CURRENT VOYAGE LOGBOOK
For the 2008/09 southern summer season TIAMA
is working from Bluff, New
Zealand's southernmost port and gate-way to the Antarctic and Sub
Antarctic. Chartering to NIWA, Dep of Conservation, Government and
private charters most of them to the sub Antarctic islands..
PREVIOUS VOYAGE UPDATES.
Auckland New Zealand 15 July
2006
We have spent another summer
plowing through the Southern Ocean, coming and going from the
blustery little port of Bluff at the bottom of New
Zealand.
A total of 12 trips to the Sub Antarctic, including 2
trips to Macquarie island
which is half way down between NZ and the Antarctic. Its a small long skinny
island in the middle of
the Southern Ocean with so many penguins on some of the beaches that
you can not see the end of the colonies. We were providing transport
for a BBC film crew.
There is no real
anchorage at Macquarie Island and it has a seemingly constant
rolling surf on the beach all of which makes life interesting
and does not help the grey hair department.
Most of the other work we have been doing has
a conservation/research twist to it. We do seem to spend a lot of
time with slightly eccentric sea bird
researchers
onboard taking them to and from the fair flung NZ Sub
Antarctic islands where they try to determine the impact
different fisheries techniques have on
the various albatross populations. About 75% of the worlds albatross come to the NZ sub Antarctic
islands for breeding.
The health of the populations also reflect the state
our planet is in and in a way act as a barometer for the impacts of
climate change. At times the crew get the opportunity to get our
hands dirty working with the different albatross species as field
assistants, this is great.
Funny how one ends up growing a passion for the big bird, I
had never imagined myself as a bird person but they truly are amazing
creatures.
Another interesting job was providing logistical
support for 2 geologists from the NZ Institute of Geological and
Nuclear Sciences surveying the outer and very exposed West coast of
Fiord land. They were for sure in the eccentric department. We
dropped them off on some amazing rock outcrops carrying a big geologist hammer, and then
picked them up again in what were at times challenging circumstances
without letting them drop in the water, a good thing really as they
usually had a big bag full of rock specimens between them.
We celebrated the tenth birthday of Tiama on 7
December last year, she has 90,000 nautical miles under her keel and
is going strong. It is interesting to see that a lot of the gear and equipment starts
giving up after 10 years of hard work. During this winters
maintenance period I will be replacing the stainless steel standing
rigging, diesel heater,
wind generator, gas cooker, next year the main engine and
hull sandblasting is on the list.
That is boats for you, as one hardware retailer in Invercargill once told me
, we are not here to make money we are just here to make friends .
And having fun of course, we still do that although at
the end of the summer charter season it almost starts feeling like a
real job, but that is only when we come and go from port, dealing
whit yet another bag full of
laundry and a never ending grocery shopping list. The actual time at sea still
has plenty of
challenges. The southern ocean is forever changing and not to be
underestimated.
Cheers
Henk
Auckland New Zealand27 July 2006
In the Footsteps of David Lewis, Tiama to the Ice.
It has been the biggest year to date and top of
the list was our 5 week trip to the Balleny Islands at 66 degrees 50
minutes south. They are on the NW corner of the Ross Sea, mainland
Antarctica and 1,200 miles due south of New Zealand.
A charter for the New Zealand Ministry of
Fisheries, doing an underwater dive survey of the coastline; bird and
seal counts, as well as taking biopsy samples of humpback whales.
I just wished that they had picked a different
part of the Antarctic to go to. The Balleny Islands have the
distinguished reputation of being a hard place to reach and an even
harder place to do work.
Before we left I spent large amounts of time
looking at ice charts and consulting with ice experts, skippers and
weather experts. Most of them agreed that it was a bold but feasible
plan. There were a few notable exceptions remarking I was a braver man
than them to go there in such a small vessel. Of course one gets a bit
worried about these sorts of remarks from knowledgeable people, but
after analyzing and discussing all the various points of view I felt
that it was possible to do it within acceptable safety parameters
The island group is very, very remote, rarely
visited and locked in the ice for about 10 months of the year. The west
coast of the island group is only ice free for about one month of the
year and sometimes it does not get free of the pack ice at all.
