It wasn't easy to get permission to sail to the outer islands of Kiribati. Immigration blocked the process until I complained to the Ministry of Tourism. It's a similar situation in Tuvalu so it isn't surprising that I saw only one other yacht in Kiribati during the four months I was there. I did eventually get to spend three months at two different remote villages and found the hospitality and friendliness there to be just wonderful. At the first village I was given more food than I could eat; tuna and flying fish, breadfruit, swamp taro, coconuts, bananas, lemons, edible leaves, palm syrup, etc. I dried enough bananas and fish to last for months. This was a spectacular place for snorkeling on the ocean's edge and I had the fortune to swim with dolphins for the first time ever. The little kids would yell my name from the beach in the evening until their little voices were horse and cracking. At the second village I was invited right into a home both eating and sleeping with the family. The extended family slept all together in one room which was mostly without walls, wide open but for the roof. There was though some separation between nuclear families due to sleeping in different mosquito nets. There were several days of meetings of the "old men" of the island which included entertainment evenings mostly dancing performances and public dancing. The women were so hospitable as to keep me dancing until I was exhausted.
...the strange foolish vanity of the camp, which said, "beyond our light and our order there is nothing," turning their faces always inward toward the sinking fire of illuminating consciousness...
DH Lawrence
The Rainbow
Village life continues to be almost completely self-sufficient, almost everything handmade and little light at night but for the golden glow of cooking fires glinting through the trees. Virtually everyone goes barefoot. Canoes are made of hand sawn planks of light breadfruit wood sewn together and painted but using neither metal nor glue. Most houses are made of sticks and leaves tied together with hand made string. I was especially interested in the houses because a thatched hut on Manu Rere's deck has been part of the design concept from the start. So I studied the houses getting a lesson on the characteristics of ten kinds of trees. The most useful sticks for construction come from three mangrove tree types. So I spent many hours hunting good sticks, wading the miles of tanbark red sea flooded tunnels hacked through the extensive mangrove forests around the village. The thick legs of the house are made of the aerial roots of pandanus trees which also provide the leaves for the thatch. One friend even built me a model of a house in order to illustrate every aspect of construction. The house I built on deck is almost completely traditional only being extra strong in the legs so that it can be dragged around to get it out of the way of rigging and being sized so that the roof panels can be removed and fit into the hulls through the big hatches for a storm. I didn't make either the 300 feet of string required or the panels of thatch and had help installing the thatch which involved a surprising amount of technique and two specialized tools.
Art connoisseurs value the hand made rather than the machine made, for example a machine made Persian carpet has relatively little value. Considering this it seems to me that villagers like these who have been overlooked by "development assistance" live their whole lives surrounded by art. Aesthetics was a large part of the reason I wanted this type of deckhouse.
In the picture of the hut on deck also note the coconut husker which I produced myself and the traditional Gilbertese paddle underneath which is made efficiently of breadfruit wood blade tied to tough slender mangrove handle; glue and metal free. The anchor was made to my drawing by a shipyard in South Tarawa. This old-fashioned type of anchor is the best there is, pound for pound, for penetrating hard seabeds such as those made of the coraline sand of the tropics, which, being calcium carbonate, tends to rapidly cement. Note however the large size and critically important angle of the flukes.
The four months tourists are permitted in Kiribati having ended I had a smooth sail to Kosrae Island in the Federated States of Micronesia this week. The capital of FSM, Pohnpei,collects $95 in fees for clearance so I plan to skip it and spend the next five to six months at outer islands, beyond the reach of communications, until arriving at Yap in December.
To clarify a little I don't recommend Kiribati to other cruising folk. Along with the obstruction and hostility toward yachts openly displayed by senior immigration officials, the visiter will note, there is nothing there. Meanwhile French Polynesia, Vavau Tonga and New Zealand have it all.
After waiting weeks in Funafuti, Tuvalu, for contrary Northwesterly winds to stop, I was rewarded with several days of smooth sailing bound for Tarawa, Kiribati. Instead of the direct course Northwest I sailed North hoping for continued Easterly tradewinds, which seemed less common further West. Just when I was far enough North to make a turn to the Northwest, the wind came back from that direction so I beat on North. In addition to the contrary winds I also saw that I was being set by a current to the East, very unexpected south of the equator, and not a small current, but one which carried me some 50 miles per day in the wrong direction.
