Cleone - En Route to Tahiti

We've arrived, but ........

 

We arrived in Papeete at 2015 GMT/UTC.

 

It was, in the end, a good trip to Tahiti, but we endured everything from flat calm to a small storm!

 

After nearly a day of motor-sailing, it all changed.  Before we set off from Fakarava, some instinct made the skipper beast the crew into deflating and stowing the dinghy (never a nice task, particuarly when the dinghy is wet) before we set sail, and also made him top-up the fuel tank, which he'd forgotten to do in the calm of the lagoon.  The wind got up yesterday, and soon we were bowling along merrily under full sail.  As we went, we were keeping an eye on the line of little squalls coming in from the north.  Harmonie's all-seeing radar could spot these, and she would tell us when one was headed our way.  These delivered a little boost of wind and a refreshing shower of rain.  Cleone loved it - over six knots of boat speed and a wash for the sails and deck.  Every so often, the skipper eyed the black cloud to our south.  Since the wind was in the north-east, he did not worry about it - it should have been moving away rather from us than towards us.  But it kept getting bigger, and the vertical line of light grey was spreading.  The Skipper spoke to Harmonie, who by now had roused their skipper from his afternoon reverie.  He reported rain, and that it was stationary.  When you think of these things, it is always too late, but suddenly, whilst Norfy was busy below and Will reading quietly in the cockpit, the Skipper ordered the Mizzen to be taken down, and the Genoa to be furled.  Meanwhile, he leapt onto the foredeck himself, and shortened the Mainsail down to its smallest size.  The crew's puzzlement was quickly dispersed.  In minutes, the wind shifted from a benign Force 4 from the North-East to a Force 8 from the South-West, and the rain came down in torrents.  We ran Cleone off to the north-west under the triple-reefed main and a scrap of foresail.  And thus it stayed for the next 6 hours.  The wind whistled, the rigging hummed (both were literally true, I assure you - Ed) and in the rising seas Cleone calmly went about the business of making to windward as much as she could.  After a couple of hours, and what was said to be a scratch dinner of Beef Stroganoff, (aka Beef Stew), mashed potatoes and mixed veg, the wind began to ease.  But the rain showers, heavy at times, persisted, and the wind itself boxed the compass, blowing at between 5 and 30 knots as it did so.  Around us, thunder rumbled, and there was a spectacular display of lightning, which went on until long after the storm had passed over us.  We kept in touch with Harmonie and Viva, who tried in vain to escape the sqaull (when does a squall become a storm? - Ed) by running off to the North, but both reported similar conditions.  The Skipper retired to bed after a couple of hours, leaving the wind and rain to Norfy, but it was still black when he came back on watch.  But soon the sky ahead lightened, and the wind shifted back through another 180 degrees, and it was all over.  And so we have been motor-sailing ever since, arriving at the Town Quay to see several Blue Water yachts and many of our mates. 

 

And best of all, there was Elizabeth, waving on the Quay and waiting to take our lines for us.