Logbooks:
New Zealand to Fiji
30 June 2000UTC (18:07S/178:25E) Anchored 300m off Royal Suva Yacht = Club
| Date: | June 30, 2014, 7:27 p.m. |
| Position: | 18 7.45 S, 178 25.49 E |
| Track to here: | Download |
; Sorry for the delayed post on this one, radio propagation is not great from inside port areas. I'm now sending this a day late.
We arrived without a problem in Suva yesterday and spent the day waiting for various bureaucrats to come to the boat and sign papers. It all was done by the end of the day though and we are now officially in Fiji.
We had some celebration drinks and dinner on our boat with the guys from Beau Soleil and Oyaragh who were the ones we were most in radio contact with all the way.
Today we just have to head ashore to get things like mobile phones and cruising permits sorted out. I've also got to finish welding a few stanchions and get the anchor winch sorted out.
29 June 0730UTC (18:37S/178:29E) 1028nm down 28nm to SUVA
| Date: | June 29, 2014, 7:52 a.m. |
| Position: | 18 37.00 S, 178 29.00 E |
| Track to here: | Download |
We are currently lying ahull off the NW corner of North Astrolabe reef. We'll depart here throughout the night to arrive in Suva tomorrow morning in daylight hours as we were a bit too slow to make it tonight.
Very calm here behind the reef and we had a nice dinner of fresh yellowfin tuna sushimi which we caught at daybreak this morning. As we were approaching Fiji we also managed to catch and land a 150cm Mahi Mahi (as tall as Cat). Pretty exhilarating as even with the new Penn 50 reel it took 30 minutes to get him to the side of the boat. Needless to say the freezer is now full.
Lovely sailing conditions today but we're looking forward to arriving in Suva tomorrow.
28 June 0500UTC (20:18S/178:45E) 932nm down 132nm to SUVA
| Date: | June 28, 2014, 5:12 a.m. |
| Position: | 20 18.00 S, 178 45.00 E |
Threw a line over the side this morning and got a 75cm Mahi Mahi which is now in the freezer. We got him on a laser pro lure so we've switched to a squid lure now to target a yellowfin tuna for some sushimi.
Having a good downwind run although we haven't been able to shake a cloud that is literally hanging over us since the front passed over yesterday. We spoke to the other boats in our sched this morning and boats 20nm behind and 50nm in front had clear blue skies and fine weather, while we have not been able to see the sky for 28 hours! We must be moving at exactly the same speed as the weather system.
Everything is good though, at least it is cool in the rain and the sea is quite flat and calm. The wind has a strong southerly component to it so we are almost going downwind now. We are just plodding along with the staysail and triple-reefed main doing about 5.5kts downwind in 15-20kts of wind with maybe 25 in the squalls, but with this rig we don't even notice the squalls.
The hydrovane is worth its weight in gold as we haven't used much battery power at all in the whole voyage and cruising along silently makes it all very comfortable.
27 June 0330UTC (22:10S/177:57E) 820nm down 242nm to SUVA
| Date: | June 27, 2014, 5:10 a.m. |
| Position: | 22 10.00 S, 177 57.00 E |
After looking at the forecasts for the next few days and considering what we have been through I put in an email with Fiji customs to change our port of entry to SUVA as opposed to Savusavu. All the other boats on our informal radio sched are going there and it knocks a day of potential close-reaching off our voyage. So it seems to make sense. Once we have cleared in Suva we should have sufficient time to work our way up to Savusavu and the Lau Group.
The big event of the day was the ominous trough which was forecast to pass over today. It looked very impressive with the typical long line of black rolling cloud. We started motoring into the light NE winds ahead of it at about 5kts and it must have been moving about the same speed because there was about 30 minutes before it hit where you could throw bits of paper off the back deck and watch it disappear into the rainfall a few hundred meters behind us. Very strange. When it finally caught us just after lunch it was a real anticlimax. The wind flipped 180-degrees in an instant... the temperature dropped suddenly... and then... nothing. We've been motoring in light SW winds and heavily overcast conditions for the past few hours.
