Category: Pacific

The sun is coming up behind us after a peaceful night. We’ve been gently reaching along between four and six knots with the wind on the port beam, sleeping well on our off-watches. It’s wonderful to have these calm conditions, even if it does mean we have to run the engine now and then to keep the speed up when the wind drops.

Since leaving Ile de Pins we’ve had two gales, with sustained winds over 35 knots for hours on end. Sometimes that’s OK, when the sea isn’t too rough, or when it’s blowing from behind us like it was from Tonga to Ile de Pins. That was ten days of “squash zone” winds – near gale strength, for over a week. Tiring, but when the boat is set up properly, there’s not much to do other than just run with it. The strong winds we’ve had since then have been coming from the south west – exactly where we want to be heading. So we’ve had a wiggly course with a big bend for each gale as we’ve changed direction to deal with the wind and waves better. First of all a front comes through, with gusts – sometimes over 50 knots – and rain. Then the wind backs (comes from a more anti-clockwise direction, so W rather than NW) and strengthens. We alter course so that we’re pointing as best we can towards our destination, shorten sail to just 3rd reefed main and storm jib, or sometimes when it’s consistently blowing over 40, just the main. Rafiki makes good speed up and over the waves, at about 45 degrees to the wind. Luckily we’ve never seen any dangerous breaking seas, although every now and then we’ve had hideous confused, lumpy conditions. Sometimes when we get too fast, or when the waves get choppy, the boat slams hard coming down off the back of a wave, or when a random wave comes from an unexpected angle. At first this is exhausting – the feeling that something has got to break sooner or later, but after a while I get used to it. The noise, the vibrations, poor boat. But she’s built well and I’m being careful not to push her too hard.

When the winds are up, I’m alert to every noise and movement even more than normal – the consequences of breakages or mistakes are more severe. Even though the wind hasn’t actually been very strong (a “gale” is technically only 35-40 knots), the sense of relief when the wind starts to drop off is really noticeable.

It’s a lot colder down here; we’re now at 29 degrees south and well outside the tropics. I’m wearing full UK-style sailing gear at night; fleece, big jacket, salopettes, woolly hat, boots. There’s a sleeping bag in the cockpit to keep the wind off and provide a cocoon of warmth, at least for a while while I’m sat still, reading, between the regular sail tweaks and routine checks. A double-size serving of coffee or tea in my sea-mug at the start of the watch kicks my metabolism into gear and keeps me warm.

It’s our 8th day at sea since we had a rest stop for a night in New Caledonia and we’re set up with our offshore routine now – I like taking the same watch each night, which is what we’ve been doing since about half way across – from Bora Bora I think. My day starts at 0300 when Eva wakes me for my stint in the cockpit. We always have someone on deck to deal with sail trim and watch out for ships. My watch technically lasts 4 hours till 0700, but nine times out of ten it runs well beyond 0800 while the others sleep on. I enjoy the time with the ship to myself. I send and receive emails at the end of the watch, getting an update on the weather forecast at the same time. When the others are up and we’ve handed over, I try and get on with something below decks. Read a magazine, sometimes watch a film, write in my journal. My ukulele skills are not improving very fast at all! Lately I’ve been going through my music collection, digging out gems I’ve not heard in a long time. When it’s blowing a hoolie, I generally don’t sleep much during the others’ watches, so I grab the odd half-hour or hour when I can during the day. Lunch time is always together, usually in the cockpit, and usually tuna salad with crackers. I don’t want to see another cracker or tuna salad for a long time… I rest for a while, and then I’m back on deck at 3pm for my next watch. Dave and Eva take the opportunity to go below – during the day they are on and off duty as one person. I read in the cockpit, watch the sea roll by … till 1630 which, Rafiki being a fine British vessel, is tea time. After a nice cuppa and biscuits or crisps, we have an hour or so before starting to think about dinner, always a hot meal. The weather hasn’t affected our culinary experience at all – coming into New Caledonia I was on watch dealing with a nasty bit of weather, boat heaving all over the place, rain lashing down, while Dave and Eva were down below preparing sushi rolls with the tuna we’d caught earlier in the day. Gale sushi! We’ve had lasagne, pear crumble, fresh bread … it’s just lunch that’s become a bit repetitive. After supper, I hand over the watch to Dave, and try to get some sleep. I find a cosy corner in the main cabin, positioned where I can just open one eye and see the instruments at the chart table. Combined with the noises and motion of the boat, the numbers blinking away in red lights tell me all I need to know as I doze through the night until 3am again.

