Communication Evolution on Brick House : Iridium GO! Predictwind!

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Communication Evolution on Brick House : Iridium GO! Predictwind!

My latest article in Ocean Navigator Magazine reprinted below. See the  Original Article at Ocean Navigator..  

Communication on our Valiant 40, Brick House, was once limited to a few methods. The most basic was the very high frequency (VHF) radio used for short-range communications to other boats and shoreside facilities. Single sideband (SSB) radio chat nets were used while underway and from remote anchorages to talk to cruisers at distances over the horizon.

The SSB radio, coupled with a device called a Pactor modem gave us the ability to send and receive text email messages through the software services SailMail and Winlink when the atmospheric propagation was agreeable. We had to train friends and family to keep messages short and without attachments that could easily overwhelm the delicate pipeline of radio waves. Sometimes in port, a hotel or yacht club would offer Wi-Fi, which would be usable on board if we could anchor close enough to the signal. Eventually we installed a Redport Long Distance Wi-Fi Extender on the stern arch so we didn’t have to anchor nearly on the beach.

The SSB was once the primary long-range communications device. Life on board was dictated by propagation tables that spelled out optimum connection times, calculated by the state of the ionosphere, and the distance between stations. Happy hours and barbecues were abruptly interrupted as cruisers raced back to not miss checking into SSB nets or for their turn at being net controller, while others jockeyed for their turn at modem connections.

To make sure both SSB/Pactor and voice communications worked reliably, monthly maintenance demanded copious cleaning of corrosion between the antenna, ground connections, tuner, radio and modem. But in those not-so-primitive times, it was our only option.

Brick House’s radio gear: an HF SSB, a PACTOR radio modem and a VHF.

Growth of cellular
Over time, cellphone connectivity became more accessible because a forest of cell towers went up everywhere, even in the remote islands of Fiji. Competition drove prices down. Natives who lived in thatch huts would row up in rough carved canoes, handing their phones over, asking for a battery charge. At times, we had adventures hiking to a high pinnacle to get a signal from a tower on the next distant island.

In cruising Southeast Asia, we found cellular Internet had become even easier and less expensive. Communication between cruisers, businesses and those half a world away took a big leap forward. Our smartphone became a Wi-Fi hot spot for connectivity on board and the Internet handled all communications. The VHF, SSB and Pactor began collecting dust and rust.

Though Internet had become more accessible, there was often a learning curve to understanding the system in each country. Smartphones in the U.S. are often sold as “locked,” but cellphones internationally are mostly sold as “unlocked” and can use SIM cards from any country, costing only a dollar or two. Now upon arrival to a new country, it has become top priority to visit a cellphone store with phone and required passport so that we can leave with connectivity pronto.

We needed then, to learn how to put more “load” or “credit” on the phone — usually with scratch cards or by visiting almost any store — and then learn how to buy an Internet plan, usually by punching a series of numbers and pound signs into the phone. Every country has slightly different procedures and little gotchas to learn so as to preserve your data. In the past year, in almost every country we visit now, they have even come out with apps to automate the whole process.

The Childresses’ boat is also equipped with an Iridium GO!

For more information and to Buy  the Iridium GO,  Click here…

For the external antenna I recommend for the Iridium GO, Click here
The Weather Program we recommend:Weather

From an energized cellphone, the beeps and dings of Messenger, WhatsApp and email notifications fill the air on board. The notifications are usually from other cruisers, so leaving the annoying VHF turned on and listening to endless impertinent VHF chatter is a thing of the past. SSB nets began their decline in Southeast Asia simply because everyone was connected by cellular, and SSB radios faded away for all but the most dedicated operators. Cellular remains the number-one most utilized communication method in port and for coastal sailing.

But when the Indian Ocean loomed on the horizon, it was time to get suited back up for long-distance remote connectivity. First, I should say, for a while in the remote Pacific, we did have an Inmarsat satphone on board in case of an emergency. It was such an expensive communication device to operate, full of billing surprises, so we hardly used it. We knew this would not be an ideal way to cross the Indian Ocean, being reluctant to use it to get weather reports for extended intervals. We then made the single most drastic change that we have ever made to how Brick House communicates: We sold the Inmarsat satphone to help pay for our new communication system, an Iridium GO Marine Package from PredictWind. This is robust satellite communications.

Switching to satcom
We no longer use the SSB radio/Pactor setup for email or weather — ever. It has nearly gone the way of the cassette player or radio direction finder. We still maintain the SSB, however, just in case. If I were to put money into a backup system now, it would be to have a second Iridium GO. A cruising friend did exactly that but sold it three years later because the original one just never skipped a beat.

