20 May 2010
We are now on leg 7 and for this part, the rally was split into two groups. The first (those who did not take part in the Pearl Regatta) left three days ahead of us for Suwarrow in the northern Cook Islands and then on to Niue. This is because there is limited space for yachts within the Suwarrow lagoon and not enough moorings in Niue to accommodate us all. So Voyageur is in group two and at twelve o'clock opposite the Bora Bora Yacht Club the starting gun fired for our departure. Seven yachts crossed the start line, Voyageur, Ciao, Noeluna, Asolare, Liza, Tucanon and Sunrise. Skylark and Chessie are held up in Tahiti. Once through the pass it seemed that we would have the wretched light and fickle winds that had dogged us on the first couple of days of the regatta but by mid afternoon clouds rolled overhead to bring us a delightful broad reach. Voyageur danced along under full main , genoa and mizzen and we even felt sufficiently energetic to break out the mizzen staysail until conditions became a little too boisterous for it and anyway it was nearly time to settle her down for the night. As the sun sank low in the west, we were slipping past Maupiti, the westernmost island in the chain and could just make out the high peak of Bora Bora astern before the darkness closed in all around us.
We had left Les Isles Sous le Vents (Leeward Islands) behind and were once more back out on the ocean. A beautiful night followed a beautiful day, the moon a perfect half and my old familiar friends up there in the night sky. Next morning we poled out the genoa as the wind had backed to the south east and by sundown we had left our final French Polynesian atoll, Motu One, to port, its little palm trees just visible above the horizon. No more "parlez vous Francais"! Our now tattered courtesy flag came down at last from the starboard crosstrees and I dug out my sewing kit to mend it. We had spent nearly two months working our way westwards through this archipelago scattered over many hundreds of miles of ocean and each group very different. The second part of the Pacific lies ahead with new places to visit and new challenges to meet.
Susan Mackay