Coopers Quest

[David Fox]

Goodbye Tahiti, its been a blast!
28 August 2021
Weather; sunny, wind 0-15 knots, waves 1metre
17 29.170'S: 151 30.460'W,
At Sea on passage to Fiji

We finished filling up with fuel taking on 150 US gallons and motored around to the anchoring places near Tiana Marina, the place was full with not too much space for anyone else but as we only intended to stay for long enough to give the hull a quick scrub and scrape we didn't think we needed a huge amount of space so we picked a reasonably comfortable gap between a few boats and dropped our anchor in 45 feet of water. We were just clear enough of everything around us as long as there wasn't a big blow going through but we noticed the concerned looks and stares of the other owners who were in their cockpits, they must have watched us put our ladder over the side and Gerry dressed in snorkelling gear drop into the water and start scrubbing along the water line but the concerned stares continued.

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I stayed in the cockpit ready to take drastic action, should the need arise, all the while that Gerry was in the water. He worked his way around the boat with the scrubbing brush and then came back for the scraper to lever the barnacles off where he could.

Local Mermaid

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In the meantime it started to rain and a gusty wind blew us about a bit, we didn't get too close to any of the surrounding boats but you could feel the black looks we were getting for encroaching on their anchoring spot! Gerry finished with his bottom cleaning and climbed back on board, stowed the gear and had a shower and put some dry clothes on in no time, he was keen to get going but I insisted that we have a sandwich and drink before going anywhere.

By the time we had finished our lunch the moment to set out had arrived, we had decided to leave through the main port entrance (where we had arrived) rather than the southern entrance which was our neighbour's preferred choice - we were going on slightly different tracts anyway and each of us had our reasons for our choice.

At around 3.20pm we hauled our anchor up, even in the brief time we had it down it had gotten covered in thick gooey gunk, the holding here was obviously good. We motored through the fleet of concerned boat owners and headed towards the fairway. Leaving via the main port entrance meant that we had to make our way back almost to Papeete Marina which took us past both ends of the airport runway. As you approach the airport there are warning boards that you must get clearance from the airport control to cross the ends of the runway, Gerry radioed the authority and asked for permission just as we saw a small plane on its way into land, we were told that we had to wait for 4 minutes as there were 2 planes coming in to land so we did a few circles and patiently waited the 4 minutes, seeing the second plane come in and began our transit through the area.

We had just cleared the end of the runway when we noticed another plane on its descent, playing chicken with small planes wasn't on the agenda, it would certainly have made an interesting story if it had ended up on top of our masthead! Luckily we were well clear of the runway so no harm, no foul. A short distance further and we had to repeat the radio call for permission to cross the other end of the runway and were given instant clearance just as a larger plane took off at that end.

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We had no sooner cleared the runway than an official looking motor boat sped up beside us with "Capitaine" emblazoned along the sides and Gerry handed the helm over to me whilst he spoke to the officials who wanted to know where we were going and if we had clearance to do so (remember we were under lock down and there was no movement allowed for anything on the water unless you had permission and clearance paperwork).

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Gerry answered the questions and surprisingly wasn't asked to produce the proof, they just waved us off wishing us a safe trip! We were now almost at the port entrance so we turned into wind to raise our main sail, just as the ferry that runs between Papeete and Moorea left the dock putting out a huge wake. We got the sail up quickly and turned back to follow the ferry out, calling the port authority for the final time to let them know that we were leaving and our next destination, again we were wished a safe trip and a "we'll see you next time" I don't think so!

It had taken us an hour to get from the Anchorage at Marina Tiana to the port entrance. We headed off towards Moorea which was shrouded in cloud and did a quite respectable bit of sailing for the first 8 miles until we were in the lee of Moorea, at that point the wind died away to zero, the wind indicator was spinning in every direction imaginable, a bit like the mad hatter's watch in Alice in Wonderland. We had no choice but to start up the mechanical wind as we had a few miles of land mass to clear before we would hopefully pick up the wind once more. The sun set was quite pretty amongst the clouds but of course there was no green flash.

The chart above needs a bit of scrolling in both directions.

[David Fox]

" If it's gona happen, it'll happen out there!"
29 August 2021
17 39.051'S:153 78.784'W, At Sea on passage to Fiji
Weather; sunny with a few showers, wind 0-15 knots, waves up to 3 metres

Our second day at sea began in much the same way as the first one left off, there was no wind to move us a long as we entered the early evening so we continued to motor and enjoyed the fact that the sea was pretty much flat with little to throw us around. Gerry had been looking at the weather prediction and we were apparently supposed to get a bit of a blow beginning to happen in the early hours of the night, this wind was going to be coming from our port stern quarter which meant that at best we would be goose winging to make the most of it. Gerry decided to pre-empt the up and coming wind and get our spinnaker pole out on the port side and change the main over to the starboard side whilst it was still daylight and we weren't rocking and rolling about, normally the exercise of putting up the pole and changing the main to the other side happens when it's cold and dark and the boat is rolling about so this was a bit of forward thinking! We gybed the main across and secured it with a snatch block preventer and then it was time to get the spinnaker pole into position.

Gerry took up his place out on deck and I handled the lines in the cockpit as usual. Although we have done this several times there is always something different each time and it is a most frustrating few minutes until Gerry finally decides that it is all in place and returns to the cockpit. As there still wasn't any wind at this point there was no point in unfurling the jib to make sure that the pole was exactly in the right position. The sun had vanished behind a very long black cloud, we couldn't see it set but there were a couple of pockets through the cloud where we could see bright orange streaks, it looked like the place was on fire. We ate dinner and finally the wind began to put in an appearance (no it wasn't what we ate causing the wind to arrive!) it was time to put the jib into play, it will be no surprise to anyone that the pole wasn't quite in the right position and we couldn't unfurl the jib all the way.

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Back to the drawing board, furl it away, get Gerry out on deck and me back to winching the lines until the damn pole was in a better position. When he returned to the cockpit I said we need to come up with a way of being certain that the pole is in the right position the first time so that we don't keep having to go back and adjust it, the best we could come up with was to mark the lines at the point where they need to be as they enter the block, so out came the marker pen and the lines now have marker points, I just hope that they are correct for next time around!



The jib was once again deployed and at least was in the right spot, for now. The wind was still on the low side and the jib didn't hold its shape resulting in us not moving along unless we kept motor sailing, which we did. The prediction was for about 15 knots, we weren't there for quite a while to come so we began taking turns at trying to get some sleep, this didn't work out well for either of us as the wind stayed on the starboard side which meant that the main was being backwinded all the time and not doing anything useful, so now that it was pitch black we had to gybe again to put the main across to where the wind was going to be effective - just what we wanted to avoid doing!

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This happened twice more with the wind unable to decide where it was going to settle and blow from, we have got this gybing and changing the preventer from one side to the other down pat in the dark, not that we like doing anything on deck in the dark but sometimes it can't be helped!

Finally the wind sort of took up residence on the port stern quarter, with the occasional flip to the starboard side which we tried our best to ignore, it also started to pick up to the predicted speed which in turn made the sea a bit more lumpy with the waves coming up to 3 metres on a short interval causing us to rock a bit. Neither of us could get to sleep down below as it was too hot in the quarter berth due to the engine temperature close by, too rolly in the salon and too bouncy in the forward cabin so we pulled out a pillow and blanket and took turns at sleeping in the cockpit.

Eventually there was enough wind to enable us to turn the engine off and run with the main on the starboard side and the jib out to port, we weren't doing great speeds, mostly around 5 knots but thankfully there was no engine droning noise in the background.

