Category: Sailing

Our first evening after leaving Niue, we grilled the remains of the tuna we’d been given by Lionel on the BBQ. As I munched away, my mouth felt dry, a little prickly. It felt like I was getting a mouth ulcer. Or maybe scurvy… I only managed a couple of pieces before deciding that I wasn’t enjoying it much, so Neptune had the rest. I took a sip of my rum and lime and felt a hot flush come over my face. Woah! That’s quite some rum, I thought. Then I started to get a headache, and felt decidedly strange. I popped below to take a look at myself in the mirror and saw that my whole head and neck had gone hot and red. Hmmn. Something not right here. I asked the others if they were feeling OK – no, they weren’t – Eva had a headache and Dave was starting to get tingles in his fingers and toes. Not a good sign. It had to be the fish. But tuna, a pelagic fish, never has ciguatera, the toxin that reef fish pick up, the reason we’ve not been catching and eating reef fish on the islands. Feeling a little concerned, I thumbed through the “poisoning” section of my offshore fishing book. We were truly on our own, 100 miles downwind of Niue and at least that still to go before Tonga. We were all getting worse. I really hoped it wasn’t going to turn into an epic. None of us usually suffer allergic reactions to seafood, yet that’s exactly what the symptoms were. Hot, red neck and head, restricted breathing, raised pulse, headache…

Diagnosing that we’d got scombrotoxism*, I read “bronchospasms and general respiratory distress, shock and possibly death can result from serious cases… get to a doctor if possible … evacuate the stomach … administer antihistamine”. Erk. By this time, maybe half an hour later, I was starting to feel a lot better, and decided to wait it out. The others didn’t show signs of deterioration, so Dave took the watch and I took a nap. Phew, I thought, nice to be through that. But after an hour or so of sleep, I felt another wave of reaction coming on; headache, dizziness, flushed face and neck. I got up and woozed around for a bit, drank some water, and again after about half an hour symptoms went away. I think that was it – I didn’t get another round, but the others had a tougher night. By morning, we were all normal again.

As we got better, the weather got worse. Through the day, the wind picked up, and the seas got larger. Thankful that the weather had been kind while we were feeling rotten, we prepared for a bumpy night. I turned in while Dave took the first watch in the building gale. I was woken by a shout from the cockpit.

“We’ve lost the instruments! Autopilot not working!”

I came on deck to see Dave wrestling with the wheel as Rafiki charged down the face of some fairly meaty waves, with just the third reef in the main sail and wind whistling in the rigging. Oh great, what a time to have a systems failure. It could at least have been daytime. First, a quick check below the cockpit – all mechanical systems were OK. It had to be an electrical fault … which means it could be anything from a corroded connection (any of hundreds) to a software failure in any one of the components on the network. I spent the next two hours trying to get the thing working again, tracing wires, isolating different parts of the system, climbing in and out of the cockpit locker with a torch in my mouth as the boat lurched and lunged over the waves, careering through the night. There was a blinking red light on top of the autopilot computer, so I dug out the instruction manual and flipped to the troubleshooting section.

“Network error. Call Raymarine technical support.”

Ugh. So I dialled up American support on the satphone, figuring they were the ones likely to be awake. Ten expensive minutes later, I was still on hold. Expecting to be told “replace part X”, and of course not having a spare part X on board, I figured this was a dead end option and hung up. After trying everything else I could think of, I gave up for the night. The whole system was down, not just the autopilot. Wind speed, depth, boat speed, GPS – all blank. I hoped that the problem, whatever it was, hadn’t also damaged all the components. I disconnected the chart plotter from the network and switched it to use it’s internal GPS sensor … so at least we knew where we were and where we were going.

The three of us took turns helming through the night, in the pitch black darkness, with only the red glow of the compass and the feel of the boat under our feet to guide us down the waves at the right angle. Tiring work. Morning brought a watery grey light, but the howling wind was still hustling us along at maximum speed. By the time the night had fully turned into day, we’d rounded the top of the Vava’u island group of Tonga, which sheltered us from the south east swell – making a huge difference to comfort and our ability to keep the boat under control. We tacked our way in, between the entrance islands in calm water (but 40+ knot winds), and then motored around to the main town of Neiafu. Conditions in the sheltered water couldn’t have been more different from those just a few miles away out at sea. Off came the wet weather gear and life jackets, replaced by shorts and sunglasses, the tension of the passage burned off by the warm sun. Tired, and relieved to have reached port, we tied up to the wharf to start our check-in procedure.

