leaving New Caledonia
Panulirus
CR and KN Williams
Tue 27 Jul 2010 06:33
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22.20S 166.24E
27th July, 1700
Not our best day. We intended to set off at 6am but
switching on the chart plotter/radar was unrewarding. The nice french guy who
fixed the horn came almost immediately, took the Raymarine kit away and returned
5 hrs later having done a factory reset (which I suppose I could have, and
should have, done) saying it was fixed. He's almost right, it's only conked out
once since and C was fiddling with it at the time. Still we can't wait until
everything is perfect, EXCEPT when we left at 1pm the weather and the seas got
worse and worse until we decided to stay inside the lagoon with horrible seas
(it's a big lagoon) and 28kts wind. Headed into the wind to a tripper island at
between 0.0 and 0.8 SOW with, unbelievably, a current in our favour of 2kts to
find a buoy which, with a lot of bad language, we finally picked up. Apparently
there is a fine restaurant and swimming pool ashore but crap dinghy being what
it is we won't get there; wait until tomorrow. Wind is howling but I don't dare
switch on the anemometer in case it breaks.
K
We are sitting on this buoy [one of the
french ones with no pick up line so K was brilliant to get it] with the wind
howling in the shrouds. I am very glad we decided not to head out to sea just a
few hours before dark. Maybe the wind will have dropped a bit tomorrow and
things always seem easier in the morning.
C
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