Anyway, we provisioned on the Monday and were all set to leave first thing on Tuesday morning, when we did a final weather check and found an email from the night before from friends asking if we wanted crew for the trip home. Crew would certainly help and the high still wasn’t really moving therefore a day wouldn’t be making too much difference we thought, so we waited for the Tuesday, met Tania and had a quick decision for her to come with us. So an extra day for some more baking, resting, finishing reading Harry Potter 5 and then watching the movie, which was a great treat for the family prior to passage.
Wednesday morning saw Dan up bright and early for a last refill of the jerry cans and clearing customs and immigration. There was no hurry on the official’s part and the process took over an hour. A few last minute jobs, such as sorting out the dingy cover for the journey, taking down our Placemakers sun cover, then up with sails and anchor and we were away by 1045. Lunch on the way towards the outer reef and we cleared Wilkes Passage at the bottom of Fiji at 1500. Once again as expected, everyone slowly goes quiet with getting used to the motion of the ocean and we all do what we can for ourselves to stay hydrated and fed and rested.
We ran a pattern of 3 hour watches, which meant the three of us were rotating around the clock, but it gave us 6 hours off to (hopefully) get a good block of sleep. I felt quite O.K on the first day, slept well but when I came on for my first proper night watch I started to feel less than adequate and the three days of sea sickness commenced! The kids lost weight and everyone looked miserable. The feeling wasn’t helped by the SW swell predicted underlying the waves from the SE trade winds which caused the surrounding waters to look and feel much like a washing machine. And we were close hauled (pointing as close to the wind as we could) as South is the direction home which added to the discomfort of the boat and the people.
This showed on the Thursday afternoon when I was on helm. We had one reef in the main and SE breeze 15-20 knots, but the waves confused as I have already said. Division II came upon a series of wave’s right from the front and we slammed over them, ONE TWO THREE BANG! DAN!!!! The main sail just came down. Initially I thought the main halyard had broken but when Dan came out he realised it was the block at the top of main sail that we have there to give a two to one purchase for raising the main. The block had literally blown apart, despite having a working load of one ton. All of the inside bearings and rings simply were not there, they must have flown into the ocean when it happened. After the initial shock and “what then?” Dan cracked into action and replaced the spare halyard at the back of the boom with the spinnaker halyard and hoisted the mainsail with the spare halyard. Second reef now as we were a bit concerned for chaffing and obviously Division II didn’t like the conditions. After that bit of excitement we were back into the routine of watches and eating/drinking/resting when we could.
Early on the Friday morning we realised we were already going quite far west and Dan remembered that there was a reef he had highlighted on his chart, so we were plotting our course every couple of hours (normally we would do this six hourly) and finally sited the reef off our port bow around midday, passing it on Dan’s watch. It is not insignificant, and seemed to have sandy patches and vegetation growing on it from what we could see through the binoculars. Definitely something we wouldn’t want to hit!
Dan was sending texts via the satellite phone to a computer savvy friend of ours so that she could let our families know how we were doing, and in those first few days I know he found this really difficult as trying to sit and watch a little screen and concentrate on typing is the last thing you want to be doing when your whole world is moving. I wondered at some stage of the first few days whether or not we become less tolerant of motion sickness as we go on as all six of us seemed to be affected and that hasn’t really happened before. Usually someone is feeling O.K. most of the time. We were even making feeble jokes about flying next time and having delivery crew, or trying to find motion sickness remedies that actually worked, as even our prescription medication didn’t ease the nausea at all. But enough of the morbid poor us, as by the Saturday we were eating again and if not “well” at least feeling a lot better. Books were starting to be read again, we were able to talk to each other and start to enjoy the sights the ocean was offering.
Also on the Saturday, this time while Dan was on watch, the jammer (holds the rope in place) on the mast pulled out. This hold the spare halyard which was now holding the sail, so obviously the pressure was too much for it or maybe the boat builder took a short cut! Anyway, once again Dan managed to secure it for the time being and wait for a calmer day to fix properly.
From Saturday on the wind settled 10-15 knots from the SE-SSE and we continued our way south west, hoping for the trade winds to be taken over by the easterlies on the top of the high pressure system. On the Tuesday we had a couple of whale in the distance for around 10 minutes, blowing quite frequently then one last blow and a big arch of the back, a great view of the tail and they disappeared, off into the deep for their continued journey south.
By 0800 on the Wednesday the wind had dropped right away as we had made it to the middle of the high, so we motored through the day until 1800 when the wind picked up to more than 5 knots and we could sail again faster than we could motor. We had another whale rise up behind the transom this time, but just the once, I think he was being nosey as he was quite close! Also the seas had calmed right down and the jelly fish were amazing. All fairly small, but thick in the water and heaps of different kinds. This caused lots of excitement, with the kids taking photos, drawing pictures, watching them from the bow to the stern and causing lots of discussion about jellyfish and the sea creatures that feed on them and the potential danger if we decided to jump in with them!
