DAY 4: 30 June
Not a breath of wind, but I’m feeling a little better at last and have managed to sleep well for the first time in days. I’m once again interested in my surroundings; in whether there’s wind or no wind, and in checking Guppy’s speed. It’s as though the past few days never happened. It’s all so hazy; as if time stood still. But I’m back in business. My crossing is going fairly well and I expect to be on my way for about another eight days. I really love being on my own sometimes, and enjoy sailing long distances more and more. Although I don’t exactly know where to yet. I first wanted to sail to Niue, which is about another 700 miles, but I’m now seriously considering sailing on to Tonga, which is 200 miles further on. I’ll have reached the halfway mark at Tonga and that will be a fantastic milestone for me. But what if it stays calm? Guppy doesn’t have enough diesel to motor the whole trip, and I’ve had enough of hearing it drone on. Maybe I’m worrying for nothing . . .
I feel some wind when I go up on deck. At last! I immediately set the big coloured code zero, but a little later it just hangs listlessly again. There’s a squall in the distance and I wonder whether I should take down the code zero. I decide to leave it where it is. The squall approaches fast and suddenly there’s wind. Shit — this is no good, and a sure sign of much more wind to come. I immediately start pulling the sock down over the code zero, but I’m too slow and the squall overtakes me in a matter of seconds. The rain pelts down and the wind sweeps the deck with storm velocity. The sock slides to the top and the code zero unfurls with a snap. Guppy heels over sharply and her gunnels and portholes are submerged. She begs me to take down the enormous, wind-filled sail. I’m battling with the wildly flapping code zero, but am winning, bit by bit. Guppy rights herself and I stuff the saltwater-soaked code zero down the front hatch. The wind drops again after the squall, and I think I’m going to go nuts. I beg for some wind and my prayers are answered immediately. I now have wind, but for how long?
Towards evening the sunset that slowly changes the sky from orange to purple makes up for everything. My wish for no more annoying swells on this crossing isn’t fulfilled, however, and Guppy is rolling over a long, waxing swell. It’s not that bad so long as the sails don’t start to flap and there’s enough wind.
DAY 5: 1 July
The wind is swinging and falls away only to come back a little later. The constant battle with the sails, combined with little sleep, have put me in a bad mood. Fortunately I’m on my own so no one needs to suffer. Towards the end of the night there are more squalls that continue for the rest of the day. And then, suddenly, there’s a very heavy squall of more than 45 knots which I notice too late, and once again it’s a battle with the code zero . . . I’m struggling to get down the flapping sail again, but manage to get it inside in one piece. Now there’s a constant wind of about 15 knots, which means that Guppy’s speed is running at up to 6.5 knots.
I’ve started a new book, The Girl Who Played with Fire, one of the Millennium Trilogy series, and am now in a different world. I’m slowly coming into contact with a group of yachts on the SSB radio. All the yachts are travelling in more or less the same direction. I left most of my sailing mates behind after leaving Hiva Oa, and have constantly had to make new friends and leave them again since then.
It seems like there are two yachts on their way to Tonga with the same travel plans. All the more reason to go straight to Tonga and meet them in person. I text Dad via the satellite phone, and he responds cheerfully by telling me about his day. Kim is staying with him, together with a friend, and there’s a weekend party at the yacht club. They’ve all been sailing, and they’re now on Dad’s boat having fun as usual, which makes me feel a little lonely. But reading Dad’s cheerful texts also perks me up. He’s done so much for me that I sometimes feel bad leaving him alone with Spot while I sail happily around the world; even though my life’s not always a bed of roses.
Guppy enters the night on a long, big, southerly swell with a 20-knot wind from the south. Super sailing weather with a steady speed of 6 to 7 knots.
DAY 6: 2 July
There’s still some wind, but it continues to play games with Guppy. This keeps me busy, constantly changing the sails and adjusting the course. As soon as I’ve got the sails set right, the wind drops, with the result that Guppy starts to roll and the sails start to flap. The rolling causes a lot of wear and tear, and I’m having to fix some tape around the sheet that runs through the spinnaker boom again to prevent it from fraying, as well as using tape on the sails that are slapping against the rigging. But that’s sailing!
