The Swan Passage: Episode III

The much anticipated final episode of the Good Ship Evening Star trilogy has finally arrived. To recap events leading up to Evening Star III - Captain Dark and the First Mate Jimmy have set out on a voyage to deliver the Good Ship Evening Star from Savusavu, Fiji to the Port of Bundaberg, Australia. Along the way they encounter glass seas, fierce winds, and wash machine seas. Nearly 7 days at sea the ship nears the French Island Territory of New Caledonia just as an unforeseen circumstance comes to play.

Parts One and Two of the trilogy can be viewed in the previous entry.

P L A Y video "Evening Star III" 04:25

The Swan Passage

The month of June brought about the swan voyage of the good ship Evening Star, a 45' trimaran. The vessel was moored in the port of Savusavu, Fiji Islands and needed to be delivered to Bundaberg, Australia. Our journey was to be the last passage for her Captain as the boat is going up for sale. It would also be the last passage for her Crew, as James momentarily departs from his swashbuckling ways to make studies at the University of Hawai'i.

The crew included James "Jimmy" and Bob "Captain Dark." Together we would sail just under 2000 miles non-stop to our port in the Land Down Under. The conditions idealic. The Southeast trade winds would push Evening Star all the way to Australia as we sat back and watched the world go by. Our biggest concerns would be the wind and what to eat. Ticking away the days we would find life aboard to go buy very easily. We would talk about women, the weather, and food. We would watch the stars each night and the swells in the day. Though sometimes just when things are perfect a bada-bing, bada-bang, bada-boom sneaks around the corner. Afterall, the best laid plans of mice and men of times gang aft aglay.

The following collection of videos tell the story of Evening Star's Swan Passage. Please click on the link below to view part one: "Never begin a passage on a Friday"

PLAY Video "Part I" (.mp4/18Mb)

Part II "An Unlucky Circumstance" has arrived - stay tuned for the final episode in the trilogy.

PLAY Video "Part II (.mp4/6.7Mb)

iQoliqoli Management

At the beginning of the year I had the opportunity to work with a Conservation Society in Fiji. The organization is working with communities on Vanua Levu (second largest Fiji Island) to educate and collaborate on ways to preserve near shore reef systems. As it is, Fiji is extremely fortunate to have mostly healthy coral reef systems unlike many other places in the World. Thus, the work was based on preservation rather than nursing the ecosystem back to health. Below is a short clip of Ratu Ravulolo, the highest chief of the Kubulau District speaking of the neccessity for protecting their iqoliqoli (n-gollie-gollie). This is a defined fishing ground that is governed and cared for by the people of the District. The fishing ground is a source of income mainly through Eco-Tourism. The Kubulau People declared a marine protected area within their iqoliqoli which means no fishing and has thus has fostered an abundance of marine life making it a hot spot for dive tourism. As it stands today, anyone wanting to dive in the Marine Protected Area must first pay a small fee before the diving. The money then goes to scholarships to send children from the district to school and even University.

PLAY Video "Ratu Ravulolo" (.mp4/5.2Mb)

The Star Reach Conclusion

Dear Swashbuckler Fans,

As some of you may know and others not as much, I began my swashbuckling ways aboard the sailing yacht Star Reach. It brought me to Savusavu, Fiji where I unknowingly pursued how to be a Fijian. Walk slowly on the street, eat plenty of dalo, fish, and pineapple, hold my own in grog fund raisers, smile, bula shirts, and love rugby sevens are just some of the bits that consumed me, not to mention Fiji Bitter. I departed Fiji in late November aboard Star Reach for Auckland, New Zealand. It was a 10 day sail, and along the way many interesting things occured which I can't possibly share. However, I would like to share with you a small part of the journey in the following video clip. It was an excellent sail with two very fine individuals.


PLAY video "s/y Star Reach" (.mp4/13.3Mb)

Fly Guys

There are those of us in the world who swat, spray, smack, and even stick those pesky buzzing insects we call flies. They love to prance on our freshly laid picnics, perch on our bare feet, and even sometimes take a bite of our tender flesh. Yet, there are a few in the world with a passion for such small creatures. Their sole job is to collect, classify, and understand the behavior of the fly. They travel the world from the jungles of Brazil to the islands of the Pacific in search of new flies. Recently, some fly guys visited Fiji and invited me to join them for a morning of fly collecting high in the mountain rainforest. The result of their visit was the identification of some 40 new fly species and one that is only found on continents, suggesting Fiji separated from a continent millions of years ago.

I invite you to take a look at a moment in the life of a fly collector. As you will see it requires excellent vision, a quick hand on the fly net, and lasting patience. Sometimes though other bugs are discovered - check out this newly discovered spider.

PLAY FlyGuys Video (.mp4/12.7MB)
PLAY Spider Video (.mp4/7MB)

Hassling the Hoff

On a casual Sunday afternoon stroll leading to the Maritime Museum I bumped into the professional American entertainer, David Hasselhoff. For those of you new to the name, he's the dude from the popular television series, Baywatch. I was particularly surprised to have had this occasion as he's plastered all over Australia on Pepsi Cola billboards. A massive celebrity in Australia, David Hasselhoff is one not to be missed.

