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Report Eighteen from the Otter: Passage
from Tonga to New Zealand
Aboard the yacht Otter
Opua, New Zealand
December 1999
Dear Friends and E-mail Family,
It’s another day in Opua Harbor. Today is sunny and warm. It finally
feels like the summer they have promised. It takes some adjustment, however,
to get used to it staying light until 9:00 p.m. in January. My Northern
Hemisphere biological clock is confused.
Typewriterless and computerless I continue to scribble away with a
variety of pens that keep going dry.
I left Neiafu, Vava’u, Tonga on Saturday, November 6th and
arrived in Opua, New Zealand on Tuesday, November 23rd, after 17
days at sea.
I’m surprised my pre-voyage anxiety level in Tonga was fairly low. The
weather reports looked good for a few days before my departure.
The voyage from Tonga to New Zealand is 1,200 miles, my first long jump
since the Marquesas. All the other hops have been 600-700 miles, so this one
seemed a lot longer.
The trip included a magic two-day stop between Tonga and New Zealand in
North Minerva reef, a nearly round, three and one-half mile diameter lagoon
created by a barrier coral reef that just barely breaks the surface. This
merest of breakwaters rings a placid lagoon where I became "the king of
all I surveyed." But more on that shortly!
We’re all on the journey,
Brec
______________________________________________________________
Saturday November 6 -- – Departure!
The morning is sunny and clear. Bruce comes over in a dinghy to say
goodbye. He has found a yacht that will be heading to New Zealand in a few
weeks.
I talk to Dave on Redwing. He’s a piano tuner from Seattle and he’ll
announce my departure on SSB to the coconut milk run.
There’s a light breeze riffling the water in the harbor. I crank up the
motor and drop the mooring. As I’m powering out the channel, I uncover the
sails and clear the decks and run the jack lines.
I will not see Mariners Cave, the opportunity didn’t come up, but on my
way out I pass Swallows Cave, another of the attractions.
In the very light wind I motor as close as I dare. Then, because the water
here is too deep to anchor, I get into Runcible and leave Otter
to drift.
I dash the few hundred yards and go into the cave – it’s dark, dank,
and full of swallows flying everywhere.
Otter is framed, in the sunlight, by the dark cave opening. It’s very
dramatic and I get a few good shots before I get anxious about her drifting to
Fiji without me.
I motor back.
We continue to thread our way through the small islands and finally anchor
off of Ovaka Island at Anchorage Number 38. Here I dive and scrub the
waterline and the prop. Fold and store the dinghy. Take a cockpit shower and
have lunch.
Looking at the logbook that I’m setting up for Leg 10, I realize that
just over a year has passed since I first shoved off: I left Milford Boatworks,
Dock A, on November 4th last year. It’s been a year and two days.
1:30 p.m. I’m underway again leaving this deserted anchorage and
motor sail past Hunga Island and the reefs to the south of it. At my first
waypoint I turn to port to a heading of 215º -- south-southwest.
In the early evening, Late Island, a high volcanic cone, is visible on the
horizon to starboard.
Yet again, my first night at sea.
Sunday, November 7 --
First day at sea. The sunrise is red and feathery. In the gold, early light
I see two islands ahead, purpley-blue cutout shapes.
I’m 30 miles away but they appear big.
To the left is Kao, a 1,000’ volcanic cone with a dishtowel cloud around
its peak.
To the right is the long island of Tofua, rectangular and flat-topped at
500’ high. There is a column of steam rising from its center that pushes up
into a long flat cloud that hovers over the length of the island.
I’ve read of islands that will rise in volcanic smoke and six months or a
year later sink beneath the sea, only to rise up again a year or two after
that.
There are a number of dotted circles on my chart with light blue centers
that say, "Volcanic activity 1984," "Volcanic activity
1993." I’ve charted a course to avoid all of them, but I think I may
need to keep a watch for boiling water so I don’t become caught on the peak
of a new island like the Ark on Mt. Ararat.
Tofua’s steam is eerie. The island of King Kong comes to mind.
It was here, just off Tofua, that Fletcher Christian put Captain Bligh and
22 other men into the longboat.
It was on Tofua that Bligh tried to make a landing for water and
provisions. They suffered their only casualty there, a man killed by stones
from Tongan warriors, who were savages back then. From Tofua, Bligh and his
men sailed almost 4,000 miles west-northwest in an open boat to a Dutch port
in what is now Timor.
No mutiny apparent on Otter, we all agree to continue to New
Zealand.
On the coconut milk run net today I hear a long list of familiar boats, all
heading south.
