and down about fifteen to twenty times. In doing so, the vacuum formed in pumping is sucking water into the bowl, cleaning, and taking your business out as it goes. Too much? Nah. You can handle it. The other day Drew pulls out a spare toilet bowl lid. He says to me that while many might laugh at him for carrying a spare, should our existing one crack or anything happen to it, we wouldn’t be able to flush the toilet and we’d be up shit creek. Literally!

    Second example, the water. Dosia has two tanks that hold 90 gallons of water. That water gets into those tanks in one of three ways. It either 1)comes through the hose when we are docked, 2)we jerry jug it, or 3)we make it. Once the tanks are full our mission is to make that water last as long as possible. We never know if there will be a hose at the next dock we pull into or if the water on that particular island is even considered drinkable because sometimes it is unsanitary. Back home, I was not one of those people who was conscious of how much water I used in the shower, shaving, washing dishes, cooking…how quickly that has changed! When showering in our 2ft x2 1/2ft shower, you get in and turn on the water just long enough to get wet. In running the engine we can flip on the water heater and have a hot shower so from time to time we indulge as a treat to ourselves. After drenching myself I shampoo, shave, clean, and rinse before I turn the water on again and then it’s left on just long enough to wash away the suds. Showers over. It’s a quick process and depending on temps outside it can either be really refreshing or really chilly!

    If it sounds at all like I’m feeling sorry for myself or trying to gain sympathy points this is not the case at all. Believe me, we have it G-O-O-D out here and I am by no means roughing it. Some people we’ve come across don’t have a shower. Some people’s shower is over their toilet. Some people don’t have a toilet but a bucket instead. A BUCKET!!! Some people don’t have a fridge. A lot of people don’t have freezers which for them means that 95% of the time their meals consists of something from a can. Some people don’t have technological communications. Some people don’t have water makers so if they leave land with 90 gallons then they have to make that last until whenever they pull up to a water supply again. Our water maker, god bless it, makes one and a half gallons an hour. But you know what, that’s one and a half gallons more than we’d have if it wasn’t a luxury of ours.

    I think sometimes I write about these things not only for you but almost more for myself. As a reminder to me that anytime I get down or wish that something was “better” that there is always someone out there with less. Always. And who am I kidding, look at my tradeoff. There’s no 20 minute, hot shower in the world I’d swap for another chance to witness a whale putting on a show 50 yards from the boat. Nah, I’d definitely have to say I’m getting the better end of the deal…

  • Anchored inside Beveridge Reef

    We arrived at Beveridge Reef yesterday just after noon. The last day of sailing was crap compared to the first three days. It started raining in the middle of the night Friday and so far, it hasn’t stopped but for one hour long window the sun just happened to show itself and guide us safely across the lagoon. The fact there’s no land here, just reef, is still crazy as hell to me even though we’re anchored right here in the middle of it. It’s much larger here than I thought it would be. The lagoon is probably 2 miles across and double that north to south. It’s shaped somewhat like a kidney bean. There is a small wreck on the eastern side and we’re anchored south of it on a sand shelf in about nine feet of water. One other sailboat is in here about a half mile to our north. The reef is dead ahead about 200 yards so if the rain wasn’t stopping us from opening the hatches and windows we’d be listening to the soft, relaxing beat of waves crashing. As it happens, the weather is not so relaxing.

    Last night it started blowing hard. The perfect forecast I’d been staring at for the last week suddenly had a change of heart and formed a low just southeast of us. It looks like we’d be far enough west to avoid it but obviously we’ve not much luck when it comes to weather avoidance as of late. I feel really sorry for the folks who left Raro just behind us. Especially Chuck and Joan on Tender Spirit who departed on Thursday and are probably getting the crap kicked out of them. The wind is blowing in the 30-35 knot range, the rain is shootin’ sideways at us, and enough of the ocean swell is coming in over the reef to make it bouncy. I put an extra snubber on the anchor line early this morning in case we chafe through the first one. The great thing here is that if the anchor did break loose, we’d have plenty of time to unknowingly drift before we hit anything! It’s hard to say whether we’re better off in here since if we’d kept going we would certainly be far enough west to avoid this thing but it is nice to be anchored and sitting somewhat still. Of course, it’d be a lot nicer if I was snorkeling and diving in this crystal clear water instead hunkered down in our little home drinkin coffee listening to the wind howl through the rigging! After the sneak preview of what the water in this place looks like yesterday during our little sunshine window, there’s no way I’m leaving here till we get a chance to peek under the surface and see some wildlife.

