Entry for November 20, 2007

The following is Bill’s trip from Samoa to Suwarrow. They left Wednesday, Nov 14th and arrived at Suwarrow on Saturday, Nov 17th.  They are currently “on the road again”… enjoy

Yesterday we sailed/motored into Suwarrow Atoll after a nice 24+ hours of actually sailing after more than 2 days of motoring. The windshad picked up as we went through a weather front and were blowing 30+ knots for about an hour before calming down a little. Todd was thinking about putting a reef in the mainsail and I said that would be a great idea because the winds would die down as soon as he was done, Well, of course that is exactly what happenend and by the time he had the reef all set up the winds were down to about 20 knots.

I wasn’t too comfortable in my bunk as this was the first port tack (wind over the port side of the boat) on our trip. My bunk is on the port side of the boat was trying to roll me onto the floor all night. We do have lee-cloths installed on all the bunks which are canvas pieces that are tied to the entry side of the bunk that keep you from falling out.  They are pretty uncomforatble to lean against but they do hold you in. I’m hoping the winds will be as predicted and stay on the starboard side from now on. Jack is on that side of the cabin but he copes with it better because he can crawl up into the end of the bunk that has a dresser next to it. I don’t fit there.

Suwarrow Atoll is one of the most beautiful places I’ve sailed to yet. We are the only boat here and are anchored right in fromt of a gorgeous, palm covered beach. I have many pictures and will post themas soon as I get internet access again. The water is very clear and we can easily see the fishes and corals on the bottom 30 feet below us. We had a welcoming party just as we anchored- 8 “Black Tip” reef sharks came up and started swimming around the back of the boat just as we were ready to jump in. Everyone said “don’t worry. they will leave you alone” but it took awhile (and a couple of drinks) before Todd really checked it out by jumping in the water. They did scatter and we finally had a warm, refreshing swim after 3 1/2 days of sailing here from Samoa. Aaron said, “These sharks are probably only here because of the jerks feeding them from their boats” as he started throwing in scraps from our dinner. HA!  I had made grilled pork chops, mashed potatoes, whole kernel corn and, of course, macaroni salad for dinner. These guys take care of me while we are at sea, and I make up for it after we anchor(I also made breadkfast for everyone the next morning). We had a few cocktails before dinner and a nice bottle of red wine with the port, after dinner I dug out the port and chocolates for dessert. Mmmmmm.

We’ve had cloudy skies, squalls and storms for the past few days. Yesterday, we just barely got the anchor down before  we had a large squall come through the anchorage which dumped about 2 inches of rain on us. BOAT WASH!! This morning (Sunday) I woke up (after sleeping about 9 straith hours) to a beautiful, sunny day. There is a gentle breeze coming through the boat and it is an excellent “drying” day for all our stuff after 2+ days of rain. Aaron is in “vacation mode” as he is always on the go, wanting to dinghy to shore, snorkel the reef, fish or just do anything. Jack, Todd and I are more in the cruising mode and just look at him, shake our heads and go back to reading our books. Aaron threw in a lure aroung the sharks yesterday and , jast as he was saying sharks never hit the lures, one of them ate it and tried to swim away. It was a good fight for about 15 minutes,(he was using a light rod and reel) before he got the shark up on the back deck and finally pried the lure out of all those sharp teeth. The shark wasn’t too happy and as Aaron was holding it up by the tail, it kept trying to turn to the side and bite him.

I did get a swim in this morning but the reef sharks make me nervous. They seem to stay around the boat even wehn you swim away. Even then, at one point, I had two little (3 foot?) sharks swimming 25 feet under me, anther two off my right and a lot of bait fish swimming near the surface off to my left. I thought to myself, “This probably isn’t the best place to be right now” so I swam back to the boat and made breakfast for everyone- streaky bacon (they call it that in New Zealand because their normal “bacon” is thick like ham), toasted bagel and eggs as you want ’em, It was yummy.

We’re planning on staying here today and relaxing before heading out to Penrhyn tomorrow. That will be a 2 1/2 day sail northeast, about 380 miles. Once we reach Penrhyn, we’ll have completed almost all of our “easting” against the trades and the rest of the trip will be mostly north to Christmas Island and Hawaii. Theoretically, we will be on a beam or broad reach the rest of the way after Penrhyn (HA!) We are now almost 50% of the way through our cruise. We’ve logged 2,015 miles out of 4200. We are also halfway through our allotted time so that works out good too, It’s interesting that this morning, when I brought up the subject of when everyone wants to leave this anchorage, it was pretty unanimous on leaving tomorrow, I guess that’s because there are no bars or restaurants here for Jack to visit.

Atolls in the Pacific are volcanic islands that were formed millions of years ago. The valcano would rise in the ocean and when it reached  the surface, corals would start to grow in the shallow waters. Eventually (millions of years), the volcano would collapse and fall back down below the surface. As it fell, the corals would continue to grow and form a large ring around the old volcano. The Atolls are the leftover rings of corals and reefs anywhere from 4-15 miles in diameter. Suwarrow Atoll only has one entrance for boats in the whole 18 miles around it. But once you are inside, you are very protected from thewaves and the waters are usually shallow enough for good anchoring. I’m looking forward to seeing more of these beautiful Pacific Atolls.

On Monday, we were up early, about 6 am. Aaron fixed us a fine Spanish omelet for breakfast then Todd and I went snorkeling for awhile. The corals were very colorful and I saw some of the largest brain coral I’ve ever seen. After about an hour, we took the dinghy back to the boat and picked up Jack and Aaron.  We explored the southern end of the motu(small island) and eventually went snorkeling around the entrance to the atoll. After I got in the water, I saw three black-tip sharks about 3 feet long swimming around us. Not too far behind them I saw a larger, maybe 6 foot, shark that didn’t have the black-tip markings. I wasn’t sure what it was but it seemed to be heading in our direction. The dinghy wasn’t toofar away so I swam over there and hopped up. Only then did I notice I was the last one in the dinghy, the other three guys had seen the bigger shark and made it into the dinghy before me. I noticed that Todd had a cut on one of his hands that was bleeding a little. No wonder the sharks were bolder. We motored back into the lagoon then went snorkeling again near a nice reef. Todd stayed in the dinghy. After about 15 minutes, I noticed on of the larger sharks swimming near me but it seemed to run away once it saw what a big mouthful I would be. I decided not to chance it and got back in the dinghy anyway. I saw Jack about 20 feet away waving for us to come over. He quickly climbed into the dinghy and said one of the larger sharks was directly below him and seemd to be following him as he swam around the reef. About this time, someone reminded us that we were 450 miles -3 sailing days- from Samoa, which was the nearest doctor and medical center. That was the end of our snorkeling for the day.

Back at the boat we started cleaning everything up and preparing for getting underway. By 12:30 pm we were motoring out of the atoll and back into the open ocean. I’m writing this about 4 hours later and we’ve yet to have enough wind to sail. We are motoring along at 6 knots with the main and mizzen up to cut down the roll. The swells are low and long which makes for a pretty comfortable ride. So far, what wind we’ve had has been right on the nose bit itis supposed to clock to the east and we’re hoping to sail in a couple hours. We’re planning a 3 day passage to Penrhyn then spending 2 days there visiting the small village of approximately 200 people. That shoud be very interesting.