Living & Learning Aboard the Good Ship Learnativity

Our 3rd Circumnavigation of LOVE Begins!

This very first photo captures the moment two years ago today, December 19th 2013, when this beautiful person walked off a plane at Fiji’s Nadi International airport and into my life. 

 

Nothing has been the same or better since the day I met and kissed this most amazing love of my life and life of my love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As per my recent post Thanks for changing my life forever Barney!! it had all started with a cute little video of Barney the Yorkshire Terror as he was called and my seemingly innocent question to his owner who had created this little My Talking Pet video.  But that simple question led to more Emails, then even more phone calls, then even more Skype calls and less than a month later she was on a plane from her home base in Ft. Lauderdale Florida to meet this weird wandering fellow single handed Canadian sailor who was floating on his boat with his little dog in Fiji. 

 

If you are a sucker for romance like me, you can read much more in my previous posts such as:

Wayne Finds His Blankie!

Wayne gets Entangled, Enchanted and Engaged with his Blankie!!

 

 

A few hours after Christine walked off that plane while I was still wandering around dazed in the twitterpated fog I’m still living in,we were aboard our dear friends Colleen & Ian on their neighboring boat m/v Summer Spirit with Ruby the Wonderdog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That evening we had Ian take the picture on the left looking off to the west from Vuda Point Marina and then this past August Ian took the photo on the right from the same spot to mark our “circumnavigation of love” by returning to the spot where we had met for the very first time two years ago today.

 

 

 

 

In between those two photos we filled our life as “we” with more adventures, love and learning that either of us sexagenarians had ever experienced. (a more appropriate term than you might think!) 

The list of our travels and adventures is MUCH too long to write out here so just to mention some of the most relevant ones for this anniversary post:

We spent 3 weeks in magnificent Malta researching what was then Christine’s next book, now known as “Knight’s Cross”  which was published just last week.  I took advantage of this magical place to ask what my heart had been shouting for some time and she said YES!

 

 

 

We took advantage of a brief break in our travelling adventures to begin another grand adventure by first getting officially married on August 4th in Deland Florida.

Then thanks to the help of our awemazing daughter Lia, who is organizer par excellence and over 60 of our best friends and family we had the most incredible four days of wedding celebration in San Diego California on March 21st.

 

Along the way we have traveled through more than 15 countries around the world and covered over 100,00 miles on land, sea and air using planes, trains, automobiles, trollies, ferries, sailboats and motor boats.

 

Since that first day we met, our lives have been filled to the point of bursting with adventures, friends, families, learning and love.  We count ourselves amongst the most fortunate and certainly the richest people on the planet when measured by what matters; profound joy and love.  We have all of YOU, our friends and family, to thank for all this.

 

Most of all for me, on this special anniversary day I have the most awemazing person I’ve ever met to thank. 

I LOVE you Christine Louise! 

Here’s to making our third circumnavigation together of the sun and of love the best one yet!

Lovin’ the Lau Group in Fiji

I am long overdue to catch up here with blog posts since we arrived in Fiji and it will have to wait a bit longer till I get more time with good connections.  Right now we are over in what is known as the Lau Group of islands in the SE corner of Fijian waters and have been enjoying anchorages in VanuaBelavu island such as “The Bay of Islands” up in the north and for the last few days, including Canada Day, just off the village of Lomolomo and the uninhabited little island of Yanu Yanu.  17 17.731S 17 58.918W if you’d like to see exactly where that is on Google or Bing maps or sat photos.

 

We are about to weight anchor in a few minutes and head out the SE pass through the surrounding coral reefs and head south to see more of the Lau Group islands.  Depending on where Mother Nature decides to blow, we’ll either head to Vulaga (pronounced Falanga) or else Totoya or Matuko which are more to the west of Vulaga.  We won’t likely have any cellular connections till we get past those so no more FB or other web presence for the next week or too but we’ll try to keep posting via our sat phone connections along the way.

For now, I’ll let the photos do the taking with some shots of where the good ship Learnativity has been over the past few weeks. Sorry, no time to add captions right now so just enjoy them for what they are as we do.

		LTY in the Lau Group 2015 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

LTY UPDATE: Thursday, September 13th, 2012

LTY UPDATE: Thursday, September 13th, 2012
Namaram Bay, Pentecost Island, Vanuatu

LTY time: 17:15 (Vanuatu time = UTC +11)
Location: Namaram Bay about mid-way up West coast of Pentecost island, Vanuatu
Position: 15 37.534 S, 168 07.368 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
Wind: 3 knots (inside the bay)
Seas/Swell: flat
Air temp: 82 F 28C
Sea temp: 90.5 F 32.5 C
Barometer: 1017mm

MOTHER NATURE is SUCH a SHOWOFF!

Been a fabulous few days since I left Uliveo Island and continued making my way up north through the islands of Vanuatu. I stayed in Uliveo for a few days after my friends Teri and Philip left to head south to Port Villa and had the whole little bay all to myself. The locals all knew me by now so they were not coming by to offer fruit and ask for things so it was very peaceful. Ruby and I took a few trips off in the dingy to explore a few more deserted spots and she had her usual great time running nonstop on the beaches and in the jungle on the coastline. Tuesday morning dawned with clear blue skies and the sea was calling me again so it was up with the anchor and I motored my way on a very circuitous route through all coral and the other little Meskelyne Islands and out into open ocean again. The day cleared up and once I was clear of the wind shadow of Meskelyne I picked up the SE trades again which were blowing about 8-14 knots most of the time. The wind does vary here much more than it did in Fiji but most of my headings here are NW so this is all downwind sailing and I’ve been getting lots of practice trying out the new setup of putting my spinnaker pole out to windward and pulling the big genoa out to it so that I have what is called a “wing on wing” sailing setup with the main sail out to one side and the genoa out to the other. This presents a very large sail area to the wind coming from my back and doesn’t take too much to push all 33 tons of us along at 5-7 knots. The boat is also nice and level most of the time as there is no heeling and with the wind from behind the apparent wind (wind you feel on the boat) is much less so it is extremely calm and serene sailing.

