by Judy Handley | May 16, 2010 | Chagos, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 202, Year 5: Getting Together with Cruising Friends
Date: Sunday, May 16, 2010
Weather: Another Beautiful Day; Some Rain Overnight
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
It is 10 o’clock in the evening and the last of our cruising friends just left. We had dinner for eight on Windbird tonight and had a wonderful time. Eight is just about the limit that we can accommodate in our cockpit but a new boat came in late this afternoon and we just had to invite them over. Aries Tor has been over in Peros Banhos and arrived here at Salomon Atoll late afternoon. We knew the captain to be Canadian and the young woman onboard to be American, but that is all we knew. But we also knew that Susan Margaret knew them, so Mark went over to see if we should include them in our beer tasting and dinner festivities. They said absolutely, so Kate (24 years old) and Rob (early 30’s) were invited. What a great group of people and what an interesting evening. John of Susan Margaret provided the home-brewed dark beer that was really quite good. He also brought some of his homemade coconut wine. Mark and Ed provided the fish, everyone brought appetizers, and I made rice with onions, garlic, and mushrooms and green beans stir-fried with fresh basil and cashew nuts. It is not the dinner I originally planned, but it is what evolved. So even without fresh veggies, you can have a gourmet meal out here. Lynne brought date-almond bread that was delicious for dessert. Conversations ranged all over the place. We learned new things about the islands around us from the explorations of Susan Margaret that will spur us into doing more land visiting in the next few days. We found out that Rob is from Toronto and left there three years ago. Kate is from Marin County in California and joined Rob in the Marquises after a year of graduate school at NYU. All of us are headed to Madagascar, so I am sure the conversations in the next couple of weeks will center around our planning for that passage. But it is so reassuring to know that we will be traveling with such a great bunch of people. We also learned a bit of information tonight that we know will be of interest to our daughter-in-law Jo and her parents, Margaret and Phil Hunt. When we first met John of Susan Margaret he talked about the Hare and Hound Pub in the New Forest in England. That happens to be a family favorite of the Hunt’s. Tonight we learned that in fact the Hare and Hound was John’s home as he was growing up as his grandparents were the owners and he lived with them. His grandfather was Charles Percy Reeves, so I am anxious to find out if Jo or her parents ever visited the Hare and Hound while he was the owner.
Our snorkeling morning was not so fantastic as the water was really cloudy, but we always enjoy watching the fish regardless of visibility. It was an extremely low tide, so when we were right above the fish, visibility was good. On the reef directly in front of Windbird we were able to get photographs of the Saddleback Coralgrouper and Brown-marbled Grouper that hang out there. They are beautiful and would make good eating, but no one seems to be able to catch these guys. I think tomorrow will be a land-based day, just watching the wildlife.
I’ll end with a note about our friends Tina and Zbyszek (Robert) of Shirena. I reported a few days ago that Zbyszek had a mild heart attack and was in the Suez Canal University Hospital. He is now out and doing great. Good friends, Fatty Goodlander of Wild Card (US) and Tom of Katanne (British), are currently delivering Shirena to Ashkelon in Israel. Zbyszek and Tina are going to fly to Vienna and he will have the required heart surgery there. I won’t go into all the detail describing the difficulty of getting the boat out of Egypt with crew who didn’t bring it in, but basically even after officials assured them everything would be fine, Zbyszek and Tina still had to accompany the boat out of the country. But by now they should be in Cairo awaiting the flight to Vienna and Fatty and Tom should have arrived in Ashkelon in Israel.
by Judy Handley | May 15, 2010 | Chagos, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 201, Year 5: Yahoo for Wahoo! Plus a Wreck Explore
Date: Saturday, May 15, 2010
Weather: Beautiful, Beautiful Day
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
The fishermen got serious today, changed their tactics, and came home with a 42 inch-long Wahoo. Yahoo!!! Wahoo were plentiful here a month ago, but no one has caught one since we arrived in late April, so this was a real accomplishment. And it was Mark’s lure that caught him, so he is one happy fisherman. We heard talk on the Net this morning that the reduction in the amount of fish being caught might be due to a drop in the water temperature. It is certainly not as hot as it was when we arrived the first the April. And this Wahoo was right out of the pass so it was a fairly quick trip, saving precious petrol. This one fish will provide at least three or four meals each for Windbird and Constance plus a dinner for six tomorrow night. We have invited Susan Margaret and Constance over for dinner and a wine and beer tasting event. John and Sue have been making coconut wine and beer that they will bring and we have a supply of Indian and Thai beer that we will all enjoy along with grilled Wahoo and a pumpkin-potato-pea curry (you have to be inventive out here) over rice. Yummy.
