Roving Rear Commodore report from New Zealand into the Pacific
by Simon Phillips 20 Mar 2023 23:55 UTC
Sapphire II of London has had a refit and is back on the high seas, bidding farewell to New Zealand en route to Fiji.
When we left Sapphire II of London at Whangarei in November 2021, we had expectations of returning within three months and a trouble-free refit. Continuing Covid restrictions meant that New Zealand borders did not reopen until the end of May which meant that timescales slipped, and the work schedule expanded to fit the available time - I think I remember that phrase from a project management course I attended sometime in my 30s! Grappling with the 13-hour time difference whilst chasing tradesmen was not easy and progress was incremental. With hindsight, I should have commissioned a professional project manager to supervise the work locally.
Despite giving weeks of notice of our return and setting a deadline of the end of June 2022 to leave for Fiji, it was a huge disappointment to return to Sapphire in early June and find her uninhabitable and massively behind schedule. This resulted in an extra stay in Whangarei of nearly eight weeks. Without the support of my dear friends Nicole, Jeremy, Sarah and Mark, who helped with the refit, did jobs that the refit team had not done, and generally entertained me, I do believe that there was a very good chance that I would have lost the plot. The weather did not help as it was so wet - four rainbows in one day! But the feeling of helplessness and the rather laissez-faire attitude of some trades were deeply unenjoyable. The straw that broke the camel's back was having to admit to my wife and family that Sapphire was not going to be ready to sail to Fiji to meet them in mid-July, requiring hotels to be booked and a flight to Fiji for me.
Some elements of the mast refurbishment were outside the control of the local team and by the end of a very comprehensive refit Sapphire was, we felt, in her best operational state since she left the Discovery factory in 2011. We did some test sailing to tune the rig albeit not in any vigorous conditions and, with the 'blessing' of the riggers, we finally left Whangarei, bound for Opua, to check out.
Opua to Fiji via North Minerva Reef: R it was good to be back in Opua doing last-minute checks, repairs and restocking of essentials at the small marina store. We had a last night at the local yacht club, the venue for a few epic nights on our previous visit! We were four POB, losing a crew member (an old family friend from Dunedin in South Island) who ran out of time waiting for our departure. Finding a weather window to leave the top of North Island is always challenging. We pored over PredictWind and opted to leave on 6 August.
We had agreed to head for North Minerva Reef (approx. 800NM) - slightly off the rhumb line but a must-do anchorage. All was proceeding well until we got hit by a mega squall (light wind to 40kt plus) which shredded the mainsail - the very mainsail which had supposedly just been repaired and checked. There must have been a weakness in the cloth due to UV exposure and 25,000NM of use. The crew was, as usual, very professional; everyone helped in the dark to get Sapphire back on course. While an advocate of in-mast furling, I find it nigh on impossible to furl a shredded mainsail so we did the best we could. We continued with just the genoa in 35+kt winds to North Minerva. The atoll is seriously impressive and it did require some nerve to motor through the entrance as there were big winds and currents. Once inside it was surreal - flat seas but still strong winds and the roar of the ocean crashing on the reef was continuous. We had two nights at anchor as the only yacht in the atoll. The crew hoisted me up three times (no mean task as I am quite heavy) to make the sail safe which required a lot of cutting away. One night we watched Cast Away on the new AV system which was ironic
With the sail secured and a new sail ordered, we set sail for Fiji, hoping the worst was over.
North Minerva Reef to Fiji: leaving the atoll was easier. We had steady 25+kt winds to sail to Fiji (approx. 450NM) albeit with a confused sea. Despite passage planning to arrive in daylight, we entered the reef at Malolo Passage in darkness and were able to anchor outside Denarau at 01:00.
Checking in to Fiji was trouble free and we found all of the Fijians an absolute delight to deal with - they could teach master classes in customer relations to some of their South Pacific neighbours! We undertook a few repairs and provisioned for a six-week tour of the western group of Fijian islands. Previous readings and feedback from other cruisers had warned us that there were no local shops and fresh products were virtually non-existent.
We picked up Brian, a good friend who had flown in from London, and started an idyllic cruise of the Yasawa Islands, an archipelago of 20 volcanic islands. This has got to be one of the best cruising areas in the Pacific, with protected waters and good fishing between the islands. As we had no mainsail it was mainly day motoring to bays and island resorts: Musket Cove, Blue Lagoon and Octopus being some of our favourites. The resorts were very friendly and delighted to have cruisers after the paucity of visitors due to Covid and it was nice to eat ashore and use the swimming pools.
We met up with our friends Julian and Lyn from Domini and sailed to the northernmost island in the chain. After obtaining permission from the village elder to anchor in their bay and partaking in the traditional Fijian kava ceremony, we visited the caves of Sawa-i-Lau. On the return leg, following another kava ceremony, we were given permission to visit Monuriki (aka Cast Away) Island.
We returned to Vuda Marina to drop off Brian and pick up Helen for the next leg of the trip, which was a planned circumnavigation of Viti Levu and onwards to Vanua Levu and Savusavu.
My next report will cover this leg and also the trip to Australia via Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
This article has been provided by the courtesy of Ocean Cruising Club.