" A Lady Trip " Sailing around the World
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Mon 14 Jun 2010 15:01
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MONDAY 14th
JUNE ( Presently in "
Hunga" , Vava'u , Tonga )
Another beautifull day in a beautifull 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 30 hrs, 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................ sound 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 arived and sorted
out our clearance papers , and we were almost ready to roll, just some
petrol
for the rib and extra spuds, thats
it.
17.00hrs We said our good byes to some of the other
ARC boats and off wiyh 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 abeam,
20.00hrs The girls, well Margaret
really, served dinner in the " starlight Restaurant" no
drink.
this was lasagne, 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 arrieve in the blinkin 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.
Thats it for today,
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde ( skipper )
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