Passage to Fiji

[Kyle]Since the wind had shifted the day before for the passage from South Minerva Reef to Fiji, all the boats, except us and one other, left one by one and disappeared over the horizon. I thought our remaining neighbor might be up early the next day to do the same, but there was no sign of activity aboard by the time we weighed anchor, caught the wind and had a fast run to the pass on the other side of the reef. I had really been hoping we would get at least one day with the place to ourselves, like on our previous visits, but this year it was not to be.

Rainbow on the passage

Since our southerlies were forecast to gradually bend into the usual easterly trade winds, rather than shape a direct course, we hedged to the east of the rhumb line to keep from ending up close-hauled at the finish. The plan worked great, with our apparent wind being fifteen to twenty knots on the beam the whole way. Since we were trying to avoid weekend overtime charges to clear Customs, we sailed the significantly over-reefed. That allowed us to react to the occasional squall with shrugs, rather than the need to madly rush on deck and start clawing in sail. Apart from the occasional rain shower or smack from a bigger than average wave, the passage was pleasantly uneventful.

The day before our arrival, as our course bent from north to north-northeast, and then finally northeast, we saw the first birds – gannets and boobies, as they checked us out on our approach.

When Maryanne handed Begonia over to me on my last night watch, the lights of Fiji's big island of Vitu Levu were just starting to break the horizon, blinking as we rose and fell with the waves. They were still a long way off though, and for the rest of the night, as far as I could tell, Begonia was the only vessel closing on Suva Harbour. It wasn't until the very end that another boat, Midnight Sun. popped up on the AIS display, converging along the rhum line course. They had been one of the boats that left South Minerva the day before we did.

This is where I always get a little melancholy. I was looking forward to completing the passage, but I was also just starting to enjoy the solitude and routine of the open-water passage. The lights of Suva, the biggest city in the tropical South Pacific, were not just signaling a new destination to explore. There was also going to be jobs, lots of jobs, and waves of officialdom, right when our sea bodies are shutting down for our day off-watch naps.

This is where we were somewhat fortunate to be in Suva. Different regions interpret Customs regulations with their own flavor. In Suva, it is permissible, if arriving on a weekend, to wait up to twenty-four hours before clearing in, as long as you fly the Q flag and don't leave the boat. With that in mind, we had targeted our speed on the passage to get us into the harbor late on Sunday morning. When we called to check in, we were told to expect officials to board us for clearance tomorrow morning. That was exactly the right answer. We had time to tidy up, take the dinghy out of lifeboat mode, share a wee dram (so we don't have to declare it, of course), and then get a good night's sleep, so we can both be alert and helpful to the officials when their boat arrives.

Suva is the capital of Fiji, and an important hub for ALL the south pacific islands - so the harbour can be quite busy with an industrial feel

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

South Minerva Reef

[Kyle]Our first order of business, after an appropriate rest to recover, was to go for a swim - recreationally, that is. We had done so a couple of times back in New Zealand, but the novelty of a brisk dip always wore off within a couple of minutes. This time, we were hoping to more than a quick cool-off within the shadow of the boat.

The visibility in the crystal-clear water is just fabulous here. It was novel to be able to see both the seabed and the boat behind us as we swam to the reef, instead of the more recent featureless murk. Soon, bommies began to appear ahead, accompanied by all the usual characters that we haven't seen for a while. There were sharks, rays, and a whole variety of colorful reef fishes. It felt good to be back in their neighborhood. We poked around for a while, exploring ridges and canyons to our heart's content.

Views around the reef. The picture of Begonia with the rainbow was kindly taken and shared by the crew of Midnight Sun (anchored nearby)

Mentally, I think we both would have been happy spending the rest of the day in the water. Physically, not so much.

It turns out the water, while not being nearly as cold as back in New Zealand, wasn't exactly warm either. We both started shivering and there was no disagreement or bargaining when it was suggested that maybe we should call it a day.

I had originally hoped to spend an hour or so when we got back wiping off some of the river slime we had accumulated in Opua, but we were just too cold to bother. I split that job between the next two days, so our antifoul looks once again like we went into the water yesterday. We had a bunch of adorable little Seargeant-Majors (fish) who appreciated this quite a lot. Their little mouths had a hard time grazing on the stuff that was stuck to the hulls, but once it was detached and sinking to the bottom in little flecks, they were in little fishy heaven. None of that stuff made it all the way to the sand. They had to make quick work of it because our three resident sharks, who I named Tom, Dick, and Harry, seemed to be waiting for one of them to stray too far from Begonia.

