Kiera Sleeman’s block part 2

Kiera’s blog Part 2

The following are abridged extracts from Kiera Sleeman’s blog. Kiera was brought up in Probus and has been working on Kawau Island in New Zealand for the past three years. It’s winter down south, and Kiera has a few months to spare so got a crew place on the 100 year old sailing vessel Alvei.

June 2020, Sailing south off the east coast of North Island, New Zealand

On this trip we have had all the sails up including the main square sails, oh my ‘Alvei’ looks so beautiful with all her sails up. We have had heaps of practice learning all the ropes, their positions and what each one does, and which sail each one is for. This was difficult before but now with the practice I think I may nearly know it, ha ha!

On Alevi, raising the heavy anchor is a manual job and it takes several of us to turn the capstan - it’s really hard work. Some days we wake up before breakfast at about 6am to pull up the anchor a few shots so that it breaks it up for us, then we have breakfast and go at it again. By the time the anchor is fully raised, we are exhausted, and our arms are feeling weak. But the work doesn’t stop there, we now have to set the sails, the fore sail, the main sail and then the mizzen. So, by the time we get to rest you can hardly feel your arms and hands. I’m definitely starting to get sailor’s hands, covered in blisters and calluses. One day I got 10 blisters in the space of an hour. Let’s just say my hands are now starting to harden and some mornings it’s hard to straighten them completely when I wake up. But this is fine with me, it’s part of the full experience and I’m loving it!

SV Alevi

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Recently, we have been moving down the coast and anchoring in bays overnight. We have only been putting down the small anchor, as it’s much easier for us to raise it in the morning, but that means we have to do anchor watch in case it slips with the tides. There’s nothing like being on watch 2am-4am or 4am-6am, when it’s pitch black with incredible stars and a full moon, also just hearing the wind howling and the sound of nature waking up and making their noises. I’ve also heard heaps of kiwis. For a few nights it sounded like two males were racing the find the female, which kept me entertained for a while. I’ve heard blue penguins swimming around and making noise on the beach for everyone to hear, you can hear dolphins jumping and blowing in the distance.

Since we’ve left the Bay of Islands we have been completely treated by nature. One day a pod of about seven dolphins guided us the way for about two or three hours. They were the biggest dolphins I’ve ever seen, close to orca size. It was fabulous, all the crew climbed on the netting lying while the dolphins showed off their beauty, diving and turning with their white belly glistening in the water. After they left us we had another huge pod of dolphins crashing through the waves right in line with the sun racing to get to our bow. It was an amazing sight to see, these dolphins were the smallest ones I’ve ever seen, some of the very young ones were like the size of a human baby. They had a good play for a while then we saw them all leave and about a mile away it looked like they were all working the fish and having a lovely feast.

One day we were planning on anchoring or mooring at Whangerai harbour, unfortunately we couldn’t get any response from the Harbour Master and as it was a tad dodgy with some massive cargo ships entering and leaving the harbour, our plans had to change. The Captain said to me ‘Jump on the helm please Kiera, we are heading straight to Kawau, earlier than we thought’. It was already late afternoon, so this meant we would be doing our first overnight passage. The Captain and First Mate set the crew into their watches, I was on first watch (4-8pm). As I was already behind the helm they thought I should carry on, whoop whoop!

We were heading south east following the compass bearing of 160 degrees. This was the first time I’d been helming and only using the compass to guide me. As we got closer, I started to see familiar landmarks which was awesome but also strange because this is my stomping ground and I did not expect to be seeing it for a long while. ha ha!

After this we got treated again, keep in mind this is all in the space of four or five hours. We then saw two infant whales off our port side and two whales gliding through the water in sync with each other with their flutes rising and falling into the sea. It was truly magical.

As the sun started to go down, the temperature dropped, and we wrapped up in warm sailing clothes, grabbed our head torches and we were ready to sail through the night. This night was rather dark as there was no moon, this meant that we were truly sailing in the night.

After a while, the waves started to light up blue from the phosphorescence, also we looked down at our prop and we were leaving a trail behind us and our whole hull was lighting up bright blue. A few moments later a bright blue light shot past in the water, it was as if someone had fired a torpedo at us. Suddenly there were five heading straight towards us and as they got closer, we realised it was dolphins. I couldn’t believe my eyes, this was the most majestic thing I have ever seen, just bright blue lines speeding to and fro, under us, around us, jumping by the bow. It was truly breathtaking, the smile on my face was ear to ear, I was so happy. They really put on a show and stayed with us for an hour or so, it was so incredible.

After my watch ended, I went straight to bed exhausted. I got woken up at 4am for my next watch, first grabbing my warm clothes and a fresh cup of coffee. I poked my head out of the galley and boom there she was, beautiful Kawau Island, my home, my favourite spot on earth... I was so happy considering it was four am. It felt so strange to be seeing Kawau after only a month away but it felt a lot longer.

On this watch I was with Thompson (1st Mate/ American) and Fanny (deck hand/French) again, this was a good group to be with. Thompson taught us about how to compare where other boats are using the compass and how to determine if we will pass them safely or if they will pass us, or if we are on a likely collision course! We also got taught to tell which direction the wind is coming from by where our hair is blowing, ha ha! It was a very peaceful watch because we were just passing time before pulling into Bon Accord harbour as the Captain didn’t want to go into a new bay in the dark, so we hove too on the south east side of Kawau Island looking over to Rangitoto with the north shore all lit up. During this watch we hardly touched the helm because there was no wind at all so we just drifted, moving about one mile in four hours.

Watching the sun come up over Kawau Island was so lovely. We started the engine at about 07:30 and edged our way towards Bon Accord Harbour. Finally we saw the harbour entrance and what a sight to see, my mate Mikey bombs it out on his launch to see us enter the harbour.

We slowed passing Mansion House and seeing Kawau Boating Club, where I’ve worked for the past three years made me feel as happy as can be! The Captain asked me to helm as we motored down the harbour passing close by the Boat Club, then we turned towards Harris Bay to drop our anchor.

The best thing was seeing my little house on the hill, with its wonderful view over the the bay. I recalled that it was less than three months since I first heard about Alvei - I was sat on my balcony having a beer and now to see her anchored right in front of my house is amazing and surreal.

Next month: SV Alvei reaches Auckland....