Up until now, this crossing hasn’t been the fastest. Nor have I seen another boat or even a flying fish so far. The day has flown past and I’ve finished the close-on 300-page book about the woman who played with fire. I’ve now started the last of the Millennium Series, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.
I’m not the only one who’s becalmed and am grateful to be sailing at all. This is what I discover from the conversations with a number of yachts on the SSB. ‘I think I’ll be here forever and slowly get cooked, sigh,’ says one. We give each other some encouragement and float on. The closest boat, Henk’s Sogno d’Oro, appears to be 140 miles ahead of me. I continue to chat with Henk, who’s also on his way to Tonga and plans to sail around South Africa in his small 26-footer, just like me. He’s used up nearly all his diesel and hopes to have just enough to enter the harbour in a while. When the conversation dries up, I switch off the radio. Peace . . . quiet . . . I’m on my own again.
DAY 7: 3 July
I wake up from the splash of a bow wave and fly up on deck. WIND! Yes — wind at last! It’s an easterly wind of about 20 knots and has Guppy racing at about 7 knots. I don’t make much progress through the third part of the Millennium Series today. I’ve been reading too much and am tired of print, anyway, so I spend my free time either chatting on the SSB or making tasty food. In the meantime I occupy myself with the sails and the course to make Guppy go as fast as possible.
Gup and I have definitely decided to give Niue a miss and head straight for Tonga. Other sailors on the SSB who’ve been there before say that the anchorage is very rough, and in Tonga it appears that you are in a lovely, quiet bay and not in the open sea. It sounds lovely, and I’m also dying to see the dateline from close up at last. I’ve planned my route to bring me close to the Palmerston atoll so that I can catch a glimpse of it, but it starts to get dark before I reach it, and the only thing I see is a light in the far-off distance. And I’ve managed to spoil a good night’s rest as I won’t be able to shut my eyes this close to the reefs . . . Guppy is no longer sailing that fast. In fact, she could have been 100 miles further if I’d taken the trouble to get rid of all the growth on her hull when I was in Bora Bora.
From Tonga, I’d rather have sailed straight on to the land of my birth, New Zealand. It’s so close, yet so far. If they’d let me leave at the age of 13, I could have taken it in my stride, but I now have to skip it due to time constraints. I still want to try to be the youngest person to have sailed solo around the world.
DAY 8: 4 July
I’d like to give the wind a good kick in the butt if I could. It’s playing games with me, and I can only make the best of it and try to make some progress. I wake up in the middle of the night and Guppy is sailing too much to the south. The wind has swung to the north, which is good. I switch on the deck lights when I go outside as I need to take the spinnaker boom off the genoa. I try to open the boom eye but it doesn’t work. Under the dim lights, it takes me a while to figure out what’s wrong. The spinnaker boom is entirely stuck to the sheet with the tape that I’d used to prevent it from fraying any further. I try to cut away as much of the tape as I can while I’m hanging overboard and being tossed every which way. I finally manage to release the boom using a winch. In the course of the night the wind backs further and further to the west until Guppy is close-hauled and I’m unable to hold my rhumb line.
Towards morning,
I’m still sailing close to the wind and doing 6.5 knots in a strong 25-knot wind, making Guppy plunge like a submarine more than anything else! Massive waves engulf us at regular intervals, but she just shakes them off every time and carries on regardless. When I go below to look for something dry to wear, I notice that my entire cupboard is soaked in saltwater. Great, that’s going to mean a load of washing later on.
Guppy is forced to sail further and further south, which means that I’m unable to get past Niue; even worse, I’m making straight for it. I spend the whole day staring at my compass and adjusting my course. Just when I think I’m going to go crazy and be forced to drop off to sail below Niue, the wind slowly swings back. I’m still close-hauled, but I’m gradually able to get back to the correct course, and by sunset Guppy passes 5 miles to the north of Niue. Sogno d’Oro lies just 55 miles ahead of me and we’ve started to fantasise, over the SSB, about the hamburgers and cold milkshakes that we’ll be enjoying after we anchor our boats in a couple of days.
