September 4-6, Suwarrow Birthday cake, Lazarus and diesel

Sept 4  We have been staying on the boat most of the time doing maintenance projects and financial office work, as the wind speed is still a bit high for going anywhere.  Every time it drops some, we talk about going somewhere.  Then before we get going, the wind is back up and we sit tight.  There was a cruiser potluck on the beach this evening and the wind moderated enough to get a large turnout.  Since one of the ladies was celebrating her birthday, Lynne baked a birthday cake, complete with candles. It was the 4th cake at the potluck but every crumb of every cake was devoured.  We'll blame it on the children.  It was an international celebration with people from Poland, Germany, Norway, France, Holland, Brazil, Sweden, Spain, Great Britain, Australia, Canada and the USA.  All this diversity is held together by the love of the sea and the cruising life.  There are 26 boats here now - the record.  There are many children in our fleet and cruisers of all ages.

Sept 5  We were scheduled to go on an outing to the Seven Sisters motus this morning.  Since the ranger's skiff was full, we would be tagging along in our dinghy.  Well, the wind speed was higher than we anticipated it would be and we forecast a wet and bumpy ride.  So we cancelled.  After lunch, the wind was down and we went a short distance away in the dinghy to a cleaning station for the manta rays.  A cleaning station is a place where the big rays come to have the parasites and other growth removed by small fish.  It works because the small fish get to eat and don't get eaten.  We tied up the dinghy to a mooring and jumped in to snorkel around and look for the mantas.  The water was about 30 feet deep, so looking at fish, coral and other critters was not so good.  Eventually, we were about to leave and go to snorkel in shallower water.  Just then, some other snorkelers spotted some mantas.  The one that I saw had a wingspan of about 6 feet, was all black on top with a white belly having a few black blotches on it.  The cephalic fins on either side of the mouth were silver and were tightly curled backwards, opposite to the direction they are usually curved when feeding.  I was able to get quite close without spooking the manta.  A magical moment, for sure.  Lynne swam over 2 mantas watching the graceful dance below and Falcon and Mike actually physically danced with them. The day ended with a perfect massage for Lynne from another cruiser who is a massage therapist.  I continued working on the mangled whisker pole, cutting off more of the bent tube, hammering on the end of the tube trying to get an oval tube round again and disassembling more of the pole to allow the re-assembly sequence to proceed.  The stumbling block now is an internal sheave that was demolished.  It was weakly made and nowhere near being able to withstand the loads that we put on it flying the whole sail in higher wind speeds.  We have a lot of extra blocks on the boat but none with a sheave mounted on a pin of the correct size that is suitable for this task.  If this whisker pole becomes usable again, even in a shortened form (about 5 feet have been lost due to the fold), its name will be Lazarus.

Sept 6  The ranger, Ants, took us and 8 other cruisers on another snorkeling excursion today to a reef inside the opposite side of the lagoon called Perfect Reef.  We caught several fish trolling to Perfect Reef.  Falcon was with us.  He was conceived, born, raised on a boat and lived all but three of his  24 years cruising.  When we got to Perfect Reef, he went off with his snorkeling gear trolling a lure on a hand line.  Caught himself another fish.  He calls it extreme fishing and was keen to teach his technique to the rest of us.  For a long time all of us including Ants were out of the boat snorkeling in the incredibly clear Suwarrow water with its incredibly healthy coral.  The finds included box fish, octopus, a newly seen puffy pink starfish and many new kinds of coral.  The boat was tied to a mooring buoy anchored to a coral head.  Lynne and I were the first ones out, later joined by two more cruisers and Ants.  After a while, it became apparent that we were no longer in the same place, but were moving across the reef and out into the lagoon.  The mooring line had chafed through.  Since we were in the skiff, no problem.  There were several other cruisers nearby, having come in their own dinghies.  A nice backup today.  But had the skiff departed with the wind, it would have been a long 4-mile swim back  to the anchorage.  On the way back, we made a number of detours past other reefs and around and in and out Suwarrow's pass  trying to catch more fish.  We caught several more nice fish trolling the hand lines.  Only a barracuda was a throwback, the others destined to be cooked for dinner that evening.  All-in-all, another long and fun day  on the water with lots of time to hear the stories of other cruisers all of whom were younger than we are and some much much younger!

Later in the afternoon, I emptied out all of the stuff stored on the floor under the table to get at a box of metal stored under the floor.  Along with the items stored under the floor was a puddle of diesel.  So, besides cleaning the diesel off the floor and all the items stored there, I have a leak to look for, probably in the fuel tank next to the puddle.  Always something to keep me busy.

There are now 29 boats here.