8 July 2015 Luganville to The Louisiades (Day 3)
Dawn brought blue skies with 25% cloud cover and a fantastic 12-15 knot NNE wind pushing us along on a beam reach at 6 knots. We had a fabulous sail all day with blue skies and 3 foot seas.
Unfortunately, the wind died at sunset, so we motored for a couple of hours; then the wind came up again, so we sailed for another four hours; then the wind died, so we motored for an hour. Then strangely, on my 1-4 watch, the wind switched 180 degrees and went to 4-8 knots from the south, so we motored again.
It takes up to twenty minutes to sort out sails with the pole and main preventer and I’m getting weary of changing the sail plan all the time, so I was lazy and motor-sailed for a couple of hours to let the wind settle down. Just before our watch change at 0400, the wind direction seemed to be stable, coming over our port quarter at 45 degrees, so I poled the genoa to port, with the main out to starboard. I like this sail plan – we’re wing on wing, with the genoa pulled out to the windward side of the boat. There’s a chance of the genoa backing, but normally the genoa gets much cleaner air and, especially in light winds, works well with the wind up to 60 degrees off our stern.
Gradually, the wind picked up and by dawn we had a 6-9 knot SSE wind pushing us along on a broad reach at 4-5 knots. We appear to have a steady 1 knot current with us now, so we’re doing 6 knots over the ground, which is good.
9 July 2015 Luganville to The Louisiades (Day 4)
We’ve only done 315 miles so far and have 695 miles to go, so we have another five or six days at sea. The GRIB forecast this morning showed consistent SE 15-20 knot winds for the next 48 hours, but then there seems to be a trough forming across our path, which will probably give us some squally weather – we’d better enjoy the next two days.
Our charts are all electronic, which sometimes is dangerous in the way that they work. When planning a passage like this one, we plot a route at a very large scale (in this case at 900 miles on one screen) and then check along the route looking for any hazards such as islands and reefs. For this passage, we both had a quick look along the route, but at a medium scale there was nothing apparent. Most of the route is over ocean at 2000-4000 metres, so I did notice an area called Rennell showing depths of 500 metres, but thought nothing of it.
This afternoon, Glenys was looking at the iPad, zooming close into our current position and Rennell suddenly popped up as a 50 mile long atoll complete with small islands and a fringing reef (with wrecks). It only shows up on the Navionics charts when zoomed into a small scale. Our route takes us just 25 miles south of the reefs – very scary to find out now.
We had another lovely day sailing with winds at 8-12 knots and one metre seas, running downwind with the sails wing on wing. It’s all turning into a blur now – 3 hour watches at night, then Glenys sleeps in the morning and I sleep in the afternoon, then we’re back on night watches.
The wind picked up to 15 knots in the late afternoon, so I put a heavy reef in the main just after sunset, expecting the winds to increase overnight. By one o’clock in the morning, we had 20-25 knot winds, so I put a heavy reef in the genoa and we rolled off downwind in the 3 metre swell – it was hard to sleep being constantly thrown around in bed. We had a few showers overnight, so the cockpit is now totally enclosed by Glenys’ new rain panels.
10 July 2015 Luganville to The Louisiades (Day 5)
Today was tough. The wind picked up to 20-25 knots and the seas built to 3 metres making us rock and roll violently – it was hard to sleep when off watch and one hand had to be on the boat all the time.
A couple of squalls hit us giving 30+ knot winds for 30 minutes each time. We were mostly running directly downwind, but when the squalls hit, the wind backed by 30 degrees forcing us to turn 30 degrees to port to make sure that the main didn’t gybe. I then had to don swimming shorts and go out on the bucking foredeck, in the rain, to remove the main sail preventer, so that we could get back on course – I don’t like getting wet…
Fortunately, it brightened up in the afternoon and the wind dropped to 15-18 knots with a corresponding reduction in the wave height. By sunset, we had pleasant downwind sailing conditions, which continued until dawn.
