Farkle!

Sounds a little racy, but it’s just a game. Ann gave a set to our family here on Palmerston and taught them to play and a day later everyone is still playing to howls of laughter.

As for today a few miscellaneous notes:

We heard the radio at 0400 this morning and realized John from Orcinius was talking to a boat that was trying to come into the mooring area in the dark. There were some language issues so they were not getting the message of where to go and you could hear the reef just a hundred yards or less from the mooring, so they were understandably “shy” about coming too close. We used the universal language and just shone our million candlepower floodlight on the mooring float. They got the message and after a couple tries, there was sustained 24 knots of wind making slow speed boat handling difficult, were able to snag the mooring. OK, now we can go back to sleep.

We also had some fun (this was actually yesterday) deploying a life raft. Our host family had a salvaged life raft that they wanted to deploy lest it do so unexpectedly someday, but they were afraid there might be a radio beacon inside. After looking at it-a six man Avon in a canister-I assured them there wouldn’t be one and said I’d open it. Everyone took cover afraid the top might blow off while I pulled the lanyard. The top did blow off, but only a foot or so as the life raft, with the now deployed CO2 cartridge blowing it up emerged from its carefully packed place in the canister. It took about 30 seconds or less to completely inflate. Once complete we started going through the stuff in the raft. Mostly packaged water, a fishing kit, signaling mirror and other survival stuff. Our host family is going to clean the raft up and let the kids play in it like a tent, so it’s now sitting around the side of the house out by some palm trees (but not too close lest the coconuts will fall on the kids heads-a very present danger around here).

Since we plan to leave in the morning around 0400, Ann took a last walk around the perimeter of the island with the two new yachties (that’s what the Palmerstons affectionately call us all) that have arrived in the last two days and I spent some more quality time in my hammock under the trees on the beach. With a book of course, it wouldn’t do to just goof. (My little friend, John – 4 years old, actually asked permission to “walk the yachties on the beach”. Classic!)

Our next leg to Beveredge Reef is 284 miles which at 5.5 knots should take just a little over 48 hours. We should easily be able to make that speed in the first 24 hours with the wind looking to be in the 20 knot range, but it will decrease in the second 24 hours, so we’re leaving early enough that we can slow down and still get there before dark even if we average a bit below 5 knots for the trip.

So early to bed for an early rise and this day’s entry is now complete 😉