May 4 , 2005 - BEAT BACK OR CARRY ON ROUND?
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

	Wallis Island...Where pigs are king!

Whether to beat back to windward or to carry on round the world is a decision many of the South Pacific cruising community face somewhere along the line - unless they can afford a delivery crew or a piggy-back transport, that is. A good many cruisers choose to complete their circumnavigation. Others, for reasons of time, taste, or commitments decide to sail back. No matter how good an upwind vessel they have, the long bash to weather takes stamina, good hatch seals, a relaxed attitude, reliable self-steering, back-ups for most everything and strategically placed 12-volt fans. A cast iron stomach helps.

The route to take is a matter of debate. Rhumb line, or one of the classic sailing ship routes? Decisions are various, partly dependent on the time of year undertaken, the amount of time available, the windward capabilities of boat and crew, the destination. A few choose to sail non-stop. A couple we know has made seventeen Pacific delivery trips, mainly back to the US from various countries and island groups over the past several years. They usually choose to go on as direct a route as possible in boats large or small, well-found or less than perfect, taking with them a third crew member to share watch-keeping - even a fourth when there is no self-steering. Others find that the stopovers they make on the less traveled return journey are often more fascinating than those they'd visited on the downwind run.

To help make windward sailing less of a tacking battle, plenty of time is high on our priority list. We noticed over the years, steering with wind vane, that tradewinds have a habit of swinging in direction in rhythmic wave-like patterns as the days go by, so much so that some islands have separate names for tradewinds from slightly different compass points. When we set forth, we wanted to wait until the trades had swung so that we could more or less make our heading, then maintain our course as close to the wind as was comfortable as the wind swung, not easing up when we had the chance. With luck, we reckoned, we could make our destination on one tack. This is the ploy we took when we headed back.

In 1983 we chose to island hop from Fiji via Wallis, Canton and Palmyra to Hawaii, averaging less than a week for each leg - anywhere from less than three to slightly more than eight days in ascending order. This we accomplished more or less on one tack except for a brief dogleg to miss rocks when leaving Canton, and an overnight power leg approaching Palmyra. As it turned out, we spent three weeks at each island waiting for a favorable wind slant and a breeze of adequate or comfortable velocity.

Vanua Levu, Fiji...LPG tanker on reef.

Granted, a good part of our luck was just that - plain good luck. It was a year of relatively light trades. It was an odd time of year to be doing it. After crossing Bligh waters from Viti Levu, we gently explored the tricky channels of Vanua Levu, where we encountered an LPG tanker stranded on the reef (until they lightened ship in the middle of the night). We jumped off from northeastern Fiji at the end of October. As the southern hemisphere hurricane season begins, the northern hurricane season ends, we reckoned, though we were aware that the hurricane gods may not necessarily have had the same storm track maps we had. At any rate it worked for us. We enjoyed exploring and fossicking about first on Wallis, then Canton and then Palmyra, totally different island stopovers.

In Wallis, "where pigs are king", each free-roaming animal recognizes its own feed time signal - more often than not a saucepan banging, one of the first sounds we were to hear upon entering the lagoon by the seldom-used western pass. We hitchhiked across to clear customs and get permission to land our Honda 90 motorcycle, then explored the island for a week or two on wheels before venturing through the lagoon and over the top, zigzagging to dodge coral patches with Michel on the spreaders, the sun high and behind us. We traveled during midday hours only, anchored the rest of the time. It took two days to make what we had been assured by locals was an impossible trip. We wouldn't have attempted it had we not known of another yacht that had done so. We never touched coral once. We spent another week in the main anchorage off the port, before pushing on toward Canton.

	Canton...One of the revived vehicles.

Canton is an island with a varied past - whalers' refuge, source of guano, refueling station shared by British and American trans-Pacific flying boat flights, WWII R&R base housing hundreds of service men, and later a missile tracking station, to mention just a few of its storied lives. It was mind-boggling to see what was left behind, everything from typewriter ribbons to drums of dioxin. When we visited, there were five Kiribati functionaries with their families living in the deserted American officers' houses, but cooking out of doors. Every day they brought us fresh-caught fish and crayfish. Every few days Michel got a vehicle running for them. He fixed each household up with a freshly filled 12-volt battery from one of the warehouses, and a 12-volt light bulb from our ship's supplies. And so passed three weeks before the right weather arrived for us to lay our course toward Palmyra.

Palmyra...Only two yachts.

There was no one in residence on Palmyra, and just one other boat with a Honolulu cruising couple who'd been there several times before. They were wonderful guides and tale spinners, and it was great fun celebrating Christmas and going on explorations with them. Otherwise it might have been spooky on our own, considering the atoll's grisly history. Indeed, when they left before us and we were indeed on our own, we couldn't help but dwell on the feelings of Mac and Muff Graham, who had lost their lives there not many years before.

When we arrived in Honolulu Magic Dragon was easily recognized by several old acquaintances who showered us with gifts of fresh bread and milk, fruit and wine. We were fascinated to see the many changes since our last visit there twenty years previously.

	Honolulu...contrast!

We crossed from Honolulu to Southern California in early February, tacking back and forth every two or three days - north until the wind got too strong, then south until it got too weak, praying that one of the horrifyingly deep and extensive winter lows wouldn't break through the protective high to clobber us. Our luck held. It was an uneventful 21-day trip. Nevertheless, we two were exhausted upon arrival in Newport Beach after an unrelenting windward passage (except for the final few days). After a good rest and a general DIY refit, including an engine rebuild, porthole plexi replacement and numerous other jobs large and small, we headed back up to BC come spring.

As it turned out, the hardest part of the nearly 8,000-mile windward trip was the passage up the coast to British Columbia. We'd left it a bit late (June) and the summer nor'westerlies were already established, so it was a bit of an uphill battle. Many times we remembered the advice of the old sailor, Billy Black Dog, who made a point of riding a southerly gale up the coast early each season in his old black schooner, Black Dog. That was the only way to do it, he reckoned.