I headed for Ambrym island which his home to Vanuatu’s other active volcano and I made my way around the west corner and then up along the NW coast of Ambrym where I was able to carefully hunt out a great little unchartered anchorage. The bottom in most areas here slopes up very steeply from the ocean and then turns to black sand just off shore of most islands with coral intermixed along much of it. Taking my best guess from the guides and charts I have I spied this little indentation just south of the very north west tip of Ambrym and crept in slowly with my eyes carefully going back and forth between watching the bottom in front and beside me and the depth gauge. The black sand makes it a bit more difficult to see compared to the white coral sand in other places but as I crept in towards the shore the depth gauge finally started to show a gradually decreasing depth and about 100 meters off shore I had about 25 feet and was right on the edge of where the coral started to grow on the bottom. Up at the bow I carefully targeted a sandy spot and dropped the mighty anchor and let the wind push me back as I played out almost 150 feet of anchor chain, locked it down and waited for the confirming tug as Learnativity stopped her backwards travel and the chain went taut. The shoreline was composed of small cliffs of black lava and it was speckled with kids who were both coming out to see the unusual appearance of a yacht in front of their small village and having a great time jumping off the cliffs into the warm water. I later found out that it was the middle of a two week school holiday and so each day was filled with the music of children’s laughter as they swam, jumped and played ashore.

I also had a steady stream of them coming out to the boat in their family dugout outrigger canoes. I must have had over 20 of them come to visit over the next few days once word got out that I was happy to have them aboard and let them look around. Many of them returned with treats for me in the form of papayas, coconuts and pamplemouse (sp?) (grapefruit) which I was most grateful for and exchanged this for chocolate, dried cranberries and some Canadian souvenirs. Mostly though they loved the chance to explore the boat, ask lots of questions, and try out the binoculars that were a big favorite with them all. I was also able to give them a few magazines I kept for just such opportunities and which they enjoy for both the pictures of new and different things and a chance to practice their English and reading. Of course teenagers are similar in many ways the world over and so one of the groups of the older ones got brave enough on one visit to ask if I had any wine! Of course they assured me this was only for their parents ;) but I declined and told them this was just not allowed.

Two boys, Amos (15) and Robert (9) were the most frequent visitors and on one of their last visits they stopped by to show me one of the more interesting if somewhat unsettling catches which was a sea turtle they had just caught and killed. They say there are lots of them here and they swim in the rocky areas near the shore and are a relatively regular catch. They were on their way to take this one home for their mother to boil and make into various meals. I asked them if they liked eating turtle and they said it was OK but not one of their favorites.

I looked after several of the boat jobs needing attention such as replacing my main alternator and fixing a troubling seawater leak into the freshwater cooling side of my diesel generator and was reminded how true it is that cruising is the art of moving your boat from one exotic repair destination to the next! Just part of the price that has to be paid to enjoy this phenomenal life of freedom and independence and one I’m happy to pay. That along with more reading, writing and snorkeling and two days and nights zipped by. The water here was finally nice and clear again after being rather murky in the Meskelyne Islands and other spots so far in Vanuatu plus the water was finally back up over 30 degrees Celsius so I enjoyed more snorkeling time though the coral and fish life wasn’t too spectacular.

What WAS spectacular though was the night time entertainment from Mother Nature. I was completely unprepared for the spectacle that awaited me when I came up on deck as part of my regular night time off to bed routine. The night skies are so fabulous when I am anchored in these remote spots partly because I’m the only boat and light source as the small villages don’t have power and so it is completely dark and when the skies are clear of clouds they are filed with more stars and galaxies than I ever imagined possible. It is so black that you can see the galaxies very clearly and they almost look like “cloudy” areas out in the cosmos as they are so dense with such far away billions of stars of their own. I’ve become relatively accustomed to this, though always amazed and in awe of it all and so I’ve made it a habit to come up on deck each night as I’m making my way to bed and check out this cosmic show each night to send my hopes off into the cosmos and to enlist the help of the stars to bounce special thoughts to some of the special people in my life.

Two nights ago though, it wasn’t the distant stars that took my breath away but the land based one. As I looked southwest the whole sky over the rising hills of Ambrym Island were ablaze in the most intense shades of orange and red I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen some pretty amazing sunsets in the past five years but nothing to match this. What I was witnessing was the smoke billowing out of apparently VERY active volcanic cone and spreading for miles above and beyond that was coruscating with the light from the fiery cauldron of lava below! I just stood there on deck with my mouth agape and tried to take it all in. As my awemazement lessened a bit in time I again turned my gaze upward and out into that deep starry starry space over the open oceans to the north when I saw not one, but TWO shooting stars in quick succession. My my, Mother Nature was really putting on quite a show for me tonight and as I was about to discover, she wasn’t done yet! As I was looking upward at the more stationary stars and bouncing my hopes and wishes off them, there was suddenly a whole series of fiery stars zipping around down below the horizon! No, I didn’t have THAT much wine with dinner tonight, they were fireflies! The most enormous ones I have ever seen. As I watched this spectacle for the next long while I was able to see some of the ones that flew close enough to me in the light of the stars and the volcano and I could see that they had large wings like those of a moth and their bodies must have been two to three inches long with this huge glowing end section. I’m not sure what I could ever have done to be so blessed with such spectacles but there I was completely immersed in the fiery side of this incredible cosmos we are a part of as Mother Nature showed off and shared with me what she has going on below me, around me and above me. All this in ONE night! Could I lead a more charmed life? I think not!

This morning sun dawned a bit later than usual as it took a bit longer to make it above the mountainous topography of Ambrym Island and reveal an increasingly clearing and blue sky and an ocean that looked more like a lake as there was not a breath of wind and not a wave or ripple in the water. Hoping that there would be more wind once I cleared the top of the island I felt it was time to continue north and make my way up along the west coast of Pentecost island and perhaps all the way up to the south end of Maewo island where I’ve been told there is a great anchorage and some fabulous snorkeling in Asanvari Bay which is about 50nm away. However my departure from Ambrym was delayed a few miles off shore when the new alternator decided to throw both belts off. With no wind I just shut off the engine and spent the next hour figuring out this newest problem which turned out to just be used fan belts that were not up to the strain of this high output alternator and after replacing them with new ones I have in my well stocked “spares” department, I soon had it working again. But just as I fired up the main engine again the sea water pump alarm went off and I found that its belt had suddenly become too loose! Fortunately that was a quick fix of readjusting the belt tension and I was underway again at last. Better yet the wind filled in a bit later and I was able to setup my spinnaker pole again and have that wing on wing arrangement I mentioned earlier. The SE trade winds were very light and varied from 5-12 knots but with all that sail area this was enough to keep me moving forward at 4-5 knots and enjoy a leisurely and peaceful sail along the west coast of Pentecost Island.