In the afternoon I dig out my Rise Up Singing book and finally sing
the second verse to "Just a Closer Walk with Thee." I was right –
it was on a Tom Rush album.
The sunset sky turns scarlet and salmon as the light flashes on the wave
tops. The stars are clear and brilliant. Tofua and Kao fade astern.
Monday, November 8 --
Endless dreams. On and on. It must be the clear air out here.
I wake in the black night and check our position. We’re past the
blue-colored shoal patches, almost to waypoint #2, where I change course
directly for North Minerva reef. After missing Beveridge reef in bad weather
on the way to Niue and hearing how beautiful it was from another yacht that
stopped there, I decide to investigate.
Orion is falling, head down, toward the northeast horizon.
More dreams. The caps on all my teeth fall off. I put them in my pocket
like seashells. I wake relieved it was a dream. I touch them to be sure.
Today on the bow I look down into the blue of the water. A deep cobalt. I
see an even deeper midnight-blue shadow, moving forward, under us.
As I look over the sides I think it’s like living in a small room on top
of a six-mile high flagpole. If I go over the side I’ll slowly sink six
miles to the bottom of the sea.
Today I am alone. There is no land on the horizon.
I discover a trick to pumping the head dry! By pushing the little red lever
down HARD, I don’t get airlocks. Amazing, after over a year I’m still
finding out how to operate the gear correctly.
I’ve been reading Outward Leg, by Tristan Jones. Repetitious,
pedantic, a grand-phrased crustacean. It’s a hard slog getting through it. I
think he’s even swiped the floating pumice-stone story from the Venturesome
Voyages of Captain Voss.
Who knows, maybe they BOTH sailed through a sea of floating pumice…maybe.
Tuesday, November 9 --
Colorful sunrise with two long, low clouds toward the horizon in the shape
of whales.
Visit by two brown-footed boobies and a storm petrel.
Gray windy day – moving fast.
On the net, I hear White Dove has lost their rudder and are
drifting.
Still eating from stores I bought in St. Croix.
I think of the place names from my childhood, the sounds of the farthest
reaches of the earth: Tonga; New Zealand; Bali; Timbuktu. And Mom’s favorite
faraway (made-up?) place, East Jibru (I’ve never asked how it’s spelled,
maybe it’s Ghibreau, or Gibrew, or Jhibroo?).
Wednesday, November 10 --
8:15 a.m. Closing North Minerva reef. It’s raining. I take our
position.
8:35 a.m. Wind increasing fast. I pull on my raincoat and safety
harness.
Otter is heeling with her rail under. Almost no waves however, the sea
is flat. The wind and rain increase. Furl the entire Genoa – we’re still
rail down.
In gray-white spray I claw down the entire main and furl it. Just the
staysail up now. The wind must be blasting over 40 – 45 knots. Then, after
20 minutes, it’s over – dead calm. Put up all sail again.
11:15 a.m. Another squall. I see it coming – a blackness, upwind,
astern with a leading gray edge on the water of heavier rain. Only a 15-minute
blast to 35 knots this time, but with very heavy rain.
Noon The sky is clearing. North Minerva reef is 20 miles away.
2:00 p.m. Sun is out. Sky is blue – deep at the top, lowering to
powder blue – the water dark ultramarine at the edge where they meet.
I start taking a position check every 15 or 20 minutes.
3:10 p.m. Six-and-a-half miles away.
4:00 p.m. Four miles away. Wind up to 20 knots. Hot.
4:20 p.m. Two-and-a-half miles away. I finally start to see
breakers, different from the whitecaps. I can see a few small rocks through
the binoculars.
4:45 p.m. I see a gap in the breakers that must be the entrance.
Only one mile from the reef.
4:55 p.m. Turn on the engine and furl sails and motor the 1/3 mile
to the pass very slowly.
I see turquoise water ringing the inner edge of the reef. The reef is just
above the water, a flat light brown. A few stray boulders project higher. The
wind is from the northeast. The pass is on the west side.
The water flattens as I approach and enter the lagoon. I motor to windward
and anchor in 18 feet of clear aqua water over a sandy bottom.
It’s an odd sensation. Anchored in flat water 400 miles from the nearest
land. Nothing but sea to the horizon all the way around. I am alone in this
small aquamarine jewel set in endless ocean.
Thursday, November 11 --
4:45 a.m. I wake from a long deep dream and sit in the dark with
eyes closed to fix the images. Get up, and think about today as the first
anniversary of leaving Block Island.
(Editor’s note – Brec left Block Island at 2:00 a.m. November 12,
and with his having crossed the International Date Line, would correctly
observe the anniversary on the 13th. But hey, it’s Brec’s
story, facts notwithstanding!)
