NZ to Suva

A long winter in Paihia waiting in circles, one month just about. People coming and going, stories and disappointments. Then sudden as bad luck all falls into place, although taking the chance of accepting as crew two people who have never been on boats seriously.
Last hang-ups with the authorities, mooring at the sacred Q pier one afternoon on the sly and asked to leave by annoyed customs after we enjoyed our free tied-up night.
Then after a shaky departure from the main harbour pier, pushed against the pylons by the wind, off we went, motoring out of Bay of Islands for one last time. Wednesday December 6th. Out of the bay not the usual roughness, so off goes the precautionary reef. If all goes as what it looked like on the weather services we should get a bit of edge in the middle, but nothing to worry about. First two days all is ideal: fish is caught, boat self-steering with the aid of a bungee, sunny sailing-with-the-stereo-on. The galley rattles on thanks to M.ela, who never even considered sailing in her life, until a couple weeks before, boat is all a trim.
On third day heavier clouds appear, sea getting slight, it doesn’t look too bad, had the steering kept on working through. We rig the emergency tiller that doesn’t steers I place Augusto to it just to get some little steering (and keep him quietly out of the way) and down merrily we go to the engine room. I look at the box holding together the steering gear, a few empty sockets and loose bolts hanging it together. Thanks former owner!
I hammer the box out of the steering shaft and spring to scrounge in the secret locations of my spare hardware. I struggle with sizes and matches finding the best ones, which just happen to come from a small bundle wrapped in green tape over which I spent several minutes pondering over (“what could these be for?”).
Some more misdirected hammering, oiling and cursing. Taking the box off, then back on etc. there slides the shaft, a locking pin, back on track.
A relatively quiet night although with swell and some more the day after but getting bigger, so the squall hits us the following night, a short-lived one on M.ela’s watch, right before mine. As I take on helming, after a bit of trimming left unattended, the rollers start moving in, nice speedy following swell, growing to four, five meters mastiffs the following morning. Big Genoa is all out, main is reefed and no mizzen keeps the bow plunging down the ridges even on the odd cross-wave. Wind is now turning south-easterly, twenty-five to 35 knots. I had tasted surfing down the massive swell the night before, probably planing here and there without realizing it. It’s easy to explain to the guys how to go about it; most I want is that they feel no unnecessary fear. So we all get to surf the twenty-two tons of boat and peeking at the GPS points of 8, 9, 11 knots simply pop in and out.
Steering gets like dancing mambo, getting down the rhythm of the surge and looking out for the odd one.

The boat gets wetter and wetter, drip after drip the shaking and banging down waves rattled some leaks in. We moved the stern cabin mattress in the corridor to the to be nested in. The rolling has also revealed how badly one water-tank’s cover has been sealed, and plenty of water flowed silently behind the furniture into the bilges, but we can’t be bothered, since the boat drives on well over the average of five knots, which is reflected in the muffled thundering of the hull inside.
The heat is finally with us, and we shed the first clothes: crusty jackets and jumpers, filthy t-shirts of eight days. The situation looks foggy with promises of heavy rain, the swell break out in disorder while changing more southerly, our deck so far reasonably dry even over the big guys is now awash and the going goes uncomfortable. Just a little more. We should have sighted Kandavu, but the heavy sweaty drizzle cancels everything.
On passing the northern part of the Great Astrolabe reef we’re off thirteen miles from it, Augusto’s overzealous caution, but still, better than going for the white line. We can wash a little in rain then finally motor the last two hours for Suva rather than getting in at night or waiting the night out. I can hear port control but they can’t hear me, and their accent is quite odd. After some bad to worse radio attempts I simply ignore it and keep going in. Taking the main down after ten days, with that idiot furler the boat came with wasn’t so smooth. Rain and haziness are heavy, we can hardly see land although we are right by the reef entrance, just the nastiest conditions for a reef entrance. Thanks god for C-map.
We motor right in front of Port Control, and only then I radio again. Ok, no check in right now, go and wait, they order. Fine, we move then to what is indicated as Q anchorage on the charts, drop anchor, and stare at the scene expectantly. Friday December 15th we are finished.
I want to greet the first Fijian with the local greeting, but all we get is the harbour pilot asking us to get out as a big tanker is coming in. And sure enough in the misty rain appears the black shape.
We re-anchor, by the RSYC, which is muddy, shallow out of the way and close to the now idolized commodities. No clearing in today. Wait until Monday!
No cigarettes, repetitive food, no cold beers for ten days, no showers compel me to have a sneak in into Suva.
I carelessly get the dinghy and in bright yellow rain gear brave the streets patrolled by the military. Bainimarama’s Coup is on, AKA the ‘Cleanup campaign’, so every few hundred meters a roadblock is on, mostly soldiers sitting around waving at the passing friends. It’s a late Saturday already, but I go get cash, buy cigarettes and beer, do some Internet and head back to the yacht club.
It is very busy with what looks like a private function, in-fact it is Toyota’s dealership xmas/new year party. I can’t help stopping at the bar for just one beer. Yellow fisherman overalls and squeaky flip-flops in the midst of over-attired Fijians and paalanghis. I sure don’t go unnoticed. Struggling to get out of the beer circle and dreaming of a shower, I head out in the garden, determined to get on my way to the guys aboard, who probably think me already behind bars or in some smoky police office. As soon as I step out of the bar there is no escaping a loud bunch of young Fijians that immediately take me in and won’t let me go until I drank all their beer and eat all of their food. Gosh. Here I am getting drunk in a yellow suit under pouring rain with a bunch of eager boisterous and drunk guys, while all along I promised myself to be as inconspicuous as possible. By the time I manage to get away I must have downed several pitchers of Fiji Gold, and am allowed to leave only under the promise to bring over the rest of the crew and end up the night partying, as one should. The Fijians’ hospitality, cheeriness and unshakable determination to fill my glass makes me do it, actually, and just one hour later the four of us, changed in the last remaining clean clothes, walk in the party: illegal trespassers without a Visa in a tropical island nation under military control. Simply perfect.
We party on at Toyota’s expense, until everyone has left and the beer river has dried. Tables are getting stacked up and still we’re sharing the few last beers and cigarettes, hugging our new friends and denying an outing to a nightclub.
We spend the rest of the weekend working hard to bring back the boat to some kind of order. The constant rain doesn’t help the drying out of cushions and mattresses, but at least we manage to pump out the tank water in the bilges and start getting rid of the bilge oils that floating on water reached up all the way to the galley. Looks like an entire oil change was dumped in a section of the bilge, plus some insulating foam has clogged the automatic bilge tank. Digging out the literal shit I get out a metal bar, a spanner, and a couple kilos of oil soaked foamy cloth. We use up all of the plastic bags and several spare tanks to bottle up the muck.
Monday comes at last, we sneaked in again on Sunday just for showers and a shave, felt like the creation all over again.
Taxi to Customs and Immigration, and two hours and twelve triple copy forms later we are officially in Fiji and free to come go as we please.