Impi is currently anchored in Moorea where we arrived in Vaiare. Taking a right turn as we entered the passage between the reef system we carefully negotiated our way northwards to anchor in a stunning bay known as NUAREI BAY just off a beautiful hotel complex called Sofitel La Ora.
The wind is screaming through the anchorage tonight and I am sitting up doing an 'anchor watch'.
Anyway ... where was I ... yes ... our trip to Tahiti and more about Moorea in the next letter ...
At Rangiroa I
downloaded the latest weather grib files and studied them carefully.
A very
aggressive weather system was brewing in the ocean between Australia and New
Zealand and almost at hurricane force was predicted to be moving in a
northeasterly direction.
Of course
hurricanes do not occur in Tahiti at this time of year so there was no danger
of that happening, however, the tail of the storm was predicted to whip over
Tahiti producing incredibly strong winds as the storm center turned due east. We are advised that this is 'anti-cyclone' weather where the centre is high pressure rather than low pressure.
According to
the gribs, this foul weather could go on for a week or two so our time was
limited for a ‘calm passage’ across the seas to Tahiti, however, Tahiti was not
that far away and perhaps we could fit in a visit to yet one more atoll before
departing the Tuamotu’s for ‘The Society Islands’.
With this in
mind, we raised anchor at around 10:00am and made our way for the ‘pass’ to
exit Rangiroa for the atoll of Tikehau.
In the photo below ... one last glimpse at the beautiful atoll of Rangiroa. Fortunately we plan on another season here next year after hurricane season is over ... and the Tuamotu's are on our list of 'lets do again' ...
As good fortune
would have it, we yet again managed to be in the pass at slack tide (as the
tide clicked over from high to low) and we found ourselves yet again in a
fairly calm sea.
The wind blew
stiffly from NE, which saw Impi fetching a suitable speed up the north east
coast of Rangiroa.
As we reached
Tikehau the wind switched to SE which was not good for us as we had damaged our
asymmetric sail and the angles meant the wind would be from dead astern, not an
angle Impi performs well at without it.
However, the
angle was terrific for speed if we altered course for Tahiti, and with
the storms brewing off New Zealand this was as good a time as any to make haste
and get to Tahiti as otherwise we could be delayed for weeks in the Tuamotu’s.
I quickly ‘ran
the idea’ past Ana who immediately agreed that since we are planning to spend
another season here next year, we should head for the ‘Societies’.
As we tacked we
set the wind dead abeam (on the port / left side) and as Impi rushed up between
Rangiroa and Tikehau we found ourselves in the most beautiful flat and calm
seas whilst at the same time enjoying some good, steady wind.
Ana took charge
at the helm whilst I slipped downstairs to plot our course for Tahiti and to
make sure we set a course to avoid other islands such as Makatea and estimate a
time of arrival and place where we would enter in day light hours.
By all
calculations it seemed we would be at sea for one night, a second day and an
arrival during the following night, not something I was too thrilled about as
there are many reefs around Tahiti, especially Papeete which is where we were
headed for.
Papeete has an
entry into a ‘main port area’ and then has an off shoot to the west through a
channel which passes the airport landing strip so closely that one needs a).
Authority to enter the port and b). Authority to enter the channel past the
airport runway … all done on VHF ch 12.
As a result of
the airport proximity and the many, many channel markers which confuse the
weary sailor arriving late at night, the authority discourages any ‘night
entry’ by yachts unless under emergency situations.
For this reason
we decided on an entry into a bay located south west of Point Venus being
mindful of the reef systems there, especially that of ‘Dolphin Bank’ which can
have waves breaking over it.
In the Google Earth photo below the red line indicates roughly the passage to Venus Point at the very top and right and then from there the passage to an anchorage off Marina Taina and past the airport
I placed a call
to our good friends Eva and Jean-Luc on Reve De Lune who had dropped anchor
there a week earlier as they were meeting up with their daughter to arrive by
aircraft in Tahiti. Eva said the charts were accurate enough to rely on and
recommended an entry south of Dolphin Bank rather than the narrow gap indicated
on the charts between Point Venus and Dolphin Bank.
