Manoun’s boat had to be repaired. So the crew from the Awa, the Long John Silver, Ziganka en Ya pulled up their sleeves and pulled the boat ashore and flipped it over.
Such a serious job needs serious supervising. You will see how it’s all done.
If everybody would sing every week just for an hour, the world would already be a better place.
The Polynesian Islands are such a better place. Part of the culture is to go to the church every Sunday and sing. Sing with your body and soul. It is great, contageous. So we all do.
Have a look -and an ear- on this video.
Have a good look, there is a screen showing the lyrics. OK, it is in Polynesian, but that is phonetically spelled, so easy to read and we foreigners can sing along, It doesnot matter whether you believe in the Man with the Beard or not, if you sing from the heart, you will leave the the church as a different man. In a better world.
There are many pearl farms and we went to one and saw how they ‘grow’ pearls. From all jewel industries, this is the most sustainable one, in terms of labor (honest), pollution (none, in contrary).
Have a look at the video.
Stef and Manon sail their Long John Silver, an Ovni 43. Now they make their third large voyage, a circumnavigation. They came from Chile and Peter meets them in the Gambier archipelago.
Many projects have passed to make the Long John Silver a better yacht to live aboard. Let us stick to the sustainable jobs: first, the ship is completely insulated. Stef told: “This implies that the complete boarding inside had to be taken out: all the wood work, the paneling, ceiling, the bunks. And then, after the insulation was placed, all had to get in again.” Also, all window are double glazed. Where the aluminium yachts easily have the tendency to ‘drip’ here and there because of condensed are on the cold alumnium, now the Long John Silver stayed dry. Or, nearly dry.
Main source of moisture is the gas equipment in the galley. Combusted gas consists of CO2 and a lot of H2O, water, in its worst aggregation: as damp. It condenses on all cooler parts, including your cushens,your bed, everywhere. They dedided to change all galley equipment to electric.
In the next picture you see the result.
In the book Duurzaam Varen (Sustainable Sailing, sorry, only in Dutch) already is mentioned that a complete galley equipment fed by a 12 volt battery bank, is limited. The bottle neck is the inverter (the device that converts the 12 volt into the necessary 220 Volt). For safety reasons the biggest inverter can deliver 2600 Watt to your equipment. How did Stef do this?
“First, we chose devices with smaller power”, Stef answered. To sum up the maximum powers:
Stef and Manon pointed out: “With this inverter we can just cook with two burners and the water cooker all on full power. With the microwave on, we can even use a burner or the water cooker. Only in the rare case when the oven is on full power, the inverter would beep if we switch on another device.”
They thought of going to 24 Volt, or 48 Volt, but our battery space was limited. Manon showed a picture (here under) where you can see that the space for the 12 volt batteries is just 90 cm long.
Originally, 3 AGM batteriesn could fit in this battery casing, and there is not really a good place to extend the bank. “So, there was place for 12 Lithium Ferro Phosphate cells and that was it,” Stef concluded, “so technically we were limited to 12 volt and made a 3P4S configuration.”
He continues: “Compared to AGM or any other lead acid battery, LFP has no problem at all to deliver the power you need. So with a relative small battery bank, LFP can deliver the necessary power .”
If you want your galley changed to an electric based on a battery bank of only 12 volt, then take the Long John Silvers configuration as the text book example.
The key line technically: take small users. So, the burners, the water cooker and more. Then there is no stress that your inverter can’t delver. And use LFP batteries because they are able to deliver the big currents that you need.
The key motives: your boat stays dry after cooking. The equipment is safer than a gas equipment. Also, everything is easier to clean. When you are a long distance cruiser, it saves a lot on gas and a lot of hassling with different gas bottles and bottle connections. All together, it saves money and provide more comfort.
And last but not least: your smaller CO2 footprint gives our children a better future.
Just standing on top of the mountain of Gambier and having this view. Just to see the ocean where we sailed and will sail.
That is why one sails the Earth. That is why one loves Mother Earth.
