Happily anchored in the South Minerva Reef lagoon

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 8 May 2009 05:32
23:55.932S  179:06.218W
 
We motorsailed madly through last night and today to arrive in good light (3pm) at South Minerva Reef.  This is not a place you'd want to approach at night.  There is only one marker and it is in the wrong place.  Also, the entrance through the reef into the lagoon is a bit twisty with a few nasty coral heads lurking just below the surface of the water.  There are no lights and there is literally no land.  All we can see from our vantage point in the lagoon are the waves breaking on the reef that surrounds us.  That's all we can hear as well.  Veeerrrry quiet otherwise.  Being here is just as we imagined - like being anchored in a calm spot in the middle of the ocean.  If you zoom in on our position on the Google map, you should be able to see what I am describing - no land, just reef in the middle of the ocean.
 
Storyteller was the first boat to arrive (not surprising given they can motor consistently at 8 knots in their new fangled trawler) and spent their first night completely alone in the lagoon.  Mighty spooky for sure.  We are now quietly floating at anchor with Storyteller and nine other sailboats.  John from Storyteller has already been over in their new dinghy to invite us over for cocktails and dinner.  Someone has to help them eat the three fish they caught on the way, so it might as well be us.  It's warm, the sun is shining and we'll soon be having cocktails at sunset at we sit in our newfound ocean pool.  Ahhhh  - it's good to be back in the tropics!  (or almost, we are still a good 60 miles south of the official tropics latitude)
 
We haven't decided how long we will stay here....it depends on the weather.  Once we leave, we have another 270 miles or about two days of sailing to get to our final destination for this passage, which is Pangaimotu Island in the Tongatapu Island Group of Tonga.  I'll update the blog again before we leave here.  In the meantime, it looks like it's about time for cocktails and fish.  Life is good.
 
Anne