Happily anchored in the South Minerva Reef lagoon
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 8 May 2009 05:32
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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
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