escapade sailing

So with the threat from that tropical low we reluctantly left our favourite anchorage off the island of Pele and headed south toward Port Vila.

We were joined by a pod of pilot whales who played around our bows like dolphins, rolling onto their sides to look at us and talking to us with loud whistles.

Bryan had a tussle with a big swordfish, and this time we all watched as the fish leapt vertically out of the water behind the boat and spat the lure before splash landing.

I don’t know what’s going on with the fishing on this trip.  We have all the excitement of the strike, the fight, even get to see the fish up close, but can’t seem to get the damn thing on board.  Later that day Bryan brought a beautiful yellowfin tuna right to the transom, before it too escaped. I put the gaff back in the locker. And the wasabi.

We pulled in to a quiet bay a few miles from Port Vila, anchored off a beach bar with smoke rising from the wood-fired pizza oven. Promising.  We went ashore at sunset and by chance found ourselves with front row seats on the beach for the biggest tourist fire-dancing show in Vanuatu. 

That depression was deepening and forecast to move south towards us.  Cyclone season hadn’t started yet but we want to get into a nice sheltered spot just in case.

Port Vila is a low rise town built along the waterfront.  The harbour is dotted with old rusting hulks and there are several wrecked yachts up on the reef.

We tied up to a mooring in 30m of water.  Too deep to dive and check it, but we were assured all the tackle had been replaced since the last cyclones 6 months ago.

We had a big hill in front of us, a solid island just behind us and coral reefs protecting us from almost all other swell directions.  We doubled up the mooring lines and felt pretty secure.  But I was getting a bit concerned.  On my worried scale, at this point I was somewhere around a 4 out of 10.

You save Tok Tok Bislama?

Mi no save.

Vanuatu is very language-dense. The century of joint colonial rule left a legacy of separate English and French speaking schools, plus there are over 100 local languages spoken in these islands.  When you arrive in the capital Port Vila, the unifying language for all the islanders is Bislama.  A pidgin English first used by sailors to communicate with the New Hebrideans whilst trading for sea-cucumbers or ‘Beches la mer’ (corrupted to Bislama).

Anyway, it’s a very entertaining language, written as phonetic English and spoken as Pacific sounding words.  Things are often defined by what they belong to.

Here’s a few samples:

Yumi – We

Tri – Tree, also three.

Fis – Fish

Bis – Beach

Tank yu tumas – Thank you very much

Bigfella – Large

Bigwan – Large

Pikinini – Child

Pikimap trak – Pickup truck

Finga blong tri – Branch

Kaofis – Dugong

Manfis – Dolphin

Pikinini blong kanu – Outrigger (love that one)

Bigfella selbot blong mi – Escapade

We were enjoying Bislama, translating seemingly unintelligible text, until you read it out loud, then you understand and smile.  We selected Bislama over English for ATM transactions, just for fun.  One morning we were shopping in town. The grocery store owner was an old Vietnamese lady dealing with several Ni Vanuatu women. She spoke French to some, Bislama to others and English to me.  

The town market was a colourful focal point with fresh produce on sale from all the islands. Taro roots packaged in simple green baskets, single-use carrier bags woven from palm fronds.

The storm was still lurking to the north, but we had a couple of days to explore the island of Efate. We rented a ‘pikimap’ and went for a road trip.  

This was a lovely refreshing river with swimming holes, falls and a rope swing.  Perfect for rinsing off the salty crew.

Lola

Our depression now had a name: Tropical Cyclone Lola.  The forecasts were still sending it south, towards us.

I chatted to locals and the yachties in the anchorage, some of whom have lived through a few cyclones.  The general view was that if it comes this far south, the water is cooler and so the storm will be less intense.  Even so, we might be hit by 50 kts or more.

This was all happening in the last few days of Alex and Arabella’s stay on board.  We had such a great time together but it looked like the next few days would be very wet and increasingly windy.  The airport here will be closed, so they wisely changed their flights to get to Australia before the disruption hit Vanuatu.  The first time we have had visitors leave early!  We are hoping they’ll come back for more one day..

Now we started to think about reducing windage.  The jib came down and everything got stowed away, The mainsail bag was lashed to the boom, steering seats removed, all hanging lines and halyard tails stowed out of the wind.  The harbour master told us to stay up all night with the engines running.  The needle on the JP worried scale was now pushing 8/10.

Bryan and I saw pre-storm opportunity to wing foil a reef point we had discovered, so we loaded all our gear from the locker to the dinghy to the truck and set off for a session before it got too windy.  

We managed an hour of fun wave riding before getting blown off the water.  Swimming in over the shallow reef we congratulated each other on not breaking any gear, or ourselves.  Then we noticed a flat tyre and spent another hour changing the wheel under the stormy skies.

Next morning Lola had been upgraded from category 3 to category 4 and then to category 5.  Category 5!  Now we are really concerned, I have never been in this situation and never intended to be.  I have always accepted that the cyclone/hurricane seasons and zones are well defined, with those dates and latitudes to be avoided, but the rules may be changing now.

I’m sure we’re in the best place to ride this out, and anyway it’s too late to go anywhere else, but the track of the storm is by no means certain.  It’s due to hit land first up at Pentecost island, then go back out to sea.  What happens next is within an area of uncertainty.  And we are inside that area.

Dawn and Auriane had to leave the Vila market which was being shut down by the police, everyone going home or to a cyclone shelter.

Our neighbouring yachts were now talking about grab bags and plans for abandoning ship.  Auriane started to prepare..

I was driving through Port Vila enjoying a Bislama phone-in on the local radio station, which was interrupted by a serious sounding cyclone warning.  I could make out ‘bigfella storm’ and ‘bigwan 10 metre swells’.