So, on this calm morning, I’m sending one of our last position reports, less than 170 miles from the coast of Australia. It’s been a great 24 hour run so far – more than 120 miles. I can almost smell the eucalyptus trees. Getting quite excited now. The initial plan was to make landfall at Newcastle, just around the corner from Sydney. But now we’re making best speed possible towards Coff’s Harbour, 200 miles north, because there’s a deep and nasty looking low pressure system due to arrive off Sydney/Newcastle on Monday. We want to be safely tucked up in port by then. At the moment our e.t.a. is Saturday evening, and we have plenty of fuel to motor all the way if the wind drops. All being well, my next update will be from shore!

Two small black birds shoot up into the air from behind a wave, twisting around each other before disappearing again, temporarily hidden amongst the moving folds of the ocean’s surface. I look to see where they have gone but it’s impossible to find them. There’s so much movement out there, and the birds skim so close to the water you can only see them when they rise and are silhouetted against the sky.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a sparkle. Silver shapes skitter away on the surface, desperately trying to get away from us as we invade their wave. The flying fish are back! I’ve been surprised at how few we’ve seen over the last couple of months. There were loads on the first crossing from Mexico, along with dolphin and whales … but then almost no sea life on the open ocean until just a few days ago. This morning a small pod of dolphin came to say hello just after dawn, too.

The bigger flying fish seem solitary, powerful, confident, professional flyers, sometimes flying so far that they are too small to see before they disappear under the surface. The smaller ones scatter in panicked shoals as we approach, their immature wings and obvious lack of skill getting them over only one or two waves at best. Does a shoal of flying fish become a flock as soon as it takes to the air? For the impressive amount of time they manage to stay airborne, in the transition zone of moving wind and water, they seem as capable as any sea bird. Navigating the rise and fall of the waves just millimetres off the surface, fish or bird – the big school of the sea has taught them the same flying lessons. Except where the bird ends its dance along the surface with a swoop into the air, as though it had just been catapulted into the sky, the fish just disappears into the face of the wave with a little explosive splash. Sometimes there are so many, it looks like a machine gun being fired into the sea. When the sea is rough, their blue and silver bodies are lost from view over a blue and silver ocean, only the re-entry detonations showing that they were ever there at all.

They are amazing creatures, with huge see-through, spiny pectoral fins that act as wings, and a large lower rear fin which works as an engine to get them going. Flick flick flick, back and forth underneath them drawing lines in the sea for a few yards as they build up speed. The line stops and then swoooosh, they are in the air.

Fish becomes bird.

Sometimes, the flight ends too soon, at a distance the fish decides is not yet far enough away for comfort. Still skimming above the surface, his tail connects with the sea and flick-flick-flick, he’s off again. Sometimes he’ll make a sudden change of direction as soon as his engine touches down, his silver and blue body darting off across the waves for another fifty yards, going completely the opposite way. Amazing.

In the early hours of this morning I was lost in thought, mind wandering with the stars, enjoying the first peaceful night watch for a week. Then WHUMP! Something collided with the spray hood just behind my head. Then quiet again. Just the sound of the wind and the waves. I cautiously poked my head around the corner and a huge glistening flying fish lay stunned on the side deck, motionless. He was a monster – perhaps 30cm long, wedged between the diesel cans and a porthole. I dashed below for a camera and tried to snap a photo, just as the would-be kamikaze pilot came to his senses and started flapping about. His back was an incredible, almost iridescent blue, unlike the dark navy blue ones I sometimes find dead on the decks in the mornings. Do they change colour when they die, like mahi mahi, or perhaps there are different species? I opened out his wings to take a good look, amazed by the perfection of each spine and curve. The thick bullet shaped body was pure muscle, evolved over millions of years for explosive speed.

I was tempted to keep him for breakfast, but as he started to flap around more frantically, his mouth open gasping for water, I decided he was better off back in the sea.

It’s now the fourth day at sea since leaving Tonga, we’re heading towards the southern tip of New Caledonia, about four hundred miles into the 1100 mile passage. Apart from a short spell at the start where the wind was a bit lighter, and from astern, we’ve had three reefs in the main all the time. Until today, rain squalls were pulsing through almost non-stop, with gusty wind and no sight of the sun.

The second morning I thought dawn was never going to come. I had my coffee, munched breakfast, dealt with the squalls, and still it was dark. Low, wet, heavy clouds continued to empty themselves all around us – raining large noisy drops as it only can in the tropics. Throughout the day we had similar conditions. Rain, cloud, lots of wind.

