long voyage...

September 1-8, 2007 Voyage from Fiji to Vanuatu


The trip was approximately 600 miles and was supposed to take 6-7 days. Well it took 8 days and sometimes we would sail at only 2 knots. Pretty ridic that we could never motor. To start, Max and Agathe got real sea sick for the first couple days we were at sea. I took sea sickness meds for the first 2 days and then I stopped taking them and I was fine for the rest of the time. Living at sea like this for a week consists of eating, sleeping, and being on watch. My watch was the 4-8 watch, the sunrise/sunset watch. I was just so tired all the time, and didn’t do much but sleep through the constant rocking and rolling of the big swells. The rocking and rolling doesn’t stop either…more like yawling really. We did catch 2 big dolphin (one was a bull), and a big yellow fin tuna, which were exciting points throughout the trip. The Infinity sailed at a big 5 knots…with a max of 7 knots grrrr! I am starting to silently question authority with thoughts like: why are we not raising the missin? We are a 2 masted sailing ship. And why can’t we freakin motor sail when we’re putting along at 2-3 knots for 24 hours! I’m def sick of being at sea and not a fan of these long voyages what so ever.

The voyage from Vanuatu to PNG is twice as long (2 ½ to 3 wks at sea). I’m not sure if I can do it, or if I even want to. No I will though, but I’m seriously considering leaving earlier than scheduled in Feb in Solomons before Indo, or more like in Jan from PNG. I’ve really had a lot of time to think about my time here (I can’t even read with all the rocking). I watched some movies during a couple times when I wasn’t on watch, but otherwise it’s so boring. I’m just not enjoying it so much; this lifestyle is just not for me and I feel like I’m forced to live this way when I’m on the ship. Been missing home a lot…am I trying to prove something by sticking with this program?


At sea being stuck in the galley cooking sucks. Everything bangs around so much, and you leave things on mats on the counter and they still slide around all over the place. Eibes and I were on dinner for a Sunday night and we did a farewell Fiji rap for our skit, that was funny, but didn’t rhyme at all. With the sailing, when we first left, there was a low pressure that was making strong winds that were good for sailing. In the next few days the wind slowly calmed down to almost nothing, so Michel finally decided to raise the genoa and missin sails. Genoa sailing on board the Infinity is crazy. We don’t have a spinnaker, but the genoa is enormous and really goes far out off the bow. It was running into problems though when the light wind would die heading over the big swells, the huge sail would just rub past the spreaders and you could almost hear the ripping that was about to occur. The genoa never ripped though. Just at the start of my watch one night at 4 am, the wind took a 180 degree shift and the patchworked missin sail ripped in half. Totally in half! It was pretty crazy, I was on the helm and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t do it though, it was the wind’s fault! We found out later from the weather fax that there is a huge lower pressure system in our path and that’s why the wind was behaving badly.

We had an interesting Thurs reading dinner night with Arie interrupting our silent dinner with…”Once upon a time 11 people sat down on the floor for dinner on a boat, 3 sang before dinner, and then everyone ate in silence.” It was pretty freakin hilarious how no one said anything, the Eibes finally said, “Ya you can talk about that on Friday nights (open table).” Ha! He excused himself from the table, and didn’t do the reading for the night. Pretty dull one-sided reading anyway about the author’s love for ancient Greece.

So the next night, open table….dah dah dah. Arie had a typed up presentation to deliver to the crew about his complaints with the program. His main points were to say that he didn’t know about any of the culture on the ship beforehand, and that he feels like he shouldn’t be forced to participate in the craziness if it doesn’t threaten the safety and duties of the crew. Well that didn’t fly with the officers, it was pretty back and forth the whole time and Arie would not budge in his strict opinions. They wanted to see how everyone was feeling, so Eibes asked me and I said, “Well I’m adapting to the culture, but I don’t understand why we must do deck checks, engine checks, generator checks, and why the anchor drags so much, if it’s a problem, get a bigger anchor. I used to live on a boat for 2 yrs, and we didn’t do any of that.” I went into more detail, but basically the b.s. answers I got were that it’s for the safety of the ship and the crew, and that with so many people its good to keep a log because we’re making sure someone is alert of the systems of the ship. Ha! Anyways, Ari is undecided if he is staying on board, and the officers pretty much have made it clear that he has to participate in lab, silent dinners, acting class, etc. After dinner we proceeded to motor outside the channel to enter Mele Bay to finally anchor in Port Vila. Again, pretty ridic that at 4 pm we could see the bay, but we weren’t going to be able to anchor before dark (as we were still freakin sailing! Putting along!), so we just crossed back and forth in front of the channel until morning.

When we finally anchored off of Port Vila, we all took a swim as the harbor is clean enough to do that. Not like stinky Suva harbor. It was so nice and refreshing. I really charged it all day once we finally arrived. I was up since 4 am for my watch, and then went to town at 12 and stayed in town exploring around until 10. The town is so nice and clean. Very touristy, lots of duty free shops everywhere, and nick-nack shops to buy souvenirs. There is no yacht club to hang out at, Another new guy arrived when we got here. He went out straight away with all the volunteers for the night for dinner and to see the night life of the town. James, really nice guy, 24, from England, came on board to be crew on the ship, doesn’t even know how to dive (but wants to learn on board), pretty quite, but that’s prob just because we were all venting like crazy when we got off the ship. I’m so exhausted though. Glad tomorrow is Sunday.





September 9, 2007 Port Vila, Vanuatu

I woke up this morning with a wine hangover ugh! I did manage to do a dive with Michel at 11, a lot of others were supposed to go too, but they all backed out from their hangovers. It was nice to be in the water diving in Vanuatu. Pretty boring reef, in pretty bad shape health-wise, but the water is so warm and nice (about 80 deg, my skin wetsuit will be perfect). Right after the dive, I came back and was able to go into town with all the volunteer guys (Agathe stayed behind). We took and taxi, and then a ferry out to Hideaway resort on their own island. It was a pretty expensive afternoon with lunch, drinks, and a fee just to be there, but it was so relaxing to sit in the sun on the beach. Reminded me a little of being home. Pretty touristy and a hard corally beach (not white sand), not the ideal vacation spot for me. We got back before Sunday night dinner, where we found out that Arie is going to stay for 3 months. He gave a pretty moving speech about how he’s learned more about himself in the past 10 days than in the last year in the “greatest city in the world.” New York! Ha! That’s a good one. He’s like that, real Western, closed minded, into stocks, and making lots of money. Just hope he stops trying to beat the system and will start going with the flow.



September 10, 2007 Port Vila

We are definitely going to the Bank islands, straight away on Saturday, once all the work is done on the boat. There is an arts festival there next tues-thurs with dances, songs, etc. that should be good. Then we will spend the rest of the time in around that area, so we’re not island hopping so much, and we get to really meet the people and experience the culture. It’s a crew day today. I lucked out though, I had an easy job working on the science website pages. Once it’s posted, (I think it’s science.pcrf.org ) I wrote the geography and history section of the Gau study. I’m doing a lot of other little graphing and analysis too, but that section is one that’s my own words. Everyone else is getting all dirty de-rusting and greasing the shrouds, working on sails, fixing the frayed through main halyard, etc. Heather and I are getting close to finishing the website stuff, prob done with it by tomorrow. Night out tonight, hope I get to make it to the grocery store and the internet.

September 11, 2007