We made it!

Brutal! That pretty well sums up our 2-day crossing from Fiji to Futuna. The winds had been forecast to be south-eastern at about 10 - 15 knots, which was ideal for our route which was basically at a bearing of 30 degrees (North is 0 degrees).

As it turned out we had north-east winds which meant we pounded directly in to the wind . We had to motor sail the whole way (which burned up about 120 litres of fuel) as well as having to listen to the engine the whole time. To get a feel for the crossing picture being on a bucking bronco, not for 8 seconds (or in our son Danny's case about 6 seconds, ha,ha) but for a very long 48 hours.

During the crossing, we stayed in the same clothes and didn't go below, except to grab seasickness pills for me (which thankfully work like magic) and to heat up the pre-cooked meals I had prepared. Peter usually does the cooking onboard, since he has discovered that he loves it, ever since we began cruising 6 years ago. However, I'm the queen of casseroles, and love organizing, so I enjoy provisioning for our passages.

One of the interesting things that happen during crossings, is how different sailing seems at night vs. during the day. The sun sets exactly at 6:00 p.m. and rises at exactly 6:00 a.m. so there is equal light to darkness. We were travelling during very overcast weather, which meant little in the way of stars and the moon was just a sliver popping in and out amongst the clouds, so it was truly pitch black. It seems as soon as the darkness hits that the wind picks up and the seas get rougher. This isn't actually the case, but when it is dark your senses are heightened and you become easily disorientated.

The first night, as soon as the darkness blanketed us, the wind picked up a little, but again it was mostly perception. I asked Peter to reef the main (which was the only sail we had up) and he, not surprisingly, said no. Sometimes he revels in the power of being Captain. Can you guess where this story is going? I then asked again, and Mr. Sensitive said it would be stupid to reef and if he always listened to me when I asked to reef we'd never get anywhere. Long story short, I had to "lose" it as we were heeled over with the wind howling. Peter then reluctantly, put in not just one reef, but two. When I asked afterwards what it did to our speed and performance, Peter very sheepishly said "nothing - we are going the same speed", but of course, we were far more comfortable with the boat flattening out and far less anxiety for me with another 11 hours of darkness ahead of ourselves. Our goal is to not have to go through this very common scenario on our return trip to Fiji.

Because it was so incredibly rough, with high swells and heavy wind going against us, we were literally unable to do anything but sit in the cockpit for the entire trip. We couldn't read, do crosswords, or anything else at all. This was also why I didn't post the daily blog that I normally do while on passages. For those of you that know me well, you know that for me to do nothing drives me crazy! The one upside (for me anyway) was that our self-steering system was unable to work for most of the passage because we had the motor running, which meant that we had to hand-steer. This was pretty exhausting with the very confused seas, but we switched watch about every two hours so it was manageable. We only encountered one squall with blowing rain and thunder, so in that we were very lucky.

Church heading in to Futuna 

We arrived in to the tiny anchorage in Futuna just after sunrise. We took the dinghy down off the deck, hoisted the French flag and our quarantine flag, straightened out the boat, showered off the salt and headed off to land in search of customs and immigration.

This island has a population of about 3,000 and almost all of them are civil servants of the French government. They import over 100 times their meager export which is Toro root. Most of the non-native population is French officials who are here on a three year contract, earning three times what they would in France. What is different here from other tropical islands we have experienced is the high percentage of the population that smokes. Here everyone seems to be smoking, whereas it is very uncommon in other areas such as Fiji.

We walked for a couple of kilometres, which was a trick in itself, as we were still reeling from the pitching seas. Something else unusual was how casual the immigration and police are here. They were in t-shirts and shorts and they checked us in and checked us out all at the same time, even though we aren't leaving for two days.

I wanted to leave the next day, as Futuna has little to recommend it. There are virtually no tourists that come here, so there are hardly any services. The people aren't very friendly since they don't rely on tourists for their income as the other islands do. Luckily we don't need to stock up on anything, since there is no bank here. They get a "bank lady" who comes twice a month and she was here the day before yesterday so we missed her. There are no charges for checking in or checking out, so we were lucky there.

