“Hello from Judy Lin
On New Zealand sailing yacht Antaeus
From Port Vila, Vanuatu to Auckland, New Zealand

Five wonderful days at sea thus far, two days left to go. Sunny skies during the day, bright full moon at night. Great company. A double strike of marlin! Strong winds keep us flying along. An amazing crew of 7 experienced Kiwi sailors (and me) expertly guiding Antaeus home.

I am a 31-year old American woman on a 6-month sailing/travel adventure. What an adventure! If I am lucky and you have found my message in the bottle, please get in touch.”

That was my message in the bottle, launched into the Pacific Ocean at 4:46pm on Monday, October 13, 2003 at 30.20 degrees latitude, 169.42 degrees longitude. The ocean is vast and the chances of my message being found are slim to none, but you never know… what more perfect chance to test my luck?

So after thinking that my best laid plans had gone awry, it is only because of change that a dream sailing trip came true. A friendly conversation with a Kiwi skipper in the yacht club two weeks earlier led to my “stowing away” on one of New Zealand’s well-known racing yachts with a crew of highly accomplished sailors. Talk about serendipity.

Our trip across the ocean was seven days long over 1,500 miles. Where do I begin??

My sailing experience went from Pinto to Porsche! Antaeus is one of New Zealand’s premier racing yachts (www.anteaus.co.nz). She’s a sleek 65-ft sailing yacht with numerous racing wins, 45 sails, and the latest in technology (GPS/navigation systems, weatherfax, fish finder, radars, sonars, etc.). But, she also had all the comforts of home (DVD player, stocked freezer/fridge, comfortable bunks, lots of duty free alcohol, a great stereo system, lots of CDs, a watermaker), and all the means for a fun time at sea (dive compressor, diving equipment, spear gun, game fishing lures, rods, reels, etc.). And, she flies! Antaeus had just won a race from Muskat Cove, Fiji to Port Vila and the owner Charles was sailing her home to Auckland with a bunch of friends.

Note about watermakers: An incredible invention. They turn saltwater from the ocean into fresh water, thanks to a fancy filter and high pressure. Since fresh water is sacred on a boat, especially offshore, this was magic. Truly amazing.

As for the sailing, I didn’t have a thing to worry about thanks to the crew I was lucky enough to be with – Charles, Justin, George, Graham, Murray, Bruce, and Sharon. All were extremely experienced sailors with hundreds of thousands of miles at sea under their belts. Such interesting people with cool experiences and mastery of all that was going on. For instance… Bruce is a famous Kiwi boardsailor (windsurfer), 3-time Olympian and gold and bronze medallist. He knows wind, he knows water. And, after I saw him climb up the mast and hurl himself into the sea from the spreader 40 feet up, I know he also knows no fear. Sharon’s also an Olympian who’s been around the world lots of times – you could tell she really knew what she was doing on a boat. Last year she/her boat beat Steve Fosset’s (you know, he’s the guy who keeps trying to hot air balloon around the world) world 24-hour speed record. 500 miles offshore in a 110-foot catamaran, they said “go!” 24 hours later, they’d covered about 700 miles, averaging 26 knots with a top speed of 46 knots. As a point of comparison, Antaeus is a fast boat that covers about 200 miles a day. Sharon was seriously flying. Crazy stuff.

My short time puttering around on Salamandra was a sharp contrast to what sailing could be like – totally different boat, dynamics, objective, and crew. Antaeus was a wonderful host to the wide variety of weather we got on the trip – we sailed the extremes. We started out running in calm seas with a hot sun and light wind. There is probably no more beautiful sight than that of a spinnaker on a sailboat. Anteaus flew a bright red and white-striped sail that billowed and fluttered like a monstrous piece of silk in the breeze. Each puff of wind inched the boat forward and we glided along gently.

Three days after losing sight of Vanuatu, an island appeared and we were cruising into a beautiful bay with the bluest water I have ever seen. It was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom – at least 60 feet! No one could ever officially know that we’d visited New Caledonia because stopping in a country without officially checking in and getting a cruising permit is a no-no. Doking Bay was spectacular. Charles and Graham donned dive gear and went fishing/hunting with a spear gun for crayfish or whatever they could find in the ocean below. The rest of us just enjoyed standing still for a while and jumped in for a respite from the heat and a swim. Throw in the coral reef and fish that were everywhere and it was the perfect rest stop.

I had to change my perspective in the southern hemisphere. Couldn’t see the North Star. Water flows counter-clockwise. South = cold. By the time we pulled into Auckland, I had gone from wearing tank tops and sunscreen to donning full foul weather gear – Gore-tex jacket, bib pants, hat and all. The conditions changed pretty drastically as we went – the last 300 miles we were heading straight into weather with big waves, cold strong winds and a lot of banging and crashing.

