Big Mamma's in Nuku'alofa was starting to look like "tar pit harbour" with all the boats anchored out front, waiting for a weather window in which to leave for New Zealand. (Note: All you Eileen Quinn fans will know what this means; if you don't know Eileen Quinn, then you need to become acquainted with her fabulous songs about the cruising life). Big Mamma scheduled pot lucks and parties every other day to encourage the cruisers to stay for a few more days.
The passage to New Zealand is well-known for difficult conditions; and ranks right up there with the passage from the West Coast of Canada to San Francisco. It seems that you either motor for days in next to no wind or you experience gales - only occasionally do you find the happy medium. Minerva Reef, which is about one-third of the way along, is often a place of refuge where boats wait for the next good weather window to complete the last part of the voyage. A steady series of Low Pressure/High Pressure systems march up from the Southern Ocean below Australia and New Zealand and cross all routes south to New Zealand, be it from Tonga, Fiji or New Caledonia. It is pretty certain that you will experience at least a few days of big winds and waves as the systems generally run every 5-7 days and the passage takes 8+ days for an average size boat. What you really don't want is to get caught in the "squash zone" between the High Pressure and Low Pressure Systems. Unfortunately for us, that is exactly what happened.
Weather was the prime topic of conversation amongst the group of us waiting to leave Tonga'tapu. In addition to checking the weather sites several times a day ourselves, we hired the routing services of Bob McDavitt (the weather guru for this area), registered with Gulf Harbour Radio and kept in contact with John Martin of Island Cruising in Opua, NZ. We were keen to head south as we had booked our flights home and the clock was running. A good weather window was forecast to start on Saturday (Nov 1); but as we had just arrived in Tonga'tapu from the Ha'apai Group, we were not ready to leave. In preparing for a big passage like this, where you know you're likely to encounter bad weather, everything on the boat needs to be checked and maintained - standing rigging, running rigging, sails, engine, electronics, fuel acquired, ports and hatches sealed, meals prepared in advance, etc., etc.
Many of the boats that had been waiting in Nuku'alofa for a weather window left on the weekend and planned to stop at North Minerva Reef (yes, there are two Minerva Reefs - apparently a boat last year didn't realize this and went aground on South Minerva!!). We planned to leave on Monday with Code Blue; but at the last minute, we discovered some stitching had let go on the bimini zippers, and by the time repairs were completed, our timing was off for a daylight arrival at Minerva.
Next morning (Tuesday, Nov 4) Ted downloaded one more set of gribs (gribs are computer generated wind predictions) before departing; and this time a tight red spiral with cyclonic action suddenly appeared about 200 miles west of our route. A flurry of emails was sent to our weather gurus - none of them had noticed this yet! Gulf Harbour said they would get back to us the next day, John said go and Bob McDavitt did not reply until several hours after we had left Tonga - he said "turn back to Tonga, if possible!!!" At that point returning to Tonga would have been a very uncomfortable trip, and we were determined to carry on.
We had great winds coming out of Tonga (E 18-25kt), and made good progress south on a beam reach. Next day, we received discouraging news that Gales were expected at Minerva Reef within the next few days. The cyclonic system was turning into a force to be reckoned with, and we knew that we would have to push the boat hard to get as many miles south as we could to stay ahead of the worst of it. The system was forecast to track north of us, but the high winds extended south of the center for over 200 miles and would cross our route. Two days out, the wind dropped to 8-10kt and we motor-sailed past South Minerva Reef on what was to be our last nice day. It was quite an amazing sight to see a reef right in the middle of the ocean; but we opted not to stop. (Note: we still qualify for the T-Shirt) Every mile south counted in trying to outrun this system, so we kept the RPM's up and prepared the boat for storm conditions - the rig checked, trysail put on deck, diesel transferred from jerry cans to the tank, anchor locker sealed and a few easy meals prepared. We crossed the Dateline at 0400 on the 7th and enjoyed a celebratory lunch. By the evening, the winds began to rise and we were soon into the 20-30kt range and the seas picked up to 2-4m. The winds continued averaging 25-35kt with gusts to 40kt and seas of 4-5m for the next 3 days; waves broke over the boat regularly and soon everything was wet inside and outside - thank goodness for the full enclosure bimini, and yet the water still found its way in, soaking us regularly. As if this had not been enough fun, a nasty system was coming up from Australia with big winds and waves forecast to be coming around the North Cape of New Zealand about the same time we would arrive there. The winds eased slightly on the evening of Nov 10, but an annoying 1-2kt contrary current was robbing us of speed. Early morning on Nov 11 the winds shifted to on the nose and with the current also against us, we motor-sailed again. The winds shifted to the W and continued rising as we approached North Cape. Gale force winds were forecast up the East Coast, so we carried on through the night with the motor on and sailing in 25-40kt winds and rain, still fighting that damn current. Both of us spent the night in the cockpit - it was just too rough to sleep. Picture the Calgary Stampede and a bucking bronco ride that doesn't end at 8 seconds, but keeps on going for hours. We did have one funny experience that night - while monitoring a freighter on our radar, suddenly another blip appeared. When we pulled up the Marpa data, it said it was going 110kts and would be within 400m in 13 seconds - Yikes! It was one of New Zealand's Orion surveillance planes, but it certainly gave us a shock to pick it up on our radar. Dawn broke on Nov 12 and at 0630 we cried "Land Ho" - a most welcome sight! However the battle continued down the coast to Opua. As we rounded Ninepin (Tiki Tiki) Island at the entrance to the Bay of Islands, we decided to take down the sails and motor in the last 4 miles. The genoa was rolled in and we had just centered the boom in preparation for furling the main when there was a loud crack - bolts and ball-bearing went flying everywhere and the furling track pulled off the boom!!!!! I guess we had just passed the 10,000 mile warranty??!! Luckily, we were able to get the main in, but if this had happened just an hour earlier, we were still in 30kt winds and 3m seas. I was really glad that I'd bought those 'Good Luck Tikis" in Tonga. We pulled up to the Q dock, 8 days after departing Tonga almost to the minute. We learned that many people on the Isabella and Gulf Harbour Nets had been following our progress and praying for our safety - apparently, we were quite famous by the time we landed. It had been one wild ride, with a narrow margin for error - not a trip we would like to repeat any time soon.
There is a great sense of satisfaction in having completed 11,000nm across the Pacific. Boat and crew performed admirably under all conditions. The choices we made in preparing the boat have more than proven themselves. The cruising life is now well and truly in our blood, and as we look back on the last year, the words of Eileen Quinn come to mind:
"I've got seashells, I've got souvenirs, I've got songs I've penned;
I've got photographs, I've got memories, but mostly...I've got friends"
The friendships we have made and the sense of community has been so wonderful - we will miss you all. The boat will now be put up on the hard, and we'll return home for about a year. Many of our friends will move on; but hopefully we will meet again, somewhere down the road.