Saturday, June 11, 2011
Noumea to Australia
Our clearance into New Cal was uneventful—we were at anchor which meant we could go ashore and walk to customs. As it was lunchtime—12-1 30pm we went to the ATM and had lunch first—French customs tend to be very chilled out and no one asks why it took all day to get to them.
After having finished with customs and immigration we went to the quarantine lady. She asked if we had any fresh fruit and vegs and when we insisted we did not—I had cooked up a big stew with the leftovers being aware of entry requirements by this stage in our sailing lives. She asked where we were anchored which would involve a 20 minute walk and a 15 minute dingy ride each way. When she realised she probably would not reap anything she decided it was too much trouble so had us sign a form stating we had nothing to declare. We felt fortunate as she has a reputation for taking things and stocking up her larder—a Canadian boat which came in the next day even had a cooked chicken taken. Actually they were fortunate as they had arrived with a lot of fruit and vegs from Vanuatu, they had heard they were expensive in New Cal. We looked after them while they went into the marina to check in where they always comes on your boat. They took a large bag of NZ apples from another boat and the same apples are for sale at an inflated price in the supermarket!!
It seemed as though we had just left—we had in November—and we quickly got into the routine of the market, coffee shop with the internet and the patisserie. It is expensive with all fruit appearing to be $4 a kilo and the quality is mediocre. The prize items at the market are the monster prawns and “ton rouge” –yellow fin tuna which makes an awesome sashimi.
We intended staying for a week to rest up and wait for a window to Cairns and went to the city museum and cultural centre, neither of which we had managed to fit in last time. We went for many long walks to get some exercise in before the 2 week passage to Australia.
The climate is idyllic as it is just south of the ‘Tropic of Capricorn” and daytime temperatures in the low 20’s. It appears the dry season has not totally arrived so was overcast most of the time.
Yet again we had to motor past a newly shipwrecked yacht to get to the dingy dock—every year when we get to the islands there are several boats which for whatever reason did not survive the local cyclone season---one reason we have made the trip to NZ each year.
We were anxious to start moving after a week and we cleared out making our way north inside the lagoon on the west of the island. It looked lovely with white sandy beaches but the showery weather helped us from wishing we could stay and explore more. We hopped up the coast for three days and then set off west to the Chesterfield Islands which are 450 miles on the way to Cairns.
We quickly adapted to the “watch schedule” and lack of winds meant we had to motor sail to keep our speed up—it is a long passage to Cairns—1200 miles and we did not want to be still sailing after our forecasted period and be stuck at sea in bad weather.
One of the amazing things about the area is the underwater sea mounts and islands in the middle of the ocean---we were sailing at 6000 feet of water and 5 miles away there was a mount of 22 feet!!—would be really freaky if you did not know and all of a sudden could see the bottom!! We kept away as we were unsure whether currents or eddies may occur in these regions.
We did not see any other vessels and other than a whale spouting some distance away and a pair of sea birds who decided to sleep on our spreader we were quite alone. As we are out of the main route at this time of year we were also sailing alone—quite unusual as we always have other boats to check in with each day. We did have John from Mr John as our weather guru; update us regularly with weather predictions. On his advice we will stay at Chesterfield Island for one day before heading on. Being there in this tenuous anchorage when the winds come up is not a good idea—the place is apparently littered with shipwrecks so we do not want to add to the number!!
Kristen has been researching it for us and it appears that it is a major fishing spot---those who are very rich come out from New Cal and fish for the aggressive GT’s—fish language for giant terakahi—around 80kg as are the dogtooth tuna which are at the bottom on the ancient sea mounts!!!---hmm will be interesting—Ken of course badly wants to catch something huge and I hope it does not take him as well as his rod and reel!! I would like to snorkel but hope I can find a place near shore away from these monsters. Apparently there are huge lobsters also---everything sounds huge and tough, hopefully we can get something smaller which is tasty.
So far we have only caught a bird on the fishing line—he was very upset and had wound the leader around his wing. Ken managed to cut him free even though he was not appreciative at all and gashed Ken a couple of times.
Oh, a new update on this blog—John has just emailed us to say we need to keep moving at a decent speed to get to Cairns by Friday—Thursday preferably as a huge low is forming in the North Coral Sea—where we are now and will be until our arrival.
Bummer!!
We were only 13 miles from Chesterfield when we got the email and so had to just go right through the islands without stopping. They are the ultimate desert island and perhaps they shoot “Survivor” there. We have been to many of the areas they have shot the series and they are very close to civilisation!!
It would have been great to snorkel around the anchorage and we could see the reef where Ken was sure the monster lobsters lived. He did catch several fish but nothing like a GT or dogfish tuna. So we travel on, dependant on weather but glad we have the communications to find this out before ending up as one of the many shipwrecks littering these islands. It definitely did not offer any shelter.
We are now headed for Cairns but if it is doubtful that we can get there on Friday we will divert to Townsville which is closer or even Mackay which is closer still.
Several boats which left Noumea after us heading to Bundaberg are now on a radio sched with us—it is always comforting to talk to someone else out there and share the joys and frustrations of the long passages. This year just to get to Darwin—arriving in July—from Wellington—left in March—we will have done 3600 miles!!! That is just to get to where we will start our season to get to Indonesia!!! I think the only long passage then will be the first one to Timor which is 420 miles—nothing to us seasoned sailors!!
