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240 Hour Passage: Vanuatu to Marshall Islands

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As you know, our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This passage occurred toward the end of September.  We have been playing in Marshall Islands for the past 2.5 months so keep reading and enjoy these adventures.  

We left the Rowa Islands which are part of the Banks Island Group in Northern Vanuatu on a bright, beautiful sunny day.  Our goal was to arrive Majuro in 9-10 days.  We hired a weather router, engaged the Passage Guardian, and had our very good friend, Donald feeding us weather updates daily.

Our weather gurus picked a fairly benign weather window knowing we would have at least 2-3 motor days.  We decided to take this window because the SPCZ would be fairly calm.  This is good as it is known for being a center for thunderstorms and unsettled weather.  We did not want any of that on our watch.

Day 1

Our first day brought us really nice winds, low seas and a slight current in our favor.  We were able to sail for the first 6-hours before the wind died and we ended up motor sailing the rest of the night.

  • Fish:  Caught and released a Skip Jack Tuna and a blue marlin
  • Miles Travelled:  130nm
  • Avg. Speed: 5.4kt and max speed: 9.7kt

This marlin gave Matt a really hard time, but we finally got the hook out of his mouth and released him to the sea.  Our freezers were full and could not accommodate this big fish.

Day 2 & 3

Talk about “low wind” days.  We had glassy waters out in the middle of the South Pacific  Crazy how calm the seas were.  We did something that we have never done before – we flew the drone off our moving boat.  Taking off and flying were easy, but the landing was a bit of challenge.

  • Fish:  caught another blue marlin, but this guy was able to do water dancing which wiggled the hook out of his mouth.
  • Miles Travelled:  130nm each day
  • Avg. Speed: 5.5kt and max speed: 9.7kt

We did manage to get a few periods of sailing and it was glorious!  We were full sail, pinching hard to the wind and making good progress at 7-8kts.

  • Fish:  No fish
  • Miles Travelled:  130nm
  • Avg. Speed: 5.4kt and max speed: 9.7kt

Crossing the Equator

Matt and I have crossed the equator once before so there were no “rituals” but we did enjoy seeing the Latitude go to zero.  We left the southern hemisphere and are now in the northern hemisphere.  Whoop Whoop!

The good thing about rain storms are the gorgeous rainbows that follow.

Playing Dodge Squall and Dodge Boats

What a pain in the arse.  We encountered 6 different fishing fleets.  The fleet consists of 6-8 fishing boats and their individual FADs (fishing aggregating device), and a mother ship.  Most had AIS tracking on but a few did not.  It required constant surveillance. 

If we are not dodging the fishing boats we are dodging the squalls.  Makes it an entertaining day/evening trying to avoid both.

We always hope to have a full moon on long passages but we certainly don’t plan around it.  However, this time we got lucky and had the bright moon during most of our passage.  

Of course the moon could not have all of the attention. The sun had to show off its beauty as well. My favorite images are those that have the glassy seas and the reflection of the sun and moon in the water.

Almost There, But we Slow Down

On day 8 we realized that we were going to arrive at the pass after dark. This is never a good thing when you are not familiar with the pass or its conditions.  So, we decided to slow down.  We would miss daylight hours by 2 lousy hours.  Why is this a big deal?  Well had we arrived 2 hours earlier we could be at the anchorage and enjoying a solid night sleep.  But instead we are out at sea for an additional 24 hours.  

We ended up dropping the sails and shutting the engines off.  Sugar Shack just drifted for 7 hours.  We have never just drifted on a passage or anytime for that matter.  We still maintained our watch schedule and had all of our alarms set.

Our first sighting of land.

As we arrived to the main pass we noticed 3 large fishing vessels waiting to enter as well.  They had to wait for a pilot boat so we stood off to the side to let them enter first.  Funny to be in a traffic jam on this remote island.

Summary

  • Total Miles Travelled: 1,339.22
  • Total Hours: 240
  • Average boat speed: 5.5kt
  • Max boat speed: 10.4kt
  • Hours Motoring:  136 hours or 5.6 days
  • Fish:  We caught and released (1) skip jack tuna and (2) blue marlin
  • Books:  11 books read (Christine)
  • Movies:  2 movies (Christine)

Formalities

The officials, Customs, Immigration, and Biosecurity came onboard Sugar Shack and it was truly the easiest clearance process we have ever experienced.  They were incredibly friendly and efficient, asked a few questions, signed a few forms and stamped our passports.  Sweet As!

The officials clear us in to the country with the easiest formalities yet!  Super nice group, a wonderful welcome!

