We did all our clearances on the afternoon of Friday 7th October and left Kosrae the next day (Saturday) at 9am. We had a distance of 342 miles to go to Ebon Atoll and had hoped it would take about 3 ½ days but Murphy's Law we had wind on the nose just about the whole way. The odd day we had some nice sailing, all be it with the motor going. Every day we had several storms and on the Monday night we had a really nasty one and our main sail blew. Lovely, didn't need that so we managed to get it down and furl part of it in the boom and the rest we had to wrap up around the boom. Next morning discovered that it was a join that had come unstitched and unglued with a rip on the leach, so that was a bit of good news.

Just as we were arriving at Ebon we had a really nasty storm with 30kt winds and heavy rain and could not see a thing in front, however it finally cleared and we negotiated the pass through the reefs okay and anchored five miles across to the other side of the lagoon, dropping the pick at 11.15am. We then got cracking at having a good look at the main and ascertaining what we needed to do to fix it. Then that afternoon Fran & Dave came over to help us and we glued the seam together and left it until Thursday morning to dry and then with all their help I was able to sew it on my little trusty Bernina sewing machine - bit of a mission but all things considered think we have done a good job under the circumstances as it is a big sail.

Yesterday we dinghied 4 miles over to the main village in the lagoon and had a good walk around with one of the locals who had also paid us a visit on the day we arrived to collect an anchoring fee! It certainly was a nice island and they all seemed to live in normal type housing, although a very basic inside. All the houses seem to have solar panels with batteries for power, made in Taiwan, donated by the Republic of China (Taiwan). No doubt the Chinese are wanting fishing rights!! While ashore we met an American lady from Michigan who is doing a 6 month teaching stint there and loving it.

We finally left the anchorage at 7.45am this morning and have a 320 mile trip to Tarawa in the Kiribati Islands. We are hoping that while we are there we are able to watch the World Cup final next weekend as it is under Australia and not the US like Micronesia.