DAY 9: 5 July
Guppy continues to sail close-hauled, rolling up and down like a rocking horse, but the wind eases off towards midnight, keeping it nice and constant, which means that I finally get some sleep and wake up feeling reborn. Guppy and I are making progress; Niue now lies far behind and I only have another 240 miles to go to reach Tonga. Wonderful! I make something to eat and switch on the SSB. I hear that Sogno d’Oro lies only 20 miles ahead of me and Guppy is gaining on her. We decide to maintain VHF contact from this point on. In the afternoon, the wind drops slowly and I start the Yanmar. Sogno d’Oro continues to bob about to save her diesel, and by 17.00 I catch sight of the little 26-foot Midget.
We drift peacefully while Henk, who’s an elderly guy, plays the accordion in a very laidback way. I try to throw over to him the bar of chocolate that I’d promised him days ago, but it bounces off the deck and is sacrificed to Neptune. Henk wants to throw over a tin of food that he wants my opinion on. Taking care that the two yachts don’t get too close in the ever-present swell, I balance on the aft deck and manage to catch the tin. Before nightfall, we put more distance between our boats, and, after a fat squall with much wind and rain, the slower Midget’s little light has disappeared from sight.
DAY 10: 6 July
I’ve been underway for exactly 11 months and it feels fantastic. I’m sleeping well again, and the wind is doing exactly what I want it to do for a change. I can even sit outside decently this morning without having to swallow saltwater. Despite the headwind, Guppy is sailing well and has made a fair average distance for the day. It looks like I’ll arrive in Tonga the day after tomorrow, where I’ll have reached the exact halfway mark of my voyage! I plan to stay no more than a week and then continue to Fiji. With a bit of luck, I should be able to complete my voyage by February next year. I haven’t really stopped to think about having covered all this distance. I always tend to look forward rather than back, but it’s a strange thought that only a year ago I’d been involved in one court session after another. I’d had no idea nor even a spark of hope that I would ever get away and be sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But I finally found a judge with sense — and here I am!
Sogno d’Oro now lies 20 miles behind me. Guppy will have to sail a constant 7 knots to reach Tonga by daylight. I don’t want to arrive in the dark, and, seeing that it’s impossible to hold the speed up to 7 knots in this wind, I lower the mizzen and mainsail and sail on only the genoa. Guppy slows down to 4 knots, but that’s still too fast. If I continue like this, I’ll arrive in the dark anyway.
DAY 11: 8 July
This is a weird day. In the space of one second, I skip a whole day to find myself in 8 July. I try to figure out exactly where the dotted International Dateline runs, and, according to my calculations, I am sailing across it right now. There’s a good wind blowing, just when I don’t really need it because Guppy is going too fast! It’s only another 35 miles, but I definitely don’t want to reach Tonga in the dark with all its reefs. Guppy is now sailing with only a half-furled genoa and is still running at 3.5 knots. A tsunami warning has been issued for the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Tonga. I don’t think it’s going to give me any trouble and think it will have passed by the time I’m amongst the reefs. Tsunamis build up in shallow water and the depth under Guppy is 3.5 kilometres. I hope to get some sleep tonight and be nearing my new destination in the morning.
DAY 12: 9 July
I don’t really manage to sleep. By midnight, Guppy is much too close to land and I need to be alert. I roll in the genoa some more until Guppy is running at 2.5 knots. That’s perfect and ensures that I will get there exactly when daylight breaks.
