sv evi

It took us exactly 6 days to sail to North Minerva Reef. The first few days were pretty mellow as far as waves and wind — I was even playing Doppelkopf (a German card game) with the kids down below. I used half a patch of Scopolamine for sea-sickness, and I gave the kids each a pill called “Sea-Legs”. It worked for all of us, as nobody got seasick. The kids did really well on passage! Jade & Luz started making activity books for our friends Sterling & Summer who are coming to visit in June. Tomu read about 5 fantasy novels. All of them were pretty independent, and realized that we had to take care of boat stuff first, before we could attend to their needs.

One night we put the second reef in the mainsail (to reef is to reduce the mainsail area, and you do it in high winds — preferably before the winds get high) just at dusk/dark. I went to sleep, and when I woke up we were smashing through the waves, Riki was hand-steering, and he was like, we need to put the 3rd reef in. So I took over steering and he went up to the mast to put the reef in. It was scary — it was blowing 30 knots, and it’s scary to be at the mast when it’s really blowing and pounding in the waves. We got it in okay.

I think the 3rd or 4th day the autopilot stopped working — it just kept beeping and wasn’t able to hold the course. This meant that when we were motoring, we had to hand-steer. When we were sailing, we could set up the Wind Pilot, the self-steering device that steers at a set angle to the wind, and doesn’t use any power. However the Wind Pilot is finnicky and we are still learning how to set it properly, so sometimes we couldn’t make it work.

Then it was pretty tough because one of us had to be hand-steering, and the other would be sleeping or making food for the kids. I was exhausted by the time we got to Minerva Reef, and couldn’t imagine going for another night! We kept a loose watch schedule, usually I would be on from 6 pm-10 pm or so, then Riki from 10 pm to 3 or 4 am, then me again until he woke up around 7 or 8 am. Then I would go back to bed. I would nap often during the day at some point. On watch I listened to audiobooks and started watching Ted Lasso, if it was a mellow watch. Sometimes I had to hand steer on night watch.

The last night at sea my rice cooker fell into sink and spilled all the rice out while I was cooking dinner. I just picked it up, put it back in the cooker, and added water. Then I held it the rest of the time. It’s hard cooking at sea when you can’t set anything down on the counter, or it will slide around.

It was so nice to have the Starlink, so that we could text family and friends while in the middle of the ocean!

We got to Minerva Reef at 5 pm, and of course the windlass (the machine that puts the anchor chain down & pulls it up) decided not to work, so Riki had to put the anchor down by hand. Nothing like stress until the end! We anchored near our friends Susan & Todd on SV Freya, and they greeted us with welcome shouts. We toasted with juice for kids & vodka tonics for adults, had a sausage stirfry with Mo’s gado gado sauce for dinner, then fell into bed and slept for 12 hours!

In Minerva Alice & Charlotte from SV Renard came over to play with our kiddos, and Susan brought us home-baked delicious peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I cooked meals in the mornings for the next leg of the passage, and we walked on the reef and snorkeled in the afternoons. We saw 2 octopuses! That was my highlight. Also lots of giant clams, a moray eel, lots of sea cucumbers, and cool fish. Our friends on SV Renard caught 10 lobsters! It was so wild to be on a reef in the middle of the ocean. Riki replaced the autopilot with a spare one, and also got the windlass working again.

Four of us boats left Minerva on Saturday, May 11th within 90 minutes of each other, all heading for Savusavu. It was lovely to be in VHF contact for awhile, and to keep track of each other’s positions. We had a ton of wind on this passage, steady 25-30 knots, sometimes 35-6 knots. For most of the time we sailed with just a triple-reefed main and no headsail. It was a broad reach the whole way. Also the waves were pretty big, about 3-4 meters. The autopilot worked like a champ the whole time, and we were so happy but neither of us said anything about it because we didn’t want to jinx it. We did lose one boogie board and Tomu’s surfboard off the back arch. The wind is so powerful. At times I get scared on night watch, when I can’t see anything, and the boat is just surfing down big waves or getting slapped on the hull or pushed sideways. I think about my kids sleeping down below, and I just have to trust that our boat is strong, we have the right sail combination up, and it will all be fine.

On this passage some waves splashed periodically into the cockpit and it rained as we went through squalls, so there weren’t very many safe & dry spots in the cockpit. Jade got doused with a wave, but she was a good sport about it, she actually laughed. Also, the aft head got clogged and Riki had to carry many buckets of poop and poopy water out of the head, up the companionway, to the side of the cockpit and dump them overboard, all while trying not to fall over himself in the rolling boat. Luckily we have 2 heads on board, so we could use the forward head for the rest of the time. It was definitely rougher than the passage from Opua to Minerva Reef, and you really had to be careful walking around or you could get hurt. One night I was taking off my pants to get in bed, and the boat rolled, my head and body rolled back and I smashed my head on the cabinets. Ouch. So insulting, I just wanted to sleep! I cried but no one heard me, and I just went to bed.

We made it to Savusavu at around 3:30 pm. Our friends Taylor, Brad & Rex were on the mooring ball right next to ours, and they were cheering for us as we pulled in. Dolly from the Copra Shed Marina greeted me on the radio & welcomed us back to Savusavu (we lived here for a year with Tomu as an infant on Riki’s old boat SV Guava Jelly in 2014-15). We cleared customs on board, then Brad picked us up in the dinghy and we went out to dinner to celebrate. We were met by Anjana, Siteri and Tema at the dinghy dock, three Fijian friends from 10 years ago. Taylor treated us to a delicious dinner. It’s really special to come back to Savusavu because Riki and I met here, and then had that time with Tomu as an baby here, cruising through a cyclone season.