Location 29° 35S, 132° 21W
Tuesday, 10.23.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 29° 35S, 132° 21W at noon on October 23. We were just barely sailing at 3.7 knots in an 8-10 knot breeze from the NW, which put it on our port quarter. We had "The Bird," our G2 gennaker up with full main and the fore doused, to give more of the breeze to the Bird. All our tricks were of no use as the breeze died out to 6-8 knots and we started the engine, at long-range cruise of 1800 rpm, using about one gallon per hour to get six knots.

Our basic rule is that if we can see any white caps, we can sail. Sailors will recognize this as Beaufort Force Three.

We have come 2007 NM from Rangiroa and have 2910 to go to Puerto Montt. We shifted to GMT -9 when we crossed Latitude 135.5. Papeete was -10, the same as Hawaii, and Chile is -4, the same as Halifax (depending on DST).

Furuno USA have been a huge help with technical advice on our radar/GPS/autopilot system. Some might say that a really good system shouldn't need technical advice after 1 1/2 years at sea, but ours is sophisticated and complex and takes some care and feeding. It is so great to be able to reach a knowledgeable person first try (from 10,000 NM away) and get an answer that solves our problems. If Jorge, the autopilot, is happy, the crew is happy.

Every season, passage and watch has its celestial delights. Right now my midnight watch is blessed by having moonset, followed not long after by Arcturus, the Bear Keeper, rising in the ENE, bright like container ship's steaming light. Orion and the Pleiades stick with me the whole watch.

Hannah made dessert for us today. Fresh tea biscuits with canned peaches and mandarin oranges, covered with strawberry yogurt. Yum!

All is well.

Location 27° 40S, 134° 36W
Monday, 10.22.2007

The Schooner Maggie B Noon Position on October 22nd was 27° 40S, 134° 36W. We were making 8.7 knots on the Great Circle route to Puerto Montt. The wind is a very pleasant 15 knots on our beam. Just another pitch about how wonderful the Maggie B is -- we are doing almost 9 knots in 15 knots of wind, and with our main at one reef!

We have come 1845 NM from Rangiroa and have 3067 NM to go to Puerto Montt.

Things are looking up -- we found an old French Press coffee maker, hidden away for just such an emergency as the Captain losing part of the espresso maker overboard.

Robert made a lovely lunch: chicken with a sauce of shallots and garlic in a court bouillon reduction, finished with morel mushrooms "rejuvenated" in red wine. Assorted vegetables and saffron rice on the side. In the midst of this delicious meal, the strap holding the main peak block to the top of the mast parted. Having our priorities right, we lowered the main, took in the jib, and proceeded under fore alone while we went back to lunch. The triple Spectra strap was an experiment, to reduce metal to metal wear between the masthead fitting and the block's shackle. The experiment was unsuccessful as the strap only lasted 2000 NM.

Our world is getting colder as we make our way South. It seems like just yesterday that we would wake with sweat soaked pillows in Bora Bora, and now we are digging out favorite blankets and even wearing shoes on night watch!

Today we made the tough decision to bypass Easter Island. The reality is the wind. We are right on the island's latitude and only 1300 NM away. But a high pressure is filling in over us and if we keep on the way due East True, we will have little wind and what there is, right on our nose. We have about 1100 NM of diesel left for motoring and 3000 NM to go to Chile. And there is usually no fuel available at Easter Island. So it really isn't a choice, it is reality.

So, following our instincts, the indications from the GRIB weather files, and guidance from Commander's Weather, we are now headed somewhat aggressively South to 35S/125W, which should set us up for favorable wind from this next front, without dipping in too deep into the Southern Ocean before we have to (Puerto Montt is at 42 South, the Horn at 55 South).

All is well.

Location 25° 40S, 137° 27W
Sunday, 10.21.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at at noon on October 21. We are making 8.2 knots close hauled to the southeast, more or less on our Great Circle for Puerto Montt. The wind is 15 knots from the ENE. The weather is lovely with little scattered clouds.

We have come 1648 NM from Rangiroa and have 3261 to go to Chile. We did 180 NM in the last 24 hours.