One day before the European elections, we saw the three mast bark ‘Europa’ entering the bay. She moored at the only and small quai of the Gambier Islands.
For us, Peter and Inge, the Europa has a special place in our hearts because twenty years ago we married on this ship. We sailed a day with all our friends an family, went on anchor somewhere outside the territorial waters, and our friends married us.
.In the Southern summer, the Europa sails expeditions from Ushuaia (Patagonia) to Antartica. Last March she started sailing around the world, to celebrate that Magelhaes started this circumnavigation 400 years ago. Magelhaes never made it, he died in the Philippines and from there Juan Sebastian Elcano took over. (Funny thing: Elcano and his fellows were not the first humans who have rounded the world. That was Enrique, a man who was captured in the Philippines or Molucca and brought to Spain and served Magelhaes from there, on his voyage. So when they hit Philippines, Enrique has rounded the world as the first human).
The drawing of the circumnavigation that Magelhaen and Elcano made. Essence is the passages of two capes: Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. This is what the Europa also will do. (courtesy Brown University).
Peter paid a visit to the Europa and talked with Tim, the Mate, and several guests. This big square rigger could make it all the way between the coral reefs up to this little quai. First, that is excellent seamanship, and second, it is beautiful for the guests.
The guests chose to cruise on this sailing ship, rather than a motor cruiser. Main reason is that they consider the sailing itself as an essential extra value. Especially the square rig is more romantic, like in the old days. Yes it goes slower, but they dont mind, or even see it as an extra value. The guests also participate in the watches and they find that a great opportunity. No experience is required for it and you can always feel safe with the professional crew on board.
.Sustainability and planning, the paradox
Talking sustainability, we all agree that it is a pity that the Europa needs diesel, but in general she is propelled by the sails. The crew and the guests like to sail, so they are set as soon as there is space to navigate under sail. So it is a sort of 80-20 figure: 80% is sailing, 20% is motoring.
The motoring could be less if the planning would be easier. But, time is money, the clients want to see more places if possible. That requires a strict planning, and so a certain minimum speed, if not by sail, then by engines. The planning is that strict, that the Europa has only 2 days time ashore here in Gambier.
I walked up the road with some guests. They were curious about the planning of Ya, about how many days the Ya would stay here.
“Planning?” I answered, “Well, we just are here and enjoy it. It is only the weather or the hurricane season that dictates the planning. We just hiked some beautiful trails here, and visited a pearl farm. And now we just made friends with people on the island so the Ya will stay a bit longer I guess. And there are such beautiful other spots around here that we want to visit.”
-”How many days you guess you would be here? 5 days? 15? 50 days?”
-”Well, it can easily become 50 days.”
One guest responds: “Wow, our stop is about 50 hours, to do the complete Gambier Island group. That is just enough time to take some good walks on the main island and drink a beer in a local tavern.”
Another guest concluded: “It is a strange paradox. On one hand, when we book, we want to see some islands, to get the maximum out of it. But on the other hand we would enjoy more of the trip if we travel slow. Then we sail more, and see more in the places. It would also be more sustainable I guess.”
I could confirm that: “Indeed. If you travel slow, it is easy to travel fossil free. And with the current technology of regeneration and electric cooking, that is even what Magelhaes or Elcano couldnot do.”
Let the things you bought be usable for many years, let them be durable and repairable. In that case: congratulations with everything you bought. Or will it soon end up in the trash, your barn or the attic?
Please be aware, the consumption of the people here on Earth becomes larger and larger. The quantity of ‘stuff’ we have is so big, it costs too many materials. Mother Earth becomes exhausted, depleted. When?
There is a consistency. The higher the income, the bigger the footprint. The 19 richest people create 10% of the footprint. The 10% richest -that is generally where we belong- make 50% of the Earths footprint.
You see it clearly on the Overshoot Day per country.
Most of the impact is caused by the people with income, generally the Western people. (A little impact is caused by the growth of the The idea of buying all that stuff is that you would become happier. Well, since the Overshoot Day this year is nearly two months earlier, we consumed much more.
So compared to last year, would we be so much happier this year?
