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escapade sailing

life on the ocean
June 12, 2024

Above and Beyond

Chasing waterfalls

After a windy grey start at 6am we sailed in to Zoe Bay a bit overpowered, making our usual entrance at 15kts with spray flying up through the trampolines.

Then in the lee of the headland all was calm, jib rolled, main dropped, the sun came out and we anchored in 2m of water.

The bay is huge and deserted.  The mountains of Hinchinbrook Island are spectacular, reminding us of Moorea all those miles ago.

We leave the dinghy on the beach with a falling tide and walk up the creek. This must be the most crocodiley creek I’ve ever seen.

We didn’t see Mr Croc, but he’s there. Maybe he saw us?  A bit further along the beach was this welcoming sign.

From there we entered the rainforest and followed the sound of the water running down the mountain as we climbed.  Now I have said before that walking up and down hills is not really my favourite thing, but this place was very special.

Totally immersed in the dappled jungle.  We were searching for a waterfall, trying to follow a path that led us astray a couple of times.

We arrived at the bottom of the first fall.  

It is an enchanting place, clear water with fish swimming below, butterflies above, birds chattering and whistling in the canopy.

Now we have to cross that river. Stepping stones makes it sound easy.

Then up a steeper track to the top of the falls.  We emerge from the forest on to a high rock shelf, the water is flowing across the warm stone and down through a series of pools.  

We can look down on the whole bay, Escapade at anchor far below.  Not another human anywhere.  Nor any sign of one, there are no roads, vehicles or buildings on this island.  The bay is only accessible by boat, and there’s only one here.  Just us and all the creatures that live in this timeless place.  Jungle covered mountains reach almost 1000m above us.

We are alone in the Garden of Eden. 

The sun is high now, we clamber down to a pool with clear green water, fed by a cascade above then flooding out across the rock wall, which is the top of the waterfall.  Nature’s own hydro-spa infinity pool.  

I had never heard of Hinchinbrook Island, but if you’re ever passing through this remote stretch of Northern Queensland, it’s worth a detour.  I think it’s the most incredible place I have ever been.

Reef weather

The Great Barrier Reef is just to our East, and has been for the last 500 miles as we have sailed North.  I keep looking at the charts, there are some tempting anchorages out there, but the pilot books say ‘only to be visited in ‘Reef Weather’.’  The Great Barrier is made up of thousands of small coral cays, reefs and bommies.  Most of it is awash at high tide so for an anchored yacht there is no real protection out there from the Pacific trades and swell.  I was keen to visit Lady Musgrave Island with its little atoll anchorage, but at that point we were hiding up the river in Bundaberg while the gales went through. No chance.

So what is ‘reef weather’?  And when are we going to get some? 

That afternoon we left Hinchinbrook the wind faded away for the first time since April.  Finally, after 20+kt SE’ers for the whole of May, here we are in June with a calm spell forecast. We’re anchored at Goold Island.

 I look through the stats for the coming days, where we have been reading ‘1.5 to 2m swell’ it now says ‘calm sea’.  Winds ‘light and variable’.

Reef Weather!  Ok where’s the nearest bit of reef?  There’s a promising spot about 30 miles out: Beaver Cay.

Next morning we motor out at first light. It’s 30 miles to the reef.  We arrive between two tiny sand cays, only one of them is charted. To the east of Beaver Cay is another spit of white sand, seems to be home to a few hundred roosting seabirds, masked boobies and some terns. The island is not charted on our plotter or Navionics.

Clouds over the sun mean it’s not great light for navigating in coral, and I’m unsure where to head first, Beaver or boobies?

We decide on the latter.  The anchor goes down in to the sand and stays there for 48hrs. 

The clouds parted and for the first time since we sailed in to Australia, the snorkels and fins came out of the locker.

So good to be back in the aquarium!  We are very happy to report that this little corner of the Great Barrier Reef is teeming with life, colourful hard and soft corals and plenty of very busy reef fish.

Splendid isolation with our private sandbank and a few hundred masked boobies for company.

We put Dawn’s drone up to get the boobie’s eye view. 

Shortly after taking this photo the damn thing flew out of contact with Mission Control and we had to get in the dinghy to try to rescue it.  Seems to be on the blink, can’t think why.  Anyway it’s back safe and dry.  I may not have mentioned to Dawn before that Bryan crash landed it in Fiji once,  after my failed attempt to catch it with a wet hand.

We slightly overstayed for that ‘reef weather’ window, the trades had returned the morning we left.

And those boobies had come aboard in the night, perhaps responding to us invading their territory.  It took an hour with brush and bucket to wash off their parting gifts.  Squid rich diet by the look of that lot.

The Cassowary Coast

Still heading northwards, but also in towards the mainland in search of a peaceful place to anchor.  We found it at Mourilyan Harbour, a working sugar cane port but we checked with the harbour master, no ship movements expected.  Blissful calm.  

The next day was a corker, gliding along the green mountainous coast under full main and the ‘Big Red’ Code D.  We ticked over our 1,000nm from the Gold Coast, and this was our first full day without a reef in the main.  

Apart from Mourylian harbour this coast seems untouched by man. No roads or buildings in sight.  Endless bush, all bristling with cassowaries.

