19 June 2024
Where am I?
Latitude: 017°52.1 S
Longitude: 163°13.7 W
Mid way between Bora-Bora and Tonga, just north of the Palmerston Atoll which is just visible on the southern horizon.
How is the weather?
Clear skies with some scattered high cloud. Warm. But very little wind for next 2 days, sadly!
What am I feeling?
A little frustrated with the weather – we had reasonable wind for the first three days but it has now died off and we are having to motor for the first time in ages. It looks like the wind will come back in 2 days’ time.
What has happened this week?
This week, we welcomed back aboard our friends, Per and Anne, and spent a couple of days in Bora-Bora to prepare and provision for the 1,300 nautical mile sail on to Tonga’s Vava’u island group. It’s good to have old friends aboard for the next let of our trip!
The forecast from PredictWind ahead of departure indicated that we would have 2+ days of motoring given very light winds in the second half of the voyage and that has proved to be spot on. For Fujin, 1,300 miles means around 8 days at sea using an average speed of 7 knots. We have had 3 days reasonable sailing – a bit below our average speeds – and now we expect 2+ days of little or no wind. The wind should come back for the last 2 days into Tonga – hopefully from the right direction too!
Clearing out from Bora Bora was all very easy and quick. A dinghy ride to the public dock, a walk across the street to the Gendarmerie and a short conversation with the officer. One needs to alert them at least a day before that you plan to leave, so that they can prepare their paperwork.We checked out on Friday and were told we could leave anytime before end of Saturday. Our agent had said we had to leave the same day which is not the case thankfully. Agents are supposed to make the process easier and less stressful – but I would not use one again for French Polynesia – my agent only served to make the simple more complex!
We’ve settled back into passage making routines – on watch, resting, sleeping, reading, cooking, eating, checking rigging and, of course, a gin and tonic at 6pm as the sun goes down!
At around 165°W longitude, we will put our clocks back 1 hour – we are now at 163°W so less than 120 nautical miles to go. Some time after that, we will cross the internal date line which theoretically runs down 180°W – a further 900 miles to the west. However, the date line takes a detour to the east just north of Tonga and so captures Tonga in tomorrow rather than today! From what I can see, this means that at our latitude, the date line is at about 173°W or 600 miles west of where we are now… Since it is only a day from Tonga, we will probably keep our ship’s date and time and adjust after we drop the anchor at Vava’u.
Not much to add for now – more next week from Tonga!
Fujin out!