Of course it didn't last all night that way, we had to start up and stop the engine on a few occasions when the wind dropped and we were down to under 3 knots of movement. By dawn we were sailing along fairly well but the swell was rocking us quite badly so there was nothing to do but sit and watch the water and hope that things were going to get better. The wind has remained light, we are lucky if we are seeing 12 knots and it is still a little undecided as to which side it wants to blow from.

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There has been a couple of really black clouds which chased us down but didn't produce any rain and not much wind effect. After we had lunch I was due to try and have a catch up sleep so I went below to the salon and had just laid down when there was an almighty bang and the sound of something rolling around on deck above my head. I called out to make sure Gerry was OK and asked what the bang was, he didn't know so I told him it was on the starboard deck and something was moving around. This was greeted with some very salty sailor speak and "the shroud has broken".

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I was immediately out of my bed and back up in the cockpit, where Gerry was preparing to go out on deck, apparently the starboard, forward, lower chain plate had broken away from the deck at the point of insertion and the shroud was hanging and dragging over the deck. Just in case anyone is wondering if this was the same shroud that we had just fixed, it isn't, that was on the port side. Anyway there is no easy fix to this, we need to be in a yard and have a new chain plate installed.

In the meantime Gerry has Macgyvered a solution and the shroud is now fastened forward next to the anchor which is totally the wrong direction but the best we can do for the moment, we hope it will hold until we get to Fiji. The piece that broke off is a stainless steel piece about 2 inches wide, 4 inches long and ? inch thick with a hole through it where the shroud bolts through. The edge which was at the deck has rusted almost all the way through, though this was never visible on inspection on the deck, it has obviously happened over a period of time to have gotten to the stage of breaking through.


Gerry has been down in the forward toilet where the chain plate extends to, inside the boat, to see if he can remove the 18 inches or so of the other end of the chain plate, it's in an awkward place, inside a cupboard, so it might take a couple of goes to get it out but I'll be sure to get a picture of that as well. So that has been our excitement for the day, we really don't need any more for the rest of this trip!

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Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we had the fishing rod out at the same time, knowing that Murphy was looking over our shoulder I very quickly pulled that in so that no fish were tempted to take the bait whilst we were messing about with a potential disaster - we won't be having fish for dinner tonight! We are currently back to motor sailing as the wind has once again dropped. Surprisingly we managed to cover 124 NM in the last 24 hours but 11 hours of that was mechanically assisted. Fingers crossed everyone for an uneventful rest of the passage!

[David Fox]

Long sunny days but no wind
02 September 2021
17 54.116'S:161 56.676'W,
Weather; sunny , wind 5-12 knots, waves up to 2 metres


Nothing exciting or disastrous has been happening for which we are very grateful but what do you do when it's slow going and boring?

Well we have spent a lot of today discussing the things that we need to take off of the boat once we arrive in Bundaberg (that's after spending 14 days in a quarantine hotel in Brisbane). I have been hoping that there wouldn't be too much to take off by then and if I am careful with my meal planning for the rest of the trip we may not have too much in the way of tins and jars of things to remove, there sure as hell won't be any chocolate!

I then started in on the clothing, as far as I am concerned all but the bare essentials are going in the bin or to a recycle place, most of Gerry's tee shirts are beyond even becoming rags and we both have a pair of shoes/sandals that no self-respecting individual would glance twice at.

It got a bit tricky when we came to the tools and what we would and wouldn't leave to be sold along with the boat, Gerry now wants to take them all off the boat as he doesn't think it will make selling it any easier, I'm not convinced that we should take them all especially as we have multiple copies of just about every tool back home already.

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I have decided that all of the kitchen utensils, cooking and storage containers will stay along with cutlery and crockery - if I never see them again I will be happy.

There is some reluctance on my part to leave anything but the bare minimum of towels and sheets (mostly for a pattern guide for the new owners as V berth sheets have to be made to measure) but most of what we have will be binned if I can find a bin big enough.

The whole thought process is hard enough, we are going to have to be quite ruthless when the time comes as we will only get one go at emptying the boat and keeping the important, to us, things. The next thoughts turned to the cleaning and tidying up of the entire boat, it's going to take us a while to get it looking smart enough to
interest anyone with cash and in need of a boat, mostly because we are living on it and don't necessarily notice the things that might stick out like a sore thumb to a prospective buyer (hopefully a half blind man with money to throw away!).

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That brought us to the list of things that we are aware of that need fixing and where and when, never mind the how much, we can get them done. We are planning on a few things in the couple of weeks we are spending in Fiji, it will be a bit of a busman's holiday for the time we are there but if we can get stuff done then we will, it has to be better than waiting until we get to Brisbane, spend 14 days in quarantine and then start on the repairs and replacement stuff.

The only other thing that we have been doing to occupy our time apart from reading our books is to speculate on what will do with today's catch - it has become an "in joke" as despite trolling the hook and line everyday we have so far caught nothing, there is always tomorrow!
I can appreciate Gerry's reluctance to leave any tools, to an Engineer they are a personal thing, a momento of that voyage. As you use that tool at home you remember when you used it .

I have still got the first spanner I bought when I started my apprenticeship, a 12" Bahco 30/- it cost me, lot of money out of £3-00-0. The company gave each apprentice a 1 1/2 lb ball & pane hammer and a cold chisel, the rest you bought your self as you saved up. Reminds me of the old chestnut. A shifter and pkt of french letters. I will leave you to fill the blanks in. .

Finally we have wind
03 September 2021
17 54.373'S: 164 33.510'W,
@ Sea on passage to Fiji
Weather; a bit cloudy, wind 5-20 knots, waves up to 4 metres

Who couldn't resist a remark to that headline.
Keep off the boiled cabbage and Baked beans.

No sooner had I sent yesterday's update winging on its way to a satellite then the weather began to change, not a moment too soon either!

As a side note here and for your amusement I need to tell you that we had decided to have a simple dinner of sausages, mash and baked beans ( I know, how childish!).

Anyway when I went to get a can of baked beans out in preparation for the evening meal I was surprised to find that we had no cans of baked beans left and I had to make some of our own - something I do on a regular basis as they are so much tastier than the commercial sort. Anyway the whole point of telling you this is that I just wanted to let you know that we were getting so desperate for wind that we decided to make some of our own , yes I am joking - or am I?!

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We suddenly had wind, up to 12 knots ( before eating a single baked bean) and were able to finally turn the engine off, the blissful silence that ensued was just perfect. We weren't galloping along at much more than 5.5 knots but we really didn't care too much, it was a little faster than we had been doing under engine power and the wind was supposed to be on the increase over the next few hours anyway. Of course the arrival of the wind also coincided with a change of its direction, it was now coming at us more from the port side and was apparently going to continue from that way, it was time to swap the main across to the starboard side and move the spinnaker pole across to the port side so that we could still goose wing the sails if the wind remained behind us. Although we have done the change-over quite a few times it always gives rise to a niggly "discussion" and exchange of cross words as we never seem to get it exactly right on the first attempt. Having said that we did get it all sorted out and were soon running with the main sail out to starboard and the jib poled out to port, before the sun set and before we had dinner.

As we settled into our night routine of watches and sleep the wind gradually built and correspondingly, so did the seas. We reached the dizzy speed of over 7 knots but it was getting lumpier as the swell was being whipped up and wasn't necessarily in time with the wind gusts.

There was a whole lot of banging and crashing going on all night making sleep somewhat elusive and things that never normally move or shift around inside the boat suddenly took on a night time frenzy of momentum. We found ourselves playing hunt the onions which were rolling around the salon floor, replace the cushions which had toppled onto the floor and stop the glass bottles and saucepans from clanking for parts of our night.