And so our
course was set … 211 degrees true and compensating for wind and current from
time to time.
In a bid to
arrive during daylight hours by the following late afternoon / evening, I trimmed the
sails and kept tweaking at ropes and pulleys for maximum speed.
Impi slid into
a beautiful sunset and we sat as usual up top and witnessed the fiery ball set
its magical signature of pinks and oranges as it greeted another day into the
history books of time … and as the darkness of night fell upon us we turned on
the radar and set Impi up for night time navigation whilst the calm of the
ocean began to pick up a swell that approached from dead ahead.
Unfortunately,
not only did the sea state make for a bumpy ride but the wind also switched
between SSE and S which meant we had a ‘tight angle of sail’ with the wind
approaching now toward the bow ... we were beating windward to maintain
our direction.
Strangely
enough, Impi goes extremely well to weather, despite the notion that cats do
not and mono-hulls do, so initially this was not all together a bad thing
despite a bit of discomfort for bouncing over the swells. Just as a ‘side note’
… many sailors believe mono-hull
vessels sail closer to the wind than catamarans do, however, we have seen many a sailor surprised when Impi makes way A LOT closer to the wind than they are able to, so this
usually sees sailors arriving in the anchorage and coming over to ask questions
as to how our sails are trimmed and the setting of our travellers etc. etc.
In the
meanwhile, our friends on yacht Tempest had called us up to say that although
they were considering another day in Rangiroa that they too had decided to
leave and were behind us a few hours. We agreed to keep contact by SSB radio as
we were out of VHF range and were fortunate at that point to still have cell
phone connection.
Before long we
found ourselves yet again in strong seas with winds upward of 30 knots and we
were struggling to keep Impi at the speed required for a day time entry whilst
not having her leave the tops of the swells.
The wind
fortunately had moments where it dropped in strength before picking up again
and I used these times to bring Impi even closer to the wind and to get the
track more east so we could ‘fall off’ westward during stronger blows without
loosing ground. This technique seemed to pay off and we had gained quite a bit
of ground to the east by morning.
Tempest
communicated with us during the night and all seemed fine.
The following
day still saw building swells from ahead and the wind now blew more steadily as
I inched Impi slightly to the west to prevent her from transforming into a 'space shuttle' trying to launch off wave tops ... to maintain speed with the weather
more to our beam.
As we neared
the waters of ‘The Society Islands’ … Tahiti … we heard a ‘security’ broadcast
on VHF by the coast guard authorities warning vessels of ‘excessively strong
winds and large, confused seas’.
Ana and I
looked at each other in total disbelief … I mean … not again … how could these
grib file predictions be so inaccurate. We were to be told later that this year
has seen worse conditions at sea than most and also has had the meteorologists
‘scratching their heads’ … GREAT!!!
So here we were
… struggling with weather and due to the angles having set the sails to be
‘inefficient’ in order to slow the speed a little ... at the same time realising we were at a 50/50 chance of
making our entry off Point Venus in some sort of light before the sunset … and
now we are warned that conditions were to become a lot worse.
I shared this
news via SSB radio with Tempest who told me they were already experiencing severe conditions and would
appreciate more regular communications on the SSB. Ana and I really felt sorry for them having to go through these conditions so far from our destination.
About 3 hours
off our arrival we were hit by this incredibly forceful weather system with our
main sail reefed all the way in and despite this saw our main shackle which
holds the mainsheet pulley to the boom snap off entirely. As good fortune would
have it, I had asked a rigging company in the USA to put a ‘strop’ around the
boom and pulley as a ‘back up’ in case this ever happened. They did not and
felt it to be unnecessary after which I tied a normal spectra rope … and oh boy
… did we pat ourselves on the back so many times for having done that.
Ana was
seriously impressed with me for this as when we heard the crack I ran topside
to see the boom being held in place by this ‘make shift rope’. Undoubtedly in
these weather conditions, had I not tied this rope around the boom an pulley, we would have snapped the boom in half against the
shrouds and could possibly have compromised the integrity of the shrouds (which holds up
the mast).
