The Plan : ETD 1 May : Destination : Savusavu, Fiji.
The Actual : Departure 1400hrs Tues 7 May; arrival Suva 0700hrs Sun 19 May.
Distance covered : 1741nm in 12 days.
Gavin and Bindy had prepared their Bavaria 42 cruiser “Distracted” to get away from our winter for a 6 month cruise of the Fiji-Wallis-Vanuatu-New Caledonia region of the Pacific over May-October. I joined them for the delivery from Wellington to Fiji. Our departure was delayed while we sat out a low pressure system passing across the North Island. We were hoping to pick up on the back of it and get a good start with a tail wind up the Wairarapa Coast. We cleared customs at Chafers marina and departed at 1400hrs on Tuesday 7th, motor sailing with 2 tucks in the main in to a moderate SW breeze and lumpy Cook Strait sea. We arrived at Palliser around 2100hrs. I spent the night in my bunk hugging the bucket, but by the time I got up for my 0300 watch the next day the sea had calmed up the east coast, the breeze had dropped and we were motoring in to a 5kn NW breeze. By 1000hrs on Wednesday we were directly east of Castle Point. The barometer reading was 1025, which was to be the highest reading for the whole trip. At 1600hrs I pulled in a nice skippy tuna on my trolling lure, which gave us some lovely fresh sashimi which Bindy served up with ginger and wasabi as an entrée for our evening meal. We reached Cape Kidnappers around 1900hrs heading 010 in to a 6kn NNW breeze, making slow passage, even though we had spent a lot of time motor sailing at 2000 revs to try to stay ahead of a front bringing a predicted strong NW breeze. We had settled well in to our 3hrs-on-6hrs-off watch routine by now and had a quiet night.
By 0600hrs on Thursday we were due east of Gisborne still heading 010 in a 10kn NW breeze and lumpy sea. At this point Bindy discovered that the header tank for the portside head was leaking, and clearly we had a blockage preventing the header tank from draining in to the sea. It was quite unpleasant and rendered the port head unusable. No enquiry was made as to the cause of the blockage, but given that Gavin and Bindy had been living aboard “Distracted” for 3 months before departure and that no blockage had occurred during that time and that I was the only new factor in the equation, all the suspicion lay with me. Personally I blamed the soft but thick toilet paper which Bindy has a preference for, over the more appropriate marine grade toilet paper. Possibly as my penance, Gavin decided that the remedial solution would be for me, when we had the next lull in the weather, to dive overboard and attack the blockage from below by poking a flexible metal “snake” through the skin fitting in the hull up to the bottom of the header tank. Joy! Fortunately for me no lull in the weather was imminent. During the day the wind veered north and our heading veered to 045, taking us away from our proper heading of 000 to Fiji, but not concerning me because I had a secret wish of visiting the Minerva Reef, south west of Tonga.
At about midnight on Thursday we crossed the 180 degree meridian and I learnt a very important lesson when sailing in this part of the world about the need to note in the log whether our longitude position was “E” or “W”. Since leaving Wellington we had been in the habit of noting our longitude as “E” but suddenly we had to be careful to record “W”, even though the actual numbers of degrees longitude were very similar, and we knew that at some stage we would inevitably cross back from “W” to “E” to get on course to Fiji.
At dawn on Friday 10th we were 90nm due east of East Cape. The wind had backed to SW at a nice 22kns and our heading improved to 320 and our SOG to 7-8kn. A good sailing day, but it didn’t last. By midnight we were wallowing in misty rain, motoring at 1200 revs. At dawn a 20-30kn SE breeze kicked in pushing us due north at 7-8kns and we had another good sailing day. Gavin got the storm jib and the tri-sail out from under the forehead birth in readiness for some heavier weather.
At approximately 1600hrs when we were 360nm east of North Cape, the ever vigilant Bindy spied a ship on the AIS behind us on our port quarter, bearing towards us and clearly intending to overtake us. The AIS showed it to be the Argentinian cargo vessel “Bahia Blanca”. By 1700hrs she was within our 60nm vector and despite Gavin and myself showing little concern and explaining to Bindy that we were the stand-on vessel, it was too much pressure for Bindy and she called up on the VHF asking the skipper if he could see us slightly to leeward of his starboard bow and asking what his intentions were. He said he couldn’t see us, but that he would “steer north” to clear us. Bindy kept a sharp eye on the AIS, and saw the vessel slip past on our port side, but not within our visible range. The skipper then radioed to Bindy and said he hadn’t seen us but asked Bindy for our destination and number of POB’s. Bindy politely replied, but then received no response. Gavin and I had given her so much stick about her over-zealous concern at radioing the ship that Bindy now became concerned that her radio call had been inappropriate and the cargo vessel had sinister intentions. Bindy’s guilt and concern grew to the point where she radioed back to the cargo vessel and politely asked whether there was “any problem”. She got a “no problem” response, exchanged some pleasantries with the Argentinian skipper, then relaxed. Finally however we could say that we had “left NZ” because we were now north of North Cape. It had taken us a little over 4 days to cover the approximate 530nm distance from Chafers marina to North Cape, making our average speed a little over 5.5kns, mostly motor sailing.
