|
LOOK AT THOSE CHOPPERS
 Take a
look at those choppers. Those are the teeth of a three foot long Spanish
Mackerel. Imagine the size of the teeth on a five foot long mackerel. Now
you are ready to read this story.
When yachties go fishing, they win some and lose some. All of them have a
story about the big fish that got away. Only a few have a story about the
big one that put them in the hospital.
In the Isle of Pines, we saw a sixty-two foot motor yacht hunkered down in
Kunamera Bay waiting for the weather to improve. We admired the yachts
beautiful lines, imposing high bow, and robust pilot house. It was a
serious and seaworthy motor yacht. We did not meet the owners until we
returned to Noumea. When we met them, they told us about the great mackerel
attack.
As they were leaving a secluded bay in the Isle of Pines, they hooked a
large Spanish mackerel. It was a heavyweight world class contender that put
up a furious fight. This denizen of the deep was five feet long and was not
going down without a battle. They reeled in the recalcitrant fish until
they could hook him with a gaff and land him on the deck - which was a
mistake.
 When the
mackerel hit the deck, he had just begun to fight. His angry sharp slashing
teeth were searching for a target. Perhaps he might be able to sink his
flashing teeth into the leg of one of his captors. The mighty mackerel
flopped around on the slippery deck until he found the defenseless ankle of
his victim. He snapped his powerful jaws shut and almost completely severed
the Achilles tendon of an unfortunate guest on board the yacht. In due
course, the mackerel died and the person with the severed Achilles tendon
made a trip to the hospital for emergency surgery.
The final irony in this story is that the fish was too large to be safely
eaten. Mackerels that are over ninety centimeters in length have a high
risk of harboring ciguatera toxin which could kill you if you eat the fish.
The fish died in vain, but not without leaving a lasting impression on his
victim.
If you think this sounds like another unbelievable fish story, hang on to
your seat, because I'm not done yet.
Several weeks later, two cruisers told us their dead mackerel stories. They
were fishing in the Marshall Islands and caught a Spanish mackerel which
died without incident. Unfortunately, when the mackerel died, he died with
his mouth gaping wide open exposing his razor sharp teeth. The boat they
were on was rolling in heavy seas and the dead mackerel slid across the wet
deck and his teeth slashed the Achilles tendon of a guest on board. That
person had to be flown back to the USA for repair of his severed Achilles
tendon.
When these same sailors were cruising in Tonga, they were walking with a man
who was carrying a dead mackerel slung over his shoulder. He was holding it
by the tail, and unfortunately, the tail slipped out of his hand. As the
mackerel slid off his shoulder and dropped to the ground, those same sharp
teeth lacerated his leg.
There is a moral to this story. The only good mackerel is a dead mackerel
without teeth. When you're fishing for mackerel, it's never over until it's
over.
I've been thinking about inventing a Mackerel Muzzle to protect unsuspecting
fishermen from the post-mortem carnage wrought by the teeth of the might
mackerel. How's that for a fish story!
THE SINKER
The biggest liability of monohull sailboats is that they are sinkers. Any
hole in the hull will eventually sink a monohull. It doesn't matter whether
the hole is large or small, the tons of ballast in the keel guarantee that
the yacht will go down if it loses its watertight integrity.
 At 07:30 a.m., I
stepped into our cockpit and surveyed the yachts surrounding us in the
anchorage in Orphilinat Bay. Off to the north, I noticed that a dark blue
forty foot sailboat was no longer there. When I looked closer, I discovered
that the yacht was not gone. It had sunk in thirty feet of water and only
the top ten feet of the mast stuck out above the surface. What a shock!
No one lived onboard the yacht and it was left untended most of the time.
During the night, it sprung a leak and down it went. Nobody in the
anchorage knew the name of the yacht, so it was impossible to immediately
notify the owner.
For the first twenty-four
hours, only curiosity seekers came to see the sunken yacht. On the second
night, someone attached a lantern to the mast so that no one would run into
the sunken vessel in the dark. Finally, on the fifth day, a dive boat
showed up with recovery equipment consisting of an air compressor and lift
bags.
