May 25
Yesterday we had off and on rain showers with wind, as expected. Unexpectedly Southern Cross had visitors - humpback whales. We tried to get close to see them but we only managed to see a few whales breeching. I want whales to visit us - close but "notthisclose".
Last night we had squalls all night, 5 knots of breeze jumped to 25 with higher gusts. Today promises more of the same. We won't make it into Suwarrow before the depression hits so we're likely to hit higher wind tonight, maybe in mid 30s but hopefully not more.
So we're working on lessons. I'm going through the cabinets to use up the canned goods we've had on board for a while. I repack the cabinets when possible to make sure we employ FIFO, and use any that are starting to deteriorate. The salt air/humidity and any stray moisture leads to deterioration of canned goods and all foodstuff pretty quickly. I've used the "fastbake" feature on the breadmachine for the first time and it does a decent job - a loaf in 1 hour. The breadmaker has been a really good item to have onboard, I made cinnamon buns for breakfast a few days ago and will use it to make pizza dough tomorrow. It's been a really well used piece of equipment.
So we're 120 miles from Suwarrow which means we'll get there tomorrow morning. Looking forward to anchoring and getting a decent night of sleep! We were going to skip Suwarrow and go straight to Nuie (since we left Bora Bora late) but were directed to go north for weather reasons and it should work out well - we've heard from the other rally boats that it's a lovely place with great snorkelling.
Off to help the girls with lessons,
Pauline