ByeBye Beqa Hello Denerau
Spindrift
David Hersey
Sat 3 Oct 2009 07:15
17:46.265 S 177:22.912 E
We had a much better meal at The Duvai last night and were joined by the manager Darryl who has offered us accommodation in New Zealand a couple of hundred miles South of Auckland. He regaled us with many stories largely about hunting exploits and how he made a living shooting deer from a helicopter and when he was younger hundreds and hundreds of possums and thousands of scallops. The other guests were having a kava night which we were fortunately too late to participate in.
We left at seven this morning. The wind has been forecast to be Easterly all week and has been defiantly South instead. This morning it greyed over and went East. Before we knew it we were poled out in 30+ knots of wind and racing Westwards. The wind blew away the clouds and it became a really good day, also as it wasn’t from the South it was much warmer than what we’ve had all week. I had planned to stop in a bay about half way to Denerau but it was too exposed in these conditions, so we carried on the full 82 miles. As soon as we entered the pass the wind went North and disappeared so we motored the last 7 or 8 miles and by 5:30 were moored up on the marina dock. As we were sorting our ropes out, a dinghy appeared from a catamaran we’ve seen before demanding to swap some DVDs. He seemed quite desperate.
At one point this afternoon the boat lurched violently and Demetri’s MacBook Pro went flying along with his iPhone. The computer has survived but the studio headphones which were plugged in at the time will need to be repaired and the iPhone seems to have died. I had a very expensive camera lens take off as well but it seems to have survived.
This diary may go quiet for a few days while we sort a few things out.