American River to Eden

American River to Eden

2 July 2008

We departed the jetty at American River at 8.45 AM. Allan and Carol paid an unexpected visit and gave us a float for a Dan buoy that we will put together at their suggestion. Then they casted off our lines. The previous day they had taken us to Kingscote for shopping and a bit of touring. We then spent the evening with them at their home over a yummy chicken dinner created by Carol and a 2 liter cask of white wine that we polished off entirely. It was sad to say good bye. After only three days they felt like old friends.

Following Allan's advice to stay only 20-30 m off the channel markers we did not encounter any depth below 3.4 m on the way out to deep water. We had a reasonable sail that day and night.

3 and 4 July 2008

At 9.30 AM the wind died when we were 11 nm west of Cape Jaffa. This turned out to be a very difficult sailing day with light and variable winds against a falling but still high swell. There was much flogging of rigging and twice we were forced to drop all sail and motor for a total of about three hours. While motoring we used the Autohelm self steering. That evening found us near Cape Northumberland. In the early evening I made voice contact with Allan via the HF radio and he “handed me” over to Mary at a VMR station in Tasmania. Arnold and I then took turns having the last of our pressure cooker stew, then some bacon and eggs.

Sometime during the evening we were confronted with two ships approaching us from ahead and another two approaching from behind. The AIS told us that the pair approaching from ahead would pass us well clear to starboard. However it looked like the rear pair would straddle us quite closely. One ship was going to be close enough to warrant a radio call. For those interested the dialog was along the following lines:

Pachuca: “Kamakura Kamakura Three Echo Papa India Six this is a small boat ahead of you.”

Kamakura: “This is Kamakura to small boat, good evening.”

Pachuca: “Good evening to you, sir. We are a small sail boat about 6 nautical miles ahead of you doing about three and a half knots. Do you see us?”

Kamakura: “I do not see you but I have you on radar. Would you like me to pass inside or outside of you?”

Pachuca: “You're bigger than we are. I can see from your track that you will pass inside of us. We are happy with that.”

Kamakura: “Very well. I will leave you to starboard.”

Pachuca: “Thank you very much. Over and out.”

The Kamakura passed us about a mile to port, between Pachuca and the coast. At the same time a large ship was passing us about two miles to starboard. As the ships approached we turned on the deck light, illuminating our sails, to augment the mast head running light.

We passed Portland well before midnight and proceeded East at over 6 kn with jib only and a 15-20 kn northerly wind. Arnold, who had slept for 4 or 5 hours that day, sailed the boat from 10 PM until dawn of the following day. He had a splendid sail covering 40 nm in the night.

5 July 2008

I was up at 5.30 AM to make contact with Mary in Tasmania and we spoke immediately after her 6 AM weather report, giving our position and sailing conditions. I then emerged from the cabin to see first light with a clear sky. I helmed approximately from 8 AM until 2 PM while Arnold got some much-earned sleep. For me the sailing was great: clear sunny sky, calm sea, beam reach with jib only against a 15 kn northerly rocketing along at over 6 kn. In mid-afternoon the wind started to die so we raised the mainsail. At 4 PM we were crossing the meridian of Cape Otway. Our noon-to-noon distance covered was 124 nm and the prospects were good that we would exceed that in the current 24 hours. According to the chart we were leaving the Southern Ocean and entering the Pacific Ocean.

6 July 2008

We had a difficult sail on the night of 5-6 July. We were in that stretch of water between Cape Otway and Wilson's Promontory (WP), with the lights of Melbourne in the distance to port. We had entered the night with a double-reefed mainsail and jib rolled in to a number 1. The wind started to pick up and soon we were dealing with a 30 kn Northerly gusting to 35 kn and possibly more. We went to a no 2 jib profile, then down to just enough jib to provide some up-front drive and stability. It was Arnold's watch and the seas were getting rougher and rougher. He took three heavy doses of green water in the cockpit, one of which was heavy enough to activate the strobe light in his life vest. I took over the watch just after midnight and fortunately did not experience any “greenies” in the cockpt. At just after 3 AM Melbourne radio issued a strong wind warning for a large swath of the Victorian coast describing the conditions what we had been dealing with for 5 hours. Personal discomfort aside, the boat was sailing magnificently with a just-right sail configuration and we continued our steady 5 kn progress to WP.

