Ashore in the cool of the morning down the far end of the beach we meet boaties from Mana, and one becomes an instant pal for Jim as Bruce is a Cathay Pacific and former herc pilot. This is the first of a few good chats about aviation and boating that they have over the next few days.

One story Bruce tells Jim is about an emergency preparedness day held at Mana Marina, with practice on flares and other equipment. A Kiwi sailor who'd completed his circumnavigation donated his old life raft to the cause. He'd had it recertified in Panama when he was halfway round as it had come due for servicing. They pulled and pulled the line but the CO2 canisters did not go off and the life raft did not pop open. They ended up cutting it open instead, and inside they found ...a big bag of sand!

A tale to make every sailor's blood turn cold. Life is worth so little in some countries and trust so readily rent asunder.

Later on, Merritt-Repair-it kindly helps the Canadian family's friend by trouble-shooting and resolving his windlass problem so they can raise their anchor (all chain - it would have been back-breaking work to haul it up by hand!)

Afterwards we decide to change it up by motoring 5 nm over to bird reserve Adele island. We've heard there's a little-known path around the island.

Three sailboats are already there but there's plenty of room for more. However there's a hard-to-put-a-finger-on-it strange, oppressive mood to the place. All of a sudden the clouds seem thick and low, the air heavy. No one is on deck or in their cockpits as we enter anchorage.

After anchoring, the ketch owner climbs down into his dinghy to zoom at top speed in circles inside the 3 knot limit area. Curious.

We aren't that happy with how close Sonsie swings to one of the boats and are sitting in our cockpit wondering why we see no one else when all of a sudden we see a fellow boatie - and a lot of him, as he is stark naked showering at his stern! Fair enough, but given that we aren't happy with our swing and the funny mood of the place we up anchor and motor right back to where we were in Torrent Bay, dropping the hook just after dark and breathing a sigh of relief!

We hop in the dinghy and row silently over in the dark to the rocky shoreline. We drop anchor to float peacefully for an hour, listening to the amusing calls of the little blue penguins.