We made the decision to head for Mackay which is 200 miles closer—it is strange—it is so hard to change your plans from a planned route and you will go to great lengths to make it work but once you have finally accepted that it will not work it is a relief to now have a workable route and the stress level goes down considerably.
Human nature seems to want to stay with planned patterns in life even if they are not the most beneficial.
We spent most of the next few days motoring and motor sailing when the winds allowed and it was a long easy trip—reminiscent of our crossing to the Marqueses.
We arrived at the outer barrier reef just after the tide changed in our favour and it was daylight. Several tankers were entering and exiting but they all had pilots aboard who arrived by helicopter to take them to the mainland in this sensitive area. The pilots were very friendly and gave us the easiest route for us which cut off time from the commercial shipping lane. It was awesome to sail through the first pass and see the sand cays and reefs of Great Barrier Reef. It would have been fun to explore more.
Now we have one more night and will arrive in the morning to Mackay.
What a difference a few hours makes!! As we travelled through the passage in the Great Barrier Reef the wind and swell started to pick up and by the time we were through we had winds up to 30 knot and swells that threw us from one side to the other as well as backwards and forwards. Although the seas were short they were so nasty that our back bunk, usually really calm and quiet in the wildest seas, was too uncomfortable to sleep.
All of this combined with the reefs scattered everywhere made for a stressful night. We were trying to slow down to 5 knots so we would not arrive before dawn and needed to reduce and reduce and reduce sail as with the current and wind the boat wanted to go at 8-9 knots—why we couldn’t have had that a few days ago.
We did manage to succeed and were happy to finally arrive up just after dawn. Atlantia, a Scottish boat we had last seen in New Caledonia last year was in Mackay and it was nice to see a friendly face waiting to help us tie up.
Customs were fine but the quarantine procedure in Australia is quite punitive. It costs $330 an hour and $25 every extra15 minutes. If it is a weekend they will charge overtime which is double!!! The young man we had was very nice but spent a lot of time photographing the wood on our boat. These he will send to an entomologist and if he deems it necessary will now charge you to fly a beagle dog from Sydney who will sniff your boat and decide if there are bugs in the wood. We heard a horror story about a brand new boat which had been built in China being delayed in Brisbane for 2 weeks. He had to wait for an appointment and pay the cost of flying the dog and his handler only to find there was nothing wrong with his new wood. He had incurred the cost of the marina in Brisbane for the two weeks while he waited.
The next couple of days were spent getting a phone and an internet stick. After waiting for 1 hour at the Telstra store to get served---the line went out into the mall!!!—I was most unhappy as there was only one bus in and one bus back to the marina and we only had 3 hours to get groceries, wine and other incidentals to continue on our way.
The grocery store was huge and prices were the same as in NZ except the dollar is worth 30% more so means everything is 30% more expensive. Everything was available and the find of the day was huge fresh prawns for $15 a kilo. On the other hand bananas are $12 95 a kilo as most were lost in Cyclone Yasi earlier this year.
As we had made landfall 280 miles south of Cairns, where we had intended, we need to move on quickly. We have 1 month to reach Darwin and hope we can spend a little time swimming and hiking some of the anchorages on the way---especially the ones south of where the crocodiles are!!!
Right now because of the strange low pressure system we were experiencing the temperatures were down as low at 13C which is record lows for these parts and thoughts of snorkelling are not in our heads!!!
After having finished with customs and immigration we went to the quarantine lady. She asked if we had any fresh fruit and vegs and when we insisted we did not—I had cooked up a big stew with the leftovers being aware of entry requirements by this stage in our sailing lives. She asked where we were anchored which would involve a 20 minute walk and a 15 minute dingy ride each way. When she realised she probably would not reap anything she decided it was too much trouble so had us sign a form stating we had nothing to declare. We felt fortunate as she has a reputation for taking things and stocking up her larder—a Canadian boat which came in the next day even had a cooked chicken taken. Actually they were fortunate as they had arrived with a lot of fruit and vegs from Vanuatu, they had heard they were expensive in New Cal. We looked after them while they went into the marina to check in where they always comes on your boat. They took a large bag of NZ apples from another boat and the same apples are for sale at an inflated price in the supermarket!!
It seemed as though we had just left—we had in November—and we quickly got into the routine of the market, coffee shop with the internet and the patisserie. It is expensive with all fruit appearing to be $4 a kilo and the quality is mediocre. The prize items at the market are the monster prawns and “ton rouge” –yellow fin tuna which makes an awesome sashimi.
We intended staying for a week to rest up and wait for a window to Cairns and went to the city museum and cultural centre, neither of which we had managed to fit in last time. We went for many long walks to get some exercise in before the 2 week passage to Australia.
The climate is idyllic as it is just south of the ‘Tropic of Capricorn” and daytime temperatures in the low 20’s. It appears the dry season has not totally arrived so was overcast most of the time.
Yet again we had to motor past a newly shipwrecked yacht to get to the dingy dock—every year when we get to the islands there are several boats which for whatever reason did not survive the local cyclone season---one reason we have made the trip to NZ each year.
We were anxious to start moving after a week and we cleared out making our way north inside the lagoon on the west of the island. It looked lovely with white sandy beaches but the showery weather helped us from wishing we could stay and explore more. We hopped up the coast for three days and then set off west to the Chesterfield Islands which are 450 miles on the way to Cairns.
We quickly adapted to the “watch schedule” and lack of winds meant we had to motor sail to keep our speed up—it is a long passage to Cairns—1200 miles and we did not want to be still sailing after our forecasted period and be stuck at sea in bad weather.
