10/21/2009, 25 50.4'S:178 12.6'E, 200miles SW of Minerva Reef
An interesting 24 hours. we made good time for the first 12 hours, then encountered pretty decent winds that, while allowing us to sail, slowed our progress due to wind waves. W had to slow to 4 knots overnight to stop the boat from falling off the waves that would come at us from almost directly in front. If we turn too far to port, we are into irons (directly into the wind) and if we turn to starboard, were headed north, which last time I checked was the wrong direction. A couple of funny anecdotes.. We are REALLY tired of our itunes playlists so we put the ipod on shuffle all, resulting in a pretty eclectic mix. Rina and I were sitting in the cockpit, discussing plans for our return home in December, when Bing Crosby's "I'll be home for Christmas" comes on. we both look at each other and bust up. Weather has continued to get cooler, with water temps now 65 and night air temps around 60. I realized as I pulled a pair of socks on. I have not worn shoes or socks in ov er 10 months! One of those little secrets of warm water cruising. I once met a guy in Mazatlan who had cruised for 2 years, no shoes and his feet grew two sizes larger from wearing the only sanctioned footwear from the official cruiser wardrobe - flip flops!
Sandy Jackson, via Facebook, asks where we are staying in NZ. We arrive in Opua, now on the 28th due to a change in weather outlook and plan on staying at the Opua Marina or Ashby's boatyard to get some work done. Rina is fantasizing about hanging for a couple of days at the Paihia Beach Resort and Spa while the forward bunk is torn apart for some fiberglass repair. I don't think I will be able to talk her out of that one. We are looking for recommendations for good restaurants, places to stay or see while in the Opua area, so if you have any, bring em on!
We will then cruise the Bay of Islands in late November before heading south to Gulf Harbor Marina where we will leave the boat for 6 weeks while we fly home. We return in mid-January, where we will cruise the Auckland area for a couple of weeks before loading Follow You onto a Dockwise Yacht transport freighter and move her to Ensenada Mexico. During the 2-3 weeks it takes for Dockwise to move her, we plan on flying to Christchurch on South Island, renting a car and road tripping north to Auckland, staying at various B&B's, trekking some of the awesome mountains and enjoying being a tourist for awhile.
In March, we will cruise down the coast of Mexico and spend 4 months seeing the parts of Mexico we missed last season, before doing the Baja Bash to California for the summer, where we will enjoy San Diego, Huntington, Catalina, Santa Barbara, before heading to San Francisco Bay in September 2010. That's the plan as we see it now, subject to change of course.
Total miles covered from Minerva: 200 Miles to go: 600 Winds: 10-24 Avg Speed: 4 knots Sea Temperature: 65
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Comments [2]
10/20/2009, 25 02.7'S:179 52.6'E, 136 miles SW of Minerva Reef
Underway at last. and what a ride. we calculated a 5 knot passage but have been lucky to be sailing close hauled at 6-7 knots most of yesterday, putting us well ahead of schedule.. That's kinda good and kinda bad. good, because we just want to get there, and get there well in advance of a front moving into NZ on the 28th. Bad, because our passage plan and the associated wind shifts are calculated to coincide with our waypoints, making for better sailing, around fronts, and without using as much fuel. Amazingly, Bob McDavitt has nailed 95% of the windshifts to the hour. Where Bob, and most weather predictions for that matter usually underestimate is the wind strength. That's what happened to us yesterday, and so far today. Boat and crew are doing well, as are Richard, Suzanne and Mark on Kaumoana. We are also sort of convoying with Learnativity, which is about 30 miles behind us, Starburst, another 10 miles behind them, and Xanadu2, who is 15-20 miles ahead of us.
Total miles covered from Minerva in 23 hours: 136 Miles to go: 692 Winds: 16-20 Avg Speed: 5.5 knots Sea Temperature: 67.8 Brrrr!!
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10/19/2009, Minerva Reef
After 5 days of bobbing in the waters of Minerva Reef we finally decided to check in to the Minerva Reef Hotel. Rina and I inflated the dinghy, which we had been avoiding in the vain hope that we would be leaving soon, and motored in smooth water a 1.5 miles to the Southern most part of the reef, known as the Sandbox. In this area, winds and currents have collected sand and deposited it in a series of mounds, mostly underwater, but one above, leading to the steps of the hotel.
