Rough day on the motu with my big brother.

For four years we had talked about a rendezvous aboard Swell, but the timing had always been wrong. Then suddenly, there was my beloved big brother descending the steps of the plane right before my eyes!! Not only had he made the trip on ultra short notice, he’d managed to bring me a jib sail and heaps of goodies in a rolling bag so big I thought the rest of the family might topple out when I opened it.

We eased our way into a carefree trip around the islands. I had managed to incubate an ear infection while teaching the local kids to paddle on my surfboards in the polluted water near the boatyard at the annual boatyard holiday party, so I needed to take it easy the first day or so. But after a couple quiet days, I thought we’d better get going, seeing as I had only 10 days to show him some of French Polynesia.

And so we were off, navigating inside the lagoon to the other side of the island. The sun lit up the greens and turquoises from a cloudless sky and we grinned at our good weather fortune. My mind flashed to the new chain that was all tangled inside the chain locker. I looked down at the depth gauge: 125 feet. Perfect… we’ll let a bunch of chain out to let it untwist, then pull it back up again. In my ear-achy, slightly hurried state, I failed to properly think the procedure through as I wrenched off the bolts that held the chain cap to the windlass. With the cap on, I couldn’t get the chain to come out of the locker because it was so twisted underneath. And so, without further thought, I removed the cap and proceeded to release the chain with the clutch of the windlass. Without anything to slow it now, it ran out quickly and fiercely. As I reached in to tighten the clutch wheel, it jumped off the windlass entirely! I instantly realized what was about to happen and panicked, crying out above the thundering sound of the chain. My brand new chain was roaring, unchecked, like a runaway locomotive to freedom in 125 feet of water! I hadn’t secured the end to the boat, as I had meant to splice it to the rope as soon as I had a chance… I cried out again in despair.

“Let it go!!!!!!” James yelled back. Together at ages 9 and 11, we had witnessed our friend, Ian, lose his finger to an equivalent incident. Visions of Ian’s severed finger in a pool of blood kept me from really trying to grab my precious chain. Instead, I tried fruitlessly to stand on it to stop it. Then suddenly, the entire 300 feet had run out and silence fell over the scene.

I stood stunned for a moment in disbelief, then ran full-till to the GPS to mark the exact point of the accident so that, hopefully, we could recover it. James hugged me and I apologized, and we circled while deciding what to do next. I called my diver friend, Manuelle, but she was away on vacation for a week and with my ear infection, I couldn’t…

“Leave it.” I convinced myself. “It’s going to be there next week and I don’t want to compromise my time with James.”

And so while James navigated us south through the lagoon, I rushed to rig up another anchor with a short piece of old chain and splice a thimble on the anchor rode. By the time we arrived at our remote destination, it was nearly sundown. We made our way through a tight passage in the coral to a perfect patch of sand in eight feet of water. Despite what felt like a tragedy, I had only a pulsating blood blister on the bottom of my foot. I was nearly sure that I’d recover the chain, and so we cooked up fei bananas and toasted to being together while the blue moon rose over the whispering palms of the remote motu islet. Moonbeams illuminated the shallow lagoon, bopping and leaping and twirling across their sandy underwater dancefloor. And I did my best to rejoice in the moment rather than dwell upon my stupidity…

Sun setting as we go into the third round effort to properly align Swell’s engine.

And so despite that Jesse had probably hoped to spend his brief pass through town out enjoying a blue lagoon somewhere, I had no choice but to tackle the engine repair before my brother arrived the following day! We pulled off the stairs to survey what we were up against…

The engine was definitely high… way too high!? How could the mechanic have thought that it would work like that? Never mind that now, he was on vacation and there was nothing to do but try to fix it. I begrudgingly pulled out the tool boxes from under the nav station and we got to work. We loosened the bolts and I attached the main halyard like usual to the engine and raised it off the mounts to remove the small spacers that the mechanic had inserted to hold the engine off the place where it had been ever so slightly touching the engine pan. (Which the mechanic believed to be the reason I had broken two sets of motor mounts in less than three years.) I lowered the engine down again and we tightened it all back up and started the engine. Could it have really been that easy?

No… still much too high.

“Now what?” I pondered.

“We could cut out a piece of the fiberglass just under where the engine is touching?” Jesse suggested.

“Brilliant!” I agreed, “Hmmm, how? Too tight for the hand saw, chisel? Hmm… the dremel!!”

And so we set to carving out the area where the body of the transmission slightly touched, then put everything back together again.

Still too high!?? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Apparently, the new motor mounts had been aligned higher than the old ones… careless mechanic!!!!!

And so, what were the options? Drill out the motor mounts so that the engine sat lower? But that meant drilling through ¾” steel and wait… my drill batteries were both dead.

Hmmm…

“We could remove the spacers under the mount feet and cut them in half?” Jesse suggested.

“Brilliant!” I thought. “They’re aluminum. That’s soft enough we can cut them with a handsaw!”

