When we left off in our last blog entry we had just completed our tour around the Society Islands with our last stop in Bora Bora. There we enjoyed a 2 tank dive and some snorkeling but our visit was mostly about getting ready for our first significant passage in 6 weeks: the ~ 1,100 nautical mile passage from Bora Bora to Niue, a small independent island nation just east of Tonga. With boat cleaning, provisioning and clearance under our belts we set sail for Niue with 10 other boats in our fleet and a new crew member, Rachael, on June 26 at Noon. As we mentioned in our last entry, Rachael is part of the World ARC rally support staff. She generally flies from location to location but there is simply no way way to get from Bora Bora to Niue so she hitched a ride with us.
As we did with the description of our last passage, we will spare you the day-by-day account of our life at sea. Instead we will share the general theme of this passage: sometimes, life on a boat is like a sitcom. You just can’t make up all the stuff that goes wrong in a short 8 day passage. The passage started on a great note. We had good wind, a bit light, but from a great direction. It allowed us to get our gennaker out and sail at a nice clip. For the first half of our voyage, the wind continued to cooperate and even picked up, hovering at 20+ knots some days. Using a variety of sail plans, we were generally able to move along between 6.5 – 8 knots. The wind did create some fairly big seas but we are accustomed to the side to side rocking and rolling and were just glad to have the wind, rather than our engine, propelling us forward. Unfortunately, the wind died on day 5 and, while it briefly rallied on certain days at certain times allowing us to motor sail, those rallies were short lived forcing us to largely motor the last 4 days of our passage. This shift to light air was highly consistent with the forecasts we had seen so it was not unexpected — though we were hoping the forecasts would be wrong as they often are when good winds are predicted. Still, we are definitely becoming more accepting of the fact that as much as we like to think we are in control, when it comes to wind and weather, we are not in the driver’s seat (or captain’s chair as the case may be). The best we can do is work with what we got and be grateful for the those days when Che Figata is happily sailing on a beam or broad reach and we fly through the ocean.
While we are definitely getting more sanguine about the wind or lack thereof, our resilience was tested this passage by a number of unfortunate occurrences. It started with a tear in our mainsail along the seams which we noticed towards the end of day 1 — naturally, right as the sky was beginning to transition to dark. Fortunately, it was fairly low down on the sail and moderate in size so Zack figured he could go up the mast in his bosuns chair early the next morning to apply sail tape and make a temporary repair. And that’s what he did. With Jill still asleep after her 10 PM – 2 AM watch, Zack waited for Rachael to wake up for her watch at 6 AM at the end of his shift and asked for her help hoisting him up the mast. He was able to easily reach the tear and apply the repair tape though he did report that the sea state made for some interesting swinging as he did his work. (Zack would not recommend going up the mast while Che Figata — or any sailboat — is under sail! It’s one of those “don’t try this at home kids” things.) The best part, at least for Jill, was that this operation was quickly and successfully executed before she woke up at 8 AM. Rachael was already earning her keep!
Not a big deal — one little tear in our main — right? Well, that one little tear became a much bigger deal when we discovered later the following day that it had friends. There was not just one tear at a seam but 3 other similar tears along different seams — one on top of the other going up the sail — close to where the sail furls into the mast. It looked like the sail was shredding before our eyes. Fortunately, with the tears on the part of the sail closest to the mast we were able to partially furl our mast so that the tears were protected within the mast from further damaged. That meant, of course, that we didn’t have the power of our full main for this passage. In strong winds that is not really catastrophic because our genoa and genneker are the engines that push Che Figata forward in those conditions. In lighter winds — like we had for the second half the passage — it becomes more problematic. In addition, it was like deja vu with our genoa. We’d need to take down the mainsail upon arrival in Niue to make temporary repairs with tape and then find a sail repair shop to do more permanent repairs. At this point, the closest shop was in Fiji, about 800 nautical miles away. We would be arriving there the first week in August after spending some time in Niue and then Tonga. Aside from the hassle of taking our sail out and down and the time this would take away from what was going to be a brief 3 day stay in Niue, we were concerned that the number and nature of these tears suggested to us that we need a new mainsail. (More on that debate below). Still, we remained positive and resigned if not accepting. Not much we could do about the situation other than deal with it so no sense allowing it cast a shadow on our voyage. If nothing else, the challenges we have encountered and, importantly, overcome during this circumnavigation have made us more resilient. (What is that saying . . . What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.)
