AND SO IT IS GOODBYE TO BORA BORA , SUNDAY 13TH JUNE, 2010

 

We left Bora Bora yesterday morning after stocking up with food for 12 days.  We have decided not to go to Rarotonga but to head north to an isolated island atoll in the N. Cook Islands called Suwarrow.  One other BWR yacht is also going that way.  Suwarrow is an atoll with a population of 2 people!  They are the managers of the nature reserve there.  It is written by Robert Louis Stevenson's wife  as being one of 'the most romantic atolls' and very beautiful with unspoilt coral inside and numerous fish including large black tipped Sharks.  They are pretty well fed and so are unlikely to attack you. The atoll is off the shipping routes and there is no airport, the Admiralty charts place it about five nautical miles out, so we have to take that into account on our chart.   One has to get special permission from the  New Zealand govement if you want to stay but there is no accomodation.  Yachts that do make it there can stay for two weeks.  The atoll is 80km in diameter and has 25 tiny motus (islands) which are bird sanctuaries for birds such as the Red Footed Masked Boobie, Frigate Birds, Red-tailed tropic Birds.  A hermit once lived there called Tom Neale a Newzealander who lived on his own from 1954 - 1963 and wrote a book called 'An Island to Oneself'  Sadly we do not have a copy onboard.  I am afraid there will be no photos' for awhile until we get back to an area where we can pick up wifii then I expect I will download loads.  After we leave Suwarrow we plan to sail south -west for Niue where we hope to meet up with some to the other BWR yachts.

Jonathan will be having his Birthday on board on Tuesday but we plan to party as a joint birthday between Donald and Jonathan, (as Donald's Birthday is at the end of the week) on Niue if we can and there are enough BWR friends around to help celebrate.

First night watch was last night - I did the 9 -12 and 6- 9 watches.  No wind, motoring, boring with odd rain squalls on the radar but none hitting us. Our self steering keeps going on the blip for no reason, it happened twice on my watch last night, touch wood it seems to be OK at the moment otherwise we will be hand-steering  all the way.  Jonathan caught a small Skip Jack Tuna yesterday so we had delicious sashimi for lunch with bread and salad.  We don't seem to be reeling in the fish as much as we hoped especially catching large yellow or blue fin Tuna or even a nice Dorado.

Enough of my missive for now.