Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Our third day has been somewhat dominated by the weather. We had been expecting some sort of front to come over but it came upon us much earlier than we anticipated. Suspecting a line of clouds ahead of us I checked the radar to confirm a wall of rain ahead. We put two reefs into the main and head sail and plunged in. The winds increased to about 30 knots and the cold rain fell. The winds shifted well into the NW which was what we had expected.

This didn’t last long as suddenly the wind dropped to about 8 knots. I was just figuring out what best to do when they resumed at 25 knots from the south and stayed there. We quickly tacked and kept moving now off course. Sailing close to the wind with confused and changing seas was no fun. Nor were we heading in the right direction. All my planning to head north to get a better heading in the NW wind had now set us too far north to reach Beveridge Reef on a single tack. I knew the southerlies were coming but the GRIBs suggested we’d be on our anchor before that happened. It might have been ok except for a northerly current adding another 30 degrees to our course over ground.

Our hope was to to plod on regardless hoping the easterly trade winds would assert themselves and bring our course further south. Plan B was to abandon hope of reaching Beveridge Reef and go straight to Niue.

The winds shifted a little throughout the night leaving us about 10nm to make into wind by the time my morning shift started. With the reef seeming to calm the seas and lessen the current I began tacking in. And that is where we are – inching our way towards the reef. With our clocks set back an hour in line with Niue we should be in around 10am which is about right for the light.

We plod on. I’ve come to the conclusion the growth on the underside of the boat is costing us about 1/2 a knot. The bottom is in need of new paint as the miles have ablated most of it off. The weeds grow pretty fast. Outside Palmerston I didn’t feel like scraping and am now paying the price of leaving it. That being said, I think our 1st days poor weather would have meant a night time arrival and the slower pace will bring us in a few hours before dawn.

The winds have shifted to the NW as expected. Early this morning we furled the Code Zero and hoisted the main and jib to sail closer to the wind.

We put the lines out yesterday and caught a 20lb mahi mahi. Using the filleting techniques I observed in Palmerston I did a pretty good job getting about 10lb of good meat off the fish. That’s enough for five meals for the three of us. Needless to say we had fish for supper last night.

The weather patterns ahead of us are associated with a front heading our way. This could give us a bumpy night at sea. The good news is that the regular trades are forecast to slot in right behind which will make for a couple of pleasant days at Beveridge Reef.

As forecast the winds were very light throughout the day and into the evening. We struggled to make 3 knots. But we knew this would be the case so we weren’t worried. The seas were calm so we didn’t suffer from the sail flogging in the light winds. We were therefore able to put some miles down and soon Palmerston was over the horizon.

Overnight the winds have picked up. At the beginning of my shift we were making between 5 and 6 knots but recently that has pulled back a bit. We’re still aiming more for Niue than Beveridge Reef as we’re still anticipating a wind shift to the north west this evening. The winds are expected to slacken again after about a day of medium weather so I’m still expecting a Thursday arrival, boat time of course. For much of the world it will be Friday as we’ll be closer still to the dateline.

We have now left Palmerston. We spent the remainder of Sunday aboard just relaxing and doing a little boat prep. We finished off Lord of the Rings in the evening.

The weather picture still remains complex but I’ve decided we’re better of going and figuring it all out as we go. We are bound for Beveridge Reef located at 20S, 167 46.5W. The winds are currently coming from the NNE and due to swing round to the NW over the next day or so. We’re therefore heading north of the direct line from Palmerston to Beveridge Reef so we’ll get a better wind angle if/when it turns. The winds are light (6-8 knots) but we’re sailing with our trusty Code Zero.

It should be a two day trip in normal trades but in these light winds it’s going to be probably three.

We’re leaving Palmerston which a touch of sadness as our time here has been priceless. That being said, one could stay too long on a small island like this. Everyone knows everyone else and every relationship must have a history. While we saw and participated in part of their life here we only scratched the surface. Beneath this surface one gets a glimpse from time to time of the deeper side of life here and it’s not necessarily all Paradise.

Looking ahead, Beveridge Reef is an interesting place. Surrounded by the ocean three miles deep it is a pinnacle rising from the depths to just below the surface. At low tide, I understand, the reef will surface but beyond that there is no land. The waters are supposed to be crystal clear, the snorkeling excellent and, we have been informed, lobsters can be plucked from the reef at night. We shall see.