* The Scombridae family of fish (tuna, wahoo, mackerel) have something called histidine in ’em, “more prevalent in red and oily fish” … and when bacteria munch on this, they produce toxic by-products. It’s the toxin that got us. We thought that as we’d grilled the fish to almost charcoal we’d have killed anything nasty, but toxins are not living and persist through cooking. The book says “reject any meat with the sharp or peppery taste characteristic of these toxins” … next time I sure will!

After Beveridge reef we had a couple of days passage to the island of Niue. “The Rock” they call it – a lump of coral only a few miles across, raised up from the ocean gazillions of years ago. The country just consists of the one island, with only 1500-odd inhabitants. There’s nowhere (safe) to anchor around the island as the water gets really deep really quickly, so there are a number of moorings available by the island’s wharf. No fringing reef, and no shallows nearby, meant we could come in at night without too much stress. As usual, we had light winds – but this time just enough to keep us moving along gently without too much slamming of the sails. We arrived in the early hours of the morning, no moon, really dark. A few minutes of searching with a torch and we picked up a mooring ball. One other boat there, sitting in the black darkness like a ghost ship – no lights on at all.

In the morning we called up the island HQ on the radio and arranged for customs to come down to the wharf to check us in. The island just has one landing point – the wharf, with a crane to lift boats out of the water. So I rigged up a bridle on our dinghy and we motored ashore. Timing our actions between the big sets of waves, Dave and Eva hopped out and scrambled up the ladder, and I hooked onto the crane and was hoisted quickly out of the water, still sat in the dinghy. A new way to enter a new country!

As soon as I stepped ashore I had a feeling that it would be a welcoming place. The yacht club commodore came down to meet us, and I chatted with a few older fisherman sat in their car, in broken English. Customs and immigration was a simple enough process, and then we explored the small town of Alofi for the rest of the day. Only a few buildings spread out along the main road, everything very neat and tidy – apart from the abandoned properties destroyed in the last cyclone. Later in the day I overheard a French singlehander struggling to communicate with the radio HQ, offered to translate, and ended up going out to bring him ashore as he didn’t have a dinghy ready, and then going with him to customs to translate there too. We spent the evening aboard his boat – Ivitu – eating fresh Tuna and Wahoo that he’d caught on his way into Niue, drinking rum and wine, having a good chat.

Next day the French fella, Lionel, joined us for a ride in our rental car across the island to “show day” in one of the villages. Started early with lots of food for sale – a mix of local stuff and things flown in from New Zealand on the twice-weekly flight. Taro root, BBQ chicken, sausages, crab sticks. I stashed a plate away in the car to tuck into later for lunch. In one corner a spread of large vegetables and fruit was laid out on the grass; a competition. Huge bananas, taro, coconuts, and some root vegetable I couldn’t identify. Wandering among the veggies on lengths of string were some monster blue coconut crabs, being shooed away by the judges. Then speeches and dances from troupes of school kids.

Just before it finished at noon we busted out and explored the “sea tracks” around the north coast of the island – being a coral lump there are loads of caves, grottos, nooks and crannies. No bats though, which I found strange. Learnt what I believe to be the French word for bats – “chauve souris” – shaved mice … is that for real? Thinking about it now maybe it should be “cave mice” – but the word for cave is different … hmm I’m going to have to look this up later. The island didn’t appear to have much in the way of animal or bird life – likewise not many insects. Hundreds of miles out in the middle of nowhere and not very fertile; not so surprising I guess.

