tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77978052286049463822024-03-13T06:35:31.742-07:00S/V Vida NovaNAVEGAR É PRECISOS/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.comBlogger105125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-14295844571599622062012-08-05T18:02:00.001-07:002012-08-05T18:07:17.857-07:00Honiara, Guadalcanal - Solomon Islands
Posted 5 August 2012
By good fortune my arrival at Honiara coincide with the 11th Pacific Arts Festival, where Island nations around the Pacific were represented with dance groups, carving and of course the Vakas, a modern version of Polynesian sailing canoes. This was a great show put on by the Solomon's government. What I liked most was a war raid using 12 war canoes with S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-34162037401282866452012-07-07T06:31:00.001-07:002012-07-07T06:40:36.225-07:00My passage to Solomon Islands
Posted Saturday 7 July 2012
After leaving Noumea, on the June 16, I made my way to the Loyalty Islands where I spend 5 days, relaxing and enjoy the quite atmosphere of the tribal life in Ouvea.
I got my weather window from Veronica and weighed anchor on Sunday June 24 at 2130 UTC, after motoring briefly I raised my sails and heading north to the pass of Taureau, S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-16488438847431695692012-06-14T20:46:00.001-07:002012-06-14T20:53:05.724-07:00New CaledoniaPosted Thursday 14 June, 2012
I am now fully recovered from my injuries and am waiting for a weather
window to carry on to the Loyalties Islands east of New Caledonia. I
would prefer a westerly wind, but most probably it will be from the
east, which mean a beat again. From there I will proceed to the
Solomon Islands, where I intend to do some wreck diving in Gizo.
I very much enjoyed my S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-62275488316500877312012-05-30T06:44:00.001-07:002012-05-30T22:05:22.275-07:00Opua to New CaledoniaPosted 30 May 2012
First of all, I apologize for the delay on the blog. I left Opua on May 10, bound to Vanuatu with 15 knots of wind from astern. The wind eventually picked up to F7 during the night and it carried on well into the afternoon on the following day, making for a boisterous but fast sailing.
On the 2nd night out the wind calmed down to 10/12 knots and so did the seas, giving me a S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-41012607903550190292012-03-15T22:39:00.004-07:002012-03-17T14:42:01.113-07:00Lord Howe to New ZealandPosted 15 March 2012
We departed Lord Howe, Monday February 27 with light winds from the SE, 10 to 15 knots in strength and calm seas. In these conditions beating to windward is a pure pleasure as the apparent wind moves forward giving the boat a good speed. I steered a direct course to Cape North my next way point after leaving Pyramid's Balls on my port side.Sailing wing on wing, S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-75327622502887205492012-02-25T20:25:00.001-08:002012-02-27T06:26:17.385-08:00PredeparturePosted 26 February 2012, Lord Howe Island
Tomorrow, Monday, 27 Feb. Vida Nova will be sailing to New Zealand and I would like to share with you the way I go about preparing her and myself for the passage. From my perspective, the most important is the weather window and the forecast for the next 5 to 7 days,which at this stage predicts strong winds towards the end of the week, but as S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-72856932337038101562012-02-21T18:37:00.003-08:002012-02-22T06:01:53.140-08:00Lord Howe IslandPosted Wednesday 22 February 2012
31 31.43S by 159 03.06E
After an uneventful passage, which means a good one, I arrived in lord Howe, Tuesday 21 Feb. at about 0300 am local time and heave to 12 nm off the island waiting for day light to go through the pass.
When I woke up, I was greeted with strong NE winds, clocking 26 kn, so I had no choice but to beat to windward on a shortS/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-83099876570463128152012-02-18T20:25:00.002-08:002012-02-22T06:02:26.274-08:00On passage to Lord Howe islandPosted 19 Sunday 2012
30 57 S by 155 31 E
I am at the present moment motor sailing towards Lord Howe, where I should arrive some time on Tuesday. I would rather be sailing, but at the same time I do not mind the motor as it gives me a chance to do emails, weather, position reports and basically getting use sailing alone. So far it has been good, but off course I did not payed my school S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-51267622412855947202012-01-17T17:00:00.000-08:002012-01-18T08:00:25.565-08:00Coffs HarbourPosted 17 January 2012
I'm very happy now that I decided to do a over nigth passage from Tweed River to Coffs Harbor because the weather in the space of a day changed for the worst. It was a good trip with NEasterlys 10 to 15 knots and small seas, but very tiresome for me because I only could sleep 10 minutes at the time. The next day, January,15th was spend resting and on the following day, I S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-91190974613417622512012-01-11T13:26:00.000-08:002012-01-12T14:00:43.914-08:00Due SouthPosted 11 January 2012
Shorncliffe is a beautiful seaside village at the mouth of Cabbage Tree creek just north of Brisbane. It his a well located marina, close by shops and trains and safe to leave the boat to go exploring.
