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Published: October 31st 2010
Summary of Trip
Sailed from Lautoka, on the west coast of Viti Levu Fiji, to Whangarei, NZ.
Started from Lautoka at 10:30 am on Tuesday 21st September and arrive in Marsden Cove Marina 22:08 on Wednesday 29th September, having travelled 1195 nautical miles (nm) (or 2,217 km) at an average speed of 5.8 knots. The best 24 hour run from noon to noon was 158 nm with an average run of 143 nm.
The lead up to the trip
After Sharron left us in Denarau, our main jobs were to find a third crew for the trip back to NZ and get Hakura ready.
To find a crew member, we put up notices in the Port Denarau Marine Office, the Vuda Point Marina and we had already put up a notice in Musket Cove. We also put up a couple of notice around the wharf area in Denarau. As well, there were a couple of notices in the Marina Office for people interested in coming sailing so we emailed or phoned these people.
The first person to respond was a 70 year old Austrian man who was a voluntary in eastern Fiji. I called him
and he was considering coming over to see us early in the week of 20 September.
So with the crew search underway we turned to the issue of engine exhaust coming into the cabin. A quick look with the engine running showed the problem was a crack in the exhaust pipe where it left the engine block. In a few minuted John had the pipe off and we went to see the local engineering works.
Yep, they could fix it by Monday 13 September. If I had my papers from Customs I would get sales tax off the price. So on the 13th I turned up with the $120 (Fijian) and my papers. Oops, I did not have a Lautoka number as I had not yet reported into Lautoka and I needed that number to get the sales tax off. So I needed to go to Lautoka. This could be done by local bus into Nadi and minibus into Lautoka for grand cost of $3.
Catching the local nus went ok, when I finally found the right spot to stand. A Fijian man was also waiting and he was also going to Lautoka and said he would
show me where to get the minibus. We were some of the first get on the bus and I climbed in the back. In a short time the minibus was full and off we went.
On the way the driver played a movie for us, which was interesting as it was about 30 to 50 minute trip. The movie was about 2 black FBI agents dressing up as white hip chicks so as to catch the kidnappers of the girls. I was listening to my ipod though do remember the load laughter caused by a toilet scene where a black guy was making lots of noise in the ladies toilets. The Fijian women seemed to enjoy that bit.
After a quick walk around Lautoka I found the port and Customs and after an hour was out with my local Lautoka permit. Back to Denarau on two local buses and then off to the Hilton to use their pool.
One of the many benefits of travelling with John is that he will find out about any local pools that we can use. After John’s first visit to the Hilton had gone without a hitch, we were away. The
usual routine was to walk around to the Hilton about 2 pm and stay till about 4:30m, when the heat had started to drop. This worked well every day while we were in Denarau. Some of the staff around the pool knew we were not guests and it did not concern them.
After the pool we would head back to Lulu’s Bar, which is right on the water front where the ferries unload. We would take our usual seats and have a smoothes. We often talked with the lady running the bar. She enjoyed the fact that we came back every day to her place.
We sometimes eat in one of the bars or restaurants or occasionally we would have a take away. Our main food was the great and cheap samosas; yummy.
On Saturday night, we watched the All Blacks play Australia. The place seemed to have as many Aussies and Kiwis with the Fijian support being split 50 50. The Aussie supporter really enjoyed the first ¾ of the game, while they were a bit quiet in the final ¼ as the ABs came back to win the game. It was a great game, which
It was bloody heavy.
We could only use about 1/4 of the flesh. The rest was shark food.had everybody on the edge of their seats.
The low point of his stage was the morning of Wednesday 15th as we had nobody as the third crew and I finally worked out that John was not going to do the crossing double handed. By that afternoon though we had had several calls from people interested, including a 21 year old kiwi on a surfing holiday who was coming to visit us on Friday. So when I headed off to the pool that afternoon the world was a bit brighter.
On Thursday morning we had had visit from 2 possible crew - a Fijian who wanted to be paid and said he was a bit scared to sail on Hakura cause she was so small. I liked his honesty. The second was an American lass with lots of experience and able to go anytime.
By the end of the day we had all agreed that Davina would join us on the trip to Whangarei. That left us with the issue of the Austrian and the young Kiwi. I emailed and left messages for the Austrian to say we had crew. The young Kiwi was not answering his
phone so we had to wait for him to arrive. Sure enough he turned up (with his 2 surfboards) on Friday morning. He did a great job of proposing the options to get him self a ride home. In the end there was insufficient sleeping place for it to work. To make up for it I agreed for him to come with us to Lautoka.
We left Denarau on Saturday noon and headed out to the local islands for our last swim/snorkel in Fiji. On the way in to Lautoka we caught another Spanish Mackerel. Dinner was fish again.
After catching the fish, we decided to head into Saweni Bay (just south of Lautoka) for Saturday night. This bay had very muddy water and this lead to my big mistake of the trip. I though that with such muddy water there would be no coral and as well I left checking the charts to the others (the second mistake). So while doing a sweep through the middle section of the bay looking for any problems to anchoring we found the reef. We hit it at about 5 knots. I throw Hakura into reverse and managed to get her
off right away. We headed over to the other side of the bay (and nearly hit the reef over there) and dropped anchor. We went over the side to check for damage. John and Robert (the young Kiwi) went looking at the bottom of the keel. I went and looked for any cracks where the lead keel joined the keel stub and thankfully nothing was to be seen.
