Finally back underway after about 3 months of being moored in the Brisbane River. Here is the log from Brisbane to Tangalooma;

Thursday April 22 2010. Brisbane Australia, Pylon moorings off of the Botanical Gardens in the Brisbane River. Depart, 730AM, 6.5kts,

10:15AM, Brisbane River head, Motor off, 4.8kts. Squally ahead

11:30 Caught 30″ Spotted Mackerel!!

1:40PM Anchor down in 16′ water, Tangalooma.

What the log fails to mention is how good it felt to be back underway! I was hoping to leave Brisbane a bit earlier, but I decided to take the opportunity to do some work on another boat and help re-stock the cruising fund while I could, even if this meant leaving a few weeks later than planned. Read the rest of this entry

Not much to say, other than a very short sail a few miles up the river then right back to the mooring Salsa has been staying put in Brisbane.  That’s not to say that I haven’t done a bit of traveling here in OZ without her (Currently I am in Sydney staying in a hostel) but if I get around to updating about non-sailing travels on here that will be a later date.  The plan for now is to leave Brisbane within the month (sometime in March) and arrive in Bundaberg sometime in April, and then slowly begin the leisurely sail up the coast through the Barrier reef and then the Torres Strait to Darwin.  After that its still a very tough decision between Thailand this winter  (adding yet another year onto the circumnavigation) or the more direct route home to South Africa.  I will keep everyone posted when I can!

Right now I’m working on a list of equipment on Salsa and giving reviews on those items.  The first review is about the NorVane Windvane. It seems to be in high demand. Click on the tab for EQUIPMENT REVIEWS above to read all about it.

Well I finally have something exciting to write about after sitting in Bundaberg for over a month. I have more detailed writing that I will post on the website ASAP but for now I am at an internet café and just wanted to get out a quick (that will likely turn out to be long message!).

I left the Burnett Heads on Christmas day and sailed a nice overnight sail to the Sandy Strait at Fraser Island (you can check the satellite tracker on the website for positions). The first anchorage was a little rough so I just took a nap after sailing all night and then moved to a more protected spot. I got word of another traveler here in OZ looking to crew on the boat so for the first time I took a passenger on for only a few bucks to help cover my expenses (this turned out to be a blessing later). We sailed the Sandy Straits for a few days finding some great anchorages and then headed out Wide Bay Bar the day before New Years Eve to get south down to Mooloolaba. A few miles offshore a toggle that connects the Roller furler and forestay to the foredeck chain plate broke and the entire forestay disconnected. I thought we were going to loose the mast. I had Alan (the crew) hold the helm and keep us down wind to take stress off of the mast while I hand furled the jib onto the stay, and then jury rigged a spinnaker halyard as a forestay, plus put a rolling hitch on the furled jib and winched it to the windlass to get it under control and reinforce the mast. I just couldn’t get it secure, as I would have liked considering there was about 4 to 5 ft seas and squalls at the time. It did however hold as we motor sailed under triple reefed main (it was triple reefed when the forestay broke to begin with so the head of the main sail wasn’t above the lower stays therefore not stressing the rig too much). The cause of the break appears to be corrosion and stress, more on that in another update. Another blessing was meeting “Pirate Ned” and his wife, Aussie Sailors from Tin Can Bay, just south of Fraser Island. After a great New Years anchored together they lent us their boat slip and pointed us in the right direction for parts so the repairs were completed quickly (replaced the toggle with a shackle that seems even better than the old toggle but I’ll have to email James for an opinion).

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It’s been an interesting time here in Bundaberg.  A good combination of fun and work.  Managed to get the crucial repairs done, new starter switch for the motor, re-riveted most of the mainsail track and re-attached the spreader bar holders on the mast, replaced the water tank, and a dozen other things I cant think of right now.