Some time ago, an entrepreneur from Tonga decided that a hotel would be a good idea on a reef that is never more than 2 feet above sea level. Even the tragic optimist in me could see absolutely no logic in the endeavor. Instead of checking in to the hotel, we explored the colorful fish plying the waters of the hotel basement.
The weather gods have been good to us, so we are on our way to New Zealand today, and should arrive on 27-Oct. Conditions look benign. exactly what we had been hoping for. Woohoo! Time to go back to the first world!
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10/18/2009, Minerva Reef
Well, we coulda been there by now.. Of course we would have had to brave 40 knot winds and huge seas.. Instead we continue to enjoy the solitude of Minerva Reef. Sleep late, read, eat, nap, hike the reef, a little boat maintenance. all in a days travels. Yesterday I was on the bow repairing a stripped snap and I heard a little cluck above my head. I looked up to find the first airborne life we have seen in days. These two birds just hung in the 10 knot breeze about 5 feet above my head. And they stayed there long enough for Rina to get the camera, walk it over to me so I could get this pic.
As time slows down here we have spent more time on the reef, exploring in detail the reef. We found some living coral yesterday and could only imagine what it looked like when the entire reef was alive. We found critters living in sand dollars, puffer fish, little slimy creatures with antennae that looked like they were passing through intergalactic customs. (movie reference Alyssa!)
It looks like we will be here a few more days as a series of fronts moves up from the Tasman Sea and blocks our journey to the southwest. We've been joined by "Learnativity" and a French boat who have not introduced themselves yet. Looks like we will be hanging until the 20th or 21st for the next window. No worries, it's gorgeous here and we're enjoying the downtime.
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10/16/2009, Minerva Reef
We are still here in Minerva enjoying our quiet time being that there's still only one other boat here with us in this huge reef. The winds seem to be picking up. It's really weird, sitting out here in the middle of the ocean, especially at high tide, the reef disappears and the wind waves make their way over the reef and into your boat. You really do feel like you are anchored in the middle of the pacific. It can be uncomfortable at times and I (Rina) have a hard time not getting up in the night constantly to check the anchor (habit I guess). Of course, when I do get up, all is fine, it's all water & wind noises with an occasional anchor chain clank. Food & other provisions seem to be lasting fine (as any of you that know me.we won't starve on my boat!). It was interesting shopping for this trip, not knowing if we were stopping here in Minerva, staying for how long here, and if we were passing it up, how much food were the authorities going to take away at our check-in. New Zealand Agricultural/Quarantine has a very long list of foods that you "must" remove from your vessel at time of arrival. It's long, but here's just a few (which you know I had a lot of on board!) - Pasta, Rice, Beans, Seeds/Nuts (snack ones, also whole seeds from your spice cabinet), Flour, Fresh Meats (canned too), Fresh Fish(canned too), Poultry, Eggs, Fresh Vegetables, Fresh Fruits.Frozen or Fresh, it doesn't matter.oh, and my honey. yikes! Just can't wait for a "real" grocery store. Finding decent food items along the way has been trying at times, especially if you are used to cooking even in the simplest way. You have to modify your menus over and over again just to work with what you can buy. The largest store that we shopped at with the best selection was back in Papeete, Tahiti. They had most of what you could or would be looking for. The other islands, back to the Marquesas, Tuamotos, some parts of the Society Islands, Niue, and Kingdom of Tonga were the most diffi cult to re-provision. All of the cooking on the Follow You has been fine, I had a couple of prepackaged mixes go bad, but for the most part, we've done ok. When we do get to Opua, we'll be back on boat maintenance and some down time from our passage. This last part of the passage has the reputation of being a pretty difficult one. Hopefully it won't be as hard as it sounds. We've seen some weather in our cruising days, so I'm sure that we can handle it. It's been working fine with just the two of us without crew. Sometimes I do miss the extra hours of sleep. It's been nice taking a break here in Minerva Reef, but I can't wait to get to our final destination in the South Pacific. We'll visit the Bay of Islands for a few weeks, then back home for the holidays! Hopefully we can catch-up with some of you when we are home. - Rina
