We left New Caledonia on 12 Nov 2015. We sailed off of our mooring at Ilot Maitre with our friends aboard SV Dream Time sailing behind us to send us off in style. They broke off to head to another year of lovely gunkholing around Noumea, and we continued sailing out Dumbea Pass pointing at Sydney.

We knew we would hit a front around 28S and after that the weather was unpredictable but with nothing too scary in the forecast and the MJO was behaving itself. We hoped to sail to Sydney but we knew we wouldn’t know if that was possible until we started pulling weather forecasts after the front.

We started out in 10-15 knot winds, had a bit of light air sailing which over the course of a few days clocked around to the NW. Instead of a few hours of fickle wind while the front passed (as has been our experience in the past) the wind simply flipped 180 degrees to the SSE in the 20-25 knot range. We reefed down and pointed East until the winds slowly backed around to the ESE and we could continue sailing toward Sydney. After a day or so of this, the forecasts were showing the possibility of an East Coast Low forming over Sydney and so we turned for Coffs Harbour.

At this point we had a 24 hours spinnaker run with an eddy in the Australian current pushing us toward Coffs. Light wind, flat water, sunshine and a favorable current – a Pretorien owners dream! Note: This site gives an excellent visual of the current state of the current.

The clearance was easy peasy. They took our produce, eggs, cheese and milk and canned meat (poor pate gone) – all as we had anticipated. They examined our shells, took a few pictures, charged the stupidly expensive fee of $380AUD and were on their way. Nice guys.

Coffs Harbour was a surprising treat. It is a dirty, dusty, slightly run down port filled with a interesting, diverse, salty crowd of honest to goodness sailors. The staff were super friendly. The town was cute and we were picked up when hitch hiking immediately and even given a ride when we were just asking someone about the bus. The showers were hot, high pressure, and with shower heads taller than I am. As an aside, for whatever reason, even though I am only 5’8” most S Pacific shower heads are positioned at my neck requiring (on the few times we’ve been in ports or haul outs) me to crouch down to shampoo. If Coffs were closer to Sydney we would have stayed there for a while but the lure of Christmas and NYE in Sydney proved too difficult to resist.

We made it!

With the exception of passages to weather, we’ve never really had to wait for weather windows. For as long as we’ve been cruising, when we say “we’ll start looking for a weather window on X date” we have nearly always had an immediate, too close in time window that requires us to scramble to prep or to check out of the country. Instead of fighting boredom and working on our patience, we have historically had to make certain we aren’t rushing and leaving so quickly that we (and the boat) are underprepared.

And so it is with some amusement that I note that we are getting shut down on our upcoming passage to Australia.

I have been watching the weather in between New Caledonia and Australia on and off for months, and I have not seen such disturbed weather, for such a long period of time, between the two, until now. There was a decent, albeit strong wind window before we were ready to start looking and since then the weather windows have either involved long sections of motoring or big fronts (and associated strong wind and seas) anticipated at arrival.  We are listening to the relevant SSB nets to monitor boats on passage, checking the windows we didn’t take and so far, we correctly predicted that they weren’t the right windows for us.

The nice thing about Australia is that although we have preferences on where we make landfall we have nearly 700 miles of coastline, interspersed with legal arrival ports, as a target. This is wildly different from most of the passage making we have done in which we have to arrive at a very specific point in the sea, where there is a pass into an atoll or a safe arrival path into a single clearance port. On the other hand, this is a longer passage, which makes it more difficult to time generally, to a country which is fussy about after hours and weekend clearances, which makes the timing important.

And so we wait and watch. We have another two weeks or so before our visas expire. Depending on who you listen to the S Pacific hurricane season has either already begun or begins at the end of the month. Little pressures that we snuff out before they grow in our minds.

Waiting and watching means keeping the boat in a constant state of near readiness. We have done all of our pre-passage chores. The boat is tidy. We have bought what groceries we could buy in advance for the passage, then eaten them, and now are readying to buy them again. We are still kiting, swimming, and playing, but every move has to be planned with the passage in mind. We can bring out gear if we have time to let it dry and pack it away before leaving…

At the same time that we become antsy, we also don’t want to leave. The tropics at this latitude are starting to truly feel like summer. The weather is glorious, the already excellent kiting conditions now include warmer water and constant sunshine. There is a reason that cyclone season is considered by some to be the best time to cruise. We are very, very jealous of our friends with EU passports who get more than 3 months in French territories.