At around midnight on Saturday 12th we crossed back west of longitude 180, heading 340, with a 20-30kn SE breeze keeping our speed at 7-8kns. Seas were lumpy but we were sailing comfortably. We maintained that through Sunday.
Come Monday we were holding the same breeze, but the seas were easing and we were making good distance. In the 3 days between 1200hrs on Friday to 1200hrs on Monday the log recorded a distance of 460nm, an average of a little over 150nm per day. This roughly reflected the average for the whole 12 day trip : an average speed of a little over 6kns covering 145nm per day. At 0800 on Monday when Gavin checked his emails he saw that Bob McDavitt (our passage planner) had emailed to us in the early hours of the morning (Bob seems to be an absolute night owl!) warning of a low pressure system heading SE from Fiji and telling us to turn hard left to 280 degrees to miss the worst of the system. We did as he told, but having missed his call by 6hrs we unfortunately did not miss the effect of the low pressure system.
But off we went almost due west, with a building ESE wind and building seas behind us. For the day, our log reads:-
– “0600 : nice sailing, good seas”
– “1800 : main off, tri-sail on, storm jib on bobstay, half heady, seas building”
Tuesday 14th was our most exciting day. Log readings are:-
– “0200 : E 25-30, seas 2-3m, dark and stormy”
– “0600 : E 30-40, daylight, stormy with rain squalls, seas building 5-6m”
– “0800 : wave over transom, sea in the cockpit, SOG pushed to 14.2kn”
In the 12hrs between midnight on Monday to midday on Tuesday the barometer dropped from 1013 t0 1003, the lowest recorded reading on the trip. During the night while on watch Gavin had considered taking down the tri-sail and sailing under storm jib only, but in the dawn of the morning things don’t seem to be quite as bad as they do in the night, so we continued with the tri-sail set. At 1000hrs with me on watch and Gavin and Bindy resting in the cabin, as one large wave slid underneath us, I looked behind and for a change I couldn’t see the seas behind me, or the horizon. All I could see was the top of the next wave, and it was building. As “Distracted” slid down in to the trough ahead of the next wave and I kept looking up I was minded of my surfing days and I knew this next wave was going to be either a ride from heaven or a wipe-out from hell. As Distracted’s transom slid up to the top of the wave, the wave crested and fortunately broke evenly down each side of the hull so that we didn’t broach. But all of a sudden we were off, literally surfing down the wave which, from the trough, I had estimated to be 10m. I glanced at the log and read 24.2kns. I felt an uncanny vibration in the hull. I had time to worry about what was going to happen at the bottom, but I needn’t have because the bow just rode up a little on the wave in front and the big wave just rolled on underneath us. But it was enough to bring Gavin and Bindy rushing out of the cabin. We discovered later that the hull speed was such that it sucked the plug clean out of the blocked header tank, so that the port head was once again operational, avoiding the need for me to go overboard with the snake, mid-Pacific. With the wind gusts at 50kn we decided to remove the tri-sail and sail under storm jib only. Gavin also brought the sea anchor up on deck, ready to deploy. With a heading of 280, a tail wind over our starboard quarter and a following sea, we were averaging 8kns under storm jib only. However by 1600hrs, although still rocky-rolly, the seas had eased and the breeze was down to a comfortable 30kns. We were able to improve our heading to 290. Then by 1800hrs we were at 000, heading for Fiji again.
At midnight the wind veered from ESE to SW, 18-20kn, so we gybed on to port and a heading of 350, comfortably doing 6kns. Wednesday was champagne sailing, all day, back under full main and genoa and us finally in shorts and T shirts. We were able to hang our wet weather gear out to dry and at 1800hrs we had a glorious bright red sunset.
On Thursday morning Bindy treated us to brunch of bacon and egg butties in freshly cooked bread. We had mostly eaten well with Bindy’s pre-cooked frozen meals, but freshly cooked slabs of white bread filled with runny eggs and bacon was scrumptious. We sat all day in the cockpit forgetting our watch details and yarning and enjoying the now tropical air. We had full sails up but only 8kns of breeze so we were motor sailing at 1300 revs. The breeze died on us during the day, the sea flattened and we just kept motoring. While it was good for catching up on sleep, it was not good for progress, nor for our fuel reserves. We hooked a yellow fin tuna on the lure, so had more fresh fish which was a treat. At this point our Savusavu ETA was Monday 20th, but our concern was lack of wind and dwindling fuel.
Friday morning saw us continuing to motor sail in light breezes and calm seas. Gavin made the call to abandon Savusavu as our destination and shorten the trip to Suva, which we did. That suited me because I had previously entered Savusavu as a port, Suva would be a new experience for future, and I was beginning to outstay my leave from the office. On Saturday we motor sailed up the east side of Astrolabe Reef, turned left and entered Suva harbour at 0700 on Sunday May 19th. Notwithstanding radio calls and emails to the Port Authority, Customs Office and Royal Suva Yacht Club, we were not boarded by Customs and cleared until 1530hrs on Monday 20 May. We were then able to make landfall at the Royal Suva Yacht Club for a very welcome beer, and replenish fuel supplies.
All in all, a fantastic trip.
SEA KIWI 