Thursday, July 25, 2013

Manihiki - Man is it rolly hiki

Moondance arrived last night around 0200. They were chased in by squalls and there was lots of lightening around last night. We got them all rafted up and everyone back to their beds just in time for a torrential downpour. At least it cooled things off, and Evergreen certainly needed the fresh water wash down. Had to laugh, this morning Dennis was searching for his computer, couldn't imagine what could have happened to it,as I was sleeping in the salon and noone could have gotten by me right???? Well, with all the lightening around us last night, I had put it in the oven. The oven? Well, they say that that is the safest most shielded place in the boat for it if the boat gets struck by lightning. I don't know if it is true or not, but made me feel better, and I got a laugh out of it.

Today was a major chore day - Dennis got the generator up and running, changed filters in the watermaker, fixed the drawer that kept falling out during the "death rolls", got another 12volt adaptor working so we can listen to different music, plotted our course to Suwarrow and who knows what else. I did dishes, breakfast, laundry, laundry, laundry, fold, fold, fold, lunch, dishes, looked things up in the cruising guides, put things away that Dennis took out to work on the generator (yep those same four compartments - think I have it down now), dinner and now blog. Josh aired out his bed, changed his linen (he says he could weaponize the smell in his room), helped us with our various projects, did homework and is now waiting for his turn on the computer.

The wind came up today, and the swell really increased, making the raft up with Moondance more and more iffy. Finally right at dinner time, Moondance had to untie. The swells would lift them up and push them towards us, and then as we were coming up with the swell, they would be coming down. We were all out on deck trying to figure out if we could adjust the way we were tied up when a few good swells came through and it looked like we were going to hit masts and/ or spreaders/shrouds. We quickly set about untying and untangling ourselves and it was pretty hairy for a few minutes. But they got safely away and finally after trying to heave to and getting blown down wind at a couple of knots, they decided to head on out for Suwarrow. That's exactly what we would have done. Suwarrow is about 210 miles away, so they should be able to make it by Friday morning no problem. We were all going to leave tomorrow anyway. Evergreen will leave at 0500 in the morning and with the sailing forecast being fast and bumpy, figure we will arrive Suwarrow noonish on Friday.

So, we have water, charts, power, full bellies and are looking forward to a good night's sleep. Send positive thoughts for fast - not bouncy.

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