The 1st time we met Steve was in Niue aboard Heat Wave and again in Musket Cove, Fiji with his partner Nicky. We sail together from Cabbage Tree to Tangalooma on Morton S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-16759724185408733302011-12-22T14:51:00.001-08:002011-12-22T15:03:05.398-08:00We love AustraliaPosted 23 December 2011
Australia is such a beautiful country and the people so friendly. We sailed from Bundaberg to a small town called Shorncliffe about 5 nm north of Brisbane. We enjoy our time with Morgan although we had some bad weather.We love it here, but we also had to make some of our hardest decisions here. Since the year 2000 I enjoyed the liveaboard lifestyle and coastal cruising, S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-2467336856682205432011-11-17T16:24:00.001-08:002011-11-17T16:24:20.536-08:00Bundaberg, AustraliaPosted 18 November 2011Our arrival in Bundaberg was a very positive experience. The Port2Port Yacht rally co-ordinates with the Australian authorities so that they know exactly when you will arrive in port. This service speeds up the clearing into the country. We had no problems and everything went smoothly. We were also welcomed by a Port2Port Yacht Rally representative with all kinds of S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-58613153135172136462011-10-26T04:43:00.000-07:002011-10-26T04:46:20.287-07:00We are in Bundaberg Australia !!Posted 26 October 2011We are in Australia !!! We arrived in Bundaberg this morning after sailing for 4 days from Chesterfield reef. The trip was quite rolly for the first 2 days and then we had light winds. The boat needs to be lifted out of the water for bottom paint and lots of other little maintenance jobs. We will look into that for next week. For now we will do some exploring and get our S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-92114168367136207652011-10-17T15:06:00.000-07:002011-10-17T15:07:23.592-07:00Our passage to Chesterfield reefsPosted 18 October 2011We all had a wonderful time at Huon, exploring the island. Huon is just a strip of sand with some grass and reefs, the bird life is great, we saw lots of birds and turtles. Steve, Wayne and Dean from s/v Mamalu had a great time spear fishing and gave us some lovely coral trout fillets. Jeff, Sue and Amanda from s/v Xyra invited us all for supper and we enjoyed the evening S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-40650886752665630122011-10-13T19:24:00.000-07:002011-10-13T19:35:55.576-07:00Our passage to Atoll de HuonPosted 14 October 2011We left midnight Tuesday 11 October for Atoll de Huon which is 286 nm from Espiritu Santo Island. This is the most northern island of New Caledonia. We figured that is would take us 2 and a half days to arrive Friday morning during day time. We had great sailing conditions the swell was small and the wind range from 12 to 18 knots on the beam and later on a broad run. This S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-38301396559240645012011-10-07T15:30:00.000-07:002011-10-07T15:33:49.775-07:00Our trip to VanuatuPosted 8 October 2011We left Fiji with s/v Heat Wave on 21 September, after spending some time together sailing to the Blue Lagoon after we cleared out. Heat Wave was heading towards New Caledonia and ourselves towards Port Vila in Vanuatu. We started with very little wind and motored for about 6 hours before the wind settled in for a very comfortable sailing on beam reach between 10 and 15 knotsS/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-9837703673441803882011-09-26T13:50:00.000-07:002011-09-26T14:38:40.545-07:00Pirates Day - FijiPosted 26 September 2011One of the activities was a race from Musket Cove to the Beachcombers Resort on another island for the pirates day lunch and festivities. Joao, Dinis and myself were invited aboard Seafarer 4 for the race. We were so bad dressing up as pirates, but Diane came to our rescue. This race has no rules, so a lot of fun stuff is planned for the race. We did not have balloons so S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-52725989694525744322011-09-26T13:36:00.000-07:002011-09-26T13:38:57.931-07:00Musket Cove - FijiPosted 25 September 2011Fiji was magic, after our clearing in we made our way to Musket