MARSHALL ISLANDS to DUTCH HARBOR, ALASKA, PACIFIC PASSAGE, Leg 2
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Majuro
in the Marshall Islands was a good pit-stop but not somewhere we would have
wanted to stay too long. It was very
hot at 7'N/171'E. The Marshall
Islands are a group of 29 atolls and 5 islands spread over 1.6 million square
kilometres of the Pacific. The outer
atolls are reported to be very pretty with good diving and snorkelling. The Island group became an independent
nation in 1986. In the 18th
century they were under German rule, after the First World War under Japanese
jurisdiction and by 1945 under US control.
There are still many ties to the US including using the US dollar, the
US postal services and importing all food from America. We happened to be there for Constitution Day,
celebrating their Independence with bands and marching parades – school
children and many businesses. |
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We
stocked up with some more tins and carefully picked out the best of the
supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Since it all has a long way to travel under heavy refrigeration, the
quality was very poor. The diesel
tanks were filled and with a combination of rain-water and bought water we
filled the water tanks. This is only
the third place in the world where we have not used the local tap water. Here all water comes from the sky and
there is none too much. Most locals
buy 5 gallon jugs for drinking and we filled our flexi-containers at one of
the supermarkets, US$2 for 5 US gallons.
In the Bahamas the 'fresh' water was salty so we bought. In Mexico all the locals used bottled
water, so we did too. Otherwise we have taken what comes from a tap, the sky
or a stream and (so far) never had a stomach upset! We
monitored the weather, knew we were early to head into the North Pacific, but
how can you know what is coming two weeks on? The NE trades looked light to moderate for the first five days,
so we dropped the mooring on the morning of Tuesday 6 May 2014, headed out of
the lagoon and set a course north. And
north was the course, or rather northish, give or take 60 degrees for three
weeks! The wind was not co-operative
giving us NE or N or NW winds for over two weeks so that we were not laying
our course. Cruising should be about
choosing the down wind routes. We
seem to have got something wrong for this passage; of course we knew that in part. We were on the wind for 17 days! We always knew we had the NE trades to get through. They are supposed to be lighter in the
Spring. But the weather gods do not
read all the weather guides. We had
some better days with 10-15 knots, then the wetter and very bouncy days with
15-22 knots – all going to windward.
And when we should have got into some more variable, possibly westerly
winds, it stayed north – with a huge high pressure system, well to the west,
pushing south from the Bering Sea feeding us NE winds from its south-eastern
edge. It was not until Day 18 that we
finally cracked the sheets for a 60' reach that became a broad reach a little
later. Everyone
on a longer passage has to set up a watch routine of some kind. We are surprised how many cruisers these
days do not set a regular system. We
are also surprised how many couples do the 'fifteen minute egg-timer'
system. There is no-one in the
cockpit all the time, a head pops up every 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes is set as the time it may
take a ship to clear the horizon and be close-by. We have never liked this and feel it is an unsafe practice. We want to be monitoring the weather, the
sail trim, the horizon, floating debris, any ships, the ocean waves and of
course the sea birds. Neither of us
would sleep very well if we did not think the other was standing a good
watch. The old-fashioned word is
'standing'. We don't do that all the
time, but we do try to be alert. Our
watch system is as follows, it suits us and we stick to it very rigidly; but there are many different systems. Vicky is on watch 0800 to 1300, Tom 1300
to 1800; Vicky has cooked supper
which we eat at 1720 and when Tom goes below he washes up; Vicky on watch
1800 to 2200, Tom 2200 to 0100, Vicky 0100 to 0400, Tom 0400 to 0800. Tom
gets the GRIB files for weather when he goes off watch at 0800. This system
works for us. The person on watch
will take a reef, set the No.4 and roll up the No.2 or unroll if the wind is
dying. We very rarely call the other
person who is off watch. |
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We
love watching the ocean birds on a long passage. One of our first visitors however was rather too
neighbourly. A red-footed booby
clearly was tired and wanted to hitch a ride. Now we are not against some hitch-hikers but bigger birds get
in the way, leave their mark and can damage those delicate wires, antennas
and the windex on the top of the mast.
Our too-friendly booby came for a visit in the evening (Day 8) and
insisted that the pulpit was a great stopping perch. Vicky got the photos first, then flapped
her arms, sounded the hooter and swished the end of a rope. Her friend was not put off! Eventually it took the bigger form of Tom
and more shouting to get him to fly away. The
second visitor we were happy to keep.
A Laysan albatross soaring over the swells, dipping his wing to touch
the water on a hand-break turn, occasionally coming to rest on the water. He was with us from Day 11 right through
to Day 22. It was definitely the same
bird, checking us out morning and evening.
We have also seen storm petrels, flitting over the tops of the waves,
never stopping in their energetic flight pattern. The occasional tern has swooped past, squaking above the
mainsail. Puffins popped up on the
waves in the Bering Sea along with a host of new albatross. We used to think
that albatross were only southern hemisphere birds; now we know better. The
days and nights rolled by – the routines set in. Of course it got colder as we continued north, much to our
relief! By Day 10 we were sleeping in
the big warm sleeping bags again, using merino wool under layers and big
fleece wind-proof jackets under THE most expensive Musto ocean oilskins, with
insulated sea boots. On board Sunstone
we have no protection from the wind and waves, no cockpit dodger to hide
under. We need very good
clothing. By the time we entered the
Bering Sea, the water temperature had plummeted to 5'C/41'F. We were on watch in eight layers of top
clothes and fleece-lined salopettes beneath our oilskins. Our big plus was warmer hands than ever
before. We had bought some expensive
gloves from the UK, Seal Skinz, which have proved wonderful. They really are wind and water-proof,
Goretex, leather and fleece; the
first gloves we have found that really keep our hands dry and warm. |
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The
Bering Sea has a very distinctive colour – a sort of brown/green/grey. Everything is grey this far north. We had many days in the last week with no
sun – just grey ocean and grey skies - sometimes with sea fog. We had been expecting the 'sting in the
tail', a fresher NW wind from a low passing to the south of us, as we
approached Samalga Pass into the Bering Sea.
It was a pitch-black night as we hand-steered in very inconsistent winds
10-28 knots, a 60' reach, with some larger waves, giving a very bouncy ride.
Fortunately, by chance we did catch the favourable tide, which runs very
strongly through the Aleutian passes. The dark night did not last long –
there is some daylight for over 20 hours at 53/54'N. The
passage ended in the very early hours of Friday 29 May 2014, after 24 ½ days,
when we tied up alongside the Austrian yacht Muk Tuk in the Small Boat
Harbor, in Dutch Harbor, on the island of Unalaska. The meetings of sail boats so often have strange serendipities
– both Muk Tuk and Sunstone had departed from Nelson (we had
spoken to Ali and Karl in March at the Marina in Nelson) and sailed to Dutch
Harbor in Alaska, arriving just one week apart. The Austrians had left just before us and sailed non-stop, 58
days, here. We had completed our
6,332 miles from Nelson in two passages with a one-week stop in Majuro in the
Marshall Islands. That
Friday morning, after a toast to each other and our trusted sailing yacht, Sunstone,
we could put our heads down, at 0130, and fall into that deep, sound,
peaceful sleep that comes to weary bodies, now in a safe harbour. Vicky and Tom Jackson, June 2014 |
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