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Dawn broke and we were facing a very cloudy and overcast looking sky to begin with, the wind had sort of settled into a pattern of around 17 knots but the sea was somewhat confused and seemed to have two different lots of competing swell which when they hit together gave us wave heights of over 4 metres and rocked us viciously from side to side. For most of the day the wind has continued to blow at around 15 knots allowing us to sail along at around 6 knots. The sea has very slowly dropped off but is still producing 3 metre high waves, we even have white caps now! well we did ask for wind so the lesson has to be one of being aware of the consequences of what you ask for!


There is still nothing to be seen as far as the eye and radar can reach - it still blows me away to think that for a whole week now in every direction we have only come across one other boat, seen no dolphins, no whales blowing, very few flying fish ( not even one on the deck for patrol purposes), no suicide committing squid, hardly any phosphorescence at night and only a couple of squawky radio signals just off of the Cook Islands as we passed them by. Where is everybody?

According to the predict wind program we should have pretty much the same winds until late tonight when it begins to drop away again - the engine had better be ready as it will be back in action once again. We keep getting messages from our Tahiti neighbour who, despite being over 200 miles south of us, is experiencing much the same sort of weather conditions and having to deploy his engine just as often as we are to keep moving and not covering much more ground than we are in 24 hours.

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So the good news is that we have managed to sail the entire 24 hours and have covered 150 NM, we need a few more days of similar wind but could use a little less of the wave action!

[David Fox]

Action stations
04 September 2021
17 52.673'S:167 02.855'W, At Sea on passage to Fiji
Weather; a bit cloudy, wind 5-20 knots, waves up to 4 metres


I was just about to start writing todays blog when we became aware that the band of clouds out to our starboard side were getting darker by the second and seemed to be approaching us faster than we were going to outrun them - action stations!

The swimmers and towels got pulled in off of the lifelines, they were just about dry anyway. The main sail was quickly centred as we needed to swap it over from the starboard side to the port side to make the most of any wind that the squall was bringing with it. The running back stay was let off on the port side.

Gerry scrambled out on to the deck to release the snatch block whilst I undid the line that held it captive to the starboard side - we needed to change that over to the port side to stop the main from crashing back across once we had it out on the port side. We quickly secured the snatch block in place with Gerry having to duck to stop the boom from taking his head off as it swung perilously from one side to the other until we got it secured down.

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Once that was done and Gerry was back in the cockpit it was time to tighten up and tidy up the lines and to let the staysail out to make the most of the increasing wind. We just about got the cockpit enclosure done up and water tight as the first spit of rain began to hit us, the wind rose dramatically from 8 knots to 18 knots in a matter of seconds and our speed picked up from 5.5 knots to 8 knots but we were under control!

A couple of 20 plus gusts blew through but didn't hang around and the rain didn't really do much after the initial few spits. So we are now at the tail end of the squall, the wind has dropped back down to 12 knots, pretty close to being on the beam - if only it would stay that way!

Gerry is starting to open up the enclosure curtains so that we don't roast and we have just taken the 24 hour readings. We have covered another 142 NM and run the engine for just 1 hour, that was just to top up the batteries, so all in all we have had a pleasant, if somewhat lumpy at times, day and are making headway under sail.


And so it continues
05 September 2021
17 49.798'S:169 07.500'W, At Sea on passage to Fiji

Weather; sunny, wind 4-10 knots, waves 1 metre

I'm still kicking myself for a cooking blunder I made yesterday, we were just out of muesli bars after eating the last 2 for breakfast so I decided to make up another batch whilst the seas weren't throwing us all over the place. I had used up all of the baking paper that we had on board with the previous bake so I thought it would be alright to line the baking pan with tin foil, word to the wise here - it was not alright! Anyway once I had made the mix and baked it, I took the pan out and let it cool before trying to remove the muesli bar mixture and cut it into slices.

Try is the operative word here! The mixture is a very sticky one to start with and I gave no thought what so ever to the fact that as it cools the mixture hardens and sets like concrete, so I went back to it after it had cooled and tried to take it off of the foil lining, it was stuck fast in most places and just wouldn't release. I was frustrated and angry with myself for not thinking it through properly but I was also determined that I wasn't going to waste the entire mixture so I spent the best part of an hour peeling, digging, gouging or whatever other method I could think of to get the majority of the baked mixture off of the foil. I ended up with one hell of a holy mess which I then pushed and poked back into shape and hoped that it would hold some sort of shape if I put it into the fridge for 24 hours.



The test came this morning when we tried the "bars" for want of a better word, they were ok, a little crumbly and you need to be aware that there might be the odd bit of foil lingering somewhere amongst them but at least they taste OK, thank goodness we have had our old amalgam tooth fillings replaced with porcelain stuff! So take warning from my mistake and don't think that a sticky mixture will be OK to bake on tin foil.

Perhaps use olive oil and flour to prevent sticking


Just as the sun set last night , without us being able to see it behind the clouds lining the horizon, the wind dropped away to nothing once again and we had to put the engine back on, and ran it until around midnight when we suddenly got a change of direction and enough wind to blow us along for a while.

Of course it didn't last and we have had the engine on and off a couple of times during the daylight hours until now - it is currently running as the wind has yet again died away to less than 6 knots.

The seas have dropped correspondingly which makes it a bit more pleasant to move around the boat, not that we have any reason to do so today, the slower speed means that we haven't bothered putting the hook and line in the water today - we just aren't going fast enough for anything to be fooled into taking the bait.

We heard from our Tahiti neighbour who is at least 200 miles south of us and he has had a tough time for the past 36 hours with a wind blast going through the areaof 40 plus knots - we know that he's OK but he has had to tie down his solar panels and replace the ties that hold his Bimini in place as the wind ripped them out. I know I keep on about this being a slow and frustrating trip but I'm very glad that we aren't where he is at the moment and to think that he is by himself doing this shows that he has rocks in his head!.

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Straight after breakfast this morning Gerry had us fiddling about with the spinnaker pole once more, he wanted to take the jib sheet off of the pole so that we could fly the jib alongside the main rather than goose winging it. This meant having to lower the spinnaker pole to the deck to remove the sheet so I was once again winching the topping lift for the darned pole whilst Gerry was out on deck fiddling with removing the sheet - it really is too much hard work first thing in the morning, the worst thing is that I know we are going to have to reverse the whole procedure at some point when he wants to goose wing the sails again - something to look forward to, or not!

As we come up to the 24 hour mark we have covered a further 119 NM of which 14 hours has been mechanical wind assisted. There has still been no sign of life apart from ourselves in any direction. We are somewhat surprised to not even have seen flying fish, it would seem that the ocean is pretty much emptied out!

[David Fox]

Getting closer to the first way point
07 September 2021
17 41.552'S:172 46.613'W, At Sea on passage to Fiji
Weather; sunny, wind 2-10 knots, waves 1.5 metres

As we continue onwards nothing much has changed on the good ship lollypop, we are still having to motor sail to keep up an average speed of 5 knots. The wind is still playing hard to get and when it shows up it can't decide which direction to blow from so we are almost continuously having to gybe to catch it, my arms are sore from winching and I'm sure Gerry is more than a little fed up with having to swap the preventer from side to side and back again with each gybe. The sea swell is at least pleasant enough to be able to move around safely without bumping into every sharp corner or stubbing our toes on things that leap out at the last minute as you walk past them.

Our fuel consumption is good to date, we are keeping the engine ticking over at low revs and only using what we absolutely have to, there will be enough to get us safely to Fiji unless we spring a massive leak in one of the fuel tanks.

Just after posting yesterday's blog we had a text message from our Tahiti neighbour - you know, the one with rocks in his head, who is single handing to Brisbane but on a slightly different course to ourselves, his name of Sherard and his boat is called Free to Play.