Then last night was a bit of a mission. I took the evening watch as I was already in the cockpit in full wet weather gear, soaked through. We were approaching the Lau ridge; an area of shallow water south of Fiji, with a few reefs and “unmarked shoals”. I really wanted to get through this area before dark, and before any significant waves built up. Shallow water and big waves are not a great combination. Fortunately we had a lot of wind astern for the last couple of hours of daylight, so we powered along at 7 knots trying to get as far as we could before darkness fell. The depth sounder kept showing random shallow numbers which gave me an uneasy feeling. It has always done that from time to time, probably picking up some change in water temperature, or an upwelling of some sort. But in the dark, charging along at 7 knots, with shoal areas and an active volcanic area directly underneath, it was unsettling. By 10pm we were through. Over the ridge and into deeper water. Wind picked up, and I spent the rest of my watch juggling the genoa in and out as the squalls came through, trying to stay dry under the spray hood. I took over the watch again at 7am to the joyous sight of blue sky ahead. The cloud front moving over us to the east made a dramatic sight; a stark contrast between the dark menacing storm of the night and a promise of clear weather ahead.

Today, it’s a clear blue sky but still a howling wind. The waves are starting to build. The wind is coming from the south west at about 30 knots, pretty much exactly where we want to be going. We’re gently cruising along at about 3 knots, heading due west, climbing over each wave and falling into the trough beyond. Because we’re not moving too fast, mostly we just slide down the back of the waves. Every now and then, one’s a bit steeper and we slam into it with a crash, water spraying everywhere. It’s more comfortable than it sounds, especially now that we’ve furled the genoa and put the storm jib up instead. Apart from the crunch and slam when we hit a wave. Boat holding up well though.

Let’s see what tonight brings.

Not much action on the blog for the past couple of weeks – I’ve not been in the mood for writing. It’s been a strange period; coming to the last part of the crossing. All the island groups are now behind us so in some ways the exploration seems over, yet there are still over two thousand sea miles to go before we get to Australia. Ahead of us is a lot of time at sea, heading south, out of the tropics, into windier and colder weather. Mid winter’s day today down here in the southern hemisphere! At 18 degrees south it’s still pretty nice though. For now…

Rose is settling back into our place in Bristol, and I’m out in the boonies on the other side of the world missing her like crazy. There are so many things at home that I want to get back to, yet I don’t relish the thought of returning to crazybusyfrantic Europe. Very mixed feelings. But, sitting on the beach yesterday in the sun, carving bowls from coconuts, soaking up our last day in Tonga, I felt my mood lift. We’d filled the boat with fuel, water and food, and completed customs and immigration paperwork. We’d left Neiafu harbour and anchored in a bay around the corner; taken the physical and mental first steps towards Australia. Rafiki was ready, I was ready. The high winds we’ve been having for the last week are due to ease off over the next few days. Time to go.

So this morning we had our last swim, pulled up the anchor, and set out to sea. Clouds whooshed overhead, washing the boats at anchor in Port Maurelle with a light cool drizzle. Bright sunshine came out between the clouds, throwing vivid rainbows over the bay and lighting up the green hills surrounding us. I’ll take it as a good omen for the passage ahead 🙂

If we get decent weather I’ll catch up with writing about Niue and Tonga over the next few days.

Our first evening after leaving Niue, we grilled the remains of the tuna we’d been given by Lionel on the BBQ. As I munched away, my mouth felt dry, a little prickly. It felt like I was getting a mouth ulcer. Or maybe scurvy… I only managed a couple of pieces before deciding that I wasn’t enjoying it much, so Neptune had the rest. I took a sip of my rum and lime and felt a hot flush come over my face. Woah! That’s quite some rum, I thought. Then I started to get a headache, and felt decidedly strange. I popped below to take a look at myself in the mirror and saw that my whole head and neck had gone hot and red. Hmmn. Something not right here. I asked the others if they were feeling OK – no, they weren’t – Eva had a headache and Dave was starting to get tingles in his fingers and toes. Not a good sign. It had to be the fish. But tuna, a pelagic fish, never has ciguatera, the toxin that reef fish pick up, the reason we’ve not been catching and eating reef fish on the islands. Feeling a little concerned, I thumbed through the “poisoning” section of my offshore fishing book. We were truly on our own, 100 miles downwind of Niue and at least that still to go before Tonga. We were all getting worse. I really hoped it wasn’t going to turn into an epic. None of us usually suffer allergic reactions to seafood, yet that’s exactly what the symptoms were. Hot, red neck and head, restricted breathing, raised pulse, headache…

