We ended up making a rather abrupt decision to depart Funafuti. There was a low-pressure system coming that would pass to the south of Funafuti, and although the forecast changed from day to day, it was looking like Funafuti was going to see somewhere between 30-50 kts. The worst part about the forecast is that the winds would come from the W or NW, which would make the anchorage at Fongafale totally untenable. There were potential places to anchor on the other side of the lagoon, but without first-hand knowledge of the anchorages we decided perhaps it would be better to just leave. We decided to head all the way up to the atoll of Nanumea, which had two things going for it with respect to this low pressure system: 1) it was north, and the further north you could get, the less severe the winds would be, and 2) it is a very small lagoon, so we would have decent protection even from W or NW winds.
A quick VHF call with True Blue V revealed that we were on the same page, and we both quickly cleared out on a Friday and were out the northern pass of Funafuti by dusk.
Unfortunately, heading directly to Nanumea meant we would have to skip over Nukufetau, but weather was, is, and always will be, the boss of us while we are out here living on a sailboat.
However, while the weather forecast was telling us to get the hell out of Funafuti, it wasn’t willing to give us good passage weather to get anywhere, and we knew we would have to motor a fair bit to get to Nanumea. And we did end up motoring. A lot. At one point during a long daytime calm spell we stopped the boat and the boys got in and cleaned the hulls in order to improve our speed through the water and therefore improve our MPG. We actually calculated a 31% improvement. Not bad!
But that didn’t mean it was an easy passage, because intermittently there was sailing wind, and then were lots of squalls with crazy wind directions, and then there were periods where we were becalmed. Furl the genoa… unfurl the genoa…port tack… starboard tack… Even though it wasn’t horrible or uncomfortable sailing, it was pretty trying. Long gone are the days when we can just set the sails and forget about them.
Our last day was particularly frustrating in that the wind picked up strong directly from the direction we wanted to go. This was totally unforecast, and if it had persisted much longer than it did, we would have had a hard time getting to Nanumea. I was tacking back and forth, hoping it was just a squall and that it would end soon, and at one point my velocity vector in the direction of Nanumea was actually negative. After several hours, we found out it was just a squall, and we were able to point to our target. However, that night there was a serious lightening show to the SW; it was so bright it would light up the cockpit. True Blue V was north of us, and they worried that we were caught in it, but it was still very much to the south of us. It was that low pressure moving in from the west. It was a beautiful show that kept me fully awake during my last night watch of the passage.
(The low-pressure system that created the lightening for us on passage did eventually give us some wind too. We were safely tucked away in the lagoon at Nanumea and didn’t see much more than 25 kts and most of that was gusty rather than sustained. The rest of the boats in the Northbound Fleet that stayed in Funafuti saw as much as 50 kts. They all found places to anchor on the west side of the lagoon, and they all came through with just a little bit of drama, but we were happy with our decision to head to Nanumea. Ultimately, that low pressure turned into Cyclone Tuni, the first named cyclone of the season.)
Gresham Family Exodus 