Evening was spent on “Max” – a French couple’s 54-foot Amele, eating more of the fish, drinking wine, and trying to keep up with the fast French conversation. They’d arrived in the afternoon while we were ashore. A big boat – plenty of freezers on board – which meant a wonderful freshly baked tarte-au-poivres for dessert! Hervé and Caroline are from Brittany, with a great sense of humour, I tried to give as good as I got as a Brit on the receiving end of the jokes. Lionel is a lean, blonde, curly haired sea vagabond, seeming much younger than his 53 years with a hip-hop baseball cap, board shorts and tired tee shirt. Very animated, enthusiastic and much as I imagine his precursors Bernard Moitessier and Jean Gau to have been like back in the sixties. Hervé – a robust, ruddy, short haired Bréton with an infectious “joie de vivre” and a mischievous look in his eye. His wife Caroline – smiling and open, and of course impeccably presented and stylishly dressed in the way of French women the world over. The two of them were clearly very comfortable on board together, seeming much more of an even team of two than many other couples I’ve met at sea. I like the French. They make me chuckle – almost every Frenchman fits the stereotype in some way.

Sunday – a day of rest in the very Christian community – nothing happening ashore, we stayed aboard Rafiki. Helped a large Aussie catamaran pick up a mooring in the afternoon – “Angels Wings”. Rob and Jo – who I later discovered we’d met very briefly on Bora Bora. Being light and nimble, I was winched up his mast to fix a strop to the head of his genoa to factor for a new, shorter furler that he’d had fitted a week earlier. While the weather was reasonable and the boat was flat, I went up Rafiki’s mast too, to check all was OK, a job I do every month or so. All good. Evening aboard Angels Wings chatting and eating.

During the night the wind swung around to the north and swell wrapped around the island to make a bumpy, uncomfortable time on the moorings. Checked out with customs and immigration first thing in the morning, and then set sail for Tonga about mid day.

I enjoyed our stop on Niue – small and friendly. There’s a noticeable difference from French Polynesia in that we are now reaching the other side of the Pacific – closer to NZ and Australia – where boats are coming in from the west. The islanders speak English, which feels strange as we’re so far from home in every way imaginable. Looking at the globe, we’re pretty much on the opposite side now!

“Reported to lie 3 miles north east” says the chart. Which means they aren’t really sure where it is. Zooming in, there’s just a jaggedy mass of green reef symbol which screams “don’t hit me”. So it was with caution that I placed the approach waypoints into the chart plotter, knowing that our arrival was likely to be in the early hours of the morning, before good light. But the wind was light and seas gentle, the moon almost full – perfect conditions for approaching a mid-ocean reef, where there are no landmarks above water; nothing but crashing waves. Beveridge reef is a sunken atoll somewhere between Palmerston and Niue; its remoteness and inaccessibility making it an irresistible stop. But could we find it?

Wind light, again, so we arrived in the area later than expected. An hour or so after dawn I could just about make out breakers on the horizon through the binoculars. A few minutes later, the larger ones were visible with the naked eye. None of my official charts – paper or electronic – had any more detail than the green jaggedy reef symbol … but I’ve seen pictures of boats inside the reef, and have a sketch map from another sailor with GPS positions, so was confident we could find our way in. According to the sketch, the reef has a pass on the western side. Much closer to the reef, I saw the unmistakeable wavelets of a rip current, a tidal race – water pouring out through the pass as the moon pulls the tide off towards New Zealand. It’s always hard to judge the size of these tidal race waves; especially with nothing to provide a sense of scale. It’s easy to see which way the tide is flowing though, and with the water pouring OUT of the reef, we could approach closely and just get swept safely out to sea again if we happened to bump the bottom, or there was any other problem. Driving Rafiki along the foam line that marked the middle of the race (and the deepest water), I soon had us through into the lagoon where the current relaxed and the water got deeper. We saw minimum 6m depth through the pass (plenty), which in the ultra clear water, looked a lot less!

We anchored on the far side of the lagoon, on a band of sand that runs all the way around the reef. These lagoons all seem to have the same shallow sandy shelf, extending inwards from the fringing reef, sometimes only a few metres and sometimes for hundreds of metres. Pure turquoise water only a few feet deep, suddenly dropping off into deeper water in the middle of the lagoon, the ramp so consistent and perfect that it looks man made. You can see the change of colour in the water. I can now judge the depth just by the shade of blue. Almost nothing lives on the sand shelf; just a few isolated coral heads trying to make a stand. There’s nothing hard to bump into, and hardly any tide, so I’m happy taking the boat onto these sandy shelves to anchor with only inches below our keel.