The installation of the Iridium GO was like any other electronic device: a 12-volt power source and an antenna on the stern arch. We mounted the antenna as high on the arch as possible to have a clear view to the Iridium satellites, and above the radar dome more than 6 feet from the wind generator to avoid physical and electronic interference. We had to empty lockers to clear the way to snake a rather monstrous cable through small holes without bending it. We permanently mounted the Iridium GO’s gray box near the chart table in a position that would not be in direct sunlight, not incur accidental splashes or bumps, and most importantly would receive a steady GPS position. The small hinged antenna on the unit not only turns the unit on but gets the GPS position as well — just not the Iridium satellites when the external antenna is attached. Many cruisers who don’t have the external antenna have to take the gray box outside and hope it doesn’t fall in order to get a semi-acceptable transmission.

The Childresses use Xgate to manage their email usage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The GO ships with a common automotive 12-volt plug for power. Since the GO is powered via a common USB mini-B five-pin connector, I took the automotive plug side off and hardwired it in to a Wagan smart USB charger. This device is powered via 12V, and then steps down and autosenses the amperage needed to safely charge each device that is plugged in to its four USB outlets, providing up to 9.6 amps. I installed a manual one-hour timer in the circuit so I can wind it up to charge, and then it automatically shuts down to prevent constant powering of the sensitive batteries.

It’s very important to update the firmware upon receiving the unit and watch for subsequent updates, as well as obtain updates for the GO software used on the devices. There appears to be nothing more to maintain aside from keeping the electrical connections tight and corrosion free.

With the Iridium GO and PredictWind’s no-contract unlimited data plan, we have easy access to impressively accurate forecasts using Predictwind Offshore. We are able to send and receive our emails as many times a day as we wish, at any time, in any weather, along with texts to our friends and other Iridium users. We have 150 minutes a month of actual phone calls. So now we can communicate anywhere in the world, anytime, whether it be with family or businesses here, or in the next country for marina reservations, to order needed parts or for technical support to keep our boat operating. We can even get a webpage if we don’t mind waiting. The system is somewhat expensive at $139 per month with an initial setup cost of approximately $1,000, but for someone with business interests, the system could quickly pay for itself by nipping a problem in the bud. And, of course, this is a tremendous emergency communication device.

FREE Predictwind Offer

Email considerations
Our email setup with the Iridium GO software is a little more complex than many users’ setup due to the volume of emails that we get, which is easily in the hundreds every day. Some people have an “at sea” address and an “on land” address, but we have just one primary email address that covers land and sea so we never miss an email.

The Redport Long Distance WiFi Optimizer (The inside unit) This is then connected to an antenna that sits on the stern arch, which is included with the unit.

First, I will tell you the two requirements that led to having the complexity (yet the simplicity) of just one email address.

  1. I could not afford to miss a single email, large or small, because of having two email addresses, and I needed to have full capabilities on both my tablet and laptop whether at sea or on land.

  2. I planned to shut off the GO service when I was in port, yet I needed to access/send/receive all emails that I had access to while at sea and continue to have that access on land — and vice versa. I needed one application on all devices to send and receive email from anywhere.

The solution? XGate software was installed on my iPad, smartphone and laptop. XGate does it all: connecting to the Iridium GO, the SSB/Pactor or to regular Internet, accessing all of my email and keeping it synced between devices. I can access both new and old emails on any of the devices in the same application with any kind of connection, on land or at sea.

I have all of my email forwarded to my XGate account  — not my Iridium Mail account — and XGate then automatically transmits the short emails. It then sends a list of “large” emails to a folder called “BigMail” (in my case, I chose “large” to be larger than 30kb). I can then decide from that folder which emails I want to receive. I can do this from any device with any connection. I also set up a number of keyword filters to eliminate email that I don’t want at sea, such as Facebook notifications or Dell computer sales.

XGate email management options allow Childress to set the inbound email cutoff size and to mass delete emails.

Note: Some systems, like Yahoo, do not allow forwarding of all emails, and fetching is not recommended in most situations. I will provide a more technical explanation and solution to this scenario on my blog at www.WhereIsBrickHouse.com.