I hear the surf on the reef off my bow like a long, distant, never-ending
freight train – rushing through the blackness. The halyards slap gently on
the mast in the 15-knot breeze.
The water is gentle but there is a slight rocking motion. The sky is velvet
black and the stars are brilliant points. I can see them all, and the Milky
Way, like diamond dust.
The Southern Cross low on the horizon upside down, tail pointing up. I have
the odd sensations of being so alone in the middle of the vast Pacific,
anchored in the dark.
I drift back off to sleep, where I find myself wandering through streets in
South Norwalk, Connecticut, with neighborhoods full of children playing ball
in playgrounds.
The streets are like post cards as I pass through playing fields full of
co-ed football teams throwing colored confetti until I come to a rooming
house, a huge old rambling building where I rent a few rooms.
The stairs to my rooms have been burned out. I need to enter from a back
access. The rooms are crowded, chaotic, and unwelcoming.
I’m upset my home is not a comforting space. It feels like poverty and
sloth. I know a friend of mine lives a few rooms down. I go to find him. At
the end of a hallway through a large open door I see him in his bedroom which
is filled with four queen-size beds together, covered with floral print
sheets. The room is enormous and light-filled.
He wakes and getting up, is happy to see me and says he’ll fix coffee. We
go into the next large living room which is maybe 60 feet by 40 feet with
polished mahogany paneling glowing in the light coming through large windows.
He has made it all. The kitchen has lustrous turquoise blue translucent
stones standing three feet tall on mahogany bases.
I’m seized with the wonder of what is possible. I have a feeling of
gratitude for being in this space. He also is living in rented rooms, that may
be torn down at any time, yet he has made his space beautiful with a grace as
natural as the air he breathes.
Because of its transience I have held back, putting no effort into my
rooms. I am waiting…for what?
I feel atoms rearrange themselves in the galaxy of emptiness within me and
feel a resolve to make and feel beauty every day of my life.
I wake in darkness. Looking at the sky I think I’ve come 10,000 miles to
North Minerva reef to find this. In the middle of the night.
Maybe it is this simple. I hear myself say, "What about the pain? What
about friends I’ve lost? It still hurts."
I hear a soft reply, "Yes, I know it’s difficult, but just look
around…Isn’t it beautiful?"
As the sun rises I make breakfast of hot oatmeal with raisins and tea.
Late yesterday afternoon, Runaway, a Hans Christian 37 with Dave and
Patricia, entered the lagoon and anchored not far away.
Neither of our dinghies is easily launched, so we speak on VHF Channel 16.
They are from San Francisco and are out now one year and for the
foreseeable future. She is originally from New Zealand and looking forward to
being home for a while.
We talk of pirates and firearms and Slocum’s putting tacks on deck to
warn him of barefooted pirates sneaking aboard in the night. I tell them of
Slocum’s stick-men crew and how some friends wanted to give me a blowup doll
and how I might have dressed it up to scare pirates. Patricia says it may
attract them.
They have on-board e-mail and will send a message to Sandy.
The anniversary is spent watercoloring and catching up in the journal. On
this hot, sunny day the colors around me are rich and penetrating, infinitely
nuanced, starkly simple.
5:00 p.m. I swim the few hundred yards to Runaway. They
caught a tuna coming through the pass and have offered me some.
We visit and when I swim back the tuna steak is in a zip lock bag. That, in
a bigger plastic shopping bag, tied with air in it and attached to a 20-foot
piece of thin line tied around my waist.
I swim back to Otter with the tuna-balloon trailing behind. I don’t
want any sharks to smell the tuna and come after it.
Later I think that maybe the bigger piece of white meat at the front end of
the string would look more appetizing – and these lagoons are notorious for
sharks.
I’m happy to have some fresh fish and David has told me that after a
slight marinating in lemon or lime juice, that fried in olive oil, it’s
delicious. So I begin.
I heat the oil in a frying pan while the tuna strips marinate. Then I throw
the tuna and lime juice into the pan, and I decide to add canned new potatoes.
I taste it and realize that adding the lime juice to the frying pan was a
mistake – it tastes awful!
So I pour off the lime juice. The potatoes aren’t cooking fast enough, so
I mash them down with a fork. Taste again – still too limey.
I add a little sugar – it helps. Then I add salt and two scoops of
mayonnaise.
That works and after mixing it all up, the resulting mass is a kind
of cross between a fishcake and hot potato salad – it’s good and filling.
My body responds. I actually feel energized.
