Passage to New Zealand

November 26, 2009
Leaving New Caledonia; Norfolk Island; Christian takes us on a tour; Arriving in New Zealand

Leaving New Caledonia


SV Renahara on the horizon, following in Donella’s wake.

We leave New Caledonia with its colourful population and abundance of good food on a bright, clear morning Thanksgiving morning. Christian is away already with the sparrows. Renahara follows.

We go around the Islot Inferno with the light that guided us in from the ocean blue. We turn to see the turquoise waters and palms and pines distance themselves in our wake, always with reticence we say goodbye.

The long, blue swells under Zulu's belly make for gentle motion. There are four sailboats in our small fleet: Donella the lead boat with Christian, the weather man and net control, and his two Kiwi crew, Roger and Michael; Flagella (sp) with John a single hander; Renahara with Renato and Hardmood; and Zulu with Russ and Marilyn. Three Germans, one Brit, one Yank, one South African.

Christian chooses a weather window where being "clobbered" is out of the picture. Except for one horrendous night of squalls and torrential rain with winds to 35, we have flat seas with mild-to-no wind. Every morning and evening we report our position to Christian and he gives us a weather report with wind direction. Every evening, too, we check in with our position on the Pacific Seafarer's net, and I, too, report our position electronically on ShipTrack. Threefold we are being tracked.

Norfolk Island: Lat 29 degrees 01’ S, Long 167 degrees 58’E

Donella and Zulu stop at Norfolk Island November 28, 2009. Renahara and "Flagella" still with distance to cover, choose to bypass it.

Norfolk Island lies on a submarine ridge, the Norfolk Ridge, which runs between New Zealand and New Caledonia. There are no good anchorages to speak of, only roadsteads off shallow bays.

Anchoring in a roadstead in Cascade bay

Norfolk Island is on a par with BEST so far! Only one day there, but worth 100.
We first investigate anchoring in Kingston bay where the main wharf is, but getting ashore would be virtually impossible in the present conditions. Waves crash on the reefs and definitely prohibit a dinghy landing on our part.

We tentatively wait for Christian to arrive. He knows where he can tuck around the reefs and land his dinghy. But on assessing all confirms we better move back to Cascade bay where he came from.

Donella leads the way and we anchor on a 'roadstead' off the shallow bay where rolly polly swells come in and crash ashore more gently. Going ashore is not for the timid though.

Luckily Christian taxies us ashore in his dinghy. The jetty is short with a steep ladder and a rope to hang on to. The dinghy comes in nose first and you have to jump for the ladder and hang on to the rope. Miss and you're in the drink matey.

The customs man—a way laid-back Ozzie--holds out his hand and I land up falling into his arms after my leap.

"First time I've hugged a customs officer.” I say. Smile.

We watch as a hand-pulled crane hauls a dingy up onto the jetty. There is a hook with a long line on a pulley. You use this to pull the dinghy up onto the pier, otherwise it will be shredded by the waves. Fun and games in the circus landing.

There are descendants on this island from the Bounty mutineers--off Pitcairn Island, about 2,300 miles away. Pitcairn is small and when the population grew--from the few mutineers, and Tahitian men and women--they were offered parcels of land on Norfolk Island. They all packed up and left on a big ship and arrived at Norfolk. Later though, some went back to Pitcairn. Others stayed. The customs man was a descendant from the mutineers!

“Can I photograph you to see if you are real?” I think to myself, but don’t follow through.

Christian takes us on a tour

Christian hires a car and all five of us squeeze in for a tour: to lunch at the Return Servicemen’s League (RSL) Membership Club; to Kingston and prison ruins; to visit John the Norfolk HAM operator and weather man; and to view points where Captain Cook first landed in 1774 and where Donella and Zulu now have their hook dropped.

Christian’s crew off Donella include Roger, who resembles Father Christmas and has his own metal working business in Opua, Bay of Islands; and Michael, who owns his own account firm in Auckland and comes across as a cool, calm operator.

Lunch at the RSL. We are peckish having missed breakfast in the excitement of landing. So all go to lunch at the RSL membership club i.e., a club for Aussies that served in the different wars. Very colonial, Russ is told to take his cap off inside. I have to laugh. Andy Cap is oblivious.

We sit out on the verandah and enjoy fish and chips and lamb and vegetables and salad and cold beers and a bottle of wine that Michael buys and shares. Dining out is so civilized.

The Pier and Pitcairn Islanders. We stop at a view point overlooking Kingston. Then drive down close to the Kingston pier. The pier has been the main landing point on the island for boats from 1788 through present time.

The Pitcairn Islanders arrived at the pier in 1856. “After a passage of five weeks we arrived here, landed on Sunday, June 8th amid squalls of rain which thoroughly drenched us….” Sarah Nobbs. This arrival is commemorated every year and the landing re-enacted.