Fiji doesn’t like us. As we departed, she gave us one last kick in the ass to send us on our way. After 5 months of crap sailing in Fiji, we started our passage to Noumea with a forecast of SE 15 – 20 knots and 2.5m seas both diminishing in strength. Not too bad to lay a course WSW for us. Instead, we had 35 knots of South wind and more than 4m seas also from the S. Those conditions are not good ones for letting the seas sit at your beam *or* for close hauling and so we put the wind on our stern quarter and started sailing NW, 90 degrees off our intended course. In case you are wondering about land effects, we were leaving Fiji West of Mana Island and we had this wind for the first 12 hours of our passage so…not land.

The seas were so steep, so short period, so uncomfortable that after a few more hours of lurching about NW, in a fit of frustration, we hove to (well, we forereached, but whatever) for 6 hours. Funny enough, this allowed us to make our course (very slowly) and so we decided that until the seas abated we would stay that way.

Eventually the seas came down just enough that we turned W and sailed again, and then eventually were able to lay our course. The weather forecasts continued to show SE wind and we continued to have S or sometimes SSW wind which meant we close hauled most of the way to Fiji in stronger conditions that we would have chosen for an upwind passage. Ahhh, the Coconut Milk Run.

With all of that said, once we set aside our frustration, and once the wind became more reasonable, we had some gorgeous weather during the second half of the passage, a minimum of showers and nothing too squally. The last 24 hours were a glorious sail, closehauled, in lighter winds and so we entered Nouvelle Caledonie with perfect passage conditions and in good spirits. And because of the sporty wind, we had a fast passage, making the 660 miles in under 5 days despite spending 1/4 of a day forereaching.

One more passage and we’ve crossed the Pacific…

Below: A wall of cloud approaching on passage

As alluded to, we had two unsuccessful attempts at sailing to Fulaga. We left Nananu-i-ra with a forecast of Northerly wind 15 knots and abut 8 hours into our sail we had SE wind at 30-35 knots and so we turned our stern to the wind and flew to Viani Bay. On the second attempt, we left Savusavu with a forecast of light E winds switching to NE and instead they switched to the ESE and so we had a mellow lovely sail to Ono instead of Fulaga. We *could* have made it to Fulaga on that window under power. Indeed, as we talk to people here in Fulaga that is a common passage strategy to get here.

The third time was a charm. We left Ono ahead of a front with NE wind. As the front passed, we bobbed about with no wind for a few hours. Then the wind switched to the S and the SSE and we flew the rest of the way to Fulaga arriving at 4 am and forereaching until the morning low water slack which we made a mess of because it turns out that WXTides has TWO stations called “Moala Island” one of which is apparently not in Fiji. The good news is that we have a fair amount of experience reading passes visually and so we could tell that we were at the end of the ebb and chose our timing accordingly. We went in with still a fair amount of current (and turbulent swirling waters) but no standing waves and had a safe transit into another pass (which we never take for granted). We kept Bravo Reef to port – thanks for the waypoint Adam!

And it was so worth the effort. As we sailed into the incredible landscape of Fulaga’s lagoon, the crazy colors and limestone islets dotting the shallow waters of the entire lagoon, we knew it was worth missing out on part of Ono. It was worth the two aborted attempts and having made it here entirely under sail sweetened the landfall for us intensely. Everyone who makes it here, however they do, has earned the right to be here so we don’t mean to sound like sailing snobs. Still, sometimes working for things makes the accomplishment more precious.

VIDEO FRIDAY!

Ahhh…the land of fast internet! This is the 36 minute sequel to our Mexico to Marquesas Passage Diary (our most watched video to date it turns out) and the third passage diary we’ve made. We did better on the sound this time.

Settle down and come ride with us for 3000 miles in the South Pacific.

Go directly to the video on our youtube channel here.

Here is Estrellita’s home for the cyclone season, and you may have noticed she isn’t floating in the crystal clear blue waters of the Marshall Islands.

No one is certain (still) whether this year will be an official El Nino year or not, but with the increased west wind anomalies and the elevated risk of typhoon activity in the Marshall’s, the fact that the Marshall’s are atolls (and our own sucky experience with wind from the wrong side in an atoll), we decided to delay heading to the RMI until next year.

