Across the dateline

The tedium of those days without wind is already receding. All it takes is one night of uninterrupted sleep in a calm anchorage for the essential tones of a long passage to begin to gel. It is not so much the weak trade winds which are taking up most space in my memory of those nine days now but the emptiness of the Pacific ocean.

Between 151W and 175W,  and between the latitudes of 15S and 18S , there was nothing which blemished the ocean’s clean skin except for the wind. We saw no large mammals or schools of fish.  We saw very few sea birds. We saw no great patches of weed, or those notorious accumulations of plastics.  We saw no container ships or fishing boats.

It wasn’t until we were within about 30 nautical miles of Vava’u that a vessel showed up on our AIS screen.  It was the super-yacht M5, making 8.2 knots under power, in 22 knots of breeze. She took a long time to catch us. We were making 7.5 knots under sail.

 

M5 in Neiafu harbour, Vava'u island, Tonga

There was one unwelcome object which floated past us a couple of hours after sunrise one morning – fortunately at a distance of about 20 m off our lee side.  Alex spotted it in the  2.5 m swell.  It was 4 m square of lashed-together timbers, a traditional raft. We gave thanks that we had not collided with it at night. 

The nights were very dark, what moonlight there was at the beginning of the passage too quickly waning into irrelevance.  But on cloudless nights, the light from the milky universe was brighter than I have ever known.  And the wind was warm.  Those were the dreamy nights which our friends on Galactic, who are wintering over in Patagonia, asked us to enjoy for their sake as well as ours. We did both. 

That's Tonga

Sailing on a flat sea in the lee of Vava'u

The squat islands of Vava'u came as a surprise

 On our first full day in Tonga, we are cleaning ourselves, our laundry and the boat.  And we have been waiting for news of our friend Marce. She is very much on our mind.

When we slipped our mooring 10 days ago, Marce was standing on the lower steps of Escape Velocity’s starboard hull, waving goodbye and blowing kisses. “See you in Tonga,” we shouted, and we believed we would. They’d be starting a bit behind the crowd if they left in a couple of weeks, but they had time up their sleeves. They could still get to New Zealand before the (insurance-driven) beginning of cyclone season.

What was standing in their way was uncertainty about what was going on with Marce.  Two weeks earlier she’d been floored by intense sciatic pain which didn’t go away.  She’s rebound, and then she’d regress again.

Alex helped as he was able.  Then Jack organized for a local doctor to come to the boat.  

We agreed we wanted to see her on the mend before we departed for Tonga. 

On Friday, 4 September, we decided we could go. Marce had been moving about on the boat for a couple of days. That morning she sat in the EV cockpit with us, her back straight and her legs crossed, chatting, laughing, keeping Jack busy, as she does. Marce is a “hard-headed woman”, to quote Cat Stevens.  She’s doesn’t lie down easily, but this pain had her pinned to the bed for day after day. When we saw the light back in her eyes, we felt ok about leaving her.

Jack and Marce - on Tahiti, on a happier occasion

But we jumped the gun (thankfully, their good friends, Mark and Sue on Macushla, arrived in Bora Bora soon after our departure).  She regressed while we were at sea. The next step for her was to go to Tahiti and “get it sorted”, she wrote. Easier said than done when you’re bed-bound on a boat.

While I was writing this, word came that they’d just docked in Papeete. They’d motored for 33 hours, because their sail-handling needs two hands on deck. Jack kept watch the entire time. It was undoubtedly a tough overnight passage for both of them.

They would head for the hospital after they’d rested a couple of hours, she wrote. “All is well. Help is on the way.”

Now that’s heroic.

PS We've crossed the dateline - Ikale lager, made in the Kingdom of Tonga, claims to be "the first beer in the world everyday". We'll drink to that - and to finally bringing Enki onto the same day of the week as our family in Australia and New Zealand. 

Clearing out

I woke up this morning ready to go back to sea again.  Looking forward to going to sea even.  Thinking about the routines of being at sea, and not inwardly tensing up in anticipation of the nights.  Thinking about Tonga, 1300 miles away in a straight line. Not so far.  Maybe nine days.  Is that one or two fruit cakes? I wonder.

Au revoir to the girls who wear hibiscus behind the ear

A sea change takes place in both of us before every passage. It has to be that way otherwise we’d never get home.

We needed help to separate the pump from the electric motor 

I couldn’t get enough of French Polynesia these past two or more months.  I was a bit envious of the people we met who were staying on longer,  either putting their boats up on the hard in Raiatea or going back on their tracks to the Tuamotus and/or the Marquesas to sit out the South Pacific cyclone season there or planning to sail to Hawaii from the Marquesas at the end of the year once the threat of hurricanes north of the equator fades. 

Gone troppo - coconut and lime sorbet and locally-made accessories

On our way back to Bora Bora from Raiatea a couple of days ago, with our mended watermaker, we passed Wavelength going east.  Mark and Eileen made their call back in Tahiti when we first met them, weighing up the risk of a cyclone in an El Nino year, and deciding they could live with it.  We’re going west, and we should be doing that soon. The trade winds are forecast to settle in again this week, how strongly and for how long who knows.  El Nino again. 

At the dock in Uturoa, Raiatea, where we provisioned for the next leg

 Yesterday we went to see the gendarmes. The checkout procedure in French Polynesia is convoluted. ‘Come back tomorrow afternoon,’ they said, ‘and we should have the paperwork from Papeete by then’.

