Howzit everyone. Can you believe that we are still at sea? A lot of bad shit has gone down since I posted my last blog. But I’ve also realized that if I post one more blog of this endless crossing to the Marquesas Islands you will all fall asleep. So I am sitting here, truly in the middle of nowhere, and I am reading over our log of the past year. I ignore the angry ocean klapping shimmi all over the park because I’ve come across my log entry of our time in a Costa Rican jungle:

Howler Monkeys. I’ve been trying to come up with an adequate description of the sound they make. Then I realized that the Howler Monkey’s tortured sound has been used without modification in plenty horror movies. Its that sound the 5 million year old dragon makes when it finally wakes up really pissed off at the world. Or the sound King Kong made on his way down to earth when he finally fell off the top of the Empire State building. Basically the sound an empty oil tanker ship would make if it had to slowly scrape the entire length of its hull along a massive concrete pier. eheheWWuuuUUUUooOOOOOUOUAAAArgh.

Very early, on the morning after our first night ashore in 6 months, a troop of these Howler Mothers were right above our jungle cabin. All I can say is that the whole family kukked themselves. It is an ungodly sound, unequivocal proof that aliens visited this area recently (and had sex with the locals). First Indie started tjunking, then Josh joined in. After frantically scrambling for dummies, teddybears and blankies, the whole family clung onto each other in bed, staring at the dark jungle outside their bed on the porch. Holding our breath whilst listening to the troop slowly moving through the branches above our bungalow. Then as the light of dawn slowly starts filtering through the leaves, a myriad of other creatures wake up and start making noises. Besides our howling friends, the loudest of these noises are made by the Scarlet Macaws. These are those big red parrots that are usually found on the shoulders of Pirates. Here they fly in large flocks, maybe 15 pairs at a time.

We left shimmi on a safe mooring, and we now find ourselves in a rented jungle bungalow on the tip of the Osa Peninsula. It flanks the western side of the Gulf of Dulce, Southern Costa Rica, opposite the famous lefthander called ‘Pavones’. Most of the Osa Peninsula is covered in primary virgin rain forest and as a result it is also Costa Rica’s second largest National Park. But its the park with the least infrastructure (euphemism for ‘f$%ked roads’), so its seems to get relatively little tourist traffic. And on the tip of this headland, hidden in the jungle, is a small expatriate community, consisting of mainly American drop outs. And apart from their nationality, they all have one other thing in common: They all surf.

In the space of about 2 kilometers there are 3 bays, and each bay has a unique wave. You will find our little cabin, set back in the jungle about 60m, right in front of the southern most little bay, which is the location of the wave formerly called Hogs Hollow. Nowadays its just called Matapalo. Its an exposed and therefore super consistent right hander, very similar to Mossel Bay Outer, just a lot longer. And like Outerpool, on a small swell and low tide the rocks on the inside can be a problem. But with just a hint of swell it starts to show clean lines, offering lips to smack and faces to gauge.

A bit further down the headland is another beautiful bay with a low tide wave called Backwash. This is a full A-frame peak which like all good A-frames can offer a great back door barrel.

The last wave into the Gulf is the least consistent but highly rated right hand point called Pan Dulce. This is the best wave in the area, but it needs a real swell. When we first arrived on Shimmi, this wave was firing. Its very similar in shape to Vic Bay, a real high performance wave with a lots of good sections to hit the top and get covered up. Chantal borrowed a long board off another yacht and within a half hour she owned the place! Some of her rides were so long that I had to go fetch her in the dingy and tow her back out to backline (I only did that 3 times!).

Anyway folks, that was a logbook flashback. We have been at sea for 20 days now.

Peace.

We are in the middle of our 3200 mile south pacific crossing. Here are the last 4 days:

Day 9: The day starts with a ‘Thud’ as another flying fish flies into one of the closed saloon hatches. Cant blame them as it is pitch dark outside. The kids are great, this evening we made a fish out of a cardboard tube which was duly painted in Nemo colours.

We are more than a third of the way but less than half… nobody is counting days as we have so long to go still …. its just a haze of holding on with one hand, listening to the mainsheet blocks ‘crack’ as they load and unload, playing with kids, feeding them, doing watches during a moonless black night…. we have not seen a ship or anything resembling humantiy for 8 days.

Day 10: The sea is rough but the wind is good, the spirit on board is good, we have just finished a brunch pancake feast (Chef golla at his very best). Andy went for the double rolled up peanut butter option. He is still slightly sick, not strong enough for a beer. I have no fishing lines in the water, its too rough to worry about fishing and the possible ‘man overboard’ scenario that it could cause.

Shimmi is basically on a sleigh ride right now, with the autopilot fighting to stop her from broaching as we occasionally surf down the faces of the following seas. One of us has to be near the auto pilot all time in case the wind gets too much on our stern causing an accidental gybe which right now wont be a pretty sight. Every now and then you feel the boat roll wildly followed by either a loud ‘KaSHUMP!!!’ as a wave hits the underside of the bridge deck or a ‘KeRAK’ as the main sheets ruks tight. We’ve been doing this now for almost 2 weeks, amazing what the human body and mind can get used to. This crossing is without doubt the craziest thing we have done.

We are down to half a water tank so we need a nice rain squall soon. Our watermaker is only giving out a tiny dribble. Josh can piss four times stronger than this puny stream from the watermaker. But its just enough to keep 5 throats from becoming parched. No more showering.

