November 6, 2000
Everybody talks about the weather-especially cruisers. It more or less runs our lives. It dictates where we go, when we go, when we get there and how much fun we have once we’re there.
Since my meteorological skills are amateur, at best, we rely on lots of professionals: Bob McDavitt from New Zealand MetService and Des from Russell Radio are household (yachthold?) names down in this part of the world. These guys are the gurus who give us weather information and look after us when we are underway, respectively. Without them, sailing in this part of the world would be a lot more risky than it already is.
So when you get a hundred or so yachts, and two hundred or so yachties in a place like Noumea, New Caledonia, all waiting for a weather window to get to Australia or New Zealand, weather is the main topic of conversation. Especially when there’s already a dozen or so yachts enroute who come up on the “Kava Club” radio desk every morning and report how they are getting whacked by gale force winds and big ugly seas.
Yesterday morning, the weather information coming to us from Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia all seemed consistent and it looked as if was a safe time for us to depart Noumea and start the 1100 mile passage to Sydney.
New Caledonia is a lovely little French enclave in the western South Pacific. We were just getting used to fresh croissants and baguettes from the local patisserie, and excellent French food in the outdoor cafes that line the tourist beaches. We would have liked to spend a bit more time there, exploring some of the remote areas and diving some of the pristine reefs, but the weather Gods are in charge here. Never mess with the weather Gods.
Through the morning “net” (radio schedule) we hooked up with Clarisse, who is our crew for the trip. Clarisse is a Parisian, but spends most of her time traveling all over the world producing a weekly travel program for French television. She is quite an intrepid young lady who has already made three transatlantic crossings. For her, Noumea to Sydney is probably just a hop, skip and a jump. Clarisse has already fallen into our routine and she’s promised to make us crepes for dinner tonight.
Yesterday was quite hectic. Up at 0600. Pull down weather faxes. Listen to the Kava Club net for weather. Listen to Russell radio for yacht reports of weather. Phone Bob McDavitt about weather. All looks good. Prepare Moonshadow for a passage. Make final crew arrangements. Check out with Customs, Immigration and the Port Captain. Settle final bills. Shop for provisions. Stow provisions. Lunch. Hoist the dinghy and outboard motor on board. Fill up with diesel. Diesel pump is screwed up and fills us with foam. Fill nozzle burps diesel all over. Ugh!!!! Wash diesel off of boat. Depart for Sydney at 1600 hours. It’s nice to be under way. Nothing left to do now but sail. And keep an eye on the weather.
We are buddy boating with our good friend David and his crew (Tim and Tim) on Bossanova, a 50 foot catamaran. His wife Rita preferred to make the passage to Sydney on a 747. Smart woman that Rita.
It’s nice to know that there is someone close by when you are out here. Especially a guy that carries a spare hull and a spare engine. We are pretty evenly matched as far as speed. Of course, when you have two boats going to the same destination it is called a race. In the first 20 hours, we made more than 140 miles toward our destination, and pulled about ten miles ahead of Bossanova. We motor a bit faster and there hasn’t been much wind, so it ain’t over yet. There are trade winds forecast a day or two ahead.
So far we’ve only been able to sail for about four hours. The wind died last night as we pulled away from the island. We had up to eleven knots this morning so set the spinnaker. The wind backed, so we doused, jibed and reset. Better angle, but the wind died. We set the cast iron spinnaker and are making seven to eight knots along the rhumb line.
Fishing has been lousy. We did see a couple of whales sleeping within a few boatlengths of us. Last night I saw the most spectacular shooting star I have ever witnessed. It literally illuminated the northern sky. It was quite startling and at first I thought it might be a flare. Wrong color, wrong direction, nothing showing up on radar.
Speaking of radar, the screen in front of me at the nav station is showing quite a squall directly ahead. Time to batten the hatches and get ready for a nice fresh water washdown. 886 miles to go.
November 7
We spent yesterday afternoon and last night motorsailing through a benign trough of low pressure. At one point last night the sea was almost dead calm and the wind less than two knots. A real “mill pond.” As we popped out of the cumulus cloud cover this morning, the barometer began to rise again, and the winds started to fill in, first from the northwest and then from the south-southeast. Just as predicted! We have spent most of the day close reaching into a fresh breeze with one- to two-meter seas. Not the most comfortable, but at least we are not burning dinosaur juice and listening to the roar of our recently installed (more on that later) diesel engine. We have been spending a lazy day catching up on sleep, reading and writing. Even though we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, we are still experiencing nice warm days and pleasantly cool evenings.
Clarisse made fabulous chicken and asparagus crepes for dinner last night, and we are diving into some of the meals that Cate pre-cooked before the passage. Great meals, not much galley time. The way we like it. So, otherwise, the day has been most uneventful. Also as we like it. We don’t even know who was elected the next president. Not that we care or that it really matters anyway.
Still no fish, but at our last check in, we were still about seven miles ahead of Bossanova.
November 8
While you were watching election returns, the weather gods were serving us up a smorgasbord of conditions.
Since the last writing, we have had calm winds, 30 knot winds, calm seas, 3 to 4 meter seas, squalls with torrential rain, lightning, warm sunny periods, and just about everything in between. While variety may be the spice of life, this variety at sea means lots of exercise and not much sleep for the crew. We have set sails, killed the engine, reefed sails, struck sails, started the engine, shaken out reefs, etc. constantly since last night. All this while trying to get an hour or so of sleep and a meal down here and there. No complaints, just part of the game, and I never did care much for election returns anyway. The lightning show was pretty cool. The flashes were all contained in the cloud cells and I heard no thunder. Must be the Aussie variety.
