Mokagai to Savusavu Position: 16 46.641s 179 20.150e (Posted from Majuro, June 2016) Whoops got posts out of order.
Only David's quick action on the tiller saved the day. Saved Navire. Saved the rest of our trip. Sailing towards the pass we'd been distracted. We were discussing whether to head out of the reef into rough conditions, or turn back to the Makogai anchorage, when David spotted the edge of the reef entrance passing rapidly down our port side. It was very close. Hitting that coral would have ripped a hole right through the hull. David pushed the tiller hard to starboard and we narrowly slid past into safe water.
Adrenalin still pumping, we made the decision to go north. It wasn't an idyllic day to be on the water but the conditions were manageable. The short passage out through the reef was very tight, David up the mast instructing me to turn hard right, hard left, the howling wind making him hard to hear even with our walkie talkies. David raised the main, and immediately put in two reefs. The waves were a meter high, with a short interlude between them, and a rough sea on top. Uncomfortable. You'd think us being Wellingtonians we'd always go out completely prepared for bad weather, but the last months of coastal cruising within the shelter of reefs had made me complacent. I should have prepared for going to sea, as in an ocean passage - life jackets handy and harnesses out, flares close by, and wind vane paddle down. Our auto-pilot doesn't like rough sea whereas the wind vane is in its element with lots of wind and waves. However we weren't entirely unprepared. Everything was well secured below, and we had a course planned and checked.
Beyond the reef the wind rose to 34 knots. I felt nauseous and got soaked a few times from spray crashing over boat. We sang familiar songs to help our, well my, spirits. There were times of enjoying the exhilaration of whizzing along at a fast clip, but it was hard going too. Whereas David wrote in an email from Savusavu, "We flew up here in about seven and a half, hours in mostly 30 knots on the beam. Seas were largely comfortable." *** Three glorious weeks in Savusavu. Three weeks of good shelter. Three weeks of shops on the doorstep. And three weeks of other yachties for company. We didn't know when we were going to get any of these things again for some time (As it happens we did get excellent company). We were on the cusp of entering new territory, the 1500 mile journey from Fiji up to the North Pacific, to our summer destination the Marshall Islands, out of the hurricane zone.
SavuSavu is a small town on the south side of Vanua Levu, tucked into a well- protected inlet. Dozens of yachts from all over the world were enjoying their final moments of Fiji, provisioning and doing last minute boat jobs before sailing to their summer destinations, some north like us, west to Australia, and many down to New Zealand. Just a few risked the hurricanes by staying Fiji (probably regretting that decision now after two hurricanes).
We quickly made friends with Australian couple Phil and Di, meeting Phil on our first weekend, very early one morning while looking for somewhere to watch the Rugby World Cup. We shared meals at The Taste of Hidden Paradise, finally a Fijian restaurant that served curries not strewn with shards of bone. Phil and Di were veterans of SavuSavu, and a great resource for us newbies. We explored the environs on foot and delved into the interior on a local bus, spending the day at an eco-resort owned by some friends of Phil and Di's.
Phil introduced us to the concert violinist next door, Nancy on an American yacht, Second Wind, and the ensuing music session was great fun.
We treated ourselves, eating out regularly at cheap Indian restaurants, getting massages, and even paying a family team to clean all the stainless steel on the boat. Navire gleamed. And every day I provisioned, and provisioned. We knew there were supermarkets in Tuvalu and Kiribati but if the supply ship hadn't been for a while stores could be very low. We squeezed every litre of water and fuel aboard that we could. Navire's water line got closer and closer to the sea.
Our plan was to sail two days east, spend some time at the village of Kioa, then sail three days to Rotuma, Fiji's northernmost island, where we would complete departure formalities. From there Tuvalu was another three day sail. We'd get water there if there was any to spare, have a quick look around and move on, driven north by our need to conserve water, not wanting to take water from potentially dry nations along the way.
But then, a local veteran sailor, Curly, gave us news that put a spanner in the works. He'd had reports of persistent westerlies at Majuro, this made the anchorage at Majuro almost untenable. Should we head north or reconsider New Zealand for the hurricane season?