A diver took giant lift bags underwater and attached them to the hull. When
the bags were in place, they inflated them with air. Like Lazarus coming
forth from his tomb, the yacht slowly rose from its watery grave. Both sets
of mast spreaders came out of the water and the solar panels on the stern
arch broke the surface. The hull floated like a submerged submarine six
feet under the water with the mast as a towering periscope. They towed the
submerged yacht for one kilometer to the Nouville Plaisance dockyard where
it was lifted out of the water by a crane.
After they pumped the water out of the boat, the bedraggled yacht interior
was spread out on the ground to dry. Mattresses, cushions, and bits and
pieces of the interior lay in the sun around the yacht. It was not a pretty
sight.
 The yacht was a
shoal draft, centerboarder and it was not obvious why it had sunk. It could
have been a leak in the centerboard case, a broken hose, a failed through
hull fitting, or a toilet the siphoned water into the yacht.
A friend from Tasmania told us that they recover sunken yachts in Hobart by
putting plastic jerry cans filled with air inside the yacht. When enough
air-filled jerry cans are inside, the yacht rises to the surface. Then,
they pump the rest of the water out using high capacity water pumps.
The best
argument for a catamaran is a sunken monohull sailboat. Catamarans do not
have ballast and are not sinkers. If a properly designed catamaran springs
a leak, the affected hull will sink one or two feet into the water before it
stabilizes.
Each hull on our catamaran has four watertight compartments that limit how
far the hull will sink if there is a leak. A significant leak will cause
interior damage and the severity of damage depends on which compartment has
the leak.
When we are sailing five-hundred miles offshore, it's reassuring to know
that we are sailing on a yacht that will not sink. You can decide for
yourself. Do you want to sail on a sinker or a non-sinker?
THE GREEN FLASH - I'LL TAKE A DOUBLE
The first time I saw a green flash was in the Pacific Ocean as we rode the
big Pacific swells westward toward French Polynesia. Just as the sun
disappeared under the horizon, an intense emerald flash of light appeared on
the upper edge of the setting sun.
The green flash is an exceedingly brief flash of emerald colored light seen
on the horizon immediately after sundown or immediately before sunrise as
the sun just peeks over the horizon. It's a point or horizontal slit of
brilliant green light that usually lasts a fraction of a second. Because
it's so brief, you will never see it unless you look for it. The horizon
must be absolutely free from clouds or significant haze in order to see it.
If there are clouds on the horizon, don't waste your time looking for it
because it won't appear.
The green flash is
produced by atmospheric refraction of light creating a prismatic effect.
Refraction is a fancy term that means bending of light rays like you see
from a prism. Just as a prism splits rays of light into a colored rainbow,
the atmosphere splits light from the setting sun into its different colors.
The amount of bending of light rays depends on the color of the light. Blue
and green are bent more (refracted more) than red or yellow. The prismatic
effect of the atmosphere bends and lifts blue and green light more than red
and yellow. This weak prismatic effect causes a greenish fringe on the
upper edge of the sun at sunrise and sunset. When the sun is just below the
horizon, you see the brilliant narrow green slit of light.
To see the green flash, you musts look for it. If there is a flat cloudless
horizon with no haze in the direction of the sun, a green flash will
appear. Don't stare directly at the sun while waiting for the green flash.
Staring directly into the sun may make a solar burn on your retina and
damage your central vision. It's only safe to view the sun for the last few
seconds just before it slips below the horizon.
As I sailed across the Pacific, sometimes I would see a double green flash
at sunset. The large Pacific Ocean swells are often more than twenty feet
from trough to crest. If I saw the green flash while in a trough, and then
a large swell immediately lifted our boat up twenty feet, I would see the
green flash a second time. At the crest of the swell, my boat was higher
relative to the horizon and this change in altitude at precisely the right
moment made the green flash visible again. Good timing and large ocean
swells are critical in order to see the green flash twice in one sunset.
It's a matter of luck and being alert to look for it when conditions are
right.
When I first started sailing across the Pacific, I thought that green
flashes would be rare. At first, whenever I saw one, I would write it in
the ship's log. After seeing more than twenty green flashes, I stopped
recording it because it was such a common occurrence in settled, cloudless,
non-hazy conditions.