The mooring field filled up, all the commercial vessels around Port Vila were tied up in the mangroves close to us.

The storm will pass tonight.  We wait.  I was ready to jump up and start engines if it got really bad, to take some of the load off the mooring, but to our enormous relief the storm passed 100 miles west of us and the intensity dropped rapidly from category 5 to category 2 during that night.  The islands to our north were not so lucky.  Catastrophic damage to Pentecost and Malekula with crops, homes and schools destroyed.  This is the third major cyclone for Vanuatu in 2023, and the new cyclone season still has not yet started.

I get the weekly weather blog from Bob McDavitt, required reading in this part of the Pacific. Here’s MetBob’s understated roundup of storm activity for that week:

“Last week LOLA was briefly Cat5 near Pentecost Island. OTIS was briefly Cat 5 near Acapulco. HARMOON caused a quarter of million people to evacuate into shelters in southern Bangladesh. NORMA is near Baja California and TAMMY is near the Caribbean. TEJI flooded pasts of Yemen.”

Hmmm, well that was one windy week on Planet Earth.

After the storm

The skies have cleared, our water tanks are full of Lola rainwater, piped from the bimini catchment.  Now what?  I really wanted to see more of Vanuatu, 80+ islands to visit, all the way up through the Bank Isles to the Solomon Islands.  Several of our neighbouring boats were sailing up that way, we gave them all our remaining stocks of solar lanterns and supplies to be distributed in the islands worst hit by the storm. (We have been supplying Luci solar lanterns by MPOWERD to remote islanders we have met since our time in Haiti in 2016)

But Lola had focussed our attention, it’s too late in the season for us to sail North now, our next destination is New Caledonia.  The wind is blowing NW for a few days, no good to sail to Noumea, but a great direction for an easy return to Tanna, which would give us a shorter trip to New Caledonia and a better angle once the trades return.

So Tanna it is.  We sail away from Efate on an easy reach with our big red Code D sail hauling us along and dolphins jumping around us. 

The big full moon rose and lit our way, with Jupiter shining brightly next to it.  At daybreak we shook out the reefs and sailed back towards that smoking volcano, which was sending up regular explosions as we approached. 

This breeze brought us easily back to our spot in Port Resolution but it’s the wrong wind direction for the anchorage, the volcanic ash is falling this way and building up like black snowdrifts all over the boat.

There is a promising forecast to sail on to New Caledonia in a few days.  I have arranged with my friends at customs and immigration in Tanna to clear out from there.  There is sometimes a strong enough phone signal to watch heats of the Aloha Classic windsurf contest being live-streamed from Maui.  We surf a bit and wing a bit, get the exit formalities done, but Bryan is not ready to leave.

Halloween swell

Bryan is excited about a swell forecast.  It could be really good in Lenakel, at a reef break we briefly looked at when we were there a couple of weeks ago. Which could be rideable.

It could be a good wave and wind direction. Could be. It is also on the other side of the island and would involve a 6am start and 4 hrs of bumpy on and off-road driving to get us and our gear to the spot and back.  Well we won’t know unless we go.

So of course we had to go.

The early start and long bumpy road brought us to the concrete wharf in front of the market at Lenakel.  This is the only ‘harbour’ for the island of Tanna.  Really the only break in the continuous reef all around the east of the island.  Certainly not a useable harbour today, pounded by a heaving SW swell.

The waves were shaping up into clean walls and peeling left towards the channel, but there was one more slab of reef at the end, which caused the last part of that wall to stand up, pitch into a thick lipped barrel and detonate on the shallow coral. 

I watched a couple of sets, oh well, it’s not rideable. 

Wasted journey.  

I don’t think there’s even a safe way to get in and out of the water here today.  A group of women are doing laundry in a pool by the beach, beyond them the shallows are murky brown and not inviting, and anyway, this wave looks like a dangerous beast.

Bryan’s assessment of this scene is rather different.  He is keen to go foiling, and just deciding what size wing to use.  He will rig on the wharf, I will throw his foil board off the end of the dock and he will leap in after it with the wing, avoid the hissing reefs all around, then go sail in to some bombs. “No problem!” 

Our driver Cho (possibly Joe, but definitely pronounced Cho) and his cousins who had come with us from Port Resolution all watched quietly as Bryan unpacked and assembled his gear. They have never seen a foil before.  After Bryan’s bird-man launch from the wharf, Cho stood with me and watched as he swam to the board, dodged the coral and started pumping out to the wind line.  Then it happened, Bryan caught his first gust, the board lifted out of the water and zoomed off upwind at high speed on foil.  Cho was suddenly shouting with excitement, he had never seen anything like this.  He and David were whooping and laughing as Bryan sailed laps around the reef and rotated in the air over the waves.  Cho told me that for them this was like watching magic.

All these children were also very excited about the Birdman and his magical gear arriving on their island.

Back at Escapade our Halloween party gets really spooky as we have decided to set sail at midnight.

We’re trying to time our arrival with a tidal window at a reef pass in New Caledonia 230 miles away.

We pull up the hook and slip out between the anchored boats, to the dark ocean beyond.  

On the other side of the world I have another named storm to worry about, this one’s called Ciaran and heading for Guernsey!

Landfall! 

Soon after sunrise the volcanic peaks of Tanna island rose above the horizon, our first glimpse of Vanuatu.  The last few miles of a passage always seem to take forever.  The destination slowly reveals itself, more details of the landscape gradually appearing to the impatient crew.  In this case a grey smudge of land eventually resolved into dense jungly mountains shrouded in cloud, or perhaps gas from Mount Yasur, a very live volcano.

We had left Fiji 3 days ago.  We sailed out through Wilkes Pass, past Namotu Island and out into the South Pacific.  Unfortunately we had to sail through a local ’squash zone’ with 3 reefs and 40 kts of wind. It soon calmed down but that first night was a bit noisy, Arabella was concerned we were being attacked by orca.

