M/Y Iron Lady

For those of you who have been following for awhile, you know about our clearance adventures in Fiji and Tonga. If not, I recommend the Tongan experience in particular which (in retrospect) was hilarious – you can do a search on our blog to find it. Fiji was somewhat better and I understand from John Henrichs (FPB64 Tiger) that Fiji has gotten much more user friendly by eliminating some of the requirements for separate permits for the Lau Group and reducing the number of mandatory check in points.

At any rate, I didn’t have high expectations that French Polynesia would be much better. Steve has been making cargo runs to Pitcairn Island via French Polynesia and they have been using an agent to expedite things for the sum of USD 200. While I groused about the fee, I bit the bullet and engaged the agent. He promptly got named Secret Agent Man because two days out of Tahiti and many emails later, we still had not heard from him – I was really beginning to regret my decision when we received a comprehensive email detailing the documents we would need on arrival.

We barely had the lines on at Marina Taina when Pascal Bredin, General Manager of Tahiti Yacht Services stepped aboard. He reviewed our documents and said he would take them to customs and we should wait on the boat as Immigration would be along within the hour. Pascal returned with all the customs clearance documents, our duty free fuel exemption which greatly reduced out cost of fuel and shortly thereafter, Mr. Immigration arrived and we were cleared. He also arranged to exempt us form the bond required of all those arriving in French Polynesia in the amount of a ticket for a flight home. He arranged Roger’s flight home at rates better then I could obtain and booked all the inter island commuter flights for our guests. All very efficient and painless and it only got better from there.

Pascal handled all the details for us – he arranged for cab service with Emily who was just excellent and was available by phone anytime for our needs, he arranged for a post paid cell phone sim and postpaid 3G/2G data card for our Peplink router the same morning as our arrival. All marina charges, fuel charges, cab charges and the like were forwarded to Pascal and we paid nothing at the time – at the end of the month, we were forwarded a detailed invoice of all our charges which we paid in one go to him. He arranged for us to bunker the boat, both in Tahiti and in Nuka Hiva later in our journey, and helped with local sourcing of parts and services we needed. Even the mechanic we engaged to work on an engine problem we were having gladly sent his charges directly to Pascal(Bruno Gremy of GMS who was also excellent). When we needed to have our spare raw water pump rebuilt and it was not ready at the time out our departure from Tahiti, Pascal arranged to it forwarded by ferry to Moorea and transferred to a hotel near where we were anchored.

On our third day in Tahiti, Pascal spent the morning with us detailing things to do and see on each of the islands we will be visiting and gave us the names of operators we should contact for various activities.

The cost for Pascal’s services is a 10 percent commission on everything he takes care of except for marina charges and fuel which he does not mark up. As he generally obtains a 10% discount from the folks he works with, the cost to us was pretty minimal.

We highly recommend him. Contact info is Pascal Bredin, GeneraManager, TAHITI YACHT SERVICES, Phone 689 85 52 85, cell 689 77 44 47, email yacht@tys.pf.

On a general note, I was pleasantly surprised at just how efficiently things worked in Tahiti – a far cry from Fiji and Tonga. The level of services, including parts availability, was generally excellent. Viva la France.

And once again, a hat tip to the good folks at Circa who expedited some parts to us on short notice.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Gotta go – we are approaching Huahini and Shabby just caught his first bird – an interesting process trying to get it unhooked. Didn’t make up for the wahoo that bit thru our wire trace and escaped earlier. Time for a heavier wire trace – things grow big and mean out here.

I crank in the critter with Kim at hand.

Steve corals the angry critter while Surgical Physician Assistant Daughter Kim performs a hookectomy.

As you can see, I am well behind in my posts – will try to be more diligent when I get time but we stay pretty busy out here.

Cheers

May 26 – 1 day from land fall.

SInce last night, it has been blowing 25 to 35 from the east southeast. We picked up the southeast trade winds yesterday afternoon at at steady 20 knots. Iron Lady made light work of the waves on her beam. As forecast, an occluded front went thru last evening – no rain, but it did bring with it more southeasterly flow to reinforce the trades. Overnight, winds came up from the high 20’s to 35 knots from the east south east. The seas were not large by our standards – up to 4 meters – but they were very steep and short coupled which made for a sporty ride overnight. The aft staterooms were fine but I, being stubborn, stayed up in the master. It was like sleeping in a washing machine so not my best night. Will grab extra sleep during the day today.

