Passage in Pictures

The previous passage blog ("Tropics Bound", June 2017) looked at life on board the vessel underway; this one looks at the world outside the boat. Hopefully it will open a window on what we see as we cross oceans.

Every day on a passage I send position reports to Yachts in Transit via our SSB radio communication system. What follows is a picture version of that information: a daily chronicle of the voyage in images of  weather conditions, sail configuration and chartplotter data.

Reading from top to bottom, chartplotter data indicates:
Speed over ground, in knots (1 k = 1.15 mph)
Time of day, in local time
Depth, in feet (--- means too deep for the sonar to read; depths over 1 1/4 miles are common)
Distance To Destination, in nautical miles (1 nm = 1.15 "land" mile)
 (since sailboats often cannot travel directly toward their destinations, the difference between one day's DTD and the next does not indicate the actual miles sailed)
Time To Destination, computed from DTD relative to speed
(this figure changes constantly and we pay little attention to it)
Latitude & longitude
(normally the screen displays the area relatively close to us and these numbers are the current lat & long of the boat; since I had to move the cursor to center the large picture, the box shows the cursor location, not the vessel location)

DAY ONE

Wind ESE 9k, Sea ESE .5m

Full main, full jib

A picture of the entire route,
from New Caledonia to a waypoint outside the Bay of Islands,
 New Zealand

DAY TWO

Wind SE 15k, Seas ESE 1.5m

Full main, full jib, inner foresail

On the big picture, a wee bit of progress

DAY THREE

Wind E 12k, Seas ENE 2m

Full main, full jib

Cursor (and sails) show we've tacked

DAY FOUR

Wind E20k, Seas 3m mixed 

Reefed main, jib partially furled

Weather forecasts showed a squash zone--area of very strong winds--in our path,
so we slowed down to avoid  running into it

DAY FIVE

Wind ESE 22k, Seas 3.5m

Furled jib only (no main)

Squash zone and local conditions getting stronger,
but even with hardly any sail up we couldn't slow the boat down enough 

DAY SIX

Wind ENE 24k, Seas 4m

Full main and full jib in contrary motion
("hove to", intentionally stopping the boat)

Cursor shows us floating backwards, since we're not sailing forward
(the downside to not forcing the boat or crew to bash into rough seas)

DAY SEVEN

Wind NE 23k, Seas NE 3.5m

Main on 3rd reef, inner foresail

For some reason the chartplotter's backlight didn't work well that day;
photo shows a speed of 7.1k with 271.2 miles to go

DAY EIGHT

Wind ENE 10k, Seas NE 1.5m

Full main, full jib, inner foresail

Getting close!

DAY EIGHT+

Forgot to take a water photo,
but wind is NW 14k and seas are .3m;
we've tacked downwind, full main only

We reached the waypoint!
Turned into the Bay of Islands on the morning of the 9th day

To be consistent, here's a photo of the big picture;
we're beyond the waypoint, almost to our landfall at Opua

All told the voyage was about 850 miles and took 8 days + 3 hours.  As always, we were exhausted afterwards, but there were no major problems and it felt good to get another long passage under our belts (or under our lifejackets)!

Speaking of which, here's a Day 3 photo of Art in his lifejacket. He's tying up the inner foresail since we weren't going to use it for a while. He's not wearing his bathing suit because it was warm (it was not) but because he knew chances were good he would get doused (he did).

New Caledonia: South Lagoon

The Great South Lagoon and Isle of Pines

New Caledonia boasts the second largest barrier reef in the world, declared a World Heritage site in 2008. Exploring the huge lagoon south of Grande Terre, we stayed at several lovely little islands.

Unlike the Loyalty Islands, we rarely had an anchorage to ourselves. Also, being farther south—i.e. away from the equator—the air and water were cooler, so we wore wetsuits to swim. But snorkeling was enjoyable, and every location looked picture postcard perfect.

The photo above is from a hike at Ilot (Islet) Mato; below we were beachcombing at Ilot Ua.

Ilot Amedee is known for its lighthouse; it was erected in 1865 and is the tallest metal lighthouse in the world.

Tall art,
dwarfing Art

We took advantage of the unusual lack of wind to relax on the boat for a while...

Sudoku in the morning

Rehydrating after a swim in the afternoon

Some wildlife from those islets:

These remoras (sucker fish) had a heyday under our boat,
and even attached themselves to the many turtles that hung around the area

Sea snakes are frequently seen on land, where they come to sleep and digest their food.
They are highly venomous but have very small mouths,
so it's almost impossible to get bitten.
We did not test that claim.

An adolescent sea eagle trying to look inconspicuous in its nest,
right at eye level along a beach

These underwater photos were generously shared by Rob of S/V Wind Star; we all snorkeled along this wall of coral at Ua.

Ile des Pins

The Isle of Pines was our final destination in New Caledonia, and we wished we could have stayed longer. It had beautiful beaches and lovely forests (and reputedly good snorkeling, though we spent our limited time there on land rather than in the water).

We had seen the unique araucaria pines scattered around New Cal, but there’s a reason why the French named this place Ile des Pins: the statuesque trees cover large swaths of the island, as well as the several smaller islands nearby.

Scenes from a walk along a peninsula by the anchorage:

And scenes from a day driving around the island with friends Paul and Chris from S/V Georgia:

 The official "Welcome to Crab Bay" sign

Try as he might, Art did not find any crabs in Crab Bay

Art and Paul in Queen Hortense's Cave

We waded across salt water rivers to get to some of the scenic spots

Juxtaposition of a French Catholic memorial
and traditional Kanak totems 

Closeup of some of the carvings

Tree art:
several homes hung decorative objects from trees in their yards

There was much more to do and see on the Isle of Pines and we were reluctant to leave, but an excellent weather window was available to sail to New Zealand. It’s not uncommon to have to wait a few weeks for a good time to cross those 850 miles, so we felt we had better take advantage of the opportunity.

Ah, the end of a cruising season... with no large negatives (major breakdowns or particularly bad weather) and plenty of huge positives (rich cultural experiences and stunning scenic beauty), this one felt charmed.