Diagnosing that we’d got scombrotoxism*, I read “bronchospasms and general respiratory distress, shock and possibly death can result from serious cases… get to a doctor if possible … evacuate the stomach … administer antihistamine”. Erk. By this time, maybe half an hour later, I was starting to feel a lot better, and decided to wait it out. The others didn’t show signs of deterioration, so Dave took the watch and I took a nap. Phew, I thought, nice to be through that. But after an hour or so of sleep, I felt another wave of reaction coming on; headache, dizziness, flushed face and neck. I got up and woozed around for a bit, drank some water, and again after about half an hour symptoms went away. I think that was it – I didn’t get another round, but the others had a tougher night. By morning, we were all normal again.

As we got better, the weather got worse. Through the day, the wind picked up, and the seas got larger. Thankful that the weather had been kind while we were feeling rotten, we prepared for a bumpy night. I turned in while Dave took the first watch in the building gale. I was woken by a shout from the cockpit.

“We’ve lost the instruments! Autopilot not working!”

I came on deck to see Dave wrestling with the wheel as Rafiki charged down the face of some fairly meaty waves, with just the third reef in the main sail and wind whistling in the rigging. Oh great, what a time to have a systems failure. It could at least have been daytime. First, a quick check below the cockpit – all mechanical systems were OK. It had to be an electrical fault … which means it could be anything from a corroded connection (any of hundreds) to a software failure in any one of the components on the network. I spent the next two hours trying to get the thing working again, tracing wires, isolating different parts of the system, climbing in and out of the cockpit locker with a torch in my mouth as the boat lurched and lunged over the waves, careering through the night. There was a blinking red light on top of the autopilot computer, so I dug out the instruction manual and flipped to the troubleshooting section.

“Network error. Call Raymarine technical support.”

Ugh. So I dialled up American support on the satphone, figuring they were the ones likely to be awake. Ten expensive minutes later, I was still on hold. Expecting to be told “replace part X”, and of course not having a spare part X on board, I figured this was a dead end option and hung up. After trying everything else I could think of, I gave up for the night. The whole system was down, not just the autopilot. Wind speed, depth, boat speed, GPS – all blank. I hoped that the problem, whatever it was, hadn’t also damaged all the components. I disconnected the chart plotter from the network and switched it to use it’s internal GPS sensor … so at least we knew where we were and where we were going.

The three of us took turns helming through the night, in the pitch black darkness, with only the red glow of the compass and the feel of the boat under our feet to guide us down the waves at the right angle. Tiring work. Morning brought a watery grey light, but the howling wind was still hustling us along at maximum speed. By the time the night had fully turned into day, we’d rounded the top of the Vava’u island group of Tonga, which sheltered us from the south east swell – making a huge difference to comfort and our ability to keep the boat under control. We tacked our way in, between the entrance islands in calm water (but 40+ knot winds), and then motored around to the main town of Neiafu. Conditions in the sheltered water couldn’t have been more different from those just a few miles away out at sea. Off came the wet weather gear and life jackets, replaced by shorts and sunglasses, the tension of the passage burned off by the warm sun. Tired, and relieved to have reached port, we tied up to the wharf to start our check-in procedure.

* The Scombridae family of fish (tuna, wahoo, mackerel) have something called histidine in ’em, “more prevalent in red and oily fish” … and when bacteria munch on this, they produce toxic by-products. It’s the toxin that got us. We thought that as we’d grilled the fish to almost charcoal we’d have killed anything nasty, but toxins are not living and persist through cooking. The book says “reject any meat with the sharp or peppery taste characteristic of these toxins” … next time I sure will!

After Beveridge reef we had a couple of days passage to the island of Niue. “The Rock” they call it – a lump of coral only a few miles across, raised up from the ocean gazillions of years ago. The country just consists of the one island, with only 1500-odd inhabitants. There’s nowhere (safe) to anchor around the island as the water gets really deep really quickly, so there are a number of moorings available by the island’s wharf. No fringing reef, and no shallows nearby, meant we could come in at night without too much stress. As usual, we had light winds – but this time just enough to keep us moving along gently without too much slamming of the sails. We arrived in the early hours of the morning, no moon, really dark. A few minutes of searching with a torch and we picked up a mooring ball. One other boat there, sitting in the black darkness like a ghost ship – no lights on at all.

