Syzygy Sailing

(refers to events that happened July 15th)

In Rangiroa one morning, I had headed over to the post-office bright and early to mail a couple of letters.  Our boat was anchored on the north west side of Pass Tiputa.  The post office is on the south east side of the pass.  So I headed into land, caught a twelve passenger motor boat for $2, and rode with a bunch of locals on their way to work that morning.  On both times across the pass, I could see dolphins in the pass.  They were swimming and jumping in the waves the current creates as it rushes out of the pass, marking the transition between high and low tide.

It was an incredible sight, a dozen or so dolphins surfing down the face of standing waves.  Jumping sometimes ten feet into the air.  I had only my meager point and shoot camera.  Though waterproof, it certainly has the drawback of not being the greatest picture taker.

Below are some pictures from the pass that morning.

(refers to events on July 10th)

I felt like a champ after having found the VHF.  Back at the boat, cold but ecstatic, we hurriedly tied up the dinghy and enjoyed a sweatshirt and beer in celebration.

I wish we had not hurried.  In the middle of the night, our dinghy decided to float away.  The knot somehow slipped.  Matt told me in the morning that he woke up at 3 am to pee and the dinghy was gone.  He then went back to sleep.  What else could he do?

I found out at 6 am when I woke up.  The prospect of a new dinghy was not pleasant.  A minimum of $1000 for an engine.  Another $2000 for the dinghy itself.  This was an expensive problem.  Getting to shore was now a major challenge, involving swimming, paddling the two-person kayak, or hitching a ride.

It slowly dawned on my through the morning that it was I who had tied up the dinghy.  In my rush and because I was cold, I apparently did a poor job.  Perhaps it wasn’t as tight as it needed to be on the cleat.  It is doubtful that I went back over the knot, and I clearly did not tie up the dinghy with the second painter line that has now become mandatory but at the time was rarely used.

Matt was always magnanimous as we talked to various people about the incident.  Careful to never blame me or express anger towards me.  I had in fact, watched a knot of his nearly come undone just two days before.  You would think this might have made me more wary and it did in the moment.  I did not remember to be wary when I was cold and wet and exhausted from searching for over an hour for the VHF.

We discussed what to do.  It was clear this was a blow to Matt and had effectively resigned to buying a new dinghy and engine.  He didn’t really like either anyway.  I thought we should go looking for it, for which I received a ‘Yep, you should do that.’  I radioed the anchorage intent on getting a ride to shore, and relayed my embarrassing sob story over the VHF.  “Good morning Rangiroa.  You know its a good day when you wake up and discover your dinghy has floated away in the middle of the night,” I began.  A couple of our yachty friends replied and two hours later I had a ride into shore.

There, my miserable French tried to describe to people on the dock what happened and ask them if there was any hope.  This was not easy and I certainly wished for Matt and Karen to help with the language.  My vocabulary is limited to “Des sole, je ne parle pas francais. Parlez-vous englais?”  However, with the help of a local dive operator, I managed to talk to one person who was insistent that our dinghy would be on sure somewhere.  Just walk the shore he said.  It will be there.  I am positive it will be there.  This was encouraging!  Others however were not so enthusiastic.  But I had to try.

So walk the shoreline I did.  It was six miles between Passe Tiputa and Passe Avatoru.  at which point I would have to stop.  Walking along the shore was not like some stroll along a beautiful white sandy beach.  Or even a kinda crappy beach.  There was no beach. It is all bits of coral, usually only 3 feet wide before land starts.  At the land were peoples’ houses, schools, restaurants, a police station: the gendarmarie, other businesses and dogs.  Lots of dogs.  I am not a dog lover in the United States, though I lived with one for 8 months and quite enjoyed it.  In French Polynesia, I strongly dislike dogs.  They’re mangy, dirty, underfed, bark randomly and bark protectively when coming near a home.

I filed a police report.  I a couple dozen people.  Walking through peoples backyards will do that, and they frequently eyed me suspiciously.  Particularly the couple I came across whose wife was sunbathing nude in her backyard.  The husband was quite nice about it, despite my intrusion.  Each time I would tell swallow my pride and relate my story, often in short keywords with much pantomiming, as the person I was talking to did spoke only a little English.  Yet again, having Matt or Karen along would have been nice to try and communicate.  Frequently, the people would exclaim something, walk closer to the shore, look either way and say something to the effect of, ‘i do not see it!’ Yes, I know.  I wouldn’t ask be asking or talking to you if I could see it.  My patience was growing thin.

