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.

To the Bay of Islands

We take off early in the morning, motoring by Port Abercrombie and Port Fitzroy, then on go the sails in a pleasant twenty knots northwestern. Soon outside Great Barrier Island the wind settles around fifteen knots, with areas of nearly calm. It's a sunny day, and we don't really mind sailing slowly by stunning Fanal and Burgess islands. I even consider stopping to have a look at the big house on the peak of Burgess, the lightkeepers' house, but the rocky bay is not too encouraging. By nightfall we approach the Poor Knights Islands. Story goes that the two islands were once inhabited by a small maori tribe. They fished and traded their wares with the mainland, until some other tribe got jealous and slaughtered them all. As we pass them the wind dies, and with the night all land seems closer. I am concerned of some current taking us toward them, but little by little we clear them alright. At 9:00PM I take the helm for my shift, just in time to see the wind rise again to a steady southwesterly breeze that get Keturah cruising along at a comfortable five knots. The night is starry, the boat swaying over the water like the girl from ipanema. I play with the sails, more and more, until the steering becomes irrelevant: I can steer her simply by proper sail trimming. A complete communion, me the boat, sails, wind, stars, fosforescence. Beautiful.
I get the best winds of the night, waking up Ben at about 1:30AM for his watch. I've been seeing Cape Brett lighthouse practically from Poor Knights Islands, the lighthouse shines bright from twenty miles away, though my moldy 1973 chart says it shines at only seventeen. Suppose they juyced it up since then. I take a short nap, about one uncomfortable and restless hour, since the idea of approaching Cape Brett is something I want to be present to.
At about 2:30AM infact I go back up on deck, the shapes of the cape and Piercy islands is now visible. Ben is in his shorts and does not wear glasses, although it's hard to miss a huge black shape on the horizon. He assures me rounding the cape is a piece of bread to him. Regardless, I stand by, not wanting to miss the passage and suspecting some wind turbulence when being too close to high land. We nearly make it to pass the cape, but two thirds into it the wind dies. I know we're close to a nearby anchorage, so, to avoid useless strain and pointless sailing, I fire up the Ford, Nick comes on deck, sails are folded away. Ben goes right in his sleeping bag, although we're approaching and there is much left to coil and starighten, apparently he's freezing. It was a cold night.
So me and Nick do the rest, anchoring at 5AM in a completely calm and boats free Oke Bay.

Later in the morning we motor to Paihia, and at last we enjoy a few days with the comforts of civilization.

Great Barrier Island

The following day Nick and Ben wake up early, eager to get going, while I'm still having the few drags out of my after-coffee cigarette. No problem, five minutes and we're ready to go. The wind veered a bit West, and will turn northerly. Still, perfect to get started, still on a broad reach all day. It is sunny again!
Mid afternoon finds us between Small and great Barrier Islands, the forecast is not so good for the couple days to come, so I fire up the computer to loook for a nice anchorage.
I find one, well tucked behind a coiuple points, just large enough to accommodate the boat. We pass by a bird rookery: a whole hill made white by the birds and their guano. We anchor in seven meters, by a small beach, in a bay that looks like out of a postcard.
The day after it's blowing hard, but we're well sheltered, and we have a good sleep. While I pour my coffee I hear Ben shouting to come up! Come up!
Of course I spring out there, always in fear of a dragging anchor or something. Instead it's a pilot whale, circling mischievously around the boat, blowing now and then. She makes a few circles then comes alongside on it's side, letting and eye clearly emerging from the water and squinting at us. And off she goes.
Beautiful. She actually winked.
We finish breakfast and decide to change scenario and motor to the main sheltered area near to 'civilization'. Outside it's blowing 50 knots, there's a big swell coming at us, but Keturah bobs gracefully up and down, without lurches or rolling. Thanks god for the sheletered cockpit, or we'd be all drenched in salt water and instead of feeling like a funride it would be like facing Cape Horn. We go through the narrow passage by , I see a red boat down in a cove that looks just like Pig Iron, the boat by Elsa and David, a lovely old couple that would always welcome me back at Pier 21 to let me vent a bit of frustration and have a glass of wine. They've lived on her boat for twenty years and have been just about everywhere.
We go by them, noticing what a sheltered spot they picked up, wave a turn around to go to Port...., see what's there as the guys are already itching to get ashore. We anchor in rocky bottom, drag a bit, so I decide to let them go and stay on Keturah. The place looks deserted anyway. They inflate the dinghy and leave in exploration for the rest of the afternoon.
Later, once they're back, we decide to change spot...port..is not so sheltered, the williwaws come down the surrounding hills like angry devils. We decide that Pig Iron's spot was very nice after all, and even if we feel a bit like intruding, we go there.
As soon as we are anchored (dragging on rocks again), they shout to come over, actually David takes the dinghy and makes sure we do and it is soon discovered why:
they decided to quit smoking and left without cigarettes, so when they saw us, knowing we'd have cigarettes, they REALLY wanted us to anchor next to them. We have a nice afternoon drinking wine while I, nervously, can't keep my eyes off Keturah in the fear that she may be dragging anytime. She's been swinging quite a bit in the wind, and the previous experience with rocks didn't reassure me one bit.
We are invited for dinner, after we move to a different anchorage, as the wind from northerly is turning west again, and there's a little bay right opposite us that will do nicely: Smokehouse.
Arrived there everything is calm again, and ashore is some fish smoking facilities, a big grill, and a wood-operated boiler with a shower and an outdoor fire-tub, a bathtub one can light a fire underneath...never seen before.
We have a lovely evening with lots of wine on Pig Iron, I fall asleep by the wonderful diesel heater that's glowing and warming the whole boat. The morning after we will leave.

Bye bye Auckland

At last, the day comes to leave Pier 21, the last goodbye to the marina, the broker, the dock workers (who were really nice), rushing around to buy the chart from NZ to Fiji, jacklines, bits and pieces. The computer has been in the GI office all day, last emails, last weather checks. Nick sticks to the computer, somehow he needs to send some really long message, which I read as a latent form of anxiety.
The weather is nice, the wind a sout westerly, just right.
We leave Auckland in style: up go the sails, all of them right out of the marina, so instead of motoring as we've done so far, we pass by the waterfront under sail. A huge tanker takes off right as we go by it, but no worries.
Out of the main harbor, past Rangitoto we also come across the new NZ America's Cup boats returning from training. They have no engine and are being towed, the crew waves at us when we take pictures...here even the top class sailors appreciate an old ketch trimmed to perfection. Kiwis are no snobs, at least.
Perfect sailing all day, quiet, good speed, we play with the trimming all day, trying to squeeze every point of a knot out of her, and she complies beautifully, making steering superfluous for long stretches. Evening comes, and lo, we have been seeing the Maori Rocks beam for a while, the wind dies and we have dinner. The sea is oily, total calm, so instead of flapping and bobbing all night in the middle of nowhere we take shelter in Kawau island again, in the cove we know so well.
A few toasts to the good day and the beginning of the avventure and we're off to bed.