The weather as South Minerva was a pretty good mix of everything: sun, clouds, rain. The trade winds and the lack of anything to slow them down allowed our wind turbine to keep the batteries at 100% twenty-four hours a day. On sunny days, the solar panels would take over and the turbine would brake to a stop until its night shift.

We also got the usual four-times-a-day tidal changes of two rollicking high tides and two comfortable low tides each. High tides, particularly during stormy periods, often made it feel like there wasn't much point in being in an atoll in the first place to escape the heaving sea. It was nice to know at those times that, just like clockwork, everything would be gentle serenity again in a few hours.

For most of our stay, we were accompanied by four widely-spaced monohulls. They had a rougher time at high tide to ride out and no wind turbines, so the gloomy, rainy storm days were probably something more for them to endure than they were for us. These times were a chance to get caught up on admin and blog writing and photo editing, while knowing we could have all the free electricity we could use.

For the most part, all the boats were far enough apart that casual intermingling was inconvenient. We tended to stay in their own neighborhoods, so to speak, but we were able to chat with a few wet snorkelers passing by on their way back home. We seemed to all be content to enjoy a little peace and quiet while we waited for the weather to figure out what it's doing. At least that was our experience at South Minerva. North Minerva is where the vast bulk of the rally fleet went, as it's more capacious. I imagine they had more of a Spring Break vibe going on up there.

South Minerva Reef is only forty miles south of the Tropic of Capricorn, so technically it is still within the temperate zone for weather and climate. As I have said before, the weather has been weird this year generally, with a strong El Niño forming. This means that, even though the Minerva-Fiji leg is only half as far as the one from New Zealand to Minerva. We have been dealing with the same weather frustrations as the last leg, with window after window opening (and then closing again) that are only long enough to do half the journey. That's fine. Maryanne and I are especially well-equipped for long stretches in the middle of nowhere. We might certainly start getting bored after a few weeks, but we are not in danger of running out of anything anytime soon, so we can hold out as long as it takes.

Still, out of the eleven days we spent at South Minerva. Eight of them were bad enough that leaving the boat had little appeal. If our cabin fever had been really bad, we probably could have forced ourselves out in half of them, but the idea of drying-off in the rain following a swim in churned-up water seemed like it would be more work than fun. Also, our towels and anything we wore would be dripping wet for a week.

I was worried our best day to depart would be another miserable one, after latching onto the southerlies of a new cold front, with all of the accompanying gust and rain. Instead, the low-pressure center of said front passed well north, leaving us with clear, dry southeasterlies. It was even persistent enough to allow us to leave on the second day following the wind shift. That gave us one last day of good snorkeling, followed by a dose of rainwater bucket laundry, then line-drying everything in crisp sunshine and air that hasn't seen a tailpipe or smokestack for maybe thousands of miles.

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Passage to South Minerva Reef

[Kyle]By the time we finally left New Zealand, we were in the company of LOTS of other boats. Staying in one location within the marina grounds, it never took long to overhear passersby talking about the weather and when they were planning on leaving. This sounds collaborative, but that is somewhat misleading. Most of the boats leaving were part of a big rally going to either Tonga or Fiji, so "When are you going?" was really more like, "What do you think about being told we're all going on Saturday?" Many of the remaining non-rally boats had also hired the same weather router, and were thus getting the same answers. I even overheard one briefing where the boaters were told which headings to steer when and which sails to use.

Looking at the forecasts, I could see why everybody was being steered toward Saturday. After a couple of weeks of gale-force direct headwinds, a five-day period of almost gale-force winds, mostly to one side, seemed to be solidifying.

The thing is, the previous big group of departures had departed with winds that were basically from the same direction (ESE), but about five knots less. Their reports of conditions on passage were anything from miserable to downright frightening. Some even gave up their initial destinations and diverted further downwind. In my opinion, going out into even stronger conditions did not seem like it would be any fun.

Most of the big, comfortable catamarans are not particularly good at going to weather and I have yet to meet the owner of one who makes that claim. Apparent winds in the thirties, particularly when going upwind, is not generally considered fine sailing. Begonia can do it, but it is definitely not pleasant. I would say that is probably about where Maryanne and I change modes from normal sailing towards our destination to a much more conservative heavy-weather mode, where our primary goal shifts toward keeping us and the boat safe until the end of the storm, hopefully without being blown too far off course. Since it would probably not be sensible to be flying any sail in such conditions, it was apparent from the number of boats with dozens of jerry cans of fuel strapped on deck, in addition to their already large tanks, that many of the boats were planning to motor most or even all the way.

Uh, no.