We debated staying in Tonga, and were on the waiting list for the keel pits in Fiji, but by mid-October had decided that we would head to New Zealand for the first time. After planning to be in NZ at the end of 2012 we figured it was about time! We had gone so far as sending in our arrival paperwork to NZ, in a 24 hour period we were notified that we had a spot in the keel pits in Fiji if we wanted it and we had a pretty fantastic opportunity to as caretakers as a resort in Tonga.

The decision: Ultimately, we decided to make the passage to Fiji, put Estrellita in the keel pit, prep her for leaving, and fly back to Tonga for some resort time near our favorite kiting location in Vava’u. And so we did…

I’ll write more about the passage, our experience going into a keel pit, what we did to prep the boat, finish up my memories of Tonga by boat, and write about our land travel over the next few months.

The plane plan: We aren’t certain where we will head after Tonga. NZ by plane is a real possibility but we are staying open to other opportunities (anyone have any flight passes from Nadi or Auckland?) but we’ll end up back in Fiji in time to do a month or so of work on the boat and splash in Fiji at the very start of the season to start exploring a new country.

Shiptrak has been giving me problems so I have changed the link on our blog for “Our Route Thus Far” to this amazingly sophisticated version:

The area between French Polynesia and Tonga has been called “The Dangerous Middle” by one of the freely available online guidebooks (Mr. John's). This is, in large part, because of the unsettled weather in the region. We call it the complicated middle because there are a bunch of different weather phenomena at play in the region, each of which can occur without advance notice: fronts, the official South Pacific Convergence Zone, other convergence zones, etc. 

If a new system suddenly appears, it changes the forecasted movement and strength of the other systems. It’s a place to keep a weather eye, and to take seriously. A week after we made landfall in Niue, when we wanted to leave, there was 5m swell and 35+ knot winds in the region. We waited. Another boat stuck on passage during that system took damage to sails, solar panels, bimini etc. in squalls and oversized waves. Later that same week a small depression showed up suddenly on the weather charts. Within a few days it was over Suwarrow and they had 40 knot westerly winds in an anchorage exposed to that direction. Sadly, a boat was lost that night when their anchor tackle failed somehow*.

With this in mind, although we wanted to sail directly from French Polynesia to Niue, we set off from Maupiti with our bow pointed much further north than the direct line, at Suwarrow. Suwarrow was about 5 days sail from Maupiti which is about as long as you can trust a weather window. Further, there was a front passing south of Suwarrow when we left and so sailing north of the rhumb line would both allow us the option of stopping in Suwarrow if the weather went wonky and keep us above the squalls, wind strength and wind directional shifts associated with the front.

As we were closing on Suwarrow, we saw another front passing Niue and knew if we took a direct line we would pass through the front. Having experienced rough weather in an atoll before, we thought we would rather be at sea sailing to Niue than inside an atoll (e.g., Suwarrow) during the front (in hindsight, this particular front missed Suwarrow, staying south and so things were fine there). We sailed directly for Niue, experiencing strong NW winds, a squally night with unsettled wind, 6 hours of being hove to waiting for the front to pass overhead, and then “frisky” SW-then S-then SE winds. All of that was as expected and we flew the last few days into Niue, running fast and wet ahead of a decent swell.

All of this tactical maneuvering took a 1050nm passage**, added a bunch of miles sailed extending the passage to almost 10 days – but we we very happy with our 10 carefully chosen days of within limits sailing,. Another passage with nothing broken on our bodies or our boat – cheers to that!

*So far  this year we know two boats that have lost rudders, one that went aground, one that took shaft damage when a pearl farm line wrapped their prop, and the two boats described above. Oh, and the French Polynesian customs boat which ran aground on an atoll!

**This is our second longest passage sailed with only the Mexico to Marquesas run being longer.

Ahhhh…down wind…FINALLY.  Rolly – yes, a bit – but after two years of mostly upwind travel what a novelty to be able to point directly at our goal rather than choosing a tack that allows us to make the most miles made good. What an additional novelty for almost every mile sailed to be a mile made good.

Here is two sailors’ definition of a great passage: 660nm pass-to-pass as measured on a direct line, weaving around a half dozen small atolls, taking 4 days 20 hours for an average of 5.7 nautical miles made good per hour, 100% under wind vane under sail, sailing out one pass and sailing into the other (from pass to pass only, we did not sail off or onto our anchor). In mostly 15-20 knots of true wind, with seas starting at 2.5 meters and descending to 1 meter. We broad reached. We sailed wing-on-wing dead down wind. Maybe we’ll even admit to a tad bit of sailing by the lee. Glorious sun, only one night of light rain (the last night – which made it a nice end of passage fresh water rinse) and no squalls.