    Speaking of wildlife, yesterday we finally saw one of my all time fantasies come to fruition. We were barely a half mile off the south side of the reef motoring around to the lagoon entrance. The rain had let up for a couple of minutes and was just a sprinkle. I was staring over at the breakers on the reef when directly in the middle of my field of vision a massive Humpback whale breached almost completely out of the water! It was so far above the surface I could see on its body where the skinny part of the tail started to widen into the flukes. It did a kind of a twist in mid air and land with a massive splash. I screamed “WHALE” and Marge came flying off the settee and up to the cockpit. There was at least one more humpback, maybe two, because as soon as she stepped foot on deck the second whale breached the surface and she got a great look at it. They danced on the surface for another minute or two before they calmed down and swam around shooting water out of their blowholes. We slowed down and waited, camera in hand, for another show but they finally dawdled off altogether and we lost sight. After talking to each other in Dory’s whale voice (“Finding Nemo” fans will know what I mean) for three days hopeful that we’d see one, Marge and I couldn’t believe our luck. It certainly goes down as one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. The fact we’re in the middle of the ocean on our own boat next to a remote reef it took over three days to get to made it all the better. There’s no better way to appreciate such an experience and it will certainly go down in my long list of unbelievable things this trip has allowed me to see and do.

    Alright, looks like it’s time to wake Marge up and start movie day here on Dosia. It doesn’t look like this weather is calming down any time soon and I promised we’d watch “The Notebook” on the next rainy day.

  • Day 3 Passage to Beveridge Reef and Niue

    All is well out here on the open seas. It’s Friday afternoon and we’re about 115 miles from Beveridge Reef sailing along at 6.5 knots under full mizzen and slightly furled genoa. We’ll have to slow down overnight tonight so we arrive in good daylight tomorrow. Although I have good coordinates on this place from several sources, I can’t bring myself to get within 5 miles of it at night!
    We’ve been making steady progress all three days. We haven’t seen another boat since the first night out of Raro. The weather has been absolutely perfect. It seems like it’s getting slightly warmer again as we head a little back to the north but we still miss our old friend the Equator. At night it dips down in the 60’s. We’ll okay, 68, but that seems really cold out here on the ocean!

    I had to run the engine a few hours to charge the batteries night before last but other than that we’ve been sailing along in silence. I took the chance in Raro to completelly fill up on fuel. I didn’t know when I’d see a price as good as $1.55 a liter (around $6/gallon) so I dropped by the harbormaster’s office to order up the fuel truck for delivery. They came down to the quai and I’m sure they were happy I called. After I took on 150 liters, six other boats announced they’d like fuel and finished out most of the 1000 liters they brought in the truck! As of now I’ve got a full 50 gallon tank, 30 extra gallons on decks, and I barely burn a half gallon per hour. So we’re good on fuel for quite a while now especially since after this passage the jumps are mostly 1-3 days through Fiji and we have plenty of time to wait for weather windows.

    Assuming all goes well, I’ll write again tomorrow night from anchor at Beveridge. I gotta go slow her down again. We’re up over seven knots and it’s barely blowing 20!

  • Left Raro-Sailing to Beveridge Reef

    We pulled out of Raro last night just before dark. I left feeling almost sorry for the place. Such a great island with such a horrible harbor. I guess it’s not always so bad but we inadvertently timed our stay with two passing troughs of low pressure that brought northerly winds, sunless skies, and a chill in the air. When we first arrived, the idea of not having to use the outboard motor to get into the dock seemed a relief. When the second northerly blew in this weekend it became a struggle to get the dinghy back and forth the few yards from quai to boat without getting your head ripped off by a neighbor’s lines. People were dropping anchors on top of other people’s anchors, words were getting exchanged, cleats and stanchions were popping off boats, Dosia was covered in dirt blowing off the quai; my little voice said “let’s get the hell out of here.” So we did. And now we’re over 100 miles out and sailing along blissfully under a full mizzen, double-reefed main, and full genoa. As soon as the wind backs around another 15 degrees, up goes the spinnaker and we will hopefully coast right into Beveridge Reef. We had homemade beef stew for dinner last night, homemade lasagne coming tonight, and the meals are planned for the rest of the trip assuming we don’t catch any fish…whenever I get around to throwing out some lines. This is sailing at its best and we’re having a ball. It’s blowing 10 knots on our beam, a few gusts up to 15 and we’re doing anywhere from 4.5-6 knots in easy-riding seas. Even Marge, the anti-passagemaker can’t complain in these conditions. If all goes to plan, we’ll arrive at Beveridge Saturday morning or midday for a mid ocean rest stop. One or two night’s stay depending on weather. No land, just reef and a lagoon. One of those weird mid-ocean anomalies. As always, I’m hoping to get Marge in the water with some sharks! Check it out on google. Peace.
    ————————————————-
    Do not push the “reply” button to respond to this
    message if that includes the text of this original
    message in your response. Messages are sent over a
    very low-speed radio link.

    The most concise way to reply is to send a NEW message
    to: “Drew”
    If you DO use your reply button, be sure to delete
    the original message text and these instructions
    from your reply.

    Replies should not contain attachments and should be
    less than 5 kBytes (2 text pages) in length.

    This email was delivered by an HF private coast station
    in the Maritime Mobile Radio Service, operated by the
    SailMail Association, a non-profit association of yacht
    owners. For more information on this service or on the
    SailMail Association, please see the web site at:
    http://www.sailmail.com