In the morning we called up the island HQ on the radio and arranged for customs to come down to the wharf to check us in. The island just has one landing point – the wharf, with a crane to lift boats out of the water. So I rigged up a bridle on our dinghy and we motored ashore. Timing our actions between the big sets of waves, Dave and Eva hopped out and scrambled up the ladder, and I hooked onto the crane and was hoisted quickly out of the water, still sat in the dinghy. A new way to enter a new country!

As soon as I stepped ashore I had a feeling that it would be a welcoming place. The yacht club commodore came down to meet us, and I chatted with a few older fisherman sat in their car, in broken English. Customs and immigration was a simple enough process, and then we explored the small town of Alofi for the rest of the day. Only a few buildings spread out along the main road, everything very neat and tidy – apart from the abandoned properties destroyed in the last cyclone. Later in the day I overheard a French singlehander struggling to communicate with the radio HQ, offered to translate, and ended up going out to bring him ashore as he didn’t have a dinghy ready, and then going with him to customs to translate there too. We spent the evening aboard his boat – Ivitu – eating fresh Tuna and Wahoo that he’d caught on his way into Niue, drinking rum and wine, having a good chat.

Next day the French fella, Lionel, joined us for a ride in our rental car across the island to “show day” in one of the villages. Started early with lots of food for sale – a mix of local stuff and things flown in from New Zealand on the twice-weekly flight. Taro root, BBQ chicken, sausages, crab sticks. I stashed a plate away in the car to tuck into later for lunch. In one corner a spread of large vegetables and fruit was laid out on the grass; a competition. Huge bananas, taro, coconuts, and some root vegetable I couldn’t identify. Wandering among the veggies on lengths of string were some monster blue coconut crabs, being shooed away by the judges. Then speeches and dances from troupes of school kids.

Just before it finished at noon we busted out and explored the “sea tracks” around the north coast of the island – being a coral lump there are loads of caves, grottos, nooks and crannies. No bats though, which I found strange. Learnt what I believe to be the French word for bats – “chauve souris” – shaved mice … is that for real? Thinking about it now maybe it should be “cave mice” – but the word for cave is different … hmm I’m going to have to look this up later. The island didn’t appear to have much in the way of animal or bird life – likewise not many insects. Hundreds of miles out in the middle of nowhere and not very fertile; not so surprising I guess.

Evening was spent on “Max” – a French couple’s 54-foot Amele, eating more of the fish, drinking wine, and trying to keep up with the fast French conversation. They’d arrived in the afternoon while we were ashore. A big boat – plenty of freezers on board – which meant a wonderful freshly baked tarte-au-poivres for dessert! Hervé and Caroline are from Brittany, with a great sense of humour, I tried to give as good as I got as a Brit on the receiving end of the jokes. Lionel is a lean, blonde, curly haired sea vagabond, seeming much younger than his 53 years with a hip-hop baseball cap, board shorts and tired tee shirt. Very animated, enthusiastic and much as I imagine his precursors Bernard Moitessier and Jean Gau to have been like back in the sixties. Hervé – a robust, ruddy, short haired Bréton with an infectious “joie de vivre” and a mischievous look in his eye. His wife Caroline – smiling and open, and of course impeccably presented and stylishly dressed in the way of French women the world over. The two of them were clearly very comfortable on board together, seeming much more of an even team of two than many other couples I’ve met at sea. I like the French. They make me chuckle – almost every Frenchman fits the stereotype in some way.

Sunday – a day of rest in the very Christian community – nothing happening ashore, we stayed aboard Rafiki. Helped a large Aussie catamaran pick up a mooring in the afternoon – “Angels Wings”. Rob and Jo – who I later discovered we’d met very briefly on Bora Bora. Being light and nimble, I was winched up his mast to fix a strop to the head of his genoa to factor for a new, shorter furler that he’d had fitted a week earlier. While the weather was reasonable and the boat was flat, I went up Rafiki’s mast too, to check all was OK, a job I do every month or so. All good. Evening aboard Angels Wings chatting and eating.

During the night the wind swung around to the north and swell wrapped around the island to make a bumpy, uncomfortable time on the moorings. Checked out with customs and immigration first thing in the morning, and then set sail for Tonga about mid day.

I enjoyed our stop on Niue – small and friendly. There’s a noticeable difference from French Polynesia in that we are now reaching the other side of the Pacific – closer to NZ and Australia – where boats are coming in from the west. The islanders speak English, which feels strange as we’re so far from home in every way imaginable. Looking at the globe, we’re pretty much on the opposite side now!

