PNG Louisades
www.kanaloa55.com
David & Valerie Dobson
Sat 17 Jul 2010 09:49
11.16.69s 152.21.06e
I'm pleased to say that we arrived safe and well, if a little beaten up in a
lovely anchorage off a deserted island called Ana Island in the Duchateau
Group with a beautiful white sand beach, clear warm seas 28c, and no
natives! It has given us a bit of time to do a few repairs, lots and lots
of washing, go for a snorkel and burn our rubbish on the beach. We are so
pleased our crew Ollie loved it.
The trip here was fast and furious with constant 30+ knot winds about 60
degrees off the bow, the boat was constantly drenched with spray and water
running down the decks we felt a bit like a submarine, most of the time we
were sailing at 8+ knots, we slowed down the first night to around 7 knots
for a bit of a respite. However the following day we realized that if we
kept the pace up we could make it by Friday afternoon, so it was pedal to
the metal sailing most of the time under full mainsail, staysail and reefed
yankee. We could not understand why the bilge pump kept running until I
discovered that stupid me had not locked down the lazerette (for non sailors
a big hatch on the back deck to store lots of junk in) consequently all the
water running over the deck was going into the locker and from there into
the bottom of the boat. That's what comes from not having gone offshore for
5 years!
Then the pump that removes the water decided to die but luckily I had
stopped most of it coming by then. About 0600 on the last morning there was
a loud bang like a gunshot and the mainsail out haul parted leaving the
mainsail flogging in the wind so that had to be put away, but within about
an hour or so I had rigged up a temporary outhaul and we were back in
business. The last 7 hours the wind freed a little and we were sitting on
9.5 - 10 knots constantly with full sail up we were going like a train!
So today we managed to get most of our repairs done and are thinking of
moving to another anchorage tomorrow.