The wind is gradually picking up from the south now so we'll set a small rig after I send this email and just go slowly tonight... partly to protect ourselves from potential squalls but also because we don't really want to get to Suva before Monday.
26 June 0530UTC (23:32S/177:51E) 737nm down 410nm to go
| Date: | June 26, 2014, 5:48 a.m. |
| Position: | 23 32.00 S, 177 51.00 E |
Another very slow day of slogging to windward. Very comfortable on board but we are only making 4 kts or so on average having covered 100nm in the past 24 hours. The weather is getting quite warm though as we are about to officially cross into the tropics.
Quite frustrating as the wind from the NE has continued to stay a relentless 20 knots or so. Not strong but enough to make it challenging to windward. We are just bobbing along to windward with the staysail, tiny triangle of foresail, double-reefed main and mizzen. Spent a lot of today experimenting with the rig to try to get better to windward but I think this is about as good as we can do without sinking the leeward rail and getting water through the pilothouse door.
Hopefully we will get some respite tomorrow as this trough moves over and the wind swings to the SE for a day or so before turning E again. We haven't yet crossed the rhumb line so we can hopefully stay to the east of it. However if the trough tomorrow doesn't bring sufficient southerlies then we are considering changing our port of entry to Loutoka. As we could be there in a couple of days with easterlies but it could take a good while longer if we continue to slog into easterlies to reach Savusavu.
I am a little worried about the amount of time I have spent on Sailmail and think I might be close to the 90 minutes that I have per week. So if we drop out for a few days it might be due to that. If we drop out and you need/want to get in touch: 1 - we have an informal sched that we have at 0900 and 1845 each day with other boats in the area on 4409kHz. 2 - We also check in every day with Far North Radio at 1800 on 6516kHz and they can pass on messages (just google them).
25 June 0515UTC (25:19S/178:24E) 637nm down 511nm to go
| Date: | June 25, 2014, 5:40 a.m. |
| Position: | 25 19.00 S, 178 24.00 E |
The wind and sea calmed down a bit today and we chugged along at 4-5kts most of the day sailing pretty much as close to the wind as we can get because the wind has swung to the NE. We have been able to hang on to our easting though and we've only lost a few miles to the west in the past 24 hours.
We had another pretty rough night last night with some squalls bringing fresh gales and some. We ended up reducing our rig down to just the staysail and triple-reefed main and staying like that throughout the night even when the wind dropped off. With no moon at the moment you just can't see anything coming and its not nice when it hits hard. So we just sailed slowly at 2-3knots most of the night (except for the squalls when we were making 6-7).
It looks like we'll be keeping this pace or even a bit slower for the next 24-36 hours as a weak trough approaches from the west bringing more northerlies. If the wind gets more north we might even throw in a tack to make some more easting.
We're not minding chugging along at a slower pace as it takes the stress off the rig and the boat is much more comfortable. The weather is warm and I'm back in my board-shorts today for the first time in 6 months. We even got right into the cruising thing today and hove-to around lunchtime for lunch and showers and a refresh so altogether its not too bad out here.
At this pace we will be arriving in Savusavu sometime next week which means we avoid the customs overtime fee for arriving on the weekend. Hopefully earlier in the week rather than later!
24 June 0500UTC (27:10S/178:33E)
| Date: | June 24, 2014, 5:06 a.m. |
| Position: | 27 10.00 S, 178 33.00 E |
Having a pretty rough time of it at the moment so I'll keep it short. Winds on the beam at 25-30 for the past 36 hours and looks like it will stay that way for tonight at least. Very gusty and inconsistent wind. Last night it came up a fair bit so we reduced sail down to just the staysail. When the gust passed we were left wallowing at about 2-3 knots and as we didn't know when the next one was coming we just decided to leave it like that and get some good sleep in an almost-hove-to state. We didn't get more sail out until about 7am hence the reason our daily average is down a bit. The sea state is pretty relentless and is quite tiring, hopefully this is the last night of it.
