A bit of everything (part 10)
Wednesday June 15th
During the night the VHF radio did some “ghost squelches” — no words spoken, just static noise as if somebody just out of our range over the horizon was trying to transmit something. Quite startling when it burst into the silence of a night watch… and a reminder that since we lost sight of New Zealand 11 days ago we have have not seen another boat, a plane or any other sign of human beings… quite delightful really. Dawn was stunning.
It was Chris’s birthday yesterday NZ time, and today Pacific time. Niko made a sponge cake, and arranged it into the shape of Ohana, fantastic idea… and delicious.
Chris does a scheduled radio call every morning with Gulf Harbour Radio in New Zealand. They also run the YIT website that has been tracking our progress each day. He sends a status email in advance, then listens for updates from boats around the pacific, mostly in the area of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, and weather forecast updates for the (vast) Pacific region, including for us, the only cruising boat out east of NZ at the moment. Yesterday they announced, tragically, that a boat called the Platino had lost one person overboard (presumed dead) with another crew person seriously injured, while taking part in the annual Auckland to Fiji race. Today they announced that the injured crew member had also died, the remaining crew had been taken off the boat, that she had lost her mast and was now adrift on the ocean. Terrible news, and very sobering reminder that things sometimes can go badly wrong. I look forward to reading the official incident when I get back, to see what can be learned from it.
We had lovely sailing in light winds from the south west this morning, the reacher sail really loves to sail in these conditions. The sun was well and truely out (and stayed out all day) — we were sailing east straight into the dawn light and I got a light lobster pink sunburn on my face, my first of the trip so far.
In the afternoon we all had a go at doing a sextant sighting to try and calculate our position. It was quite doable really, in a very rough and ready kind of way. I wouldn’t want to have been relying on the readings we took. Perhaps that explains some of the unverified reefs and breaks on the charts too, although I am sure sailors of old were more practiced and accurate with it than us and our amateur efforts. Good to see how it was done before all of the navigation instruments we have on board became so commonplace, and good to have on board as a fallback should we need it.
Chris was showing me earlier that we were about to leave the older area of the charts that have been surveyed in some detail, and head into an area of relatively uncharted waters just south of Rapa. He went on to show me that the depth measurements on the charts all ran in lines — straight or curved — which represented the courses the survey ships would have sailed, stopping periodically to drop a line with a lead weight attached to measure the depth of the water. Astonishing to see it marked out so clearly on the charts, and even more so when you add in the fact the water depth here averages about five thousand meters down. Thats a lot of line with a lead weight on the end! Also, because there was so much distance left between each depth checking point out here, the lines on the charts don’t really represent lines of equal depth (the way lines on a weather forecast map represent areas of equal pressure) but instead represent the cartographers best guess as to what might be down there between the points that they did actually measure… hilarious really, and amazing to think that there is still so much unexplored underwater territory here on earth. Who knows what marvels haven’t been discovered down there yet?
Such a beautiful two hours sailing on watch this evening. The moon, so many stars, almost flat seas, a gentle following breeze of about 7–8 knots… Magellan must have stumbled into this ocean on a night like this one when he named her the Pacific.
The voyage to Rapa Iti
- Part 1 — Introduction
- Part 2 — Auckland to Tauranga shakedown trip
- Part 3 — Leaving New Zealand
- Part 4 — Trying to get into the swing of things
- Part 5 — Action stations!
- Part 6 — Now we’re sailing
- Part 7 — A very happy birthday
- Part 8 — Action stations again!
- Part 9 — Whales
- Part 10 — A day with a bit of everything in it
- Part 11 — The sky is on fire
- Part 12 — Almost there
- Part 13 — Land ho!