Unless you plan to leave the Iridium GO activated for long stays in port and use it regularly, you cannot access email in the Iridium Mail app or online since it’s only accessible by satellite. XGate not only makes my mail accessible by satellite or Internet, but it does it all in the same application. If two months of email are allowed to get backed up in an Iridium Mail address that can only be retrieved by satellite, there will be a problem. Iridium Mail offers no tools to remedy this case or any other problem, and Iridium offers no technical support, help line or contact information. Using XGate, however, I can simply boot up the laptop where heavy-duty XGate tools reside, and many of the problems are resolved. Reparation at sea becomes quite plausible. There is even a human being on the other end of the phone or email to help since GMN, the makers of XGate, are actual human beings standing by to help. And, of course,  support is second to none, though your Iridium Mailbox is not accessible to them either.

There was something salty about the old days of anticipating a chat session with other cruisers on a schedule over the SSB and having little, if any, email at sea — just simple solitude. Sadly, everyone now seems to be glued to their cellphones, on the boat and on land. Cruisers sit at the yacht club, sipping wine, overlooking the anchorage, and all of them are staring at a screen. Maybe they are in a trance, gazing at my husband Patrick’s YouTube Channel.

Rebecca Childress and her husband Patrick Childress, have a long history of sailing behind them, but most recently they have been cruising the world for 12 years and are in Tanzania en route to South Africa, on their 1976 Valiant 40 Brick House. In addition to their long-standing blog at www.WhereIsBrickHouse.com, Patrick has started a new YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/PatrickChildress.

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Indian Ocean Crossing, The Preparation

 

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Magazine Articles by Patrick Childress/Rebecca Childress in Sailing Publications

 

 

Sailing the African Coast – Dodging Storms…Zanzibar and Southward

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Sailing the African Coast – Dodging Storms…Zanzibar and Southward

Sailboat Brick House Prepares for a long, stormy passage down the coast of Africa, starting in Zanzibar. This is just the very beginning of the trip, and perhaps a harbinger for things to come? We arrive in Dar Es Salaam planning to spend several weeks, maybe even a month, enjoying ourselves in Tanzania, and getting the boat ready; provisioning, and fueling up for the long 1700 mile trip ahead of us to South Africa. Then we get some weather information and everything changes quickly!

Weather Program on SV Brick House

Hello Africa! Sailing through a Southern Buster from Mayotte to Tanzania

Mozambique In April, May and June

 

 

Zanzibar Marina, Tanzania, East Africa – A month at the new marina!

Ten Years Ago, Where Was Sailboat Brick House? (FLASHBACK)

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Ten Years Ago…Where was SV Brick House?

April 2009 | Sailing to the Marquesas
10-12 knots of wind mixed with days of 5 knots or less, that is all the wind we could get to fill our largest sails and push this boat the last 1,500 miles from the Galapagos to the Tuamotu Atolls in French Polynesia. But now we have arrived! 25 days after leaving the Galapagos.

30 years ago Patrick’s little Catalina 27, Juggernaut, took 25 days to cross the same body of water but his arrival was far to the north of us in the tall green Marquesas Islands. All the other cruisers we have been talking to on the SSB seem to think this has been an unusual season of calms and slow passages.

It was a slow passage but at least nothing on the boat broke. The calm sailing can actually be harder on the rigging and sails than storms. When the wind drops but the seas don’t, the boat sits and rocks uncomfortably and sometimes vigorously. The jib and main have their own inertia quite different from the rest of the boat. The sails snap and pop violently with each roll of the boat under them. To help ease the shock loading Patrick sets up heavy rubber snubbers on the jib and main sheet. A running pole is used to pole out the jib to keep it from chaffing on the spreader and shrouds. There are times when a snubber is added to slow the upward snap of the pole. These old sails took a beating on this slow passage. We are trying to make them last till we reach Samoa or New Zealand where replacements will be an option.

In the trade winds, one running pole is not enough. We have two poles of different diameters and lengths but still could use one more very long pole. Collapsible poles unfortunately are not strong enough and eventually collapse in the wrong direction. This happened to one other yacht making the passage with us and has also been Patricks’ past experience with collapsible poles. There is a solution for this need of multi length poles, an adjustable pole that is strong and easy to work with. Patrick is contacting Hall Spars in Bristol, R.I. to see about tooling the fix. Top secret stuff

First we stopped at Tatakoto Atoll in the far eastern Tuomotus. There is no pass through the dense coconut palms to the inner lagoon so we sailed to the south west corner of the atoll where a concrete town dock is located.

