Recently in Passages Category

We knew since we arrived that there would be a weather change this week at Niue. The winds were going to clock around to the north, northwest, west, etc. all the way back to the normal ESE direction. The problem is that the anchorage is on the northwest of the island and is completely exposed to the sea. So, once it got to the northwest, the anchorage became choppy. The winds were forecasted to be less than 15 knots. So, being in a catamaran, we didn't think it would be much of a problem. In fact, on Monday and Tuesday we had a taste of the conditions and it was fine on Tahina. Some of the mono-hulls were less comfortable and a few boats left.

Last night, things got a little different. There was a light front associated with weather change that crossed over around 2 to 4 AM. But, it had a squall with it!

We first notice it getting really choppy and Tahina started bucking a bit - around 2 AM. Suddenly we heard a loud crash in the galley! We forgot to close our dish drying bin and two plates fell out and shattered. Ugh! I went over and closed the bin and took a look outside. Two boats had their navigation lights on and suddenly I heard some calls on the VHF. One boat was leaving and another was asking if everything was ok. They decided they had had enough and were going to move out. Most of the mono-hulls were really bucking around out there. A quick look at the sky and I could see a big black cloud to the northwest headed our way. Winds were up to 25 knots at this point.

Since Tahina was on a mooring closest to the reef, I was pretty awake at this point. I had checked the mooring line underwater days earlier and the rope was in good condition. But, there were coral rocks all around the mooring base. As long as we stayed pointed away from the north, our mooring line should remain free from the sharpest rocks. I put on my handheld Garmin GPS with an anchor alarm set. That way I would know if we slipped free. But, given we were only 75 meters from the shore reefs, I would have to respond quickly if we came loose from the mooring. I stayed on watch. Three other boats left in the next few minutes. It probably wasn't fun preparing to leave in those conditions at that hour.

About 20 minutes later the winds picked up to 30-35 knots (I even saw gusts to 38). And it started pouring rain. I kept an eye on other boats and our position, and made sure our hatches were all fastened tightly. But, the worst of the squall only lasted for about 30 minutes. Things gradually lessened and by 4 AM it was down to less than 10 knots. Niue radio hailed the boats in the anchorage to make sure everyone was ok. A couple of the boats asked what would happen if they continue to Tonga without properly clearing out. They were told Niue could fax the paperwork to Tonga and they could send their fees back. The seas remained choppy with 3-5 foot seas, but I was able to go back to sleep (still with the anchor alarm on) and slept until dawn.

We plan to clear out of Niue this morning and return our rental car. We hope to take a few more pictures before we leave as well. Then later this afternoon we will depart for America Samoa. We have heard you can find good ole American products at the grocery stores there, and they even have American electronics and other goods we haven't seen in a while. Plus, we can have our mail delivered. Maybe they'll have good Internet - but, I won't hold my breath on that. The trip there is about 36 hours. Should arrive by Friday morning.

I've had better Internet connectivity here in Niue, so I've been gradually updating our photo albums and reviewing content on the Tahina site. I realized I never did a summary of our visit to Hao where we watched the total solar eclipse on July 11. Nor did I upload general sightseeing photos of the island. I never even had a chance to upload some photos of our bashing through the waves, and the problem we had with the outhaul strap on our boom. So, at long last, here are some photos of our sightseeing in Hao. Make sure you read the text below for some context to the sights:

We had a wonderful time in Hao, and the people of the island were very nice. When we arrived on Friday evening, they were having a bunch of celebrations on shore. The locals were putting on a bunch of events in honor of all the visitors (about 350 tourists came to watch the eclipse). Hao doesn't have any hotels, so most of the visitors were either camping, staying at local people's homes, and they had made some rooms in the local school's dormitory. They had traditional polynesian dances, games, music, food, arts and crafts, a fishing tournament, and more.

During the day on Saturday, they had a number of kids games: tug-of-war, potato sack races, swimming, etc. On shore, they had set up a temporary restaurant and booths for food and games. They also had stores where they were selling eclipse t-shirts, and local crafts and other souvenirs. We went ashore a couple of times and walked around the island. We sampled local foods in the stores, saw a coconut crab in a cage, found the cemetary, found the town dump, checked out the ocean shore, discovered old abandoned stores that were running while the base was in operation, and watched the locals running their daily lives.

On Saturday night, they had a beauty contest with local high-school girls. They had traditional costumes, and dances as part of the competition. The locals were having a great time with such a large audience for their events. Kids would try to talk to us with a few words of english they had learned, and we would try talking back in our broken French.

The scenery of Hao was also beautiful. We had some fantastic sunsets as well. I hope you look at the photo album above and enjoy the photos of Hao!

Niue Harbor from Tahina - wharf on the left

We arrived at Niue on Thursday afternoon after a 3.8 day sail from Rarotonga. Niue, which is pronounced "new-y", is the world's smallest single island nation. The island is geographically a raised coral atoll. There are almost no beaches, the island is mostly round, it is surrounded mostly by steep cliffs made of coral rock, and drops off to deep waters just a few meters from the cliffs. Most of the livable land is flat above the cliffs and is covered in tropical vegetation. There are no mountains on the island.

We managed to sail around to the west side of the island where there is a bit of an indentation forming a kind of bay. This is the location of the "harbor" for Niue. Staying at Niue is only good if the winds come from the east. Niue has a single concrete wharf with a man-made cut allowing small ships to park and unload supplies for the island. The water is kind of deep for anchoring, so the island has placed moorings for visiting yachts. There is a "Niue Yacht Club" which exclusively caters to visiting yachts (because there are no local yachts). The NYC provides access to a dinghy lift so you can get your dinghy up on the wharf (so it won't be exposed to the surge at the wharf), clean bathrooms and showers on shore, and a cafe/bar and Internet at the clubhouse.

As we arrived, we called Niue Radio and they gathered our boat details and set up a visit with customs. Once we were moored, Karen and I went ashore and took care of customs and immigration. A very smooth and fast process. The people are very friendly. The immigration officer chatted with us in a very friendly manner and told us about some upcoming events on the island.

We then went to the NYC clubhouse and signed in with them. There we met up with several other boaters who were hanging out for Internet and socializing. There were several boats we know in port: "Sea Mist", "Inspiration Lady", "Dreamtime", "Anthem", "Imagine", and "Haze". And several other boats as well. The other boat crews gave us the low-down on Niue. Not only that, but we were immediately invited to do an island tour the next day in a minivan rented by "Inspiration Lady". They had two seats left. Because it was late in the day, I couldn't buy access to the harbor WIFI for Internet. But, I got on for an hour at the clubhouse to at least check E-mails.

The Niue harbor is beautiful from up on the cliffs. We headed back to the boat in the setting sun and were in awe at the view of the sea with the sailboats parked in the bay. This will be a really special place!

Yesterday afternoon we were having a very pleasant afternoon sail making 8+ knots with the spinnaker. We had been experiencing three beautiful days of sailing under nearly ideal conditions. No rain, just enough wind to move along nicely, and following seas. The winds had picked up slightly, but not too strong at all. We have flown the spinnaker at much higher winds and speeds for days at a time.

Suddenly we heard a loud bang and I jumped up to watch the spinnaker slowly falling down - actually, only the lower two thirds of the sail was peeling down as it tore in half. Apparently, something wore through and snapped under pressure. I haven't figured out what yet. We ran to the front of the boat and quickly lowered the top portion of the sail and the sock so it would slow us down more. Although, having two thirds of the sail dragging in the water had already slowed us. We had to cut the starboard tack spectra line of the sail, and then pull up the sheet line to let the rest of the sail free from underneath the boat. We then had a floating mass of sail next to the boat. We pulled it up over the lifelines (being careful not to tear anything more). Within a few minutes we had everything up on the deck. Then we put it all away in the sailbag.

Tahina's spinnaker in the water

So, we don't have a spinnaker to sail with until we can get to a sailmaker to repair the sail (we hope it can be repaired). I'm really puzzled why it happened. We have always been very careful with the spinnaker because it is such a great downwind sail.

We got our regular sails up and were soon moving along, but a knot or so slower. Given that the winds picked up a bit during the night, we could have gone quite a bit faster if the spinnaker was still available. Now, instead of arriving in the morning, we'll arrive mid-afternoon.

We might be able to find a sailmaker in Tonga. But, it might be better to wait until New Zealand where there are plenty of skilled sailmakers. We probably won't need the spinnaker on the sail to New Zealand anyway - since it is generally not a downwind sail.

Our last days in Rarotonga were pretty busy. On Friday I had to get our clearance to leave the Cook Islands. The paperwork was pretty simple except we had to change our crew list to disembark Jason and Lara. They needed a copy of their plane ticket (which I brought with me). The hard part was paying fees. We had to pay a $55 per person for the departure tax (1 each for Karen and I, Jason and Lara had to pay theirs at the airport), and we had to pay the $3 per meter per night for Tahina's being moored in the harbor. That worked out to $46 per night. That is a pretty high price considering the only amenity provided was water (very low pressure water) - no electricity, no dock (we were medmoored 15 feet from a big wharf), no security, etc. But, after the monetary unpleasantness, we had two more days to enjoy before we departed.

Besides the wonderful market on Saturday, we went to the grocery stores several times to stock up a bit on our provisions. Then on Sunday we finally did the cross-island hike. This was only a 4 mile hike, but it was very rugged terrain. We first climbed to the spire (which I had done already on Wednesday). Karen had a difficult time with the very steep climb which is like a staircase made of jungle roots for about 20 stories. I was proud of her because she made it with only a few rest stops. After seeing the beautiful view at the top, I thought it would be an easier downhill run to the other side. Boy, was I wrong!

Before we started down, the trail took us up to a steep hilltop view of the Needle. It was a beautiful view though. The next thing was a very steep climb down from this hill that included a knotted rope to help! There were dozens of similarly steep climbs (some also with ropes) requiring us to scramble down backwards over mud and clay covered slimy rocks and roots. Karen slipped and landed hard on one rock and got bruises and scrapes. But, we all made it. We had a beautiful stream and lots of interesting vegetation and views along the way. And, at the bottom was a nice waterfall and swimming hole where we cooled off and had our lunch.

It was 3:30 PM by the time we hitched a ride back to the harbor. Jason and Lara quickly worked on getting their belongings moved to another boat. We were going to leave before dark. While they did that, I washed off the back of the boat and the dinghy because of all the dirt we tracked on board while going back and forth to the wharf. Then Karen and I started getting the boat ready.

We said our goodbyes to Lara and Jason. They were really great crew, and we are sorry in many ways to see them go. But, we still have some of their larger and heavier items because the plane costs were too high to take them. So, we're sure we'll see them when we get to New Zealand.

We were initially worried we might have one of the boat's anchors on top of ours, but after slowly testing things it turned out we were clear. We got the dinghy back up before we raised anchor and headed out of the harbor. We turned to raise the mainsail when suddenly two humpback whales (about 50 feet in length) surfaced and blew just a boat length away! They might even have gone under us! I immediately turned 90 degrees away and motored off until I was sure we were clear. Got a couple of photos of them as well. I had wanted to get closer to the whales, but not that close!

We were soon sailing off into the sunset - literally. A full moon was out, and as we had dinner we could see the sillohuette of Rarotonga (now about 10 miles away) against a moonlit horizon with bright fluffy clouds floating above the island and lights of the population dotting around the bottom. It was beautiful! I had to try and take a photo, but it was really hard on a moving boat at night. If I had one of the newest cameras with ISO 64000 I probably would have done better. But, maybe this will give you an idea of what we saw:

Attempt to capture beautiful full moon view of Raro at night

Next stop is Niue about 600 miles away.

We have had a great time visiting Rarotonga. Lots of beautiful places to see, and the inexpensive scooter transportation has been liberating. We traveled many miles around the roads and had a wonderful time on the back roads through rolling hills of farms and seeing secluded houses amidst the tropical vegetation. Check out the photo album below and read more below about what has been going on and our plans:

On Saturday several boats arrived. First two cruising sailboats: "Iles de Grace" (which we first met in Manihi) and "Liberty". We helped both get tied up in the harbor. Then a short while later a tall ship called "Picton Castle" with a crew of about 60 arrived under full sail. They had traditional square rigged sails and there were people in the rigging putting it away as they arrived.

Also on Saturday was the market next to the harbor. It was more like a county fair than a market. There were plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables (which helped fill our provisions), but also all kinds of souvenir booths, and many kinds of foods.

We had a final special dinner with Jason and Lara on board. We grilled up some steaks and corn, baked beans, salad, and french bread. And had wine to drink. Jason and Lara have been part of the Tahina family since March. They have been great crew and have enhanced our experiences in many ways since we left Panama. It's actually going to be difficult I think at first to adapt back to just sailing with the two of us. And, we will miss them in many ways beyond just the sailing elements. We wish them well as they attempt to temporarily settle in New Zealand in the coming months. They are leaving some of their gear on board and we will link up with them when we arrive in New Zealand in November. Jason may even fly up to Tonga to help us with the sometimes challenging passage down to New Zealand.

On Friday we cleared out of the Cook Islands planning to leave on Sunday. We are hoping some stronger winds will develop along our route than what has been forecasted for Monday and Tuesday. Otherwise we may be motoring some towards Niue - 600 nautical miles away. If we leave on Sunday we should be there by Thursday.

On Sunday, before leaving Aitutaki, we went ashore and used our scooters to go to the hotel Tamanu Beach which has WIFI for rent. Made some Skype calls home to our daughters, downloaded weather data, wrote blog posts, etc. Then we returned our scooters to the place we rented them from. After lunch the winds were finally calm enough for us to take the dinghy to the south part of the lagoon. There is an island down there called "Honeymoon Island" which is a small beautiful motu surrounded by pristine white sand beaches.

The ride south was an adventure in dodging coral heads. We even had to back up in some places to go around the shallow areas. You wouldn't want to do this on a day where you had poor visibility. As we got closer to the motus, we could clearly see over a dozen kite surfers plying the very shallow waters over a sandy bottom near the island. Aitutaki has the best waters we've seen to date for kite surfing. Well behind the islands was the reef with 8-10 foot waves crashing on the southern side.

We all enjoyed walking around the island and beach-combing for shells, while watching the kite surfers enjoy their sport. Then we saw a tourist boat take a load of snorkelers out to the lagoon. We followed them and did some snorkeling among the coral heads. There were a mixture of live and dead coral as usual, and a fair number of fish. Mostly the normal coral fish, although I did see a napoleon fish briefly when I first circled around one coral head.

On Monday, a rainy morning, I went ashore to do one more Internet update on weather and to do some online banking tasks. I walked 2 miles to the same hotel, but their Internet wasn't working. Ugh! They suggested another hotel which we had been told wouldn't sell to non-guests. So, I tried, and they sold me a card - their model is by the megabyte, which is weird. I got the banking and a couple of Skype calls in, and then walked back to the harbor. I was a bit bummed in a way, because this other hotel was close enough for us to reach their WIFI from the anchorage.

Next I went to customs to clear out. The Cook Islands really love having fees for everything. I had to pay (in NZ$) $50 for customs, $5/night for the anchorage, $20 for agriculture, and $20 for health. And, we still have to pay a $55/person departure tax before we leave the Cooks.

We waited until 1:30 to leave when the tide was higher. There was an approaching squall, but we got out the pass (without incident) before the squall arrived. We soon had our sails raised (with a single reef) and had a pleasant sail down the coast, and missing the squall entirely. But, once we got around the southern tip of the lagoon, we were exposed to the seas. The winds were higher than forecasted, and there were other squalls - which weren't in the forecast. So, it was a bumpy ride. Bumpy enough that for the first time since he joined us, Jason got seasick. We double-reefed before sunset to ease the ride and for safety.

Fortunatley, during the course of the night, the winds eased and after midnight the skies cleared of clouds. By dawn, we had Rarotonga in sight. We shook out the reefs in the sails and sailed in at about 8 knots. We were keeping an eye out for whales, but didn't see any. By 11 AM we were ready to enter the harbor at Rarotonga. We hailed some boats we heard on VHF, and heard there would be room for us. By 11:30 we were med-moored to the wharf between two boats we had seen in Bora Bora, thanks to help from their crews. After we got tied up, the other boaters asked us if we saw the whales. There were several nearby apparently. One of the other boats that arrived before us had seen three of them breech on his way in.

Rarotonga is a beautiful island with much more rugged terrain than I expected. The harbor is right near a town with lots of shops and stores. Scooters are cheap here as well. We look forward to a few days exploring this beautiful place. And, we hope to see the whales too!

Sorry about the delay in blog posts, Internet is hard to find in Aitutaki. We arrived in Aitutaki on Tuesday at about 10 AM. We had reports from our friends on s/v "Songline" that they left Aitutaki at high tide around 9 AM on Monday. So, we motor sailed the last few miles to insure we were there close to 10 (when high tide that day would occur). On the way in, we saw a boat leaving Aitutaki called "Cool Change". I hailed them on the VHF and they verified it was close to high tide. They also gave us some tips on the approach to the pass.

Aitutaki is geographically an island which is nearly an atoll (see map). It already has a surrounding reef and lagoon. However, the lagoon is still very shallow, and there are no deep water anchorages. The main island has hills and small peaks up to 125m. They locals have dug a trench to their main harbor which is the only pass into the island waters. Unfortunately, at this time the pass needs some dredging. In places the pass is barely 1.7 meters deep at high tide in places, and only 20-25 meters wide. Tahinia has two keels that go as low as 1.5 meters below water level.

It was a beautiful morning, and the sun was high enough for us to see the water clearly. We found the pass, and we first lined Tahina up with the entrance. I found that my Navionics charts were way off (not aligned) with the pass. I had to adjust over 300 meters in one direction to get the chart lined up with reality. Interestingly, Google Earth was lined up perfectly.

Lara got up on the top of the main boom for better visibility. Jason and Karen were up on each bow. We had a 2 or 3 knot outflowing current to slow us down. We motored carefully up the pass and all three spotters directed me to go left or right as they saw shallow spots ahead of us. We made it all the way through to the anchorage outside the harbor without touching bottom!

The anchorage we selected is a narrow (25m wide) channel between some reefs and a sandy bank. We put out a stern anchor behind, and our regular anchor ahead. Soon we were sitting pretty between bright turquoise waters, reef, and next to the beautiful green island of Aitutaki.

I went ashore after we had lunch, and visited the customs office. There I filled out paperwork and showed them our passports. We discovered they have increased the fees from NZ$25 to $50 for the entry fee, and from $25 to $55 per person for the departure tax for the Cook Islands. Also, there is a $5 per night fee for our anchorage. But, the good news is that english is spoken here! After six months in first Panama, then the Galapagos, and then French Polynesia, it's a real pleasure to have Engligh be the default language.

We all went ashore later and walked around to familiarize ourselves with the island. There is a visitor center near the harbor and we got some literature. We also found we can rent scooters for NZ$20 per day (about US$16). So, the next day, we rented scooters. Jason and Lara left earlier than Karen and I, but we both ended up doing complete island circumnavigations and learned the lay of the land. The middle part of the island has some small peaks and hills, but there are some roads that cut across the island. The main road stays near the coast except on the southern coast (although there is a dirt road down there).

We discovered there are no dogs on Aitutaki. Apparently there are multiple stories for why they don't allow dogs. After spending several nights in Bora Bora, where the baying of dogs was constant all night, we are actually kind of happy not to see or hear any.

We also discovered the Internet is even more expensive, and just as slow, as French Polynesia. The least expensive place we found so far for WIFI is NZ$10 per hour, and it's 2 miles from our boat. So, we won't be on the Internet as often while we're here.

More Aitutaki stories and pictures to come!

We are only 15 miles from Aitutaki at 7:30 AM this morning. We expect to arrive in a couple of hours in light winds. The pass here is particularly challenging - very narrow, and very shallow. But, we should make it since a boat just like ours has anchored there before. Aitutaki is in the Cook Islands, and is a beautiful atoll with a nice island surrounded by a shallow lagoon and coral reefs. We expect to spend several days here before moving to Raratonga to drop off Jason and Lara for their flight to New Zealand.

UPDATE: We arrived safely at 9:30 AM local time and got through the pass without a problem. We are anchored just outside the harbor. It's a beautiful place which we hope to enjoy thoroughly for the next few days.

Since Karen got back on Wednesday, we have been trying to pack in our final sightseeing. There is a weather system moving through the south Pacific next week that will influence our weather for our trip to the Cook Islands. Due to visa limitations, we have to leave by next Wednesday. But, if we wait until then we will not get good winds for the passage. So, we are now looking to leave on Saturday night (tonight). NOTE: lots of photos of the sights of Bora Bora below.

When Karen arrived on Wednesday at the Raiatea airport, the first thing she did at the boat was to unpack her new bags with all the stuff from the US. It was like Christmas! Just a few examples: a new dive computer, new WIFI antenna, candy, Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, and the very important boat part from South Africa. Karen was really tired after nearly two days without sleep. She managed to sleep for almost 24 hours straight. While she was sleeping, we moved Tahina back to Bora Bora from Raiatea.

Karen had heard about our bike tour last Sunday, so I took her on the trip around the island with the electric bikes on Thursday. Karen had a great time on the bike tour, and I took the opportunity to take several 360 panoramas along the way. We arranged to meet up with Jason and Lara at the famous bar/restaurant called Bloody Mary's. When we arrived, another table was being set up for a bunch of other boaters, so we joined them. I took a 360 panorama of the group in the restaurant. It may be a while before I get the 360s processed though.

Jason and Lara went diving at the pass and saw lots of shark and fish. I went with them on Friday, but we saw fewer fish that day. I did get to try my new dive computer, which worked great. I did see some of the very large lemon sharks, and lots of black-tipped sharks. It was sad to see that nearly all the coral outside the pass at Bora Bora was dead. We covered a large area, and could find very little live coral along the way.

On Friday night, there was another pot luck at the Bora Bora Yacht Club. It's a great way to meet up with other cruisers and pick up tips and compare notes on places to visit. The cupcakes Lara cooked were a popular item and were soon all gone.

Jason installed the new main traveler while I went ashore to get paperwork completed for duty-free fuel. Afterwards, we moved Tahina over to get her fuel tanks filled. Unfortunately, the fuel dockhand did not tie off Tahina's stern, and we shifted such that the corner of the dock rubbed along our starboard bow where we didn't have a fender. This happened while I ran to a bank ATM to get cash since they didn't take credit cards. As a result, our starboard name decal got all scraped up. Bummer! While we were at the fuel dock, Jason took our air tanks to the scuba shop and got them re-filled.

Check out a bunch of photos of the sights we've seen in Bora Bora in this photo album. The album includes photos of the day we got to pet and feed the stingrays, the day I went spearfishing with the new speargun, pictures from our second bike tour, and more.

Today Jason and Lara are going to try a dive with manta rays on the other side of the island. Karen and I are going to do some shopping and prepare the boat for our trip. I'm also working on weather and route planning, and going to get cleared out of French Polynesia with the local gendarmerie.

Our next stop is Aitutaki in the Cook Islands (see map). After exploring there, we will move to Raratonga, where we will drop off Lara and Jason so they can catch a flight to New Zealand. Karen and I will continue on from there on our own.