Received 30OCT02
Hello everyone
Vanuatu To New Caladonia.
We left Resolution Bay on the island of Tanna Vanuatu bound for New
Caladonia, just before dark on Saturday evening. We motored clear of the
reef before hoisting sail in fresh conditions and lumpy seas. The night was
pitch black and as we sailed down the coast we watched the volcano sending
molten red lava high into the night sky.
Conditions deteriorated into a miserable wet and windy Sunday with 100%
cloud cover. On watch thro sunday night, we had squalls coming thro at
regular intervals sometimes with torrential rain but mostly steady drizzle.
We shortened sail so as to arrive at the pass thro the reef at dawn. New
Caladonia has the worlds second largest barrier reef and getting the tide
right is very important. We went thro at 0500 with 4kts of current under us.
Once inside the seas calmed and we sailed the 40nm inside the reef heading
for the port of Noumea
The contrast between Vanuatu and New Caladonia a thriving modern westernised
country could not be more extreme. But I think of the two Vanuatu will
remain long in my memory.
New Caladonia to New Zealand
Our stay in Noumea was a mixture of eating in fine French restaurants
sightseeing and getting Kalypso ready for the notoriously rough passage to
NZ.
The mainsail was taken off to be repaired, the luff rope was worn at two of
the battens, and on the batten pockets on the leach. The bulb on the
masthead tricolour had to be replaced, so we checked the rigging at the same
time. As always on longer sea passages we bent on sufficient scope to the
sea anchor an 18ft parachute.
We monitored the weather map which we received twice a day by fax via the
SSB and some clever software, looking for a window to give us sufficient
time to get to NZ in some comfort. We were looking to catch the back end of
a high pressure system which would give us westerly or northwesterly winds
on our approach to NZ.
It was looking good on the 11th Oct so to make sure we had read the signs
correctly John paid a visit to Met France. They confirmed that the 12th was
a good time so at 05.45 when Skip our US crew member had to leave to catch a
plane to Fiji was the time to go.
The first two days we had very light SE winds, often motoring in flat seas.
This was perfect for us, our course was SE, the prevailing wind here is SE
and we did not want 25kts on the nose.
On the third day as expected the wind gradually went NE and increased and by
the late afternoon we were racing along at 8.5kts which we averaged for the
next 48 hours. It was great sailing watching the miles slip by. I saw my
first Albatross a wonderful sight how such a huge bird can look so graceful
is incredible.
We knew that there was a warm front approaching and in the middle of the
night I was called up on deck, Leigh was on watch and could see a large
squall on the radar, it was on the starboard bow moving slowly towards us.
We were about 20 miles east of our rumb line and needed to gybe, we had the
Genoa poled out to port and this would have to be dropped. We watched the
squall which seemed to have become stationary, it was very close and we were
making 8kts so we decided to gybe and try to pass underneath it. As we gybed
the wind went from NE 25kts to SW 12kts we were almost head to wind. As we
watched the radar screen the squall just disappeared, it seemed to evaporate
before our eyes and absorb all the wind with it, It was very strange.
The next 18hrs was steady sailing close reaching at around 7kts. On this
morning 5 days out I spotted land on the starboard bow NZ.
We entered the Bay of Islands and tied to the customs pontoon at 00.30am
Friday in beautiful moonlight a fitting end to a memorable journey of 5 days
and 16hrs.
Kalypso had reached her destination from Sweden to NZ needless to say the
champagne was opened to celebrate the end of a great adventure, and the end
of my own personal journey in Kalypso.
I hope that you have enjoyed my reports, I wish you all well and look
forward to seeing you in the near future.
Regards Brian