Some Background:
Below is a rough cut of Dave's appearance for a local Sydney radio station promotion. At the time of the recording Sydney was experiencing some racial riots at a nearby beach between European Aussies and Immigrant Lebanese. This temporarily resulted in the closure of some beaches. Also included are three girls contesting for the Pamela Anderson titty run. There was a competition for the guys as well though filming became impossible.

PLAY video (.mp4 / 9.2MB)

Dreaming of a White Christmas

An ozzie christmas is something to be experienced at least once for the northern hemisphere folk. Barbies (grilling out), beverages, and the beach are the key ingredients for a Merry Christmas. Being new to this experience my three flat mates and I decided to join in on the holiday cheer, pack the bags, and head for the beach. The following video is a rough attempt to wish all our friends and family a Merry Christmas.

PLAY video (9.5Mb/.mov)

Fiji Flashbacks

After being in Australia for just over a week now and continuously finding similarities with the US – I feel very much at home. Twenty-four hour convenience stores, hurried walkers on the sidewalks, high speed internet, Star Bucks, Subway, The Simpsons, Greyhound Bus lines: what more could an Ohio traveler want? Coming from Fiji where wearing shoes are optional in the stores to the bright light high rises of Sydney is night and day. But before moving onto Australia, I’d like to share two videos of moments in Fiji. One of my favorites was an invitation for lunch in Kubalau (Koom-bal-au). It was a hot day – the kind where the air sticks to everything. Resting under a Frangipani tree, the cook invited me over to the kitchen to see the food being prepared. On the wood table rested a plastic bag with the creepy contents of what would become our meal. In the wild, the creatures can be spotted with their one massive eye just popping from the sand and are then plucked from their home. Properly prepared they have a rubbery chewy quality yet quite refreshing with lime, salt, and pepper they are truly a village treat.

I’ll keep you in suspense rather than identify the afternoon snack! Unless of course you may know.

Another favorite moment was mingling about town on Saturday mornings. The sidewalks, shops, and market of Savusavu are bustling with activity as everyone is coming in from the villages to sell dalo, yanqona, bananas, papayas, mangos, fish and to buy kerosene, bread, canned fish, Maggi noodles, and ice cream. The weekly pilgrimage also serves as an opportunity to get news of friends and family members living in other villages and by mid-afternoon folks have taken their respective buses back home. The video selected for this topic is a walk down the main street and then back again ending at my favorite ice cream shop, Charan’s Milk Bar.


PLAY "Lunch" video (.mov/4Mb)

PLAY "Saturday Stroll" video (.mp4/13.7Mb)

The Match

A Saturday Afternoon at Savusavu Stadium – do it yourself concession stands where orange drink is mixed and sold from previously used Coke bottles, invisible trash containers, toads fleeing the playing field for refuge amongst the spectators, super fans of all ages everywhere, and the occasional resort bus dropping high paying guests for pictures of the day’s excitement. This is rugby, the pinnacle of triumph. Rugby is a religion in Fiji where every village has a finely tuned team. Preparation takes on physical, mental and spiritual components all while having the full support of the village, family and friends.

We are about to go behind the scenes of the Vivili Village Tigers rugby team as they prepare for a match against Waivunia Village. The Vivilli Tigers challenged Waivunia for the Shield, a highly coveted prize. However, this is more than a challenge for a prize but a match against relatives. Both villages are neighbors and at a time in the past these two teams were one. As the team grew they split, and are now both very competitive. This match resulted in a final score of 17-3.

Now to see what rugby is all about in Fiji…

PLAY Part I (7.8Mb .mov)

PLAY Part II (15.4Mb .mov) Updated 11-07-05

A Moorish Sail

It’s bad luck for a sailor to begin a passage on a Friday. Rooted in maritime history, the source of where such superstitions stem is of little concern as sailors will take any and all such ideas as an invaluable contribution to getting to the next port in the safest and quickest means possible. I recently worked a delivery trip to the Island of Futuna, considered some of the most remote islands in the South Pacific. The Futuna island group is nearly 240nm north of the Fiji Islands (1 nautical mile = 6,076 ft) (1 mile = 5,280 ft). We only spent two hours on Futuna before taking off for Fiji again. It was a short visit but nonetheless left impressions. The pace of life is slow. Take the lifestyle of Southern France and slow it down even more in a Pacific setting. There you have it. And the people, Polynesian despite being located in Melanesia, speak French that even I understand unlike those posh Parisians. The trip was a huge success and the weather couldn’t have been better – waking up at 04:30 Saturday morning to set sail was worth while rather than departing Friday and facing bad luck. The name of the yacht is Apagee, a 42’ sloop, and quite nice. Curly, the local harbor master, dive master, weather and radio guru and all around legend to cruisers coming into Savusavu, skippered the five day round trip while I crewed. We had a blast deciphering each other’s New Zealand and American English words. For example one would use the word “Moorish” to describe the addicting nature of say a cookie or potato chip. I thought he was referring to the Moors of Islam.

