LANDFALL!
01 September 2010 | Bora Bora to Tonga, day 14
Joe
Grey skies. Grey seas, white caps. Looks serious. Fifteen knots of Wind, and sea on the port beam. Seven point two knots. Double- reefed main, half-reefed genny, motor at 850 rpm. Boat heeled and going through as well as over. Watermaker running. Waypoint about six and a half miles, time less than an hour.
Tonga, the Vava'u group, looks like a two hundred foot thick pizza, with green topping. It's flat. Its northern headland juts out and stops three miles short of where we are heading, to our waypoint on the screen of the chart plotter. More waypoints plotted on the large scale paper chart, also on the C-Map chart on the computer and on the Raymarine chart plotter. Autopilot steering. Adrienne has stitched a Tongan courtesy flag, it's like a red ensign but in place of the Union Jack is a red cross on a white ground.
All going well, we should be tied up at the fishing wharf by three o'clock, making it exactly thirteen days from the pass at Bora Bora. Since we lost a day crossing the International Date Line, can we say it took twelve days? We have had light winds, heavy winds, perfect winds, headwinds, just about every sort, our boat speed varying from two knots to eight, the motion ranging from unbearable to groovy. No one injured or sick, spirits high, both in good health. And we are on our way back to Australia. Thanks for following our toy boat's track ... more after we dock.