WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW
We’re safely anchored at Pangaimotu Island just off the town of Nuku’alofa in the Kingdom of Tonga. Today is Wednesday May 3 for us; we arrived on Monday May 1 a little before 10am.
Our 1,100 mile journey took exactly 9 days and far too many equipment failures. We’ve never experienced this in all our passages, not even close. When we were just 25 miles from Tonga we finally lost all electricity on the boat. I’ve never been so relieved to get off the open ocean. As if that would stop the cascade of disappointing equipment failures.
We’ve spent the last two days putting all our attention into the next most important thing. On the morning we arrived we ate breakfast and slept hard for two hours. That was the most important thing. When we woke we set about trying to make a temporary serpentine belt for the alternator using a thing called Rescue Tape. This was so we could generate power from the engine at low-low rpms. This was the next important thing. It didn’t work. We alternately called Customs on the VHF and cleaned up the boat all afternoon. We were foggy and slow. But the boat was clean and I felt a sense of calm (this may have been delirium).
Yesterday the first important thing was to launch the dinghy, get the engine mounted on it and be prepared to go ashore to clear in with Customs. When Harry tried to start the dinghy engine, it wouldn’t start. This was a low, low moment. It’s common for dinghy engines to not start after an ocean passage. Though they’re securely mounted on the stern rail of the boat, they get tossed a lot with the motion of the boat. Gas, oil all churned up. We did not have the capacity to make the outboard engine repair the next important thing, so we put it back on its mount on the stern rail of the big boat. We were wrung out. The list of things needing repair just kept getting longer and more complex. I could see the overwhelm in Harry’s face. I put my hand on his arm – touch seemed really important – and I said “We are not in danger. We are safe.” I was having some mid-stress tears. But this seemed to help him. He turned to the next important thing.
We got out the kit for converting the hydro generator to a wind generator. So we could generate electricity when the sun wasn’t out. This project took most of the day but now we have a wind generator (code name: Sparky) putting juice into our electrical system all night and all day. Winds have been 20-25 knots consistent since we arrived so Sparky is showing his stuff.
The next important thing this morning was for Harry to troubleshoot the dinghy engine fix. He discovered a very dirty carburetor. He spent all morning cleaning it and reassembling it and about an hour ago we put the engine back on the dinghy and he tried to start it. There is no joy like an engine roaring to life when you didn’t expect it to.
There’s a lot happening now and I’m sorry if all this detail is tedious. I’ve filtered dramatically for your benefit. Here’s some bullets to finish off what’s happening now:
We still haven’t cleared into Tonga. We’re illegals! Customs seems unconcerned. They know we’re here and know of our engine (big boat and little boat) issues. Hopefully we'll be able to go ashore in the morning to see if we can find the right people.
With solar and wind power we’re feeling more confident about our electricity position. We kept the refrigeration on overnight last night and all systems were still go this morning. We’re taking showers again (oh the bliss) and I did a load of laundry this morning.
The replacement freshwater pump is on its way from Seattle. We have a tracking number and an agent here in Tonga to help facilitate things with Customs.
There was one other cruiser boat here when we arrived, and we learned via a VHF conversation that they’d arrived the day before us. Another boat came the day after us. So only three boats in the Tongatapu island group of Tonga – a dramatic shift from the flurry of boats in Fiji and New Zealand.
In delightful and surprising news our New Zealand sim cards are still in operation here in Tonga, though there is a premium charge for using them here. Having cell connection is easing literally every angst. So we’re paying the damn premium for now.
WHEN THE THING YOU’RE AFRAID OF HAPPENING HAPPENS
I want to talk about what happened when we lost all electricity on the boat. But I need to give you some context first, so you understand what was going on for me when everything went dark.
Here’s the context:
The single most upsetting part of losing power on the boat is that we lost our navigation instruments. This is our computer software and hardware that puts us on a map of the ocean and shows us our position, our course heading, our speed, distance to destination and a lot of other data points including wind speed and wind direction.
Harry inputs our route to the chart plotter using waypoints and we keep the boat that’s on the screen on the line. While there is a vast knowledge bank required in all other areas of cruising, this small part is made pretty simple with the software. We can zoom way out on the chart to see our location relative to major land masses, like New Zealand, or we can zoom way in so we can see if there are any signals from boats within a couple miles of us. When we turn the wheel on the boat, the little boat on the screen responds exactly the same. It’s a very cool set-up.
