Day 18....316 miles to go.

Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Tue 9 May 2006 21:23
9 degrees 53' South 133 degrees 21' West
 
To say we are nearly there would be tempting fate but we are certainly now a great deal closer than when we started. Our progress for the last few days has been slower and less comfortable with the wind a little less reliable both in direction and strength but we are now almost close enough to smell the coconuts. The trick now is to try to engineer a daylight arrival rather than arrive in the dark and have to sit around all night waiting for dawn to find our way in. There is also a single rock about 14 miles this side of the island which we want to give a good wide berth to.....it would be a shame to run straight in to the first solid object we have come across in 3000 miles!
 
In case you are wondering why I have not been sending lots of photos of the fish I have been catching it is because (at least for the present) my piscatorial talents seem to have eluded me. Not a thing, for more than a week....the hooks have been in the water so long they are beginning to go rusty.
 
Finally just in case you think it is all gin & tonics and sunbathing here are Lucy's exact comments from the log last night.
 
01:00 Horrible, have gybed back on to port tack.
02:00 Wet, very wet
03:00 Still black clouds coming from east, wet.
04:00 Heavy rain-cloud overhead. Raining hard.
05:00 HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE
 
You will be glad to hear things looked a little brighter over of a mug of tea once the sun had come up. Anyway, Fatu Hiva is not too far ahead over the horizon and then, with a bit of luck, it is back to gin & tonics and sunbathing!