Land Ho!

A quick update to say Hallelujah!  We have arrived in Fiji.  We sailed ever so smoothly yesterday afternoon into the gentle waters of Savusavu Bay. Best Friday the 13th I can recall.

Bill’s last post was written at sea a few days ago, but he couldn’t post until yesterday due to our having had no internet at sea.  When we left NZ last Thursday June 5, we lost all internet connectivity within mere hours of leaving.  Our Starlink service – for which we’ve been doling out monthly fees at Cadillac prices to one of the most odious men on earth – completely failed.  That was interesting! 

We couldn’t be in touch with anyone, couldn’t keep up with the daily news, couldn’t keep our NoForeignLand track updated, couldn’t check ingredients or quantities for soda bread or muffins – not that there were many oven-ready days on that passage!  Most critically though, we couldn’t update the weather – sailing blind the entire way, going from memory of the last weather check on Thursday morning, increasingly irrelevant as the days went by.   So we followed our noses and sailed conservatively, and ultimately safely, into Fijian waters where internet was thankfully restored. 

Turns out, our Starlink plan was indeed global, covers the world alright but not the cruising world.  Covers land around the world, and includes coastal cruising – within 12 miles of any shore.  Although in January we had upgraded to a truly global plan that included ocean cruising, Starlink had since rearranged their service plans (again), and now our Cadillac plan was useless at sea.  Of course, by then, we couldn’t change to another plan to include the oceans because we had no internet to do that!  Now that we’re ashore, we’ll switch it up again to a true global plan that includes the oceans – a downgrade, believe it or not, and less than half the price! All to say, we won’t leave land again without double-checking our internet connectivity.  Sailing blind – it won’t happen again!

Another casualty of having no internet – we weren’t able to provide the Fijian authorities with the required 48 hours advance notice of our arrival.  At our earliest opportunity on Thursday afternoon when internet was restored, we sent notice to the authorities that we would arrive ashore the next day.  And we begged them in the nicest possible way to clear us in before they went home on Friday afternoon.  The clearance formalities are quite elaborate, involving four separate government ministries – each one sending their own officer to board your boat for inspection, photos (most notably of your toilets) and interviews – tons of paperwork, mostly the same questions over and over again. 

We also begged the Copra Shed Marina – one of three in Savusavu – for a berth or a mooring which were rumoured to be in short supply.  We had a strong preference for a berth, so that we could hook up our hose and give Turtlebones a good scrubbing – which is now underway by the Captain. 

Miraculously, it all came to be.  Here we are, “med-moored” at the dock, literally steps away from the wine-and-dine resto at the Marina.  All four officials came and went yesterday afternoon.  Within hours of cruising into the bay, we were permitted to lower our yellow Q flag and step foot off our boat – WooHoo! – now officially here and flying our Fiji flag for the next few months.

A few notes about the crossing.  It was pretty uneventful, but the sea state was bumpy at times, 3 to 5 metres – sometimes for days on end, and admittedly that got to be tedious, even unpleasant at times. 

Our wind forecast had promised that we would be mostly “reaching” (meaning, wind on the beam, coming at us from the side of the boat, apparent wind angle (AWA) between 70˚ to 140˚ either side, the fastest and most efficient point of sail); some time “running” (meaning, wind at your back, comfortable but not the fastest point of sail), and virtually no time during the passage would we be “to weather” (meaning, 50˚ either side of 0˚, beating into the wind).  That was the promise of the good weather window that we grabbed.  The reality was very different – we had a couple of days of brilliant sailing, either reaching or running – and the rest of the time we were hard on the wind, beating to weather, under motor or else sailing as close to the wind as we could manage, watching the AWA as it bounced around like a slot machine, constantly adjusting course.     

One of my favourite places to sit on the boat is at the helm – just helm-squatting, not steering, leave that to the auto-pilot, just enjoying the air and the wide perspective from that beautiful perch at the outer edge of the stern.  Most of our passage was too bouncy for helm-squatting, but it was glorious on the one day when we were broad-reaching with the Code 0, and on several other days when we were reaching in smaller 1 to 2 metre waves.

The joy of sailing for me lies in the peacefulness of listening to the wind without disturbance from any mechanical roar, the effortlessness of moving through space under just-wind power.  I’m still astonished that we can travel this way, fuelled only by the wind, over thousands of miles – around the world even, if you’re in no hurry and can manage to avoid cranking up those engines.

Turtlebones isn’t a big craft, but not puny either – weighing in at 16,000 pounds or so, more than 8 tonnes!  And yet, in the lightest of winds, we can move along comfortably, powered only by our smallest spinnaker (Code 0), a little white triangle, a mere hanky of a thing, just 7.0 knots of wind moving us along at 6.5 knots SOG (speed over ground). It’s a marvel!

We had just one mechanical failure during the entire passage.  The dyneema loop holding the line on our Watt&Sea hydro-generator had frayed away, and it was no longer generating any power.  We don’t bother with the Watt&Sea on shorter hops, but on longer passages, it’s a great help to us.  It lays in the water, mounted to the stern of the boat, and as we move along, its little propeller spins round and round and creates enough wattage to power all of our basic electrical needs.  It’s the perfect ally to our solar panels which, when underway, are mostly shaded by the sails.

It was not without trepidation that, in bumpy (but not the bumpiest) seas, Bill ventured down to the bottom of the transom to haul in the hydro-generator, repair it in the cock-pit, and then re-deploy it off the stern.  Harnessed on throughout!  And I do mean throughout – not a single step is taken, not a single snap-hook unclipped, before the next one is securely affixed.   

Not at all surprising that Bill’s last post tackled the difficult subject of gourmet delights on a bumpy passage.  Not a day goes by that he doesn’t ask, usually his first question of the day, and usually well before noon, “my love, what are we having for dinner?”  Sardines is rarely the answer, but anything goes when you’re beating to weather.

Other than a couple of fishing vessels 5 miles away, out to check on their FADs (fish aggregation devices), we never saw another boat on the entire 8-day passage.  Twice we saw the image of a large cargo ship on AIS, and we had to adjust our course to ensure that we’d pass them safely in the night.  Easily done, they were more than 5 miles away, and just a couple of taps on the push-button steering did the job – all sorted!

The only company we shared on the entire 8-day passage was with the pelagic birds who joined us from time to time.  A pair would arrive – almost always a pair, sometimes three – and they would follow, soaring about Turtlebones on wide-ranging thermals and then swooping back to us – for hours at a time.   And then gone.  Petrels, we think.  Gould Petrels joined us on Day 3 of our voyage and again on Day 5. 

But on Day 8, as we approached Fiji waters, somewhere south of Gau Island, we were honoured by the company of a pair of Fiji Petrels – soaring, swooping and following along.  Fiji Petrels, conservation status: critically endangered.  As few as 50 breeding pairs nest at the species’ only breeding ground on Gau Island.  They spend most of their lives at sea within a limited range of the island.  An honour indeed!

We’ve now learned, having been to the ATM in Savusavu, that the Fiji Petrel has considerable significance to Fijian culture and Fiji’s efforts to protect and preserve its unique biodiversity.