May 25

We left Savusavu last Friday for Pogo Pogo, Am. Samoa. The forecast promised high SE trades on Friday, then abating on Saturday. Friday was absolutely grim. We should not have gone. But we had checked out of the country. What could we do? So into it we went. Total washing machine. We were trying to go from Savusavu Point to around Taveuni. Impossible, unless travel at 2.5 kts and near full throttle was your fancy. So, we made a decision to sacrifice the day and simply make it to Koro Island, where I knew of an anchorage we could shelter in for the night (very illegal - we had checked out of the country) and get a good start in the morning. We did make it to the anchorage and did have a good night's sleep then up early and off in the morning. We had decided that to round Taveuni to the south would be more washing machine, and chose to go up the Rabi channel. It turned out to be a beautiful trip. Unfortunately, it put us out of the Fiji reef/island complex very far north. Once we cleared the last reef, we plotted course for Pago Pago and saw that it would not be easy if even possible. Hmmmm.... We sailed as close to the wind as we could for six hours, then we tacked back and again sailed as close to the wind as we could for another six hours. Then, in the morning of the next day, sailing into the wind as close as we could, we saw that we had made only 25 miles or so to the good. Dismal and depressing to say the least. We were working hard with near nothing to show for it. Command decision time. The wind simply was not favorable to make Samoa. But, we could lay Fotuna, and with some luck, maybe Wallis. Wallis became the goal. It turned out that the wind shifted for us making Wallis a very enjoyable beam reach, and we did thing of going back to the original plan of Samoa, but we knew that high winds and seas were forecast, and we did not want to be trying to go to weather in such conditions. We kept Wallis as our goal. We made that goal this morning. It was a nice sail after it all got sorted, but the beginning of the trip was dismal. We are happy. We are tired. We worked our little hearts out for this short passage.

It did have special moments. Any time at sea with Elisabeth is amazing. We shared many special moments as we always do. Then last night when Elisabeth woke me for my midnight to three a.m. watch, she briefed me that there was a freighter bound for Wallis overtaking us. He was still about 18 miles behind, but AIS clearly showed him bearing down on us. At about ten miles, I made a VHF call to him, the Southern Pearl, and established that we were out here too, and maybe he could see us etc. The man was an absolute delight. Just professional and cordial. Our conversations were very enjoyable. People like him make it all worth while. We passed each other safely, (obviously) and said that perhaps we would meet in Wallis. We are anchored right next to Southern Pearl this afternoon. Once we get completely checked in, we very well may go over to the Pearl and say hello. The ship is Singapore flagged. It feels as if we have a a friend here. Speaking of which. When we left Lautoka, we mentioned that we like the atmosphere of a working dock. We have that here with the loading/unloading going on. Work continues into the night complete with very bright lights. We feel at home!

However, the anchorage here is completely open to the SE. When it blows, we will feel the wind and a fetch will develop, so we will probably move shortly to a more protected anchorage. As it was, getting into the dinghy to go check in with the Gendarmes was a very wet and bouncy affair. In big wind, I shudder.

Be Excellent to One Another, Rod and Elisabeth, "Your Rock and Roll Argonauts"