Passage Logs: Noumea, New Caledonia to Opua, New Zealand

October 4, 2001

We departed Noumea, New Caledonia at 1400 hours on Thursday under sunny skies with no wind and the Caledonian lagoon was like a mill pond. Cate, MaiTai and I are sailing with our Kiwi mate Graham Jones, who flew up from Auckland to join us for the passage.

We spent ten relaxing days in Noumea, catching up on correspondence, re-entering civilization, enjoying a few nice French meals, prepping for the passage, and waiting for a weather window for the passage.

The 1000-mile passage to Auckland is relatively short, but can be wrought with nasty weather systems that seem to lurk in waiting for unwary yachties. Landfall to the “Land of the Long White Cloud” is usually greeted by a cold, nasty southwesterly wind that reminds one they are no longer in the tropical South Pacific.

The weather charts from Nadi (Fiji), New Caledonia, Wellington, Melbourne, and the US were consistent only in their inconsistency. Bob McDavitt from NZ MetService gave us a green light and told us we had a reasonable weather window so we tossed off the lines and headed southeast.

Shortly after we motorsailed out through Passe du Nord, the gap in the coral reef protecting the large lagoon, we got another green light. As the upper limb of the sun dropped below the horizon, we saw the elusive “green flash” amidst the pinkish-orange sunset. Some people never see it in a lifetime, but those of us regularly out on the sea are lucky to see once every year or two.

The winds continued to be light, so we motorsailed through the night. A nearly full moon provided a comfortable “night light” and a lovely reflection on the ocean that for the moment is living up to it’s name–pacific.

Our position at 0800 NZ Standard time Friday morning was 24 deg., 19 min. South and 167 deg., 23 min. East. We are encouraged by the rising barometer and steadily increasing breeze. Just a few more knots and we’ll be sailing!

October 5

After 23 hours of motor sailing in light airs, a ten to twelve knot northeasterly filled in and we were able to shut down the engine. It was perfect weather for the spinnaker, which we carried through the evening. Seas were gentle so moving about, eating and sleeping was very easy. We have enjoyed some great precooked meals, lots of bird sightings, but no dolphin visits or fish caught so far. The line is out!

October 7

We just set the jib again after another 24 hours of motor sailing in a light northwesterly. Its nice to listen to the wind in the sails, the waves lapping against the hull and some Jimmy Buffett on the stereo instead of the diesel engine clacking and reverberating through the bulkheads.

At about 1230 yesterday, we reached the halfway point between Noumea and Auckland. We celebrated with a snack of cheese and crackers washed down with a bottle of New Zealand bubbly around sunset. Everyone slept well last night!

The small high-pressure system that left us windless has passed over, the barometer is dropping, and we now have twenty knots of breeze from the north-northwest. Were moving along comfortably at 8.5 to 9 knots, slightly high on our course line to Cape Brett.

The questions of the day are, how fast the approaching low will reach us, and how strong will the winds get. The forecast is 25 knots with gusts to 35 knots from the north, which is fine. We should get a rockin’ good ride out of that. The bad news is when the front passes, the winds will back to the southwest, which would be cold, wet, windward sailing which is ungentlemanly and no fun. We should be able to make it to the Bay of Islands before the southerly change, so “Plan B” is to check it at Opua and hang there till the southerlies pass, and then continue on to Auckland in a few days.

We remain fishless on this passage, so changed to a different color lure this morning. We did have a cameo appearance by a pod of dolphins yesterday afternoon, but they seemed far less interested in us than we were in them. We also spotted what appeared to be a whale or a large shark. Nobody volunteered to jump in for a closer look. The other excitement of the day was a French container ship that passed us about a half-mile off, heading in the opposite direction. We both exchanged long looks and friendly waves.

Our noon-to-noon run was 190 nautical miles and our position at midday today was 32 deg., 22 min. south latitude by 172 deg., 27 min. east longitude and all is well on board. Long pants and fleece have been taken out of storage. Brrrrrrrr!

