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Mystery island is surrounded

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Surrounded in mystery that is for sure, or maybe just clouded in mystery.

Mystery island surrounded by clouds of mystery

Seems Daphne, Fred and the whole gang should be living there somewhere.

Well, morning came we waited still no word about permission to clear in with the cruise ship. Waited still office hours and Christine made some phone calls, and got the ball rolling. Not long after, the approval email came in, excitement was finally here. A destination instead of the unknown floating slowly along in building seas.

Alas, the excitement was short lived. A second email came through 5 minutes later saying disregard the first email and proceed directly to Tanna for customs, stating there is some weather coming on Thursday and the cruise ship stop maybe cancelled.

I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for them “Meddling Kids” (and Mother Nature) in the magical mystery machine van.

Bummer! But still we had a plan, now it was too late to make Tanna, Port Resolution in the day time, so the one more night out still held. We sped the boat up just enough to arrive at day break. The Port Resolution bay looks easily do able in the dark, we are not in that much of a hurry that a couple of hours makes a difference. There are 3 boats there currently, something like 6 left yesterday, so there will be plenty of space to anchor.

We did get caught by a weather trough, that has brought some crazy squalls all day and continues into the night. Gusty winds, near 30 knots and sloppy seas, the only saving grace is we are going with the waves and not into them. We have only a bit of head sail, jib, up and we are getting pushed toward our destination. At times too fast, arrive before sunrise and at times too slow arrive well after lunch. Here is hoping the law of averages works out and we arrive at day break.

During the email exchanges, and organizing customs for us at port resolution, we learn that we will arrive on a holiday and fees are doubled. Doh! So I guess the Vegas house wins again.

It is what it is, and it ps time to put some beer in the fridge so that there is a nice cold anchor beer ready for when we arrive. It might be a breakfast beer, before a long solid sleep. Which might be interrupted by the formalities of clearing into the country.

Anchor down beer

20 miles left

I must apologize…

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As expected we motored through the night and into the morning, some morning showers washed the boat off nicely but didn’t bring any extra wind along for the ride.

Comfortable cruising along and by now the batteries are fully charged and have been, sheesh!

Had switched which engine was running and now it was the starboard’s turn to push us along. Along with the gentle glide over the slow rolling sea, the engine vibration makes for some sound sleeping, after you get to sleep. Christine took full advantage and slept right through her morning watch. Must have really needed the sleep…. Or she forgot to take her alarm clock (phone) with her on purpose. All good, I got a good nap too before finishing up our last bagels that we brought along.

Mostly a lazy day, chatting up all the issues boats have seen so far this season. Mostly on this weather window. A lost life raft, washed off during passage. A boat lost on a reef in FiJi. Earthquakes in Vanuatu causing tsunami warnings all 5e way to Tonga. Near miss when dinghy driver falls out of dinghy. Lots going on in our chosen sailing cult.

After lunch the skies started clearing and the threat of squalls gone and the winds had stabilized at a blistering 8-10 knots. Suns out, let’s play. Not sure there is enough wind but let’s give the spinnaker another run.

Spinnaker sailing

Let it ride! Till dark that is.

I must apologize to those who are following along via the satellite tracker, I know how good those satellite images can be. We use them for navigation to see into the water before anchoring. I may have showered off the back of the boat under way today without thinking. Yes it’s finally warm enough for outdoor showers.

Also we have slowed down on purpose. We are trying to time our arrival for daylight, it’s always best to enter new anchorages in day light, and if best if the sun is high over head to spot reefs and shallow parts. However the real driver is there is a cruise ship scheduled to arrive the furthest South Island, affectionately known as mystery island. Normally you must travel further north to the next island to clear in, but occasionally when a cruise ship is in you can get special permission to piggyback on their custom process. They fly the agents out to clear in the cruise ship, we are hoping we can manage to clear in with the cruise ship but need approval first and our emails have not been answered yet. Hopefully tomorrow before we pass on by. Either way, we will have one more night at sea before anchor done.

140 miles to Point Resolution, 90 miles to mystery island if we get approval to anchor the day before the cruise ship arrival.

One way or another some beer goes in the fridge tomorrow so that there is a cold anchor beer.

Let us make lemonade

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When Mother Nature decides to not follow the recipe in the forecast and gives you lemons you make lemonade. Though I prefer limes for margaritas. We improvise and make do.

We have plenty of dead dinosaur juice, so we are not winning any “green card” awards today. Maybe 1/2 of one, since we are only running one engine to keep knocking off the miles. The original forecast was for lighter winds at the second half of the journey, but what we have here, is a failure to maintain that end of the bargain. Which is perfectly okay because the waves and swell is down too so it is perfectly comfortable out here in this big blue puddle.

Made the best of it, Christine trimmed up my mullet. I took the trimmers to my mane and coiffed a perfect Kiwi mullet that would have fit in perfectly at “Frings” on a Friday night. She wanted to take pictures for proof, but I declined as I didn’t want to upstage Joe Dirt.

Worked on a little cosmetic gel coat beautification from where we replaced the bathroom accessories.

Found some important missing safety pins (split rings) that keep the mainsail attached to the mast, so replaced the worn and missing split rings. Replaced some aging bungee cords that had long since lost the spring in their step.

Removed the base layer of clothing, yup, the lack of cold southern wind it is warming up nicely.

All in all a very nice day on the water but maybe too productive, will have to find more projects for tomorrow as well since there looks to be another 🦖 burning day.

Under single engine at efficiency speed we only make about 5 kts, while burning 3 liters per hour, so we are not winning any races and the last 250 nm will take 2 more nights on the water before finding a place to drop the hook and clear customs. And of course we want to arrive in daylight hours … just a juggling act, toss em up in the air catch as many variables as you can.