October 20, 2007

Excellent Timing
Looking back at yesterday, and at the forecasts, it appears that we nailed the best possible time to leave Fiji. The northerlies never did materialize, and we had a light, comfortable reach all the way up Rambi Channel, and then past the tip of the Udu Peninsula. We could see gray, swirling cloud banks along the north shore of Vanua Levu, but it didn't rain on us all day. By the time it got dark, we were halfway between Udu Point and Thikombia, the northernmost island in the Fiji group. It was great to be clear of all the reefs while there was still light. Better yet, because a bit after noon I noticed that there was a discrepancy between my compass heading and that shown on the GPS. I assumed that I'd put something magnetic near the compass, but not so, and the main compass agreed with the one in the forward cabin. So I checked position on the Garmin 12 GPS against the new GPS unit we got for the laptop, and against the Etrex GPS we keep as a backup. The 12 was over 2 miles different from the other two units, and a visual check against Udu Point and Taviuni Island proved the 12 to be wrong. I was glad to be able to check it against two others, and glad to have visibility. So, it's a good thing we got the new cable for the Etrex, and that we bought the "GPS Mouse" in Savusavu.
By midnight we were past Thikiombia, and could see in the moonlight that big cloud towers were coming out of the east, with the wind. A couple hours later as the moon set the sky opened, and it rained as hard as I've ever seen. The wind alternately died out and blew from every point of the compass, leaving the autopilot utterly confused. Karen took over the tiller while I adjusted sail combinations and area until it was easily managed. I'd started the engine to keep steerage way in the lulls, and after an hour I went off watch and to sleep, while Karen worked the sails and watched the autopilot, and kept the engine running slow ahead. When I got up at dawn, she had just set the staysail, and shut down the engine. She was dripping wet after having torrential rain for over half of her watch. Handling sails is pretty hard when you can't see anything, and it can't get much blacker than total overcast, heavy rain, and no moon.
We got the boat running smoothly, I had a radio sched with Curly to get the latest Metvuw Ocean Weather, and Karen went to bed. At 7:00 I did the Rag of the Air net, and talked to boats from the Marshalls down to New Zealand. Curly had said it was raining heavily in Savusavu, and there was a big, powerful low just west of Viti Levu Island. Boats in that area confirmed over 30 knots wind, pretty rough conditions. We got away at the best possible time. The forecast is for us to have some more rain showers and variable wind, but it looks like we're north of all the really bad stuff, and in a day we should be up in the moderate easterlies that Wildcard and Skylark 2 reported near Tuvalu.
I've set a bit more sail now, and we're running right up the rhumb line to Funafuti at 7 knots. Heavy overcast, but out of the rain for now. Couldn't ask for more. Ted