Sailing around the world

Maurice and Sophie, with their children, Massimo and Annabelle.

Over the past year since the yacht “Timella” struck a reef in Fiji and sank, giving her three crew over to the perils of the sea, we have often thought, what if….

Along with other cruisers we sail the oceans of the world, each in our own little self contained unit. A live aboard yacht has its own power, water, gas, transport, medical, refuse, security and maintenance departments (and the list goes on). The community of cruising sailors is close knit and generally always ready to lend a hand to someone in need, never knowing when you will be needing assistance yourself. Boats and their equipment have a habit of letting you down at the worst possible moment.

We have grown accustomed to our own rigging and the sound it makes. At 15 knots there is a low hum, at 20 knots a soft tuneful whistle while at 25 knots and above the noise increases dramatically. At 25 to 30 knots, even anchored behind the shelter of a reef the waves slap frantically and buck and bounce the boat. You can hear the roar of the sea and the waves crashing against the reef. Out there in the open sea it is seriously rough.

Sailing south between the Vanuatu Islands recently put us hard on the wind into a rough sea. It was uncomfortable to say the least and after 10 hours we had had more than enough and welcomed the opportunity of anchoring in a sheltered bay for a night’s nerve relaxing rest before taking on the remainder of the journey in hopefully better conditions.

Away from the bright city lights either passage making or at a remote anchorage the night can be dark like you seldom experience ashore. The stars on a clear night are awesome but on a cloudy or dark and stormy night it can be impossible to see your hand in front of your face, let alone the horizon a few miles away. While miles out from land the dark is not too much of a problem but close to a coast line, hazard or reefs it is nerve wracking.

We have written about the reefs in Fiji and how the charts there are a little out of kilter with the navigation aids aboard. Huge bommies (coral heads) crop up at random like mushrooms, here there and everywhere.

Tucking into the shelter of a lagoon is often through a narrow pass between rock hard walls of coral where the current can sometimes run as fast as the engine will drive the boat, ripping either in or out depending on the state of the ever changing tide.

Put all these worst conditions together on one night along with a Mayday call, then consider the what if question….. What if we had been the only ones to pick up a Mayday call?

How easy is it to leave the shelter while the wind is well and truly whistling, to motor or sail into the wind and sea through reef strewn waters with still hours of darkness ahead?

No matter how much you would like to help, no matter how capable you are, no matter how reliable your equipment, it still takes a boat load of courage to haul up your anchor and leave your safe and stable position. Then dodge the coral heads, the reefs, the rip in the channels and head out into the worst of it, in the dark.

It was in conditions like this that Maurice and Sophie went out to rescue the crew of “Timella”.

Hats off to them, or maybe hats on for them. They were nominated by the New Zealand government for the United Nations award for exceptional bravery in saving lives at sea. They are about to be presented with this well deserved top award. They collect their medals at a ceremony in London in the next month or so.

I am sure all sailors everywhere will join with us in saying, “Congratulations to them both”.

See the full story of this dramatic rescue elsewhere on our website at:

http://my.opera.com/cjwilding/blog/2008/10/13/timella-rescue



Passage to Nomea

10 Sept 09

Arrived Noumea, New Caledonia. Not such a long sail at 340 miles. Made it on one tack but we had to sail hard on the wind – not as predicted, but the wind eventually freed to 60 degrees apparent. This made for a fast but uncomfortable sail for the first day in the choppy and uneven swell. Never the less we clocked up over 200 miles for the 1st 24 hours and were on schedule to do the trip in a day and a half with the wind freeing and doing 11 knots at times. With the sea settling to aft of the beam it was time to hoist the much patched spinnaker. Yep, you’ve guessed it, it lasted half an hour. Even I now have to admit that this sail is now toast. With the wind freeing even more we had to sail due south and on a dead run making our progress relatively slow.

We made the Havannah passage (a 14 miles cut through reefs) just after dark and along with head winds and miserable rain made our way to a sheltered bay and decided to park and continue the rest of the 30 mile passage to Noumea at first light.

