Fenix in Panama

[fenixrises]

Hi John,

The reason you cannot download any videos is because I have not uploaded any as yet.

Started to explore on my own today. Went downtown to pay the quarantine fee this AM. Found the phone exchange so made a couple of calls stateside. And am now on thier internet comp.

Spent some time wandering around and will do so more this PM. Very interesting town is Suva. What a mix of cultures. Fijian, Indian and a bit of Chinese thrown in. The people seem very pleasant and friendly. It is fun looking in all the different little shops, especially those geared toward the Indian people.

Since Suva is a large city it has many modern things. Cell phones, internet and American fast food, McDonald's, KFC are two. To me the real interest is the native.

I will not be here long enough to do much island hopping but I can see where it would be possible to spend months in the Fiji group. It is quite large with over 300 islands, lots of lagoons for diving and reefs for exploring. Many areas are not inhabited.

Take care,
Fred

[Warren Kaplan]

Fred

If you can read this, I hope all is well with you. Might you be planning and early departure from Suva??


Fiji coup fears prompt travel warning Sat Nov 4, 9:10 AM ET



Britain has advised its citizens against all but essential travel to the Fijian capital Suva because of tensions between the government and the military and fears of a coup.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London said on its Travel Advice website that the security situation in Fiji, although currently calm, could worsen at short notice.

Britons should exercise caution, particularly in urban areas, and stay clear from military and political rallies as well as large crowds, it added.

The FCO advice follows warnings given to Australians and New Zealanders by their respective governments.

The situation was sparked by an ultimatum from Fiji's military commander Voreqe Bainimarama for Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's government to resign during November because of plans to offer amnesties to plotters in a 2000 coup.

Police have said they may charge Bainimarama -- who returned to the South Pacific Ocean island chain from the Middle East Saturday -- with sedition.




Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.


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[fenixrises]

Hi all,

For the most part it seems to be much ado about nothing. Mostly another case of the press running off at the mouth and generating a lot of newspaper sales when nothing is really happening.

I am leaving in about 2-3 days for NZ only because it is time to head out of the cyclone area. Should be arriving NZ around Thanksgiving.

Take care all,
Fred

[fenixrises]

Hi all,

Had a good sail down from Suva to NZ.

Quite a mixture of conditions and temperature range.

Left Suva on the 9th of Nov in the morning. Started out with light wind and seas from the NE. After a full day we had only gone about 75 miles. The morning of the second day the wind went light and then stopped. So powered for about 3 hours as the wind filled in from the SW. By noon we were off and sailing.

With the new wind came clouds. It was overcast for much of the next 4 days. After the wind went ESE it was good sailing though boisterous as the trades were strong. We made good progress and the wind slowly went north and got a bit lighter.

I then had 3 very fine days of sailing DDW in 12-15 knots under mostly clear sunny skys. The temperature was slowly dropping as I headed south.

Two days out from NZ I had a night of strong N wind. Fenix was flying along under Genoa and poled staysail making 99 miles in 16 hours. Shortly after sunrise the wind increased and the weather started getting squally. I dropped the Genoa and continued under staysail alone.

The wind and seas really started to pick up in the late morning and early afternoon. There was some kind of convergance zone passing by. I was seeing 35 knot gusts at times and the biggest waves of the entire trip, up to 15 feet. Fortunately this only lasted for a few hours. But it also brought a shift in the wind to the west. Not good news for me.

The last night out the sky was very clear and it was cold!! Down around the high 50's and 20 knots, brrrrrr. Especially after 6 months in the tropics.

The wind continued to back on me and was finally WSW, a real bear and almost on the nose. I did make it to the entrance of Whangarei harbor by 4 PM. Had to motor sail in as the passage through the harbor is very convoluted with a narrow channel.

Finally made it to the customs dock just before dark. The Kiwi's made checking in short and pleasant, really great folks. By now I was pretty bushed so spent the night at the customs dock.

The next morning I powered another couple of miles into the harbor and found the Whangarei Marina complex. Once again very good folks. Made checking in easy and they were very helpful.

So here I am for the next 3 months or so. I have a number of repairs to do. Torn sail, new prop shaft, a couple of new cushions and etc.

After slightly over 10,000 miles and six months it is nice to be back in civilization again.

Take care,
Fred

[Warren Kaplan]

BRAVO

I don't know what I'm gonna do with you not sailing for the next 3 months. I'm hopelessly hooked on this saga!

[Warren Kaplan]

Fred,

Might you tell us what the plans are for the rest of your trip??

[Joe CD MS 300]

Fred,

There was a discussion a while back on the use of sextants, GPS, chartplotters, etc. What navigation equipment do you have on board? How frequently do you use the sextant vs. GPS? What situations do you favor one over the other?

Joe

[Dick Barthel]

I've got a feeling that this thread is going to shatter the existing record for "views" and for good reason.

[fenixrises]

Hi all,

To Warren:

Generally my plans for next year are to go to Australia and up the east coast via the Great Barrier Reef. Through the Torres Straights to Durbin then north to Thailand. All of this of course is subject to change and whims of the moment or the future.

Right now I have a list of projects:

Possible sail repair. Took the drifter to a sail maker today. He will look at it and make a recommendation. Initially it looks like a new or a new used drifter is in Fenix's future as the fabric of the old sail is pretty fragile from age and use. I bought it used on e-Bay.
Also need some chafe patches and new hanks on other sails now that the boat has been out a while.

New prop shaft. I still have the original but it is very worn at the stuffing area and leaks too much even with new packing.

A new dingy. the one I built is a fine dink. It rows easily, isn't too heavy and fits the boat. BUT, It is too tender, has too much rocker so the small outboard I have overpowers it. Therefore a new, much flatter bottomed, less rockered, hopefully 9' dink is in my mind. Still two piece.

