Family starts Second Circumnavigation

[Music] are we going to make a big announcement about this about Crossing I'm taking down the laundry so it's not going to be in the shot and Ben's busily filming it where are we going Ash it's taken a while but Ben has finally convinced me that we should and we are going to start our second Circ of navigation that's all like a mouthful we are going to start our second circum navigation we're going to the South Pacific guys it's happening I didn't expect to do that so soon I am not going to lie Ben what did it take so it's true it's true we're going to sett around the world again again it's been a lot actually and there's a lot of debate about really on my end Ben wanted to go but there's been a lot of debate on my end about going um I've been back and forth a few times I hadn't planned on doing uh an ocean Crossing this big again G so soon but after Ben flew to New Zealand and back in something about that 52 hours and I want to be involved in some parts of the build and with the children it's a heck of a long way to go from our new boat build that is how long I've been traveling I started this to stopwatch when I left New Zealand and I've been literally traveling 53 hours to get back to the British Virgin Islands if you're new here welcome behind the scenes we've been focused on designing a brand new vessel an aluminum Expedition Catan this boat is designed to take us to places few have ever been a vessel purpose-built for exploration we believe we've identified the perfect place to build it but it's half a world away the solution sail Halfway Around the [Music] World this this German flag so I guess we're headed to French Polynesia where French is the main language and that is a problem for me because I don't speak French that's about the extent of my vocabulary maybe I have Messi Boku I don't know if Boku is a word AV Bon those that's it that's all I remember from high school I think my high school teacher gave me a d because French is mandatory in high school he felt sorry for me and I was able to graduate but here's where Babel changes the game it's one of the top language learning apps in the world making real life conversations in a new language feel like a breeze with Babel I've started tackling French with intuitive lessons designed by real language teachers and guess what it's scientifically proven that you can start speaking a new language in just 3 weeks it's going to take us 3 weeks to sail from Panama North America all the way across the Pacific to French Polynesia mares in those 3 weeks I'm going to be using Babel to learn French on my night shifts now for the exciting part you can join me on this language learning journey and get 60% off on a Babel subscription by clicking on the link below in the description so back to the flag the reason our boat is registered in Germany is because we bought the boat off a German family that family had the boat registered in Germany and me being a German citizen and a Canadian resident I was able to keep the boat in Germany and transfer that registration for whopping 15 and it would take a whopping one week so it was super easy to do and that's why we fly the German flag partially because I'm German partially cuz it was easy and partially because it really doesn't matter where you register your boat ultimately there was a lot of things that have convinced us to finally do this we loved the South Pacific we absolutely loved it it's some of our happiest memories and funnest times from our last circum nav and I'm really looking forward to going back to some of those places again so that was an easy thing like I know it's nice but it's a long ways away it's a long ways so what are we looking at to cross hey hi Mr Ben okay just approve your um my visit okay call visit so I think by 5 6:00 the documents go into the other office then I can call to separate the day okay yesterday I'm sending to you one link for make that small payment okay don't forget okay thank you very much did you forget to send the payment yeah who is that that's uh the agent we're going to work with for the Panama Canal crossing the Panama Canal right now has a lot longer wait times than normal they're not letting as many boats through so last time we didn't work with an agent at all and this year we've chosen to work with an agent I think it's going to really simplify the process and make it a lot easier for us um and not be tring around hell's half acre with two children in toe uh but yes this is um that is our agent and uh he's he's booking us dates to go through the Panama Canal once Ben remembers to send him that small payment which isn't that small just so we're clear the small payment is 400 us that was 500 500 but it's going to be about 3,000 us to cross the pan canal and that is a lot of it's just fees you know depends on how big your boat is too yeah depends on your boat size and stuff but right now the Panama Canal is backed up by what are we middle of February say so they're backed up over a month and a half right now so the first day is going to be April so that's kind of when we're crossing the pan Mel that's a bit late so we're going to like go through and go yeah last time we hung out in Panama for a while and um we have no