Three men in a boat; from Opua to New Caledonia to Cairns

It's a year later, been  a varied and tumultuous year in some ways, and Gavin, Blair and Greg are setting off on their adventure from Opua to New Caledonia meeting up with Koel and then, for Gavin and Greg, on to Cairns, basically out of Winter to more temperate climes. I was in Opua for the final dinner, Greg and me at the back of the pic, Gavin and Blair at front, but otherwise wished them well and took off back to Otago where I have been working for the past few months. Quite a divergence in lifestyles at this point. Gavin can take over from now.

‘ANYWAY’ spent many months tethered between piles in the less than idyllic waters of the Marina in Opua, Bay of Islands. Very well sheltered, the marina still suffers from a strong current flowing through on an ebb tide…also carrying the force and debris from the rivers inland and the oyster/mussel farms upstream. Maggie and I had sailed a short distance out into the clearer waters of the Bay a few times when on visits to the boat during the summer, but she still was badly in need of a haulout and antifoul before sailing away again. Despite ‘losing’ the boat for a while in his own boatyard, Robert the painter managed to do a good job just in time for the arrival of Greg Jackson and myself in Opua on May 2^nd. Greg, a glider pilot friend, had sailed with me on a yacht delivery from the Solomon Islands to Darwin three years ago, and has become an avid sailor since that trip. He is newly retired and the sail to Australia was the first of many adventures he has lined up. 

Greg and I fettled the boat for a few days until Blair Wood could get there. Blair is an old friend and survivor of several adventures with me, including cruising and racing on ‘Saltotu’, my previous boat, and also of an expedition to the Morning Glory roll clouds in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

It took ten days for the weather to stop snarling and drizzling at us. We almost got cabin fever and were still in port! Maggie visited just before we got away and we had a great day with our friends Ricco and Marina which ended beautifully with a ukelele session.

We also caught up with Gary and Jess, two friends made many years ago whilst sailing through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. There is, in my experience, a very strong quality to friendships made whilst sailing. Perhaps it’s the adversity factor that further enhances a common interest. It will be interesting for me to see whether this has changed, twenty something years on, because the number and size of boats has certainly changed and my impression is that there are very few ‘doing it tough’ as we both did. Gary and Jess sailed and worked their way around the world one and a half times before settling in Keri Keri.

So we set off, a small boat in a big Ocean

Not tropical yet as we sailed North

The trip to Noumea saw large swells most of the time (3 to 4 metres) from fairly major storms to the south and west of us in the Tasman.




Several yachts were in trouble in that area. For us the winds were mostly strong enough for the sails to counter the swell, just sometimes the motion was unpleasantly rolly. Downwind sailing? I must not be a ‘gentleman’. It sucks. We did have two  interesting days when the (never been seen before) spinnaker was hauled out from under the front bunk. After unravelling the mysteries and apparent complexities of the sock arrangement we hoisted a glorious rainbow!




Very chuffed we were…until the head ring in the sail let go with a loud bang. Blair helmed to stop us running over the rainbow and Greg and I fought the ropes and sock down to the deck. At one stage it did look as if Greg was more likely to fly up off the deck than the mess come down from the sky, but we eventually prevailed with the same number of crew remaining onboard.

We would have missed Greg…I have never seen anyone so determined to produce high quality cuisine in such circumstances! We dined like kings…and made some inroads to the wine cellar that Maggie had sent us off with.

The passage looked as if it was to be a good one, seven days, and we prepared to enter the Boulari Pass at night. New Caledonia claims to be the biggest ‘lagoon’ in the world. The barrier reefs are a long way from the land and the passes looked narrow and tricky to me, so we approached the Amadee lighthouse with some trepidation.  Then Murphy stepped in and created some confusion. The winds had dropped and the engine was running…but the heading and the track became completely different and quite random! After some terse dialogue between navigator and helm it was finally realised that the gears were not engaged! Was this finger trouble or mechanical failure? The Boulari Pass at midnight was not the place to find this out so we ‘hove to’ for the night, waiting for the advantage of daylight. During the night ‘Anyway’ worked herself twelve miles to windward as the winds increased quite dramatically. By morning they were 20kts and gradually built up to 30kts and we found that the course back to the pass was very hard on the wind…would we make it? A satellite phone call to ‘Wendy Windblows’ (Maggie) back in Wanaka produced an odd weather forecast. ‘Something’ was happening with the weather. Maggie phoned the Noumea harbourmaster to try and resolve the contradictions, and found the situation taken out of her hands from then on. The harbourmaster telephoned Maritime Safety and we were visited by a helicopter! They asked if we required assistance and when told that we were OK they assured us that they would help if needed (did we require a rescue boat?)   and would ‘stand by’ on the radio. Very impressive!