This winter there has been a major El Nino event. The wind just South of the equator changes from the Easterly trades to Westerly and the current also reverses in a flow to the East called a 'Kelvin Wave'. Bad timing. I had zero chance of sailing the 50 miles per day, against fickle equatorial Northwesterlies, required just to hold position. In fact for several days I was swept helplessly directly away from Tarawa. However, I knew that the no-fail way to reach Tarawa was to get far enough North to ride the rock solid Northeast trades. Meanwhile I had lots of food and water and books to read and was perfectly at home. I might even end up visiting Baker Island not far to the East.
There were a couple of very beautiful days and nights at sea while I inched my way north. While trying to take advantage of stormy evening squall winds, they sometimes become so fearsome that it was best to drop the mainsail and heave to for the night, but nothing broke. Otherwise making the best of one or two knots of breeze between calms.
As it happened the current stopped at the equator so I skipped Baker. A few days later the trades came in, and with 150 miles per day instead of 20 - 30, I made Tarawa in just 3 more days. Three weeks total for some 800 miles.
This photo was taken almost a year ago in the Marquesas
Although Wallis Island had a very beautiful lagoon containing lusciously wooded uninhabited islets I continued on after only two weeks there since there wasn't a good convenient anchorage and the locals, although courteous, were relatively inaccessible (for Polynesians). Plus prices were two to three times those in Tahiti. The best part was spending three days daysailing between the pretty little islets and anchoring alone in stunning spots like in the attached photo, while working out rigging improvements and details like brailing which require lots of trial and error.
I sailed into Apia harbor, the capitol of Samoa, but couldn't stand bringing Manu Rere into a marina which is now required there, so sailed back out to sea and on to Wallis Island where I was a week later when the tsunami occurred. Now at Funafuti, Tuvalu. Glenn
Monday, August 31 2009 @ 10:36 AM BST
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 1,187
I stayed at Makemo atoll in the Tuamotus for five weeks. In retrospect it was a preferable place for enjoying the month long Bastille Day celebrations as opposed to the more crowded and expensive events in the capital, Papeete. There were sporting contests during the day and contests between two traditional heiva dancing groups at night. Each group included its own music mostly produced from a variety of elaborate drums and hollowed ringing logs, which I really enjoyed. Of course the famously sexy Tahitian dancing was also a pleasure to see. Even the costumes were beautifully made. While the holiday wound down and I prepared to depart, a small cut in my finger became viciously infected, which required antibiotics (free at the dispensary) and a couple more weeks to heal, one sure can't sail an unmechanized voyaging canoe with a ruined hand.
Once the anchor was finally lifted the first twenty miles were across the lagoon, easily avoiding the brilliantly colored coral patches, to anchor near the other pass. Away from town, without the issue of ownership, I stocked up with a supply of coconuts, which are part of my regular diet, before riding the ebb tide out to sea for Tahiti.
After sailing past atolls the first day, then through a stretch of wide sea I hove to at night to await dawn while still 25 miles short of the narrow passage between the last atolls of the group. Most of the subsequent nights of this voyage I stopped as well because the weather was so stormy, so I was happy to see the great Tahiti come into sight and anchor in the quiet shelter of headland and breakwater at the small town of Tautira.
After several pleasant days there, I sailed for Papeete expecting a pleasant scenic daysail but instead learned first hand about Maramu winds accelerated around the island. At first I dropped all sail to await the passage of what I took to be a squall. When I analyzed the wind direction though it appeared to be blowing me toward the nearby shoals so, for the first time, I put up a storm trysail which laces on the mainmast, and using this tiny sail made my way behind Venus Point, off Papeete, into the lee of the island and anchored the next day.
Wednesday, June 24 2009 @ 11:15 AM BST
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 976
Just a quick message since internet in French Polynesia is 25 dollars for 3 hours. I arrived in the Marquesas over three months ago after a great passage. A papagayo storm gave very steep seas at first, then light sailing for a week. Hove to in the lee of Clipperton Atoll to enjoy the boiling sea life and earthy guano scent. A pretty desolate place. Then excessive wind and fast sailing until crossing the equator. Towed the tyre drogue for several days, which kept things tight and safe. Slower going south of the equator, so during a calm I launched the canoe and took a swim to clean the bottom along the wormshoe.