I had to look up Cassowary.  The world’s third largest bird as I’m sure you’re aware (behind ostrich and emu). They can stand 2m tall!  Flightless, extraordinary plumage and since it lives in Northern Queensland, guess what: POTENTIALLY LETHAL TO HUMANS!  What is the matter with all the creatures up here?  The thing to worry about in this case is a deadly blade-like growth between its toes.  In the recorded cases of death by cassowary, it seems you’re most at risk when lying down.  Its kick can eviscerate a dog or person, sever a limb, and in at least one case, a jugular vein.  It will kick a man while he’s down, so if you’re running away from one, just don’t trip up.

This Australian voyage has been a great adventure for Dawn and I.  Not the mellow cruise through turquoise water that we were hoping for, but a real voyage of discovery for us.  We have become so tuned in to the conditions here now.

Living with the daily routine of forecasts, sailing a few miles, working the tidal streams and researching the next anchorage.  With these ‘well developed tradewinds’ that have been blowing most of the time, there is a permanent north-bound wind swell of I metre or more. It’s fine while we’re sailing (downhill) but that swell tends to bend around all the headlands and islands to disturb the peace of most anchorages.

We lie in our bunk at night, aware of changes in that swell, the set of the anchor, the phase of the moon, the wind direction in the rig, the currents flowing over the rudders beneath our pillows, the turn of the tide. 

Then we’re up at first light, really living in the elements, attuned to our environment.  In a house on land I feel insulated from all those things, on the boat it’s just a few mm of high-tech composites between us and the sea.

Even on a nice stable multihull it can get a bit wearing to be constantly rocking around.  We have started to be sceptical of potential anchorages that don’t look like they have enough geography to offer protection. We sail on by.

So suddenly we’re here in Cairns already, a bit ahead of schedule.  Grateful for the artificial haven of the marina, flat calm and a lie-in.

June 1, 2024

The Land of Plenty

Good Queensland Casual

We are enjoying an old copy of ‘100 Magic Miles’, the classic sailor’s guide to the Whitsundays, first published 1985. Ours is the fifth edition from 1997, found in a Mackay Op Shop by our new friends Michael and Shylie. It’s full of great pilotage information, but some of the advice seems a bit dated. This on dress codes:

‘At night, if out in company, one is expected to conform to a standard of dress known as ‘Good Queensland Casual’. For men, this means sports shirt, slacks or shorts (with long socks and shoes). Women are expected to wear slacks or dresses, not shorts.  Two items not considered Good Casual, particularly for evening wear, are t-shirts and thongs.‘

Well that rules out my entire wardrobe. Should have brought some long socks.

There’s also great photos of 1980s windsurfers in bikinis and some sound windsurfing advice: ‘Don’t exceed your capabilities. Alcohol and sailboarding don’t mix.‘

Wildlife

Then there’s lots of info on all the things in the water that are going to kill you. Now I know this is one of the great Australian clichés but it’s a such a long list!  These are my edited highlights:

Sharks.  I’m used to sharks.  Apparently the only ones to worry about here are tiger sharks, bull sharks, grey whaler sharks and white sharks.

Stingrays.  ‘The wound they inflict with a venomous barb in their tails is painful and will require the attention of a doctor, but unless you get stung on the torso, is seldom serious.’

Stonefish.  ‘If you tread on one it can give you an agonisingly painful wound.’

Box jellyfish.  I understand we’re in the safe season for these.  But they are highly venomous and, like so many things on this list, potentially lethal.  ‘Be prepared to give resuscitation’.

Irukandi jellyfish.  Practically invisible. Gnarly.  Deadly.  No known anti-venom.

Cone shells.  Never heard of these.. ‘Potentially lethal. Don’t pick up with your bare hands, the animal is capable of harpooning you from anywhere along the cleft entrance to the shell’

Toadfish.  Another new one for me.  Apparently it will actually bite your toes off if you go paddling barefoot in the shallows.  Referred to locally as a ’Toado’.

Butterfly Cod. What?!  ‘Curious creatures, they will sometimes approach divers in the water, pointing their dorsal spines front of them as they get near.  These spines have glands which produce venom akin to that of one species of stonefish.  It produces a severely distressing sting.’  See also: Lion Fish, Zebra fish, Fire Cod.

Blue Ringed Octopus.  ‘Potentially lethal bite’.  I’ll spare you the details.

Sea Snakes.  ‘Virtually unknown in the Atlantic, there are some thirty-two species of sea snakes recorded in northern Australian waters.’ Marvellous.  We once had one writhing around our feet on a relaxing dinghy ride in Fiji.  Voices were raised. ‘When first aid measures are not taken, symptoms of bites occur within half an hour and include visual disturbance, muscular weakness, pain, progressing to paralysis and respiratory failure.’ Yes but I seem to remember they have tiny mouths, so they can’t really bite you?

But wait, I’ve just read this in Greg Luck’s ‘Cruising the Queensland Coast’: ‘Full grown adults range in size from 1m to 3m.  They have fixed front fangs and can open their mouths very wide, wide enough to bite a person’s thigh.  It is a myth that their mouths are too small to bite people.’

Great.