I am more than a little concerned for him after reading the text as he has gone through the 40 plus knots of wind with gusts up to 45 knots, had to strap down his solar panels and almost lost his Bimini during that period. The concern really kicked up a notch yesterday when he told us that his auto pilot has "given up the ghost" and he has at least 3 days of motoring ahead of him as the wind has now died away to nothing. Although we have all had auto pilot issues/ failures at some point and have had to hand steer I can't begin to fathom how he is going to cope doing it single handed, it was bad enough for us when we had 5 hours' worth of hand steering with 2 of us to share the steering. I'm very concerned as to how he is going to manage to sleep/ rest, eat, go to the toilet and stay remotely alert.

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The worst thing for us is knowing that even if he was within shouting distance of our boat there is nothing practical that we could do to help him out, it just shows how vulnerable single handing makes you. Hopefully we will have another text today telling us how he's going. Gerry has texted him and suggested that he pulls into Fiji (not in his plan and hasn't got clearance but he has done the PCR test and is fully vaccinated from Tahiti ) so as it is an emergency situation it would seem to be an obvious choice to get the auto pilot sorted out and working properly, otherwise he is looking at a further 13 days plus at sea by our estimation of where he is currently until he reaches Australia. It makes us quite grateful that our issues are minor in comparison even if they seem like the end of the world at the time they occur.


Wind at last!
09 September 2021
17 38.382'S:177 8.950'W,
At Sea on passage to Fiji.
Weather; dull and overcast with rain showers, wind 5 to 18 knots, waves 3 meters


For once the weather forecaster got it right. During the late part of yesterday evening and overnight the wind gradually picked up, just as predicted. It started out coming at us from just on the port beam and our sluggish speed picked up to around 5.5 knots, within a couple of hours though the wind had moved slightly to aft of the beam and had increased up to 12 knots which saw us sailing, yes, not motor sailing along at 6.5 knots. Of course the sea began to pick up as well so we were rocking about a bit but it could have been so much worse. The staysail got deployed on the starboard side alongside the main to begin with as the wind on the beam would just not have allowed the jib to fly in a wing and wing formation which is how the spinnaker pole is set up for running.

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Once the wind moved far enough aft that the jib would fly we deployed it enough to make goose winging possible. It's a bit of a science balancing act to get the sails just right as the wind keeps moving within a range but always just within the possibility of goose winging so it has kept Gerry busy trimming and then adjusting the sails to get the best possible results from them.

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We had thought that with night approaching the wind would abate somewhat and we would be back to motor sailing but to our surprise we have had pretty constant wind at around 17 knots for most of the night and all of today which has seen us pick up and race along at nose bleeding speeds of up to 8 knots, but mostly around 7 knots. The sky has been a dull and overcast grey all day and we have only seen the sun peep through the clouds a couple of times - just enough to give the solar panels a work out long enough to top off the batteries. The rain finally arrived for a short spell after lunch and managed to soak part of our cockpit cushions but hey we aren't sugar lumps and didn't dissolve! It's really quite funny to have to suddenly be so careful about moving around the boat again after such a long spell of flat calm seas, I can see the bruises multiplying by the minute! Yet again things that have never moved, rattled or squeaked have suddenly become dangerous missiles flying across the boat or are now irritating noises that we just can't seem to make stop.

Thank goodness we already have a few prepared "ping meals" that just need a quick burst in the microwave. Our fresh vegetable supply is running low and we are almost at the point of having no option but to use frozen or canned stuff, the same applies to our fresh fruit supply, I think we have just 5 pieces of fruit left. Please don't even ask about the chocolate, I haven't checked but Gerry tells me it's not going to last until we reach Fiji - he will be unbearable! We have eked out our fizzy drinks and will run out by the time we arrive but we drink mostly water so that's not a big deal. Talking of water we ran out of water in our aft tank yesterday so are now on our forward tank which holds about 80 gallons so we will at least arrive with some water in hand which is just as well as we have been very conservative with its use, but it will be really nice to be able to hook up to the dock water and have a Hollywood shower! Gerry ran out of books that he had downloaded on his kindle for the trip so he is beside himself at present, it is so bad that I have offered to let him read any of the books that I have on my kindle in between me reading my stuff. As we take turns in sleeping it should work OK as long as we don't both want to be up and reading at the same time.

3467Crab claw plant.jpeg (11.24 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

So our total running for 25 hours (remember we turned the clock back one hour hence the extra hour) is a grand 150 NM - a whole lot better than yesterday! We ran the engine for 5 hours in that period.

We have no news today, as yet, from Sherard so hopefully he is still doing OK and we hope he is going to call in at Fiji to get his auto pilot situation sorted out before finishing the trip to Australia. The wind prediction is somewhat higher strength winds around the area that he is sailing through, we just hope they aren't too different to what we are seeing - at least these winds aren't too horrendous and we think he would be able to cope OK with them

Bird on the mast head
10 September 2021
17 32.600'S:179 35.350'W, At Sea on passage to Fiji
Weather; dull and overcast with rain showers, wind 5 to 18 knots, waves 2 meters

Well the wind stayed with us all night and we moved along quite nicely even if it was a bit lumpy and the motion made it difficult to sleep between watches. The swell died down this morning and we spent quite a pleasant morning sailing along until the wind changed direction and we ended up having to turn the engine on to keep up our speed.

The day has been a very cloudy one with a few showers to keep us from getting too complacent about having the enclosure open. Every time the rain started we had a change of wind direction so we have been continuously moving sails in and out and from one side to the other. We are currently in Fijian waters but don't get too excited as there are lots of small islands that make up the outer Fijian land mass and we are slowly making our way through numerous atolls and what appear to be small volcanic outcrops, this is exciting in many ways as we know we are getting close, having said that it will probably be another 2-3 days before we get to
Port Denaray but at least the end is in sight.

You can tell that we are tired as silly mistakes are happening, nothing life threatening but for example Gerry changed the water tank over yesterday and then late last night he went to clean his teeth and the water only trickled out of the faucet, but when he turned the tap off he could still hear the water pump running. A quick investigation showed that he had switched the full tank to on but hadn't shut the old tank off which left the pump trying to suck air through itself, luckily no harm was done and it was quickly sorted out.


We are still trying to catch that elusive first fish of the trip, every day we have the line in the water but the fish just don't want to take the bait, it probably has a lot to do with the inconsistent speed we are managing - it's either far too slow or we are roaring along and they can't catch up. We are still the only people in the entire Pacific by the looks of things, we haven't sighted any other forms of life apart from a cheeky bird who used our mast head as a perch (and crapped all down our main sail) for the night. You would have laughed to see Gerry trying to scare the bird off with the mast head light, a flashing torch and the air horn, none of which worked.

The worst bit was that it perched right on top of the wind indicator so we weren't sure that we were getting good readings and if the damn bird would be heavy enough to break the indicator. It appears to be working OK for now so apart from the cement like guano which now decorates our main sail no harm was done.

3468Crab claw plant.jpeg (12.65 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

Despite our efforts to get Sherard to stop for repairs in Fiji he appears to be continuing on his planned course and tells us that he is coping very well with all that has been thrown at him, with at least a further 10 -13 days ahead of him we think he's quite mad but hope that he stays safe, its too late for his sanity!

The sun has come out for the moment and the wind is trying to decide which direction it wants to come at us from, the indicator is doing laps of the dial at break neck speed which essentially means that there is no wind for the moment, must be time for Gerry to play with the sails again!at's it for today's update we covered 140 NM in the 24 hours and ran the engine for 4 hours. [/size]

[David Fox]

Back to the future
11 September 2021
17 14.384'S:178 18.007'E, At Sea to Fiji
Weather; dull and overcast with rain showers, wind 2 to 30 knots, waves 2- 4 meters

So the DeLorean has passed into the stratosphere and we are right there alongside it, having time travelled into the future, it didn't hurt a single bit, there was no beam of light, no weird sounds or unusual flashing colours, in fact it seems pretty much the same as it was back in the past!. I am now calling Gerry Marty McFly - because that's how my sense of humour is rolling today!

