We are six days getting to Bermuda, and eight getting to St. Martin, Leeward
Islands. All in all, a good start.
After weeks of work and worry, fitting out and shaking down, Ruth Avery and I
pause for a breath, anchored
on the placid waters of the Chesapeake Bay.
It is late October, 2001, and soon we will set off for the Caribbean.
We are six days getting to Bermuda, and eight getting to St. Martin, Leeward
Islands. All in all, a good start.
In the Caribbean we meet the mighty Trade Winds. These are not the balmy breezes of travel brochures! I would spend Christmas in Antigua, gradually working my way south to Bequia. I doubled back to the Virgin Islands in the spring. On the whole I had mixed feelings about the Eastern Caribbean, but I nonetheless give the Virgin Islands a hearty thumbs up.
On April 5, 2002, I set off for Galveston, TX. I decided to ship Ruth Avery across the US
rather than transit the Panama Canal, where I would have to secure a very costly tow.
The only other route to the Pacific is of course westward around Cape Horn, but I was not up to
that challenge just yet.
I was three weeks getting to Galveston from St. Thomas. The Trade Winds played cat and mouse with me all the way past Jamaica, but I made up a good deal of time in the Yucatan Channel, with fresh southeasterlies and several knots of favorable current.
The overland trip took three days. Ruth Avery looked just a bit out of place in the desert!
On June 12, 2002, Ruth Avery weighed anchor from Dana Point, CA, and
put to sea. It was a bright and sunny start, but one day out and the northerlies
filled in, brisk and cold, bringing fog and drizzle. We encountered the doldrums around
10 degrees north, and picked up the SE Trades around 5 north. From then on, it was fast
and easy sailing.
Dolphins and pilot whales were always welcome vistors, yet one time they got so rowdy that one of them (I presume) accidentally hit the servo oar to my Aries steering vane, causing the air paddle to crack in half. Thankfully I had a spare.
On July 8 I made landfall at Nuku Hiva, Marquesas. The majesty of these islands
deserves the poetry of Homer.
Thus I began the "coconut milk run" across the South Pacific, calling at such fabled places as Rangiroa, Tahiti, and Bora Bora. The South Pacific is truly magic--though one must navigate with care, as the numerous reefs regularly claim keels.
The anchorage at Palmerston Atoll leaves much to be desired, yet it is not to be passed up for that.
Sailors are immediately adopted by one of three families living on the
atoll. These people do not skimp on hospitality! A fellow cruising sailor was kind
enough to take the photo of me.
Last stop was Vava'u, Tonga. I could have stayed there a mighty long time. Good anchorages
are so numerous, and their Tongan names are so hard to pronounce let alone
remember (at least for us english speaking folks), that the Moorings Charter Company
simply numbered them. My favorites were #5 and #8. Between them one can sail in
protected waters with Trade Wind conditions. Pretty much paradise for a cruiser.
The passage south to New Zealand lived up to its reputation--tough! Oh the first
half was fine, but the last five hundred miles took some doing, as the saying goes.
Day after day Ruth Avery and I beat into strong, sometimes gale force southwesterlies,
tacking back and forth and making depressingly little progress. I lived in my foul weather
gear, ate canned food on top of boiled rice, and tried not to think of how many miles
I had left to cover. Yet when I tied up to the customs dock in Opua, on November 25,
all was sunny and cheerful and I think I even managed a smile then.
New Zealand's lovely R. Tucker Thompson arrived home from her Pacific
odyssey about one week after I had made Opua. Soon she was back in service
around the beautiful Bay of Islands, doing day charters. She never subtracted anything
from the view.
New Zealand's lost cost, high quality boatyards are a blessing to cruisers who have
come from afar. I hauled out at Ray Robert's Marine, in Whangerei. There I painted
and polished, and put a fairing in front of the rudder (to close the useless propellor aperture).
Ruth Avery went back in the water looking like she belonged in a bottle.
Northeastern New Zealand is a cruising sailor's delight. Great Barrier Island, though not more
than fifty miles from Auckland, has hardly been touched by humankind. I was escorted in
to Port Abercrombie by a pair of orca whales. I managed to catch one of them on camera.
What is there to do on a boat without any electricity, not even a battery powered
laptop with a DVD player? Watch the sun set, naturally ...