Total miles covered: 0 (still awaiting weather window) Miles to go: 842 Winds: 10-15 Avg. Speed: .01 on anchor swing in the wind. Sea Temperature: 73 (we moved to the other shallower side of the reef)
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10/16/2009, Minerva Reef
Yesterday was Minerva Reef Walk day.. I joined Richard and Mark from Kaumoana walking the 1.2 miles from the inside to the outside of the reef and back. They originally took a fishing pole over to see if they could cast into the ocean side and get some sushi but the surf was a bit treacherous for such an endeavor. Instead we explored the reef, awash in shallow tide pools at low tide. The reef is pretty flat, with mostly compressed dead coral, with sparse examples of reef fish trapped in the shallow pools. In a few cases, larger fish, 6-8", were trapped in some of the deeper pools, and as we approached would gather in a clump, sort of looking like a rock, and would only scramble as we got very near, and in some cases flitting over rocks to try to find the next deep enough pool to escape into. Richard was last at Minerva 20 years ago and says the difference is dramatic. Where he saw 90% live reefs previously, we now see 90% dead reef. Since the nearest land upwind and up -current of this reef is almost a thousand miles away, it's hard to argue that direct and overt pollution has killed this reef, like we have seen at some populated reef areas in French Polynesia, but the evidence is pretty compelling that we have impacted the environment here..Reefs have otherwise thrived for millions of years. with no fossil record that indicates anything like what they are experiencing now. Same goes for the heavily studied Great Barrier Reef of Australia, which is predicted to largely die out in the next 20-40 years given current trends. Is this a normal environmental fluctuation or a man-made impact.draw your own conclusions. [further political ranting excised to help lower my blood pressure ;-}]
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10/15/2009, Minerva Reef
The weather gods (and Bob McDavitt) have spoken. Over the last two days we have been working with Bob to create a passage plan from Minerva to NZ, but kept running into a moderately nasty low coming out of the Tasman Sea. Our first pass would have had us with 35 knots on the beam for 18 hours. Didn't like that. Second pass the next day had us motoring *into* 30 knot winds for 30 hours, making 3 knots of headway.. I can hear Follow You shuddering at the prospect. We knew the nice window of SE winds to get us down to that area would be closing soon, and today it did. If we left tomorrow, we would hit the remnants of that front 2-3 days out and it would make life tough, motoring into 25 knot winds while trying to get west. So instead we will hang out here at Minerva for 3-5 days while the front passes to the east and wait for the next window. We've got plenty of food, plenty of water, plenty of wine LOL, plenty of fuel, so we're good to go.
Tomorrow we're on the hunt for lobster, which are rumored to be making a comeback after the population was ravaged by commercial interests several years ago. We'll re-inflate the dinghy and explore the entire reef - all two miles of it, and enjoy the fact that there is only us and Kaumoana here. Clark Gable and Geminus must have kept going. It will be interesting to hear on the SSB net what kind of weather they hit in the next day or two as they encounter the front that we didn't like.
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10/14/2009, 407 Miles Southwest of Vavau
After 3 days at sea, we entered the churning pass at Minerva yesterday. Since our weather window does not look great, we are going to stay at least one more day before continuing our passage. This place is too cool. a circular reef two miles across out in the middle of nowhere.. The clearest water we have seen, warm and great weather. The crew of Kaumoana came for dinner tonight and we obsessed over the float plan provided by Bob McDavitt, coming to the conclusion that we can do better. whether tomorrow or in 5 days.If we left tomorrow we would be in 40 knot winds 200 miles off NZ. not fun.
In the pic above, we traversed the narrow pass into Minerva in 3-4 knots of current, where if you don't keep the boat pointed right into the current, you can easily find yourself on a reef. Nice butt huh? I'm talking about the boat.
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We bought a small (27') travel trailer for our "summer cottage" and have one more week to freeze here in Portland before we go back to San Carlos. Who knows? Maybe we'll see you again in Mexico this winter?