intention of doing that this time no intention of hanging out Panama to all the Panama panamanians we love Panama City is gorgeous and wonderful but um we're just going to get going so it's been a while since I've dug these books out uh these are I've got the world Voyage planner World cruising routes really if you're going to buy one you only need this one the roots they're fantastic references if you're looking at just s of where to go and can go anywhere we're probably going to be leaving from Panama then we might take a pit stop in the galapagus: and then up to the maresis after that I think is a really cool route as well um it's it's quite long like it's it's a long stretch to here I I don't know we may do that we may not yeah I've been going through it because we're kind of trying to decide what to do I mean we've done the milk run let's talk milk run like it's basically Panama sometimes galapagus: in the northern hemisphere it's summer down there and it's Cyclone season so some people choose to ride out Cyclone season in Fiji sometimes they have Cyclones so it's not always the greatest um and some people choose to take that passage down to New Zealand which can be a bit awful to put it lately uh sometimes it can be great but it usually has a balce factor that is fairly uncomfortable uh so yeah a lot of people head to New Zealand some people head to newcal Australia um Papua n guini it's like there's a lot of options um but I was looking at like what are circular routes looking like like going up to the line irons and Micronesia and palao and we did that once this is what you end up with after you've gone around the world and um although this is only in the equator we really haven't gone North or South but we're waiting for our next boat a lot of the circular routes kind of take advantage of light winds like contrary winds and in order to do that you have to be able to saell upwind and or motor so with an NOOA 55 uh we've been talking to our Naval architect and we've um figured out we can motor for 18 days at 5 knots on one engine so that gives us a range of over 2,000 nautical miles without Jerry cans without Jerry cans and you know you don't want to do that but in order to get from one you know trade win season or tra Tradewind area to another without having to deal with Cyclones or hurricanes or typhoons you sometimes just have to motor for like a week and that's how we're GNA do it on the new boat yeah and the new boat is also going to be um a lot more set up for going to further north into latitudes where the climate Isn't So tropical and NOOA really is best suited for a tropical climate um we have the most fun in tropical climates on NOOA although we have dabbled in like Cape Town weather and winter and it has been also very fine um living AB bord noo it wasn't too cold but it is for sure um it gets chilly it gets more like camping in in the colder climates on this boat yeah and our new boat will have a heater and we're quite excited to you know be able to kind of live more comfortably uh with that space so one of our big decisions about deciding to cross the Pacific was that the season that we have left for cruising here in the Caribbean is dwindling um and we want to keep going for more than a year now 100% you can go north you can go south to get out of uh the the storm belt different parts of the world have different storm Seasons or Cyclone Seasons or hurricane Seasons at different times of the year and this is a really great diagram that shows sort of when tropical storms might occur and what time of year so for example here we are in the Caribbean and in the Caribbean area it's usually June to November for tropical Cyclones and then if we look here the Cyclone season that hits sort of through the South Pacific and into Australia is from November to April so you see how it switches so you can get a whole another 6 months of cruising um in sort of the off season if you decide to cross an ocean but it is a long way guys it's not it's not insignificant cruising routs if you only buy one book is probably the better book to buy but otherwise you can buy this world Voyage planner and this is what I was playing with the other night and looking at and just laughing because look at the roots that they come up with there's circular roots in the Pacific Ocean and it talks about the different roots and this is what we we were just explaining a second ago about possibly doing a rout through Micronesia but contrary to the predominant wind conditions so if you stay close enough to the equator it's really really light so you can sort of motor sail uh into them and Island hop along the way and uh that's a good way to make East to get East um if you're trying to do a circular route and I looked at this and I think these are fantastic but then I was like total distance 14,000 to 177,000 Mi that's a long way it's a lot of fun to look at this as we look at Crossing this Pacific Ocean again and really after Tahiti anywhere we can we can go anywhere we may we may change our mind again we do that all the time so what have you been working on the last month here dear I've been in front of my computer a lot in the last month ordering parts um we're actually here in the US Virgin Islands and there's this