The water is SO clear – I’m assuming because there’s no land and no vegetation. We took the dinghy out to the edge of the reef and snorkeled by the wreck of a small fishing boat. How unlucky – to hit the only reef around for hundreds of miles! Not much to see in the way of fish, but lots of live coral and a shark dressed up in an all-over dark grey suit – one that I’d not seen before. Was he harmless like the black-tips, coming in close just out of curiosity, or was he circling us getting ready for the kill? We all survived, anyway.

Nobody else here. I’d hoped we might meet another boat in this isolated corner of the Pacific, so we could swap stories and have a bit of new conversation, but we had the place to ourselves. Which wasn’t so bad really – the solitude reinforcing the fact that this is completely and totally the middle of nowhere. The only sound; a rumble of surf in the background. The only life; fish, sharks, rays, spiky urchins, squishy black sea cucumbers and a few sea birds perched on the wreck. Colours so vibrant and pure; above and below the surface; not a speck or waft of pollution (other than the rusting hulk of the boat of course).

I spent the afternoon fishing from the dinghy, losing lures, running aground, dropping a rod over the side while I tried to tie us to a rock… generally being Mr Incompetent. I did catch a decent sized spotted grouper, but I put it back as I’d heard they were ciguatoxic. Also caught a little spotted yellow thing which wasn’t big enough to eat. Giving up, I headed back to the boat with a line trailing astern, and hooked a Jack! A “carangue bleu” in French – the same as the one we’d been given for supper in Fakarava. So I figured we should be fine, no ciguatera. Fresh poisson for supper on the grill! But after reading more about the toxin – how one species can be fine in one place but toxic in another, and the severity of acute symptoms, I reluctantly decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Canned fish again, then. Which feels so wrong in a place like this.

I had a full night of calm, deep sleep under the full moon in a gentle breeze. Woke just before dawn to watch an incredible sunrise, tucked up in my sleeping bag on the cockpit seat. Temperatures at night are dropping; and we’re getting dew on deck too. We just nudged over 20 degrees south … only a couple of degrees until we’re out of the tropics!

I’d just dozed off, spreadeagled over the forward berth, Rafiki gently rolling along, the soft gurgle of the bow wave singing me a lullaby just on the other side of the thin hull. Fan whirring, breeze on my skin keeping me cool. Looking forward to a good few hours rest before my watch starts at 11…

Brain asleep but ears still wide awake (a sailors ears never rest), I hear the surge of water under the bow suddenly get louder. The boat accelerates, charging off down a wave, heeling over. Where there was silence on deck before, wind is howling in the rigging. I’m awake in a snap. Some instinct tells me that action is needed, NOW, dumping a load of adrenaline into my blood. We’ve been hit by a squall. A windy one. A sail is flogging wildy outside, a loud, vicious cracking and banging. Help is needed on deck, fast. Glancing at the instrument panel as I dash out I see we have 46 knots of wind. By the time I make it up the steps, only seconds later, it’s well into the fifties. Eva is struggling to roll in the jib – it’s crashing around at the front of the boat and even though it’s already half furled, it needs two of us hauling on the line to bring it in. Instinctively I’ve taken control of the helm with my free hand to bring the boat up into the wind to make the job easier. Now I need to decide which direction steer in. Only seconds ago I was asleep, and now I’m standing in the cockpit just in boardies, wind howling, in the dark, unable to see anything through the lashing rain other than a big white flogging sail. The rest of my senses are now fully awake, each shouting their messages at my brain, which is trying to decide what to do with all the inputs. It’s a bit disorientating. I spin the wheel to starboard to ease off the wind a bit, the main fills, and we’re back on our way.

And then suddenly the wind is gone. Back down to ten knots, just like that. Surreal. We’re left befuzzled. It can’t have been more than sixty seconds overall, from fifteen to fifty and then back down again. It’s strangely quiet. Heavy rain dampens the sea, and it’s not yet had time to become alive again. I spend some time untwisting the genoa sheets and checking all is OK, change into dry shorts and then head back to my bunk. Rafiki cruises onwards through the night.

I’m woken again some time after eleven by a quiet voice. “Chris … Chris … time for your watch”. Eva had to finish a line of knitting before finishing her stint on deck, so I got an extra few minutes’ rest. Bonus.