By the end of the night, Sogno d’Oro, which has been sailing under full sail, also comes into sight. We wait for the first signs of daylight, then sail past all the little islands and rocks. The rising sun spreads its warm light over the morning mists that shroud the islands. The palm tops raise their heads proudly above the rest of the vegetation in the distance, while Guppy makes her way through a maze of little islands on an azure blue sea. Tonga, here we are! We tie the boats to moorings in Vava’u, and then it’s time to clear Customs. But before I do so, I spend a moment in the cockpit to enjoy one of the most beautiful approaches I’ve ever experienced.
Tonga
Quarantine, Immigration, Customs . . . Once again they’re not close together or easy to find. With the exception of the Customs official, they’re fortunately all very friendly. All in all it takes me most of the day to fill in forms and collect stamps, but I’ve got plenty of time anyway.
In the afternoon I enjoy a cold Coke on the terrace of a restaurant while gazing with satisfaction at Guppy lying peacefully at anchor amongst other yachts in the distance. Time for a break after a tiring voyage. Strangely enough, I’m not that tired even though I haven’t slept all night.
Tonga is really beautiful. In the evening, I have a hamburger at the same outdoor restaurant and enjoy the setting sun and the beauty around me. These people are just as friendly and generous as those on the other Pacific islands I’ve been to, and I’m already enjoying myself. They drive on the left-hand side and speak English — a luxury after the French-speaking islands. I even have to get used to the fact that they understand me and I don’t need to decipher any French anymore.
I have breakfast with Henk at the Aquarium the next morning; the restaurant with the view over the anchorage where I’d eaten yesterday. It turns out to be the sailors’ hangout. We gobble up our breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes. Yum — I really needed that! Afterwards, Henk comes back to Guppy with me. My SSB radio has been playing up, and today gave up the ghost altogether. After turning the whole boat upside-down and working on it the entire day, we come to the conclusion that it must be the electronics and not that easy to fix. We try changing the fuse once again, but it blows instantly. So I’ve basically spent the whole day discovering something I didn’t want to know. I now have no SSB with which to contact other sailors — sometimes 10,000 miles away — nor can I send and receive my email. Argh! That big black box has come to mean a lot to me. This is a sad day in the life of a young solo sailor . . .
Having turned Guppy upside-down in the process, I have discovered things I’d forgotten even existed. In the aft cabin, which I emptied to get to the transmitter, I found the big dinghy. I put it together again and attach my outboard motor to it so that I no longer have to paddle everywhere.
I try to resuscitate the SSB a few more times with Henk’s help, as he has the exact same model, but we don’t succeed. I’ll have to wait until I reach Darwin to get a new one. I give up on it and decide to explore the bay in the dinghy. I once again forget to take my shoes along . . . and as soon as I get to shore, I pay for my carelessness. Oh no, not another foot injury!
It rains a lot, especially in the mornings and evenings, and today there’s even a bit of a storm, but it’s all good for my water supplies.
Ever since I mentioned my broken
SSB radio on my website, I’ve had a lot of concerned and helpful emails from radio hams around the world, but despite all the good advice I still can’t get it to work.
I planned to scrub the hull today, but it’s still overcast and raining, so I decide to wait until the sun comes out. Swimming is for sunny days, and, because I’m so used to the heat now, a water temperature of 28 degrees is a little cool for me. Instead, I dive into the engine room to check the engines, filters, water, oil and electrics, and look for any leaks. Everything seems OK, except for the Yanmar which continues to use too much oil. This is in contrast to the Volvo engine, which never gives me any trouble. I also remove a dead cockroach from the bilge and throw it overboard before it gets stuck in the bilge pump again. I think the pesticide I used earlier has done its work, because I haven’t come across a live specimen for months.
It’s been raining all day and I decide to collect some freshwater using an old sail I found while tidying up. I’ve just got the sail ready and have caught half a bucket of water when it stops raining, of course. Well, five litres of freshwater is better than nothing!
The anchorage, which is surrounded by palm trees and lots of vegetation, is beautiful, but as soon as the wind drops it changes into a mosquito paradise and you can forget about sleeping. I’m not the only victim, and I hear a lot of muttering about this nuisance coming from the boats around me.
One Girl One Dream Page 22
