SV Yohelah

Miles traveled day 1: 116
Miles let to Vava’u: 134

Today is one of those spectacular days when I love being a sailor. We’ve got 11 knots of wind on our starboard beam, and are flying the full mainsail, jib and staysail. We’re making 6.6 knots in the direction we want to go under clear blue skies. Our friends Neville and Catherine on Dreamtime (a beautiful Cabo Rico 38) passed us last night in very light air on my 11-2:00 watch and had this morning renamed us “Slowhelah”. Since then the wind has come back up this morning, we’ve hoisted our sails up all the way, and we’ve made up over a quarter mile on them in the last 90 minutes.

It’s weird for us being out here with so many sails around us. This is the first time ever on passage we’ve been physically in the company of other boats. Seven of us left Niue yesterday morning and are on the same straight line to Vava’u. When I came off watch at 8:00 this morning I could see two boats directly ahead of me, about 2 and 4 miles away, and one about 2 miles behind me. Right now the one that was behind us is about 1/2 mile abeam – it had been passing until the wind came up and we sped up finally! We’re on track for a late morning arrival into Tonga tomorrow.

Rob and I both have hoped for the last three years to actually get to see a big fish strike our lures. This morning it nearly happened. I was sitting on the toerail behind the helm drinking coffee and I noticed a huge dorado about 20′ off our starboard beam swimming towards our stern. We have two handlines trailing behind us, and it made a beeline for the closest one. Sadly, it took a strike at the lure, passed on it, and swam off. Needless to say, that lure got changed out about 5 minutes later.

As much fun as we’re having sailing today, though, is tempered by the sadness we feel for the folks who were affected by the tsunami and earthquake yesterday. The most tragic story we’ve heard is about Danny from the boat Mainly, who was trying to untie the boat from the dock in Pago Pago when the tsunami wave hit. He was swept off the dock and killed yesterday. We had just finally met Joan and Danny in Bora Bora, after seeing their boat off an on since Ecuador last year. Our hearts go out to Joan as she deals with the unimaginable loss of her cruising partner so far away from home.

OH – FISH ON. Gotta go. Mahi on both lines!!!!

Rats, lost them both. But the funny thing is that Maya knows the sound of getting the gaff and net ready. She came from a dead sleep into the cockpit to help with the catch.

The boat is here

Niue has been a rolly anchorage the last few days, as has been the landing at the quay. The swell has been from the south and rolled through the anchorage and onto the wharf. Since there is no harbor here, there is no place to leave even dinghies in the water. Every time we go ashore we raise our dinghy onto the concrete wharf with the provided crane. The last few days, with 4-5 foot waves rolling past the crane and breaking 10 feet away our landings have become the stuff of Olympic legends. Yesterday we decided we’d had enough rolling and checked out, planning on leaving today for Tonga.

At breakfast this morning Niue Radio broadcast a Tsunami alert to all the yachts on anchor. We quickly raised and secured the dinghy, started the engine, and cast off our mooring. We followed Nine of Cups to deeper water, ourselves followed by three other boats. In case you didn’t know, Tsunamis are virtually unfelt by boats in deeper water, it’s only when approaching a shoreline that the wave achieves its potential in height and power. The bottom quickly dropped off to hundreds, and then thousands of feet. Safe once again.

We are now hearing bits and pieces about the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis. With friends on sailboats in both Samoa and American Samoa we are anxiously waiting word on how everyone is doing, and how the local communities are fairing. Tsunamis can travel as fast as 600 miles per our, so American Samoa wouldn’t have had much, if any, warning. On Niue we had twenty minutes of warning, our warning was slow enough that we were actually still on our buoy twenty minutes after the earthquake hit. Whew!

Today on Yohelah we’re happy the tsunami went the other way and praying all is well for our friends in Samoa….

Rob and Teresa

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We shared a rental car with Marcy & David from Nine of Cups last Thursday for a tour of the “Caves, Caverns & Chasms” of Niue. What amazing sights there are to see here. Because the island is relatively soft limestone, the ocean chews into the cliffs and leaves behind beautiful caves and chasms. There are trails that lead down to the shore from alongside the perimeter road around the island. Some of the trails were 5-10 minute walks, and a few were good hikes through the woods. We spent the entire day making the circuit and visiting all of the sites, which you can see on Rob’s pictures in our photo gallery. Definitely a unique and lovely place to visit. The highlight is a place called Togo (pronounced tongo) Chasm, which is just surreal. You descend down a long ladder to a sandy beach with palm trees that’s at sea level, but is enclosed by towering rock walls. Very strange to hear the ocean roaring just outside the wall you’re standing next to.

