Voyage Logs 2005
Tahiti to Hawaii :
Of crossing the line, Shellbacks and King Neptune.
After running repairs, setting the new sail that was damaged in the storm and reprovising in Tahiti, the ship and her crew set sail for Hawaii en route to Canada on 13th May 2005.
Deckhand Nick East wrote:
After our six days in Tahiti we once again set sail for a long ocean
passage. This time about 2000 miles to Hawaii. However this leg proved
to be a stark contrast from the last. No huge storms, no thunderous
winds, no cold nights and unfortunately, generally no pants on the
cook.
It was already hot at the latitude of Tahiti and we nothing but more
heat to look forward to as we made our way closer and closer to the
equator. However before to long this pleasant warmth turned to
slightly uncomfortable heat to basically unbearable torture ! Id never
experienced such heat before in my life. On deck we set up all kinds
of sun shelters and constantly threw buckets of saltwater over
ourselves to stay cool. But below deck it was like an oven. The engine
being only 2 metres from all of the crews bunks added to the problem
and soon bunks were abandoned in favour of the deck. I had the
mattress out of mine and was sleeping just on boards to try and reduce
the heat a bit, but one simply could not be down below and not be
sweating.
We experienced the typical doldrums a few degrees either side of the
equator and had to motor along without a breath of wind to help carry
away the heats never ending assault.
Crossing the equator (or 'The Line' ) was a much anticipated event. As
we grew closer on the day (May21) we started counting down the miles.
Hand held G.P.Ss started appearing on deck like Irish in a gutter and
people became anxious about the traditional initiation ceremony for
the first time crosser (all 14 other than Evan).
We set up a big feast on deck and popped bottles of champagne when we
crossed. Everyone tried to photograph the 000'000 on the G.P.Ss and
people got pictures on the helm and with champagne and of the water
and all kinds of stupid carry-on. Then we had a few beers with lunch
and patted ourselves on the back.
But what of the initiations Evan had been warning about? The meal was
finished. Nothing. All the dishes were washed. Nothing. The normal
watch routine took over again. Nothing. Every ones fears were
forgotten and nerves relaxed, so naturally that seemed the right time
to Evan.
He pranced up on deck in his King Neptune outfit yelling and barking
at people to get down on their knees. I was employed as his wife and
we went through the whole crew administering a concoction of kitchen
waste and all kinds of goodies like peanut butter, eggs, flour, etc.
etc. I had my share too being a first time crosser. Some were
blindfolded and tormented. But most just got covered in goo.
Once everyone had had their turn he declared us all Shellbacks and
that was that.
We setup the fire hose and played like kids under a sprinkler for an
hour or so as the goo slowly came off and the decks regained traction.
The next day was both mine and Carl's birthday so we got to celebrate
all over again, Cookie made caramel slice and the others made us cool
cards and gave us small presents.
As we were alongside of Hawaii's big Island our engine had the nerve
to flood itself with salt water via the cooling pump, rendering it
basically stuffed, at least beyond our abilities to fix with our
limited resources. We kept sailing for Honolulu with the nice bit of
wind we had but at about 3am the wind died completely, leaving us
without any form of propulsion and drifting towards land. Evan made
the decision to call the Coastguard who set out straight away from
Honolulu and arrived 12 hours later. They gave us unlimited use of
what they had to fix our engine so Evan and Sam spent hours and hours
flushing it through with clean oil and draining out the goo the
seawater had made. We used 160L of clean oil plus many small parts
like seals, bags and bags of rags, plus they took away all the dirty
oil for disposal. Thanks guys, you were awesome!
So after 2 days of this activity we got the engine running again and limped into Kona harbour on the big island. We cleared customs at 9.30am and drank the rest of the day away - exhausted but somewhat relieved.
Previous leg: Opua to Tahiti Leg and the storm
Next leg: Honolulu to Victoria
To read about the 2002 voyage, please read Bill Miller's story.
