Almost there (part 12)
Friday June 17th
Good morning, second last day at sea for a while! I’m writing this lying on my bunk, listening to this morning scheduled radio call, or only half listening really, reading, relaxing…
Another dreamy watch from 9am to 1pm today, slooowwwww sailing in sunshine and very little wind, but there was no point in us starting our engines as we would have arrived at Rapa in the dark, so a-lazy sailing we go.
I looked after the music today, our soundtrack for the afternoon included José Gonzales, Fat Freddy’s Drop,and Eoin Duigneann.
We sailed by two patches of what looked like foam or soap scum on the waves, about 100m apart… it reminded me again that, with less than a day to go, we have had no other signs of people in over 2,000 nautical miles travelled… other than a few ghost VHF squawks in the night, and now some ghost soap scum… ghost ships, maybe?
Ohana was set up goose winged for the morning, the main sail out to port, the reacher out to starboard… lovely, languorous sailing. Only 80 nautical miles to go…
I’ve just been on from 5–9pm and although the moon peeped in and out it was mostly cloudy and frequently misty, with soft rain swirling around us… It reminded me a lot of the boat’s approach to the island in the King Kong movie! Wasn’t that a fine last watch before Rapa comes into view tomorrow morning?
The voyage to Rapa Iti
- Part 1 — Introduction
- Part 2 — Auckland to Tauranga shakedown trip
- Part 3 — Leaving New Zealand
- Part 4 — Trying to get into the swing of things
- Part 5 — Action stations!
- Part 6 — Now we’re sailing
- Part 7 — A very happy birthday
- Part 8 — Action stations again!
- Part 9 — Whales
- Part 10 — A day with a bit of everything in it
- Part 11 — The sky is on fire
- Part 12 — Almost there
- Part 13 — Land ho!