One of the amazing things about the area is the underwater sea mounts and islands in the middle of the ocean---we were sailing at 6000 feet of water and 5 miles away there was a mount of 22 feet!!—would be really freaky if you did not know and all of a sudden could see the bottom!! We kept away as we were unsure whether currents or eddies may occur in these regions.
We did not see any other vessels and other than a whale spouting some distance away and a pair of sea birds who decided to sleep on our spreader we were quite alone. As we are out of the main route at this time of year we were also sailing alone—quite unusual as we always have other boats to check in with each day. We did have John from Mr John as our weather guru; update us regularly with weather predictions. On his advice we will stay at Chesterfield Island for one day before heading on. Being there in this tenuous anchorage when the winds come up is not a good idea—the place is apparently littered with shipwrecks so we do not want to add to the number!!
Kristen has been researching it for us and it appears that it is a major fishing spot---those who are very rich come out from New Cal and fish for the aggressive GT’s—fish language for giant terakahi—around 80kg as are the dogtooth tuna which are at the bottom on the ancient sea mounts!!!---hmm will be interesting—Ken of course badly wants to catch something huge and I hope it does not take him as well as his rod and reel!! I would like to snorkel but hope I can find a place near shore away from these monsters. Apparently there are huge lobsters also---everything sounds huge and tough, hopefully we can get something smaller which is tasty.
So far we have only caught a bird on the fishing line—he was very upset and had wound the leader around his wing. Ken managed to cut him free even though he was not appreciative at all and gashed Ken a couple of times.
Oh, a new update on this blog—John has just emailed us to say we need to keep moving at a decent speed to get to Cairns by Friday—Thursday preferably as a huge low is forming in the North Coral Sea—where we are now and will be until our arrival.
Bummer!!
We were only 13 miles from Chesterfield when we got the email and so had to just go right through the islands without stopping. They are the ultimate desert island and perhaps they shoot “Survivor” there. We have been to many of the areas they have shot the series and they are very close to civilisation!!
It would have been great to snorkel around the anchorage and we could see the reef where Ken was sure the monster lobsters lived. He did catch several fish but nothing like a GT or dogfish tuna. So we travel on, dependant on weather but glad we have the communications to find this out before ending up as one of the many shipwrecks littering these islands. It definitely did not offer any shelter.
We are now headed for Cairns but if it is doubtful that we can get there on Friday we will divert to Townsville which is closer or even Mackay which is closer still.
Several boats which left Noumea after us heading to Bundaberg are now on a radio sched with us—it is always comforting to talk to someone else out there and share the joys and frustrations of the long passages. This year just to get to Darwin—arriving in July—from Wellington—left in March—we will have done 3600 miles!!! That is just to get to where we will start our season to get to Indonesia!!! I think the only long passage then will be the first one to Timor which is 420 miles—nothing to us seasoned sailors!!
We made the decision to head for Mackay which is 200 miles closer—it is strange—it is so hard to change your plans from a planned route and you will go to great lengths to make it work but once you have finally accepted that it will not work it is a relief to now have a workable route and the stress level goes down considerably.
Human nature seems to want to stay with planned patterns in life even if they are not the most beneficial.
We spent most of the next few days motoring and motor sailing when the winds allowed and it was a long easy trip—reminiscent of our crossing to the Marqueses.
We arrived at the outer barrier reef just after the tide changed in our favour and it was daylight. Several tankers were entering and exiting but they all had pilots aboard who arrived by helicopter to take them to the mainland in this sensitive area. The pilots were very friendly and gave us the easiest route for us which cut off time from the commercial shipping lane. It was awesome to sail through the first pass and see the sand cays and reefs of Great Barrier Reef. It would have been fun to explore more.
Now we have one more night and will arrive in the morning to Mackay.
What a difference a few hours makes!! As we travelled through the passage in the Great Barrier Reef the wind and swell started to pick up and by the time we were through we had winds up to 30 knot and swells that threw us from one side to the other as well as backwards and forwards. Although the seas were short they were so nasty that our back bunk, usually really calm and quiet in the wildest seas, was too uncomfortable to sleep.
All of this combined with the reefs scattered everywhere made for a stressful night. We were trying to slow down to 5 knots so we would not arrive before dawn and needed to reduce and reduce and reduce sail as with the current and wind the boat wanted to go at 8-9 knots—why we couldn’t have had that a few days ago.
We did manage to succeed and were happy to finally arrive up just after dawn. Atlantia, a Scottish boat we had last seen in New Caledonia last year was in Mackay and it was nice to see a friendly face waiting to help us tie up.
Customs were fine but the quarantine procedure in Australia is quite punitive. It costs $330 an hour and $25 every extra15 minutes. If it is a weekend they will charge overtime which is double!!! The young man we had was very nice but spent a lot of time photographing the wood on our boat. These he will send to an entomologist and if he deems it necessary will now charge you to fly a beagle dog from Sydney who will sniff your boat and decide if there are bugs in the wood. We heard a horror story about a brand new boat which had been built in China being delayed in Brisbane for 2 weeks. He had to wait for an appointment and pay the cost of flying the dog and his handler only to find there was nothing wrong with his new wood. He had incurred the cost of the marina in Brisbane for the two weeks while he waited.