So at risk of labouring the point, I have to add this passage from ‘100 Magic Miles’: ‘The kind of serious envenomations that visitors to the Queensland coast are at all likely to have to deal with are stonefish stings, box jellyfish stings, snake bites, stingray wounds, cone shell stings, blue ringed octopus bites, anal sea snake bites.’ I had to read that last bit a couple of times, is that a typo?

Then of course there is the truly terrifying monster of this part of the world:

Estuarine Crocodile.  The ’Salty’. 

These prehistoric apex predators are the world’s largest reptile, up to 7 metres long.  They are ocean-going and can swim far off shore. They actively hunt humans for food.  If you get bitten by a shark it’s bad luck, you were probably bitten by mistake and there’s a reasonable chance of survival. But the croc sees you as a main course, he will lie in wait and observe your activity.  He will notice repeated behaviour and plan an ambush accordingly. So if you are in the habit of having a pee off the back step of your catamaran at the same time every evening, this may have been noted as the ideal time to strike. They can move extremely fast.  When those jaws close there is very little chance of escape before the croc will drown you and eat you.

I no longer use the back step.

All of the above has discouraged me slightly from being in the water as much as usual. Perhaps we’ll go for a nice walk ashore instead.  So I flick through ‘Cruising the Coral Coast’ to that section.

Things to watch out for if you go for a stroll:

Spiders:

Funnel-Web.  ‘One of the world’s deadliest spiders.  Stories of funnel-web and trapdoor spiders leaping at you are untrue, however, they do adopt an aggressive stance when approached, so never try to kill or capture one’. 

Noted

Red Back.  This is the one that famously lurks under toilet seats.  It goes on: ‘Too numerous to mention are the dangerous spiders whose bites are non fatal but may leave a necrotic lesion that can take months to heal.’

About that walk…

Snakes.  OK here we go, ready?

Taipan.  ‘One of the world’s deadliest snakes, the Eastern Taipan may be encountered along the entire Queensland coast and is known for its potentially aggressive behaviour when disturbed.  It grows to over 2.5m long and has the longest fangs and most efficient biting action of all Australian snakes.  It sometimes lunges at a victim to deliver multiple strikes. If a Taipan is sighted on the track ahead, turn around and walk away.’

No shit.

See also:

King Brown.

Copperhead.

Common Death Adder.  Really?

Turn the page..

Dingoes.

Sand Flies.

Wild Pigs. Which have been known to eat people. The cruising guide’s advice if you encounter pigs: climb a tree. 

Gympie-Gympie stinging trees. Wait!  Don’t climb that one!  Yes, the trees are trying to get you too.

Shore Leave

The Whitsunday Islands are very beautiful.  We have been amazed at how wild and undeveloped the landscapes are. Forested craggy islands with white sand beaches under huge Australian skies.  Hardly a building in sight.  Most of these views will be exactly as James Cook saw them when he sailed through here in 1770. We happened to be there on the same day as him, Whitsunday. After our wet and windy month of sailing it was time for a treat, to get off the boat for a couple of days and have a hot bath.

The main centre for civilisation and tourism is Hamilton Island, known locally as ‘Hammo’, so we went straight there.  We tied up the boat and checked in at the nearest 5* resort, rocking our best attempt at Good Queensland Casual.

At the cafe on Hammo there are Koalas munching eucalyptus leaves next to your table. Wallabies on the beach, cheeky cockatoos everywhere. 

Great hill-running trails with rewarding views from the top.

We spent a couple of nights ashore and celebrated getting this far.  

Then it was back on board and off to the glorious Whitehaven Bay. The wind comes down the hill in ‘bullets’ which may be similar to ‘williwaws’, challenging for the wingfoiler, but you can see them coming and swoop from gust to gust.  I spent happy hours zooming round, surprising the local turtles. 

We hiked the hills to see the magic views, and sailed up a fjord on Hook Island to find this cave which is a special site for the Ngarra people who lived here.  

The exact age of the paintings is not known, but humans have been here for 9,000 years!

Australia is big

Since we set off from Hope Island last month we have sailed about 800 nautical miles.  A very leisurely pace.  If you look at a map we’ve covered a small fraction of the east coast.

Australia is vast.  In European terms, if we sailed 800nm south from Guernsey, we’d be in Lisbon.  The distances here are daunting.

Here’s a postcard which explains that well:

Or if you prefer a North American perspective:

It’s simply massive.  When you sail up the coast all day, day after day, the spectacular coastline just keeps unrolling in front of you.  Islands, bays, headlands, capes, reefs, for thousands of miles.

Whitehaven Bay was one of those “Best 10 beaches in the World’.  Well, it’s as amazing as all the other Australian beaches, but with more day-trippers.

Have a look on Google Earth, Australia is pretty much a Top 10 Beach all the way round.  If you don’t mind the wildlife hazards.

Early morning bite

There hasn’t been much fishing because we’ve just been sailing too fast, and the seas have been too rough to be trying to land a fish. But this morning we slipped away at daybreak and I put a line out as the wind was filling in, hoping for a seafood supper. When the reel started screeching we knew it was more than one meal on the hook. Dawn rolled up the jib and slowed the boat down while I slowly won back all that line, then she whipped the fish onto the deck with a gloved hand, no gaff.

