Thursday 29th May
We wake up to a much better day, the sky is blue and
the wind is blowing from the SW at a good angle for Palmerston. Ian and Paul go
to see the harbourmaster who gives advice on the Palmerston anchorages and a
print out of his 3 day forecast – this shows the wind swinging to the SE
– ideal for Palmerston. The decision is made to leave at lunchtime today.
Right away the Marsters family appears from nowhere asking if we can take out a
few boxes to be delivered to their family. Four adults and a baby appear with
14 boxes, 3 suitcases, sacks of cabbages, fruit , vegetables and a huge branch
of bananas . We split the cargo between ourselves and Tallulah Ruby –
we’ve now got to make sure we get there! The family are extremely
grateful and assure us we will receive a warm welcome and be looked after well
when we arrive. We do a final run round the town getting last minute supplies
– Annie buys a couple of coconut bikini’s as she’s sure she
knows a couple of friends back at home who’ll wear them! – and we
say our farewells. Just as we’re lifting the anchor, the Barton family
arrive on the quay and we call our fond farewells as they wave us off.
Unfortunately our departure isn’t smooth as we’ve snagged an old
chain . This takes about 10 minutes to sort out with a bit of rope and the
boat-hook - we’re away by 2.30pm. Tallulah Ruby, who left a couple of
hours ago, have radioed us to tell us it’s a big choppy sea with 25-30
knots wind from the SW – batten down the hatches! We put a reef in and
only roll out ¾ of the headsail, sailing a course of 305’ , straight for
Palmerston Atoll. There’s a big swell from the previous night and the sea
is very confused. We cruise on a close fetch at 8.5 – 9 knots which we
maintain all afternoon and early evening until midnight when the wind starts to
abate and swing more to the S/SW. At sunset, a huge wake breaks over the boat
washing Brian off the combing; luckily he’s hanging on to the mainsheet! Everyone
is totally drenched. During Ian and Annie’s watch they lose the fix for
the GPS; they try re-booting,- there are plenty of satellite signals but for
some reason they’re not getting through. After a few trial and errors
they find the source of the problem – the stalk of bananas! They get them
repositioned and we’re in business again – thank goodness –
the sextant’s a bit rusty…. We’ve now caught up with Tallulah
Ruby who we can see in the distance, and we all agree to slow down to try and
time our arrival for dawn on Saturday. We work double 4 hour watches, Ian and
Annie, then Stewy and Brian who tell each other stories all night long!