Leaving Mooloolaba on Tony's boat - made it across the Tasman would you believe it!
The back story is that Tony decided to buy a large old Aluminium race boat in Australia, and sail it back to New Zealand for restoration and conversion to world cruiser.
I mean - how hard can that be?
He needed a crew to help, which is where I, Glen, Nicky, Quentin and Grrrr came in to the picture. Tony was there a week early to prepare, but the rest of us just turned up at Brisbane, in the expectation of a rapid departure.
The boat needed a lot of work, I serviced the engine, everyone cleaned out the years of old junk, Quentin to his credit swam under all 40 foot of her to clean the slime off the bottom, and so it went on. By the evening the boat was just about ready for the off, but we were not, so after a nice meal in one of Mooloolaba's sea-side restaurants, and an early morning start, we slipped our mooring and motored out on to the Tasman Sea.
At Mooloolaba before the off......
Clearing the breakwater at Mooloolaba and past the shark nets on the surf beach. No turning back now....
Larking around mid-Tasman
The first few days were tranquil, in fact there was so little wind, and it was so hot, that we pretty much motored for the first few days. Both diesel and water appeared to be running short, we were going to have to consider short rations, and waiting for a breeze to fill in.
A placid Tasman Evening. At this point.
Yours truly at the Helm
I did get to practice my recently learned astro-navigation techniques however, taking sites at morning, noon and night across the Tasman with increasing levels of accuracy. I must find that chart as it is a thing of beauty.
Everyone doing their jobs, I'm taking the noon-sight.
Once the weather started turning rough we decided to radio in and find out what was predicted for the next few days, not as though we could do anything about it when we were half way across of course. That was when the SSB radio gave up, and we couldn't get through to any one for a day and a half. At least we had EPIRBs so if we did sink, someone would probably have been able to find us!
Down below - needs work - see the offending SSB radio,
On about day 5 the breeze filled in nicely, we had the Kite up and were at last making good way under sail. However there was a bank of cloud covering the southern horizon and we could see we were in for something. When it hit it did, and we were reminded that knowing that weather was on its way we should already have taken in the sails. We did then in a hurry.
We don't really have photos for the next few days. Waves coming up from the south in lines as high as the second spreaders, but the boat handled it well. Often they swept the deck which was completely flush and therefore very exposed, so a breaker would come over the bow, sweep the deck, and fill the cockpit in which we sat. This was when we learned that the deck had a number of leaks, and there was nothing we could do to stop our kit, berths, sleeping bags, and everything else from being soaked down below.
The course was reasonably straightforward, we just had to hold on and fetch the northern tip of New Zealand, and hopefully bear away to pass between Cape Reinga and the Three Kings Islands, round the top, and south towards Auckland. We expected the conditions to lessen once we had land to the south, and so it eventually was.
As we rounded the cape we were joined by a pad of the small and very rare hectors dolphins, tiny and swimming in a totally different manner to the regular bottlenose and common dolphins that you sometimes see. And the sea was calm enough for us to enjoy it too.
As everyone had had enough by then, and Tony had run out of cigarettes, we decided to put in at the first opportunity. This turned out to be Opua in the Bay of Islands, the most northerly clearing port. We could get the boat back to Auckland any time from there once we had all dried out, and most of us were already late back to work.
This is after the worst of the storm , I am trying to dry clothes and Tony has run out of cigarettes.
Drying out on the way south to the Bay of Islands.
After the storm, arriving shell-shocked at Opua in the Bay of Islands.
