Many boats leave Tonga on their way to New Zealand with uncertainty whether they will stop in Minerva or not, because if they have a good window to keep going to New Zealand, they don’t want to miss it. Well, it was a little different for us, and we knew we would be stopping in Minerva regardless of what the window looked like to keep going. It was a destination for us, and we were hoping for lots of tasty fish and lobsters.
The morning of departure it was raining, but the forecast still looked good to get to Minerva, even if the winds would be light. I was up before everyone else to bake biscuits so we would all have something to munch on as we navigated out of the channel. About half the fleet at Big Mama’s was leaving that same morning, some had left the previous night, and some were going to wait a few more days. Leaving when we did was going to mean motoring the last bit to get there, but our strategy was to try to get there while we would still have a couple days of light winds for the diving and spear fishing. The distance was 260 miles, and we hadn’t been on a passage like that in some time, and I was not really looking forward to it.
Here’s a quick summary of the passage:
First 18 hours – fast and furious. Winds 15-22 kts close hauled, boat speed 7-8 kts. We didn’t reef the sails going into the night like we usually do because 1) The weather wasn’t squally and 2) The wind was supposed to die.
Next 12 hours – slow and determined. As expected, the winds died in the night, but mostly we were able to sail, with just a couple dead spots where we ran an engine, also to charge batteries. The seas calmed down and the boat was much more comfortable.
After that – engine up. We finally engined up when we were going only about 1/2 knot. I told Tim there would be mutiny if we actually started to go backwards (we had a 1.5 kt current against us). This was the only time in our journey that I’d seen the open ocean so calm and glassy.
The boys stood night watches for the first time on this passage… Brenden 8-10pm and Alex 10pm-midnight with Tim sleeping in the salon. This made a HUGE difference for me. When we arrived in Minerva I wasn’t as dead tired as I usually am after a multi-night passage.
Gresham Family Exodus 