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Passage to New Zealand – Day 1

We’ve had an encouraging start to this passage. The winds, as predicted, did shift around enough for us to not only gain the rhumb line but to also let out the sails for a more comfortable ride. Overnight the swell, which always lags the wind, shifted too so we stopped crashing into the waves so much. All good. The wind forecasts are also coming in as good as we could hope for. We have pretty much a beam to close reach for the next few days in around and about 20 knots of wind which we will sail well in. The 7 day forecast even shows the stationary high in our way dissipating providing the hint that we may be able to sail all the way in.

All the boats that left yesterday are sailing for either Whangarei or Opua (mostly the latter) so we’re all close by. We always had sails on the horizon around us and Kilkea in particular took station 2 miles off our port and stayed there overnight. this morning within spitting distance of us are Attitude, Blue Penguin, Boree, Illusion, Imagine, Kilkea, Tin Tin and Larabeck. Quite a crowd.

Unfortunately, Sea Mist had to turn back. Outside of the reef at Tongatapu they noticed the stitching coming apart around the clew of their jib. They decided to turn back and effect repairs. We heard from them this morning. They have found a possible place to get it repaired. Our fingers are crossed that they can make it out in this weather window but it is tight. A low pressure system is chasing us down which will make things bumpier and wetter for them.

We had a little problem with our job too but nothing serious. I noticed some more of the stitching for the sun strip had come undone. Fortunate this was close to the furler so I went forward and stitched it up leaving the sail out. It was a bit awkward as I caught a few waves as well as catching my finger with the needle a few times.

More excitement came in the afternoon when we were briefly accompanied by some pilot whales. I rushed for my camera but they didn’t stay long enough to pose.

Sailing to New Zealand is a bit like playing dodgems with the weather systems. Given that it’s getting colder we’ve elected to use a little diesel on the way to provide some comfort in terms of warmth and to avoid loss of speed due to regeneration. If we need to slow down we’ll regenerate but not unless we need to. Our sailing angle to the wind is screwing up the wind gen as the wind spilling of the main spins it around and we get no useful energy from it. That’s a pity as we’d do pretty well in these wind speeds.

We’re currently managing to average just over 6 knots which puts us on an ETA for arrival next Thursday on the 8th. We’d always hoped to arrive before the weekend so this is a nice comfortable margin.

Weather or not

The morning weather session turned out to be quite useful. Members of 6 or 7 boats came ashore and we all sat around a long table with out laptops looking at various weather sources. There was a lot of discussion and sharing of ideas. I noticed Bert from Boree had a more up to date version of the software to view my downloaded wind/wave files and soon I was up to date seeing my wind, rain and waves in glorious technicolour. We’ve agreed to keep meeting at 10am each day although noone is individually bound to come.

The outlook for a passage to New Zealand right now is not good. A low pressure system is forecast to hang around about a 1,000 miles to the east of New Zealand with a high pressure system stalling to the west of New Zealand. Between them they squeeze some strong southerly winds and swell which would not be fun to beat through. For me, these systems are the thing to watch right now as everything is governed by them. We could be here for a while.

In the afternoon Helen and I went for a walk around Pangaimotu which was a pleasant leg stretch. At 6pm Sandra from Larabeck had agreed to play the fiddle. This was excuse enough for a number of us to come ashore and listen in. Soon we had Bert (the same one) accompanying her on a guitar from Imagine. All good fun and very memorable.

Disaster did strike yesterday in the form of running out of beer. The last of our reserves, topped up in the duty free store in Niue, are now exhausted. We’re also down to two bottles of wine. The rum is gone. We have gin but no tonic and some tequila fumes. Had we been leaving today this would have been perfect timing. Looks like we may have to go into town tomorrow to hunt down some essential provisions – tonic being the top of the list.

This morning we listened to the traffic on the Penguin net largely comprising the vessels who left here last Sunday. We know they’ve had a hard time over the last couple of days but it was great to hear things we settling out and they were mostly all past the bad weather and looking to arrive in New Zealand over the next few days. The one theme that did come through was ……. it’s cold down there.

Pangaimotu

Our sail down was slow and drizzly but uneventful. We’d aimed for the eastern passage into Tongatapu hoping to see whales outside in the deep water. No luck there. We arrived around 3pm, anchored behind the island of Pangaimotu on first try and settled down exhausted. We’d all had a troubled night’s sleep and were all ready for a rest.

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Not without first checking the internet. This was fortunate really as although it is free here, it is insanely slow. So we all started downloading stuff then slowing down and resting.

In the evening we went ashore to Big Mama’s where we ate out along with Sea Mists, Imagines and Tahinas. Later, the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was shown but we didn’t stay. The Visions of Johanna’s came for the movie so we had a chance to say hello and catch up. There are others in this anchorage we know. The Leu Cats are here as well as the Borees and another number of other boats we recognise but know less well. All are waiting here for their preferred weather window. A whole load of boats left last Sunday. I wouldn’t have but I keep my fingers crossed for all of them as we know a few.

This morning I took the 9am water taxi to the main dock a mile away to clear in. I shared a taxi to the Immigration Office with the Borees. There I discovered my visa was all in order and they said I didn’t need to do anything until I leave. Same was true for customs and the port captain, they said. It may be incorrect but I’m still cleared into Tonga so I can’t go too far wrong.

My next problem was that the return water taxi was at 1pm. I picked up some supplies based on a list that Helen gave me and wandered around Nuku’alofa for a while. I covered most of it in fairly short order and still ended up with plenty of time. I ended up at the dock an hour early. I sat in a cafe and read a magazine to kill the time.

This afternoon I’ve been back on the boat sorting out my ebook collection. Helen has spent all day on her year two perspective – still not finished. Ben has been stuck into his actuarial studies. It’s been too windy today to take down our headsail. Frank on Tahina offered us the use of his sail sewing machine which I’d like to do after taping up the tear. The quick and dirty fix of putting marine compound on the sail repair tape can wait until if and when it recurs.

A new headsail and a service of our old one was already on our to do list for New Zealand. I think the tear is a result of our old problem of the sun strip being a tad too narrow. We look after the sail by furling it tight but the initial damage may be quite old.