Today we had the full program!

We started out after midnight with 4 Bft from E using the genoa tight in a bit to match the 90 deg AWA to stay on course. We expected actually a more northerly wind thus had only the genoa out.

As of 0300 the wind increased. At 0610 the log book shows 5 Bft from ENE, combined with rain and thunderstorm. The wind increased to 6 Bft from ESE; a wind shift of 45 deg. With this wind we sailed quiet for a while in heavy rain but no thunderstorm anymore.

Then the wind increased again with a shift first to E, and then to ESE. Blowing from ESE it increased to full 7 Bft. Although I reduce before the size of the genoa to 3 bars, MaRe really ploughed through the sea. In the meantime wind pushed waves up and we had wind waves of around 2.5 m, sometimes they exceed 3 m easily. The swell was short, far less then 100 m and 2 – 4 m high. Such a swell is called “rough” and indeed it’s rough sailing in such a sea with the wind around abeam. MaRe was rocking! With a small genoa only we made good progress on these sea conditions.

At 1600 we unfurled the genoa again and used the barber hauler because the wind turned N. The wind went down but the waves remained.

Now, at 1800, the wind and the wind waves are down. Only the swell remains in the range of still up to 4 m. Because we could changed course to a broad reach course MaRe moves relaxed along the given course of 218 deg.

With all these weather conditions we had to deal with 12, not only 9, fishing vessels.

Along our route from Kiritimati to American Samoa we met 9 fishing vessels.

In two cases we saw three ships at once. The other cases one or two vessels.

Whenever we saw three vessels at least 2 were very close to each other. When we came closer one ship disappeared towards W. In both cases these ships had the same name and differed on AIS identification data only in the number at the end of the name and the MMSI. (MMSI is worldwide unique identification system; one number on vessel.)

This morning we discussed what we observed and drew following conclusions.

The two ships, which disappeared, are mother ships, which have the task to supply the fishing vessel in this area with fuel & food, spare parts, etc, and take home the catch of the ones really fishing. This is the most efficient way to empty a sea area of it’s fishes, in other words stealing fishes from islands around.

How many of these ships are operating in the area N of Samoa, E of Tokelau, S of the Phoenix Islands, W of the Line Islands, N and NW of the Cook Islands?

If I make the assumption that we saw all ships in a stripe of +- 25 NM along our route, and take the aforementioned sea area as only 1000 NM wide. This leads to 1000 NM / 2 x 25 NM = 20. Thus, 20 x 9 fishing vessels result in 180 Chinese fishing vessel in the above mentioned area.

I leave this as it is for your own thoughts.

Kartoffelacker for us but the wind for others. Unfair!

(“Kartoffelacker” translates to ” potato field” and refers to the field after harvesting the potatoes. It’s a synonym for the ground being fully bumpy. Thus, German speaking sailors use this term for a very bumpy sea after some clouds passed through.)

They there must have been not too far away some nice cloud introduced wind but we did not get really a part of it.

Tonight at 2200 we saw again on the AIS screen 3 Chinese fishing boats. They belong to the same group as we saw yesterday. The interesting thing today is that they were 3, and 2 of them showed the country ID in their MMSI with “911” , which does not exist in the official list.

Later on, at about 0100 another group of 3 ships. The name pattern is the same as before. It looks like one is the”mother ship” and the two other do support work. In both cases the mother ship disappeared as soon as we came closer. Why?
One of the smaller ships came pretty close to us. Distance about 100 m. Some of the crew were standing at the bow area and looking. 1 or 2 of the onlookers waved their hand; we replied. From the boat’s movement I got the impression they were trawling.

With boats at sea I’m in general very carefully. When crossing over from Panama to the Gambiers we also met 2 times “strange” boats.

Somewhat after 0200 the wind increased and peaked even with 30 KN and we made some NM. The sky is still hanging full of clouds but it looks currently, 0930, as if the rain discontinues. Weather radar still shows something it’s hanging around between 4 and 12 NM in up-wind direction. Wind is around 14 KN. Wind waves reached around 2 m and a short uncomfortable swell of about also 2 m rolls on from easterly directions. Waves are slamming at MaRe’s hulls making uncomfortable sound. I feel like suffering won’t MaRe whenever she get slammed. We are still on the “Kartoffelacker”!

It was not the most pleasant night, but we have now less then 300 NM to go.

Let’s see what will come up. I’ll now make a thermos full of tea to be prepared for more wind to come.

Yesterday we sailed from morning until sunset with the Big Blue. In the light winds we had, the perfect sail.

Because with this 123 mb sized gennaker I don’t want sail during the night, we changed to main with reef 1 and the full genoa. (Reef 1 or reef 2 is a night tribe precaution.)

Almost with perfect timing, after we had changed sails, the wind turned to E and increased it’s speed to 10 KN as forecasted. However during the night the wind speed did not really follow the forecast.

Since this morning Big Blue is pulling us again through a smooth Pacific Ocean.

We just enjoy slow sailing!

