17 January 2009
We've crossed over! No, not in the "died and gone towards the bright light"
way, but over the equator. We have made it to the northern hemisphere! We have
finally broken the grip of the South Seas.
I had always imagined that our crossing would occur on a flat calm sunny day
(the equator is known for being a windless stretch of the world) where we would
celebrate with a bottle of bubbly and a slap-up meal, but in typical Daemon
fashion we crossed at 3.13am local time, doing 7-8 knots (very fast for us)
under reefed sails beating into 20 knots of wind in a downpour. We managed a
swig each from the liqueur bottle (with a libation for the sea gods) and a
square of our carefully horded chocolate each before we changed watches and went
our separate ways, Bruce to his watch, and me to my bunk.
Bruce tries a sun sight en-route to Palau
Despite the shattering of my equatorial image, it has been good to get the wind,
as it is a two week plus trip to Palau, through a notoriously light-winds area
and we can only carry enough diesel to motor for about 2/3 of that, so we are
grabbing every chance we get to sail and to get north to pick up the NE trade
winds.
All is well, and we have just broken through the "Day 3 Wall" where you finally collapse in exhaustion on your off-watch, regardless of what horrible thumpy-bangy-crashy noises are going on with the sails and gear on deck. Conversation consists of more than grunts and "your watch" and food becomes interesting again. Starting to feel human!
1 February 2009
We arrived safely in Malakal, Palau after a 15 day trip - the
longest distance-wise and equal in duration to our ill-fated Fiji trip (where we
spent several days hove-to in gales). Even managed to arrive Friday morning to
avoid the swingeing overtime charges for Customs, Immigration, Quarantine,
Health and Transport, so that was a relief!
The trip was pretty good - the last day out was horrible, with squall after
squall coming through all day, with the wind reaching 35 knots then dying to
nothing in the accompanying downpours, and shifting direction with each phase of
the squall. As usual it happened on my watch, so I spent a miserable wet 4 hours
struggling to keep the sails filled and the boat moving. It wasn't helped by a
patronising voice from below suggesting I could take the boat into the wind a
little in the calms to keep her sailing, and I made the 697th sail adjustment
for the hour. I briefly contemplated heading below with a winch handle to beat
the skipper to death, but then another squall arrived and I had to deal with
that. I settled for the puerile satisfaction of shouting the same thing at him
when it kept happening on his watch. The responses in his case were unrepeatable
and were usually accompanied by an upraised digit. Despite this episode however,
it was great to be back working as a team together, supporting each other and
working out solutions to problems together. After a month in harbour staring at
each other across a tiny cabin, we like each other again - the saying about
harbours rotting ships and crew is very true.
Apart from that and a couple of very light wind days where we had to motor, the
sailing was a true pleasure, mainly 15 knots from astern, and it restored my joy
in passage-making after all the smitings we had down south. The sheer pleasure
of sitting in the cockpit watching the ever-changing sky and waves during the
day and the stars at night is hard to beat - you achieve a certain state of
grace, at least until the next squall arrives to rudely bring you back to earth.
Sam's Bar ("The Royal Belau Yacht Club")
After
Melanesia Palau is like dying and going to heaven! Melanesia was fascinating and
never boring, and we had some amazing experiences, but it could also be very
depressing with the extreme poverty and dirt and lack of functioning
infrastructure, especially in the towns. Palau is an odd mix, like one of those
holograms that shows a different picture depending on the angle you look at it
from: it is either a prosperous Pacific city, or a seedy Asian one, or more
often, both at once. However it has supermarkets with things you'd want to buy
that aren't out of date/stale (in Melanesia in general only the expats get most
of their food from the supermarkets - it is too expensive for the locals who
subsistence farm), the streets are clean and the infrastructure works. Bliss!
And to top it off, one of the tour places here, Sam's Tours, runs the yacht
club, which provides free moorings, hot showers, a dinghy dock, a shuttle bus to
town (all free), internet access and has a great bar and restaurant! And gives
you discounts for being yachties! After PNG where they wanted to charge US$50 to
anchor without providing any facilities and then wanted you to fix stuff in the
village, we can't believe how good it is! The staff are all incredibly friendly
and give you hugs and call you by name - after a long trip it nearly made me
cry. We got moderately slaughtered on our first night in with the sheer insane
pleasure of finding great hamburgers, fries and cold margaritas at reasonable
prices, and being able to eat them in a very romantic setting while watching the
sunset. And 15 days of sleep deprivation adds an interesting edge to it all.
