LEAVING BORA BORA (AGAIN)

OK, this time we left Bora Bora and are not turning back! Weather forcasts look reasonably good for the foreseeable future, and we've got our "new" (very used, ripped up, but after 9 hours of sewing all back together) spinnaker in working order, so can still manage if the winds get light and behind us.

I've had high hopes for catching a fish on this passage - I made new 30ft monofilament lines to put between the parachute cord and the stainless steel leaders, thinking that the fish were getting "distracted" by the white 1/8" cord 3ft in front of the pink squid. We had two lines out going thru the pass, and shortly thereafter one of the kids said "we caught something... I think it's a bird" Ack! We'd had birds circle numerous times checking out our lures, but never caught one. This poor brown footed boobie was fortunate (?) and was hooked thru the webbing between his toes. I carefully hauled him in and Kellie held him while I removed the hook and tried to avoid getting pecked. He flew away, but crashed right into our second line... definitly having a bad day. Fortunately he untangled and didn't get snagged on the hook. Poor thing.

We've had 15-18kn of wind on the beam and we've been doing over 7kn all afternoon. About an hour before sunset I heard a strange sounding slap and looked back to see one of our lines trailing off to the side, then a Mahi Mahi jumped out of the water at the end of it. Yay! We'd not caught a fish since the big yellowfin tuna 1000 miles out of Mexico. Dispatching it was horrendously gory, as it started bleeding flopped around a whole lot, completely covering the stern of Imagine, the windvane, lifelines, and my legs with bloody gore. I whacked away at it's head (which is really tough since they have a big hump over it) until it finally stopped flopping. Filleting a fish and cleaning up a boat is not easy when heeled and doing 7-8kn. Ah well, we've got enough for 4 meals in the freezer and another 1-2 in the fridge. No more fishing until we've eaten up some of the other stuff in the freezer to make room.

It's something like 540 miles to Rarotonga, which is our current destination. Omazy and Dolphins are headed there as well, so it should be fun as long as there's room for us all in the tiny harbor. We should arrive there around Saturday, as I'm anticipating the winds cranking around and coming from the east which will slow us down a bit. Wyndeavor is in Aitutaki, about 130 miles north of Rarotonga. We'd like to get back together with them, but the entrance to the lagoon there is <6ft so we'd likely have to anchor outside the pass. The "Omazy's" lived in Rarotonga for 6 months some time ago, so will be able to point us to the fun things. I can't imagine we'll stay to long since it's not an ideal harbor and it'll cost us $20/night to be there. From there we'll probably hop up to Palmerston, then Nuie, then off to northern Tonga. From there, who knows?

-Pete