Category: Ship’s Log

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/17 02:52
LATITUDE: 13-14.91S
LONGITUDE: 163-06.47W
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 9
WIND_DIR: E
CLOUDS: 85%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1011.6
AIR_TEMP: 32.2C
COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Suwarrow Atoll, Cook Islands

Sorry if you received this twice. It was prematurely sent!

Our last day at sea was a doozy! Despite weather guru, Bob McDavit saying \”Travel from Tahiti to Tonga: Voyage along about 20S is likely to encounter the passing SPCZ around local wed to Friday 14 to 16 Sep, and that may be squally. It is looking OK to venture via Suwarrow this week.\” (from French Polynesia) – he missed it. The squalls we saw on the weather files were actually the front that was moving through the central Cook Islands. It either moved north or was more intense than originally thought. Beware the \”Guru\”…. Actually, Bob gave me great advice when I left NZ in 2012 for Fiji and he is a great weather man. He always adds a disclaimer about weather being a mix of pattern and chaos. Indeed, it is.

When I awoke at 3:45 a.m. for my watch, we had 2 reefs and the genoa poled out to port. The winds were persistently shifting to the East from the Southeast, so we decided to roll up the genoa and tack instead of gybe so I could take in the third reef in the main during the tack. I NEVER put in 3 reefs. In 12 years, I\’d done it one other time. Why now? I can\’t tell you other than \”experience\”. I felt the conditions were going to build and build they did. After Nikki had gone below for her off watch, it started to really blow. First 25 knots went to 33 knots and then I had to look twice! 45-46 knots! With three reefs and a scrap of staysail, the wonderful Miss P, aka: Beach House was a star. We quickly accelerated to 10, then 12 then 18 knots! This, with about the sail area of large kite board sail. The tops of the waves were simply blown off. After 10 minutes, the winds backed off to 35 knots and then again, built back to 45 knots. 10 minutes later, the wind was down to the high 30\’s and then one last blast hitting 41 knots. The weather files were saying this entire system was going to blow out by 12 noon, but that was 6 hours away. Lets just say, it was \”intimidating\”. Seas had built to 3.5 meters (about 12 feet) and we even saw a few outlier\’s at 4-5 meters (14-17 feet). My height of eye is 12 feet off the water when standing in the cockpit. When I\’m looking UP at waves, they are big! In these conditions, \”Beach House\” just picks up her skirts and flies out in front of the breaking foam. She\’s always done it, I love this boat.

Except for the speed, you couldn\’t have guessed the weather conditions outside, such is the nature of well designed cruising cats. We certainly could hear the sea rushing by and the speeds were impressive, but the boat (and very fortunately, our rebuilt hydraulic steering rams), performed just as all should be. We actually had winds in the 30+ knot range for over three hours. The boat just zinged along. I\’ll write up more details on this in the main blog when we get internet, but for now, you get the picture. My rule of thumb was to follow the advice of weather expert, Lee Chesneau (retired from NOAA)….\”Always avoid the 34 knot wind field\”. Once this is the story, you are technically in \”storm\” conditions. This was actually the longest and highest wind speeds I\’ve experienced in the last 50,000 plus miles! That includes into and out of New Zealand! I will work hard at avoiding this in the future! Every time I do my own weather, I never get into trouble. When I listen and want to \”believe\” in other sources, is when the mistakes get made.

For now, lovely spot here in Suwarrow. We completed the trip in 4 days, 6 hours. One boat here took 8 days for the same trip. So as you can see, \”Beach House\” goes fast…:-) The boats here told us they had the same wind experiences as we did, but they were anchored behind this lovely island!
This is the only national park in the Cook Islands and has almost all invasive species removed including all rats! The bird life here is astonishing and the black tip reef sharks are everywhere in the anchorage. They\’re no issue and pretty cool to just watch. If you jump in the water, they scatter faster than you can imagine. We\’ll do a mini blog on this before we leave, but for now, if interested, look at the book, \”An Island to Oneself\”, by Tom Neale. He lived a nomadic life here on and off from the 1950\’s to the mid 1970\’s.

