Crossing from Niue to Samoa, Apia (9th July - 11th July)
13 49 67S 171 45 61W
Crossing from Niue to Samoa, Apia (9th July - 11th July)
We had a nice start on our journey to cross to Samoa with calm seas and a bit of wind. Unfortunately, our wind and speed instrument is still insisting and doesn’t work but who knows maybe it will change later. Seems like things have their own life on a boat sometimes.
It is so nice when you have planned a bit in advanced and pre-cooked meals before leaving to ensure that you are able to eat a nice hot meal when it is rough. Luckily, it was not too rough this night but we were still happy to have a nice and yummy pasta bolognese for the first night.
The first night sail was very good and calm with okay winds but the speed was a little slower than we normally want. But again, we know that the weather and winds can change every hour so we are hoping we have some more wind to enable us to arrive in time for checking in at Samoa.
It was not a bad first night sail and the day after we could actually go to the beach for a little - meaning we could sit on deck and enjoy the sun at the bow. It was the first time we managed to do that since we came onto the boat. It was really nice and I can imagine if you have it like this with some good winds, sailing can be more enjoyable. We had nice lunch in the sun and overall enjoyed the whole day of sailing.
We have really enjoyed sailing but sometimes it is nice to have some calm weather so that you do not need to hold on for dear life which can be exhausting.
The speed instrument suddenly started to work again during the crossing and we think it could be mom that scared it in to functioning again. She had one of the ‘rough’ night watches again and it must have dislodge the speed meter underneath the boat.
One of the days we caught a beautiful yellowfin tune and as you can imagine we were super excited when we saw that we had it on the hook. We were all so surprised of how nice and colourful this fish was. Really vibrant colours - it had a vibrant yellow belly, blue side with white spotted lines, bright yellow ‘dorsal fins’ all the way back to the tail and nicely shaped side fins. It was absolutely delicious both as Sashimi and tuna steak. Yummy! It is the favourite by far of the 2 different fish we caught.
This crossing was a bit special as we lost a day due to the date/timeline in the middle of the Pacific, so we actually should have arrived on Friday, 12th July but in reality we lot 24 hours so we actually arrived on Saturday, 13th July.
Our original route was a total of 346nm but in reality 382nm which normally is a result of trying to get the winds in the sail and not following the route 100%. We did the crossing in 66 hours (counted 65 hours) with an average speed of 5.8knots and with maximum winds speeds of 38knots.
We arrived to the harbour/port of Samoa at around 11.00 in the morning and anchored to await for the authorities along with the other 2 boats next to us.