The bay here (07'20"N, 134'27"E) is stunning - there are heaps of little
limestone islands, and the moorings are tucked amongst them. We'll spend a week
or so here sorting out our boat jobs before heading down the lagoon to the
amazing-looking Rock Islands marine reserve. This place is dive central and has
is full of people from all over the world who come to dive. Bruce is planning to
do an introductory dive with them in a few days.
Well, must sign off, it is time for yet another real, private, stand up shower
with unlimited water. The indescribable bliss of it all!
Mechikung!
23 February 2009
Yes, it has been a while, thank you for reminding me so often! We are still in Palau, just blown away by the place - and to think we nearly bypassed it!
We finally dragged our consumer-satiated asses out of Koror (bars! shops!
museums! restaurants! supermarkets with real food! (OK, American, & the veges are
shipped from the US via Guam, so are either frozen or sludge when they arrive -
the tomatoes actually peel themselves after a day in the fridge. Gross)) and
have made it down to the Rock Islands, which are pretty damn spectacular! We are
currently anchored at Ulong in a very cool little lagoon (07'16.6"N, 134'17.7'E)
formed by a bunch of surrounding islands, hiding from all the dive boats
(hundreds!) that whizz past all day, every day. Water temp is down to 28' so
swimming actually cools you down at last. I have just got over a foul cold from
the taxi driver who took us on the trip around Babelduap last week, so that has
slowed us down a bit. To visit the Rocks, we had to get a boat permit (US$20 for
30 days) and a permit each (US$25 for the Rocks or US$35 for Rocks & Jellyfish
for 10 days) - nice wee money-making venture!
Daemon in the lagoon at Ulong island
Aimeliik Bai Bruce at the Badrulchau Monoliths
Well, Bruce now has tried diving, and not so keen as he thought he was, but thought it would probably improve when you had done it more. We also toured the main island with four other yachties, chipping in to hire our favourite driver for the day (hint: how to tell you have been somewhere too long - you have a favourite driver). It was pissing down when we left, but improved as we went along. Saw some very cool old meeting houses (bai) and some old monoliths which were quite spooky, but nowhere near as spooky as their new parliament buildings! If Howick wanted a parliament building, sorry, capitol building (US rules here!) they would employ that architect! It is a huge monstrosity, up on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere, and looks like a cross between the White House and Hugh Heffner's fantasy of a Greek temple with a giant dome on top. To top it off, it is made out of fibreglass, which has then been sponged in "authentic earth colours ™". There are these huge, obscenely squat columns about 6 feet across, which just echo hollowly when you knock them. The buildings have huge chandeliers hanging out front, which look as if they have come from the bargain bin at a giant version of Lighting Warehouse, and the whole thing is decorated in "authentic" local symbols, such as the money bird, which unfortunately looks like a farting chook. Sorry, shudder, got carried away there. Shame they didn't use the bai as a pattern for the building - they are very cool. Long thatched structures with a steep canoe-prow roof, painted wooden sides and faces. Inside they have rafters which are painted with scenes from local legends. I have been trying to think what legend could explain men with fish attached to the end of their penises, but am drawing a blank there... if you have any thoughts, please don't tell me.
Palau Capitol Building
Money bird or farting chicken?
You be the judge.
Hey kids! Don't try this at home!
Any enlightenment on the meaning of
this legend will be gratefully received.
Perhaps.
I have decided to collect traditional local money, so now can buy a beer (or a bride, depending on where & exchange rate) in Vanuatu, Solomons, PNG and now Yap (small circular stone pendant, replica of the giant stone money wheels excavated from quarries on Palau) and Palau (woman's money beads, made out of glass and clay, in the same way ancient Egyptian glass was made. The ones I have are genuine old ones, not replicas, so rather special).
