Tahanea, just inside the middle pass. Snorkeling with Manta Rays and of course the local reef sharks in crystal clear water.

Closer and closer we go.

Another uneventful day, well there were some fun things. In the morning the wind picked up, we sailed for several hours at decent speeds. Knocking off the miles and hopes of arriving on Sunday during the day light hours danced about the mind. Knowing deep down that there wasn’t much chance of the wind behaving for the next 48 hrs to make that a reality.

Finally a keeper fish came on board. A decent sized tuna, 4 meal or so, took a liking to the bright skirted lure. Bright was the color in the Caribbean but so far the lures that were getting the attention were dark in color. Course the dark ones were favorites of the big guys that take the lures with them.

Christine made banana muffins from bananas she had frozen before we left Gambiers, turned out yummy as usual.

Noticed a bunch of birds circling in front of the boat after I woke up from a nap. Went to the bow to check em out and since the wind was down you could see clearly in the water, the bigger fish chasing smaller fish and then the birds taking advantage and snatching the smaller fish. Went on for hours, they seemed to always be a couple boat lengths away and never behind the boat where the lures were waiting. Wonder if the fish saw us coming and checked out our lures and since we were only going 5 knots, thought that there must be something ‘fishy’ about these lures and just left them untouched.

Lightning was all in the sky early this morning, beautiful but nervous at the same time. Started out just on the port side of the boat, but eventually we could see lightning all around. Most was staying in the sky, but a few were making tracks to the water. Glad they were far far away. Even tho it was ‘red in the morning’ the day was good with only a few drips of rain.

All good, looking forward to finding a place to anchor or a mooring, just looks like it going to be 2 more nights, tonight and tomorrow till we are on the hook in Tahiti.

130 of 498 miles left to go.
[realtime]

At 6/2/2019 @ 6:37 AM UTC
Our position: 17°37.29’S, 147°20.74’W
Traveling 4.8 heading 275T

Google says we are here
www.google.com/maps/place/-17.62150,-147.34567

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Another marvelous day, another sunset, another low wind day and we crossed the 1/2 way mark to Tahiti. Its been slow going just putting along. The wind didn’t fill in, but we ran raised the big spinnaker anyway and let it ride for about 5 hrs with the flukey winds. This spinnaker flies from the top of the mast and can still touch the water in front of the boat if it doesn’t stay flying. With the swell and light winds it was collapsing occasionally. On one of those collapses I was looking out window and saw it snag the cleat on the bow. It does that occasionally, and we have swim noodle that is wedged under the cleat to keep it from snagging. Somehow it got in there and the sound of rip-stop nylon ripping as ran to the bow to release the spinnaker. Free’d it and brought the kite down.

Now its got a 3 foot rip at the bottom. Break out the sewing machine and that is what seemed like the project of the day. Christine brought out the spare spinnaker material and the sail tape. We taped it up good and it looks like it’ll hold so holding off on sewing a patch on it. The sail tape needed 1 hour to fully cure. And the wind was still marginal for flying it, decided to just use the jib instead, and put the spinnaker away till we see a solid breeze that will keep the sail full over the waves.

Started messing with the music collection, de-duped and renamed and categorized a whopping 1%, so that means at least 3 months of doing 1% per day. Oh my!

The wind filled in after dinner. Would really like to try the spinnaker now, but its plenty dark since the moon doesn’t wake up till almost daybreak.

All good on board. Staying hydrated as its real hot when there is no breeze, and getting some sleep here and there. Cheers

245 of 498 miles left to go.
[realtime]

At 6/1/2019 @ 3:32 PM UTC
Our position: 17°39.92’S, 145°55.66’W
Traveling 4.9 heading 276T

Google says we are here
www.google.com/maps/place/-17.66533,-145.92767

=====
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