Pitufa.at

The passing cyclone left us with NW winds for the last few days, but today the wind swapped to the S and got light. We waited half a day for the seas to calm down, asked some local friends to help preparing Pitufa (dinghy up, poles out) and then headed out towards Suva. Birgit’s wedged in on the sofa and I’m single-handing an unfortunately rather rolly Pitufa as the seas are still quite rough.

Two days ago we nearly drowned. Our friend Maikeli (from the island of Matuku) did not make it. He was buried yesterday. We are sad, shocked and in pain. We did not go on a risky adventure, he just wanted us to take some underwater pictures of a reef pass put them in a report to the government about the installation of no-fishing Tabu zone there.

We were reluctant to go, the weather was overcast, we both had a cold, but we didn’t want to disappoint Maikeli and were eager to help with the good environmental intentions of our favourite island here in the Lau group. So we went down South to the Daku passage in his 24 ft open boat. Approaching the pass we saw that the swell was much higher than expected and we would never have taken our dinghy out in such conditions, but we thought Maikeli, who had spent all his 58 year on Matuku, knew how to judge the situation. The pass is short and exiting it on the ocean side, it became clear that the current wasn’t going in as we had thought, it was going out already because of the high swell! Additionally a current set us sideways, towards the breaking surf.

Suddenly this gigantic wave built up ahead of the boat–a 5 meter vertical wall. Maikeli gave full throttle, trying to climb it, but we had no chance. The boat was flipped backwards and crashed down on us together with tons and tons of frothing Pacific. Nobody who hasn’t been swallowed by such surf can imagine the panic of being whirled around, the thundering noise incredible loud, foaming turquoise everywhere, impossible to tell up from down, no more air, coming up coughing, struggling. Then the next wave breaking, the same struggle again and yet another one until we were back in shallower water on the reef. The capsized boat had righted itself, the anchor must have fallen out and so it anchored itself on the reef. Christian managed to climb up on it, shouting and waving for us to come, but Maikeli and I were grabbed by the current and swept out of the pass again, towards the Pacific and certain death. Looking back at Christian I thought that I was getting my last glimpse of him. It seemed so surreal, what a senseless way to die. This couldn’t be the end. My only chance was to swim sideways out of the 4 knot current. Maikeli was drifting next to me, holding on to the gasoline tank–that was the last time I saw him. I swam for my life, reached the breaking surf and got rolled and tossed across the reef again. Somehow I managed to reach the boat and Christian pulled me in, but we were still not safe. The boat was anchored in a precarious position: close enough to the drop-off into the pass to have a ripping current trying to suck us out and close enough to the outer edge of the barrier reef to have occasional waves breaking over the submerged boat–only the bow was sticking out and we were holding on to a line for dear life while I could feel broken ribs in my right side moving and grinding against each other. Christian was standing most of the time, looking for Maikeli, shouting, but no sign of him. We had to wait for another hour until a boat was passing by in the lagoon and spotted us.

They went back to Maikeli’s village Makadru first, we gave a breathless report and then were taken to Pitufa while the search for Maikeli was slowly organised. We washed our wounds and then Christian arranged cushions for me to lean/lie against on the sofa (where I’ve spent the last two days now). The doctor is currently in Suva and the hospital here has no x-ray machine anyway, but Ron, the friendly and very helpful nurse from the main village Yaroi, came to Pitufa, checked my vitals, agreed that at least 2 maybe 4 of my ribs are broken, put a bandage around my chest and supplied me with pain killers and antibiotics. As I’m able to breathe and not coughing blood it seems my lungs are okay. In the meantime Christian was called to shore twice to make phone calls to the police and navy to help organising a search, but it took another few hours until we could finally hear a search and rescue plane (or drone, we weren’t sure). During the night we were still hoping against hope, but in the morning Maikeli’s body was found.

It is simply ungraspable how quickly a routine excursion turned into a disaster. We are cautious, careful people, never have been in severe danger throughout the last 11 years of journey. To face death a few times in a row was a rattling experience. Our plans of leisurly cruising the Lau group are canceled, we have to sail to Suva as soon as the weather allows to get me to a hospital and then there’s a long path of recovery ahead–ribs heal very slowly (6 weeks our offline-wikipedia claims). Christian is also bruised all over, has hurt both his shoulders and is on pain killers as well. But we are certainly not complaining. Against all odds we are still here, still have each other.

Who needs pass markers, when there’s wrecks to mark the pass? Once inside, the harbour is well protected, but not exactly pretty–and rather shallow around the yacht club… It’s a convenient place to park the boat while provisioning in Suva though!

After a week in bustling Suva we headed out for an anchorage just round the corner, out on the reef in clear water, to get away from it all and relax a bit. Or so we thought. We only had two tasks on the to-do list: changing the gear oil on the outboard and sewing a new hatch cover to replace a torn one.
But then the fridge suddenly acted strangely–orange alert!! Fortunately it turned out to be only a cable issue, but that still meant half a day of pulling cables through the bilge–tons of fun in steaming 33°C. Today we tackled the outboard issue (after putting up a shade over the aft deck) and of course things turned more complicated than expected and we ended up working from early morning until 3 in the afternoon in the sizzling sun while apocalyptic clouds were building up over the shore. We finished just in time before the downpour!
The hatch cover has to wait for another day…