4 other boats here, the Rangers took everyone to a spot called \”Perfect Reef\” for a snorkeling trip inside the lagoon. Nikki and I were still in trip recovery mode, but hopefully we\’ll get to do that in a few days. They also have a Manta Ray \”cleaning station\” right near the anchorage which we can snorkel at. If we get to go, we\’ll give a full report.

We expect to be here about 4 days. There is currently NO win – wouldn\’t ya\’ know!…:-)
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/17 02:52
LATITUDE: 13-14.91S
LONGITUDE: 163-06.47W
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 9
WIND_DIR: E
CLOUDS: 85%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1011.6
AIR_TEMP: 32.2C
COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Suwarrow Atoll, Cook Islands
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AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/17 02:52
LATITUDE: 13-14.91S
LONGITUDE: 163-06.47W
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 9
WIND_DIR: E
CLOUDS: 85%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1011.6
AIR_TEMP: 32.2C
COMMENT: Beach House – ANCHORED – Suwarrow Atoll, Cook Islands

Sorry if you received this twice. It was prematurely sent!

Our last day at sea was a doozy! Despite weather guru, Bob McDavit saying \”Travel from Tahiti to Tonga: Voyage along about 20S is likely to encounter the passing SPCZ around local wed to Friday 14 to 16 Sep, and that may be squally. It is looking OK to venture via Suwarrow this week.\” (from French Polynesia) – he missed it. The squalls we saw on the weather files were actually the front that was moving through the central Cook Islands. It either moved north or was more intense than originally thought. Beware the \”Guru\”…. Actually, Bob gave me great advice when I left NZ in 2012 for Fiji and he is a great weather man. He always adds a disclaimer about weather being a mix of pattern and chaos. Indeed, it is.

When I awoke at 3:45 a.m. for my watch, we had 2 reefs and the genoa poled out to port. The winds were persistently shifting to the East from the Southeast, so we decided to roll up the genoa and tack instead of gybe so I could take in the third reef in the main during the tack. I NEVER put in 3 reefs. In 12 years, I\’d done it one other time. Why now? I can\’t tell you other than \”experience\”. I felt the conditions were going to build and build they did. After Nikki had gone below for her off watch, it started to really blow. First 25 knots went to 33 knots and then I had to look twice! 45-46 knots! With three reefs and a scrap of staysail, the wonderful Miss P, aka: Beach House was a star. We quickly accelerated to 10, then 12 then 18 knots! This, with about the sail area of large kite board sail. The tops of the waves were simply blown off. After 10 minutes, the winds backed off to 35 knots and then again, built back to 45 knots. 10 minutes later, the wind was down to the high 30\’s and then one last blast hitting 41 knots. The weather files were saying this entire system was going to blow out by 12 noon, but that was 6 hours away. Lets just say, it was \”intimidating\”. Seas had built to 3.5 meters (about 12 feet) and we even saw a few outlier\’s at 4-5 meters (14-17 feet). My height of eye is 12 feet off the water when standing in the cockpit. When I\’m looking UP at waves, they are big! In these conditions, \”Beach House\” just picks up her skirts and flies out in front of the breaking foam. She\’s always done it, I love this boat.

Except for the speed, you couldn\’t have guessed the weather conditions outside, such is the nature of well designed cruising cats. We certainly could hear the sea rushing by and the speeds were impressive, but the boat (and very fortunately, our rebuilt hydraulic steering rams), performed just as all should be. We actually had winds in the 30+ knot range for over three hours. The boat just zinged along. I\’ll write up more details on this in the main blog when we get internet, but for now, you get the picture. My rule of thumb was to follow the advice of weather expert, Lee Chesneau (retired from NOAA)….\”Always avoid the 34 knot wind field\”. Once this is the story, you are technically in \”storm\” conditions. This was actually the longest and highest wind speeds I\’ve experienced in the last 50,000 plus miles! That includes into and out of New Zealand! I will work hard at avoiding this in the future! Every time I do my own weather, I never get into trouble. When I listen and want to \”believe\” in other sources, is when the mistakes get made.