By mid-afternoon I was about half way up Pentecost and the skies were increasingly overcast so I started looking for a good spot to anchor while I still had some good light above me and headed for another small unchartered anchorage by the tiny village of Namaram where I writing to you from now. Similar to the previous anchorage off Ambrym I crept in slowly and found an indentation in the rocks and coral where there was just black sand rising up close to shore and was able to drop the hook in about 25’ off water. This spot is very sparsely inhabited but there are a few homes ashore and I headed ashore in the dinghy to ask permission to stay. There were only a few buildings nestled into the jungle a ways back from the shore and at first it seemed to be deserted but I finally came across some young boys ages 3-7 I would guess and they led me to an adult who then took me to the local chief. Chief Roman was up to his elbows in grease as he was repairing the villages chain saw and after a quick introduction I was able to help him figure out that the carburetor gasket was cracked and letting in too much air so it wouldn’t start. He had some material that could work to make a new gasket and he felt he could do that himself and told me to go enjoy walking around the area. One of the challenges in these small villages is the lack of much skills or tools to maintain things and so they do tend to do without more than with. It makes for a good source of interaction and bartering for me in many places where I am able to help out with my floating tool shop and a reasonable set of skills in mechanics, metalworking and wood working.

With the blessing of the chief to anchor here and explore the area, I went back to LTY and picked up Ruby and headed back ashore where we were soon mobbed by about ten young boys ranging from about 3 to 13 I’d estimate. As usual they are initially equal parts fascinated and fearful of Ruby but once I assure them she won’t bite or hurt them she soon wins them over and they are all petting her, calling her name and having great fun running after her. After lots of fun doing that I was launching the dinghy to head back to LTY when the oldest boy asked if I could give them a ride in the dinghy. So I soon had a dinghy full of ten VERY happy young boys and we were off at high speed for a quick trip around some of the outlying rocks and then back down to the shore in front of their village where we dropped them off and headed back to LTY. I could still hear them laughing and excitedly telling all the other kids in the area about their fun and fast ride in this strange ruby boat. Such a fun way to end the day.

It is now well after sundown and very dark up here in the cockpit, and my thin tropical blood is getting chilled so I’ll sign off for tonight. Depending on how things look in the morning I’ll probably head north again and make the jump over to Maewo Island and what is supposed to be a spectacular anchorage in Asanvari Bay. I’ll be back with an update for you on just how that turns out to be from my perspective and wish you all a good night for now.

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

LTY UPDATE: Friday, August 31, 2012

LTY UPDATE: Friday, August 31, 2012
Dillon’s Bay, Erromango Island, Vanuatu

LTY time: 17:100 (Vanuatu time = UTC +11)
Location: Dillon’s Bay, Erromango Island, Vanuatu
Position: 18 49.105 S, 169 00.694 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
Wind: 10-15 knots SE (inside the bay)
Seas/Swell: 2ft @ 6 seconds SE (coming from)
Air temp: 78.8 F 26C
Sea temp: 85.1 F 29.5 C
Barometer: 1017mm

DELIGHTFUL DAY in DILLON’s BAY

I awoke to a new day with a clearing sky and it was a beautiful sunny day right up till this evening when the clouds have come back in again and cooled things down quite a bit. Not too much to report today as I’ve simply had a super simple day. Had several more men row out from ashore early this morning as I was having breakfast and traded for some fresh papaya and a few new fruits I don’t know and look forward to trying. Ruby and I went ashore to one of the few small sandy beaches in this bay, most of them are rock cliffs or rock beaches. She enjoyed her time ashore racing around as usual and I got some good shots of Learnativity looking out through some of the large coral outcroppings sculpted by the sea.

Did a bit of snorkeling but I’m afraid I’ve been spoiled with that I’ve found in Fiji the past few years and so it was a bit underwhelming but still gloriously clear waters and always interesting creatures to observe and learn from. I took the opportunity to give Learnativity’s hull a good inspection and clean off a bit of the growth starting around the waterline and all looks very good there. I spent a few hours ashore walking around the village that spreads itself along the river here.

One interesting thing I learned was that they all live on the north side of the river because the south side is where they bury their dead so this is all a beautiful cemetery area. It was the same simple village buildings and quite a large community by Vanuatu standards as they are a people who much prefer to live in small little communities of 10 to 50 people rather than create larger ones. In this case I think it is the river that creates a single area where more can live. Even so, the homes are all quite spread out and what I’m gathering from my walks through these villages is that the people are much more inclined to spend time in small groups than large ones. Though there was an area all cleared off under some beautiful huge trees that they explained was where the ladies held their market to sell their wares each Wednesday.  Two men rowed out to visit and brought me this delicious selection of Popos (Papaya) and Pamplemouss (Grapefruit) which will last me for several breakfasts as you can see.

And once again there was great care paid to keeping the village area and pathways very clear and well-manicured. The soil is very rich so there is great variety of plants, flowers and trees growing. They don’t have any electricity in the village but they do have a supply ship that comes in about once a month from Port Villa and brings things like building supplies, rice, flower and other goods they can’t produce. They also showed me an area where they are cultivating Sandalwood, which historically was a very sought after prize by foreign sailors from faraway lands. Too much so actually in that most of the forests of Sandalwood have apparently long been wiped out and hence the need for this village to try to bring this still prized wood back into prominence. They don’t do any carving or other processing of the Sandalwood, just sell it to buyers in Port Villa apparently and helps them generate some income to purchase the other goods they need.

I’m likely going to pull up anchor about 8pm tonight and make the overnight sail to Port Villa. It is just over 80 nautical miles so I’ll do this passage at night so I can arrive there in good light tomorrow morning. I still need to look after my full checking in as there was no Immigration authorities on Aneityum Island where I first entered Vanuatu. Port Villa is also the largest harbour and city in Vanuatu so it will give me another glimpse into this fascinating country and culture. I’m also looking forward to restocking my galley with fresh veggies, bread, cheese and the like. All the more so given the high French influence of this area so I’m hoping to enjoy some particularly good and different breads, pastries, cheese and wine. I’m also looking forward to meeting up with Philip, a single handed sailor from Switzerland who has become a very dear friend. We initially met when we were both checking into Ecuador about 3 years ago and have serendipitously met up several time since as we both ply the waters of the South Pacific. Philip and Teri have been kite surfing their little hearts out up north in Vanuatu the last month or more and looks like we might be able to meet a bit north of Port Villa and spend a bit of time with Blue Bie and Learnativity anchored together once again.

So life continues to treat me extremely well and I’m doing my best to enjoy, appreciate and savor each moment in an attempt to be worthy of such great fortune. I’ll write more once I get to Port Villa and let you know what urban life is like here in Vanuatu.