The highlight of the day was a Brown Booby landing on the solar panels – I managed to scare it off before it pooped on the panels. The low point was finding a big, 30mm long cockroach hanging onto our fruit basket in the galley – I killed it, but Glenys is now paranoid that there are more lurking aboard.
11 July 2015 Luganville to The Louisiades (Day 6)
The GRIB files show 10-15 knot winds for today and tonight, then the wind is forecast to drop off and a trough comes through tomorrow night. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of wind or rain in the trough, but we’ll see.
So far, we've done 600 miles with 300 miles to go and we’ve done 140 miles in the past 24 hours. If we can keep up this average speed then we might just arrive in time to get through the pass in the barrier reef on the 13th.
The day was a mixed bag with sunny intervals between large, dark squalls. When we sailed into the first system, I reefed the mainsail, but the wind didn’t increase as much as yesterday – we just got heavy rain. It was very hot in the sunny intervals, so when the squalls hit, we both stripped off and had a nice, cold shower on the front deck.
I put out the fishing lines in the morning and caught a nice 3-foot long Dorado, which was very easy to pull in, but a bugger to kill – it flailed away, spraying blood everywhere on the aft deck. It took ten minutes to reel the fish in and fifteen minutes to clean up the mess.
The wind dropped off in the late afternoon to 8-12 knots from behind us, slowing us down to 5 knots through the water. We seem to be picking up an intermittent current – sometimes we have ½ knot and sometimes nothing.
The night watches were pleasant apart from one squall that crept up on Glenys at midnight giving her a 30 degree wind shift and 25 knots of wind. By four o’clock, the wind had died off and I had to turn on the engine. Disturbingly, we saw a huge lightning storm to the south of us, which carried on illuminating the horizon until dawn.
12 July 2015 Luganville to The Louisiades (Day 7)
At 0800, we were 180 miles away from our destination, so it was touch and go whether we’d be able to get there tomorrow. We have to go through a pass in the barrier reef and then we’ll have two hours sailing to the anchorage, so we need to get to the pass by at least four o’clock in the afternoon, otherwise we’ll not have enough daylight and will have to heave-to outside the reef until the next morning.
I worked out that if we average 5.1 knots then we’ll just make it. However, if we average 6 knots, then we’ll be at the pass by eleven o’clock in the morning. We increased the revs on the engine to 2000 rpm, which uses nearly twice as much fuel as 1500 rpm, but puts our boat speed up to 6 knots – sod the expense.
Just after breakfast, we headed right into the middle of a big squall system. It looked like the depths of Mordor, so I put a reef in the main, but the wind only picked up to 20 knots (from dead ahead). It took us a couple of hours to clear the system then the wind dropped off again and we had a fabulous sunny day.
With the looming threat of having to heave-to for the night outside the barrier reef, I did some more research and found another pass (Chubudi Pass), which is 6 miles closer than Sawaiwa Pass. We have accurate waypoints for Sawaiwa Pass, provided by another cruiser’s website (http://www.maranatha.id.au/), but don’t have anything for Chubudi Pass; however, it looks wider and easier to navigate.
I don’t trust the Navionics charts, but fortunately, I’ve created some KAP charts of the area from Google Earth and, by comparing the KAP charts to the Navionics charts, I think that I’ve worked out some waypoints through Chubudi Pass. Being an hour closer, this takes a little bit of pressure off us and I’ve also worked out routes to some closer anchorages as well, just in case we are late getting through the pass.
The wind slowly picked up from the south during the afternoon and by three o’clock we had enough wind to sail on a cracking beam reach under blue skies. Just before dinner, as we approached the western end of the Louisiades, we came across a shipping lane with five ships heading across our path, going to and from Australia.
