The ultimate ‘Are we there yet?’
How was the trip? They asked.
Boring, Beautiful, Exciting, Hot, Cold, Wet, and sometimes Wild.
Leaving Opua was like heading off on a
highway, there were yachts everywhere, all racing North as fast as they could –
we’d most of us been waiting nearly 3 weeks from our initial departure date of
May 6th. There were a lot of boats like us sailing off independently
as well as the 20 odd yachts left on the Island Cruising Association (ICA)
Pacific Circuit Rally.
The first 24 hours was a great intro (if a
bit lumpy) to our Ocean Passage, we had a big long ocean swell coming at us
from the north and a brisk breeze coming at us from the South West. We managed
to have a good start averaging over 6 knots for the first day and a half before
the wind started to die off.
We had chosen to leave in a weather window
that would see us catching the tail end of a low pressure system and its
associated southerly winds before going through the middle of a high pressure
system where there would be no wind and fair bit of motoring to get to the
South Easterlies of the trade wind belt near the Islands. This is a typical weather pattern for this
part of the world, weather systems divided by troughs or fronts coming at us
from the Tasman Sea.
Wild Sweet carries 300l of diesel in her
tank plus we had 60l in jerry cans to top up with if we needed. At the rate of
2.2l/hour we had a reasonable amount of motoring covered off. Good job too.
The first day it was all about getting our
sealegs, the wonder of being on our way at last and bedding down all the rattley
bumpy things stowed in lockers. Preparing our first radio report for our 1700
check in on the SSB with Peter Mott at Northland Radio we had to make sure we
had all the info in the right order as he had about 50 boats on his roll call
every night and was to enter the info into a database then email our family
back home as we radioed it through.
We saw a huge pod of dolphins, some stayed
with us a while to play in our bow wave as we neared the 12 mile territorial
limit of NZ waters and the end of my telecom mobile coverage.
Then we were on our own.
After the 1700 SSB check in we had to sort out
a watch system so there was someone awake and on watch 24 hours a day. We ended
up with
1700 – Radio sched with NLR
Dinner,
1830-2130 first watch – Kerry on, Phil off
2130-0030 second watch – Phil on, Kerry off
0030-0330 third watch – Kerry on, Phil off
0330-0630 fourth watch – Phil on, Kerry off
0630 Kerry on watch to do SSB radio sched
with Gulf Harbor radio at 0700
0730 Weather forecast from Gulf Harbour
radio
Breakfast
Position Plot at 1200
Lounging around, playing I-spy (I spy with
my little eye something beginning with S!), trimming the sails, or staring at
the horizon trying to not feel queasy.
Rinse and repeat for 11 days more or less.
So –
Boring? Yes by God, it was the Ultimate ‘are we there yet’ scenario
when we were motoring 24 hours a day for 4 days on the trot, then a day of
sailing, then another day of engine, this time into a heavy northerly swell
which mixed up the fuel so well all the shit that lies at the bottom of your
tank
(you know it does..) got sucked up into the
filters and the motor splutters its last ….
Beautiful
The MOST AMAZING sunsets and sunrises
especially over the flattest, oily swells, the sky reflecting so perfectly into
the sea with colours that only nature can provide in such brilliance and
combinations.
The Milky Way arching overhead and mirrored
in the boat’s wake, phosphorescence shooting out like a rocket trail from the
rudder.
Shooting stars falling into oblivion, the
night sky so dark, the horned moon setting in its tangerine glory, so brilliant
as to appear so close you’d think the devil himself was peeking over the
horizon.
The random patches of glowing green
efflorescence that could only be mysterious sea creatures just below the
surface, no shape or form, just a
ghostly glow drifting past.
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| Only slightly cooked :| |
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| #nofilter |
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| Sunset/ Crescent Moon |
Exciting
Bowling down 3 metre swells at 9 knots in
the dark, the trusty Hydrovane keeping our course without fault.
Watching an actual cold front come across
at 3am, the horizon disappeared, the rain and black cloud gave the impression
of being in a big grey bag, floating in space with no relation to what was
near, far, sea or sky.
Watching tuna jump all around the boat,
casting a rod out to have the whole 100m of line stripped from the reel in an
instant! – That was not a skipjack
tuna…
Checking out the Albatross as they came to
check us out, one even landing on the windspeed indicator at the masthead and
hitching a ride with us. Very curious creatures, they would spend hours flying
around the boat trying to land on bits of it.
Sighting land after 10 days at sea, a foreign country no less.
Hot/Cold – we left NZ as winter was starting to bite. 9 degrees at night,
still 20 odd in the day though. The water temperature rose from 20 degrees in
the BOI to 30 degrees here in the tropics. The first half of the trip I was
wearing my North Sea oil rig issue orange suit on night watches.
The last few nights of the trip it was
shorts and shirt.
Wet/Wild
Not a great deal of rain, in fact only one lot of showers as we got
swallowed up in a trough between the cold front and the next low pressure
system. Wild Sweet is such an excellent sea boat we (Phil) only got splashed in
the cockpit a couple of times. It got a
bit wild for us when that trough went across so we hove to for the night and
waited till it all settled down, we had to slow down anyway to allow us to
arrive in the morning rather than after hours and there’s no sense in getting
yourself bashed around for the sake of it.
Learnings
Lifejackets/Harnesses are not necessarily designed
with women in mind! My one was extremely uncomfortable and had to keep
adjusting it around my lady lumps so, ladies, make sure you buy yours after
trying a few on. I’m sure they are not all made equal.
Even if you don’t get sea sick (we don’t)
then anti nausea tablets are very useful for the first day or two of a passage
till you get your sealegs. We have some that dissolve on your tongue and work
really quickly.
Precooked, frozen and vacuum packed meals
are where it’s at.
Carry spares of your spare fuel filters, we
had to change out our 3 fuel filters mid ocean, luckily we were at a
comfortable and relatively flat point of sail, it was still a good half day
with Phil upside down in the engine compartment swearing a lot and both of us
getting covered in diesel.
Two radio schedules may seem a bit overkill
to people who do this trip every year. I had arranged with Annette at Far North
radio to check in every evening but we had trouble raising her so in the end we
had a morning informal check in with Patricia at Gulf Harbour Radio who would
enter our position and comments into our YIT page followed by a decent weather
report and associated discussion by David.
The Northland Radio evening check in was
great to keep track of other boats we knew of who had left around the same time
as us. Plus Peter would then email our position report to our chosen shore
based person who would then pass on to interested parties.
Arrived!
Wild Sweet in the background, Cold Fiji Gold Beer and frosty glass in the foreground at Waitui Marina Savusavu
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