Cruising the South Pacific with Tackless II
Tackless II, along with her two captains, Don and Gwen, cruise from Fiji to Australia
Sunday, July 22, 2007
July 20-22, 2007 – Closing the Circle
We had originally planned to dive again on Saturday, but when Wind Pony and Tokimata moved on, we had a reality check and decided to devote the day to cleaning the forward cabin for Bill who arrives Wednesday morning. This involved laundering sheets and airing bedding that has been packed away for YEARS! In the evening, a beach-side tête-à-tête with Ian and Lee of Steelheart and Jack about our departures led to his offering to guide us all out to the Dakuniba boat pass, a short cut through the inner lagoon that would save us an hour or so travel time.

So Sunday morning we were all up early, retrieving our anchors from the coral maze beneath us (which went surprisingly well). Steelheart with Jack aboard took the lead, and we followed a zigzag route more or less as it is laid out in the Calder cruising guide westward along the shore inside the main reef. Steelheart decided to linger another day in an anchorage near the pass, while Jack jumped in his tinny (an aluminum skiff) and took himself home. We exited the pass without incident and remembered to make the track into a route for a return visit.

Unfortunately the day kind of ran downhill after that. Here we were on the last leg, the home stretch, as it were, where, going west, we had every right to expect a good sail. The forecast was for 15-20 with gusts to 25 from the East, yet we had barely ten from dead astern. We gave up sailing as the boat rolled in the swell, the sky clouded over, and the GPS calculated that it would take us twelve hours at 2.5 knots. NOT! Don says he's going to calculate the number of engine hours used in our trip around, but I don't think I'll publicize it!

As we bore down on Point Passage off Lesiaceva Point, it started to rain. It was misty to start but got serious as we rounded the lighthouse, blotting out the boats at anchor off Cousteau. We'd hoped to pick up Curly's mooring from which we left almost two months ago, but it was taken by another boat. Ah well, close enough.


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1 Comments:
Blogger geodesic2 said...
Clean Sheets !!!! WOW Come on - I don't even have clean sheets on my own boat - OOOOPS - LOL - glad to see I will have a place to sleep. Today is the day!
Billc
s/vgeodesic2

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