For now, lovely spot here in Suwarrow. We completed the trip in 4 days, 6 hours. One boat here took 8 days for the same trip. So as you can see, \”Beach House\” goes fast…:-) The boats here told us they had the same wind experiences as we did, but they were anchored behind this lovely island!
This is the only national park in the Cook Islands and has almost all invasive species removed including all rats! The bird life here is astonishing and the black tip reef sharks are everywhere in the anchorage. They\’re no issue and pretty cool to just watch. If you jump in the water, they scatter faster than you can imagine. We\’ll do a mini blog on this before we leave, but for now, if interested, look at the book, \”An Island to Oneself\”, by Tom Neale. He lived a nomadic life here on and off from the 1950\’s to the mid 1970\’s.

4 other boats here, the Rangers took everyone to a spot called \”Perfect Reef\” for a snorkeling trip inside the lagoon. Nikki and I were still in trip recovery mode, but hopefully we\’ll get to do that in a few days. They also have a Manta Ray \”cleaning station\” right near the anchorage which we can snorkel at. If we get to go, we\’ll give a full report.

We expect to be here about 4 days. There is currently NO win – wouldn\’t ya\’ know!…:-)
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/15 19:53
LATITUDE: 14-25.02S
LONGITUDE: 159-59.21W
COURSE: 304T
SPEED: 6.9
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 17
WIND_DIR: E
WAVE_HT: 0.2M
WAVE_PER: 8
SWELL_DIR: E
SWELL_HT: 2.2M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 65%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1016
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 29.4C
COMMENT: Beach House – En ROUTE – Bora Bora to Suwarrow (Day 3 – 170 nm)

We had a fair amount of wind yesterday and it lightened more or less all night. We now have about 16-18 knots from the E, occasionally SE.
We are expecting to make landfall sometime mid day onward tomorrow before dark.

Yesterday was a bit bouncy, but good sailing and we kept our 2 reefs and staysail up till early this morning when we finally started to add a bit more sail.
We currently have the full main and genoa poled out to starboard with 189 nm to go.

Our challenge is, that we see some strong predicted squall lines in our last 12-18 hours, forming to our North and Northwest as we approach Suwarrow.
This will begin for us around 0600 UTC (8 pm or so local time).
We may have some sail drills all night as the conditions may last till the middle of the next day before they dissipate. Big gusts and lightening are always the concerns and these type of squalls may have both. There is a big front to our south and this is sort of the northerly extent of it; it won\’t last long.

It could be a big nothing, but we\’ll keep that old weather eye out. The full moon will help (if it\’s visible through the clouds) and our radar can be heaven sent when looking for the really big rain buster\’s.

KIT!
Scott and Nikki
www.svbeachhouse.com

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/15 19:53
LATITUDE: 14-25.02S
LONGITUDE: 159-59.21W
COURSE: 304T
SPEED: 6.9
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 17
WIND_DIR: E
WAVE_HT: 0.2M
WAVE_PER: 8
SWELL_DIR: E
SWELL_HT: 2.2M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 65%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1016
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 29.4C
COMMENT: Beach House – En ROUTE – Bora Bora to Suwarrow (Day 3 – 170 nm)

We had a fair amount of wind yesterday and it lightened more or less all night. We now have about 16-18 knots from the E, occasionally SE.
We are expecting to make landfall sometime mid day onward tomorrow before dark.

Yesterday was a bit bouncy, but good sailing and we kept our 2 reefs and staysail up till early this morning when we finally started to add a bit more sail.
We currently have the full main and genoa poled out to starboard with 189 nm to go.

Our challenge is, that we see some strong predicted squall lines in our last 12-18 hours, forming to our North and Northwest as we approach Suwarrow.
This will begin for us around 0600 UTC (8 pm or so local time).
We may have some sail drills all night as the conditions may last till the middle of the next day before they dissipate. Big gusts and lightening are always the concerns and these type of squalls may have both. There is a big front to our south and this is sort of the northerly extent of it; it won\’t last long.

It could be a big nothing, but we\’ll keep that old weather eye out. The full moon will help (if it\’s visible through the clouds) and our radar can be heaven sent when looking for the really big rain buster\’s.