Guided by some local fishermen just returning from the far horizon in their small aluminum open boat with a 25 horsepower Yamaha outboard, they pointed where there would be a shallow spot for our anchor. A mere 300 feet from shore the water depth is 600 feet. The men spoke their local language and French so all of us resorted to speaking sign language. We dropped the Bruce anchor in what appeared to be 20 feet of water but 40 feet of chain ran out before touching bottom. There are few plankton in this 80 degree water so it is deceivingly clear. I just imagined that heavy anchor burying itself deeply in to some coral jungle with no chance of ever retrieving it. As long as the trade wind blew us away from shore we would be fine. If the wind should shift, we would quickly be in the churning, turbulent area where our keel and rudder would be ground to the shoal draft configuration. Where we were the gentle swells were manageable but the coral shoal frothing like rabbis just in front of us kept us looking up, over our shoulder, out of the widow, in the middle of a conversation we turned our necks .. We know of only a few other cruisers who would anchor in this not so choice spot.

But we did stay a bit to have a conversation with the fishermen, in very broken French if one can call it that. Patrick spent many hours, day after day on this passage with a French CD program. It appears we need to make several more long passages or those men need to study the CD. The two men offered us a tuna from their boat bottom full of fish, but we declined since our freezer was filled with tuna! Later a local policeman came to the boat with a 32 year old man who learned English, French and Spanish in school in Tahiti. He did well with English and Spanish but his French was rather off. After looking at our boat documentation and zarpe from Panama, the policeman welcomed us and invited us ashore. We told them we were a little nervous of leaving the boat with the roaring surf 150 feet away. Our eyes followed their 14′ aluminum boat as they motored in to the calmer side of the small concrete break water and the concrete dock. While they sat in the boat, which rose and fell with the water within the little basin, a front end loader lowered its bucket over their heads. Timing the rise of the next surge, they reached up and hooked lifting straps to the bucket then fell back to their seats. A well coordinated movement of the operator lifted the boat and men from the water and carried them down the short pier to a boat trailer where they were gently cradled. The fishermen I spoke of before had a boat trailer hooked to a truck waiting for them on the ramp. Timed with an upsurge, the men punched the engine landing the boat onto the trailer where a man waiting with rope and hook fastened the boat to the trailer and immediately the driver pulled the boat to high dry land. Well practiced, well coordinated. If someone mistimed a move they would get severely pinched.

I could not imagine anything on shore in this out of the way island we needed unless we were already headed in the direction of death, which we were not. No tierra firma for us, yet!

While at anchor we did clean the gooseneck barnacles off of the boat, marveling at the hundreds of beautiful fish far below us in the coral. Equally amazing was that abundance of healthy shell fish which had been growing a fiberglass layer from our feet. It is incredible how these barnacles could attach and grow on a new coat of bottom paint while the boat is always moving. And this was supposed to be the Best bottom paint.

There were schools of fish of every color and size in greater abundance than we ever saw before. There were many we did not recognize time for the fish ID book! No big spearable fish though.

Despite the pounding surf so nearby, we were comfortable enough to stay past dark and have a nice dinner. Calculating our distance, speed, arrival time, we picked up anchor in the darkness of 3AM. The atoll of Amanu is 150 miles to the west.

The wind was light at 10 knots but the big red, white and blue spinnaker kept us moving till late morning when it suddenly ripped across an upper panel. On the long passage from the Galapagos that spinnaker had been up for 76 hours at a time, many times. Day after day that light sail pulled us westward sometimes aided with a stay sail poled out to windward. The 130 genoa was unrolled and took over the down wind work for the spinnaker. We had a nice sail over calm water towards Amanu. The main sail is hardly ever used for down wind work. The main torques and unbalances the boat. As Bill Seifert says, “It is easier to pull a boat than to push it.”

I figured the tides and slack water a few different ways and compromised on the best time to transit the pass. The passes in the coral atolls of the Tuomotus can have up to 20 knot currents with standing waves. At least those are the words of the guide books which like to startle the readers. This particular atoll wasn’t known to be one of the more dangerous or fast ones so I felt it was a safe first atoll to visit. We arrived at the exact minute of predicted slack water. We had a two knot current moving us through the pass for a total of 6 knots over the ground. Hmmmm. On the left shore were thick stands of coconut palms. On the right shore was a small church and nicely painted buildings of Easter egg colors of blues, greens and pinks. This could be the Bahamas if it were not for all the coconut palms and obvious lack of litter on the ground.

