Category: Sailing NZ to Pacific

Fairy lights in Suva

1 Comment

Ni sa bula vinaka!

I feel like we’ve been away from Mana for months and months. The trip to Fiji from Opua was, well, a mix of glorious moments and shite. Bashing and crashing (and sounds that feel like the boat is splitting in half) into 25-30 knot head winds that were not forecast; yet a flying fish landed on our boat and the expansive feel of just being in the ocean is gorgeously overwhelming and cannot be placed. Minerva Reef was an amazing place to get out of the waves and wind to recover and swap “did you get enough East in” stories. We even managed to go for a walk on the reef there, at low tide. Well, Steve and Dean did as I sat in the dinghy, watching them in the distance get fainter and fainter in the pouring rain haze. They walked over to the outer side of the reef and stood facing the ocean. Lucky there was no freak wave. I wished I’d pushed myself to get out of the dinghy, but the it was getting dark and the tide was rapidly rising. I had horror images of the dinghy being washed away from the coral bomby it was tied to and us not being able to get back. I live in some very uncomfortable places.

We motored most of the way after that. Oh I LOVE motoring. The boat is flat and the fear to enjoy ratio is lower than usual. Yes, amazing sunsets and surreal feeling of being in a little plastic thing in the big ocean, but I’m still in fight-or-flight mode much of the time. Our gorgeous and capable and considerate crew, Steve, bought lots of fun chats and lighter moments. And he was incredible when it got rough, staying up Dean the whole night. I’ve absolutely come to the conclusion that the most important thing about choosing crew is not to base it on experience, but whether you like them or not. After 10 days cooped up in boat, that is what you are going to care about.

Arriving in Suva was a very smiley experience. The smell of smoke and musk, the chaos of local boats, yachts, cargo ships, fishing vessels and other things that may or may not float. And in Suva Harbour there are many wrecks, some on the charts and some not. The first night was hell – 50 knots and a little bumper boat party. One of the passenger ships broke anchor and smashed into a yacht, which smashed into another yacht, which smashed into another yacht. Clever Pebbles sat in the middle, as the eye of the carnage, without a scratch. We did have to let out more chain in the dark, in 50 knots and steep waves, and 0 audibility as Dean was trying to guide me at the wheel. Steve was in the middle doing a great job of relaying Dean’s screams. The chart plotter wasn’t on so we had no idea where the wrecks were but we had to drive forward. Sigh. Hopefully our new home won’t be as traumatic as this again.

Unfortunately we can’t berth at the Royal Suva Yacht Club because it’s too shallow. So it’s remote living for us. We’ll look at other options for anchoring, but for now, we’re stuck between a wreck and a barnacled fishing boat.  I start at university tomorrow, just to orientate myself, as I wait for a research visa. Fingers crossed. Then it’s off to Ovalau to study with the communities there.

Suva is what I thought it would be – slightly musky smelling, incredibly busy, fabulous markets, lots of color, Indian and Fijian and all that’s in-between, smiles, opulence and grot in the same place, and hothothot. As our lovely friend Kim would say, our eyeballs are sweating. I wish I’d got my hair cut short before I left. There’s hardly any white people which I love, somehow. I am a minority. Lots to think about.

As I write this Dean is teaching sailing! He has already connected with the local sailing school and is volunteering today. He looks right at home and I’m so proud of him. He’s actually an incredibly shy person. Yay Dean. The young sailors are ex-pats but we have ideas of adjusting Dean’s local school yachting programme.

So we are here. Our fairy lights are up in the cockpit which makes me feel like we are now home away from home: it’s like adding a bit of glamour to a place which is usually(for me) full of torturous night shifts and the ground falling out from under me. It’s going to be quite a year. I’m missing Zena so much at times my heart hurts. The Suva SPCA is five minutes away. I badly want to, and don’t want to, volunteer there.

Please, come join us. Get a cheap flight and keep Dean company.  This may help – how many layers of thermals do you have on today! Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Hover and/or over a photo below to read the caption. And I’ll soon upload some video on our You Tube channel (will post it) including the bumper boat party and arriving in Suva. We are thinking of you and send love to you all. Please email us (at our normal email addresses, not at the pebbles1@my iridium.net). Arohanui.