In our first leg of our 2014 WESTBOUND (and then northbound), we knocked off 660 of the 4000+ miles we will be sailing this year. A great passage to start with.

Are you more interested in looking at this post because it has the word ‘boob’ in it? On average, I bet you are – I know I am.

We were at a friends house with fast internet in Tahiti (a rarity) and we were streaming youtube videos which we rarely get to do. Being a compulsive list creator and data collector, I was keeping track of the videos of South Pacific ocean passages which we enjoyed watching.

While perusing SV Delos great videos we noticed an amusing fact. They had split their Pacific crossing video into parts, labeled 1,2, & 3, all uploaded on the same date, but the parts had vastly different numbers of views. Actually, the parts had similar views except one video which had  almost 10 times the number of views – the one with a thumbnail picture that included a woman in a bikini.

Having been a scientist in a former life, I set out to make a  terribly controlled test of the theory that it was boobs in the thumbnail that increased the views. Only having one South Pacific passage video to work with of our own, I used a within subject, longitudinal case study.

We had 15 months of view data on our video with a thumbnail that did not include boobs. In early December, I changed the thumbnail to include me in a bikini. Now, note, I was already in the video in a bikini (um, its HOT out there at the equator – believe me, sometimes the bikini was only put on because the camera was coming out). I took a screen shot that was already in the original video and changed the thumbnail (the still image you see on a search, or in a suggested video screen) to include boobs. In the graphs below the pink/red line is the boob data and the blue line is the pre-boob data – axis units held constant.

In the 3 months since we have made that change, we have had as many minutes watched as we had in the preceding 15 months and we have had 2/3 as many views which, with only 1/5 as much time, with no natural or artificial changes, you would expect 1/5 as many views. Did I mention that our youtube viewers are 90% male?

HOLY BOOB EFFECT!

Of course, to finish the test, to show that this is not the normal curve of a videos gain in popularity, or the effect of some other non-boob factor, I should now remove the thumbnail and replace it with a third option, something without boobs but appetizing nonetheless… but I think I’ll stop while the results fit my theory ;)

In 2012, we made the puddle jump from Mexico to French Polynesia. When we left French Polynesia for the first time in 2012 we made it as far West as Suwarrow before turning back to windward. Although we didn’t sail quite as many miles as the boats heading to NZ, it was close by the time we got back to the Tuamotus.

In 2013, we remained in a single country. However, French Polynesia is huge.  I could sail 1000nm from where I am right now and still make landfall in French Polynesia.  We sailed back and forth but ended up moving to windward until we reached the Easternmost inhabited point in French Polynesia – Mangareva Atoll.

Now, as we turn West, we are faced with the classic South Pacific dilemma – where to spend our time during a mad dash across the Pacific to the next hurricane hole.

Instead of sailing from Mexico, generally Southwest to New Zealand as our hurricane refuge, we will be sailing Northwest from French Polynesia to the Marshall Islands. This means ~3600nm of travel if we sailed directly to the capital of the Marshall Islands. If you add a pit stop in Tonga, this figure rises to close to 4000nm as drawn with straight lines. And, of course, we are planning on stopping in more places in between.

We’ve been using the second half of the S Pacific hurricane season to look through the materials we have on hand and to do online research on various countries between here (the Gambier Islands) and our end-of-year goal (the Marshall Islands) to determine which routing to take.

High class FUN problems:

• We do not have to check out of French Polynesia until late July. Do we use up all of our time here or leave early so we have more time in other places on our way to the Marshall Islands?
• Do we stop in the Cooks again?
• We’ve pretty much decided on the middle-to-Southern route after French Polynesia because we want to head to the Vava’u Group in Tonga for a month to kiteboard and to see whether we want to return to it the following year (a bit against the wind from the Marshalls) or not. Do we stop at Niue along the way?
• Will we stop at Wallis & Futuna, Tuvalu and Kiribati on our way North or try to hit some of those stops on our way back down South the next year?

Stay tuned…

By the way, if you want to see why we are so stoked about the Marshalls, check out this blog post from friends of friends. In particular, scroll through the kiting and diving pictures. Wowzers.