We settled in to a smoother winds, seas and easy reaching. Entertainments included Alex’s hand pumped espressos, the traditional Escapade ‘halfway party’, analogue offshore Wordle (set by Dawn and fiendishly difficult) and the excitement of a substantial billfish tearing off with our lure before jumping high behind the boat and spitting the hook mid air.  Big splash, no fish, but we still have the chewed lure.  It was an easy passage, especially at night with six of us to share the watches. 

We were heading for Port Resolution. Named by Captain James Cook in 1774, after his ship the HMS Resolution. He called these islands the New Hebrides, the name stuck until 1980, when they became Vanuatu. 

As the bay came in to view we were surprised to see about twenty yachts anchored there. By now it was mid morning, we could hear loud music ashore, drumming?  Dark figures in the trees, jumping, waving and shouting at us as we pass the headland.  We jump, wave and shout back. What a welcome!

Port Resolution

The anchor is set and we take in our surroundings.  We’re sitting at the base of a live volcano.  There is steam venting from caves and hot water bubbling from the rocks behind us.

We’re not allowed ashore until we clear customs and immigration, but it sounds like there’s a party going on here.  Later we heard that the village of Port Resolution had just won the Tanna Island soccer championship. We did a bit of trading with these girls who paddled out to us with some beans from their garden.

There were a few other Q flags flying in the bay. Rumours about a visit from the customs officials crackled across the anchorage on channel 16. Eventually an announcement was made and I zoomed ashore.

When I finally pulled our dinghy up the beach I felt I had arrived somewhere special.

Dugout canoes with string-lashed outriggers on the beach. The giant trees towering over the muddy path up the hill.  It felt as though this place had only been lightly touched by humans.

At the top of the hill is the ‘Port Resolution Yacht Club’.  In May this island was struck by two consecutive cyclones, they are now rebuilding.  The yacht club is currently a table under a tin roof.  Happily there is also a fridge so you can purchase a cold ‘Tusker’ beer, plus a tea-chest bass, should you feel tuneful.

The customs guy never did show up, but I was welcomed by the friendly immigration and bio-security officers who said I should go to town tomorrow to find customs. ‘Town’ is Lenakel, on the other side of the island, across the mountains.

Anyway, now we are all allowed ashore, so we went to visit the village.  It made a pretty big impression on all of us.

A few hundred friendly people living in palm thatch huts with well tended gardens, laughing children running wild with a selection of dogs, piglets and chickens. An enchanting place.

Sandy paths through the damp forest, fertile volcanic soil and extravagant tropical greenery. No electricity, no tarmac.  

The next day we saw more of Tanna from the back of a 4WD pick-up.  We left the village and made slow progress on the mud ‘road’ through the jungle. Children smiling and waving from the side of the track.  

A local chief had died and families were walking from miles around to be together at his village, carrying food for the feast. Everyone seemed so genuinely friendly, despite the fact that almost every man, woman and child was casually armed with a machete.

The scene changed abruptly when out of the jungle appeared the unfinished end of a brand new tarmac road.

Chinese investment and engineers arrived here 15 years ago to start a road building project. The road now reaches down the rugged west coast, up and over each steep headland, and across the south of the island. Next year the bulldozers will cut the final miles all the way through the wild hills to Port Resolution. The modern world is about to arrive in this extraordinary place.

We stop at a hilltop looking back towards the bay, the smoking volcano and the endless steaming jungle, I wouldn’t be that surprised to see a pterodactyl gliding past. 

After a couple of hours we arrived in Lenakel, the only town on Tanna, find the customs office (closed) and eventually the customs officer who had to be brought from his house to complete our formal entry to Vanuatu.  

The Volcano

Mount Yasur is not very high and only an hour from the anchorage on that very bumpy 4WD track.  But it is an active live volcano and visitors are invited to climb to the top and peer into the caldera.  The visitor safety arrangements could be described as pretty loose.  There is a safety briefing “Don’t fall in”, and there are a few sticks driven in to the lava around the crater to indicate roughly where the edge is.  But you are standing on the rim, just below you is molten rock.  You can hear it bubbling!  Parents and children are literally leaning backwards over the edge taking selfies. There are the cooling remains of lava bombs where we are all standing. The air is full of falling ash, every few minutes the ominous rumbling becomes a deafening roar as the lava erupts into the air.  The first time it happened we all ran for cover.  

Apparently it is one of the most spectacular sights you will see in the whole South Pacific. Unfortunately it was foggy the night we went so we didn’t really see anything.

We had arrived in daylight to see the crater filling with a self perpetuating cloud.  After sunset we could at least see the glow of the erupting lava, if not the detail.  All a bit disappointing but we wouldn’t have missed it, to be that close to the power of Mother Earth was unforgettable. And all a bit sketchy.

Northbound

We had read about what supplies were most needed here after the cyclones.  We brought clothes, tools, solar lanterns, reading glasses, fishing tackle, school stationery and other supplies for the village, which we entrusted to the schoolteachers in Port Resolution. The school was badly damaged by the cyclones, Unicef have provided temporary classroom tents while the villagers rebuild.  

Our school visit was a delight, we arrived at break time and all the kids were playing marbles in the dirt.  I sat under a tree with two shy girls, just to make conversation I asked if they had any marbles, they shook their heads. I told them I didn’t either. Dawn told them that I’d lost mine years ago. 

Port Resolution is a bit of a rolly anchorage.  There’s actually a surf break at the mouth of the bay.  We had been playing there one morning, I was towing Bryan into some foilable waves to the amazement of Noel, who was paddling past on his fishing trip.  Noel needed some new line for his handmade harpoon, which we were happy to provide.  On one side of my dinghy the latest carbon fibre hydrofoil surfboard, on the other a dugout canoe whose design and construction have not changed for millennia.