Friday morning we finally got in the water with Dive Niue and our pal Neville from Dreamtime for two dives. The first was around the southern end of the island at a site named Gotham City, where there are some sort of batfish we didn’t see. It was a beautiful dive to a dropoff where the wall is covered with healthy and prolific hard corals. The cyclone in 2004 wiped out what little soft corals were here, but the hard corals in some of the bays survived just fine. It was pretty rough getting in with substantial surface chop, but once we descended we found a gorgeous dive site. After that dive we went into another bay further north where the waters were calm and we “swam with dolphins”. We weren’t really swimming, we were hanging on to the side of the dive tender with our faces in the water as she drove slowly behind a big pod. It sounds hokey but it was kinda fun actually. I’ve never seen the dolphins from that view before and it was neat to watch. After our surface interval (required time between dives) we went for our second dive at the site called “Snake Gulley”. This is where the poisonous sea snakes hang out. Don’t know why we had to dive with poisonous things, but apparently they only get aggressive and bite during their mating season, which doesn’t happen to be this week. There were some underwater caverns and caves that we swam through and into, which was also fun and interesting.

We’ve been pondering another dive here in the harbor, but the water temp is too cold to dive without wetsuits. We were going to dive with Dive Niue again yesterday but a substantial southwest swell is running into the bay we would dive in, so all dives were been canceled. Instead, Rob went ashore and get our zarpe. It’s only about 300 miles to Tonga and there are nice light winds forecast for the remainder of this week that we will take advantage of. This stop at Niue has been a highlight of our South Pacific transit and we’re glad we got to spend the time seeing the island and enjoying the hospitality of both the Kiwis and Niueans. Our only disappointment has been that our friends Jeffrey & Nicole from Seattle were supposed to meet us here but it sounds like she’s pretty much chained to her desk at Boeing until the 787 gets in the air, so they had to cancel. Hopefully it’ll work out next time, because this is definitely an island we’d like to visit again.

Today on Yohelah we’re watching the supply ship unload as we prepare to drop our buoy and set sail for the Kingdom of Tonga….

Teresa
Niue is here

As was forecast, the night before we arrived at Niue the barometer dropped and the wind turned to the northeast as a low pressure system passed through. When we approached the harbor around the south end of the island the wind begin to build, and when we rounded the last point of land we had 25 knots of wind on our nose and a foul current, making the last few miles of the approach take considerably longer than they should have. We called Radio Niue (pronounced NEW-way) to announce our arrival, and after that the Niue Yacht Club to request a buoy. The response from the yacht club was that as the low passes, the wind will clock around from the northeast back to the southeast and leave the bay exposed to westerly winds and swell. He said it would be very uncomfortable in here, and they would like to ask the yachts to move around to the other side of the island, but knew that was tough to sell. I had worried this would happen, and after a 9 day passage and with 25 knots of wind on my nose, just really wanted to get tied up to a buoy and have a rest.

We looked around and saw a dozen other boats sitting on the moorings not moving. When someone called to ask about the moorings and how strong they were, we were all assured that the moorings were fine, it was just that the swell entering the bay we be considerably “uncomfortable” for a while. That was an understatement, to say the least, but I’m glad to say it was only about 8 hours that we rolled toerail to toerail. Unfortunately the wind passes much faster than the swell and we were sideways to it by the time the biggest of the rollers were coming in. But by daybreak the next day it was comfortable again and we’re back to a southesterly breeze and gentle swell in the bay.

The moorings are in 65 feet of water, and as we got settled in and had a look over the side we were stunned at how clearly we could see the bottom with a completely overcast sky. The island has few sandy beaches and is basically a rock coming straight up out of 10,000 feet of water. The center of the island has a permeable crust that the rainwater seeps into, leaving little runoff and few streams to drain soil into the water. The result is truly crystal clear visibility – like looking through a glass of water from your kitchen faucet. We can’t wait to get in diving and have a look for ourselves.

We stayed on the boat Friday and went ashore Saturday to check in with Customs. They won’t allow you to go anywhere else on the island until you’ve done your paperwork, so they first meet you at the pier. Since there is no harbor here you have to hoist your dinghy out of the water every time you go ashore. They have a hydraulic crane on the pier, so one person hops out and drops down the hook and operates the hoist, and the other hooks it up to a bridle in the dink and muscles it around onto a cart. Quite a system, but it seems to work.

