| 13/06/2007 - 10/07/2007 »» page 4/4 ««
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22. day - 04/07/2007 - We had couple of days left in the open ocean. We thought we had at least one thing left to do before we start the countdown. We try to spend our last days usefully, but we are also very excited about the expectations of place B. Therefore we try to read as much about the place as we can among the things we spend with packing, making order, and reallocate the remaining food on board.
Our last thing we thought to do was to leave a message to the ocean that we were here. We placed and closed the message into a bottle in 3 languages (Hungarian, English and German) in case anyone finds it and we let it go with the waves. The message contains our position today, the date, our e-mail address and a code from that we can ensure that was the original message. If someone finds it we could have an e-mail about it. Of course, there is not a big chance of it.
We have got some news from another boat that a 2 meters tall weather buoy was floating before us somewhere in the ocean, so we should watch out.
Daily position:
16:00 8-49.00S 129-00.00W log= 21133.6
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23. day - 05/07/2007 - Let us start with the countdown. Based on the GPS at 4 pm we hardly have 500 nautical miles (1 mile is around 1.8 km) left from the journey. (I wrote a P letter into our calendar for the day. It might suggest something at arrival.)
The countdown makes some reason to do something with our cameras as currently both of them are out of work.
Due to the countdown we start to worry less and less about the ropes and rigs on board that show sign of wear. They look worse day by day now. This is the 23rd day when the windvane is steering, the sails are attacked by UV, the riggs and ropes are streching in and out, the sails are flapping on the bigger waves. So we respect this effort of the boat and we try to protect it as much as we can under these circumstances. We reef the sails whenever we have to and we use rubber lines to release the sails
flapping.
In the afternoon we saw trade wind clouds during the red sunset. We hope it will bring some more wind for the next couple of days. It is also intersting that the moon rise also makes the sky reddish.
Daily position:
16:00 8-58.00S 130-46.00W log= 21238.8
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24. day - 06/07/2007 - Let us start with the countdown. Based on the GPS at 4 pm we hardly have 500 nautical miles (1 mile is around 1.8 km) left from the journey. (I wrote a P letter into our calendar for the day. It might suggest something at arrival.)
The countdown makes some reason to do something with our cameras as currently both of them are out of work.
Due to the countdown we start to worry less and less about the ropes and rigs on board that show sign of wear. They look worse day by day now. This is the 23rd day when the windvane is steering, the sails are attacked by UV, the riggs and ropes are streching in and out, the sails are flapping on the bigger waves. So we respect this effort of the boat and we try to protect it as much as we can under these circumstances. We reef the sails whenever we have to and we use rubber lines to release the sails
flapping.
In the afternoon we saw trade wind clouds during the red sunset. We hope it will bring some more wind for the next couple of days. It is also intersting that the moon rise also makes the sky reddish.
Daily position:
16:00 9-02.00S 132-31.00W log= 21342.5
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25. day - 07/07/2007 - On the 3rd day of the countdown (it was a wonderful date: 07.07.07) we made again around 100 nautical miles in weakening winds. Unfortunately a strong counter current makes our way difficult again and also the small garden which coveres the boat now. (This time I wrote an R letter into our calendar for the day after we had changed the motor oil.)
We had plenty of algae, moss and shells on the sides of the boat. It really looks like a garden. How can the bottom look like after it? We are sure it is full with algae and shells too. There is a small animal which looks like a spoon. It is a perfect creature which slows down the boot in the water.
We can say that the birds are interesting participants of our journey. We saw them every day during the crossing. They can fly for a long time without stop (e.g. the albatross can fly for a year without any stop). In the afternoon we got a free rider on board. This bird was settled on the dinghy at the fore and it was so exhausted that it did not even care about us. It was just relaxing and spent the night on board by balancing on the dinghy in line with the waves.
Daily position:
16:00 9-41.00S 134-09.00W log= 21446.8
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26. day - 08/07/2007 - On the 4th day of the countdown the powers above sent us some new adventures. (This time I wrote a T letter into our calendar for the day.)
After the weak winds of yesterday we first had variable wind then absolutly no wind sometimes with a little breeze. We had a front above us, which caused us some headaches physically and mentally. It reduced our daily average speed significantly.
After resetting the sails the wind stopped so we had to start the engine against rocking on the waves. This time the engine started to overheat therefore we stopped it. We started to search for the defect. The V-belt was torn. I took over the steering from the wind vane and Geza started to replace the V-belt at the ocean. It took him around 2 hours and he looked so oily after it. Fortunately we have lots of staffs, spareparts and other replacements on board but that is why we are overweighted (around
11 tonns) a bit.
Actually the engine cooling system is still not perfect as another part, the seawater pumps O ring is leaking. We replaced it in Panama, but we should have change the shaft too (was not avaiable there). The engine works now, but we try to treat it a bit carefully because some water gets into the bilge during motoring.
The front brought some wind with it by the time around 4pm.
