Sailing Vessel Beruta Ship's Log
Fiji - New Caledonia
Wednesday 14 June 2023
I think I have been spoiled by living in a relatively prosperous country such as New Zealand for almost 7 years. I'm sure if I had spent more time in Fiji, I would have got accustomed to the poverty and corruption that I faced.
Anton, Tania and Lisa are flying back to Auckland this morning. I'm sorry for their short vacation. Missing their company, I decided to leave Fiji as well.
A day before, I brought my main sail to the Marshalls Sails to install new grommets as I didn't have the punch tool for number 2 size. Initially Alan said that it would have been done today but later he changed the delivery day to Friday. Since I've already taken out the old grommets and hoped that Alan had round slides and tape to replace my square slides, which he didn't, I changed my mind too and postponed the repair of the sail till Australia. I remember that my first main had those round slides and it fell on its own weight once the halyard was released. This main I have to pull down hard, which is obviously unpleasant in any weather but more so in a squall.
I set a new main in the morning, which I ordered from Lee Sails while in Auckland some years ago. It seemed to have a better design in some respect. For example, a tape for the slides was replaced with SS brackets. The slides are round but do have the same grove as the square slides, so same deal - hard to pull down.
Around 11am I picked up my old main and then spent about an hour in customs filling same kind of numerous papers with duplicate information to clear out. This time there was no charge despite that it was done during their lunch break from 12 pm to 1 pm.
Paid the marina for two nights at the dock 84 dollars and spent the remaining 12 at the hot bread shop buying some local doughnuts and a banana cake.
New Caledonia does not require advance notification of arrival but do require a medical insurance, same as French Polynesia. Therefore, I spent some time in the morning shopping online for it. The first one I bought was around $50 for a month but it turned out to be invalid for my itinerary. I had to depart to New Caledonia directly from New Zealand and I had to return to New Zealand! Go figure. The next one was more expensive, around 75 euros. Hopefully, there are no such or similar restrictions for it.
I left the dock around 1:30pm and managed to ground Beruta while I was cleaning the deck from fenders and mooring lines. It didn't become a problem though - I just reversed hard and got free. Once I passed the channel leading from the marina, I realized that I forgot to tie a second line to the dinghy and open the drain hole. Having done this, I set the autopilot to the same passage in a barrier reef that I used when entering Fiji. The lee shore of Viti Levu has no wind, so I had to motor for about 4 hours until I escaped the wind shadow.
It was almost dark when I set half main and a jib anticipating 15 knts wind.
Thursday 15 June 2023
Neptune sent me a present in the morning in a form of young tuna. This would feed me for about 4 days.
I started with
a fish soup.
The wind became 15 knts 50-60 deg on the port side. I changed genoa for a jib thinking that it would shift further abeam by the night. Contrarily, it calmed down by an early morning and I had to reverse to the genoa and the full main.
Friday 16 June 2023
The wind died before noon. I filled two canisters of diesel to the tank using a fuel pump right from the storage locker avoiding spilling the fuel and taking salt water from the deck. It is strange motoring in trade wind latitudes. Such a weather is probably due to La Nina phenomenon, which persists already third year in a row.
Saturday 17 June 2023
I changed sails so many times that I forgot how it started. I just remember that there was a dark squally cloud with a shower. Unwillingly, I start thinking about a furling system that I discarded when I purchased the boat. The wind was 50-60 degrees on a port side all the time. Was I still in trade winds area?
Sunday 18 June 2023
Sailing around barrier reefs to Noumea, makes my route longer by about 40 nm and it appears that I'll arrive at night. So I changed the course to cut the corner and navigate among reefs in daytime arriving to Noumea by the evening. Noonsite notes say that people are allowed to anchor overnight near the marina and clear in the morning.
Afternoon as soon as I filled my plate with a seafood soup, Raymarine autopilot stalled. It often happens when it is unable to steer the boat during a gust. Beruta changed the tack and the boom tore apart my sun cover. I quickly returned the boat to its course helping with the engine, holding the boom with both hands to avoid further damages to the cover and steering the rudder with my foot. Then I engaged the wind pilot, which is more powerful.
