We departed American Somoa Sunday July 21 and waited for the arrival of the HSV-2-Swift, the US Navy’s 48knot wave piercing catamaran. The fuel dock guys were talking about when we fueled and sure enough she arrived at 8am Sunday morning.
When we cleared into Ensenada Mexico in late December it wasn’t clear when I’d need these American Dollars I had from the craigslist firesale of everything “unneeded”. Here in the middle of Polynesia is a little bit of ‘Merica.
Our original plans to head to Tonga changed given the weather, which has continued to be unfavorable for passage and stay in Tonga. 450 miles west of Suwarrow lays American Somoa; four islands of polynesian history that are an American Territory. So yes – McDonalds, ACE Hardware, English speakers, US Dollars (no FX charges on your Visa card). What we didn’t expect was stunning beauty, a combination of the Marquesas Islands with convenience of a weekend at Catalina.
Industrial, but surely beautiful.
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As we posted earlier, we diverted to Suwarrow based on the weather. This is one of the northern most Cook Islands. Remote is an understatement. Suwarrow is 700 miles west / northwest of Bora Bora – that’s the same distance as San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. It’s another 450 miles east of American Somoa – the distance from San Francisco to San Diego. This is not coastal cruising – all open ocean, no options.
As we mentioned we purchased a new tender in Tahiti – 14′ fiberglass center console boston whaler type boat. We had not done any sea miles with this boat in the cradle, so when we started to roll on our way to Suwarrow I noticed the tender had shifted in the cradle and was now resting against the rail of Gray Matter. I was able to secure the boat with a block and tackle we had from our sailboat (the same one we used to hoist the anchor in Mexico – handy thing to have onboard).
When we arrived Suwarrow I realized the stainless cradle support on the outboard side had broken. It looks like the weld failed on one support which caused the other weld to fail.
We arrived Suwarrow PM on July 4th. 3 hours before arrival, we took a big wave and Gray Matter rolled 35 degrees. This is the most roll motion we’ve ever had – chairs in the salon fell over, microwave slided on the counter. The worse, which we discovered after arrival, the tool box in the engine room, which has never moved, fell over. We were luckily it missed the fuel line of the main engine by a few inches … At the end of the day, we learned important lessons on how to prep the boat for ocean crossing. More importantly, better to avoid those conditions going forward – no reason to push so close to the limit. So now we are tucked in Suwarrow. It has been very windy all day long and we are happy we are inside the lagoon. We spent the whole day cleaning up Gray Matter and plan to spend the next few days exploring.
As promised, the wind cranked up on yesterday afternoon. The sea, perfect smooth one moment ago, suddenly turned furious. Wind started howling at 20knot, then 30 knots, stirring up white caps. Big swells followed right after. At dusk, we found ourselves in 10-15 foot swells. Autopilot and stabilizer were working hard to keep up. But the swells was big and coming abeam. Gray matter was rolling more than 30 degrees. Even though the boat was prepped for such condition, there were still things we missed – one hatch cover got blowed away, glasswares broke in the fridge and dishwasher … And the dinghy wasn’t tied down enough, and were pinching on the side railings. We decided to change our heading, so the swell would not push us directly on the side. One of the Cook islands, Suwarrow, just lie NW of our position. It has been highly recommended by follow cruisers. Why not have a quick visit of Suwarrow? So we changed our course towards Suwarrow. Sure enough, the roll motion was much less and autopilot was working a lot better. After a tough night, wind started to ease off this morning. By noon time, there was only 5-10 knots wind. It is going to take some time for the swell to calm down, but at least the worst is over. We estimate to arrive at Suwarrow tomorrow afternoon.
The sea condition has been perfect for the last two days – light breeze and gentle swells – nice way to get Gray Matter and us back to passage-making mode. This calmness, however, is not going to last. According to the forecast, a nasty-looking weather front is forming ahead of us, which will bring heavy wind and swells. We expect to hit this system later today.
Time at paradise always goes faster. Our three-month stay at French Polynesia is quickly coming to the end. We had a strong finish here at Raiatea and Tahaa. Raiatea and Tahaa are two separate islands, but they are only 3 miles away and share the same lagoon. These two islands are just as beautiful with much less tourism.
One of the highlight was a drift snorkel in the coral garden at Tahaa.
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