Hanging By Threads: Part Two

By Jennifer Appel

Hanging By Threads: Part Two (Volume II) is the amazing story of our blue water adventure. Containing tips and tricks for sailors, this is the story that the media never told the public.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Appel
• Release date: May 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463901731

Jennifer Appel

Hanging By Threads volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4 are the most recent diatribes of my life. Prior to the US Navy rescue at sea, Jennifer had an illustrious career as a registered landscape architect, practicing in multiple states. Concerned about pet health and lawn chemicals, Appel created Malama Aina - a soil conditioner system for Certified Organic food which was originally touted as Pet Friendly Fertilizer in the late 1990s. in the early 2000s, Appel Green Roof was created from the rooftop gardeing aspect of landscape architecture and civil/structural engineering. The 10# per sq ft green roof system saves about 30% off a single story utility bill on day one of the installation. This activity expaned into the practice of architecture with Applejacks Housing Hawaii. Applejacks Housing Hawaii focuses on master planning, sustainaable architecture, large scale residential, tiny houses, emergency shelters and cost effective solutions to the homeless issues plaguing the world. Jennifer's achievements skydiving, as a skydiving coach, racing motorcycles, flying in a MIG 21, climbing the Great Wall of China in mongul territory, sailing as well as travelling about 2/3 of the Earth have led her to the understanding that the person who you need to impress most - is YOURSELF.

Book preview

Volume II … Continued from Volume I: Hanging By Threads: Part One

Hanging By Threads: Part Two

By: Jennifer Appel

Sea Nymph –

Ocean Saga

Table of Contents Act Two: A Trip To Remember

Section One: Sea Nymph Saga Background

Scene

Hawaiian Sailing

Why Sail the Tropics?

FSOW

Sea Nymph

Rigging Hell

Section Two: The Voyage

A Trip to Remember

Electrical Nightmares

Ocean Weather

Turned Away 1 Christmas Island

The Black Sheriffs

Val and Zeus Love Love Love the Dolphins

Wet and Broken

Turned Away 2 Wake Island

Cold Water

Section Three: What Created the Sea Nymph Saga

Feng Chun No66 (Taiwan spelling) Fong Chun No66 (English spelling)

USS Ashland

Out of the Frying Pan AND Into the Line of Fire

Who Bleached Our Real Story

Continued in Hanging By Threads: Act Three … Who Knew What and When???

Act Two: A Trip To Remember

Section One: SEA NYMPH SAGA BACKGROUND

Scene One

2007

Hawai’ian Sailing

Most people learn to sail with an instructor, at a school or from family members who love the sport. I learned by jumping into the deep end of the ocean, in the waters around Hawai’i.

The Hawai’ian Islands:

Hawai’i, as most people know it, comprises eight islands. They include:

The Big Island aka Hawai’i, Mau’i, Ko’olawe, Lana’i, Moloka’i, O’ahu, Kaua’i and Ni’ihau.

The Big Island on the eastern most side, also known as Hawai’i. Ko’olawae is south of Mau’i. Mau’i and Lana’i are west and north of Ko’olawae. Ko’olawae is south of Mau’i and east of Moloka’i. O’ahu with famous Waikiki beach and Honolulu is west of Mau’i, Lana’i and Ko’olawae. Kaua’i, and Ni’ihau are on the far western side of the aforementioned islands.

Ni’ihau and Lana’i are private and Ko’olawae, which has been used as bomb practice by the military, is uninhabited.

The Molokini Crater (which is too small to be shown on the image above) is one of two volcanic sunken craters on the planet which have a land portion that can be accessed by boat. Molokini Crater has wonderful snorkeling. Molokini Crater is off the southeast tip of Mau’i.

The channels between the Hawai’ian Islands:

The channel, Alenuihaha, between northern tip of the Big Island and Mau’i is known as one of the two most dangerous channels to sail between 30N and 30S latitude. The other dangerous area is in the Indian Ocean. Depending on the day, the Indian Ocean or the Alenuihaha may be crowned king of dangerous water.

At a moment’s notice, the calm crystal blue water can be swept into a frenzy that no Hollywood CGI artist can replicate. The actual Hawaiian translation for the word Alenuihaha is great billows smashing and roughly translated in sailor jargon as the water laughs at you if you are not strong enough to pass.

There is a very good reason why probably 300 out of 365 days a year there is a small craft advisory for that channel.

The fifth most dangerous channel to sail in the Tropics sits between Moloka’i and Mau’i

bordered to the south by Lana’i. Locals lovingly refer to it as the Moloka’i Expressway. On the charts it is listed as the Pailolo.

