Still Standing, Still Alive

Anna criss-crossed the Pacific Ocean Basins four times before arriving in NZ.

WE FIRED UP ANNA'S GRAVITY-FEED DIESEL HEATER TODAY. It was the first time in six years that the weather was chilly enough to even consider the idea of wearing polar fleece, let alone running a diesel heater aboard Anna.  The Tropics are behind us now. As we passed through the subtropics and entered the mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere the average daily temperature dropped twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit. This motivated us to pull the long pants and fleece tops and bottoms and hats and gloves and hiking boots and smart-wool socks out of deep storage, displacing the swim wear, snorkel gear and shorts and tee-shirts that comprised our wardrobe for so very long. We had arrived in New Zealand, having sailed just about everywhere along the stretch from Alaska to South America, visiting the island nations and archipelagos along the way, criss-crossing the North and South Pacific Oceans four times; twenty-five thousand deep, blue-water nautical miles. And we are happy to have finally arrived here, in New Zealand, both Anna and her crew of two.

Anna visits the ice in SE Alaska, and begins her trek to the southern hemisphere..

Our last series of passages began in French Polynesia after spending two consecutive cyclone seasons anchored out there. From French Polynesia we sailed north and west to the remote Suwarrow coral atoll, before heading south and west to the smallest, independent island nation in the world: Niue. Anna then called on northern Tonga's Vavau Group, to the west. After a four-week stint, living and working on Anna, at the boatyard in Nieafu (where we maintained our unblemished record of performing critical repairs in every major and minor port of call in the vast Pacific Ocean), we made for the Haapai Group in central Tonga before sailing for the North Minerva Reef, the tip of an undersea volcanic mountain crater - an atoll at the corner of  'no' and 'where' - some three hundred nautical miles south of the second deepest spot on earth, the Tonga Trench, which runs adjacent to the Lau Ridge of Fiji, where the sea drops to an astounding depth of 35,000 feet (seven miles deep).  N. Minerva Reef is awash at high tide. And while the surrounding ocean is seven miles deep, we were anchored there for ten days in a perfectly circular blue water haven, three miles in diameter and fifty feet deep with a sandy bottom.  On our last night at Minerva, a strong frontal system came howling through, sending over forty knots of breeze across the anchorage and kicking up one-meter chop on top of a swell that had a tendency to bury the bow every time a large wave set rolled in over the edge of the reef, due to a three-mile fetch across the diameter of the flat disc, which comprises N. Minerva Reef. The front was fast moving, and the discomfort only lasted about twelve hours, as Anna put her shoulder to the waves, before they settled down to the calmness that pursued for the previous nine days. We had planned to depart for New Zealand the next morning, after the large four-meter swell on the outside of the reef, coming from the unobstructed Great Southern Ocean calmed down to a nominal two to three meters, and eventually one to two over the next forty-eight hours, as the remnants from a far away storm system gradually diminished. Next morning brought pleasant conditions. We hauled up the hook and made for the entrance of the reef at slack tide, when the current meeting the swell and wind at the entrance pass, would be an insignificant factor.

Anna, visits the Embera Tribe, Rio Sambu, E. Panama en route to S. America.

 We had staged Anna at Minerva Reef to wait for proper weather conditions for our departure to New Zealand. There are numerous parameters that should be taken into consideration when trying to select a reasonably good weather window from Tonga or N. Minerva Reef to New Zealand. But in a nutshell, the idea is to wait for a stable, slow moving, moderate (less than 1030 mb), high-pressure system to set up to the north of New Zealand, without signs of a deepening, low-pressure system setting up and spinning through the Tropics, in the area between New Caledonia and Tonga.  In the transition month of November - before cyclones  typically develop in the Tropics of the South Pacific, and just after the intense low-pressure systems and cold fronts begin to moderate, as they cross New Zealand, a window of moderate weather conditions tends to appear every couple of weeks or so. An extreme high-pressure system adjacent to a deepening low-pressure system can result in gale force winds, squalls spinning like tops, and nasty seas. Worse yet, cyclonic conditions can develop, and develop quickly when extreme low- and high-pressures systems collide. To avoid that scenario we try to time our departure during a period of predicted moderate conditions that are expected to persist for at least four days.There is typically no way to avoid a frontal system at some point on the passage from Tonga or N. Minerva Reef to New Zealand, because low-pressure systems of varying intensities move from west to east and across New Zealand every four to five days or so, regardless of the season - it's more a question of the exact location and intensity of the frontal system that one will encounter. Since it takes about a week or so to complete the passage, the strategy is to encounter the frontal system where it is relatively weak (typically around 30 degrees south latitude). This is approximately the northern boundary of the low-pressure systems that roll through during the month of November. If you time the approach to 30S to coincide with the passing of the trailing edge of the low when you are directly north of the North Island of New Zealand (30S/174E) then you can sail for the protection of the east side of the North Cape before the next frontal system moves through - at least in theory this is how it works. With a favorable current and a weak frontal system to contend with, one can make New Zealand unscathed and completely under sail. And this last point is important to Anna, as she sails much more comfortably and faster than she can motor, except of course in doldrums conditions (which could happen for a few hours on the run to New Zealand, where anything is possible, but these conditions wouldn't last long and we'd soon be on our way again without the need to use the engine.