When we are underway on any part of the ocean, this software is our guiding light and north star. We have one redundancy for our navigation, and that’s an app on Harry’s phone (will be adding another redundancy or two immediately). But without a way to charge the phone we weren’t going to use it until/unless we were very close to land. The only other redundancy for the navigation instruments is the obvious: a compass, our eyes (this is called “dead reckoning”), our senses. We don’t carry paper charts. We do have two hand-held VHF radios that show our GPS position but these aren’t used for navigation; they are for knowing our position and being able to communicate with vessels nearby. I want to note that the Iridium satellite device has back-up battery power and we could have (and did) used it for communication at any time.
At the time we lost all electricity on the boat, we were hove-to. This is a way of “parking” the boat on the ocean using the wind angle against the sails to stop our forward progress. It’s a pretty pleasant way to stand still on the ocean even in high winds. We hove-to because we were going too fast and didn’t want to arrive in Tonga in the dark. Being hove-to meant we weren’t moving through the water much at all (about 1-2 knots) so we could turn off the autopilot to save electricity. Unfortunately, since we weren’t moving through the water the hydro generator also stopped giving us electricity.
Because his seamanship is strong, Harry had made note of our course heading well before we lost power. He put on a headlamp so he could see the compass at the helm pedestal, and steered us out of our hove-to position and back on course, 330 degrees. (North is 0 degrees, east is 90 degrees, south is 180, west is 270. At 330 degrees we were heading northwest.) You’ll remember that with no power we cannot use the autopilot. Our non-electric autopilot, the wind vane, lost a knot a few days before so we couldn’t use that either. Hand-steering was our only option. As soon as I was suited up (lifejacket, tether), I took Harry’s place at the helm so he could monitor what-all was happening with the hydro generator and get our navigation instruments back online.
This is what happened:
It was about 12:30am. As night as it can be. The wind was blowing steady 20-25 knots across the starboard beam. This is called a “beam reach” and it’s one of the most comfortable points of sail on our boat. We were using the main sail with one reef, and a small shred of Genoa. We were heeled over a bit but it wasn’t dramatic. I only had to brace when a big swell leaned us even more. The sea state was friendly. There was swell coming from starboard at regular intervals but it wasn’t big and there was several seconds between each swell. Occasionally water splashed into the cockpit and a few times it splashed on my face. (Later I found an outsized amount of salt in my ear, given the amount of water hitting my face.)
My brain registered all this data in the first 90 seconds at the helm. I noticed it was really easy to hold our big, strong girl on course. She was loving this angle on the wind, leaning into it like a thoroughbred. Perfectly balanced. I didn’t have to wrestle with the wheel and I relaxed my arms and shoulders. I found I could keep us on course with patient, easy turns as the boat rode up and down the swell.
I noticed the brightness of the moon. It was about a half moon, and I knew she would set within an hour or so because she was already low in the western sky. But while she was there I admired her. The stars were out too, and before I rejoiced in their beauty I rejoiced in the fact that seeing them meant the sky was clear, and surely we’d have sun in the morning to charge our solar panels.
I felt the warm wind on my skin. I was wearing shorts and a tank top and my boat shoes and even when a wave splashed me and I got wet, the warm breeze kept me comfortable. I marveled at how warm the air was, how reassuring it was to not be cold in this moment.
As I held the boat on course and all these thoughts came to the surface I realized I was feeling profound gratitude. We weren’t in danger. We were safe. We had powerful winds in our favor, friendly seas rocking us, warm air on our bodies. Our boat was an entire navy on our side. The struggle was gone. The fear that had wound me up for the last five to six days, that we would lose all electricity, was gone. It had happened. This is what it looked like. The reality was far gentler than I’d imagined it would be. I almost laughed. I definitely smiled. I had fragments of songs running through my head from music I’d been listening to earlier. I sang these bits of nonsense quietly as I steered us toward Tonga.
About an hour later, after Sparky had a chance to trickle some electricity into our batteries, the navigation instruments came back online. We continued hand-steering but I was able to take off the head lamp and use the light from the cockpit instruments to steer to our course.
I don’t know if this experience will help me be a less anxious person, less inclined to worry over things I cannot control. I hope it will. I think it will. This is a pretty dramatic lesson in not worrying about the future, in staying where my feet are, and I’d like to not waste it. I’ll keep you posted.
WHAT’S NEXT
There’s a few more tweaks to be made to the dinghy engine before we feel confident taking it across the bay to town to clear in with Customs. But that’s next on the list and hopefully tomorrow morning we’ll be legal in the Kingdom of Tonga.
I appreciate you,
Joy