Shakedown cruise off the grid - Great Barrier Island, New Zealand
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Mon 27 Apr 2009 03:52
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36:10.384S 175:21.555E
The conversation went something like
this:
Don: 'The forecast is for 25 knots from the
southwest.'
Anne: 'Sounds like a lot of
wind.'
Don: 'I know - its perfect for our sail to
Great Barrier Island.'
Anne: 'No, I meant it sounds like too much
wind.'
Don: 'No way.'
Anne: 'I mean for our first sail of the
season, it seems like a lot of wind.'
Don: 'No, 25 knots is perfect!'
Anne: 'I thought we would take it easy our
first time out.'
Don: 'Anything less than 25 knots from the
southwest and we'll be motoring! You don't want to motor do
you?'
Anne: 'No, motoring for 9 hours is no
fun.'
Don: 'So we should go tomorrow - early - with
the 25 knots.'
Anne: 'But I heard there is supposed to be 40
knot gusts!'
Don: 'Good! It'll be a perfect
shakedown cruise! We couldn't ask for better conditions.'
Anne: 'It seems like a lot of
wind.'
Don: 'But it'll be mostly behind us and there
won't be any waves.'
Anne: 'Ok.'
On April 9th, Harmonie left Riverside Drive Marina
after a long five months of being tied to a dock or stuck on land. The
boat seemed happy about our departure. I was a little anxious. Don
was thrilled. At 7:30 in the morning there was no wind so we motored
the 15 miles out of Whangarei Harbor with the tide. All was
well. The wind picked up as we left the harbor. It was from the
southwest, but lower than 25 knots - a perfect sail for the start of the
new season.
By 12:30 the clouds had moved in
and there was some ugliness in the sky behind us.
Ugliness in the sky is not necessarily a bad thing unless it is
lurking between your boat and the direction the wind is coming from.
In other words, if the wind is blowing the ugliness toward you, it's not
necessarily a good thing. The wind was definitely blowing the ugliness
toward us. The wind picked up fast as we scrambled to reduce
sail area. In the space of a minute or two, the wind had wound itself up
from a pleasant 15 knots to a howling 35 with gusts to 40. We had just a
scrap of head sail and mizzen out, which was enough to keep us going fast at
over 8 knots. It would have been a pleasant ride if it weren't for
the sound of the freight train wind roaring in our ears. After the
worst of the wind gusts were over (it's amazing how wind at 30 knots
seems almost tranquil after the roaring 40's), I proclaimed proudly to Don
that I wasn't nervous or scared at all. He laughed at me
and asked why then was I shaking so bad? It's true, I
looked down and both legs were jim-jamming away - each with their
own whacky rhythm. My teeth joined the fray and I spent the next twenty
minutes or so trying to master mind over matter.
It was about then that we heard a New Zealand
Maritime Radio operator (New Zealand's Coast Guard) talking to someone
on a boat that had capsized. The good news for them was that there were
several boats in the area willing to rescue them. The bad news for us
was that the location of the capsized boat indicated there was another
squall headed our way. It wasn't more than twenty minutes later that the
freight train winds were back with a vengeance. We went through the same
two minute sail reduction drill ending up with only a handkerchief out
to catch the 40 knot wind. This time we clocked the highest gust
at 47 knots (54 mph). A new record for us. Previous to this the
highest we had seen was 43 knots - during a thunderstorm near Prince Edward
Island in Canada and then again on our way from Fiji to Vanuatu last year.
It's taken nearly two years on the boat to see 47 knots of wind. Not so
bad, really. The storm passed over us quickly and the winds calmed
down to the predicted 25 knots. I proclaimed to Don that I wasn't nearly
as nervous as I thought I'd be in 47 knot winds. My legs were jim-jamming
again and my teeth rattling, but really I wasn't that nervous.
Shortly thereafter we sailed into Port Fitzroy, an
extremely protected large bay on the western side of Great Barrier
Island. As we motored to our anchorage destination, we saw a third
squall headed directly for us. Not so bad since we weren't sailing on open
water and we were pointed directly into the oncoming wall of water.
That's exactly what it was too, as we motored forward, we could see a veil
of gray hammering the edge of the bay and moving toward us. A
giant WHOOSH and the wall of water passed over us, accompanied by
another set of 40 knot winds. It honestly felt like we were
inside an automatic car wash with jets of water streaming everywhere. A
minute or two later and all was calm. We were happy about the
car wash since it power-rinsed all the salt water from the
day's stormy journey off the deck. In the end, Don was right (as he
often is, although I try very hard not to admit it as often as possible), it was
the perfect day for a shakedown cruise. Harmonie made it through without a
single complaint, as did the crew - mostly.
We spent the next eight days in Port Fitzroy Bay on
Great Barrier Island. Just the two of us, on the boat and aside from
email, no contact with the outside world. What a relief. No
ugly stock market reports. No murders. No missile testing. No
unemployment reports. No advertising begging us to buy stuff we don't
need. No mental clutter. Completely and blissfully calm and
quiet. Except for the fifty other boats that were in the bay celebrating
Easter and the last long weekend of the New Zealand summer. Most of them
looked like they were from the Auckland area. Great Barrier Island is only
about 50ish miles away from the huge number of marinas in and
around Auckland, so it seems the island is the Aucklanders
vacation retreat. We decided this was why the Great Barrier Island people
were so completely unfriendly. They are probably overrun with Aucklanders,
and by the end of summer have had enough of what Kiwis none-to-nicely refer
to as JAFAs (Just Another F#%&$ Aucklander). So we kept mostly to ourselves, working on the boat
and going ashore as often as I could drag Don there for more forced marches on
the very well-maintained walking paths and tracks throughout the parkland of the
island. Below are pictures:
Picture 1 - Electrician Don in his extremely
fashionable magnifiers, working on the voltage splitter circuit for the main
engine alternator.
Picture 2 - Harmonie very pleased to be at anchor
again.
Picture 3 - A waterfall we encountered during one
of the forced marches.
Picture 4 - Marvelous view of Port Fitzroy
Bay.
Anne
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