386: The “Storm” That May Have Ended Our Sailing Life

Brown says we are still in the fight. He might be. I think I put the white flag up here. Wasn't the day we were expecting. Right here. Permanent drama. I don't drink but today may have either driven me to drink or sell the boat. Well we've been here in the Rota Aba Anchorage for probably a week or so now and we are really interested in getting to clear water where we can swim. This area really doesn't have that and we just came up here to provision. We came up here to see if we could get our parts flown in which they did. To get help which we did. Thankful for Brian's help. Thankful for Dan and Kathy. And now we are going to head out to the north pass. The weather is perfect for this and we want to take advantage of those beautiful days with the wind just right to get back in the water. This is an anchorage where you really just go into town and come back to your boat and not really much animal life other than remora. So very very excited that we're off and that it sounds like our port engine is running. I just set up the mooring lines. I'm a little surprised. There's no one there. Given that we've had a north wind for a while. So we're hoping the mooring ball's there and we're hoping that there are no other boats. How fun would that be? Well we're kind of amazed. The port engine has now been running but it sounds really really good. Must have been the Raycor filter. Thankfully Brown sheared that screw off which made us change the filter from the jenny one and now we've got a working engine. It would have been tough to change all those o-rings plus it was really dirty. Yeah it's hard to get in there and clean it. Now they just make these Chinese ones. They're probably the exact same thing for one-sixth the price and you can just rip the old one out. That's what our favorite thing to do is just take out old stuff that's been on the boat since it was made and abused over these years and just replace it with something new. One of our favorite places to snorkel is right there. We are on the mooring. We've got pretty strong wind. This is not as protected for northeast. It's great for north but still the fetch is almost nothing and it's well worth the little bit of uncomfortableness to have snorkeling right there. The pass right behind us. Yeah this is this is good. Brown's in checking the mooring making sure that everything looks good on it. It's pretty deep so I'm not sure he'll get to the bottom but he's gonna try. The red channel marker is one of our favorite places to snorkel. It feels like swimming through an aquarium surrounded by thousands of fish and a surprising number of resident sharks. The sheer volume and variety make every visit feel different and completely absorbing. Our favorites are the butterflyfish and bannerfish along with the graceful moorish idols. Because no one spearfishes here the fish are unbothered by our presence weaving around us without fear and turning the entire experience into something calm and unforgettable. We've had weather this week that simply wouldn't allow us to get off the boat and today is our last chance to snorkel a pass so we're really hoping it's calm enough to enjoy it. The pass is famous for its massive schools of fish and resident sharks with the occasional lucky appearance by dolphins, mantas, hammerheads, and even whale sharks. Maybe today will be one of those lucky days. It's moving day. We are headed to Tawau. The plan was actually to go all the way to Tikiau but when we checked the weather this morning the wind is not great. It's going to be super light and the direction isn't great for us unless we fly the parasail and we're I don't know. It's relatively unstable. We have too little wind in the morning it seems and then we have too much when we arrive. I mean like there's no way in looking at predict wind that we would sail the parasailer at night. So we're going to take a look at it. We're going to go to Tawau. We're going judge what's going on. We still have a super early start and we're aiming for the north pass, the false pass of Tawau and who knows you know if we're feeling good we might just keep going but that's just a way to knock a little bit of it off. We think that on Monday we've got more stable conditions for downwind sailing. Possibly leaving it up overnight. We don't know. So that's what we're looking for. We're looking to get out there and do some sailing. It's going to be on the beam we think which is really rare sailing and we love that probably the most other than downwind sailing. So that's what we're going to do today. It's a beautiful day today and we don't have far to go. We'll call an audible if we need to. Thanks for watching along. You know it's just uh every day when you're sailing and cruising is a big adventure and especially when it comes time to pick a time that you're going to leave that's the one thing you have control of. You know you just get out there in the open sea and then you just don't know what you're going to experience and so it's always exciting. Sometimes too exciting but yeah we're looking forward to it today and we're really going to miss Fakarava but gosh we've got so much to look forward to. Heading west and friends and family and getting things done and Tahiti before we leave and saying one last goodbye. So good times. So 35 miles today to the north pass of Toao. We are going to be leaving the pass here in Fakarava before it's slack. It's actually incoming but it shouldn't be a problem. This is such a wide pass and thankfully the false pass in the north of Toao you don't have to time it so we're able to get there whenever we want to arrive so that's good and we're anticipating about six and a half seven hours. We'll see how long it actually takes and we have no idea what the sea state is. Yesterday it was rolling swell from the north and we're gonna find out today what that looks like. Hopefully it's still rolling and still a lot of seconds between each of the waves. All right we are off. Main sail is already up which is really nice. Makes things so much easier when we get out. It's pretty cool. Not many people can say they've spent almost four months here in this atoll. It's an amazing place. Great diving and animal life. We are going to really miss it but we've got great things ahead of us so we're excited to move on and enjoy some new new places. It's so nice to finally see the sun. It's been like five four days. 6.3 knots. I love that we have the sound of that buzzer because it means the engine's actually on. Or it just shut off. Oh no that's right. We've already called an audible. We are had our original track going up the east side of Tawau to get to the north but because of the wind angle