The boathouse. There is an old boathouse—amongst other settlement buildings-- that housed the longboats in the 1800s. A working longboat rests against the building in a tranquil setting.

Today, when the supply ship comes in, it anchors out. All the island people come to help. The long boats are rowed out to the ship and loaded. When they come in through the swells across the bar and to the pier, they only have one shot to catch the hook of the hand-pulled crane. If they miss they hit the wave action and can lose their load.

The prison. The ruins of the old Gaol ironically sit in a beautiful setting overlooking Kingston bay. If you stole a loaf of bread in England in the 1800s, you went to penal colonies in Oz or Norfolk.

A gated stone wall surrounding the penal colony was completed in 1847 and the prison fully occupied in 1849. It is sobering to walk within the walls and linger in the ruins—to feel life ruined.

The cells were 6 x 8 ft, and if prisoners gave any trouble they were put in a 'dumb' cell. i.e., an underground cell--the length of an average body and height enough to allow for lying down--personifying an underground burial. Pheww!!! What cruel and inhumane treatment!

Indeed prisoners were treated terribly. Punishment was the purpose.
They sent them out to the reefs all chained together to quarry coral at low tide in wet quarries, and some drowned. They worked on building the pier with water up to their armpits chained at the ankles. They also were sent to work in the dreaded crank mill.

The mill was intended as punishment for prisoners in leg irons. Prisoners operated the cranks on the lower floor, which turned a pair of mill stones that ground corn and wheat for the settlement on the upper floor. Prisoners often sabotaged the machinery to get reprieve from the hard labour.

The human-powered crank mill was completed in 1827 and ran to about 1855. It is the only known example in Australia of the use of convict labour working cranks to provide power.

Prisoners were also involved in building the bridge and hearsay has it that there were times an overseer was killed and thrown into the wet concrete pilings, which became their graves.

We drive away from this history in ruins, knowing the Pitcairn islanders who came to Norfolk got rid the penal colony and now only the ghosts of the ruins remain. I look out the window as Christian drives back up the hill and far below I see the gravesite down by the sea with so many of life’s stories sealed.

Visit to John the weatherman’s house. We pop in at John and Florence's house. He is a HAM radio operator and she a retired nurse. They are battling various health concerns, but a good organic diet does them well.

John gives sailors valuable weather info. We sit on his verandah surrounded by tall avocado and papaya trees. Bananas are sliced and drying in the sun. He enjoys giving us the island tales.

The Bounty descendants one year all sailed back to Pitcairn for a visit and John went with and filmed it all. (Christian has copies of the films and we had a wonderful evening watching them one evening in NZ.)

John tells us what happened at Norfolk 2 weeks past. A medical jet was flying a patient from Samoa to Melbourne, Australia. The pilot was under 30 (male) and the co-pilot a 30-year-old (female). Norfolk was misted over and the jet was low on fuel so they could not circle waiting for weather to lift, nor could they fly to New Caledonia as an alternative.

They decided to ditch the plane in the sea!!! Air traffic control did not know where they were. The plane sank in 2 minutes after hitting the water. They did not have time to pull the tag on the EPIRB (radio direction finder), which would have given their position.

All six managed to get out the plane, including the Samoan patient, who I assume was not petite. There were only 3 life jackets. So all 6 hung onto the 3 life jackets in the cold waters with sharks for 90 minutes at night!!!

The pilot had a pocket flashlight. This is unbelievable, but a Norfolk native saw the light from the jetty. They still had to lower a boat via the hook system, but saved ALL six. The women co-pilot said she would never fly again!

Later, after the inquiry, we find that the pilot had his license taken away and that raising the plane is in consideration.

Other viewpoints. Christian takes us around the island to other magnificent view points. The whole island is like a park. The Norfolk Pines are tall and healthy looking and symmetrical. We are at one of these viewpoints with glass green waves breaking on a pink beach far, far below when—phwoooosh-- a flock of these gorgeous bright red and green parrots with long tails fly up into the pine branches.

We stop to see where, who else, but Captain Cook landed October 10, 1774, behind an outcropping of rocks. He discovered Norfolk Island on his second voyage around the world while southbound for New Zealand. What a place. What a man. Still, I wonder how these voyagers could just discover a place and lay claim with little consideration. Just like that! Take it.

This island is far removed and Norfolk plants and animals needed to cross vast distances over water to colonize.

Only 2% of the natural forest remains after nearly 200 years of settlement since Captain Cook arrived. William Wales, Cook’s astronomer talked of the Rails, Parrots, and Pigeons. He said how ‘flavourful’ the young Rails tasted. Many more humans must have felt the same. Now Rails are uncommon, the Kaka Parrot is extinct, as well as the Norfolk form of the NZ Pigeon. Six endemic birds have become extinct.