One person would say it probably went out the western pass.  Another would say it might be at the school where the land bends south.  Another reiterated some of the people on the dock by saying it might be at the blue lagoon.  Each time I said merci, asked them to tell the gendarmarie, the police, if they heard of anyone finding it, and continue trudging on my way.

At about 5 pm, I had made it to the other pass.  Resignation beset me, Our dinghy was lost.  Misadventure part 2: failure.

(refers to events on July 9th)

The dinghy has provided a constant source of amusement for us.  Matt and Karen probably would chose a different word from ‘amusement’.  Like ‘hatred’.  This has only increased since I arrived.

Since we have an inflatable dinghy, it does not deal with rough water well.  A hard bottom dinghy would do better. In rougher water with larger waves, larger being over 6 inches,  a blast of water will spray up over the boat.  The spray only increases with speed and wave height.  Luckily our dinghy, handicapped as it is by a poor engine, never goes very fast.

I’ve noticed up until this point that to combat this spray, Matt or Karen will stand at the bow and pull up on a line connected to the bow.  The idea is that you pull the bow up so that a: waves more easily pass underneath the dinghy and b: even if they don’t a higher bow will block some of the waves.

Now, I generally thought this dubious at best.  The bow, in my opinion, seems to get pulled up about one inch.  Better to just grin and enjoy the spray, a reminder that we are not cooped up in an office, working our 40 hour weeks, dressed in slacks and a button down, and paying lots of bills.  However, on one fine day in Rangiroa, I decided to give my hand at trying this, if for no other reason than everyone else on our boat was doing it, so I wanted to be cool too.

As we pulled away from the dock, I grabbed the line and stood up.  Another boat passes by.  I note the wake (the waves eminating from behind the boat) they create, and think: not a problem.  Their wake reaches us and rocks us side to side.  I then think: this is a problem.  I stumble from side to side, and as there is not much room side to side on our dinghy, I proceed to be clipped in the calf by the sides of the dinghy and tumble backwards overboard.

Man Overboard!

I am perfectly O.K. save a bruised ego, and once Matt has ascertained this he immediately starts laughing.  I am not laughing.  Not yet.  I am frantically trying to get things out of my pockets that I don’t want to get wet.  Money.  My journal with months of entries I don’t want ruined.  Two long letters to Allison.  If those get wet, oh I would be so upset.  Hence my franticness.  However, the journal and letters are in a waterproof bag that I had remembered to seal, and the money was in a ziplock.  After fishing those out of my pockets and realizing they were fine, I too laughed at myself, treading water and just laughing.  Two cheapo glasses I had bought so you could look directly at the sun during the solar eclipse are within reach and I grab at them.  The third has already started to float under.  I pull myself back into the dinghy, sopping wet and laughing.

I take inventory and as Matt is starting to pull away, I realize I’m missing something.  The handheld VHF radio.  The extremely-nice-christmas-present-from-Matt’s-parents handheld VHF.  Matt is displeased.  Both of us without even telling the other simultaneously start trying to take a bearing on land.  If you line up two points, say a pylon and a tree, then you return to this spot you can again line up the pylon and tree and know that you have returned to somewhere along that line.  Do that with another 2 objects, preferably two which form a line perpendicular to the first two, and you have two lines which can only intersect in once point.  Theoretically you can return to the same spot.  As long as you don’t use a mooring ball which might move with a shift in wind and current.  And you don’t forget what you used.  Both of which happened to me.

After going to the boat to pick up snorkeling gear, we return to where we think I might have fallen in.  I flop out of the dinghy, and swim around, frequently diving down to the bottom, it’s only about 15 feet, looking around.  Matt moves around in the dinghy to scan a larger area, dunking his head in the water periodically.  Ten minutes of searching.  Twenty.  Thirty.  It seems inconceivable to me that we can’t find anything.  I know other things fell out of my pockets.

And then I see the pair of glasses that had had been out of reach and sank to the bottom.  Here’s the right spot!!  Ten more minutes of searching.  Search time no longer feels fruitless.  The VHF must be here.  I find a coin, 100 francs, about 1 US dollar, bright and shiny.  This must have also fallen out of my pocket.  And there is a AA battery I bought for the GPS.  it must be here.