It took me several minutes to calm down after that. Thanks to the great work done by Peer, Bernard and Noel, the boat builders at Norsand Boatyard, the keel was sound and able to handle to impact.
On Sunday evening we anchored just off the main wharf in Lautoka ready on Monday to start provisioning Hakura for the trip south and, hopefully, clear Fijian Customs on the Tuesday.
First thing (ish) on Monday we headed into Lautoka to start the stock up for the trip. Davina and I had to go to the Immigration Office to have her signed off one yacht and signed onto my yacht. That done, we went looking for John and Robert. This job took near on an hour as both of them are not
Doug' birthday party
We all put on clean party cloths. known for their ability to sit still for long.
We did finally meet up outside a local supermarket where we did the non-fresh food shopping. John had the great idea of getting the shop to freeze the milk and fruit juice and we were to come back the next morning to get the frozen stuff. The manager agreed and we headed back to Hakura to stow the remainder of the goods and then say goodbye to Robert.
After a quick few trips out to Hakura to get all our food on board (including a $30 pack of Nuragrain) we had it all stowed away and then our minds turned to how we could cool down during the coming afternoon. It was decided that the closest pool was at a resort next to the Vuda Point Marina (about 20 minutes south of Lautoka), thus we could all get a swim and Robert could check for any yachts about to leave for NZ in the next day or so.
After a short taxi ride to the resort we had our smoothes and then a swim. The resort was the First Landing Place, a very refreshing place.
At about
6 pm we headed out to the road to await the local bus back to Lautoka. This was after the guy on the gate said the last one would go past in 30 minutes heading for Lautoka and there were no more that day for Nadi (for Robert). The bus arrived in a couple of minutes and turned out to be heading to Nadi, so John, Davina and I got off (along with 5 locals) when the bus reached the main road. We waited only a couple of minutes before a minibus was flagged down and took all of us back to Lautoka for $1 each.
After another fruitless taxi ride to find a good Indian restaurant in Lautoka Davina, John and I ended up having pizza for dinner before heading back to Hakura. Earlier that day, we had had the great idea of leaving the dinghy on the banks of a side creek rather than have to go through the main gates of the port after dark. This was a great idea at high tide; though at low tide when we got back it was not such a great idea.
Davina and John were able to get
on the dinghy from the muddy bank; I had to walk around through the main gates (which was no problem with only the usual “bula” from the guards).
We got up early on the morning of the 21st to get the fresh fruit and vegies plus the frozen stuff before I went to Customs to clear out of Fiji.
The veggie shopping went really well including Davina buying some green mangos (much to my horror - oh ye of little faith they were very great in the 2nd half of the trip). After that we went off to the supermarket to pick up the frozen goods. Well not exactly frozen as they thought we wanted them in the fridge not the freezer. Lesson - watch them put the stuff in the freezer next time.
I left John and Davina to take the food out to Hakura and headed into the Customs office. After less than 40 minutes I was out with all the paperwork done and our Customs clearance in my boat folder. Next stop Whangarei.
The Trip
Well, actually no. We did call into Denarau to do the last of the watering and fuelling
up while John run off to get some apple scrolls and samosas for us. John did get the scrolls but there were no samosas left.
We headed back out about 1500 and after clearing Denarau Harbour set our sights on the Navule Passage through the reef off south-western Fiji and then onto Whangarei.
We passed through the passage right on sunset and turned south as the night settled in. Inside the reef we had 20 knots south-easterly and a slight chop. Outside the reef we still had the south-easterly, though it picked up as we cleared the shelter of Viti Levu, plus now we had the full power of the ocean swell. Not a big one but compared with the claim conditions on the inside we all took awhile to get use to the extra movement.
I set our heading at between 200 and 210 degrees so as to give us easier movement and greater speed whilst making some westering. The westering was not a big issue as it is usual to meet westerly winds once you get below 30 degrees of latitude so being on the west side of the run line would be easy to
make up then. As it happen we basically stayed on this port tack (wind coming over the port side of the yacht) for the next 6 days and we never got ant westerly winds the whole trip.
The first night we reduced the mainsail to the 2nd reef (about 50% of the total area of the full mainsail). We shock out the 2nd reef next morning and left the 1st reef in (about 70% of the full mainsail). We did not shake out the 1st reef until the last day off the NZ coast, 7 days later.
We started to settle into the routine of our 3 hours on and 6 hours off with the job of cooking the main meal every 3 days. John took on the job of cooking breakfast most morning. Those who know John will understand why this was the case.
Life continued like this for the next 6 days only broken by the capture of a huge mahi mahi (about 1.5 m long) on the afternoon of 23 Sept. Unfortunately we did not have a working freezer or fridge so we could only keep a third of the fish. It made a
lovely dinner and great breakfast.
