Last Trans Pacific Log.

Dancing Dolphins, Singing Daughters, Marie Celeste, Ghostly Sailboats.

French lessons, Farred the fleet.

DANCING DOLPHINS
Pacific Ocean May 2011

Dancing Dolphins.

Farrfly was originally delivered to the Canaries on board a ship from Sweden at the end of December 2002.  Her first sail was from Grand Canary Island to Lanzarote. Soon after slipping harbor a school of dolphins surrounded the brand new boat. There must have been 200 of them. They spent hours jumping the bow wave and dancing around the hull. It looked like they were celebrating the launch of Farrfly. On this maiden voyage I had one crewman; a Dutch executive from the builders yard who was completely fascinated by the dolphins. After a mesmerizing hour he was rather over come... and what did this businessman do, miles from anywhere? He suddenly JUMPED into the Atlantic Ocean.... When I finally fished him out, he explained he had an overpowering urge to swim with the dolphins. He could neither explain himself let alone understand what came over him.

Since that first day, where ever Farrfly goes, so go dolphins. When others traveling in the same direction at the same time report not a single sighting, we are entertained by scores of dancing dolphins. Maybe its the ‘way of the hull’ through the water that attracts them. Or maybe the dolphin bush telegraph has announced that Farrfly is in town... As I write this in a bay on the north coast of Hiva Ho, the bay is patrolled every afternoon by dolphins...

As you can see from the above and below the Pacific was no exception:

Pacific white nose dolphins launch a surprise attack 

Power diving.. under Farrfly's bows..

Marie Celeste

A unique feature of modern sailing yachts is that, nobody can do it. Here is a perfectly good example of absolutely nobody doing it. Ten knots on the clock, spinnaker up, not a soul on deck. Now one hopes they are not all swimming with the dolphins but are down below. It is rather ghostly to see the wheel turn itself this, then that way, by the hand of the spirits of the deep.

 Naturally its neither magic nor the hand of Capt’ Jack Sparrow. Its all science. GPS guided steering systems. GPS has really made navigation so easy and is indispensable on a modern yacht. 

The spinnaker is a different matter. They have yet to invent the machine to control that beast when things get out of hand. A flame thrower comes to mind!

Look; even nobody can do it.

Or maybe she is turning into a ghost ship?

French lessons;

When one looks at Farrfly quite happily sailing her-self across the Pacific, I can hear Barbara (Cullen) ask the obvious question... “what the feck do they do all day?” Well the truth is there is quite a lot of spare time. Its a bit like been in the fire brigade.. nothing to do 99% of the time then all hell breaks loose. Well Gus loves fishing and has to fix things, which keeps him half occupied. Kaja is a perfectionist in the galley and has taken to baking fresh bread with nuts and olives. She also spends time writing a lot of something in a mysterious big book. Maybe she is a psychoanalyst? Tony is on his 5th book, about his 10th movie and is now studying maritime law. 

I started reading books and then thought, no I will learn how to speak French. Now this can’t have been the sudden decision that I just presented, one must allow for poetic license. Onboard I have a number of french  learning kits, from CD’s to books to a computer course. I spend hours every very day learning french.

 Well you may well ask; how is it going? I suppose the answer lies in the fact that I am telling you this in english. I now fully understand why I dropped out of french, my only language class, before the leaving cert. 

You would be amazed how long it takes me to realize, when looking up a french word, that I am actually in the english side of the dictionary!! One would expect that as a native english speaker that I might notice that I am searching among english words for a french one.. mais allors.. non. C’est incredible. As Samina many years ago, so famously exclaimed while trying to teach me just one german sentence.. “How in ze nam of Got, did somvone so stupid make so vuch voney”. I often wonder about that my self. It must be easy if you try, I suppose most people don’t try.

Picture this for a scene of tranquility:

Here we are 2800 miles under the keel, 180 to go. My watch. Pitch dark about 8 in the evening. Alone on deck. Kite up. Humming along.. 8-10 knots. No problems. Have my torch, my epirb, my can of coke and chockie bars in case I get sleepy. On course. Wind easing. This is my last night watch of the Pacific crossing. Tomorrow we will be in Fatu Hiva late in the afternoon.