Having a current behind gives you less time to react if a coral head is in front of your bow, but as long as your engine can go faster than the current, there is sufficient water over the rudder for steerage and thus not much of a problem. Patrick handled the boat wonderfully and we enjoyed a slightly exciting passage through the pass. He was actually taking pictures more often than not. I was shrieking to put down the camera and pay attention!

Once we made it through the pass, a sharp 90 degree turn to the right kept us off the shoal and in the rapids of the channel. We proceeded to where the documented anchorage was. It wasn’t there well maybe it is there but the Sailing Directions is for ships not yachts. The anchoring depth was 70-100 feet of water, so now what? We proceeded towards what appeared to be a shallow spot about =BD mile south of the little 200 person town. Beautiful turquoise and then light green water. We went all the way around this obvious rock shoal and found a perfectly protected anchorage with coral forming a break water, or break boat, on almost all sides. We put our anchor down in 40 feet of water. We enjoyed 2 perfect nights there, with majestic sunsets, backgammon, and a flat flat anchorage. I was very happy there- ready to take up residency! The sails were truly down at last. Aaahhhhh.

We enjoyed some time ashore, mostly with the children of Amanu. We learned that the large number of dogs and puppies on the island is because dogs are not pets here. There is little for a goat to survive on here and a cow would starve in a week. The dogs lay around the dirt streets or in the shade of shrubs. Most of the dogs don’t let you get too close to them because they are afraid it may be their turn to be dinner. The puppies don’t know better and I scratched many bellies. They are ugly mutt looking dogs though.

A couple of the older children knew some English, so we were able to learn that they go to secondary school over in Hao, the atoll 17 miles to the south. I asked one girl how old she was, and she said 12, so we gave all the children a lesson in English. I asked each one “How old are you”? They caught on, and some of them could even count to ten in English. One tried to tell me he was 29 he was but 5. We shot a few baskets on the basketball court, and shook some coconuts to listen to the milk. We were a real novelty to them. We also introduced ourselves to some people operating the one small store on the island. We longed for the eggs and the onions and potatos they had, but the prices were very high, and we had no way to change our US dollars in to FP francs there, so the $8.33 per dozen eggs stayed on the shelf. We walked the streets of the town, saw the power plant which runs the whole little village until about 11pm at night when it shuts down for the evening. We saw the fairly modern school and tiny post office which is open two hours a day. 2 or 3 churches seemed like overkill for 200 people, but their churches were pretty and well maintained. No trash on the streets or shoreline like in the Bahamas, and people raking, and weedwacking suggest a high degree of pride in their home. The homes all had water catchment systems with big black plastic water collection tanks next to them. They were modern but modest concrete homes, something like you would see in the better Bahama villages. We also asked about the fish having ciguatera. Ciguatera is a toxic dinoflagulate living in the coral. Fish of the wrass family, such as parrot fish, eat the coral and can’t help to ingest the toxin. Big fish eat the little fish and the toxin works its way up the food chain. It is a nasty debilitating poison for a human to endure. The effects of sore muscles and joint pain can last 6 months. We asked several people and they said there is no ciguatera on this atoll. Great news.

The coral is beautiful here. The water in the lagoon isn’t as clear as it was at Tatakoto, but the wildlife makes up for it. Black tip sharks are everywhere, tons of two pound groupers but no edible fish bigger than that, 1 white tip shark, 1 unidentified shark, a big beautiful octopus, and TONS of beautiful tropical fish of very odd shapes and colors. Also, large clams with lips the colors of the rainbow growing out of vibrant, interesting coral formations. This is really some of the best snorkeling we have done in at least a year!

A few days ago, we sailed three miles out to the middle of the atoll using some waypoints from another cruiser. The waypoint was off by one mile. We had found the “Etoile Reef”, a three armed starfish shaped reef. We anchored for the night in the shallows on the lee side in 35 feet of water. The normal depth crossing the atoll is 200 feet. The only direction we wouldn’t be well protected from was from the southeast. Of course on a new moon night, with not a bit of light, the wind shifted from the southeast, and I was up quite late trying to shine a light on the coral to see how close we were getting to it. Patrick slept well while I worried, studied the chartplotter ( this reef did not show up at ALL on the chartplotter – we are in no mans land here), studied the fishfinder, and tried to shine beams of light and a laser beam to no avail on to the reef. I stood by ready for anything. Nothing ever happened and the wind finally shifted back the other way so I went to bed. Needless to say I had a headache and was tired the entire next day.

