Saturday, September 26, 2009

DUMBEA PASS

Chantal said this evening, that every day on shimmi is like an epic voyage, with a start, a middle, a climax, a fuckup, a turn for the better, and then finally, a happy ending, not necessarily in that order, hopefully with gin and tonic in hand by the time the shithouse goes up in flames. Today was one of those days.
We left our Kuare Island anchorage at dawn, we could see the white water on the outer reef, the swell had hit in full force. I thought I was going to be slotted within half hour, as Kuare reef pass was only 10 minutes away. Unfortunately it turned out to be a sloppy close out. And for the next 6 bloody hours we cruised in and out of a myriad of reef passes, slowly working our way north. Found a few waves that were just outrageous. Perfect lefhand death pit barrels, with 8-10 footers warping onto the reef. None of the waves that I saw on google earth's satellite images turned out to be good, whilst all the reef passes which I previously decided were not worthwhile, were the best, it just shows you. If any of you are going to cruise through here, email me for the exact co-ords of the waves. But alas, I could not stop to surf the best wave of the lot, a full on Teahupoo replica, which I named "The Mutant". Apart from the wave, which was totally clean, the rest of the pass was messed up, with nowhere to anchor. I drove away, a little bit relieved that I did not have to face that beast. And so it went, pass after pass, nowhere to anchor, with strong currents throwing up 6 ft standing waves in most of the passes. 6 hrs and 40 miles later we rounded Dumbea Pass, my last option for the day. By now the wind was well up, things were looking like snot. The kids already had enough of this pointless driving after 2 hours, never mind 6, but dad was hell bent on getting a wave.
Dumbea was 8ft and heaving. The wave comes out of deep water onto a reef which rises straight up from 80m to 2m in depth, even more pronounced than Teahupoo's bayometry. I managed to get Shimmi anchored in the coral right next to the wave, in the pass, with the strong tradewind keeping her away from the wave zone. I was not going to pass up on this wave. My coral anchor gear is a small Danforth anchor on a short chain and rope. Shimmi held fast, and I paddled out, with Chantal holding the fort. Not easy, with two boys who have been stuck on board the whole day already. But dad got his barrels, in the face of a mutiny, despite the strong wind. Dumbea is a long, class wave, it comes second only to Teahupoo, but then most waves do. I surfed it ace out, for 2 hrs. Where was everyone else? Who cares. The French keep their cards close to their chest, and this wave is no exception, I had no idea it would be this good.
We kukked to get the anchor out again, it eventually came unstuck with one bent flue. We cruised over to our night anchorage (only a half hour way!) which turned out to be a nature reserve island with mooring balls, so no need to anchor. Sweet! We all went to the beach for sundowners and a much needed run around, a happy little family at last. Have I mentioned that the New Caledonian islands are covered in sea snakes? Everywhere you walk, there are black banded sea snakes, up the beach, above the high tide line. They move very slowly, and even though they are very poisonous, they pose no threat.
It has now been 2 weeks since we left Fiji and our food stocks are running low... No snacks left to nibble on, no fruit, no gin, no more beer. On Monday we will go to Noumea and clear into (and out of) New Cal. We plan to leave for Oz on Wednesday, unless there are more of these crazy low pressures.
Au revoir
G