“Reported to lie 3 miles north east” says the chart. Which means they aren’t really sure where it is. Zooming in, there’s just a jaggedy mass of green reef symbol which screams “don’t hit me”. So it was with caution that I placed the approach waypoints into the chart plotter, knowing that our arrival was likely to be in the early hours of the morning, before good light. But the wind was light and seas gentle, the moon almost full – perfect conditions for approaching a mid-ocean reef, where there are no landmarks above water; nothing but crashing waves. Beveridge reef is a sunken atoll somewhere between Palmerston and Niue; its remoteness and inaccessibility making it an irresistible stop. But could we find it?

Wind light, again, so we arrived in the area later than expected. An hour or so after dawn I could just about make out breakers on the horizon through the binoculars. A few minutes later, the larger ones were visible with the naked eye. None of my official charts – paper or electronic – had any more detail than the green jaggedy reef symbol … but I’ve seen pictures of boats inside the reef, and have a sketch map from another sailor with GPS positions, so was confident we could find our way in. According to the sketch, the reef has a pass on the western side. Much closer to the reef, I saw the unmistakeable wavelets of a rip current, a tidal race – water pouring out through the pass as the moon pulls the tide off towards New Zealand. It’s always hard to judge the size of these tidal race waves; especially with nothing to provide a sense of scale. It’s easy to see which way the tide is flowing though, and with the water pouring OUT of the reef, we could approach closely and just get swept safely out to sea again if we happened to bump the bottom, or there was any other problem. Driving Rafiki along the foam line that marked the middle of the race (and the deepest water), I soon had us through into the lagoon where the current relaxed and the water got deeper. We saw minimum 6m depth through the pass (plenty), which in the ultra clear water, looked a lot less!

We anchored on the far side of the lagoon, on a band of sand that runs all the way around the reef. These lagoons all seem to have the same shallow sandy shelf, extending inwards from the fringing reef, sometimes only a few metres and sometimes for hundreds of metres. Pure turquoise water only a few feet deep, suddenly dropping off into deeper water in the middle of the lagoon, the ramp so consistent and perfect that it looks man made. You can see the change of colour in the water. I can now judge the depth just by the shade of blue. Almost nothing lives on the sand shelf; just a few isolated coral heads trying to make a stand. There’s nothing hard to bump into, and hardly any tide, so I’m happy taking the boat onto these sandy shelves to anchor with only inches below our keel.

The water is SO clear – I’m assuming because there’s no land and no vegetation. We took the dinghy out to the edge of the reef and snorkeled by the wreck of a small fishing boat. How unlucky – to hit the only reef around for hundreds of miles! Not much to see in the way of fish, but lots of live coral and a shark dressed up in an all-over dark grey suit – one that I’d not seen before. Was he harmless like the black-tips, coming in close just out of curiosity, or was he circling us getting ready for the kill? We all survived, anyway.

Nobody else here. I’d hoped we might meet another boat in this isolated corner of the Pacific, so we could swap stories and have a bit of new conversation, but we had the place to ourselves. Which wasn’t so bad really – the solitude reinforcing the fact that this is completely and totally the middle of nowhere. The only sound; a rumble of surf in the background. The only life; fish, sharks, rays, spiky urchins, squishy black sea cucumbers and a few sea birds perched on the wreck. Colours so vibrant and pure; above and below the surface; not a speck or waft of pollution (other than the rusting hulk of the boat of course).

I spent the afternoon fishing from the dinghy, losing lures, running aground, dropping a rod over the side while I tried to tie us to a rock… generally being Mr Incompetent. I did catch a decent sized spotted grouper, but I put it back as I’d heard they were ciguatoxic. Also caught a little spotted yellow thing which wasn’t big enough to eat. Giving up, I headed back to the boat with a line trailing astern, and hooked a Jack! A “carangue bleu” in French – the same as the one we’d been given for supper in Fakarava. So I figured we should be fine, no ciguatera. Fresh poisson for supper on the grill! But after reading more about the toxin – how one species can be fine in one place but toxic in another, and the severity of acute symptoms, I reluctantly decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Canned fish again, then. Which feels so wrong in a place like this.

I had a full night of calm, deep sleep under the full moon in a gentle breeze. Woke just before dawn to watch an incredible sunrise, tucked up in my sleeping bag on the cockpit seat. Temperatures at night are dropping; and we’re getting dew on deck too. We just nudged over 20 degrees south … only a couple of degrees until we’re out of the tropics!