23: 39.0 S

178: 53.6 W

 

Distance last 24 hours:             134     nm

Distance since Nuku’alofa:      336     nm 

Distance still to go:                788    nm                                                 (All distances are in nautical miles:  1nm = 1.8km)

 

 

Sorry about the short blog yesterday, but here is all about our two days at North Minerva:

 

It certainly is a very special place, and in hindsight I’m glad we were ‘forced’ to detour to see it! It is one of those places that a photo from the air would almost let one’s imagination tell the whole story of our experience. Part of the specialness is knowing we came through a narrow entrance in the reef, and once in we were in a protected paradise, that is actually huge in area. As at this morning there were 18 yachts in the atoll, yeah a lot of boats arrived the day after us.... True to form and following the strong, ‘need to belong’ we human’s have, 12 of them were all huddled together diametrically opposite to where we were on the SE side. Somehow (!) we were left on our own so, we had this idyllic anchorage 200 metres from the breaking surf on the outer reef limit. When I say breaking surf, the encircling reef is about 100 metres wide, like a donut, with the tranquil lagoon in the centre. and so the reef is a barrier to outside swell trying to come into the lagoon. At high tide the reef is awash with just under a metre of ocean, and then at low tide the reef is high and dry by about 30cm. This provides a fascinating eco system, and Ruth and I had a great time exploring the reef both when it was dry and then just covered with incoming tide.

 

The whole structure is of volcanic origin, and was formed by molten earth coming out of the seabed, essentially building a volcano that ‘popped through’ the ocean surface. With time the cone got eroded, coral had attached itself to the sides of the ‘mountain’ at started growing making the reef layer that sits on top of the volcanic rock. It was truly fascinating to actually walk along the reef (minimum impact, was used!) and to see the result, and where the interfaces of the lava rock, and reef were. The outside (open ocean facing) side of the reef is full of fissures that form, long narrow gullies in the rock that make for an interesting seaward edge. Some of the gullies are 50 metres long, just a couple of metres wide, and provide a rich, turbulent eco zone. Against Ruth’s motherly pleas, “not to be stupid” a dived into a gully and used it to swim out to sea, and the relative calm waters beyond the rock face. Well this provided the most remarkable experience:  Firstly the water was so unbelievable clear, and then the fish, well I just couldn’t believe what I saw: Not a huge variety of reef fish, but lots of fish and it seemed like I was on a different planet from the last 4 months. The fish were noticeably larger, and it was absolutely clear to me that they had never seen another human snorkeler, and had no fear, and rather, human like, curiosity! Given my past interest / hobby, I do know marine fish pretty well, and also wouldn’t want to exaggerate what I saw, but the parrot fish, the surgeon’s the butterfly fish, were all some 20% larger than I’d seen elsewhere. Supporting this observation, would be a discussion I had with the guy who runs the dive operation in Nieafu, Tonga. We went scuba diving together, and when I told him I’d been diving in the area, back in 2003, he immediately said, how I’ll now be disappointed, as there won’t be many big fish like they were then. He specifically mentioned parrot fish, and indicated with his hands that the largest one one sees now, is 70% of what the largest were in 2003!  All because of locally fishing, depleting the numbers and obviously the big ones are more in demand. Sad stuff, but I can’t help believe that here in Minerva I was experiencing close to how Nature meant things to be.... The friendliness of the fish was the other supporting fact, it is just so wonderful to have almost all the fish come to meet me, to see what I was....

 

Don’t get me wrong, Minerva Reef has quite a few yachties and fishermen visiting, and I sense the lagoon has had it’s fair share of rape and pillage of the sea life, but I don’t think many people did what I did, where I did it, and got to see the outer reef wall sea life. I know lots of people dive at the passage entrance, and probably go out to the outer wall there but here i was diametrically opposite to that.......

 

Anyway, we did quite a few dingy excursions inside the lagoon on our ‘private’ quarter and had some spectacular snorkelling on the coral bommies that we found scattered around the inside. I also snorkelled around a wreck of a small freighter that lies inside the lagoon...Pretty cool!  The crystal clear water was truly special, and although the variety of reef fish was not fantastic, the quantity and quality of both the coral and the fish was up there with the best.  We saw quite few large sting rays, I had three reef shark ‘experiences’, which didn’t help Ruth’s growing snorkelling confidence!

 

Life in an atoll is simple, man: Diving, amazing sunrises, sunsets, mesmerizingly starry skies, and then embracing the solitude of the experience!  I said my ears were ringing from the silence, but as they adjusted, they found the sound of the ocean breaking on the reef, and learnt to tell the change from high to low tide..... First night up, I slept of deck, just to embrace the specialness on being in this unique place.

 

As most of you know me, I try and look for ways to experience the most of the environment I’m immersed, and that has a bit of a restless / solitude conflict that sometimes torments me! (Haha!)  As I reflected on where I was and the earlier diving experience, I started contemplating kayaking around the outside of the atoll, and stopping for a few more outside the atoll diving experiences. It would be a good adventure, fun, challenging and rewarding. As I thought through it, it would mean we would have to up anchor and move closer to the passage entrance, and in the process we would join the ‘group’ and lose the solitude we had...... Then the idea came up to up and leave to explore South Minerva Reek, some 20 miles SW from here, almost on the rhumb line to New  Zealand. It is a much less visited reef, and with a figure of eight shape it looks even more interesting, and there will be less, if any yachts there!  So that’s what we decided to do........ At 9am this morning we left North Reef, for South Minerva, and maybe a kayak experience....

 

That will be tomorrow’s blog....

 

Meanwhile, I continue to get weather information by satphone, and it still looks like Friday will be the day we get back on passage for New Zealand. Unfortunately, after  two days, it is looking like it’s going to be a lot of light wind and slow progress.

 

More tomorrow, from South Minerva...