Well Hao was great, but we sailed to Amanu and then popped over to Hao while waiting for that elusive weather window to make the leap to Gambier, the most Southeast archipelago in French Polynesia. Moving East has been challenging this season as the La Nina has encouraged some really steady and sometimes quite strong Easterlies. There have been some short breaks in the pattern, but we need about 4 days to make the 450 mile passage, which we reckon would take about 3 ½ days motoring at 5.8 knots.
Well a shaky flakey weather window finally appeared in the forecast a few days back, a high pressure ridge North of the area, and a trough along our line of flight from Hao to Gambier. Toss a coin and the GFS weather model promised more sailing than motoring, ECMWF model promised more motoring than sailing. What the heck, this may be the last shot at Gambier for us and all the other vessels we’ve been hanging with have the same thought, so like a bunch of lemmings jumping off a cliff together we all launched out on Thursday morning February 4th. SV Due South had their anchor snag on some debris in the anchorage but finally it was free; the rest of us didn’t really struggle with ours. Around 1100 we were heading out the Hao pass with 3 knots outflowing tide and flat water – no standing waves because no wind from the North. Yahtzee! SV Sea Rose led the way, SV Slingshot and finally Due South.
We motored or motor sailed from 1000 when we weighed anchor until about 2000 when the wind filled in and I shut the iron jenny down. Some light squalls during the day, but altogether a decent passage so far. SV Ari B and SV Grace had left from Amanu a bit earlier and Carla nailed a sizable wahoo on the way out the pass. They did a hand off at sea so Grace would have some to eat – truth be told Carla and Alex’s freezer and fridge were likely full anyway.
More waterline allows boats to go faster. JollyDogs is 38’, Due South 50’, Slingshot 62’, Ari B 45’, Grace around 43’, and Sea Rose 47’ or so. Slingshot is a Deerfoot with a monstrous free standing carbon fiber mast, Sea Rose is a great big catamaran with a great big rig. Pretty soon it was obvious who was going to win this race, as Slingshot pulled away from the pack with Sea Rose in hot pursuit and Due South not far back. We did our thing, but focused on trimming sails to get the most out of our little Seawind 1160. Ari B and Grace had a head start on us, but we slowly caught up with them, finally passing both after a monstrous squall with lots of fireworks earlier today.
Looks like the ECMWF team might have got the forecast right, as we’re all motor sailing and looking forward to ANY decent sailing wind that might come our way. Once we arrive Gambier we’ll all be ordering 200 liter drums of diesel from the Taporo supply ship, no doubt.
The fish don’t like our offerings and it’s been a soggy day, but finally we’re at least in flat water with just the mainsail up, getting just a little help from the light wind slightly starboard of the bow. At this rate we’ll arrive at the West pass of Gambier sometime after dark, then make our way slowly up the well marked channel to the village where we’ll drop the hook after dawn.
We’ll toast our passage with a tot of rum, have a long nap, then I’ll change the oil in each engine. Only 280 nautical miles to go!
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