The next couple of days were spent getting a phone and an internet stick. After waiting for 1 hour at the Telstra store to get served---the line went out into the mall!!!—I was most unhappy as there was only one bus in and one bus back to the marina and we only had 3 hours to get groceries, wine and other incidentals to continue on our way.
The grocery store was huge and prices were the same as in NZ except the dollar is worth 30% more so means everything is 30% more expensive. Everything was available and the find of the day was huge fresh prawns for $15 a kilo. On the other hand bananas are $12 95 a kilo as most were lost in Cyclone Yasi earlier this year.
As we had made landfall 280 miles south of Cairns, where we had intended, we need to move on quickly. We have 1 month to reach Darwin and hope we can spend a little time swimming and hiking some of the anchorages on the way---especially the ones south of where the crocodiles are!!!
Right now because of the strange low pressure system we were experiencing the temperatures were down as low at 13C which is record lows for these parts and thoughts of snorkelling are not in our heads!!!
Monday, May 23, 2011
Farewll NZ once again
Our last week in NZ was a social whirl as we got back into the cruiser life. Opua is the hub of cruisers readying for their offshore ventures and at this time of year many coming in across the Tasman from Tasmania in Australia.
Mike and Devalah arrived after a 2 week crossing and it was lovely to see them again. Several single hander’s also arrived, all had stories of climbing 8 metre swells and surfing off waves with no predictable pattern. They were all happy to arrive and confirmed my position which was NEVER to cross the Tasman Sea at those latitudes.
The new anchor chain is on and minor adjustments made to our rig after having sailed from Whangarei with the new forestay. “Cater Bob” the guru from Cater Marine in Opua spliced us new jacklines. He is a former cruiser who arrived from the USA several years ago who had managed a West Marine store there and was snapped up by the owner here. He has the reputation of being able to source any boat parts needed from anywhere in the world earning the respect of all cruisers and the reason a lot of us go up as far as Opua to leave rather than Whangarei. We finally stopped the air leaking into the fuel lines of the generator after many expensive hours were spent by several mechanics and a lift pump being replaced which never did have anything wrong with it---one of the joys of diagnosing obscure issues.
The boat is once again ready for the passage to Noumea. As far as we know the only issue we have not addressed is our broadcasting strength of our SSB as we have not had the time or wherewithal to source out an SSB expert. They are few and far between as the radios are not widely used by anyone other than cruisers and we will live with the frustration this season of not being heard well at various ranges.
On the last trip to Pahia, the closest town to stock up with groceries we arrived to find it was “country western days”—being from Calgary the ultimate wanna be country western town it was fun to see the outfits and listen to the music.
Many enjoyable evenings were spent with new and old friends as we awaited the next weather window. Judy had sent us a sample of music from Eileen Quinn, a Canadian cruiser who has captured the essence of cruising. She explores the joys and frustrations and our newest motto is from one of her songs which says “if it aint broke don’t use it” wise words understood by all of us. This became my plea to Ken the last few days—it seems that you think you are ready and yet one more thing will fail and delay you for yet another week.
The weather looks good and we are stocked up with fresh food, water and fuel for the passage and are as ready as we will ever be. We were farewelled by Devallah, Mike and Doug and several new friends as we cast off.
Once again it is a feeling of sadness as we leave NZ for our third summer—hope there will be yet another one—this one was filled with memories of getting to know Adelyn and Grayson more and enjoying our family and friends in Wellington. It was enriched with the times with Migration and Little Blue and highlighted with successful ventures scalloping and fishing.
Ken had a great, albeit cold visit to Calgary meeting Grace and seeing everyone else there. Our lives are so filled with amazing experiences, friendships and wonderful family we are truly fortunate.
This passage will be with the full moon which is always a delight—it is amazing how much light it casts in the open ocean and night watches always seem easier and friendlier.
We seem to be surrounded by rainbows and I am not sure the significance of those but will take it as a good omen.
I am writing this part of this blog on our first night passage where the winds are a little to much from the west for us to do the rumb line but “easting” is never an issue from NZ as it is always easier to go west later. There is a considerable swell from the weather which is moving off the country but a huge high pressure system is coming from Australia which should give us a great passage. We have winds of 25 knots and are doing 8 knots so we should get north in great time.
The crossing was one of large swells although being behind us makes them bearable and winds from 20-35 knots, also behind us. We have a radio schedule with several other boats also headed to Noumea and the SSB seems to be fine so perhaps is not going to be an issue after all. Ken saw 14 knots on our knot meter as we surfed down a wave—the fastest either of us has ever seen before but as the passage is with the wind and swell we are not stressing the boat or sails. Our previous passages to and from NZ have been much more difficult angles so perhaps we will arrive unscathed!!!!!—wow what a concept!!!
I am now writing this as we await dawn to pass through the fringing reef of New Caledonia where we will then motor for a couple of hours to anchor once again in the lovely harbour of Noumea.
Our passage has been fast with continuous tail winds of 20-30 knots with the only issue being a nasty cross swell at our rear port quarter which rocked and rolled us for the last two nights. We have sailed with our jib alone for almost all of it and the boat has handled well tracking between 5-8knots depending on wind speed.