And finally there it was.  A swell of relief first then a swell of apprehension.  Would it work?  I pop up out of the water.  The smart thing would have been to take it back to the boat, rinse it with fresh water, let it dry out thoroughly, open it up and continue to ensure proper drying.  I didn’t do that.  It was still on, and so as soon as I popped up on the service and waved to Matt and pushed the boat to call Karen back at our boat.  “Syzygy, Syzygy, this is Jon.”  Karen replied.  It worked.  Thank you to Matt parents for buying such a nice VHF that it withstood being in 15 feet of water for over an hour!  Misadventure part 1: a success!

Finally, this is a current post, written and posted in the present right here now. I wanted to bring everyone up to date with our wanderings, right before we drop off the map again for another couple of long passages. We need to be in Australia by November to avoid the cyclone (hurricane) season down here. We have been in the south pacific for three months already; we have less than three months remaining. Examine on the map how far we’ve come in three months and how far we have yet to go, and you’ll see that we really have to get our act in gear.

From Huahine, we intend to sail in more or less a straight line to Tonga, with three possible stops on the list: Palmerston atoll, Beveridge Reef, and Niue. We may stop at all three or none of these. Palmerston is in the middle of nowhere and has only a handful of people living on it. Beveridge reef is even more remote, and unique: it doesn’t actually have any dry land whatsoever–it’s a reef that rises straight out of the ocean floor and comes within a few feet of the surface. It would be surreal to anchor on a reef in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight for hundreds of miles (this will be possible if the weather cooperates). Niue is large enough to have some civilization there, a town and supplies and maybe even internet. But who knows, we may pass up all three and just pop back up on the map in Tonga, 1300 miles west of here. Like I said, we need to put some miles under the keel prontospeed.

We’ve had lots of rain since we arrived here in Huahine. Refreshingly, the island is less developed (i.e. less touristy) than either Tahiti or Moorea. We picked up our last remaining provisions for the upcoming passages, and need only a jerry-can worth of gas for the outboard before we’re all set to go. We’ll probably get out of here in two or three days, weather permitting.

Unrelatedly, my cousin Derek is getting married today, perhaps this very moment, and I feel strange (and somewhat guilty) not to be back home attending. I wish him the very best–congratulations to Derek & Lauren!

Karen’s mom and my mom booked a vacation together to come visit us.  I love my mom and I love Karen and now I love Karen’s mom and so I’m glad they came halfway around the world to visit us. Thanks moms.

They flew into Tahiti and spent the night outside of Papaeete; the next day Karen accompanied them across to Moorea on the ferry while Jon and I sailed the boat across.

Jon and I anchored the boat just outside of Oponohu Bay.  After tidying up the boat, I set off in the dinghy to find the hotel.  It got dark and I encountered an obstacle course of reefs.  I was paddling, and pushing off coral with my foot, cringing when the bottom of the dinghy would scrape on coral, and constantly raising and lowering and turning the outboard off and on to avoid banging it on the bottom.  It took an hour and a half, the hotel ended up being about 2 miles away.  That part sucked.

But then the moms treated Karen and I to a few nights in the hotel with them, and that was simply fantastic.  It was wonderful to be off the boat, in a real bed, with a hot shower.  It had been over 90 days since our last hot shower in Mexico.  We ate good food and relaxed in front of the pool.  Heavenly.

We took the moms back to see the boat in the dinghy.  I should have learned from my trip the night before, but I have a short memory, and I’m stubborn.  It was daytime for this return trip, but it was also up into 15 knots of wind.  That dinghy isn’t too fast with four people on board.  Everyone was drenched inside of five minutes from the spray splashing over the bow, and it took an hour to make it back to the boat.  We had to bail the entire way.  It was a bit more than the moms had signed up for, I’m sure:

Later in the week we took the moms out to an area full of docile stingrays (the hotels have created this situation by regularly feeding them fish).  It was really, really incredible, to have stingrays come rub up against you looking for handouts:

(post-dated: we arrived in Tahiti July 16)

Rangiroa was our last atoll in the Tuamotus; the passage from Rangiroa to Tahiti took a day and a half.  Tahiti is the administrative center for all of French Polynesia, which includes the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, and the Society Islands (Tahiti is in the Societies, along with Bora Bora).

