6 days and nights at sea, bare 360 horizons, rolling seas, the occasional changes of clothes, but mostly wear the same for daytime and sleeping. Normal daily routine out the window, two more dinner plates broken on the galley floor, Pipi still regular with her twice daily demands for meals, and swaying comically on four legs over her food bowl. Back to 4 hour night watches: changeovers down to the minute - one waking the other to take over the watch, and eager to get horizontal, and the other suffering interrupted bliss and a sinking realization that they must rise and remain awake for the next 4 hours.

So when a patch of palm trees starts to grow larger on the horizon and boats ahead are telling us over the VHF they’ve set their anchors in a most beautiful bay we’re hoping that the pass into the lagoon will not be too scary but true to Navionics charts, and there’ll be a safe spot to connect ourselves back to solid earth. After which we test the anchor, turn off the motor and other unnecessary electronics, and a calm comes over the boat, and us. The next 24 hrs are the best…. we slide into a blissfull uninterrupted sleep, as boats around us go about their daily business; leaving the new arrivals to sleep and recoup. And so it was for us crossing from Bora Bora to Suwarrow, Northern Cook Islands.