23 June 0500UTC (29:08S/178:11E)
| Date: | June 23, 2014, 5:15 a.m. |
| Position: | 29 8.00 S, 178 11.00 E |
The wind came up this morning as forecast and we have had clear skies and a fresh SE (but more like E) wind at around 20-25kts for the whole day. These conditions look set to continue for tonight and through until tomorrow night before starting to ease.
We continued trying to persist making easting and continued close-hauled heading towards Tonga at 5.5kts for most of the day. However the sea is starting to come up and it was giving us some knocks and slowing us down. We recently cracked the sheets a little and are now making a course directly for Savusavu, giving up a little of the precious East that we have been acquiring over the past 3 days. Our speed is up around 6.5kts and the motion is much more comfortable.
I am keen to get as far north as possible in order to get north of a front that is passing through on Thursday. If we don't make it far enough north then we risk getting caught up in the preceding northerlies, and for us that would pretty much mean heaving-to for a couple of days.
We are running a bit of a strange rig but it seems to work. Mizzen, double-reefed main, staysail and then a tiny triangle of the foresail. Without the little bit of foresail we were just a little too slow (4- 5knots) and the logic is with this rig we can easily pull in and adjust the tiny foresail and mizzen as conditions change. It looks odd but nobody is out here to see us!
22 June 0330UTC (31:23S/176:51E)
| Date: | June 22, 2014, 3:59 a.m. |
| Position: | 31 23.00 S, 176 51.00 E |
The very light NE winds continued all yesterday and throughout the night but we resisted the temptation to put the engine on and were rewarded with a perfect 36 hours of sailing in around 8-10kts of wind making about 5- 6kts of boat speed.
Our decision to come further east (in order to go slightly broader on the reach when the SE winds come) seems to have paid off as Beau Soleil who is now about 50nm to our west ended up having to motor all throughout the night and day and this morning turned their engine off and just started drifting. So far we have only had to motor 13 hours which seems pretty good considering how calm the conditions are.
We have just turned our engine on about 1-hour ago and are doing a final push through this high pressure system. If the Gribs are anything to go from then we should start getting light SE winds in about 3 hours or so. They are currently forecast to build overnight to around 20-25kts tomorrow.
21 June 0215UTC (33:20S/175:34E)
| Date: | June 21, 2014, 2:26 a.m. |
| Position: | 33 20.00 S, 175 34.00 E |
| Track to here: | Download |
Had a brilliant departure from Opua last night which ended up with us leaving the bay at around 5pm. The wind decreased to 10-15kts and we started off running goosewinged downwind at about 6knots in flat seas (so no rolling for a change!). The wind died around midnight and we had to motor with the main up for stability but it was very comfortable. At around 10am this morning a beautiful 10-15knots of westerly wind came in with flat seas and we are still riding that at about 7 knots on a broad- reach with all our sail up. Hopefully these conditions will keep up overnight until tomorrow when the winds should shift to the SE and freshen to 20-25 (as per gribs). The only issue so far has been that when we tried to pull up our anchor in Opua the anchor windlass refused to cooperate. I had to pull the anchor up by hand... the novely of which will wear off pretty quickly. I presume that as the anchor was working fine just a few days prior and we hadn't used it since that it is just a bad connection or fuse somewhere. We should be able to sort it out either en-route or in Fiji without a problem (fingers crossed).
Embarking for Fiji - 20 June 2014
| Date: | June 20, 2014, 2:39 a.m. |
| Position: | 35 18.83 S, 174 7.30 E |
After a hectic three weeks of boat and crew maintenance and repair, the boat was (mostly) ready and we were given the all clear from the dentist. We had expected another few days to gather ourselves before heading off but a weather window opened up which looks like the nicest chance for a while so we have decided to take it.
We are convoying with Beau Soleil who are tremendous fun and should be good company on the radio. There are also around 6 boats a couple of days ahead of us so a nice sized fleet and an informal radio sched to hop onto. It was pointed out to us by SV Nyon that we will get to enjoy our first overnight watch of this passage on the longest night of the year... At least it will be downhill from there right?!
NZ has been terrific but despite some lovely days the mornings are getting really cold, it should start to get 10% warmer each day North if all goes well. Looking forward to arriving in Fiji in approximately 10 days and shedding the woollen under ware.