We had lot of projects to get ready for today passage. We’ve been gunk-holing and staying at marinas for the past 6 weeks and this is the first major crossing we’ve done since we were in the Tuamotus. Getting ready for a crossing means provisioning and finishing any little projects left outstanding. We topped off our water tanks, secured the outboard on it’s custom mount, lashed the dingy securely on the davits, tied off our anchor as our friend Mats the captain tough me, got extra lines out as vangs, put away all our awnings, deflated our SUP’s, adjust the toilets for large seas, inspected all the lines/sheets, locked the drawers and cabinets, stowed other gear, checked the weather one last time, and off we went.
I had a lovely sail from one side of the Bora Bora lagoon to the pass while the three crew were dealing with the provisions and cleaning up the kitchen from our uninvented visitors. We started wing on wing on our desired heading but quickly found it a bit too rolly so we gybed and sailed at about 150 port take so that we would go South of Maupiti instead of North. We had a couple of bites on the fishing line but they both got away. While I was taking a nap, we had a large strike and while sailing past Maupiti we had one of those fish that jumps a few times after taking the bait. We had to slow the boat down to nearly a stop to keep the reel from paying out all the line. Unfortunately, with almost no line left, the beast broke our line. That line took in the 300 lb Marlin without trouble so who knows how big the fish was but such is life. Sure am glad I bought another 1,000 yards of fishing line in Papeete.
Right now I’m on watch alone at 10:00 and everyone is in bed. I’ll get Jerri up in a couple of hours and will sleep until a bit before dawn.
p.s. went to bed and Jerri came to wake me up at midnight because of a small squall and after looking at the radar and seeing no change in wind, I told her to fly full sails through it. No problem. Now at 1:45AM she woke me up and I jumped out of bed to reef for a squall that was 10 times larger. Still no problem, but it woke Eddie up and we got a wet from the driving rain while reefing the sails. Nothing like a quick shower in the cockpit to wake you up for a shift change.
Just another day one of a several day crossing. If all goes well we’ll arrive to Suwarrow on Friday.