Or did you buy because marketing told you that you would need it? In that case, shut off the marketing machines like Whatsapp, Instagram and Google, or other commercial media. You could use Signal instead of Whatsapp, or read a book, see a movie, or, very simple see your friends.
That saves money, and you can put your money where your heart is.
)
We walked along the road on Mangareva, the main island of the Gambiers. Then we saw a great tree full of big beautiful grapefruits. They belong to Lucas, a Polynesian man of this island. He saw us and invited us to pick as much as we wanted. He showed us which ones were the best and under the tree we started to chat.
For whatever reason the subject came to the nuclear field tests on Moruroa. The French militaries started these tests in 1964. The first ones were from ships put near the island of Moruroa, and later from a balloon above it. Lucas was young then, but he remembered: “When I was about 5 years old, some french military came on the island. I remember the monings that a car with a big loudspeaker went up and down the road, ordering that all the inhabitants had to go into a shelter, it was some sort of concrete hall. We had to stay there for days.” This happened almost every time a nuclear test was about to happen.
He added: “and they said it was secret and nobody should tell anyone about it. Years later we learned it was because of some nuclear tests on an island near by.”
We asked if they noticed any changes. “Well, not directly. But later we noticed the chidren were often sick. They had go to the GP many times, as they had wounds and bruises which didnot not heal, or very slow. The doctor noted this on the ‘carenet medical’ the personal medical file of the child. But some years later the military came and they confiscated these papers, I think to hide any evidence ”
It is well known that the nucleair radiation of the first atmospheric tests were even measured in New Zealand. The distance from Moruroa is about 5000 kilometers away (compare: from Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi). After growing protests and political pressure, the French continued their tests underground.
“Sometimes they did not order to go into the shelter, but so now and then we thought there would be test going on”, Lucas continued. “As we saw a sort of extra tide going. You first could see the water receding from the beaches, the shores, then coming back. Very strange.”
The underground tests move the earth and that explains the ‘double tide’ described by Lucas.
In 1996, when the Cold War formally ended and the tests had to stop, the French military executed 193 tests.
Lucas continued his story: “ I lost my first brother when he was 26. And the second at the age of 35. They both died of cancer and they were not the only ones dying of cancer in Gambier.”
He also said: “I don’t know if it is also caused by nuclear radiation, but before we had so many sorts of fruits on the island, even lychee and mango’s. But they all disappeared. Now it is only grapefruits, bananas and cocos and that’s it.”
He concludes: “However, we told this story more often, but it is always covered up, put under the carpet.“
Wow, are these wild, crazy stories? Are there really many cancer cases here? Has it al been covered up indeed? What is true about this? We started investigating.
In 2020 the French INSERM (Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale) executed an investigation at the request of the Ministry of Defence. They published the report “The health consequences of nuclear tests in French Polynesia”. According to this expertise, its authors felt that they could not “make a solid conclusion” to the existence of “links between the fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests and the occurrence of radiation-induced pathologies”. And the college of experts stressed the need to “refine the estimates of doses received by the local population and by civilian and military personnel”.
But no refinement of the estimates followed, nor any other investigation.
So far the French government.
From that point, in 2020 a collaboration of groups started researching. Disclose was a group of investigating journalists. The second was Interprt, a group of (nucleair and other) scientists. They worked in collaboration with the Princeton University. This big piece of research led to the description of the impact “(..) with the help of thousands of declassified military documents, hundreds of hours of calculations and computer simulations and dozens of unpublished testimonies, this investigation demonstrates for the first time the extent of the radioactive fallout that struck the inhabitants (..).”
Just to give an idea about the impact, the first paragraph tells: “Leukemia, lymphoma, cancer of the thyroid, lung, breast, stomach … In Polynesia, the experience of French nuclear tests is written in the flesh and blood of the inhabitants. Strontium has eaten into bones, cesium has eaten away at muscles and genitals, iodine has seeped into the thyroid.”
An article of this investigation is published in The Lancet (presuming you are not a member of the Lancet, you can read the abstract here.)