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t worry Caroline, Steve IS tethered on. He also has his clothes on.
Clever Dean’s new sea anchor and drogue set up, under the seat in our transom, ready to go.
Shelf-bra singlets – best thing to wear on passage, so you can be comfy awake and asleep.
Fiji flag – we have officially cleared. Was easy. Until we had to got to Biosecurity, Customs and Health the next day. Email us for advice on how to see the funny side.
The crew, smiling, unaware of what’s to come.
Suva Markets – pawpaw, lychee fury things, baby pineapple, skinny eggplants. Steve was wearing a sulu so it was almost more interesting to watch people find that funny than it was to find fruit and veges.
Yep.
Ah huh.
Yes, yes, yes…motoring. Yes.
Suva Harbour. Oh wow, we are here.
The horizon joins the sea and everything is one.
I love the Pacific.
Behind us is the Suva Prison. It’s from 1912. I don’t think anything has changed.
Again, I love motoring.
Dean, where’s your bloody life jacket??????
Minerve Reef. My Dean.
Life on board a passage. When it’s flat.
Dean teaching sailing already!
Our lovely friends Cheryl and Ian on their identical boat Silver Light. Neighbours again! They are now in Tonga with the Island Cruising NZ rally (ex ICA).
Colo-I-Suva Forest Park. So lush and stunning. There’s a underside of crime here which keeps it real though.
Just follow the yellow line and you’d find Customs. Sure.
After night shift, slight delirious, relaxed. And that is the dont-have-to-wear-a-lifejacket-seat. Very popular.
I don’t know why I love shots like this.
It’s amazing how you are able to find your own space when you’re a metre away from someone. Steve is on a plane to NZ now, and it definately feels like there’s something missing.
First tropical breakfast. I’ve Googled Fijian recipies and am going to live on mango smoothies and coconut fish. Might even get Dean away from his ham, cheese and tomato sammies. Probably not.
Oh mahimahi, we adore you. Thank you ika moana.
I just love everything here.
It’s election year.

Things outside your comfort zone

5 Comments

When Dean and I first met, I bought him a card with a huge door on the front, ajar. At the very bottom of the door was a tiny, terrified kitten, poking it’s head out into the world. That’s how I feel right now. Inside the card said, “the best things in life are outside of your comfort zone”. This is how I’m trying to feel right now. I can’t believe I’ve left my furbaby again, my family and friends, university routines, and our lovely marina community.

Of course this is just nerves and I have a full perspective of where we are going and what we intend to do there. I keep looking at images from Suva, or Ovalau and I’m already there. I’m looking forward to us experiencing the Pacific in a different way this time, outside of the perception of the paradise dream and assumptions about traditional lives. I know it’s not going to be easy, but I also know that this can bring great things.

I had a conversation with an Canadian woman yesterday about travelling. She spoke a lot about travelling through places like India and how difficult it is to cope with beggars and poverty. I said that I thought that this was one of the aspects of being privileged and being able to afford to travel, and that if you chuck in the capitalist-human efforts of climate change, we must all continue to challenge our connections to people. Silence. Must get better and delivering things.

It’s been quite a journey so far. We sailed from Mana to Auckland, up the West Coast. We stayed in Auckland for a few days and caught up with family and friends, then headed back up to Opua. The choice to go up the West Coast was inspired. The argument goes that if you go up the West Coast there is nowhere to hide if it all turns belly up. But, with weather prediction software being as good as it is, and this coastal weather being a lot more settled and predictable than the terror East, we figured the changes of things turning belly up and being in extreme weather, were slim. Also, our last trip up the East Coast in 2015 was a total nightmare.  I almost enjoyed the sailing this time (ssshhhh).

Highlights so far:  having our crew member Ian back on Pebbles – you are fabulous Ian, thank you so much for supporting us in your lovely way and for being such an interesting person; seeing Mt Taranaki and Cape Reinga; meeting Noah for the first time (my Dad’s Godson); sitting in the library at Auckland University and thinking “wow, I’m here”; catching four fish on the way up, some of which is still in our freezer (tuna and mahimahi). Lowlights: missing Zena like crazy; sailing boredom with occasional terror; breakages/things going wrong on the boat include main sail, head sail, gennaker, batteries, anchor light, furler, fridge lid, dinghy. WTF? And realising (again) that the sailing community, while amazing, can be very sexist: on the regular VHF cruisers net the other morning some funny (not) man decided to auction up his wife in the buy-sell-swap section. Some men pitched in with funny (not) comments so I pitched in with “sexisim went out in the 80s guys”. Silence. Realising that NOT being out of your comfort zone feels bloody fabulous!

