Ocean Echo 1: September 2013

Dear Friends.

I have been having a lot of problems uploading pictures to Wordpress blog lately at slow Internet connection. I have decided to try my backup blog web site - Google's Blogger. I have spent almost 3 days dealing with time-out cut off's, while uploading the pictures to Wordpress, no luck.

The new address for my blog will be: http://oceanecho1.blogspot.com/

(old address - http://oceanecho1.wordpress.com/)

Sorry for the inconvenience. Jara (JJ ) Holcman s/v Ocean Echo 1

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Dear friends.

I have left Bora Bora with nice E to SE winds, which lasted for about 3 days. That was the only good sailing on my passage to Beveridge Reef. The weather has deteriorated really fast. I ended up heaving-to for 3 days in 35-38 kts (70-76 km/h) of wind and drifting for 2 days without sails or engine run, because I was getting too close to B. Reef. I did not want to enter Beveridge R. lagoon in these winds and 6-8 m swells. Rewards were sweet later on. I did not stop at Cook Islands for several reasons. There were some issues, which I did not want to deal with.
Beveridge Reef is large lagoon without any land. It is about 6 km long and 3-4 km wide with 8-10 m depth. The passage into lagoon is wide at 7 m depth. There are no chart or Google Earth references for this reef. All navigation around the reef is visual only. It belongs to Island of Niue. It is comfortable inside at low tide and lighter winds. Second weather system has passed over, while I was there, waiting for Niue weather window. The waves inside at high tide reach 1-2 m at 30-35 kts (60-70 km/h) of wind, because the tidal range is about 1 m (similar to Minerva Reef). Ocean swells hitting the reef on the outside can reach 30+ meters. It is a wild show watching them. I did not see any other boats there for 2 weeks. Some humpback whales showed up. Plenty of aggressive reef sharks around. They took most of my fish catch. My kayak has a little souvenir from them. One shark had a good bite at forward side of the kayak, when I was pulling in Trevalla fish. I am glad, that I was not in the water, when they got into feeding frenzy - no mercy there.
Passage to Island of Niue was quite pleasant with lighter winds. Niue has a free association with New Zealand. It has only about 1600 inhabitants. A lot of young people are leaving the island for better life in N. Zealand. It is a beautiful island with a beautiful people. Almost everyone was trying to help, which is not that common at other places. It is a unique island. They call it "The Rock", because it is one of very few coral elevated islands in the world. Open land masses are dry coral reef formations, which is very interesting. I have rented motorcycle for 2 days to be able to visit most of shoreline caves and chasms, very nice. Niue does not have any anchorages and it is surrounded by deep waters. Boats need to wait for favorable wind conditions to be able to use Niue YC buoys. Dinghies are elevated ashore by the crane at main wharf. It can be very uncomfortable, when the wind comes from wrong direction with open ocean swells. That was a reason for me to wait at B. Reef for right conditions to visit Niue Island. The weather window is usually only a few days long, before all goes wrong way. Ocean water visibility around Niue Island shoreline is 30-50 m. Ocean swells in last cyclone reached 30-40 m. Washing over many houses on shore and main wharf.
Nice 1.5 m Mahi Mahi/Dolphinfish ended up on my hook, when I was sailing from Niue to Tonga. Beautiful and delicious fish. There are not many fish in local waters of S. Pacific islands. Fish is one of main food sources in these islands.
Kingdom of Tonga will be next subject in this blog.

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Maintaining this blog could by complicated time to time, because Internet signal/connection for uploading pictures, will not be as good/fast as it is in large cities/communities. Please, excuse my poor writing skills and grammar. Google translate does good job converting text to other languages.

I hope, that you will find something interesting in this blog – enjoy.

Jara (JJ) Holcman s/v Ocean Echo 1

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