Another of Eileen Quinn’s songs is “If I killed the captain who is there to know” refers to the thoughts all crew have had on a passage. We had three new issues on this passage, the first was that the newly fixed generator had the fly wheel come loose and flew off, the second was that the key for the starboard engine refused to work and the third was the port engine was no longer spewing water as a line was blocked—all were resolved by my wonderful captain who was at once forgiven all past sins. I am well aware that without his knowledge I would have at this stage no engines and no power left and would be negotiating this pass by sail and somehow dropping the anchor and sail at the same time alone—hmmm!! Hopefully he appreciates that he would have been eating from cans all the way—supplemented by M&M’s---without my expertise and has also banished such unworthy thoughts of his crew!!!!!—hmm maybe I had better get rid of the M&M’s to even the playing field!!
When we were last here we had come from 5 months in Fiji and Vanuatu and appreciated the wonderful French food and pastries, this time having come directly from the world of bakeries will be a little more difficult to justify visiting le patisserie but we will succumb in the knowledge that once we hit Indonesia rice will be the staple of the day!! The diet can begin there.
We are unsure of the regulations of bringing in NZ meat—New Cal, despite the flaunting of all rules by the French sailing community, perhaps why, has the most stringent rules in the South Pacific---so we will stow ours somewhere hidden on the boat—the ridiculous thing is that we would have to go to the butcher and buy NZ meat to replace it anyway!! I did make a massive stew of all of our left over vegs with some chicken so they will not go to waste and we can eat it over the next few days.
The sky is lightening as dawn approaches and the lights on the reef are becoming visible, the mast head light of Blue Penguin, one of the boats we have had our radio sched is just ahead so I will finish this and I will be able to post it at our favourite little coffee shop which has internet—the one which puts whipped cream on the cappuccinos!!!
Till next time----
Mike and Devalah arrived after a 2 week crossing and it was lovely to see them again. Several single hander’s also arrived, all had stories of climbing 8 metre swells and surfing off waves with no predictable pattern. They were all happy to arrive and confirmed my position which was NEVER to cross the Tasman Sea at those latitudes.
The new anchor chain is on and minor adjustments made to our rig after having sailed from Whangarei with the new forestay. “Cater Bob” the guru from Cater Marine in Opua spliced us new jacklines. He is a former cruiser who arrived from the USA several years ago who had managed a West Marine store there and was snapped up by the owner here. He has the reputation of being able to source any boat parts needed from anywhere in the world earning the respect of all cruisers and the reason a lot of us go up as far as Opua to leave rather than Whangarei. We finally stopped the air leaking into the fuel lines of the generator after many expensive hours were spent by several mechanics and a lift pump being replaced which never did have anything wrong with it---one of the joys of diagnosing obscure issues.
The boat is once again ready for the passage to Noumea. As far as we know the only issue we have not addressed is our broadcasting strength of our SSB as we have not had the time or wherewithal to source out an SSB expert. They are few and far between as the radios are not widely used by anyone other than cruisers and we will live with the frustration this season of not being heard well at various ranges.
On the last trip to Pahia, the closest town to stock up with groceries we arrived to find it was “country western days”—being from Calgary the ultimate wanna be country western town it was fun to see the outfits and listen to the music.
Many enjoyable evenings were spent with new and old friends as we awaited the next weather window. Judy had sent us a sample of music from Eileen Quinn, a Canadian cruiser who has captured the essence of cruising. She explores the joys and frustrations and our newest motto is from one of her songs which says “if it aint broke don’t use it” wise words understood by all of us. This became my plea to Ken the last few days—it seems that you think you are ready and yet one more thing will fail and delay you for yet another week.
The weather looks good and we are stocked up with fresh food, water and fuel for the passage and are as ready as we will ever be. We were farewelled by Devallah, Mike and Doug and several new friends as we cast off.
Once again it is a feeling of sadness as we leave NZ for our third summer—hope there will be yet another one—this one was filled with memories of getting to know Adelyn and Grayson more and enjoying our family and friends in Wellington. It was enriched with the times with Migration and Little Blue and highlighted with successful ventures scalloping and fishing.
Ken had a great, albeit cold visit to Calgary meeting Grace and seeing everyone else there. Our lives are so filled with amazing experiences, friendships and wonderful family we are truly fortunate.
This passage will be with the full moon which is always a delight—it is amazing how much light it casts in the open ocean and night watches always seem easier and friendlier.
We seem to be surrounded by rainbows and I am not sure the significance of those but will take it as a good omen.
I am writing this part of this blog on our first night passage where the winds are a little to much from the west for us to do the rumb line but “easting” is never an issue from NZ as it is always easier to go west later. There is a considerable swell from the weather which is moving off the country but a huge high pressure system is coming from Australia which should give us a great passage. We have winds of 25 knots and are doing 8 knots so we should get north in great time.
The crossing was one of large swells although being behind us makes them bearable and winds from 20-35 knots, also behind us. We have a radio schedule with several other boats also headed to Noumea and the SSB seems to be fine so perhaps is not going to be an issue after all. Ken saw 14 knots on our knot meter as we surfed down a wave—the fastest either of us has ever seen before but as the passage is with the wind and swell we are not stressing the boat or sails. Our previous passages to and from NZ have been much more difficult angles so perhaps we will arrive unscathed!!!!!—wow what a concept!!!
I am now writing this as we await dawn to pass through the fringing reef of New Caledonia where we will then motor for a couple of hours to anchor once again in the lovely harbour of Noumea.
Our passage has been fast with continuous tail winds of 20-30 knots with the only issue being a nasty cross swell at our rear port quarter which rocked and rolled us for the last two nights. We have sailed with our jib alone for almost all of it and the boat has handled well tracking between 5-8knots depending on wind speed.