KIT!
Scott and Nikki
www.svbeachhouse.com

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/14 20:06
LATITUDE: 15-34.86S
LONGITUDE: 157-24.56W
COURSE: 291T
SPEED: 7.0
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 22
WIND_DIR: E
WAVE_HT: 0.7M
WAVE_PER: 6
SWELL_DIR: ESE
SWELL_HT: 2.7M
SWELL_PER: 6
CLOUDS: 30%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1017
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 29.4C
COMMENT: Beach House – En ROUTE – Bora Bora to Suwarrow (Day 2 – 183 nm)

Note to those \”at sea\” or cruising who are getting this report directly. Once we arrive at Suwarrow, we\’ll drop you off the list unless you tell us otherwise.

The reports are also available at our homepage: www.svbeachhouse.com

Yesterday\’s major point of interest was WIND! Lots of it. We\’ve had 20-28 knots for most of the last 24 hours. Some seas have occasionally been 4 meters, but those are the oddities. We gybed to starboard tack just before writing this entry and we\’ve 354 miles to go, still planning on arriving sometime on Friday. We\’re getting our sea legs back and getting to do a fair amount of sail handling on this voyage. All the new and repaired gear is performing admirably. Someone knock wood quickly please, I already have!

We\’ve carried 2 reefs in the main and our staysail poled out to weather and have been able to average 7.6 knots over the last 24 hours. When we left Bora Bora, we thought we\’d make the trip in exactly 4 days, but wanted the full daylight hours in case we were slow or had other issues on arrival day. Well, we\’ve been fast but are still sailing extra miles as we\’re \”tacking downwind\”. I expect this will add close to 40 miles to the entire trip. The spinnaker pole is heaven sent on this point of sail as we can sail with the apparent wind at 145 degrees, keep our speed up, sail fewer miles and most importantly, keep the waves more on our stern. This prevents the ugly effect of the stern being pushed all around and stops us from rounding up toward the wind and keeping the boat flat, happy and mostly comfortable. The angle of the waves becomes useful energy as well, being more or less, directly behind us. It keeps the auto pilot from having to do too much steering as well. It\’s all good!….

The winds should lighten late in the day, down to around 17-22 knots and with that, we\’ll start looking at adding some sail area to keep up our speed and get us to Suwarrow during daylight hours on Friday.

We\’ve been checking in on the Pac Sea Amateur Radio Net daily at 0300 Z on 14300 mhz. The signals from the US and NZ have been terrific. Chuck of s/v \”Jacaranda\” was running the net last night and he sounded like he was in our cockpit!.

And for those of you who remember \”Crap Shoot\”, we had one of his relatives sleeping on the solar panel last night and now I\’ve got a lot scrubbing to do.
When the Boobie woke up, he took one look at me and decided he\’d already overstayed his welcome….:-) Of course, we have photos!

Keep in touch (KIT!),
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/14 20:06
LATITUDE: 15-34.86S
LONGITUDE: 157-24.56W
COURSE: 291T
SPEED: 7.0
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 22
WIND_DIR: E
WAVE_HT: 0.7M
WAVE_PER: 6
SWELL_DIR: ESE
SWELL_HT: 2.7M
SWELL_PER: 6
CLOUDS: 30%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1017
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 29.4C
COMMENT: Beach House – En ROUTE – Bora Bora to Suwarrow (Day 2 – 183 nm)

Note to those \”at sea\” or cruising who are getting this report directly. Once we arrive at Suwarrow, we\’ll drop you off the list unless you tell us otherwise.

The reports are also available at our homepage: www.svbeachhouse.com

Yesterday\’s major point of interest was WIND! Lots of it. We\’ve had 20-28 knots for most of the last 24 hours. Some seas have occasionally been 4 meters, but those are the oddities. We gybed to starboard tack just before writing this entry and we\’ve 354 miles to go, still planning on arriving sometime on Friday. We\’re getting our sea legs back and getting to do a fair amount of sail handling on this voyage. All the new and repaired gear is performing admirably. Someone knock wood quickly please, I already have!

We\’ve carried 2 reefs in the main and our staysail poled out to weather and have been able to average 7.6 knots over the last 24 hours. When we left Bora Bora, we thought we\’d make the trip in exactly 4 days, but wanted the full daylight hours in case we were slow or had other issues on arrival day. Well, we\’ve been fast but are still sailing extra miles as we\’re \”tacking downwind\”. I expect this will add close to 40 miles to the entire trip. The spinnaker pole is heaven sent on this point of sail as we can sail with the apparent wind at 145 degrees, keep our speed up, sail fewer miles and most importantly, keep the waves more on our stern. This prevents the ugly effect of the stern being pushed all around and stops us from rounding up toward the wind and keeping the boat flat, happy and mostly comfortable. The angle of the waves becomes useful energy as well, being more or less, directly behind us. It keeps the auto pilot from having to do too much steering as well. It\’s all good!….

