Yesterday
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Wed 24 Sep 2008 23:50
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Hi folks,
We awoke to a beautiful sunny morning in Neifu bay
, only a ripple on the water and the humm of the wind turbine pumping in lots of
power to the batteries to gently wake us from a good night sleep .
Yesterdays saga is as follows, the wind speed
increased to 30 knots and with the third reef and small amount of stay as
exposed we were still going along at 5 to six knts, we hove too for a while in
the after noon , mainly as a test to see how she did , it all went well , we
then continued to the top of the island by 01:00 the next morning , radar on we
picked up the high cliff faces at 20 nm out, as we came into the lee of the
Island the swell decrease down and the boat slowed with the shadow of the
islands wind cover , we then went down the west of the island a a snails pace
which is exactly what we intended,at 05:30 it was all hands on deck to reef the
main , that was fun and games as the wind picked up again and with no reefing
eyes along the main we had to slowly and painfully bring it down inch by inch ,
anyway half an hour later we had the bugger firmly lashed down , and commenced
our approach to the inlets that take you up to the Town, its about a six mile
trip through huge island uplifts that stand straight out of the sea, nothing
like we have encountered so far, the depth was no problem 40 to 80m all the way
until you approach the Galloway narrows , the only two marker buoys we had seen
, and they looked like they had been in a road smash , poor maintenance , the
port one looked like a road traffic cone ! the depth on the fwd looking sonar
came up from 40 M to 8 M in the space of a 100m as we went over the hump the
normal echo sounder was still reregistering 14m ! it gave us 8 just as we
drooped off the other side ! the day markers on the other hand were very well
marked and did really negate the channel markers , the bottom rose again from
35m in the space of another 100M came back up to 12m the fell away to the
harbour depth of 40 to 50m ,
one of our best buys , the echo pilot fwd looking
sounder , it has paid dividends in amongst the reef passages of French Polynesia
and has been a valued set of under water eyes in these areas, unlike the charts
which at times put us on one reef , across the corner of the island and finally
moored us in the Paradise hotel parking lot , that's both C-Map and ARCS charts
, which goes to prove that the mark one eye ball is the first line of reference
.
After getting into the harbour we sighted the wharf
which we were supposed to moor to for the Customs,Health,Agriculture,and
Immigration, on our drive by the large protruding rubber fenders at guard rail
level was a definite no no .. so we found a buoy nearby and went to it , blew up
the Z boat and I went ashore to the shed from which they operate, one in there I
went through the paper work formalities but they insisted that we come alongside
, I went into the town , everybody is very courteous and friendly and speaking
English ! went to the ATM and drew our wonga ... its actually called the panaga
and there are 3.3 to the pound !
Back to the customs shed and paid the fees ,
then back to the boat to await the tide , at about 1400 the tide was right and
fended up to the hilt we approached the wharf wind blowing us on , once
alongside adjusting fenders , it was a pat on the back for all , back up to
the shed to complete formalities, they must have had a good lunch as the
only one who wanted to inspect was the Health official , that took all of 5
mins , then it was time to get off the wharf , with the big Z at full
astern and the spring as taught as a bowstring we still couldn't get the bows
through the wind , Rob jumped into the Z boat and went round to the bows to act
as our 8HP thruster , after a few mins we got the bow through the wind and were
off like a shot and away.
The great mooring buoy hunt then began, nobody
answered the fq we were given to find one , so we adventualy found one and
picked it up , Lynn made a great steak and sautéed potato meal and we were all
in our pits by 1900 for a good night sleep , we did however manage the customary
beer "Hinano" before the meal so tradition has been maintained ..
A big ZZZZZZed crew
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