I need to repaint the non-skid and possibly some of the interior.

I want two new cushions for the q-berths. I now have the original foam and that's wore out.

Now that I have started to learn to sail the boat pretty well
I can get the selfsteering to work. BUT, since I tend to push the boat hard I am thinking about building an auxiliary rudder w/ trimtab similar to the one I built for my last boat. This allows setting more weather helm with the main rudder and letting the auxiliary steer the boat. This is often needed to keep the boat speed up around 6 knots.

I need to repair the small dings below the waterline from my coral encounters.

To Joe:

Before I left I bought a new small depth sounder that goes to 600'. I like this as there was often a hundred fathom line on charts. Now many charts are in meters, but the same idea applies. Of course in much of the Pacific the water gets very deep very fast.

I bought new paper charts to do cicumnavigation. The charts are not small scale detail charts but geneeral planning type charts. I thought cruising guides when available would suppliment the charts quite well. This has worked OK so far, except for my unplanned stop in Jamaica.

Fortunately a slip mate in FLA gave me a copy of Tsunami a charting program that runs on a laptop. The program contained a detailed harbor chart for Kingston. Since then I have also been gifted a copy of C-Maps. This looks to be as good and sometimes better than Tsunami.

I have two sextants. A good metal one and one plastic. I know how to use one and did in fact navigate from Taiwan to the Marshall Islands in the mid-80's by sextant. They are both sitting snug and secure in their storage boxes in my storage shed in FLA.

These days its GPS please. Easy, cheap, reliable, accurate and fast. I have two identical units, one is a backup. They are Garmin E-Trex units, about the size of a cell phone and run for hours on two AA batteries. The one I bought, in 2004, for the purchase trip is still in use and has performed flawlessly.

I bought a used Icom 718 and SGC auto tuner on E-Bay.

I use a piece of #12 wire run up the mast with a small halyard as an antenna.

My ground plane is aluminum foil tape, made for A/C duct work(Adhesive on one side and available from Home Depot for about $15 a roll.) This is tied into my stantion bases and pulpits, hence the lifelines and run under the deck BUT not tied to the rigging. This system is similar to what I used on my last boat. In practice it works very well.

I took out the copper bonding wire that was installed in the boat and the dyna-plate.

I often get signal reports of 5-9 using only 40 watts transmission power. I talked to my friend AL when he was just a few hundred miles off the Calif. coast and I was on the way to AS. Just as an experiment I turned the power down to 10 watts and he could still hear me clearly although not loudly. Propagation more than power determines your ability to communicate.

I use the VHF that came with the boat with a mast head antenna, a Horizon Maxi if memeory serves.


I do not have radar or SSB or anything else for that matter.

My motto: Keep it simple, strong and cheap.

Take care,
Fred

[Joe CD MS 300]

Thanks Fred,

I was a little surprised about your sextant comment, not that I disagree with you (although I'm not really qualified to have one in the context of world cruising). Would have expected that you would have been on the "old school" side of the GPS / Sextant argument. Kind of funny to hear that the sextants are back home in the shed. Some of the old schoolers probably won't agree with you.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving

Joe

[fenixrises]

Hi Joe,

On my last trip(1992-3) I carried my sextants as a backup to the GPS. At that time GPS was still expensive, $900 for the unit I had, so I did not have a second GPS.

The sextants rode in their boxes for the entire trip. I used the metal one once in Suvarov to show someone how to do a sight.

BTW I am not "old school" when it comes to most things, certainly not sailing. Yep, give me dacron sails and stainless rigging and fiberglass boats. I would have more stuff and a bigger boat if I could afford it and could handle it.

Now GPS's are so good and so cheap, my backup cost $85 from Walmart, I can see no reason to carry a sextant. The Nautcal Almanac costs about $50 and you need a new one every year. I wouldn't spend that much on batteries for the GPS for the whole trip.

My biggest concern if GPS goes down is dodging the airplanes that will be falling out of the sky when they run out of fuel looking for landing sites.

Take care,
Fred

[Didereaux]

[post moved to discussion of GPS/sextant thread]

It really didn't belong here in the voyage one, even I recognized this after having read it. heh

Happy Dead Bird Day Fred and all!

[Dick Barthel]

[quote="Didereaux"]ALL computer chips are highly susceptable to strong electromagnetic fields...and yet I decide to leve all non-electronic backups at home. Sorry, that just ain't prudent....sorta follows along with refitting a spade rudder onto a full keeled boat for off-shore or using Wal-Mart blem tires on your NASCAR racer. /quote]

Did:

All would not be lost because Fred would still have his compass which I think preceded the astrolabe/sextant in history.

Dick


Horace had the likes of Fred in mind when he penned:

Oak and triple bronze must have girded the breast of him
who first committed his frail bark to the angry sea - Odes

[Sandy D.]

Hey Fred,
I wanted to give you a shout and say thanks for taking the time to post updates. The videos ROCK!! Be safe.

FairWinds
-Sandy

[Joe CD MS 300]

My point is this, you could stash 101 GPS units all over the boat and if you get a lightening strike the memory chips and processor chips are toast...period!

I don't think that the probability of all non hardwired electronics getting fried is anywhere near 100%. Actually, from my reading it is actually very remote. The far greater risk seems to be with hardwired electronics. I was surprised to learn that on average every commercial airplane is hit by lightning once a year (anyone have their cell phone fried on an airplane?) and that the space shuttle gets hit on its launch pad without any ill effects on its on board electronics. Many boats are also hit at the dock with out all their electronics getting fried. Whats the probability? 1 in a million, one in a thousand? one in 10 million? who knows?

The nice thing is we all get the chance to decide what we want to worry about. Since I don't have any ocean voyages planed this is one I don't need to worry about.