I have honestly never experienced anything as exhilarating in my life as sailing through all that. Some would consider it scary. I loved it! The boat was at a constant heel of around 28 degrees. The wind howled and the whitecaps glowed in the darkness. Antaeus seemed to thrive on it though – she sliced through waves. Walking took some serious concentration and skill. Timing was everything – you had to time each step with the waves and/or gust of wind or else end up flat on your butt or slammed up against a wall. The same went for opening doors/hatches, using the head, and eating. I lost a couple of dinners to the floor, the sink, my lap. Every time we tacked, the boat pitched 28 degrees the other way in one fell swoop and everything slammed to the other side with it.

It was trying at times with the weather and waves – salty spray and wind in your face while trying to steer a boat in 20-30+ knot wind and big waves, especially when you’ve just been woken up and it’s cold and dark outside. With eight crew on board (but really only seven sailors since I didn’t add a lot of value as a sailor per se) and a great navigation system and high-tech autopilot, watches were relatively easy. I couldn’t contribute a whole lot to the driving/sailing of the boat so I usually got up to keep someone company on their watch (it was the least I could do!). I thought the night watches were strangely enjoyable. The camaraderie around this kind of “misery” was unique – you shivered, but you plodded on and shivered in good company. The floor of the companionway up to the cockpit was usually littered with wet gear that people had peeled off after their watch. Rummaging around a wet pile to find your gear in the dark was the ultimate test, all while hoping that you didn’t pull on the wrong size pants or else have to dive back into the wet stuff and start digging around again.

You’d go to bed and everything was mellow. But, in a mere six hours, sometimes things could drastically change – a squall would have come through, everyone woken up, sails changed, boat tacked, rain fell, winches winched, lines whipped back and forth, and shackles clanged as if the boat were sinking. Somehow I usually managed to sleep through it all, as if all the noises and motion were part of a dream. Must have been the offshore-salty-air-sleeping disease…

Because of on-and-off watch schedule, sleeping was a bit like musical chairs. We all slept anywhere we could, whenever we could. Sleeping itself was also an experience. Depending on the tack we were on (and therefore the direction the boat was leaning), just getting into the bed could be tricky and sometimes even hazardous to your health. The berths had mesh nets to keep you from falling out, just like when you were six years old and sleeping in your first bunkbed. Sleeping on an angle while fighting gravity took some getting used to, and waking up with your full body weight on one side against the netting usually meant that that side of your body was numb/asleep and imprinted with mesh marks. Trying to find the next person on watch was a game in itself – peeking into sleeping bags and poking random lumps on the floor in the dark (the floor was a perfect sleep spot because although you ran the risk of being stepped on, you couldn’t fall out). Or, better yet, was the gamble of crawling into a bunk and hoping there wasn’t already someone in it...

“All hands on deck! Get up! Get up!” I think it was about 5:00am when I heard the shouting and commotion from my bunk. It was barely light out. Was it a squall? Had someone fallen overboard? Was there a storm on the horizon? Nope. It was a fish. I heard a reel buzzing, and buzzing loudly. It must have been a BIG fish. We were trawling six fishing rods with heavy-duty reels, miles of line, and the biggest and sharpest lures I have ever seen. What kind of fish could possibly get their mouths around those monster lures? This was real deep sea game fishing.

Fishing turned out to be a highlight of my trip. There seemed to be more action – sailing, chaos, scrambling, teamwork – when there’s a strike on a fishing rod than when there’s a squall. Probably because...
The other rods have to be reeled in and cleared (or else end up with a tangled mess).
Sails had to be dropped, the engine started up, the boat slowed down (quite the task when you’re moving forward at 12 knots).
Someone has to put on the harness, get the rod and start reeling in the fish (while the line is being hauled out by the fish at a surprising speed).
The gaff (a rod with a dauntingly large sharp hook on the end) has to be pulled out (the gaff guy stands on the back of the boat with gloves on and hook ready to snag the fish).
A tarp has to be laid down in case we land the fish (for the blood and guts).
Someone has to get the video camera going (gotta catch all the action on film!).
And all this has to happen before miles of line are taken and the fish gets away…