Another of Eileen Quinn’s songs is “If I killed the captain who is there to know” refers to the thoughts all crew have had on a passage. We had three new issues on this passage, the first was that the newly fixed generator had the fly wheel come loose and flew off, the second was that the key for the starboard engine refused to work and the third was the port engine was no longer spewing water as a line was blocked—all were resolved by my wonderful captain who was at once forgiven all past sins. I am well aware that without his knowledge I would have at this stage no engines and no power left and would be negotiating this pass by sail and somehow dropping the anchor and sail at the same time alone—hmmm!! Hopefully he appreciates that he would have been eating from cans all the way—supplemented by M&M’s---without my expertise and has also banished such unworthy thoughts of his crew!!!!!—hmm maybe I had better get rid of the M&M’s to even the playing field!!
When we were last here we had come from 5 months in Fiji and Vanuatu and appreciated the wonderful French food and pastries, this time having come directly from the world of bakeries will be a little more difficult to justify visiting le patisserie but we will succumb in the knowledge that once we hit Indonesia rice will be the staple of the day!! The diet can begin there.
We are unsure of the regulations of bringing in NZ meat—New Cal, despite the flaunting of all rules by the French sailing community, perhaps why, has the most stringent rules in the South Pacific---so we will stow ours somewhere hidden on the boat—the ridiculous thing is that we would have to go to the butcher and buy NZ meat to replace it anyway!! I did make a massive stew of all of our left over vegs with some chicken so they will not go to waste and we can eat it over the next few days.
The sky is lightening as dawn approaches and the lights on the reef are becoming visible, the mast head light of Blue Penguin, one of the boats we have had our radio sched is just ahead so I will finish this and I will be able to post it at our favourite little coffee shop which has internet—the one which puts whipped cream on the cappuccinos!!!
Till next time----
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Ready to leave in Opua
I have been somewhat remiss in updating the blog—somehow as it is our third season in NZ it does not seem exotic and although it is a wonderful place to cruise and visit it is hard to be motivated to keep the blog updated.
Anchored under Mount Manganui after our tedious motoring trip from Wellington was lovely but we knew our time was short to be sure we would arrive at Waiheke Island before Kristen and the children would arrive. Bruce and Alene, having been our constant hopscotch cruiser friends this season are here but also need to keep moving as they are flying back to the States for a visit.
Phil, our mechanic from Wellington, arrived at the boat in the morning and helped sort out a number of issues—he did seal the leak we had but at the same time diagnosed another couple of minor things which enabled us to fix them now rather than some distant port in a far away land with no amenities. It is almost worth paying him for an inspection from time to time as he is an expert at spotting pending issues.
We set off to Great Mercury Island with Alene and Bruce, this time to share our special diving spot for yet more scallops. Diving for them is quite fun as the scallops are partly buried in the sand but if you drop one as you pick it up they swim by opening and shutting the shells. This makes the fish seem to have more personality and I cringe slightly as I open the shell for harvesting—not enough to forgo the meal. The quest was once again very fruitful and provided another monster scallop feed for dinner.
The forecast was not promising so rather than spend another few days chilling we thought we should keep going to get up to Great Barrier Island and around Cape Colleville to Waiheke.
We parted ways with Bruce and Alene as they headed to Whangarei and we arrived once again at the picturesque Waiheke Island. We found a sheltered anchorage and sat out the three days of strong winds in comfort. The island with it’s proximity to Auckland and it’s hippy/yuppy combination reminds us so much of a somewhat more tropical Salt Spring Island which we love.
Kristen and the children arrived and it was lovely to have them aboard once again—Kyle having started his new job needed to stay in Wellington and work so we were grateful he was happy for Kristen to come and visit us.
We spent the week going from beach to beach, interspersed with ice cream shops and playgrounds. We spent one day going to Auckland in the ferry and visiting Kelly Tarlton’s aquarium, renowned for it’s Antarctic display of the incredibly beautiful Emperor Penguins. Another day was spent at the Saturday market but due to pending rain a number of outdoor vendors did not come.
After a week it was time for them to go back to Wellington and we traded them for our next visitors which were Janet (Tony, my ex-husband’s sister) and her husband John. They had a couple of days with us around Waiheke successfully catching numerous large snapper in a very short time. As they arrived Janet had joked that she could eat fish every meal and it certainly would have been very easy although I draw the line at breakfast. Last year when we were here we struggled to catch legal size fish but this year in an hour or two we had as many as we could manage to eat and store. Apparently the La Nina system makes the water warmer and somehow happier fish!!
We enjoyed having them aboard and managed to give them a favourable impression of boat life. We went to the market again stocking up with more homemade products to take with us offshore.
After they left we headed up to Kawau Island which is another favourite place of ours to shelter for yet another three days of gale winds. We were able to go ashore and hike the numerous trails so was very pleasant. The one thing we are now used to is no matter what the weather looks like this far north is that the temperatures are very mild so with a good jacket and a sheltered bay you are not “boat bound’.
I took the time to do our tax returns and we decided that this was the time to try and back up our ipod onto our new computer. As most of you are aware we are not exactly computer savvy but we purchased a programme online which promised to do it ‘at the click of a button”!!!! Many clicks later we had successfully wiped off the 6000 songs we had on the ipod!!! We had spent many hours in Calgary before leaving downloading every CD we and all of our friends in Calgary owned. Feeling distinctly sick about it at this stage we put it all away to deal with at a later date.