Someone up the mountain had told me the wind would go round to the North this week. Our weather window to sail up that way was closing, so it was time to pull up the hook and set sail again.  This time only one night at sea, up past the island of Erromango and around the Eastern side of Efate.  

The next morning we came gliding through a reef pass to the clear waters around Kakula island and found a sandy patch for the anchor.  Now this was my kind of anchorage, open to the trade winds with a sandy spit and a hundred hues of blue to go winging around.  So we did.

From there we could see a distant line of whitewater in the next pass. Waves?  Bryan’s antennae started twitching and after a check of the charts and Google Earth we soon had Escapade re-positioned next to a fun right-hand reef break off Pele island.  A pod of porpoises were cruising through the bright blue water in the bay.

First we went ashore to the tiny village to ask permission from the Chief.  We met Kennedy who seemed to be the spokesman.  He had directed us to an anchoring spot and welcomed us to enjoy his beautiful neighbourhood.  This is his daughter, Pettina.  

The next day he brought her and his whole family to the boat.  None of them had ever been on a yacht.

Kava

Do you remember we were invited to a family kava ceremony when we first arrived in Fiji?  It is the recreational drink of choice there, made from the pounded root of the yaqona plant, mixed with water (or saliva) and strained through a cloth.  I drank several shells of the stuff in the interests of research, resulting in a numb mouth and two days of sleepiness.  But the Vanuatu brew is reported to be a much stronger narcotic and clearly more research was required.  We had been invited to the ’Nakamal’ in Port Resolution to drink Kava with the local menfolk, but women are not allowed there.  Since we are an equal opportunities ship and the whole crew was kava curious, we arranged for a private supply.

Kennedy commissioned a fresh brew for us and delivered it to Escapade on his banana boat.

An earthy liquid, perhaps pre-chewed by the island youths, traditionally served in half coconut shells. Nobody was very keen on the flavour, although I found it quite palatable, muddy with a hint of anis.  After a couple of high-tide shells we were all loosening up a bit, numb lips, very relaxed and with a pleasant buzz.  Then we invented a game of karaoke charades. Or something. We drank the lot and all agreed it was a fun night.  Everyone slept well and no hangovers reported, but some very cinematic dreams.

We went by dinghy to the next island. By far the most imposing structure in the village was the enormous Nakamal. Exclusively used for kava drinking, and no women allowed!

Shelter from the storm

I loved that spot. We enjoyed the small windswell waves wrapping on to that reef, which groomed them into perfect little glassy rights.  

We would have stayed longer, but for the last few days we had been aware of a tropical depression forming up north, unusually close to the equator.  One morning Kennedy was dragging all the village boats way above the high water line on his beach, the storm is coming this way.  Time for us to look for shelter in the harbour at Port Vila.

Back on board. 

Dawn and I returned to the boat after our summer holiday in Guernsey.

We were soon joined by good friends from home, Alex and Arabella.

I’ve been hoping to get these guys on board for years, now it’s finally happening.

They made the long trip from Guernsey to Fiji and we welcomed them on to Escapade just as we had finished prepping the boat. Time to start having fun again.

Alex and I share many board-riding interests, plus he and Arabella are now waiting for their own Outremer catamaran to be built, so this was a great time to go sailing together.

We started off with a short cruise to Musket Cove.  Our old haunt was busier than we have ever seen it. Dozens of anchored boats, lots of familiar faces. The cruising season here is coming to an end and Musket Cove is a natural gathering point for boats sailing onwards.  Alex and Arabella hiked to the top of Malolo Island for this view.

So many yacht decks bristling with wing foiling gear!  This new sport is a big hit with the cruising yachties.  By chance we arrived on the weekend of the inaugural Musket Cove Wingfoil Regatta.

This was to be a casual, fun racing event organised via Facebook groups and some chat on VHF radio.

My favourite stipulation was that anyone caught taking the event seriously would be immediately disqualified.

Alex and I signed up for the racing and Dawn somehow became the event’s official photographer.  

The racing was in two formats, a figure-of-eight reaching course with gybes at both ends, followed by a longer, windward-leeward course. About 20 riders were competing and for most, this was our first experience of foil racing. 

It was windy.  20 knots+ all day, and the closing speeds on the reaching course were terrifying. No time to shout starboard as two riders crossed in the middle of the ‘8′ at 20kts each. 

It was a great event. Lots of laughs, no injuries and all the competitors were still buzzing at the Island Bar for the sunset prize-giving.

We had time for a quick trip to Namotu for some surfing and tow foiling.

Then it was time to meet the Malolo ferry to greet our returning crew, Bryan and Auriane.  Great to have them back on the ship and  everyone enjoying some quality Fiji playtime before we start sailing west. 

Bryan arrived with bags full of new toys, the latest wings and foils. 

There was no wind at all on this beautiful morning, so he had to improvise.

Our next port of call is in Vanuatu. 450 miles west. Now we have a promising weather window so everyone is busy with provisioning and formalities for leaving Fiji and arriving in Vanuatu, we’re also enjoying the excitement as Fiji progresses through the early stages of the Rugby World Cup. 

I’m sure I have written my farewell to Fiji on this blog before!  We sailed away from here late November 2022, never expecting to return. But plans change and we found ourselves back here again in May 2023, exploring Eastern Fiji.  I am grateful to have seen some more of this beautiful country.  Fiji is a hard place to leave.  I envy all the antipodean yachties who cruise here every winter, it’s their second home. But for us it’s so far from home, and it’s time to start moving the boat west again.  This time we are really leaving!  

