Key stats for the first leg
Departed Bay of Islands 12:30pm 29 May 2018. Crew: Cran, Ann, Patrick & Linda
Air temp 17degrees, wind a chilly SSE 10kts, water temp 16
degrees Multiple clothing layers required
Arrived North Minerva Reef 14:10pm 4 June 2018. Same crew,
which is always good at the end of a passage
Air temp 26.5 degrees, wind ENE 3-4kts, water temp 24.4
degrees Single clothing layers
Distance travelled 905Nm (1,676Km) Duration 6 days 1hr 40min
Patrick is a very experienced sailor and has done 1,000’s of
miles with us on Lettin’Go. Linda has
done a lot of ocean crossings but all on cruise ships, so this was a first for
her on a yacht. Linda is a quick learner
and by the second day she was doing watch periods on her own. That meant we could do watches of 2 hours on,
6 hours off which is not tiring at all and worked well when things got more
demanding with the stronger the weather.
On passage we had a bit of everything. We left in light to moderate winds 8-12kts
that lasted 42 hours with motor sailing for a lot of that time to maintain
momentum in the swells.
The next 30 hours light winds less than 8 kts motor sailing
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| Never tire of sunsets at sea |
Then a front came through.
Not our favourite part of the trip, we had 20-30+kts and building seas
for 34 hours with rain squalls. During
this time, we had heavily reduced sail area plus a motor running again to
maintain momentum and stop stalling in the swells. To reduce the slamming of the boat in the
seas we headed far more west than our destination.
Once the front passed through the wind dropped fairly
quickly and swung from the NE to NW, so we were able to turn towards Minerva
Reef again and recover the miles lost to the west. That’s ocean sailing.
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| Linda on lookout coming into the lagoon |
As mentioned in last year’s post, the Minerva Reefs are
interesting and it's quite surreal to be anchored there in the middle of the
South Pacific Ocean. There are two reefs North and South about 20Nm (37Km)
apart and they are 320Nm (600km) from Tonga. North Minerva Reef is higher than
South and as such offers more protection from the ocean swell. North is almost
circular with an entrance on the north west about 200m wide so quite easy to
navigate through as long as there isn't a large swell running across the
entrance. It is a relatively large lagoon, 3Nm north/south and 2.6Nm east/west
(5.5 x 4.8 Km) The depths in this part of the Pacific are generally
2,000 - 4,000m. The reefs have steep walls and sit on an underwater platform
about 500 - 800m deep. These must be old reefs as the top of the reefs are rock
and sand unlike the soft coral reefs in Qld. There are corals on the sides of
the reef but at low tide you can safely walk on the reef without damaging the
reef system or yourself. Consequently, reef walking is a popular activity at
low tide.
We found a good anchorage just on the edge of the shelving
sand and very much to ourselves. We
celebrated our passage with our first alcoholic drink since leaving NZ over
lunch.
About 1Km away a cluster of 20+ boats all anchored together. Why do they do that in an anchorage that is so
big…? The inside of the reef is a large
area but a lot of boats cluster around anchorages shown in the guides when you
can anchor almost anywhere inside the reef depending on the weather and keeping
an eye out for coral bommies.
After a swim and a late lunch, we made the most of the light
glassy conditions to repair our main sail which had 2 chaff points from pressure
at 2 reef points in the 30+ winds.
The light winds coupled with the prefect tide, low water
just after sunset, made for conditions that were just right for night crayfish
hunting. (Read last year’s post about cray fishing at Minerva – 6/6/17) Jim, ex
Panthera, was crewing on Manuhaea and joined us for the crayfish hunt. It was the first time for everyone except
Cran but pretty soon people got the hang of it and Linda was even immobilising
them with the red plastic crate, so we could grab them. In less than an hour on the reef we were
heading back to our boats with the catch of various sizes. 8 crayfish in the red crate back to Lettin”Go
and Jim delivered 4 crayfish back to Manuhaea, much to the delight of their
crew.
No guessing what was for dinner that night and lunch the following
2 days.
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| Getting the last of the crayfish out |
We were planning on staying a few days in Minerva Reef but
another weather change was forecast that would produce unfavourable winds for
the next leg to Tonga if we delayed, so we left the next afternoon.
Key stats for the second leg
Departed North Minerva Reef 16:40pm 5 June 2018. Crew: Cran, Ann, Patrick & Linda
Air temp 24degrees, wind nil, water temp 24 degrees, single
clothing layer required
Arrived Pangai, Tonga 9:30am 8 June 2018. Same crew, developing
a good pattern here
Air temp 28 degrees, wind N 10kts, water temp 27 degrees, clothing
layers optional
Distance travelled 368Nm (682Km) Duration 2 days 16hrs 50min
Now I mentioned that if we delayed in Minerva we would have
unfavourable winds, well leaving early didn’t mean we would have favourable
winds just not unfavourable. We left
with no wind and motored most of the way to Tonga in very light winds. If we had delayed, we would have had strong head
winds ie blowing from the direction we were heading.
The trip on this leg was largely uneventful. We did start trolling for fish. We had a freezer full of precooked meals for
the passage when we left NZ so no room in the freezer, therefore no fishing on
the first leg. Now was different so out with
the lures. Now for the fish story… we
had a strike on the handline. Patrick
and Ann heard the hand reel knocking about, looked back to see a marlin over 2m
in the body excluding its bill jumping on the surface thrashing the line. One big jerk on the handline and the trace broke. A good result as that was one big fish, too
big to bring onboard on a handline.
Arriving in Pangai we called up Matt at the Ha’apai Beach
Resort who arranged for Customs, Bio Security & Health officials to meet us
at the harbour for clearance. As we were
anchoring in the harbour a front came through and within a couple of minutes
the wind swung 180 degrees going from N10kts to S20/30kt and heavy rain. We were unable to get the anchor set and
couldn’t finish the process, so had to assist the anchor by driving forward on
the engine until the 30kt gusts passed.
Obviously, the officials waited for that to pass before coming down to
the harbour.
We arrived on the same date as last year – June 8 and the
same three officials from Customs, Health and Bio-Security from last year checked
us in and they remembered our boat.
Once
the formalities were completed and we were officially cleared in, we headed up
to the Ha’apai Beach Resort to catch up with friends Steve & Kate off Blue
Summit and Rob & Nicola off Distant Sun. Then ashore for a few glasses of
the local brew to celebrate completing another successful passage.