No small boat had been to the Balleny islands
since David Lewis visited them briefly 28 years ago on Solo.
The island group is situated in the friction zone between the permanent
Antarctica high and southern ocean lows.
During our southbound voyage we had favorable
westerly to north westerly winds 35 to 45 knots. Tiama
loves this sort of breeze lapping it up under storm tri-sail and
hurricane jib with a drop of Genoa rolled out when needed. For this
voyage I fitted a very small jib on the inner forestay. This was a tiny
bit of rag built like a brick shit house and a beautiful thing to have
in a stiff breeze.
The day we arrived it was flat calm with 3
humpback whales on the port bow. Work began immediately photographing
their flukes for later identification and taking biopsy samples. On
that first day we got several good fluke shots and one biopsy sample
which was a good start for the science program.
This was real scientific whaling, unlike the
slaughter that was taking place 2000 miles due east by the so called
scientific Japanese whaling ships. It was good to know that my old
Greenpeace colleagues were there at the same time trying to stop them.
We managed to carry out 90 % of the scientific
program, which was a bit ambitious to start with. The 4 scientists
onboard worked hard, doing on average 2 dives a day in minus 1.5 degree
waters, ice all around, and chilly just to watch. It was cold enough
for the fresh water tanks on board to start freezing up.
The weather gods treated us kindly for this expedtion,
and although all the historic records of the Balleny islands state
that there is no shelter for boats, we managed to find shelter where
previously nobody had found any. I think this was mainly due to
the different view seen through the eyes of a small boat skipper
compared to the view from the bridge of a big ship. We can
turn around on a penny, have a lifting keel that can reduce our
draft from three meters to 1.2 meters in a few minutes and can find
shelter in shallow waters behind cliffs, sand spits and islands.
Most of the better places to park for the night
were close to the partly ice free Capes of the bigger islands or on the
sides of the smaller islands that had more gently sloping hills and
lower cliffs. Here we could get close in and find bottom without the
threat of a house sized lump of ice landing on the deck. Unfortunately
none of the anchorages that we found allowed for the luxury of the
whole crew sitting down below over a glass of wine. We always had to
have one person on worry duty topsides.
The North Eastern Cape of Buckle Island was by far
the worst place that we used. Anchoring in 80 meters of water with 120
meters of chain out is not really anchoring. It is more like having a
small precarious foot hold. This foothold was accompanied by an active
calving glacier 600 meters away, which sent regular small rivers of ice
our way, bumping and scraping along the hull, which you can imagine
meant none of us slept well that night.
For the trip back up north we had not so favorable
west to North West winds, 3 big systems came through peaking at 55
knots each. Tiama is just a great deep sea boat, beautiful to watch as
she works her way through the water, scary at times for sure, but just
right.
We arrived back in Bluff March 5th, after 5 weeks
at sea, with only a few minor cases of cabin fever onboard. I’m happy
to report that we did not break much gear. In fact I only spent $150 in
the hardware shop to replace a few lost and broken items. This is less
then what we break on our regular NZ Sub-Antarctic trips.
I know that one needs drama to make a good story,
so be assured the trip did make my hair go a bit greyer. Our contact at
the Ministry of Fisheries asked on our return if we wanted to do
another trip. I agreed to do so but suggested that we should have a
year break in between to give the skipper a chance to catch his breath
and put his feet by the fire at home.
We did another refit on Tiama before this
expedtion and she is now fitted out with dive compressor, dive bottles
etc for remote expedition dive work; a top of the range depth sounder
which can record up to 700 meters and log depths, course, position,
barometric pressure etc in a spread sheet form…. very fancy gear.
The remainder of the southern summer season was
spent sailing to the NZ Sub Antarctic islands supporting various
research programs. One notable trip was collecting mushrooms for an
American university sponsored by National Geographic with a weird,
wonderful and eccentric bunch of scientists onboard. But nothing quite
as exciting as the Balleny islands.