Anyway, when you do leave here, the Fijians sing a beautiful farewell song for you.  The singing here is a big and joyous part of life. Almost every village, restaurant, resort, or even boatyard, can muster a choir who will sing a welcome song or a farewell song with wonderful harmonies. Always in full voice and heartfelt. Smiling faces, the women singing the delicate melody and the men intoning the rousing bass. The song flows under the soft night sky and wraps up all my feelings for this country.  We’ve heard it sung many times but on this last night in Fiji it was hard not to shed a tear. 

Thanks for the good times Fiji.

We’re off to Vanuatu…

This post got stuck in my drafts folder.

Here’s the last part of our Fiji adventure in June.

Better late than never!

June 2023

We said farewell to Auriane at the tiny airstrip on Tavenui.  She flew away on the first leg of her long trip to Paris.

Bryan and I were now short-handed, planning a passage 200nm to the west. Our target was the remote reef break at Frigates Pass, south of the mainland of Viti Levu.

We had planned to sail that day, but a nasty band of wind and rain threatened. We had seen quite enough of that on the way from New Zealand so we postponed the trip and found the only wood-fired pizza oven on Tavenui.  A long lunch was declared while we waited for the bad weather to pass.

We were anchored pretty much on the dateline, which seemed to confuse our Navionics app, and us. 

Exactly 180 degrees from Greenwich and getting some strange and unhelpful local distance measurements as our longitude flipped between E and W.  Consequently we set out for a 10 mile trip one morning which in fact was 25 miles!  We found the chartplotter to be more accurate than our phones in that area.

We tried to leave again the next day, but when we realised we would need three reefs in the main before we rounded the southern tip of Tavenui, we postponed. Again. So we were behind schedule when we eventually we departed for our overnight trip from Taveuni to Beqa, south of the main island of Viti Levu. 

By this time a major windsurf contest was underway at Cloudbreak.  The world’s best windsurfers were sailing heats in giant surf.  The semifinals were being broadcast live and we were able tune into some heats as we sailed past islands with phone masts.  An elite group of wave riders were competing, including my good friend Brice, now a Cloudbreak aficionado. 

He rode the waves of his life against the world’s best.  

Then our friend Sarah fought her way to a win in the women’s final.  We were between islands for the final but ready to celebrate when we tuned in to hear that Sarah had won. It may be a long time before the windsurf world sees a contest run in such impressive waves. 

Thanks to our friends at Fishbowl Diaries for these amazing photos from Cloudbreak.

Next morning we arrived at Frigates under a grey sky.  There is technically an anchorage just inside the pass, but it didn’t look very relaxing after our night at sea. The waves were big and gnarly, and busy with a pack of surfers who had travelled by boat from the mainland.  We decided to pass on the pass.  Eventually we arrived on the ‘Coral Coast’ and tucked in to the bay at Natadola.  

The windsurf contest and prize giving was all wrapped up so Sarah and Brice got a taxi and a longboat from the event site and moved aboard Escapade to decompress for a few days.  I suggested we all go ashore for dinner at the hotel on the beach…

Going ashore for dinner

We all had so much to catch up on.  Sharing tales of our travels and the windsurf competition.  The sun had set and light was fading fast, barely enough to see our way in over the sandbar and reef.  We all jumped in the dinghy and motored off in to the dusk.  

Sarah calmly announced that there was a snake in the boat.  A snake?

Yes, there is a black banded sea snake writhing across the floor of the dinghy past our bare feet and heading for me in the bow.  Bryan swiftly turned the dinghy round and brought us back to the mothership.  Sarah was telling us to stay calm and pointing out that the poor creature is far more scared of us than we are of it.  Well maybe so, but this is a one metre long, venomous reptile moving very quickly towards my legs.  I very calmly leapt back on to Escapade.  Sarah grew up in New Caledonia where these things are clearly no big deal, she deftly returned the snake to the sea with a flick of a dinghy paddle.  Now it’s really getting dark.  Between us and the lights of the hotel is a line of whitewater in the gloom. Bryan times the set waves perfectly and we surf over the shallow sandbar at full throttle with foaming waves all around.  We beat the tidal flow and finally pull the dinghy up the sand in front of the restaurant.  Phew. The tide will be rising all evening, so to secure the boat I throw the painter around a coconut tree and electrocute myself.  The wet rope is in contact with a wet garden light which is (poorly) wired to illuminate the palm tree.  Every time I try to move the rope I take another jolt of mains voltage through my arms.  Eventually we extricate ourselves from that one without plunging the whole hotel into darkness.  Ok.  Snake, sandbar, electric shocks. Time to find the bar.

By the way we have since Googled the snake, which has one of the most deadly bites on Earth.  A banded sea snake has enough venom to KILL TEN ADULT HUMANS!  They are actually common through this part of the South Pacific, but not in dinghies.

The good news is that they rarely bite people and they have very small jaws.  About the size of one of my toes..

Natadola swell

Back on board it was a rolly night, the swell was pounding the reef at the entrance to the bay.  Next morning we were keen to leave for a flatter anchorage, which we did as soon as Bryan could be persuaded to leave this wave.

Back to my favourite wave.

In my last few visits to Fiji, the wave I have had the most fun on, and feel most at home on, is the glorious Namotu Left.

This is a very different vibe to the deserted wave we discovered in Eastern Fiji.  Back here on the West side of Viti Levu there are tourists, surf resorts, local boat trips and some motivated surfers living on sailing boats. It can be busy.

But for me, it is still the most fun wave I know.

It’s a special place for Escapade.  We like to anchor in the turquoise sandy patch, just north of the island.  From here we can sit and watch the waves, picking our moment. 