Little anchorage surrounded by dangerous reefs

 
The anchorage itself is also nothing to write home about (but I am anyway, ha,ha). It is extremely tiny and rolly as it is open to the sea. We managed to nap yesterday afternoon to catch up on sleep and the overnight wasn't too uncomfortable. If the winds change to southeast, we will have to make a run for it as the anchorage is untenable in those conditions. That is one of the reasons, I wanted to leave the day after arriving, but it turns out to be a Friday, and as some of you may know there is an old sailing adage that you never set out on a passage on Friday. We have never paid much attention to this before, but Peter is turning in to an old salty and he says he doesn't want to tempt fate. So, we are hanging around today, in an uncomfortable anchorage and then heading to the one overpriced government official hotel to use their free internet and to have lunch there (they accept credit cards).

This is what we were dragging anchor towards....

We just had a visit from one of the other two boats that are here. The Captain lives in these islands and just came to warn us to keep an eye on the weather and to head out to sea if the winds get any stronger. He isn't leaving at this point until tomorrow either, so we'll just play it by ear.

We just listened to the ham radio and the winds tomorrow are going to be south east. Those are the winds we were expecting and hoping for on our crossing over. On the return we were wanting north east, but it appears that we will be beating in to weather again on the return. The good thing about the return though is it is the first 24 hours that will be the roughest and then we will be travelling up through the channel again and close to shore so the waves are significantly reduced from those out at open sea.

So, unless we have to get out of Dodge today due to wind, we are leaving tomorrow morning. Since it is expected to be rough, I may not do our daily passage update, but will post upon arrival in Fiji. It will be good to have our "visa run" over with and then we can enjoy sailing throughout Fiji for the remainder of this cruising season. Have a great weekend.

******UPDATE******

Shortly after I finished this blog posting, the circumstances in the anchorage deteriorated quickly. The wind increased to over 20 knots with southerly winds. This meant that the already rolly anchorage was now becoming unsafe. We dragged our anchor and reset it, but still was dragging back towards the exposed reef. Peter went and talked to our neighbour about the anchorage at Alofi, which is only 6 miles away. He said it was a comfy anchorage and would be safe. He also said after he took care of business he was probably going to head out because once high tide rolls it, it is next to impossible to get out of the pass - as well as being unsafe in the little harbour. A definite no-win situation.

Peter getting the local knowledge

As we were leaving the harbour, the other boat that was there was also concerned that they might be dragging. They have to unload their dinghy, check in and get organized though before they can even think about vamoosing from the anchorage - so hopefully they will be able to get out before that window of opportunity escapes them.

We are now safely anchored at Alofi. It is really rolly too, so we might head out at about 3:00 in the morning, but we'll play it by ear. This is the part of sailing that reminds me of having an infant. You think you have a plan in place but the baby decides to get sick, stay awake all night, or any of a number of ways causes you to change your plans.

The anchorage indicator at Alofi.  Looks a bit ominous! 

If this gets posted today, (Friday, October 12th) it will be via our Ham radio, which may or may not work while we are here. I'll give it a try later tonight when the propagation looks good.
P.S. Will still be out of internet range for about 3 days.

Casting off....Viva la France

We have finally been able to get going, as there is a break in the weather, so it looks like we have a decent window to get to Futuna - the French protectorate about 200 miles north of Fiji.  We will be casting off in the next half an hour. We are expecting a 2-night passage.  I will post tomorrow morning and on the arrival morning for those of you who like to come along for the ride.  Hopefully, it will be fairly smooth sailing, although it will be raining and overcast.  We will have to travel through the Sumo straight around midnight tonight for a few hours, so will be taking it easy through this section.  Until tomorrow....Enjoy the rest of your long weekend.

Rain, rain and more rain

This past week has been pouring rain and fully overcast.  We did manage to get to one lovely anchorage, where we stayed for three days to wait out another system.  We do enjoy these anchorages where we are by ourselves.

 

Peaceful anchorage

 While we were there we heard a Mayday situation on the radio.  A boat ran aground a reef at 0730 in the morning.  They were on with Suva Radio during the day, but had to put out another emergency call at 4:00 p.m. as they had yet to be rescued.  It gets instantly dark at 6:00 p.m. every night until 6:00 a.m every day, so they were in a difficult situation.  We were too far away to render any assistance, as was the case with a few other boats.  One of them was able to raise a dive shop that immmediately set out in their motor boat and were successful in getting them off the reef just before dark set in.  No one was injured and the sailboat was fine to carry on, but it was a long and scary day for this sailboat.  It was very hard for all of us to be listening on the radio but unable to help at all.  We’re just glad the story had a happy ending.

 Amazing Sunset in action:

The full moon was incredible, especially since it was so bright that we could even see it for about a half an hour after sunset for three nights in a row.

 

Lighting up the night sky

The next leg was a 52 mile trip, which meant leaving at daybreak and arriving just before it got dark at another lovely anchorage.

This is the scene that I got to enjoy for my morning Yoga session on the deck.  The full moon still shining in the West.....

 ...... and the sunrise coming up in the East.  Wow!

We left that morning for the last 32 miles to get to the town of Suva Suva where we are waiting for the weather to pass.  From here we will be checking out of Fiji and heading to Futuna, so that we can renew our visas.  It isn’t looking promising.  We hoped to have left today, but there is another front coming through with North winds, which means the earliest we’ll leave is Tuesday - another 3 days from now.  

The waterfront of Suva Suva (in rain)

The marina (in rain)

The hotsprings along the waterfront (raining still)

So, not much exciting this week since the weather has been so miserable – but we are still in Fiji, so not complaining.  We did get some boat projects done and I got lots of work accomplished on my websites and book marketing.

Just for an experiment, I haven’t eaten wheat, gluten or any simple carbs or junk food since we got here 5 weeks ago.  I was hoping it might alleviate some of my Lupus symptoms, but no luck in that department.  I have lost about 10 pounds though, so that is a nice bonus.

Kids playing hide and seek at the market.

More shopping in the rain

Wishing all our Canadian family and friends a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. 

Until next week….

"Life is like a 10-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use."  

-- Charles Schulz, Cartoonist

Lightening, Thunder and Squalls, oh my!

Bula from Fiji....from Diana and Peter

 We wrapped up our incredible week at Musket Cove, but had to spend another day due to unsettled weather.  This gave me the opportunity to go to church on the Island, which is one of my favourite things to do.  Not because I am at all religious, (although highly spiritual) but because church is such a central part of the island culture. 

    Minister preparing himself to get ready for the sermon

                         Inside roof of church

It is at church that we get to meet the locals in their environment and also get the chance to see all kinds of different services. This church was a small Methodist church high on the hill-side and was very evangelical, although nothing compared to my bizarre experience last year.

               Suzie from Sidewinder joined me.  

       Cool  “free-will giving” coconut collections

 This is where Peter was while we were at church.

 Even though the weather was still a little unsettled we decided to head to the  mainland, as we had a few boat projects to do (including ordering a new hot water tank since ours finally gave out) before we head offshore again. 

The boys came over in the morning to exchange photos and say goodbye.  Note they are drinking coffee, lest you start to think we only spend our time drinking alcohol.

              A local school-boat taking the children to school.

 We arrived in Vuda Point Marina and got to work.  That night we had a wild and crazy electrical storm, which is unusual for this time of year.  We were up for a few hours in the middle of the night listening to the booming of the thunder and watching the lightening.  

Luckily for us and for those in the marina, there was no damage.  However, over on Musket Cove (which we had just left that morning) four boats got negatively affected and they lost their electronics.  We were lucky to have dodged that bullet.  Last night we were in a remote anchorage all by ourselves (which is our favourite kind of anchorage to be in).  W were awoken at midnight from a dead calm situation to gusts of about 40 knots within about a minute.  The squall came out of nowhere and kept us up for about half an hour…and then it just blew by.  

The good thing about this cloudy weather is that we get lots of kitchen dancing in after dinner.  I lost a really good friend 4 years ago and her husband told me one of his regrets was not kitchen dancing more often.  We have taken that to heart and are dancing fools as often as possible.

Getting ready to leave the anchorage this morning.

Very muddy bottom and our deck pump decided to give out, so we couldn’t wash the chain as it was being brought in to the anchor locker.  Another “to-do” list item, but Peter seems to enjoy the ongoing repairs and maintenance of QuickStar

We listen to the ham radio every morning for updated weather reports and to connect with our fellow cruisers.  The ham net is being broadcast from New Zealand and it reaches all the way across to Tonga, Fiji, American Somoa, New Caledonia, Vanauata, etc.  We love being part of this global network and hearing about their escapades and following along on their passages.

We are now making our way over the top of Fiji and heading to Suva Suva.  It is really surprising how large Fiji is.  It will take us 4 days to get there and that is with covering distances in excess of 30 nautical miles each day.  We are heading against the prevailing winds so we are anticipating having to motor most of the way, as it is too dicey to be tacking in these reef invested channels.  

Once we arrive there, we will await the weather window to make our offshore passage to Futuna.  While we were in Musket Cove, we heard the tale of a boat doing this exact passage just three weeks ago.  They hit a reef and lost their boat.  I of course asked if anyone was hurt, but the three fellows telling the story said “Oh, I don’t know, but they lost the boat”.  It is bizarre that generally the first question a woman asks when told of accident, wreck, etc. is if anyone got hurt.  For the men, the question is “did they save the boat?”.  To add insult to injury the captain of this boat that was sunk was made to pay 20% import duty on the boat since it is staying in Fiji.  NO KIDDING!

QuickStar under sail with her brand new main.

We have to be especially careful in these waters as the charts are not very good and there are deadly reefs throughout.  Our friends from Sidewinder have already hit a couple of reefs this year, nothing serious, thankfully, but enough to remind us all that we have to be super diligent and give the reefs a really wide berth. We are also extremely cautious because we hit a reef at the end of last season and sheared off 18 inches of our rudder.  Ouch! Added to the reefs, there has been lots of deadfall in the water that we also have to navigate around, due to the storms and squalls.  Just part of the adventure.

                                            

Until next week….."If you want more, you have to require more from yourself."

-- Dr Phil, Motivational Author and Talk Show Host 

P.S.  I am also doing a weekly Financial Fitness Blog on Tuesdays at www.financialfitnessbooks.com (not sure why the link isn't showing up but if you click on the blank space before this it will take you right to the website -  financialfitnessbooks.com, which include tips, suggestions and hopefully insightful content relating to money management.

A week of fun and nonsense.

The annual regatta at Musket Cove was even better than last year (although we missed our friends Don and Martha from Canada who were with us last season).

Peter makes me a tropical breakfast each day after my sunrise Yoga session. 

The opening night began with each country singing their national anthem.  Since New Zealand was the largest contingent they also entertained us by performing the “Hakka”, which is the war dance that their national rugby team, The All Blacks commence every match with.  In addition to a wonderful hosted cocktail hour and dinner, we danced the night away to the sounds of the Culture Club.

Our old buddy Suzie from Sidewinder taking the shuttle with us to Beachcomber

 The highlight of this week is reconnecting to old sailing buddies that we have met over our six seasons of sailing, as well as meeting new friends from around the world.  We have spent a good deal of time with Suzie and David from Sidewinder who we got to know last year.  

Being met by pirates as we landed at Beachcomber Island

The first day of the regatta we had them aboard for our race to Beachcomber Resort.  It was just a fun day with little wind so all of us motor-sailed for 2 hours each way and enjoyed a great afternoon on the island.

The first heat getting ready at the start line 

 

 

Sunday dawned sunny and bright (as per usual for Fiji) so we headed in on our dinghy to defend Peter (and Don’s) 2^nd place finish last year in the Merlin Match Race.  I was on the helm and Peter managed the sails (plus telling me what to do every second of the race since I didn’t really have a clue).  Great news….we won 1^st place!  Peter was dead keen to call Don in the middle of the night to rub it in, but I managed to prevail and not call him till a reasonable hour the next day!