The passage from Rangiroa to Tahiti was tedious.  We were very fortunate to be sailing a beam reach, because the wind conditions were highly variable, from 20-30 knots the whole time.  Usually a squall is temporary–from a minute to an hour–but eventually it goes away and leaves better conditions.  This passage was like being in and out of squalls, back to back, all night long.  Wet, cold, and lots of work.  I was on-call all of the night to trouble-shoot various situations; twice the main got backwinded against the boom-preventer in big shift of heavy wind.  Jon stayed on watch most of the night, and I woke up whenever I was needed, thus we handled the division of work.  The waves were short and steep–every 10 minutes a wave would give the boat a good smack and spray the top of the wave all across the deck and cockpit.  We had a close call where one wave came in through a portlight across the cabin and managed to cover the computer station in spray–I was concerned that my laptop had been ruined, fortunately not.

In Tahiti, we tied up to a mooring just off of the “Tahiti Yacht Club”, north of Papaeete.  For $13/night we got the mooring and hot showers.  The water was opaque, dirty and frequently stinky.  No swimming here!

We used our time in Tahiti to take care of business, the first two priorities to find a new outboard motor and get lots of food at the grocery store.  Additionally we had to take care of the official check-in/out from French Polynesia.  Even though downtown Papaeete is a standard busy trafficky dirty and especially expensive city, it was still fantastic to have the resources available to us (here I’m thinking mainly of restaurants and bars and cafes).  We bought parts, new masks and snorkels, machetes, you know, the usual.  Naturally, we ended up staying longer than anticipated.

post-dated:  this refers to events on July 11

(for background, see this previous post)

We observed the solar eclipse from the atoll Rangiroa in the Tuamotus. It occurred around 10 in the morning, which is why in the pictures below Karen and I both look like we just got out of bed (jon was up at dawn). Jon found these cheap dark glasses for safely looking at the sun, which is why we all look like we’re watching a cheesy 3D movie.

It was great to observe a solar eclipse, though it was admittedly less dramatic than I had hoped for. The viewing party lasted about 30 minutes, so it wasn’t as rapid as I had expected, either, which gave me some time to drink my coffee, wake up a bit more, and appreciate it.  We were just outside the area of the total solar eclipse; on Rangiroa we had something like a 93% totality, and it turns out that 7% of the sun is a hell of a lot brighter than you would expect.  At its darkest, it had a magnitude of illumination equivalent to the sunset.

Originally we had planned on being farther south, in the path of the total eclipse, but it turned out to be incompatible with all our other route-planning considerations.  I do not regret our choice.

As a photographer, I was most fascinated by the color temperature of the light.  At sunrise and sunset we describe the light as very “warm”: when the sun is very low in the sky, its light passes through much more of the atmosphere before it illuminates our surroundings; as a result more of the blue wavelengths are filtered out, leaving a more orange, or “warm”, illumination.

–ignorable aside:
The expression “color temperature” comes directly from physics: as an object is heated, it gives off radiation (this is called “blackbody radiation” fyi).  The temperature of the object determines the wavelength of radiation.  At room temperature, objects give off long wavelength radiation, in the infrared spectrum (which we cannot see, except with the help of special goggles anyway).  When the object gets hotter, say a couple thousand degrees, the wavelength of radiation becomes shorter, and it gives of visible light that we can see (think of a piece of metal glowing orange in a forge).  The hotter it gets, the shorter the wavelength. Orange light is longer wavelength, bluer light is shorter wavelength.  As a piece of metal heats up in the forge, it goes from orange towards blue in color.  So, strictly speaking, blue is hotter, orange is cooler.  However, photographers got it backwards and refer to orange light as warmer and bluer light as cooler; admittedly this seems more intuitive.  Since it is rare to find a photographer who pays any attention to physics, we’ll have to forgive them the mistake.
–end of ignorable aside.

During the eclipse the sun was high in the sky, and so even though the amount of light felt like a sunset, the illumination it provided had the color temperature of the mid-day sun–far “bluer” than we observe at sunset.   In fact, it felt exactly like moonlight–this makes sense because moonlight itself is only reflected sunlight.

So if you want to understand what it was like, imagine a sunset with moonlight.

