From: svbrightangel
Subject: Out of the Shed Tomorrow!
Date: Sun, 10 May 2015 22:28:44 +1200

Ahoy, All!

Better late (five weeks, to be exact) than never; three months and a week, all total. But with beautiful new teak decks, Bright Angel moves out of the Brin Wilson shed tomorrow morning - to the yard, for bottom paint and prop speed, stepping the mast and installing the rigging, stanchions and lifelines, and moving all of our "stuff" back on board. Then, hopefully in about a week, we’ll splash and check everything out - including the new prop shaft, shaft couplings, and cutlass bearings (yes, they had to be replaced again, after they were replaced in Fiji last June).

When everything checks out, we’ll provision and then head up to Marsden Cove to await a weather window to sail back to the tropics - Fiji (west side, Yasawa Islands) and New Caledonia, and possibly Vanuatu (although now we are now thinking about spending an entire season in Vanuatu, next year). With any luck, we’ll be underway by the end of the month, or by the first week in June.

What an odyssey this has been; something we will only do once, for sure! (These new decks should outlive us!) As with any project of this magnitude there have been both ups and downs, but in the end we can say we are truly happy with the craftsmanship of those who worked on our decks. And I am truly happy that I will never, ever, have to replace another bung - you will notice on the pictures below that there is not one to be found!

We hope all is well with you. Our best to all of you. Take care.
Bob Linda, Bright Angel

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: SV Bright Angel in Fiji!
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:33:19 -0000
From: Bob Hargreaves

Ahoy Steve & SSSS!

We made it! We arrived in Savusavu, Fiji, on the island of Vanua Levu, and for you Goggle Earth fans, the coordinates are 16 46.68S, 179 19.69E, at 1130 hrs on Monday, June 10, which would have been Sunday your time - as we are just west of the Dateline, at 180 degrees of longitude.

To say this passage turned out to be Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride would be an understatement; it was every bit of that, and then some! The weather window that looked so good when we left New Zealand on Thursday, May 30, soon collapsed with the blossoming of a new, unpredicted low that formed in the Coral Sea, NE of Australia, and tracked SE to New Zealand. We had sailed west of our rhumb line, a straight line from NZ to Fiji, to avoid a predicted 998 mb low that had formed near Fiji and was tracking SE, well out of our way, with the expectation that we would experience some peripheral effects in the form of enhanced trade winds in the Squash Zone between the Fiji low and the high that was then parked over New Zealand. The Coral Sea low quickly displaced the high, and instead of enhanced SE trade winds, in the 25 knot range),we ended up with N then NE winds in the 30-35 knot range, with gusts over 40, as we were far enough west to be on the fringe, but not far enough north to escape the new low. Within about three days the winds had veered to the SW then back to the SE, and decreased to a manageable 25-27 knots as the low moved over New Zealand, but the heavy seas, at times as much as 6 meters, took some time to settle back down. During the worst of it, we hove-to for 22 hours; the reduced motion was quite a relief, but still short of comfortable. We were able to get some much needed rest; things were getting pretty tired out before we hove-to, and Linda at one point had been thrown across the cockpit when we were hit by a big wave, so her ribs and rump, she landed on a cleat, were sore and she needed some R&R!

A little over a day later, when we were sailing north again in SE winds of about 27 knots, the bar that holds the rudder on our Monitor self-steering wind vane broke. We did not lose the rudder, as it is tied to the boat with a control line, used to raise it when stowing the wind vane) and the 2 foot long stainless steel bar that broke is called a break-away bar, designed to give way if the rudder hits something, before damaging the rest of the wind vane, and, as such, is actually a spare part that we had on board.

We certainly could not effect repairs under the conditions, and we did not want to hand steer the boat, which is very difficult and tiring in heavy seas; and, because we did not want to run the risk of damaging our hydraulic auto pilot by motoring in those rough conditions, we hove-to again - this time for 12 hours, until the seas settled down enough to motor without concern for the auto pilot. About 14 hours of motoring later, the wind and sea conditions were calm enough to try fixing the wind vane. With Linda tethered to the cockpit, she wriggled under the stern push pit and hung out over the back of the boat about 3 feet, while I dropped her tools, with their own tethers, so she could remove the nut and bolt holding the broken end of the break-away bar, then she attached the new bar and bolted it on, then we slipped the rudder back on, and bolted it in place - about 45 minutes of work, with Linda hanging over the back of the boat the whole time, and even though it was relatively calm the boat was still bobbing up and down and rolling back and forth in the swell. Do I need to tell you that Linda is my Hero?!

Things got much better after that, and we had some really great sailing for several days - and the fleece came off, and the shorts, t-shirts and sun screen came out. Nevertheless, this was one of the most challenging, and tiring, passages we have made yet; several people we know who have made this trip many times all have said this was the worst. All in all, we did quite well - just short of 11 days total, and other than the wind vane, nothing broke; we know several people whose sails ripped, one whose bow sprit broke, and one who took salt water into his fuel tank through a vent line and turned his diesel to mayonnaise - and you can imagine what that did to his injectors and injector pump when he tried to start his engine! So we did okay; and, we continue to admire and have great confidence in this boat of ours. She is truly a great blue water boat, and she does so much better at this passage-making than we ever will!