After clearing into the country I went to Tahuata Island where people gave me lots of fruit and were friendly, though not intimately so as in some other places, great hiking in the jungle mountains, and swimming in the clear waters. Then one night a young man came to the boat and threatening me with knife and speargun and robbed my laptop. The mayor knew who it was and we reported it to the gendarme in nearby Hiva Oa, but it awaits a judge from Tahiti. Never got the computer back.
Now in the Tuamotu Islands, atolls, enjoying the psychedelic coloured lagoons and drumming / dancing practice at night. The night of arrival I was hanging offshore, within sight of the lights of the village, awaiting dawn and misjudged. Waking 10 seconds before shipwrecking, put the helm hard over and brought out the bamboo pole while Manu Rere took glancing blows off the concrete like dead coral, then slammed stopped with the bow up 20 degrees. I began working the bow around with the bamboo while she continued to pound and grind. The bamboo missed the ridges and went into deep water with my frantic weight behind and I went overboard and over my head, even though the boat was on 18 inch deep ridges. A very jagged reef.
Thinking, "God, I'm going to lose the boat" I climbed onto a block of coral and resumed pushing the bow around to seaward, then pushed her forward and swung onto the stern. With the bamboo I pushed her the rest of the way off the rocks, unsheated the mizzen, which was aback, and she was ghosting back out to sea.
The saving grace was that it had been very calm for a week so the sea was flat. Hitting the windward side of a barrier reef like this ordinarily means being pounded by 8 to 10 foot swell and certain loss. As it happens there is no significant damage, that is no penetration of the fiberglass to the wood. Life too has its jagged ridges and depths these days.
Floating in the body temperature sea, with hotter swirls licking over my back, my gaze up through the palm fronds and hardwood branches follows two foot long scarlet macaws fighting in the canopy then dropping and sweeping away in unnaturally spectacular pairs. Just off this popular beach, Manu Rere rides alone at anchor against a backdrop of heavily forested mountains beyond the calm clear sweet waters of Gulfo Dulce. After more than a month here at Puerto Jimenez, school vacation is over so the beach is no longer so often brightened by children wading into the water giggling "que rico", and my visa is nearing the end as well, so its time to go.
During one week of my time here I sat daily on the grass behind the beach hand sewing a new mizzen sail together. Great way to meet the locals. Some gregarious young men, who work as tour guides to the neighboring corcovado national park, helped me procure used water jugs for the large supply my coming passage will require. The next project was another improvement to the rudder mounts which will be the key to control and comfort during the coming weeks of running down the trades and following seas. Finally Manu Rere was beached for three days in order to receive a coat of bottom paint; scraping the bottom in the ocean far from land is a task which I have done before but will eagerly avoid. The trickiest part of beaching is keeping her from digging herself into the sand for which I don't yet have a great technique. Fortunately an American spending the winter here brought a shovel and helped out.
Upon leaving Costa Rica, in a few days, for the Marquesas, I will sail most of the way along the 10 degree north parallel in order to benefit from the tradewinds and favorable current, and avoid the contrary winds and extra wide doldrums closer to the Americas. This will also allow me to at least sight, if not visit, the very isolated Clipperton Island, surely a welcome break in the otherwise almost 4000 miles of sea and sky.
I sailed from San Lorenzo, Honduras on Sept 20th, at the end of my three month visa, and had a nice trip down to Costa Rica. There were various conditions to deal with but that doesn`t much bother me anymore. Sea the attached maps for a more graphical view of the passage.
After a last foray to the market for provisions it was already noon by the time Manu Rere was sailing out of La Union, El Salvador. The timing was awful since the morning land breeze had ended and the contrary sea breeze just beginning while a contrary flood tide was making the beat hopeless. Just as I was preparing to anchor at the edge of the channel the tide turned so that I was able to make it behind little Zacatillo Island at dusk where I anchored in three feet of water. Straight into the sea to scrape the bottom but in the opaquely muddy water this was all but impossible. Although the village ashore looked inviting I sailed with the tide at dawn for the gulf’s outermost island Meanguera where more transparent seawater could be expected.
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