For the winter months we are back in Auckland
doing maintenance work etc. Looks like next summer we will be working
again from the Port of Bluff sailing to the NZ sub Antarctic islands.
Tiama and her crew are well, Ruby has gotten her
first commercial boat operator’s certificate, and occasionally sails as
mate onboard Tiama. Bunny is desk bound at Greenpeace New Zealand. And
I’m floating about as happy as ever.
Kind regards
Henk
Auckland NZ March 2005
Dear all
For the southern summer of 2004-05 we
had a big contract with the NZ Dept of Conservation,
supporting their research work to the NZ sub Antarctic islands,
our first expedition started on 4 November 2004 and we
finished early April 2005. In all we did 9 trips south, We
had the normal succession of weather systems that you expect for
these latitudes, although we did encounter one rather large wave
that took out the Port wheelhouse window, this was a bit of a dramatic
moment, but no serious damage was done and after some temporary
repairs Tiama carried on in a safe and sound manner.
The other development is that we have set up
a sailing school working with the NZ Coastguard and the Royal
Yachting association, we are now a recognized coastguard/RYA
training centre, yours truly is a qualified yachtmaster
instructor, Our website for the school, www.sailing.school.nz
please have a look, we plan to specialize in coastal passages for
people new to sailing, or for those who want to get their coastal
skippers ticket or just want to do a few good sea miles.
Hope your all well and happy.
By the way, my old computer died a violent
death last week, so I have lost a lot emails and addresses, to my
surprise the world has kept on turning, sorry if this not to your
old email address.
Cheers
Henk
Port Moresby P.N.G. August 2003
Dear all
Tiama is nearing the end of its long and
very successful campaign trip in to the Western Province of PNG
Thank you to everyone from around the world who supported us
in this part of our campaign work . The incredible progress that we
have made on the Kiunga imbak campaign and the ground work
that we are having on RH are a tribute to the org, to our supporters,
and particularly the many wonderful people who have worked with us
on the campaign over the last three months. The success that we are
having belongs to us all.
Recent events and happenings:
1. Last week the team spent six days on the
ground of the Rimbunan Hijau logging concession of Wawoi Guavi.
RH, from Malaysia, is one the largest, most destructive and
aggressive logging companies in the world. We documented the
logging, environmental impact, the stories of the people and
gathered a large amount of photographs and evidence that will help us
in our coming campaign work. The general feeling with the locals was
that an RH supporter had done some puri puri (traditional
magic) on our camp, which caused to rain most of the time.
As if we don't have enough logistical challenges! The team
regularly came back covered from head to toe with mud.
Henry, Dorothy and Sep had a meeting
with landowners from the Kamula Dosa and Wawoi fallls. We have had various warnings that a
lot of these folk were not interested talking to us, it turns out they see all ngo's as the same and weren't
aware of what GP does and why we were here. After a lengthy meeting the campaign team were very pleased
with the support and feedback they received as this is an important area.
David and Geoff have been getting plenty of breaches of the forestry code of practice. Sandy has some great photos and very
passionate testimonials of affected landowners. On Saturday the team entered Komusie - the heart of the RH operations in Western Province.
This is RH's saw mill and veneer plant. The team was interviewed during the day by the notorious One Eye known for committing various human rights abuses in Bouganville and also at Komusie. He was accompanied by an AK47
carrying thug. After a lengthy and heated discussion between One
Eye, Dorothy and the photographer Sandy, he left us to our final
hour's work
This morning the Tiama sailed past Panikawa - RH's
other mill on the Wawoi River. The onboard
team stood on the yacht wearing "Stop Forest Crime" t-shirts which
we photographed. This was the first piece of overt public protest
during this trip, but a fitting message to the company that we hope
to take on in a concerted and public way in the near future,
and who had made our lives so very difficult for the last
three weeks.
SV Tiama will arrive in Port Moresby in the
middle of next week after three months fantastic
field work and we will start packing up, debriefing, and planning
for he next steps. Against the many obstacles we have faced in
the last few weeks we have managed to get into the concessions
and make some solid progress for our campaign. From the
export point, to all the way up the rivers and into the concessions
the locals now know about Greenpeace and what we stand for. It
is early days but we have been laying a good foundation
for our future work.
