We had a great time in Nuku-Hiva. I wish we could have stayed for a bit
longer, but we do need to keep moving west. I spent a few more days in
Daniel's bay, hanging out with the crews from other boats, tuning
Moondance's rig, trying to surf the little break at the river-mouth in Dan's
bay, etc. while Rose caught a ride into town for some festivities and
dancing. Monday morning I motored through overcast, rain, and some nasty
little squalls to get back into Taiohae to throw out some trash and pick
Rose up. We wanted to leave Nuku-Hiva on Monday, but decided to wait for the
rain to die down and the wind to steady out a bit. Managed to get out of
there yesterday around noon, and have been averaging about 4.5 kts towards
Manihi, an atoll in the Tuamotus. Manihi is a pretty popular visit for
yachts passing through, but it looks like it has an easy pass into the
lagoon. I'd rather not get too adventurous and risk stacking Moondance on a
reef. Some of those atoll passes can be pretty nasty with narrow channels
and ripping currents.
So far, the wind has been very nice, but it is supposed to die today or
tomorrow. Everyone in Nuku-Hiva has been getting differing weather reports,
and most people are talking about waiting almost a week for decent breeze. I
figured the sooner we left, the sooner we'd make our next landfall, even if
we took a couple days longer on the way. Let's just hope all those weather
predictions turn out to be inaccurate. We'll get there.