We have ridden it big and small, always fun and not too intimidating, though it can still give you a pounding once it gets overhead.  So many happy memories of this place.  Photoshoots with the Slingshot crew, late sessions with nobody out, towing a foil into empty waves with the dinghy when the current is too strong for anyone to paddle.

This was a happy time for the four of us.  Sarah and Brice in the afterglow of the contest, Bryan and I happy to be back in one of our favourite playgrounds.

We surfed and windsurfed and winged and towed around Namotu until our friends had to leave.  

It was also time for Bryan and I to go and find our wives.

We left Escapade safely on her swinging mooring and flew to Europe.

Sorry about the long silence there.

This blog is an account of our sailing adventures and there really haven’t been any to report, until the last couple of weeks.

In early January, Dawn and I finally escaped from that rainstorm. It was described as a ‘once in 50 years’ event.  But then the same thing happened, or worse, every couple of weeks for the rest of the NZ summer. 

We had heard all the jokes from the Kiwi yachties who were choosing to stay in Fiji, preferring to take their chances with the cyclone season rather than sailing south. “New Zealand summer? Oh it’s great – sometimes it lasts a whole weekend!”

We were really here for some boatyard time so we sailed south to Whangarei where Escapade was hauled out.  This was to be the most comprehensive pit-stop so far.  Mast out, engines out, full re-furbishment inside and out, above and below the waterline. Including replacing all standing and running rigging, new sails, electronics, upholstery, trampolines, plus lots of odd jobs and some preventative maintenance. 

When Escapade was hatched in 2014, the hulls were wrapped in grey vinyl before she left the shed. It’s a great protective coating and we could always find our distinctive grey boat among all the other white catamarans. But by 2023 that vinyl was looking tired, scuffed and cooked by years in the sun.

Time for a new look.  The grey coating was removed to reveal basically new gel coat beneath.  She polished up beautifully and Dawn designed a new set of go-faster stripes. 

Dawn and I were very busy working full weeks in the yard, living in Whangarei.  Then at the weekends when the yard was closed, we would escape to remote cabins in the wilds.  Dawn had found some lovely retreats for us, tiny huts with outdoor kitchens, wood fired bathtubs and an empty beachbreak at the end of the dirt track.  Always difficult to leave and go back to work on Monday morning.

By the end of January we had project-managed ourselves out of the project.  So we left all the specialists to work through the to-do list while we escaped from the Kiwi summer for a few weeks.  I flew off to meet Brice for an adventure in the Canadian mountains, then met up with Dawn in Maui.  We hadn’t been there since 2019.  It was time to catch up with our Maui crew.  So good to see everyone and reconnect with the place.  I had planned a full program of windsurfing, foiling, towing, surfing, winging etc, but somehow managed to rupture an eardrum which kept me out of the water for weeks!  It was still fun, Dawn’s winging journey has begun.

The work in the yard continued despite the regular ‘extreme rain events’, culminating in Cyclone Gabrielle which swept down from the tropics to bring more floods and landslides, homes lost, roads and airports closed.  Escapade was in New Zealand to avoid the cyclones. This one blew right in to the boatyard in Whangarei!

By the end of March we were back on board chasing all the last minute jobs before we re-launched.

Bryan and Auriane arrived after a tour of South Island with Ron and Lili, everyone got roped into the Escapade re-fit program.

Dawn flew home to enjoy the Guernsey springtime and left me with the crew.

Finally we splashed back in to the muddy river water and motored up to town in torrential rain.  

The endless to-do list finally came to an end.

Everything brought up to date and ship-shape.  She looks like a new boat.

All we needed now was a good forecast to escape to the North, and warmer tropical waters. 

We sailed back up the coast to Opua to wait for the right moment to depart. The bad weather continued, but by now we were provisioned and ready to leave.

Very grateful for the Webasto central heating system which Dawn had installed when the boat was built.  I had assured her that we wouldn’t go sailing anywhere cold enough to need it, and we hardly ever have, but we were glad to have it with the Southern winter fast approaching.

We had planned to sail up to New Caledonia and Vanuatu, then on to Australia where I would leave the boat and go home to a Guernsey summer.

Plans change, crew commitments, logistics, dates, options of where to leave the boat, we were still discussing all the possible routes until the day we left, when we settled on a plan to return to Fiji, saving the rest of the trip until later in the year.

A snap decision was made to sail to the Minerva Reefs, then on to Savusavu in northeastern Fiji.  All new territory for us.

We had been watching the weather window for a week, the forecast developing day by day as it came nearer. We were expecting a pretty brisk start to the trip, with a strong southerly flow to send us on our way. By the morning of our departure it was looking a bit too brisk. Winds gusting in the 30’s with 4 metre seas.  We started to consider delaying until the worst had blown through.

We were sorting out the reefs in our new mainsail and went for a quick spin to see how it felt out there.

Escapade was sailing beautifully with her new main triple reefed and the new jib looking in perfect shape.  The sun was shining and there was an exodus underway. The sea was thick with yachts heading north, a swarm of AIS targets on the plotter, and more behind us hoisting sails off of Russel to join the mass migration.  Now obviously, we make our own decisions about things like this, but looking back at that sunny moment, we were definitely re-assured by the sheer quantity of experienced yachties who were happy to set sail that evening.  The forecast was still for plenty of weather, but we would be sailing fast downwind, and it was due to moderate by morning.

So we went.

That was 5pm.  Decision made, we’re off to Fiji.  Tonight.

By 9pm I was questioning the decision.  It turned in to a long, dark and stormy night.

The sailing was extraordinary, fast surfing down the swells as we sailed beyond the lee of New Zealand, gradually overhauling all the other yachts in sight and leaving them all behind as we flew north.  Our average speed was in double figures all night.  I remember the moonrise at 10pm.  Glittering moonlight revealing the magnificent sea state.  We dodged a couple of giant container ships, then nothing.  By morning we had sailed away from the fleet and didn’t see another boat until we arrived at Minerva reef 92 hours after leaving Opua.

