From New Caledonia on to New Zealand

I don’t have much to report from New Caledonia, other than giving the rib some time, and visiting with our friends Steffan and Carolyne.  We walked around town a bit, visited a couple of museums, etc, but mostly just hung out.  Just two weeks there, though, and well before the rib was ready to go back to sea, we could see a good weather window opening for departure to New Zealand.  Cyclone season was officially about to start, and though the predicted risk of an early season cyclone was low, and despite the rib, we decided to go.

Well, this was the most benign ocean passage ever.  Of the total of about 200 hours on the passage, we motored about 125 in little or no wind on a gently rolling, rippled sea.  What sailing we had was in pleasant conditions, too.  We passed through a front the day before arrival here, but that only gave us a few minutes of gusty wind and lashing rain, then it was back to motoring.  The final morning was beautiful, with pleasant sailing approaching the Bay of Islands, then motoring into the bay and up to the quarantine dock yesterday afternoon.

The authorities here are delightful.  The first one aboard, from customs, treated us almost like returning family members as we chatted over cups of tea.  When we started to list the beer, wine and spirits on board (a bit more than the concession), she just waved her hand and said, “Oh, just put none.  We don’t want to bother you with all that.”  The biosecurity man came next, and although he was understandably thorough, he was also as friendly and welcoming as could be.  His wife is American, and we talked at length of their upcoming visit to the States.  All the officials we’ve met across the Pacific have been polite and professional, but yacht clearances are just another part of their day.  Here in New Zealand, they really seem glad to see us.  Ahead of us, a newly arriving yacht was asking on the VHF for directions to the quarantine berth.  The local car ferry driver answered, gave the info, and ended with, “Welcome to the Bay.”

I was more excited about this landfall I think than most any other this cruise.  Approaching the coast, seeing more and more familiar landmarks, I felt like I was coming come.  It’ll be another week or so before we head down the coast to Whangarei, though.  Motoring up the river to the Town Basin there will really feel like coming home.

So, this is the conclusion of our second South Pacific cruise.  We don’t expect to go off on another one for at least a couple of years, so I’m going to close the blog with this entry.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Passage from Tanna to Noumea, 10-13 Oct 2014

For the couple of days right after visiting the volcano on Tanna, there were good conditions for sailing to Noumea.  We wanted to visit the neighboring “John Frum” village for their weekly gathering, though, and that wasn’t till Friday.  The John Frum movement is at the outer reaches of absurdity.  Robyn wrote a note about it, but you might want to Google it to learn more.  Anyway, we missed that good weather.

The forecast for Saturday and Sunday was poor, so we settled in to wait at least till Monday.  Saturday morning, however, the weather for that day looked much better than it had been forecasted the day before.  It’s hard to change gears, and scramble for an ocean passage at a moment’s notice, and the forecast looked even better for Monday, so we decided to wait.  Big mistake.  Take it when you get it.  Monday’s weather deteriorated, followed by worse and worse weather.  Thursday had torrential rain and dramatic thunderstorms.  We didn’t get out until Friday, and the weather that day was none too good.

The direct line between Tanna and the pass into the lagoon at New Caledonia runs right through Maré, one of the Loyalty Islands (part of New Caledonia).  We planned to pass around the south end, a shorter distance and a better wind angle for the rest of the way to the pass.  There was a front between Tanna and Maré, though, which had other ideas.  Besides being unpleasant, it forced us well off course.  Starting out, the wind was from the west, forcing us to beat well to the south.  Mintaka doesn’t much like beating to windward, so neither do we.  Each wave we hit pitches us up and slows us noticeably, after which she falls off to leeward to accelerate, only to do it all over again, and again, and again.  Sometime during the night, we passed through the front, after which the wind was from the south, forcing us to beat again, this time to the north.  After another whole day of this, we still couldn’t weather the south (upwind) end of Maré, so we bore off downwind to go around the north end.  That yielded a faster and more comfortable ride, but a longer distance, and set us up for a worse beat even further upwind to the pass.

Before we had gone very far from Tanna, before the front and all, I took a bad fall in the cockpit.  I was retying some bananas hanging on the mizzen gallows to keep them from swinging so wildly when the boat lurched and I lost my balance.  Spinning as I fell, I landed hard against a winch, breaking a rib just below my scapula.  Kind of a bad situation.  Excrutiating, but we still had to sail.  Noumea was a couple of days away, yet.  Robyn took over many of my jobs, but I still had work to do.