The early morning was also a huge success. We left for the north end of Takamaka at 7:30 am and had to row the last little bit as the tide was definitely low. We anchored the dinghy in dry sand and walked around the point and headed out to the ship wreck. We think this was a Japanese fishing boat. It was approximately an 80 foot-long wooden boat and we were surprised to see that there had been a fire in the bow of the boat. Just behind the bow was a refrigeration compartment and we could only speculate that maybe the crew abandoned ship because of the fire and then the boat washed up on the flat, hard coralline shelf that extends from the north side of the island outward. We were also surprised that we could walk around the boat and go out to where the waves were breaking to look back toward the island and take photos. The boat sits parallel to the north side of Takamaka with the bow headed west. It is in surprisingly good shape. It seems that the waves break just out from the boat and only the surf washes up under it, so it is not being hit by pounding waves, except possibly in a storm. Once we had explored all sides of the boat we walked to the east on the nice, flat shelf and saw small eels, lots of tiny fish, and two Guineafowl Puffers in their black with white dots phase. We have seen them in their yellow phase on two of our previous reef walks, but these were larger. So we’re not sure if the yellow phase is a juvenile. Seems likely. The tiny coral structures on the outer edge of this reef were raspberry and olive green versus yesterday’s pink reef. As we walked toward the island, however, it started to look more like a desert with very little coral. But this is where the black sponges, black sea cucumbers, brown, flat sponge that covers the rock surface (looks like Spheciospongia vagabunda), and hundreds of brittle stars live. Since we could see the red boobies and frigate birds flying overhead, we just had to walk to shore and see if there were still any little fuzzy white babies. There were, plus there were a few more that have grown into their gray-colored feathers. I enjoyed trying to identify the different types of trees that grow along the shore as we seldom see hardwood trees here. It was after ten when we returned to Windbird so we had a good two-and-half-hour walk. Tomorrow is a snorkeling morning and free and easy afternoon. We’ll need to get ready for having guests aboard tomorrow night, so I know it will be a full day.
by Judy Handley | May 14, 2010 | Chagos, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 200, Year 5: Reef Walk, Fishing, Snorkeling
Date: Friday, May 14, 2010
Weather: Still Overcast and Rainy
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
A perfect Chagos day-walking to the outer reef at early morning low tide, trolling our way back home v-e-r-y slowly, stopping to snorkel along the way. There are still weather clouds above, but it was a beautiful sunny day. And we even got some work done in the afternoon after we returned from out little outing.
We took our dinghy and picked up Ed and Lynne about 7:15 am. We had buckets with fishing gear, net bags with snorkeling gear, and of course a backpack with cameras. Mark’s camera was in his underwater case and mine was in a lock tight plastic box. We sped our way almost three miles to Ile Poulet, a small island next to Ile Boddam. It was supposed to be a one-tenth meter low, but it seemed a little higher. But we trodded through the water to the outer reef and then made our way back. It is amazing how the reef off each island is just a little different from the one next door. This was a pink reef. We even found a heart-shaped pink coral formation-the perfect Valentine’s card photo. We saw turtles, another yellow Guineafowl Puffer who sped away as soon as he saw us, seastars, urchins, and a school of the most beautiful neon blue fish, about eight inches long, that raced through the shallow water. After the reef walk, I took command of the dinghy and Mark and Ed put out fishing lines as we started our slow troll homeward. There are four islands between us and Boddam and Ile Poule is the fourth. Ile Du Sel is the third and Ile Jacobin is the second. We stopped at a huge bommie just off Ile Du Sel that had a mooring ball attached. We tied off to the mooring ball and Lynne and I snorkeled while Mark and Ed did some bottom fishing. Lynne and I saw no edible fish on or around the bommie, so on we went. We circled every bommie from here to Boddam on the way home, but didn’t return with any fish. Mark caught a small Bonito that we threw back so he could grow up and Ed snagged something big that got away. It actually straightened the hooks on his lure. Sure wish we could have seen that one. It was almost noon when we got home, fishless but full of joy with the adventures of a lovely morning.
In the afternoon I sanded and re-varnished a couple of places in the cockpit that I was not happy with while Mark made a new harness for raising the dinghy. He also shortened the line we have attached to our dinghy. We have started keeping the dinghy anchor with us and no longer need the long line. He also finished covers for the hard fenders that cushion our dinghy when it is on deck. And I made a velvet-lined bag for Mark’s underwater camera case. It has just been sitting around between uses and we were afraid the lens was going to get scratched. I used a little sail material bag from Roller Tasker in Thailand and lined it with a re-fashioned blue velvet wine gift bag-a holdover from our days in Boston when a blue-velvet wine bag didn’t seen completely out of place.
