Raiurua, Ile Raivavae (Wednesday, June 9, l999)

Family and Friends:

At 0729 this morning, after a mostly sleepless night of bashing and pounding through 20 to 30 knot "noserlies," I spotted Raivavae through the low clouds and sea spray.

Foremost on my mind was a long nap while sitting calmly at anchor in a protected lagoon, but with ten foot seas from the Northwest and the pass through the reef, Passe Mahanatoa, situated on the Northwest side of Raivavae, I realized that there was a chance it wouldn't come to pass.

As we approached Raivavae, with its undergrown, jagged mountains jutting over 1400 feet above sea level, I put a call out on the VHF radio in hopes of getting information on the conditions at the pass.

No luck, but I did get responses from two other sailboats who were, coincidentally, inbound from Auckland at the same time. We could see the pass from seaward and conditions looked pretty benign. The pass through the barrier reef was well marked and the seas were tame, and all three boats made a safe entrance and anchored within thirty minutes of each other.

Our last day's run was 170 miles and we are anchored at 23 deg. 52 min. South Latitude and 147 deg. 41 min. West Longitude. The geography of Raivavae is reminiscent of Bora Bora, but since it is outside the Tropic of Capricorn, the vegetation is a combination of tropical with pine trees and grassy areas as well.

Some quick stats on the trip. As the albatross flies, Auckland to Raivavae is 2123.5 nautical miles. We estimate we covered just over 2300 miles, as we had to navigate around the South Pacific high pressure area, as opposed to the rhumb line. Our time enroute was about 11 days and 21 hours, so our average speed was just over eight knots.

We'll give you some more scoop once we've had some time to rest and do some exploring.

Cheers, George, Paula, Phyllis, Steve, Dale and MaiTai