20 October 2024 –Tonga -Vava’u Group- Tongapatu

Before I start I should say thanks to my network but I think I may have found crew for the New Zealand to Sydney leg in early January 2025 -so that is great.

The night was very wet and the dinghy had about 2 inches of water in it. We had not moved and the anchor had held well. It was a nice morning a sort of calm after the storm morning. People got up at a leisurely pace and we had a fruit breakfast. I had looked at the weather and the wind was going to die down and so I thought we would leave a bit earlier say at 12.00noon for Tongapatu. The girls wanted a swim so I thought we would go to a bay and anchor for this and we would then pull up the dinghy on to the davits.  The original plan was to leave about 4.00pm – 6.00pm with a view to arriving at light on the 22nd. The distance was about 169nm.

We took the rubbish ashore and got ready and then upped the anchor. We motored slowly out of the bay and said farewell to Neiafu and the wind picked up. I decided to motor to our bay which was about 3nm away. There was no one anchored in the bay when we arrived as it was a bit exposed due to the wind direction but we had no other bays nearby. We anchored in about 14m of water and it was a bit of a lee shore (wind on shore) so we were not long. Erika and Carolyn swam and the rest of us got up the dinghy.

We set off about 11.30am and had to go round a few islands before we could head out to sea. The wind was about 20 kts and I wondered how long this would last so let’s make the best of it. We initially had one reef in the main and I thought let’s prepare the staysail which proved to be a good decision. We were soon sailing well and fast with this combination and were still in the lee of the islands.

We came out of the lee and the waves built a bit but we were sailing nicely about 8 kts. The waves built to about 2.5-3m and this meant a bit of a roll as they were on the beam.  We carried on with the wind gusting up to 32 but mainly 18-24 kts and we quite regularly say 25/26. Over about 23 kts you get a howl in the rigging so you know what is coming. By this time I had reefed the main to 4 reefs. I thought we may be getting the tail end of the stronger winds and if we could stick with it we will have a faster passage. We were regularly making 7’s or 8kts each hour. When I uploaded the weather again with our updated position, it suggests we could get there tomorrow (Monday) pm. That would be quite helpful otherwise we may have to hang around overnight until light the following day.

The afternoon wore on and we continued to make good fast progress albeit it was a bit rolly from time to time. There was a blue patch on the chart plotter with no depth indicated. This normally means it is less than 10m. Odd in the middle of the Pacific. We obviously needed to avoid this and so we adjusted course as it was on our route. We passed it but could not see any difference in the water.

Keith bless him cooked two carrot cakes in the afternoon to get rid of the old carrots and then prepared dinner of mashed potato (well the market said it was this bit we think it may be a root vegetable of some sort) peas and sliced duck breasts. This was quite a challenge in these rolly conditions but it was delicious. We then followed it with a piece of carrot cake which was good too.

We started to settle into night watches and by 8.00pm we had travelled at least 65 nm and we were nearly halfway. The wind is forecast to move round to the west and to reduce by about 10.00pm but there is no sign of this so far.  We will see how the night goes and how accurate the forecast is.

The picture of the day is of the crew in the cockpit as we sailed along this afternoon.  

Opportunity Year Two

In year two I will be going from New Zealand in early January 2025 across to Sydney and up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025. I will need some more crew.

If there is any interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

The blog will continue as we move through French Polynesia and beyond. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com