The winds should lighten late in the day, down to around 17-22 knots and with that, we\’ll start looking at adding some sail area to keep up our speed and get us to Suwarrow during daylight hours on Friday.

We\’ve been checking in on the Pac Sea Amateur Radio Net daily at 0300 Z on 14300 mhz. The signals from the US and NZ have been terrific. Chuck of s/v \”Jacaranda\” was running the net last night and he sounded like he was in our cockpit!.

And for those of you who remember \”Crap Shoot\”, we had one of his relatives sleeping on the solar panel last night and now I\’ve got a lot scrubbing to do.
When the Boobie woke up, he took one look at me and decided he\’d already overstayed his welcome….:-) Of course, we have photos!

Keep in touch (KIT!),
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/13 19:57
LATITUDE: 15-29.81S
LONGITUDE: 154-14.74W
COURSE: 272T
SPEED: 7.8
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 21
WIND_DIR: ESE
WAVE_HT: 0.5M
WAVE_PER: 8
SWELL_DIR: ESE
SWELL_HT: 1.7M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 25%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1018.7
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 30.0C
COMMENT: Beach House – En ROUTE – Bora Bora to Suwarrow, Cook Islands (Day 1 – 170 nm)

We posted our blog on Tahiti to Huahine yesterday in Bora Bora, got some last fuel and provisions and were off at 09:30 local time. We hired a car the day before and did the round island drive. We\’ll report all that in our next photo blog from Huahine to Bora Bora. We\’re sorry we didn\’t get to spend any real time on Huahine, which is my favorite of the leeward islands of French Polynesia. We yet again had a last minute generator problem, which Nikki and I were able to fix by swapping out an alarm probe on the generator. The exhaust temperature alarm has been an issue this season and this probe only lasted 200 hours. It\’s a bear to change due to it\’s location. The job took the two of us about 2 hours. Fortunately, engines, steering, hydraulics and now gen set all seem to be working fine. We\’ve a leak in one of the water makers, but I\’m afraid to over tighten the metal nut into the plastic fitting and possibly knock it out of commission for the season. I\’ll live with the little leak.

The first 30 miles of the sail yesterday were light conditions and we used the genoa poled to starboard with a full main. We passed the last main island (to the north) of French Polynesia – Maupiti. Though very pretty, we are just too far behind and still have 3000 miles to go to Sydney with lots to see.
The winds were shifting from East to Southeast and getting light, so we flew our big reacher on the pole till 02:30 am when the big shift and bigger winds came in. We rolled it up just in time and have been in more or less 20 knots ever since from the SE.

Were headed to the island of Suwarrow, one of the very remote northern Cook Islands. This is the island where a self imposed, \”Robinson Crusoe\” type, Tom Neale lived for many years before his death in the 1970\’s and wrote his autobiography, \”An Island to Oneself\”. It is now the only national park in the Cook Islands. The good news is, it\’s a park and we can visit. The bad news is, the coconut jungle on the radio nets is telling us of very bad experiences with the two Park Rangers. They are Cook Islanders (and will speak English) and may be a Father and Son team.

They have very restrictive rules about what you can and cannot do here (which we are aware of), but the recent visiting yachties have had a few horror stories about abuse of power and literally felt physically threatened. We\’ll be good citizens as usual and follow the rules. \”Yachties\” are about the most
Eco Friendly folks on the planet, so I\’m not sure what \”rules\” exactly were supposedly broken? We\’ll stay anywhere from 2-4 days before possibly attempting the two day sail to Rose Atoll. A very much smaller version of Suwarrow and completely uninhabited. It is part of American Samoa and as such, US territory.
We then think we\’ll head to Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango)which is the main port of American Samoa.

Should plans change, we\’ll of course let everyone know.