Daily position:
16:00 9-45.00S 135-24.00W log= 21520.8
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27. day - 09/07/2007 - The wind that started yesterday stopped today. Our average speed is very slow around 2 knots. The shore is so close but it still seems so far with this speed. (On the 5th day of the countdown I wrote a Y letter into our calendar for the day.)
We used this windless and waveless day to clean the boat. It would be pleasure to arrive with a tidy boat. We started also the washing of clothes today with the remaining fresh water we have in the tank.
On the 26th day of the journey we still have fresh food like fruits (apple, lemon, orange and graipfruit) and we ate the last tomato and cabbage today. All of the fruits are in very good condition. We still have some gold reserves from cheese, ham, sausage and merchandised yoghurt. The fridge goes really well since the last service and it shows around 4 degrees Celsius.
So close to the land one can ask how it feels. We feel so happy to know that the islands are so close. We imagined many times stepping on land at Marquesas. The current slowness makes us a bit exhausted and we would be happier to have even a strong wind, which blows us strait to Marquesas quickly. Now we have the expectance and desire, although we are scared of the expected mosquitos and nonos (sand flies) on shore.
The moon is waning. This makes us to remember for the departure. The nights were dark that time. It is dark now too. This nearly one month went really quickly during the crossing. And we have one more task to care about. We probably have to shedule the arrival to the anchoring place by daylight, as there is not too much chance to see anything in the dark nights.
Daily position:
16:00 9-54.00S 136-59.00W log= 21614.9
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28. day - 10/07/2007 - , Land!In the morning two boobies arrived. They brought us some changes for the day. These changes made us so happy.
First the wind arrived, but we were not so happy that time. There were many squalls around and that meant our speed was very variable in one moment it was 4 knots in the next it was 9. These winds made our arrival unpredictable. We were doing our everyday chores on board when our speed stabilized around 3 knots. At 4pm (Galapagos time) we looked out from spreading out the washed clothes and we saw land. The pale contours of Marquesas Islands were there (Fatu Hiva just before us and Hiva Oa was on
our right side).
Incidental we left Galapagos exactly the same time 26 days ago and in the same hour we first saw land. So it was an amazing feeling that we were here just before the land. I felt that this was the most wonderful island I had ever seen. We were really happy after the 26 days we spent on the open ocean without seing any land around.
From this time we tried to focus on the things we had to do until arrival these were packing up, collecting the rubbish into bags (it was not too much thanks for the fresh food we used all the time). The only thing we started to think about that with the current speed we would arrive in the night. We do not really like to go into an unknown anchoring place in the night and the moon cames up later. We will see what we can do under these circumstances.
The radio propagation is worth and worth so we do not have much chance to send e-mails or the ship blog from now. Maybe later it will be better.
Daily position:
16:00 10-10.00S 138-12.00W log= 21688.5
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29. day - 11/07/2007 - We prepared the searchlight of the boat. It did not work. It might be something with the batteries. But it was not. Finally we found the problem. We had to push the switch on button more strongly.
The anchorage place of the Island of Fatu Hiva is Hanavave. This is at the western part of the island.
It was over midnight (Galapagos time) when we finished with sailing round the island from the north. We had a safe distance from it all the way without any difficulties. In the dark night we could see flickering lights and we headed towards them. Dingo another sailing boat switched on its flashing light on the top of the mast. Martin the captain of Dingo offered us his help on SSB radio. So we could use their flashing light as a navigation light in the night. We were driving exactly towards their
boat, which was the last boat on the anchoring place. We knew that we were in safe far away from the rocks and from other sailing boats and depth was ok too. It was incredibly dark without the moon. We released the sails and started up the engine. We were approximately 20 meters from the boats but we could only see their anchor lights. We could not even see the shore. There was not any street lighting on the island.
- Rotor! Rotor! Here is Yagoona - we heard Marc from another sailing vessel on VHF. He switched on their navigation lights too. They were on the starboard of Dingo. The water was not so deep behind them (18 meters) so we decided to drop the anchor there. Then a dinghy arrived to our boat that was Martin from Dingo. After adjusting Rotor we released the anchor. During anchoring our engine stopped but our anchor had been down by that time. It has never happened before. We could not do anything else
just let the anchor chains to go. We released 60 meters of anchor chain and a bit of lines too. That would be enough chain and in the morning we can reanchor after fixing the engine. We had the ocean behind so if the anchor does not hold we can sail back in the morning.
So we arrived at around 2am (Galapagos time). We were both very tired but we could not sleep for a while. Due to the 26 days of night watching we have to reschedule our body to the real daylights and nights. So we were playing on guitar a bit.
Now we have a word in our calendar PARTYS. This is from now on.
It was strange feeling that the boat did not move at all so finaly we fall asleep.
Statistics: we sailed 2999 nautical miles under 26 and a half days. We saw 27 sunsets and 26 sunrises. We saw plus one whale and many dolphins and birds. We caught 3 dorados and 1 tuna fish on our way.
This was the first time when we slept 8 hours continuously. It was strange to wake up in the morning. We saw something greenish from outside it was exciting after the blue skies and ocean…
We will continue soon...
We have a final message to the ocean (Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy):
So long and thanks for all the fish. |
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