Here we are at Blue Lagoon. We set anchor at about 9:30 at 16 56.577S, 177 21.984E. If you look on the Google Earth map, you will see that we are a bit far out because our anchor chain bounced around a bit in the anchor locker on the passage. This gets it piled on top of itself and it won't feed out the windlass, so I had to go below and untangle it while we anchored. After I was done sorting it out, the anchor was down, the spot was safe, we were tired, so we let it be for the day. Everything is fine though, and we will probably relocate in the morning. Meanwhile, we went ashore, had a late lunch and a Mai Tai in honor of our friend Bob Hanelt who provides us with supurb weather forecasting and routing. Thank you Bob. By the way, Mmmmm, it was good.

It is a bit of a Swan sail-in here. There is a beautiful Swan 53, homeport Honolulu here. We had drinks on board with them this evening. It is skippered by an interesting guy and his Kiwi buddy, and they are super people. It looks as though tomorrow, we will go together and find a farmer who will sell us some fresh veggies. This is pretty special since Majuro gets it fresh vege from the US. When we left, the Majuro stores had very little. Then once we arrived Tuvalu, we got some carrots and onions, but prescious little fresh things. On Rotuma fresh vege and fruit were there, but we never found someone to sell them to us. Tomorrow, it is vege day. The other Swan is us, of course, and then on the third boat in the anchorage, there is a guy who owns a Swan 40. We all had drinks together aboard the big girl this evening, and it was quite nice.

The passage From Rotuma required more than two tacks from us. The wind just wouldn't keep up with the adverse current. It seemed a bit further South than ESE, so eventually we couldn't lay our course. At one time when I was off watch, Elisabeth came and woke me up saying "We're hove to, I think we need to tack." So we did and kept an easterly course for about an hour. Then we tacked back to our original waypoint, and we made it work. Now were here!

The seas did get bouncy. From Majuro to Funafuti, there was no problem with the anchor chain jumping around in the anchor locker. From Funafuti to Rotuma, there was no problem. But on this trip from about half way, the seas did get rough with a short period interval. The tangled up anchor chain is the tell-tale.

We will now stay here a few days and then begin our trip down south to the Nadi area. We wil keep you posted. Peace Rod and Elisabeth