The same weather window looked like it would be the best one for us, but my plan was to deal with it in a completely different way. Rather than depart on Saturday to the NE, with strong winds and waves coming over our starboard bow, we left on Thursday in the northerlies before the front. With fifteen-knot winds on our port beam, we sailed just slightly south of east until we were three hundred and fifty miles east of New Zealand. When Saturday's winds finally caught up to us, we were able to turn NNW and sail with the strong winds and waves aft of the beam for the rest of the passage. Our ten-day passage was undoubtedly longer than the Saturday crowds were expecting for theirs, but conditions aboard Begonia were moderate at worst, with easy speed, despite having half the sail we could have flown, just to keep the loads on the rig down. Only one of our two 'bad' days was due to the strong winds and big seas (the other was a day of getting soaked in heavy rain). Even with that, we knew how much worse it would be if we were trying to sail sixty degrees closer to the wind in this. The bummer thing was that we were still probably going to arrive behind a bunch of boats that left three days after we did and 'only' burned a few hundred gallons of fuel.

After departing NZ, we had mixed Weather on the passage; we headed quite a way east at the start to avoid headwinds or having to pound into big seas.
The last picture is of us rounding the reef to get to the entrance, and seeing a couple of boats within the calmer waters of the reef itself.

About a day and a half before we got to South Minerva, it became apparent that tomorrow wasn't going to happen without flogging the hell out of our poor boat. That was fine. Instead, halfway through Maryanne's last night watch, she sheeted in the scrap of sail she had been flying, lashed the helm over, and hove-to. All I had to do for my night watch was make sure we stayed away from the reef and check the horizon for new vessels.

Once we were done with breakfast, we turned downwind and unfurled some more sail. Within an hour or so, we could see the breakers on the eastern rim of the reef, as well as two monohulls anchored inside the lagoon at the northeastern end. We sailed along the outside of the reef past them, then started our engines for the pass transit and the two-mile upwind bash to the sandy shelf at the southeast edge of the lagoon. It took more time than we thought to tidy up after being thrown around for ten days, but soon, we were able to relax and enjoy the view, while bug-free trade winds kept the interior temperature in check. I like that way better than using the heat...

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Passage to New Zealand (Post # 1500!)

[Kyle]As we tend to do for passages, we left our anchorage at South Minerva Reef's pass just as soon as it was light enough out for us to be confident that we could spot any hazards in the southern channel of the exit, through which we had never been.

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.

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Ten Days at South Minerva Reef

[Kyle]Early in the morning, we set off from Tonga on a close reach through the Vava'u Group as it slowly thinned out to the south. Since the winds were forecast to be a little forward of what I consider ideal for a long passage, my plan was sail even further upwind to hug the western edges of Tonga's three main island groups in the hopes of receiving some protection from them against the larger, open ocean swell. That went pretty much as planned, with only a few hours of lumpy, confused seas in the gaps between island groups.

Once we cleared the main island of Tongatapu, we bore off on a slowly curving track that would put us more and more downwind with time. The wind then backed, which was not in any of the forecasts, and then died down a lot. We spent nearly the next twenty-four hours just trying to keep the boat moving while being pointed in roughly the right direction.

An overcast passage to South Minerva Reef

When the wind finally did start to move forward and strengthen, we were relieved to be finally able to clock up some real miles before the waves could build to a height that would be uncomfortable.

That didn't really happen. Over the course of about twenty minutes in the middle of the night, our light headwind stopped completely and was then subsequently replaced by moderate tailwinds. The new seas overwhelmed the first batch and after about an hour of confused chop, a gentle, following swell rolled us towards Minerva.

Our slow day had really messed with our ETA. Normally on passages, even ideally, I like to arrive early enough that we have to slow down at the end to wait for daylight. This time, with our spinnaker pulling us faster than predicted, we were right on track for an eight o'clock arrival by sailing just as we were. By the time we rounded the atoll and entered the pass, the sun was just high enough for us to be able to sight our way in past the widely-spaced bommies. We dropped anchor just a hundred meters or so from the spot we used our first time here in 2018.

South Minerva Reef is clearly visible from satellite imagry, not so much as you approach by boat (just a few bits of coral are above the water at low tide)

In many ways, Minerva Reef is a lot like Beveridge Reef. It's a lagoon surrounded with coral and with sand in the middle, they can both be a bit choppy at high water and pretty smooth at low water. Minerva is, of course, divided into North Minerva and South Minerva, which are separated by about twenty nautical miles of deep ocean. In this particular instance, we were in South Minerva. South Minerva Reef is only about a quarter of the size of Beveridge Reef and forms a figure-eight shape, only one lobe of which is accessible for anchoring (although some brave souls have been kown to squeeze into the other lobe in perfect conditions). Because of this, there is lots and lots of interesting coral to see, particularly in the middle belt of the figure eight. Also, South Minerva is twenty miles closer to New Zealand. In theory at least, that should fractionally reduce one's chances of encountering unpredicted severe weather on the passage between the two.