Best regards and thanks
Stephen Campbell
The GPAP Forest campaign team.
Sorry there are a few updates missing
for 2001 and 2002 due to a computer crash.
Our main activity during this time was
chartering in the NZ Sub Antarctic and taking part in the Tasman
nuclear free flotilla.
Sydney Australia 10 January 2001
Dear all
You might have wondered (or not) what
happened to Tiama and her crew for the last year or so, and what we
are up to at present. Well, wonder no more all will be revealed if
you care to read on.
The new millennium started well for us with
a charter to the Antipodes. The Antipodes are some of New Zealand's
sub-Antarctic islands. The job involved us filming the first sunrise
of the new millennium and it was a spectacular one. We then beamed
the image out live onto the internet via a huge inmarsat-B mounted
on the aft deck especially for the occasion (which looked rather
silly).
Directly after this Henk went up to the
Arctic to go camping on the ice. He was part of a Greenpeace
campaign against offshore oil developments in Prudhoe bay Alaska.
The camp was at 70 degrees north and it was late
winter when it tends to be a bit chilly so
yours truly got a bit of a nip here and there. The campaign did make
a difference and has has some impact on BP's attitude regarding oil
exploration versus the development of
renewable energy.
We (Bunny, Ruby, Henk) spent the next 6
months in Amsterdam, Bun had a 6 month job there being very busy as
the Nukes Coordinator for GPI, while Ruby went to school and Henk
tried to be a good house father.
During this time Tiama was patiently waiting
for us tied to mangrove trees in her mud berth, on Waiheke Island in
Auckland.
Currently we are working with Greenpeace's
Nuclear Campaign - being part of a flotilla of local boats that are
organising to go out and protest in the Tasman Sea, between New
Zealand and Australia - where there are large number of shipments of
plutonium fuel and nuclear waste passing throug on their way
between Japan and Europe.
At present we are moored in Sydney
Australia, just about to start a tour of a few south Australian
cities with Tiama to raise the profile of Australia's nuclear
ambitions and involvement in shipping nuclear materials across the
oceans.the
So as you can see we try and keep ourselves
usefully occupied, and make a few waves here and there.
Tiama is great as always, still a wonderful
boat, we put some more equipment and gear onboard,
including an inmarsat mini-M and a inmarsat-C so we can now make
phone calls and do emails at sea, (no escaping for us anymore, although it
does have an off button ha.).
Best wishes to all of you for the new year
2001 ?????? time is flying when you are having fun.
Cheers, Henk, Bunny, Ruby.
Cairns Australia, September 5, 1999
Dear everyone,
It has been a while since our last update
and we have done a few miles since then so we thought it about time
to catch you all up.
The last time we wrote in February we were
sailing up the Chilean channels to Puerto Montt. Since that time
Henk has been home to the Netherlands and up to the Arctic - not on
the boat - checking out the possibilities for chartering there,
Bunny and Ruby returned to NZ for three months as Bunny’s father was
unwell.
On the 4 of June Henk departed from Puerto
Monttt, Chile with Tiama heading for Australia (a 7500 mile voyage
across the “big pond” pacific ocean) with brief stops in Easter
Island, Pitcairn, the Cooks island and Fiji. Bunny and Ruby
rejoined Tiama in the Cook Islands in July and we arrived here in
Cairns, Australia on 7 August.
The Pacific surely is big and relatively
empty of boats we only met one other boat during the crossing, this
was at about the half way point (3500 miles out of Chile, mid
Pacific) at about dusk we heard somebody with a polish accent making
a call for the vessel under the full moon (us), it turned out to be
old fiends from NZ on their boat Nanu who were on there way from NZ
to Chile, the likely hood of meeting up with somebody like that is
very very remote and here we were on a collision course with them,
amazing.