(concerning events: July 8th)

When on a passage, the people on board take turns being ‘on watch’.  While on watch, that person is called the helmsman.  They are in charge of sailing the boat, making sail changes if necessary, ensuring the proper course of the boat.  The helmsman can ask other people for help in doing a task.  Other people can take it upon themselves to tinker with sails, look at and adjust the course, etc. etc. if they are so inclined.  The captain (Matt), if he feels like it since he’s the captain gets to do whatever he damn well pleases and tell the helmsman to piss off if wants.  We, thankfully, have a benevolent captain (so far) who makes his requests much more politely.   In the end, particularly through the night, it is the helmsman’s job to make sure the boat doesn’t hit anything.

My first overnight watch was not particularly exemplary.  I was determined to improve upon this in my next one.  Our passage from Apataki to Rangiroa would provide me with the first opportunity.  I volunteered to take the midnight to 6 am shift .

Every 15 minutes the person on watch is supposed to at a minimum scan the horizon looking for anything we might run into.  15 minutes is the chosen interval aboard Syzygy as we believe it balances differing factors such as: how far you can see at night, how generally busy with other vessel traffic the area is, human comfort.  We have a wristwatch aboard Syzygy that has an alarm set to ring every 15 minutes.  I would wear it around the band of my headlamp so that it was always extremely close to my ear.  Just in case I was sleeping or simply had my eyes deeply closed.  I would even wear the watch during the day so that if I got busy doing something, when the alarm rang I would be reminded to, at a minimum, look around for other boats, land, check our course, etc.

Through the night, I noticed my life quickly become wholly defined by that alarm.  I would wait for the alarm before I would do almost anything, so that I would be less likely to be in the middle of something when the alarm rang.  I would plan to do different jobs by the alarm.  “After two alarms I will _____________.”

Here is my night watch, my life, as defined by those 15 minute intervals.

11:45 pm – 1200 am
Look for coffee maker.   Become frustrated at not being able to find it.  Attempt to light stove for coffee.  Continue frustrations at stove for not staying lit at a low flame, optimal for coffee making.  Not processing what Matt is saying to me about his and Karen’s watch because I feel like a zombie and nauseous.  I drink a large glass of juice because I know I need calories but can’t think of anything easy enough to make.  Stomach feels queasy from the rocking motion of the boat as it pitches and rolls 10 degrees to each side.

12:00 am – 12:15 am
Coffee finishes boiling.  up on deck listening to Matt.  During the first part of my watch I need to take down the whisker pole, and bring in the fishing lines.  At some point, we will need to heave to as we will have arrived at the entrance to the atoll but don’t want to go through the pass in the dark.  Stomach feels queasy; I think the rolling of the boat has increased to 15 degrees to each side, though I’m probably imagining it.   Eat granola bar for more calories and because a more full stomach usually helps me with seasickness.  Alarm sounds.

12:15 am – 12: 30 am
Look around the horizon.  Check course on computer.  Pour coffee into cup. stomach feels awful, it’s not looking good.  Boat is definitely, in my imagination, pitching 20 degrees to each side.  Alarm sounds.

12:30 am – 12:45 am
Look around the horizon.  Back down below to add milk and sugar to coffee.   I imagine 30 degree rolling pitches to each side, a roller coaster fun house of nasea.  Realize my stomach is done.  Stomach is rising. Need to get outside immediately.  Get halfway out the companionway, remember that I’m about to drape myself 1/2 off the boat and I’d better clip in. stomach in throat.   Fumble with the tether trying to get clipped in.  It takes ages. Stomach in mouth.  Finally can step on deck knowing I’m tethered.  Stomach in mouth, mouth forcibly closed to prevent a god awful mess in the cockpit.  Fall into the jack lines, stomach exiting.  Sit down on the boat, stick my head between the jack lines into a nice comfortable position and continue to throw up into a dark sea.  I have to time my events with the rolling of the boat so as not to coat the sides of the hull.  I’m not very good at this.  Alarm sounds.

12:45 am
I give the alarm the bird, heave one more time and then drag myself up to look around.  Nothing like taking a break from throwing up to look around for boat traffic.  Fuck me.  I then go back to the rail to hang out and watch water flow by the boat.  It’s quite a sight.  Mysteriously dark, the swell rising and falling.  I listen to all the unique sounds that happen.  Waves hitting up against the hull.  The rush of water as we accelerate down the face of the wave.  The ripples it makes as our boat cuts through at 6 knots.  Light glistens off the surface particularly from the moon.  Parts are eerily smooth, like an oil slick.  Others are little whirlpools, particularly as it eddies off the back of our boat.   Sea sickness seems to have gone away and I actually feel much better.  Alarm sounds.