This morning we wake to find the wind fresh, and cooler. It’s got some south in it, finally.

Bora Bora is an easy place to leave from.  It sees far too many visitors to want to open its heart to them. It sloughs us off like so much dead skin.  We saw more of local life by waiting 45 minutes to buy a stamp at the post office than by going to Bloody Marys for a cocktail, that's for sure. That said, we leave Bora Bora not having experienced much more than the honeymooners do in their resorts. But while they’ll be back at work in a week, we’ll be at sea. How good is that?

We’re looking at the famous rock now, from the cockpit. It’s clear of cloud, unusually, and its outline, seen from the lagoon, seen on approach, will become our most vivid memory of Bora Bora.

Bora Bora on approach for a second time - where the whales play

Hangin' in Bora

Bora Bora, seen from Tapuamu on Taaha

The Commodore at the wheel, ably supported by Barb

The party’s over. The guests have gone home.  Now it’s back to work, to use the term in the loosest possible way.  I hear Andy and Barb laugh. “First world problems,” Andy commented after an evening spent with some of our cruising friends where inevitably conversation drifted towards which bits on which boat were falling apart.

In our case, the watermaker (so very often it’s the watermaker). Alex is working on that now, thanks to Silver Fern’s friend Phil who brought up a new pump for us from New Zealand.

The skipper in relax mode

I’m not sure how it got to be that I became so reliant on having copious supplies of water. Maybe the rot set in when we bought a boat with a washing machine.  That established a standard of comfort that I hadn’t before associated with living on a boat.  But now the standard’s been set, you’d like it maintained. So it’s back to work, as I say.

Before we left Papeete, we borrowed a machine to stitch up the small headsail

....and we took a car around Tahiti island

The big pro-surf comp on Tahiti-iti was about to start (more pix below)

But what a month of play August has been.  Not only have we had good company on board, but the radio has fair crackled as the rump of the migratory Pacific fleet moves west through the Society Islands.  The social activity in the anchorages seems to have ratcheted up several notches, perhaps in anticipation of the next ocean passages which of course everyone does on their own.

The approach to Tapuamu on Taaha (which shares a lagoon with Raiatea)

The tummy-grazing snorkelling on Taaha 

Bora Bora is where those of us who are not staying over in French Polynesia for the cyclone season will check out.  And it’s where Barb and Andy got off the boat after 10 days on board. 

Baguettes are us...on Moorea, Cook's Bay

Opunohu Bay (left) and Cook's Bay, Moorea - seen from the Belvedere

Polynesian colour and movement (and below)

Where's the pass? 

We didn’t have enough time anywhere with them, and that goes for Bora Bora too, but funnily enough, it probably won’t be Bora Bora we’ll sigh over when we rewind memories of the top holidays we’ve had together. Huahine will take that honour.

Avea Bay, Huahine - with outsized neighbours

Nothing doing in the lagoon either

Some of that’s to do with the weather which jumped out of the paradise groove at the beginning of August and is still wandering about, looking more like wet season than dry.  But in Avea Bay, at the southernmost tip of Huahine,  all the essential ingredients of a tropical holiday mix were lined up –  a wide sandy anchorage, brilliant blue lagoon waters, a lazy curl of surf breaking on the distant rim of reef,  sufficient brightly coloured fish to make a drift snorkel interesting, blazing sunshine, and the whole  lush flowered kit and caboodle on shore.  And there was no internet or phone reception. Perfect.

Sunday lunch at Chez Tara is a Polynesian oven-baked feast (and below)

Reef and lagoon, Huahine (and below)

The Commodore discovered Jack Reacher, and forgot about his inbox.  Barb and I picked up our conversation where we’d last left off – was it 18 months ago? – and in the evenings gave the tonic supplies a nudge. Tahitian limes exist to go with Bombay Sapphire, don’t they?

The girls take the dinghy ashore to go cycling (and below)

Afternoon tea - fresh pawpaw and lime icy pole

Andy's SECOND book - Saturday, by Ian McEwan

The biggest yacht ever....anchors right next to Enki

The sea overnight from Moorea to Huahine was a washing machine

The sailing was mostly fine too. Nobody could have done much with the horrible cross-seas that Barb (and rest of us) endured on her first-ever overnight passage from Moorea to Huahine, but from there on, it was all a breeze.  For a heavy displacement cruising yacht, Enki performs surprisingly well upwind, the Commodore decided, as he pushed her along at 8 knots between Huahine and Raiatea. 

The sailing got better...

When we could, we bought baguettes early in the morning

On approach to the Bora Bora pass

Pity about the fishing.  It turns out that even the experts find Enki’s aft deck a challenge as a fishing platform. It isn’t just us, in other words. Still, we’d like to haul in something before we get home.

In the lagoon, Bora Bora - crew pull out the toys for the kids

For now, we’re huddled under the famous peak of Bora Bora, with a cluster of other yachts, all of us quoting Bob McDavitt’s Sunday weathergram which forecasts a long week of South Pacific Convergence Zone conditions (read dismal) before the next “weather window” opens for yachts heading to Tonga. Paradise is momentarily lost under squally rain clouds. It’ll return, and if Alex lives up to his reputation as a man of uncommon good sense and resourcefulness, he’ll have the watermaker up and running by then.  Strangely, the job isn’t as easy as it first looked….

On the beach, Avea Bay