Wayne

LTY UPDATE: Thursday, August 30, 2012

LTY UPDATE: Thursday, August 30, 2012
Dillon’s Bay, Erromango Island, Vanuatu

LTY time: 16:40 (Vanuatu time = UTC +11)
Location: Dillon’s Bay, Erromango Island, Vanuatu
Position: 18 49.105 S, 169 00.694 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
Wind: 10-15 knots SE (inside the bay)
Seas/Swell: 2ft @ 6 seconds SE (coming from)
Air temp: 78.8 F 26C
Sea temp: 85.1 F 29.5 C
Barometer: 1018mm

GREAT DAY of LEARNING & SAILING

It was still overcast in the early morning but there was enough blue sky breaking through that I figured it would clear off up north and so I quickly got everything all ready, made some breakfast, put up the main sail, pulled up the anchor and we were off to Erromango Island. The wind was nice and strong running 15-20 knots out of the SSE which meant that it was going to be pretty much a dead downwind sail to Erromango today. I headed straight north out of Port Resolution to get a bit better wind angle for the sails until I was about five nautical miles north of the northern end of Tanna and a bit more clear of the wind shadow and then changed heading to about 315 degrees to head straight for Dillon’s Bay which is about mid way up the west coast of Erromango. Just as I was leaving Mount Yasur had an eruption large enough that I could hear it and so it seemed like a very fitting However this put the wind dead downwind which is one of the more difficult wind angles to sail.

Before I knew what little I do now about sailing I thought that this would be the best wind angle but what I’ve learned is that it is one of the slowest and is very tricky because your main sail completely blankets the genoa (large front sail) from the wind. Initially I tried to run what is called “wing on wing” where you put the boom out to one side as far as you can and then fly the genoa out to the opposite side. This way both sails are getting the full “push” from the wind. This is also why this is not the best wind angle for sails because, again counter to what I would have previously thought, you get much more power from a sail when it is acting like a wing and producing lift, rather than when it is being pushed by the wind alone. Also, because you are sailing the same direction the wind is coming from, each knot the boat goes in effect “subtracts” a knot or more of wind speed. I tried this setup for a bit but the genoa kept loosing its wind whenever the wind shifted or with the corrections of the autopilot and then it would snap back into place and this was putting a lot of strain on the forestay and mast. Last year I finally got my large spinnaker pole that I had salvaged from a wreck all set up and so now was the perfect opportunity to learn how to use it to pole out the genoa and keep it there.

This spinnaker pole is quite large as it has to stand up to some significant forces when being used with the spinnaker for this size of boat and it is 24 foot long and 4 inches in diameter. It takes quite a bit of rigging to control this pole and so I had to rig up a halyard from the top of the mast to the outer end of the pole and then two “guys” as they are called that run from the outer end of the pole back to the deck of the boat, one fore and one aft. The inboard end of the pole is attached to a “car” that slides up and down a track in the mast and you set it up so that when the pole is out to the side it is parallel with the water. Not having done this before it took a bit of time for me to get all the lines and blocks set up, walk the outer end of the pole up to the bow, get the lines all in place, furl in the genoa, run the genoa sheet through the end of the pole and then get the pole out so it was about perpendicular to the length of the boat and the outer end was about 12’ off the deck. Of course the wind decided to pick up just as I was doing all this plus there was another sailboat about a nautical mile off to my port side so it was a bit challenging as I figured out how to adjust all these lines and get the genoa unfurled and flying properly off the end of the pole. Seemed like more but it only took about half an hour and I finally had it all setup properly (I think?!) and could get back in the cockpit to see how it all worked.

Wow! We took off! At one point about an hour later we touched NINE knots! The fastest straight sailing speed I’ve seen I think as I don’t count the higher speeds when I’ve been surfing down the back side of large swells. Plus the motion is very nice as I also had a following sea and so the boat pitches, where the bow and stern go up and down in a rocking horse like motion and occasionally it would also roll as some of the large sea swells hit at a bit of an angle. It was a very sweet ride and one of those experiences where it feels especially good when you’ve overcome challenges, figured things out and get it all working. As I’ve mentioned many times, Learnativity turns out to be the perfect name for my boat and learning is one of the best things about this whole experience.

To put the icing on the cake, the skies which had been very overcast for most of the trip, suddenly started to clear as I rounded the SW corner of Erromango and as I made the turn to sail into tiny Dillon’s Bay it was out in full force with nothing but blue sky overhead. Turns out that I didn’t need much lighting for this bay as it seems very free of corals and I’m now anchored in about 22 feet of water with nothing but sand below. The “bay”, really just a small indentation in the shoreline as you’ll see if you check it out in the sat photos on Google Earth of Bing, is just the kind of spot I love. In addition to great holding for the anchor (mind you with the 75kg monster I carry it is good holding pretty much everywhere) there is a relatively large creek that flows into the middle of the beach ashore and about six or so homes of various sizes that I can see ashore. There are cliffs on either side of this river entrance and beach area that rise up probably 100 meters in spots and are all covered with various kinds of lush green trees and vegetation.

I had just got the anchor snubber all set and the latest batch of black volcanic dust from Yasur all washed off and was about to splash the dinghy when “Charlie” rowed out to greet me in his outrigger canoe. These are the most common boats in these islands and are all hand hewn from local trees. Very simple and smart design. I asked if it was OK to anchor here and he said I was most welcome and I’ll come see him in the morning to meet others and see a bit of the island. He said they have lots of fruit and vegetables so that will be good to replenish my galley as there wasn’t much at Port Resolution. And just now Robert and his 18 month old son Roland rowed out to say hello. I was surprised to learn from them that there are about 500 people in this village but makes sense as the river is here and apparently most of the homes are lining the river and so I can’t see them from here. Erromango has a population of about 2000 I think but I’ll find out more when I go ashore in the morning.

And so ends a perfect day. Lots of learning, fast sailing, sunny skies, beautiful safe anchorage, enough wind to keep the wind generator humming and a great looking sunset just starting to happen. Do I lead a charmed life or what?!

Wayne

Vanuatu Here We Come!

Just took the Customs officials back to the Lautoka wharf and now have all my official outbound clearance papers stamped and signed so I have officially left Fiji!  WOW!  What a set of awemazing experiences and people!  Every bit of it good and I can only recommend that if you’ve never been or not recently, do your best to get here to see and experience for yourself. 