But we sailed through the pass, carefully revising our options every few minutes, and then had a soaking salty dash to Port Moselle Marina. Fresh water, still nights, markets, coffee ‘n croissants, and the lovely way that everyone SINGS ‘Bon Jour”! I thanked the Maritime Safety people, a bit apologetic about their involvement, but they were great  and assured me that we should never hesitate to contact them.

Blair and Gavin did do some snorkling before he flew away.

Part Two…change of crew!

Blair left for Australia and Koel arrived the next day. How really lovely to see Koel again, we had been missing each other in our wordly wanderings for almost three years, far too long! Straight out of the marina the next day, snorkelling kit ready for Koel and I and lots of French wine and a silly grin on Gregs face. 

A reasonable sail to Canal Woodin and a good overnight anchorage. Koel and I went ashore to explore an abandoned coconut plantation that still showed signs of habitation. We were met by a huge and jolly local on a quad bike (he was so fat I’m not sure he could walk) who waved his arms in welcome and pointed out the pamplemousse lying on the ground, that he insisted we take back to the boat. They lasted until the approach to Cairns, 1400 miles later!

Then Murphy invoked the weather, again. We abandoned the voyage to the Isle de Pins the next day when the predicted winds turned contrary. Back into the Bay de Prony. This was one of the (many) penal colonies set up by France in the nineteenth century, and in use until the nineteen twenties.



Appropriate…we found ourselves imprisoned with eight other yachts in a very good sheltered anchorage for the next six days, whilst the winds blew out their fury around us. The gusts were enough for two of us to drag anchor and have to re-set, this time with a 60lb CQR and 60 metres of chain. Koel and I did explore the nearby waterfalls and walked into the mining-ravaged and highly eroded landscape. The jungle is coming back but the gullies in the old roads would swallow most cars. The picture shows an old prison being consumed by a fig tree.




We snorkelled at Islot Casey, fair visibility and plenty of coral, a panicked turtle and a shy shark provided interest.



The sole inhabitant of Islot Casey, no humans, just a dog. He badly wanted to be adopted and Koel and I were very tempted. After we left he sat on the pier and howled.

Good fun anyway, and great to share the doing of nothing as well as doing something with Koel. Koel did have an ambition to scuba with Manta rays, and the weather relented enough for us to have a great sail to Amadee island, where we were able to pick up a mooring in the shelter of the reef. Koel joined in with the Amadee dive club for a dive in the pass that had given us so much concern just two weeks earlier. It was the first time that any such activity had happened for a week, because of the (30 to 40 knots) strong winds that we had hidden from.

No Mantas, but a good try! We sailed (Koel on the helm for the whole trip) over smooth waters back to Noumea, probably averaging six knots or better, but Koel did manage 9.4kts on the log one time.

A splendid (Gregory influenced) meal in a traditional French restaurant (snails for Greg!) with Chateau bottled Grand Cru wine for Koels last evening in New Caledonia. She didn’t say much, but must have been thinking of contrasting circumstances, not just her student life in Melbourne but also the poverty and difficulties she has been directly concerned with during her last year in Africa.

I was sad to see her leave.

Part Three….just Greg and me!

We hoped to do the 1400 miles in eight days, but in the end took nine. There were surprisingly strong currents setting against us to the west of New Caledonia  and ‘Anyway’ is still a learning experience for me in terms of downwind handling. So having to run 30 degrees either side of the rhumb line into a current of 1 to 2 knots put a dent in our progress. Nothing deterred Greg in his quest for gastronomic perfection, and all the wines were now French (with corks in!).  After turning west at the top of the Brampton reefs we made good speed, often sustaining 7 to 8 knots for hours on end, until closer to Australia when a trough developed to the north of us and the winds got lighter and lighter. A Booby bird attempted several times to land on the swaying masthead and didn’t give up until it had smashed the wind indicator. The swell threw us about with no wind to counter it. By now we were both fairly ‘over’ this bit of the adventure.

But there’s nothing wrong with a Yanmar when a) Maggie is on the plane and b) Customs may charge overtime at weekends!  So we sailed through the Grafton Passage at dawn on the Friday, and saw Australia through the showers for the first time.

The last surprise of (this bit) of the trip? Upon arriving in the shopping mall they call Cairns (what happened?) we were greeted by friendly and cooperative Quarantine and Immigration and Customs personnel…quite belying the stories so often heard about them from other yachties…..who (in their polite and friendly way) served the boat with a notice of seizure and declared it to be under Customs control and not to be moved from that spot!!