Duration: 14 days
After a tedious morning organising all the administriva associated with the disembarkation of our crew and clearing out, we left Rarotonga around 1400 hours. We encountered our first hiccup as we were leaving when the main halyard wrapped around a spreader as we were raising the mainsail. Fortunately, it worked itself loose and we were able to fully raise the mainsail, set our westerly course and off we headed to Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia.
One of the things we noticed almost immediately was that we both felt far more relaxed sailing by ourselves. We decided on six hour watches and this worked well for us. There was a high level of trust and confidence in our abilities, and in hindsight if we were to embark on this adventure again we would consider sailing just by ourselves or limiting additional crew to specific legs of the journey.
During the passage we experienced an interesting mix of weather and sea conditions. Weather ranged from being almost calm to strong squalls, and for the most part we were slowed by a head on current. Sea conditions can only be described as weird. At times the sea was like a millpond and then there were times when the sea was choppy. But the chop was from multiple directions creating a highly unusual wave effect. Almost like there was a disturbance under the water.
Our voyage took us passed Tonga and we sailed through the passage between the two main islands at sunrise, just amazing. Apart from two large rocky outcrops (Ile Hunter and Ile Matthew) this would be our only land sighting until Noumea. (As an aside we both commented on the naming of these small volcanic outcrops. Very western and not what we expected in the middle of the Pacific. Perhaps Pacific Islanders have indigenous names which are not charted). From here we changed course at our last waypoint, happy that we were making good progress to Noumea.
And then came our next Woo Hoo moment! Another major milestone and another celebration, west meets east! Day 9 since leaving Rarotonga at 0400 hours, GMT-10 on 1st December (current ships clock time) we crossed 180 degrees West. We are now counting longitude downwards as we have passed into the “Eastern Zone”. We have just lost 21 hours going from GMT-10 to GMT+11 (Noumea time). See Peter’s discussion below regarding time zones. NB Today we clocked up a total of 13,000 nautical miles since leaving France, only another 1,500 to go until we reach home!
The remainder of our passage was uneventful though winds were fickle at times and we had to kick in the motors to maintain reasonable speed. We arrived in New Caledonian waters on the 6th December sailing passed the most gorgeous tropical islands. Definitely planning a return trip to explore these islands and bays one day. Approaching Noumea we had trouble contacting marina staff via VHF i.e. we couldn’t get any response. Eventually we made contact and were assigned a berth on the quarantine dock, denoted with a large yellow cross. We later found out that the marina was full, and this was the last available berth since the marina was actually closed for cyclone season. Click here for more details regarding Noumea http://seagoddessadventures.com/sailing-to-australia-noumea/ and here for details of the marina at Port Moselle http://seagoddessadventures.com/port-moselle-marina-noumea/ .
A quick word about time zones
One of the interesting issues when travelling across multiple time zones is what time does one use for the ships time? Ship’s time defines log entries as well as watch start and stop times. Peter, as skipper, made the decision to use our last port of call (Rarotonga) as the ship’s time, GMT-10 hours. In effect the ship’s date becomes the ‘working’ date on the boat. For example, when we were approaching Noumea the time on the boat was 0135 hours on Friday morning but 2235 hours Friday night Noumea time, a 21 hour difference. This also has implications for sunrise and sunset according to ship’s time as we experienced sunrise at 0800 hours on more than one occasion. If you mirror our approach it is also important to turn off automatic time zone updates on navigation equipment. From a personal point of view, we didn’t experience any health or other issues in taking this approach. On arrival at port we quickly adjusted to the local time zone, just like one would when flying internationally.