Society Islands to Palmerston (Cook Islands)
Salamander
Thu 9 Sep 2010 08:21
Having spent all of August in the Society Islands
it is great to be off on a longer passage. We don't have any really long
passages left, the last leg to NZ is only just over 1,000 miles. Our choice of Cook Islands to visit is based on the direct
route to Tonga and expected better winds.
We both love being out of sight of land and other
vessels and just gazing over the beautiful blue sea. The skies at night are back
to gorgeous with shooting stars.
A slow start to our voyage to the Cook Islands and
then squally weather resulted in the webbing on the Genoa being chafed through.
Losing this little piece of webbing meant we couldn't furl the genoa or use it
again until we get to a sail repairer. We managed to tie the genoa up and left
it. We had to motor for 3 hours as no wind at all, then, when it was blowing
again, we watched the genoa start to unfurl. Yes, typical, delay doing something
and then end up taking the genoa down in the wind and pitch dark.
All sky has now disappeared and the sea has gone a
very angry blue/purple. Murray literally had time to ask Caroline to turn
the radar on as something didn't feel right. Before the radar warmed
up a massive squall arrived, the wind direction changed and the Hydrovane
couldn't cope because the sun-weakened material finally gave way.
The boat gybed herself, the anti-gybe rope snapped
and its pulley flew right over the boat. We hove to in torrential rain and
non-stop force 8 winds. Our relief arrived when the wind lessened after an hour,
but the sky remained obscured with 100% cloud cover. We fired off an email to
warn some friends who we thought might be in the path of the storm, to find
later we had given them 1 hour's warning and they had time to prep the
boat. Thankfully, as we already had no genoa, the only damage was a slightly
bent stanchion which broke the anti-gybe rope and a couple of broken bimini
studs. Later on the winds returned with the torrential rain, but the winds were
reasonable when not gusting. We stayed on deck and reefed the main, then again,
but we just got cold and wet, so we gave up with the main, tidied everything up
and retired to our cabin where its warm and toasty and we had a chill out day
reading. We managed up to 6.4 knots on just the working jib and without the main
up we were happy to stay below as there is not much we can do on
deck.
We were then hoping to see blue sky soon - at
least the boat looked clean with all the rain. The blue sky appeared as a patch
for a couple of minutes at the end of the day, with the winds still mainly force
7.
We arrived off Palmerston at 11.00pm and as it was
impossible to see to moor or anchor we hove to in filthy conditions for the
night.
So, we have arrived with no genoa, a blocked toilet
(fixed) and slight bimini damage (fixed). The Hydrovane material having finally
blown out was repaired en route with duct tape (better than new!).
We are rewarded with stunning Palmerston - you feel
like you are at the end of the earth.
Us at anchor
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