The lure had only been in about 10 minutes, Bryan will be interested to hear that it was a naked, unadorned cedar plug.  I’m back to ’no frills’ trolling.

The sailing.

The weather has been well mixed, as weather should be.  Enough showers to make you appreciate the blue sky, enough clouds to make superb sunsets. And enough wind to propel Escapade at a very satisfying pace.  Basically 20 knots SE trade wind every day, all day, and night. Some days gusting 25 or more, usually a bit more South in the mornings and a bit more East in the arvo as the hot continent warms up and tries to bend the trades into an onshore sea-breeze.  While it hasn’t been the easy, bikini cruising that Dawn was (falsely) promised, (see previous post) we have had some very fine downwind sailing.

Our new 3di main sail was re-cut and the square-top head was re-built at the North Sails loft in Brisbane in April.  It was slightly out of tune with our re-rigged mast.  The difference is amazing.  The boat has never sailed so well.  And sailing every day with these wind angles is such fun.  We are surfing down the wind swells for mile after mile, two reefs in the main, speeds up in double figures for hours.  

Magnetic Island.

It’s the end of May and we’ve made it to Magnetic Island, known locally as ‘Maggie’. We hiked a hill trail where we were told you might see koalas. 

The first koala I met was in that cafe on Hammo, she was happily sitting amongst the day’s delivery of fresh eucalyptus branches, alternately munching and dozing while the adoring public sip lattes and take photos.  She seemed very content but I couldn’t help thinking she would be happier in the forest than the resort.

Dawn and I went ashore early, hiked up the hill and there they were, perched in the crook of a tree, working on their 20 hours of sleep per day. This one was wide awake.

Wild animals in the bush, adorable, cuddly and non venomous.

May 20, 2024

Are we having fun yet?

So here we are, half way round the world, almost ten years since we set off from France.

For me the joy of sailing and living on Escapade is as strong as ever.

For my patient wife Dawn, not so much.  

Dawn has spent the last couple of years wondering when I will finally tire of this lifestyle and be ready to sell the boat and move on to the next chapter of our lives.  

But I really cannot bear to think of life without the boat, without becoming very emotional.

This was always my dream, it miraculously came true.  

To buy a beautiful boat and sail over the horizon with no plan and no time pressure, what a wonderful idea!  The problem is that I still haven’t had a better one.

After 25,000 nautical miles or so Dawn started to feel that she had perhaps done enough ocean passage making.  Fair enough.  Our old routine of long two-handed trips was getting a bit tiring.  Sleep deprivation gets harder as you age and for the first time ever, Dawn started to get seasick. 

So we adjusted our approach, I started to sail passages with a crew, so Dawn could come and join us for as much of the voyage as she chose, or just enjoy the island-hopping parts and take a plane over the next patch of ocean to be crossed.  This works well, Dawn is becoming what salty old yachties call a ‘FIFO’ wife (Fly-In-Fly-Out).  It’s not uncommon.

May 1st 2024

Since January Escapade has been safely tied up in a marina berth in Hope Island, up a river on the Gold Coast.  Many thanks to Ros and Roddie and David who organised that for us, it was a safe place for her to wait for the end of cyclone season. 

Which is now! May 1st. 

So here’s the plan. Dawn and I will spend two months sailing from Brisbane to Cairns, about 900 miles of amazing coastline, islands and reef. 

The pilot charts promise mellow autumn weather, nothing but steady SE trades and easy downwind sailing.  I start to think that this could be the trip that makes Dawn really fall back in love with the Escapade life.

No long passages, it can all be done as easy day-sails between calm and picturesque anchorages.  No gnarly weather, no sailing to windward, no night watches.  Once we’re past Gladstone we will be protected by the Great Barrier Reef from the wild Pacific.  A holiday in the Whitsunday Islands, snorkelling the reefs, she’s going to love it!  

May 4th

So looking back on the last few days, it’s disappointing to have to report that we had to sail non-stop for a tiring 30 hour trip which ended with us abandoning a very tough beat to windward and running for cover in 30kt winds to the muddy brown river at Bundaberg, where we have since been stuck in a rainstorm for 2 days. 

Given the aforementioned good intentions, one can only gasp at the level of poor management and bungled decision making by the skipper responsible.

We could see there was some bad weather coming but we really wanted to get started, otherwise we could be stuck in Moreton Bay for a week or more.  Now there’s nothing wrong with Moreton Bay, but we did spend a couple of weeks exploring there over New Year, eating the local oysters and Moreton Bay Bugs, then got hit by a historic thunderstorm which caused lots of damage on the Gold Coast, they are still talking about it.  In our case it meant 58 kts of wind across a crowded anchorage one scary night. 

So anyway, we planned to get out of Moreton Bay before more rain arrived.  We were headed for Fraser Island, which apparently has lovely anchorages on its western shore.  But to get there you have to cross the Wide Bay Bar, which needs careful tide timing.

I had planned to sail to the beautiful lagoon anchorage at Double Island Point to wait for the right tide to cross.  It looks amazing, a flat shallow lagoon inside a sandbar with lovely surf rolling down the outside.

But on the way there I found out (from Facebook) that the sandbar has now completely enclosed the lagoon and you can’t get in.  So with a rising swell we would now be anchoring on a surf beach!  Ok, no Double Island Point, and so no Wide Bay Bar crossing.  Anyway it would have been too rough to cross.  So now we are going to sail around the outside of Fraser Island, clear all the shoals to the North and sail back down to the sheltered leeward side.  That’s a 250 mile trip, to be sailed overnight.  The next morning the wind started to blow from the south.  So we never did get to Fraser Island.  We dodged some nasty rain systems which gave us 30+ knots and a sleigh-ride final approach to the industrial river port of Bundaberg.  Where we have been sitting in a giant white rain squall ever since.

This weather better change soon or there’s a strong risk that my FIFO will FO.

May 5th

Well the forecast looked a bit better so we braved the surf of the Burnet River entrance and bore off for a very fast 70 mile broad reach to Bustard Head.  Only one major rain squall on that trip. 

Our final approach was exciting as I was hand steering down swells aiming for a gap between a rock and a sandbar that marks the entrance to Pancake Creek.

The boat was flying, double reefed main and jib, long sustained surfs at 15 to 20 kts!  We rolled up the jib to slow down a bit, shot through the gap and rounded up behind the headland to drop the main.  The SOG had topped out at 23kts.

Pancake Creek was a sanctuary of flat (as a pancake) water protected by sandbanks.  The next morning we took the dinghy ashore to hike to the lighthouse.  First time ashore for a week!

It started raining as we dragged the boat up the beach, hike cancelled, back to boat.  Rain didn’t stop for 24hrs.

May 6th

Another hop north to Cape Capricorn.  So named as it sits almost on the Tropic of Capricorn.  We counted down the seconds of latitude as we crossed the line into the tropics.

May 7th

Today we sailed in the sunshine, what a treat.  A mere 28 miles to Great Keppel Island.  A lovely spot. 

May 10th

So we enjoyed Great Keppel, went ashore and hiked the bush trails, with seats provided at every lookout. 

Then it got wet and windy again.  For 3 days.

May 12th

Arrived in the Percy Islands via Island Head Creek and Hunter Island.  

We’re now anchored in the beautiful West Bay on Middle Percy.  Home to the ‘Middle Percy Yacht Club’ which is a timber A-frame on the beach where yachts have been leaving their mark for decades. 

A sociable BYO sundowner spot for the anchored boats. 

May 14th

Curlew Island, another lovely speck off the Queensland coast, uninhabited except for a few goats.  

Then a brisk 50ish miles to the harbour at Mackay.  Slalom through the 50 Bulk Carriers anchored off the coal port.

Quick pitstop here to re-provision.  I was tempted to take my wing foil gear to the beach by the marina, but this was a bit off-putting:

May 17th

We’re in the Whitsundays!

It’s not raining.

In fact it’s starting to feel like the dreamy tropical boat life at last.  We’re alone in a huge bay at Gaibirra (AKA Shaw Island).  Flat calm water while the breeze whistles over the hill.

We are in a wonderful wilderness, the whole island is a national park, the water is the clearest we have seen yet.  There are large turtles surfacing all around us to have a good look as they take a breath.

Stingrays sunbathing in the shallows.

A deserted paradise.

By the way, we have been snacking on this extraordinary thing.  The fruit of the Monstera Deliciosa plant.

As it ripens, the hard hexagonal plates fall off, revealing the sweet custardy fruit cells.  Jungle pudding.

I have been winging for the first time since we left the Gold Coast.  

Last night the wind died and I was enjoying the quiet of the bay after dinner.  First a splash and a gasp, then several more.  We are surrounded by dugongs in the moonlight.  

In the last three weeks we have sailed 660 miles from the Gold Coast, not all in ideal conditions, and at times exasperated by the weather, but yes, we are actually having fun now.

December 30, 2023

Travelling to the land down under.

Notes from the captain’s log, December 2023.

Day 2

I’m lounging in the cockpit, it’s a warm afternoon and I’m slightly groggy from lack of sleep.

We’re a couple of hundred miles west of New Caledonia, empty ocean, nothing out here.

The SE breeze died this morning at 2am, we have been motoring across a flat ocean, just a low swell on the port quarter.

But at lunchtime a suspicion of wind started to ruffle the oily calm surface.  We hoisted the code zero and as it unfurled and filled we felt the smooth acceleration.

The boat and crew sigh with relief as the diesel engine noise is replaced by the chuckle of blue water along the freshly scrubbed hulls.

The South Pacific looks like a summer lake, the sun is warm on my belly, I am struggling with a cryptic crossword, but my attention keeps returning to the boat.

The helm is just beyond my lazy feet.  The autopilot is barely moving the wheel, from here I can see through the gap in the bimini to the telltales on the big golden code zero, the breeze is well forward, she’s in her groove.

The true wind speed is 8 or 9 knots across the smooth blue sea, not a whitecap.  Our boat speed flickers between 8 and 9 knots.  That’s dreamy sailing.

Escapade loves these conditions, and so do we.  Bryan and Auriane endured some ‘brisk’ progress with me on our passage to New Zealand this time last year, this trip feels like a different world.

As we always remind ourselves when it gets this good: “It won’t last”.

Right again.  The infernal combustion engine was rumbling again by midnight.

