Wed, May 7
Arrival


Less than 100 miles.  According to my calendar, this is the day that I had predicted we would arrive but we still have 100 miles to go.  As the other boats have made landfall they have stopped checking into our nightly Pacific Puddle Jump radio net.  There are just a handful of us left out here.  I took over as net control a few nights ago when there was not one else.  First thing I did was to lighten it up.  It had been very formal and serious; position, course, speed and weather info.  Under my brief tenure it was all about how are the kids, what did you do for the equator crossing, what’s going on on board, where is there good internet ashore?  Much more fun, the girls net.  Now it is my turn to hand it off to someone else.  The problem is that once we make landfall the time changes and the net is at 4:30 in the afternoon instead of 7pm.  I really miss hearing from everyone.  Occasionally others check in and we hear reports from the Tuamotos and Tahiti as well as the Marquesas 

  
It is a lovely clear day with an easy wind.  Alan decides that it is time to get out his new mizzen staysail.  It is supposed to be good for just these conditions.   We spend about an hour getting it up and set and then decide that it is not doing any good and take it down again.  We are off track again so we try the other tack but that takes is too far north so it is a frustrating day. So close.  And then, as the sun sets, we realize that clouds on the horizon are not clouds, Land Ho!! There it is finally! 60 miles away but we can definitely see 3 masses that are islands, not clouds.  Now we just have to figure out how to get there, given that it is just about to get dark. 

After checking the iPad and the wind direction, we decide that we are going to have to sail past it and the come back up in the morning.  It is a long night.  for the first time is 5 weeks, there are hard things to run into even though they are still quite a ways away.   At one point I decide that we should change course and get Alan up to ask him.  He is so groggy that he agrees with me when he should not.  We get the sails changed and then realize that this course is even worse than the other one, so we tack back again.  At first light I cannot see the islands.  Little by little the light grows and there it is!  Still 30 miles away, straight to windward.  Eventually Alan gets up and brings coffee out to the cockpit and we discuss strategy.  We want to get in while there is still plenty of daylight.  We could use the sails and go way past ant then come back.  That would probably take us another day.  We were not in a hurry before but now that we can see it, we want to be there.  We decide to turn on the motor.  We still have plenty of fuel since we only used the engine a few days. 

Hiva Oa, green and rugged and beautiful.  They say you can smell land when you get close but we never did. I clean the cabin as best I can.  I round up all of the wet, dirty, salty clothes and put on clean sheets in anticipation of laundry service when we arrive  We dump and clean the composting head.  I have a shower.  It is good that we turned on the engine because there is a very strong current between the islands here and we fight for every mile.  And eventually we arrive late in the afternoon.  It is a small bay and full of boats, everyone with a stern anchor.  Eventually we find a spot to anchor and one of the other boats comes along side in his dingy and takes our stern anchor out and drops it for us. 

After 37 days, here we are in the South Pacific.  We open our last bottle of champagne and a jar of peanuts and relax on the foredesk.  Other boars that we met in Mexico and have been in contact with on the radio stop by to say Hi.  Dinner tonight is pasta with mushrooms and cheese and a bottle of two buck chuck.  We will deal with all of the official paperwork in the morning