This year Phil and I have used our boat Lochmarin to sail across the Caribbean, through the Panama canal and across the Pacific Ocean.
We left Trinidad in November last year, heading North to Grenada before going West, to avoid the pirates around Venezuela. A boat we knew had been attacked leaving Trinidad, the people in it badly beaten, just two weeks before we left. We stopped at the Dutch Antilles, Bonaire and Curacao, enjoying the fantastic diving and picking up some solar panels we'd had shipped there.
We moved on to Colombia, having Christmas in Santa Marta, and were enchanted with this beautiful and mysterious land, with it's high mountains and huge rivers. We determined to return one day and explore further inland but moved on to the San Blas Islands, home to the Kuna Indians. This small race (second smallest in size to the Pygmies) are one of the most unchanged tribes in the world, still living their traditional lifestyles on the islands of the San Blas, raising crops and getting water from the mainland of the almost inaccessible isthmus of Panama. It was quite a privilege getting to know them, but less so when they stole our dinghy and held it to ransom, asking initially $1,000 for it's safe return (which we didn't have)!
It was hard to drag ourselves away from the beautiful sandy islands and turquoise seas, but we moved on in February having honed our skills at navigating the reefs and small passes, as we wanted to get through Panama early so we'd have plenty of time to enjoy the Pacific as we crossed it. So we followed the Spanish gold, in the wake of Francis Drake, via Portobello to Colon. Mid February saw us safely through the Panama canal, quite a remarkable experience with those huge ships just behind you, and we gathered ourselves for the next leap by enjoying the islands of Las Perlas for a week or so.
The crossing to Galapagos, passing through the doldrums was predictably slow and peaceful. We drifted across the equator in a calm, so we celebrated by getting out for a swim - a very strange feeling being mid-ocean with miles of water below you and hundreds of miles between you and land in all directions, looking up at the boat you know no one is aboard... When we climbed back on we found we'd drifted North, back over the equator again, so had to celebrate a second time when we'd headed back South.
Galapagos - what can one say? An exceptional experience, magical islands filled with wildlife. So many memories, not least of which is swimming with sea lions playing all around us, loop the looping, pressing their whiskery faces to our goggles. It was expensive but absolutely worth it. Next came the biggest jump, over 3,000 miles, three weeks across to the Marquesas. It was strange to think back to how much fuss was made for the Atlantic hop compared to preparations for this one. All the provision planning, carefully recorded on spreadsheets, watch schedules drawn up, careful planning of departure dates that lots of the boats were doing. Provisioning here consisted of getting to the market early to see what they had and restocking a few staples from the sparsely filled grocery store. In fact, one of our friends left before they'd planned, as we were all kicked 30 miles out to sea because of a Tsunami warning so they figured, as they'd come that far they may as well keep going.
I loved the passage to French Polynesia, it was long enough to get over the drain of the first few days at sea and find a rhythm, nevertheless when we finally arrived in the breathtakingly beautiful Fatu Hiva we were bone weary. Three weeks of never more than a couple of hours sleep in one lump takes it's toll and sailing can be pretty tiring work - Lochmarin is all manual, no electric winches, and the sails for a 55 foot ketch take some hoisting and sheeting in. Remember how you feel when you've been out for a day sail, all day on the water, ready for your bed I should think!
We arrived in French Polynesia at the end of April and we stayed until the end of September, moving on from the dramatic landscapes of the Marquesas to the mysterious Dangerous Archipelago of the Tuamotu Atolls, then on to the Society Islands of Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora and the rest. Whilst we were there we had visitors: My mother flew out from New Zealand to join us in order to celebrate her 70th birthday and my son joined us for the 6 weeks of his summer holidays, loving the life on the water: reef fish and sting rays eating out of his hand, chasing sharks in the shallows, climbing on and falling off every kind of board: wake, knee, body, paddle and surf.
It was whilst we were in French Polynesia that we had our closest brush with disaster. No, it wasn't a violent storm or a dragging anchor, it was as simple as going body boarding. We were surfing the small waves that had come inside the pass through a reef when, to cut a long story short, Phil was pulled out to open ocean on his board beyond the reef through the huge surf, I then capsized the dinghy in the pass trying to find him, and was dragged out also, with no board, flippers or anything to hold onto to help me float. After some hours we were rescued, the good French even sent a helicopter, and we are still here to tell the tale but if we had been anywhere else there would not have been a search and rescue team and the day would have ended with a very different story. Sobering.
In thanks to the Polynesian Sea Gods for keeping us safe, and in the true spirit of Pacific sailors, we celebrated by getting beautiful intricate tattoos before heading on to Niue. If you ever get to sail the Pacific, wind and tide allowing, don't miss out Niue. If you think atolls are strange enough places in the world then Niue, an atoll that's been uplifted over the centuries will blow you away. One can't anchor there - it's so steep to, but there are visitor moorings in 30 m of water so clear that you can see the bottom as if it was 3m, only bluer. When you go ashore the surf is so rough that it's not safe to leave dinghies tied up, one has to lift them with a crane onto the dock. But it's the geology that makes Niue so remarkable, crisp blue pools on the coral shelf that lead to wonderful stalagmite and stalactite filled caves on the leeward side, incredibly jagged coast on the windward and fascinating forests where you are walking around the coral heads we were used to snorkelling or diving around in atolls that hadn't been uplifted!
From Niue we moved on to The Kingdom of Tonga, wonderfully friendly people coping with the realities of living in tropical paradise - drought and cyclone damage, and last week, we left for our last leg across the Pacific this season, down to New Zealand.
And that's where we are now, on passage, sending this email via SSB radio, making all the speed we can to dodge the depressions that come rolling fiercely across New Zealand at this time of the year - Spring. We'll be there for the summer, doing work on Lochmarin and enjoying New Zealand cruising, in order to dodge the cyclone season, then we'll return to continue to explore the islands of the Pacific.
So, you asked how we used out boat in 2014. She's been our home, our transport, our refuge, our pride and our love!
Sara Xavier and Phil Smith
SV Lochmarin
If you'd like more detail, pictures etc please see blog.mailasail.com/lochmarin
Submitted on 11th November 2014