Broken spinnaker sheet and anchor caught in corals - Blog by Bernd
After provisioning on Friday and Saturday morning, we left the bay where we were anchored for nearly one week. We arrived there in the darkness, and it was a little bit scary after 15 days and more than 3000 miles. Nothing to see around us, only the ocean and there suddenly in the dark was an island very nearby. No lights, only mountains. Then we found the bay near the capital of Nuku Hiva. We anchored there and in the morning we could see where we were. What an adventure!
Sunday morning we left Nuku Hiva to sail more than 500 miles to Fakarava. We did not have enough wind for sailing, and I was a little bit disappointed that Mr. Perkins, the engine, had to do his job for more than 30 hours. The night watch was a little boring. No flying fish. No flying Dutchman. No flying sausages.
In daylight we could sail with the spinnaker, and at night with the genoa. Last night was a rainy night. I tried our foul weather gear for the first time. Later the wind slept a little, and Mr. Perkins did his job again. This morning we sailed again and set the spinnaker. Some hours later I prepared the lunch with Morten, and we heard a big BANG. The sheet of the spinnaker had broken, and the crew tried to get it down. Then we set the genoa with the spinnaker pole for butterfly sailing. Later the wind became stronger, and the crew tried to gybe the genoa, but they couldn't furl it in, because the uphaul for the pole was caught in the forestay. All these challenges in one day!
When the pole was under control, Mr. Perkins was put to work again. The weather became rainy for hours and most of us had a chance to test our foul weather gear. The positive end of this afternoon was Morten catching a tuna fish. The first one since Galapagos! Half an hour later Mikkel caught the second one. So we will have the freshest tuna for our dinner at night. The freshest tuna you can imagine!
Report from Bosun Bertram
Anchor trouble in the atoll. It's a minefield of corals around here, and during our entry we managed to get our anchor chain tied around some corals. The anchor itself is actually hanging one meter off the ground! No need to worry though, we borrowed an extra anchor from our good neighbours of the VUmc CCA round the world boat to set us safely through the night. A dip in the dark with the sharks and we confirmed the safe anchorage. This morning we are moving to a deeper anchorage to prevent any damage to our chain.
Local time onboard is 10:45 and our current position is 16,31.9S , 145,28.31W