All we can say is that we guess “acceptance” wasn’t the reaction the sailing spirits were looking for — perhaps they were going for contrition (clearly we had done something to anger them) or a complete melt down — because that’s when the weird stuff started to happen. The first was our induction cook top being thrown from the cabinet. We were all above deck and heard a crashing sound from down below. Never a good thing. Zack went down to investigate and found that the latch to the cupboard where we keep the induction cooktop broke and the force of the cooktop as we heeled to port cause the door to swing open and the cooktop to fly out. Fortunately, there was no damage to the cooktop and we found a new temporary home for it in one of our hanging lockers. Unfortunately, a piece of wood broke off where the latch pulled away from the frame so repairing the latch mechanism wasn’t a simple fix that could be done underway in choppy seas. As a temporary fix we wedge a piece of paper in the door or keep it secure. Not attractive — and definitely not secure enough to put anything heavy in there — but at least we could close the cupboard and not have to worry about it swinging open and banging for the remainder of the passage.
After we got that situation under control it was time for Jill to cook dinner. On the menu that evening: her homemade vegan pesto pasta and Caesar salad. We were all looking forward to the meal. It was one of those particularly lumpy days making galley work a challenge but the nice thing about this meal is that Jill could create the pesto by placing all of the ingredients in a blender plus she had pre-made the Caesar salad dressing before we set sail. That meant that there was really little to do other than build the salad and boil some water for the pasta. Easy peasy for a galley veteran like Jill. Until it wasn’t. Jill added all the ingredients into our blender — 3/4 cup of olive oil plus garlic, nutritional yeast, pine nuts, salt, pepper, etc. — and started the mechanism to blend the ingredients. What you probably need to understand is that we don’t have a true blender on Che Figata. With limited galley space most of our kitchen gadgets are 3 in 1 deals. In this case our blender is an hand held immersion blender with various attachments that turn it into a hand mixer, mini food processor and blender. Jill was actually using the mini food processor which is comprised of a small blade in a plastic container. The motor end of the hand held immersion blender fits on top of an enclosure and spins the small blade down below. It’s quite clever actually. At any rate, Jill was happily working her magic with the blender when oil started oozing out along the top and flowing down on her hands onto the counter. Not something that ever happened before. Without thinking she turned around the the sink immediately behind her to grab a sponge, taking her hands of the handheld part of the blender ever so briefly and just when she realized what she had done and was turning around to grab it, the rocking of the boat shot the whole contraption forward landing on the galley floor below and splattering pesto sauce on our galley rug, the teak and holly flooring, and the cabinets that run from the floor to the counter tops on both sides of our narrow galley. Of course, our galley floor has floorboards that allow you to access our fuel tanks underneath so the oily mixture seeped in there too. To say it was a mess is an understatement. Jill is one of the people who never curses — it’s such a trademark that people use to joke at work that you couldn’t use curse words around Jill — but let’s just say there were a few witnesses to Jill dropping the F bomb in response to the pesto explosion.