This brings up a point however. The FPB has the speed to avoid such encounters by altering course in advance. Being realistic, however, there is no way you are going to get a perfect 11 day weather window for a 2200 mile jaunt across the Pacific. In terms of forecasts, 30 hours is about as good as it gets with some accuracy. That said, there are simply times it is best to live with what you get and push on as opposed to evasive maneuvers. From our perspective pushing on on the great circle route for an early arrival is worth 12 hours of being a little uncomfortable.

We began arrival preparations in earnest yesterday. Made up crew lists, personal crew electronic effects, duty free, and listed drugs in the she’s medical locker in Excel and printed them out all in triplicate along with copies of the ship papers and NZ clearance form as our last port of call. We dragged out and inflated the big ball fenders as we are likely to be med moored at the Taina Marina where we will be docked.

After his talking to, Shabby sulked most of the morning and did nothing. After lunch, I went down for my afternoon nap before watch and resolved to bench him when I got up. I had been down for about 20 minutes when the reel went off big time and soon after, we boated a beautiful 45 pound wahoo. Shabby had redeemed himself and his family honor. He was now looking very much like the Shabbys of old – his mylar skirt was torn up, most of his rubber legs were missing and the few that were left were pretty short but he still had his eyes. He reminded me of his grandfather, who, when he went missing had no eyes, no skirt and no mylar. The last we saw of him, he was headed north in the Pacific islands in the mouth of a very angry marlin. We had to cut the line or we would have been spooled. We miss him, but I am sure it was the way he would have wanted it as opposed to being relegated to the bottom of a tackle box.

Afternoon snack was wahoo. Dinner was wahoo steaks over risotto with a salad and we are presently determining how it will be prepared for lunch and dinner today.

After calculating distance a to go and our desired arrive at the pass at 0830 tomorrow at slack tide, we have backed the boat down to 8 knots at 1550 RPM. Steve is preparing to notify our agent and the port of our arrival time by sailmail or SSB.

Cheers

May 25 25 21 S 155 21W

Yesterdays noon to noon run was 233 nautical which translates to a 9.7 knot average for the period. Distance traveled as of 0800 today is 1815 nautical. Current weather is scattered clouds, barometer 1020, winds SSE at 16 and waves 1.5 meter from the SE. We are on the backside of an occluded front which was to produce 25 to 30 knots from the south but there doesn’t appear to be anyway that is going to happen. We are on the north eastern edge of a high pressure system that is moving slowly so our nest wind shift will probably be the southeast trades. Engine revs still at 1650 and other key parameters remain unchanged.

I managed to thoroughly screw up yesterday’s post. The day was May 24 – not May 25 and our arrival date in Papaeete at current course and speed is Tuesday – not Monday. Shocking – I don’t know what day it is and I am blasting away toward Tahiti but don’t know when I’ll get there. Not very seamanlike – or is it?

We have been at sea now for 9 days and the departure formalities in Whangarei are long past. We still have a two day run to Tahiti – yesterday it was 3 – and plans for our arrival are still, for the most part, premature. So we are left with life at sea where the routine of one day flows pretty much into the same routine the next day. Weather and the like may change but life aboard really doesn’t. The key parameter by which remeasure our day is watch keeping which has little or nothing to do with the day or date. Quite refreshing actually not to worry about such things. A good buddy of mine has a saying that when you are retired, you only know which day it is on fat paper day – Sunday’s when you get the fat newspaper. Similar logic seems to apply (and it is a good redeeming argument on paper anyway).

Our typical day runs something like this starting with my watch at 1600 to 2000. Generally everybody is up by 1600 and we eat dinner around 1900. After my watch, Roger is on and I go to bed. Steve generally lies down for a few hours in advance of his midnight watch. Roger goes off at midnight and goes to sleep. Steve wakes me for my 0400 watch and then he goes to bed. At 0700, Roger generally gets up for his 0800 watch. Steve wakes up around 0900 and everyone is generally up until after lunch. In the afternoon, both Roger and I try to get in an hours sleep before our watches. At the end of watches there is generally some small talk. Fortunately, both Roger and Steve are great company and we enjoy our time together. A boat in the middle of the Pacific filled with people who don’t tilt well would be pretty awful.

Dinner last night was Mahi saviche. Cubes of fresh Mahi cooked in fresh lemon mice in the fridge too which was added diced peppers, cucumber, avocado and unsweetened coconut cream. Same was served with jasmine rice. Just TOO good.

Shabby failed to produce last evening so we are out of Mahi. Before sending him out this morning, he got a rather stern talking to about his proud lineage and obligations.

Cheers