Click on the photos below to read the captions. Next time I’ll work out how to get them in chronological order.

Steve, our crew and marina neighbour, is arriving today. Can’t wait. We hope to leave on Monday. I will post a photo of our last image of New Zealand then, otherwise, Fiji here we come!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Penny, uber fruit caker maker.
Victoria Park. I love being a tourist – there’s so much freedom.
Arriving in Auckland very early in the morning (photo: Ian)
Best fish recipie
Cape Reinga area.
The lovely young man at Harvey Norman in Wairau Park who told us to return our printer that we bought in Wellington for a much better one. This is the photo printer bought for my Living Memory photography project in Fiji – thanks donors!
Very strange to get your head around how this is possible
I didn’t realise Auckland was actually beautifull
Dean pulls up ANOTHER fish
Thanks Colin!
The inner workings of my mind for my Master’s thesis – quite a fullon place to be.
So beautiful. Thanks Jeff and Claire for caring for her so well.
A rare nice photo of the two of us (photo: Ian).
Pebbles in the boat yard.
Cape Reinga, pouring a glass of whiskey for Peter and Ian’s Dad (photo: Ian).
Auckand harbour.
This is my view of the world while seasick and bashing into 25 knot of headwind just before Cape Brett. I have renamed Cape Brett something that I can’t put in this blog.
Mt Taranaki, and the spirits of Pukeonaki and Ruataranaki.
Yes, Zena is coming with us.
Taken by Ian. Some sailing moments are all about the birds.
Comparing sustinable climate change adaptation with sustainable development is quite a challenge when you are sleep-deprived at sea.
It has been said that sailing is mostly extreme boredom, punctuated with moments of terror. Dean just asked which one this photo is of.
Nightshift…very, very spooky
End of last bottom clean. When we got to Westhaven Marina, one of the first things they asked is when I’d last cleaned my bottom.
The West coast. Thank you.
Red thing (my bright idea of washing this towel in salt water to save on fresh water meant it will never dry. Dean told me this but because I hate being told what to, this towel sat on the back of the boat for days – I consider this respecting eachothers space. Blue thing – our BBQ. White striped thingy hanging off the rails – our new MOM (man overboard module). Replaces horseshoe rings and Dan Buoy. The amount of times I practice our woman-overboard procedures in my mind is a bit of a worry.
That’s Dean in the sled. He volunteered to be rescued in the Sea Rescue Sled demonstration at the Island Cruising New Zealand display in Opua. These lifesaving sled’s are made by our clever and lovely friend Lloyd Valentine. http://www.searescuesled.com
Auckland harbour. Boaties midnight is 9pm so we’re often up to see the day arrive.
Number 384230239878 of the clever things Dean has done to get our boat read. This is the anchor remote thingy.
It tasted yummy, but it’s very sad that we caught this mahimahi off the coast of 90-mile beach. Because of warmer waters (partly from human-induced human climate change) the kinds of creatures coming to our waters is changing. We met a diver in Pahia yesterday who recently saw a turtle in the Bay of Islands. Yes, very cute, but that turtle will soon die as the sea temperature get colder for winter.
First time on Rangitoto Island! Hardly any Maori history/stories to be seen in any tourist information. Really DOC?
One of my favourite places – Mansion House Bay on Kawau Island. My Gran and Granpa used to take my sister and I here whenever we stayed with them at Snells Beach. I had no idea about the damage that colonisation did to Maori (and is still doing) when I was a little girl, visting this place. That’s okay. I’m making up for lost time now!

My ‘to do’ list keeps growing

5 Comments

This is what our boat looks like at the moment. Preparing for an offshore trip feels like moving countries because it’s just as scary and groundless, and incredibly exciting, but you aren’t really leaving home. I still can’t get my head around that. Only part of me considers the boat ‘home’ in this sense. Zena our doggie, family and friends, familiar landscapes (Ngati Toa Domain, Pauatahanui Inlet, Whitireia Park, the marina laundry!) aren’t with us so how can it be home? But we’ll meet people and I’ll name every animal I see Zena of course. Last time we woke up to a family of noisy ducks by Kawau Island – Zena. On our trip to Tonga last time, a bird flew on our safety lines for a half-day rest – Zena! Little sharks that stick to the bottom of the boat at anchor – Zena! And of course the experiences we will make will add a whole new layer to life, especially the extreme and unexpected ones.