Because of the broken rib and unfavorable winds, we decided to stop briefly at Maré.  Unable to launch the dinghy, we stayed only long enough to catch our breath, and to time our arrival at the pass.  The wind was more favorable by that evening when we weighed anchor again, and the ride over to the pass, sixty-five miles away, was fantastic.  Mintaka flew fast and smoothly under clear skies and a gibbous moon.  We sailed in through the pass just as the tide turned to flood, and rode that flood all the forty miles through the lagoon to Noumea.  A great sail, despite the pain.

The exertions since the fracture didn’t do me any good, and by the time we dropped anchor in Noumea, I was in bad shape.  No rest for the wicked, though.  Still unable to launch the dinghy, another yachtie gave us a ride to shore to clear in.  Returning after a bit, we found the harbor authorities about to tow us out of the way of the cruise ship entering the harbor — we were infringing on the fairway because the anchorage was so crowded.  Just in time, we janked the hook and moved.  Still not finding any space within the anchorage boundaries, and with a strong wind blowing, and my back screaming at me, a friendly local dinghied up to us and offered his mooring.  Needless to say, we gratefully accepted.

OK.  Now we’re safely moored, but we still can’t launch the dinghy to get ashore.  And there are no open berths in any of the marinas.  But, it’s nice to have friends, particularly local friends who have a little influence.  Steffan and Carolyne, the friends we came here to visit, have a very large slip for their long and narrow boat.  There was actually enough room within their slip for us, too, without infringing on their neighbor’s space.  They arranged permission for us to tie up to them, nestled closely between their boat and their neighbor, a highly unusual arrangement.  They even rounded up some helpers for us to come in at 0600 this morning, before the daily wind began to rise.  So, happy ending.  We’re safely tied up, and all I have to do is rest and heal over the next few weeks.

John Frum Village, 3 Oct 2014

This entry was written by Robyn.

We thought it would be interesting to go see the weekly ceremonies of the John Frum adherents.  This religion, sometimes called a “cargo cult”, started in 1936 with the brief visit of its mysterious namesake, John Frum.  It exists only on Tanna.  Among its tenets are that John Frum will come back, bringing great quantities of material goods to all the believers.  During WWII, as the GIs stationed here had huge quantities of equipment, and were friendly and generous, John Frum became associated with America.  According to the Lonely Planet guidebook,  “Some supporters made radio aerials out of tin cans and wire to contact Jon Frum. Others built an airfield in the bush and constructed wooden aircraft to entice his cargo planes to land. Still others erected wharves where his ships could berth. Small red crosses were placed all over Tanna and remain a feature in Jon Frum villages, where flags are raised each evening to this god of their collective imagination.”

I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but it seemed like it might be interesting.  Thirteen of us, nine yachties and two land tourists, piled in the back of a truck for an hour’s 4WD ride to the thatched-roof village.  A tattered American flag flew over a concrete community building, but other than some kids playing, not much was going on.  We hung out until dusk, when dozens of people began gathering in an open-sided thatched structure. They sat down on the woven mats which covered the ground and began singing to the accompaniment of  guitars.  Just outside, little boys break-danced to the music, gyrating and hopping around energetically.  Behind them, girls and young women danced sedately, colorful grass skirts swaying.  More of a rhythmic walk, they took eight or ten steps forward with arms swaying, did a quick pivot, then the same distance back, again and again.

Every Friday the singing and dancing goes on all through the night.  Members from four different villages come together, and each village takes its turn playing and singing hymns.  After a few hours it was clear that the rest of the night would be pretty much the same.  The singing was very nice, but by then we were all ready to return to our boats and call it a night.

Upwind to Tanna, 2 Oct 2014

All the while sailing north a month ago to attend the festival on Vanua Lava, I was wondering how difficult the sail would be back south against the Trades.  Between luck and patience, though, we had no great difficulty as far as Port Vila.  We had accompished one of our three goals here in Vanuatu, attending that festival.  We missed out on the second, the volcano on Ambrym, due to weather.  But the third, visiting the volcano on Tanna, remained.  The 130 n.m. from Vila to Tanna is normally straight upwind, unpleasant at best, maybe not even possible for us.  Watching the weather forecast in Port Vila last week, though, it looked like our luck might hold.  There was a prediction of calm and then light air for the several days after a frontal passage due last Sunday, so we prepared for an early Monday departure.

Until mid-afternoon on Monday, the wind was indeed calm, and we enjoyed motoring to the southeast on a gently rolling, barely rippled sea.  From mid-afternoon on, though, the wind was well above the prediction, and we slogged along, motoring, struggling for every mile, using the lee of the islands, mired in a couple of “washing machines” in the dark, eventually reaching Port Resolution here on Tanna at dawn yesterday after forty-nine hours of motoring.  Unpleasant barely describes it, but it was just possible.