We are working here with Greenpeace
Australia for the next three months on a climate change campaign
along the Great Barrier Reef. Parts of the reef was badly bleached
in 1998 when the water temperatures were unusually high. A lot of
the coral died during that event. Our effort is focused on reaching
the public and making the links between the bleaching of the coral
reef with the new oil from shale rock development in Gladstone which
is just south of here on the coast. The idea being that investment
should be into renewable energy such as wind and solar rather than
into fossil fuels like oil which are the main causes of climate
change. There is a window of opportunity before the oil development
goes commercial to stop it by getting the public involved in the
Environmental Impact Assessment process. We are doing open days
with the boat and taking people out to see the good, the bad and the
ugly on the reef and generally being a platform for Greenpeace to
reach the public about the issue. There is a good bunch of people
from Greenpeace Australia on the land side of things that we are
working with.
The first 10 days here we spent taking Dr
Roger Grace, an underwater photographer, David Wooly a cameraman,
and a couple of scientists to the spots on the reef that were badly
bleached during the 1998 bleaching event. We saw some beautiful
coral and some damaged and dead coral. We also saw turtles and manta
rays and Ruby got to swim with a mama humpback and her calf that
came right up to the boat, which was pretty awesome at the same time
as being pretty scary.
We will be here until the end of November
and at this point we are planning on being back in NZ over the
Christmas/ New Century season unless a job we just can’t resist
somewhere cold comes up.
We are all doing fine and enjoying a bit of
sunshine, Tiama is going great we haven’t seen a boat we like better
yet doubt we ever will.
Cheers Bunny, Ruby, Henk
Ushuaia - Chilean channels- Puerto Montt Chili April 1999
Dear friends
Our first season working in the Antarctic
Peninsula and the Cape horn region has finished. We are now in
Puerto Montt a small port in southern Chile, the gateway to the
Chilean channels that lead south to Cape Horn.
From Ushuaia (Argentina) we sailed up the
channels of southern Chile, they form a true 1000 mile long maritime
maize it is a series of steep flanked and wooded fjord’s and islands
with what must be a 1000 different mostly unexplored anchoress, a
very remote region only accessible by boat, It has lots of huge
glaciers around you can sail up to them getting some ice for you
drinks. It is a region were one could spend a lifetime and still you
would not have visited everything.
We had a great season and the boat lived up
to all her expectations and more we had some great experiences with
the various people who chartered Tiama for the last few months and
are looking forward to continuing in the same vain.
Bye for now
Henk, Bunny and Ruby
Ushuaia Argentina - Antarctic Peninsula
February 8, 1999
Dear all,
We’re have returned from our first Antarctic
expedition. We arrived back in Ushuaia the night of Feb. 4th after
beating our way up the Beagle for the last five hours. It was an
adventure for all on board Tiama.
We had good crossings of the Drake Passage –
650 miles each way between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula –
taking 3-4 days both ways, although the Australian climbers on board
thought that climbing their peak would be easy after sailing the
Drake Passage.
We knew we had arrived at the gateway to the
Antarctic when a huge blue white iceberg emerged out of the fog.
From then on we spent the whole trip invariably being awed, humbled,
set on edge and elated by the sheer enormity of Antarctica in every
sense and the weather that it can throw at you, sometimes with very
little warning. It certainly keeps you on your toes and all your
antennae finely tuned to what is happening around you. It is hard
not to use every superlative I know to describe this place.
The forces of nature at work in Antarctica that you can see and
feel are so overpowering It certainly gives you some perspective
about your place in the scheme of things which also makes you feel
very very hopeful. Nature rules!!!
It was a brilliant sunny day when we
landed the climbers near their peak. Unloaded all the gear in about
four hours, organized a radio and pick up schedule and headed out to
find a safe anchorage to wait. We finally picked them up again 12
days later. They had climbed their peak and were pretty pleased with
how everything had worked out. Again there was good weather for the
pick up although we had to weave our way in and around icebergs much
larger than Tiama to get to the shore where they were waiting.
After that there were still 14 days to explore
Antarctica which we did. A wonderful time, saw a lot of whales
– so many that after the 10th time when the cry “whales on the port
bow” was called, someone down below yelled back ‘what sort?”
