New Caledonia to New
Zealand 21 October – 29 October 2015
This was always going to be the most challenging sail, 900
miles south east straight into the prevailing wind. The added complication is
the weather systems that originate in Australia and come up the Tamsan Sea,
across to New Zealand and then head north along the route we have to take. The
weather fronts are coming every 3-4 days so we will have to take at least one
on route and the advice is to be above 30 degrees south as they are much less
ferocious.
We had been monitoring the weather for the previous week and
Wednesday 21 October looked good – right up until Wednesday morning when the
predicted NW wind did not materialise and we set off straight into a 25 knot SE
wind. The forecast for the following two days was for light winds and so we
decided to go – you can get stuck in Noumea waiting for the perfect weather
window and never leave.
The first Leg to
Norfolk Island - Wednesday 12 October to Saturday 24 October
The first 18 hours were very uncomfortable with waves continually
crashing over the boat as we sailed close to the wind to head SE. If we had not
been confident that the wind was going to change we would have gone back, but
we battled on. At 11pm, at the end of my first night watch, Catherine took over
and I went to go to bed. I found the aft heads under water and we spent the
next 30 minutes bailing out the water with no obvious sign of where the water
was coming from. I closed off all the seacocks in the area and exhausted I went
to bed. Three hours later I was up for my second watch and we did not seem to
have taken on any more water, helped by the fact that the wind had abated and
the sea had calmed down.
With the wind dying, we were forced to motor but the motion
of the boat was much more comfortable. The next day we had almost no wind and
drizzle all day and it felt like sailing in England, particularly as the
temperature had started to drop as we headed further south. We motored all day.
The following day the wind was NW ahead of the next front coming through and we
managed to sail with a poled out genoa for much of the day, arriving at Norfolk
Island at 3pm in the afternoon.
Norfolk Island 24 –
25 October
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| Our first view of the Island |
I was nervous about anchoring in Norfolk Island to wait out
the coming front since the swell can reach 3m and therefore remaining at anchor
is not possible. The supply ship that had arrived the previous week had to wait
six days at anchor before they could unload their cargo before the swell calmed
down. You hear many tales in Noumea about boats losing anchors, having to leave
anchorage at night and people saying they would never anchor there again. Only about 20 boats each year stop and anchor
at Norfolk Island.
With the NW wind we anchored in Ball Bay in the south of the
island in very pleasant conditions. The wind was not due to go South until the
following morning when we would have to move anchorage. We could not go ashore
because we had not cleared in (it is owned by Australia) but we enjoyed a
restful afternoon at anchor and pleased for at least one night we would have a
comfortable night.
 |
| Checking in at Customs |
We moved round to the east to Cascade bay the next morning
as the wind had turned south and we tucked into the shore to get out of the
building swell. Again I was very pleasantly surprised to find a sheltered
anchorage, pretty much out of the swell. We went ashore to meet the Customs and
Immigration Officer who checked us in and out at the same time so we would not
have to come ashore the next day to check out.
 |
| View from the highest point |
We wanted to go and see the Norfol Island museum and we hitched a ride to the south and spent a couple of hours in the
museum which was very good. It told the story of Norfolk Island which had been
used as a penal colony until 1860 when the islanders of Pitcairn were
re-settled there and the penal colony closed down.
By 1860 there were 150 people living on Pitcairn, an island
one square mile in the middle of the South Pacific, miles from anywhere. The
original inhabitants were 12 of the crew from the Bounty who sailed to the
island with their Tahitian wives and a group of other Tahitian men and women.
The 12 crew chose Pitcairn because it was remote and were therefore unlikely to
be caught after the mutiny on the Bounty – the other 12 stayed in Tahiti and
were tracked down by the Navy and most were hanged – 3 were pardoned as they
did not take part in the mutiny but could not joined Captain Bligh in his small
craft set adrift by the mutineers as it was too small.
 |
| The old Penal Colony |
Fletcher Christian (the first mate on the Bounty and leader
of the mutiny) was among the crew who sailed to Pitcairn. The mutineers burnt
the Bounty to ensure they would not be spotted by a passing ship and lived on
the island. Fights started to break out over the women and within a decade only
one of the mutineers survived, John Adams – all the rest were murdered in
fights and squabbles. By 1860, the number of descendants had reached 150 on an
impossibly small island and Queen Victoria agreed to let them live on Norfolk
Island after the closure of the penal colony. This kept the island populated
and hence under British rule.
