Australian B.O.M in our instance much more accurate than French B.O.M.
The new owner of our beloved craft worked for the French version, and kept in contact via Sat
phone.
I wanted to beat out of
Brisbane into a S/E and free off after 24 hrs onto a reach to New
Cal as it seems the closer to New
Cal you get, the more East the
wind goes and this is what the rest of the world seems to do.
About 200 N/M out we get the call to go North as fast as we can to avoid a low forming.
Brisbane BOM had told me that this showed up on the French
weather model before we left, but they did'nt use it as they felt it was not going to happen.
So of we toddle, into the land of fickkle
wind and eventual wind on the nose from the N/E. After 3 days of this I could'nt take his call's anymore and left that to someone else.
Apparently the low did'nt form,[ no s..t] , and now we were about 60 miles of the bottom of Bellona Banks and Chesterfield reef, with no
charts for the area as we were supposed to be a couple of hundred miles further south in clear
water.
Would have loved to go over for a look as now there was glassy calm and I gathered there were plenty of cray's being so far
offshore, but wiggle ,wiggle now heading south again towards Noumea at an incredibly slow speed ETA six mths time.
Motor for a while, only carry 60L so don't get to carried away. Stop and have a swim in 4000meters of
water.
Day 7, we would have been in Noumea 2+ days ago on my
route , and now it's time for a bit of northerly yeehah, zipping along in fairly flat water doing low teens for abot 5 hrs and then fun over and start bashing into increasing E S/E wind for another few hours. When it got to about 30 kn, and we down to double reefed main and an absolute blade, not quite
storm jib, we thought about the tripple reef but I thought it was only going to get worse , so put out the parachte
anchor.
Oh baby, these things are great, we rented[new owner paid] a demo model from Para anchors
Australia. Best thing ever, it was like being in a not so comfortable anchorage for the night. We Got the call to expect a 50
knot front to come through. Well they got 1 right.
Mid way through next day we headed off again feeling well rested, even jammed a couple of pre dinner rumbo's down while on
deck surveying the scene the night before. Wind about 12 knots from exactly where we were going. We could pick up New Caledonian
Radio Stations and the next dawn we sailed in towards land, but of course did'nt have chart's to get into the
lagoon 100 N/M north of Dunbier
Passage, so were taunted by the view for the rest of the day with ever decreasing wind and eventually none, so stay 10N/M off reef edge and
motor at 1/3 revs and arrived at entrance in morning and cleared in in time for lunch at the CLub Nautique at Port Mosselle.
We had agreed with the owner that we had our girl for another month while there, so loaded up and headed out again, but that's another story.
Dave
pic from top of Amadee light house
East Coast Australia to New Caledonia
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