Our next stop was up at the Town Basin in Whangarei where we sought out the amazing array of odd things for sale at “Arthurs”. Every place should have an Arthurs---they have the oddest selection and I was able to find small corks for a salt shaker, a new plug for our odd sized kitchen sink, outdoor mosquito netting to make covers for hatches and small galvanised chain as an anchor to hold them around the hatches so the nasty Asian—not to mention Australian—mosquitos can not get in our boat. We do have covers on most of the hatches but some of them are not really tight. We also picked up some more school supplies—last year I had got some math sets from there—and small balls for children we meet on our journey this year.
We took a pile of books we had read to trade in at the great used book store hoping to lighten the load on the boat but ended up with an even larger box of books—oh well hard to resist.
When visiting the video store to rent some movies we had to pay the $4 late fee I had incurred 3 years ago—the curse of computers!!!
We also took our old desktop computer which was no longer working in to a computer shop where they managed to salvage our songs onto a hard drive so we happily took the hard drive and left the old computer.
Now it was time to go down to Norsand Boatyard where would be hauled yet again to redo the antifoul and several other small jobs.
Their system is to load you on a trailer and take out and launch one boat a day at high tide. They are incredibly busy at this time of year and we would be out for two weeks.
I took the opportunity to go back to Wellington for one last visit with Mum and Kristen and family. It has been nice to spend so much time with Adelyn and Grayson this year and become part of their lives. On my return Betsy and Richard from Qayaq picked me up at the airport and we had a lovely if not short visit until my bus to Whangarei.
They are returning to the States to settle and will sell their boat in NZ. It is always sad when friends decide their cruising time is done although as they are in Seattle we will no doubt see them again. We met them in Mexico and have shared many pleasant times together over the years.
Just before we were due to go back in the water we had a rigging check only to find our forestay had hairline cracks at the swage so we now delayed another week while we had a new one made and sent up from Auckland. We had just had word that Brickhouse, a boat we had been with in Fiji was dismasted in the Marshall Islands with a faulty chain plate so once again we would rather find out our problems in controlled conditions.
The delay allowed us to visit one more time with Bruce and Alene who are back from the States. Bruce, the computer wiz was able to reload our ipod to our new computer with all of the songs!!!!!!!!
Finally three weeks from being hauled with a newly painted antifoul and a shiny white hull we relaunched.
Now was the 2 day passage up to Opua where we would await a weather window to leave for New Caledonia.
The first day was uneventful but we awoke to gusty head winds and nasty choppy seas and battled the 25 miles to the Bay of Islands where we were grateful to get out of it.
As we left the 29 boats going to Tonga this season with the ICA rally were leaving—glad it was them not us going out in that roll. This year due to La Nina has been much more unsettled than last and everyone is feeling anxious to leave. They had been waiting for a week and I think had enough but the key to a comfortable passage is patience.
We are still waiting for our window—we have renewed friendship with Doug on Windcastle who is here and last night invited Dave from Star for dinner. He is from Tasmania and has just got here from a harrowing 2 week passage which included a 360 degree rollover in 12 metre seas with winds to 80 knots. Luckily the crew of four sustained only minor cuts and bruises having been thrown in the roll and the boat other than water damage inside from a blown out window fared remarkably well. Sobering for all of us though and we are wishing Devalah and Mike on Sea Rover who are on the same passage right now a safe arrival. Our delay here will mean a reunion with them before they arrive to wait out the winter and attend the Rugby World Cup.
We should get a window in the next week or so and I will post the next blog once again from a tropical paradise.
We intend going to New Caledonia and will spend a week there before heading to Cairns in Australia and then around to Darwin.
On July 24th we will join the Indonesian Rally where will spend three months before we go on to Singapore and Malaysia where we will end up next November.
Anchored under Mount Manganui after our tedious motoring trip from Wellington was lovely but we knew our time was short to be sure we would arrive at Waiheke Island before Kristen and the children would arrive. Bruce and Alene, having been our constant hopscotch cruiser friends this season are here but also need to keep moving as they are flying back to the States for a visit.
Phil, our mechanic from Wellington, arrived at the boat in the morning and helped sort out a number of issues—he did seal the leak we had but at the same time diagnosed another couple of minor things which enabled us to fix them now rather than some distant port in a far away land with no amenities. It is almost worth paying him for an inspection from time to time as he is an expert at spotting pending issues.
We set off to Great Mercury Island with Alene and Bruce, this time to share our special diving spot for yet more scallops. Diving for them is quite fun as the scallops are partly buried in the sand but if you drop one as you pick it up they swim by opening and shutting the shells. This makes the fish seem to have more personality and I cringe slightly as I open the shell for harvesting—not enough to forgo the meal. The quest was once again very fruitful and provided another monster scallop feed for dinner.
The forecast was not promising so rather than spend another few days chilling we thought we should keep going to get up to Great Barrier Island and around Cape Colleville to Waiheke.
We parted ways with Bruce and Alene as they headed to Whangarei and we arrived once again at the picturesque Waiheke Island. We found a sheltered anchorage and sat out the three days of strong winds in comfort. The island with it’s proximity to Auckland and it’s hippy/yuppy combination reminds us so much of a somewhat more tropical Salt Spring Island which we love.
Kristen and the children arrived and it was lovely to have them aboard once again—Kyle having started his new job needed to stay in Wellington and work so we were grateful he was happy for Kristen to come and visit us.