After we got checked in we went up to the high school, where they were having a “village day”. It consisted of food vendors and dancers, two things we always enjoy. When we arrived three older girls were performing traditional Polynesian dances and doing quite a lovely job. The next group was three “tweens” who were dancing hip-hop to Beyonce, followed by a couple dozen older women who were doing country-western line dancing to music that was neither Polynesian nor Country Western. Definitely different than the performances put on for the tourists, but fun to watch nevertheless. Our favorite was a young boy dressed in a traditional Cook Island / Polynesian grass costume, dancing solo – definitely the highlight of the festivities.

Sunday we were invited along to a cafe on the north shore where many of the Kiwis go for lunch. The guy in charge of the yacht club (Keith) and his wife who teaches math here took us and our friends from Nine of Cups along, showing us some beautiful spots on the island along the way. And yesterday Keith gave us a longer tour, taking us sightseeing for several hours in the afternoon. We were amazed to learn that when the cyclone hit here in 2004 the waves came up above the 30 meter shoreline. The bay where we are moored took a direct hit and with 300 kilometer per hour winds, the waves just kept stacking up on the hill until there was 2 meters of standing water on the hillside high above the bay. The damage was extensive, but they’ve cleaned up and rebuilt, even including many new houses right on the hillside where little was left behind after the cyclone passed by.

I don’t know how often Niue gets a supply ship, but what we do know is that the last on didn’t get here. It’s three weeks late and counting while the ship sits in Apia (Western Samoa) waiting for a repair part to arrive from Germany. I haven’t been to the grocery store yet, but my friend Marcy describes the pickings as “grim”. And unbelievably, she said prices are even worse than Bora Bora (7 dollars for a dozen eggs). Luckily we’ve got enough food to get us to Tonga so we don’t need much. The Kiwis are calling beer an endangered species, as the stores are out until the supply ship eventually arrives.

Now that we’re settled in we’ll contact the dive shop and make arrangements for some diving – both with them and without. We’re also planning to rent a car with our friends to see the spectacular chasms and sights of Niue, which I’ll report on later.

Today on Yohelah we’re enjoying Niue and looking forward to seeing more, both above and below the water….

Niue is here

This was an interesting passage. As a friend currently in the Caribbean recently wrote us, we haven’t been having a lot of fun on South Pacific passages recently. With some twists, this one seems to have changed our luck.

Sitting in Bora Bora looking at the weather, we were all dismayed at the procession of lows and fronts coming at us from the west. Some friends of ours left four days before us, a few boats the day before, and some others were still dubious of the weather when we left. We looked at a passage forecast straight to Niue and another heading north toward Suwarrow then turning south toward Niue. The northern route looked best with maximum winds of 29 knots for a few hours, the rest pretty good. We left on the northern route.

The first couple of days we ran through some pretty stormy weather as we passed through two fronts. No surprise since we’d seen them on the New Zealand fleet codes, but the wind was in the mid-thirties for a few hours. A boat just behind us tore their mainsail and hove-to for 12 hours while the front passed. On the third day the weather seemed to settle into the mid teens, very sail-able even if the wind was further south than normal.

The rest of our passage was a standard tradewind passage with winds in the teens, clocking from south to the northeast. We jibed the sails once, somewhere around day seven. We were actually quite enjoying the sail and agreed it was one of our better passages since leaving the Marquesas.

Meanwhile, the boat that left Bora Bora four days before us, and sailed a route 150 miles further south, tore their mainsail in some more stormy weather. Another boat heading into Suwarrow met with 40 knot head winds, shredding their main. A ketch that left a few days before us also tore sails and are looking for a sail maker in Tonga. We know of two boats that had sails shipped into Bora Bora after ripping them in the Society Islands.

So what’s behind this rash of ripped sail cloth? In some cases the difference between cheap manufactured sails from Taiwan and Thailand and robust hand-made cruising sails from sail makers like Hasse are the difference – the cheaper sails don’t last as long. Of course, at a fraction of the cost you can buy several sets for what a hand-made sail costs, so the decision is a wash. But you do end up shipping more sails around with the cheaper ones. The other reason is age. Two of the boats on the passage have been cruising for around 10 years, another is on his third South Pacific loop. Ten years is about the lifespan of a sail in the tropics and the sharp wind shear we’ve had in the fronts and squalls is particularly hard on sails. Our Hasse sails pulled right through the stormy weather and we’re happy a fire drill in the middle of the night was unnecessary.

