23:07.121 S
134:58.028 W
FOR SOME REASON THIS ENTRY APPEARS NOT TO HAVE
BEEN SENT SO HERE IT IS AGAIN
19/6/08 18:30
We’ve bowed to prudence and dropped the spinnaker
after a delightful few hours.
It’s dark and there are squalls about, so there’s
no need to ask for trouble. It’s
been the best day in recent memory
with lots of sun. I suspect
we’re about to pay for it with a squall.
No sunset tonight, just grey lurking on the horizon.
20/6/08 00:45
Few light rain squalls around tonight. Moonlight through gauze layers
again.
We motored for an hour when the wind went fluky
but are now sailing nicely.
03:00
Still sailing, just. Cloud broke up quite a bit and we’ve had
good moonlight and even the odd star. Hasn’t rained in several hours. Should arive late morning which is the
best time of day to enter an atoll as the sun will be overhead.
09:00
Beautiful sunny morning. Lots of blue sky, the only clouds are
the friendly fluffy variety.Very Warm. Wind very low so we turn on the engine
for the last 20 miles.
Maybe we’ve finally passed through a weather curtain and are truly in the
Pacific.
13:30
Actually we sailed most of the way. We anchored at 12:30 in Mangareva in the
Gambier Islands. Population 500-600.
There are 9 other yachts here. We
logged 314 miles in total. 95 miles were under engine.
Demetri
and I went ashore to do the paperwork and found the Gendarme but he was having lunch and said to come back at 4. We found a fresh food stand with good looking veg but she only
takes local currency which we can change at the Post office which is closed until 2 and open until 3. Apparently the Gendarme simply
photocopies our passports and we then have to go to the post office to buy a
stamp to send the phoptcopies to Papeete,
but the Post office will be closed by then so it will take two days to check in.
The Veg lady is there until 3:30
and not again until Sunday. We have
to do bit of adjusting to fit into the local routine. But its still warm and sunny. More to
follow.