After cleaning up that mess, Jill was determined to start again so we could enjoy our pesto pasta dinner. But before she could get started she opened the ports in the galley to get some air. She and Zack — her disaster recovery assistant — were sweating after cleaning up the pesto splatter and desperately needed to feel a breeze. With the ports open and air circulating around the galley, Jill made her second batch of pesto and built the salad, setting it on the countertop. (Of course, while getting the salad spinner out of the cupboard it fell over with a fair amount of force from our rocking ship and hit her right on the bridge of her nose. Ouch!). All she needed to do was cook the spaghetti noodles and toss the salad with the Caesar salad dressing. We were almost home free! With it being so close to dinner time (finally) Zack came back down into the galley to fill water glasses. Just as he reached the galley a rogue wave hit the starboard side of our boat and water came rushing through our open ports as if someone had opened a fire hydrant directly in front of them. Water was everywhere including in the salad bowl. Once again, dinner was placed on hold while we cleaned up the worst of the flood. Unfortunately, the Caesar salad was a casualty so no salad was to be had but we did, eventually, enjoy our pesto pasta. As Jill delivered the dinners she thought to herself that everyone better love this meal or, if not, keep their opinions to themselves. Being a relatively clever crew everyone seemed to delight in the pesto pasta dinner. And the best part is that through it all we maintained our sense of humor. You just can’t make up this series of events. We kept wondering where the hidden cameras were.
Fortunately, the second half of the passage was uneventful. True we had no wind but despite their best (and multiple) efforts, the sailing spirits were unsuccessful getting a rise from us (save for Jill’s F bomb). In boredom, we believe, they gave up and have must have moved on to some other poor sailing soul. (Well, we did have one more untoward occurrence shortly after we arrived on Niue. Specifically, Jill got her arm caught between lines on our dinghy when we were leaving a friend’s boat after a brief visit in choppy seas. It was like a strangle hold on her lower arm and the sudden, strong tightening created a hematoma the size of a golf ball in a matter of minutes. We had never seen anything like it. If anyone thinks as this is hyperbole, please email us and we will send you the picture we took for prosperity. Following a quick WhatsApp video consult with a physician who is a member of our fleet, Jill iced her arm and the swelling went down quickly leaving only a slight purple hue under the skin. No permanent damage though it was still sore and bruised when we left Niue.)
We arrived in Niue at about 1 PM local time on July 3. We gained another hour and were now 7 hours behind the eastern time zone. After a less than entirely pleasant passage, we were looking forward to some fun exploration and the 2 tank dive with Niue Blue we had pre-arranged. Before we could think about playing though we needed to figure out how to get to shore. Let’s just say that Niue is an interesting place. A little background: Niue is a self governing island — the smallest island nation in the world — with a circumference of approx. 40 miles. Geographically, it is a raised oval shaped coral atol with craggy stone formations. There is a reason that, despite Niue’s beauty and proximity to Tonga, so few sailors visit the island as they make their way east or west across the Pacific. A reef surrounds most of the island and the majority of the perimeter is comprised of steep cliffs that drop abruptly into the sea. There are no beaches. In short, Niue is an incredibly rugged little place. Add the force of the strong waves that pound the island and you have an environment that is not hospitable to sailors. There is simply no place to safely land a dinghy. To allow supply ships to deliver goods to the island the Niue government built a tall concrete wharf with some stairs and steel ladders. Because the wharf was really built for ships there is no place to tie off a dinghy and, frankly, even if there was, the surge from the ocean which is violent at times would cause the dinghies to crash unforgivingly into the concrete walls. Never fear, the Niue Yacht Club — self proclaimed as the only yacht club in the world without boats, where no one sails, run by octogenarians — built a dinghy lift years ago to allow traveling seafarers to lift their dinghies up to the wharf. This dinghy “lift” is a crane with up/down push bottoms and a rope that allows you to swing the hook over the water to attach the dinghy and then swing it back over the concrete wharf after the dinghy is secured and raised. It is a very intimidating process and one that takes three people: one person to remain in the dinghy to hook the dinghy to the crane (yes, someone actually rides in the dinghy during this process), one person to control the up/down motion of the crane and one person to pull the rope that swings the crane from water to wharf and back again. And, we should add that just getting to the wharf is not for the faint of heart. Again, there is a strong sea surge around the island which varies in strength with tide and wind direction changes. As you approach the wharf the surge can really spin you around and since there is no place to tie on one person needs to quickly grab the steel ladder and basically jump off — a literal leap of faith! When we needed to check in and check out with customs and immigration — something the captain of the vessel must do which in our case is officially Zack — Jill had the pleasure of piloting the dinghy to the wharf so Zack could jump off and take care of formalities and then go back out after the process was complete to pick him up. Not our regular dinghy driver, Jill was less than thrilled about the assignment but she rose to the task and got Zack safely to and from the wharf for clearance.