We crossed the international date line around 8.30pm last night, I was asleep and totally missed the excitement of the moment. Marty and I had spoken at length about making sure we got a screen shot of the change over from West to East longitude and we were both geared up to get the screen shot if we were the one on watch when it happened. I was a little disappointed to come up for my watch and hear the news that it had happened whilst I was sleeping and worse was to come - Marty had epically failed and not recognised the change from West to East for quite a while after it happened, so there was no screen shot. It seems very strange to think that we were sailing into the sun set and now we are sailing into the sunrise whilst sailing in the same direction and without a complete turnaround.

3469 Coffee shop over the water.jpeg (8.75 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

So what does the future hold for all of you folks who are still in the past - not too much difference really, the weather forecasters still can't get it right, there are still no fish left in the sea, Covid hasn't been cured, world peace hasn't yet been achieved and we aren't quite at our Fiji destination.

3475Sun set Moorea.jpeg (79.33 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

Our night was a bit of a mixed bag after changing the clock and day, we had really slow winds for the most part of the night and had to run the engine to keep moving along. I spotted a trio of lights when it was my turn to keep watch, this was cause for excitement as we had seen nothing for the last 14 days. There was no moon and it was quite dark so I watched carefully to see if the lights were on land or on the water, turned out they were on land - the first lighthouses we would see as the Fijian Islands began to surround us, we were now going through a whole lot of coral lagoons and small uninhabited rocky outcrops which make up the Fijian Islands, still quite a way off to the big main islands, where we are headed.

3477Sun set Moorea.jpeg (52.6 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

I went down for my last sleep and left the watch in the care of Marty, I was woken up when the boat began to bang and crash through the waves and roll violently from side to side. I scrambled out into the cockpit to find it was pouring with rain and the wind was howling through at 30 Knots (nowhere in the weather prediction was this mentioned).

Marty had furled away all but the main sail and we were roaring along in the pitch black with rain pounding at us, good job that George had it under control! We had 2 hours-worth of this and managed to get just about every seat inside the cockpit wet as the rain found its way through the small gaps in the enclosure that are necessary to allow lines etc to pass through. We also had a few waves break over the top of the enclosure which didn't help matters. Marty had checked the radar to see how big the storm cell was and we were astounded to find it was 8 miles in every direction - a pretty big storm which had obviously been building during all those quiet calm days we have been seeing! Just after 8.30am it stopped and everything calmed back down enough that we could make coffee and drink it without wearing it.

3478Sun set Moorea.jpeg (59.27 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

The clouds hung around for a whole lot longer but didn't produce any more rain and the sea became much more pleasant to be on, eventually though the wind disappeared and we were back to wallowing until we turned the engine back on to help move us along. As the morning wore on we began to pass more and more Islands and coral reefs eventually we were alongside the main island - so close to our destination that we could smell it even though we still have a long way to go before we reach the target. We have done a couple of gybes to try and keep the wind in our sails and we have put the spinnaker pole away - we won't be using it for the rest of this passage, of course it rained whilst we were putting it away.

3481Clouds and fire at sea.jpeg (29.91 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

In just the last hour we have seen a few patches of blue sky and the sun is trying its best to poke through the clouds. It looks like we have broken (or it's just come undone) the first reefing line on the main sail but we aren't going to investigate it until we are safely in a marina - it'll just be one more job to add to the list!.

As we have had to run the engine there was suddenly a bit of a cough and splutter earlier this afternoon, Marty was in panic mode for a while and changed out the 2 fuel filters and happily that seems to have settled the engine back to normal running.

Presently we are motor sailing as we are back to less than 4 knots of wind - where is this weird weather coming from???? Out of our port side we can see the hilly coastline of the main Island, we just need to ravel along it and through another lot of reef before we arrive in Port Denarau. On a very sad note we are now out of chocolate so it's a good job that we are almost there before the withdrawal symptoms check in.
We have covered 124 NM in the 24. Hours and of that 9 hours were mechanically assisted.
By this time tomorrow we should be securely tied up in a marina berth, thank goodness!

[David Fox]

Arrival into Fiji
13 September 2021
17 44.915'S:177 22.373'E, Quarantine anchorage, Denarau, Fiji
Weather; Sunny, wind 5-8 knots, waves 1-2 meters

I'm writing this update from the relative comfort of the boat salon, we are at anchor in the quarantine anchorage in Denarau, Fiji, at last!

When I left off yesterday we were making our way through the many outlying islands and atolls that make up Fiji, the wind finally settled to give us a bit of a better run along the coastline, not a moment too soon. The worst thing was that the final part of our trip would be inside the reef highway which meanders for a good 36 plus miles along the coast to the port of Denarau and we would be doing this part of the trip during the night (I don't know how we always seem to manage to arrive somewhere in the dark, but we do). Before we entered the reef highway, which is very similar to the Intracoastal in the USA, we made sure that we had eaten dinner and furled away the jib and staysail, it was still just light enough to see everything at this point and we debated whether we should drop the main and just motor through the reef, I was all for dropping the main right there and then as I hate having to do things in the pitch black with Gerry out on deck. After much debate Gerry finally gave in and we turned into wind, what little there was, dropped the main and tidied up the lines, I was much happier that we wouldn't be doing that inside the reef highway and in the dark. So from there we motored into the reef entrance, following the centre line on the chart as it wound around and between coral heads and outcrops, it was a clearly marked channel and fairly wide so not too difficult to negotiate.

3493Pacific sun set.jpeg (103.36 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

We planned on following the centre line all the way through to the quarantine anchorage, Gerry took first watch whilst I had a sleep, he told me that he had encountered a tug that was towing a large barge but there was plenty of room to pass comfortably where they crossed paths. I took over and Gerry slept in the cockpit as it was too hot below with the engine running. Not much happened on my watch apart from one encounter with a small fishing vessel that had no lights apart from a flash light, luckily he was out of my way so I didn't have to run him down.

3505Sailing into the sun set.jpeg (74.76 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

I steered us through a couple of narrow parts of the channel and as I was going through a wide part of the channel there was an AIS alert that we were on a direct collision course with another vessel, I peered out and saw his lights and changed course slightly to indicate my intent, at this point Gerry woke up and wanted to poke his nose in, the Tug came alongside us and hailed us to let us know that he was towing a large barge and we needed to keep well over to Starboard until the barge had passed us.

Gerry acknowledged the hail and I kept us on track to clear the barge which only had a red light at its stern which was hard to see in the now pitch black of night against the millions of various coloured lights dotted along the shoreline on either side. That was the extent of the excitement for the rest of the passage as we ducked and wove our way to the anchorage. Our agent had given us co-ordinates for the anchorage and as we approached it the AIS went off, there was another boat in exactly the same position that we had been given, we guessed they must have the same agent!

3496Orange and yellow sky.jpeg (68.31 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

Anyway we found a spot close by and dropped the anchor at 4.15 am. After checking that we weren't drifting or dragging anchor we switched everything off, Gerry cracked a beer and we relaxed for a short while in the cockpit. Our instructions were to stay at anchor and the navy would come out to see us in the morning between 8 and 9 am. There was just enough time for a brief sleep before we needed to be up and dressed ready for the Navy guys. I woke up first, it was 7.30, time for a quick shower, breakfast and paste a welcome smile on our faces.

3510Sailing into the sun set.jpeg (7.07 KiB) Viewed 50398 times

Of course the Navy guys didn't turn up until 8.45 - could have had another half hour in bed! We put out the fenders and opened up the life lines expecting the guys to come on board, they didn't, opting instead to chat to us from the comfort of their rubber duck. This was just a form filling exercise, to say we had arrived, they didn't want to see any of our paperwork or passports but told us that they would return later with the health authority personnel to carry out Covid testing - oh joy!