We’ll head off from Mana on Tuesday probably and sail up the West Coast. There’s no way I’m going around Cape Palliser and the Wairarapa Coast again – NEVER! Last time we went from 5 knots to an un-forecasted 35 and blew our headsail. Then we’ll sail around the top of the North Island – Cape Reinga, wow – and down to Auckland. The chances of getting a head wind are pretty likely at some point in the journey. I hate head winds. The boat bashes, and I imagine every joining device moving a teeny part of a millimetre with every bash. We have a few things to do in Auckland and then it’s back up the East Coast to Opua to wait for the right time to leave, from end of May.

When I came back in 2015 from our Pacific trip, I said I didn’t want to go back just for our own self-indulgent pleasure. Climate change is ripping communities from their roots and I can’t pretend I’m not connected to that anymore. The Pacific is bearing the brunt of human-induced climate change without having caused the majority of it. So, this time I’m going back to create a project called Living Memory. I have a whole lot of cameras donated and I’ll be working with a community. Anyone in the village can take their own living memory photos of the things they treasure, before another cyclone or other extreme event comes along. We’ll have informal photography exhibitions hopefully, and I’ll be able to leave photos within the community thanks to funds donated by family and friends to buy a printer and photo paper etc. If you’d like to donate, I’d love to buy more ink so we don’t run out! Donate here.

Back to my ‘to do’ list. We’ve got Cat 1 – phew – now it’s chowing into the small things.  Last time I cooked every meal from scratch and popped them in the freezer. This time I’m going to buy takeaway. It feels like cheating, but I’ve run out of time. Dinner will be nasi goreng from our fish ‘n chip shop, chicken korma from our local Indian restaurant, and a gluttony from the pizza shop. I have made a few meals too – pasta and meatballs, and warehou fish curry. Lunches will be wraps (corn crackers for me) and we’ll stick to the same snacks as we did last time: cubes of cheese and carrot, hard boiled eggs, cooked sausages, and a plastic container of bliss balls, peanuts, chocolates and Dean’s favourite bickies. And hopefully also Penny’s famous and very desired chocolate fruit cake (hint, hint!)

Will post a photo of our last sight of New Zealand again to say e noho ra when we leave. Must remember to breathe!

 

 

Things I’d never go sailing without

1 Comment

We really didn’t know what we were doing. We Googled and forumed like crazy. We took advice from helpful people and thought really, really hard. But at the end of the day, we still felt ill prepared. Having said that, there’s not a lot we’d do differently if we were going to go on a sailing adventure again.

Here are some things we would definitely take again.

Green Bags. These are breathable plastic bags to store vegetables in and keep in the fridge. I did an experiment before we left: I brought two broccoli; one went in the fridge naked and the other went in in a Green Bag. The Green Bag one lasted three times as long. I get them from Trade Me (just put Green Bags in the search box). They’re imported from USA – NASA International Space Shuttle used to use them. You can wash them and reuse them 8-10 times – at least that’s what the instructions say – but I used them about 20.  Still good. Tip: Make sure there’s no moisture on the vege/fruit when you put them in. Or if there is, wrap a paper towel around it for a day or so.

Charcoal tablets and Alpine tea. When my Mum was dying, all the hospice nurses were obsessed with her bowels. Sailing can also be all about the bowels. For any kind of tummy bug or diarrhoea, we used charcoal tablets (thanks Peter). They absorb any nasties in your bowel (they actually soak up everything so drink plenty of water – I didn’t and got constipated). Lucky I also have a natural remedy for when you are constipated – a cup of herbal Alpine tea. After 3-4 hours you will definitely go – quite violently sometimes, but it absolutely clears you out. I wish the description on the packet had been a bit more honest – I took it when I was working in town once. I had a cup thinking it was an innocent herbal tea and got quite a shock when I walked home to the train station.

Audio books. For those terrifying night shifts when you can’t read or concentrate, listening to audio books is a really nice half-distraction. I only put one ear plug in so I could still listen to the weather and sea scream, waiting for any kind of different noise in. I subscribed to Audible. It’s $15 a month. The books take ages to download (do it before you leave because there’s no way internet in the Pacific can handle it). My favourite Audio Book is The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. It’s not rocket science – plot drive with vivid characters and is a bit of thriller – and best of all, the actors are British.