Since we arrived in the South Pacific we have realized the number one priority in safe sailing for us is to be able to shorten sail quickly. Especially at night with one person sleeping. Our roller furling jib has been getting a real workout since it’s much faster and easier to roll in the jib than go forward and drop the hank-on staysail. We are seriously considering converting the staysail to roller furling so we are using our all our sail combinations in various wind strengths as intended. Just need to talk to our sail maker and rigger to see what our options are for our hank-on storm jib.

So that’s it. Out of the four boats we kept in contact with on this passage we seemed to have had the best of it. While I’d like to claim superior weather knowledge, it just wouldn’t be true – they’ve all been cruising for 10 years or more and have the same weather tools we have. I think we were just lucky, for a change.

And one last thing, I seem to remember Teresa reporting an Epiphany in her log the other day about watch schedules. I can only say, if you get awakened twice during the night, it’s because you had two times you were asleep. If you only get awakened once, it’s because you only slept once. Whiner >

Today on Yohelah we are rolling around in the anchorage at Niue.

Miles traveled day 8: 122
Miles traveled total: 992
Miles left to Niue: 107

We’re just about to put this passage behind us, with just over 100 miles to go. We’ve slowed down significantly because we need to arrive during daylight. We realized a couple of days ago we couldn’t guarantee going fast enough to make it Thursday night because the winds were going to ease, which they have, so we’ve slowed down. At night we like to keep the jib out as much as possible to steady the boat so it’s easier for the off-watch to sleep, so right now we have no jib out at all and we’re poking along (or rolling along should I say) at 3.2 knots. We’ll speed back up after dark, timing our arrival to pick up a buoy right after daybreak tomorrow. The weather has continued in our favor and the winds should be fine for an early morning arrival.

The water temp has increased and is back up to 75, which is very good. It had dropped down to 72 for a while, which helps keep the freezer cold (we have a keel cooler), which helps with power consumption while on passage. But 72 is not so good for diving when we get there. One thing we need to add to our supplies is a pair of wetsuits. When we left we thought we wouldn’t want to dive in places where the water was too cold for our noeprene skins, but that’s not necessarily true. Hopefully there’s a dive shop on Niue with some wetsuits to rent if the water stays cold. My travel guide pre-dates the last hurricane that nearly flattened Niue, so I don’t know which of the services that they list have been reopened since they picked up the pieces after the big blow (I think it was about 3 or 4 years ago).

We had a big event this morning when the wind did turn far enough to the northeast that we had to gybe the sails. That’s the first time we’ve done anything besides roll the jib in and out in 8 days. All is quiet now, as we’re just waiting out the day reading some books and looking forward to the last night watch of the passage.

Miles traveled day 6: 131
Miles traveled total: 870
Miles left to Niue: 220

It suddenly occurred to me last night when Rob woke me up for my 5:00 watch that our watch schedule is so not in my favor. All this time I thought Rob had it really tough on watches because he has the 2:00 am to 5:00 am watch, and by the time he goes to bed at 5:00 am he’s only had 3 hours sleep (from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am). But what I finally realized (and it only took me three years to figure this one out) is that I get woken up twice every night, and he only gets woken up once! It’s like I’ve done twice as many night watches as he has, because getting out of the bunk and back outside is really the hardest part. And once I’m up for the 5:00 watch I just let him sleep until he wakes up, which is usually sometime before 9:00 am.

The reason I realized it last night is because for the first time since we left Northern California, we’re fully dressed in foulies, fleece and all, and it takes a long time to get all that gear on and off twice every night. I’m amazed how cold it’s getting at night, and we’re not that far south yet. We’re only at 18 degrees south, which in Mexico terms is the Gold Coast (Barra de Navidad and Tenicatita), where it was plenty warm at night. Here and now, however, we’re in the dead of winter and there is absolutely nothing between us and Antarctica to warm up this southeasterly wind.

We continue to have a lovely sail – bouncy but lovely. The wind is scheduled to clock around to the northeast this afternoon, which will be interesting with the southeast swell we always have coming from the southern ocean. But we only have two days left, so it should be bearable. And maybe the northeasterly wind waves will flatten the southeast swell a bit and give us a quieter ride.

The weather forecast continues to improve for our visit to Niue. We’ve made contact with the guy in charge of the buoys there and he thinks the weather will be fine to pick up a mooring mid day Friday. We’ve heard from other folks there recently that the whales are there at the island and you can practically hop overboard and go for a swim with them. Don’t really know if that’s on my need-to-do list, but it will be nice to see some whales. And we’re told that there is “a big Village day here on Saturday as well as an ear piercing ceremony. Never a dull moment.” We’ll see what that’s like on Saturday.