thing here called on St Thomas called Island mail it's literally like a physical location where they you can have a mailbox a mailing address mailbox and get stuff shipped in from Amazon Defender all the Us online stores without duties without um taxes essentially I literally took this whole suitcase whoa into town to pick up all of our male Compass we haven't had a compass in years I know it's amazing being State Side this is the old Compass star we've had the alternator has been dead for a while he also didn't tell me that but uh we run the water maker off that engine right so you might as well be charging while you have an alternator so outside's getting a nice new alternator high output 120 amp depth sounder this is a cool do instrument check it out so this will will take your uh old depth sounder which is analog and convert it into digital and then put it onto your animy a 2000 bus new GoPro last one went in the drink we think it's disappeared it's disappeared the kids I think somewhere along the lines kind of knocked it overboard more fans we're big fans of fans oh bowel roller nice more fuel filters for the diesel we've also ordered like a new camera cuz it's hard to order those and get those shipped into French poly you know all of these things are not that critical but they will impact your cruising plans and your cruising itinerary if you have to wait in Port for months or weeks waiting for it to clear Customs or get there with shipping things I'm ordering here into St uh Thomas are seeds for sprouting so all different varieties of seeds to kind of give us a little bit of variety in Greens the sprouting seeds are amazing you like it's it's super easy to sprout I highly recommend it if you're on a boat and going offshore if you land in like maresas to sometimes there isn't as many fresh salad type vegetables as you expect and Sprouts can make like your little bit of kinoa salad seem just like a miracle miracle fresh or something I don't know that's not right the right word but there it can make a kind of lame salad with quinoa and canned vegetables amazing salt kills plants like they die they turn black and they die you cannot let the salt water get on your your delicious herbs and it is so nice having herbs like we always basil and mint and I'm working on I'm working on time it's kind of kind of a bit slow and I'm going to try Ros Mar next but on the boat like if you don't grow it lots of times it doesn't happen some people even grow lettuce I haven't tried that yet I need a bigger I need a bigger tub yeah that's there lights action yeah lights action you're recording this is my spare parts area it's under the kids bed um I used to have like one huge bin and then in Thailand I just got more organized cuz I did a huge refit in Thailand I pushed them to buy the boxes I said you need to organize your life my friend the thing is like on the NOOA 55 I'm going to have a watertight door through the bulkhead this will be a shower and then there'll be a watertight door like a dog door where you can walk into the four Peak and in that four Peak um I'm going to have like a area with drawers where lights inside the drawers with all the parts in it and then the tools which actually the tools aren't as much I was thinking about this today like I don't have that many tools you know you have socket wrenches screwdrivers um some speciality tools like extraction of bolts and making new threads and and it's really the parts that that take up the most room for engine spares for example belts you know lots of belts this is for um the water maker more water maker belts alternator belts you know you know the uh seals for the sail drives the lower sail drives Spar starter if you don't have a spar starter um it's really hard to drive a catamaran in a straight line especially from a standstill if you can't start an engine so I have a spare starter we've gone through these a couple times um and every time I go through one I I get it rebuilt uh so I have three starters two are on the engines at all times and then I have a spare one it just floats around it gets rebuilt from time to time actually I'll go over all the fluids I carry as well because sometimes you it's not a part that fails but say a gasket so you just need to be able to top off the fluid whether it's hydraulic fluid or coolant or oil or Sail Drive Oil those are well those are the four fluids basically boat manufacturers put together the plumbing system on boats there's all sorts of different threads and then as different owners over the years fix those boats you'll be in a place where it's bsp thread or MPT thread um sometimes it's metric sometimes it's Imperial you know you know the the not just the threads but the the barbs and those things so you end up with a plumbing bucket that is just full of you know these kind of adapters adapters and bits and like some have been used obviously but are still good but I keep them you know because might need them again so really important carry sail tape um so this is heavyduty sail tape we've procured some over the years and precision sales have sent has sent us some over the years and it's not necessarily that you're going to rip a sale but sometimes it's just like managing chafe so we have a chafe spot