Month: November 2017

 

Put your hand up if you’ve ever been to Minerva Reef…

Put your hand up if you know where Minerva Reef is…

I know there will be some hands up in the air, but possibly not many. That’s where I’m writing this from- literally an almost perfectly circular reef approximately 400 NM from Vavau’ and 800NM from New Zealand. If, by some chance you’re tracking us and you’ve noticed we’re in the middle of the Pacific and haven’t moved for a few days- that’s why!

There isn’t any land here as such, just the circular reef that appears and disappears with the ebb and flow of the tides.

We’re not alone as you might suspect. We counted 20 boats as we came through the pass, making us the 21^st. There was some unsavory weather in the forecast and we either had to slow right down to avoid arriving in NZ just as it was hitting the top of the North Island, or head in here- we took the later option. I’m realizing we only arrived yesterday morning but it already feels like days and days have passed. Two boats we’ve been trying to catch up with, or at least meet up with, were both here, which was a wonderful bonus. They’re leaving tomorrow but we’re planning on going the day after, so we may all just arrive in NZ at the same time.

As we pulled close to them to say hello and find a place to anchor, Klaus shouted out- “Now you just need to be careful of the Tiger Sharks”! Hmmm, Tiger Sharks, excellent- more on that in a bit.

Tonga was great, although we really only got to see a very small part of it due to some very unfriendly cruising weather. As mentioned in our previous post, we bumped into ‘Bear’ and enjoyed a wonderful excursion together to a botanical garden. Meeting the owner Haniteli was somewhat reminiscent of reading The 100 Year Old Man who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, except that Haniteli is only 71, doesn’t have any windows and as far as I know, doesn’t blow things up! He was fascinating to listen to and very good at telling his story. His knowledge of all things botanical and the history of his garden was educational and entertaining. He’d met Castro, which he casually mentioned, (while cutting open some coconuts at his bar), when someone asked him about a Cuban wood carving on display. There were pictures of him with the Pope- I think he’d met him 3 or 4 times and named one of his sons after. He was highly educated, the first in his family to attend University, his 3 older children all obtaining Masters or PhD level education. The trip concluded with an absolutely delicious fish and chip lunch, which included Papaya chutney, Taro chips and salad!

We left the ‘big smoke’ of Neiafu to explore the surrounding islands. Our fridge and hanging storage was once again full of fruit and veggies, – life is always better when there’s green food and tomatoes onboard. We have all been forever spoilt living in Spain and having the tomato experience we had there. The variety, quality and most importantly the taste leave the watery, unripe, slightly crystallized version we’ve found since leaving the Canaries, (if we’ve even been able to find them), somewhat underwhelming. Well hello Tonga and the Utukalongalu Market. Tomatoes everywhere and they were pretty good. Fresh Cilantro, (Coriander) and some Red Onion had our taste buds doing a Happy Haka each mealtime!

During our stay in a beautiful anchorage we met Tim and Marina. A fabulous Aussie couple who were chartering a yacht for a week or so. We ended up spending quite a lot of time with them, sharing meals and exploring a few different anchorages together. They made the kids Xmas come early when they brought the end of their supplies over one evening and included with the carrots, rice and pasta was a bag of Starburst soft lollies, (that’s candy or sweets for some). This just happened to coincide with Halloween and me being me hadn’t filled the boat with lollies, in fact there were none despite the talk of Halloween for a few weeks. Lilly really orchestrated the event helping Seb dress up as a Stop Sign and she was a Crazy Fortune Teller. We had a lot of fun with these guys, again highlighting just how important the people we’ve met along the way have become to us.

 

Tonga is definitely an understated place to cruise. We’d have loved to stay longer but the pull to get to NZ had started to get quite strong. That and the weather, as it so often does in this life, dictated that is was time to move on. We did have a hilarious moment listening to the morning ‘Cruisers net’ when it was announced that Tonga had cancelled Daylight savings and that it was still only 7.30am! We did some fabulous snorkeling, explored deserted beaches, collected beautiful shells, watched Tonga smash Samoa in the Rugby league, encountered the three little pigs and their 400 brothers and sisters and ate a pizza or 3!

