By the time Rowan brought me tea at 6:30am, he had checked the weather and routes, plus Met Nob’s reassurance that we could do it – we were off! We got Sporty Spice (code zero sail) back up as we may need her, we had taken her down for the big blow last night. I thought it was a pretty good night in the end, but Rowan assures me the wind really got up at one point. We were nicely tucked in, in our latest anchor spot which we really appreciated even if it did take us 3 hours to hit the exact spot!
We were off by 7am, thankfully the anchor came up like a dream and we were soon wiggling our way around the island avoiding coral heads to get to the pass out of the atoll. We were thrilled to be escorted out by a mother and baby hump back whales who passed us about 5ms away. Harry the caretaker had told us about them, she gave birth to the baby at the beginning of the season. We felt it was a fitting farewell as they turned around and followed us out to the pass. It was a little worrying leaving all 3 boats behind who have all opted to sit out at least a week of big weather. What an eclectic bunch they are, I’m pretty much betting they all don’t leave their cabins. Fingers crossed we have made the right decision!
Once we were out in the sea and in the lee of the island we got the main sail up with two reefs just to be cautious, as it looked and felt bumpy. At this stage we saw another hump back, but had to focus on getting the sails up. We were soon off with a much reduced sail doing over 9 knots in big waves, and wind in the mid 20’s. Once out of the lee of Suwarrow the waves got huge and the wind peaked at just over 30 knots. It was quite a ride to say the least! At least all forecasts predicted it to ease up by 4pm which it did, both wind and waves. We reckon the waves got over 4ms, they seemed to tower over us at the back, the tops just breaking with an icy light blue colour.
Up until 4pm we had an average speed over ground of 9.4 knots which was pretty impressive. The surfing down the waves getting us up to 13 knots and then a much slower climb up the other side. Thankfully the waves and wind calmed down, as I write this on my 3am shift in the pitch dark, we are now down to an average speed of 8.7 knots. Predict wind said we would do 9 knots average today, that is pretty accurate in these conditions.
A big day for Rowan as NakedWines results were released to the media today, he knew they were going to be a bit tricky. But all things considered it went ok, and he only had a few calls to attend to.
Thankfully the miles are slipping by. We’ve made great contact with Monty and Marina (Hannah’s friends) in Samoa, and the marina has space for us, now we just have to get there before the big weather starts midday Friday! As long as we roughly hold our speed we should get in by midnight Thursday/early Friday morning.
Read marker is Suwarrow – we are the blue dot. Just to show you our route across to Samoa then down to Tonga. Niue is out in these weather conditions (which had been our original plan). Samoa is divided into American and Western Samoa, we plan to go to Western Samoa, too much faff to get into an American island, but if we run out of time we will go in there as it is about 50 miles closer for us.
Very hard to capture the size of the waves …. and to hold on while taking a photo, as we scream down the wave
Rowan’s slo-mo of the waves
Sunset at the Nav station. Not a single boat out all day on our radar
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