The seas were
running hard and we soon got to understand the French meaning of ‘confused
seas’ … the swells were huge and descended upon us in various and changing
directions whilst the wind whistled and screamed through the rigging.
We kept the
mainsail reefed to 3 (very little sail up) and also had the genoa reefed beyond
3 (very little sail out) and yet had to set the sheets (ropes) for an inefficient
sailing speed to keep Impi from launching off the wave crests. Fortunately we
had had the foresight to keep as far east as possible earlier on in calmer seas
and now this paid dividends as we had more angle to the west thus reducing the
angle of the weather impact on our bow. Still, it is quite frightening at times
to have breaking waves descend on you from the side (onto the beam) and I had
to helm the boat so as to ‘steer about’ these as best possible.
We arrived off
Point Venus just as the sun was dipping in the sky. Fortunately the wind and seas had calmed down somewhat but still, this was to be an evening where we remained alert and
used what little light we had to find our way to a safe anchor position before
the darkness of night set in.
In the photo below we have found our way through the reef into the calmness of the anchorage
We had been in
contact with Tempest, now many hours behind us and they were in very stormy conditions by now which was worrying. I agreed to ‘set a trail’ on my
GPS as we entered between the reef system so we could give them safe
co-ordinates for a night approach.
I did this both
on our laptop computer using Open CPN and on the Raymarine Chart plotter and
took depth readings as we went in.
Once inside the
reef, the water is fairly deep and the next thing we were faced with was
finding a spot shallow enough to set our anchor without the need to put out
reams of chain.
There were
other boats anchored here so our choice was limited but we opted to leave one
suitable spot for Tempest as it was ‘best’ for a night arrival and set ours
eventually in 8 meters of water at 17*29.9363S 149*29.8170W … and darkness fell
upon us shortly thereafter … phew!
From our now
‘safe position’ I called Tempest at the agreed time on SSB radio to confirm the
co-ordinates used for entry. Shame … these poor friends were in some pretty
rough stuff and were for good reason very concerned and asked if I could please
radio them at 3:00am again to make sure they were ok.
In the
meanwhile I provided the co-ordinates for safe entry ...
1. 17*29.9558S 149*30.4435W
2. 17*29.9992S 149*30.3195W
3. 17*30.0651S 149*30.1358W
I suggested
that they drop anchor at 17*30.1594S 149*29.8610W which they eventually did and
said they found good holding in sand at 8m depth.
Our call to
Tempest at 3:00am saw them at least in a sea which was showing signs of
‘settling’ and they arrived between 4-5am using the co-ordinates without any
problem.
We found the
anchorage at Point Venus to be calm and beautiful and the little lighthouse is
spectacular at night as the beam rotates and moves with a flick across the
yachts and over the bay.
Of course, this
is where Lt. James Cook arrived on his sailing ship, The Endeavour, to witness
‘the transit of Venus’ in June 1769, about one year after Tahiti had been
discovered for the first time by Europeans.
Cook’s
objective was to establish an astronomical observatory to observe Venus as it
slid across the face of the sun in a bid to measure the size of the solar
system. Recording the start and stop times of the transit from widely spaced
locations on earth astronomers could calculate the distance to Venus using the
principles of parallax.
Transits of
Venus occur in pairs about 8 years apart every 120 years, more or less.
This journey by
sea took Cooke 8 months with an arrival date of April 13, 1769.
Sadly,
observations done from various locations about the globe of the 1769 transit
were not precise enough to set the scale of the solar system which only became
possible by use of photography in the 19th century.
Anyway, morning was soon upon us and we wanted to set sail for Papeete. We looked about the anchorage for a moment and observed the lighthouse behind a cluster of trees ... there was a bustle as local people gathered to take part in some canoe race.
The Tahitians love racing their canoes and can be seen practicing daily.
Another photo from the anchorage of Point Venus
And ... there were our friends Bob and Anette on Tempest. I had last connected with them by SSB radio at 03:00am and was told that the weather at last was stabilising.
They had arrived at 05:00am and used the co-ordinates to enter the anchorage safely.
We were now set to head for Papeete in daylight hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment