Hi All,
We indeed left the marina at 6:30am and out the Dumbea pass by 8:15am.
We started with 10-15kts SE and a 5-8′ S swell, but by late morning the winds had built to 15-20G25 out of the ESE. The S swell may still be there but hard to see from the wind chop and still long period. Maybe 3-4′ wind chop!
We are being pushed and sliding a bit but not too bad yet!!
Around 10pm the winds started to calm to 10-15kts and back to the E then ENE then north and further calmed to 5-10kts in the morning…..sweet as!!!!
Thoughts on New Caledonia:
Well…..we are a bit sad to leave but at the same time anxious to get to Australia. Quite frankly, life events just prevented us from being at our best in New Cal. First, we were a month late getting to NC, most of that due to waiting for a decent weather window in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Then we had the 2 weeks of travel/recovery due to my mom’s funeral. And then, we have had Kathy’s injury…..inflamed piriformis pinching the sciatic nerve in the hip and pain down her leg/foot. It has now been over 2 weeks for her and she is still in a lot of pain and limited in what physical activity she can do…..meaning we only did one day of beachcombing and it wasn’t full of shells like we wanted:((((
The SE Lagoon is quite beautiful and stunning. Maybe not in the same class as the Bahamas, or BVI’s or San Blas or the Tuamotus, but darn close. Unfortunately for us the water temp (low 70 deg F) was just too cold to do any snorkeling or scuba diving…..a huge disappointment. I got in the water twice, once to check on a broken thru hull and the other time to clean the prop and bottom…..that time I was in the water 45 min and came out with both legs cramping….oweeeee and brrrrrrr!!!! Most of the time the water was crystal clear but some anchorages the water had low visibility….not sure why, lot’s of nutrients or runoff from all the mining??
We have friends who spent their 2nd season in Fulaga, in the Lau Group in Fiji…we were there for 6 weeks last year…..and they wrote in their blog…..”we have been very fortunate to have seen a lot of beautiful beaches and atolls in the world, but what makes Fulaga so special is not only it’s beauty but the people”….amen to that statement and we so heartily agree. We just did not have many or the special cultural events that we have had, especially in Tonga, Fiji, and Vanuatu. We have come to enjoy a balance between the remote cruising and finding perfect snorkeling, scuba diving and beaches, but we also really enjoy getting to know the local people, their history and their customs…..we had virtually none of that in New Cal:((((
And then, there is a lot of mining in New Cal….almost all of it surface mining. Gone are all the forests, and what is left is mainly scrub brush and lot’s of mining scars….there are a few of the Norfolk pines and the other native pine left (can’t think of its name but like a southern pine) which leaves it to the imagination the beauty of what must have been.
And finally, there was the incident….here is some of the email we sent to our family:
We were involved in an incident that had us quite concerned for our safety at Ile des Pines at the Adventure anchorage. In our 11 years of cruising we have only felt like this once before….that was in the Chagres River in Panama, when we felt two poaching hunters were watching Mystic from the shoreline. Unfortunately, in Ile des Pines, we along with some of our friends witnessed the illegal taking of a giant turtle by a local Kanak. It is always a conundrum to know when to get involved in local politics as the locals have hunted for centuries w/o restrictions which are now imposed by the colonialistic French government. Everywhere else we have been the locals are allowed to fish and hunt unrestricted. In almost all circumstances, we try to not violate the Prime Directive (Star Trek, noninterference) and leave a clean wake. Anyway, our friend felt he could not stand by, and without telling/consulting us went to the police and reported the incident. The police came out immediately and…..good news….saved the giant turtle…..bad news did nothing to the locals.
The local fishermen was extremely angry. They were yelling at us on the beach with many angry fist like gestures, pointing at Mystic. About 10 minutes later the fisherman came screaming in his boat right at Mystic….we were thinking he was going to ram us but at the last moment veered off. He then started yelling, giving the hand across throat gesture and as Kathy translated…yelling leave or die. He then proceeded to move on to our friends’ boat and circled four or five times. Whether he really meant it or was just trying to be intimidating we did not stick around to find out, but weighed anchor and went to another anchorage out of sight. We were all pretty shook up and eventually called the police who told us we were not in a safe anchorage and to move again. We asked what happened and they said since they saved the turtle no infraction occurred and nothing was done to the fishermen. Are they violent….no, just angry. Hmmmm….then why did they tell us to move to a safer anchorage??
