Crossed the date line last night and lost Friday 2nd October! Wind did bend round not quite enough so motor-sailing to get in before  dark Position: 15° 46′   173° 49′ [-15.77,-173.82] 16:00 local time, GMT 03:00 Sat Oct 3rd 10 miles to Niuatoputapu Wind: SSE 20 knots Sky:  30% cloud cover

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When we talked to Karen on Red Herring at 18:00 last night it was clear we should take more food to Niuatoputapu as the supply boat hadn’t been for 5 months.  The wife of the beach pub owner drove Mary around to lots of shops to collect bags of rice and flour and change US […]

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Have added a couple of links to our boat position. This will be updated via the Yotreps reporting scheme. Should be there within about 12 hours of our report. See right hand side links. More details on www.pangolin.co.nz

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We are still on our own here in an idyllic anchorage. It was very quiet yesterday as all the schools and businesses were closed in the aftermath of the Tsunami warnings. Savaii had next-to no damage and no tsunami wave on the north coast of Savaii . Upolu didn’t fair as well with lots of […]

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Hot news which we have got from the SSB radio and VHF is that there has been an earthquake and Tsunami in Samoa. As often happens, we felt nothing in this anchorage.  Some damage on the south coast has been reported. Hopefully the boats in Apia Marina and Pago, Pago in American Samoa were OK. […]

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Its a compulsory marina for the first stop in Samoa.  The authorities and the Samoans are very friendly.  As they say – I’m sure they don’t have a word in their language indicating the same level of urgency as the Spanish “manana”.  A great welcome from all the cruisers in the marina.  A lot of […]

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Finally the wind has died off and we motored for few hours while the sea dropped.  Back sailing now at 4 knots and the current is making us 5 over the ground.  This trip from Bora Bora has been a series of higher winds and no wind for as long as I have been monitoring […]

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Next morning, sun up and so to the ninety metres of chain yes ninety metres, its deep here. We have stronger winds on our trip towards Bora Bora, 25 to 30 knots but its not far as long as you go straight there. We had to divert as our fishing line was out and yes […]

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Too many of the Cook islands are hard to enter with a normal draft keel boat.  There is a small harbour at [-21.204,-159.785] on Rarotonga the main island well to the south and you can get into the Northern Cook, Penrhyn [-9.024,-158].  Some boats stop at Suwarrow [-13.275,-163.127] but stopping there we would have lost […]

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We got our third ship very soon after the first two.  The three bus rule obviously works for ships as well.  This one was the Niu Polynesia on route to Apia, Samoa. We have had a stowaway since we left Oban.  He is a LEGO man that Mary found on the final tidy up of […]

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