There was no noon report yesterday because Our Captain and Chief Plumber was making a heroic but unsuccessful 15 hour attempt to fix our toilet. It was disassembled and reassembled. Joker valves were replaced. Hoses were switched and decalcified. The Black Water tank was plumbed. Seacocks were checked to be clear. Nothing helped.

Today Deputy Chief Plumber Robert Farrar is attacking. Pressures are being applied and we all hope for success.

I know that friends who were shocked that we have only one head are saying "I told you so!"

For you arm-chair plumbers, here's the problem:

1. When is use, it will not pump out. It is as if an exit valve were shut off. But there is no exit valve. The problem came on quickly, rather than gradually "closing down."
2. If the "Out Hose" to the bottom of the Black Water tank is detached, the toilet will pump easily and merrily without effort.
3. The Black Water tank is empty and appears to be completely open to the sea through the hull.
4. The inlet pipe in the Black Water tank is plumbed from the bottom and supposedly ends just before the top of the tank. It shows some calcification, but we could ram a thumb-sized electrical cable up it, and it seemed to bang on the top. The Inlet pipe is not accessible except from the bottom.
5. When we tried pumping with the hose connected to the Black Water tank, with the tank's deck pumpout fitting open, it wouldn't pump.
6. When we tried attaching the "out hose" from the toilet to the through-hull fitting, it would not pump. Though that was late at night and perhaps the seacock was not open. We will that recheck today, if nothing else works.
7. We cleaned and decalcified and ensured that the "out hose" was clear and clean as a new hose.

Any ideas would be welcome.

All is well, if you don't mind peeing and pooping in a bucket.

Location 21° 26S, 142° 04W
Friday, 10.19.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 21° 26S, 142° 04W at noon on October 19th. We are 3616 NM from Puerto Montt and have come 1279 NM since Rangiroa. We are more or less close hauled in a 18-22 knot NE'er, making 7.4 knots to the SE. We did 165 NM in the last 24 hours, going to windward. Our course made good is only about 10 degrees south of the Great Circle course to Puerto Montt. We are still taking a bit of a beating from a choppy three meter swell, somewhat accentuated by having the current against the wind.

In about two days we will have to start positioning for the next system. We will probably have to then make the decision either to stay up around 27 degrees South and work for an Easter Island visit, or continue South to assure ourselves of a good westerly to blow us into Puerto Montt.

Now three days into the leg, life is settling into the Blue Water routine. We had our first meal all four together today and all are fully able to watch stand. We have been trading around a little cold that goes from throat to sinuses to head to stomach. It seems to be playing out OK.

Yesterday's disaster was losing the little mid-filter piece of our espresso maker overboard. The Captain was emptying it and Neptune sent a wave and took it for a new ornament. We have an emergency supply of a product called "Java Juice" which will give us enough time to experiment with Cowboy Coffee and Cold Brewed extract.

Other than the coffee crisis, All is well.

Location 19° 43S, 144° 21W
Thursday, 10.18.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 19° 43S, 144° 21W at noon on October 18th. We are making 7.2 knots to the ESE in a somewhat punishing, confused sea. The wind is from the Northeast at 20 knots and it is overcast with occasional light rain showers.

We have come 1114 NM from Rangiroa (via Papeete) and have 3779 NM to go to Puerto Montt.

We have about 3/4 of a knot current with us, which is probably the reason for the difficult sea.

We are sailing a course to stay clear, to the South and West, of the French Nuclear Test Area, where we expect we would be unwelcome.

The boat is sailing well, and all systems are working fine. Our only problems, besides the rough sea, are little things like iPods that won't sync and new cameras the produce unintelligible error messages.

All is well.

Location 18° 38S, 147° 12W
Wednesday, 10.17.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 18° 38S, 147° 12W at noon on October 17th. We are making 8.3 knots, headed on a rhumb line course for Puerto Montt. The wind is a nice 15 knot NE'erly and the seas, while somewhat confused, are settling down.

We are doing what the Maggie B does best, making good time on a broad reach on a long passage. We are all settling in to the Blue Water routine, though a little warily after all the former alarms. I'm still on the Midnight/0300, Noon/1500 watches; Hannah is on 0300/0600 and 1500/1800; Kath is on 0600/0900 and 1800/2100; and Robert on the 0900/noon and 2100/midnight.

