Tuesday 12 September – we are finally leaving French Polynesia

We had torrential rain during the night but not much of the big winds predicted. We woke up to drizzle and decided to wait for clearer skies before departing – plus we wanted to speak to Han in Botswana before she went to bed.

It felt odd to be leaving French Polynesia as we have spent so much time here and we have really loved it here. In a break in the weather we motored out the pass, and were relieved to have calm winds. The swell was reaching a peak of 3.5m, luckily it was manageable as the waves were coming from behind us. Rowan has worked out that we can use Baby Spice (small spinnaker) the whole way, so we got her out the locker and laid her out as best we could. We still managed a tangle with the first hoist, but finally got her sorted and up the second time – always a bit hair raising! Rowan loves this little sail, every time we are cruising along comfortably, he can’t believe our luck we have her! I must say it feels so safe and manageable compared to the big beasts, and very comfortable in these big swells. I’m writing this at 9pm, we have averaged 6.6 knts speed over ground in winds in the mid teens, so we are doing really well. Met Bob our kiwi weather router predicted we would be averaging 6knts. So we are very happy.

Leaving cloud covered Bora Bora behind. Just read in the guide book – rain is unusual here in winter, May to October!

We sailed passed the island Maupiti at lunch time, it would have been a lovely stop, it looks very dramatic, but it is a tricky long pass and can only be done in very calm conditions, out of the question in this swell.

Passing Maupiti

We had one little panic in the afternoon which was when Stinky (Starlink – Elon Musk’s satellite provider) went awol and stopped working. It does dip out quite often but this went on for ages and then Rowan lost all contact with it. It’s ridiculous how quickly we become dependent on it! Luckily we have our old Iridium Go satellite set up for messages only, as back up. I had asked Rowan yesterday afternoon to go through it all with me again, so at least we knew it was working. Rowan sent poor Phoebs an urgent request to try and sort out Stinky for us, it was 3am UK time so we knew it would be a while before Phoebs would get it. What a relief when about an hour later Stinky started working again! More messages to Phoebs not to worry about it. We have not seen a single boat all day, and no land visible so it does feel like we are a long way from anywhere, we’re both very happy to be back in communication.

I’m on the first shift after having our 8 hour slow cooked chicken for supper – which was delicious. It is pitch dark outside as the moon is small, and non existent in this cloud cover, but the wind is behaving, staying in the high teens and every now and then when we roar down a big swell we hit over 9knts of boat speed! We are headed for the island Suwarrow, one of the Cook islands, it should take us about 5 days, we will have a rest there for a few days and then decide our next course, either Niue or Samoa (depending on wind) before reaching Tonga.