I’ve not got the dingy and everything else all lashed down and stowed, the fridge, freezer and cupboards are full with one last round of great fruit, vegies, meat and wine from Fiji.  It was a gorgeous sunrise this morning and other than a lot of ash falling from the sugar cane burning going on it is a perfect day to set sail.  Wind looks good according to the forecasts and we’ll see what it is like once I get out clear of the reefs to the west later on today.

Thank you Fiji for treating Ruby and I so extremely well and the lifetime of fond memories we are leaving with.  Thanks to each and every one who so sincerely and fully befriended both Ruby and I as you are what truly stands out from all our experiences.

While there is a bit of melancholy in leaving a place I’ve been in for so long and got to know so well, I’m equally excited about getting back to sailing, anchoring in secluded bays, new people and experiences and being back out on the open ocean again.  Should be about 4 days passage from here to Aneityum or Anatom island as it is sometimes known, the southernmost island of Vanuatu and about 480nm from here in Lautoka.  Winds look like they will cooperate so it should be a pretty much straight run from here to Anelghowhat Bay and I’ll keep you posted with updates along the way.  Be sure to check out the new SPOT Adventures site at http://www.findmespot.com/spotadventures/index.php/view_adventure?tripid=312876 (see previous posting for details) which I’m hoping will make it easy for you to see our tracks along the way as they are automatically uploaded to the map and satellite images.

And with that, we are off!  Vanuatu and more amazing experiences up ahead and glad to have you along for the ride!

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog,
aboard the good ship Learnativity
currently anchored near Lautoka Fiji
17 36.061 S, 177 26.442 E

Regular Email:    [email protected]
Email when @ sea or remote via sat phone:    [email protected]  (Yes! This is the correct spelling OCENS)
I typically retrieve and answer Emails to this account via our satellite phone at least once every 24 hours.  You can send as much text as you like but are asked not to send any attachments such as photos.
FaceBook page:        www.facebook.com/wayne.hodgins
Learnativity blog:    www.learnativity.typepad.com
World Phone Voicemail:        +1-501-492-9634   (has voice mail that is forwarded to me via Email)
Text Messages:  (to my sat phone)
send short 140 character Text msgs via Email to:  [email protected]

Other contact info:
Skype:    Whodgins
Twitter:        WWWayne

Contacting Linda, Wayne & Ruby

Dear Friends & Family:

Many of you have asked how to best stay in contact with us while we are out sailing the oceans blue far and wide.  We would LOVE to hear from you and stay in touch and there are many ways we can do so.  When we are anchored or moored near developed populations we usually have good access to the internet via Wi-Fi and cellular networks so you can just use our regular Email (Gmail) addresses, check our blogs, Facebook pages, etc.

When we are out sailing or in remote locations (our preferred spots) we rely on our satellite phone for staying in touch Email (text only please) and texting.

We are about to set sail in the next few days (likely about May 22^nd 2011) from the Marshall Islands making our way mostly southbound to Fiji and depending on wind and our whim we should be in Fiji sometime between June 4-20^th.  During that time we will be mostly off line, just using our sat phone to post daily updates to our FaceBook pages and blogs and also checking our sat phone Email account (see below) about once a day.

Please find below all the info you need for all these various ways of contacting us and we look forward to hearing from you and sharing our phenomenal live, love and learning with you all.

Linda, Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog,

aboard the good ship Learnativity

Currently (May 21, 2011) moored off town of Uliga on Majuro atoll, Marshall Islands

07 06.274 N, 171 22.358 E (cut & paste this into Google Earth or Bing to see where we are)

Regular Email:  (when we are anchored near populated areas)

[email protected]

[email protected]

Email when we are @ sea:

[email protected]   (Yes! This is the correct spelling OCENS)

We typically retrieve and answer Emails to this account via our satellite phone at least once every 24 hours.  You can send as much text as you like but are asked not to send any attachments such as photos.

 

FaceBook pages:              Wayne              www.facebook.com/wayne.hodgins

                              Linda              www.facebook.com/linda.woodhouse.smith

Learnativity blog:             www.learnativity.typepad.com

Linda’s new blog:            IMITF.wordpress.com   (I Made It This Far)

World Phone VoiceMail:   +1-501-492-9634              

(This GoogleVoice number has voice mail that is forwarded to us via Email)

Text Messages:  (to our sat phone)

send short 140 character Text msgs via Email to:  [email protected]

These are great! and free for us to receive and only 50cents for us to respond to.  We will receive these right away and be able to respond quickly.

Other contact info:

Skype:                                  Linda = woodsmith2009         Wayne = Whodgins

Twitter:                                 WWWayne

I LOVE BOOKS because I LOVE LEARNING!

While I have no desire to live forever from an immortal standpoint (thank goodness!)I do have a deep desire to learn forever so I could read every book I would want to and feed my insatiable curiosity forever. However, I live very much in the present and this picture if of the recent presents (pun intended) I received in the boxes which arrived the other day from my trip to the USA and Canada last month which you may have seen in the previous blog entry here.

Many of you know that I have become a complete convert to eBooks and prefer to do pretty much all my reading on my eReader (Kindle) tablet (iPhone), smart phone or laptop.  I’ve talked about that at length over on my Off Course – On Target blog if you are interested in more details but the reasons are essentially that my eBooks are now as good or better than paper from a pure readability standpoint, they have reached the level of transparency so I can forget I’m reading on a digital device and get lost in the story, and then they give me a built in OED dictionary I use so often as I read plus a organized collection of all my highlights and notes taken while I read so that I have this to refer to and use after I’ve finished each book or even as I’m in the process of reading it.

However as you can see in the picture these ones I’m highlighting today are all paper books because they are not yet available in Kindle or eBook format and I’m not going to let that stand in the way of me reading them especially when I get the opportunity such as here in Majuro to have them shipped to me.  Here is some of what am I reading that you can see in the picture:

DRAWING on the RIGHT SIDE of the BRAIN:

Yes, that’s right Wayne is going to try to learn how to draw, go after his more creative side and learn to see the world more fully through the eyes of an artist.  Well, that’s my intent and motivation anyways.  As you may be able to see I have both the book and the workbook for Betty Edward’s acclaimed “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” and these are maybe the ones I’m most excited about as they represent an another journey I’ve long wanted to take, that of learning how to draw better and more so learning how to see the world better.  I’ve only read the first chapter so far and I don’t know if I’m more excited about learning how to draw or all the ways in which drawing and Betty’s experiences for the past 20+ years inspire and ignite my passionate pursuit of topics such as how to become a more “whole brained” person and how this all relates to learning in general.  Both are all part of this grand voyage I’m on for my own self improvement on a more quantum and spiritual level and I couldn’t be more excited about all of it.

