May 31
It’s midnight and we are en route sailing westward from Fiji to Port Vila, the capital city of Vanuatu. We slipped quietly out of Port Denarau Marina at 5 a.m. Wednesday and are now some 200 nautical miles into our projected 525 nm voyage. Our original destination of Tanna Island has been scratched as the weather forecast is for windy conditions and Tanna offers no protected anchorages.
With three of us on board – Rod, Mayflor and myself – the watch schedule is two hours on, four hours off. I’ve been assigned the 6-8 and the 12-2 (both a.m. and p.m.) time slots so it will be my pleasure to oversee both sunrise and sunset. This evening’s twilight showed us a line of squalls ahead, a signal aboard a sailboat to reef the sails and prepare for sudden wind gusts and attendant excitement during the night. On AVATAR we just motor on, steady and comfortable, knowing that blustery conditions will have little effect.
As well as wind, we are sailing into and out of rain showers, and if I didn’t already know that from the mist on the windows and the damp conditions on the flying bridge (I’m inside AVATAR’s comfortable and dry salon/great room), the radar would remind me via the spattering of colorful speckles surrounding our position on its screen. In the black of night, the main instrument to monitor is the radar screen, looking out for that one steady bright green dot of light (among the myriad transient bright dots) that indicates another ship or boat sharing the ocean with us. There are other instruments to monitor: engine temperature, RPM, track and compass heading, but the radar takes precedence. Every 15 minutes or so a trip top sides is in order to visually scan the horizon for lights that would signify another boat. Another instrument, the depth sounder, stops reading in water this deep, but the electronic charts tell us there are nearly two miles of water between the bottom of our hull and the seabed!
There is a setting half moon dead ahead hiding in the broken clouds and AVATAR is sailing straight down a path of moonlight cast on the shiny black surface of the night sea. The perception is of great velocity, a rocket ship flying through outer space. The reality is that we are traveling at 10+ knots, a respectable speed for an ocean-going yacht but ashore it would invite honks from irritated drivers in a school zone! The squalls have been accompanied by confused seas and the boat has a pitching corkscrew motion as she works her way in and out of the steep swells. The dinnerware is clattering in the cupboards.
Rod is concerned that the stabilizers are in jeopardy. These are hydraulically controlled winglets attached to the hull below the waterline that actively work to smooth out the ride of the boat, dampening any tendency to pitch and roll. They are whining loudly under load in this sea and he worries one is overheating. If we have to shut them down our trip will become much more adventuresome. So far, however, they continue to do their job.
Between my night watch shifts I retire to my comfortable bed in the master cabin. Here my ear on the pillow is only a couple of feet away from the aluminum hull as it skates across the water. I hear the reassuringly steady thrum of the diesel engine, the slap of water against AVATAR’s underbelly, the swoosh of waves foaming along her sides. Periodically a wave smacks the side of the boat, sending a shower of salt spray over the deck. Sleep is light and semi-aware. Dreams are of sailing, Vanuatu and stabilizer repairmen!
Now it’s 6 a.m. and the moon has set, the storm clouds have cleared away, and the night sky is full of stars. They are starting to fade as the promise of dawn glows dimly on the horizon behind us. The stabilizers continue to do their job. The radar will no longer be needed for ship spotting, the ocean swells will immediately look smaller by light of day. The coffee pot will heat up, my watch will end, and I’ll transfer my attention to a good book for a few hours. This coming day, another night, and a third morning at sea still lie ahead before we make our arrival in Port Vila.
Epilogue: We arrived Port Vila on schedule. The stabilizers continued to function and we have determined via tech support that the problem lies with their ‘noise suppression’ system rather than the stabilizers themselves. The waves did NOT look smaller the next day – they looked enormous and we had some pretty rough seas most of that day. At noon the autopilot steering pump failed, causing complete loss of steering. AVATAR sailed in circles until we switched over to the backup system!