23: 56.6 S

179: 07.6 W

 

Distance last 24 hours:             18     nm

Distance since Nuku’alofa:      354     nm 

Distance still to go:                770    nm                                                 (All distances are in nautical miles:  1nm = 1.8km)

 

 

Hopefully our position on Google Earth today shows us on the SE side of South Minerva Reef, just inside the atoll reef! If you could see a live Google Earth shot (which would be truly amazing) you would see us all alone on anchor in the atoll. What a special experience.

 

Yesterday, we had a very slow, but pleasant 5 hour, motor sail, down from North Minerva through the dogs leg passage entrance into the South atoll.  The wind was light to start, and then dies to virtually nothing, so we arrived to another mirror like, atoll lagoon paradise. Never one to give up, we had two fishing lines out the whole way down yesterday, but sorry to report no nibbles, nor bites! The journey continues, and as we have more delays, a fish is becoming a very welcomed boost to our diminishing food supplies!  (Patrick M, from St James, I have thought about your fishing passion a lot, and you are probably calling us all the names under the sun, that we can’t even catch one fish in so called Pacific, fishing paradise! I guess we can both dream on!

 

Back to our new atoll:  It still does astound me that many of these atolls have just one deep, decently wide navigable passage entrance, seeming made by Nature for us yachties to explore...It’s like a pass made for us to see, learn, and enjoy, but not to destruct. The theory behind the places like Tahiti, and many of the French Polynesian fringe reef encircled islands, is that having sizeable mountains on the island, and large rainfall, the rainwater has to flow down the mountainside and out to sea, and it is this fresh water flow into the sea that stunts the coral reef growing, thereby forming the natural passage. Tahiti has about four passages in its encircling fringe reef, and all are close to rain run off / river mouths. With the atoll there is no island and central mountain anymore, but maybe the passage was made in the days when the centre of the atoll was the volcanic mountain, with the single dominant ‘river’ to the sea’ . Whatever, for me it’s just special to be able to wonder in amazement at Nature and how our earth has formed, and how we humans can use what’s provided.... I believe the other side of that comes a responsibility to use it with respect and care, and as I inferred in yesterday’s blog, we seem to fail at this test so often and with more of us around, there seems less respect for what we have been given to enjoy ‘forever’......  Sorry, if I seem to have lost ‘it’, but this place where we are is just so special, and I am just back from a truly awesome 3 hour solo kayak and snorkel trip, and maybe the euphoria of the experience is still within.....!!

 

When we arrived here there were just two other yachts, and South Minerva, being very much smaller we ended up anchoring quite close together, and even ‘bumped’ into each other while snorkelling inside the reef. Nice people, who I knew and the one boat we had met from time to time since way back in Tahiti.  Yesterday afternoon, was spent just taking in the atoll, by being out on the dingy snorkelling all around the SE side. The water there was absolutely amazingly clear, and impatient me, couldn’t wait to get in the water, and Ruth knowing me, and her more sedately approach to things, suggested I head off alone to snorkel and then come back and collect her later!  Well the first ‘bommie’ (huge coral hear coming off a surrounding sand bottom) I explored I was just in heaven, great coral, and once again lots of fish, but not such a diversity. Soon I was snorkelling with a huge ray, that seemed undisturbed by my presence as it glided mystically next to me.... Hey, man, Ruth can’t miss all this, so back ion the dingy and back to ‘pester’ her to join me earlier than planned..... She knows me by now, I was probably over excited and deluding myself that this is the most special place yet...!!  Ha-ha, but she plays the game that fuels my passion, and so we spiral up (mostly!) She was soon with me, and to my surprise saw the same ray herself... I thought it had long gone! Anyway, this probably seems like ‘little boy’ stuff to your readers, but for me at the moment this is just where I want to be and doing what I’m doing, it’s invigorating to me! Where does it rate versus running a business, going to the office in the city, looking for the next new investment, reading about the woes of the worlds politicians, etc? well I must conclude: “ I must have lost the plot, if this is all I need!!” (Ha-ha, I just said to Ruth last night, how sometimes I feel so vulnerable that this euphoria can so easily be taken away by a strong wind across the reef, dark skies, and a rainy day! Enjoy it while we can......This is how I wanted to visit Minerva, and never felt the window would present itself, so didn’t put it on the plan! Thank you FATE, for showing me this!

