It's time to go: Sea Otter!

Photo courtesy of "Mr John VI"

Our anchorage for the last 4 days at sunset

Hmmm, some times you are glad you didn't leave port with the masses! Since posting the last Blog we have been holed up in a little anchorage on the west coast of a Motu on the western side of the lagoon in Bora Bora called Motu Topua. We are anchored in about 39' and sit very close to the cardinal marker with it's 9-flash white light keeping us company at night. And maybe a tad too close to the shore reef?

The mass exodus of yachts that left on Tuesday/Wednesday (and which we thought maybe we should have gone with for company) have been kicked about pretty heavily on route west. They have been on the radio each morning talking about 35 – 40+ knot winds and big, steep seas. The poor buggers are really getting a thumping. And these are mostly bigger boats than us, like our friends on the 47' Airwego and 53' Charisma. So, we've sighed a quiet 'phew' and wait much more patiently for the weather to ease and go back to normal trades. Like 15 – 20 knot SE'ers would be nice!! Saturday proved very miserable, very overcast, lots of drizzle, then rain and a blustery, squally SSE'er, which by early evening decided to blast into the anchorage from the WNW!? We think what was happening is that the true prevailing wind is coming in strong from the SE and NE then it is funneling around the corner of the Motu and whomping into our anchorage. It all proved for a dreary laid back day.

Yes I made another batch of chocolate chip cookies.... but that is because we had finished the rest of them of off when the Aussies of the 31' “Six Pack” came over for morning tea! How classic Aussie is that name for a boat? Louise (who is a born and bred Lord Howe Islander) and her partner Rex (originally from Murwullimbah) are sailing one of the smaller boats in the pacific this season. So maybe we are a bigger boat to someone! It will be good to hang out with “Six Pack” as they will also be heading back to Oz via Tonga and Fiji.

Sunday, bucketed down rain all morning and allowed us to fill up our tanks, do the washing, wash my hair (all in fresh) and fill three extra buckets for luxury fresh baths!! Since we don't have a dedicated rain catcher awning and our tarpaulin got diesel on it and is too big anyway...we haven't really been catching any rain. Till I remembered that our old friends Gill and Derek on Ginseng had a technique to catch water running down the decks of their boat. They create a dam behind the water tank deck filler and once the decks have had a good rinse off, they open the water tank deck filler and let the water flood in. Well, it worked for us!! One of our deck fillers is aft on the port side, perfect. And as it had been raining all day the day before and through the night, I knew the deck was clean of salt and dirt. I created my little dam with a bunched up tea towel about 4 cm behind the deck filler and immediately the rain water started to dam up, I unscrewed the deck filler top and woo hoo...full tanks in no time!!! Brilliant and simple. Geoff was impressed at how quickly it filled up the tanks. So thanks Ginseng!

It's been a dreary wait and listening to the yachts under way near Aitutaki and Samoa, has stopped us from just rushing off out of boredom. One of the yachts had been knocked down (laid flat by wind and waves) and cracked their mast. Another also has a problem from heavy conditions. So we are glad that we did not give in to the urge to go. Today the weather is showing that we will be mostly getting light and variable winds for the first four days then a return to SE 10 -15 knots, looks good even if it means a bit of motoring could be on the cards. Geoff is in town dropping off the garbage and picking up some last minute fresh food, then we will drop the buoy off the bow and head out. We will sail past Mophelia an island 127 nm west of here, just in case we get no wind and want to stop motoring, otherwise onwards towards: Aitutaki and Niue.

We will be back on Satellite phone till Vava'u and no Blogs or emails :(