Yay – we have finally arrived in Tahiti after twenty six days at sea!!! It is really wonderful to stand on terra firma and sit and drink a glass of chilled white wine at a table that isn’t sloping on a seat that I’m not about to slide off! The thing about such a long voyage is that by the time you get to the end of it you’ve forgotten the details of the beginning and the middle of the trip. To write this blog I’ve had to check back into the log and look at some of the video we took to remember the feelings.
We left Wellington on Friday 5 June after several false starts, mainly due to the weather but also to emergency dental surgery. One of the mornings we were due to leave Neil woke up with bad toothache from a tooth which had been niggling for a few days. We managed to see a dentist and an endontist straight away and Neil had two teeth pulled the next day. A few days later I pulled out the stitches and after a course of antibiotics we were finally off.
The voyage can be divided into four parts. The first week we were on a port tack heading NE up the east coast of the North Island to skirt a big low to the east. The wind picked up to strong NW but by the end of had dropped to a light westerly. The winds stayed light for most of the following week as we skirted the top of the low and headed east. However by the end of the week another major low had formed ahead of us so we had to turn north and suffered six days of near gale force winds. Finally for the last week the wind dropped again and the skies cleared and we had some lovely sailing days and some motor sailing days to Tahiti.
Because of the dominant low east of the Chatams Islands at the start of the voyage the course we followed was not the course we planned! We made much more north in the first half of the trip so stopping at Ravavae, an island in the Austral Islands, was not possible. In fact we ended up in the Southern Cook Islands and could have stopped there for a break, but decided to keep moving to Tahiti.
Life on passage is, as you would expect, very much routine with moments of horror and boredom thrown in! We get up/sleep by the sun and set a 14 hour night rota which fitted quite well with the NZ winter when we left. This enables us both to get seven hours sleep between shifts; I do the first 3 hour shift (5-8pm) then Neil takes a 4 hours shift up to midnight. I do the graveyard shift (12-4am) then Neil does the dawn shift until I wake up at 7am. How well you sleep depends of course, on the sea state.
The day time surprisingly passes quite quickly. We are getting pretty flash about changing sails, putting/shaking out reefs and furling the head sails. Artie, the auto-pilot takes care of the helming most of the time unless the wind is too gusty. The focal points of the day are the four time slots when the weather faxes come in via the SSB radio. For some reason NZ MetService decided to spread them out over a five hour period so I have to get logged on four times but it’s also an opportunity to check for emails via sailmail. These are always great to receive, it’s really encouraging to know that someone somewhere is thinking of us.
Food is obviously an important part of the day. Because of the movement of the boat it is impossible (at least I think so!) to cook food from scratch. With the boat lurching violently from side to side there would be pans sliding off the stove, plates flying out of cupboards and food everywhere! Before we leave port I’ll cook and freeze stews which we can reheat with some frozen veggies and rice or pasta (if the weather allows). If things get really rough it’s muesli bars and baked beans from the can! If we’re lucky we’ll catch some fish along the way. As we approached the Leeward Islands Neil caught a monster fish. It had a blue back and a sail fin and was as tall as Neil. It was a short billed spear fish apparently and filled up the freezer!
So here we are in Tahiti. We arrived on Monday morning (29th) which was a holiday over here so had to leave the customs/immigration formalities until Tuesday. We moored up in the new marina on the waterfront in Pape’ete, the main town, and made a beeline for the nearest restaurant where we had a lovely fresh salad for lunch (actually Neil had a burger) with a glass of cold white wine to celebrate. Not much sleep in the arvo then there was a big party on the waterfront in the evening so we wandered down. There was a big public dance with Tahitian rhythms, lots of roulets (food carts) gathered and masses of people, all with flowers in their hair! We had a dance and a feed then finished the evening with whiskey and ice cream – the things you miss when you’re at sea.
Tuesday/Wednesday was a bit of a nightmare with immigration. We had to go out to the airport and they would not give Neil a visa for more than 3 months as we had been lead to believe at the embassy in Wellington. Anyway, after further investigation at the High Commission it turns out that the airport folks were wrong and the Embassy was right!! We had to apply today for a carte de sejours for 6 months which takes 4 weeks and should be a slam dunk. Hopefully all will be well. . .
We are now at an anchorage on the west coast of the island which is pretty but quite crowded. Neil’s sister and her husband Heather and Anthony arrive on Monday so we are looking forward to spending a week on the boat with them. We’ll have to think up something exciting to do for my birthday on Wednesday!
More soon from the Windward Isles
Suzy and Neil