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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Raivavae in the Rearview Mirror

Thursday, 24 May 2012 Lat 21 43S Long 148 17W ~250 miles S of Tahiti Course 330 Wind SE 17kts Boatspeed 7.5kts Showery

Tuesday night, along with Joel and Mandy, we had dinner at the home of the French couple, Vincent and Emilie, who staff the island medical clinic. We shared our pictures and videos from our trip to Motu Piscene and the rocking church service. Since someone always needs to be available at the clinic, only one of the couple can be away at a time. But, it's a small island, so no one can get far. So only Vincent was able to go with us.

For dinner, Vincent prepared a delicious Alsace Tarte Flambe (kind of white pizza). We brought a feta-tomato-olive salad.  And Mandy prepared delicious octopus spaghetti. Joel grabbed the victims when he dove his anchor the day before. All followed by Mandy's yummy, stovetop banana cake and purple taro ice cream.. We even had wine, which is rare and expensive in these parts. A trio of neighborhood cats gobbled up the leftover spaghetti. Merci a' Vincent et Emilie pour l'acceuil chalereux!

Yesterday, we left Raivavae, its craggy peaks crowned with swirling mist. It was really a dramatic and beautiful sight.The weather was quite misty, but we thought, no sweat. That's way easier than salty spray washing over the boat.However, it was cool enough overnight that not only did we have to wear foulies, we had to go back to fleece!We thought we were done with that, but no.

Anyway, we've had more wind that we expected, so we have our usual reefed main and jib. But it's off the wind, so it's easier to live with. Today is cloudy with fewer showers. Yay!

It's always a challenge getting back into the offshore routine. And we miss splitting watches with crew, as we did with Mark on the last passage, But we're not suffering from motion sickness or the troublesome leaks we had on that leg, due partly to Bill's repairs and partly to a dryer offwind course. So those are a definite improvement.

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