The sad story of human impact on the world continues. But Norfolk Islanders are striving in concentrated effort to protect what is left. Native forest is essential for the Norfolk pines, one of 41 kinds of endemic plants; the Norfolk Island BooBook owl, one of the remaining 8 kinds of endemic birds; and the butterfly papileo ilioneus, one of 100 kinds of endemic insects. Here is hoping the exquisite native forest will grow and continue to be protected as an environment of its namesake pine, the birds, butterflies and insects.

The last view point is high, high up on a bluff looking down on Zulu and Donella at anchor on the roadstead in Cascade bay. What a magnificent sight to behold. I have butterflies looking down onto specs on the ocean wide that hold precious cargo.

Soon, each boat in its own blue world must make the 700-mile crossing on to NZ. I feel somewhat vulnerable. But soon snap out of my meander.

Return to Zulu. Then down the road to the pier we drive to repeat the exercise of lowering the dinghy. Jump from the ladder once the dinghy hits the swells while the going is good--like cartoon characters. Christian buzzes us back to Zulu with a papaya gift from John.

We pull out the next morning as the swells are building. I do not want to leave. I could have stayed a year!


Kingston bay is not good for us to anchor. This is the main pier from where longboats go to and from to supply ships anchored out, a tricky and dangerous endeavor. The old Gaol of the 1800s is in the background.


These waves, that crash over the bar and onto the reefs of Kingston definitely prohibits a dinghy landing on our part. Want to go surfing rather?


The view sailing from Kingston bay up to the roadstead at Cascade bay.


SV Donella precedes us.


Zulu anchors on the roadstead at Cascade bay.


A hand pulled crane hauls a dingy up onto the pier at Cascade bay.


Christians crew off Donella: Roger, Michael, and Christian. Russ off Zulu. After lunch the chaps stand in front of the Return Services League Memorial Club. Russ was asked to take his cap off inside.


Christian, off SV Donella and Marilyn pose with beautiful Norfolk pines and Kingston bay in the background.


The old longboat house.


A working longboat is at rest for now in a tranquil setting. These boats are rowed out to supply boats and rowed back fully loaded to be hauled up by hand operated cranes off the main pier.


The beautiful setting of Kingston bay in front of the old prison, where prisoners quarried coral while shackled at the ankle. Some drowned doing this.


The old crank mill, completed in 1827, had cranks that ran the length of the building. These were manually turned from the first floor by shackled prisoners grinding maize for the settlement. The prisoners often would cause the cranks to malfunction on purpose for reprieve from hard labour.


The gated wall of the Gaol completed in 1847. The prison was fully occupied in 1849.


Cell sizes, which held one man each, were approximately 6 x 8 ft.


If prisoners behaved ‘badly’ they were put in a 'dumb' cell. i.e., an underground cell the length of an average body and height, only to allow for lying down--personifying an underground burial. Pheww!!!


The grave site down by the sea with so many of life’s stories sealed forever more.


A beautiful window onto a perfect cove, water breaking onto a shell pink beach. A better perspective on life than the dire straits of prisoners.



On October 10, 1774 Captain Cook landed behind the outcropping of rocks. He discovered Norfolk Island on his second voyage around the world while southbound for New Zealand.


The drawing on the plaque overlooking the spot where Captain Cook landed on Norfolk Island resembles the photograph I took above.


Looking south from Captain Cook’s landing down this same coast.


A rock outcropping near where Captain Cook landed.


Zulu on the far right, Donella in the middle, and another sailing vessel anchored on the roadstead in Cascade bay. Specs on the ocean wide holding precious cargo.


Zulu alone now must make the 700-mile crossing on to NZ. I feel somewhat vulnerable.

Arriving in New Zealand: Lat 35 degrees.19'S, Long 174 degrees.07'E

Slowly we make headway for far horizons. One day we loll around on velvet seas with Russ putting new filters on the engine, which fix the fuel flow problem.

We crank on the iron Jenny. NZ here we come. Catch what wind we can. Pass North Cape, Parengarenga, Great Exhibition Bay, Cape Karikari, Doubtless Bay, Whangaroa Bay, Cape Wikiwiki. Maori names for the most part.

I can virtually smell the Bay of Islands. I stand watch the last morning at sea with the full moon at our stern and dawn breaking at the bow. I can see the green hills. I put on Pacabell's Cannon in D. About 40 or more big dolphins surround Zulu, birds swoop and dive. I feel as if I am at Cinerama in a center seat. But it is all real.

We have arrived in New Zealand. The land of the long white cloud. Aoteoroa. How wonderful it is to awake in the Bay of Islands to bird song and sunshine, and be safe on a mooring Christian arranged for us in an idyllic bay--the essence of tranquility.

We try to hold on to life and love. Time passes by like islands in our wake.


Full moon is at our stern.


Dawn breaks at our bow.


Two rocks naturally mark the entrance to the Bay of Islands. We have arrived in New Zealand. The Land of the Long White Cloud. Aotearoa.


Just to make sure we are not dreaming, Russ catches a Big Eye Tuna.