Stay safe!!! Sandy & Chris
Bisous, Dalia
10/13/2009, 23 39.7'S:178 54.6'W, 407 Miles Southwest of Vavau
Well, decisions made. based on a weather report that said there would be plenty of overnight wind, we made a dash for Minerva Reef. Winds built all night, along with a bunch of rain, as the South Pacific Convergence Zone threw its best at us. Wind waves continued to build behind the boat, pooping us several times, with 4 inches of water spilling into the cockpit from behind. The crew and boat handled it well, however, given our experiences coming out of Bora Bora a couple months ago. Things got interesting around 2am, however, when the winds, while still strong, shifted direction by more than 20 degrees back and forth several times. In a flash, we went from a well controlled boat to total chaos. The 22 knot winds gusted to 27 knots and backwinded the main. The preventer held, but a fairlead blew, allowing the main to shift enough to spin the boat around in about 10 seconds. The seas were big enough to toss the boat around, throwing Rina and I around the cockpit as w e tried to tame the mainsail. I was at the helm and Rina was centering the main and preparing to reef. For the life of me, I could not get the helm to answer, and the boat stalled. I quickly started the engine and tried to point into the wind as Rina fought the furling line. Unfortunately it jumped off its winch at the base of the mast and I had to quickly attach a tether to the jackline and climb on my hands and knees to the mast and thread the furling line on the mast winch in the driving rain and wind. The furling line went on easy enough and I crawled back to the cockpit as Rina furled the main. I pointed the boat downwind once again and under reefed main we began sailing again. In a matter of 10 minutes we went from calm to chaos and back. The only difference was the adrenaline pulsing through our systems.
We traversed 65 miles of rain and strong winds overnight and into the morning as we neared Minerva. Amazingly, during the afternoon, the skies cleared and as we neared the reef, the sun broke through the clouds and finally blue skies prevailed just as we needed it to help traverse the pass inside the reef. A 3 knot current made it interesting, but once inside, the calm blue waters were a vibrant contrast to the conditions outside the reef.
We settled at anchor to a gorgeous sunset and prepared the boat for the continuation of our passage to Opua, transferring fuel to the main tank, fixing a frayed mainsail and cleaning the detritus of 3 days at sea. BBQ'd burgers and home-made fries for dinner and a movie, followed by a good nights sleep. Yum!
Total miles covered: 407 Miles to go: 842 Winds: 18-32 from all directions Avg Speed: 5 knots Sea Temperature: 71
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10/12/2009, 22 18.6'S:177 40.9'W, 300 Miles Southwest of Vavau
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. Passages are all about trade-offs... rhumbline course vs boat speed, when to motor, at what rpm to preserve fuel, crew comfort over night, predicting how weather, wind direction and speed play into all the above. All of which makes for quite the equation, which changes daily. Our current conundrum is whether to motor to make Minerva Reef by dusk tomorrow. Currently it looks like we'll be laying over for a couple of days waiting for a better weather window to approach Opua. But the current weather is not cooperating. We're in squally weather with fluky winds which have backed from the SE around to the N and died, when they were predicted by Buoyweather to stay strong all night. We'll need to maintain a 5.5 knot avg speed to make it before 17:00, but at what cost in fuel? So far we've used about 25 gallons, or 14% of our fuel, and we have covered 300 or 24% of our total miles. Not bad, but with winds dying tomorrow, that difference will be burned up. So the question is whether to take any available wind and get to Minerva when we get there or power on in before dusk. If we're going to stay for a couple of days anyway, preserve the fuel. the thought of a quiet night at anchor is alluring however.After discussing with Rich on Kaumoana, we deferred that call until the morning, when we will know how much sailing we got in over night.
Otherwise, it's raining, seas are pretty flat, with long period 2M swells and the ride has been comfortable. One piece of decadence on board is the plastic side panels that completely enclose the cockpit. We put them up tonight just in time, as it's coming down in buckets and Rina, on watch, is nice and comfy at the helm. Dinner of garlic spaghetti and coleslaw, a family favorite tonight.yum!
Total miles covered: 300 Miles to go: 929 Winds: SE 12-18 turning to NW 18-22, then N at 11 Avg Speed: 5 knots Sea Temperature: 70, down from 75 at Vavau
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