Tourists who venture too far off the gold coast of Mau’i at the Ka’anapali coast may have their dead bodies located off the southern tip of the Big Island which is called South Point, Big Island.

Often the stories in the Hawaiian media reference bodies that will take a long time to identify.

This happens almost every year but the officials keep it quiet for tourism purposes. Lifeguards are posted on land and water patrol roam the surf on jet skis to reduce the number of potential incidents.

Notably, Lana’i during the reign of the Kings was called the Prison Island before it became the Dole Island. It was also where the Japanese and other Americans of Asian descent were kept in internment camps during World War 2 if suspected of assisting the other side.

Each year between Mau’i, Lana’i and or Moloka’i there are races between the islands for sailors, paddlers, swimmers, paddleboarders and sometimes kiteboarders. Chase boats and medical staff are also part of the entourage.

In recent years, many races with international competitors have been called off because the conditions have been deemed too rough, even when the event organizers expect the best of conditions.

In prior years, people took off against the elements and were never heard from again.

A normal person, unlike the whales, sharks, dolphins and submarines who profusely utilize the channel, cannot handle the insane currents that go through that area which is why the island of Lana’i was the perfect natural prison in earlier years.

It can only safely be accessed from a boat or plane by a human.

The third most dangerous channel to sail or paddle is the space between O’ahu and the western edge of Moloka’i called Lau Point. The Kaiwi, or bone, crosses the Penguin Bank and the 26 mile chasm has an elevation range from 20’ to 2,300’.

Thus Moloka’i made the perfect location to house people with leprosy and a wonderful test bed for biotech’s GMO seed.

Should one think that a sail from O’ahu to Mau’i is a breeze, it is an almost always an upwind battle in the strong trade winds that flow from east to west.

I have made the trip in 12 hours and there have been occasions when the exact same trip took 27 hours.

I have seen water so calm you would have thought you were in a bathtub. At other times, 14’ face waves came up out of nowhere while wind and sky conditions remained unchanged.

It is not uncommon for this channel to be cloudlessly clear blue at noon then a torrential black sky with washing machine type waves at 1:00 pm. Often the sky becomes all clear and beautiful again before sunset.

The fourth most dangerous tropical water channel according to sailors, that is regularly sailed sits between O’ahu and Kaua’i.

Most people think a map of Hawai’i looks like the image above. However, there are also 137 other islands and atolls that make up what is called the French Frigate Shoals, according to Wikipedia, which comprise the Hawaiian Islands.

These uninhabited jewels stretch past Midway Island (Atoll). Not shown on a basic Google map or most maps of the world, they do exist on marine navigation maps which are called charts.

The entire line of the French Frigate Shoals extends almost past the International Date Line, at 180 degrees, which is between 179W and 179E. Midway Atoll is the second blue dot from the left in this chart.

The French Frigate Shoals are a wildlife protected habitat. Nobody in America may access them without special permits. (Maybe Taiwanese fishermen have access that Hawaiians do not have?)

The French Frigate Shoals are exceedingly dangerous to traverse during the winter months as the extreme currents and underwater islands can wreck a boat before one knows what is happening.

Two boats ended up as permanent reef during the first exploration of the atolls. If you want to learn about these islands, buy a Coastal Pilot for Hawaiian waters and you will get a real education.

The Coastal Pilot is a boater’s bible. It tells everything about the areas including hazards, landmarks, lighthouses, island amenities and usually something about the history of the place.

Learning to sail in Hawaiian waters means you have learned to handle weather patterns as a regular course of daily, normal, natural behavior. Nearshore weather is very predictable and usually the winds are below 20 mph with relatively flat water.

The weather can be very unpredictable offshore. Offshore, it is typical to encounter15-30 mile per hour winds or gusts and six to eight foot seas a few miles off any Hawaiian coast on an almost daily basis.

These waters are very different from the ones I have experienced off the eastern seaboard, the Gulf of Mexico or California. Authors and instructors of the Annapolis Heavy Weather Sailing videos I had on Sea Nymph tell people to avoid eight foot seas and 30 mph winds.

Experts tell sailors to steer for home to stay clear of what may be deemed normal Hawaiian offshore weather.

The waves don’t always look like the screenshot below. But the weather behaves like the screenshot below, pretty often or Hawai’i would not be considered a year-round surfing mecca.

The numbers in the picture are the wave heights and the arrows represent the wave direction.

Dark blue conditions are nice to sail in as the dark blue represents calm water.

