Minerva reef
NORDLYS
David and Annette Ridout
Sun 29 May 2005 21:09
North
Minerva Reef
30th May 2005
Anchored in N.
Minerva
Yesterday dawn found us hove to about six miles
short of this strange place after a slow but generally pleasant six day
passage from New Zealand. As so often happens the last twelve hours had
produced an excellent sailing breeze and a favourable current. We needed
neither as they were too late to make arrival here before dark impossible
and yet we had to wait for the light of dawn. For most of the last
day we had run with boomed out genoa to starboard and nylon reacher
likewise to port and no mainsail. For the night with a rising and veering
wind we reached with main and backed staysail to slow her down.
The Minerva reefs, there are two of them twenty
miles apart, are basically circles of coral atop steep sea mountains. At low water the rim of flat dead coral is
above water by about a foot. At high water the swell of mid ocean crashes
onto unseen land and the result is a pond like area about two and a half miles
across in the middle of the ocean. Our timing meant that we would have had
to wait about ten hours off South Minerva so we pushed on and waited just two
hours off the northern atoll. There is one entrance about a couple of
cables wide in the otherwise perfectly circular reef. Inside
is generally free from coral heads and the bottom if rather deep is
sand. The holding excellent.
We are here with just our friends on Troubadour
and it must be said that the atmosphere of this place is very strange.
Neither of the two ladies had really wanted to come here. It is
obviously not a female place although it is quite safe and not somewhere that
one is likely to get trapped. So far the snorkelling has been rather
disappointing with few fish and not much interesting coral. Today we will
explore other areas of the lagoon and if nothing found will probably push on to
Fiji tomorrow or the day after.
The history of the place is interesting in that
both New Zealand and Tonga are in a sort of permanent disagreement as to who
owns the reefs. At the moment they are in international waters.
Apparently there was a plan to build a hotel here on stilts and somewhere there
are, we are told, the remains of an attempt by the Tongans to build a
light house so as to claim the place. Yesterday afternoon a New Zealand
airforce P3 Orion plane flew low over the lagoon and politely asked the three
boats here who we were, where had we come from and
where were we going. Did we have pets or firearms on board
and what were the registration details and the skipper's name. It was very
much a case of 'big brother' is watching over you and the large motor boat that
had come in for a few hours only en route from Brisbane to Tonga did make a
point of asking pointedly if these were international waters. The Orion
crew agreed they were. We all gave the required information although in my
case I have to admit that the initial reaction was to ignore them. We
heard one of the three boats in South Minerva do just that.
However it was the memory of the joint efforts of New Zealand planes and
the Australian navy that saved the lives of the crew of a Danish boat that hit a
reef in Fiji last year that made such action seem churlish. The Fijians
have no rescue services. The Orion crew were very polite.
So breakfast is on the table, the radio is
telling us that a Spanish boat and a German boat are coming in here in a few
hours, the sun is climbing up the sky and I will bring this news flash to a
close.
Pictures of this place are almost pointless
from the perspective of Nordlys. I should have asked the Orion to take one
and email it to us!
Happy times
David and Annette