I did see a dolphin on the morning of the 24th; though only saw it once and right in front of Hakura. A day later, John and I saw a pod of 20 dolphins feeding about 100 meters of the starboard bow. They were there for several minutes then they crossed in front of us. When they were directly in front of Hakura they appeared to take off at a great rate of knots while still heading off the port bow. Not sure what spooked them, it may have been Hakura. A couple of days out from NZ John did see one more pod though he was unable to wake us.
There were few seabirds about; we did have a few shearwaters follow us along with solitary albatrosses, though the albatrosses did not come in close.
After a couple of days we started to notice the temperature dropping and when John had his bucket bath halfway through the voyage the water was cooler. By the afternoon of the 28th when we all had a bucket wash the water was much colder.
On the morning of the 28th the wind dropped to
nearly nothing and swung around to the northeast (and later northwest) so I decided to shake out the first reef and turn on the motor as we were close to NZ and the wind did not look like coming back up for awhile (it only picked up late on the 29th as we headed around Whangarei Heads).
As the 28th was my birthday we all put on clear cloths and had a party lunch followed by lovely pikelets made by John. A great birthday, thanks John and Davina.
The sea was virtually flat over the last two days so the ride was very comfortable and although we were nearly back in NZ the weather was warm and stayed that way until sunset on the 30th as we headed into Whangarei Harbour.
Due to the lack of wind there were very few seabirds about. We were able to motor right up to an albrotros, which was left sitting on the water, and all it could do was swim out of our way.
Early during the morning of the 29th we sighted the hills behind Cape Brett. By mid morning we were just south of Cape Brett and
could clearly see Piercy Island and the coast to the south of the Cape, including the Poor Knights Islands. Our course took us between the Knights and the Northland coast. While off Cape Brett John called out that there were a couple of whales, no dolphins or something off the starboard bow. Davina and I rushed on deck and we saw these fins sticking out of the sea just off the bow. As we got closer we could see that they were the flippers of a couple of seals, most likely New Zealand fur seals.
These animals will warm themselves by sticking their flippers up in the warm sunlight. This was the first time I had seen seals so far north though I had seen a very young seal in among the boats in the Town basin Marina way back in May.
The seals allowed us to get very close and after one of them had check us out they dived and were gone. I think that there must be very little shooting or harassment of seals from fishing boats in this area otherwise the seals would have disappeared at the first sign of Hakura being nearby.
The rest of the 29th was spent in a warm sunny motor down the Northland coast. The sun went down as we were off Taiharuru, about an hour north of Bream Head (that is called the dragon’s head by Lorrain). We dropped the mainsail after rounding Bream Head and prepared to motor through the heads and finally into Marsden Cove Marina.
Marsden Cove Marina is the location of the Customs arrival berth for Whangarei and is was where arriving yachts must report in to await customs and quarantine clearance. It is a fairly new marina and is not marked on the charts for the area and therefore not on the electronic chart that John had on his handheld GPS unit. This lead to the very funny situation of our GPS track heading onto the beach just west of Marsden Point and then going across the beach road and behind the first row of houses. After all our efforts to stay away from the shore while up in the tropics we now were heading onto the beach in the dark.
Thankfully the entrance is well light (and I have been into it on several occasions including in the dark
Our last sunset at sea
Over the coast just north of Whagarei Heads before) so it was no problem.
Way back on the 21st I had sent an email of the pre-arrival Customs form to New Zealand Customs (as required) which had given our intended arrive date as 1 October and location as Whangarei. Two days out from arriving I had radioed Taupo Radio with a revised ETA as being the 29th and asked Taupo Radio to pass the revised ETA to Customs in Whangarei. Also when coming through the Heads I had called up Whangarei Radio on the VHF radio and asked them to phone Bruce from Whangarei Customs to let him know we had arrived at Marsden Cove. All this meant that we were expecting NZ Customs to come and visit us on the morning of the 30th. Thus we could have a good night’s sleep while tided up to the Q berth in the Marina.
At 0930 Bruce from NZ Customs came on board and within an hour we were through the paperwork and officially in New Zealand. Before noon we had been visited by NZ Quarantine and cleared to leave the Q berth, so we then headed out of the Marina and started the 3 hour trip into Whangarei from the Heads.
We finally tided up in berth B9 (the same berth Hakura and I had had when we left 11 weeks before) in the Town Basin Marina at 1500.
We were back safe and sound though there is a long list of stuff that needs fixing or replacing. This is mainly cause the stuff just wore out. Well that is the next phase of the story after I get a job to pay for it all.
A great trip made even better by the fantastic efforts of John and Davina. You made the trip easier with your efforts and it was fun to have shared the time with you. Thanks guys you were (and are) great.
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Mike
non-member comment
Nice One
Sitting here on a miserable Melbourne day after 2" rain in 24 hours(got to love that La Nina) reading your blog. Had to laugh at you hitting the reef in Lautoka. We did the same thing 36 years ago...don't know if it was the same one but it was in the harbour on the northern side with the same murky water. Were not going as fast as you though!! Looks like you all had a good time and trip back home, would love to go back to the Yasawas sometime. Cheers, Mike (what happened to the AB's, been here so long I'm nearly converted to the aussie cause.)