Saturday May 11h, South Pacific Ocean 32:27S  174:18E 

Today’s Blog by David (Time zone GMT+11.00; UTC +11.00)

We were ready to go!  I don’t mean ‘ready’; nor were we ‘Quite Ready’  We were READY – and we were fed up.   Sailors will understand exactly how ready – and how fed up  - we were when I recount our activities on Thursday:

In between exchanging pleasantries with our Weather Guru, he who  was to help us snake our way between a trough and a depression and who confessed himself to be in a Quandary Thursday morning, we filled in time by setting about a number of ‘last remaining’ tasks before we set sail.  Mindful that we had already unpacked and restowed every locker (for the cognoscenti,  including both “The Pit” AND “The Lazarette”), Richard and Daryl having shopped until our collective bank accounts dropped, we embarked upon the last remaining essential tasks. These included washing and drying the navigation light housings and protecting them with WD40, greasing the anchor windlass (essential when you pan to embark upon a 7/8 day sea crossing) and greasing the water and fuel tank deck filler caps. However the most important task was to take the anchor chain onto the dockside to wash it and scrub clean each of the coloured plastic markers that  designate each 10 metre length of chain (the  geriatric foredeck hands had been having difficulty seeing how much chain they had put “out”).  Finally, we took out and washed the accumulated crud off the second anchor warp rode. This latter did at least have the benefit of our determining that the rode was not actually attached to the second anchor –  Richard rectified this in a trice, seizing the shackle with monel wire!

The Weather Guru’s quandary was resolved by recommending yet another day’s delay – a departure on Saturday morning, now looking favourite. And so, morale thus improved, we enjoyed a good lunch and I spent the rest of the afternoon making up leaders for recently acquired lures  for the Fisheries Department.   In the evening, we repaired ashore for a very good, and for once reasonably priced, dinner at the Opua Cruising Club.

Friday dawned with a heavy autumn mist across the harbour. The sun gradually broke through and a lovely day in port was in prospect.  The morning’s weather forecast, however,  was not ideal – and considerably at variance with the previous day’s prediction. A frontal trough (this was “the Trough” arriving a bit ahead of schedule) was running up the country; the shipping forecast presaged a westerly gale on Friday as it passed but with much stronger winds on Saturday as the associated depression swept the country.  This would mean leaving on Saturday downwind in a full gale (gusting 45kts) with rough seas – Spirited stuff!

Sunday – 48 hours hence - looked better. But so had the 48 hour forecast looked better every day last week as our expected departure date moved from Sunday to Wednesday to Thursday then Friday, Saturday and now Sunday. [I am ever more certain about the potential of the proposition “www.forecast_u_like.com “  - See blog:   ‘Business proposition for serious investors and HNWIs only’ - 8th December 2012}

A wave depression swept through the crew.  However, some detailed navigation planning  showed that if we left on Friday AM we should be sheltered enough by the land as the front went through around lunch time and then should be able to get ahead of, i.e. north of, the weather by the time it came through Saturday.  We would still need to route round west of  “the Depression”  (but even that now seemed to be moving faster than previously predicted).

So – we went for it. Checked out of customs, had a hearty fried breakfast and then cast off the pontoon in time to get into open water where we could tough out the front as it passed.  A course of action delayed only by our  sending a valedictory email to our weather guru asking for routing advice based upon a Friday departure.  

Now, they do say  that every cloud has a silver lining. Well as we, well, no, as  I  drove away from the dockside, for some reason the bow thruster decided to take a morning off.  Everyone throws a Sickie from time to time, but that particular time was not convenient with a brisk cross wind blowing us off the dock onto some mooring piles (intended for bigger yachts than little old Serendipity).  

The upshot of this is that one such pile interfered with our Jonbuoy Personal Recovery Module, setting it off to commence  inflation. Richard manfully rescued it, pulled it on board but  as  we were leaving the marina in the still calm morning mist , we treated onlookers to  the sound of pressurized gas inflating a bright yellow contraption looming ever more obvious on the after  deck. (Secretly I suspect some might have admired such a state of life safety preparedness when setting off into a gale forecast!)

However, this would not do! The Jonbuoy is a vital piece of safety equipment but is best stowed neatly in its box rather than its inflated 10 foot high day-glo yellow frame occupying the whole of the afterdeck. So it had to be deflated.   This proved to be no easy task and in fact it took practically  two hours for Richard wrestle out – through essentially a car tyre valve - all of that air which the compressed air tank had – noisily - put in in a few seconds.

Meanwhile, inspection of the box showed some damage that would need to be jury rigged. While we did have a spare gas cylinder on board, we  found we had no instructions on how to repack the device and we had lost an important  seal overboard.  Richard at this point was still in the early stages  of supressing his new inflatable friend:

The prospect of setting off on a 7/8 day passage without what is THE central platform in our man overboard recovery strategy was hard to contemplate. A telephone call to both Opua Chandlers established that “Oh, no Sir.  While we do sell them, we don’t stock them – have to order them in.”  So there was nothing for it  - we needed to fix it!  This required us to deploy our anchor, and its recently polished anchor chain, in the thick syrupy goo that passes for the mud of Opua Roads. That operation was conducted effectively by our visually impaired foredeck crew and we set about repairing and repacking Jonbuoy.  And so it was after a little under three hours we had managed to deflate the device, jury rig the box (using yet another piece of the extremely useful white plastic that Gavin Needham left behind  after fixing the batteries in Panama), find substitute seals and re assemble thus: 

The rather jaunty grey stripes are a couple of bits of preventative duct tape. It’s not pretty, I know. And there are  now two steps in the deployment instructions:

1                     Remove Sticking plaster

2                     Pull down tab in the usual way and stand back in amazement

But  we are pretty confident will inflate if called upon.  Phew!

The silver lining to this sorry tale is that during the three hours we were at anchor the frontal system blew through.  It howled and it chucked it down  but we were snug and dry playing with Jonbuoy.

So we set off into blue skies and a 12-15knots of wind on the beam and have already made up the lost time …. And we are at sea again! Hooray!