	Here’s a chart showing Moonshadow’s  track closing with New Zealand

October 8

Monday afternoon offered up some beautiful downwind sailing and some fresh fish for the galley. With twenty knots from the north-northwest and a gentle swell, Moonshadow was eating up miles like a thoroughbred headed for the barn. Downwind sailing at 8-9 knots, however, is not exactly conducive to reeling in large pelagic fish, but we did manage to land a rather small but fierce fighting mahi, which made for a nice “fish of the day” for dinner.

The sailing was comfortable and non-eventful as we gybed our way towards our landfall at Cape Brett off New Zealand’s beautiful Bay of Islands. With a deepening low-pressure system moving across our path, we abandoned plans to sail to Auckland and instead diverted to Opua in the Bay of Islands. The thought of a sundowner in a calm marina, dinner out on shore was a bit more appealing than spending a night sailing down a rugged, unforgiving coastline in gale-force winds pressing us onto a lee shore.

Sailing can be a lot like flying: hours and hours of boredom punctuated by a few moments of sheer terror. With about fifty miles to go to our landfall, things started to get interesting.

First, the barometer started an ear-popping freefall. The winds started picking up and becoming quite shifty. Then at one point in the middle of the morning, the winds dropped right off to about 7 knots.

We started the engine to motor sail, but immediately discovered that it was not getting cooling water. I assumed it was a cooling water pump impeller gone bad, so started wrenching. Sure enough, the impeller had lost bits of three blades. Graham and I were able to retrieve all the pieces, insuring that they wouldn’t block the cooling system, and installed a new impeller. Within an hour, we were ready to run, but by then the wind had picked up to thirty knots, so there was no need.

We began being overtaken by large squalls, which dumped buckets of rain and shot “bullet” gusts of more than 45 knots. We quickly furled the headsail and tucked a reef in the main. Sailing was quite comfortable, considering the winds and seas and Moonshadow was heading towards the coast with a bone in her teeth. We were still averaging speeds of better than ten knots and had numerous surf speeds exceeding 15 knots, with just a reefed mainsail.

The North Island was quickly getting bigger on the radar screen, and visibility was deteriorating. The shifting winds made it impossible to hold our course line and we made landfall at the Cavalli Islands, about ten miles north of our intended waypoint. From five miles off, these ominous rocks looked very nasty in the driving rain, churning seas and dark, overcast sky. We gybed as the wind calmed to 30 knots and layed a course for Ninepin Island at the northern end of the opening to the Bay of Islands. We covered the ten miles in less than an hour as the wind continued to blow a gale and the driving rain power-washed off the five-day accumulation of salt from Moonshadow’s decks, sails and rigging.

The visibility continued to vary between five miles and less than a mile. We got a positive identification of Ninepin Rock and got a good radar image of the Bay of Islands. Then we lost all sight of land again. The electronic charting of the area was spot-on, so we gybed again and were steering a course directly towards Russell, the small town considered the birthplace of New Zealand. No sooner had I set the new course, than the sky opened up, revealing a crisp clear New Zealand afternoon with a fresh northerly breeze to take in the remaining ten miles to the small town of Opua, our port of entry. All knuckles on board returned to tan color and we enjoyed the hour’s sail through the beautiful bay.

When we arrived at Opua Marina, the harbormaster, New Zealand Customs and Immigration and the Quarantine officer were on the dock to catch our lines. As usual, the officials were courteous, professional, friendly and thorough. Within an hour, we were checked-in, and our ship was lightened by Quarantine, who relieved us of prohibited goodies like fruits and veggies, honey, meat and other items that might carry pests dangerous to the small island nation.

The first person we ran into on shore was Brian Hepburn of the Island Cruising Association. He and wife Joan, who had just moved up to the Bay of Islands, joined us for a long-awaited sundowner and dinner out