Here you can read the full investigation (a French and an English version): https://moruroa-files.org/en/investigation/moruroa-files .
The book -in French only- is called “TOXIQUE, enquete sur les essais nucleaires francais en Polynesie”.
The investigators were confronted with a remarkable high cancer rate in Gambier, called the ‘Cancer Cluster in Gambier Islands’. A relation with the nuclear tests? The scientists worked the dispersion models of the nuclear particles in the air and ran various simulations. Here under, you find the most probable one. It explains the high rate of cancer cases in the Gambier Islands.
It looks like Lucas’ story is closer to reality then the story of the French government.
We arrived fresh and vividly after a long crossing. The timing couldnt be better; it was lunch time and we accompanied it with a fresh beer, our first since 7 weeks. Then we set the first foot on the island.
It has been a great, pleasant and remarkable sailing voyage. With the accent on sailing.
Here are the last three daily stories till the arrival. And then some sort of sailors evaluation by the captain why this trip was such a pleasure to sail.
Day 1. Sat May 11 2024
Last days the predictions give very light winds. Sp we would be some days later. OK. The pedictions say the winds will be from the South. So we went to the South, That is really difficult in light winds. Sailing close hauled is difficult, because the wind angle becomes bad by your own speed. And, with a low speed you make much leeway. We had to navigate back and forth: to the WesSouthWest and then to the East South East, and again. Well ou can see our progress on the chart. We will be another 1 1/2 day later in Gambier; that time we spent to get 20 miles to the South on the latitude of the approach of Gambier.
Meanwhile, the predictions change, because especially light winds (small difference in air pressures) are very hard to predict. Now, two of the four models predict that there will hardly be wind in our area…
Our ETA. our estimated Time of arrival? We changed that concept. We made a new abbeviation: EWA, our Estimatied Week of Arrival.
Day 2. Sun May 12 2024
We had good winds today. Or, call it good winds, they were very light, but from the good direction. Our average speed sofar nears the 3 knots. Still slow, but we didnot make that the last days.
However, we are 35 miles from the approach point of Gambier.
Many times in the day the wind drops to practically zero. Then we don’t know wether this will it stay, or pick up after an hour or so? Or will it be windstill the whole day long? The predictions can’t tell, as the fysic forces of wind, pressure and temperature are too subtile. Sometimes we talk like we are superstitious. Like: “don’t say that the wind could drop, because then it will drop.” Or when we have a good speed, someone calculates: “We could be there in 8 hours!” then the other whispers:”don’t say that out loud, you are challenging our chances!”
We are making 2 knots know. Suppose it stays this way, we would get before Gambier early in the morning. So we prepared. Like the navigational stuff: how to approach, the light lines, the buoys, the land marks.
But, don’t think that we do this because we think will be there tomorrow morning. We just prepare. Just in case of
Day 3. Mon May 13 2024
Early afternoon Ya arrived on the anchor place before Rikitea in Gambier.
Here some numbers.
* It took us 46 days, so 6 1/2 weeks, from Panama to Gambier
* It is 3800 nautical miles and we made 4100.The extra 300 miles were mainly made int the windstill areas
* The doldrums of about 400 miles has taken 10 days, the other 3600 miles took us 36 days.
* The longest day distance was 142 miles, the shortest 13 miles, when we had to tack against very light winds. The average day distance is 90 miles.
* We have left 1 orange, 3 apples and 5 limes. This last day we ate our last piece of cabbage.
* We still have food for 10 days.
* We have 150 liters of water in our tanks, thanks to one time it rained, making us get about 80 liter.
* We only have 38% in our battery bank since the regeneration of the motors didnot work.
Most important, we are 100% happy with the trip and the way we did it together
The key to this nice and pleasant long distance sailing, is formed by the crew. The sailing spirit, the positive attitude, the will to adapt, to learn. But that needs a solid base, and the key to that is the preparation. That is not only the ship shape, the right charts and tools. Just as important is a good preparation of the food. You see that most clearly on the vegetable and fruit. From the very buying it (choose the vegetables and fruit that do not rot easily) to transport and the storage (no brewsing.) We, and mainly Pierrot, did it so thorough and carefully, that after 6 weeks we still had a piece of white cabbage. And when we arrived, we even had some fruit left!