Later on the radio I tell Patricia what I’ve done to their tuna. As a
food chemist she’s horrified. She asks about my mayonnaise (usually it’s
Miracle Whip) and how it keeps without refrigeration.
I tell her of the "one scoop, clean spoon" theory I heard in
Bermuda. She admits it may be possible but on her boat Dave’s idea of a
clean spoon is one that is wiped off on his dirty T-shirt, so it wouldn’t
work.
She sends another cryptic e-mail to Sandy saying how I’ve destroyed a
perfectly good tuna steak with mayonnaise and she should have cooked it for
me. Sandy replies by e-mail later in New Zealand that my poor cooking habits
are becoming world renowned, as she’s getting messages from the middle of
the Pacific about them.
On the VHF we have been listening to Attitude and Attu, who
are approaching the reef. They are due in very late afternoon.
Dave tells them that he caught tuna in the pass and to keep their lines
out. Dave and I had talked earlier of getting someone else to lower a dinghy
for shuttle use.
Also, as the first one in, I’ve been dubbed "King," and
bestowed with controlling authority over newer entries.
So I tell Charley on Attitude that as King of North Minerva reef, I’ve
made a rule that any boat without a bowsprit has to lower its dinghy and make
it available as the royal coach.
Runaway and Otter have traditional bowsprits. Charley objects
and says he has a bowsprit – a retractable one. I rule retractables don’t
count. He says he’ll plot a coup.
My instinctive regal diplomatic skills pop out as I inform him that by
another decree, in the Kingdom of Brec, we all get to use Channel 16 without
restriction.
(Channel 16 is a hailing-only channel. After raising someone else, you are
expected to switch to another channel to continue. But since we are 400 miles
away from anything, Channel 16 with its 20-mile range can be used as our
private "kingdom" channel).
He likes that decree enough to accept the others and drop the coup attempt.
The joke won’t die and pretty soon the "Kingdom of Brec" has a
life of its own.
There is another decree: all fish caught in the pass are subject to a
tribute offering to the King.
Attitude catches a mahi mahi and a tuna coming in, and so owes me a
fillet. (The fish are large, so the tribute is easily arranged anyway.)
I begin planning to have postcards of myself made, like the King of Tonga
has done, to be mailed on passing whales.
Sandy tells me I live in my own little "BrecWorld," and, finally,
here it is!
A little later, in a short rain squall, Attu, a 65’ pinkey
schooner, arrives. They catch fish as well.
The reef becomes quiet this second night in the lagoon with its four
visitors.
Friday, November 12 --
In the morning the royal launch arrives and picks me up for breakfast of
pancakes on Attitude. Colin shows me his shell collection and Alicia
and I draw burgees for our new North Minerva Reef Royal Yacht Club. The yacht
club’s motto is, "In the Kingdom of Brec, 16 Rules."
I’m then taken on a "tour" of my subjects and take photos from Attitude’s
dinghy of Runaway and Attu. The group is getting larger and
there are a few more boats due in this morning. I’m planning on leaving.
Dave gives me a weather report that sounds good for the next few days.
As I leave I put a small, multicolored child’s plastic toy watch into a
bottom section of clear plastic soda bottle and tape over the top. I pass it
on to Dave as I motor by on Otter and declare him my successor.
The watch is the symbol of the "timeless" quality of the Kingdom.
Charley in the royal coach takes photos of the ceremony.
I clear the pass while listening to the chatter on BrecWorld 16: The kids
on Attitude are arranging a blackjack tournament with the kids on Attu;
Charley is arranging a reef tour in the dinghy; plans for a potluck dinner on Attu.
It sounds like fun in the peaceable Kingdom of North Minerva Reef.
Saturday, November 13 --
Late sunrise, brilliant cerise. Wind picking up. Afternoon gray, more gray,
then hard rain. Then wind on the nose.
Sunday, November 14 --
Gray and calm in morning. Rain and wind up to 20 knots all afternoon. Raw,
damp, and colder.
Monday, November 15 --
Finally some sunshine. Wind 25 knots. Close reach. Attu, the pinkey
schooner, crosses my wake. Talk to Charley on VHF. Wind shifting east. Gray
sunset.
Tuesday, November 16 --
Wind up again, take in second reef. Talk to Charley on VHF. He’s rolling
badly in these seas.
Noon position gives us 129 miles for the past 24 hours. A good day’s run.
Partly sunny all afternoon.
Wednesday, November 17 --
Sunshine! Winds down from 35 to 20.
Noon position gives us 127 miles. Another good day’s run.
Afternoon sun is warm.