Knowing how I like to use myself and my life as a grand experiment and my recent penchant for uncharacteristically  putting myself “out there” and sharing everything, I will undoubtedly share with you some of my drawings along the way so you can see first hand how I’m doing and hopefully the great progress along the way.  I

TOUCH!

I will also be using this as an opportunity to test the use of the touch screen on my iPad and my stylus to do some of the drawings.  Some of you will know that I’ve long been fascinated by and talked much about how we can discern and extract the essence out of our historical and well proven practices and human elements and carry them forward into the future as we combine them with the most modern of technologies and innovations.  The combination of drawing and touch screens is one of my most cited examples.  We have been drawing since we lived in caves and I see no likelihood or desire to stop doing so as far into the future as I can see.  However the transmogrification into the digital world and the apparent readiness of touch to be added to our human computer interactions and interfaces is extremely exciting and already upon us. I want to have the experiential learning of doing so and be able to share this all with you more knowledgeably and hence the new books and the new voyage.  Wish me luck!

 

Rudy Rucker’s Trilogy: The Ware Tetralogy

This is another long time coming read for me and will likely need to wait till I’m back into full time sailing mode rather than my current boat work mode, but I finally have it onboard with me now and can’t wait to dive into each of these four books; Software, Wetware, Freeware and Realware. If you aren’t familiar with these a quick search on any of these titles will give you a good overviews and you’ll quickly see why I’ve been wanting to read these for so long. I had the distinct pleasure to be at Autodesk in the early years when we were working with Rudy and James Gleick on things like Chaos Theory so my interest goes a long ways back.

I took advantage of being back in the USA and in Florida to be able to raid my carefully stowed few boxes of books which I keep ashore as they are too bulky and valuable to have on the boat all the time. I was looking for and found three that I’ve been wanting to read or reread which were:

David Bohm’s “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” and “On Creativity”

David is one of my mentors and a great inspiration to me for over twenty years since Jimm Meloy, one of my many great “bosses” at Autodesk, first put me on to him. You can read a brief tribute I did about David and his work several years ago over on the Off Course – On Target blog. Again, I’ll let you read up on these books if you’re intrigued which I can’t imagine anyone not being but that’s just me. David is one of the great minds of the past century in my humble opinion and he has helped me understand so much about how things work, not just from the theoretical physics side of which Bohm is one of the most highly regarded scientists ever to be in that field, but also his more spiritual and holistic views on life, learning and how we think.

Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” and “The Universe in a Nutshell”

Inspired by my recent reading of Martin Gardner’s great collection of essays in “The Night is Large” (thank you, thank you, thank you Erik for that great gift!) I’ve become ever more fascinated by what would seem to be the one single constant in the universe: time. And I’ve also been learning about celestial navigation with the purpose less so for the actual navigation abilities it gives me in a catastrophic failure of all my digital navigation on board and the use of my sextant, but more so for the development of a true working understanding of how the whole universe works in a full three dimensional way or perhaps more. I’ve had Hawking’s books for a long time but as usual I let serendipity and synchronicity determine when the call to read them will come. It came, I’m reading!

Finally on the sailing front, I was able to pick up two books which will be extremely valuable to my ongoing education about all things sailing to which I am such a complete novice.

Tropical Cruising Handbook by Mark Smaalders and Kim de Rochers

You can maybe just make this one out over in the distance on the on the far side of my cockpit table where I took the picture above. A friend had this when I was in my beloved Fiji last year and rather than be a cruising guide which I depend upon for all the local knowledge about islands, bays, inlets and the like, this one was a fabulous collection of detailed and well illustrated explanations of things like weather systems, anchoring , navigation and health and wellness in the tropics. I couldn’t put it down nor remember enough of it so I ordered a copy for myself last year and finally have it in my eager hands now.

Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia by Linda and Steve Dashew

This is one of the “bibles” of we blue water or off shore cruisers and I finally have my own copy now. I’ve become a huge fan and student of Steve and Linda and have learned so much from being a regular visitor to their setsail.com web site where their prolific writing and photography is freely available and constantly being added to as they sail the world and more recently have moved over to power boating. In all cases they have designed and built their own boats and what is so great about them is they explain every detail about each and ever decision they make in the process. Plus they are the “real deal” living aboard and sailing or powering their way around and all over the world many times over and for many many years. Now into their seventies they are still going as strong as ever, still pushing the envelop more than ever and I’m looking forward to learning even more from them within the pages of this old classic of theirs.

I will leave for another posting the MUCH longer list of books that are patiently awaiting my attention on my Kindle and end with this additional photo of my paper books. I thought I was just taking a second photo in case the first one didn’t turn out so well and zoomed out a bit as Ruby the Wonderdog decided she needed to be in the picture. But I’m putting it in here as it will give you a microcosm view of my life right now as there is so much of it in this one photo. For example if you look just behind Ruby you will see the recalcitrant oil pan you may recall from the previous posting now awaiting an adapter I need for my oxy-acetylene welder to weld in a new section of the bottom. There is my dear Ruby of course, and all of this is taken the cockpit where I am typing this up and where I spend the vast majority of my time when I’m aboard and not down in the engine room or otherwise busy with boat jobs.

So there you have it folks, the update for today from the good ship Learnativity here in the tropical NE Trades and crystal clear waters of Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Wish you were here and you do too!!

 

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LTY UPDATE: Sunday (yes again) July 25, 2010

LTY UPDATE: Day #2, sailing from Niuatoputapu Tonga to Wallis Island
Sunday, July 25th, 2010*
* Crisscrossing dateline so I'm now on my 2nd Sunday as Wallis & Futuna are UTC -11
18:00 LTY time (UTC -11) = 05:00 UTC
Location: about 75nm SE of Wallis Island
Position: 14 20.016 S, 175 20.168 W (cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)

Wind: 5-10 kts SE kts (apparent)
Seas: 1m @ 8 secs SE
Air temp: 84F 28.9C
Sea temp: 84F 28.9C
Humidity: 77%
Barometer: 1020mm
Weather: sunny, blue skies, some clouds building off to the west, sun setting

Distance traveled last 24 hours: 150nm
Distance to Wallis: 72nm
ETA Wallis: 10am Monday, July 26, 2010