Close to the evening I checked the autopilot and found that it did not work anymore. Often I needed to clean the contacts in the receptacle. I did and still no movement of the drive shaft. I tried a spare tiller drive - same result. So something else broke somewhere. I wanted to use the autopilot at least during lengthy navigation inside the barrier reef during my approach to Noumea. It's also handy when the wind dies and I need to motor. Therefore, it is better to fix it now than later. It could have been a breaker inside the controller unit. I remembered there were spares on its cover. To get to the unit was a difficult part. I would have needed to remove a few boxes on my way. I started with a simpler check of the tiller drive receptacle, where I found a broken wire. Easy to fix. Just needed a soldering iron to tin the wire, an extension cord from the inverter and some other tools. Some minutes later autopilot was alive again. Done.
At night it became noticeably cooler, 24-25 deg C. I wore a fleece jumper for the last couple of nights. Noumea is just one degree north of the tropic of Capricorn.
Monday 19 June 2023
The wind finally shifted to the back. Not that I like broad reaching or running but this is what one normally expects from sailing in trade winds latitudes. Interesting that word "trade" does not refer to the commerce. It comes from a 17th century phrase "blow trade" meaning blow steadily.
I need to develop a convenient system to adjust the dinghy towing line. In close haul or reach it's better to have it on the lee side close to the stern to minimize the risk of capsizing but in broad reach or run, it's better to lengthen the line, so the dinghy does not hit the wind pilot. Currently, I just have two tow lines: one is a working line tied to a spring and another is a spare in case the first fails. To adjust the length, I make the second line working and change the length of the first line at the spring. This works but not very convenient.
I was sitting inside the cabin, writing code for storing AIS data in a database, when a sudden noise of something falling from the sky, disturbed my work. It sounded like a missile aiming at my boat. Luckily, it seemed to have been a coast guard airplane descending to peek at my naked body. I was still about 100 nm from a New Caledonia coast.
After lunch to entertain myself, I made 
a socket for the Starlink dish, on the same pole that holds the solar panel. I used a piece of aluminium tube that perfectly fitted the end of the dish pole. I even cut a hole for the latch. Unfortunately, around 100 nm offshore, my roaming package does not work. I need to be somewhere in territorial waters, I think. I am supposed to enter the barrier reef early tomorrow morning. Will try again at that time. It takes from 10 to 25 minutes to connect.
Tuesday 20 June 2023
It was still dark when I approached the reef. Fortunately, the Passe de la Sarcelle was wide and no real problem entering it at night. A couple of hours later, when I needed to start manoeuvring round reefs, the sun rose. I powered the Starlink and it did work this time.
I checked my emails and downloaded the latest weather forecast. A high pressure area was dominating around New Caledonia.
The wind picked up, and I was able to sail to Noumea most of the day except the last hour or two when the mountaneous island completely blocked the wind.
After 4 pm local time, I was getting close to Noumea and needed to raise the courtesy French flag and a yellow quarantine flag. One of the line attachment grommets fell off it. While I was searching for a replacement, I almost ran into a reef. Sometimes it is difficult to multitask, especially with the age.
When I was entering the harbour, I called Port Moselle Control on channel 67. They advised to enter the marina and assisted docking at A15 berth.
An English-speaking lady gave me 4 papers to complete by the morning: one for the marina, one - for customs, one - for immigration and the last - for biosecurity. She also gave me the access code for the pier gate and showers and it appeared that I was allowed to go outside before formally clearing in! I like French territories! Much less bureaucracy and formalities than anywhere else.
Wednesday 21 June 2023
I had finally good sleep after 6 nights at sea.
After eating the last 3 of 18 eggs that I had since Fiji for my breakfast, I checked in the marina office. They directed me to the immigration building, located near the police station, which I had passed by yesterday when I went for a walk. It is about 15 minutes from the marina. It only took couple of minutes to stamp my passport and I returned to the marina, who called the biosecurity officer who showed up 15 or 20 minutes later and again it was about 5 minutes to clear me in. He briefly checked my fridges and a couple of shelves but no extensive search was done. He only asked to separate plastic from the organic trash and took the organic bag with him. Done. I lowered the yellow flag. No charges for anything. A free wifi. A marina berth price is comparable to New Zealand marinas. The longer you stay, the cheaper it is. If Field Marshal Kutuzov was a bit more far-sighted in the Patriotic was of 1812, Russia would have lived nowadays like the most of French territories if not better.
All pictures from New Caledonia are on Google Photos.