Another beautiful day in a beautiful anchorage, surrounded by high wooded cliff's, and a few buildings here and there.
There were 4 other boats here, all catamarans, and all chartered from the "Moorings" charter co.
09.00hrs We started the engine and let it run for 15mins to heat up, then we slipped our moorings and headed out through the tiny narrow little entrance, as they say here, "to the left, very deep & very narrow, to the right, very narrow & very shallow". We are now heading back to Neiafu, where we have to check out with immigration and Customs, and get some diesel if possible. The distance is approx 10 miles and there is very little wind - 6 knots.
10.30hrs We tied up to the custom house dock, and skipper took off up to Immigration with his bag of papers and all the passports, the dolls took off and did some last minute shopping and later met skipper for some breakfast.
11.30hrs We did all the paper work with customs, and got our duty free document for diesel, (this document gets us the diesel for almost half price) so we booked our diesel delivery to the boat at the first available slot, which was 15.30hrs, and then customs would visit the vessel and give us our final clearance forms. God! Trying to get out of some of these places is worse than trying to break out of jolly jail................ sounds ok? Bleeden Burocrats! the same everywhere.
We returned to the boat and gave Fats a break and left him go ashore for a while to stretch his organs.
As we sat on the aft " quarter deck sofa " and admired all the ......... mares tails......... in the sky above, reminded us of the little saying :-
Mackeral skies
and mares tails
make tall ships
wear small sails
15.30hrs The diesel truck arrived bang on time, and we loaded 300L of fuel. Shortly after, the customs guy arrived and sorted out our clearance papers, and we were almost ready to roll, just some petrol for the rib and extra spuds, that's it.
17.00hrs We said our goodbyes to some of the other World ARC boats and off with us, out to sea once more.
Distance to Fiji..................................410 miles
Travel time at 6.5 knots.....................63 hrs
ETA..................................................07.00hrs Thursday morning (local time)
Course.............................................285 degrees T
Wind ...............................................15 knots SSE
Sea state..........................................moderate
Weather............................................Ok
19.00hrs We cleared the Islands and set the sails, wind a beam.
20.00hrs The girls, well Margaret really, served dinner in the " starlight Restaurant" no drink. This was lasagna, with a salad on the side, yeah, it was fine.
The wind increased as the night wore on, over 20 knots, and this gave us good sailing conditions and a much increased speed, this in turn fecks up our early morning arrival in Fiji, so we could arrive in the blinking dark... ohhh S
Ahhhh well, we will see how it goes, we could always stop in one of the millions of islands on route and take a break.
The night watches are :- Donal & Margaret............................... 21.00hrs / 24.00hrs
Scotty, ( John ) .................................24.00hrs / 03.00hrs
Skipper ...................................03.00hrs / 06.00hrs
Aileen ...................................06.00hrs / 09.00hrs
Did you ever hear this one :- Q Why did the Irish wind up with all the potatoes, and the Arabs with all the Oil?
A The Irish had 1st choice.
That's it for today,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)