The sail here from Vanuatu was, well, interesting seems to describe it well.  I started off beating into 20+ knots of headwinds, and by choice.  I was trying to get to a little island called Tana to see an active volcano and remote village.  After three days of brutal torture and a very wet Salsa (inside and out) I gave up and turned West for Australia, heading down wind everything calmed down a lot and it was a decent sail until the last two days where the wind disappeared and then came back in the wrong direction.  Overall I think it took 14 days and I probably could have done it in 9 or 10 easy days had I not tried for Tana, oh well, only used the motor a total of 8 hours, I’ll elaborate on the passage on here some day as I have a pretty good log/journal that will hopefully prove interesting.

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Leaving today, hoping to make an unoficial stop at the island of Tana, or maybe even stop in Noumea, New Caldonia if weather is unfavorable to continue on to Bundaberg.  I do not intend to take the shorter traditional route going North of New Caldonia, rather head south now since we have Easterlies and have a chance to stop in Tana or Noumea.  Will probably be in Bundaberg in about 12-14 days assuming I do stop in Tana which is the intention.  I’ll email when I arrive and will try to keep up with the spot-checks! -Kirk

WOW the internet here is bad!  Anyway finally got a few photos uploaded this time through photobucket.  Here is the link….

http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z110/kirkalittle/8%202009%20Tuomotos%20to%20Tahiti/?albumview=slideshow

I departed Tahanea atoll in the Tuomotus on 6/17/2009.  It was a fairly slow start with light winds but I was still able to sail at a study 3.5kts since the islands blocked the swell for the first day.  I chose to spend the first night sailing between the islands on my route in the beginning rather than sailing around them to help eliminate some of the waves and swell, this worked out pretty well.

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I left Marquises on June 6 2009, heading for a large group of small atolls called the Tuomotus about 500 nautical miles away. “Charlie’s Charts of Polynesia” (A must have guide for this area) describes the Tuomotus as “78 Islands all but two being coral atolls, spread across 150 degrees of longitude and extends almost 1,000 miles in a NW-SE direction. In contrast to the lush vegetation of the Marquises, the atolls have little greenery except for palm trees and short grass. Together with the marquises and Society Islands they form French Polynesia, and are administered from Tahiti. These islands have justifiably been called the Low or Dangerous Archipelago, because of their low-lying character, making them visible from a yacht only when the vessel is within 8 miles”

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About these updates… I started an email list so if you prefer not to receive these updates let me know. Also a few updates are only on SailingSalsa.com, and all the email updates are there, but not some of the recent photos since I have very limited internet for uploading large files they are only going out compressed via hotmail. So if you are reading this on the website rather than via email, you can email me to get on the list and I will try to get you the back emails that have all the photos attached since I stopped adding them to the website. Lastly, if you respond to this email I will get it and respond eventually but sometimes I only have a few minutes to paste the update and pics into an email so I don’t always get to respond to everyone but I’m working on catching up right now!!! Hope you enjoy the update! -Kirk

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Sorry, cant type a real update, but I have been having a great time here in the Marquises, and will leave soon in a few days for the tuomotos for a week or two, and will be in Tahiti shortly after, in about two to three weeks when I should have decent internet to update everyone. All is well! . –Kirk

Wow, can you believe I actually made it across the Pacific Ocean!?!?!?!?

Well I DIDN’T.

Well not yet, turns out that Marquises is less than HALF way, so in addition to the 3000 miles I just sailed, I have about 4000 more to go before I get to Australia. But screw the technicalities, YAY I MADE IT!!!!!!!!……. It took 28 days to sail a distance of 2981 miles, that’s averaging about 106 miles per day or an average speed of about 4.5kts. Certainly not any record breaking times but considering that I nearly never used the motor and on a 30-foot boat I think that’s pretty damn good. Not to mention my course was a good bit longer that the 2981 mile rum line since sailing in a straight line to your destination generally isn’t the quickest route. I’ll post a much more detailed report as soon as I have a chance, probably in about a week when I arrive in Nuka Hiva. Right now I am in Hiva Oa, and my landfall this trip was in Fatu Hiva. These are all islands of the Marquises here in French Polynesia.

