In one of the Pirates of the Carribean movies, Captain Jack is being chased by Chinese pirates. They get into a whirl pool and a swept about out of control.
That is how this morning started. No pirates involved but the tidal race between Columbia and Pandora Banks. These are the areas of breaking water you see when standing in the car park at Cape Reinga.
We cross the top of the county in fickle conditions, and I headed to sleep at Cape Reinga. The fickle conditions became, becalmed in 4 -6 knots of current want to pull us over the Pandora Bank.
THEORY says you won't be pulled over the shoal as the current will be less in the shallow water. hmmmm I love theory as you all know, but neither Rob or I was keen to try.
We tried to get free of the grasps of the south moving jet, struggling in 3-4 knots of wind to create some north movement to enable us to exit to the west of Pandora Bank. The waves were large, east coast waves, west coast waves and of course all stood up by the current and the shallow water.
As there was little wind the rig was taking a hammering, the sails thrown around, crashing in to the rig. After all I could take we pulled down the number one headsail and put up the much smaller number 3. Very small for the conditions, but did the trick with damaging itself or me!
Rest of the day has been crusiey. Sailing in company with Katana. Only issues was Rob's beloved SSB decided not to want to cooperate this evening, after using of our emergency antenna to complete our position report, the issue - a brand new crimp as found and replaced so we are back on the air.
More of the same tomorrow, walking line of being east to not sail more miles than we need and being west to stay in the breeze. And of course keep our eyes open for the Kraken and any Chinese Pirates!
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