Though Jill could drop Zack off at the wharf, we could not use the dinghy lift with our tender. As you may recall, the lift function on our dinghy motor is broken (it is the one thing we could not get repaired in Tahiti) so we can’t tilt our engine up. You have to be able to tilt the motor up if you are going to set the dinghy on concrete. Besides, being only 2 people, we really didn’t have enough hands. Fortunately, every one helps each other in our small but mighty fleet community so we had plenty of volunteers to “carpool” to shore when we both needed to get off on land. We got rides and, particularly those yachts with only 2 on board, our hosts got the extra hands they needed to raise and lower their dinghy. We were very glad we didn’t miss the experience of working the crane! Jill became quite a proficient crane operator while Zack used his strength to successfully swing the crane around with the rope.
Once we got past the comedy of errors that was our passage and mastered the challenging concrete wharf and dinghy lift, it was — excuse the pun — smooth sailing. And this is the part of the sitcom where everything comes together and ends on a happy note. Niue is truly amazing. It is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places we have ever visited and that says a lot given some of the glorious places we have stopped as we sail west across the South Pacific. Erosion has created craggy stone formations in the porous limestone all along the coastline, resulting in an island replete with caves, caverns and pools. You can reach these chasms, arches, steep cliffs and caves by following the numerous paths around the island — in Niue they call these “sea tracks” — that often lead you through forests filled with jagged porous limestone (moonlike) structures. Niue’s tourism office makes it easy for you to take a self-guided tour, equipping you with well marked annotated maps and brochures. They also walk you though the most memorable sites, filling you in on the best time (e.g., low tide or high tide) to visit them.
Our first full day on the island, July 4, we tagged along with our friends on Kalli who rented a car and took a self-guided tour, visiting the following sites on the northwest side of the island:
— The Hikutavake Pools: a large protected pool reminiscent of the coral garners we snorkeled in Tahaa. Our feature photo for this blog entry was taken there.
— Matapa Chasm: considered by some to be the crown jewel of Niue, this is a narrow chasm with tall cliffs on both sides that leads out to the ocean. You are able to swim the length of the channel which continues to narrow as you get closer to the ocean. If you are feeling intrepid (we were), you can climb up onto the rock wall at the end of the chasm and shimmy along the cliff face — holding on to a narrow ledge — through the skinny opening to reach a flat rock with beautiful views of the coast.
— The Talava Arches: as the name implies, spectacular limestone arches that form a bridge over a large cavern formation on the edge of the ocean.
— Lima Pools: more beautiful pools formed in the porous limestone where you can snorkel in the blue crystalline water.
— Last but not least, the Palaha cave: a natural wonder filled with stalactites and stalagmites and tons of interesting limestone formations.
We could not believe how many geological gems were packed into this tiny island and we had only really visited a small sliver of the abundant natural wonders Niue has to offer! After our fabulous first day we were super excited for our second full day which included an “orientation” tour of the southeast section of Niue led by the octogenarians who run the Niue Yacht Club, Keith and Sue. This tour was arranged by the rally organizers so we would be in a group with our fleet mates. While we loved every moment of our self guided tour with Kalli, we were excited to have knowledgeable guides who could share more information about Niue’s history and culture. We had high expectations and were not disappointed.