Day 11: Today was crazy. Like driving at 200kms an hour down a bumpy gravel road, fishtailing all over the place. And trying to sleep in your bed is like trying to sleep in the trunk of this fishtailing car. Shortly after Chantal took over from Andy this morning at 4am the wind strengthened to 25-30 knots SE. The sea kicked up along with it, going from ‘quite rough’ to ‘oh my god’. Shimmi finally came out of the blocks, sustaining 8-9 knots with plenty of double figure surfs, our fastest was 15.5 knots

Andy is doing ok, he even played a few tunes on his guitar. I dont know how he is coping, he has been seasick for 8 days straight?? He saw a shark swim past shimmi, said it had the blunt head of a tiger shark. Josh and Indie are making lots of noise and carrying on as if we are on a Transkei holiday and Chantal and I are their personal nannies. They are the least affected by the solitude and duration of the crossing, in fact they seem to be enjoying all the intimate attention of close quarters. Thank god neither of them suffer from seasickness.

Day 12: 1500 miles to go to Fatu Hiva. Not sure how we are going to cope with another 10 stormy days. But it least we can count ‘down’ now instead of up. Pray for a smooth sea!

After lunch today I called a bosberaad. We simply had to make things more comfortable on board. So without further ado we whipped up the spinnaker and dropped the mainsail. We are now sailing with only the spinnaker which has allowed us to go virtually dead down wind and in the same direction as the waves. We are going more slowly but its way more comfortable.

Andy cooked up another fillet steak, crumbed potatoes and hot bean salad combo, what a meal. Best meal for 1500 miles, haha. Tonight i am trolling a big black and orange squid with a big stainless hook on 300 pound mono all the way to the boat. I wanna sea a big dead tuna bodysurfing behind the boat tomorrow morning or else i want my money back.

I went to inspect our boards which are stowed in one of the forepeaks of the catamaran. With all the crashing and diving I was expecting a few dings, but they are fine. I am starting to hang for a surf.

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We are sailing from the Galapagos to the Marquesas. We have completed around 700 nautical miles and we have another 2500 to go. Here are some snippets from the last 4 days.

Day 5: Andy is man down. Migraine and nausea. He could not eat the leftover birthday cake so there is no way he is faking it. The sea looks like when there is a big cold front going through the Cape peninsula with big chaotic chops on top of a solid ground swell. MIFF. How I wish I could be behind that nice comfy desk that your are sitting behind, reading this blog. Ha! We would have liked to still be heading south to the 10 degree line of latitude, but its virtually impossible to do that with the current seas. We are now in the top section of the trade belt, i truly hope its not going to be like this all the way to Fatu Hiva, this was SO NOT in the brochure.

Day 6: Heavy winds turn white horses into long foam trails. Even though its not raining, the first 10 meters above the ocean is covered in a blanket of driving salt spray. Needless to say, the cockpit is wet and we are all cooped up inside the saloon. This is our third day of rough seas, probably the worst 3 day spell that we have had on shimmi in terms of sheer discomfort to crew and difficulty in sailing. We have forced-gybed twice, trimmed the sails 100’s of times and change our course every 20 minutes as the wind swings around on our tail. Big ocean swell and chops lift shimmi high up into the sky and then drops us down again, causing the boom to crash wildly against the blocks. This, my friends, is the business end of hunting for surf in the south pacific.

I threw the watermelons overboard, they are vrot. Chonny made a tasty nasi goreng this evening. As we bit into this Indonesian meal we were for a moment transported back to a warung above Padang-Padang, icecold Bintang quarts, and golden sun setting behind reeling impossibles.

Day 7: I rigged another two flying fish ballyhoo style but the rough seas and chops soon ripped them to pieces. When we surf down a wave the whole lure gets ripped out the water. But some time last night (not sure when) we caught something huge on the sole pink feather which i troll at night on a 300 pound monofilament hand line (i have 5 of these handlines). This morning I found a snapped bungee cord and a snapped 300 pound monofilament line with no lure. I rig my handlines so that they are tied off to a cleat and then onto a bungee with a bit of slack to absorb the initial strike. It works, i previously caught a small marlin, big sailfish and a big wahoo on this system. Its the only way to fish whilst cruising as we cant stop the boat to deal with a normal rod and reel set up. Last night’s fish must have first pulled the bungee tight which eventually snapped, then the load went onto the 300 pound mono which also snapped. Did this whole unwitnessed spectacle happen within a seconds, or did we tow something massive for a few hours? Who knows. Lets just say it was a massive 3000 pound blue fin tuna. But then again maybe Andy sawed through the bungee and the mono with a bread knife just to fuck with my head.

Day 8: Last night was a hell night with super rough seas throwing shimmi around whilst Josh threw up in his bed, then on the saloon cushions, then in our bed during three separate incidents. This morning the aftdeck is a jumble of sheets, pyjamas, pillow cases, duvet covers. Not sure when or how these will be washed. We will just have to wait for the next instalment of rain squalls. But this morning Josh is fine, he is eating properly, holding the food down. Strangely spirits on board are much higher today, the past 3 days was a real test. I’ve come up with a new term: Xtreme Parenting. It kind of sums it up would’nt you say?

Chantal’s take:
Finally at 1.30am Golla and Josh slept on the floor in the saloon. Andy was on watch from 12 – 4am but I was up and down checking on the sails as it just felt like the bloody mast was going to snap. And now here we are at the end of the day able to write an e-mail after a lovely dinner feeling like we might actually make it out the other end. I mean we wanted to do this. It was our choice. We know we are a better family for it. But my lord the sacrifice.

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