It went fine, with only a couple of easily avoided coral heads that were probably deep enough to not present an actual hazard to us. Once we were clear and in water too deep for our sounder to measure, we deployed our spinnaker and headed south, following the western edge of the south lagoon. There, we enjoyed the flat water in the lee of the reef for what we expected may be the last time for days.
Departing South Minerva Island we were soon able to get the spinnaker up. Take a look at the colours in the spinnaker, it's relevant for later.
Once we reached the southern corner and turned away for New Zealand, conditions remained pretty nice. We were going just under two knots, with a long one-meter to one-and-a-half-meter swell rolling under us from our port stern, making for a nice, gentle motion. We left behind four other boats, whose occupants likely didn't even realize we had left until well after we were completely over the horizon.
In the middle of our second day, a predicted wind shift arrived by dying completely for a couple of hours, and then returning in earnest from the east-southeast. With the wind now from the side, and predicted to be so for the rest of the passage, we doused our spinnaker, packed it up, and returned it to its somewhat hard-to-get-to hidey hole down below. The new wind was strong enough to double our speed, but not enough for us to need to worry about full sail being too much canvas. For the next two days, all the sails needed from us was a little tweaking to keep them pulling optimally, plus one easy gybe in the middle, when the southeast trades inexplicably started coming from the northwest quarter.
This was when our Iridium GO! stopped working. After not being able to receive any new weather data at all, I spent a whole frustrating watch troubleshooting the problem and rebooting each device several times in different orders, all to no avail. We were less than halfway to the zone of westerlies, with its frontal systems and harder to predict weather, where all we were going to be left with was all of that meteorology stuff in my head, plus a very careful study of the needle on our barometer. Great!
When Maryanne came on watch, I mentioned my frustrations while explaining why I had no updated sailing plan for her watch, other than, "Keep trying to head in the general direction of New Zealand for now".
To this, she casually guessed that my problems may have been because she had changed all the passwords on our devices in a sudden bout of mid-ocean security-mindedness. You need the passwords to change the passwords, which is why my attempts at that had failed as well. She asked why I didn't wake her up to ask about it.
"Because the purpose of the off-watch is for you to get some sleep, not keep yourself awake the whole time trying to troubleshoot my computer problems."
"But I could have solved your problem really quickly."
I suppose that's true, but who changes passwords on wifi that peters out fifty miles before it can get to anybody else? Just sayin' {Maryanne:Oops!}
Anyway, on the beginning of the fifth day, the wind backed around the compass until reaching its regular east-southeast direction and then started getting stronger. Since I was now entrusted with the new passwords, we totally knew this was coming. We reduced sail over and over until, thirty hours later, we were making nine knots in thirty knots of wind and three-meter seas while being pulled by minimum storm canvas. That day was not particularly comfortable, but it was at least a fast one, logging over two hundred miles. The heavy associated overcast had been previously making charging our batteries with the solar panels a real struggle. With the new wind, our wind turbine took up the slack and had them fully charged by morning. It doesn't put out as much charge as the solar panels, generally, but in conditions like these, it will put in a slow, steady charge twenty-four hours a day. That really adds up.
The odd storm and the odd visitor on passage
The next day, Day Seven, the wind and seas finally started to abate. As we got slower and slower on my night watch, I looked at our ten-knot tailwind and decided it would be worth it after all for me to go to the trouble of retrieving and then deploying our spinnaker. I just had to do it quietly so as not to disturb Maryanne during the last few minutes of her night off-watch.
My plan worked great! I awoke her for her watch to the background hiss of the water zinging by the other side of the hull from our bunk. As I was climbing the steps back to the helm, the noise changed. It didn't decrease, just changed. I popped my head out from under the bimini to find us slowing down and a sky full of multi-colored string where the spinnaker was supposed to be, gently streaming in the building breeze. Damn! That's not going to be repairable…
The spinnaker failed on us... Later research/realization showed that the yellow in the original spinnaker was not intended for cruising conditions (too much sun exposure) and had faded, weakened, and eventually disintergrated; missed by the sailmaker (and us), selecting the wrong colour options. Pictures are from our first sail (May 6 2014), and later (April 19 2015). By October it completely failed on us on our passage to New Zealand; one more thing for the to-do list.
After switching to our boring, but much beefier jib, we had ninety percent of our speed back. That would still be enough to get us safely tied to the dock in Marsden Cove before the next blast of headwinds arrive tomorrow.
On route to Minerva we reached 99,999 nm on our log (which we'd installed when we initally refit Begonia after our purchase). It can't be reset and now perpetually shows 99,999!
Before arriving we converted our almonds into sliced almonds so they wouldn't need to be confiscated. We use sliced almonds on our morning oatmeal so they would be put to good use.
At 3am, we transited the narrow channel and entered the perfect flat calm of the marina basin. The Customs dock was full. We would encroach too much on the fairway if we rafted up to one of the boats there, so we were sent instead to the overflow dock for super yachts. It was empty, apart from a temporary chain-link fence covered liberally with signs warning of the consequences of trying to get to the opposite side without authorization. No worries, what we most wanted was a little nap before all the officials start arriving after sunrise.
[Maryanne]It turns out this blog post is number 1500! We've been posting about our adventures and travels since Feb 2008 (when was at my last week of my job at AutoTrader Magazine in Norfolk, and we were ready to start our serious cruising adventures). The blog is really for a handful of family and close friends, but it works as a wonderful diary for our own memory-banks and I'm so glad we have this record of our time with Footprint and Begonia.
Anchorage location >> On google maps
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