Hair stuff. I looked about 10 years old but a hair band keeps your hair out of your face without having to use lots of hairclips. I bought some really expensive morocco oil hair moisturiser which I used every other day – just slip a bit through, like gel. It keeps it hydrated and even when I knew it looked like shite, it smelt yummy. Your hairdresser will be very impressed when you get back.

A groovy dress. On the odd occasion when we went to a resort, I’m really glad I had a nice frock to wear. I hate the term ‘grotty yachtie’ and tried hard to not be one. Of course you are one after five day passage without  a shower but there’s no need to look yucky just because you’re at sea. It is of course quite helpful to not look in the mirror though. OMG that first shower when you reach land is so unbelievably amazing.

LED candles. They look fake but give a bit of glamour. We have three in a set of different heights. They alternate different colors and have a remote control. They’re lovely it the cockpit at night. We had three but traded one for fish. And we also put fairy lights up in the cockpit which Dean did reluctantly until he saw how well they lit us up from a distance. If you forget to put your anchor light on, you still light up like a Christmas tree. It was quite a magical moment, rowing out in the dinghy and looking back at our stary night, gorgeous boat. They’re solar powered and hook up to our dodger. It’s also part of my cunning plan to make sure we don’t race our boat in the next Mana Cruising Club winter sailing season – the fairy lights will take too long to take down! Woop, woop.

A box of gorgeous things. Sailing is all about safety and trauma. As soon as I got to a bay I’d open out my box of gorgeous things and lay them out on the saloon table…a plastic lotus flower, a shell from Kapiti, half a coconut shell and a miniature crocheted Christmas pudding that my Mum won in the hospice raffle. This is a bit macabre, but I also have a Dead Box. It’s got funeral programmes, dried flowers, photos, notes and little things that remind me of the person who died. I also have the ashes of my little pussy cat, Willow, in my Dead Box. Dean thinks I’m weird. But being at sea doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. There’s nothing like a good sob after a shit sail.

A shift bag. I had a large waist bag that I put all my shift essentials in (ear plugs, eye mask, clean knickers, alarm clock, gloves, note pad and pen). I attached it to the nav station so that even if it was rough, I could get to it easy. It was right next to the Grab Bag.

Okay, so I’ve asked Dean what he’d never go to sea without – he’ll be practical:

Three navigation tools. Ray Marine charts as our main nav tool, in the cockpit, and Open CPN and iSailor for our laptop and iPad. Dean also connected our chart plotter to the iPad. He blew up our radar two weeks before we left. Our amazing marine insurance people, The Marina Shop, made sure our insurance covered it and it meant we got new charts for the Pacific. Unlike some people, reefs were where they were meant to be.

Solar panels. As many as you can take.

Davits on our arch. Being able to hoist our dinghy up on davits which are attached to our arch: Not only was it easy when we got somewhere, but the dinghy was perfectly safe, still inflated, during passages. We were one of the only boats with an inflatable dingy and we never got into trouble. Dean had Outboard Envy. Ours has 5hp – a lot had 15hp. 10hp was common. Dean was obsessed with ‘getting on the plane’. I don’t see what the fuss is about. We got to places, eventually.

Soda Stream for fizzy drinks. He can’t live without his bourbon and coke. Except I bought sugar-free which he HATED and never forgave me for. Telling him that the amount of sugar that goes in a glass of coke is actually poisonous, and to stop you throwing up they put another poison in, doesn’t put him off.

Iridium Go satellite communications (includes an email address so we could email anywhere, any time, and 150 talking minutes). Apparently they’ll have 3G internet speed too soon. Iridium Go also has a tracking feature that Predict Wind can show on a website. This was great except for when it went a bit haywire and we got an email from Dean’s Mum saying, “you’re on land, you’re on land, what’s wrong?”

AIS. We wouldn’t go anywhere without it. It saved our lives: Once we were headed right for a rock. We had our chart zoomed out to 10nm which meant the rock didn’t show. The rock had an AIS beacon on and came up as an alert. It was a revolting night shift and our headsail had just ripped so we were in no mood to hit a rock. We should of course have scanned a paper chart more thoroughly before we left.  AIS is great for piece of mind for general collision avoidance too. It’s also handy if you want to avoid  someone in a bay, and you can turn it off if you don’t want to be found.