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Probably the last update for a while.  Galapagos has been great, definitely worth the stop!  You can only anchor in one spot, well you have your choice of two islands, Santa Cruz or San Cristobal, but you have to choose one and stay there, for no more than 20 days.  The winds seem to be diminishing over the weekend and into next week so my escape plan is to leave tonight or Friday Morning depending on what time I get my Zarpe (check out clearance) and get back to the boat.   To sum up the time here… There has been the normal good bit of partying with friends, a ferry trip to Santa Cruz and Isla Isabella since Salsa isn’t allowed to leave San Cristobal.  There we (group of friends) went horseback riding up to a huge volcanic crater, saw pink flamingos, TONS of marine iguanas, HUGE turtles, and much much more.  Once back here in San Cristobal we went on the best tour of all, simply  a boat ride out to a big rock just off shore where we swam with many sharks, yeah it’s a bit scary but its way too cool.  Then on the way back we stopped at another small island and swam with friendly sea lions, I don’t think they are ALL friendly, but the small ones we met were.  I could write a lot more on the Galapagos, and maybe I will but for now I’m going to go check to see if my Zarpe is ready yet and possibly get going!   If I leave tonight there will be no more updates for a month other than the position updates but they may even stop at some point since the spot-check tracker has a dead spot in the middle of the Pacific, but Ill keep sending them just in case they get out.  Talk to y’all soon! –Kirk

FINALLY in Wreck Bas, San Cristobal Island, GALAPAGOS! Here is the summary for the trip. I was underway for almost exactly 10 days, (11 days if you count the last morning), my route took about 900 miles so averaged 90 miles per day, I used 22 Gallons of diesel and motored a total of three days, (72 hours) at an average speed under motor of 3.5kts. Caught three fish not counting ones that got away plus two birds (go figure) one drowned and the other one I was able to get off the lure. Lost one lure and broke two. Saw about 5 fishing boats, one was only 80 miles or so from Galapagos, and he stopped by to try to sell me some fish (I still had plenty but I gave them a few beers just for fun). I saw at least for or 5 fishing nets, or at least their buoys. I’m sure there was over 50 sail changes, or at least 50 sail configuration changes. I certainly sailed and motor sailed from almost every point of sail, upwind, downwind, beam reach, the winds were light and variable almost the entire time after the first two days. Overall no problems or failures, everything is in good shape!

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Friday, March 20th. Isla Contadora, Las Perlas Islands, Panama. Yesterday seemed like the first day I was back on track from my 9 month detour that started when I didn’t get through the canal last year. I suppose that technically when I transited the canal a month ago I was moving in the right direction but it didn’t feel the same. Yesterday I sailed from the anchorage just outside the Panama Canal to here, and it just “feels” like I’m back on track. Even though I made this same sail (round 1) a week ago, it didn’t count since I had a girlfriend with me and I new I would be sailing her back to the mainland. I’ve got what I expect to be a few days up to a week here waiting for good weather then off to the Galapagos.

The sail here was basically uneventful. I started off with a light breeze and was sailing at about 4kts until the breeze died down to around 5kts and I was still able to maintain around 3kts of speed on a reach. When the wind got to around 2 to 3kts, I had to put a preventer on the boom to keep it from swinging around and still sailed at around one knot. That went on for around an hour, and then over the next three hours the wind picked back up to over 10 kts and I was racing along at 5.5kts again. I did consider starting the motor, but I knew that the wind should pick up and that I would be able to make the 35 mile trip without motoring as long as I was patient enough. So far I have used the motor for about 30 minutes total since leaving Panama, about 15 minutes to pull up the anchor and another 15 to put it down. I have weighed anchor and anchored without the motor plenty of times before but in these crowded anchorage’s it’s a little dangerous especially with a little current. Last time I tried it here when I was leaving I was drifting within a few feet of a few other boats, I’m sure that didn’t make them too comfortable, then again I wasn’t very comfortable either! Having left Playita anchorage around 7am and arriving around 5Pmish, I probably only averaged around 3.5kts or so, but that’s acceptable to me, I got in before dark and didn’t have to use the motor.

