I wake up at 4 am, much to my annoyance, and can’t get to sleep. I then become paranoid that the batteries will be running down too low as we haven’t been able to charge them as well as we usually do and get up to have a look. They are on the low side and I go back and wake Mike up to ask him what to do and we end up having the engine running.
It takes me ages to get back to sleep and when I eventually do drop off, I have such a horrible dream I wake up sobbing, and that’s the end of the night’s sleep for both of us.
Mike starts the generator, which thankfully stays on, and then switches the water maker on and completely fills the tank. I then sit and fill a further ten bottles of drinking water (to go with the seven we already have). By the time we are ready to go ashore to check out, a huge container ship has taken over the whole dock and we cannot land the dinghy. She sits there as the hours tick by and eventually Mike gets in the dinghy and goes over to see how long they are going to be there – the answer – until 6 pm. The customs office closes at 4 pm which means that we are stuck here now for another day. Damn.
Mike then thinks he can land the dinghy at the beach but it will mean me driving it over coral and through narrow gaps and I just don’t feel ready for that yet (and am terrified of damaging the dinghy) so we call Charles on Dreamcatcher to see if he will drive Mike over using our dinghy. They must be busy and don’t hear the VHF as we get no answer but Jan Morton from Ronja calls us and we explain our predicament and he says he will drive Mike in.
Mike takes our dinghy over to Ronja and Lars takes him ashore in Ronja’s dinghy as it has a soft bottom and he says that will be better over the coral (the coral is smooth at the landing point). He comes back having successfully checked out but having unsuccessfully purchased any duty free wine for me. Apparently the duty free shop only accept cash and I demand to know why he didn’t spend the last few NZ dollars there as we won’t able to use them anywhere else. He has no answer so I throw a bit of a mood. Well, this was about Sauvignon Blanc!
As we are getting ready to leave, Brown Eyed Girl enter the bay. We can’t resist shouting “there goes the neighbourhood”, our running joke with Joe regarding catamarans versus half boats ie monohulls! They have come to Niue specially so that Jared can swim with the sea snakes – mad fool – I hope he remembers to wear tight legged swimming trunks!
We leave the bay following Dreamcatcher and Ronja. The sea is dead calm and there is less than one knot of wind so we have to motor although we have the main sail up just in case any wind develops further out to sea, which, for hours, it doesn’t. Eventually though, and with extremely ominous black clouds on the horizon, alongside another glorious sunset, about seven knots of wind develops.
Photo: Flat calm but black clouds and sunset on the horizon
The clouds looks so ominous that all three of us change course to try to avoid them, changing back half an hour later when we realise that there is no real rain in them (nothing shows on the radar). As we close in on them they begin to disperse.
Having now eaten all the shrimp, I cook up the defrosted chicken. The freezer is now going great guns as Mike has soldered the offending part and it now stays on all the time – for now!
Our position is: 18 deg 55 min S, 170 deg 45 min W
Distance so far: 7984 nautical miles
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