Scene Two

2007

Why Sail the Tropics?

Our planet is ringed by latitudes with the equator at the center. The areas above 40 degrees north latitude (40N) and the North Pole and the area between 40 degrees south latitude (40S) and the South Pole are called the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties. These areas have the worst weather imaginable for a boater or human, in my opinion. Many people have managed the typhoon type conditions to circle the globe or visit an arctic region to catch fish. I have seen the show called the Deadliest Catch but this is not the type of miserable cold water situation I hope ever to find myself in.

The areas between 40N to 30N and 40S to 30S contain some very heavy vicious cold water currents. The best boating weather is shown in the image below as blue and darker blue areas. These areas are between the Hawaiian Islands at roughly 20N and Tahiti in the Polynesian Islands near 20S opposing each other on both sides of the Equator.

Growing up, I was always under the impression that the Equator had a 400 mile breadth of doldrums with no wind that must be traversed by using a motor. In the early 2000’s I talked with sailors who had crossed the Equator and was told the doldrums were now a mere 200 nautical miles of diesel-smelling boredom. Around 2010, I learned that there was wind whenever there were storms. To get across the Equator with ease, I should learn to use the storms to help get across. There is a sailing legend that tells a sea captain to always remember to leave a gift, (pour an alcoholic beverage into the ocean for Neptune / Poseidon, aka the water god), for good luck when making the transit. Sea Nymph found wind crossing the Equator both times without storms.

I know the planet is changing because we really only hit doldrums when a storm sucked the wind out of the sky before a storm hit. (An example would be the Volume II book cover image.) There were very few placid days and very few of those were near the Equator.

The Atlantic Ocean is known for storms. People who have survived the hurricane season that affects the eastern seaboard and those in the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are very familiar with an Atlantic Ocean storm.

Very few hurricanes hit the Western Coast of the United States in California, Washington or Oregon. Most American people are unfamiliar with what the Pacific Ocean can create. However, those in New Zealand, Australia and Japan are very knowledgeable about the destruction and devastation that Pacific Ocean storms can bring with very short notice.

The Pacific Ocean gets its name for being the pacified ocean, unless there is a storm. Those Pacific Ocean wonders make the Atlantic Ocean whizzers appear tame by comparison.

Before I purchased my first boat, my experience sailing was limited to being visual candy on the deck of a boat. I enjoyed drinking and sunning myself to the surround sound music and the easy bounce that the boat made topping wave after wave. I never had to care about safety or what parts of a boat were called as most boats I boarded never got away from the sight of land. I always felt comfortable with the captain’s abilities or I wouldn’t have left the dock.

I had no idea what a halyard was or a sheet or how to use a winch. I didn’t care either. As far as I was concerned a birdie was either something in a golf game or a noisy thing with wings and feathers that makes a nest and lays eggs.

Who knew a birdie is the thing on the top of the mast that tells the direction the wind is coming from when talking about boats? I didn’t back then and neither did many of the reporters who interviewed me who said they knew something about boats or had been sailing.

What they really meant was they watched Gilligan’s Island as a kid, just like me, but that was about the extent of their boater knowledge. If their boating knowledge had been a bit more extensive, things I said like the spreader failed would not have gotten translated as a broken mast to the public. A little research would have gone a long way.

A quick Google search will illustrate pages of sailing pictures, boat-part diagrams, sailing nomenclature and sailing websites in a fraction of a second.

Pintrest has some wonderful pictures that speak a thousand words.

Scene Three

2007 - January 2012

FSOW

My first boat, a 34’ Coronado sloop, which had been raced from British Columbia, Canada to Mau’i in her earlier years, was purchased for about $10k on a whim one day after spending the night in her and having the best sleep of my life. She was also a sale-able asset that was cheaper than land living. In Hawai’i, harbor water lapping at the hull is arguably much nicer than listening to land-locked neighbors living in thin walled apartment dwellings or zero lot line homes. In a high density Hawaiian residential community, every so often an argument (sometimes nightly) would allow the knowledge of personal things that nobody in their right mind would ever want to know about those living in close proximity.

I never took a formal sailing class. The classes offered at a time I could participate had two people on tiny single person dinghies and I wanted to learn to sail on bigger boats in the ocean. Why pay money to learn on someone else’s dinghy that can capsize when you have your own boat to play with? Instead of starting small, I let other sailors, like world class sailors who had sailed the oceans, sail my boat and teach me what they felt was important. I also read the cover of Sailing for Dummies and often referred to the inside if there was something of particular interest I wanted to