1:00 am
Look around.  Get some water swish it around my mouth.  Back to the rail to watch some more water.  Able to sit up comfortably and look up at the stars.  The stars are a treat.  There are thousands, millions of them.  On a cloudless, moonless night, the faintest stars are visible barely there to the straining eye.  The brightest gleam dominantly.  A milky way band stretches prominently across the sky.  All new southern hemisphere stars to gaze at and wonder about.  I know none of the constellations like I do in the Northern hemispere.  A week later, safely at anchor and feeling much better, I’ll start making up names for constellations.  A particular group of three forming a triangle gets called Allison.   Tonight though, I just stare at them, looking at different ones as they glisten differently, sparkle with this color or that.  A shooting star darts by, long enough so that I only see it in my peripheral vision, have time to move my head and eyes to focus on it and it is still goes for another second.  Very cool.  Alarm sounds.

1:15 am
Look around. Check course on computer.  Get my coffee and bring it on deck.  Take my first sip.  It’s cold.  Begin contemplating the tasks I have to do.  Clean up the side of the boat,  some off the lifelines and a little off the side deck.  Alarm sounds.

1:30 am
Look around. Start bringing in the first fishing line.  I am able to do this sitting down.  This is good because I feel exhausted from my earlier bout of nasea.  Realize that our tackle box is still quite a mess, despite some effort and time Matt put into organizing it.  Once I finish pulling in the first line, I relax and wait.  I don’t want to start on the second line and have to stop if the alarm goes off.  I could look at the watch and see if I have enough time, but I prefer to just sit there and wait it out.  One minute. Two, three, four, five.  I probably could have pulled in the line by now.  Alarm sounds.

1:45 am
Look around.  Check course on computer.  Bring in the second line.  I endeavor to bring some semblance of order to tackle box while stowing the fishing lines.  Alarm sounds.

2:00 am
Look around.  Check course on computer.  Make a plan for the next two alarm cycles.  I plan to spend an extensive amount of time dealing with our course, checking our course on the computer, looking at how far we have to go, when we should heave-to, etc.  Tasks such as these can take up nearly an entire cycle as the computer program we use, Mac-Enc is woefully slow.  Embarrassingly slow for a program running on a Mac.  After the time-consuming check, I’ll spend the remainder of that cycle and the next cycle resting.  Then, I’ll begin taking down the whisker pole.  Alarm sounds.

2:15 am
I look around for longer then necessary, using the binoculars to stare off at the lights from shore, eyeing each intensely to make sure it is not, in fact, a boat that might head for us.  After doing the multiple tasks on a mind-numbingly slow Mac-Enc, I come back on deck and look around again.  There is not much time left in this cycle, but I lie down and watch the stars.  I close my eyes.  Consider eating and become nauseous at the thought.  I try to slow my breathing, trying to bring as much relaxation and rest as possible to a still awake but dehydrated and tired body.  Alarm sounds.

2:30 am
Look around extremely quickly, as it was just three minutes or so that I last looked.  Back to lying down.  I close my eyes and let my thoughts drift.  Idly thinking of people back home, what they might be doing, what changes are happening in their lives.  Has Allison found a job yet?  Has she gotten my letter?  Is not communicating for three weeks hard?  Did Dave’s school get approved? Has Maddi my niece gotten even more adorably cute?  I try and drift as close to sleep as possible.  Alarm sounds.

2:45 am
Still lying down in the cockpit with my eyes closed, giving myself 30 more seconds.  As I’m opening up my eyes, I almost sense it before I even see it. A bright light, 20 degrees up the horizon and behind us, a boat would have to be close, TOO CLOSE for a light that bright.  Close and large.  “How could I have not seen a boat like that before!?!?”  rushes through my head as I sit up with a quick start, brain fast into action as to what I’m going to have to do.  I then heave a sigh and collapse back down onto the cushions in the cockpit, done staring at the moon for now.  Thanks moon, thanks for that.  Look around.  I note an actual new light on the horizon.  Could be more shore lights, but I’m inclined to think it’s a boat.  Check course on computer.  Back up on deck, I begin going through the steps to take down the whisker pole.  On foredeck, unclip the pole.  Slowly bring twenty foot pole to rest on deck.  The boat has seen fit to make this task difficult by rolling 15 degrees to each side of vertical.  Standing is generally out of the question, and so I lean/sit on the dinghy which is tied upside down on our foredeck.  Pole down, a dozen more steps to go.  Alarm sounds.