By then we all had our sea-legs and settled back in to our offshore routine, but it was challenging. 

The wind never really did moderate and the seas stayed high.  

It was a relief to turn in to the pass at Minerva Reef.  It’s a sunken atoll, almost a perfect circle of reef, awash at high tide but with enough protection to be anchored in a calm pond, in the middle of the wild South Pacific.  

A very special little place, the subject of a territorial dispute between Fiji and the Kingdom of Tonga.  I would have loved to stay for a few days to explore, I’m told you can pick lobsters up from the reef at low tide.  But the forecast was urging us on, get up to Fiji before the next band of bad weather comes sweeping across the ocean for us.  So after a restful night with no night watches, it was back to sea the next day, and two more days at sea.  I’m so lucky to still have Bryan and Auriane as crew, I can’t believe they put up with all this, always smiling, never complaining.  On the 18th May we rounded the reef at Savusavu in northeastern Fiji and gratefully picked up a mooring in the river.  Escapade still again, at last.  

Bula!  We’re back in the friendliest country I know.  A procession of charming local women arrived by boat: the health authority, customs, immigration and bio-security. By nightfall we had legally arrived and went ashore to the bar for a Fiji Bitter.

So that was the hard part, a three month refit in the rain followed by a gnarly 1200 mile passage, now it must be time to go and have some fun.

We left Savusavu working our way east in search of what, for us, is the real magic of Fiji.  A remote reef pass anchorage with a perfect wave.

After a couple more days travelling under grey skies, we arrived at the spot.  Windy, not much room to anchor, underwhelming.  We toured the area in search of safe shelter for the boat, while the weather moved through.  

By now I was keen to abandon the mission and sail west, but the forecast was promising a big swell, so with constant encouragement from Bryan, we endured more rainy days.  Then, finally, the magic started.

Our first waves at the reef pass were glorious, and it kept getting better.  Long surf sessions on a beautiful right hand reef break, consistent swell for days, the boat anchored on a sandbar just inside the reef, the dreams came true at last.

Surfing and foiling any wave we wanted, with no other humans in sight.  Transparent water over the coral, blue skies, and a timeless backdrop of green hills covered in jungle.

The storms battering New Zealand were now working in our favour, deep lows twisting in the Tasman Sea creating big swells which reach us here a few days later, wrapping around the reef as glassy, perfect waves.  Just for us.

We’ve been here a week now, everyone is very sore at the morning stretch class.  Apart from the tired paddling muscles we also have two broken surfboards and a case of reef rash.  We’ve run out of fresh food and there are no supplies here.  The big swell has passed, time to move on.  

The new go-faster stripes seem to be working.

It’s been a while since we took Escapade for a proper sail out in the ocean swell. That was back in April when we left Polynesia on our way to Fiji.

Long enough to forget just how much fun it is to feel this boat eating up the miles. 

We finally committed to a promising 5 day forecast at the end of November.  I dragged my surfed-out crew away from the waves and off to port to provision, clear customs, eat one last Fijian curry and finally sail away with our freshly scrubbed bottoms.  (Weed-free hulls required for NZ bio security).

A memorable exit through Wilkes Pass as a set passed under us with waves barrelling on both sides.  Farewell to Fiji.

We knew we would have to motor through a calm for the first day to reach the wind line.  Ideal conditions for spotting a cloud of birds diving amongst feeding fish.  We trolled two lures through the frenzy, both reels screeched as the fish hit, Auriane at the helm, Bryan and I winding fish to the boat with tuna jumping all around, birds diving on bait fish and sharks chasing the boat.  All very exciting, we landed three fish that day, with a large shark swimming right to the transom excited by the blood from Bryan’s tuna.  An hour later the fillets were in the fridge and the rods stowed away. Protein for the week.

I was optimistic (as ever) about our wind forecast, but as Bryan’s father Ron reminded us. “The forecast is just a forecast.”

That evening the long-awaited easterly breeze arrived.  The next two days were fast reaching with the new Code D sail pulling us along under blue skies from dawn to dusk.

I set the sails at 6am and barely touched a sheet all day.  Such sweet sailing as Escapade got into her groove and cruised at 10 knots across a long smooth swell, while we cooked, ate and lazed, adjusting to our first night-watches. 

On our fourth day the Pacific looked very different, low grey clouds, torrential rain for hours and wind building and backing round to the north as we crossed the edge of a low pressure system.  

The wind and waves grew as we gybed south again and Escapade took off, setting her bows for the horizon and surfing down the swells.

After a peak speed of 18kts we decided it was time to slow her down again,  even with three reefs in the main she pressed on, rushing south through the dark night with phosphorescence streaming in her long wakes.  

Now we are adapting to life on passage, I’m normally very tired after the first few night watches, but then the rhythm sets in and the napping gets more effective. 

Bryan somehow developed a nasty case of man-flu as we left Fiji, so he needed lots of sleep.  This was Auriane’s first experience of the craziness of a long ocean trip.  Wide eyed at each new outrage.  Are we supposed to be going this fast in the dark?  It’s very noisy!  Surfing down waves at 18 knots? Is that ok?  Yes it’s all fine.  She has adapted very quickly to the speed and power of the sailing and is loving the whole adventure.  Very happy clipped on to the foredeck while pulling reefs down at the mast in the dark. 

We have sailed out of the tropics and it already seems different down here.  I’ve only really worn shorts for months.  A few degrees south of Capricorn and we start adding t-shirts, then merino layers.  The next day, down jackets and full Goretex armour.  I said I can smell the ice of Antartica.