South Pacific Beer Festival

Day 3 

We are nearing the coast of Queensland Australia.  I guess that means we will have finally crossed the Pacific.  17,500 nautical miles, eight countries and one pandemic since we chugged out of the Panama Canal in April 2018.

Along the way we have enjoyed a cold beer or two.  Here are a selection that were chilled down for our halfway party on the New Cal to Australia passage.

From East to West:  Hinano (Tahiti), Fiji Bitter (er Fiji), Tusker (Vanuatu) Number One (New Caledonia).

I may have had a beer in Panama, Galapagos, Easter Island or Pitcairn too, but I can’t really remember those and there are certainly none in my fridge today.

So this is the line up.  Now all of these fine beverages are well loved in their home islands.  You can buy a t-shirt (I have) to show everyone your loyalty to the local brew.

But let’s face it, none of them are what a Brit would recognise as real ale.  They are perfectly crafted to ease the pain after a hot afternoon in the tropics, which they all do admirably.

But could you even tell them apart?

Well to put that to the test we would need someone with the experience, expertise and analytical ability to compare and contrast the subtle distinctions.

Nobody like that was available, so we had to use Bryan.

The Blind Tasting

Bryan joined the crew in French Polynesia and has been known to quaff the occasional cold beer at sunset, frequently with lunch and occasionally after breakfast.  Always after a session, sometimes before. 

Bryan somehow just knows when we are in need of an ‘Energy Beer’, a ‘Hydration Beer’, a ‘Relaxturbation Beer’ or more often just a regular ’Safety Beer’.  And we take safety very seriously.

So Bryan is no stranger to a cold refreshment in the islands and to celebrate our crossing this halfway point, we blindfolded him and tasked him with some mindful beer swilling.

Just to keep it competitive, I took up the challenge.

Auriane was our patient pourer, adjudicator and note taker.

The results are informative.  She recorded our incisive comments, such as: 

“Delicious” 

“Tastes metallic”

“Not enough in the cup”

“Sounds like a Tusker can opening”

“Where is the cup?”

“I need to taste that one again”

“This one’s definitely Fiji Bitter (Burp)”

(It was definitely not.)

Well the short answer is no, you can’t tell them apart.  Or at least we can’t.

Another cyclone

There is an ominous low pressure system forming to the north of us.  That’s the main reason we are out here threading a path between calm patches and enduring all this motoring.  We would like to be safely tied up in Bundaberg before that storm starts moving south.

Normally I would wait for a forecast with a bit more wind but we were keen to leave and we knew it would be pretty light at first.

Dawn has flown in ahead of us on this trip and she is the perfect advance party.  Dawn has organised all the admin for our entry to Australia.  The border force and bio-security guys are all lined up to clear us in to Bundaberg.  Dawn has rented a cottage on the beach so we can have a few days ashore when we get there, she has filled the fridge with treats for our arrival and she’ll be there at Port Bundaberg to take our lines.

Day 4

But here’s the thing..  We’re not going to Bundaberg.  We have changed course and diverted to Brisbane.

Our depression is now to be known as Tropical Cyclone Jasper and our weather router thinks there’s a chance Jasper could hit Bundaberg.

So we will be 200 miles south of Dawn when we arrive.  She makes short work of redirecting all the pre-arrival stuff to the Brisbane authorities, organising our clearance and booking us a marina berth.  So good to have a shore team.

Anyway this light wind passage making suits us well.  Yes we have to use an engine to keep the boat moving through the lulls, but there are also long spells of wonderful sailing on a flat sea.  There is almost no swell. Just 8-10 kts of breeze sees us gliding along silently on a close reach.  Daggerboards down, mast rotated, code zero and full main powering us smoothly westward.  Everyone can sleep, cook, eat and relax.  It feels so easy, but the boat is quietly charging along at 9 and 10 knots!  

Landfall

It’s a beautiful night.  The Southern Cross is high on the port side, Orion is lying on his back to starboard and a meteor shower is sending regular shooting stars across his patch of sky.  A river of light from the crescent moon is reflecting in our wake, and up ahead there is a new glow on the Western horizon.  The loom of the city lights of Brisbane.

Just over that horizon lies the giant mass of Australia.  Imagine that much land!  The only country that is also a continent.

The end of this passage.  The long days and nights across that smooth ocean.  The lights ahead mean this bubble is about to burst.  Our little capsule is re-entering the real world.  Customs procedures, phone signal, internet, responsibilities, a city! 

I always have mixed feelings as we come to the end of a trip.  It’s so special out in the blue wilderness, away from everything. 

But then on the other hand…

Pizza.

Day 5

A few miles later I can smell land.  What does Australia smell of?  Dirt? Desert? Vegetation? 

I can’t put my finger on it but it’s certainly different from that pure, ozoney ocean air.

As day breaks the Queensland coast reveals itself, the chart plotter screen is suddenly busy with shipping and navigation marks. 

We thread our way through the mudbanks, container ships and a welcoming pod of dolphins, then up the Brisbane river to the city.

Busy in Brizzie

I was catching up on sleep,  I’m disorientated, in my bunk but I can hear traffic, sirens and strange alien bird calls. Where am I?