As of this afternoon things started to stabilize as we sailed closer to a high situated in the South Tasman Sea. We are now close reaching into 12-15 knot south-southeast winds and averaging 8 knots towards our waypoint at the entry of Port Jackson (Sydney). We haven’t had to do any sail handling for at least two hours. Whew!
It has been too rough, and we’ve been too busy to fish.
At around 2 PM this afternoon, we reached our half way point, so we have less than 550 miles to go to Sydney. Our noon to noon run put us 171 miles closer to the mark, and our present Lat/Lon is 28 00 south and 158 51 east. At last check, Bossanova was motor sailing a lower and more comfortable course in light winds about 35 miles behind us. David is a competitive bugger and doesn’t want us to sail into Sydney Harbor first, so let’s just see what he’s got up his sleeve.
November 10
The weather gods have blessed us with another lovely day on the Tasman Sea. At 0330 on the ship’s clock, 0430 local time, the sun’s rays began to light up the eastern horizon behind a few “tradewind” cumulus clouds. The wind had just died and Clarisse woke me at a few minutes before three to help her strike the sails and start motorsailing. In no time, we were out of the fleece and into shorts enjoying the warm morning sun.
We fired up the “140 horse spinnaker” and began motorsailing once again. I don’t think we’ve had the motor go on and off so many times before on a passage. The crew can literally furl or unfurl a headsail while sleeping.
The wind picked up again just before breakfast, so we set the .75 ounce spinnaker and began a nice little run at 8 to 9 knots. It was a perfect morning, blue sea and sky, warm air, some jazz on the stereo and good company in the cockpit. It lasted till lunch time when the wind dropped to less than seven knots and we were once again dousing the kite and twisting the key to the diesel.
A lot of our food stores won’t make it past Australian Quarantine, so we have been pillaging the freezer for the best goodies. Today, Cate made up a great spicy shrimp salad for lunch, which was enjoyed with a nice bottle of Cloudy Bay Chardonnay. Yummm!
We have been having a bit of fun with David on Bossanova. It seems he has been falsifying his position reports to us. At one point the day before yesterday, he was actually ahead of us, the sly dog, but didn’t let on. It apparently got a bit to lumpy for them on a close reach so he bore away and slowed down, returning the lead to us. As of this morning, we were about 10 miles in front again. He who finishes first, drinks longest.
During the day, we saw a number of sharks basking at the surface of the sea. After lunch as we were motoring along, we struck something with the prop. It was quite a startle and we looked back and saw a brown (bloody) patch on the water. We made a loop back to see what we had come upon, but found only a dozen or so fillet-o-fishes floating on the surface, very neatly sliced, I might add. No damage to the prop, fortunately. I can only assume it was a shark or some other type of fish that was not keeping a proper watch for traffic. Bugger!
Our most recent noon to noon run was 178 miles and at this writing we are at 32 16 south by 153 48 east, about 157 miles from the Sydney Harbour entrance.
In the absence of wind, we are motorsailing along, helped by the south setting East Australian Coastal Current of 1-2 knots. We are making an easy 9 to 10 knots over the bottom with a conservative power setting. The GPS says that at this rate we should be tied up at the Customs buoy in Sydney Harbour at about noon tomorrow. The crew are looking forward to a dinner out in the big city.
November 12
Our last evening at sea was quite pleasant and uneventful. We were able to sail all night and well into the morning on a deep broad reach in gentle seas, making nice speed in the East Australian Coastal Current. This meant good sleep for all the crew. The only drama was keeping an eye out for all the ships coming and goingÊ from Sydney Harbour.
We motorsailed between the heads at around noon local time with a beautiful Sydney skyline and the Harbour Bridge looming in the background. By 1230 were snug on a mooring in the lovely Watson’s Bay. We had a bit of time to tidy up the ship before the arrival of the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine people, who ended up being more than an hour late for our appointment. There was a lot of food that wouldn’t be allowed into the country, so we made a last ditch effort to get rid of as much as possible. We had a bag of beautiful frozen California strawberries that were doomed to confiscation by Quarantine. Hang on, get out the blender and the rum - “voila!,” strawberry daiquiris!
Once on board, the Australian officials were professional, efficient and we completed the process of checking in in about 45 minutes.
We’re still not sure if MaiTai will have to “do time” in quarantine, but as of this writing, she is still on board awaiting her sentencing from the local authorities.
Bossanova arrived about two hours behind us, also checked in and we all had dinner on shore at an excellent seafood restaurant. Since it was a fishless passage, we were up for it.
Our crew, Clarisse was up at 0500 this morning to head off to Brisbane to make two films about the Great Barrier Reef. We were very lucky to find her on short notice, and she turned out to be excellent Moo-crew. Hopefully she will be back for another passage in the future.
We’re off this morning to Pyrmont Bay Marina near the city center. Then we start the process of dealing with all those little administrative things that have piled up since we left Auckland last May. We have also amassed pretty big “to do” and “to get” lists, not to mention a lot of dirty laundry. We will be busy!
We’ll keep you posted and get back to you with more about our remaining time in Fiji as well as our travels in Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
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