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Black Panther's excellent adventure


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I promised Matt a run down of the Fiji trip.

 

There were a number of goals

1)     A mental health break for the skipper. This has turned out to be highly successful until about four hours after I returned to work.

2)     A family get together. My family all live out of NZ and they flew to Fiji to spend 10 days with us. Had a ball and promised to do it again in 18 months or so.

3)     A holiday with my wife. Angela uses a lot of her allotted time off to visit her family in Fl and the Caribbean which means we don’t get as many holidays together as we would like. After the family left she stayed on for a couple of weeks and we had a wee honeymoon. You are not getting any more details on that.

4)     A test run for the boat. This was pretty successful too. I have a work list of about ten items, plus a few changes I wish to make. Freeedom (who sailed back with me) said he gets a bigger work list doing the Coastal. Only real failure was the autopilot motor which, as per Sod’s law, died the first night out after 20 years of faithful service.

 

The trip up was good. Had Sthn Jeff and Dambo along (to help with the steering!!!) Waited at Marsden Cove for a blow to pass through (during which time the crew were entertained by "cards agsainst humanity") then took off on a 25 kn Southerly. It slowly went SE then E, We didn’t tack or gybe till less than a mile from the reef. Good food, good company and a full moon.

As we weren’t “adventuring” spent most of our time in Fiji around Lautoka as a base, Musket Cove and the Yasawas. Overall loved Fiji, a great cruising destination. We found the Fijian people we met delightful, and that is what makes or breaks any destination. A lot more “short timers” out these days but I suspect they would thin out as we got further off the beaten track. And the boats are soooo much bigger than they used to be.

The pineapples were superb.

I described the trip back as driving home on a wet Sunday night after a long weekend. Had Freeedom and a mate from work along but the weather decidedly average, being on the wind a lot and sloppy sea state. We learned that slowing down to 7kn or so made life a lot easier.

I’ll look for some photos.

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The joy of waterline. The boat is pretty comfortable reaching up to about 11kn. Upwind we can push it over 8, but I have an internal stress meeasurement, if i can't go below and sleep comfortably we are going too fast.

We were exactly 7 days getting up there with a (very) dirty bottom and a couple of days of doodling along in light airs. Coming back took about 18 hours longer but wasn't nearly as pleasant.

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I feel like I should put a post in here too.

David kindly took me on as crew despite my never sailing out of sight of land before - I've been seeking this adventure for many years - what an opportunity!

Good company and boat went a long way given I discovered that while I could happily (sometimes confusedly and a little too keen) complete my watches steering the old girl, I struggled with my cooking duties  :oops: aaaaand I did get a bit over it by the second to last day... however, in hindsight, I now know and could be a bit more,... mentally prepared? I'd definitely do it again  :thumbup:

Losing the Autopilot on the first night was a bit of a bugger as we did have some rolly seas that meant only about two days of really easy relaxed sailing, including playing with the trim until I had her sailing hands free (always wanted to play on a big schooner like that - soooo cool!)  I also had the opportunity to surf the old girl on one big wave at about 0200hrs - that was memorable!  :wtf:

I loved what I saw of Fiji - warm, clear water, white sand, friendly people - especially away from the touristy places - AMAZING pineapples... :razz:

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Sailing into Marden Cove - David complained about water on the windscreen - most ungentlemanly business  ;-)

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Leaving NZ - via the Poor Knights

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Blue seas 

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This little fella didn't make it.

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We went for a walk and enjoyed watching the development of the waterfront around Lautoka - It's still commercial/port/industry but they're trying.

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As to why there's a computer on this man's desk we'll never know.  Maybe for playing minesweeper... This was a sneaky shot taken after David and I walked back and forth across the city attempting to follow crudely drawn maps directing us to an office that didn't exist.  We eventually found the correct office mid afternoon, only to be told that the cruising permit (allowing BP to be sailed throughout Fiji) would take 3 weeks because the piece of paper would go into the ring-binder which would be posted to Suva at the end of the week where it would be processed, then the permission slip would be posted back to Lautoka... after some discussion he agreed to FAX (wow!) the request to Suva and then EMAIL (WOW!) David to confirm.  He then told us to just go sailing...  :roll:  :razz:

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Beautiful sunsets, even in a port city.

 

Overall - the big old plywood skeg proved her worth - fantastic boat - Thank you for the opportunity to sail with you David - I'm definitely keen on more adventures  :thumbup:

 

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And I ate and drank all I could and still lost over 4 kg

 Me Too - but I lost 10 kg on the "Fijian Sailing Holiday Diet Program"

 

I think the results were so successful due to me selecting the "food poisoning with your fish" option at the restaurant on the last night in Fiji, resulted in a 8 day "super detox" of no food!

 

Thanks to David for the great trip and entertaining stories! 

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Took the AP motor off and had a guy in Lautoka fix it. I told him I wanted it perfect. Unfortunately he glued the loose magnet back in, biut nothing else. It worked for a while then the other magnet broke loose, so it is still grinding away and sucking amps. Current plan is buy a new one and install it, then recondition this one as a spare.

 

There were three /four separate nav systems on board. I had open cpn on th elaptop and recorded a nnon postion every day on that. But during the day I have to confess I just looked at my phone. Used Mariner mx all the way up then Navionics in Fiji as their charts were better. Plus I had my sextant on board.

 

No Cat 1 as I am still registered in Vanuatu. But need to resolve that before the next one. At the moment I would prefer offshore again, but since Vanuatu has closed up shop I can't "unregister", so no one else will register me. A conundrum to address next year. I was only short of Cat 1 in a couple of places - flares expired a week before I left, no dedicated drogue (but I will get one one day), in the past I have fabricated one from what was on board and it worked.  No stability calcs but FFS!!!!! it 19m long, 3.3m wide and has 40% of its weight in a bulb 2.2 m under the boat. I'm not worried.

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