Friday, June 29, 2018

Passage: Bay of Islands to Tonga via Minerva Reef



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
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.
 As we arrived at North Minerva Reef the wind dropped right out and we had glassy conditions inside the reef. 


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.



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.



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