we've decided to go along the west side and then we can make a decision if we want to keep going and continue our route to Tikiau. Who knows but for now we've got decent sea conditions. It's on our beam which is not the best sideways motion but not too bad. And it just goes to show you you never know what you're gonna get until you get out here. You have to be flexible while you're sailing. You have to have a plan A, plan B. We're making about five knots so nice and easy as we mosey on up. This boat's used to motoring and I'm really glad we're not motoring right now. Engine's off and we are sailing. We are behind the island of Tawau now and we are loving it because we have no fetch at all and that's really nice and that's what's going to happen behind each of the islands that we pass. We're going to have that protection which is fantastic. Pace-wise we're doing almost well five and a half to six knots with 10 knots of wind and the wind is just going to get stronger so I think we've changed our mind again and we're gonna go. We're gonna head on to Tikiau I think is the plan. That could change in the next hour but hopefully not. Well that system over there is really kicking up a storm literally and we are struggling to stay on point here. We're single reefed in the main, double in the jib. At least the sea state has been pretty calm. It's picking up a little bit with the intensity of this storm. Well our plan was to have downwind sailing and we are headed straight into the wind right now. This is crazy. The summer weather here just is never forecasted right so we are going to bail on our second plan which was to head to Tikiau. It's very local and isolated. So the wind picked up and we thought okay we can't keep our sail line to Tikiau so why don't we head to Makatea instead. So we figured okay we can keep this line to Makatea. Well then the winds just picked up even more. We're going to bail. We're gonna head into Toau and wait for a nicer weather window if we can predict it. That's the problem. We just never know. I mean it just popped up. It's like a big one. First we had that small one. It's like they're just popping up. At least we've got the sails down. Wow the storm is almost upon us here. Hopefully it will pass us quickly. Our starboard engine died a little while ago but then Brown was able to get it restarted. Now our port engine has died and it is not restarting so Brown is changing the fuel filter. So not a good situation. The good news is we're in open ocean so there's nothing that we have to do really quickly. We've got plenty of time. The bad news is the weather is not great. Oh and this starboard engine is really struggling. It's only revving at 18 now. This is not good. In the worst case we sail downwind and head back to Tikiau. Brown says we are still in the fight. He might be. I think I put the white flag up here. Not sure if this is going to be a lifestyle I want to keep living. Living on the edge for sure. But my husband has done an amazing job getting the second engine going. So we've got limping starboard. Wasn't the day we were expecting today. Limping starboard, limping port but they're both limping so that is better news than neither limping. We're moving forward. And the storm seems to just be following us which is super frustrating. So this is 20 miles. Look at all this around us. Just us. Well the temporary drama is here right here. Permanent drama. The drama I think is over. The storm has decided to leave us alone and it's finally gone off to our west and now we don't have any wind so we are motoring with both engines. That's a miracle in and of itself. Great job to the captain who under great duress went down to the engine room and changed the rake cord. We are heading into Tuau Falls Pass. We've been here before. It's really pretty. We've got about another hour to go or so and looking forward to getting on a mooring ball there and then re-evaluating life. I don't drink but today may have either driven me to drink or sell the boat so we'll see which one actually happens. Down to one engine again. At least it's calm. We are getting close to the pass. The port engine is on and off. If it was flat maybe it would be okay but the swell is really creating a problem so hopefully it will start when we go into the pass. Thankfully we don't have to time this pass. It's a false one so we shouldn't. There shouldn't be a problem getting in but who knows. It just doesn't feel great knowing that we don't have two engines we can count on. All right here we go. One engine working. One idling and working and that's what we want to avoid over there. One guy in the dinghy said he'd help us which is great. His name is Jan. Thank you Jan. He's getting in his dinghy now. So grateful for other cruisers. This is such a gift. Almost through the pass completely. Thank you God. And these guys are going to probably help us grab that mooring which is very sweet of them. Brandon stoved the ball and said that it looks good so that's good news. I think she's got a hold. Oh it's good to be anchored down while attached to a mooring ball anyway. We are loving that it is sunny finally and calm and we are safe which is good. It's such a beautiful place here in the false pass and today we are going to try and do a fuel bypass to our engines and to do that we need to get another jerry can of fuel so we're buying it from our friends on SVO. Jan and Jane and we're so thankful that they are willing to sell it to us so we're going to head over there now and pick it up. Huge thanks to our friends Jane and Jan on O. They gave us their, well they let us buy their fuel drum which is going to help us be able to hopefully make a bypass to our fuel tank and if the fuel tank is the issue which is probably what the issue is then we now will bypass the issue we hope and our engines will be consistent. Gotta try, keep trying and we can get our tank fuel polished when we're in Tahiti. Yeah so this will give us at least a little bit of new life versus having to go back to Tahiti right oh really wow all right that's amazing right yeah we were anchored at north Fakarava pass when you were there and we we saw your tent and we saw you leave going towards the pass but we didn't know where you were going yeah yeah and now we know you are the sea people so these guys had their boat shipped in by by the Cobia and that's when we saw them the day after they sailed off to uh right near us they camped right near us and tomorrow they're going to head to Apataki the next island up and they need Starlink to be able to check the weather so we gave them our Starlink password hopefully they'll be able to access it from the street or from the street from the sand and check the weather for tomorrow