right now in our head sale because we have a new seagull Striker so you can carry stuff like this you know you picks up stuff like this a spring kit you'll have Springs in your water maker you'll have uh water maker valves you'll have springs for you know doors and latches and sometimes you can take a spring and kind of like cut it down or make it similar you know so little spring k it never hurts anyone so O-rings um are interesting because there's different you know diameters and then there's different thicknesses but what you can do if you carry for example great Crazy Glue you can basically create any kind of o-ring in a pinch so say you have a so this is a uh oil filter say you needed to remake this o-ring right here okay so you might find the right size o-ring but it's too big so you could cut it you would cut it obviously at the top here and and then put it together with some crazy glue and then you got you got an O-ring that works so buy gasket material on a roll that literally is for coolant uh for uh pressure like head gaskets um and it kind of make do in a pinch um we had a friend when we arrived in French Polynesia that had a issue with with his carburetor on his outboard and and I just gave him some of this gasket material and he was able to make it work so um kind of having things that are generic and be adapted like an o-ring kit like a spring kit like a gasket material is really useful last but not least glues so you know Highfield will ship a Highfield repair kit for your inflatable but it'll have glues in there that are particular to hypon right um this is you can't just glue PVC onto hypon this is spare hypon that that we've had from a previous Dy epoxy putty white epoxy putty uh what else do I have steel putty so say if you have a leak at your exhaust at your engine you can put some of the steel putty on um I carry like steel quick set epoxy for high temperature those kind of things you know um this is all water weld say you have a leak underwater or I don't know in your Sail Drive hopefully not um but and again this is all just to make cruising easier and better and less stressful because all a sudden you're not out of a water maker and you're rushing to port in bad weather or you know whatever um it having all the stuff impacts your cruising plans less because yes you're still doing boat work stuff's still going to break but you're able to fix it in a timely manner or patch it in a timely manner in the middle of nowh in the middle of nowhere all right let's close it up what's your favorite tool the one that you would never go on a boat again without um what's that that thing called that you take the windows over Sledgehammer oh come on oh I know what my favorite tool is um the multi-tool multitool is a great tool really looking forward to my workshop on the NOOA 55 um having access to Parts is just going to be revolutionary having a little table where you can grind and cut and have a little Vice where you can you know make stuff fix stuff is going to be awesome you know the new boat won't have as many problems but we expect to keep it for you know 10 20 years so over time it will start to need maintenance so that's where that Workshop comes in so handy as part of all the preparations that we're doing to get ready to cross the oceans one of the things we're doing right now is just checking um how our navigation and Emergency Equipment is working and making sure it's all in date batteries are working um plans are active and everything is sort of set up because if you don't set up like the SOS for example before you go um no one's going to come so let's talk about what we've got first of all our biggest thing is our e-erb um if you're offshore you definitely want to have one of these they're not new uh these are old things um before you leave I mean you should definitely test it we push the test button a minute ago and it does does indeed work so these are really good you always want to double check that you've registered them um and then they have the proper mmsi and all that stuff attached to them let's talk starlink starlink is out there there's really nothing in here it just kind of broadcasts all over your boat and uh starlink is really our main source of contact and communication and information when we are out however we do have a backup this is the aridium extreme from predict wind predict wind is is awesome and it's we use predict wind all the time and couldn't live without it but this idium extreme through prict wind is also an invaluable resource and I believe if you are uh in remote places not even going offshore sometimes but if you are just in a remote place this should be something on board that you have on board one of the really cool things about this is the SOS button if you hit this it sends you have to you have to configure it before and I have configured it but you can hit this button and it sends out a signal and you can get rescued there is a whole team behind this button there's actually a really interesting story um that camaron imp I think put out about one of their friends who pushed this when they're having a medical emergency in Indonesia and they were actually the a rescue in an Anchorage was actually coordinated through this SOS button so it's not