We are now settled safely under anchor and getting on with the normal tasks after checking in, i.e. resting, cleaning and eating. Meeting up with friends (Paul, Brent and Josh) from the 50’ sloop “Montego Bay”, we enjoyed watching the very tense encounter as the SA rugby giants took on the much daunted NZ hard men. SA becoming tri nations champions with a very well deserved victory albeit a very tense and narrow one.

Our intention is to cruise the southern part of New Caledonia in particular the Isle of Pines as soon as the normal chores are completed here.

We will write about out experiences in Espiritu Santo, the blue holes and the Maskelyne’s as well as Lloyd and Ngaire’s visit to us.

James & Lorna

1st Friday in August

The dugong was here first but the cruisers began sailing into the bay at the north west corner of Epi from mid July. Everyone was jumping overboard into the sparkling clear water for the chance to swim with the friendly dugong that forages for food around the anchor chains.

At about three and a half meters the caramel coloured mythological like creature surfaces about three times for a breath then rounds its hippo like back and with a flip of its whale tail dives for the next four or so minutes to feast on the seabed grass along with a few huge turtles that are also regulars. It is an unusual looking animal. I managed to get within a meter or two when it came up for air and the rest of the time I snorkelled on the surface while it “walked” on its fore flippers on the seabed snuffling the sparse grass with nearly ten remora fish hanging off its sides waiting to suck up the scraps. I saw it snap at one of these hangers on when it appeared to get too close to the large flappy mouth.

The racers set off from the beach.
Their hollowed out logs with outriggers all cobbled together with bits of sticks and tied up with twisted vines hardly look sea worthy enough for the two to three mile stretch of open water to Laman Island. They are however surprisingly sturdy and stable. A couple sported the luxury of a go faster stripe but I’m sure all had a bailing scoop. If they could avoid the waves splashing over the 30 cm high sides the weather had conspired to fill them from the heavens while giving the spectators a day long dowsing. Such a pity to have a day of rain for this event but even so we all had a good time.

A bouquet of palm leaves served as the sail that was tied fore and aft with more bits of vine and stripped palm leaves, for the outbound leg. All rope on the island is used to tether their cows. When they reached Laman Island they ditched the sail and rowed back. They made surprisingly good speed out of the bay, one of them almost wearing his sail like a hat when his knots came undone. It didn’t hinder him too much as he finished second and next day came over to us with some pampelmousse from his garden. He didn’t want anything in return for these huge sweeter than usual grapefruits but his eyes lit up with some tins of paint that we can do without. We’re hoping multi coloured go faster stripes will see him into first place next year. Go Jim!

As I said these canoes with the stabilizing outriggers are surprisingly steady and after anchoring at another bay (about 100 meters from the shore) we had four children rowing out to the boat. The eldest 11 years with the youngest no more than two! Mothers the world over, take a tablet and lie down awhile and don’t even think about swimming lessons or life jackets. The children learn a different set of dangers here.

We went a walk through their village of basic houses constructed of wooden poles and woven palm leaf walls and roofs. No soft beds or over stuffed sofas. They sleep on the ground on woven palm leaf mats. A few of the children guided us to the gardens that were a half hour walk away through pretty much jungle following the narrow well trodden paths taking the correct fork every time there was a choice.

On the way back the troop of kids stopped to eat the cacao fruits sucking the juice from around the pips. These pips cleaned and dried are used to make chocolate but not here where they are spat out in whatever direction feels right. The best was watching these youngsters cracking open the pods (a good adult handful size) with a 60cm long machete! Holding the pod in their one hand and whacking it with the machete in the other. Somehow they still had all their fingers.

Life is simple here and full of joy and fun. The trader boat comes into the bay most days and the regular visitors on another cat signal arrivals and departure by a loud melodious drone from a conch shell. We joined in giving 3 blasts on our horn. Sounds like a duck in distress but it got lots of hoots and cheers. Soon other yachties also joined in with their hooters and tooters. The locals created a vocal hooting tooting racket especially if we were late or forgot to sound our horns. Toot toot toot, quack.

James and Lorna