Whew!

What an epic adventure. It was a trip tough on crew and boat and I'm glad that it's over, and I'm not alone. I'm sure that I heard a sigh of relief from Wings as we settled for the night.

We have been motoring in non-existent winds for a day and a half, and I was becoming concerned about our fuel supply. Although I had filled the starboard 70 gallon tank, we found that the port tank was contaminated and couldn't be used. I kept careful count of our hours of engine use and logged that against our supplies and it was going to be close. I wanted to sail all that I could to save fuel…and I like to sail, for heaven's sake. On my watches, I tried several times to move to sail, but the wind always died and the "iron jib" had to be started. It charged the batteries, but it was loud and smelly.

On Wednesday, we caught some lovely winds and sailed all fuel-saving day. It was glorious! 5-6 knots in a useful direction. At some point, the winds shifted as they will do, and we tacked to keep up. Alas, about 18 nm out, the wind failed and we had to motor, but I felt that we had enough fuel for that.

John was the first to spot Rarotonga, early on Wednesday afternoon. What a sight! We were so close! Later that Wednesday evening, we got close enough to turn on running lights, our new forward-looking sonar, and the radar. Entering a foreign harbor at night, by instrument, is a nerve-wracking endeavor. I dropped the main and talked through what we needed to do when we got into the harbor. Neither Phil nor John had ever done anything like it before.

We found the harbor entrance by chart plotter, and damned if our wonderful chart plotter didn't lose its mind and its position! Holy smokes! After making some circles, it found itself and we proceeded to enter the harbor.

Not so fast! The lights of some kind of craft appeared and after looking with our spotlight, we saw 5 sailboats exiting the harbor! What are the chances! Not only 5 sailboats, but 5 traditional voyaging canoes. Wow! I could make out the characteristic sails as they passed us and knew what they were then, but what a sight.

We finally made it into the harbor and simply dropped the hook in the middle of the harbor. What the heck. We had a rolling night, but it was nice to be in a harbor.

We cleared in without too much difficulty and started the day's excitement.

I spent most of the day sorting out Immigration issues for John and his replacement, Darden. I think that they're mostly cleared. The rest of the day I spent scraping out mung from the port fuel tank. I've done it before, but it's not a fun nor relaxing exercise. That done, it was time for our evening, which I need to join.

So, we're in Rarotonga, our southern-most island. From here, it's northeast to Bora Bora after Monday, the Queen's birthday. Everything is closed, so that's we'll have to wait. John will fly out on Saturday and Darden arrives a bit later.

More later.