SPECTACULAR SAILING & EATING AFTER A DUBIOUS START

** See photo album at  http://picasaweb.google.com/wayne.hodgins/NiuatoputapuTonga# for more pictures

Got away from Niuatoputapu as expected yesterday afternoon about 16:30 but not without a scary incident on the way out of the tricky pass. The lagoon is very good with all sandy bottom at about 35’ but the pass to come in and out is very narrow and you have to wind your way in through a very convoluted path to get through the coral of the reef. I had the track (electronic bread crumbs) from coming in which had worked well and so was following this back out expecting it to work equally well. However as I rounded the port marker where you need to make a 90 degree turn to head out through the narrow pass I suddenly went aground HARD! From 5kts to zero in an instant! Still not sure how this happened as I was within the two markers on port and starboard and what I thought was the exact path coming in, but obviously not. Thanks to good old Learnativity being very solid steel (over an inch thick at the bottom of the keel) she just backed right up when I put it in reverse, and I moved over to be as close as possible to the starboard marker and we went out fine. Stopped to dive the keel quickly once I was out, and just have some new scrapes in the new bottom paint and otherwise all was well. Whew!

Yet after this dubious start it flipped over to the other side of greatness for the rest of the trip as you are about to read. Once out in the open seas, the wind freshened up a little bit to about 10 knots out of the SE, just as forecast and part of the SE Trades that you expect to be blowing here pretty much all the time at this time of year. The winds had been up about 20 most of my stay, which was great for the wind generator and keeping my battery bank fully topped up, but the forecast was for light winds (under 10) this weekend, building gradually through the week to about 15-20 and all from the SE. This was a bit light but otherwise perfect and I’d waited to Sunday to leave in part to get the slightly higher winds as well as to get the chance to enjoy the Sunday feast with Cici, Niko and others. The timing worked out well.

With the wind out of the SE though, and my heading being NW it means that I’m sailing dead downwind which is a bit difficult for sails. But I live to learn and so I tried out a bunch of different sail setups to see what would work best. Full main and jib weren’t working too well both due to the low wind speed, now under 10 knots and it being right behind me. So I figured I had enough daylight left to get the spinnaker out for the first time this season and also try out my shiny new SS bow sprit! Took quite a while to get everything setup for the first time but eventually got the spinnaker hoisted just as the sun set and the light faded. The new bow sprit setup worked great and was worth all the work to design and build in NZ which added to how good this all felt.

However with the wind directly behind me the main was blanketing the spinnaker too much and so I took down the main and tried the spinnaker alone and that worked best of all. I’ve got what is called an asymmetric spinnaker which is meant to work well in winds from about 60 to 140 degrees (measured off the bow) so wasn’t sure how this would work or how to adjust it as I’m basically trying to get a sail to work well outside its parameters. But more experiential learning (aka trial and error) and I soon had this huge blue and white sail billowing out in front and pulling us along at 6 knots in less than 10 knots of wind. Not bad for this big heavy steel tank of mine!

And that’s been the sail plan ever since, over 26 hours now. I played around with it a bit more this morning after the sun was up to get it to pull a bit more and keep it from collapsing as the boat rolls with the swell of the following seas. The wind is a bit tricky as it crosses over to both sides of being dead downwind and goes up to as much as 10 and down to as much as 5 but I’ve got the tack and the clew lines adjusted now such that the spinnaker moves back and forth with these changes and rarely collapses and when it does it quickly recovers.

It is a thing of beauty I must tell you, to be out here in perfect weather, blue skies and a few scattered clouds, following seas, following wind and a spinnaker puffed out in front pulling LTY, Ruby and I silently through the seas at ideal speeds and motion. As if that wasn’t enough as the sun went down last night the full moon came up in these clear skies and bathed us all with its silvery beauty. And just to top it all off, the moon came up over my starboard aft corner and the small picture perfect volcanic cone of the Island of Tafahi was between us and made for a scene right out of the movies. I wallowed in that all night long as the moon made its arc over top of us and set early this morning off in the west as the sun was coming up to take its place. Can’t get much better than that right? Wrong!

As many of you know I’m big on fish eating but not so much on fishing itself. Actually I’m very much into fish catching, juts not fishing as a sport. I seem to be missing that whole sport gene completely and just don’t get the kick out of things like fishing that so many others do. But I do love learning and I do have some fishing gear and I’ve been pumping all who do catch fish to teach me more. So I finally remembered to put my fishing lure in the water about 9am this morning and about 10:30 am zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing went the line and we had ourselves a fish! It took about 15 minutes to reel it in, doing my best to remember what I’ve read and what all my fishing friends have told me but not being willing to stop sailing so we were still going along at a good clip. (poor fish!) It really was quite a site as this fish would leap out of the water every minute or so and the sun reflected brilliant greens and yellow as it arced through the air fighting as best it could to spit that darn hook out. Unfortunately for the fish and fortunately for me, the hook stayed in and as I reeled it up to the boat I could see that it was a magnificent Mahi-Mahi or Dorado or properly called (according to my book) a Dolphin fish. 80cm long though I’m not sure what the weight would be.  Guess I need to get a fish scale.  I soon had it gaffed and up on the deck as you can see.

I considered throwing him back as he was just so beautiful, but fresh Mahi was just too much to turn down and he was just the right size for me to eat so he paid the price. Out came the ice pick (to kill him quick) and a few minutes later I had two big fresh fillets on my deck. Hadn’t realized how much red blood these fish have and so I then set about cleaning off the deck and the back steps. But being the rookie I am as I was doing so a swell rolled us and I paid back some tax to mother nature and stupidity as one of the fillets and my deck brush went back to the sea! Given that I was now down one half a fish and had lots of room in my freezer I put the hook back out and about 2pm the line really went off. This was a MUCH bigger fish and after about 15 minutes he succeeded in getting rid of the hook, which was probably just as well as it would likely have been more than I could eat. I didn't lose my lure though and still had one half a great fish and it alone yielded some super fresh sushi for an impromptu lunch and 6 good sized fillets, one of which I’m about to go cook up in a few minutes as soon as I finish typing this up and sending it. Making this a completely local diner, with thanks to Cici and Niko, I’ve also got fresh papaya, tapioca root and breadfruit to go with my fresh fish diner tonight as well.

And to top it all off, and I even have some bread pudding for dessert! Back in Niuatoputapu I had some bread that was going stale and remember my Mom’s bread pudding being so delicious as a boy, so out came the Joy of Cooking and I soon had a pan full of bread pudding with some dried cranberries, apricots and figs I had around. Delicious and just as I remembered. Thanks Mom!