Miles traveled day 5: 129
Miles traveled total: 739
Miles left to Niue: 348

Today’s lesson is that if the weather is settled and you’re going to need to cook you should do it now and not wait until tomorrow. Yesterday was an absolutely blissful day of sailing, with winds behind us and flat seas. I had pre-cooked and frozen meals for 6 days and needed 8, but just was enjoying the calm yesterday so much I didn’t feel like cooking. About 1:30 last night the wind piped up strong and shifted further to the east. Suddenly the seas were lumpy and confused and we started rolling like mad. Today we continue rolling around in big lumpy seas. They’ve settled and are less confused, but are about 3 meters high. We tried turning downwind and putting them behind us while I cooked but it didn’t help too much. I think I’m going to write to the Olympic Organizing Committee and suggest that cooking while on passage be added as an Olympic sport.

Besides that all is well. Maya is bored to tears. We should be in Niue late morning Friday, and the weather forecast is changing in our favor. It was supposed to turn back to a southeasterly on Saturday, and that’s moved up to Friday night now. So hopefully it’ll keep moving up and there’ll be a nice quiet calm anchorage when we arrive. Our friends Marcy & David on Nine of Cups are on their way from Suwarrow and should arrive on Friday also.

Miles traveled day 5: 128
Miles traveled total: 610
Miles left to Niue: 474

We continue to make pretty good time on the way to Niue. The weather has eased considerably and as I look at the weather charts I see no more fronts between us and our destination. When we left Bora Bora we had reasonably good weather, but it was pretty stinky south towards the Southern Cook Islands. So we headed north to give us a little breathing room. It turned out to be a good decision. Friends of ours who left a few days ahead of us and headed directly southwest reported 30 hours of winds with gusts to 40.

Our first night out the winds died and we motorsailed until the next morning when we met our first front (actually, I think it was a convergence zone). The winds howled and it poured rain all day long. We sailed with a reefed main only and made not such great progress. That night we were between fronts and the wind died and we motorsailed again. I could actually see both fronts on the weather chart and knew we’d be heading back into it again. Sure enough the next morning brought strong winds and rain again all day. The seas were a huge mess, with big swells and troughs about 15′ deep just aft of our beam. Luckily, just before dark the winds eased and we rolled some jib back out and have had a lovely sail ever since then.

Right now the skies are mostly sunny and we have about 15 knots of wind off our port stern quarter. We have out a reefed main and full jib and are making about 5 knots. The seas have settled considerably and we have a pretty quiet ride right now. And the forecast is calling for more of the same of this as we get closer to Niue. It’s still blowing 25 there, so we may encounter some stronger winds as we approach, but actually with it behind us we’re better off with 20 than 15.

We’re scheduled for a Friday arrival at the pace we’re making, but the winds are forecast to still be blowing from the northeast when we get there, so we may have to slow down (rats) and not arrive until Saturday. Niue has no protected harbor. The main town is on the leeward side of the island (northwest), in a little indent that you really can’t even call a bay. There are a dozen or so mooring buoys that are in 100+’ of water. The island is just a big rock that essentially comes straight up out of the ocean. I’ll post more info on Niue after we get there and checked in.

The boat is here

Miles traveled day 2: 99
Miles traveled day 3: 118
Miles traveled day 4: 156
Miles traveled total: 482
Miles left to Niue: 598

I’ve been trying to figure out what it is with passages and how to understand them. We’ve had pretty good luck and basically enjoyed our passages right up until we made landfall in the Marquesas. Since then I’ve been pretty challenged to come up with something good to say while we’re on passage, and may even have broken our strict “no whining” in the blog mandate. The first four days of this passage have again made writing without whining difficult. Every day has been different from the previous one, but they are getting better. As a matter of fact we’re having a marvelous sail right now. Bouncy, but mostly marvelous and making good time in the intended direction.

About day 2 I had a little realization that maybe you can’t just define a passage as one thing. Sometimes a passage is going to have lots of different personalities. So I thought maybe Passages Are Like Relatives. There are days when you feel like you’re back at Crazy Aunt Sally’s on Thanksgiving, and there are days when you’re sitting in the sun on the deck at Ray’s Boathouse having lunch with your sister. You can’t pick ‘em, you just get what you get. But that’s not entirely true – we could have waited another week or month to try and get a perfect weather window for this passage. But with a 10 day passage and no way to forecast accurately further out than 5 days, you can’t really pick a perfect passage.

Then I thought maybe Passages Are Like Cliches. It is what it is. But in the end, I realized that Passages Are Like Forrest Gump’s Box Of Chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get.