We are rocked by wakes. Commuters are being ferried to the skyscrapers in river buses.

Escapade is at Dock Side, Kangaroo Point, in the shadow of the Story Bridge. 

The brown river flows through bustling downtown Brisbane and there is Escapade, like a fish out of water, tied up in the heart of the concrete jungle. 

December 16, 2023

Nouvelle Calédonie

02.11.2023

Another new country already!  Not really Escapade style to be moving so fast. 

But here are the red hills and pine clad shores of New Caledonia.

Our passage planning worked out perfectly and we arrived at the entrance to the Havannah Pass at 6am with the sun rising and the tide flushing us in.

We are entering the biggest reef-fringed lagoon in the world!

It is impeccably charted and marked.  Lighthouses, well-lit channel markers and cardinals all the way.  A bit of a culture shock arriving from Vanuatu.  

The contrasts between the two island nations are even more striking when you step ashore in Noumea.  One day we are voyaging through the palm thatched villages of darkest Melanesia, land of volcanoes, cyclones, earthquakes and (until surprisingly recently) headhunters.

Two days later we seem to have arrived in the South of France.

Noumea

Noumea is smart town built around the port and a central park square.  It has good restaurants, a great market for fresh local fish and produce, and a miniature Notre Dame up on the hill.

Many foreign yachts circumnavigating choose to sail past New Caledonia, it’s expensive, sharky and slightly off-course if you are following the classic route out of the Pacific, up through Vanuatu and the Solomons.

But for French boats it’s a natural stopover after a long Pacific crossing.

Slim women smoke cigarettes whilst walking their small dogs through the square. There’s no shortage of pastis or pétanque, and if you want to wash down your plat du jour with a vin de table and do a bit of shrugging, well there really is no finer place this side of Tahiti.

French is the main language spoken here.  On Escapade of course we take this in our stride.  Auriane is a French native, Dawn has a firm grasp of the grammar while Bryan and I can slip into a strongly accented Franglais at the drop of a chapeau.

Wait, sharky?

Yes Noumea does have a bit of a problem with people getting a bit… well, eaten by sharks. 

Whenever I have mentioned this part of our itinerary to anyone from Fiji to New Zealand I have been advised to ‘watch out for the fish’ or ‘don’t go in the water’.  Surely they are sensationalising a bit of a local issue?  Apparently not.  There are large scary signs everywhere warning ‘BAIGNADE INTERDITE’ and total bans on all watersports during the regular ’Shark hunting weeks’.  Yikes.  Bryan went straight to the kite shop and bought a ’Shark Band’ which apparently repels any attack with a powerful magnet worn on a wrist or ankle. Or all four if you’re really concerned.  Which you may be.  One 4m bull shark landed this year was found to contain two human hands.  From different people.

The good news (unless you live in Noumea) is that the attacks have all been in Noumea.

So it’s really those inner-city urban sharks you need to worry about.

I plan to be spending time in the pristine waters of that massive lagoon, where the sharks are much better behaved and there are no swimming bans.

Grande Terre

Is grande indeed, the main island is over 200 miles long with lots to explore by land and sea.

A mix of French and Pacific cultures blended with the indigenous Kanak tribes. 

The land is rich in minerals, whole mountain ranges made of nickel ore, thrown up by ancient volcanos.

We are lucky to have expert local knowledge to guide us, Christian and Sylvie have lived here for 35 years. When not practising medicine they are both windsurfing, foiling and sailing their catamaran ‘Placebo’. 

Their daughter is our friend Sarah who lives on Maui and will arrive here for a rare visit next week.

It’s windy!  This new El Niño season has ended a long period of light winds here.  Now the trades seem to be steady at 25kts day and night.

The locals are loving it.  Windsports are big in NC. ‘Le planche a voile’ is alive and well. The locals are racing longboards, wave sailing, wind foiling and winging.

We met Sarah at her old windsurf club, where kids are being coached in slalom and freestyle windsurfing. It’s clearly a great training ground.  Local hotshot Antoine was landing tricks I couldn’t even spell.  Sarah grew up with all this and is now a world champion. 

North of Noumea

16.11.23

The forecast looks like we can score some great windsurfing conditions up north.

We set off on Thursday to island-hop our way up the lagoon.

After two weeks here the trades have finally stopped blowing for a couple of days, so we enjoy tranquil empty anchorages, with Bryan perfecting his early morning squid jigging along the way.  

On Saturday morning we anchor in the beautiful sandy lagoon by Tenia island and dinghy over to surf the playful wave wrapping in through the pass.

That night we watched the sunset, anchored alone in the glassy transparent water. Smooth, tranquil, turquoise, so perfect. It won’t last…

The Tenia Sessions

I first read about Tenia many years ago. A perfect windsurfing wave, but inconveniently located on an outer reef pass, far from land.

To get there is a logistical exercise.  I think we could anchor Escapade just inside the pass, if it was calm.  But in windsurfable conditions the trades blow right across that spot, the fetch and chop would make it impossible. 

Even our beautiful lagoon anchorage by the Tenia island gets too rough, so we need to move Escapade to a sheltered bay two miles away.

But that puts us 4 miles downwind from the wave spot.  No way we’re going to windsurf back there in 25kts.  