We have come 938 NM since Rangiroa and have 3948 to go to Chile. We were able to go 174 NM in the last 24 hours, even with the halyard complications.

The next big challenge is updating all our iPods, so that we can enjoy podcast downloads from when we were in Tahiti, rip of some of Robert's music, and generally update. Our onboard computers have about 5000 songs. Something for everyone! Listening to old favorites makes night watches pass easily and happily.

All is well.

Location 17° 36S, 149° 38W
Tuesday, 10.16.2007

At noon today, the Schooner Maggie B was at 17° 36S, 149° 38W, just outside Tepuhaonu Pass, a few miles from Marina Taina. We are finally underway for Chile, with a hoped-for stopover in Easter Island. We are full of diesel, water, food and good will from the Polynesians and out fellow yachties, who gave us a nice send off from the marina. Puerto Montt is about 4115 NM away. IF we are able to keep the speed that we did from Mauritius to Fremantle, 7.9 knots, it will take us 22 days.

Yesterday we had rain of biblical proportions. It was as if a thunderstorm sat right overhead the marina for four hours. Besides the rain, we saw one serious circular wind event that did no damage, but did organize the 20-30 boats at anchor off the marina into a perfect circle, perhaps 500 meters across. It was like movies of wagon trains circling when under attack.

But today, Tuesday, is clear, with a fickle NW wind tumbling over the mountains. We have the promise of a generally northerly wind until we get west to about 140-141 degrees west, when we will hit the usual Easterly, which will force us South. Our general plan is to work our way East as best we can on this little Northerly, until we have to turn South or Southeast. We hope to settle in along 27 degrees South and run along to Easter Island, which is about 109 degrees West. But much depends on the positioning of the next low, which we will have to get south of, in order to get decent winds. That may be a ways south. "La Nina" conditions are setting in, which traditionally means the highs go further south.

We'll see.

When I started writing this report at about 1600, I had barely entered the addresses when the main throat halyard came down again. Our hearts just hit rock bottom as we took in sails and headed to the nearest port. But then I was just thrilled to see that nothing had broken, just the knot in the halyard attaching the bitter end to the jigger had come untied. We motored into the lovely Port du Phaeton near 17° 45S, 149° 20W, rehung the halyard with proper whipping (the halyard, not the bosun) and slipped out of the unlit, complex Passe de Teputo just at full dark. Onwards!

Then the toilet plugged up, but that was fixed in an hour. Whee! All I want is one day with no problems....

Location 17° 35.2S, 149° 37W
Sunday, 10.14.2007

The Schooner Maggie B is safe in Marina Taina in Papeete at 17° 35.2S, 149° 37W. We are pretty much fully recovered from the equipment problems of last week. We have re-rigged and fixed most everything that was plaguing us. Minor things still need to be done like fixing more "protection" to the masts and properly routing the wired for the replacement GPS antenna. The mast protection is flexible plastic that we glue on in the positions where the gaff saddles ride. It reduces or eliminates wear on our strong, expensive carbon masts.

It looks as if a nice system is going to go through Tahiti Sunday night and hopefully have a nice broad shoulder of a northerly that we can ride down the line. We hope to be off Monday, though now Tuesday seems more probably. The rather complex report from Commanders Weather will soon be up on the web site.

There are a bunch of new photos up on the web site which hopefully will be interesting to all.

I got one interesting insight while trying to find replacement blocks. The first thing that I found is that there are no blocks "our size" in French Papeete, let alone the kind of triples we need for the throat halyards. But the critical insight was that the blocks weren't broken, it was the connectors that broke. I was astonished to see that the beefy Antal triple block was only rated to 3.5 tons according to the catalog. And that is presumably from bench tests, not anything like real life, banging around on the top of a mast, with loads coming from a variety of directions and in shocks. But in buying additional rope and checking its lab tests, I got some eight mil braided line that is rated to 4.5 tons! So we are going to ditch the easily-broken metal shackle attachments and use the high-strength line. Three wraps of the eight mil and the Antal block goes from 3.5 tons to 13.5! And the line is "honest" and shows when it is over stressed, where metal is there and then is broken.