Right now, we have brisk sailing conditions with the wind pretty much dead behind us. Port pole with full genoa and main, we\’re zipping right along about 15 degrees south of our desired heading, but that\’s the price we pay for the wind directly astern.

We expect to be in Suwarrow sometime Friday (hopefully). There\’s a bit of a front to our south which we\’ll miss but may get a bit of rain squalls before our arrival. We\’ve 525 miles to go and all is well. We heard lots of friends on the local nets today scattered all over the South Pacific from the Cooks, Tonga, Niue and Fiji.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki

AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/09/13 19:57
LATITUDE: 15-29.81S
LONGITUDE: 154-14.74W
COURSE: 272T
SPEED: 7.8
MARINE: YES
WIND_SPEED: 21
WIND_DIR: ESE
WAVE_HT: 0.5M
WAVE_PER: 8
SWELL_DIR: ESE
SWELL_HT: 1.7M
SWELL_PER: 8
CLOUDS: 25%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1018.7
TREND: 1
AIR_TEMP: 30.0C
COMMENT: Beach House – En ROUTE – Bora Bora to Suwarrow, Cook Islands (Day 1 – 170 nm)

We posted our blog on Tahiti to Huahine yesterday in Bora Bora, got some last fuel and provisions and were off at 09:30 local time. We hired a car the day before and did the round island drive. We\’ll report all that in our next photo blog from Huahine to Bora Bora. We\’re sorry we didn\’t get to spend any real time on Huahine, which is my favorite of the leeward islands of French Polynesia. We yet again had a last minute generator problem, which Nikki and I were able to fix by swapping out an alarm probe on the generator. The exhaust temperature alarm has been an issue this season and this probe only lasted 200 hours. It\’s a bear to change due to it\’s location. The job took the two of us about 2 hours. Fortunately, engines, steering, hydraulics and now gen set all seem to be working fine. We\’ve a leak in one of the water makers, but I\’m afraid to over tighten the metal nut into the plastic fitting and possibly knock it out of commission for the season. I\’ll live with the little leak.

The first 30 miles of the sail yesterday were light conditions and we used the genoa poled to starboard with a full main. We passed the last main island (to the north) of French Polynesia – Maupiti. Though very pretty, we are just too far behind and still have 3000 miles to go to Sydney with lots to see.
The winds were shifting from East to Southeast and getting light, so we flew our big reacher on the pole till 02:30 am when the big shift and bigger winds came in. We rolled it up just in time and have been in more or less 20 knots ever since from the SE.

Were headed to the island of Suwarrow, one of the very remote northern Cook Islands. This is the island where a self imposed, \”Robinson Crusoe\” type, Tom Neale lived for many years before his death in the 1970\’s and wrote his autobiography, \”An Island to Oneself\”. It is now the only national park in the Cook Islands. The good news is, it\’s a park and we can visit. The bad news is, the coconut jungle on the radio nets is telling us of very bad experiences with the two Park Rangers. They are Cook Islanders (and will speak English) and may be a Father and Son team.

They have very restrictive rules about what you can and cannot do here (which we are aware of), but the recent visiting yachties have had a few horror stories about abuse of power and literally felt physically threatened. We\’ll be good citizens as usual and follow the rules. \”Yachties\” are about the most
Eco Friendly folks on the planet, so I\’m not sure what \”rules\” exactly were supposedly broken? We\’ll stay anywhere from 2-4 days before possibly attempting the two day sail to Rose Atoll. A very much smaller version of Suwarrow and completely uninhabited. It is part of American Samoa and as such, US territory.
We then think we\’ll head to Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango)which is the main port of American Samoa.

Should plans change, we\’ll of course let everyone know.

Right now, we have brisk sailing conditions with the wind pretty much dead behind us. Port pole with full genoa and main, we\’re zipping right along about 15 degrees south of our desired heading, but that\’s the price we pay for the wind directly astern.

We expect to be in Suwarrow sometime Friday (hopefully). There\’s a bit of a front to our south which we\’ll miss but may get a bit of rain squalls before our arrival. We\’ve 525 miles to go and all is well. We heard lots of friends on the local nets today scattered all over the South Pacific from the Cooks, Tonga, Niue and Fiji.
KIT,
Scott and Nikki