Anna visits the cliff divers of Acapulco,coastal hopping south.

There are many boats these days that are equipped with large, powerful engines, long-range fuel reserves, and hydraulic autopilots that have the capacity to steer the boat through large confused seas, and so many of these types of sailing vessels will choose a rhumbline course (like an oil tanker or cargo ship) and try to reach their destination in as few days and as few nautical miles as possible, in order to simply get from point A to point B while conditions are still good. These boats will often make an average speed of 7 to 10 knots (+/- 200nm/day). On Anna, this is not practical or possible, and so we must plan our passages to encounter a wide variety of conditions along the way. At an average speed of  about 4 to 5 knots we estimate our daily runs at about +/-100nm/day. And of course this means that we will be out there longer (possibly twice as long as a boat that motors or motor-sails the majority of the passage) and we probably won't take the rhumbline course (the sailing course often does not coincide with the motoring rhumbline course, and therefore will lengthen the passage in distance and time).

Anna visits remote Suwarrow atoll in the Northern Cooks en route to NZ..

 A long-distance passage can turn out quite differently than planned. Weather seems to have a mind of its own. It has a factor of unknowability. And weather forecasts are only as good as the models they are based upon, and there are a lot of models, and they usually don't all agree. Often, when there is consensus between models we tend to have more trust in the reliability of the models. Even so, while the overall model can be reasonably accurate (at least within the first 24 to 72 hours), the timing or exact location of predicted weather patterns may be somewhat off (this has more to do with the somewhat limited resolution of a particular model, which limits pinpoint accuracy). Nevertheless, a model doesn't need to be very far off in time or accuracy to make a significant difference in the localized, prevailing conditions. So we must be prepared for anything that comes our way regardless of how benign the forecast appears at first glance. A passage can, unexpectedly, become extremely challenging, difficult. And passages to and from New Zealand are certainly no exception. In fact passages both to and from New Zealand have a reputation for being, more often than not, nasty. We were rather lucky, however. Our routing went as expected - unusual. The passage was enjoyable and uneventful for the most part. It was, on occasion, uncomfortable, for instance, when we ran through a large cross-swell generated by a storm system in the Southern Ocean that had migrated north, or a squall with a driving, truculent rain. But on the flip side, it had a smooth and fast element as well, with a tail current and favorable winds at times that pushed us along at 8 knots on occasion (we typically average 4 to 5). After all was said and done, we had encountered winds and seas and currents from every conceivable direction, over a period of just under eight days and a tad under 900 nm. The ride was split evenly between sailing very hard on the wind (a hard beat, or close haul) , dead down (wind directly behind, with headsail poled out wing and wing, and trysail and staysail flying rakishly, in anticipation of a squall), and a beam reach (an apparent wind at at angle of approximately ninety degrees to our direction, true); all conditions favored a port tack and so gybing and tacking were unnecessary. In fact, the entire set of passages from Polynesia to New Zealand, 2,500 nm, were similar in wind strength (5 to 30 kts), sea heights (1 to 4 meters), and ocean currents, both favorable and unfavorable (.5 to 3 kts). There were occasional light squalls, one instance of sheet lightning (as a frontal system blew through, near New Zealand), and one instance of heavy rain and limited visibility on our final approach to Opua, on the North Island.