An interruption of the routine is the pumpkin bread we made in 3 steps.
1 – I asked OBM for a recipe, which she asked ChatGPT
2 – Shigeo prepared the dough
3 – I baked it this morning when I baked fresh bread.
Result: a delicious pumpkin bread.

Here special thanks is expressed to Kristine & Alex, from Penrhyn Island, Cook Islands, for the wonderful and big pumpkin they gave us.

From yesterday’s late afternoon, early evening on the wind was forecasted to turn from NNE to E and to reach about 10 KN towards the morning.

The wind started turning from NNE but stopped at ENE. Also the wind speed increased approximately like forecasted. However, the log book shows that since 0730 the wind turned back to NE and weakend. Currently we have only 2 Bft.

So we are slowly – but steadily(!) – edging towards American Samoa.

In Penrhyn we got from Alex & Kristine a hug pumpkin as a present. Since yesterday Shigeo, the chef on board, works on pumpkin recipes. We even flew via satellite mail a recipe for pumpkin bread in. The dough is ready and in the fridge and when I bake fresh bread in the early morning hours, I’ll also back the pumpkin bread. Thus we can have a gorgeous breakfast tomorrow morning.

BTW, r wind waves are down to about 1/2 m and the swell is down to 1 – 1.5 m.

And now I’m going to start my sourdough bread.

In 2021, just before we left Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, for the Atlantic crossing, I bought a 8 m diameter round sail as downwind sail to be used when the wind becomes too strong for the gennaker. It is said, it can be used in winds from 10 KN to up to the high 30 KN thus, is can cover the wind range of squalls.

We tried it during the Atlantic crossing and it didn’t work. It did neither pull MaRe forward nor in downwind direction. Since yesterday I assume that the wind was too weak.

Yesterday I tried this sail again in winds of around 12 – 15 KN AWS and it pulled MaRe nicely forward. As we were really on running course with the AWA around 180 deg, it proved to be ideal for such a course when the wind gets too much for a gennaker and a genoa needs to get the wind forward of 170 AWA.

What requires experience is the right height of the sail in various wind conditions. If flown on maximum height, it can’t fall into the water. But depending on the wind and wave conditions it must be flown lower. I flew it low to reduced the swinging from PRT to STB. However, I flew it too low. When we got a strong wind shift pushing the round sail into an abeam direction and a bit further, it collapsed and fell into the water. It was a bit of work but we could retrieve it.

Once the round sail was secured on deck, we pulled out the genoa to move on with a wind vane angle set to 170 deg PRT, the best possible setting.

I got the round sail ready for a re-launch actually pretty fast.

However, considering that the wind was forecasted to turn E and weaken down to 5 KN, decision was made to not launch the round sail again but to continue with the genoa.

The story with the fishes started already in the late afternoon when we returned to MaRe from our first full day ashore. We saw one of the local aluminum boats leaving the little harbor north of the one we used as a dingy dock. At this other harbor, it is necessary to pull the boats ashore. For this they use long plastic pipes of about 10 – 15 cm diameter, and about 5 m long being placed parallel to each other so that on them, the boats can glide in to the water or out of the water easily with low friction.

The boat we saw leaving had only one person on board. “Fishing for dinner?”, was my thought. We continued to MaRe and did our daily evening routine.

Later, when it was dark already, I heard a motorboat with an outboard engine slowing down close to MaRe. I went to the edge of the cockpit and heard a person from the boat asking if we want a fish. “What kind of fish do you have?” “Tuna”, was the answer. “Wait a moment”, I said and talked quickly with Shigeo our chef de cuisine. Then the boat was already close to MaRe and the person in the darkness handed a tuna over to me. A nice fish! “What do you want for that” was my immediate question. “Nothing”, was the straight forward answer. Then I saw the person for short moment in the light of the our cockpit. “Are you Junior Andrew?” “Yes!” “Thanks you so much for the wonderful fish”. And Junior Andrew disappeared in the night.

Gosh what a big fish we got.

Then it became Saturday morning 0810 and we arrived at his house. “Here, for you.” And he gave me a plastic bag with half a yellow fin; the tail part. I was overwhelmed. But need to ask him if he can keep it in his fridge until we come back at 1000. He took it to where it came from.

When we came to drive with him in the trailer to his office, he gave me again this delicious looking yellow fin tuna.

Later in the night, I heard again an outboard engine slowing down close to MaRe. It was dark again and I could not see much and just asked into the night “Are you ok?” “Here is a tuna for you”, was the answer I got. The next moment the boat was already so close to MaRe’s stern, that a second person in the boat handed me big yellow fin tuna over. I exchanged a few words with Junior Andrew then the two in boat disappeared again on the darkness. It was the last time I saw and spoke with him.

What a wonderful gesture sharing so much fish with us. Another person and his family, which will stay in my heart and memory.

When the custom officer was on board of MaRe for inbound clearance, he gave us his name with “Junior Andrew”. So we call him like this.

As we changed our departure date with an extension of one day, we asked Junior Andrew, when we should do the outbound clearance. “Come Saturday”, was his answer. For us from Germany and Japan this is a very precise answer. Precise down to the minute.