Green flashes mean excellent weather because they will not appear unless the
weather is good. When it's time to look for the green flash, I order a
double, but will happily settle for a single anytime.
GRAVEYARDS IN PARADISE
In the 1871 rebellion in Paris, a group of dissidents, the Paris Commune,
took up arms against the French government. In May 1871, government forces
swept into Paris and crushed the rebellion. A wave of repression descended
on the city and nearly twenty thousand rebels were sentenced to death.
Those not killed were rounded up and deported halfway around the world to
New Caledonia.
The government incarcerated three thousand political prisoners in the Isle
of Pines and two hundred and forty of them died in exile. In the Ouro
cemetery in the Isle of Pines, there are one hundred and eighty six unmarked
graves belonging to the exiles.
 A single row of
black rocks marks the edge of each grave. There are no headstones to
identify or honor the dead. These long forgotten deportees are a stark
reminder that opposition to a strong and repressive central government is a
one-way ticket to an unmarked grave.
In sharp contrast to
the nondescript graves of the political exiles, the Kunie Indians of the
Isle of Pines make their graveyards into gardens. Every day they bring
flowers to the cemetery to decorate the graves. They also plant tropical
foliage to enhance the attractive appearance of the cemeteries. When you
are a Kunie Indian, you may be gone, but you are not forgotten. You will be
honored by the living as they put flowers on your grave each day.
CAPTAIN COOK'S PINES
In 1774, Captain Cook sailed his ship, Resolution, to the southern end of
New Caledonia where he found a tropical island that had tall pine trees
lining the shore. He named the island the Isle of Pines.
Cook was pleased
with his discovery. The tall straight trees could be used for masts on his
ships. Early explorers like Cook had to fend for themselves during their
voyages of discovery. When something broke, they had to fix it using
materials that they had on hand. Cook did not have a satellite phone to
call the King of England to order spare parts.
 Cook's pine trees are one to four feet in diameter at the base, and as their
stocky trunks rise skyward, they radiate out hundreds of small branches that
are no more than six to eight feet long. When you view the pines at a
distance, the short stubby branches make them look like giant bottle
brushes.
The pine trees lining the shore sit on top of a coral shelf which is covered
with a thin layer of earth and scrawny vegetation. The pine roots cannot
penetrate the coral for more than a few inches and the trees never develop a
tap root or good root ball. Instead, an interlocking maze of roots spreads
out in pancake fashion, creating a broad shallow base on which the trees
stand. The pines can easily withstand the twenty to thirty knots of the
trade winds without a problem, but when a cyclone comes, the pines along the
shore take a thrashing.
In March 2003,
Cyclone Erika struck New Caledonia with two-hundred kilometer per hour winds
and large numbers of pines did not weather the storm. Although the
indestructible tree trunks withstood the storm's fury, their roots were not
up to the task. The result was hundreds of uprooted trees along the shore.
When the roots sheared away from their coral foundation, they tilted up ten
to twenty feet into the air. The pictures show the exposed root systems two
to three times taller than us as we stood beside them. Captain Cook would
not have been a happy explorer if he had seen his long tall pines decimated
by the storm.
ANCHOR RANCOR - NO WORRIES MATE
Anchors are great when they work. But when they don't work, we spend
sleepless nights standing anchor watch to make sure our catamaran doesn't
get blown ashore or onto a reef.
We use a sixty pound CQR plow anchor. It's called a plow because it
resembles a farmer's plow. Connected to the plow is two-hundred feet of
three-eighths inch high test chain that has a breaking strength of over ten
thousand pounds. The chain weighs one and a half pounds per foot so that
the full two-hundred feet of chain weighs three-hundred pounds. When we
deploy the anchor and all the chain, there is nearly three-hundred and fifty
pounds of ground tackle in the water.
When we first anchored in the hard sandy bottom of the Isle of Pines, we
experienced anchor rancor. It seemed as if the shallow waters of Kuto Bay
had cast an evil spell on our anchor. The anchor did not want to dig into
the fine hard sand. Sometimes we had to put down the anchor three times
before it held. Our anchoring technique was not working and it was time to
try something new.
We did three new things to rid ourselves of anchor rancor.