It took me ages to fall asleep after the squall, running through the action again in my mind, so I can’t have had much sleep. Feeling a bit groggy. It’s cool enough tonight to need a tee shirt, so I fumble in the dark for one that doesn’t feel too salt-encrusted and grab my lifejacket on the way up to the cockpit. We exchange the usual chit-chat between watches;

“No change in the wind, a few clouds overtook us, no rain this time, looks like the sky is clearing. All well. Have a good watch!”

“Thanks. Have a good sleep!”

In a few minutes, I have the boat to myself. We’re rolling along directly downwind like we have been for the past few days, but the sky is now clear. We’re chasing a bright half moon, dead ahead of us. The moon is chasing the sun, now way below the horizon. It’ll just be me and the stars in a couple of hours. Sitting on the cockpit seat, looking aft at the mesmerising waves, I’m struggling to stay awake. Can’t afford to sleep. Must look out for squalls. They sneak up in minutes from over the horizon, big dark clouds, with a mystery package underneath. Sometimes benign, sometimes nasty. Gotta be ready for each one. Just in case. Mustn’t fall asleep. Tired eyes…

Time for some tunes. For a sugar rush I stuff down some dried fruit. Still loads of pawpaw and pineapple left over from Mexico. The others won’t touch it it’s so sweet. For me, it’s perfect at the start of a night watch. I wrap my trusty big headphones over my ears, select a dance set from way back in the day, and hit play.

Sugar finds its way into my bloodstream, tunes are injected straight into my brain. Boom! I’m up and dancing under a huge sky of stars. The night is so clear that I can see them all the way down to the inky black waves on the horizon; a full hemisphere of wonder. The motion of the boat under the sky makes colossal creatures of the night gyrate around me, as I gyrate around the cockpit; Scorpion, Lion, Wolf, Bear, Swan, Dragon, Dolphin – and a load I can’t identify. The lurching deck also adds a random drunken motion to my movements … or maybe that’s the leftovers of the evening’s most excellent Gin & Tonic being flushed out of my system? It was a special one, with ice. It takes a week to make a drink’s worth of ice in our wee cooler.

Flickers of phosphorescence flash down the sides of the boat, ignited by the bow wave. Like tiny little fireflies rushing into the darkness. Every now and then a shooting star whooshes overhead, ending millions of years of interstellar travel with a beautiful blaze of light in the Pacific sky. Everything seems magically in time with the music as I wobble and wiggle insignificantly but enthusiastically.

The half moon grows as it nears the horizon, an orange segment on its back, sinking towards the sea. The reflection on the water almost as bright and colourful as a sunset. The backs of waves all the way to the west catch the last flickers of colour – a cold golden – and then the moon is gone, leaving behind the limited, beautiful, monochromatic palette of a tropical night at sea. It’s become a little darker, but not much – now the milky way splashes over the top of the sky, the southern cross at one end and some bright planet at the other. The light at the top of the mast – our own little star – is scratching haphazard patterns in the blackness as the boat plunges and rolls underneath… the ocean using the boat as a pen to write secret messages in the sky above. Or is it just playing “join the dots” with the stars? I jiggle and jive, soaking it all in.

Rafiki joins in with the tunes. Sails go slack and then boom as they fill with wind, like a drum. Each wave brings a squeak and a creak and a whoosh and a fizz – but I can’t hear most of it. Ihe volume is on max, I’m transported to a magic place by the music and motion. Feet planted motionless on the deck – can’t wake the sleeping crew members in the cabin below – I’m still throwing full-body shapes, the boat moving my legs for me. It calls for a lot of improvisation, moving in a way you can’t do ashore … I’m not going to win any points for style but there’s nobody here to watch! Every now and then the boat makes a big roll and I take a break from waving my hands in the air like I just don’t care to grab something solid, so I don’t end up in a heap on the floor. The movement of my muscles and joints feels so good after days of relative inactivity aboard.

The watch goes too fast, it’s past 3am, and soon Dave is moving around below, preparing for his stint. I was hoping he’d stay asleep and I could keep going for a while. But I need the rest so reluctantly say goodbye to my cosmic dance floor, hand over the watch and head below.

“No change in the wind, no clouds, no rain, the moon went down, not much else to report. All well. Have a good watch!”

“Thanks. Have a good sleep!”