Spent hours watching penguins literally
popping out of the water and standing around in their hundreds
looking after their chicks, or leopard seals slumbering on ice flows
or sleekly hiding out by ice bergs waiting for a penguin to swim by.
The wildlife is abundant and the first reaction is not fear of
humans. It’s possible to sit and watch all this taking place just
five meters away from you.
The climbers turned into pretty good sailors
after they returned, expert zodiac drivers and learning fast how
to moor TIAMA with steel strops and lines to rocks ashore in
whatever anchorage we had chosen for that night. They were still
‘peak spotting’ and planning and scheming for their next trip. There
are so many magnificent peaks that just rise straight out of the
water, it is easy to see why it attracts climbers. Ruby (our
10-year-old daughter) of course now wants to climb mountains. She
had a great time and was completely enthralled by the wildlife.
We had some weather, mostly when we were
well tacked down for the night. We recorded 65 knots while at anchor
in Pleneau with six heavy mooring lines to shore. Tiama did really
well, was comfortable in the ice, and we were in amongst a bit of
thick brash and ice flows at times, navigating in poorly charted
waters and anchorage’s where bumping into the odd rock is common.
Now we are busy preparing for the next
voyage, up the Chilean Channels. We leave on February 11 with a
friend from NZ and a Danish couple that we met here. It will take a
month to get up to Puerto Montt. We are all looking forward to this
as it is supposed to be spectacular. From Puerto Montt we will be
heading North making our way up towards Alaska were we will spend
the northern summer season.
We are all doing fine, loving our adventures
and missing you all.
Cheers Henk, Bunny and Ruby
Auckland New Zealand- Cape Horn November
1998.
We are busy stowing gear and stores under
blue spring skies preparing to head off in a few days time for what
is considered one of the classic sea voyages.
On November 4 we depart Auckland, New
Zealand with 8 on board to set sail across the Southern Ocean for
Ushuaia, Argentina. The ages of our crew range from our 10 year old
daughter to our 63 year old mate David, mostly New Zealanders with
the odd Dutchman thrown in, and includes three females and 5 males.
We will call in at the Chatham Islands 3-4 days sail from Auckland.
From there the plan is to cross at approx. 50 degrees until we are
about half way across and then head South to round Cape Horn. We are
anticipating a crossing of approx. 30 days arriving early December.
Our next charter starts on January 2, 1999
when we will pick up the Young Australian Antarctic Expedition (6
climbers) from Ushuaia and take them to the Antarctic Peninsula
where they intend to climb the so far unclimbed Pilcher Peak. Our
ETA back in Ushuaia is 5 February and we currently have space
available for possible charters around Tierra del Fuego and the
Chilean channels for February or March.
Best regards, Bunny, Henk and Ruby
Auckland New Zealand - Kermadec islands February 1998
Dear Friends
Tiama's maiden voyage was great the boat did
really well and we managed to achieve all our objectives. This included a
first recorded (not so easy) landfall on Cheeseman island collecting
geological specimens for the Auckland Museum, for the purpose of dating
the islands.
We also delivered some cargo and mail to the
NZ Department of Conservation (DOC) personnel stationed on
Raoul Island, the Northern most of the Kermdacs. TVNZ, who
was on board in the form of Bruce Adams captured the work being
done by DOC and their volunteers who are trying to rid the Islands
of introduced weeds, cats and rats. Raoul has a remarkable boat
launching and cargo loading and unloading system using what must
be the world's biggest and best flying fox.
The Kermadec islands are small volcanic
islands sticking out in the middle of the Pacific and even on a nice day there
is a big sea swell on a cliff faced and rocky coast, not
appealing for boat landings But a good time was had by all onboard.
Now its full on preparations for the
Southern Ocean crossing (leaving NZ November 1) and rounding Cape Horn to
station ourselves in Ushuaia Argentina) in preparation for a January
2 departure to the Antarctic Peninsula acting as the logistical support
vessel to a party of 6 Australian Mountaineers who will attempt to
climb Pilchner peak (another first), should be fun
Kind Regards
...
|
