Asking around in the last anchorage we had received a promising tip from
a British couple. A friend of theirs had spent three weeks at Tern Atoll
last year. The chart showed a pass into the lagoon, but no detail, no
navigational markers, and no depth information. But we were encouraged
reasoning that for someone to have spent three weeks there, there must
be a good anchorage.

So bolstered with that knowledge I was starting to feel more excitement
than dread as I awoke the morning of our third day at sea with about 25
miles to go. The last two days and nights had been some of the mellowest
sailing we had done. I sipped coffee and started to look for the low island that the chart indicated lay on the south east corner of the approximately 1 mile wide atoll. It was not until we were about 8 miles off that we began to see
it. First a low green smudge on the horizon and then a shaggy shape as
the trees came into view. When we were 3 miles off I could see the waves
breaking on the coral reef. Approaching an island like this, there is no
telling how far off the chart will be. Many of the modern electronic and
paper charts are exact copies of the surveys done in the 1800s. So we
switched to eye ball navigation relying on our chart for reference only.