The last leg

Noumea, 8/7/2019

After two weeks of complete stillness in the marina at Savusavu, it was inevitable that the passage to New Caledonia should test my stomach mercilessly. Twenty knots from the south east made it a tight beat south down the Koro Sea, a patch of water renowned for its roughness. I held on to my breakfast for a couple of hours before losing it, then continued dry retching for the rest of the day and night. Sleep was out of the question with that going on, plus all the reefs and islands around.

After about 60 miles it was possible to bear away to the west, making it more comfortable. The one plus was I covered my best ever distance of 140 nautical miles in 24 hours. It really was flying by the seat of the pants.

At midnight on the fifth day I was completely becalmed, with the sails once again slatting in the residual swell. It is possible to block out some of the noise with earplugs, some of the light with eye covers, but I cannot hide from the incessant jerking motion. I have had very little sleep over the past few nights.

In the hope of chasing down some wind, I ran the motor for 10 hours overnight but then gave that up, knowing I don’t have enough fuel for the remaining distance. The Volvo “dripless” shaft seal that I had replaced in Cape Town is leaking badly again, making it necessary to bail about 10 litres of salt water out of the bilge for every 10 hours of motoring. Very irksome. I will have to haul out again in Noumea and replace the seal.

The new dripless shaft seal.

The lack of wind continued over the next three days and any hopes of covering the 850 mile distance in one week faded. On Monday, 24^th June, day 8, I ran the motor for 4 hours in an attempt to make slack water at 0830 Tuesday, but that had to be adjusted to 0950 Wednesday, when I realized I had 1 knot of countercurrent.

It’s important to time the tides right for the entrance to the Havannah Canal, where the outgoing tide can run up to 8 knots. Slack water at the entrance occurs about an hour after low tide at Noumea, a little like Port Phillip bay, where the pond continues emptying long after it’s turned.



The weather forecast that I had downloaded before leaving Fiji showed strong sou’westerlies coming, which I hoped had changed. That was the last thing I needed when entering the surrounding reefs of New Caledonia. Meanwhile I found I had drifted backwards overnight. The heavy rain continued so I was shut in down below, everything was damp, and I had a new experience – cold!!! For the first time in months it was necessary to wear a jumper and use a blanket.

I pressure-cooked some chick peas, totally fogging up the cabin. Not such a smart idea. Shanti is mooching along at 1.5 knots with 8 knots of wind from directly behind. All rather dismal if I think about it. Once again, I see that the “problem” is not the wind or rain or sea, but is within me and my reaction to it.

On Day 10 the weather forecast is all over the place. It was supposed to be SE 13 – 16 knots, but is 7 knots from behind. I managed to get some sailing by going off course to the south, then tacked back out to my line. I had done the calculations for time and distance to go, even to the extent of inserting waypoints at smaller intervals, so I had some idea of where I was supposed to be by when. These things never work out quite the way expected.

At 2200, when I tacked back on course, I found it was not possible to hold that course at all now, so had to resort to turning the key. I hadn’t expected to be burning diesel overnight at this point and yet again, sleep was out of the question. For some reason the sea was extremely restless, tipping Shanti from ear to ear, so all sails had to be dropped. This was the worst it had been for the past week so I knew some stronger wind was coming.

At 0600 it came in with a vengeance, luckily from the side, but gusting up to 32 knots. The seas quickly built up and these huge rollers kept on whacking us broadside even after well inside the reef. I passed the Goro lighthouse an hour before low water slack, and still had some 2 knots of current running against me. Constant adjustments to Tilly were required, just to stay on the leads.

A rough approach to the Canal de la Havannah

It was only after well clear of all the dangers that I unfurled a tiny amount of headsail and gave the valiant Yani a break. A lot of water was sloshing about the cabin floor from the leaking shaft seal but it would have to wait for calmer waters. These didn’t come until well past the Baie de Prony, where it may have been possible to anchor for the night. However the risk of discovery by the French border force was greater there (it is forbidden to anchor anywhere before checking in at Noumea), so I continued on to Baie Blanche, on the lee of Ile Ouen. The wind was still piping strongly down the hillsides and it took nearly an hour to cover the short distance nearer to the shore. Once safely tucked in it was wonderful to relax and get a good night’s sleep before continuing on to Port Moselle the next morning.



Baie Blanche, a welcome respite

The changes in the Port Moselle Marina have been huge since I was last here about 10 years ago. There are many more pontoons, nearly all of which are taken up by permanents. The anchorage is perhaps slightly less crowded, but completely full of moored boats. I was fortunate to get a small space on the visitor’s dock for 4 nights.

Nothing is cheap here in New Caledonia, not even local food from the nearby market. It’s not a great place to get work done but it was an unavoidable pain to have to haul Shanti out to replace the leaking shaft seal. Still, the mechanics seem competent even if the shipyard is badly managed. It was a week for Shanti just sitting on the hardstand, waiting for anything to begin. Not as bad as for others; a German couple who had already been waiting for over a month for engine parts kept on getting conflicting stories as to their whereabouts. Very frustrating.

Despite the slow pace and the high costs I decided it was a good idea to paint the bottom again, as the old antifoul, last done 10 months ago in Trinidad, was wearing thin. So Shanti is now looking her best for her return to Australia.

 

The panic over my father’s wellbeing has subsided; his wife, Tanya now has extra home help, plus her brother from Thailand is staying with them for a couple of months. The BCC lesion on my nose still needs to be attended to in Melbourne, so I shall begin weather watching, with the intention of heading back to Port Moselle to reprovision and refill the water and diesel. All going well, I should close the circle of my circumnavigation and be back in Bundaberg within the next few weeks. And then that chapter of the great adventure comes to an end.