One Japanese tanker was on a collision course with us, so I called him up on the VHF radio. His initial suggestion was that we pass “starboard to starboard”, but that would have meant that I’d have to sail across his path, which is always scary, so I suggested that we pass “port to port” and, despite having the right of way, I made a 20 degree correction to starboard. We passed ½ mile behind him.
Our route took us five miles to the north of Rossel Island and, up to midnight, we had to motor for a couple of hours because we entered the wind shadow of the 18-mile long island. For the rest of the night, we had a fabulous sail on a beam reach with 15-20 knot winds and calm seas, being sheltered from the oceanic swell by the barrier reef of the Louisiades. At dawn, we had totally overcast skies, which made it look very gloomy as we approached the reef passage.
13 July 2015 Luganville to The Louisiades (Day 8)
The last fifteen miles to the reef passage seemed to take forever. The skies were overcast and very gloomy, with showers in the distance. The wind was 20-25 knots from the south, so we were beating hard into the wind, heeled over at 30 degrees. I was worried about the light conditions, the strong winds and what sort of current and wave conditions we would have at the pass.
We arrived at 0830, by which time the sun had risen higher in the sky and the clouds were starting to break up. High tide was at 0615 (UTC+10), so we went through Chubudi Pass two hours after high tide and encountered a 4 knot current against us. Fortunately, the wind was with the tide, so we didn’t get any big standing waves. We never saw anything less than 20 metres depth and the pass is 300 metres wide. (Our waypoints were: 11°05.181S 153°02.231E, 11°05.653S 153°02.068E, 11°06.021S 153°01.843E, 11°06.529S 153°00.731E)
As we were only achieving 2 knots over the ground, it took half an hour to get through the pass, then we had a three hour bash to windward before arriving at Pananumara and anchoring in 6 metres. The sea bed has lots of coral heads, so I snorkelled down to check the anchor, then put a fender on the chain at 15m with 30 metres out, which seemed to be holding the chain above the seabed. This is a lovely looking anchorage with a white sand beach, blue water and swaying coconut palms. It’s well protected from the south 20-25 knot winds that are howling at the moment.
Glenys made Fish Tortillas for lunch which we washed down with a nice cold beer. I wanted to go to bed, but we had a couple of ladies paddle up in their canoes wanting to trade. One wanted to swap some tomatoes for onions and one was asking for fish hooks. I left Glenys to it and collapsed into bed.
A couple of hours later, I was woken by Glenys shouting for me to give her a hand because an islander called Simpson had cut off the end of his little finger with a machete. He’d paddled out in his canoe to see if we could help him. Simpson had tied a tourniquet made from some kind of grass around his finger and it wasn’t bleeding very much - fortunately, he hadn’t cut the bone. We’ve never dealt with a wound so bad, so were a bit unsure how to proceed.
Using cotton wool, Glenys cleaned the wound with fresh water and then some Betadine, while I dug around in our various first aid boxes and found some small 5cm square dressings. Tentatively, we asked Simpson to remove the tourniquet and, thankfully, it didn’t bleed anymore. Glenys then poured some more Betadine over the injury to sterilise it and we placed a dressing over the tip of his finger, securing it in place with a finger plaster. To finish off, I cut the finger from a rubber glove and placed it over the dressing to keep it dry.
Simpson was obviously in shock, so we gave him some drinks of water and some Ibuprofen and Paracetemol for the pain, although he didn’t complain at all about our ham-fisted treatment.
The next problem was to make sure that Simpson got proper medical attention, so we tried to find out the location of the nearest nurse or medical aid centre. Simpson kept saying that there was a “hospital” at an island called “Kirina”, but I couldn’t find it anywhere on our charts. His English was okay, but islanders have a habit of saying “Yes” when they don’t understand a question, so you have to phrase all questions carefully. A question like “Is the island close?” will be answered by “Yes”. A question like “How far is the island?” may get a better answer, but Simpson kept saying “Over there” and pointing, which wasn’t that helpful.