We sailed through most of the day under the same conditions and in the early afternoon I was able to shout “Land Ho” as I sighted the top of WP. Our plan was to round WP and anchor in a tiny nook named “Refuge Cove”. It is indeed tiny: entrance about 200 m wide, and the cove maybe half a mile wide. I raised Melbourne coast radio on VHF 16. I asked them to pass a message to Mary in Tasmania that we were OK and that the HF reception had become too poor for communication with her. With their assistance I was soon speaking with Port Albert Coast Guard via their VHF 22 repeater located at WP. I gave our ETA at Refuge Cover as 9 PM. Unfortunately the wind started to die down at about 4PM and soon we were sailing with full main and jib and calm sea, but with boat speed down to about 4 kn and dropping. We eventually dropped our sails and motored for about 4 hours around the tip of WP and to our anchorage. Arnold heard radio chatter from a boat planning to anchor at Refuge Cover and we did not want to confront a situation of one or more boats in that tiny space. We finally decided on Waterloo Bay, which was bigger, promised the shelter from the winds that we expected (NE, N, NW, then SW when the front comes through on Tuesday.), and had the big advantage of shortening our travel time by an hour.

We had a scare with the motor. Our practice is to start the motor before we drop sails. This time the engine would not start. There was not even the click of the solenoid. I checked the electrical system as best I could and found no problem. I slid back the engine cover and asked Arnold to try again for the 4^th or 5^th time. This time the engine started with no intervention from me. I'd seen this before. I was taught the trick of using a heavy screw driver to make a direct connection to the starter to jolt it into action. If this is the same situation then I am very disappointed because two years ago I had the starter replaced with a refurbished one to at a cost of over $800. I flaky starter is dangerous and therefore intolerable so if there is a repetition I'll have to have the problem dealt with, preferably in New Zealand when I have the engine serviced.

The motoring around WP to the anchorage was somewhat unnerving to me. The tiny sliver of moon was low in the western sky and hidden by cloud, so visibility was extremely poor. There were islands and rocks all over the place and lights flashing seemingly everywhere, with the channel about 3 nm wide. We went in using the autopilot, chart plotter, and radar. The radar was a big confidence builder because it corroborated the information from the chart plotter. The chart plotter was reporting a good track but the boat direction was vectored toward the rocks to starboard., probably due to the big currents to reported in the chart. Basically we trusted the electronics while identifying lights and peering at shapes in the darkness as best we could.

Arnold picked up a “hard” radar target off our port bow which he said must be something in the water. Twenty or 30 minutes later a darkened boat lit itself up and passed less than a mile off our stbde side. After we made our turn he spotted more targets. One was a lit boat of the stbd side. I put the cursor on the target in front of us and reported to Arnold that whatever it was was traveling toward us at an alarming speed. Then that boat lit itself up and looked to be some sort of work boat. It passed between us and the coast line, which was only about a mile away.

In the late afternoon I had removed the 45-lb plow anchor from the roller and set up the 50-lb Swarbrick “fisherman” anchor. As we approached the anchorage I turned on the deck light the went forward and position the anchor cross piece while lying on my stomach. Fortunately conditions were very calm. We motored in gently until we reached the pre-planned depth and dropped the anchor in 20 of water. I fumbled the anchor drop due to stupidity of the inexperienced but after some anxiety concluded that the anchor would hold. For the next 30 minutes I carefully recorded our position to all 3 decimal places and confirmed that we were not dragging. We set the anchor alarm on the chart plotter to a .04 nm diameter.

At 1 AM we heated up the pressure cooker stew and had a good hot meal (and white wine for me). Then went to sleep at 2 AM.