But it was worth every minute of it.  We arranged a tour yesterday afternoon to Mt. Yasur, the “world’s most accessible active volcano”.  Nine of us yachties piled into the back of a pickup for the hour-long, kidney-dislodging ride to the volcano car park.  From there, a ten-minute walk up a steep cement trail brought is to the rim, where we could look straight down into Vulcan’s furnace.  Magnificent even before sunset, the display was absolutely spectacular afterwards.  Periodic explosions sent titanic showers of glowing molten rock high into the air, thudding on the inside slopes of the crater like olympean lumps of pudding.

Back on Mintaka later that evening, the loss of sleep over the past two days finally caught up with me.  Mt. Yasur could have blown itself completely into ash last night without waking me.

“It is but machiney, Sahib” — 21 Sep 2014

We left Lamen Bay on Epi just before midnight last Friday for a supposedly light-air sail down to Efate, some sixty miles to the south.  “Light air” turned out to be about fifteen knots.  At least it wasn’t right on the nose, just a one-legged beat to weather.  So, I drove her hard, harder that ever before, full sail, rail down, smashing through the seas at six knots.  Fun for a few hours, but it was getting pretty old by the time we reached the lee of Efate and ran out of wind.

Starting the engine, we found that there was no cooling water flowing out of the exhaust.  Uh-oh!  Not good.  Shut the engine down to investigate.  Can’t find anything wrong.  Checked the sea-strainer for blockage; nothing.  Start the engine again; still no water; shut it down.  Pulled the hose off the nipple where it injects the cooling water into the exhaust gases.  Started the engine briefly to check the flow; good flow; shut down again (the cooling water was going into the engine room at that point).  Put the hose back on; restarted a third time; ran normally!  Go figure.  This is the sort of thing that gives me nightmares.  Without the engine, under the current conditions, it would have been difficult and time-consuming to make it into port.

By the way, the title quote comes from an old mountaineering book where a truck in India, broken down on the way to the Himalayas, is being worked on by an Indian mechanic.  Unable to fix it, he turns to the European passenger, shruggs his shoulders and says, “It is but machinery, Sahib.”

Well Met, Indeed, at Lamen Bay, Epi — 17 Sep 2014

We dropped anchor late yesterday afternoon here in Lamen Bay on the island of Epi.  There were three other yachts here, one American, one British, and one without a flag.  Next morning, we thought we’d row around to meet the neighbors, as we haven’t had much of any for some weeks.  First off, the American boat.  Nice people, and they mentioned that the boat without the flag was also American, from Port Townsend, Washington.  We obviously had to go meet them next.  They looked awfully familiar to us, and we to them, and it took but a few seconds to recognize each other.  We have close mutual friends in Seattle, at whose house we all met once some years ago.

No Volcano, 12 Sep 2014

One of our goals here in Vanuatu was to climb the volcano on the island of Ambrym.  This is about a four-hour hike up about four thousand feet, partly through jungle and partly over an ash plain.  You reach the crater rim on the north side, and, hopefully, the prevailing southeast wind blows the smoke away, letting you look down into Dante’s inferno.  Day-to-day weather is also a factor, of course.  If the mountain is socked in, no views at all.

We arrived at Ambrym last Friday, and found the guide in the village the next day.  Sunday’s weather didn’t look good, but we tentatively arranged a two-day trip for Monday and Tuesday.  The plan was to stay at a hut below the rim Monday night, get a view of the crater at night — this is supposedly the best time — and hike back down on Tuesday.  Monday’s weather turned out rainy too, so we rescheduled for a one-day trip on Tuesday.  This would have been a long day, but we were running short of days before we needed to be back in Port Vila.  Alas, Tuesday also saw the mountain socked in, so we sailed on south to Epi, the next island enroute back to Port Vila.

So, we’re batting five hundred right now.  Our first goal was the festival on Vanua Lava, which we raced north to attend, and which was just great.  We struck out on our second goal.  Our third goal is to visit the volcano on the island of Tanna.

Tanna’s volcano is billed as the most accesible volcano in the world.  You can drive to within a short walk of the crater.  Tourists fly in just to do that.  We, on the other hand, would have to sail upwind some hundred and thirty miles from Port Vila — that’s a fifteen-to-twenty-knot beat in eight-to-ten-foot seas, not fun for more than an afternoon, if that.  Either that or wait in Vila for a lucky break in the Trades.  Don’t know yet how that’ll turn out, but we’re determined to get there.