Walkabout - Day 3 - Nuka Hiva to Fakarava - Slow days at Sea

S13:60 W144:02


Hello,

We are all trying to get back into the routine of life at sea, you would have thought it would be pretty easy after spending nearly 3 weeks at sea about 10 days ago. It feels like we set off on a day sail that’s just been lasting for the last 72 hours so far. Maybe that’s just all my mind could cope with thinking about after the passage we have done!

We are gradually still on the mend with eating bigger and more substantial portions every time. There is still some food we think about cooking and go maybe not today, just a step too far. For breakfast we had eggy bread and bacon sandwiches which smelt and tasted unbelievably good. Lunch was bean salad, coleslaw and wraps and dinner was tomato bolognese pasta while we took part in our daily not so formal SSB call.

We have found that without the fishing rods in for the last few days there has been a lack of anticipation around. You are always slightly waiting for the line to go screaming out and it always makes the day go faster. The 'black striped Tuna’ (still don’t know what it really is) that we caught is still tasting good and we are just trying to think of more ways to eat it. We might put the rods back in today as if we do catch something there will always be people to share it with when we get to this first Atoll called Fakarava. But the good news is that the fridges and freezer seem to be working after Andrews temporary wiring solution. Its a good start to having them getting properly repaired. Hopefully we can rerun the wiring for fridge somewhere other than on the front of the kitchen cabinets later on. When we know this solution does work.

The stars have been out incredibly brightly the last couple of nights. Looking up at the milky way and southern cross never seem to get old. We have been able to see Elon Musks trail of satellites going through the sky as well. Its looks about 30 little stars all moving in a line all spaced perfectly in a row behind all of the others stars. Although I did wonder if I had started seeing things and didn’t know if I was going mad at first.

One thing that we have realised is that is all well and good doing the big passage that we have done and its a very long way to sail at sea, but it really does leave you in the middle of nowhere with an even longer distance to sail to get to the other side of the pacific. So its going to be lots of passages like this from each islands from now on.

We are all looking forward to spending a few days in this first Atoll, we are hoping to go for some runs, get my open water scuba done, lots of snorkelling and swimming off of the back of the boat.

We have spent the last 24 hours trying not to go too quickly, so that we arrive at the pass into Fakarava at about 0900, for slack water which should be an hour or so later.

Hope all is well back home,

Lots of love,

Tom, T and A x