Contunuing on from New Cal
As we had no real Joy with ice at Isle de pines with Ice, we decided we had to run back to Noumea (stopping at a few spots inbetween).
As we came out of the Havana Pass at the bottom of Grand' Terre (the main Island) we encountered strong winds going in an opposite direction to the tide making large steep waves, but at least it was running in the direction we wanted to go, so got rid of the Mainsail and jogged along under a working jib (No 2.5). In this type of situation it made the boat very easy to control and we still managed to get long runs of
17 knots which got us back to Noumea fast.
We loaded up with ice, beer and baguettes, had dinner at a relatively cheap( for New Cal) Vietnamese restaurant and headed of to Amadee lighthouse the next day.
This is a large Cast Iron lighthouse that was made in France in sections and brought out in 1862
http://www.amedee.ws/index.php?pg=30
Big climb to the top, great view, nice spot.
From there we stooged around a few islands and reefs for a few days and got scared on more than one occasion spotting reef nearby in waters that were supposedly clear and deep.
One day we anchored up behind an Island where they were fiming a TV show call "The Mole in Paradise" (we watched it in Bris. and we made it on TV) and the next day when we left we ran the boat aground HARD on an un-charted lump of reef
Hit the reef at 14 knots with the dagger boards down lifting the entire hull almost clear of the water.
We were stuck.
I went below expecting to find a gash in the hull where the board had torn back through the hull, smashing furniture and flooding the boat, but instead found no evidence of any damage.
We dropped the motor in and gunned her backwards and forwards for what seemed an eternity with hideous grinding noises and bits of board (cedar) floating about and eventualy got her off.
Motored back to the anchrage and spent the next hour or more struggling to get the remains of the board out as it had jammed solid. Eventualy we had a result and fed it back down and out the bottom and retrieved it and this was the damage. (got to happy with that)
Did a dive and checked underneath and found a small split in the Glass at the back edge of the case about 12 mm long and that was it.
Cosidering I have seen boats that have torn the side of the boat out leaving holes big enough to put your head through I was incredibly happy.
Happy I put a seemingly ridiculous amount of reinforcing and mountains of Kevlar, Carbon Fibre and glass in this area.
Continued on our trip for a few more days before giiving the boat back to an unhappy owner (he should have been happy, this boat was bulletproof) she had been driven hard during races and cruising, had been hit by lightning had run up on reef and was still fast and comfortable and showed no real sign of wear.
The boat you could'nt root, shoot or electrocute.
I offered to stay behind and do the repair for him, but somehow I think he was glad to see us gone.
To this day I am very sad to have let her go, but glad she is in New Cal as it would have broken my heart to have her bought by a negligent owner and left sitting in a Marina in Brisbane where I would have seen her slowly deteriorate through lack of use like most boats.
The good news is after the sale, we could now pay off the PPOR which freed up heaps of cash allowing us to start the IP adventure.
At last we were now starting to get an idea as to how we would be able to pay for diesel to run the new boat as we had no idea when we started, we just figured we'd make it up as we went doing odd jobs.
More soon
Dave