On the Thursday after a quite night sailing the wind once again died away around sunrise, so when Dan come on for watch at 0900 we took down the main, Dan went up the mast and retrieved the main halyard and we re-hoisted the mainsail without the two to one purchase which made it very heavy. He also reattached the jammer to the mast and all was right again. This took an hour and a half and just as we had finished we could see the breeze coming across the water and we were off sailing again in light winds. We were also thinking that the high pressure system must have been on the move and that we would get a change of wind direction, but this was not to be and because we were so far west, even when it did back round to the east a bit we still remained as close to the wind as possible, which in the calm water was comfortable, but doesn’t give us the best speed. By this time we were fielding lots of “Are we there yet?” questions, so involving the kids in plotting our position and checking on our computer based chart programme for progress.
One thing I should mention here is how great our wind generators were while on passage. We ran the petrol generator on the first day before coming through the pass, as we had been anchored for several days and not making a lot of power, then the only other time we had to run it was the day we motored. All the rest of the time the wind generators poured the power into the battery bank, so much so that the kids could watch movies for the first time ever on passage, using the computer (our T.V. screen being a little unstable for the open ocean). Prior passage making before wind generators we were running the petrol generator every second or third day to keep up with consumption from the instruments, lights, VHF and usual household drain such as the fridge.
Friday saw us starting to tack to try and get across the top of North Cape and a frustrating day for the Captain as the winds kept swinging from NE to SSE and we had a current running against. We were also trying not to get too close to the Three Kings Islands as the ocean floor rises quite dramatically there and we didn’t want to come across any random steep waves or current situations, as even though the past week had been quite pleasant, everyone was getting tired and that is when mistakes can happen.
A few really cool things happened Friday afternoon though. The first being a mother and calf whale. Paige was pretty sure it was a Fin Whale and they were heading in the opposite direction from us on the starboard side and close enough to see them quite well. Another thing was we caught our first fish of the passage. We had had the lines out for a few days and apart from jelly fish, no sign of any larger activity. But Dan managed to pull in a big yellow fin tuna. He gaffed it in the water and dragged it into the cock pit where it spat out the lure and was very angry! Dan lifted it up to hang from the hand rail, then lifted one of the boys and felt they were around the same weight, therefore about 25kg! It made 6 four inch steaks plus the oven tray sized tail section and a smaller section from the head end. It has filled our freezer and fed some of our friends also.
Lastly we sighted land!! Cape Reinga, then across to North Cape and heading down the east coast by end of daylight. The night was a long one with two people needing to be around for a second pair of eyes, and again several tacks over night due to wind changes and navigational hazards i.e. land and container ships!
Saturday morning I was privileged to have the dawn (0300-0600) watch. We shook out the reef to full main and enjoyed the dolphins and albatross and all the sea birds that had come to play. We also were just finished sorting out the Tuna from Friday when we hooked a smaller Big Eye Tuna, with lots of excitement once again, where were we going to fit it and how much fish can one family eat! It was really cool coming down the coast and seeing the places we had been before and pointing out the land marks to the kids so they knew we were ever closer. Later in the afternoon when I was again on the helm we had a Miami Vice like powerboat off of the starboard side seeming to be heading north. Then we watched as slowly they did a big arc in our direction as were slowed right down off of our lee ward stern before they called up on the VHF. By this time we could see the big CUSTOMS printed on the side and the “Top Gear” guy with the mirrored glasses hanging out the window. I kept on staring our coarse and Dan had a lovely chat to them about where we had come from, where we were going and potential cargo that could be an issue for us. The customs guy asked about animals, and Dan said, “Only if you count the kids”! It was great to see them and know they are working to protect our waters.
Finally as evening closed in again we could ease the sheets and our sailing angle was finally at 60 degrees off and we could get great boat speed for the conditions, light 10 knot breeze. I had the 2100 to midnight run and by the end of that we were at Bream head and could see the glow in the sky from the oil refinery at Marsden Cove. Unfortunately we collected an outgoing tide as we came into the lee of the land and had to motor up past the wharf and into the Marsden Cove Marina. I had got to a point where I just couldn’t stay awake any longer and had a wee cat nap while Dan, Tania and Paige managed this and was woken as we were coming into the entrance for the marina. Fenders and lines sorted and we tied up to the dock just after 0300 (0400 NZ daylight savings time).
Boat secure we sat and had Milo and Biscuits with the kids. I did have in mind a beer but the hour of the day just didn’t feel right!
Dan did some calculations and we covered 1342nm in 256 hours giving us an average speed on 5.24nm. Our top speed was recorded on our first day out at 11.33knots.
So two days later we are back up in the Whangarei Town Basin Marina, on the pile berth we had for most of last summer, and enjoying seeing familiar faces again and regular sleep!