A good horn to announce your arrival in a bay and say a big goodbye when you leave. Oh for safety reasons too.

What are three things you’d never go to sea without?

WP_000179

And cushions. I can’t buy furniture, art work, books, art deco things – we only have room for cushions. My new cockpit cushions have ducks on them. I love them. Dean doesn’t.

holiday 2

Nothing to do this this post, but my current favourite photo. This is the first time Zena went up on the deck, unprompted. Taken from our trip a couple of weeks ago to D’Urville Island and Pelorous Sound.

 

Sailing from New Zealand to Tonga (when all is forgiven)

2 Comments

Our last sight of Aotearoa was our New Zealand flag waving towards Cape Brett. After two years of intense planning and many YouTube videos of storms at sea, we were finally living the dream (or nightmare, as it first turned out to be).

My partner, Dean, and I, sailed from Mana to Opua in the Bay of Islands with our two crew, Ian and Glenn. The journey we were about to go on was huge for them too. We left Opua and sailed towards the unknown.

The first two days out of New Zealand was dead calm and stunning. I secretly hoped we’d motor all the way in calm seas. No such luck.

The sea started to slop and chop and the wind came up. It was coming from the North and was due to swing around to the East so we could sail on a reach. It never came. We bashed and crashed into the waves. I have 27 bruises to prove how hard it is to move around a boat in rough weather.

I was seasick pretty much the whole time. This meant I couldn’t eat so I got quite weak. I had to force myself to drink and nibble on a sesame cracker or a slice of orange. Of course I forgot about taking electrolytes (Rambo Medic is cursing at me). Sailing is great for weight loss! Dean had  a few icky moments if he was checking out the motor or was head-first into a bilge, but not too bad. Glenn was all good, as was Ian.

Glenn rode the waves like a demon. I had the steering on auto-pilot during my shifts. Steering in rough weather is my next fear to conquer – controlling how the boat comes off a wave. I’m too terrified to try it right now in case I get the boat side on and we ‘knocked-down’.

Night shifts kicked in and it wasn’t long before we were all sleep deprived. We did two hours on and six hours off. But the six hours off weren’t sleeping, just resting. It was too rocky and noisy and hot. I won’t tell you how many showers we didn’t have in the whole eight days.

Our NZ flag scared the hell out of me during nightshifts. It flicked shadows across the cockpit like madly pointing fingers: “Go there, go there, you’re going the wrong way”, it seemed to scream.

Your senses are all twisted with the low light. It’s so freaky not knowing what you’re sailing into. Every 10-15 minutes I’d stand up on the stern seat and take a good look at any lights. Even getting up there felt life-risking sometimes. But the stakes were high.

Some magic moments: When the moon disappears and the sun hasn’t come up yet – it’s other-worldly; seeing flying fish every day; finding something little to appreciate, like someone filling your water bottle; following how the light hits the waves until you start seeing dancing horses; and the realisation that we were really doing this.

The last three days sail to the Ha’api group of islands in Tonga was lovely. The wind was right and the sea went from angry sloppy to gently rolly.

Seeing the first white sand, palm tree lined, aqua water island was so wonderful. All is now forgiven. This momentous journey of extreme experience has been worth it (although I’m considering flying back in November!)

We made it! Paradise starts now.

Opua to Tonga (2 of 37)

Leaving Opua with the other ICA boats – all is calm, so far.

Opua to Tonga (3 of 37)

The blue bag contains our storm sail. Something we were hoping never to use. We didn’t!

Opua to Tonga (6 of 37)

Happy to be on our way.

 

Opua to Tonga (12 of 37)

Just before it all turned to shite.

 

Opua to Tonga (17 of 37)

Glenn’s comfy spot

Opua to Tonga (23 of 37)

Checking our emails which we love getting.

Opua to Tonga (22 of 37)

Faking it.

Opua to Tonga (27 of 37)

Ian’s hair looks lovely and curly in the salt air.

Opua to Tonga (26 of 37)

Janie’s Lean-O-Metre. Dean added the smiley and not so smiley faces. 15 is my limit!