7 July

I woke up at 9.30 AM and my first thought was that we were still floating (Hooray!). I then went on deck and saw the glorious and magnificent view of our anchorage, with its rocky vegetated hills and occasional stretch of sandy beach. Soon Arnold was up after our coffee and toast I had the interesting experience of watching him eat bricks of Weet Bix (a cereal) liberally covered with peanut butter! We plan to have a day of rest, with a few activities such as cleaning the boat and updating this blog. Our biggest challenge for the day will be to have our first bath since we left American River. For me the big questions are whether I would do a proper job and go for a swim in the freezing water, and whether I will have a go at shaving this beard that I have sprouted. Late in the afternoon Arnold had his warm-water bucket bath and soon after I lowered the boarding ladder while making snide comments about wimps who were afraid of cold water. And yes, the water was cold – really really cold: the kind of water that seems to burn your skin. We realised later that the Waterloo anchorage was about as far south as we were likely to be until our return to Australia. Even Whangarei New Zealand is farther north. So the days are getting longer and we are headed more to the north.

8 July

We weighed anchor at 0900 with a weather forecast of variable winds in the morning and SW 10-15 in the afternoon. For Tuesday and Wednesday the winds would be favourable with the highest wind at 35 kn on Thursday afternoon. The morning winds were indeed light and variable and for several hours we were forced to sail in a SE direction. However, in the afternoon we were able to sail a steady NE course.

9 July

We ran before the SW wind all day with a greatly reduced jib only, doing over 6 kn. We were recording 30 and 35 kn over the mast, which means that the true wind was 5 or 6 kn higher. In the afternoon we were in the oil platform area of Bass Strait when Arnold took a call from one of the coastal marine safety stations asking our condition and position. This is when we first heard that there were gale warnings for Bass Strait. I got the full weather report from the HF station at Charleville Queensland that evening and learned that the entire Victorian coast and the south coast of NSW were under a gale warning. Bass Strait is no place to be in gale conditions but there we were and there was nothing to be done but to get on with it. Going back was impossible and there were no safe havens for us until Eden.

One expects rough seas in gale winds but the seas in Bass Strait seemed all out of proportion to the conditions. The waves were huge, often breaking, and throwing the boat from side to side as it slide down the waves from each quarter. Arnold said that at one point he looked behind me at the wheel and saw a huge wave that looked like it would overtake the boat. I told Arnold that I had learned from my previous venture into the Southern Ocean on Angie to not frighten myself by looking back or indeed to any oncoming wave. Whenever the boat got hammered the only thing that mattered was me, the wheel, and the compass. I'm pretty sure that Arnold played it the same way.

10 July

I had the watch from midnight until 6 AM. We had reduced the headsail to just a few square feet but were still traveling at 5 kn because of the 30-35 kn followng wind and the frequent surfing down the waves. The steering effort was very intense because a lapse in concentration of only a few seconds would see the boat turning across the wind. During lulls I would engage the Autohelm for a minute to attend to the boat or a call of nature. At about 3 AM the wind seemed to abate slightly then came back hard – harder than ever. I thought shit, how much worse is this going to get? Mercifully this turned out to be nature's last slap at Pachuca to put her in her place and like a miracle, dawn found us in a falling wind, calmer sea, within a few miles of Cape Howe, about 30 nm from Eden.

Arnold took over the watch at 6.30 AM and we went to full main and jib trying to make Eden against a dying wind that had veered to the NW. After one long tack that got us only about 8 miles we decided to motor in the 21 miles to Eden. During this leg I took a call from the Mallacota Coast Guard at Gabo Island, wanting to know our situation. He expressed surprise at our fast progress. I told him that it had been a very interesting night indeed. He then made some comment wondering why we had been in Bass Strait during the gale. I replied that I didn't want to be critical off the weather service, but that when we left our anchorage at Waterloo Bay no gales were anticipated. He replied along the lines of Yes, things can change very quickly.

