Day 12 on the Pacific

Sunday 23rd March

We had a very quiet night last night, low winds and slow speeds as there was a hole in the trades, for everyone, not just us. I ended up putting the genoa back to the normal side to stop all the banging and slapping of the sail collapsing and refilling.

It's lovely at night this week. This is because of the huge full moon glowing on the ocean, beginning as the sun goes down. Its spectacular as well. Then in the morning they are both there as well. The sun rises/sets are really special big balls of fire.

This morning the winds returned to normal, or a little lighter than we're used to, and we put the genoa back out on the "wrong" side again. We have been clocking up good speeds all day. Our 24 hours mileage to midday was only 143 miles, but we have since made up for that. We passed into the 800 mile range about an hour ago (890 miles to go). The lead boat, Branec 4 a French trimarin, was 300 miles east of Hiva Oa this morning sitting in a 5 knot breeze, expecting to take another 3 days at his speed. How annoying is that!

All is well on board, and we had another Scrabble day today with Shin winning again. He gets a small grin on his face when he has a good word lined up and waiting. He does get help from his e dictionary and Paul who is a good player himself. Another very nice Carbonara from Shin this evening for dinner, yummy, followed by coconut rice and peaches from Val. Also yummy.

We are studying the papers that WARC have given us regarding these islands and the Society Islands to decide what to see and where to go. It is now certain that we will enter the "Tahiti Pearl Regatta", sounds better than the Dun Laoghaire Combined Yacht Clubs Regatta doesn't it? We sail between Raiatea, Tahaa and Bora Bora over a 5 day celebration, with entertainment each night and drinks, along with T shirts as souvenirs, as well as Disco nights and dug out canoe races, I wonder if we can use our inflatable kayaks instead?