Eventually, we worked out that “Kirina” is Bagaman Island, which is only five miles away and we think that Simpson is going to get a friend to take him there in a sailing canoe tomorrow. I emphasised that he needs to go to the hospital, but I’m not sure if he will. We gave him another dressing, some Betadine solution and some Paracetemol and sent him on his way in his dug-out canoe as the sun went down. I hope that the wound doesn’t get infected and heals well.
We had a few beers, a nice meal of “Fish stuffed with Garlic Cheese”, a bottle of wine and then crashed out early.
14 July 2015 Pana Numara to Panasia, Papua New Guinea
We were up fairly early to sail to Panasia, where we’ll stay until we leave for Port Moresby - we’d rather stay in one place for a few days and get to know the locals rather than flitting about from anchorage to anchorage.
We had a bouncy beam reach in 25 knot winds, but it was only 25 miles and we had a fast passage arriving in four hours. The entrance to the anchorage through the fringing reef was a little scary when approaching, but with good light there was no problem in seeing the deeper water and skirting around the shallower isolated reefs. (Our waypoints were: 11°07.425S 152°20.611E, 11°07.537S 152°20.332E, 11°07.720S 152°20.147E, and we anchored at: 11°07.851S 152°20.111E)
The Panasia anchorage is deep and littered with coral heads, but we eventually found a place in 12 metres of water. I managed to hit a sandy patch with the anchor and then put two sets of fenders on the chain to lift it off the seabed. The anchorage is stunning, with blue water and steep cliffs towering above us - one of the top ten anchorages of our voyage so far.
I went snorkelling to check the anchor and then went to look at the reef by the shore. The reef was covered by a fine layer of sand and the water was a little murky, but I snapped some pictures of a couple of fish that I haven’t seen before - the 1 foot tall, Juvenile Longfin Spadefish were interesting.
While I was out, a guy called Frank and his son Michael came paddling up on an old surf kayak. By the time that I’d got back to the boat, they were on-board eating biscuits and chatting with Glenys. Frank lives on a neighbouring island called Small Panasia, which is a couple of miles away and has a small village - he’d brought a few vegetables to trade with us.
The islanders here are very used to trading for things. They are very isolated and trading is a way of obtaining hard-to-get items. Frank brought three lots of vegetables - one from himself, and the others from two ladies. He had papaya, plus some kind of yam and he also had a Bush Fowl egg, which is twice the size of an ordinary hen’s egg, so we took that as well. We ended up agreeing a bag of sugar, some sewing needles and soap for the ladies and for Frank we gave some Paracetemol, sandals and some clothes for his son. He says that he’s going to get four lobster for us tomorrow and would like some fishing line and hooks in return.
There was a nice sunset over the island and we’d just settled down for a quiet night, when a sailing canoe came into the anchorage and came alongside. The boat belongs to John who has a house on the beach near the anchorage, but at the moment, he’s staying over at Small Panasia and helping to catch a load of fish that they’re sending to Misima tomorrow.
They’d sailed over to say hello and to bring us four Painted Lobster that they'd just caught. We invited them on board and had a long chat. John says that he’ll be coming back to his house tomorrow afternoon and has suggested lots of things that he can help us with - it looks like we’ve got a new friend and guide.
The conversation drifted into what we have to trade. John was interested in clothes, fishing line, sugar, flour, files to sharpen machetes, sewing needles, etc . When I asked about what they wanted for the lobsters, they ummed and ahhed, muttering about clothes, soap and sugar - obviously thinking what their wives would ask for. I showed them a wind-up torch, their eyes lit up and there was no looking back - forget about things for the family, all three of them suddenly wanted this new toy. It was so funny - we gave them one each and they were very, very happy.
They left at eight o’clock to sail back to Small Panasia in the pitch dark, aided by their new torches - we could hear the whirring of the charging mechanism as they drifted off into the distance. We cooked the four lobsters, which Glenys served up with potato salad, papaya lime salad and tomatoes - very nice.