We hardly ever aspire to slapdash manoeuvres, but decided to make a late night approach and entry into the harbor, at Opua, after learning that if we arrived the next morning (in daylight), the predicted weather would bring nasty conditions that could be avoided completely if we were willing to make landfall at night, in an unfamiliar port. We were informed by ham radio contact with a net controller who is located in the Bay of Islands, on the North Island, that entry into the harbor at Opua, New Zealand, at night, was straightforward.  He assured us that the channel was lit with flashing range markers (like an airport runway) all the way from the harbor entrance to the Customs clearance dock, and would present no problems except in limited visibility due to fog or heavy rain squalls. The strong winds and heavy, driving rain that we had experienced a few hours earlier, where a black sea folded into a dismal fog, were forecast for Opua at about midnight local time, but occurred earlier while we were safely out to sea, and wouldn't be an issue at our ETA of 0230.  And so at 0100 hrs Anna slipped through the entrance to the channel at the Bay of Islands under a new moon and a tar-black, clear, cold sky that sparkled with stars and planets and occasional comets. And after seven and a half days at sea Anna slid through five miles of flashing, channel range markers and glided onto the Customs clearance dock, flying our yellow "Q" flag (quarantine flag). We tied up to a dock for the first time in perhaps five years, and then went below and slept until the next morning when we were greeted by Customs officials who cleared Anna and her crew in to New Zealand.

Rich and Cat design and build an aluminum hard dodger for Anna, for rough conditions.

On our initial approach, about 200 nm out, we were sailing along with approximately two days to go before entering New Zealand waters when a matte-black Orion aircraft, from the Royal New Zealand Air Force did a fly by over Anna's mast, about 200 yards above and to the starboard side. We heard a roar from their engines as they circled us and made a second pass coming closer by for a look see.  We turned on the VHF radio anticipating that they wanted to make contact with us. They did indeed, asking us for our destination, last port of call, number and name of crew on-board, international registration number, and our anticipated ETA at Opua. What was remarkable about all this is that they called Anna by name, and they knew to whom they were speaking before we provided any details and confirmation of who we were. The Orion is tasked with wartime electronic surveillance, search and rescue operations, and monitoring New Zealand territorial waters between Antarctica and the Tropics, in the area that is know as Oceania. Orion must be equipped with high-end optics to pick up our small, four-inch high, stealthy black-letter nameplate, located on the aft quarter, as we moved in an undulating, rolling pattern across a cross swell in 25 kts of white-capping seas. Impressive. We wished each other a pleasant day as they banked hard to starboard and disappeared into the blue. They would be back in New Zealand in about 30 minutes. It would take us two more days.

After resting up for a couple days once we cleared Customs, we went for a two-hour hike along the coastal waterfront to a small town where we could pick up a few provisions. After the three months it took us to reach New Zealand, from French Polynesia, with stops along the way in remote places, we had run out of all of our fresh food and were down to a limited selection of canned goods. And it was a bit of a cultural food shock to step into a modern, fully-stocked supermarket with shelves of first world products and arrays of fresh produce bins with fruit and vegetables that were not wilted and pathetic. There were cheeses and fresh meats and twenty different types of bacon and four different types of chocolate thin mint cookies and nectarines and mandarins and assorted apples and avocados and pineapples and papayas and ten brands of potato chips and ground and whole bean coffees and hot chocolates, and countless aisles of dried cereals and hearty breads and that was in just one small convenience store. There was another across the street, and a large supermarket three blocks away. It was overwhelming. We walked out with six bags full of stuff for under eighty dollars NZ, which translates to about $60 US. The same six bags in French Polynesia would have cost us $200 with half the assortment. In Tonga, it would have been difficult to walk out with six bags of anything but candy, and papaya, questionable eggs, and limp white bread. It took us a few days to get accustomed to the wealth of products that are available for consumption, and otherwise, in New Zealand.  And we don't have to jury rig or fabricate our own parts for Anna to keep her running. There are marine stores here, parts are available. There are marine services, workshops and knowledgeable technicians. If we screw up a job like taking apart an outboard engine and fail to put it back together again, correctly, there is someone to help sort it out. We're not accustomed to this level of convenience. We're also not accustomed to the expense. Because with conveniences come expenses.  Even more so in the marine environment.

Anna's Perkins 4-108 diesel workhorse has never disappointed us.