On Friday Alex told us where Junior Andrew’s house is and we walked there to find out more about Saturday’s appointment. When we reached the house, a group of kids approached us. One of them, the oldest, is outspoken open-minded; she did the talking. The others were younger and just curious about what’s going on.

We asked for their father and learned that only the mother is in the house. She also asked us to come around the house. There, behind partially open wooden blinders, we saw a female face looking older than the girls and assumed that the face we could partially recognize is Junior Andrew’s wife. Wrong, it was, is I recall it right, a niece of Junior Andrew’s wife, who lives with them. A common Polynesian way to strengthen family connections.

Somehow Junior Andrew’s wife came and invited us is to come in.

We asked what we wanted to ask but I forgot her answer because we had a very interesting talk about the Wednesday’s fund raising event. I recognized the niece as one of the dancers. She was happy about that.

It turned out that Junior Andrew’s wife was one of the ladies that sang on Wednesday evening. It was a canon song of male and female voices. Asking her for the lyrics she asked one of the kids to please bring the song book. It was a book of hymns of the Ziona Church.

We didn’t come to talk about the translation when Junior Andrew came home. “What time on Saturday? It’s 10 o’clock convenient for you?”, we asked. “Come at 0800”, he said. “Perfect”, I replied, “we’ll be here at 0800”.

On Saturday we were there with passports and boat papers at 0810 to give just a little bit more time to somehow interrupt his family Saturday morning. The kids already asked us to come in. There we saw beautifully hand woven hats. The niece explained that Junior Andrew’s wife makes them. She, the niece, only made one – it was a multicolored well made hat. The others, made by Junior Andrew’s wife, had on top a part of pearl shell woven in. Simply skillfully made and beautiful.

“I got something to do with the children. Can you come again at 1000?”
“Sure we can. See you at 1000.”

It was then that we decided to go to the airport. We met Puna and the airport story is “241002_03 Puna and the airport – catching up again”. At the airport we also saw Junior Andrew being busy with some matters. As he also saw us, thus he knows that the 1000 meeting is delayed. Until when? We are still thinking too much in our German and Japanese way.

When we got off of Puna’s car, we went straight to his house. “Not here. Let’s go to my office”, he said and walked to his 50 cm3 motor bike. “Get on”, he continued and pointed to the little trailer attached to his motor bike. This way we went a few hundred meets to his office, just across the street of the new administration build
Keep in mind, he did all for us on Saturday! Don’t expect something like this in Germany or Japan or other so called highly developed countries.

He gave us all the papers we needed to fill in. Especially I, as the skipper, had to fill in really a lot. Nitty gritty details of MaRe and equipment on board. Suddenly I understood what these details are good for. They want to know details for the case they need to identify a boat. “They” means the Cook Islands.

At a certain point in time, his boss passed by and Junior Andrew gave him some documents.

When all was ready, I asked Junior Andrew for a copy of my departure certificate from French Polynesia. He asked us to wait a moment because the needed certification was in the documents he gave to his boss minutes before. He just left us in his office to get the paper he needs. Imagine something like this in Germany or Japan or other so called highly developed countries.

We were cleared out and could leave on Monday morning.

Where is the story about the fishes? I decided to write it in part 2. All the fishing events are interwoven with what’s written here.

It’s almost 0600. 2/3 of my second watch duty is done. At 0700 the daily routine starts when Shigeo comes out of his cabin.

I just thought the whole night was only boring. No other vessel was to be seen, neither at the radar nor AIS screen. The wind kept 4 – 5 Bft only changed from NE to NNE. This wind shift is covered with the trim of the genoa.

I thought about some different settings for the saildocs weather forecast and send related requests. They were confirmed within minutes, thus I’ll get the files during the day with the other subscriptions. With the files I want to see the difference in 3 resolution settings or what is the best resolution for my purpose.

Boring but good!

The good part of the night is that MaRe just runs fine on the shortest way to the next WPT west of American Samoa. Wind waves are below 2 m. The swell is short and low running with an angle of 150 – 180 deg onto MaRe.

Night shift is mainly:
sitting at the helm station
watching the time going by…

As expected, we got some more. Not the second, but the third dark grey “beast” had all. We got winds with up to 26 KN TWS and rain. It lasted for a while. Then there were still a few more lighter grey, not rain spilling clouds surpassing us and keeping the wind speed pretty high in the range to close to 20 KN.

The wind only decreased down to 15 – 16 KN very slowly. No need to set the gennaker and too much wind for the gennaker. With the swell running almost from fully behind the ride was and is smooth.

Now, at just past 2200 we still have 13 – 14 KN of wind with an AWA of 150 – 160 deg PRT.
Because the direction is so stable, I decided to set the auto pilot into TRACK mode, steering us directly to the targeted WPT, west of American Samoa.

Two hours ago, we had an uncelebrated “Bergfest”. We passed the halfway point between Kirimati and the WPT ASamoa W. I’m not aware of an English nautical term for “Bergfest” being literally translated to “mountain party” celebrating the middle point of a route.

What will be coming up?