However, in the morning I wanted to go grouper fishing. The water is shallow enough that I could hunt too. It’s remarkable the sharks are timid, and the groupers are curious and even aggressive. Patrick pursued one little grouper for a while today, sans speargun, and the grouper came at him! Patrick played along and got scared off hopefully that grouper tells all his friends that when a human comes after you just move towards them not away and then the human will swim away! Hopefully he tells all his big brothers that story! Patrick felt the groupers were too small and we should let them grow up if they do in fact have the capacity to get any bigger.

We instead took the boat over to a couple of passes looking for a shallow anchorage. We finally found a spot behind one of the many coral upcroppings which rise vertically to just below the surface. It is enough protection to break the waves. One would never maneuver around this huge lagoon at night or in poor weather. These coral heads are everywhere and small ones are extremely difficult to see from a distance. The people who have powerboats here have all their controls very forward in the bow for this reason.

I had a splitting headache, from the festivities the night before, so Patrick went to the shallow passes in the shoreline without me. He said he didn’t see much besides Baby Black tip sharks ready to bite his ankles. Brick House was in a terrible anchorage, and of course the wind kicked up, so we decided not to spend a night there. Besides, the last boat of people we saw when we left the Galapagos, Denny and JT on Jubilant, had sent an email saying they decided to come to Amanu before going to Hao, and they were to be arriving that afternoon. So, following closely our track on the chart plotter, we made our way back down to the original anchorage where Jubilant was already anchored. Jubilant is a 50 something feet long ketch and too nicely taken cared for, for a cruising boat. Not a crumb out of place. JT is a friend of a friend of Denny and flew into the Galapagos to make the passage to Tahiti.

After anchoring, Patrick spent time disassembling the watermaker inlet hoses etc to get the watermaker going. It works but he thinks it should be running better. We only have about 5 gallons of water left. This old water maker was installed by a previous owner in 1996. It is amazing the old machine still works at all but its top capacity is only 6 gallons per hour. Not much more than a survivor water maker with a motor attached. We have started to take salt water baths only – no fresh water showers. We have 2 eggs left for baking, and no fresh veggies or fruits. Eggs cost $8.33 a dozne here, but there is no bank to exchange our money and they wont take US dollars, so even if we were willing to pay $8.33 for a dozen eggs , we couldn’t. When we asked about bread, they only had a box mix from which one makes their own bread.

A couple of days later, Denny and JT from the yacht Jubilant boarded Brick House and we all motored against the wind to cross the lagoon to go see what the snorkeling would be like on the more protected side of the lagoon. It had been blowing 20 knots for days. The snorkeling was no better and still a lack of sizable fish and no lobster sightings but we had a good time, and had a fun lunch aboard Brick House before sailing back to the anchorage at the end of the day.

Jubilant is in desperate need of bread, eggs, and other foods, so they will go to Hao. We would like to go further west, but despite popular belief that the southeast tradewinds blow all year here, they actually blow from East North east. So the more westward we go, the harder it will be to get to the Marquesas without sailing upwind or even having to tack to get there. Because of the great possibility of having to sail against big winds and waves to get to the Marquesas, we decided to depart Amanu the next morning express to the Marquesas. We timed our departure with Jubilant to motor through the pass together. We expected slack or a little against us, but of course we had current behind us again as we departed. All of the children in the village were at the cut to wave goodbye to us! Jubilant waved goodbye as they went south for Hao, and we turned north for the Marquesas.

The weather forecast was for 2 days of 20-25 knot winds, like it had been doing for days, then 1 day of 10- 15, then 2 days of no wind. When we came out of the lee of Amanu, a giant wave greeted us, and a couple of garbage cans of water came in every window and down the hatch. Everything was drenched. We had JUST opened the windows a few minutes prior since it seemed like we were going to have such a nice sail. So for the next 2 days, waves pummeled us, we were totally uncomfortable beating to windward, ate nothing but crackers and juice, and had a sauna to sleep in with everything closed up tight, damp and musty smelling. Misery.

After 2 days though, the wind settled to 10-15 knot and the waves dropped in size but there were two wave trains to bounce us around in uncomfortable directions. I made cookies, and a nice dinner. Now its day 4, and the wind has actually remained at 15 knots with the seas becoming flatter and more regular from one direction. It is odd but we are sailing fast, 6-7 knots through the water. Maybe nearly empty water tanks have taken enough weight off the boat to improve performance. We should be anchored in Hiva Oa by tomorrow ! We will get legal there, and start the 90 day clock ticking. We have many fun plans for the Marquesas