Orca Update #20

Last time, we were just heading into Whangeri to re-supply. 12 miles up the river, we found the marina was overflowing with boats, rafted 3 deep along the town basin. Since the marina was full, we tied up alongside a wooden jetty across from town, ran across the street to the busy supermarket. We filled our cart, dashed across the boulevard and bounced out to the dock. We loaded up and shipped out.

We'd only made it a few miles down the river when our weather maps began to look a bit ominous. A sequence of cyclones were forecast to wander down from the tropics. The first few were relatively weak, but even so, all that week we lay at anchor, with winds gusting to 50 knots. As each storm moved over, the wind would clock through 360 degrees, but dead calm when the center passed over. The wind and rain swirling off the hills would catch us at different angles, Orca slewing about. The barometer cycled through a range of 30 millibars, down into the 980's and back up past 1010. Waves were washing over the freeway in Auckland but we were safe and cozy. The first blow was exciting. The second was entertaining. By the third, we were going stir-crazy. Trapped below during the last storm for 3 days straight, we had severe, terminal cabin fever. We cleared out the cabin and played exercise videos, sweating to the oldies.

When there was a break between storms, we dashed out to Great Barrier Island, just off the coast of Auckland. The island sports a fickle but excellent river mouth surf-spot. Cyclone Wilma, the biggest yet, was due in just 36 hours, and she was pumping out swell. We hustled over to the unprotected side of the island to snatch a surf. The waves were pushing double-overhead, hollow, howling offshore winds, and fantastic. We anchored outside the lineup, so it was hard to tell how big it was—at least that's what Kara said afterward. She was a maniac; taking off on the biggest waves of the day, free falling down the face. She would rip a big bottom turn and shoot off down the line. When the spray cleared, the guys in the lineup were buzzing. “Holy crap, did you see that?” “That's my kind of woman!”

An hour later, the swell was even bigger, out of control. The latest weatherfax showed Wilma 250 miles NE of New Zealand, central pressure 950 millibars, winds over 100 knots, and heading right for Great Barrier Island. Nerves jangling, we pushed Orca hard, motor-sailing around to the west side of the island where the best anchorages are. Since Orca is small and doesn't draw much water, we were able to tuck up into the head of a deep valley. Along with a couple of other sailboats, we started preparing a day early, positioning our boats and anchors to best advantage against the low spots in the steep hills, where the wind would likely be coming from. We anchored and re-anchored 3 times before both of us were satisfied--two storm anchors on separate lines, one all chain, one half nylon. We kept our last anchor and chain aboard, in case we had to abandon the first two and re-anchor during the storm. Then, we celebrated: it had been 1 year--to the very day--since we left the dock in Moss Landing.

The eye was forecast to pass at 4 am, so it wasn't until evening when the weather started. It was muggy—80 degrees and misty. The mist turned to drizzle, then rain, then hard rain. A deluge. The nearby weather station recorded 2 inches of rain per hour, all evening. The water in the anchorage turned muddy brown, but still there was no wind. It started to get dark, we gave everything a final check, lashed down everything on deck, dogged the hatches and...and suddenly there were big powerboats pouring into the anchorage. They came it fast with big wakes, drinking beer, stereos blaring. They plunked their cute little toy anchors down all around us. The skipper of the sailboat next to us, who'd also been struggling with numerous heavy anchors all morning, looked over, rolled his eyes, and shrugged. What can you do? The rain slowed, and the first puffs of wind riffled the water's surface. We read and tried to get some sleep.

By 2 AM the wind was screaming through the rig and gusts were buffeting from different directions. The barometer bottomed out, the wind shifted directions and redoubled. Most of the load passed to our second, more powerful anchor. By 5 a.m. that anchor line was straight as a bar and thrumming like a guitar string, stretching off the bow almost horizontal. It was impossible to move against the wind and the rain in the air was salty—spray lifted off the water in the cove. We were out on deck with flashlights warning people away from our ground tackle: boats were dragging anchor all over the anchorage, motoring around in the dark at full throttle but only half in control, blown around as each blast hit.

I had two flashlights out, one illuminating each anchor rode, when the biggest gust hit. It came off the hills from a new direction, thrashing the trees like mad. It turned the water white, lifting spray off the waves and rolling like a cotton ball across the anchorage. I wrapped myself around the windlass. Orca staggered, heeled over, rail in the water and ports awash. In the cabin, things came lose and crashed about. Lines creaked and groaned through the fair leads, the nylon stretching and absorbing the shock.. The anchors held. A powerboat drifted by in slow motion, 30 yards away, anchor out, no one at the wheel. Back in the thick of the anchored boats, there was chaos.

That was the last serious gust. We don't know how windy it got. The nearby weather station stopped reporting after 70 knots. A newspaper article claimed gusts to 110 knots. When dawn illuminated the now-quiet anchorage, the layout was completely different—half the boast had shifted overnight. People were zipping about in dinghies, chatting, apologizing, exchanging information if they'd collided. We tried to pull up our anchors but they dug in too deep. We winched the lines up tight, vertical, and waited for the tide to rise and the mud to ooze.

Eventually we got them up. We spent a few more days in the West side of the island, hiking and fishing, and then a few more on the East side, surfing and enjoying the settled weather. We're now a bit down the coast, in the Bay of Plenty at Taurunga. We'll catch a ride up to the cousin's house in Auckland next week.