Ed came and picked us up around 1:30pm and was happy to take the fish we’d caught in the morning. After us he picked up Taffy, Shirley and Colin from The Road and we all went to the village ashore. The previous days catch of birds were penned up in a net surrounding. At 2pm they were all counted and Simon did the arithmetic to decide how many birds each family could take. On his call a member from each family jumped in the enclosure and started tossing the birds out into their wheelbarrows. The birds of course squawked and screeched but were so docile they just sat in a heap in their barrows.

We walked back to Simon and Eds family area and began helping with preparing the birds. Each one had it’s neck wrung – Ben even managed one – followed by plucking where we all took a bird and did our bit. Once the birds were down to fluff they lit a fire, stuck a stick down the throat of the birds and singed all the remaining fluff off the bird.

Shortly after about 6-8 scrawny chickens met their end. Ben again assisted sending one of them to it’s maker – this time with a machete. Although we weren’t expecting lunch yesterday Ed laid it one. More fish of course. Ben was a bit late as he’d been helping out plucking a couple of chickens and husking some coconuts. We were again bloated. It was nice to have the company of the crew from The Road. Being their first day on the island they were amazed by their experience already.

The afternoon wore on and before we knew it it was after 6pm. Ed took us all back to the boats. We’d all agreed to have drinks aboard Dignity to catch up. Ed joined us for a bit. The evening didn’t finish until nearly midnight whereby many beers, bottles of wine and a whole bottle of rum had been polished off.

This morning we all woke with a hangover – no surprise. Ed picked us up to go to church followed by lunch – Bosun bird, chicken and a variety of gooey side dishes. The birds tasted ok but were a little too fishy for us. Not having much room inside us we were filled fairly quickly. After lunch we laid back and chatted some more and eventually asked Ed to take us back to our boats. We are all very exhausted.

We are hoping to leave tomorrow but the winds are extremely light right now. The forward weather picture is a little complicated so we won’t be making the decision to leave until the morning.

Right now it’s time for Siesta.

We’ve had a bust couple of days here on Palmerston.

On Thursday we were taken ashore mid morning. We were ferried in, again, by our host Edward. This time he picked up Ken and Laurie from Trim moored next to us. We had a brief chat with them before Helen, Ben and I went to the shore to snorkel in the crystal clear warm waters surrounding the island. Apart from the usual, but abundant, crowd of fish we saw a small turtle and two dead sharks. The sharks get it from the villagers. I assume because the sharks are competing for the same fish the villagers eat they get a bash on the head if they get too close.

Back ashore we all had a shower using collected rainwater. This was especially pleasant as we can’t have showers aboard as a result of the broken water maker. We then headed back to the school as it was now the lunch break and we had a few bits and pieces to give the school. From the school we walked to the beach on the south side and round to Tere’s house which is just finishing construction and is the nicest on the island. It even has a guest house on the beach which looks very romantic.

We had more fried wahoo for lunch which was just as tasty and just as filling.

In the afternoon we hung around Edwards home with his family and Ken and Laurie from Trim. Shirley, Edwards wife, brought out some juice and rum (from Trim) which we supped and mellowed out. Occasionally we would wander around. Edward was cutting branches off a mahogany tree to trade with a friend for goods. The five little piglets running around were quite a draw. We were given some barbecued wahoo to take back to the boat which we later ate. It was delicious.

On Friday we went ashore to take a look at the laptops and printers which had been reported to have problems. Ben came up with most of the answers but in some cases the problems were trivial (out of ink/out of paper).

We again had wahoo for lunch but this time we had it steamed and it came with doughnuts of which Ben ate about 5. There were still many left and we eventually went back to the boat we were given a plateful. They surely want to fatten us up.

Around mid afternoon Ben and I were picked up to help Edward and his two sons, John and David, fish for parrot fish on the reef. They laid out a net across a shallow part of the reef while we circled round to scare the parrot fish in. The first time we didn’t catch anything which may have been partly due to Ben and my inexperience. We felt bad when the fish got past us and not into the net.

The next time, with a little help from another father and son, we caught 19 parrot fish. Even then, the rest of them took over leaving Ben and I at the back feeling a little spare. But we probably helped a bit.

