Galapagos to Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island aka Isla Pascua) Jan 5-19, 2004, 1900nm

We weighed anchor from Puerto General Villamil at 0630h, Jan 5 and motored for a little over an hour until we were far enough off the southern tip of Isabela to make a single tack onto our lay line. The change in prop pitch that I had implemented in Puerto Ayora proved to be an excellent change, adding over a knot of boat speed at 1800 RPM. This allowed us to motor at 1500 RPM and still maintain a little over five knots, saving fuel and wear on the engine. By 0800h Wheatstrong was sailing southwest, close-hauled on the port tack making five knots in 10 to 12 knots of wind in expectation that the wind would at some point veer around to the expected southeast trades. After heading southwest for five days the wind did indeed veer and we were able to sail a more southerly course. We maintained this port tack on successively broader points of sail, finally running with the big green monster, until the afternoon of January 17 when we doused the spinnaker in twenty knots of wind.

Stephanie was on the helm doing her best to steer the boat with the large asymmetric spinnaker up when a gust of wind over-powered her and the boat began to round up. She was able to bring us back down off the wind before we broached but everyone agreed that it was time to proceed under main and jib. Dousing the spinnaker proved to be an exciting proposition. To “blow the tack” of the aso, Bob had to run forward to release the shackle on the “tacker” ( a plastic sleeve fitted over the furled headsail to provide a higher point of attachment for the tack of the spinnaker). With the high wind strength it was hard to get the shackle to give way and Bob mangled his finger a bit pulling on the shackle’s small lanyard. Once the tack was freed, and the sail was flapping in the breeze, we wrestled the spinnaker sleeve down over the sail and brought it down onto the foredeck. After stuffing the big sail and its sleeve into the sailbag and lashing it to the lifelines, we retreated to the cockpit to commiserate over our skinned knuckles, stunned toes, and bruised shins. The winds continued to veer as we got closer to Easter Island, prompting us to gybe to the starboard tack and we close-reached our way past the north end of the island in progressively lighter winds in the early morning of Jan. 19.

Along the way, Stephanie honed her bread baking skills – so we had fresh bread just about every day. Bob and Dennis whiled away the time putting an eye-splice (a loop in the end of a rope that is used to attach a shackle ) in our stern anchor line, which had been cut by another boat's chain in Puerto Ayora. Our fishing skills continued to improve – we caught a decent-sized skipjack tuna – but our seafood preparation skills still needed work. Nobody was able to finish the large portions of strong tasting, dark tuna flesh.

Long ocean passages are, in my opinion, boring. For days on end the wind blows from the same direction, at a constant strength. The boat sails itself in the same direction with only minor adjustments. The crew’s life consists of doing their watches, preparing meals, eating meals, relatively minimal personal hygiene tasks, and sleep. Daytime diversions consist of reading, talking, looking at the endless blue ocean, or otherwise entertaining one’s self. Due to the motion of the boat it is uncomfortable to spend a lot of time below-deck so we tend to let some cleaning chores wait until we make landfall. Stephanie’s long, black, thick, lustrous hair grows with astonishing speed and new hairs coming in appear to push the old ones out in the competition for scalp space. As a consequence, the cabin sole (the floor inside the boat) and the cockpit sole (the floor of the cockpit) quickly accumulate a large number of long black hairs. There were so many hairs that something simply had to be done - I began to collect them and tape them onto a sock puppet. Stephchop the sock puppet soon took her place in the watch schedule and often warned of increasing winds or swells in her singsong, squeaky voice, “twenty knots”.

With wind and swell from the north west, Hangiroa, the only port on Easter Island, was an unsafe, exposed lee shore. Hangiroa port control advised us away from that side of the island so we hooked around the south tip and went to Vinapu, on the opposite side of the island from Hangiroa, where we were sheltered from the northwesterly wind and swell. There was still a bit of swell coming in from the south but the wind kept us off the shore. The bottom was very deep even close in to shore so we dropped anchor in about 60 feet of water and let out 250 feet of chain perhaps 500 meters from where the swells were breaking on the rocky, exposed shore. The bottom was volcanic rock and coral and did not make for a good holding but the chain wrapped itself under a coral head, helping us stay in one spot. The first night the navy came down to the shore to check us in but they wanted us to come and get them in our dinghy. We were too tired to inflate it so we apologized, promising to be ready the following day, ate dinner and went to sleep. The vibration of the chain scraping across the coral was transmitted up to the stem and made for a discomfiting sleep for Bob, the occupant of the forward cabin.

Vinapu is the site of the petroleum terminal for Rapa Nui and consists of a steep dirt road down to a short rock and concrete jetty where a couple of rusting ladders set into the concrete reach down into the pounding waves. On the hill above the jetty are five huge storage tanks which are filled every three months when a tanker arrives from Chile, anchors off Vinapu and pumps its cargo ashore through large bore hoses. There is no beach and no place to land a dinghy. To get ashore you bring the dinghy in, time the swells to come alongside one of the ladders, and grab hold to steady the inflatable while the crew scrambles up, trying to keep their feet above the surging swells. This I learned while picking up the naval officers and agriculture inspector to bring them back to the boat for our check in. The check in went quickly even though our lack of Spanish made things slower than they should have been. Since we had long since run out of fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit, the agriculture inspector did have anything to take other than our garbage (one bag of plastic food packaging that could not be thrown overboard at sea). He didn’t want to take it, citing agriculture rules that prohibited bringing ashore any foreign refuse, but Stephanie gave him her puppy dog eyes and he had to give in.

An anchored boat cannot be left unattended at Easter Island because a shift in wind has the potential to turn any anchorage into a lee shore - someone must always be aboard ready to raise anchor and move to a safer anchorage on another side of the island if necessary. Our passage to Easter Island had been about four days quicker than planned so we had some time to go sightseeing before Dennis and Bob had to fly out. Stephanie and I stayed on the boat while Bob and Dennis went ashore, carrying the handheld VHF radio, and took a tour. I dropped them off at the rusty ladder, and went back to the boat and waited for a call on the VHF for a pickup. The next day Bob and Dennis stayed on the boat and Stephanie and I toured several archaeological sites and managed to buy some fresh vegetables, fruit, and meat as well as drop off a large bag of laundry to be washed and dried. Steph and I had lunch at a local café where a very happy musician sang upbeat songs about local life and his good fortune at being born on Rapa Nui – he sang “Sweet Home Rapa Nui” to the tune of the famous Lynyrd Skynyd song and had me singing along.

Meanwhile, Bob and Dennis had been having a rough day on the boat with all the swells rolling in. Dennis had taken a spill down the companionway steps when one of the parts holding them down to the cabin sole broke. Luckily he wasn’t badly injured but they were not enthused about spending more time bouncing off the walls anchored at Vinapu. They decided to bring their bags ashore the next day and get a hotel room for the night before their flight - as a precaution in case the weather turned worse and made it impossible to get ashore later. My disappointment showed on my face but I brightened up a bit when they offered to stay on board for the morning and afternoon so Stephanie and I could provision for the next leg.

The next morning Steph and I went ashore, along with five jerry cans for diesel, went to the bank, went shopping, bought diesel, and picked up the laundry. Easter Island is not cheap - having the laundry done cost US$60. We had to make two trips to the boat to get everything on board and then we sat down and had a final drink with Bob and Dennis before going back once more to take them and their gear ashore.

With Bob and Dennis gone, it was just Stephanie and me for the next passage. Stephanie did not want to stay on the boat alone in this inhospitable anchorage and did not want to go ashore to sightsee on her own so we made our plans to leave the very interesting island and its unpleasant anchorages. The next afternoon we set sail for Pitcairn.