Cove Yacht club and Marina. It is on Malolo Island and is the only resort that is geared up for the yachts. This is excellent as all the yachties can enjoy the facilities of the resort and the resort guests love visiting the boats and talk to all the sailors.Our arrival coincide with the 28 th annual Fiji S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-22305121136874988652011-09-02T18:53:00.000-07:002011-09-02T19:08:01.644-07:00Our passage to FijiPosted 3 September 2011We were watching the weather closely for a opening to go to Fiji. We had rather strong SE winds blowing for about 8 days. We did not have much time to see all the lovely islands in Tonga, but spend some time with our friends Chantal and Fredy (s/v Micromegas) and Jean-Marc and Odile (s/v Lifou) in Hunga Island.Our weather opening came and we left for Fiji on Monday S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-91121253147147174452011-09-02T17:23:00.000-07:002011-09-02T18:51:13.542-07:00Tonga feastPosted 2 September 2011On Sunday morning 21 August Larry and Kim (s/v Magenta), Steve (s/v Heat Wave) and ourselves were picked up by our host. When we arrived at his residence we were just in time to see the opening of the underground oven. The oven is about 2x2x2 meters and at the bottom is a layer of hot stones. Breadfruit, yams, sweet potato and green papaya were packed in two layers above S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-86581337076145644492011-08-19T17:43:00.000-07:002011-08-19T17:42:46.900-07:00Arrived in TongaPosted 20 August 2011The weather between Bora-Bora and Tonga seems to be quite unpredictable, with frequent squalls and rain. We had a pleasant passage until a big squall hit us. We furled the genoa and had 3 reefs in the main sail and this was done very fast. We were lucky as the amount of rain that was dumped on us was the most I have seen up to now. The winds was blowing 35 knots for about 3 S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-62780571715404834222011-08-17T05:26:00.001-07:002011-08-17T05:26:09.093-07:00Niue IslandPosted 15 August 2011Our passage to Niue was uneventful except for 1 night where the wind picked up to about 28 knots. Not to put too much pressure on the wind vane we reduced the genoa to quite small. We arrived in Niue at 03:00 am on Monday morning 8 th August. The bay was totally calm and with the light from the moon we had no problem seeing the mooring buoys. Our friends from Cool Cat and S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-78148672394051708452011-08-12T19:16:00.000-07:002011-08-12T22:07:14.887-07:00Palmerston Atoll - South Cook IslandsPosted 8 August 2011We were 3 boats that arrived on Sunday 31 July at Palmerston Atoll, Chantal and Fredy from Micromegas and Hanuku and Darrel from Cool Cat. Our hosts Edward and Simon brought the officials aboard on Monday morning. No problems clearing into the South Cook Islands, although quite expensive, cost us $105.00 NZD. After clearing in, we all went ashore where the hosts organized a S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-11439740154483517002011-07-31T19:16:00.000-07:002011-07-31T19:19:57.150-07:00Very tiring passage - Palmerston AtollPosted 31 July 2011On our second day out we discovered the watermaker electric motor is not working. We suspect the brushes as with a previous inspection of the motor we noted that the brushes were nearly gone. Lesson to ourselves 'make sure the tanks are full before leaving'. We had enough water for this trip and we will be able to get water in Palmerston, but we will not do that S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7797805228604946382.post-51652690796255170912011-07-27T19:16:00.000-07:002011-07-27T19:18:12.337-07:00Meeting great peoplePosted 26 July 2011We had the great fortune in meeting a Canadian family from Toronto area in Bora-Bora. Cornelia and Michael with their three children Zoe (13), Maia (11) and Liam (9) on s/v Gromit. Both Dinis and myself love children and had a great time interacting with the children and their parents. I think it is a great experience for these children learning and experiencing different S/V Vida Novahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03137879164767010068noreply@blogger.com0