Talk to Seawolf on VHF. Jeannette, from Georgia, talks as much as I
do.
Thursday, November 18 --
Weather forecast on SSB this a.m. predicts heavy winds from the southwest
this weekend. It will be on the nose. I’ll be tacking.
Hail Seawitch on VHF; talk for 20 minutes.
Sight albatross. Use my bird book to tentatively identify it as a
black-browed albatross. It’s exceptionally graceful even with a wingspan of
almost six feet.
It gets cold and I have to put on a sweatshirt.
Evening, heavy rain. Calm at 10:00 p.m.
Friday, November 19 --
7:00 a.m. Still calm. I’m listening to Des on Russell Radio in
the mornings now for weather forecasts.
Run engine and motor on calm seas. Noon position check gives us 55 miles.
Odd wave patterns make me uneasy. Black clouds on the horizon.
I put in two reefs and roll up the Genoa. Get slammed just as I finish with
a 35-knot wall. Gusts from the south for the next four hours.
Saturday, November 20 --
Feel vibration in engine – may need to replace another motor mount.
Gale warnings. Seas mounting.
Noon position check gives us only 44 miles for the past 24 hours.
Tacking and not making headway on the rhumb line.
I see four totally dark petrels, no white anywhere. The book says they are
rare Murphy’s petrel, and are not usually seen this far to the southwest.
Sunday, November 21 --
The whole day is a series of wind and rain squalls. Reefing and unreefing
all day.
Calm lumpy seas for one hour, then a whiteout squall where I can’t see
more than 50 feet and the tops of waves are blown flat.
11:55 a.m. Waves are about six feet and wind at 25 knots.
Sitting in cockpit "lounge chair" pile of line when I spot a
whale! The first of the voyage! It shows 35 feet of back above the water.
Moving slowly across the bow to the left, heading southeast, it crosses
less than 50 feet away. I don’t see the tail, but I don’t alter course
even though we’re very close.
It’s spouting, like a train’s steam-puff, from its blowhole. Water
shoots up about four feet before it’s blown downwind over the waves. I stand
in the cockpit entranced.
When I think to go below and get my camera, by the time I’m ready the
whale is too small in the distance to shoot. But it’s crossed my path and
disappears trailing a sense of peacefulness and grace.
Lots of tacking all afternoon, heavy wind on nose. Day’s run is only 60
miles. 110 left to go.
Monday, November 22 --
Tack west, tack southeast. We’ve made only 34 miles of headway along the
rhumb line today; it’s very discouraging.
Estimated time of arrival is tomorrow evening. Need to begin day naps.
Tuesday, November 23 --
3:30 a.m. Wind southwest at 20 knots. It feels like we’re going
backwards!
8:30 a.m. Start engine and power directly into wind. Furl the Genoa
and take in the staysail.
11:00 a.m. Landfall! New Zealand appears, bumpy blue on the
horizon.
12:00 noon Forty-four miles to go, still motoring.
2:00 p.m. Thirty-four miles to go. Wind getting very light. Sun is
out. Drying everything and cleaning below for port arrival.
3:15 p.m. Customs boat powers up close and we talk on VHF. He says
contact Russell Radio a few hours before arriving in Opua. "Welcome to
New Zealand," he says and zooms off.
The afternoon is hot and sunny.
5:00 p.m. I come to the entrance to Bay of Islands. Color of the
land is a bright emerald green, hilly, dotted with dark-green tree areas. I
imagine Ireland looks like this. Rugged cliffs drop into a milky green sea,
merging along tan, yellow-brown beach edges.
The bay funnels down to a channel leading to the wharf in Opua.
8:00 p.m. Tie up at the Customs dock.
The crews of Attitude and Attu come visit while I do
formalities, welcoming their "King," now in exile.
The Immigration, Customs, and Health officials are all extremely
professional and efficient. No problems. Or, as I begin to hear everywhere,
the Kiwi-speak equivalent, "No worries, mate!"
Pepper of Lolita, sporting a new moustache, pulls up in his dinghy.
9:00 p.m. Pick up a mooring and close up the boat.
9:15 p.m. At the Ferryman’s Restaurant, next to the pier, I order
a large steak and salad and ice cream and coffee. Pepper and I talk and talk;
Pepper has dessert and coffee.
I review my geographic progress on this journey: I’ve covered 10,875
watery miles in the past year and am now one-third of the way around the
world. I’ve been 17 days at sea on this leg, which brings me to a total of
123 days at sea.
The air here smells sweet, clear, and clean. Everybody smiles. It feels
like the first world again. It feels good.
It will be my home for over five months.
End of Report Eighteen
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