A week has flown by already as Learnativity, Ruby and I enjoy the wonders of this small island country called Niue, snuggled next to the western shore safely tethered to one of the excellently maintained Niue Yacht Club mooring balls. The week has been very full with a combination of looking after some of the repairs required from the fast and furious trip up from New Zealand and some time to explore ashore. Here is a quick recap for you:
* Note: My net connection here is very tenuous and am not able to upload pictures right now, but I'll keep trying and WILL get them here for you ASAP
We arrived in the wee hours of Monday morning June 21st, which seemed fitting for it to be solstice, winter in our case so the shortest day of the year. I actually had the good fortune to have two of them as we crossed over the international date line and had June 21 on one side and then again on the other when we reset the clock and calendar. For those keeping track we are now on UTC –11 However I’ll loose that day again when I leave here and start heading West again and cross back over the date line so I guess it all equals out and a day is a day here for me where calendars and watches are not used very often.
The sail up from Whangarei New Zealand was great, both just to finally be back on Mother Ocean and underway, as well as to have such fast and furious conditions with wind never under 20 and up as much as 40 but all quite favorable with it behind me for the first half and then just far enough off the bow to let me sail pretty much the heading I wanted into Niue. I set several records for sailing with my first 200nm day (24 hours) which means LTY averaged over 8 knots! Amazing and with a following sea and winds for most of it, it was all very comfortable as well, at least for me.
Mary, who as you may recall joined us for the sail to Niue after the two other boats she was supposed to be crewing on fell through, had a rough start and didn’t see much more than her cabin for the first three days but recovered very well for the remainder of the crossing to Niue and was able to fulfill her goal of completing a long sailing passage. Although she has had extensive marine experience and time on boats of all types, much more than I, this was her first long passage on a sailboat and so was quite an experience for her. Once she recovered her sea legs (and stomach) Mary took over the galley with a flourish and was a great chef, able to whip up some delicious meals in the galley no matter the conditions and I was thoroughly spoiled with Mary’s great cooking and recipes with a delightful new range of spices and ingredients which I thoroughly enjoyed and were much different than what I would have made. Ruby was even more pleased to have another person to snuggle with and be especially spoiled with some of the dishes she got to lick clean. So it was a lovely luxury of not having to do all my own cooking and made the passage all the better.
Once we reached Niue, Mary decided it was time to move on to her next adventure and so I took her ashore on Thursday and the next day she was fortunate enough to get on the one the few seats on the flight each week from Niue to Auckland, which is booked solid for the next months.
Thanks for joining us Mary and may fair winds and following seas be with you for all your future voyages.
As usual I learned a lot from the whole experience, and having someone on board for a long passage showed me just how different single handed sailing is and how much I enjoy it and it seems to just fit me right. After having three very different passengers in three very different situations over the past two years, what I’ve learned is that I prefer sailing single handed with two exceptions; friends and family who come to visit and my soul mate when I find her. Having friends and family aboard several times in the past two years has been a wonderful experience and added immeasurably to my overall experiences by being able to share and enjoy them with this company. Usually we don’t do much actual sailing as most prefer to just enjoy the environment of the boat, pull the plug on the rest of the world and just kick back and enjoy our time together in what are always great locations and cultures. I’m forever thankful to all my family and friends who have made the significant effort to get to Learnativity and join Admiral Ruby and I for part of this grand adventure and I look forward to many more.
When I find my soul mate it would be wonderful if she likes sailing too and wants to come aboard and continue the voyages ahead together, but when I meet her we’ll let serendipity and synchronicity guide us as to where, when and how to make our way through life. Oh, and if you meet my her before I do, please give her my contact info and let her know that she can contact me with anything from a knock on the hull to a Tweet so we can get started! <g>
Meanwhile, back on the good ship Learnativity the job list was calling my name VERY loudly and it has been a VERY busy week attending to the top priority items on that list. There is a saying I heard years ago that cruising is the art of sailing your boat from one exotic repair destination to the next, and that has turned out to be quite true AND thoroughly enjoyable and part of what makes this all fit me so well. While there are certainly moments that are frustrating, overall it is an intense, deeply satisfying and rewarding feeling to have the total dependence I do upon my sailboat and her total dependence upon me to keep her ship shape. As each day passes and as figure out how to solve each problem that comes up, I understand a little bit better that special bond that sailors speak of between their boats and themselves. Another one of those things which you can only truly understand and learn experientially and I am SO thankful for this new understanding and learning which Learnativity brings to me each day.
This week’s top priorities of things which need fixing before we set sail from here, included welding the broken boom goose neck fitting (the joint that attaches the boom with the mainsail to the mast), fixing the bent and detached jib sheet T-track and repairing the jib sail tears and bent brace. The boom fitting repair is a story in itself so I’ll tell you that one in a separate post. The port side jib car track is an aluminum T track that lets you adjust the fore/aft position of the pulley for the lines from the forward sail and it had pulled four of the bolts that fasten it to the steel deck right out and bent the track quite badly trapping the car/pulley in that spot. I hadn’t noticed this at the time it happened but was likely a combination of some of the very strong forces on this sheet (line) in some of the strong winds in the second half of the trip up here and my error is positioning the car too far forward for the conditions and putting on too much tension in the line such that the force was pulling straight up and not at an angle. Not a difficult repair, just lots of hours to remove it and the 22 bolts, grind and repair the spots where the adhesive sealing the track bolts pulled away the paint and then refastening and bedding it all back in place. With the help of my dear friend and fellow single handed sailor Philip on Blue Bie (more on him later) I was able to bend this back into place and fasten it all down and got that all finished yesterday (June 28, 2010), exactly one week after arriving in Niue. Today the wind is down and so I should be able to attend to the jib sail (forward most sail) which has two nasty tears in it from a bent aluminum brace on the clew (bottom rear corner of a sail) which I also need to bend back in place and file all smooth so it won’t tear anything in the future. I should be able to get this done today (Tues 29th) and that will have me ready to sail on to the next adventure, which look likely to be tomorrow or Thursday with the way the wind forecasts are looking. Next port of call will be Vava’u in the northern end of the Kingdom of Tonga.
After such a busy work week and the arrival of Philip, I decided to take the weekend off and head ashore to discover the wonders of this little hunk of up turned coral called Niue and I’ll post those stories and amazing pictures next.
w
a
yne
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Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog
Aboard s/v Learnativity
19° 03' 289"S 169° 55' 438"E
Alofi, Niue
Email: [email protected]
Email @ sea: [email protected]
FaceBook page for updates @ www.facebook.com/wayne.hodgins
Learnativity blog @ www.learnativity.typepad.com
OCOT blog @ http://waynehodgins.typepad.com
Skype: whodgins
Twitter: WWWayne
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