A very different sailing experience

After a busy morning shopping for food provisions in Nadi (the veg market is absolutely huge on Saturdays), we left the delights of Port Denarau for the short passage across to Musket Cove. The wind was light but just enough to give us a hint of Kiapa's performance.

Di enjoying the big wheel

Beginning to get some speed

An impressive wake begins to form at 10 knots

Numbers we can only dream of in Maunie - 10.5 knots of boat speed in only 15 knots of wind!

We have a fourth crew member, Suzy, arriving today and are thoroughly enjoying being back in the warm waters and sunshine of Fiji after the cold spell in New Zealand.

Three hours Vs. Two Hundred

Wow, those Boeing 767's go well to windward! 3 hour after we left Auckland we touched down in Nadi after a very pleasant flight, our first for about 7 years we think! Strange to think that a trip that took us eight and a half days was dispatched so quickly!

Anyway we're delighted to be back in the warm air and we've just met up with Lionel our skipper - a quick drink and then we'll be aboard the good ship Kiapa.

Power restored

This morning's our last in the marina - we move out to a mooring at lunchtime - so we're up early for last jobs whilst we still have the luxury of walk-ashore access, 240v electricity supply and nearby showers and washing machines. It was another cold night and it's pretty foggy this morning:

 

Yesterday was a busy but successful day, The new batteries arrived and are now installed so we can relax about power usage at last.

The old batteries in situ

The new ones. The  smaller, black one is the engine starting battery and the maroon ones are two of the three Trojan deep-cycle house batteries 

We also had a good meeting with Roger the sail maker to discuss the design of our new mainsail cover and removed our anchor chain to take it to Whangarei (en route to Auckland on Thursday) to have it shot-blasted to remove the rust and then re-galvanised.

The marina is suddenly filling up fast with boats returning from the Pacific islands. It's great to see some familiar faces again and last night Bob and Anne from Charisma (we last saw them in Fulaga) came over for a drink, bringing a brilliant slide show of people photos from the island.

Anyway, better get on!

In the land of the long wet cloud

Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand; many meanings have been given for the name but the most popular and authoritative is “long white cloud". Voyagers to New Zealand were guided towards it during the day by a long white cloud and at night by a long bright cloud. At the moment, "long wet cloud" would be more accurate, with "bloody cold" thrown in for good measure. It's certainly a bit of a shock to the system after 6 months in the Tropics!

Weather apart, all is very well with the Maunie crew and boat. We have a week in the marina before moving out to the mooring so have been busy taking full benefit of the convenience of being able to walk ashore and access everything. The advantage of having been here before is that we know where things are and who to turn to when we need advice or assistance with boat jobs. So the outboard motor has already been serviced, we've had the headsails off for a bit of work, we have just agreed a course of action to replace our batteries and, of course, a substantial amount of clothing, bedding and seat covers has gone through the excellent washing machines here. 

The expensive project, battery replacement,  has seen us doing lots of research into the various different types (lead-acid, AGM, Gel, Lithium, the choice is bewildering and, of course, everyone you talk to has their own favourites) and then the different brands. We've finally decided to stay with lead-acid deep-cycle batteries and an American brand called Trojan; a good compromise on cost whilst promising strong performance and reliability. They should be here on Monday and we'll part with the best part of £600 for four batteries; the current ones lasted 5 years and we should do better than that with the new ones (especially with a few expert tweaks to our solar panel controller).

The other great thing about coming back to New Zealand is that Horace, our Honda CRV, was waiting for us, polished like new, thanks to the careful over-winter care of Claire and Tony in Auckland. We went there on Tuesday (a 4-hour bus journey), had a coffee with our friend Trish in the city centre (wow, cities are busy!) and then took the ferry across to North Shore to got to see Claire and Tony. We were delighted to meet their new puppy, Ursa, a 12-week-old Newfoundland who's just a gorgeous bundle of fur.

Yes, I am pretty cute, eh?

Whilst we're busy here, we are also keeping an eye of the weather for the passage down from Fiji as several boats we know are on their way at the moment. It looks a little 'interesting' just not as there's a big depression sweeping across the course in the next couple of days:

The red blob spell rain squalls and gale force winds with very rough seas

Most boats are burning diesel in light airs in order to get south of it; they can't afford to hand around as North Island of NZ will get hit by another front (more rain and strong winds) on Wednesday:

So, on the whole, we'll put up with a bit of cold and wet here in the marina, rather than being out there!

Thanks for all the emails and messages from you blog-followers, by the way. The story of Meli struck a chord with many of you and it has been lovely to hear from you all. When we fly back to Fiji next Friday to crew Kiapa back down we'll hope to be able to update the blog with a different kind of sailing experience.

The story of the Fulagan Penguin

This post is a little tribute to our recently-lost friend Meli who died last week at the age of around 50.

When we arrived in Fulaga we were 'adopted' by a family in the village, Meli, Jiko, Jona (8) and Jima (14 months). Meli was initially the 'strong, silent type' but mainly because his English wasn't that good; we soon found him to be a very caring and talented man and his English improved over the five weeks as we had more conversations with him.

Meli was, we discovered, one of the island's best carvers (an accolade in itself with so much talent in such a tiny place) and, almost from the moment we arrived, he and Jiko started to plan our leaving presents, in the nicest possible way. In a place where the people have so few material possessions (and are probably the happier for it), it struck all of us visiting cruisers that our hosts were so keen to give us leaving presents that would ensure that we would never forget them.

Anyway, Meli and Jiko soon realised that Dianne is madly keen on penguins; we think we gave them our boat card,featuring our penguin logo, designed by Graham's sister Hilary. Meli had, of course, never seen a penguin or, we later discovered, even a picture of one so he went to the school and looked in an encyclopedia - he even watched the DVD of 'Happy Feet' on the school's laptop!

So, armed with some sketches, he started to carve a penguin as our leaving gift. He accidentally left the unfinished carving on a shelf in the house one day and, though we pretended not to see it, Jiko realised that we had spotted it and so the secret was out. Actually this turned out to be a very good thing as we saw it transform, over many hours of work, from a rough outline into this:

at our request, he added his name to the base:

So the the carving has become known as Meli Penguin and, now that we've arrived in NZ, he's standing proudly on our nav table, looking up at the mast.

With the tragic news last week of Meli's death, Meli Penguin means even more to us; the carved drum that we bought from him as a wedding present for Dianne's godson and nephew Paul and Kaylie will likewise have an extra meaning.

So, Meli, this is a heartfelt tribute you to you. We feel privileged to have known you.

A final farewell wave from Meli as we left Fulaga

Safely arrived in Opua, NZ

We finally tied up at the Quarantine Dock in Opua at 9.00pm local time after a voyage of 1170nm in just over 8 days.

 

The final pilotage up the river in the dark was fine and we are one of three boats to have arrived within half an hour of each other, so we congratulated each other and then repaired to our respective boats for a celebratory drink. It feels odd to be completely still (there's not a breath of wind here) after 8 days of constant noise and motion so we think we'll sleep well tonight.

 

We're preparing for a spaniel to come aboard tomorrow with the bio-security team – the dogs are trained to sniff out fruit (there was a big scare here when an Australian Fruit Fly was discovered in nearby Whangarei and it's thought possible it came as a stowaway on a yacht) and other interesting substances. Dianne will, of course, have to be restrained from wanting to give it a cuddle. All being well we'll be free to stroll ashore by lunchtime.

 

Thanks to all of you who've followed our voyage and sent word of encouragement – it means a lot to hear from you.

 

 

Final Day - "This is what it's all about"

Wow, what a lovely way to finish off a long passage, with a superb last day's sailing! At 00.00 UTC we were at 34: 33 S, 174.25 E with 36 miles to run.

 

We've been close-hauled all night but the wind has been gradually shifting to help us steer a nice curving line toward our destination. At the moment, the wind is still good, 13 knots from W beginning to turn WNW so we're easing sheets and making a good line for Opua at around 6.5 knots. The sun is shining, the sea has calmed and the Windpilot is doing a great job. Mind you, yesterday Dianne spend a couple of hours hand-steering, with a big smile on her face. "This is what it's all about," she said, "so I'm not letting Wiinie have all the fun!".

 

This has been a nearly-perfect passage for us. Apart from the horrible conditions in the weather trough on day 2 south of Fiji, we've had good weather and the motor has run for only 46 hours (but motor-sailing rather than plugging into zero wind). Maunie has performed wonderfully well and the breaking waves over her bows has been a very thorough test of the deck re-sealing that we did in Tonga; delighted to report no leaks at all. We're both feeling a pretty tired but otherwise very happy.

 

We should get in at about 9.00pm local time so will get our Customs and Bio-security inspection in the morning. So, need to find a way of eating the eggs and bacon left in the fridge before they are confiscated! Ah, that'll be breakfast, better make final batch of bread rolls and hope the officials don't start too early on Sundays!