No internet connection good enough for pictures tonight (since added while in Wallis) but picture me out on the deck, under the full moon that is just now up in full glory after a great sunset, eating this completely local, completely delicious diner. Wish you were here!

Night for now.

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

Posted via email from Learnativity

Fixing the Boom with Serendipity & Great People

As you may recall if you’ve been reading the daily LTY Updates, the aluminum joint which attaches the boom to the mast snapped off on the way to Niue and fixing this turned into yet another story to add to many others where serendipity gets involved and helps turn a problem into a great experience. 

If you look closely in the photo on the left here, you can see the broken aluminum part at the very base of the boom (large silver casing with FurlBoom on it), just in front of the black strap that was was part of my emergency lashing, along with the red spinnaker halyard you can see holding the boom up.  You can also see how the main sail furls or rolls up into the boom as it wraps around the inner mandrel or shaft in the center.  The boom has also slid about 25cm/10” back in this photo which is also a problem because this pulled out a short shaft that is attached to the far aft end of the boom and slides inside a bushing in the end of the mandrel that lets is turn freely.  With the shaft pulled out of the bushing, the aft end of the sail and mandrel are just flopping around loose inside the boom.  Not a good thing.

I spent several hour creating a system of webbing tie down ratchets that I used along with the vang (strut that helps hold boom up and runs diagonally from base of mast to 1/3 back on boom) to pull the boom forward little by little.  The tricky part was to get that short shaft (about 8”/20cm) back into the bushing.  I needed to elevate the rolled up sail and mandrel to jus the right height to align with the shaft, get the shaft just started into the bushing and keep it there while I pulled the boom forward with the ratchets.  Oh, and did I mention that I’m sitting straddling  the aft end of the boom, riding it like a not too well broken in horse as the boat is heeled well over in about 30 knots of wind and 3-4m waves?  But after many tries and by holding my tongue just the right way I was finally able to get the shaft back in and pull the boom the rest of the rest of the way forward to where it is supposed to be as in this picture on the right.  I was then able to use the tie down ratchets to keep the boom in position sideways and we were soon back to sailing again!

I then Emailed ahead to the Niue Yacht Club, which they fondly call "The Biggest Little Yacht Club in the World" and to which I am now a proud member, and let them know about my impending arrival and to ask if they had any aluminum welding equipment on the island to fix the broken boom fitting.  Murphy’s Law was in full force as I have welders on board but of course only for steel and stainless steel, but not aluminum, as I have very little aluminum on Learnativity, other than the mast and boom. Commodore Keith was very prompt in getting back to me and we Emailed back and forth as he worked on finding some options to fix the fitting.   They did indeed have a welder on the island capable of welding aluminum and Keith was able to track down Graham, the island’s welder.  Unfortunately Graham said his AL welder was broken but there was another one on the island that he thought I could use, so I left it at that and waited till I got to Niue to figure it out. 

The sail and boom were working quite well and I would be able to get over to Tonga where there are much better facilities if I wasn’t able to weld the fitting in Niue, and I had a plan in mind to use some stainless cable I have to secure the boom fitting better if needed.  But as soon as I went ashore to check in, there was Keith waiting at the landing in his car, and he whisked me away to Customs and Immigration and then off to see Graham.  Turns out Graham had been able to fix his welder with parts he had ordered long ago and never got around to using and because he now had another job on the other side of the island that he had to look after the next day. 

Great news!  But I needed to get the parts to Graham ASAP as he had to weld them today as he would be gone the rest of the week on the other job.  So back to LTY I dashed and set about removing the aluminum casting on the mast end of the boom where the two tabs had broken off.  The long SS bolts holding the AL casting to the boom were not easy to get off, aluminum and SS don’t get along well, but my faithful impact screw driver (one of THE best tools I have) and a small sledge hammer to run it got 7 of the 8 bolts out and I only had to drill out one of them.  You can see the casting successfully off the boom in the photo above right and I then radioed Keith to let him know I had all the parts ready to go. 

I headed back ashore in the dingy where Ernie, one of the island elders and NYC “Admiral” picked me up and took me straight over to Graham’s house.  We plotted out the best way to do the repair and within a few hours the two broken tabs were fully welded back in place with lots of extra aluminum built up to brace them further.  Welding aluminum castings is always very iffy as you never know what combination of alloys have been used but you can usually tell a lot by how well the new aluminum welding rod melts into the old casting material and in this case it seems to look quite good and I am full of my usual optimism and faith that this repair will hold for the several months it will likely take to get a new part shipped in to me.

 

Soon after the boom had broken I had also been in touch with my faithful friend John to discuss options and give him all the details so he could contact people at FurlBoom, the manufacturer, to get their advice and see if they could supply a new part.  Dougall at FurlBoom in Costa Mesa who I had worked with when I ordered the boom and picked it up (see 2007 post for details and pictures on that), got back to us immediately on Email and he was extremely helpful and immediately offered to have a new part prepped and shipped to John, all free of charge. 

As Dougall, John and I discussed this further I told him about my concerns for the design of this casting from the beginning and a new improved design I had been working on with John.  As it turned out FurlBoom had made up a boom for a large catamaran which has quite high lateral forces on the boom and for this they had built a special modified version of the gooseneck fitting using a new stainless part for the two tabs that had broken on mine and this design was almost identical to what John and I were preparing to fabricate!  Dougall said he would have one of these new ones made up and would be able to get that sent to John within a week, no charge.  Great service and only adds to my appreciation of deciding to go with both an in boom furling system and this one from FurlBoom.  I can’t imagine sailing, especially single handed, without this kind of a setup which along with all the other modifications to my running rigging let’s me manage all my sails, lines and controls from my cockpit.

Now I just need to figure out a way to get the new boom fitting to me and I’m working on convincing John that he needs to hand deliver it at an upcoming fun destination so I’ll keep you informed as to how that goes.  For now I’m quite confident with the repaired casting and I’ve got alternatives I can use even if it breaks again that will let me keep sailing for the next few months until I can get the new casting delivered and installed.

And so yet again, what could have/should have been a very big problem turns into yet another great experience and story to add to Wayne’s charmed life.  I don’t try to understand such things I just put all my trust and faith into serendipity and synchronicity and use these as my strategy and guides in life as they have sure worked fantastically well so far. 

Stay tuned for more I’m sure and hope you enjoyed this latest saga.  We now rejoin regular broadcasting from the good ship Learnativity with Wayne and Ruby the Wonderdog!