1) Visas - Three lost days
I feel a little less silly about my LAX fiasco right now as my captain drastically misinterpreted his own visa situation. He'd thought he had a 90 day visa. When he entered the country they told him 30 days. Then, as we approached being put in the water, and with three separate sets of crew with tickets booked to fly in from different continents to sail with him, and his 30 days almost up, he decided to look into it. And learnt he had had merely 30 days. And a huge panic situation arose (though fortunately not mine) which overwhelmed everything for several days. And almost caused us to miss our weather window to head to the Tuamotus. (But did allow the other crew and I time off, to walk into town for frozen yogurt and a visit to the pearl museum, to talk and talk, to discover we were both excellent scrabble players… :)
2) Verdict - Heading out to sea.
The captain returned from a day pleading with government officials, police, and immigration officers to state we'd be leaving in one hour so we scurried about tidying up inside and tying everything down outside, and, as the sun set in the west behind Moorea, we set out from Tahiti for Fakarava.
‘Which way would you head?’, the captain asked me in what had to have been intended as, I must assume, a teaching moment. ‘I'd follow that boat,’ I replied pointing to a fishing vessel not too far in front of us that was winding its way along a well marked channel between red and green buoys. ‘And if it wasn’t there?’, he asked. ‘I'd go along the channel between the red and green buoys,’ I said. ‘No,’ he stated, ‘You have to keep the red buoys on your port side when leaving,’ and he started steering our boat out of the clearly marked channel until some canoeists yelled at us at which point he stopped and went below to study the charts and returned to admit I was right.
It was not an auspicious start.
And similar things happened with laying the jacklines and plotting a course and setting the sails…
I did my very very best to be as differential and diplomatic as possible but I was totally aghast and starting to get worried. How can someone who's captained a boat halfway around the world not know so many such very basic things? How did he make it this far? How is that possible? And more to the point, was I going to have to double check every single one of his decisions? And more to the point, how safe were we?
As we sailed East into the dusk with the most beautiful sunset behind us I chatted with Daniel. ‘Well?’ he asked? ‘I can't sail on this boat to Australia,’ I replied, ‘The verdict is in: No way!’
3) Verification - Night Squalls Night One
In a monohull you can tell when you're overpowered (have too much sail up) because the boat heels over. But in a cat you have to know to reef based merely on wind speed. Our rule of thumb, the captain said, is to reef once at 15 knots and then again at 20.
The first night out I awake suddenly to beating rain and general disaster. The captain's on watch. The true wind is 30 knots and rising. The jib is flapping madly, unable to be furled as its lines have tangled. The main can't be taken in safely as to do so one must go on deck up to the mast and currently there are jib sheets and other assorted ropes whipping about out of control up front. The waves, as always, look bigger in total darkness, and, did I mention, the rain was torrential… For the first time I'm actually scared that the captain's incompetence might put us in danger. (How do people manage to circumnavigate with so little idea of how to sail?) (And how do I pick these guys to sail with!) Daniel and I put on our safety harnesses, a process that takes longer than it ought as we haven't practised, and meanwhile the captain has received bad rope burns on his hands from mishandling a line. Basically it's a shit show. Five very long minutes later we're all out in the cockpit, soaking wet, ready to help, and, fortunately, the wind speed falls slowly to 25 and finally down to 10. It was just a squall.
In the calm that follows we untangle the lines, put two reefs in the main, and furl the jib almost completely. All this takes about half an hour. I'm very grateful we're doing it at 10 knots and not at 40! The torrential rain lessens to mere drizzle and we get a few minutes reprise before the wind picks up to 30 again and the next squall blows through. This time we're ready. It's still nasty but no longer dangerous.
I have my verification. I will not do even one long leg at sea with this particular captain.
In fact I might even have been cured of any desire to go to sea at all!
Maybe it really is time for me to pursue other avenues.
Roll on life.
In other news, Daniel, 34, retired self-made multi-millionaire is intelligent, interesting, and an amazing cook. He dished up baked eggplant casserole with a green salad for the first night and it was to die for. I don't particularly like eggplants generally but this was fantastic, and the salad, complete with touches like parsley, capers, and his signature dressing beyond description.
In other news we are heading to Fakarava (how cool is that) where I anticipate a week of pink sand beaches and out of this world snorkeling. Life could be worse. (As long as we don't all go down with the ship.)
Wyn confuses me. He decided to sail around the world. And he's doing it. I mean, good for him. I'm thrilled and impressed and envious. But he hates sailing, consequently isn't any good at it, and so is forever, in his very words, “over-stressed, angry, exasperated, and frustrated!” He started this trip last year and can't wait to get back home and sell his boat. To top everything off it's cost him a metaphorical arm and a leg and, more poignantly, his marriage.
I came here expecting at very least a fantastic sail to Australia and hoping for, perhaps, even more. At this point, if I were a betting person, I'd put the whole of my fortune on the odds that I'll take neither!
And every night there are squalls and scary winds and beating rain.
And everyday Daniel makes me laugh and pushes me to think.
And at all hours we both do our best to make it a happy stressless interlude for the captain.
And as the sun sets over a series of squalls all I need to make my life perfect (for today) is for one of my lines to catch a tuna!