I feel like I’ve skimmed over Tonga but I’m slightly distracted. We’re on Minerva Reef and the storm we’re in has us dancing around our anchor chain like a 44 year old let loose to ‘Classic Hits of the 80’s”. By now the chain has probably wrapped itself around the numerous coral heads in the anchorage and it’s 3.30am. Mike has been up for 2 hours already. I got up with him but then attempted to go back to sleep…unsuccessfully. The boats’ pirouetting was making me dizzy. I figured catching up on the blog might be more productive.

Mike popped on his wet weather gear and slept in the saloon and I crawled back up into the bucking bronco ride, (our cabin) where sleep did eventually come. Not before we had the discussion detailing the procedure we’d take if we needed to move quickly, ie stop us crashing onto the reef. It was sobering but necessary. The main thing was to be methodical and remain calm- no problem. 30+ knots of wind, anchored near a reef, in the middle of the ocean where 4+metre Tiger Sharks reside!!! Methodical and Calm- I’m all over it!

We never actually saw a shark in real life but we did see our friend’s GoPro footage taken only a few days before in the pass where they seem to like to hang out. Seb was quite sad we missed them and would go up on deck just to see if any were going past.

We left Minerva Reef on Sunday the 12^th at 12midday and arrived Thursday 16^th at 10pm. Lilly spotted land at 4.10pm- “Land, I see land, I promise I’m not joking” and I felt myself relax a little. “Wow, we’re almost there” might have crossed my mind once or twice…

Arriving deserves it’s own focus, so I’ll leave it there for now. Thank you for reading our journey thus far and sticking with us all the way.

For now this is Slice of Life, still, level and loving The Land of the Long White Cloud!

 

 

Lets go on a little journey shall we, it’s a relatively short trip, 7-8 days from Bora Bora to Tonga, approximately 1280 NM, (see, I must be progressing if I can call a 7-8 day trip short!!!) For demonstration purposes you’ll need some equipment- a swimming pool and a drink shaker or a bathtub and cork will suffice for a smaller scale exercise. Now throw that shaker or cork into the water and make sure you have a way of really stirring up the surface. Maybe a flat hand slapped repeatedly around the bathtub, (but never directly on the cork) could work. If you choose the pool option, you might like to do a running ‘bomb’ into the water, shouting TAKE THAT SUCKERS! as you land near but not quite on the cylinder! Ahhh yes, sailing, what a joy! Apparently it’s these moments that really make you appreciate the good days… OK so perhaps I’ve embellished slightly, but so describes my take on the first 4 days of the trip to Tonga. Day two the recurrent meltdown occurred. I lost my footing and slid backwards into the door of the head imprinting the handle on my right butt cheek for the duration of the journey. Later, I was trying to grab a snack and everything fell out of the snack cupboard onto my head, and I quote, “Just so everyone knows, I HATE THIS!!! Only 5 more days you say, that’s 5 days too long!!!”, but I got it over with early this time and seemed to move forward from there! Our autopilot decided it had had enough by the end of day 3 and we were looking at hand steering for the next 600+ miles, (a mere trifle if you’re a Volvo Ocean racer but NEWSFLASH that’s not us!!!!)

I kept singing the Gilligans Island theme song, “Just sit right back and I’ll tell you a tale…”- over and over again… while I was steering…just in my head of course.

We decided to stop at an atoll in the Cook Island chain, known as Palmerston. It was close, we needed a break and it’s further proof that there is ALWAYS a positive to every situation.

Our plan was to fix what needed fixing, (if possible) then continue on to Tonga. We were anchored outside the reef, which was bizarre but calm and we were all just happy to be stopped and relatively still. It poured all evening and we’d been told that if the wind changed and blew from the north we’d have to move on or risk being pushed onto the reef-wow, what options! The wind didn’t change, we stayed on the mooring and the next day Mike worked, seemingly successfully, on the autopilot. I cooked up a storm and we dried out from what had been our wettest passage to date. After some discussion and an invitation to visit the island, we decided it was crazy not to take the opportunity, (I mean how often are we going to sail to Palmerston…) so we organized to clear in the next day and take a tour.

Our visit just happened to coincide with the second cruise ship visit in two weeks, which was only the third visit in two years! As a result we were treated to a very big day for the 38 strong population of this tiny little haven.