Learn something every day!

It is now Sunday, October 14 in Papeete, my birthday. It looks as if it is going to rain all day. But...

All is well.

Location 20° 18S, 145° 24W
Tuesday, 10.09.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at at noon on October 9th. This has been a bad day. A little before 0900 this morning, our main throat halyard block failed. It was a heavy duty Antal 90 by 16 triple. we also notice serious wear on the brand new halyard we put on three days ago. It has been three days of close-hauled 20 knot breeze, with occasional gusts to 35, but nothing serious. As we were securing the main, and not more than five minutes from the first failure, the fore throat halyard block failed. It was a Lewmar 80 triple.

We were in fairly rough seas, too rough to send anyone aloft with our spares, so we made for the nearest atoll, Hereheretua, to find a spot in the lee to make repairs. We got to the atoll at about sunset, and Kath, with a great effort, got the main throat halyard up. But by then it had become clear to us that we weren't in a position to press on to Chile. We need more rigging work, especially to find and eliminate the source of wear on the main throat halyard. We need more blocks. We need to clean up the mess in the lazyjacks made by the emergency lowering of the sails. We need to raise the fore throat halyard with the new block. Did I mention that the GPS receiver antenna failed last night also? The spare works great, but has to be properly installed.

It also looks as if the hoped-for big Southerly isn't going to happen and we would be facing more strong headwinds.

So now we are headed back to Marina Taina in Papeete, a trip of a little more than a day. It is a lovely place, but rather discouraging to retreat. I am not at all sure what this means for timing for Easter Island, the Horn or Montevideo. I suppose that the prospect of Big City Bright Lights will dispel some of the gloom.

Heaven knows what the French Border Police will make of our return. Perhaps we can sneak in and out? Nah.

All is safe.

Location 18° 29S, 146° 02W
Monday, 10.08.2007

At noon on October 8th, the Schooner Maggie B was at 18° 29S, 146° 02W. We were making about 165 degrees magnetic, or about due South True, doing 6 knots. The wind has stayed at about 100 degrees magnetic at 18-25 knots. We are somewhat off close hauled because the seas have made up a bit and if we are hard on the wind we beat our brains out and make little headway.

We have come 265 NM from Rangiroa and Easter Island is 2075 NM away.

We are headed South instead of East (which would be more direct geographically to Easter Island) for three reasons: 1) the wind is from South of East, and would be directly on our nose if we pointed towards Easter Island, 2) there is a whole mess of Tuamotus between us and Easter Island and 3) we're after a favorable breeze. In about 2-3 days, a nice, fat 300 mile wide band of a fresh Southerly breeze should work its way East past 145 West Longitude. But we'll have to be South of about 25 degrees to catch it. The timing should be right. It will take us about two days to get another six degrees (360 NM) South. Then we'll put our thumb out, tack over to Starboard tack, and hopefully ride that Southerly most all the way (2000 NM or 10 days) to Easter Island, which is about 27 degrees South and 109 West. That's the plan, anyway.

Days of departure are always hectic. Last Saturday seemed a bit worse. Routine engine checks gave the Onan generator a bad case of the "air locks" and we had to rig a temporary header fuel tank to solve it. Final rig checks found a badly frayed main throat halyard, which was replaced. The joy of having a simple rig (both engine and aloft), ample supplies, and a fit, skilled crew, was that these two major problems were solved in little over an hour.

We are just passing the last (?) of the Tuamotus on our course. It has the engaging name of Hereheretua. Here means "beautiful." Herehere means really beautiful. Not sure about "tua," but would suspect it means "spot or place." Must be an early form of marketing to call a tiny out-of-the-way place "really beautiful," like the Vikings calling that rough, icy island "Greenland."

We have fitted our Fremantle-made gaiters around the skylights to help keep the saltwater on deck. Reepicheep has additional lashings to keep it from roaming. And Robert has discovered a little leak through the deck by the foot of his pilot berth, which we won't be able to track down and fix until we get on the other tack. Fortunately it can drip straight into the bilge, if the latest "New Yorker" isn't stuffed in its way.

All hands are back mostly functional and the Blue Water routine is beginning to settle in.

All is well.