The sailing was close to being exceptional and the seas rather moderate if not gentle, and thus we were constantly tuning the sheets to obtain maximum performance around the clock. The film documenting the voyage will be posted in sections as there are connection speed issues on this end. In the meantime enjoy part 1.


PLAY Part I (12MB .mov)

PLAY Part II (13MB .mov) - Posted Oct 20 - 05

A trip to the Wallis and Futuna Islands: The bureaucracy of yachting.

A yachtie is more than just a sailor, seaman, or old salt but also a student of international relations. As the wind and fish are free at sea going to a port is not. Let me digress into the basics of international sailing.

There are two key terms to understanding the yactie’s bicameral world – offshore and shore. Offshore denotes the open ocean, international waters, where the ability of one government, state, or country to exercise its sovereignty simply does not exist. Thus, people can do all kinds of crazy stuff in the open ocean – like sell their yacht to evade excessive tax or even attempt to clone human beings. The other term is shore or inland waters. Rivers, lakes, bays, channels are all considered inland waters. As a matter of fact, inland water can be just about anything. Fiji is made up of over 300 islands and all the water between and surrounding could be considered inland for our purposes. Inland waters are governed by a country and thus laws can vary greatly depending on the country.

Typically the yactie is unconcerned about the legality of sailing through a large island group such as Fiji. However, if the yachtie wishes to stop and stretch their legs on a virgin beach for a few days or perhaps go into town for a loaf of bread, then that’s a different story. The yacht must first sail to a city that’s designated as a “port of entry” within the country. Here a customs, immigration, and quarantine officer check the crew and yacht. Again it varies depending on the country, but typically the Captain pays a fee to the officials and then receives a paper indicating the duration the vessel can remain in the country’s waters. This again varies – in Fiji it’s 12 months and then you must leave or pay incredible fines and even risk the boat to confiscation.

Some adventurous spirited sailors come to Savusavu and are pulled into its contagious charm. They live here on their yacht moored along the shore for years, paying only the minimal mooring fee, and basic living costs. But how do they do this and not pay
enormous fines to the Fiji Government? My friends, it’s called sailing to Wallis and Futuna once a year, a French territory some 300 miles north of the Fiji group. That’s a 5 day round trip sail. You see, once a yacht “checks out” of a port of entry – they are considered an international bound vessel and the regulations are no longer effective. In order to return, the vessel must sail to a different country, check-in and out, and then it can come back to our enchanting Savusavu or another port of entry. Not bad eh! It’s the quick and dirty way to maintain a residence in what many consider paradise. It gets better friends. Some yacht owners have thrown in the towel when it comes to actually sailing the vessel and instead hire a captain and crew to take the yacht out of the country and back again. This is a brilliant idea for us crew who love to sail and Captain’s who love deep-sea fishing.

So to the sea again – I’ll be crewing aboard a sloop called Apage, with a very experienced Captain by the name of Curly. You guessed it! We’re going to Futuna and back. Apage’s owners are busy at the moment and the clock is up on the vessel’s stay. It should be good fun. Look for part two “The Voyage” to be out near the end of September. I would also like to thank those who’ve submitted comments and suggestions about what they’d like to see. Please feel free to make requests and I’ll do my best to tell the story. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the following nonsense video. Just a bit of clean beach fun!

Click to play beach video


LINK has been fixed. Thanks for the heads up!

Navakaka

An hour bus ride on an orange clay road, myself Bob and Eronny find our way to Navakaka village on a Sunday afternoon. We wanted out of town - Cabin Fever was setting in and I needed a change of pace.

The village Navakaka has a population of roughly 100 and just 1 telephone. Kids, dogs, and chickens roam the village along the paths connecting homes and dalo fields. Electricity is by a diesel generator that runs daily 6pm-10pm. My first impressions were - the "garden of eden" might have looked something like this - camping with my family as a kid at Indian Lake State Park- and simplicity.
Play Village Video

s/v Star Reach

Home sweet home! Star Reach is a sailing vessel 46 ft in length and nearly 20 tons. It's a BIG boat that takes four sails to get things moving. Though, when there's no wind we power on the diesel engine to move about. The big blue canvas is called a binimi, which shades the cabin and cockpit from the tropical sun. We've been working everyday to get her ship shape for a potential buyer. That's right! Star Reach is for sale and unfortunately I don't have enough money to buy her! But I do get to enjoy living aboard and learning all about celestial navigation, electricity, plumbing, cooking, engine repair, and so on. So take a look at the movie to see what it's like.

Play Part 1

Play Part 2

Savusavu, Fiji Islands

Living on a 46' yacht here in Savusavu with my friends Dan and Mary Ann. You may remember the famous couple as we sailed from the Marshall Islands to Fiji from last summer. We're living in the small harbor shown in the picture. Our boat is the blue one. Do you see it? And for those who love looking at pics - can you find the airport? By the way - that town is Savusavu, second largest on the island.

Pasadena CA

It's hot here in lovely southern california. In and Out Burgers are live and well and absolutely delicious. Otherwise, there really isn't anything else inspiring to say about the area - at least for the moment.

Click here to see a video
I made on the new camera. I'm hoping to get some feedback about the quality, etc before setting out on the big blue.