Hello all!
I am writing this from California where I have been for a few days, waiting to continue to my wife in Sweden tomorrow.
POG is currently bobbing on a mooring in a secluded bay in Vavau in the kingdom of Tonga (check your atlas). This after a 6,100 mile marathon sail from San Francisco to the Marquesas Islands (longest leg - 3,300 miles - 27 days 12 hours,) to the Makemo atoll in the Tuamotus, to Huahine in the Society Islands, to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, where we could not stay as the port was under total re-construction, and on to Vavau in northern Tonga. All this in 2 months and 12 days, allowing me a total of about 20 hours at the most on shore to check in and out with authorities and put more provisions and water on board.
Is this the way to cruise the South Seas? Most definitely not. The plan was to take a leisurely 6-7 months seeing a lot of islands and arriving in Tonga late September for some more local cruising and then onwards to New Zealand as early summer there would be coming on late October early November. This was the plan and this was the agreement between me and my crew, Chris, which had been standing for two years before departure. So, what happened?
After one postponement and excuse after the other my crew, Chris, finally appeared for departure on May 1, almost too late to make it safely out of the Northern hemisphere before the onset of hurricane season. Five days after arrival in the Marquesas he told me that he could only stay on the boat for another month. The reasons were a mixed concoction of nonsense. What it boils down to is that I am now sure he really had not wanted to go at all and then had trouble with his partner at home who kept pressure on him to come back via an iridium sat phone. I wish he had had the guts to tell me this before we left the coast of California behind us and sailed South with every mile making it more and more impossible to return.
And so, what should have been a pleasure and the reward for two years of hard work on the boat, became more like a severe punishment. I turned 69 on the way to Marquesas and when the voyage turned into something like the cruise of the Flying Dutchman, the ship that never touches land, I got increasingly exhausted. The bad feeling on board did not help muich.
So, now the boat is in Tonga at the wrong time for trying to sail it to New Zealand, where winter and storms will reign for another couple of months. I am removing myself to the comforting company of my wife, to lick my wounds and try to decide if I have it in me to go back, find crew and complete the voyage to New Zealand late October.
All that you plan - as we can clearly see from this - will not happen. And what happens you must deal with. I just have to decide how.
Carl, you may recall my touching base with you before your leaving SF Bay, and at the time I certainly wished you both good health and a good voyage. I am saddened to hear how things have gone so far and I genuinely hope that after a good long holiday with Elisabeth you will feel restored and will return to your adventure. Believe me, if I were not outfitting Seascape for my own departure, I would volunteer to crew on POG.
I hope you will get back on an even keel and continue to let us know what/how things are going out there.
Best,
Mark