Sailing the South Pacific
- Thread starter TheDragon
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TheDragon
Super Anarchist
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- #143
This season has come to an end after this amazing month in Fiji, mostly in the Tau Group. I count 19 anchorages in 30 days, ending with a shark dive near Beqa Island. I have paid to keep my boat in the water in the cyclone basin at Vuda Marina in Fiji, taking the advice of several here not to sail to New Zealand simply to leave my boat there for the cyclone season. Cost is around $3k. I have also replaced all the bottom swages with long-stud Sta-Loks, fantastic technology. And just in case my and the local rigger's judgement that the wires and top swages are fine is wrong, I have installed backup dyneema for the forestay, backstay, and upper shrouds, and a combination of stout sheets and racheting tide-down straps for the inner or lower shrouds. The only downsides I see to leaving the boat in Fiji is 6 months sitting in the tropics (I will have a local couple of sailors checking the boat once a month), and the need to sail upwind to get back to Tonga next season as it was closed when I came through (now open). I will use that opportunity to get to Minerva Reef which I hate to miss. See you all in six months.
Rasputin22
Rasputin22
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Those are known as 'half-jacks'.
Kenny Dumas
Non Binary About Anything
Vuda Marina looks like a good operation
TheDragon
Super Anarchist
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- #146
It is, Kenny. Sea Change is now all alone for six months, fourth boat clockwise from the travel lift ramp in the oval. She has an old catamaran on her left and the large ketch on her right will be turned around tomorrow. Our masts will be suitably offset from each other. The yellow lines have chain to the shore and will be the primary stern lines if a cyclone threatens. The grey are regular mooring lines that are primary now but will then become secondary.
TheDragon
Super Anarchist
- Thread starter
- #147
On some other threads like "Chasing Elegua" some have wished more of us posting on SA would post blogs or vlogs. Well, I have posted seven YouTube videos from my trip. Very amateurish and all with an iPhone so lots of wind noise, but I hope not too terrible. I am not trying to be a YouTuber and the channel will now lie dormant till this time next year. Just putting these together brought back lots of memories, so they will serve me well in that way in my old age! Sadly I now have rotator cuff surgery scheduled on my left shoulder, so this season will be cut short.
TheDragon
Super Anarchist
- Thread starter
- #148
Just got these photos of Sea Change from the kind Aussie sailor who is periodically checking in on her. The grey lines are regular mooring lines while the yellow ones are newer lines linked to chain across a concrete path to secure points on shore. In the second pic, with the catamaran that was next to me gone, you can see the anchor chain that is connected to the huge metal ring buried in the middle of this cyclone hole at Vuda Point Marina in Fiji. Each few days I run Windy 10 days ahead and so far the three cyclones in the South Pacific have been well west of Fiji, but the season is not over yet.
TheDragon
Super Anarchist
- Thread starter
- #150
Today, April 1, marks the first anniversary of my slipping the lines in La Playita marina on the Pacific side of Panama and heading off alone on the biggest adventure of my life at 66 years old. Except it was a Friday last year. I now spend most of my time in a recliner watching far too much TV and YT as I nurse my left shoulder 2.5 weeks after rotator cuff surgery. Sometimes it all seems like a distant dream. I hope to return to Sea Change in Fiji at the end of July, however my right shoulder took six months of rehabilitation from equivalent surgery back in 2021, so who knows. The perils of putting off ocean sailing till retirement in ones mid-60s.
Russell Brown
Super Anarchist
Very happy for you that you got to sail across the Pacific and have more cruising ahead of you. I dream of doing it again, but it's not likely.
Just reading a story called "Deep Water and Shoal" by W.A. Robinson, where he does that trip, but almost 100 years ago. I think it's a very hard-to-find book, but what a read!
Just reading a story called "Deep Water and Shoal" by W.A. Robinson, where he does that trip, but almost 100 years ago. I think it's a very hard-to-find book, but what a read!
MaxDog
Member
I hope that you recover quickly. If you make it, we may cross paths, as I plan to be cruising Fiji the first part of July.
Startracker
Member
9$ on Amazon for the ebook.
Saw this one and thought some folks in this thread might find it interesting: https://archive.org/details/10000Le...Robinson/page/n9/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater
can get it loaned from the internet archive ebook library.
Russell Brown
Super Anarchist
Another absolute favorite from that era, but maybe even harder to find is "South Sea Vagabonds" by Johnnie Wray. I think it was published in NZ and I found my ratty paperback there, but it has now gone to book heaven and I want to read it again.
Fah Kiew Tu
Curmudgeon, First Rank
They did a reprint in hard cover some years back. I bought one at one of the boat shows pre-covid. So there should be copies out there.
Agree it's a good read.
FKT
Jud - s/v Sputnik
Super Anarchist
Russell Brown
Super Anarchist
Just bought that copy. I love good books.
