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Samsara - Almost at the finish line!



July 25

It's 7pm Vanuatu time and we're within 5 miles of the finish. Then we go through the pass and travel 100 miles to Mackay. We'll be very happy to arrive there!

Since the last entry we have had a lot of wind and waves. We'd be sailing along at 7 knots or so then the wind would pipe up significantly and we'd hit 10 or sometimes 11 knots of speed for a brief period - that's pretty fast for this boat. Oh, and it's cold at night too. We're in the southern hemisphere and it's winter here so we've had to break out the fleece for night watches.

Today we were all in the cockpit and as the waves were coming along Sarah spotted dolphins swimming "at" us. Because the waves were fairly large the dolphins were right at eye level swimming at the boat. So we all ran to the bow and we had 20 or 30 dolphins - some really large - swimming and jumping in the bow wake for about an hour. Seems like it's been a while since we had dolphins and this was a large pod - and the water was so clear we could see them in the waves several hundred feet away as they were swimming toward our boat.

So we've almost consumed all of the food we can't take into Australia - we might have to toss some cheese but that's probably it. I've timed it reasonably well and we are coming into Australia with an almost empty fridge and freezer. We still have dry goods to use up so we'll continue to work on that. Of the dry goods I think popcorn is the only item we may have to toss (it's not allowed).

We'll see - we've heard the checking in can take several hours as they inspect quite a lot on the boat when you check in. We will hopefully be at the quarantine dock tomorrow afternoon, depending on the wind, and we'll find out firsthand what's involved.

Pauline


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