So what we need is Jackaroo.

Marc lives nearby and Jackaroo is his 20’ aluminium powerboat that will take us and our gear to the pass.  He can also rescue us if (when) we break gear. 

We were very lucky to have Sarah and Christian to organise all of this for us. They have been coming up here to ride waves for decades.

On Sunday they arrive in the family catamaran “Placebo’, we all meet up to discuss the forecast, which is looking almost perfect.

We’re set for three days of long period swell, starting Monday with 2 metres @19 seconds.

20kt SE tradewinds and the neap tides will give us a safe depth over the reef most of the day.

Sarah’s briefing: Monday is the warm-up day, “get dialled in”,  Tuesday the swell peaks, “no mistakes”, Wednesday is the last of the swell, so go “all out”.

Those three days are a bit of a blur now.  Bumpy rides upwind with a boat full of us and our gear. Taking turns to rig and launch from Jackaroo.

The first morning we arrived to see a huge set peeling down the reef towards us.  The froth levels were pretty high, Bryan had to be physically restrained while Sarah rigged her sail and showed us the way.

Auriane and Dawn took turns to be photographer of the day, while Jackaroo bucked at her bumpy anchorage at the end of the reef.

The wave riding was sublime.  Big blue walls, perfect wind direction and a reasonably safe shoulder to head for in deep water.

The swell just pumped for 3 days and we all sailed until we could sail no more.

Everyone took a few swims, but the only sacrifice was Bryan’s favourite 4m wing which was eaten whole by a big blue monster.

It was a privilege to watch Sarah sail in these conditions, stylish and fearless, always on the bomb wave of any set. The bigger it gets the better she likes it.

Christian enjoyed a return to his favourite wave spot, windsurfing and foiling, sharing waves with his daughter.

Bryan put in the hours winging, getting deeper in to the pocket with every session, before switching to windsurfing gear for another way to play.

I can’t believe our luck. It’s late in the season for this wave to get so good.  More luck that our trip coincided with Sarah’s visit and it all came together.

It was pretty special, the only thing that would have made it better was if Sarah’s husband Casey could have been with us to get his share of the waves.  We missed you Casey! 

Most of the time we were alone there, except when local hero and PWA rider Antoine Albert arrived in a rib with his friends and put on a whole other show of power riding.

At the end of each day Marc would drive us back downwind to our waiting catamarans where we barely had the energy to eat before sleeping.

Southbound

The next problem with Tenia is that at some point you will probably want to leave and sail back to the south, in to the teeth of those tradewinds!

Christian advised an early departure so the windlass was rumbling at 04.40 one morning and we snuck south before the wind picked up for the day.

Our next stop was Mbe Kouen, where we spent a couple of days with flat water and steady breeze. Sylvie was winging around the anchorage with great style, and conditions were perfect for Dawn and Auriane’s wing training with coach Bryan.

Then it was time to return to Noumea, supplies were running low, Auriane was craving the boulangerie.

The Deer Hunter

27.11.23

Our new friend Marc is a man of many talents.  As well as running surf trips and fishing charters on Jackaroo, he and his wife run a cattle ranch up in the hills.

We were invited to stay in an old farm building and spend a few days up north.  Would we like to go hunting for wild deer?

Well Bryan is keen on firearms, and we were all ready to get off the boat and do something different for a while, so why not?

At 4.30am the first light of day is just appearing as a pink glow behind the mountains.  We are all up and hiking with Marc and his dog Nike.  

The huge full moon sits on a ridge line while the sky colours and brightens, a magical morning for us, partly just the sheer novelty of being in the hills after so much sea time.

Wild deer are a problem for ranchers here, damaging trees and munching prime pasture.

Marc and Nike are regularly patrolling the farm and the freezer is full of ‘cerf’. (venison).

But those cerf are wily and wary, despite us sneaking around in total silence(!) they can hear us and smell us and avoid getting shot.

The closest we got was a view of bounding bobtails as they scarpered out of range.

It was an epic hike through the high country, followed by a meat-free barbecue.

The terrain is wonderful, we went for a dip in the shallow river that runs through the land, protected by a bamboo forest.

Marc is a great host, if you’re ever out that way.

Cyclogenesis

01.12.23

Back on board our morning weather check demands more attention than usual. The forecasts show a new low pressure feature deepening and starting to spin.  It will be way up in the Soloman Islands but it could become another cyclone over the next week or so and then New Caledonia is a potential target.

We consult with our weather router John Martin whose advice is pretty clear: “Time to get out of Dodge”.

Looks like we’re sailing to Australia.

One last trip to the patisserie, a few hours scrubbing the hulls clean (for Australian bio-security), a long bike ride touring the offices of Customs, Immigration and the Capitannerie du Port.  We are cleared to leave.

So it’s au revoir and merci beaucoup to Christian, Sylvie and Sarah. Thanks for showing us around your beautiful lagoon and sharing those unforgettable waves.

November 25, 2023

Vanuatu Part 2: Lola

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!

November 12, 2023

The Vanuatu Voyages

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.

November 4, 2023

Farewell to Fiji

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…

October 26, 2023

The untold Fiji story.

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.

June 1, 2023

Haere rā Aotearoa. Bula vinaka Fiji

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.

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