Tomorrow morning we will try once again to see if the water is low enough to walk out to the ship wreck off the north tip of Ile Takamaka and check out the baby boobies in the process.
by Judy Handley | May 13, 2010 | Chagos, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 199, Year 5: Oops!
Date: Thursday, May 13, 2010
Weather: Still Overcast and Rainy
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
Today’s big expedition for Mark and Ed was a four-hour fishing trip outside the atoll. Lots of fish were caught but all were Bonito, most of which were thrown back. The fishermen came back with two, gave one to Susan Margaret, and unfortunately dropped the other one in the water when filling a bucket for cleaning it. So that marathon fishing trip was a bit of a bust. I guess we’ll have to give it another try tomorrow. The other big “oops” of the day happened while Mark was grilling Bonito from yesterday’s fishing expedition. Somehow his favorite spatula went overboard. Unfortunately that spatula served double-duty as the one we use for cleaning/scraping the bottom of the boat, so it was a much greater loss than just a just a spatula. I’m sure we’ll find something else that we can use, but definitely Neptune won the game today.
We did make contact with Jay Burgess on the USS Lopez this morning just after the 7 am Net. No sleeping in today! He is here as part of a six-month tour of duty and will not be heading home until August. He said he would contact us before we leave, so we’ll look forward to talking to him again. He told us this morning that his weather information indicates a few more days of this yucky weather. We didn’t think of it until after we signed off, but Jay might be able to provide good weather information for us close to the time we are leaving for Madagascar. That would certainly be welcome information.
Other projects today included more varnishing in the cockpit and actually getting the varnished Dorade boxes back in their rightful places. That required using AwlCare to polish the areas where the Dorades sit and polishing the stainless Dorade vents. Then the Dorade vents had to be screwed down on the boxes before the whole unit could be installed. Unfortunately, it was not as easy as just plopping them back in place. Before and after fishing, Mark worked furiously to get the rain catcher made and he now has it installed. Therefore, I’m pretty sure we won’t get rain tonight.
The highlight of the day has to do with burning the trash, cutting Mark’s hair, and watching crabs-an interesting combination of activities. Yesterday I had promised Mark that I would cut his hair today, and even though it looked like it was going to pour the rain, we went to shore to the visit the local barber-that would be me. We needed to burn the trash, so we went ashore on Takamaka right in front of the 55-gallon trash barrel. It was mid-tide, so there was room to set up a beach chair that would serve as the hair cutting station. We put the trash in the barrel and got that burning. We then turned the barber’s chair so it faced the trash barrel. I figured Mark could make sure everything was burning safely while I cut. But then the real show started. There are mustard yellow crabs here with eye stalks that stick straight up in the air. Every time I take a photo of them, they end up looking like little pirates saying, “Aaarrrgh, matey!” But today we were totally fascinating by their activity. Here we are facing the trash barrel, trying to cut hair, but all we can do is watch the crabs. The tide was going out and about every three feet along the beach, these little crabs were digging holes and carrying sand out of the holes and dumping it about a foot in front of the hole. They were like little backhoes, digging sand out of a hole, moving forward, dumping, and then doing it again and again. Once in a while a rogue crab would come by and try to take over a hole, but the homeowners usually won the stand off. All of this made me think of our grandson Sam. He had his first professional haircut this past weekend, but I don’t think he got to watch crabs digging holes at the same time. I know he would have loved the barbershop this afternoon. You just never know what fascinating things might happen when you’re burning trash and cutting hair.
by Judy Handley | May 12, 2010 | Chagos, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 198, Year 5: Yucky Weather
Date: Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Weather: Rain Overnight; Overcast Day; Early Evening Rain
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
We’re still waiting for those gorgeous, sunny days to reappear. We have had rain every day or night since April 30. We have certainly had periods of sunshine but there have been a couple of days when it rained all day. So we think it’s time for a string of days without the threat of rain. We do like collecting the rain water, but just a few sunny days would be great. I have all sorts of low tide early morning activities planned for the rest of the week and into the weekend and I need sunshine! We still haven’t made the rain catcher. I’m sure if we get that made and installed, the rain will stop, so if it is raining tomorrow the rain catcher will get made.
Rain came in the early morning hours today and we were up at 5:00 am emptying the collected rain water into water jugs. Then we decided to go back to bed and we didn’t wake up until 7:15 am. Constance called us around 8 o’clock to let us know that we had been called by someone on the USS Lopez in Diego Garcia. That would have been Jay Burgess, a merchant marine from Hopkinton, New Hampshire. Our friend Alan Kanegsberg in Concord had made the contact for us and we had said that we get on 4483 MHz every morning at 7 am-every morning but this one. Constance answered the call for us and we will be on in the morning and hope to talk to Jay then.
