Well, as they say you make plans – God laughs at you :). The same happened here. I was keen on visiting Suwarrow, a small beautiful atoll northwest of here but apparently for the time being it’s restricted and I cannot sail to it. So, I had to change my initial intentions. I looked into sailing to Cook Islands but they only have two possible ports of entry on my way to Tonga and both are not very good, so I decided to skip Cook Islands altogether and sail straight to Tonga. It’s around 12-14 days of sailing if the wind is good. So, preparing for departure I found out that my water maker was not working and I had to fix it. It appeared to be a simple procedure (according to the manufacturer) but the reality is always different on a boat. Anyway, after few other obstacles – I had to move to another anchorage, my anchor chain got wound up around some rock, then the anchor too… then, all those events behind me, I manage to replace the old pumps and now the water maker is working again.
Last year, when crossing the Pacific on our way to Marquesas from Mexico, we had problems with my steering wires. Now I checked them again and I think they’re OK to go.
My intended day of departure is next Wednesday (hopefully), so on Monday I’ll start the checkout procedure (they say it’s easy and fast here), do the final shopping, get some more fuel – both diesel and gasoline, activate my tracker etc.
The weather forecast is for some bigger swell in the beginning (up to 4 meters) but hopefully it’ll get down after a few days.
I got a lot of bananas from Huahine and now they all become ripe all at once, as always! So, I’ll probably make some banana jam and I will be able to eat it during the passage.