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NZ->Fiji: Day 1

by KC2RIY, on May 2nd, 2012 (At Sea)

Day 1 (the second day out) was a bit of a contrast to the first day.

The sea was more choppy leading Sam to feel a little sick.

Overnight it was slightly warmer and a lot less wet.

We caught no fish.

It was a typical second day at sea with everyone aboard adjusting to life at sea.

Throughout the day and night the winds have refused to move into the south east as the early forecasts promised. I jibed to the north west for a while but didn’t like where we were going so put us pack to the north east again. In these choppy seas going wing on wing is not an option. Stopping at Minerva Reef is now becoming an option and the joke is we’re off to Tonga. Whether or not we stop at Minerva is going to be all dependant on the weather. There is a front up near Fiji and we don’t know what’s behind it. We’ll need to wait 2-3 days to see how the forecasts develop and then make a decision. If we stopped at Minerva it would be for one night or four or more as we’d want to avoid a weekend (expensive) arrival in Fiji.

Overnight the seas calmed and by morning the winds died down somewhat. We now have the Code Zero and main out to keep us going. The forecast looks to strengthen and move more into the SE. We’ve seen that before but this time it looks promising.

NZ->Fiji: Day 0

by KC2RIY, on May 1st, 2012 (At Sea, New Zealand, Sidewinder)

A quick scan of the morning forecasts was not immediately encouraging. The forecast looked better for the afternoon and pretty light in the morning. Not what we wanted as we were eager to go. Another boat mention motoring up to the Poor Knights Islands to do some sight seeing on the way out. That seemed the basis of a good idea. We could do the same and if the wind picked up along the way we’d switch to sailing for Fiji.

Bruce the customs/immigration guy arrived about 9am and cleared us out. He was as cheerful as ever. We headed off almost immediately and motored out down the river against the incoming tide. Once out of the river we put out our headsail to help us along. About a third of the way up to Poor Knights the wind did pick up so we furled the head sail, put up the main and then put out the head sail again.

We carried on motor sailing for a short while towards Poor Knights Islands before I decided to turn east. “We’re on our way to Fiji”.

The wind still wasn’t too strong and whenever we dropped below 4 knots we put on one of the engines to bring us up to 5 knots. We rarely had the engine on for more than 15 mins before the wind picked up enough to turn it off. The sea was almost flat so the going was easy and noone really felt seasick for too long.

The wind direction was as predicted and took us off nearly east. Also as expected it gradually turned and strengthened over night. We are now on course for our first waypoint which is placed to minimise the swell that works its way around New Zealand. We’re making a respectable 8.5 knots even though we’re running downwind. Not our best point of sail.

It’s been cold and wet overnight making the night watches less than pleasurable. I suspect we have another day of gray weather ahead of us before it clears.

All is well aboard.

Our friends aboard Sidewinder also departed yesterday and we’ve been in frequent radio contact with them. Sam received a call from them during his night watch and learned that David unfortunately has some issue with his leg which has caused them to head back to NZ and check into Opua. We wish them all the best. It means we’re out here on our own this time.

We caught a skipjack tuna yesterday. Not our thing. It got tossed back after a gutting demonstration for Sam.

Departure Decisions

by steve, on April 30th, 2012 (New Zealand, Proximity)

Sunday was our last full day in New Zealand. We brought the boat in early and fueled up. This took a few goes as the first time on the dock the fuel line wouldn’t reach either of our inlets. Second attempt we could reach our starboard inlet but not the port so we had to dock a third time to fill up port side. We then moved over to the Q Dock to await customs and immigration.

INSERT_MAP

As of time of writing the above map shows us in a field. Sooner or later google maps will get a picture from after the marina was built so it will then look more sensible.

Helen, Paul and Sam went shopping while I filled in paperwork and collected the duty free. We all returned about the same time and ran into Rod and Elizabeth from Proximity who are also heading up to Fiji (the west end) later this week. In the afternoon we fixed a missing sugar scoop on the bow and prepped the dinghy. We installed the jacklines and the line around the back of the boat we use to hang on to when moving around in rough seas.

That’s about it.

We had our last meal ashore stuffing down burgers and fries at the local (and only) restaurant. No beer or wine to accompany dinner or lighten the evening as it was our last night before passage.

Bruce, the customs/immigration officer is due to arrive at 8:30am to clear us out but it now looks better to leave this afternoon. We’ll have to discuss our options with him.

Everyone is keen to get going but apart from with Helen, I haven’t broken the news about delaying our departure, mainly because everyone else is asleep.

New Zealand Tracks

by steve, on April 29th, 2012 (New Zealand, Tracks)

Here are our tracks for this visit to New Zealand.

View NZ2011_12 in a larger map

Predeparture Passage

by steve, on April 29th, 2012 (New Zealand, Sidewinder)

It couldn’t have gone much better. At 5:30am we left our slip and exited the marina beneath the raised footbridge. For the first hour the wind was light so we didn’t raise the sails until we were round North Head and west of Rangitoto. Leaving Auckland in the dark provided us with a fantastic last memory of the city twinkling away. Farewell Auckland and thanks for all the happy memories.

When the wind came it was just right. Over the course of the trip we saw anything from 15 knots to 27 knots. We had some good exercise shaking out and putting in reefs in the sails. The swell was light making the sail pretty comfortable. We arrived and anchored in Marsden bay at 4:30pm, 11 hours after we started. Not bad considering we’d half expected to arrive after dark.

INSERT_MAP

We anchored here because this is where Suzi and Dave from Sidewinder were anchored and as this is our last night we can party it seemed as good an excuse as any. As they’d already stowed their dinghy for passage and we hadn’t I picked them up and dropped them off. We had a nice evening together. We’ll certainly see them on the dock tonight as we await our check out and departure tomorrow.

The forecast remains good for a departure tomorrow morning. The key thing is keeping the pace to avoid a high pressure system settling over the area 3-4 days from now. If that catches us we’ll run out of decent wind. The first 24 hours will see the wind direction changing a lot so it will keep us on our toes.

The passage overall looks to be pretty good. No signs of any really bad weather and we’ll be going from quarter to full moon so the nights will be nice.

It would be fantastic if we can make the passage in 7 days because then we’d arrive in Fiji on Sam’s birthday. We’d have to average 6.8 knots to make that which is possible but we’d need to be lucky. It’s more likely we’ll take 8 days.

We have a few final things to do to the boat before departure (like removing the outboard from the dinghy) which we’ll do on the dock this afternoon. But after our sail up from Auckland, crew and boat are looking pretty ready to go.

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NZ->Fiji: Day 1

NZ->Fiji: Day 0

Departure Decisions

New Zealand Tracks

Predeparture Passage