Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We finally said our goodbyes to all the new friends at Malolo Lai Lai, and early one even-
ing, appropriately Friday the thirteenth, while the sun was still bright in the sky, we gingerly
threaded our way through a complex reef passage towards the open ocean. Just as I thought
we would make it through I felt and heard a crunch, and we were hard aground. Upon in-
spection, we had fetched up on a wide, flat coral head and after some effort managed to
free ourselves.
Visibility by this time was negligible, and I decided to drop anchor for the night, much to
Gavin's disapproval. “I am not going to take any chances here now. We are not out of the
passage yet, and I have never seen this reef, let alone been through it.” It was not often that
we ran aground, and I had been a little rattled by it.
We resumed at first light. I was quite impressed by a set of polarizing sunglasses which
made reef spotting so much easier. Within an hour or so we had the sails hoisted, and we
were sailing away from Fiji, Australia bound! Little did we know that, in a week's time, we
would encounter the worst storm and roughest seas of my entire voyage.
Long foretold, long last,
Short warning, soon past.
Once in every sailor's life, there is a storm that stays with him forever. I recall our narrow
escape off Hangklip in the Cape off the southerly tip of South Africa. That was indeed a
bad one. I had seen a couple since we experienced this particular storm between Fiji and
Australia, even when sailing alone, but never with seas this high before. Never again have
I felt such terror, nor was the boat's motion as violent as in this particular “storm of the
greybeards.”
The first week out of Fiji we enjoyed normal trade wind sailing. I'm sure if I were to refer
to my daily log, I may find mention of some fish we caught, the mild change in weather
as we sailed south, perhaps some navigational problems; nothing really exciting comes to
mind, except of course the storm.
Every day, as part of the daily navigation, I would tune our ancient Yaesu 7 SSB radio into
one of the world's weather stations where they give storm warnings, pressure readings, etc.
The days prior to that storm were just normal sailing days, admittedly the pressure dropped
a little, but there was nothing to cause alarm. The day before the storm broke, however, I
was tapping my barometer, and the needle shot down very significantly. I thought perhaps
the needle was just loose again. I had repaired it some weeks before, where I took some
cotton thread and wound it around the shaft and the hand, as it was loose and would slip
around without much grip on this shaft. The barometer was now reading very low, and I
shrugged it off to the malfunctioning needle.