The apples were very hard and sour when we bought them. After 6 ½ weeks they still look remarkably fresh. The orange is directly from the Panamese farmer. So not chilled, green when we bought it, and pretty sour. But during the week they riped and we ate them all except for the one here.
.
When Pierrot went on watch in the night before arrival, Peter asked him to get to a waypoint before Gambier around 7 o’clock in the morning. From there we could do the 15 miles approach to the anchor place in daylight because it is full of coral reefs, Pierrot managed to regulate the speed that well, that exactly at 7 o’clock in the morning, Ya was only 145 meters away from it! That is a true sailing skill.
We found our way between the coral reefs, and buoys of the pearl fishers nets. 4 hours later we anchored.
We were happy. After 7 weeks we drank a beer. That tasted and, not used to it anymore, we got light in hour heads. Exactly the time and the mood to make a festive photo moment.
You probably think: shouldn’t Ya be arriving somewhere around now? Well, that’s what Ya’s crew was secretly hoping for. But, between the squalls and the wind stills, it’s a good thing there’s rain and good food. Because Gambier is playing hard to get.
Day 1. Sat May 04 2024
Fruits on board is kind of the same story as for the vegetables, except that it ends up better.
Fruits could be found in the same market in Panama as the vegetables, and for very cheap,
so this was a great deal.
You already heard the sad story of our bananas that fell down during a heavy night, so we had to eat them quickly. Next to that, we had to trow away half a watermelon, a weird fruit we dont even now what it was, and here and there a piece that had turned bad.
When we see fruit that starts to turn bad we cut it in pieces and put it in the fridge, this saves a few days, and after some time it can turn into alcohol, but whats better than fresh fruit with a taste of alcohol ?
What we have left for the 5th and 6th week is: some oranges, apples, limes and the most important, 2 cans of peaches in sirup.
This means we are allowed to eat one fruit a day for the rest of the trip.
Isn’t that beautiful !?
Day 2. Sun May 05 2024
A 2nd reefed mainsail, a staysail and no outerjib, guess how many knots of wind… about 8 knots, this was our situation 2 nights ago.
It has been more than a week now that we could see Gambier getting closer and closer, we talked about it and tried to estimate our arrival date.
With our good speed we could easily do 125 miles a day and straight to Gambier, with this we would have been there in no time, but…this would be to easy.
Beginning of the week we saw on the weather reports that a big storm was getting its way to Gambier, we continued our route with caution. Day by day we could see the storm slowly disappear and be replaced by a soft wind of around 12 knots and less.
Our speed decreased slowly, the day before yesterday we made 93 miles, yesterday 83 miles.
We come now at our situation of 2 nights ago. Because of the soft wind, even the small waves we had would let the mainsail bang to hard, so we reefed, and because of the frequent squalls we had to constantly furl in and furl out the outerjib.
This makes our arrival date only shift away further and further.
We are still lucky the weather is good, we would even say great if it wouldn’t be for those squalls.
But we are not totally honest, yesterday night the wind picked up good contrary to what the predictions said and since then we have a wind of about 18 knots.
Will it stay like this or will we have other surprises ?
Nevertheless, morale is always on top and the arrival date is only a vague idea that fades slowly from our heads.
We will get there when time’s right.
Day 3. Mon May 06 2024
Water is an issue on every ocean going yacht. You could do perhaps 30 days without food, but 3 days without water – no way.
We left Panama with two tanks of 275 liter of water. This is drinking water. We use seawater for washing, rinsing, everything. Also the shower (with a little fresh water at the end). We don’t have a watermaker, because, like many devices, they have the tendency to break the moment that you really need them.