We just had an amazing day, one of those "peak experience" days,
when you are just on a high, and all the discomfort and trials are worth it. The
most amazing time was this morning when we dinghied past turtles, herons etc
over to Jelly fish Lake where we climbed up the island to an inland lake and
swum with bazillions of jellyfish. When you left the jetty there were only a
couple about, and you sort of thought, yeah right, big deal, not even that
pretty jellyfish, then as you got further out there were more, and more, and
more, and MORE and MORE until you were hanging
suspended in a green-blue jellyfish soup, where there were more translucent
golden jellyfish than water! They were bouncing off the lens of the dive mask
and you had to fight your way through them - it was like being in a lava lamp!
They ranged in size from pea to almost soccer ball. We got back to the dock
after an hour and a half and just sat there trying to work out whether we had
just done that or dreamed it, it was so surreal. AND we managed to get in and
out before the boatloads of Japanese tourists in wetsuits outnumbered the
jellyfish!
We came back to the boat for lunch then went around the corner to see the giant
clams. I have been fooled by that description before, and snorkeled around to
look at one or two examples, but here there were hundreds of them, some about 3
feet long, and with lots of different coloured lips, and surrounded by tropical
fish - really pretty.
12 March 2009 Bruce, Long Beach Bablomekang Island
Still in Palau - we enjoyed it so much we extended our visas and
have been getting all our boat chores done and hanging out down in the Rock
Islands. The weather in March has been superb, much better than in February, so
the place has been even more spectacular than ever - it really is a yachty's
paradise. The islands are all close together, so a couple of hours gets you from
town to a deserted island of your own, especially after 4pm when the dive boats
go home. The reefs aren't nearly as scary the second time out, as you have some
idea of how accurate the chartplotter is (not bad) and what you are looking for.
Spot
the Daemon lurking on the Survivor set
Currently the place is crawling with film crews - there is a French version of "Survivor" going on on some of the islands (you can imagine French film-making types blending into the local shorts/t shirt dive culture - NOT!) and a National Geographic crew is filming here as well. We are sorely tempted to sneak over to the Survivor area and do some food drops etc to screw up the game. We had to up anchor this morning as one of the Survivor immunity challenges was about to be filmed in our secret cove in the Ulong Lagoon, and a couple of yachties sunning themselves on deck in the background obviously didn't fit the castaway look. We moved around the other side of the rock and contemplated unfurling a "Remember the Rainbow Warrior!" banner on the cliff and attaching a limpet mine to their raft, but couldn't quite work up the energy.
"Merde! Je suis Survivor!"
A
couple of days ago we dinghied out for 3 miles to German Channel (a 3 meter deep
channel blasted through the reef early last century to let ships bring phosphate
in from one of the outer islands, and one of the primo dive spots) and snorkeled
the barrier reef there. It was quite amazing - zillions of types of fish and
coral, turtles, reef sharks etc. The real adventure started when it was time to
come back and our outboard wouldn't start. Some friends had given us fuel for
taking them diving, but their mix was 50/1 not 100/1 which our engine uses, so
consequently after the long run at half throttle (to avoid getting swamped by
choppy waves) the spark plug got coked up and wouldn't fire, and without tools,
Bruce couldn't fix it. So there we were, stranded on the reef, memories of the
left-behind divers on Great Barrier Reef springing to mind and wondering how
long it would be before we started drinking our own urine and sucking fish eyes
for liquid. Bruce didn't help matters by standing up, pointing in front of the
dinghy and shouting "Look! A turtle! Oh no, it's HEAPS bigger than a turtle!" -
uneasy silence as the "Jaws" theme suddenly plays in both our minds. However,
the stranding wasn't too bad as a) we had a VHF radio we could use to call for
help, and b) it is easier to catch a dive boat at German Channel than a bus in
Queen Street (Auckland). After an agonisingly long wait of, oh, about 15
minutes, one stopped and gave us a tow back to the boat. SAVED!
German Channel from our rescue boat
Yesterday
we discovered a hidden lake, accessible only by kayak at very low tide through a
long archway in one of the islands. Very cool!
And today, children, through the arched window...
Today I achieved one of my "things to do before turning 50" (next Monday! EEK!) goals and snorkeled naked with the jellyfish at Jellyfish Lake. (OK, I know, not the most ambitious goal like world peace or global economic reform, but hey, I'm a cruiser!) This was accomplished despite the presence of the afore-mentioned National Geographic film crew. (NEWSFLASH! White whale sighting in Palau lake! Film at ten!) The jellies were just as amazing the second time.
Nekkid jellyfish molesting!