So we did a couple of odd jobs, Gerry changed the oil and filter on the main engine whilst I made soup and made more muesli bars to use up the vegetables and honey that I knew would be confiscated by the bio security people when we finally get to check in.

So a little later the Navy guys returned with 2 health personnel and we went through the process of having swabs poked up our noses YET AGAIN! The results could be back in 24 hours or 36 at the most we were told, so despite the fact that we left Tahiti with negative PCR results and are fully vaccinated and have spent 16 days in isolation on our boat we have to wait a possible 36 hours out in the quarantine anchorage (there are only us and one other boat in the anchorage) for the "all clear" to check in with customs and immigration which we will be able to do at the marina once we are cleared and have our "Blue Lane Flag", at least it will give us time to catch up with our sleep and get rid of the last of our alcohol.

Blue Lane Flag

Fiji clearance flag.jpeg (28.09 KiB) Viewed 50377 times

The good bit was that the Navy guys and the health personnel were all very friendly and helpful but no one can explain why we needed to have a PCR 72 hours before leaving our previous port of call - it's a mystery! They did ask us what tracking we have on the boat (that would be the AIS) as we think they are supposed to check that we haven't made any other stops on the way to here and that Tahiti was really our last stop over, but we can't be sure.

After lunch Gerry stripped out the overhead cabin liner near the mast as we had another one of those annoying leaks that spring up out of nowhere, it was just a small drip but as they never get smaller and vanish it needed to be investigated. So we currently have bits of ceiling liner, bolts and screws, spanners, tape, thickened epoxy cans, spatulas etc decorating the salon table. Gerry has traced the leak back to a couple of blocks near the mast, removed the blocks, screws, bolts and filled all of the holes with thickened epoxy which is now being left to cure until tomorrow when he will drill though the epoxy and re seat the blocks and with any luck the leak will go away!
The anchorage is lovely and flat calm, the holding appears to be good so we will probably have plenty of mud on the anchor when we pull it up, it's not too hot and we have a view of the very green coastline which fronts the marina.

I have just enough coke left for 2 cocktails so we had better get the all clear pretty quickly or the navy will be bringing us out supplies!

For our final stats we covered 67.9 NM in 13 hours and ran the engine for 10 hours, surprisingly our average speed for the entire trip worked out to be 5.142 knots, I had thought it would be around 4 knots given the slow progress we made at times, just shows that a few fast bullets helps the average speed!


Another safe passage, well done Nicky & Gerry.
Readers, you may want to turn back a few pages for this passage as I have added a few images to break up the blog.

[David Fox]

Quarantine harbour, Denarau, Fiji
14 September 2021
17 44.915'S:177 22.373'E, Denarau, Fiji
Weather; Sunny [/size][/b]

Gerry had high hopes that we would get our PCR test results back today and we would be able to up anchor and motor on into the marina to clear in. Me? I had my doubts so didn't even bother to put on anything apart from a sarong for the entire day. Guess who was right? So tomorrow should be the day if the planets are aligned correctly.

The Navy guys came by in their rubber duck and checked that we were still here, not off of our boat and that we didn't need anything, they are really quite nice guys, it's just a shame that they didn't turn up with the results of the PCR!. I have to say that I think it was a good thing that we had the extra day sitting out at anchor, it gave us a bit more time to get over the trip and take stock of the small jobs that we could start on. Gerry took most of the day finishing dealing with the leak that he found, which after filling the bolt holes with thickened epoxy yesterday and leaving them to cure overnight, he drilled new holes through and re fitted the blocks to the deck.

3493Pacific sun set.jpeg (103.36 KiB) Viewed 50382 times

Of course I had to be the TA (trademans assistant, labourer I assume [David]) and hold the nuts in place with a spanner inside the boat whilst Gerry screwed the bolts down tightly from the outside, so I wasn't entirely idle. Gerry then replaced the overhead liner and wooden battens to make it seem like we had never taken the place apart. In between acting as Gerry's TA I made a start on the cleaning of the interior. I began with cleaning the small fans, I really don't know how they get to be so dirty when they haven't been in use but they certainly hold the dirt. The one that is over our bed was the worst and it seemed like it was only yesterday that I last cleaned it.

3494pacific sun set.jpeg (89.74 KiB) Viewed 50382 times

Anyhow, once I had crawled up onto the bed to clean the fan I thought that I might as well continue and make my way around the shelves and cupboards in the state room, it was a spring clean sort of effort as I moved just about everything in the entire room and damp dusted everywhere.

I used almost an entire container of Q tips to clean the bloody louvers, almost every cupboard and door has these ridiculous louvers and the dust and grim settles in every single gap and makes the corners a permanent home that is time consuming to get clean but I persevered and I think that I have managed to get all of them clean for the moment. Whist I was in the front third of the interior I also cleaned every inch of the ensuite and woe betide anyone who makes a single splash or mark in there from now until we sell the boat! ( there are 4 louver doors in that small space alone!). So it took me the best part of 4 hours to clean a third of the interior and this is the area that gets the least amount of use, I'm dreading the salon and galley cleaning!

'A womens work is never done'. Just as well its not changing oil and filters or smelling of Eu -De -Diesel after a days work with black fingernails, scratched arms trapped finger nails that call for reinventing the English language. Its clean dirt.

After lunch Gerry sat around for a while just waiting for the Navy guys to come by again and tell us that we were free to go ashore - it never happened and by 5 pm we had to come to terms with the fact that we were going to have to spend another night swinging on the hook, not that it's a hard place to be, it's quite still and very quiet so we will get another good night's sleep.

3496Orange and yellow sky.jpeg (68.31 KiB) Viewed 50382 times

We had thought we would eat ashore tonight if we got the all clear today but obviously that got knocked on the head and we had to scramble around to put dinner on the table tonight, plus we need to add that we are now out of beer and drink mixers so tomorrow had better see us given the all clear or there will be war breaking out!
We have had a message from Sherard, he's still going OK for the moment but he has decided to keep heading to Australia rather than stopping in Fiji to get the auto pilot sorted out.

We think he's nuts but each to their own and we will keep in touch until we know he has made it safely to home. We just hope that for his sake the weather stays windy enough for him to sail but mild enough that he doesn't have horrible sea swells and waves that might cause issues along the way.

Checked in to the marina at Denarau, Fiji
15 September 2021
17 46.369'S:177 22.935'E, Denarau, Fiji
Weather; Sunny,

Denarau, Fiji.jpeg (10.69 KiB) Viewed 50382 times

We woke up with full expectations of being cleared of Covid today and being allowed to proceed into the marina and check into Fiji properly, to this end we decided not to start on any big projects today. I spent the entire morning uploading a few photos that I had hanging around and hadn't yet uploaded to the blog site, some of them go back to Nuku Hiva but to be honest I think you would need to have a look at all the albums from after Panama to see if you missed any. The most that were uploaded were of sun sets as this was the only thing that warranted a photo whilst we were travelling apart from the odd photo of the broken chain plate.

3499Orange and yellow sky at sun set.jpeg (40.49 KiB) Viewed 50382 times

Sun sets just totally fascinate me but there has not been a single sighting of the elusive green flash in all of our travels to date. We saw the most impressive sun set just off the coast of Fiji but I watched it rather than took photos of it, it was just so mesmerizing I couldn't look away. Anyway whilst I was doing the photo labelling and
up loading Gerry took himself outside to check the rest of the chain plates, as far as he could see.

The good news is that they look to be OK but there is a big BUT - he could only see so far down the plate, who knows if they are breaking up further down where it is impossible to see.