By the morning of day 5 we have sailed 750nm south of Fiji, with only about 350nm to go.  But then the wind came up from the south, and stayed there.  The forecasts were assuring us it would shift to the east for the rest of the trip.  We negotiated with headwinds of various strengths and seas states for two more days.  Ron’s words were ringing in my ears.

Bryan had recovered, we had eaten all that fish,  and progress seemed so slow now after those days of fast sailing.

The wind shift did finally happen, but then it died completely!  On the morning of the last day we were breakfasting in the sunshine, motoring across the calm and there, at last, were the green hills of New Zealand rising from our blue horizon.  Land Ahoy.  The Land of the Long White Cloud.  

We motored in to Opua and spent the night celebrating on a quarantine dock.  Next morning we cleared customs and motored round in to the harbour, reunited with Dawn at last, she was on the dock to take our lines.

Now we have moved ashore for a few days to catch up on sleep and recuperate.

So here we are in the Antipodes!  35 degrees S, the farthest south Escapade has ever been.  About 9,000 Pacific miles sailed since Panama. Time for another pause.

I’m very grateful to have had this crew to sail with.  Auriane is a force of positive energy and humour which is a huge asset to a tired crew in an uncooperative ocean.

Bryan is somehow capable of fixing everything we can break on the boat, he has a real gift for practical problem solving at sea.  Then there was our shore team in Opua: Tom and Pedro with routing advice and moral support, Dawn’s daily satphone updates, checking forecasts all night, arranging all the NZ entry procedures and a thousand other things to smooth our path.  

Thanks everyone, we made it! 

18th November 2022

This is a well trodden path.
Yachts travel up and down this stretch of the South Pacific every season.  We have met lots of Kiwi boats who sail up to the tropics each year to avoid the New Zealand winter, then back home for their summer.  The classic time to sail south is late October to mid November.  The pilot books, weather routers and Jimmy Cornell are all agreed, at this time of year you can expect a procession of high and low pressure systems which travel eastwards across these waters.  So you just wait for a high pressure system to appear.  Then as it passes south of Fiji, you set sail and enjoy a fast reaching course across the easterlies with the wind backing more northerly as the high passes, perhaps free off the sheets and sail all the way to Opua without a murmur from the infernal combustion engines.  Sounds great.

But in late October I really wasn’t ready to leave, we were still chasing surf.  We went by road to another wild reef break on the Coral Coast where Brice and I scored a couple of days of unforgettable windsurfing in impressive Fijian waves.
Then Bryan and Auriane arrived from Indonesia and we all escaped to our favourite turquoise patch on the outer reef for a few days until it was time for Brice to catch a boat to the main island and fly back to California.

Now we turned our attention to this trip to New Zealand.  There was a good looking forecast at the end of October, lots of boats took the opportunity but we still weren’t quite ready to leave, I decided to wait for the next high pressure system.  A week later we were eagerly watching the weather models and getting ready to go.

I was hoping to sail south with bright nights during the full moon.  Dawn flew down to New Zealand to await our imminent arrival.

The moon waxed (also eclipsed) and waned, but no suitable forecast appeared for the passage.  Well now November is drawing to a close, we are planning a Thanksgiving dinner for Bryan, Dawn is enjoying springtime in Opua.  Still no high pressure system!

All the yachties and forecasters have been surprised by the ‘chaotic’ weather patterns this year, but weather is chaos.  There have been a couple of opportunities to make an almost windless passage, motoring all the way.  Not really my thing, it seems such a shame to do that in a boat like this.  Anyway we have no deadline, so we will patiently wait for the right weather pattern which will surely come.

Meanwhile, the SW swell has been consistent and we are keeping busy.

As I write this we have been anchored off Namotu for a week. It’s a wonderful place to wake up.  Each morning I look out of my bedroom window to see who’s swimming past. This week we have a squadron of squid living round the boat, a school of tiny silver fish, turtles coming up for a breath, and the resident pod of spinner dolphins, dorsal fins slicing the morning stillness.

From where we are anchored I can see the waves at Wilkes, the Foil Garden, Namotu Left and Swimming Pools.  All within a three minute dinghy ride.  Mellow longboard lefts for me, barreling rights for Bryan, challenging drops for Auriane who is now charging on the best waves of her life.

From the boat we can see all the spots and pick our moment.
Some days we have surfed 3 sessions.  That’s a full day: surf, eat, nap, repeat.

Astounding sunsets with glassy waves reflecting purple skies.  Just the three of us at the break, so good we stayed in the water, surfing until dark.

Then there’s the tow-foiling behind my long suffering outboard motor.  It has whipped us in to countless waves.  Long, long rides lasting minutes rather than seconds. The most fun I have ever had on a hydrofoil.  I’ve even started to ‘prone’ paddle the foil into some waves while waiting for the dinghy pick-up.

The last windy day we went winging in the rain at Tavarua Right where Bryan sailed in to some fast hollow faces, the foil racing over very shallow looking reef.

We have eaten every thing on board.

We’ve all been getting creative with menu planning but there’s actually nothing left to eat now except the precious cans of French cassoulet from Tahiti and we’re saving those for the passage.

So it’s time to finally pull that hook out of the white sand and go back to Musket Cove to resupply.

Those weather forecast models keep forecasting and we study them every day.

We’re all a bit conflicted here.  Bryan and Auriane are excited about their first visit to NZ,  planning a road trip and hoping to have time for some touring.  I’m also looking forward to being back down there and of course am very keen to be re-united with my wife.

But on the other hand, this place is incredible.  We know we have all just experienced a very special few weeks of surfing, and summer has not yet arrived in NZ.  The water down there is still quite chilly.

So the other forecast we are checking daily is the swell at Namotu, there are worse places to be stuck for a couple more weeks.