November 10, 2012
Yesterday, while standing in the cockpit I attempted the incredibly athletic act of gently shifting my weight from one foot to another. I know, someone my age (54) should not attempt this without adequate braces and supports but I thought I could do it. I couldn’t. I felt a pop in my back – like some tendon kind-of-thing slipped over some bone-type-thingy. It hurt!
I thought the pain would go away in a few minutes and that a walk through town would do me good. It didn’t. After finally, agonizingly, making my way back to the boat, I went to bed. I also took Vicodin. I’ve got to say that I’ve had the most wonderful weekend in bed. The drugs are great but so is the absolute freedom to just lay around (and the back rubs I’ve been getting from Cyndi have been pure heaven). All in all, this “injury” has turned out to be quite pleasant.
I think another reason it’s been so nice is that it’s given me permission to skip the worries about getting out of Vava’u in the current crowd of boats that are departing for points south. There’s a marginal weather window that’s opened up and it seems that there are at least 15 boats heading out today for the passage to New Zealand.
During the last weather window, about 25 boats left. All but 4 percent of them made it! That’s right, we lost 4 percent of the boats that departed in the last wave. A low pressure system formed above Fiji and swept southeast over the fleet. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, with many of the weather models predicting it. Most of the boats made it far enough south for the low to pass north of them. A few did not.
A Beneteau called Windigo rolled during the storm. When a freighter arrived, they abandoned ship. Another sailboat crew had a horrible time when they tried to beat back to help Windigo. Twenty-five boats left… one lost… 4 percent.
We’re holding here for a while as we’ve been told that the gales that sweep over New Zealand this time of year go away sometime in November. We’re balancing that against the knowledge that tropical cyclones start to be a possibility here in Tonga in November and become more and more likely as the southern ocean summer gets going.
It looks good for us to leave this Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday to spend five days or a week cruising the Tongan islands south of here on our way to Nukualofa. There, we’ll do our final provisioning for the 7 to 10 day passage to New Zealand, and wait for what we hope will be the perfect weather window.
Oh yea, my back is feeling much better. I’m hoping it will be well enough tomorrow to carry fuel jugs, change the engine oil, check the rudder packing gland, get propane, shop and check out with customs (we need to check in and out of each of the three groups of islands in Tonga). See why laying in bed has been so wonderful? -Rich
