Tahiti to NZ Leg

They Have Arrived!! Safe & Sound & Tucked up in a Marina in Tauranga. They got in at 10:30 this morning (Friday)

08/10/09

Day:22, Position:S3633,E17723, Miles to Go:088, Wind Speed:20, Wind Direction:225

Weather:Mixed, Sea State:Moderate

The predicted change to NW has not happened yet but we expect it some time before midnight. Winds were forecast to abate to 10 knots but that hasn't happened either. Meantime we are motor sailing on course for Tauranga at 6.0 knots. Our fuel supply should hold out especially if the wind comes into the NW.

ETA is 1200 tomorrow. 87 nautical miles to go for respite and rest and recreation!!

Love

The Jolly Rogers

They have progressed 18 miles since the last report and the positions are too close to seperate on this scale chart (click to enlarge)

07/10/09

Day:21, Position:S3618,E17842, Miles to go:0146, Wind Speed:25, Wind Direction:230

Weather:Sunny, Sea State:Rough

Distance to go to Tauranga 146 nm straight line. Of course we will not be going that way.

We are 80 nm North of East Cape heading for North Cape at present (1930 hrs NZDT).

The wind was supposed to moderate to 15 kts this morning. No such luck but is has come down to 25 from 35. Meant to go NW tomorrow evening and then NE at 35 with rough seas. What's new. That should get us to TG.

We have been battling strong and very strong winds out here for 5 days now. And we are still not there and not making Auckland but hope to make Tauranga by Saturday.

The social cost has been high. I have missed being the oldest best man in the Southern Hemisphere for a couple (Deserae and Matt) of younger generations whom Lois and I respect and like a lot. They are circumnavigators.

Yesterday Murray told us that Carole-Anne and Thomas from Atlanta Georgia had flown out to provide a special surprise and indeed it would have been. Business commitments require they return tomorrow. They were with us between Savannah and Charleston and Connecticut and Martha's Vineyard and London and Glasgow and the cruise to the Baltic. Bother!!

We are in contact with Customs/Immigration and Taupo Maritime Radio (ZLM) on a daily basis (1815 hrs) and like you they are probably wondering why it is taking so long.

Believe me if we could get to shore faster, safely, we surely would.

Will keep Murray and Matt posted each day until we arrive.

Love

The Jolly Rogers

06/10/09

Position:S3606,E17859, Nautical Mile to Tauranga:164, Wind Speed:35,

Wind Direction:135, Weather:Mixed, Sea State:Rough

We have a new destination... Tauranga. Distance to go is straight line to Tauranga.

Reason is that over the last 3 days we have been pushed SSE and have little choice than to make our landfall/clearance in Tauranga.

On our present course we will be lucky to make East Cape before tacking to the West across the Bay of Plenty.

Here is an excerpt from a message to Matt when we realised that we would not arrive in time to attend Deserae and his wedding in Queensland.

"With what we are experiencing and what we know we don't expect to be in Auckland before Friday or Saturday or later.

The low we encountered yesterday (was the 4th Oct)has deepened and broadened and slowed. The NZ Met forecast says they don't expect it to move off the North Island until Wednesday/Thursday.

Last night was appalling. Winds of 50+ at times. F10. Sort of "hove to" but did make some headway 20/30 degrees south of our track to AKL. No damage fortunately and no sleep for Lois and me.

Better (not much) today but the southerly winds we expected when the low should have passed over us have not eventuated because of the broadening.

At present we are (just) making course to the East Cape of the North Island. We are about 270 miles out. If this continues we will consider making our landfall/clearance in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty and even that will require back tracking.

This leg has been beyond belief. Light/nil winds after a few days and now all this over the past week. 18 days at sea so far. It only took 17 days on our AKL-Papeete leg against the prevailing weather.

It is with bitter disappointment and heavy hearts that we have to delay our trip to Australia. We were so looking forward to being with you on your very special day. However we look forward to spending some quality time with you within the next month."

Last night and today we have made slow progress in rough conditions. What's new.

Hopefully the low will move off and leave us in manageable conditions. We will make Auckland...eventually!!

Love

The Jolly Rogers

05/10/09

With what we are experiencing and what we know we don't expect to be in Auckland before Friday or Saturday or later.