3505Sailing into the sun set.jpeg (74.76 KiB) Viewed 50382 times

So we waited patiently and just as we were about to have our lunch we got a text message from our agent to say that the results were in and we were free of Covid but we shouldn't come into the marina between 1 and 2 pm as we would get charged overtime to be checked in. The message was a bit garbled, not exactly as I have reported it and it took a phone call to sort out when we could enter the marina. The long and short of it was that we had to wait until the health officials came out to the boat and gave us the official piece of paper to show we were clear then we could proceed in.


We had time to eat lunch before we heard the roar of the Navy vessel coming alongside with 2 health personnel and 4 Navy guys on board, 4 of them clambered on to the boat and we went through a whole lot more paper work to receive a small slip of paper to say we were free to enter the country, is there a fee for that?

Of course there is - Another $300 for the tests and $60 for the clearance slip of paper. anyway once they had gone it was close to 1pm so we didn't want to go into the marina just yet as we have already paid out enough in fees without the added cost of overtime so we hung out until just before 2 pm and then called the marina and made our way in. They were very organised and the dock master was there to catch our lines and tie us up. As soon as we were tied up the customs, immigration and bio security guys were on us like a bad smell. To be fair they were very pleasant , quick and efficient. We declared our flare gun and the immigration guy took a photo complete with flares but we were allowed to keep it - no problem, we filled out the customs and immigration forms (yet more pieces of paper) and our passports were stamped.

Then came the biosecurity stuff - we declared that we had honey - it was confiscated, we declared that we had uncooked, frozen minced beef - it was confiscated and that we had canned ham - it was confiscated. There was some talk about our onions and garlic but in the end we were allowed to keep them. We didn't volunteer the fact that we had unopened packs of bacon, prosciutto, pate, cold meats in the freezer or they would all have gone too. Luckily we had eaten the last tomatoes, cucumber and lone orange for lunch or they would have gone too. I appreciate that they are protecting their country but really Canned ham??? What sort of bio security does that cause?? Anyway we had given them enough to satisfy their existence so everyone went away happy. Funnily enough we weren't asked about the alcohol we have on board even though we had been warned by other cruisers that they sting you for import duty if you are over the allowed amount, we aren't sure what the amount is but we had hardly any on board anyway. Finally we were officially in the country and free to go ashore, within the Covid restrictions of mask wearing, Social distancing, no eating inside restaurants and an 8 pm curfew ('cos we all know that Covid only comes out if you eat in a restaurant or are out after 8 pm!).

[David Fox]

Taking down sails
16 September 2021
17 46.369'S:177 22.935'E,
Denarau, Fiji
Weather; Sunny,

3537 In the channel to the marina Denarua.jpeg (7.48 KiB) Viewed 50376 times

It wasn't as cool last night sleeping in the marina compared to being out at anchor but never the less we managed to sleep quite well. It's just a shame that we have USA power on the boat and the dock here is only geared up for "rest of the world" power, as such we can't plug in and have air conditioned splendour - one of the reasons that being in a marina is so good! At least we can run our fans on the solar power we manage to produce. The marina is small compared to many that we have been into and unfortunately it has been affected like the rest of the world by Covid in that half of the facilities which operate around the marina are all but closed down for the time being. However there are good engineering and sail / canvas type businesses which are surviving and which we will be making good use of.

There is a travel lift here for hauling out but we think we would have to remove our backstay to make use of it and that just isn't going to happen. There is an in house, self-service laundry and an amenities block which is very nicely presented, the office has a book exchange but it seems very sparsely stocked - I guess more and more people have kindles on their boats these days. The dock surrounding the marina has a heap of small kiosks which sell trips, tattoos, and the usual tourist crap but for the moment they are all pretty much closed down as there is no tourism. Nearby there is a small minimart, bottle shop and a small chandlery (with nothing that we need in stock of course).

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Then there is Lulu's, a restaurant and bar which is open for takeaway business but you can eat your takeaway food at their alfresco tables, just not inside the restaurant and you can have alcohol but it is served in takeaway coffee cups to get around the regulations, sadly there are only a few people to make use of the facilities as the marina is currently half empty. On a different dock there are several cruise ships which have been "resting" there for the duration of the pandemic, these cruise ships would normally do 3 or 5 day cruises around Fiji and then there are a couple of dinner cruise ships which aren't allowed to operate for the time being - again the virus has caused no end of havoc and job losses for so many of the local work force.


Our day has been fairly busy, we needed to get all three sails down and bagged up ready for the sail maker to collect tomorrow. We started out with the main sail fairly early in the morning, it was calm and still so was fairly easy to drop, roll over the side of the boat onto the dock, flake and fold up and then push inside the sail bag.

We were just finishing putting it into the bag when our agent appeared with a guy who was going to look at our hydraulic boom vang which has been leaking hydraulic fluid every time it gets pumped, so we stopped with the sails to give him the guided tour and thoughts about the way we would go about sorting this out (Gerry has been emailing the company to see what seals it requires and the availability of the same as he doesn't want to have the thing taken apart and then not have the correct seals on hand to put it back together once more). Once the guy had got all the details in his head and had left it was back to removing sails for Gerry and I.

By now the sun was getting hotter and we were sweating like nobodies business as we began bringing down the stay sail, this one didn't go so smoothly. At about 15 feet off of the deck the sail wouldn't drop down any further as there are 2 grub screws in the aluminium extrusion and both had come undone and we couldn't get the top bearing to go past these screws.

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As a result Gerry had to be hauled / monkey climb up to the point where he could reach the screws and tighten them back in, adding lock tight to prevent them from unscrewing themselves again. By the time he had climbed into the bosuns chair, strapped himself to the inner forestay and climbed whilst I winched him aloft we were both exhausted so it was a good job that it was fixed in a matter of minutes and I could let him back down again. With that fixed we could now finish dropping the stay sail, drag it over the side of the boat, flake it and fold it up - second sail done! We stopped for a gallon of water and a brief sit down in the shade, or at least that was the plan, but we were again interrupted by the arrival of the guy who is sorting out our chain plate replacement.

3489Broken deck chain plate.jpeg (93.9 KiB) Viewed 50368 times

Fast forward about 3/4 hour, we had now discussed all manner of things that this particular guy is sorting out for us, the sun had risen even higher in the sky and now there was a bit of a breeze just kicking in and we still had the Yankee (jib) to get off. Dropping it was easy enough and then, as we began to drag it over the side of the boat, the wind picked up and tried to fill the damn sail and set us sailing in the slip! Gerry and I struggled to get the sail onto the dock and flaked, making a really bad job of it and only just preventing it from blowing into the slip next to us, (I think it did get a little wet but generally we kept it on the dock) Gerry quickly folded it as best he could and we tugged and pushed it into the sail bag - it's not pretty but it's in the bag and all 3 sails are ready for the sail maker to collect tomorrow!

3490Broken deck chain plate.jpeg (49.58 KiB) Viewed 50368 times

Next job was getting the main sail bag off of the boom as that requires some patching where the lazy jacks have worn holes at one end, we needed to remove the battens from that which took more effort than we really had left in us at that point but we struggled on with a few salty sailor words being bandied about and managed to get that sorted out.


By now we were exhausted and badly in need of more water so we took ourselves below and chilled out as much as was possible in the heat of almost mid-day. Lunch followed and then Gerry decided to go to the office to sort out our dock fees, arriving back with our Blue lane flag to show we were cleared in and allowed to cruise around the Fijian islands.

