Moorea, Tahiti - 5 September 2009

Passage Making as it should be!!


Our Large Furry Friend "Sam the Sealion"


Giant Tortoise in the Galapagos


Grand Daughters at dinner ashore.


Nicole and David at rest


Sophie and Nicole cavorting in Paradise


Sophie Showering with Style


Lorraine (Doris) and Brian in Moorea


Captain Daniel


Moorea, Tahiti – 5 September 2009

You could describe the first 25 days of our passage from Galapagos as mostly great and uneventful, particularly the first two weeks, where we were making 150 plus nautical miles per day – our best being 170. We were delighted with this progress but unfortunately the wind died for the subsequent 3rdweek to a stage where for two days we were totally becalmed – at this point we were in the Tuamotu’s. We were within 200 miles of Tahiti.

Then the wind arrived with a vengeance which was ok but extremely uncomfortable as we were hard on nose in order to make Tahiti. At this point, as we tacked, our forestay gave way. Of course it happened at night – 9.30pm to be exact. Firstly there was a ‘bang’, almost unnoticeable with the sound of the howling wind and then it bowed out and snapped. It fell into sea on the starboard side but was attached to the bow. And our head sail was reefed so when it fell in the sea it was firmly wound around the self furling gear and rigging otherwise, for sure, we would have lost the new sail we had made in Sotogrande.

As you would appreciate both Terry and I were in stunned disbelief at first, watching these events unfold. The seas were rough and wind blowing 30+ knots and we are now almost stationary. Of course we fear the worst that the mast would be next but that thankfully did not happen. Terry is totally calm and collected and evaluating the situation on the forward deck and well me; I am in the cockpit shaking, trying to take it all in!!! The other fortunate aspect of AC is that she is well rigged particularly with the additional inner forestay.
I now can appreciate the value of the “belt and braces” aspect of our rigging.

So Terry secured the mast with halyards which took some time and then we attempted to try and lift the sail and gear back onto the boat. It was so so heavy of course; we couldn’t get it back on board. After a bit of juggling (as we had used some of the halyards to secure the mast don’t forget) we secured a line around the sail and used the electric deck winch to haul some of it on board and then I proceeded to lift all 71 feet of the gear including the sail back on board foot by foot – phew what a relief that was – to our pocket as well!!!

Next issue – we were drifting towards an atoll so of course we had to address that. We have little fuel and now the autopilot is not working so we bite the bullet to motor 8 miles away from the Island so we can drift overnight with the wind, out of danger.

About 1am Terry lay down in the cockpit and I lay on the saloon floor exhausted, to try and catch some sleep.
The next morning we hoisted our spare jib as a mini spinnaker but decided that it was too windy to leave up – at this point the wind was increasing and continued to blow 30-45 knots for the remainder of the two days. We were concerned that it was too much pressure for the mast.
So we continued on with a double reefed main and our faithful mizzen sail.

Oh boy – so close and yet so far – great expression and very appropriate for our situation at this time – we couldn’t believe our lack of luck!! However as any sailor must, we had no choice but to rationalize that we were at least safe and so was AC. We were grateful that we were in equatorial waters and not in the North Atlantic.

Our autopilot continued to have the odd hiccup and in fact the last 12 hours – we had to steer a lot of it as the seas were rough with lots of swell and it couldn’t handle the gusts with the unbalanced sail configuration.

As we rounded the Pointe Venus 10 miles from the main entrance to Papeete harbour all is well and as you would appreciate we were excited and relieved to be nearly there!!!
As per usual a quick tidy up – candles out – dinner on – champagne poured and we are nothing less than ecstatic.

We have been in French Polynesia over two weeks now – not sure quite where this time has gone! But mostly the weather has been excellent (apart from a few days when it rained and blew) and Tahiti is everything conducive to the ideal perfect cruising environment. In fact we would say ‘so much better than the Mediterranean’.

Two days after we arrived Nicole, David and the grandchildren Amy, Daniel and wee Sophie arrived for 6 days. This was their second attempt to time a visit to Tahiti to visit us – the first being in July which of course we didn’t make and although our timing was razor sharp we made our rendezvous with them on the 17th – phew it was close. We were exhausted after 27 days at sea from Galapagos and of course particularly the last two days when we lost our forestay but I guess our adrenaline and excitement at seeing them all kept us ‘keeping on’!

Given that AC had been at sea for 27 days we of course needed some reorganization to welcome our family on board so decided with one thing and another that the best solution was to take them and us to a hotel on arrival. So that is what we did. We meet them at the airport and went to the Intercontinental Hotel for two nights. That way Terry and I could by day complete what we needed to do to ensure that their 6 days with us was hassle free.

And indeed it was. The children were very excited about coming on AC, despite the fact the swimming pool at the hotel was very nice, they wanted to get going!!!! On Wednesday we motored off to Moorea and anchored in Opunahu Bay (we spent some here time in 2005) where we spent 3 nights and then Cook Bay for one night. The children were a delight and just loved swimming off the stern of AC enjoying the wonderful warm temperatures and clear waters. Little Sophie, now 2 and half, adapted amazingly well considering the last time on AC in Italy she was 7 months old. David and Nicole took us all shore for a wonderful dinner in Cook Bay – the highlight for the children were watching the stingrays gathering around our dinghy. It was such fabulous quality time with great memories.

They headed home on the Monday morning and our special friends Lorraine (Doris) and Brian McAra arrived on Friday morning. We spent the four days in between getting AC in shape (the growth she had acquired on passage was the worst yet including a little mussel farm on the bottom of the stern) as well as ourselves and provisioning.

It was great to have Doris and Brian on board again - they spent considerable time aboard with us last summer in Greece so they are familiar with the drill. We headed off to Moorea again in Opunahu Bay and kicked back and relaxed and enjoyed! One of the days we hired a car and drove around the island with a stop at a very nice restaurant over the lagoon. The weather that day was rather cool and windy however it didn’t deter our fun day. That night we had 40 plus knot winds in the lagoon and both Terry and I slept in the cockpit on anchor watch – you wouldn’t believe that could happen at this time of the year in Tahiti!!!

We met an interesting young couple, Mike and Veronica, anchored next to us who we had drinks with on AC and went ashore with them one evening for dinner. He is English and she is Italian but they live in California. He is a Film Director and has worked in Hollywood with movies, documentaries and particularly advertising. He had some good stories about people including some celebrities. She is a singer and in fact sung a few songs at the Restaurant we went to.

Doris left Friday morning to head back to NZ and Brian is staying on to do his first off shore adventure and our last leg home to NZ. Again it was a wonderful few days to catch up and fabulous to think that as we are so close to being home it will not be long before we can do this again in NZ.
We arrived back in Marina Taina on Thursday and luckily the first process of fitting the new rigging for the forestay started immediately and was completed yesterday. Good to know that everything is now secure again.

Our plan is to provision for our passage and head out to Moorea again and then onto Huahine and Bora Bora for a few days relax and wait for our 3rd mate, Ken Everett, to arrive from Sydney on the 11th and then we will head off to NZ. So this leg we will be 4 souls!!

We hope that we will be back in Auckland by the 30th of September which is Terry’s birthday – a few celebratory drinks with family and our old friends.

Meantime we are making the most of the beautiful weather and enjoying cocktail hour in a most pleasant temperature…

Our local number is +689 323524

Murray of course will keep you posted of our progress towards New Zealand once we head off around the 13/14th of September.

It has been a long journey from Corfu where we started in late December!! We are nearly there……..!!!!

Love

The Jolly Rogers


Day excursion.