And so we commenced attempt number three, raising the engine and removing the mount feet. We had to pull off hoses running between the water tanks and reach into the awkward little holes to access the nuts of the mount feet. Next, Operation Score and Saw commenced. By scoring the 4” plate at the middle and holding it in my vice, we sawed slowly through the plate, taking turns as darkness fell and mosquitoes nipped at our ankles and backs. I went for headlamps and some bananas and bug spray.

It was nearly 11 p.m. when we finally got everything back together. But it was PERFECT! The shaft was centered beautifully in the v-drive, and the engine wasn’t touching the hull at all… we’d done it!! Covered in aluminum shards, dripping sweat, and scratching at fresh bug bites, we high-fived as the engine spun smoothly in reverse at the dock. YAY!!! The next morning I thanked Jesse profusely for his help as he got in line at the airport. Less than 15 minutes later, my big brother James came into view on the tarmac.

Well, well, well….I made it back to Swell yesterday evening after a ridiculously fun 2 weeks in Hawaii. Since my three week trip turned into almost 5 months away from Swell, I guess its only fair that she found some new company while I was away. It’s a more cuddly and personable creature than Swell’s prior uninvited guests: ants, cockroaches, wasps, and geckos. Ah drat…its a rat!!! Sifting through the turdpiles and half-munched remnants of my new crewmate…despite the mess, it sure feels good to be home!!! Back to work, love Liz

Here is a bit of everything from the last two months on the Presqu’isle… between my engine woes, the WCT circus, my recent submersion in a writing assignment (check out the upcoming October issue of Surfer’s Journal), a bout with Dengue fever (or Beamish flu?), a last minute haul-out, and the Ahuna-Marotta wedding in Hawai’i… well, blogs have gone by the wayside… so here goes a brief recap:

Swell ’stuck’ at George and Marika Riou’s waiting for broken motor mounts: nightly dining French style, permanent dish and lawn-mowing duty, views from the tree house, life as Georges’ favorite conversation piece. Yoga with Nina! Treat of all treats! Tahitian, Haere Williams, wins the trials for the one and only WCT wildcard… the local spirit is rich as lait coco: Marara Boys tailgate concerts, full moon and full voices to celebrate with traditional Tahitian songs and Hinanos. I shimmied with The Shimmies!! Chonny, Gideon, Andy, Josh and Indy, thanks for being the coolest ‘yachties’ ever , ha! Miss you guys!

Meet Prisca Aramu: The lovely 27 year old Moorean charger who conquered the reef and became the only girl of an 8 child family to love surfing, now she’s best Tahitian surfer girl around, stylish and poised, smart, environmentally-concerned… I found a girl to surf with! Thanks for our adventures around the Presqu’isle and to the east side! Birthday dinner with Mick and Jon and Mark and Marika and Georges: thank you for being my family abroad!! Between the Riou’s and the ‘Quik Euro’ dinners I forgot how to cook, Jasper’s Quik Euro crew teaching baby pigs to swim for their next ad campaign? Jasper, Jerome reported you all for animal cruelty. Julien Wilson is as talented and humble as a radical young surfer could be. Good waves for 4 weeks straight, but the Billabong Teahupoo Pro waiting period begins, and it goes FLAT… Kelly certainly knew where to be… Me, ‘dead in the water’, still disabled at the Riou mooring waiting for my new motor mounts… Happy birthday, Mr. Knox! What a legend you are… Marika makes the best chocolate cake in the world, just ask Mick Fanning, go for the middle piece… Dinner at Josh and Celeste’s with the Transworld brothers and deep-diving, bomb-charging Healy, Prisca and I in the Ripple spectating and rubbin’ elbows in the Teahupoo sunshine, Parko such a treat to watch.

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It was the last weekend of the locals’ two-week vacation and there’d been lots of action around the marina lately. My empty refrigerator had inspired a ride down to the ‘Snack’ which had turned into a spontaneous gathering of many who’d been in the Teahupo’o line-up lately. I rolled back to Swell on my no brakes, rust-bucket close to eleven at night. The moon was full and silhouetting the ridgeline. A few of the younger local kids on their way home helped me lift my bike over the closed marina gate.

Upon my arrival back at Swell, I was welcomed by a drunken duo of local guys, maybe 19 or 20 years-old, sitting at the end of the dock. I greeted them in a friendly tone, but finally withdrew when it was obvious that they were well into the bottle of rum they were passing between each other. I asked them repeatedly if they wouldn’t mind just moving to the other end of the dock. I even escorted them halfway, explaining that I was going to sleep and their music was too loud. They stumbled alongside, but seemed to hover back magnetically as I wandered back towards Swell. The night air was stiff and hot, but I shut the door of the companionway from the inside, just to deter any drunken desire they might have to enter Swell.

