The Western Pacific - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 381

Four's Company
It had been a long time since we had a friend aboard for an offshore passage, but we were
happy to offer Danny, the twenty-something son of a fellow cruiser, a ride to New Caledo-
nia. Namani now had a complement of four people. Hot-bunking and an extra plate to wash
after mealtimes were more than worth the fine, fun company and an extra hand. With three
adult crew, we now had the luxury of three-hour watches and a full six hours off, rather
than our usual four hours on, four hours off. The extra rest time was well appreciated be-
cause our familiar companion, the sloppy swell, seemed determined to give Namani a wild
ride.
We knew the first twenty-four hours wouldn't be pretty, but there aren't many nice options
for the trip from Port Vila to southern New Caledonia's Havannah Pass. We decided to take
the best from slim pickings and depart on an ESE wind forecast to go through the east and
then to the north for a short time. The idea was to ride those winds for two days, then sit
out a passing front and contrary winds with a pit stop in the Loyalty Islands. (Unfortu-
nately, it's not possible to clear in to New Caledonia at the Loyalties, so most sailors bypass
the islands or make brief, discrete stops.) Once the headwinds moved on, we hoped to catch
southeast winds on the tail end of the frontal passage for the last one hundred miles. Anoth-
er great plan - on paper.
Of course, we'd learned to plan on the unexpected, so the plan was more of a vague hope,
anyway. And a good thing, too, because things didn't develop quite according to the fore-
cast. We did get twenty-five knot easterlies to blast us out of Vanuatu over the first twenty-
four hours, along with the expected two meter, short period swell from the beam. Namani
banged along on a close reach and endured sneaky below-the-belt punches of the compet-
ing swell lines. Our generally miserable crew hung on to the hope of better things to come
- and if not, well, 300 miles isn't really all that far, not in the grand scheme of things.
Unfortunately, the frontal passage moved more slowly than anticipated, so that northerlies
were still blowing when we hailed the island of Mare in the Loyalties. Without a good an-
chorage to shelter us from the north, we were forced to scrap our pit stop. The catch of a
nice mahi mahi did much to boost crew morale as we pushed straight on for New Caledo-
nia - and straight into the frontal passage. Flaky winds and intense lightning storms marked
the front, making for an electrifying night. Markus called it “intense periods of light punc-
tuated by brief flashes of darkness.” Using the radar, we managed to sneak between the
heaviest storm clusters and got through with nothing worse than jittery nerves.