There it was, our first night sail. 83 miles from Moorea to Huahine. Nicolas wanted us to have a night shift of 3 hours alone. Ioulia and I didn´t think that was a good idea. It was our very first time and we were bloody nervous. Ioulia even haven´t touched the wheel in her life before. Thank god, helistened. We had the shifts from 20:00 till 23:00 and 02:00 till 05:00. Nicolas from 23:00 till 02:00 and the last shift from 05:00 till 08:00.

Before we started the shift Ioulia was already sea sick, and also my stomach didn´t feel that well. The wind was 20 knots, the waves were higher than expected, 3 to 4 meters and with the wind almost from behind we surfed the waves. Both ending up feeding the fish, but after that we felt much better. A big cargo ship was coming our way. It was already one hour on crashing course when Nicolas said we could call the ship by marifone to ask if he could see us and if he mind if we would stay in the same course. The ship acknowledged and much more relieved we finally could enjoy the ride more.

What a night, the sky was full of stars. The moments I felt not really comfortable I only had to look up to the starts to feel serene again. It was so beautiful. The moment we really started to relax a bit a big wave hit the boat. Ioulia started screaming, I became very silent (and wet). We were completly surprised. After ten minutes Ioulia finally realized what happened and produced: Wow!!!! Hilarious.

When the wind decided to turn and the sails went over to the other side we woke up Nicolas, not knowing what to do. He decided to change our course a bit to have the sails back on the right side, not to jibe and went to bed again.

Finally, it was 23:00 and we could go to sleep. Yeah right! My bed felt like a swing. I rolled from the one side to the bed to half up the side of the ship and back again. Inside the ship everything was moving. I tried to rest and have slept some 5 or 10 minutes. Nicolas would wake us up at 02:00. When I looked at my watch it was already 02:30. I went up, we changed shifts and started our second one. That was easy peasy. Nicolas had changed the course in his shift. He jibed twice and now we had a safe broad breeze course straight to the island. No ships in the neighborhood who were on smashing course. I finally enjoyed and start to relax. Ioulia however counted the minutes, which was hilarious again. We had a good time, were glad to be together. And where she was saying it was the worst night of her live, the next day she had to admit she has had far more worse nights than this one.

At 05:30 we woke up Nicolas who did the last shift and at 07:30 we arrived in a lovely bay in Huahine. Nicolas opened up a champagne bottle to celebrate our first night adventure. Tired and satisfied we had breakfast. No other boats, only a very angry chief of the village who ordered us to go away otherwise he would start a fight and call the police. Nicolas was surprised cause on the map it said this was an anchor place. The chief later on explained that it was an anchor place for big ships. We had to leave and find a place at the other side of the island. Tired and a bit tipsy by champagne we lifted the anchor, left the bay, hoisted the sails. We sailed for another 2/3 hours, 15 to 17 knots wind, half wind course. I could steer, no more automatic pilot. It was fantastic. Around 14:00 we entered the bay where we would spend the night. The anchoring went well. We were pleasantly welcomed by John and Susie who invited us over the radio for a drink at night in the bar on the island. Finally we could catch some sleep, before we ended up in the bar for a lovely dinner with some other arc people. (Marlies)