3:00 am
Of course the alarm sounds right now.  I curse silently, then try and pin the pole down while I scan the horizon.  The new light has definitely moved closer.  Back to the whisker pole, I get the bridle off, loosen the topping lift so I can move the pole to it’s stowed position, Get the jib sheet off the pole, and begin moving the pole to the other side of the boat for stowage.  Alarm sounds.  Really? Already?

3:15 am
Look around. The light is now the shadow of a boat as it is slips by our port side.  I finish stowing the pole.  I then have to retrieve the whisker pole bridle and re-lead the jib sheet.  Alarm sounds.

3:30 am
Look around.  Check course on computer.  I wake Matt up so we can heave to.  He immediately notes the light, but I assure him it is moving away.  We then heave-to, which simply means that we tack the boat without allowing the jib to move to the other side.  This pins the jib sail up against the shrouds and stalls the boat.  The jib tries to take the boat down-wind, while the main and the rudder act to counter by trying to drive the boat up into the wind.  The idea is to completely stall.  Alarm sounds.

3:45 am
Look around.  A proper heave-to takes a bit of finesse.  Our boat is also not particularly inclined to completely stop in it’s heave-to.  We have slowed to a 1 knot however, from about 5 or 6.  Matt and I look at the sail, banter about how to get us to completely stop.  Matt starts to clean up lines and I say “Dude, go back to bed.”  “Oh yea,” he replies, “See you at 6.”  and disappears down the companionway.  Alarm sounds.

4:00 am
Look around.  Relax and aimlessly watch the stars and the water.  Alarm sounds.

4:15 am
Look around.  Check course on computer.  Relax and aimlessly watch the stars and the water.  Alarm sounds.

4:30 am
Look around.  Relax and aimlessly watch the stars and the water.  Alarm sounds.

4:45 am
Look around.  Think that describing life in 15 minute segments might be an interesting blog post.  Open up Matt’s computer to start writing. Alarm sounds.

5:00 am
Look around.  Check course on computer.  Continue writing.  Then I think to myself, “Really?”  and head back up on deck and calmly this time, tether in, sit down on the coamings of the cockpit, move my head between the life lines and throw-up.  Alarm sounds.

5:15 am
Look around.  Gurgle some water and feel exceedingly good except for my pride.  What kind of a sailor am I that I can’t even look at a computer screen for a little while to type?  So what the boat is rolling.  How am I going to manage on a 5 day passage or 10?  At least I’m not doubled over and incapacitated.  Oddly, I’m actually in excellent spirits.  I just would like to be able to do something on watch other than relax and aimlessly watch the stars and the water.  Alarm sounds.

5:30 am
Look around.  Relax and aimlessly watch the stars and the water.  Alarm sounds.

5:45 am
Look around.  Check course on computer. Relax and aimlessly watch the stars and the water.  Alarm sounds.

6:00 am
Look around.  Relax and aimlessly watch the stars and the water.  Alarm sounds.

Matt gets up.  While my watch is technically over, there is stuff to do like getting out of the heave-to and then motor sailing back to the pass which we have drifted to the west of and then a pass to enter.  All things good for me to practice So I stay up and go through all of these.  The pass into Rangiroa is exciting, with tall standing waves from a mix of currents and wind.  The waves seem to tower over us as they roll in behind and then sweep under us.  We get to anchorage, and Matt lets me suss out our options for anchoring and then pilot us into place.  I’m not quite up to the task yet though, and so in the last bit Matt modestly gives out some directions on what to be doing.  Once anchored, Matt go about the various little tasks that all have to been done after anchoring.  We do these in silence.  I am reminded of when after a long rock-climb, or a hike out from a canyon, when you have to do those last miserable details.  We both know what needs to be done, and we go about it silently. After 45 minutes of slowly moving through these tasks, it is about 9 am.  I crawl into bed and pass out.