Saturday, November 26, 2016

North Minerva Reef, Tonga

North Minerva Reef

23* 37' S 178* 55' W



0810: Anchor down




This is a bizarre place. You can either go onto Google Earth or mmsn.org and click on the Satelite box after putting in our call sign to view it. I have also included the screen shot.
 There are actually two reefs however the north one has the better entrance and is most often used as a resting place for cruisers.

It is located 399.4 nm south west from Port Maurelle. It appears to lie on a submarine plateau and has a small opening (300 feet) on the north western side. The lagoon is clear of coral except at the edges by the reef, the bottom is sand and showing a light blue when viewed by the satellite. But basically it is a 3 foot diameter circle in the middle of the ocean. To put it into prospective - think of finding a life ring in Lake Superior. Thank goodness for GPS. The reef will not give very much protection from any winds but it does give protection from the seas.

At present there is a one foot chop, the sun is shining and we are about to lay down and get caught up with some sleep.

We got up a couple of hours later, enjoyed a BA scramble and reorganized the boat. Wet gear was put away though really for this passage it was mostly wind gear. We did notice a slight tear in the main so David and I spent a couple of hours repairing that.


TEAM WORK - I sew but David has to pull the needle through the sail material with the pliers.



11-Nov-2016 Remembrance Day - makes me think of Dad. I wonder what he would think about all of this - probably not relaying any of it to me as that was not his way - but probably bragging to the world!

We are comfortably enjoying our morning coffee and watching the flotilla of boats coming in from Tongatapu. We have gone from two boats to twelve!

Some thoughts on this crossing. 

The Radio Nets

We are following three nets as we do this crossing. Gulf Harbor out of New Zealand, Pacific Seafarers out of Hawaii and the Poly-Mag net started by one of our fellow cruisers 12 years ago when they started their circumnavigation. Gulf Harbor (YIT.NZ.co) and Pacific Seafarers (mmsn.org) plot our location on the Internet.

I cannot stress the importance of the Nets to all of the cruisers out there. They provide valuable information with regards to weather and course options - actual as well as predicted. David uses all of this information as well as our own data from GRIB files that we get from our winlink network. GRIB files contain data to predict wind flow, sea-state, wave and other information.

This is important information for us to have access to at this time as two lows are approaching the north end of New Zealand in the next week. If we were to leave now we would have been caught in the middle of them with 12 foot seas and 35-40 knot winds. Knowing this, Confidence, as well as the other boats here have decided to wait it out in relative comfort until next week when the predicted high starts moving in. 

Back to the net - the other benefit of the net is the comraderie that has developed among the cruisers. We are a mini UN with boats from Canada, US, NZ, Australia, GB, France, Germany and Sweden. Some cruisers we never get to meet. Others for a few days here and there. And still others we have become good friends with. Just having someone to talk to can be enough to give support or help someone troubleshooting a problem. Just lets all of us know that we are not alone.

12-Nov-2016. Update from the net this morning has some of the boats that carried on finding themselves heading right into those lows. A few will heave to and slow themselves down. Our numbers are now up to 25 and we will all stay here til Friday or Saturday of next week.

So we are all on diets. Most of us have limited stores, knowing that New Zealand is a stickler about what you can bring into the country. I took inventory and am sure that we have enough food to last us but we will have to ration. No eating a bag of chips in one sitting! No worries - we will still eat well.

We are happy to report that Velic has finally arrived. When you look at the 12 hour delay that we experienced having been forced to sail on a course that put us west of the reef you might appreciate the frustration that they have felt retracing their steps. It has taken them Three days to work their way back! We all gave them a warm welcome, blasting our fog horns to welcome them in! And kudos to them for realizing the potential situation they could be in if they continued. One cannot be too proud to realize that you did not make the best decision and have to regroup!

More examples of the camaraderie that develops. Remember that we are in a very small lagoon in the middle of the Pacific. Jade is a catamaran from GB with two kids on board. Their son Noah has decided to organize a pizza run to collect money for the Kiwi's for Kiwi's organization - a small bird that is becoming extinct. So today 8 kids from 2-10 got together on Jade to make pizza dough. Noah got on the VHF radio and took orders. Then Noah and his mom went around to the boats to collect donations for toppings. The two boys on Enough another Noah and Horatio) came over and they made pizzas - complete with cardboard and tinfoil boxes. They could cook three at a time. Then the boys as well as Noah's sister Ferne got in their dinghy with Dad (Alex) and delivered them! 



 They were asking $10 NZ per pizza. We gave him a twenty. After delivering the last pizza I heard a knock on the hull. They were bringing us back the change! We said to keep it - it was for a good cause - and complemented them on the pizza. It really was excellent! We had salami, lobster, mushrooms, olives, sun dried tomatoes, green peppers, onions and cheese on ours. Who ever thought we would be ordering pizza to be delivered in the middle of the Pacific Ocean!!!



Noah is also the young man who goes to shore and collects and organizes our beach parties. Incredible young man but then we are finding all of these kids are incredible and very mature for their age.

More stories: Sandy was an IT systems analyzer in her past life. She came over in the dinghy and helped David with some of the computer data issues that he has been having. She also gave us a bunch of movies to down load and two 2 micron filters for our secndary fuel filter. It was quite choppy while she was here and the dinghy was hitting against our swim ladder, which we did not notice, was already loose. So we lost the ladder or so we thought. Sandy and her husband Rankin are divers so they came over the next morning and retrieved it for us! Big deal for us as that is how I get back on the boat after swimming!

And today several boats got together figuring out how to refigure the gas tanks on one of the boats as they had the European system and had run out of propane! Just as they were cooking their lobster! More success! 

Everyday their are examples of people helping people out. We met another wonderful couple, Werner and Christina on Wind Dance III. Our dinghy is all packed up so they were kind enough to come and take us for a couple of walks on the reef at low tide. We were also able to do a snorkel at the entrance to the reef with Belvanie and Sandy and Rankin. One shark, lots of convict fish ( yellow striped fish) and some interesting coral formations. The water was a bit cooler than Tonga but still acceptable. For me anyway - everyone else wore wet suits!

Now it is Friday morning and it is time to leave. Our boat is usually a little slower than others so we are heading out a day early. 

Time to leave this beautiful oasis of Minerva Reef.

Pictures of the reef.

Super Moon



Will have to add more photos later.

 

 



2 comments:

  1. Up early and catching up on your blogs from Pta. Mita, grey skys here too! You guys make it sound so easy, and fun! Look forward to your arrival in NZ, thanks for keeping up the posts.

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  2. So great to read your blog. We went by Minerva Reef and took a look but continued on since we had a good weather window to hpget us to NZ. Love your blog. Ramona and Jan on Jatimo

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