The low we encountered yesterday has deepened and broadened and slowed. The NZ Met forecast says they don't expect it to move off the North Island until Wednesday/Thursday.

Last night was appalling. Winds of 50+ at times. F10. Sort of "hove to" but did make some headway 20/30 degrees south of our track to AKL. No damage fortunately and no sleep for Lois and me.

Better (not much) today but the southerly winds we expected when the low should have passed over us have not eventuated because of the broadening.

At present we are (just) making course to the East Cape of the North Island. We are about 270 miles out. If this continues we will consider making our landfall/clearance in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty and even that will require back tracking.

This leg has been beyond belief. Light/nil winds after a few days and now all this over the past week. 18 days at sea so far. It only took 17 days on our AKL-Papeete leg against the prevailing weather.

We have decided now in light of all this to to postpone our trip to Australia which of course means not making the wedding but it is not to be, very disappointing. However we will catch up with the newlyweds when we head over there in a few weeks.

04/10/09

Apologies for the huckery chart but they are between my two charts - East & West Parts of the World.

Day:17, Position:N3259,W17924, Miles to Go:0366, Wind Speed:15, Wind Direction:315

Weather:Fine, Sea State:Light

Destination Auckland we hope.

"So close and yet so far"... that is us at the moment. On Thursday (1 Oct) we only had 520 miles to go. Since then we have had strong SW winds such that on Friday we thumped into it on both tacks making a pitiful and uncomfortable 13 nautical miles. Saturday was worse with only 7 miles in 24 hours. Sunday the winds lightened a little making 88 miles headway but still uncomfortable, especially for Lois keeping us all nourished in addition to her many sailing duties.

Yesterday the winds veered from West to NW allowing us to gain 105 miles. Heading into winds of over 30 knots is something AC and we do not like. Today things are better as we are holding our course and achieving over 5 knots on average.

We don't expect that to last. Gale force winds are forecast ahead of us. Our ETA Auckland probably is between Wednesday evening and Saturday sometime depending on the actual weather. As reported in the previous update we don't have enough fuel to motor or motor sail, even if we could in these conditions.

The good news is that we have no "Mal de Mer", are warm, dry and fed. Naturally we would love to be in Auckland, or anywhere, rather than out here with such tedious progress.

Hope to see you sometime soon...yes really!!

Love

The Jolly Rogers, Brian and Ken.

29/09/09

Day:13, Position:S2918,W17437, Miles to go:0697,

Wind Speed:05, Wind Direction:045, Weather:Cloudy, Sea StateCalm

Destination is still direct to Auckland.

We have been motoring and motor sailing for the last three days. Calm or light conditions.

We used 3 of our 4 fuel tanks and 3 of 4 60 litre containers. At present our day tank is full but will run out sometime tomorrow. After that we will hold the forward port tank and the last 60 litre container in reserve.

Current weather fax prognoses and grib files suggest the wind will be moving to NW tomorrow and then backing through West and then NW in the next 72 hours. Also it is predicted to increase to 30+ knots. Hope not what!!

That makes setting an ETA rather difficult. My guess is 5-7 days from today.

As we are in the GMT + 12 hour time Zone we are operating on NZ time. Changing the clocks this morning and shifting ahead a day meant we lost September 28th. It does mean I will be celebrating my Birthday tomorrow, hopefully before the heavier weather hits us.

We are all well on board, even having chocolate coated ice creams during a Matinee Movie yesterday. Mate Ken just loved that touch from Lois.

Other than the weather outlook our biggest problem will be consuming all the food before Customs come on board and confiscate heaps. Touch wood... everything is operating as it should.

Love
The Jolly Rogers, Brian and Ken

23/09/09

Days at sea:08, Position:S2139,W16425, Miles to go:1412

Wind Speed:15, Wind Direction:135, Weather:Sunyy ,Sea State:Light

Destination is now Auckland. We have been making only moderate speed albeit the conditions are very comfortable and we are making our planned course very easily. None the less we are unlikely to have time to call in at Opua if we are to make our flights to Sydney on the 8th with some time to spare.

Our 2nd and 3rd Mates have settled into the shipboard routine taking their turns on "watch" and helping with other duties. Brian continues to be an excellent steward (a vital role)with Ken acting as our maintenance and engineering assistant. They both share galley and general cleaning tasks!