Sue and Keith are delightful New Zealanders who made Niue home about 16 years ago when Keith was already retired and Sue took a teaching position on the island. They quickly became members of the community and never left. It is home. Their love of the island and its people is infectious. The first stop of our tour was the Togo Chasm. To reach this chasm you walk through a lush forest growing around and through (yes, through) fossilized coral. Many of these coral structures were taller than us! As you leave the forest and reach the ocean you are greeted by a vast field of dark dagger like coral towers which are imposing against a backdrop of bright blue ocean and sky. A small patch of sugar sand could be seen below snaking between the deep formations and the view of the coastline is commanding.
The second stop of the tour was the Anapola Chasm. Unlike most of the hikes that took us through forest, this “hike” involved walking down 152 steep steps through a narrow and very dark path between covered limestone formations until you reached a deep freshwater pool. The pool continued through the thin and slightly winding cut about 60 feet until it reached the open ocean where you get a tiny glimpse of bright blue sky through the aperture. Stunning! Our final stop was a quick lookout point near the car park where we were treated to a magnificent view of the wild and exposed east coast with huge waves crashing up against the shore. All along the way and in between sites, Sue and Keith shared information about the island and answered our questions about its history (including the devastating 2004 Category 5 Cyclone Heta with sustained winds of 160mph), culture, economy and the day-to-day lives of its people. Like many of the South Pacific islands we have visited, consumerism does not exist. There are no big homes, expensive cars or fancy cloths and the people live off the land. The government pretty much runs everything on the island so a high percentage of Niue’s residents work for the government and receive a pension when they retire. Their ability to get their food from the land and sea coupled with little desire for material possessions allows them to live comfortably off the pension they receive. By the time the tour was over and we parted ways Sue and Keith felt like dear friends and we asked to become members of the Niue Yacht Club. Not sure what that entails — though we are fairly confident it won’t afford us reciprocal privileges at the hoity-toity Annapolis or New York yacht clubs — but we will be proud members nonetheless! We highly recommend the Orientation tour for those visiting the island. You can find them on trip advisor. (For those interested, we posted select pictures of the sites we mention above on our @sailingchefigata Instagram account).
For our final day on the island, July 6, we scheduled a 2 tank dive with Niue Blue. Though we did some snorkeling in the pools we visited during our self-guided tour, we were very excited to explore the island deeper down. The dives we interesting. After diving in the Tuamatus and having that “I’ve just landed my house in Oz” experience where you are gobsmacked by the endless fields of vibrant coral in neon and iridescent colors some might be disappointed — these were definitely not those kinds of dives. What we did get to experience was swimming through fabulous formations and caves. Basically the stunning formations you see above the ground continue under the ocean. It was fun to squeeze through narrow openings, swim down into a hole that leads to a tunnel and explore caves. Lots of creatures, like octopus, eels and shrimps, to be found hiding in the darkness of the crevices and we never tire of looking for them. While in the darkness of the caves we would catch an occasional glimpse of the crystal clear blue water at the opening which looked magnificent with the sunlight beaming down.
In addition to the fun of swimming through and around the formations, colorful reef fish were large and plentiful and you couldn’t swim a few yards without seeing the native snake of Niue — the katuali – gliding elegantly in that classic “S” motion through the water. The katuali, only found in Niue, are a black and white banded sea snake with a fin like tail. Absent the scary head, they look like they were the inspiration for the snake in the movie Beetle Juice. They are so abundant that they appear to be swimming along with you and are so unphased by our presence that you can touch them (which of course we did), allowing your fingers to run down the length of their bodies, as they “slither” past. Only when we were doing research about them for this blog entry did we learn that the katuali is highly venomous — more poisonous than a cobra — making them one of the most potentially dangerous creatures on the planet. You shouldn’t be fooled by that small mouth and their hidden fangs (they are located in the back of their throat). Apparently, the katuali can dislocate their lower jaw to bite creatures many times their size. All that said, there are no reports of the katuali ever biting a human and we didn’t pet the katuali until after we saw our dive master Finn do it. (Still, in full disclosure, we not sure we would have been so carefree about reaching out to touch the katuali had we known about its venomous properties before our dive. But I guess we can cross the “touch highly poisonous snake” off our bucket list!)