South Minerva also has a narrower, shallower, and less well-charted entrance through its pass than North Minerva. Because of this, most boats opt for the "easy" stop at North Minerva en route. I'm sure this won't be the case for much longer as more and more boats have drones and high-speed internet with which they can email pictures of their successful inbound track to their friends behind them, but for now, South Minerva offers the best chance of solitude by far. Sharing a remote spot in the ocean that is two hundred miles from land with a hundred other people makes it feel less like the rare gem that it is than an anchorage outside of Fort Lauderdale. I realize many of the others that come may never have that experience because the whole way there, they were in constant contact with the whole rest of the group via text and social media, so they never got the feeling of being far from anywhere or anyone. I, however, have come to enjoy the solitude of being the only boat in sight, or the only boat I have seen for days. We can get plenty of time with the crowds in the big city anchorages when we land. For now, I like that way out in the ocean still feels like way out in the ocean.

Still, we were surprised when we closed on South Minerva reef that we could see no mast tops breaking the horizon. Eventually, the only candidate turned out to be the tower for the current navigation beacon. On our once-a-day email download, Maryanne got a message from another boater that there were already more than a dozen boats in North Minerva, with lots more on the way. It was hard to believe no one opted for the South Minerva overflow lot to ease the pressure.

Snorkelling the nearby reef is our main entertainment

It wasn't until our fourth day in South Minerva, while we were out snorkeling the inside of the reef to the northeast of Begonia, that we finally spotted a triangle of sail approaching from the north. We expected more to follow, since banana boats usually travel in bunches. By the time it was close enough to sunset for us to be assured that no one else was coming today, it was just Begonia and the new boat, Goose, anchored about half a mile south of us. Goose told us that when they left North Minerva for a change of venue, they had left behind thirty-two others.

Over the next three days, two more boats arrived and anchored widely apart. I'm so surprised they were the only ones. We entertained ourselves by thinking up jobs for our upcoming haulout. This is less like shopping for fun, new furniture than signing up for Boot Camp.

When we couldn't take it anymore, we would take a break to go snorkeling. The water temperature in South Minerva is colder than it was back in Tonga. We noticed that there is a definite time limit before, even with wetsuits, we get too cold to be able to enjoy any scenery. Usually, we get to that point while still at the reef. Swimming hard in a beeline across the flats to Begonia helps to decrease the rate of heat loss, but by the time we finally climb out, we are usually both shivering pretty energetically.

For our last day at this part of the reef, we decided to do another last, last big clean of the bottom before setting off for the fun part. Afterwards, I had just made it to the reef and only been sightseeing for a few minutes before I had to give up and head back. Maryanne toughed it out another hour before she returned. I was just getting ready to put the kettle on for her when she informed me that she wanted to do another whole series of photos in case she needs to prove to New Zealand biosecurity that Begonia was even cleaner than it was when we left Tonga. The list of what they want to see is extensive. By the time Maryanne finally left the water, she had been in for over another hour and was REALLY cold now. Fortunately, it was objectively hot outside, so a fifteen-minute rest on the settee was all she needed to feel back to normal.

We had a spell of calmer weather over the next few days as we waited for the next weather window to New Zealand to open in earnest. We took the opportunity to anchor in a less protected spot by the pass, right by the middle of the 8 connecting the two lagoons. The snorkeling is really good there, with lots of deep holes, steep, but narrow chasms, and plenty of interesting sea life. There are even a few shallow, warmer spots that allowed us to extend our thermal endurance somewhat. By the second day, we had managed to scout a long, sinuous path clear across the 8 and into the deep water of the southwest lagoon, where Begonia was so far away that she could be blocked entirely from view with a pinky finger at arm's length. We were cold again when we finally climbed aboard after the long journey home, but both agreed that the swim was totally worth it and a nice way to spend what may end up being our last day in South Minerva Reef for a while.

Snorkelling across the middle bar of the 8 we especially enjoyed; and (not pictured) more cleaning of the hulls in preparation for our New Zealand arrival

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For those planning a visit to Minerva (north and/or south) - here is a really great report from another boater we know:Pogeyan

NE Anchorage location >> 23° 55.52'S, 179° 05.91'W see google

Due South of Pass (closer to access the other lagoon) 23° 56.56'S, 179° 07.72'W see google