Selective Memory

Okay, we are safely in Fiji, and after just a few days, our brains have started the process of selectively erasing of all the bad memories of our passage while enhancing and embellishing all the good memories.

As a part of this healing process, cruisers congregate with other cruisers at the local bar after a passage to compare “top this” dramatic passage tales with one another. After a few frosty cold Fiji Bitter beers listening to stories of broken gear, expensive repairs, lost boats and at-sea rescues, severe seasickness, crew falling-outs, injuries, and the various storm tactics employed, our stories didn’t seem too interesting. We survived with only a few bruises and minor boat repairs. You start to think, “hey, maybe our passage wasn’t so bad then”. This is the first sign of cruiser “selective memory”: purge the bad memories, while retaining only the good memories.

The saddest story of the lot (but with a happy ending) was the French single-hander that lost his boat and everything he owned save three small duffels (one containing his seashell collection). Our friends Tom and Barb on Gosi heard his mayday (he had been calling mayday for five days without a response). They turned around, went 10 miles back, and affected a dramatic at-sea rescue of Pascal and his meager belongings as his home-built trimaran drifted off to the southeast without any rudder or means of steering. Their new crew member was a delight, the Fijian officials were very understanding of his plight, and Pascal flew back to Paris today from Suva. I think Tom and Barb will miss him (and his fresh-baked bread).

Okay, now for our story. I clearly remember the second night of our passage on my 2 am to 5 am watch. After the sliver of a fingernail moon set, I spent an hour or so looking up at the cloud of stars that illuminating the entire dome of sky from horizon to horizon (yes I know, there is only one horizon). Through the binoculars I saw dense clouds of stars both within and outside the Milky Way galaxy. I explored the mysterious “dark spot” in the Milky Way, only to discover it wasn’t dark at all – another few billion stars could be seen. I checked out the M42 and M43 Nebula in Orion’s sword and think I might have seen a few more galaxy-swirls well beyond our Milky Way. I was listening to Coldplay or Dave Mathews on the iPod at the time and the experience was intense, spiritual, and surreal. Being near exhaustion enhanced these emotions. Life was good. Passages are good. The sailing life is great. Tropics here we come.

On the morning of day three, we received our revised weather report from Commander’s weather. The low over New Zealand has expanded and deepened. It will reach another 5 degrees further north. Whisper cannot escape its grasp in time. Our weather-window 50/50 gamble did not pay off. We will have 3 days of gale force winds with gusts to 50 knots, huge seas (bigger than we’ve ever seen anyway at 19-23 feet), and rough going.

On the morning of day four at 10 am, Robin woke me up from my morning nap to say, “I think we have a squall coming on radar and you may want to come take a look”. I came into the cockpit ill prepared for our first 50 knot gust – then a second and a third. The front accompanying the low had arrived with a bang. Whisper, with only a storm staysail and triple reefed main was heeling 30+ degrees with the rail down on a beam reach and sustained winds of 35-45 knots. The seas built quickly to 15 to 20 feet and the boat was running nearly out of control at 8 to 10 knots. We drove the boat downwind with the autopilot to try to get better control (it kept rounding up and into the huge waves) but auto kept steering us too far down and the wind direction kept shifting. I decided to try to hand steer. Big mistake. Before I could get control (looking down and futzing with the auto-pilot which not yet really on standby – no wonder it felt impossible to steer), Robin yelled “watch the jibe!”

Well, too late, the triple-reefed main slammed to port and when it hit the wire running backstay, it felt like the rig was going to come down on our heads. The impact sent several tiny (to be identified later) bits of Whisper flying into the air. I started the engine, got some control of the helm, and started driving the knocked-over boat through the now huge seas and back onto a port tack. We were very surprised, white-knuckle hanging-on, and soaked by waves and the bulleting rain (or was it sleet?).

Our first damage assessment was the boom vang was no longer controlling the boom. The mast was riding high and the twist in the main was severe enough to lay the sail against the shrouds (but was also de-powered now, which was a good thing). The one minute or so the boom sawed against the wire running backstay was enough to gouge a nice groove and shave off the anodizing where it lay against the wire (yes Scott Easom, we should have gone with all Spectra running backstays!). The cam cleat on the traveler had broken, and our sailing-egos were severely bruised. A triple-reefed main was insufficient – another meter of sail furled into the mast would have been far better – and in hindsight, I should have “prevented” the boom even though we were on a beam reach. Beam can go to broad – to a run – and to an uncontrolled jibe in an instant during a squall.

After about 6 hours of this survival-mode sailing, we realized we were beyond exhaustion, the boat was stable, heading north, and doing fine all by itself. We decided we would be better off with a dramatically revised watch schedule for the next two days of continued gale force winds, squalls, thunderstorms, and slamming, boarding waves. So we decided to hunker down below and let Whisper sail on. With the egg timer set for 30 minutes, we would alternately awaken (after about three repeated watch rounds of 1.5 hours each) check the radar, look around us (not that we could see anything), ensure the wind wasn’t shifting, and basically go into survival rest-mode. And so it went for the next three days and two nights. Fun-factor was low. Spirits were low. I must have muttered “passages suck”, “I hate passages” or, “this is my last passage” at least 20 times during these three days.

On day two of the gale, I took some videos of the now calming seas – 20 foot elevator waves riding up under Whisper’s stern, then dropping us back 20 feet down into the next trough. Although the waves look big on a tiny video screen, it’s nothing like being there. Having videos of the event may help curtail our selective memory process. Maybe I’ll make a little movie and put it on You Tube and our website as a warning to anyone (including us) that thinks ocean passage-making might be fun. But of course, we’ll get feedback saying “that was nothing, you should see my video of our passage to…”, or someone (half our age) saying, “wow, that looks like a blast”.

We arrived in Musket Cove resort four days ago. Musket Cove is a cruiser-friendly resort in the Mamanuca group of the Fiji islands off Nadi near the southwest corner of the big island of Viti Levu. We’ve had great, clear, sunny, warm, tropical weather. 85-degree air and clear 83-degree water. A bit of a warm breeze. Rain showers last night freshened the air and washed the salt off Whisper. Perfect.

Over the last four days here we caught up with some friends and made some new ones. We have lounged in the shallows at a nearby sandbar in crystal-clear water, snorkeled an incredible reef nearby, sat by the pool reading our books, got a quick review of the 40+ dive sites in the area, Robin had an 80 minute massage yesterday, we’ve had two beach barbeques, drinks a few nights at the Island Bar, enjoyed the local’s Fijian dance, and I will probably go windsurfing tomorrow.

We have already had four days of fun in the sun and the price for this was only a seven-day passage with only three of those seven days worth forgetting. The remaining four days were fine. We arrived with our “home”, so the cost of being here (ignoring all boat and maintenance costs, of course) will allow us to stay five months where the average traveler might only stay two weeks for the same cost and have a grueling two days of plane-travel at each end. Maybe sailing a small boat across oceans is a good way to travel?

See how cruiser selective memory works? We have already started to rationalize that the pain of riding out a gale may be worth the destination pay-off. If it didn’t, I’m not sure anyone would ever choose to cross large oceans on small boats “for fun”!