Caledonia Calling...
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Tue 5 Oct 2010 05:29
|
Tuesday 5th October 1444 Local 0444
UTC
22:11.35S 165:11.83E
Over the past few weeks we have felt a little
lonely at times. All through the Atlantic, Carribean and Pacific we would
often pull into an anchorage only to find some friends we had spent time
with somewhere further back down the track, or we would be in an anchorage when
up would sail some of the "Pac Pack". Inevitably this always led to impromptu
parties, dinners together or excursions ashore of one type or another. While we
are perfectly capable of meeting local people and enjoy each others company it
was always fun to catch up with who has been doing what on the pacific
crossing.
Anyway it seems as if any one from the UK that is
circumnavigating is either on the ARC or Bluewater Rally and everyone else is
either dropping down to New Zealand for the cyclone season or finnishing in
Australia. Most people we meet are a bit taken aback when they hear we are going
to continue sailing on round the world through the cylone season and of course
it is not something we take lightly. I still have a lot of careful planning to
do for this schedule. It is very strange that other than people on rallies
we have not met one single couple, not one single boat for that matter, who
are circumnavigating the world as we are doing. Those cruisers we do
meet that are circumnavigating are doing it over a very long term, say ten years
or more and lay up for long periods. Furthermore we have met nobody - nobody at
all - sailing a boat anything near the size of Rhiann Marie as a couple and
almost without exception people are shocked when they hear there are only Trish
and I aboard! In all honesty however, having sailed a 40 foot boat single
handed I would say the larger boat is actually easier to handle.
Back to where we were going a few minutes ago ....
not seeing many of our friends from along the way. We pulled into Noumea in New
Caledonia and we met up with Richard from Spirit of Ulysses with a Nordhavn
76 trawler yacht whom we had first met in Fiji and we spent some good
social time together. Then Trish almost literally bumped into French friends
Catty and Fredric from Heavenly who we had first met in the Marquesas and then
bumped into in the very remote Suwarrow. But the biggest surprise was when we
were walking down the busy road into Noumea and from a car rushing by in the
traffic came the cry Steewwwaaaarrt! Good grief it was Olivier and Lynn who
we had last seen in the Marquesas! What a great social time we had together over
the weekend catching up with each other.
As a world girdling blue water crising yacht we
forget sometimes that Rhiann Marie is also a luxury home, and with our
airconditioning in the saloon repaired Rhiann Marie became a high class
restaurant on Monday night as we invited all our friends round for an excellent
3 course "au revoir" dinner cooked by Trish. It was superb and our guests, one
of whom was a French chef, thoroughly enjoyed it too.
But after a very short visit of five days and
only touring the south west of New Caledonia, old Caledonia was calling us and
we set our minds on departing on Tuesday to get to Australia from where we will
travel home for a week or so.
We didn't quite get under way at 0600 today but not
much later we went over to the fuel berth where we did some more last minute
checks including Trish hauling me up the mast, all 28.5metres to do some rigging
inspection. Alongside this is fine but the previous week I was up the mast at
sea doing 10 knots and I can tell you that strains every sinew, tendon and
muscle in your body. It also calls for my crash helmet to be worn as
the momentum generated as the boat pitches or rolls is
tremendous.
Having cleared the New Caledonian reefs at 1030 we
were straight into force seven with three metre plus seas, so it was a
boisterous start but made all OK when I checked the electronics which told me I
would get to my Mackay waypoint, almost 1000 miles away, after four
days! This however will not happen and we expect to be at sea, if all
goes well, for five or six nights.
I will keep you posted.
|