So, we moved, we had our old tracks as this area has many reefs….anchor was set about 15 min after sunset and we all took a deep breath and had a passage beer. We decided we needed to do an anchor watch and we gathered all our safety and defense gear. And as predicted, the winds built to 15-20kts right into the anchorage and the fetch built to 1-2’+ chop….ugh….we had lot’s of motion and noise on the boat. I slept in the salon with all the outside lights on and woke up often to check things out. Kathy relieved me at 3am. Nothing happened…yeah…we just didn’t sleep much and when daylight came we put out the flopper stopper and the motion became tolerable. We felt especially vulnerable as we were the only trawler in the vicinity, so an easily recognizable target, even amongst the 10 or so sailboats.
We wanted to leave Ile des Pines but the winds were contrary so we stayed another day….fortunately the winds shifted to the SW and the anchorage became much calmer. We felt safer the 2nd night but I still did the anchor vigil and slept in the salon. Again, nothing happened but at 6:00am the next morning we weighed anchor and left for Noumea and then left New Cal 2 days later!!!
And so, here I sit at 4:30: All is well, having some tea….oops….alarms…WTH….auto pilot alarm….go to reset it….ok…..comes back on….not good….reset and then go to standby/manual…..turn the wheel….oh no…we have no rudder control….oh crapola….wake Kathy. We are now doing donuts and it is getting rolly….crap….try the FB helm, still nothing…..jump into the laz….no water, good…..no hydraulic fluid, good…..check the rudder tiller arm is attached to hydraulic cylinder (we had this happen before in 2007 when the nut holding the tiller arm and cylinder had fallen off)….nothing on rudder table, good. We have redundant auto pilot motors….switch to other motor….still no good….WTH….visions of using the manual tiller for the next 600 nm or turning back to Noumea…..ok, calm down, think….maybe something is caught on rudder….use the manual tiller and swing rudder full….ok, rudder good….but wait….look at tiller arm again…eureka!! Found it! The sleeve that attaches to the cylinder is off…..the cylinder is not attached….oh praise be! This is mechanical, I can fix this! I’ll worry how this could happen later. I have built a table on top of the rudder table to house a lot of tools….no way to get to tiller with table….bad design…..so, in the middle of the frickin ocean I’m taking the table apart….get it off….reattach sleeve to cylinder…..Kathy tries the wheel…oh, praise be the rudder is moving….turn on autopilot and by 5:15 we are back in business!!!! Whew!!
For those following our SPOT tracks I’m sure you will see our donut tracks….note to self…..not good!!!! Now I’ll ponder for the rest of the trip how this can happen…..will soon engage the MMTAB. Are you reading this Les, Mark, Wayne and Tom????
Life…..just has a way of disrupting livin the dream:(((((
Stats: 8 Sept 2000 UTC (7:00am Sept 9 local time):
Position: 22 59S 163 04E
Traveled: 193nm today; ETA to Argo Bank waypoint is Thursday 5:30am
Course: 245M COG
Wind: 5-10 kts N
Waves: 3-6′ swell S
Speed: current speed is 7.8 kts SOG; has varied 6.8-9.0 kts today; avg is 7.9 kts for passage; 1675 rpm, running 50-100 rpm faster than normal for speed as we most likely will need to slow down later
Weather: 50% cloud cover; sea temp 73.5 deg F; air temp 74 deg F; barometric pressure=1017 up 3 points from 4pm yesterday
Boat sightings: 0 today
Fishing: Nope, too cold, too choppy and we have too much food in the freezer; yep, just lazy
Sail: down
Fuel burn: not calculated yet
Hope all is well!
John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO!!!