Peter checking out the competition from the race committee starting line 

And they are off (we had to win 4 elimination rounds for the championship) 

I did discover that I loved racing in this little boat.  It was my first time ever, and of course the win helped me to be even more enthusiastic.  I now want to take some racing lessons (yes, my second favourite Captain Joe, you are probably killing yourself laughing).  

  

This newfound keenness inspired us to take a Merlin in the Sandbar race where we were really dwarfed with the other sailboats.  The winds were also fairly strong and we were doing a lot of heeling and darting in and out of the boats as we all tacked through two reefs.  A little overwhelming for me, and it resulted in a few arguments between Peter and me, but I managed to convince him that we couldn’t possibly win the race against the big boys, so he dialed down his racing instinct and we made it safely home across the finish line. 

I was so relieved that we made it, I got a bit complacent.  Peter was up on the bow taking down the sails and not paying attention (he also forgot I really didn’t know what the heck I was doing in this boat).  The next thing we knew I almost t-boned an anchored sailboat.  I had been communicating to Peter that we were getting closer, but he has a habit of tuning me out when it pertains to sailing.  It wasn’t until almost the point of impact when I yelled bloody murder “We are going to hit the boat”, and the four guys on board jumped up that Peter looked up and yelled at me “hard over with the tiller”.  We managed to squeak by and drop below their stern, but everyone had their heart in their throat.  As you can imagine Peter & I had a pretty colourful conversation following this near miss.

Peter and David from Sidewinder sharing a few laughs - see the cool houseboat in background beached right on the sandbar.

That afternoon on the sandbar beach was filled with frivolity and fun.  It is a really cool sandbar that gets buried at high tide, but is a long sandbar during low tide so the organizers set up games and a bar. 

David and Suzie (Sidewinder) being good sports in the beer drinking competition 

Not only are the days filled with sailing and beach activities but each night is chock full of fun as well.  For the costume party, everyone was supposed to come dressed in the letter S.  I went as “Sexy” with my swim suit cover-up.  The only thing I could talk Peter in to doing was going as “Stick in the Mud”, which meant he didn’t have to dress up or participate, so he was happy.  

 Let the party begin....

 Doing the costume parade

 

 Okay...so David and I having way too much fun with Suzie egging us on!

The premier event during the week is the race around Malo Island.  We decided that just Peter and I would be aboard and that Peter was going to practice “non-yelling”.  (I’m sure that cracked a couple of smiles for those of you who know how competitive he is and how his communication style is rather robust).  Anyway, he agreed that we would hang back at the start so that we didn’t have the stress of jockeying for position, since this is a race that most of the sailors take quite seriously.  I also got a “promise” that we were out for a nice afternoon and that we weren’t going to heel excessively or push the envelope.  To Peter’s credit, after only a few little “yells” (which he says were not yelling at all) we ending up having a lovely day on the ocean and finished 11^th out of 16 boats, so we didn’t do too badly in spite of my “wimpiness”.

Following the boats heading around the first bend. 

 During the farewell evening, we accepted our championship trophy (and rum, of course) for the Merlin Match race and had a wonderful time with our friends…old and new. 

Could life get any better?

 With our winning hardware

 

 Yesterday we had a lazy (non-alcohol) day to recover from the week and for Peter to gloat over the big win.

 We are now just planning our routing to leave Fiji and head to the country of Futuna (a French overseas territory).  This is just a formality as we need to leave the country and re-enter Fiji in order to renew our 18 month visa.  Our plan, as of this moment, is that we will spend the rest of this season in Fiji and fly home for Christmas and the winter season around December 15^th.  As always, though cruisers plans are written in sand at low tide.

 

Until next week…."Life without risk is not worth living."

-- Chuck Lindbergh, aviator

Life is tough.....another beautiful sunrise