 First, we set the main
anchor in the seabed by gently snubbing the chain multiple times as we let
the chain go out. We let out thirty to forty feet of chain and then put a
gentle strain on the chain to dig the anchor into the sandy seabed. Then we
let out another thirty to forty feet and again put a gentle strain on it to
dig the anchor in a bit further. We repeated this maneuver several more
times gradually digging the anchor deeper into the seabed.
Second, we lengthened the rope bridle that goes between the anchor and the
bows of the catamaran. Our previous bridle was short and never went into
the water. Our new bridle is longer and goes about ten feet underwater
before it attaches to the anchor chain. Because the bridle is so far under
water, the chain pulls in a nearly horizontal direction along the seabed.
The horizontal pull means that it is less likely that the anchor will pull
out. Furthermore, the long rope bridle has fifteen percent stretch so it is
like a big rubber band that can stretch several feet. When the bridle
stretches, it acts as a shock absorber that protects the anchor from being
jerked out by the action of wind and waves.
Third, we are now putting a large lazy loop of chain into the water. Thirty
feet of chain hanging from the bridle weighs about forty-five pounds. All
that weight causes the bridle to hang straight down from the bow of the
boat. When strong winds and rough seas start to pull hard on the chain, the
heavy lazy loop of chain holds the bridle deep underwater. The lazy loop
prevents shock loads from being transmitted to the anchor and makes it less
likely that the anchor will jerk out.
Now that we have an anchoring technique that works ninety-eight percent of
the time, we can relax and get a good nights sleep even when the wind blows
hard. Our anchoring routine gets the job done quickly, simply, and safely.
Now if you ask how our anchoring is going, we will immediately respond, "No
worries mate!"
ADVENTURES IN PARADISE
When I was growing up, I watched a television series called "Adventures in
Paradise." The show featured the adventures of two young men cruising the
islands on a small sailboat. For the first time in my life, images of
paradise floated through my mind. That was exciting stuff for a landlocked
landlubber kid in Kentucky.
Those images of paradise must have made a big impression on my mind as well
as the minds of thousands of people my own age. It's not surprising that
the majority of cruisers now in the South Pacific are between fifty and
sixty-five years of age and they probably watched "Adventures in Paradise"
with me.
Image if you will, a bunch of relatively mature fifty to sixty year old men
and women cruising in the South Pacific looking for paradise. They are in
the youth of old age having one last fling. Maybe paradise really does
exist.
 And so we left
Noumea to go to Uere Island in search of paradise, or so we thought. Uere
is a small semicircular patch of paradise a few miles from Noumea. It has a
few bommies (coral heads) on the south edge of the bay just off the beach.
The seabed is mud and anchoring is secure. There is good protection from
wind and seas from all directions except north. Uere had the look, sound,
and feel of paradise. We dropped our anchor in thirty feet of water ready
to enjoy a couple of days of relaxation with friends anchored nearby.
Within a couple of hours, we noticed that there was a large group of people
on the eastern end of the small island. We checked them out with binoculars
and found out that they were French Commandos (commando trainees to be
exact). Their green camouflage uniforms blended into the foliage as they
faded in and out of the bush along the beach. Commandos in paradise. This
could be interesting.
 Before long, the
officers had twenty young commandos lined up in rows on the beach. They
gave the trainees their orders and everyone but the officers got into the
water, boots, camouflage uniforms and all. They had special flippers that
fit over their boots. The commando trainees spent more than two hours
swimming back and forth between two buoys in the deep cold water. It must
have been an exercise in endurance to toughen them up. They didn't do
anything but tread water and swim while the officers gave them orders from
an inflatable boat. It made me glad that I wasn't a commando trainee.
A yacht from Tasmania called Storm Bay was anchored next to where the
commandos were swimming. Storm Bay had come to paradise the day before the
commandos arrived and had a ringside seat watching their activities.
 When the commandos
were not swimming, they zoomed around in rubber boats or rowed their
commando watercraft around the anchorage. After several days of training at
Paradise Island, they climbed into their rubber duckies and paddled several
miles back to their headquarters in Noumea.
Was this Paradise Island or Commando Bay? You can decide. I think it was
an "Adventure in Paradise."
|
