Another beautiful morning in paradise, with a nice 10 knot breeze blowing througn the boat, keeping us nice and cool. We all went for an early swim, followed by a light breakfast.
Skipper went up the mast with the camera's to take photo's of the beautiful surroundings, the mast being 25 m high.
Donal and John winched skipper up the mast with the electric winch, simple.
At midday, we decided to leave this anchorage and go to a small beautiful Island on the east coast, called "Kenutu" and is one of the most beautiful anchorages in the Pacific. However we abandoned that effort after an hour of trying to pick our way through the large coral reef we had to negotiate on the way, when the depth under the boat went below 1m, skipper decided enough is enough, and off we went to another Island called " Vaka'eitu " on the western shore. We had 3 different maps showing the narrow channel through the reef, all with the directions marked clearly, as the channel was Z shaped, but no reference points, so we couldn't find the starting point, we were so disappointed.
Vaka'eitu, was not as pretty as Port Muerelle, and the water was cloudy by comparison.
Again, we all went swimming and snorkeling, the snorkeling was excellent with lots of coral and fish. Oh and there a lot of " sea urchins" with 12" long spines, magnificent to look at.
Fats did the dinner, roast rack of lamb, ohhhh this NZ lamb, as we said before, is so delicious, we also had creamed potatoes with cheese and onions, peas and carrots ( out of the freezer ) and of course, the sauce, his signature thing. All very yummy..... We had little or no drink, in an effort to make up for all the booze we had last night.
Later, we watched an Irish home made film called " Holy Water " which Aileen brought back with her. It was amateurish, but very funny. Then all off to the scratcher.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzz
That's all,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)