This happened 10-15 times in our 7 days at sea. We had some big strikes. Some got away, but we landed a lot of fish - skipjack tuna, wahoo, yellowfin tuna, snapper, marlin/sailfish, and a couple of barracuda. These were not your everyday Lake Michigan bluegills – these were ENORMOUS fish with a lot of fight. On average, it took about an hour and a lot of effort to reel in one of these fishies. Fishing is actually a pretty gruesome and intense sport out there. Once you get the fish close enough to the boat, someone snags the thrashing fish with the gaff and pulls it on deck. The fish is violently flailing at this point – the only thing to can do to stop it is to jab a long sharp knife into its head/brain and hope to kill it on the first try. Not a pretty sight. The barracuda had the largest teeth I have ever seen. Mean buggers. Always a debate as to who would be the (un)lucky one to take the lure out of its mouth. The wahoo was over 6 feet long and weighed more than 120 pounds. You could barely lift it. It was worth a couple of thousand dollars to a restaurant. Our double strike of marlin was probably a once-in-a-lifetime event. Bringing in two huge fish at once was exciting and there was lots of anticipation to see what exactly was on the end of the lines (and how big), considering how much work was going into bringing them in, and how much fight the fish had. I was agog when I saw it – the sailfish was such a vibrant and glimmery blue silver color. Nature has an interesting way – as soon as the fish died, all brightness left it, and the fish faded to gray/black. I was glad we only kept one and let the other go… You can only eat so much fish.

Sashimi will never be the same again. Catch a fish, fillet it, eat it. Amazing, unreal. We had fish for dinner, then for breakfast, and sometimes for lunch. Smoked fish, steamed fish, fried fish, poached fish, raw fish. Hello Bubba Gump. Too much of a good thing? We used yellowtail sashimi as bait the next morning… sacrilege!

For those of you who know me, I know you’ll be surprised to hear that I kind of became the primary chef on board. Shocker. We had some amazing meals at sea, between the New Zealand steaks and fresh fish, though I highly doubt that this is usual sailing fare… Cooking while pitched on an angle while everything is moving around you was the real challenge. Try using a sharp knife or carrying a pot of hot water as the boat lobs you back and forth. That was one smart guy who invented tethers in the galley so you can strap yourself in. I could not believe the purple and blue bruises I had all around my midsection from being thrown against the countertops.

Cooking is salt in the wound of sea sickness. Even the most seasoned of sailors can be sent instantly chucking over the side after only a few minutes down below and a couple of whiffs of the galley. I think they were all taking bets at the start of the trip as to when I would puke. I can see how that would be the natural assumption, since I was not known for my experience at sea. Even though the weather was ten times the waves and wind of my trip on Salamandra, I felt fine. Ha! I should have taken that bet.

Driving Antaeus in strong wind felt like being in control of a torpedo. The slightest movement of the helm sent her flying in whatever direction. Charles is one of New Zealand’s famous sailors and I was honored to get my first lesson at the helm from him. It was like learning to ride a bike. First I watched. Then I held onto the helm while he drove. Then I drove with his hand also on the helm – “training wheels” that took over when I got into trouble. Then suddenly I was at it alone. Wow. Steering on a course, whether by compass or the stars is hard work. It takes awhile to get the hang of it, especially with 25-knot winds and 12-foot waves – I felt like I was learning to drive a car for the first time on the winding turns of Pacific Coast Highway 1 during a hurricane. After a few waves crashed over the deck, dousing me and everyone in the cockpit, and the guys below yelled up to us wondering what the hell was going on up on deck, we all agreed to resume my driving lessons at another time…

There is really no escape when you’ve got eight people in a confined space that’s only 65 feet long and there are 1,500 miles until you can get off. We were lucky – the company was fun and the dynamics worked. I found myself in conversations about the most mundane of topics (the weather, diesel fuel and the bilge) to the most interesting and philosophical of topics (happiness, the meaning of life, and what it was like to win a gold medal in the Olympics). In between there were a few debates about U.S. politics/George Bush and whether or not America really sent a man up to the moon (apparently there’s a documentary refuting the achievement as some big conspiracy theory). Again, the people I’ve met on this journey and the perspective I’ve gotten along the way will leave the most lasting impressions on me.

While I’ll probably sail again and see as beautiful of sights, nothing will ever be the same awe-inspiring-first-time-for-everything experience this trip was for me. The “firsts” made this trip completely unique, and as hard as I tried, no photo could really capture the experience and those moments – my first game fish (that became my first really fresh sashimi), my first time driving a racing yacht, my first albatross sighting, my first whale sighting, my first message in the bottle. The gloaming, sunsets, sunrises, amazing phosphorescence, zillions of stars and full moon every night were just icing on the cake.

Our last night at sea involved platters of smoked marlin, bottomless rum and cokes, and some dancing on the deck in the crispy sea air. Landfall came all too soon. But Auckland was a perfect place to end up at after a perfect week at sea. After just one day here, I am already in love with the country – such a beautiful place and the nicest people. Welcome to New Zealand!