Leaving French Polynesia

Getting Ready to Go - Tuesday, August 17, 2010

All good things must come to an end, and our time in French Polynesia is coming to a close.  Our visas last until the end of the month, but with the moon a waxing gibbous, winds 10-15 knots, and six foot seas in the forecast, we think we will be leaving tomorrow for Suwarrow (an atoll in the Cook Island group). It is about 700 miles from French Polynesia.  

Suwarrow is a little over half way to Samoa that is 1,100 miles from Bora Bora.  Our plan right now is to head for Vava’u, Tonga (1300 miles), via Suwarrow and Samoa.  We have signed up for the Vava’u Regatta in Tonga beginning September 22.  We would like to spend October in Vava’u group islands which are purportedly beautiful with many excellent anchorages, and then head either south to New Zealand (if we have some crew and more courage) or west to Fiji to put Worrall Wind in a trench for the season and fly to New Zealand. We have already reserved a spot at the Vuda Marina in Fiji.   We’ll see how the wind blows when we get to Tonga.

In the meantime, we are getting the boat ready for her passage, cleaning the bottom, changing zincs, doing laundry, shopping for produce, downloading weather information, checking out with the Gendarmere, topping of gerry jugs of water, gas, and diesel, etc.  

Many of our cruising community are leaving Bora Bora this week as well.  Freezing Rain, Trim, The Road are heading South to Palmerston-Beverage Reef-Niue;  Pincoya, Worrall Wind, Zenitude, and most likely some others are leaving for Suwarrow.  We met for cocktails tonight and shared radio net information so that we can all stay in touch.  There is the Polynesian Breakfast Net on 8164 (eastern transmission at 7:30 a.m. Tahitian time, western transmission at 8:30 a.m. Tahitian time), the Penguin Net on 8104 at 9:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., and the Pacific Sea Farer’s Net at 14 300 at 0300 UTC or 9:00 p.m. Tahitian time.  We will be checking in with these Nets as we go along.  The Pacific Sea Farer’s net is a Ham Net and the most formal.  If you miss a check in with this group, they put out an alert for you.

This will be the last of the Internet – picture uploads for a while.  And with as slow as the Internet is here,  these last blogs may be without pictures as well.  I am posting the text first and filling in with pictures as the Internet permits.

We will be sending updates, via our radio to the blog for the next month.  Keep in touch with us.  Family members and sailing friends have our radio sail mail address.  You are welcome to ask them for the address and write to us.  Please keep your messages fairly short with no attachments or forwards.  We only get 90 minutes of radio time each week, and sometimes reception is painfully slow, gobbling the minutes.  Nevertheless, getting messages from friends and family while we are at sea is one of the highlights of our day.  Stay well and be happy.

All is Well on Worrall Wind