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It’s another morning in the Teahupo’o marina. There is grass growing out from the cracks in the rotting wooden planks. Some are missing completely; the water pipe below the dock nearest Swell is cracked and constantly spewing freshwater into the sea. But the sky water spews constantly, too, so maybe that’s why no one around here seems to think the cracked pipe is much of a problem. A cup of tea, a scan of the reef, and a bit of yoga. It’s bigger again today and I can see Raimana’s boat tied to the buoy in the channel, trailed by a flotilla of other smaller boats all in a line like baby ducks.

I load up and head over. There’s a funky morning bump and the thickest crowd I’ve seen yet, but Josh motions wildly for me to paddle out, so I tie my ‘duck’ in the back of the line and go sit amongst the chaos. After a half hour, I finally scrap to catch one small wave then paddle back to my ‘duck’ and doze off under my pareo.

“It’s not the time,” I tell myself. “With sets like today, I know I don’t want to be battling for the inside waves.”

Waking from my nap, I find that the crowd has thinned and it’s actually beginning to glass-off. The sets look bigger, but Raimana is here. Just his presence makes me feel safer.

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Just then, Greg Long and Twiggy “Grant Baker”, two of surfing’s big-wave heroes, paddled out for the sunset session. Twiggy, the cheerfully fearless South African, quickly caught a wave. Andy and his ’sea nymphs’ still frolicked in the impact zone. I felt a pang of anxiousness.

“You should take those girls in,” another guy called to Andy. “They’re getting tired and if a set comes they could drown.” His words seemed to materialize as he spoke them. All of a sudden the horizon leapt. A massive black face rose demonically in front of us. It was twice the size of any set that had come through all afternoon. It grew mountainous, shifted and then pitched a neck-breaking lip across the line-up, catching nearly all of us inside. I scraped for the horizon, knowing I wouldn’t make it. I looked back to see where the girls were just before I ditched my board and dove as deep as I could. They were in the worst place possible. I swam down into the darkness. I was far enough out that I didn’t take a terrible beating on the first, and surfaced in time for a breath before the next wave rolled over me. As I forced my body to relax through the series of underwater acrobatics, all I could think about was the girls. The board yanked on my ankle but then suddenly went limp. My leash had broken. The foamy water surged and spat and it was tough to get traction in the foam as I came up, boardless. Everyone was in a panic. Miraculously, my board popped up not too far away. I swam frantically for it and someone gave it a shove my way before the next wave grabbed us again. I held on.

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Surfing, sailing and environmentalism; Captain Liz Clark’s lifestyle is envied by many. In 2006  Clark set out on her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, on an adventure to circumnavigate the globe. She documents her travels on her iWend Ambassador blog, describing all the details of her adventure from crazy surf moments to the more tedious hours spent fixing her boat.

In this podcast, Clark reads her story “Voyage of Swell, Part 1″ first published in Volume 2 Issue 2 of Wend. Thanks to Keen for sponsoring this podcast where Liz relates the trials and tribulations of her first 2,000 miles at sea.

Listen here on the page or download and slap it on your iPod.

Happy listening!

Podcast: Download

Session after session I gained confidence at this beastly wave. In the afternoons the crowd would thin and the circus of photographers and spectators would run off to find food and shade. With just a few locals out I began to sit deeper and understand which waves I wanted and which I DEFINITELY didn’t. One afternoon when the swell was coming up, I didn’t catch a single wave. After scurrying over the top of a few frightening sets, I respected my limits and paddled back to the dinghy. Just to paddle and feel the sea’s energy was enough on that day.

A week passed in a blur of adrenaline. As much as I tried to do other things I could focus on nothing else. I was behind on blogging, coming down to the wire on my visa/customs time in French Polynesia, it sure seemed like there was a lot of water in the bilge again, and I hadn’t really made any sort of ‘plan’ about what the next few months held. But the wave and the challenge had hypnotized me; I was lost in a Teahupo’o fog.

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There is MUCH more energy on the reef this morning. Its thunder is like a constant itch. I can’t focus. I’m scared again. I want to go, but I don’t. I want to catch a big one, but I don’t. The jet skis buzz by and a flash orange boat loads up across the way with a French pro and his photog posse. I’m scared. I go inside. Lay down on the settee bench”¦take a few deep breaths”¦I’m up again. Eat a banana. Put on some sunscreen. Lay back down. Close my eyes. Open them. Sit up. Shuffle through some bikinis. Gather more stuff than I would need for a two week surf trip and finally make my way over to the circus that’s gathered at Teahupoo*. Teahupoo* is doing what it does in the pictures today. It’s big, it’s barreling, it’s beautiful, and I’m, yes, scared. There’s a crowd of maybe 15, not all THAT bad, and I sit a while and watch the guys take off from way inside, boldly set the rail, and slingshot through the perfect water vortex. They make it look SO easy.

I paddle out. I’m scared. I hang at the edge. I realize the crowd factor is tricky. No pressure, I tell myself. I wait. It’s perfectly glassy. I drift up the line-up and then paddle back down. And wait. And watch. The boys paddle around me like I don’t exist, but my uncertainty is visible.

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