We spent the week going from beach to beach, interspersed with ice cream shops and playgrounds. We spent one day going to Auckland in the ferry and visiting Kelly Tarlton’s aquarium, renowned for it’s Antarctic display of the incredibly beautiful Emperor Penguins. Another day was spent at the Saturday market but due to pending rain a number of outdoor vendors did not come.
After a week it was time for them to go back to Wellington and we traded them for our next visitors which were Janet (Tony, my ex-husband’s sister) and her husband John. They had a couple of days with us around Waiheke successfully catching numerous large snapper in a very short time. As they arrived Janet had joked that she could eat fish every meal and it certainly would have been very easy although I draw the line at breakfast. Last year when we were here we struggled to catch legal size fish but this year in an hour or two we had as many as we could manage to eat and store. Apparently the La Nina system makes the water warmer and somehow happier fish!!
We enjoyed having them aboard and managed to give them a favourable impression of boat life. We went to the market again stocking up with more homemade products to take with us offshore.
After they left we headed up to Kawau Island which is another favourite place of ours to shelter for yet another three days of gale winds. We were able to go ashore and hike the numerous trails so was very pleasant. The one thing we are now used to is no matter what the weather looks like this far north is that the temperatures are very mild so with a good jacket and a sheltered bay you are not “boat bound’.
I took the time to do our tax returns and we decided that this was the time to try and back up our ipod onto our new computer. As most of you are aware we are not exactly computer savvy but we purchased a programme online which promised to do it ‘at the click of a button”!!!! Many clicks later we had successfully wiped off the 6000 songs we had on the ipod!!! We had spent many hours in Calgary before leaving downloading every CD we and all of our friends in Calgary owned. Feeling distinctly sick about it at this stage we put it all away to deal with at a later date.
Our next stop was up at the Town Basin in Whangarei where we sought out the amazing array of odd things for sale at “Arthurs”. Every place should have an Arthurs---they have the oddest selection and I was able to find small corks for a salt shaker, a new plug for our odd sized kitchen sink, outdoor mosquito netting to make covers for hatches and small galvanised chain as an anchor to hold them around the hatches so the nasty Asian—not to mention Australian—mosquitos can not get in our boat. We do have covers on most of the hatches but some of them are not really tight. We also picked up some more school supplies—last year I had got some math sets from there—and small balls for children we meet on our journey this year.
We took a pile of books we had read to trade in at the great used book store hoping to lighten the load on the boat but ended up with an even larger box of books—oh well hard to resist.
When visiting the video store to rent some movies we had to pay the $4 late fee I had incurred 3 years ago—the curse of computers!!!
We also took our old desktop computer which was no longer working in to a computer shop where they managed to salvage our songs onto a hard drive so we happily took the hard drive and left the old computer.
Now it was time to go down to Norsand Boatyard where would be hauled yet again to redo the antifoul and several other small jobs.
Their system is to load you on a trailer and take out and launch one boat a day at high tide. They are incredibly busy at this time of year and we would be out for two weeks.
I took the opportunity to go back to Wellington for one last visit with Mum and Kristen and family. It has been nice to spend so much time with Adelyn and Grayson this year and become part of their lives. On my return Betsy and Richard from Qayaq picked me up at the airport and we had a lovely if not short visit until my bus to Whangarei.
They are returning to the States to settle and will sell their boat in NZ. It is always sad when friends decide their cruising time is done although as they are in Seattle we will no doubt see them again. We met them in Mexico and have shared many pleasant times together over the years.
Just before we were due to go back in the water we had a rigging check only to find our forestay had hairline cracks at the swage so we now delayed another week while we had a new one made and sent up from Auckland. We had just had word that Brickhouse, a boat we had been with in Fiji was dismasted in the Marshall Islands with a faulty chain plate so once again we would rather find out our problems in controlled conditions.
The delay allowed us to visit one more time with Bruce and Alene who are back from the States. Bruce, the computer wiz was able to reload our ipod to our new computer with all of the songs!!!!!!!!
Finally three weeks from being hauled with a newly painted antifoul and a shiny white hull we relaunched.
Now was the 2 day passage up to Opua where we would await a weather window to leave for New Caledonia.
The first day was uneventful but we awoke to gusty head winds and nasty choppy seas and battled the 25 miles to the Bay of Islands where we were grateful to get out of it.
As we left the 29 boats going to Tonga this season with the ICA rally were leaving—glad it was them not us going out in that roll. This year due to La Nina has been much more unsettled than last and everyone is feeling anxious to leave. They had been waiting for a week and I think had enough but the key to a comfortable passage is patience.
We are still waiting for our window—we have renewed friendship with Doug on Windcastle who is here and last night invited Dave from Star for dinner. He is from Tasmania and has just got here from a harrowing 2 week passage which included a 360 degree rollover in 12 metre seas with winds to 80 knots. Luckily the crew of four sustained only minor cuts and bruises having been thrown in the roll and the boat other than water damage inside from a blown out window fared remarkably well. Sobering for all of us though and we are wishing Devalah and Mike on Sea Rover who are on the same passage right now a safe arrival. Our delay here will mean a reunion with them before they arrive to wait out the winter and attend the Rugby World Cup.
We should get a window in the next week or so and I will post the next blog once again from a tropical paradise.
We intend going to New Caledonia and will spend a week there before heading to Cairns in Australia and then around to Darwin.
On July 24th we will join the Indonesian Rally where will spend three months before we go on to Singapore and Malaysia where we will end up next November.
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