Well I’m not going to go in to perfect detail at this time but here are the basics. I figure I need to arrive in Australia by November and will encounter mostly expensive food in the South Pacific. Based on those assumptions the general consensus among budget mindful sailors leaving Panama is to buy as much food as you can, or enough for 6 months. I think I have accomplished that after three taxies full of food. Basically I have around 25lbs of spaghetti and pasta not counting the 60 packages of Chinese noodles. Another 20 lbs. of rice, couple pounds of sugar, and flour, maybe 5 cases (24 each) of canned veggies, Chile, beans, corn, peas etc. Plenty of spices, coffee, dried milk powder, Soy-meat stuff, some other dried food, but that’s basically the bulk of it. Fresh stuff is just a few lbs of cheese, lunch meet and chorizo (sausage), I have a very small fridge but generally don’t use it all of the time but I have almost enough meet and cheese to get me to Galapagos. Then there is the produce, I bought a lot of extra veggies since I have other friends that have already been in the Perlas Islands for a week and need to restock, so I figure I bought about triple what I needed, 50lbs potatoes, 50lbs onions, 15 lbs tomatoes, 15 lbs cucumbers, 10 lbs limes, 10 lbs carrots, apples and bananas, 6 pineapples, 20 garlic cloves, 5 lbs green peppers, about 50 eggs, and I cant remember what else! I also brought about 4 cases of beer, 15 liters of wine, 5 gallons of rum (for trading). I have 50 gallons of water, I plan to up that to around 60-70 after leaving the Galapagos for Marquiesas. My diesel tank holds 15 gallons and I carry another 20 gallons in four jugs, so that’s 35 gallons of diesel, plus I have three two-gallon gasoline jugs for the dinghy outboard motor, I only filled one with gasoline, and one with diesel, so total Diesel is really 37 gallons, most I’ve ever had on board, and around 2 gallons of gasoline. 2 gallons alcohol and 5 gallons kerosene just for the stove. Not to mention 8 rolls of toilette paper, 6 rolls of paper towels, two cases of Coca-Cola. 10 liters of fruit juice, UGH how did I fit it all!? Well you can. I probably could have even fit it and kept the V-birth empty if I wanted to jam-pack all of the cockpit lockers. However I Think salsa is REALLY heavy, about 4 inches deeper than the original waterline, the top of the white boot-stripe that is normally well above the waterline is more or less submerged. This makes cleaning the bottom a pain, weird seaweed grassy stuff grows on the waterline and has to be scraped off regularly in addition to the scraping of the bottom. I guess that’s to be expected, I haven’t even mentioned all the extra equipment like wind vane, solar panels, 4 anchors, 250’ of anchor chain at one pound per foot, life raft (80lb) dinghy and outboard (100lb), the list just goes on and on, I didn’t even realize myself until I started writing this!!! OH, probably 50lbs in charts and guides, another 25lbs in novel type books, over 300lbs in batteries making up the 600amp hour battery bank. Its amazing salsa isn’t already sunk! The best part about having all this crap on board is that salsa is still sailing great! On a trip here I averaged over one knot faster than a 35’ boat, and in 15kts of wind I can still sail upwind almost close-hauled at 6kts, so everything seems just fine!

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Everything is going well. Just got back to Panama City from a great 6 day trip to the Las Perlas Islands 40 miles or so from Panama City. Plan to do final provisioning over the next two days and hope to depart for Galapagos around Thursday and spend a few more days in Perlas before making the big leap into the Pacific. Salsa is more or less ready with no major issues while I have used some spares and have not replaced them do to budget cutbacks, they were just basic engine parts I figure I can live without anyway. Trying to provision water, diesel, plus food for as much of the Pacific as I can (general consensus is that food all across the Pacific is very expensive) has proved logistically complicated on a 30 foot boat. I may even have to cut back on some of the beer and booze I was planning to stow. Sorry I have been playing too much to give a proper update once again but I plan to do plenty of writing underway with better updates in Galapagos, with all the sunshine here in Panama I’ve had extra power and should be able to charge the laptop as needed to keep a decent blog. Hope everyone is doing well and if I don’t get a chance to update once more before leaving hopefully you’ll here from me in about three weeks from Galapagos! -Kirk