After seventeen idyllic days in the tropical lagoon of Maupihaa it felt like it was time to leave. Our provisions were running low and we still had 1,000 miles of ocean before there was a chance of resupply.
Some of our fellow cruisers had been eking out their rations by adeptly hunting giant coconut crabs, dispatching them with a deft blow from a machete and then devouring them with a coconut sauce. The expert foragers had been hunting the lobsters on the reef and cooking them up on a shoreside BBQ with the help of the 4 residents who subsist on this beautiful atoll. The crew of S/V Shimshal are, however, quite squeamish about these things and lessskilled. Even the act of preparing a coconut nearly resulted in lacerated fingers and some very chewy bits of husk. Instead,we continue to count our onions and wish we had paid more attention to all those desert island survival tips
A few of the boats incarcerated with us saw a weather window to escape west and planned to leave on day seventeen. The crux would be the 60’ wide pass that leads out of the lagoonand has a permanent swift flowing current squirting boats into the open ocean to meet their fate. Once in the pass there would be no turning back and vessel could control their speed to dodge a breaker. We knew the surf would be up but, we argued, the swells were coming from the SW and our exit was to the NW. We might just be lucky!
On the 17th day five boats stowed their dinghies, prepared for an ocean passage and raised their anchors. First to lead off was a Californian catamaran sailed by a couple of young surfers – who better to assess surf conditions? Shimshal lingered a little longer to fix a blocked bilge pump in the sail locker and while we procrastinated, I noticed the ever-present roar of the surf now sounded more like a taxiing jumbo jet at close quarters. Eventually the bilge pump was fixed, and Shimshal joined the fleet of the nervous as they headed towards the pass 2 miles away.
As Shimshal departed the anchorage the catamaran paused to reflect on the wisdom of continuing. The next boat in the linewas crewed by an avid diving couple who would look at the waves from a different perspective. Shimshal, the most nervous of them all, remained in last position. Always happy to see how others fared!
Two more boats arrived at the decision point, hesitated and then steered away. Then it was our turn to glimpse the gap between the white posts that marked the narrow pass that led to the open ocean. A large wall of blue water rose up where the pass should be and, a moment later, the crest broke, and our planned route was engulfed in foaming white water.
I like to think that it was age-related wisdom that informed our decision to defer our passage, return to our anchorage, re-count our provisions and tighten our belts. The truth is thatwatching too many YouTubes of yachts crossing angry bars has led to a tendency to catastrophise. Or maybe age has just brought with it a healthy aversion to risk?
The scientists and meteorologists are telling us that the weather patterns in the South Pacific are changing at an unprecedented pace and us cruisers are going to have to learn to adapt, change our timings and, above all, wait for conditions to moderate. We are all aware of the changes brought on by a hotter world and here, on Maupihaa, the evidence of those changes is all too present. The coral is bleached by the over-warm sea, rising sea levels threatened to engulf what little land there is just as last week’s tsunami threatened the same. What’s new is the shifting winds and seasons. In July the band of perennially windy weather at 40 degrees south, known as the Roaring Forties, moved, for the first time north to become the Roaring Thirties.
The new Roaring Thirties are driving the big seas and killing the trade winds. The passage west from French Polynesia to Tonga has long been known as the ‘Difficult Middle’ but what was just ‘difficult’ has now stalled us amateur cruisers for weeks on end.
The time-honoured seasons are also changing. Our New Zealand based weather router has been guiding boats through the Difficult Middle for 20 years and, during that time he has noticed a 6 week change in weather patterns. Thankfully, thisdelay is being recognised by insurance companies who now accept that crossing to New Zealand in November might now be better than the conventional wisdom that asserts that October is the best month. It’s a good thing when hard-nosed financial services industry professionals recognise the reality of climate change and react favourably.
Beyond our cosy atoll climate change is raging and continues to be stoked by a flagrant disregard for science. Facts are dismissed and lobbyists buy their influence whilst cyclones become more powerful and spread their devastation over larger areas. Squalls now have the power to sink monster yachts as happened last year in the Adriatic. Our friends traversing the North West Passage this season have found an Arctic playground devoid of icy obstruction with 70 boats free to roam wherever they wish. One bold lady in her twenties now stands a real chance of becoming the first solo sailor to traverse both the North West and North East Passages in one season. A feat that would have been laughed at just 10 years ago.
As we motored back to the calm of our anchorage a WhatsApp pinged in from Mark, our Scottish neighbour. He sent a video of a friend’s boat on our mooring pitching violently as 90 knot winds struck the Scottish Hebrides. The boat survived but when will the petrol-heads wake up and realise that 90 knot winds in August are not normal? We have to stop this climate denial madness!
Meanwhile, as the world burns, we sit in our tiny anchorage and wait for the seas to settle as another deep low to our south passes. No doubt our pass will open soon, and the trade winds will, one day, waft us on our way towards Niue and Tongabefore we starve or get forced ashore to kill crabs, wrestle with coconuts and hunt lobsters. Our risk aversion has, once again, kept us safe. We are also pleased that our adrenalin loving, surf dude neighbours, thirty years our junior, made the right call when they first glimpsed the pass this morningallowed us to climb down gracefully!
Shimshal and a double rainbow- picture by Anne Clarke, S/V Tourterelles