When we arrived in Savusavu the sun was out, and it was hot! Shortly thereafter, though, a front moved through with plenty of clouds and rain for several days - but we certainly had nothing to complain about, as the rain washed all the salt off the boat! We are still, and probably will be for several days, catching up on our rest, and putting the boat back into cruising order - but we are anxious to start exploring Fiji, which promises to be worth the passage here!

Thanks for keeping track of us. We’ll be in touch, and we promise to do better at keeping our blog updated this season! Take care.

Bob & Linda Hargreaves, Bright Angel
Currently in Savusavu, Fiji
www.sailbrightangel@yahoo.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Greetings from Savusavu, Fiji!
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:52:19 -0000
From: Bob Hargreaves

Linda and I are still in Savusavu, taking it easy - we’ll probably will stay here another week; I haven’t even started on my post-passage project list yet! We have had a good time catching up with old cruising friends here, and we have some good friends on their way in from NZ now that we want to visit with when they get here. The town is interesting - several good restaurants, and the beer and wine is always cold! We took a bus trip with some other cruisers to the town of Labasa on the north side of the island on Saturday - great market, and interesting town, but very frenetic and noisy; mostly Indians there - mostly Fijians here in Savusavu. The 2.5 hr bus ride there cost #6.25 FJ each way - about $3US; saw some very beautiful country. This is a big island, and very mountainous in the middle. This week there is an around-the-world Oyster Rally converging on Savusavu mostly European boats - some very spectacular yachts, most with paid crew to sail them. Linda is getting ideas!

I remember you always saying you need pictures for the S-t-S, so attached are some photos to use, if you like. Take care, and say Hi to the folks at SSSS for us!

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Sailing to the South Pacific!
Date: 28 Apr 2012 21:27:00 -0000
From: Bob Hargreaves

Ahoy Steve and all of our Friends at SSSS!

Well, after months, if not years, of planning and preparations, and a year and a half of cruising Mexico, which was fabulous, by the way, we are underway on our long awaited and much anticipated passage to the South Pacific! This message is coming to you from the vicinity of lat 03 26N, lon 126 37W - just a little over 200 miles from the Equator! We should be Shellbacks on Monday, if King Neptune permits! We left Mexico on April 12, with much left to see and do, but we will definitely be back in the years to come, with a destination of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas, French Polynesia - a mere 2,700 nautical miles over the blue horizon! We have just a little over 1000 miles to go, and will probably will make landfall sometime early in the week of May 7.

Our “plan” for the first season in the South Pacific, after making landfall at Hiva Oa, is to spend about a month exploring the Marquesas, about a month in the Tuamotous, and then a month in the Society Islands: Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, etc. After leaving French Polynesia, we will sail through the Cook Islands and, most likely, on to the Samoas before turning south for Tonga. If time permits we will also visit Fiji before heading to New Zealand in late October or early November, to avoid the cyclone season in the tropics. After spending the spring and summer in New Zealand, remember, the seasons are backwards south of the equator, we will head back to the islands the following May, probably to Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia, before heading back south, most likely to Australia the second time. That’s about as far as the planning goes at this point!

With apologies for how poorly our web site has been kept up of late. but there really hasn’t been much to report since last season - except work, work, work on the boat getting ready for the Pacific Puddle Jump, we have begun posting again, but with a slightly new twist. In order to be able to update the blog while at sea, and in the islands where we expect internet access to be sparse, we will be using Sailblogs, to which we will be able to post blog entries and pictures, as well as update our position, through our satellite phone. You will find our Sailblog at www.sailblogs.com/member/sailbrightangel/. We will also post a link to Sailblogs on our web site, www.sailbrightangel.com, which still has a lot of good archive materials and photos to look through! In addition to our Current Position postings on Sailblogs, folks will also be able to track our progress on passages on Yotreps at www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=WDE5384 ; or, for a list of all reporting yachts check www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/reporter_list.php, just scroll down the list to WDE5384 to find us.

Even though we do not expect to have regular internet in the South Pacific, we will still maintain our Yahoo e-mail accounts: Bob’s at svbrightangel@yahoo.com and Linda’s at svbrightangel2@yahoo.com. Occasionally we will fetch Bob’s Yahoo mail through our sat phone, only Bob’s address is configured for that, or we check them when we do have internet, so please feel free to use those e-mail addresses. If you would like to e-mail us more directly, with short messages and no attachments, we may be also reached through Sailmail, over SSB, at WDE5384@sailmail.com or through OCENS Mail on our sat phone at hargreavesrc@ocens.net.

Take care, and Fair Winds to you and everyone at SSSS!

Bob &: Linda Hargreaves, Bright Angel

Ahoy!
Linda and Bob made landfall yesterday, 9 May, in the afternoon. They are in Tarauka Harbor in Atuona, Hiva Oa. You can see the harbor on Google Earth. It took them 28 days from Mexico.
Dave Knowlton

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 19:01:21 -0700
From: Bob Hargreaves

Ahoy, Steve!

We finally made it away from the dock in Olympia, and down the coast to San Francisco. We are currently at the Oakland Yacht Club, in Alameda. We plan to stay here for a couple more days before we continue on down the coast to San Diego, where we will head into Mexico on October 25 with the Baja Ha-Ha.

Here is a link to the Log page of our web site that covers our passage from Olympia to the San Francisco Bay area.

Take care, and Fair Winds!

Bob & Linda Hargreaves, Bright Angel