" A LADY TRIP " Sailing around the World with World ARC 2010
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 12 Jun 2010 21:02
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SATURDAY 12th June
2010
( Presently in " Kenutu " Vava'u ,
Tonga, South Pacific )
08.00hrs Every one got out of the scratchers,
having had a good nights sleep,
actually, the boat rocked about gently all night,
but caused no problems to the snoring population of " A Lady"
Another beautifull day, and for us, a LOVELY cool
morning, the climate here is great, it never gets too hot,
the breeze at present is light, never exceeding 10
knots from the east,
This is very unusual, normally its around 20
/ 25 knots being part of the trade winds, but this year has an " El Nino "
brewing somewhere
in the pacific, so the temperature of the sea is
higher than normal and this effects everything else, particularly the winds. and
currents,
Skipper did the blog and emails , sending a photo
of " Fats" to his sister Ann , the photo was of him in the operating theatre,
looking an
afull bloody mess, Fats insisted on sending it, he
wanted to put it on the blog, But Skipper absolutly refused point blank on that
one.
It seems that the world ARC screen our blogs,
and remove our colourfull and flowery descriptions and replace them with
such things as " jolly good " , "
hear, hear " and " I say " They insist that they do not
upset the overall picture.................. Ohh la la.
11.00hrs We left " Avalau" and headed south
to do a long trip around the bottom of the Islands and have another go at
reaching the Island
of " Kenutu " the one we abandoned the other
day because finding our way through the coral reefs was too
dangerous.
We cherry picked our way up the east coast through
the corals by identifying the deeper water by colour only..
The electronic charts were not accurate here, so
navigating by eye was the only option,
for this type of navigation, one has to have a
bright sun, and preferably, high in the sky,,
At a few stages, we were showing just 1m under the
keel, scarrey stuff , " bring up the brown trousers " going
aground in this stuff
would surely be the end of the lovely " A Lady "
and of the Blogs. It has happened to other boats previously so, hopefully
we will not join the
list.....................
14.00hrs We dropped anchor in " Kenutu
" an absolutly beautifull anchorage, but ( always a but ) the
beautifull looking beaches
had lots of weed in the shallow waters, so no
swimming from the beaches. neither was the snorkling very good. but the place
was great.
There were two other NZ boats at the anchorage when
we arrieved .
There were lot of birds around, including martins,
and of course fruit bats,
Skipper did some rope splicing, it took him a while
to get into the hang of it again, it must be all of 30 years since he last
did
a proper splice, meanwhile, Fats had his siesta,
the girls were sun bathing and tanning their hides on deck,
and " scotty " went to his scratcher, as he is down
with a cold, feck, this boat is like a hospital.
That leaves only " Aileen " hale and harty, (
except for her Gout and arthritis )
Later we all had a swim off the stern before our
pre dinner drinks, mainly G & T's and Rum and coke for Fats, Aileen
dosent drink alcohol.
Dinner was by the girls, A beef bourgionne,
with spuds on top, ohhhhhhh yum, yum,,
They really went to an afull amount if trouble
cooking this dish,, great stuff,,
And of course we had the dinner in the " A Lady
Starlight Restaurant " ( Cockpit )
thats it,
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde, ( Skipper )
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