Well that was one heck of a slog. Including us six boats made the trip, and none of us sailed more than 18 hours in the 450-mile rhumb line passage which took us nearly 82 hours. JollyDogs did the trip as well as anyone, but we didn’t arrive until Sunday evening February 7th, finally passing the first channel marker at 1900.
We had already determined we would arrive after dark so were looking for a safe way to get inside the fringing reef, navigate to a sheltered anchorage, drop the hook, and have a well-deserved rest. SV Pitufa had published a “known safe” GPS track several years before and Carla on SV Ari B had emailed that small .gpx file to us which we then shared with the other vessels. Everyone but SV Grace arrived well before dark, so they had a chance to follow the track and let us know if it would be safe to use. We got the big thumbs up from everyone over VHF, so we got the boat all setup for night running, dimmed the chart plotter and into the pass we came with no moon and no background illumination. No distractions.
I followed the track file using forward scan sonar and radar as navigation aids, with OpenCPN running the same track file with Google Earth photo overlay turned on. Chugging along at about 4 knots with the resolution on the moving map turned up high, it was a high gain task with a bit of trust in our technology to bring JollyDogs into close proximity to the shore of Teravai Island and on up to Anganui Bay. All our pals had their AIS transponders on and were pretty well lit up, and we found them anchored in a loose South to North line with about 80 meters spacing between each boat. We maneuvered to a spot about 150 meters North of Ari B and dropped the hook in 15 meters of water with ample clearance to all terrain. Isabel and I swapped places once we had some chain out and I installed floats as she helmed and dropped more chain as needed. In about 10 minutes the hook was set, bridle on, and she had pulled down hard. Lights on, engines off, breath a sigh of relief.
As is the JollyDogs tradition a toast must be made at the conclusion of a passage. Well, this wasn’t the greatest passage, but we were sure happy it was over, so the first toast involved “the good stuff”, a bottle of high-end rum we had purchased from the distillery at Taha’a while on the vanilla tour with Noah months before. We decided we needed a top up, then we moved on to the lower end stuff. An episode of “Suits” which we both mostly slept through and it was time to rack out and let the end of the passage wash over us.
In the morning we found ourselves in a beautiful bay, looking at a lovely island with big hills and an amazing array of foliage. A stunning change from the Tuamotus with their low flat reefs and motus covered mostly with coconut palms and scrub. A total chlorophyl fix! The water was deep and green with funny looking jelly fish everywhere, not the stinging kind - the kids had been playing with them on the beach. Time to kick back and relax.
SV Grace finally arrived around 0800, having had the worst slog of all of us with the most lightning and rain, and after anchoring they announced they would be having rum on their cornflakes for breakfast. Somehow an impromptu gathering occurred on JollyDogs around 1100 and every adult in the anchorage joined us aboard for tea and coffee. We regaled one another with tales of horrendous rainstorms, terrifying lightning strikes in close proximity, crazy instrument malfunctions and dwindling diesel supplies, and most folks agreed it was the worst passage they had ever had. SV Sea Rose who has spent the last 20+ years circumnavigating noted that it was the worst lightning they had ever encountered. SV Grace noted that one night they were surrounded by lightning strikes for almost four hours.
Needless to say, everyone was relieved to have that passage in the log books, and looking forward to the delights Gambier has to offer. Don’t touch that dial!
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