The stars are intermingled among big fluffy white clouds lit up by the moon. It is almost a full moon.  Oh what peace and calm. The farrfly hissling along in silence. Its almost dream like... Alas it became a bit too dream like and your errant scribe dozed off as he has a want to do;

Well down from the clouds, in giant format, one singing daughter, shuffling sideways, Bono style, pointing her long thin giant sized index finger (at this unfortunate sleeper), belting out, Supertramp's ‘Your a dreamer’,  into a 1960’s microphone, backed by an all girl band; all descending from the clouds, all about 50 feet tall. The song and the pointing of many index fingers pounded on... “your a dreamer... nothing but a dreamer... can you put your hands in your head...oh no.”  ....and so on.. readers of a certain generation will know the song the rest of you can buy it on itunes for a dollar or two its a classic. The experience abruptly ended as Hazel et al, shimmied back into the clouds looking back singing.. “you have it coming to you... now there’s not a lot I can do..”  

Wild awake in sheer terror, leaping to my sleepy feet, immediately checked the clouds, singers gone thank God, then 360 degrees.... all clear, was it a warning.. quick the radar... nothing, nothing at all... 

So it is a matter of record that the Farrfly crossed the Pacific ocean in May of the year 2011 and saw not a single ship, yacht or plane. The only non aquatic sighting occurred on the last night, been a troupe of lofty singers and players of doubtful subtlety.    

For those unfamiliar with the young menace here is a snap of her, once again singing, on a firmer stage, with her previous band the Rockets and also in a duet with a well known Tenner. 

Hazel and her earth based band the Pocket Rockets

Some people will do anything for a tenner.

"What, he snoozes while on watch? We'll see about that"
(O'Driscoll giving the game away)

"DREAMER... YOU HAVE IT COMING TO YOU"
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
At 50 ft tall, mid Pacific, 200 ft above deck, I will never be able to snooze on watch again.

15 DAYS to ‘FARR’ THE FLEET

In the end we arrived upon the island of Fatu Hiva before sunset on the afternoon of Sunday 15th May. It took us 15 days and 4 hours to cross. Of our group of about 12 boats on the SSB nets, we were easily the fastest. We ourselves had anticipated about 19 to 21 days. Most of the other boats took about 20/22 days. Some have not arrived yet and today is Sunday 23ad. It was a wonderful two weeks, although the sky was often cloudy at night, thus hindering my star spotting. We had fair winds all the way. Did all our own routing, very successfully by taking a dive north which really paid off.

On reflection I have none of the sense of achievement I had after the Atlantic crossing. That was far more challenging. The boat was new. I did not know her. She seemed enormous at the time. There were 7 on board, all novices. Not one had ever crossed an ocean before. The sense of adventure was crackling in the air. 

And 7 years later, what of the Pacific crossing? This time only four aboard. But all seasoned ocean sailors. Captain Kenny.. a watch leader and ocean virgin on the Atlantic has since become a full time professional sailor. Captain Clement has looked after the boat for 6 years, is her delivery skipper and skippered her for all her commercial charters. He knows the mechanics of the machine a lot better than I. Then there is little Katja, the sailing nanny. A veteran of previous Pacific exploits, including a crossing last year, the ‘wrong way’.

 And as for my-self, after 7 years Farrfly feels like a comfortable shoe. The big blue spinnaker now seems rather small. Farrfly and I have stood together on the podium of International regattas, cruised the coasts of Long Island sound, tacked under the bridges of New York City, tied up along side the quay in Quebec, crisscrossed the Caribbean, and behind us now lies the greatest Ocean on this planet. I have to say it has been plain sailing all the way.  IRL 7777 is a lucky boat with a lucky number. If ever the dolphins disappear, it will be no time to snooze on watch. As if I ever could again! Thanks Hazel.

Seaya

DC