Even though we motored more than we ever have on a passage, this was still considered a good trip.  We would much rather have no wind and calm conditions than face massive thunderstorms, squalls, and bad sea conditions.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This passage occurred from 9/15-9/25.  The previous blog posts was written by Matt during our passage.  Prior to our passage, our last blog post highlighted the Banks Islands.

240 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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Are we there yet?

After a nice siesta out in the middle of nowhere. It was time to finish this journey. Seems I was so hard a sleep Christine couldn’t wake me. Well she did wake me, and I’m not sure what was said, but it was surely something I didn’t understand since she let me go back to sleep, and sleep 2 hours past original time to get going. So if you see me today, thank Christine for my beauty sleep, I obviously needed it.

Final passage sunset

Made contact on SSB in the morning to notify of our position and a time to meet at the mooring with another boater to give us the lay of the land.

We got to follow 2 container ships in the pass this morning, Looks like a busy little place, lots of lights along the shore and quite a few commercial boats inside the lagoon.

Just like the Houston ship channel. Lots of traffic this morning

Over all a comfortable passage, weather wise it was spectacular. Would have been better if there was more (or any sailing) involved, but that might have changed the sea state. I’m sure Christine will have a different opinion, but with the drugs she seemed pretty normal, if that is possible.

Noteworthy:
• SPC and ITCZ: I guess it’s possible that you can make it through without too much drama with the right amount of diesel and super slack weather window. Not sure if that’s true or not, but somehow worked in our favor, albeit a longer / slower trip that our normal.
• Lost : Tan lines, I’ve looked everywhere they are no where to be found. Something you’ve had for fifty something years and to have lost it. All is not lost, I have it on good authority that civilization brings them back.
• Diet : While the boat lost hundreds of pounds along the way, I’m sure I ate everything in sight. Any thing to keep awake, it’s the lack of exercise that isn’t good. A long HOT walk on shore will do wonders for the psyche, after clearing customs of course.
• Lost : SSB & Ham radios have been dying for a few years, but the once entertainment and safety at sea is still tapering off. Hardly any boats checking to PacSea net. We did use ours to keep up with a friend that is on his way to Japan.
• Lost : A little blood from a drone catch, count your fingers lucky, we we should have practiced that on flat ground before trying it in ocean swell.
• Learned : You can motor a long way when you need to, nearly 130 miles per gallon of diesel, by rough calculation.
• Lost : More of my sanity not sure how much I have left to loose, seems to be being replaced by senility, or is that just my bad spelling?
• Learned : Its frigging HOT this side of the equator, should have installed air conditioning instead of the diesel heaters.

Anchor down (mooring retrieved) and cold beer in hand! Yippie. Off to find the authorities and clear into customs and immigration.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

210 hours into the passage to Marshall Islands

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That fishing fleet owned the ocean and no one else should be out here.

This one boat was on his course and wasn’t going go change.. Our paths were to cross within 15 meters of each other.. No radio communication just standing his course we had the sails up, starboard at that. I luffed (slowed down) to give this guy room. And by room .15 nm or 150 meters. Then he tossed a FAD into the water, almost directly in front of us.

Where your canned tuna comes from

There were 6 more boats joining the fleet that coming straight at us, they all passed with reasonable separation. I think they were anxious to get fishing at the freshly set FAD. These boats follow the migrating schools of tuna, load the fish from the smaller (30 meter) boats into the larger ship, that takes the fish to a facility for processing and then on the Philippines for processing. I didn’t see a ‘starkiss’ logo, but could have been there.. Sorry Charlie.

Once past the ocean thieves, it’s off to the races and break out the mathematics again. Ugh, more numbers. Can we make the final push to make the pass, into a new location in the day light with the hours that are left. It seems to always come down to timing, short trips, long journeys, the final bits are the details that matter. The pass is charted, the chart shows marker, local knowledge says not all the markers are there. Then there is finding an anchor spot in the dark in a new location. All added up to we either needed to average 8 knots so arrive the pass around 3pm on Tuesday so there would still be sunlight by the time we reached the town on the inside of the lagoon. Oh, the winds in the forecast were 6-7 knots.. So not gonna happen.

Nice day, nice sailing after the dance party waves sorted themselves out.

The wind shift came late, and when it did the wind died.. Making the pass on Tuesday, is not gonna happen. Another night out, so we watch the penultimate sunset of the passage with a nice Chicken Curry, dreaming of an Ice cold “Anchor Down” beer. But the beer will have to stay cold for an extra day.

Less than 100 to go, Slow rolling, no reason to get there only to have to wait at the pass for daybreak.