 

I haven’t mentioned the weather here: With the high pressure around causing the low winds the days are just perfect, blue, mostly cloudless sky, very light wisps of wind, that all help to bring out the amazing shades of the lagoon, from deep purplish blue in the middle two thirds where depths are +20 metres, and then moving to distinct bands of lighter and lighter aquamarine as one approaches the reef. The reef is very much like North Minerva, well covered at high tide, and then exposed at low. The waves are bigger crashing into the reef in front of us on the SE side, but this is probably due to increased swell from a low pressure further south.

 

I was up before sunrise, and to my surprise I saw both the other yachts with navigation lights on, and clearly getting ready to up anchor and leave. Hmmm, this sent a cocktail of emotions through me, and I wondered if they knew something about the weather that we didn’t. It was high tide, and the swell was forcing its way over the reef making for a bit of a rocky anchorage, but I knew as the tide changed we would be back to smooth lake conditions. Anyway I waved them goodbye, Ruth was still asleep, and then I had all these thoughts and feelings come up: Initially it was vulnerability, and this led to thinking that I can’t kayak out there on my own today, etc.... Then I felt this huge freedom replace the vulnerability, as I felt the connection to a deeper experience had been made, and the next 24 hours until we left would be about experiencing this new ‘aloneness’. Being on my own watching their white sails disappear into the yonder of the dawn, I was taken back to Siberia, and the times, I was really alone, and the depth of the inner experience I had.... Not that it was easy, but the intensity is something I will always value.  It wasn’t that these other yachties had bugged us, or interfered, it was just that the distraction of others was now removed, and I (we) will be forced to look deeper than being part of a group and all the stimulation that goes with that, and to look at the wonder of Nature around us to provide the meaning.....  Ruth came up later and we discussed the impact of being alone, and as expected the subject of me kayaking out there alone, with her on the boat alone, came up, and it wasn’t an easy discussion.... I got caught out on the ‘what ifs’ with either no answers, or unacceptable answers!  Hmmm, I’ll have to reduce the scale of my kayaking plans, but there is no ways I’m not going to that ‘other lobe’ of the atoll to explore!    

 

Unlike, North Reef, this is a figure of eight, shape, with the NW lobe not navigable by yacht due to extensive coral, so it’s just the other lobe, where we are that is deep for yachts. This makes the accessible part of the atoll so much smaller than the North. With my desire to get out in the kayak, I quickly assembled the kayak, and set out to explore this non-navigable lobe today, and that is where I have just come back from.... Well, it was very special, in a holistic sense, being out there alone, diving in pristine coral gardens, but ever aware that around each coral head corner I could come face to face with a reef shark, or as I went outside the reef onto the ocean side, maybe they would be more of a threat than ‘just a reef shark’....

 

Once again, like the ocean side of North Minerva,, that I briefly experienced, the size and number of fish was a step up from elsewhere where I had dived the past four months. With more time now, I could really confirm that I wasn’t exaggerating on this fact! Some of the parrot fish were monsters, and the variety of parrot fish was exceptional. Yeah two, reef shark experiences, two great turtle ones, huge squid swimming near the surface, etc, etc, and once again the fish seemed happy to come and see ‘what’ I was..... In and out of the kayak three or four times for snorkelling missions, I came up from the last one, literally with my teeth chattering from cold.....but I had had a truly wonderful nature experience. For me there is something very special immersed alone in another of Nature’s special wilderness.  It was great to come back to Allone, with Ruth content in her solitude time, and we sat down and had a much need (for me!) lunch. As those of you who spend time in the ocean know: there is no better way of losing weight than to stay in the ocean until one is just pre-hyper thermic!

 

In wrapping this section up, I have skirted around the issue of being alone versus immersed in social comforts, and this is only to share my experience of the differences, and how sometimes by avoiding the ‘alone’ option one may miss a deeper personal experience...... Few us volunteer to go it alone, and today the other two yachts forced us to be alone, and thanks to them we are now experiencing that deeper experience! OK, enough of all that stuff for now......

 

As I type this the wind is blowing 12 knots and we both feel maybe should be out there sailing to New Zealand, rather than ‘luxuriating’ here....... We heard that a few of the yachts are leaving North Minerva today, and so that always causes some angst within. Our departure time is set for first thing Friday morning, and that’s when we will go..... First day or two should be nice 15 knot SE sailing but then thereafter the search for wind will begin.... There is a slight cause for concern that we hear that there is possibly a tropical depression developing up near Samoa.... Early days, and it may not happen, but these rumblings do get to one....

 

That’s all for today, and next one should be when we are underway to New Zealand again......

  

 

 

 

 

 

Rest day

Orchestra, ringing