Ready to go
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Thu 7 Nov 2013 02:21
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Now the rigg is fixed, we filled the diesel today
(first time since Marquesas and there we filled 200 litres). Here you can do it
tax free. So we have checked out and by doing so we could go ahead and fill
up.
Ellinor is checking all the food supplies. Now it
is the upside down world. Earlier we have been checking that the bildges have
been full before we took off. Now we have to check that they are empty from food
that NZ customs will take from us. NZ is extremely strict with what you can
bring and cannot bring in. So we have to make sure we know what we have and
country of origin (wich is extremely funny when you take away the labels to make
sure there are no cockroach eggs behind).
Next thing to do while waiting is to clean the
waterline (the antifouling is doing a great work), our waterline is to low
(guess why), so we have some growth along the non antifouled
line...
While we are doing our jobs the kids are at
the beach running like wild animals back and forth. They are 7 kids in all plus
some other kids that show up now and then.
The weather pattern does not look to good right
now, there is a trough moving pass Tonga, it can mean everything from severe
rain and wind to almost no wind.We hope Monday-Tuesday will open a window to go
to Minerva reef.
Minerva reef is a very odd place in the middle of
the ocean. It is a big ring of coral with one entrance. You can go in there and
seek shelter from the waves. There is absolutely no island, just a submerged
reef. That is a good place to go to make the passage window so small as possible
when heading south to NZ. It takes about two days to go to Minerva and there you
can choose between two reefs, Minerva North or Minerva South.
The reefs are claimed by both Fiji and Tonga. So
Tonga goes there and puts a light house to mark it as Tongan, then the Fiji Navy
goes there and blows the whole thing to pieces.And so it goes back and
fore.
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