The lack of services, and conveniences, and products, and all those things which make a third world country difficult, and yet charming at the same time, and require one to become self-sufficient and patient and willing to do with less while not regretting it, is simply missing in a first world country such as New Zealand.  It's just different here is all. Not necessarily always better, just different. We like well-stocked supermarkets as much as anyone else (maybe more when you haven't seen one for a long time), and clean rest rooms, and spotless roads, and public walking tracks through the forest and along the waterways that are separated from the roadways. New Zealand is good at these sorts of things. But we also enjoyed walking through the main port town of Neiafu, in Tonga;  a minimal place: poor, yet safe, friendly, sleepy. The working locals can be somewhat indolent, it varies, they are not especially economically motivated - so you never feel like a target for exploitation. This is refreshing on the one hand, and somewhat frustrating on the other if you need to get something done anytime soon. We walked along dusty, dirt roads, inhabited by hundreds, perhaps thousands of pigs, snorting, squealing and scampering around through the bush, jungle, and eight-acre homesteads, where we'd pass relaxed families laughing and chattering away in their native Tongan Polynesian. In town, men at the volunteer fire house would sing a cappella on Friday nights, for entertainment. There was a noticeable lack of satellite dishes streaming cable TV in Tonga, so entertainment reverts back to social gatherings where people actually talk to one another. On Sundays, time would stop. Everything would shut down. The streets were deserted. The only sounds were church bells ringing throughout the day. On Monday, life resumed as normal, that is, very low-key and slow. The omnipresent schoolgirl with yellow or blue or green ribbons (their school colors) tying off their long double-braided black hair, and schoolboys wrapped in a traditional blue or orange sarong-like affair, looking rather Tibetan monk-like, would try out their limited English language skills on us by saying "bye", instead of "hi", as we strolled by on our way to the open-air market. We were always on the hunt for the occasional fresh piece of produce at the outdoor market, by the waterfront. If we were lucky that day we might find a few nice tomatoes or onions or a cabbage or a couple of stiff carrots to spice up our staple, rice dishes, Across from the market, we could watch a local, butcher a pig and slow-roast it over a wood fire by the wharf. Not necessarily better, just different.

The weather has been nothing short of spectacular here, in Opua, in the Northlands district of the North Island of New Zealand. In the time since we arrived here the days have been luke-warm and sunny, and the nights have remained cool. Occasionally it becomes very breezy as one of those relentless fronts move through.  And then it calms down, and then the sky looks ominously dark to the south, yet light to the north, and shortly afterward we'd see cotton ball clouds drifting lazily by, before a diaphanous mist set in. The weather is commonly referred to here as four seasons in a day. And that description is not far off. The most obvious difference between here and the Tropics is that we don't sweat here, and we don't run our 12v fans all day and all night, and don't get in the water to cool off as we frequently did in the limpid, tropical waters closer to the Equator. The sun here can warm you up after a chilly night. In the Tropics, the sun could fry an egg on the deck and we'd always try to find a way to avoid being directly exposed for any length of time. Ironically, there is a hole in the ozone layer over New Zealand, and while it is nice to feel the warmth on a cool day, UV damage from the sun here can be brutal, even more so than in the Tropics. The Pacific Rim also adds to mix here, with strong earthquakes and spin off tsunamis. Last month a strong earthquake made quick work of the northeast coast of New Zealand's South Island. And two days ago we had a tsunami alert from a 7.8m quake that hit the Solomon Islands to our north. The tsunami alert was cancelled two hours before impact. So, this is an interesting place to get to, and to leave from, and to reside in. There is a lot of weather and natural phenomena going on here.

New Zealand's South Island, Anna's next stop

But here we are now, on the far side of the world, and after all is said and done, we've managed to criss-cross the North and South Pacific Ocean Basins, a few times now, enough times, in fact, in our little floating yacht, Anna, that had we gone in a straight line along the Equator when we first started out, we would have circled the earth, and then some. It's only taken us about seventeen years of delightful confusion, to cover the distance from Alaska to New Zealand, along hostile coastlines and across open oceans, in all sorts of conditions, from doldrums, to seas that resembled marbled, moving mountains in gale-force winds, moving along at an average speed of four- to five knots, stopping to explore everywhere we could along the way, broken up now and then by longer and longer long-distance passages, to places that we could not possibly have visited or explored in depth, in any other way.

Rich and Cat visit southern Patagonia before heading Anna to NZ.

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