We dropped anchor at 3 PM in what the locals call Quarantine Anchorage and the chart calls Nullica Bay, about .8 nm from the western shore of the bay, in 10 m of water. The Swarbrick anchor had ridden on the roller during the entire leg. This is possible because the shaft of the anchor is flat and not round. The anchor happily sits on the roller with the flukes in horizontal position and the stock folded along the shaft. We also lashed it down with ropes. Preparing the anchor was therefore relatively fast and easy. I put out a modest 20 m of chain because of the calm conditions but was forced on deck at 2 AM to pay out another 10 m due to a rising wind. We had an extremely comfortable night with very little pitching or rolling. In the early evening we established telephone communication with Stephen and Brenda. Brenda was in fact on a bus traveling from Sydney to Eden. She had flown from NZ to Sydney and was on her way to Eden in anticipation of a timely arrival by us.

11 July

The wind is still too high (gusts of over 30 kn) to risk taking Pachuca to the town jetty. Brenda has rented a chalet overnight next to the marina. The plan is to drop an anchor inside the breakwater of the marina later in the afternoon when the wind calms down and take the Zodiac ashore for hot showers and a meal, with food that we will take with us.

Some thoughts:

1. The pressure cooker has been a terrific asset. One evening I concocted a stew of four potatoes, two carrots, two sticks of celery, two onions, three tomatoes, an entire bag of red lentils, several large brussel sprouts, and two large pieces of prime beef steak cut up into bits. That dish fed us for the next three nights and it seemed to taste better with each passing day.

2. The Autohelm self steering has been another great asset. It has proven itself capable of handling whatever we've thrown at it, including 30-knot winds and big following seas. We use it extensively when motoring, when the sea is calm and the two alternators are producing plenty of electrical power; and to give us short breaks for going to the loo, checking our position, adjusting sails, listening to the latest weather report, etc. It seems to use remarkable little power – about half of what the refrigerator uses; an average of about 3 amps.

3. 4 and 5 July, have set a new, though modest standard of cruising on Pachuca. We ate well, had long sleeps in warm, dry bunks, and felt fresh and relaxed. This was a far cry from our worst days, out of Esperance, when we were dealing 40 kn winds and monumental seas, were surrounded with overhead leaks with ensuing damp clothing and bedding, and were frantically searching for the source of the alarming amount of water being shipped.

4. The electrical power situation has been good. The solar panels have not been able to make much of a contribution because of the usually overcast skies but fortunately the wind charger has come into its own in the moderately high winds. We have managed to keep the refrigerator running constantly to support the luxury of plenty of fresh meat, fish (contributed by Allan and Carol). Nevertheless the wind charger has not been able to support the entire load. Fortunately we have resorted to the engine at just the right times for genuine propulsion needs to bring the batteries up to full charge, and have been able to avoid idling the engine just to charge the batteries.

5. I must rave again about how great our electronics has been. The AIS is an invaluable ship detection and communication system which has reduced the risk of being run down by a ship to near zero. I had the radar installed at Arnold's urging, who has experienced boating in foggy conditions in the NW coast of the U.S. However, the entry into the WP anchorage demonstrated to me how useful it is to validate the chart plotter and to spot unlit boats at night.

6. The small boat marine safety support has been phenomenal. At Waterloo Bay in Wilson's Promontory a “tracking sheet” was issued giving our plans. Stations along the coast were aware of our presence and three made contact with us during the sail to make sure that we were OK and to note our position.

7. The weather service, on the other hand, has not fared so well in our eyes. They didn't predict the strong winds during our crossing to Wilson's Promontory. Then during the days around our visit to WP the forecast changed from day to day. One day there was a strong low in the Bight and 40-knot winds were predicted two days hence. The next day the low was weakening and predicted winds were much lower. The next day and oops, 50 kn winds were predicted in two days. Then the 50 kn winds were off the board and 35 kn was the highest. Then the gale warning came ... during the gale. All day of the 10^th the gale warning was in force with predicted winds up to 40 kn off shore. In fact that afternoon was very calm with winds as we entered TwoFold Bay here at Eden down to about 5 kn. The wind stayed calm until about 2 AM early the 11^th.