Opua to Tonga (28 of 37)

The fishing line that never caught anything. One nightshift I heard a big metal clang. I thought it was a huge tuna ripping the handheld line off the boat. It was actually the life raft cradle falling off! Lucky Dean came up in time to rescue it in time.

 

 

 

Opua to Tonga (37 of 37)

Land, land, land, land.

 

 

Tonga (1 of 47)

Showered and ready to pop Caroline’s champagne.

 

 

 

Leaving New Zealand (and getting closer to the postcard)

7 Comments
Leaving Opua (4 of 5)

Pebbles’ bottom is very low in the ground, now that we have all our cans and fuel on board. We’re very proud that we’re looking like an offshore boat now, with all the safety gear, solar panels and clever dingy hanger.

Good morning, good morning and welcome to the Cruisers Net on VHF Channel 77. Welcome new boats and farewell to those departing us today. First up, community news… the next local yoga class is at the Opua Community Centre starts at 9am – there’s no fee, koha accepted. And are there any requests for rides Paihia today? It’s the popular farmers market in Paihia so come back on channel eight if you need a ride. Now, we’ve had a request for jerry cans to be taken to Vanuatu and also a box of clothes to a family in Fiji. If there’s anyone who can help out there, please come back on eight. Plus, we had a request for where to get malaria kits, so any info on that would be appreciated. Now, over to you – let us know what you need, what you want and what’s going on. Oh, and the dinghy that just went past F pier two minutes ago, you’re going way too fast mate, way too fast. Over to you.

This whanau of sailors connect over the airways every day. They keep in contact on other channels while at sea too, either by email or VHF for those in 25-30 nautical miles at sea (to convert to kilometres, double it and take a bit off).

Opua Marina. They're quite strict here - not as lovely as Mana!

Opua Marina. They’re quite strict here – not as lovely as Mana!

We’re all so different but have this incredible thing in common. No one really asks what job you do. Blokes tend to talk ship, the gals talk about life. When I say that I hate a lot of actual sailing, I either get a laugh of relief and an instant connection, or a bit of a silence.

I met this man a couple of nights ago who is part of another boat’s crew, headed to Tonga. He says this trip has been on his bucket-list and can’t believe he’s about to do it. Even though he started a new job just a couple of weeks ago, he told his boss that if he didn’t approve his leave for the trip, he’d resign.

We’re going with a group called the Island Cruising Association (ICA). There are 25 boats in the rally. Dean and I are the youngest by 15-20 years, apart from three or four other couples. For many others it’s either part of a sailing way of life, or a retiring, bucket-list kind of thing.

We are nearly officially called ‘cruisers’. I’ve heard cruising describe as boat maintenance in exotic places. I’m ignoring everything else I’ve heard that is not cute and chirpy. This includes stories of storms, breakages, seasickness….STOP!

We leave tomorrow!!!! Our boat shopping is over. Now we’re boiling eggs for our snack box, putting the anchor winch back together and getting the inside of the boat ready for an offshore passage. This includes ‘hot beds’ – all the cabins are emptied so when you come off a shift you just take the one available. If the engine is going then the bunk room is wonderful. Night shifts – oh god. They’re hideous, like having jetlag then flying back before you’ve recovered.

Our crew is nearly complete. Ian arrived yesterday and Glenn arrives this afternoon. Glenn did the overnight bus trip from Wellington so he’ll be starting with nightshift jetlag already!

It’ll take about five days to get to Minerva Reef, if all goes well. Minerva Reef is actually two reefs where, at low tide, you can walk on them. In the middle of nowhere, with panoramic views of blue, we’ll be walking on water. It’ll be postcard-perfect.

Then it’s just a couple of days to get to the Ha’api group of islands in Tonga. The weather is looking good. We may have to motor for a day or so and then we’re expecting south-easterlies on the side. Once we go, we’re committed. Eeek.

Thank you to those who have supported us. Please do email us any time at pebbles@myiridium.net (text only). The longer we are away, the more we love hearing from you – anything from important things to dumb and lovely stuff.

We are so friggin’ excited! I asked Dean how he is feeling this morning and he said, “I just want to do it.”

Happy adventures everyone. Our next blog will be from the Ha’api Beach Resort in Tonga. In about ten days we’re going to be on a tropical island, just like the postcards! Woop, woop.

Fair winds and calm seas from Janie and Dean.

Leaving Opua (5 of 5)

Zena!