What does Trafficated mean?

Kjell O. Stave

Cruising again.

     Leaving Tonga:   To leave Tonga was hard. I stayed for a year and I got really good friends. Even thought this letter is supposed to be about Fiji and the sail here I cant stop myself from taking this opportunity to thank everyone in Tonga one more time. A special thank you goes to Matt, not only for basically not charging me anything for my last three days of eating and drinking in his bar but mostly for all the time he somehow is able to give everyone. Even though Matt has one million things on his mind he always have time for friends and that is appreciated,      Thank you Matt.

New Crew.

      On this passage i really wanted to bring crew because this passage is not so straight forward as the previous ones. Mostly because i have to sail through the Lau group in Fiji and because of the risk of being too tired to do the right things if the weather would play up. When you are 'in the middle of nowhere' like you are when sailing from Tahiti to Tonga it is no worry if the weather turns bad, you just reef down and go to bed but when sailing between islands and reefs it is a different matter. You need to be awake and know where to run and so on.

      I brought my good friend Stefan who I met in Tonga almost a year ago. Stefan had never sailed before but since he is an excellent cook it really doesn't matter. All I need is company, food and someone to keep a lookout at night and Stefan did great. The last two nights he started getting the hang of things and did sail changes and navigation all by himself, Great job Stefan.  

The passage.

      The passage Sucked...   It had been a year since I had done a passage and I felt that rust right away. The trade winds has not yet established themselves and the wind came from all directions with all kinds of forces. The first day we had the wind on the nose and it rained. The second day it was dead calm and if it wasesnt for the bottom job I did to the boat before I left Tonga we might as well could have taken the sails down. I felt like motoring a bit but the engine broke down as soon as we lost sight of Tonga. A quick check on the motor reveled that it needs parts so the fixing will have to wait until Fiji. Great, now I will have to sail through the reef passage in Fiji, to the quarantine area and then to the anchorage without the safety of an engine.

     On day three I underestimated a squall and headed into it with too much canvas up, after being blown hard over I managed to stabilize the boat on a downwind run, the roler-furling jammed and I had to let go of the ropes and let the sail flap around, this of course ended in a big hole in the sail and hundreds of stitches torn out here and there. The mainsail undid itself from the cleat and wrapped itself around the mast nicely but with no damage. By the way a squall is sudden rain accompanied by high winds, is does not last long but if you are caught with too much sail up it can be a bit nasty. A squall lasts form 5 to 20 minutes.

Day four to six we had little and no wind. This was kind of Ok in a way because we were still moving in the right direction and there were not much waves so we just took it easy and relaxed with good food and stories. Upon arrival in Suva, Fiji the wind was still shit but lucky for us the reef entrance is a sharp turn to right and that gave us a perfect angle to the wind and we were able to sail all the way to the quarantine anchorage. Since the motor was dead we kind of had to sail all the way but with a little creativity i had made a backup motor with the swim ladder and the outboard (see pic.)  I am glad we did not have to use this because frankly it was not very sturdy.

Stuck in mud:

     Here is how shit can happen, again and again. The anchorage that I had found was not the quarantine anchorage at all but I managed to get away with that by explaining the motor situation to the port control. What I had a harder time getting away with was the feeling of being very stupid when low tide came and I was stuck in mud. The bottom was touching and there were still two hours to go until complete low tide, SHIT...   Immigration, Customs, health and quarantine inspectors came to see me in the boat at the same time I realized that I was stuck so I had them tow me off then put a buoy on my anchor (so I could retrieve it later) and set a new one in a better place. Somehow in this haze of things to do, with five officials on the boat I managed to let go of all ropes and we were now drifting around with no more anchors ready and no engine. I politely asked to be excused from the officers by saying 'excuse me for a second, we seem to be adrift I better tend to the situation'.  The officers who just finished laughing about the mud situation cracked up again and seemed to have a great time on Spetakkel, I on the other hand was getting quite tired of messing around and had now lost my favorite anchor and frankly that sucks...  

Whats next?:

     I honestly don't know what's next. I was going to sail to Vanuatu to see the land jumping in June but with all the repairs I have to do to the boat and seeing the magnitude of this beautiful island I don't think I will be moving on anytime soon. The plan to get to Thailand by December will probably be affected too so really, I don't know what's next...

Crew positions:

I have decided to start accepting guests so if you would like to come for a visit and crew on Spetakkel for a while that just might be possible feel free to email me at. kjell72@gmail.com

that's it folks. have a great week and if you like me to keep on writing go to my guestbook and leave a hello, that always encourages me to keep on writing.

 Kjell O. Stave

Stefan

Me 

Before

After

Creativity gone wild

Officials having a ball