We need about 3 liter per person per day to drink. So together we could theoretically do 3 months with it. But in practice we use here and there a bit and we saw that after 5 weeks we had about 150 liter left. That comes down to a bit more than 10 liter a day. Still no worries if we have a week to 10 days before we are in Gambier (and we also have two 20 liter water bags in case of emergency).
This morning it was bad weather: squalls with rain. More rain. But also a chance. The Ya is designed that way, that all the water from deck ends up in the outlets in the cockpit. From there, we can close some valves and open another one, and all the water from deck will end up in the rain water tank. So we did this morning, after we cleaned the cockpit floor. It only rained 15 or 20 minutes, but we already caught about 100 liter.
So we have plenty. What to do with it?
We can take a very long fresh water shower?
Day 4. Tue May 07 2024 04:13:00 GMT+0200
We have a routine to prepare for the night. We discuss it often with the dinner. If there is any chance on squalls or so, we set a second reef. We have to, because there is no moonlight these nights, so it is difficult to see them in time. In the night, we also try to sail the outerjib to lee, so not poled out to luff. Then you can furl it in quickly and easy in the wind shadow of the mainsail and staysail.
Now the practice of today. Today at 3 o’clock we noticed the wind dropped. So, at 4 o’clock we unreefed the mainsail. At 5 o’clock we ate dinner, and the number of clouds coming could suggest squalls, so that made us decide to put the reef back in. Indeed, at 6:30 a sort of squall passed us. But then, the sky was clear again and the wind dropped. Un-reefing again? No.
Lucky us, half an our later the wind picked up a bit again and now we are sailing on a friendly course and speed into the dark and starry night.
Day 5. Wed May 08 2024
What we feared is happening
The closer we get to Gambier the more the wind drops.Since this afternoon we have about 12 knots of wind wich by the way we are still very happy with.
Unfortunately it is gonna drop more and more until Thursday morning, where we will have about 2 knots of wind, a rarity. It will stay like that till friday morning where wind picks up a little. But not for long, Sunday the wind will drop again, at least that’s what the weather reports say.
What they also say is that we could make it to Gambier on Saturday night, but that would be if we are as fast as they predicted, if they are right about the weather, if we can follow the right route, if there are not to many squalls hitting us, if the currents don’t push us to much to the north, if…
And if not, we only have Saturday night to make it up to Gambier, because it will be windstill again from Sunday.
What can we do about it ? Try to make the best decisions on what course we make, anticipate what the worst situation could be, adjust the sails as best as we can, take profit of the wind we have right now and enjoy life on board.
Gambier plays hard to get.
Day 6. Thu May 09 2024
The predictions give some windstills. We are going to sail right into it this night. We sail the Parasailor and still do 3.2 knots and we are very happy with that. Perhaps we can keep it up the whole night, we hope so.
But from then we will float on a still sea.
The first little wind will come next Friday morning. But it is not much, it is just to sail a little bit. These winds will come from the South and we will have to go Southwest for Gambier. With light winds, that will be impossible. We will get close to Gambier, but then again, from Sunday, there will be no wind again.
Nature dictates when we will arrive. But so far, Gambier is hard to get.
Day 7. Fri May 10 2024
Yesterday we hoisted the Parasailor and it proved to be a great and easy light wind sail. With only 8 knots of wind, Ya could do 4 to 4.5 knots. But this morning, around 4 o’clock, Pierrot had to admit there was too little wind even to keep the Parasailor full. Lucky Peter, in the early morning there came a tiny bit of more wind and Peter has been busy continuously, but he could keep the Ya make 2.5 knots on a Southern course for another 5 hours.
But then, it really was over. The ocean water became flat. We lowered the Parasailor. Ya started floating. There is a pretty high 2.5 meter swell that makes us roll. But we hardly noticed that. Pierrot started to clean the galley, Peter did maintenance on the rigging.
Suddenly it was late in the afternoon. Pierrot jumped with a back flip into the ocean. (Peter: “Do you have a diploma to swim in such deep water?”). He took a halyard and with a Tarzan scream he flew along the Ya and dived.
We ate a quick meal, because we also had to write this blog.
With wind still weather, you are always busy.