Edward, our host and the local policeman, had invited us to lunch at his home but the cruise ship was delayed, delaying the entire day. We ended up staying for dinner instead. It’s not like we had much else going on and it was wonderful to just hang out all day. Our two had a blast with the local kids, after that initial shy awkward beginning that always seems to precede ‘the best day ever’!!!! Lilly was quite keen to contribute to the blog this post so here is her spin on things.

FROM THE 10/10/17 TO THE 23/10/17

CROSSED INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE

2 DAYS IN PALMERSTON 8 DAYS AT SEA

 Hello everybody, Lilly speaking.

 Did you think I was going to let Mum take over the blog?

N-O.

Right, talking too much, back to our adventure

We left Bora Bora on the 10th. It was really bad weather,

“I can’t do it”, said Mum on the second day.

Our autopilot failed so being in radio range we contacted

Palmerston Island to see if we could pick up a mooring.

Thankfully they said yes (that was the best news I’d had in days).

Over the radio we where informed that Edward would be our host. He and his son John came and picked us up in their boat, negotiating the reef expertly! We enjoyed 2 amazing feasts with his family. We had delicious chicken, taro, parrotfish, breadfruit, white rice and the freshest, coldest, sweetest coconuts so far!

We also met BOOGIE and FLUFFY their pet Boobies. Every family has a pet Boobie but Boobie is also something they eat- so to avoid mix-ups between families, each pet has a special coloured string tied around its ankle to help stop it becoming dinner!

We played with the local kids all day and had so much fun. I played with Joy who was 9 and another girl aged 7 and Seb had a lot of fun with Tomatoa, Robert, James and Henry. The next day we had another tour of the Island with Matt. It doesn’t take that long to get around. We found two HUGE spotted cowrie shells but they were Edwards and they smelt about as bad as something can smell- the poor creatures were on their way out!

We also saw the local school, which at the moment only has 14 students. It was a lovely building and if the kids hadn’t been on school holidays, I would have loved to visit during their school day.

We left Palmerston, for Tonga on Tuesday afternoon- a better passage than the previous 4 days.

3 days of no wind and 1 day of BANG, CRASH and SMASH.

Anyway I’m glad to be stable again.

We’re all a bit ocean lagged because we crossed the international dateline, missing Sunday altogether. When we arrived we saw LAURATA, our friends boat. It was a very pleasant surprise because we thought they’d have already left these islands by the time we arrived. We rafted up to the dock and saw Davin, Kerry and John. We met a Spanish boat and explored the open-air markets (everything was very colourful). Bear,(our other friends) arrived to our amazement,so we ordered pizza that night and shared a meal together.  

BYE FOR NOW LILLY.

 So there you go. The people of Palmerston were incredibly generous and welcoming. The island has an interesting history, originally being ‘discovered’ and named by Captain Cook in 1774. Prior to 1863, the island was uninhabited until an Englishman named William Marsters, arrived on the island and made it his home. With the help of his 3 wives- Tepou, Tenioi and Matavia, he planted palms, harvested copra and produced 21 children, whose descendents all inhabit the island today. Palmerston atoll is divided up into these 3 separate families, one group living near ‘town’, Edward’s in the ‘bush’ and the third making up another section of the atoll. We gave Edwards family a few items of clothing the kids had grown out of and a few supplies such as rope and globes that they could use far more than we could. Very small offerings for such hospitality! As far as authentic experiences go, this was, without a doubt, a very special and unique experience for us all.

The wind started to swing around to the north and we got uncomfortably close to the reef, (“Wow, it’s so clear, you can see the bottom now”, “Ahhh that’s because we’re now in significantly shallower water”, “Oh”.

The decision was made to leave. We bid our hosts goodbye and set off towards Tonga. The autopilot started to misbehave again, 30 minutes into the trip, but Mike was straight on it and had it sorted before you could say…”I’m outta here, I’ll take my chances in the sea!!!!”

…and here we are in very wet and windy Tonga! We’ve caught up with some friends, and had some lovely excursions, along with meeting some wonderful new people- sounds like info for the next post. Now, we’re waiting for a weather window to New Zealand- OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!

To market, to market, so best I wrap it up there, for now.

Until next time, this is Slice of Life, dodging the rain, occasionally going out for pizza and of course, Standing by!