This all sounds pretty good but in reality it is a nonsense as the Fijian islands each have a colour distinction which relates to how safe the island is as far as Covid is concerned, Here in Denarau we are designated as being a Green area - the most Covid safe area, but if we want to go to another island and it falls in the Orange or whatever the other colour designations are, then we would have to quarantine again if we returned to here so essentially we are stuck in the one place unless we want to spend even more time in quarantine. The good thing is that with the repairs and maintenance that we are doing we had no intention of going elsewhere anyway. So after a short time back on the boat Gerry wanted to go and check out the chandlery and take the car traveller from the boom to the metal working guys to see if they could make new rollers as the ones we had were worn out and not rolling along the boom as they should. I needed a nana nap and Gerry set off by himself, when he returned he told me that he had done a round trip of the marina surrounds, found various places like the bottle shop as well as the chandlery and was a little disappointed to not get all the stuff he wanted but had managed to get a couple of things so it was all good. Time out followed until the clock struck cocktail time, we didn't even go out into the cockpit as it was still to hot outside.

[David Fox]

R & R time
18 September 2021,
In Port Denarau marina , Fiji
Weather; Sunny,

We have been gradually doing the irritating jobs that can't be ignored like cleaning the stainless steel of the stanchions, one of those jobs that get put off as it's out in the sun and you need to work hard to remove the rust marks. Of course this is a "Nicky job", having said that I did the port side and it took me the best part of 4 hours, Gerry decided to do the starboard side whilst I was doing the laundry, I think he spent less then 2 hours and it shows - it needs a second going over!

3501Broken chain plate both parts.jpeg (49.03 KiB) Viewed 50367 times

The laundry here is a self-serve one and I have to say that it is one of the nicest, cleanest looking places to do laundry that I have ever seen. It operates with tokens and we underestimated how many we would need so some of the washing is on hold until we can get more tokens when the office opens up again on Monday. Then there are the inside jobs that Gerry seems to gravitate to, like changing out the fuel filters, bought about by the spluttering of the gen set.

3502Broken chain plate both parts.jpeg (51.49 KiB) Viewed 50367 times

When he changed them out they were once again choked up with debris even though the fuel has been polished, but I guess we ran the engine for a great deal of the passage to here with no problem so I guess the time had come, who knows how much more debris is lurking in the remainder of the fuel in the tank ( there is about half of one tank left so we will be topping up with what we hope is going to be clean fuel before we leave here).

3530Broken Chain plate inside cupboard bit.jpeg (53.86 KiB) Viewed 50367 times

Gerry has removed the MacGyvered chain plate from the cupboard in the forward toilet as the new plate is meant to be turning up tomorrow and they need the old plate to use as a pattern for where to position the holes for the bolts, once that is done it will be a case of installing the new plate and reattaching the shroud then we should be good to go.

3531Cupboard for chain plate working space.jpeg (58.11 KiB) Viewed 50367 times

The sail maker has collected our 3 sails and the instructions for things that need attention - slightly more than we would like really as we discovered that the cringles at the sheet ends of both the main and the jib had worn though the fabric of the sail and would need replacing somehow (the real answer is new sails but that's not going to happen on our watch, it will be an expense for the new owners once we sell the boat). We have also given a cockpit seat cover to the sail maker for a new zipper to be installed as the salt water has corroded the slider out on this one cover. Then just yesterday Gerry was trying to close up the front window of the enclosure and the zipper on one side of the central window fell apart. This is a pain in the butt as it means removing the entire dodger to get it replaced - a job for another day perhaps!

6498Attaching new shroud to mast at second spreader .jpeg (65.33 KiB) Viewed 50367 times

We have obviously reached the obsolete date for zippers!

The awnings are now up and trying to keep us cool, they do a good job but being in a protected marina means that we have very little breeze blowing though the boat and it gets horribly hot and uncomfortable without the air conditioning - oh for a US power outlet!

We have done a couple of walks to the nearby mini mart, chandlery and found the bottle shop, it's not very exciting and we are struggling to find stuff that we want in the shops, I think we really need to go further afield but the heat us putting us off of going out. There are 3 restaurants close to the marina but so far we have only eaten in one of them, the food is good and as I think I already mentioned we had asked the chef for a curry which he produced on Friday - it was awesome and we have asked for a repeat sometime soon, we just have to let him know when!

We plan to eat at the second place tonight, they have lobster on the menu and I just won't be able to go past that! The final place is strictly take out only so we probably won't be going there. The curfew has been lifted slightly, we are now allowed to be out and about until 9pm - I hope the authorities have let Covid know to stay home until 9 pm!

There is a sailing club building at the marina which sadly is closed,
it apparently had a kitchen and bar but seems to have been closed for the duration of the virus. All of the furniture has been removed and the building stands empty - very sad as it looks like it would have been a great place to hang out.

2151Main cringle almost worn through.jpeg (72.41 KiB) Viewed 50367 times

The marina itself is very quiet, I've never been in a marina that lacks noise and movement as much as it does here, it's very odd. We are at least getting caught up with rest / sleep as there isn't much else to do and we are going through books like nobodies business.

The WIFI on the dock got knocked out by the last cyclone that came through this way and has never been repaired on our dock, you can access it if you go over to the next dock but that's no use if you want to stream Netflix so we are having to use a hotspot which isn't the best way of doing things. We have thought we will hire a car and do some sight-seeing but we just need to make sure that we have all the repair stuff in hand first. So really that's the state of the Opal nation for the moment, as I said nothing exciting happening but sometimes that's just what we need.


Gerry informs me that if all the jobs are complete they will be leaving Tuesday 28th September. There final passage home, so a touch of the 'channels'. He said his mind has left the yatch now, its a case of 'Get Me Out of Here, I'm a Bluey'. Anybody who has been following it through it was 24 November 2019, the previous decade that they set sail, from Jacksonville, Florida.

Covid 19 was just something on the news that China was affected by, but we all have come through the other side ( except our Antipodean cousins which are going through lockdown like we did in Spring/ Summer of 2020, the year that never was). Nobody thought it would infect and affect every country going through them like a dose of clap.
If the authorities ask you to have the vaccinations and the booster eventually, get in there boyos, we did when we were at sea and never caught anything or had any side effects other than a sore arm ( just use the other one for drinking). Well some did but the vaccination or umbrella treatment was post social manouvres of the worst kind. Self inflicted. Don't take any notice of these doomsayers, mainly young people scared of little pricks (which they are) writing rubbish on social media that they know nothing about.

We wish Nicky and Gerry calm seas and some decent wind from the right direction to hurry them home/ their final discharge port of Bundaberg before paying off for a long rest and gardening leave. If Gerry had wanted 2 year voyages he would have joined Bank Line , not Blue Star Line.

They have certainly had their ups & downs, loss of Priss the ship's cat, waiting for their sailing buddies who had to cancel and sell up their Catamaran, various mechanical, electrical, refrigeration, rigging, tank, hull failures but Gerry with the help of Nicky, Macgyver, Muratic Acid, Epoxy and plain African Inginuity and years of experience with Blue Star and his mining companies (in the most inhospitable places) managed to arrive safely at each port. Nicky's professional skills as a nurse were fortunately never used apart from kissing a trapped finger better.

It would be good if any Aussies living in the area, could form a welcoming party for their arrival , the odd Blue Star pennant and Starman flag, Red & Blue ( Aussie) Dusters flying from the yatch club signal halyards.
I have finally caught up with Nicky's excellent blog. Just awaiting their final before sailing. Will try and keep current, and give you an ETA Bundaberg should my suggestion come to fruition. I am writing from deepest Berkshire, England.

Gerry has just informed me that they are going to Brisbane for quarantine (after a week or two at sea) then up to Bundaberg for sale and gear removal.

Anybody wanting to add any words for Gerry and Nicky, please feel free, as you have always been welcome since I started.

In the words of Eric Usher's bagman, TFA Eh! Gerry & Nicky from the lads.