Next stop was fishing rods on the reef. I lost my hook, bitten off by a baby shark and nearly caught something else but I don’t know what. Ben managed to catch a pretty big relative of a grouper which we gave to the family. They’d caught two tiny ones so we felt as though we’d contributed.

That evening, as with the previous two, we pushed on with watching The Lord of the Rings extended edition until we felt too tired to continue.

Our plan had been to leave Saturday morning. However, we learned that on Saturday morning Edward and his sons would be going out to catch birds on one of the other islands along with the other families from the village. Furthermore, if we were around at 2pm we would count towards his families share of the overall catch. Furthermore, these birds were considered a treat and we would be fed some if we were here on Sunday. So we’ve decided to stay on until Monday morning.

This morning, Ben and I were picked up around 6:30am and were taken across the Lagoon to one of the unoccupied motus. The birds are actually preflight chicks about the size of a small hen. The younger ones are left and only the ones big enough are taken. One just grabs them by their head and stuffs them in a sack. The family knew where to look and bagged all the birds. Ben and I added moral support. In their boat the birds were left to sit in the bottom where they puked up the bits of fish they had earlier eaten. This, apparantly, was edible. I though David was joking when he said we could eat it but it turned out to be true as Edward ate some later. Yach.

On the way back to the main island we spotted another sailboat on the way in. We stopped off at the main island to drop the birds and David off and headed back to Dignity. Edward and John hung around for a while. He knew he could get to the boat first as the other hosts had left it til later to hunt their birds. The boat turned out to be The Road last seen by us in Huahine. They’d had a long sail from Bora Bora without their autopilot and were hence tired. I agreed to go with Edward and join them in case they needed extra help coming in. By now we had humpback whales in the vicinity. I kept only seeing their splashes. Even when I was aboard The Road and they were breaching nearby I kept missing them. Oh well.

Once The Road was safely moored Edward took me back to Dignity. Ben and I headed off to the reef with our spear guns and soon had snagged 5 large parrot fish which we intend to give to Edward – hopefully making up for the lost fish from our first attempt yesterday. The snorkeling was excellent which pursuaded Helen to come out with us for a bit even though she’d just washed her hair. The visibility was excellent and by the reef there were lots of underwater fissures to explore. There were a few white tip sharks swimming around but they were more scared of us.

This afternoon, at 2pm, the birds will be shared out. We should be going ashore to watch this event. Then they’ll have their necks massaged (to death), be plucked, fired then frozen ready for the feast tomorrow.

Fixed printers/computers admin/school
Lunch with family
Hanging around to 3:30 – Helen talked to Granny (John Marsters, husband first proposed when she was 15, married at 19)
Doughnuts (Ben 5)
Fishing on reef

We’re having too much. Getting behind on my blog. Will catch up soon.

The wind kept up from the previous nights increase allowing us to make good time. About 10 miles out from Palmerston we contacted the island on the VHF to inform them of our impending arrival. We were notified that we would be met by a boat on our approach who would guide us to our mooring.

A little more background of the island is perhaps in order. When William Marsters settled here with his three wives in the 1800s he begat his own dynasty. He parcelled up the island into three lots each of which was allocated to the descendants of the three wives. To this day the island is divided into three families. With 67 people in total these are not large groupings. When cruisers approach the island the boat that gets to you defines which family will be ‘hosting’ you. They joke around a lot so it’s hard to know if they simply take turns or it’s who gets there first. Either way, we were met by ‘Alpha Echo’ meaning Edward. He gave us some direction before going back to fishing as they were a lot of wahoo in the area.

We made our way around to the west side of the island, furling the Code Zero at the turn, while Edward trolled a line not too far from us. As we approached three other moored boats we were given some additional instructions as to which mooring line to take. We were soon hooked up and agreed to take on board the island officials who were already aboard one of the other boats.

Edward was soon back with Teri, the government representative (and husband of Yvonne for whom we’d brought supplies) and Simon (Edward’s brother) who was the island council representative. It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that Edward is also the island policeman but you’d never know unless he told you. Teri checked our paperwork from Aitutaki and Simon collected a small fee for the council. We offered them cold beers and drinks to welcome them.

As with Aitutaki we couldn’t have felt more welcomed by them. The deal on the island with the cruisers is trade. Being so remote (1 or 2 cargo ship visits per year) they can use just about anything we have spare. Edward and Simon asked about a few things we might have. We said we had a few things for them but hadn’t got it together. We were soon ready to go to the island with them. We boarded their runabout boat getting to see the huge Wahoo that Edward had snagged while bringing us in. The entrance they took through the reef was narrow and twisted. They knew their way of course and soon we were inside the reef being taken across the clearest waters perhaps we’ve ever seen.

At the shore they were already gutting the wahoo in the water. It was quite instructive as they were managing to remove the gills and intestines with very few cuts. I’ll have to try what I think I saw myself next time we catch a big fish.

After a short walk from the beach we were in Edwards family area. We sat down for a brief chat with his mother before we were invited over to see how they filleted the fish. Again this was instructional but I somehow think the ease they demonstrated came from a life of practice.

Edward proceeded to begin cooking lunch which was, of course, fresh wahoo. We had a little wander around seeing their pigs and chickens and a little of their land. We ended up chatting some more with Edward which is when we learned a bit about the island and him being the local policeman.

The fried wahoo and rice we had for lunch was delicious and more than plentiful. We were joined by Teri and later by Yvonne and later still by Shirley, Edwards wife. After some more chatting we were getting sleepy from lunch and the two nights of night watch. To wake up, Edward took us for a walk around the island while he played his ukulele and sang. This was almost surreal. By far this has been our most out of the modern world experience we have had on our travels. Modern life has hit the island. They have computers. They have internet in one place. But with no airport and very few commercial connections their main contact with the outside world are the cruisers. It’s hard to describe the experience but it is certainly unique.

We were taken to the school which was over for the day. We saw the two classes and some of the childrens’ work. We also had a chance to talk to the three teachers and learn of what they needed and what we may be able to help them with.

We then walked around to the main village where we met another group of cruisers who had been lunched there. We were offered more food – as if we had room. We chatted for a while before moving on back towards Edwards home. We didn’t get to see the end of the island where Teri has his home – this being left for another day.

Edward then took us back to our boat. We were accompanied by his wife, Simon and one of their sons. There we started going through our things and seeing what we had spare. Nothing we offered was turned down. From plastic pipes to fish hooks to food and gasoline. A small bag of chocolates were devoured there and then. A slab of Venezuelan beer was very welcomed.

Once we’d said our goodbyes and were left alone we contemplated something to eat. We were still full from all the fish and rice we’d eaten so we just sat down and watched a movie, not quite making the end before we were too sleepy to continue. Before the movie Ben and I did go for a swim to check the mooring line. I managed to spot a turtle swimming way below us. It was quite spooky looking down from the boat into a seemingly infinite abyss. The water very quickly drops off to thousands of feet deep here.

Lunch is again offered today. We’ve also talked to Edward about going lobstering one night. We (at least Ben and I) really want to learn how to best go about this. We’ll see but we’re looking forward to our next few days here.

Another slow day. At times the wind dropped to 5 knots so we put in about 4 hours of motoring to keep moving. Overnight we saw a number of showers on the radar (much like the previous night). These we are keen to avoid. Apart from getting wet we experience changes in wind direction and speed near them. Only one appeared strong enough to be called a squall and with the Code Zero up in the dark this makes avoiding these systems all the more important. They appear as fuzzy edged patches on the radar and often in clumps. One has to not only anticipate the direction they’re moving (usually the same direction as the wind) but also the direction in which they’re forming as this adds a new motion. With the wind slightly off our stern we don’t have much room to maneuver in one direction so one needs to detect and react when they’re a few miles out.

For much of the day and night we looked as if we’d be lucky to make Palmerston before dusk. After a midnight pickup in the wind we now have an ETA of around 1pm.

As we still have some mahi mahi in the freezer we have not been fishing so no reports on that.

Back to my watch.

And there I was worrying about arriving Tuesday/Wednesday night. Now we’re hoping just to arrive during the day on Wednesday. Our average speed over ground for the trip so far is 4.1 knots but right now we’re down to 3kts in 8kts of wind. Overnight we had some patches of rain to avoid but nothing that could be described as a squall.