just offshore rescue it's inshore rescue it's a really invaluable extra piece of safety equipment in our opinion um that we will continue to carry even though we have starlink um available to us from the starlink to aridium to the eerb to your radio which is really if you're within radio distance with someone is the main device you would use to call either a Mayday or pan pan or whatever kind of emergency you might be having we found this um this guy in Thailand who was so knowledgeable in terms of radios and cell phone networks and all that anyways I walked into the shop and I find it in the local VHF or UHF store we're getting a new antenna for the top of our Mast and uh it's quite the little hole in the wall shop pretty cool spot man he's got absolutely everything and he's hooking me up good real good this is cool this is like reminds me of the Philippines what do you think of the shop you like it since we had the Mast down we replaced the entire wire going from this radio up to the Mast and the antenna and he he did it like did a proper job he soldered the ends of the wire onto the connectors then he shrank it and it was just awesome um that shop I don't know what he had going on in that shop but there's some serious equipment in there old stuff new stuff um it was pretty neat our radio works so well now it's incredible there was actually an emergency in the Anchorage be in the other night and we could hear everything going on and it I didn't realize it at the time but there were many votes in that Anchorage that actually couldn't hear the US Coast Guard calling back and we're in St Thomas so it's it's really close to a US Coast Guard Station it isn't good enough to just rely on a handheld or whatever when you're when you're actually sailing and going places that are quite remote you want to have a decent radio so you can message other people ultimately we've decided to cross for a few reasons it wasn't it wasn't an easy decision I've actually been sitting on the fence for probably about a month and a half now uh when Ben first said that he really did actually want to go and that's not like me it's not that I'm afraid of crossing the ocean or don't want to cross the ocean it's just that we kind of did a lot of that just a year ago yeah it's a big decision there are so many beautiful things we're going to miss in this part of the world and it's a hell of a long way back however we loved the South Pacific was fairly easy cruising um a bit more remote than this area that we're in right now which we don't mind uh but ultimately it's a lot closer to NOOA the new build when we get to Tahiti a flight from Tahiti will take 5 to 6 hours so that's a huge huge difference and there's a direct flight from Tahiti to Auckland and then once we get even closer to Fiji it's even closer I think it's just a few hours yes we're going to be at sea for close to 30 days at one point yeah but we're setting ourselves up for a year two years of absolute Blissful sailing and being really close to the new build and I really do look forward to it it is a special part of this world the South Pacific um and and I really did enjoy it and it's a great place to have the children in tow it's the cruising isn't um too harsh or too hard there's big distances in between the islands but even here like going up to the Bahamas it's not really any different than like moving Island chains in the South Pacific it's like a 5-day Run 3 to 5 days actually probably not even that far to the Bas um it's close here when we crossed the Pacific last time we saw one boat one freighter and that's it we had a few squalls but in general the Pacific Ocean stands for calm or gentle and it really is a much easier passage than for example sailing down the coast of Madagascar going around or the Indian South Africa or across the Indian Ocean so doing it a second time now just kind of like sure why not uh yeah what's the big deal 30 days of activities for the children in the meantime we're cruising in the beautiful Caribbean and I'm soaking up my last Caribbean fix I might have to have a rum punch before I go although I think I like the painkiller better better but it depends where you are in the Caribbean because they don't do those everywhere but yeah we're enjoying our time here in the Caribbean as we get all the parts ready to get going and uh we're close to the US right now we're actually in US Waters so there you go as we wrap this up I just want to say another huge thank you to our patrons we're really excited actually to bring back the captain's logs as we cross this next ocean I kind of like those juicy updates I think I could I think I could fill them in a little bit um the tracker of course and we plan to do weekly updates uh from the starlink and luckily with the starlink of course we get that fancy plan stay tuned for those weekly updates we should be Crossing sometime in mid April and uh yeah lot of a lot to do before then so stay tuned and thanks again to everyone for following along and just watching and patrons we'll see you this Sunday for that live stream

Channel: Sailing Nahoa

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Id: 3EU2lpj4BIg

Length: 28min 51sec (1731 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 11 2024