We departed from Niue to Tonga after dinner aboard Che Figata on July 6. Our official departure date was supposed to be July 7 but the wind forecast had it getting increasingly light in the coming days so we wanted to leave a bit early in the hopes of maximizing our sail time. The sail to Tonga was only 230 nautical miles but with the lighter winds predicted we figured it would take us about 40 hours to get there. The cool thing was that as we sailed to Tonga we would be crossing the international date zone so rather than arriving sometime on Saturday, July 9 we would be arriving sometime (probably early afternoon) on Sunday, July 10.
All in all, we had a terrific visit to gorgeous Niue, overflowing with natural wonders. We highly recommend a stop over there to fellow cruisers passing through as they sail between Australia or New Zealand and French Polynesia. It was worth every spill, sail tear, water disaster, injury and cabinet failure. Our only disappointment is that we didn’t see any humpback whales. These magnificent creatures migrate to Niue, Tonga and Fiji in large numbers between July and October each year to mate and calve. We are confident that as we get deeper into the migration season we will see some (apparently they become hard to miss) and we signed up for a “swim with the humpback whales” activity in Tonga. (We should also add that while, in our humble opinion, we experienced more than our fair share of unpleasant events during the passage to Niue, we really enjoyed having Rachael along. She was a great help, delightful to be around and it was fun to get to know her better. She is welcome back aboard Che Figata as crew or as a guest passenger any time!)
If you noticed, we didn’t talk about repairing our mainsail. With so few days to enjoy Niue we surrendered and decided to let that go. Besides, in our spare time, we researched the cost and practicality of getting new sails in Fiji. After some back and forth, North Sails — our preferred sail maker — came through with a very reasonable proposal to replace both of our sails (our main and genoa) and committed to get them to Fiji by the time we we needed to leave there. In the end, we decided that we didn’t want to throw more good money after bad, continuing to spend dollars repairing sails that were really doomed to complete failure very soon. We learned that our sails, with their carbon fiber infused material, are prone to breakage after intense ocean sailing and that we were at the end of their useful life in those conditions. This is due to the fact that as the boat rocks back and forth in light air, the air spills out of the sails and when the air fills back in they snap back into place. Over time, the constant flapping causes fatigue in the carbon fibers and they begin to break resulting in the tear. So we are going to limp along with a partially furled main until we get to Fiji when we will get new highly durable sails made for ocean cruising that should last us for the duration of our life at sea.
We will publish our next blog covering our sail to Tonga and cruise around those islands around the time we depart for Fiji. Hopefully, we will be able to write copious amounts about whale encounters!!!
Post script: By popular demand, our dinner menu for the 7/8 day passage from Bora Bora to Niue is below:
— Pasta primavera with fresh zucchini, onions, garlic, red pepper and mushrooms and a side of Caesar salad.
— Black bean curry with brown rice.
— Gochujang glazed eggplant with frizzled leeks. (This one earned 3 yums!)
— Traditional pesto pasta (without Caesar salad due to a water incident).
— Eggplant, red pepper, onion and mushroom quesadilla and chorizo tofu soft tacos, both with cashew lime crema and salsa.
— Classic corn and kidney bean chili with jackfruit. Topped with cheddar cheese, green onions and cashew lime crema.
— Mongolian tofu topped with scallions and sesame seeds served over brown rice
For breakfasts we alternated between freshly baked multi-grain bread, tofu scramble with fresh sautéed vegetables smothers with melted cheese (vegan cheese for Jill) and chia seed pudding with granola along with a selection of fruit (which meant oranges for this passage!)