I did more sanding and varnishing inside the cockpit today, made bread, banana bread, and granola. So it was a super busy day on Windbird. Mark and Ed went trolling for fish on the reefs close by, but came home with only a small Bonito. I guess this means it is time for a major fishing expedition outside, so that will probably happen tomorrow or Friday. It is amazing how much time it takes to keep us in food between fishing and baking, but then we don’t have to spend time at the grocery store. And I definitely choose the fishing and baking to shopping.
Nepenthe made it to Madagascar a couple of days ago. They were the first boat headed in that direction this year and they had a good, but somewhat boisterous passage. They are headed on to the coast of Africa in Mozambique and then north to Tanzania, so we won’t see them when we arrive in Madagascar. There is only one other boat leaving this month for Madagascar and then Susan Margaret, Constance, and Windbird head that way the first of June. All of the other boats going that way have already left and are going south to Mauritius and will head back north to Madagascar in September. It is a bit of a strange year in that so few boats are headed straight to Madagascar and then to South Africa. The fact that there is only one South African boat here and that boat is headed to Thailand is really unusual. But the combination of the economy and piracy issues getting off the coast of Africa anywhere north of South Africa are probably the reasons for that. So we are a small but mighty group headed west and then south to the Cape of Good Hope. But that is months away. For now we will enjoy the beauty of Chagos and look forward to our time in Madagascar.
by Judy Handley | May 11, 2010 | Chagos, Sailing Logs Year 5 |
Day 197, Year 5: Scary Night, Brighter Day
Date: Monday, May 10, 2010
Weather: Mostly Sunny; Winds SE 10-15
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
After sending the log last night, the wind decided to come from the NW at about 15-20 knots with one period gusting to 30 knots. Everything warns that this anchorage is good EXCEPT in NW winds. It is during these storms coming in from the NW that the wrecks here have happened. So at 8:15 pm, I went to bed so I could get up at 10:15 pm and do a two-hour watch. Mark watched our position and we did keep steady. Mark didn’t get me up until 11:15 pm and by this time the winds had settled down to 10-12 knots. At 12:30 am, Mark got up and since everything had calmed down and we had held steady all evening, we decided to abort the watches and go to bed. I woke up at 6:30 am with beautiful bright sunshine streaming in the forward hatch and with winds blowing steady from the SE. Thank goodness. We requested a GRIB file and it confirmed that we should have SE winds for the next four days, so for now the scary NW winds have gone away. Constance was much closer to the reef that they felt comfortable with, so this morning they pulled up anchor and moved back further from the reef. We’re staying put for now as we have had winds from all directions now and we have stayed steady. So far, so good!
Low tide is now early in the morning, so we went out for another snorkel this morning. This time we went down to snorkel a number of bommies off Ile Sepulture, the island just beyond Ile Fouquet. We made a decision not to take the camera as we were on a mission to find a lure Mark lost the other day. I knew I would be pulling the dinghy while he was diving down to try and find the lure. So we went camera-less, even though I said that I thought we would see turtles today. And just after jumping into the water at the first bommie, a beautiful Hawksbill swam beneath us for a good three to four minutes. She had absolutely no fear of humans and was the perfect photo opportunity. There was a second turtle, but she was not nearly so photo friendly. We will go back again and hope that the friendly turtle always hangs out at the same bommie. Just as we finished snorkeling on that bommie, Ed and Lynne arrived. We drove our dinghies to the next bommie and continued our search for Mark’s lure and enjoyed the fish life. We moved the dinghies one more time and found a beautiful flat-topped bommie. We saw Regal Angelfish, two different types of boxfish, and just generally an abundance of fish. We also saw more than one shark patrolling the bommie, but they seem to ignore us so we continue to snorkel and just keep an eye on them.
When we got back to the boat it was late morning. I varnished the Dorade boxes while Mark helped Constance re-anchor. Mark and I then went out in the dinghy with the GPS and marked the bommie that we have discovered to our south. Just in case we have winds from the north again, we want to make sure we know exactly where any problem areas might be. Late in the day, Mark, Ed, and I went to shore to scavenge for mooring balls. We are going to use them to mark some of the bommies and the wreck in front of us. You can also cut them in half and they make great hanging containers for plants. It’s time to plant more arugula.
We got an email last night from Tina of Shirena telling us that Robert is in the Suez Canal University Hospital recovering from a mild heart attack. As soon as he is able, he and Tina will fly home to Australia to have more tests run. They are going to find someone to deliver the boat to either Israel or Turkey. So our thoughts are with Robert and with Tina. Thank goodness they were not at sea. They had just returned from touring Cairo, so they were still at anchor in the Suez Yacht Club.