Three days ago our watermaker blew a hose fitting. After three attempts to rejoin the offending coupling we managed to get it working in mildly difficult circumstances using the combined resources of Captain and crew and gasket cement. Lets hope it holds for the rest of our voyage.

Lois (now addressed as "No 1") attends to everything... sailing operations, cleaning and cleaning standards, cleanliness (ship and personal; clean clothes and showers every day for all of us for example} and then before and after cocktail hour prepares the evening repast which is always world class.

This morning after dawn our new Gennaker ripped about 1.5 metres into the sail itself from the clew. Conditions were light and that should not have happened. At present we are moving at a healthy 6 knots under full headsail, main and mizzen. Very p....d off about the Gennaker so hopefully Doyle Sail Makers will honour their 2 yr warranty.

We are all well and in good spirits and hope you are too.

Will report again in 3 or 4 days.

Love
The Jolly Rogers

19/09/09
Days at Sea:04, Position:N1823,W15627, Miles to go:1846,
Wind Speed:12, Wind Direction:090, Weather:Fine, Sea State:Light

Destination is Opua in NZ. That could change to Auckland depending on progress and/or weather.
First two days out from Moorea we had moderate winds 25+ knots from the NE which veered to East. Seas were 3 metres with squalls.
Last night things have moderated to 12/15 knots with 1 metre swells.

Hoisted the MPS (Spinnaker?) after midday. According to our Grib files these conditions should continue for the next few days. Very comfortable but not fast. Day's run have been 121, 128 and 111 nautical miles so far.

As you know we have Brian McAra from Hawkes Bay and Ken Everett from Sydney on board. Brian spent 8 weeks with us while we were in Greece. Ken has sailed extensively on our previous yacht "Acrux". Brian and Lorraine sailed with us some 13 years ago between Bora Bora and Papeete on "Acrux". Would you believe they independently asked if they could join us on our last leg! After considering the effect that may have on our well practiced and entrenched processes and space agreed "Why Not".

For the first two days L&T let them settle in and get used to being back at sea. They separately kept us company for part of our night watches. Tonight things change. They will take 3 hour watches themselves allowing us to reduce our normal 6 hour watches to 3 hours as well. Other duties will be allocated as we progress!
Have the line out but no luck yet!


Love

The Jolly Rogers

Moorea Tahiti – 16 September 2009

We are leaving today bound for New Zealand!!!

We traveled over from Papeete Sunday to spend the last couple of days in French Polynesia in the lovely lagoon in Opunahu Bay. We have had a pleasant time doing some the last few jobs, dominated by the fact that Terry has worked long and hard to rid the genset of an annoying knocking sound which didn’t disappear with the initial new mounts brought from Australia by Ken (3rd Mate). However finally yesterday we were happy to report the genset is ‘quiet’!!

Ken arrived from Sydney on Thursday evening to join us which completes our crew of 4. I must admit it seems strange to have people with us preparing for passage, but it will be great to have their company and support.

The weather overall in the last two weeks has been fairly average, lots of wind, cloud and rain however like the first week after our arrival, this last few days it has been magical. We had cocktail ashore last night for a change and enjoyed the sunset looking back at AC. We are happy to report she is looking great. Brian and I have been doing lots of cleaning – let’s hope she looks as good on arrival!!

Estimate of time frame of our passage will probably be 15-18 days but of course it is all dependent on the weather. We will head mostly west just short of Tonga then south west. It looks as though Terry’s birthday may be spent at sea!!

We hope to clear in at Opua and then make our way down the coast to Auckland.
Naturally we want to orchestrate our arrival into Auckland on a nice day as we sail/motor up the harbour to Westhaven, so we may stay with friends Dean & Glynnis Ryder in the Bay of Islands to wait for the right weather.

As usual our friend Murray Aldridge will update the blog en route.

Looking forward to seeing many of you on our return – we are so excited!!

We have a NZ mobile number which will work once in range of land - +64 21 1175403

Hard to believe this is our final leg home! Excited that we are nearly at the end of the long journey which started in Corfu in December last year and sad, that our adventure is nearly at an end!!! But there will be more to come no doubt!


Love the Jolly Rogers on board Alpha Crucis….heading for the ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’

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.