Pages

Friday, August 14, 2015

Tanna Emerges

Yesterday Wednesday was a rather uneventful day except for the emergence on the horizon first of an island called Futuna - a different one to the one I sailed to last year - at about 95 miles off and then at about 50 later in the afternoon the first little lumps of Tanna. The sea was what they term lumpy a 1-2m swell but the wind mostly 16 knots. We bumped along at 4.5 to 5 knots most of the time, frustrating because to sail faster would have been easier and the motion of the boat more tolerable. Our ETA fluctuated between 6 and 8am until after dark when the wind picked up considerably and our ETA became 4 or 5 am, in the dark. So at 1130 we hove to in 20 knots and I had a nice sleep till about 3, by which time the wind had eased again and we set off for Port Resolution.

Right now the sun is just rising behind me under thick cloud covering the sky and Tanna is 12 miles away a grey shape in the gloom, no sign of any volcanic activity.

It will take a couple of hours to get there from here. I will stay on board till tomorrow when the Customs people arrive to clear me in. Ive arrived a little sooner than I had expected, but all in good shape and no dramas to report. Port Resolution has no facilities of any kind, just a couple of villages joined by tracks and a rough road going to the main village some hours away on the other side of the island.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

1 comment: