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American Spirit II - Day 154; Windy Trip to Neiafu & Dingy Flips Twice; Sunday, June 9, 2014



Alarm went off at 6:00 AM. The plan was to go back to Neiafu and for me to go to the 10:00 AM services at St. Joseph's Cathedral. However, when I got up the wind was howling at 25-30 knots and rain squalls were pounding the boat. Joel got up, and I told him we're sleeping in. No reason to head out is such lousy conditions. Back to bed.

Got back up at 9:20 AM. At 9:40 AM saw a 'double ender' horizontal rainbow bracketed by Starblazer and Avocet, just above the island, with the island in the background. A 6 on a 10 scale. Took a picture. I'll have to email to Starblazer and Avocet.

Breakfast at 10:15 AM consisted of scrambled eggs, chilled chopped pineapple and bread. At 10:44 AM Harry from Hebe came by in a dingy and gave us our host, David's, leather bound guest book to sign, which I gladly did with a few words about where we were from and our thanks for the previous night's pig roast. Later David, his wife and some of their children came by in their motor boat and gave us a farewell gift - a dozen bananas. John and Joyce from Starblazer came by in their dingy, soaked to the bone. They had dingied over to a nearby island to attend the Methodist services earlier in the morning. Because of the wind and waves, they got soaked on the way over to the church. John was wearing a black garbage bag for a jacket when he came by.

For the rest of the morning I filled out 15 postcards and addressed them. The cards were actually reproductions of whale pictures taken under water and above by Lisa Malloy (?), the proprietor of Tropicana Cafe. Lisa, besides owning the cafe, was a professional photographer. One postcard had a picture of a whale breaching the surface; another of a Humpback Whale sleeping underwater; and the third a whale shot and some facts about the whales on the bottom of the card. Besides filling out the cards I continued to read An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale, a book about his staying on Suwarrow for 6 years, alone. Since we had spent 5 days on this same island the book was a very interesting read. Even though Tom Neale is not a professional writer, and even though this was his first and only book ever published (as far as I know), his writing style was excellent. Kind of like a modern day Robinson Crusoe. Except his experience was more difficult and demanding.

At 1:35 PM we weighed anchor. The throttle was sticking a little, a problem we've had once before. Time for more WD40. Hebe weighted anchor before us, and had to send a snorkeler in the water due to the difficulty of raising their anchor. Immo was given that task and was successful after 10 or 15 minutes.

On our way back to the anchorage at Neiafu the dingy, which we were towing, flipped over twice. Fortunately, we had removed the motor before departing. On the first flip, the two oars floated away and we had to turn around and go get them, using a boat hook to grab them. After flipping the dingy back over again, we proceeded to our destination. The second flip occurred when the wind, still gusting at 25-30 knots, not only flipped the dingy over but we had a harder time flipping it back due to the suction it had on the water. Once we got in the lee of some islands it was less windy and wavy, so no more flips. We arrived back where we started the day before at 3:43 PM and grabbed the same mooring ball we had had for the previous week.

We dingied in to the Aquarium Cafe for dinner and Wifi between rain squalls at 7:00 PM. The Wifi wasn't working too well, with the system being 'down' 90% of the time. So much for the 'free' in free Wifi. I had a pizza, with meat and pineapple; and Joel had a blackened fish salad. My pizza was too much pineapple and not enough meat. Joel's blackened fish was outstanding. Vanilla ice cream for desert. We were back on the boat at 8:30 PM.

We watched 2 more episodes of The Pacific until 10:30 PM, an HBO series about the US Marines and the war in the Pacific during World War II.

Lights out at 11:15 PM.

Days until home 327.

Brian Fox

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