Leaving for New Zealand

We'll be departing Suva at 09.00 local time today, Tuesday. The weather window looks 'interesting' - not much wind for a couple of days and some headwinds at the end of the week but nothing above about 18 knots as far as the forecast has it at the moment. Mind you, it's all a bit unsettled so we'll see what we get!

The routing will include quite a big zig-zag around the weather systems so is about 1230nm and so we should be into Opua around the 29th. As usual we'll aim to update the blog each day and will update http://www.yit.co.nz/yacht/maunieofardwall with our position each morning. As ever we can receive emails (without attachments) on passage.

Looking forward to being on the move again!

Maunie is injured, and we feel terrible

Like every anchorage, we approached the muddy bottom of Suva harbour with care, particularly with the weather we've been having recently. However we re-anchored here ten days ago after re-fueling and have happily sat through 20+ knots of wind, so were absolutely confident that our anchor was securely dug in. The anchor is rated for a 50ft boat and we had 50m of chain out in only 7m of water depth (usually we'd go for 35m).

So this morning as the wind dropped we felt totally happy to leave Maunie for a couple of hours to go shopping and get some lunch ashore. What we didn't expect was a sudden rain squall in our absence which caused the wind to change direction by 60 degrees and blow at 25 knots, but only briefly. It was enough to 'un-set' the anchor, however, and then it ploughed though the soft mud until our lovely boat hit something hard - a big steel mooring buoy with a commercial tug attached, a hundred metres behind.

Thank goodness our friends Carl and Linda on Navara spotted Maunie moving and raced over in the dinghy; Lester and Lisa on Obsession joined them a minute or two later. We always leave the keys in the ignition so, thankfully, Carl was able to start the engine and motor Maunie clear before the expensive Windpilot steering gear was damaged. Unfortunately the metal buoy had already done damage to both sides of her shiny hull.

The buoy which collected Maunie

Ouch - steel beats fibreglass

The starboard side took the worst of it

The first we knew of all this was as we climbed out of the taxi from our shopping trip and were met by Carl; it was so shocking to hear that Maunie had been hurt. The amazing crews of Obsession and Navara had moved her to a mooring, with the help of the Yacht Club boatman, and we can't thank them enough for saving her from really serious damage. Thankfully we found that the red paint left by the buoy could be polished off but some serious scratches remain, some of them revealing the original blue hull colour:

The good news is that there is no serious damage so the cosmetic wounds will have to be addressed when we get to NZ. The bad news is that our insurance has a £1000 excess whilst we are out of NZ waters, so today has been an expensive as well as upsetting day.

And it's still bloody raining here!!!!

Talented Fijian Women, Dodgy Weather and talking to Prudence and Patience

We knew the weather would be awful today (and for the next few days) so took the chance to go up to the Vodafone Arena, near the University, yesterday for the 'Women in Fiji Expo'. Wow, what an sensory overload awaited us: women had been chosen from islands and villages across the country to show their handicraft skills and there was a huge range of woven and sewn items on display. We knew that a couple of the ladies from Fulaga would be there, including Salote whose husband is Mini (the canoe-builder), so it was great to surprise them when we arrived at their stand.

Salote (top left) and her colleagues with just some of their wares - the show was an opportunity to sell as well as demonstrate

With some Honorary Fulagans - Dianne, Linda (from Navara) and Lemba

More products from Fulaga - these ladies are from Jiko's village of Naividamu

Brisk trading - it was great to see the women who had made all these items, rather than dealing with retailers

A novel use of traditional weaving

After all that, we had a complete culture-shock with a visit to the very smart cinema nearby to watch 'The Martian' - entertaining stuff and our first feature film on the big screen for nearly two years!

We returned to Maunie at 6.00pm just as the rain arrived and it has been with us solidly ever since, for over 24 hours. Knowing it was on its way, we'd bought a couple of metres of acrylic canvas so spent this afternoon cutting out new halyard bags to replace the old and rather tatty ones in the cockpit. It looks as though tomorrow will be even wetter so hopefully we'll get them sewn up with the sewing machine and fitted; one less job to do in New Zealand.

This approach is one we'll have to keep to, it seems, as the weather certainly isn't co-operating with us at the moment.

On paper, our journey doesn't look too tricky - 1050nm as the crow flies from Suva to Opua, which should take between 7 and 8 days. The problem is that we are dropping south out of the Tropics where the prevailing wind is SE to NZ where it tends to blow from the SW. The transition between these wind directions will be a weather front which can bring strong squalls, particularly if we encounter it close to NZ. Further complexity is added by strong low- and high-pressure systems following each other across the Tasman Sea from Australia.

The forecasts are only accurate to about 3 days ahead so we rely on watching the patterns of highs and lows and leaving when they look "good". In other words, when they are in relative positions that replicate voyage times that have gone well in the past. As you can imagine, this isn't an exact science so all we can do is pick a likely-looking window and go for it, altering course from the straight line to skirt around the adverse wind and waves as best we can.

The odds of a successful crossing are improved if we start in a period of relatively stable weather and, unfortunately, that's not what we have right now!

This is a screen-grab from the excellent www.windyty.com website which takes the GFS GRIB forecasting model and turns it into animated pictures, showing wind strengths and directions (plus lots of other options). It works for all the open sea areas of the planet, so have a look if you haven't already seen it, as it's quite mesmerising. This photo is for right now (9.20pm as I write) and you can clearly see a swirly thing (as they are not technically known) just north of Fiji. It's a Tropical Disturbance - one notch down from a cylcone (as southern-hemisphere hurricanes are known) - and it is currently delivering pretty horrible weather to us. At the moment it's not too windy but our anchor-drag alarm will certainly be on tonight as the wind is expected to increase and the rain is pretty much continuous. 

The problem with these TD's is that it's pretty hard to predict where they will go next and they usually move surprisingly slowly (unlike the winds revolving around them!); however, the forecasters all seem to think it'll move west to give Vanuatu a bit of a battering, though nothing like Cyclone Pam in March. So in Suva we'll have another couple of days of heavy rain and strong winds and then the big question is how long will it take for conditions to settle down enough to make an informed judgement about a possible voyage south. An email from the forecasters at Gulf Harbour Radio in NZ today recommended staying firmly in touch with Prudence and Patience!

A wildlife video

The decent internet here has allowed us to go back through our videos and find one which we never got around to posting on YouTube. This one was taken two years ago in Galapagos and shows some of the amazing wildlife there - Marine Iguanas, Giant Tortoises and Seals.

You can find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DbaiQAppWU

The colonial sights of Suva

This week promises to be windy and wet so we're doing the city thing as well as some boat jobs. Here are a few more photos of some of the old colonial aspects of the city that we've visited over the past few days:

A period photo of the Grand Pacific Hotel, now restored to more than its former glory

The airy central hall

We treated ourselves to a huge and delicious lunch. The glasses contain dessert and water, not alcohol!

The reception team pose for a photo shoot. The staff are impeccably trained and very friendly

 The size of our lunch dictated a long walk so we passed some other interesting sights:

The guard at the President's residence

The Suva bowls club - it could be England, apart from the trees

We also visited the very good National Museum which had a great display of traditional canoes, including a drua catamaran, built in Fulaga in 1906:

The beautiful drua

 There was also a display of modern wedding dresses which are made with tapa cloth which is traditional material of beaten bark fibres:

Dianne was given a warm welcome by this chap as we walked around the displays:

Enjoying Suva

We are thoroughly enjoying the city experience of Suva - it's a really busy place and yet retains a friendly feel to it. We've completed some good re-stocking of food stores and bought some new clothes to replace our salt- and sun-damaged ones. We took a bus up to the University of the South Pacific which takes a scenic route along the waterfront past some iconic old buildings. Our timing wasn't great, though, as the bus stopped at a Catholic School en route at the end of the school day and it filled up completely! Getting off at the next stop was a challenge.

At the downtown Bus Terminal

Looks ok and fully air conditioned - and only 70c each for the journey

Colonial buildings hemmed in by modern shops and offices

The City Library

The Grand Pacific Hotel - left empty and derelict for about 20 years but just re-opened aft a multi-million dollar re-build

The bus filled to (over) capacity with school children

Yesterday we were delighted to meet up with Batai, who was the island nurse in Fulaga when we were there last year. He now works for the Corrections Department in Suva so is based in the prison just opposite the Yacht Club. He came over with a colleague, Tamara, and we had a great catch-up.

With Batai and Tamara at the Suva Yacht Club

It's pretty windy here at the moment, thanks to a very big high pressure system south of Fiji but at least we are getting some good weather. Suva is known as 'soggy Suva' due to the amount of rain and the humidity which prevail here so we are enjoying the abnormal conditions. 

We're looking at weather windows to head south to NZ and there may or may not be an option on Monday so we are keeping an eye on it. It's a challenging 8-day passage and we need to pick the right weather as boat who get it wrong have a very uncomfortable time indeed. Meanwhile there's loads to do here, both on board and ashore. Graham is very happy to have fixed the water leak in the generator pump, thanks to some excellent help from the Dive Centre who procured a new seal, and, after a delay in Customs, some spare parts for the water-maker have arrived to allow us to do a service on it. Meanwhile Saturday is Fiji Day so we are trying to find out what will be happening in town to celebrate it. No one we have talked so far to seems to know!

In Suva, after an almost perfect sail

We arrived in Suva yesterday after an almost perfect sail. We'd left Vunisea in Kadavu a couple of days before to sit out a very windy Friday in the lovely anchorage of Namara and that was a great, challenging beat into the wind. However, yesterday's departure was in sunshine with a 15-17 knot wind on the beam (ie blowing at right angles to our course to allow us to ease the sails and get Maunie really going well).

A few white ones over the bow

Making between 7 and 8 knots

We filmed a short, 3-minute  video of the sail and you can find it here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXnnpsL0D1Q&feature=youtu.be

The arrival into Suva was easy but quite a culture shock after the islands. However it's been fun to be here so far.

The shock of seeing the city after weeks out in the islands

Huge rafts of rusty fishing boats in the harbour

With impeccable (but entirely lucky) timing, Lionel and Irene from Kiapa and Kerry and Damian from Sel Citron had come over to Suva yesterday in a hire car to do the famous shark dive near Bega, just along the coast. We met in the Royal Suva Yacht Club for a beer, had a meal in the city in the evening and joined them at their very smart B&B this morning to watch the rugby.

At the start of the England vs Australia match

Apart from the result, it was really great to catch up with them all.