Day 28-30 - Friday thru Sunday, September 22-24
We started the morning with the intention of an easy sail day. We were headed north with an overnight stop in Pangai, another village in the island group of Ha’apai. We were clipping along at a pretty good speed. The winds were from the southeast, which provided a good solid wind power. We knew that we’d need to tack and head east to get to the island. The moment we tacked, we hit the headwind and strong current and our speed dropped from 6.5 knots to 1.5 knots. We trimmed the sails and did everything we could to get our speed back up. At this pace, it’d take 4-5 hours to reach Pangai. Instead of fighting against the wind and current, we headed north again and decided to sail all night to reach the Vava’u island group the next morning.
Our sail was quite eventful. The sidewinds picked up to over 40 knots/hour and there were 4 meter swells. Needless to say, we were once again riding the bucking bronco. Everything was covered in salt as the seas and rain continued to pelt over the railings. Xavier says it was harsher seas than he has experienced, except going through the Bearing Sea near Alaska.
Saturday, September 23
We made it to an anchorage outside of the village of Neiafu at around 5:00am. We were very happy to get a few hours of sleep before heading into the harbor. When we woke up, there were cows on the beach tromping through. We’ve seen fishing pigs and now tromping cows. Quite the sight!
Once in the harbor, we moored Kanoa and began our explorations of a new harbor, a new island and a new village. We had lunch at a nice spot overlooking the lagoon (of course, all the restaurants have seating overlooking the lagoon). I thought the way they stuck the napkin in between the fork tines was clever.
The village is similar to Tongatapu, but smaller. But the harbor is much bigger and much nicer.
We met our neighbor, Hugh, who is quite the character. Super nice guy and can tell quite the stories. He’s met everyone in the harbor and gave us the scoop. Also next to us in the harbor is one of the most famous female sailors in the world. At age 81, Jeanne Socrates (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Socrates) owns various records of sailing solo around the world (female, oldest, etc).
Heading to dinner, we stopped to visit with Peter, a friend of Debra’s (my yoga buddy in Tongatapu). He had been at a festival all day, one we considered going to but arrived a little late to make it. We also passed 2 sailboats that had lost their masts in weather similar to what we experienced last night, but smaller boats. Kanoa is rock solid, no fear of losing her mast at all!
Have we mentioned that sailing is a small world and that once on the seas you become family. We will run into many of the same boats over the next 3 weeks to New Caledonia as everyone sails to safety for the cyclone season.
We had a nice dinner at a Spanish Tapas Restaurant that had been recommended by Claire, Debra’s friend. Then we headed back to Kanoa for a good night’s sleep since we didn’t get much the night before.
Sunday, September 24
We woke up to no fresh water on the boat - the fresh water pump had failed. (Like I’ve said before, if you own a boat it’s a never ending maintenance and repair project.) Xavier worked on the pump for most of the morning. We decided to take a break and have lunch in town at Mango’s. Then back at it again.
During dinner last night, we discussed the fact that the cyclone season is predicted to come early this year. And the insurance company Xavier uses for Kanoa has required that he be in dry dock in New Zealand sooner than he anticipated. That means that we’ll arrive in New Caledonia 2 weeks earlier than planned.
Mickey and I had flights scheduled to New Zealand and Airbnb’s booked based on the previous plan of arriving in New Caledonia on October 28th and leaving for New Zealand October 29th. So we spent the better part of the morning working on Plan B. We have it all figured out and will spend an additional 8 days in New Zealand. (Oh darn!)
We had hoped to snorkel today, but with the water pump issue and the fact that we needed to figure out Plan B for our travels to New Zealand, we stayed in the bay on Kanoa and worked. It’s such a beautiful place to work! Tomorrow, we’ll buy some provisions, get the paperwork ready, get a new water pump and whatever else we need to take care of. We plan to sail to Fiji on Tuesday, September 26th, which will take us 3 .5 days so we won’t be back in touch until Friday September 29th at the earliest.
Till next time….
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