 |
| The main harbour - pretty rough out there |
 |
| One of many picturesque bays |
The island turned to tourism as their main source of income
after
many failed attempts at other industries, including whaling which
survived a long time but died out as other sources of oil were discovered
elsewhere. For the last 50 years, Norfolk Island has been a tourist destination
for people from New Zealand and Australia. Many of the people living there are
descendants of the original mutineers and very proud of it. It is a very
beautiful island with stunning scenery and is very well kept.  |
| Original 1860 house |
 |
| Original 1860 house |
She dropped us back at the dinghy dock at 7pm and we took
our dinghy back to the boat. By this time the swell had come into the bay and
the boat rocked violently making it very difficult to get back on the boat. The
swell was forecast to increase making anchoring anywhere in Norfolk Island
dangerous so we would have to leave the next day (which we had planned to do
anyway). A quick engine check revealed that we had taken on a small amount of
water into the engine compartment but nothing serious.
The Final Leg Monday
26 October – Thursday 29 October
The next weather front was due across the top of New Zealand
at 8am in three days’ time and we had to cover the 410 miles to the North Cape
before that time. The forecast was for 35-40 knot winds with 4.5 metre seas
north of the cape by 8am on Thursday. Once inside the cape, we could cover the
remaining 80 miles to Opua (our point of entry into New Zealand) in the shelter
of the island with much lower wind speeds and wave heights. Not getting there
by 8am to the North Cape was not an option we wanted to contemplate.
The forecast winds on the Monday morning of 10-12 knots from
the south turned out to be 25 knots from the SE with steep waves. Another 24
hours of crashing into waves and sailing well off our course to New Zealand. It
was slow going into the wind and we were not even going in right direction!
After the first day I checked the bilges and found significant amount of water
in the engine compartment. We bailed out 6 gallons of water! We were also
making very slow progress towards New Zealand and would have to cover 150 miles
for the remaining two days – something we could not do unless the wind changed.
The second day (Tuesday) was light southerly winds which
allowed us to head directly for New Zealand and we continued to motor sail. By
2am, the water in the engine compartment was again getting serious and I rigged
up an electric bilge pump which would enable us to keep the engine compartment clear
of any water. I already had the fittings in place and it was just a matter of
installing all the components. Thirty minutes later we had the bilge pump in
and working – just shows what you can do when you need to even at 2am in the
morning.
With the full sails up and the engine on we were making 7
knots which gave us some confidence that we had a chance to get into the
shelter of the cape before 8am on Thursday. On the Wednesday the wind started going round
to the NW ahead of the coming front (as expected) and with full sails and the
motor on we were doing 8.5 knots. Burning diesel was a better option than being
caught out in the weather front so we kept motoring until 2am when we were
doing over 10 knots with a 30 knots wind. At this time I was comfortable that we
could make the cape well before 8am and we switched off the engine and sailed
the rest of the way, reaching the cape at 3am – just 5 hours ahead of the
weather front.
For the first time in three days we could relax and even the
rain associated with the front and the expected thunderstorms were not a worry
for the last leg of the journey. In the event, the predicted thunderstorms did
not arrive until after we had tied up at the Q dock (quarantine dock where
boats stay until they have cleared customs, immigration and quarantine checks).
What a relief to be secure on a berth – the weather could do what it liked
then.
Before we could open our first beer, customs and immigration
boarded us and cleared us within 15 minutes. Twenty minutes later quarantine
came aboard and went through the whole boat, including the fridge, freezer,
lockers and bilges to check everything – NZ are very hot on this. Within an
hour of arriving we were cleared and had a berth allocated in the marina and
were free to go ashore.
We celebrated our arrival with a bottle of champagne after a
nail biting few days and pleased to have got through the sail to New Zealand
relatively unscathed. We headed to the yacht club to meet up with our friends
from other boats for more drinks and fish and chips for dinner. Slept well that night!
Opua is the centre of sailing in this part of New Zealand
with hundreds of boats here. It is very picturesque reminding us of maybe
Cornwall but with very few houses, cars and people here. The weather is cold at
night (we are back to wearing jeans and fleeces at night) and warm in the
sunshine during the day. It can also be cold during the day when a weather
front comes through and you get a cold wind straight from the Antarctic.
There is not much in Opua apart from marine service companies
and chandlers but you can buy anything here and get any type of work done. We
have spent the first five days here sorting out the boat, fixing things,
replacing the VHF and arranging for work to be done – mainly the rigging ( I
found a broken strand on the rigging just before we left Noumea) and the water
leak into the aft heads and the engine compartment. It will mean lifting out
the boat but it will be a relief to get all this fixed.
And then we can start
enjoying New Zealand for the next 6 months!
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