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Starblazer - 19/05/2014 – On our way again



As planned, we did ‘boat jobs on Friday afternoon though they were only
little niggly problems like reattach one genoa sheet which had chafed
through and do the laundry. On Saturday we had most of the day off! We
explored Anchorage Island, found the bookswap and the cruisers’ shelter,
crossed to the windward side but found no rubbish to pick up then returned
to the boat for lunch. In the afternoon we went snorkelling around a reef
which has grown up vertically from about 8 metres to less than half a metre.
It was roughly oval in shape and we swam all round it, seeing some unusual
and beautiful fish. The dinghy anchor proved very useful once more.

I had suggested to a number of boats that we should gather ashore too watch
the sun go down with a drink in our hands. This was a qualified success. I
think every boat in the anchorage joined us, it was a very convivial
gathering but I doubt anyone was aware of the sun going down! At one point I
looked westward and saw a huge bank of cloud in the process of swallowing
the sun, so no picturesque sunset for us.

We were allowed to stop for 72 hours but the grib weather information
suggest we are likely to suffer very light winds and we don’t want to miss
the planned events on Niue so we left at Sunday lunchtime. As I write this
we have been sailing for 18 hours, and have covered 80 nM of the 519 nM to
our waypoint off Niue so not a very fast day’s sailing. Our speed has
increased since midnight but there is also a sideways component in our
heading so not every mile we sail is towards our destination. In daylight
we will possibly do a sail change to get closer to the required track, it
will depend on whether the wind will be far enough forward from dead astern
to allow the sails to fill. We shall see.

For the last couple of days our generator has been noisier than normal,
Sunday morning John finally looked at it and found that he had not attached
the 'sound-proof' casing (as I suggested 2 days ago!).

John has learned (from Utube) how to make soft shackles from Dyneema rope
and seems to have been in production ever since. Dyneema is a VERY strong
non-stretch rope, these replace stainless shackles and are very easy to
attach.

We also now have a stainless wire harness (Monday manufacture on passage) to
lift the dinghy with the outboard attached, we’ll need that in Niue as the
dinghy has to be lifted by crane each time you go ashore.

The most important news of the day was that John caught a 3 kg yellow fin
tuna and landed it successfully. He cut it up into 6 steaks, two tail
fillets and a big oddly shaped steak which I will use for lunch today.
Dinner last night was, unsurprisingly, pan seared tuna steaks on mashed
potato with carrots and green beans followed by homemade Greek style yoghurt
with apple puree. Miraculously I managed to find enough room in the freezer
for the rest, I only had to evict the last two Pain au Chocolate, we’ll just
have to eat them today!

Joyce


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