Ha'apai (Again)

We got up at 03:30 yesterday morning and with the crack efficiency of a well trained and seasoned crew we were underway 20 minutes later. What a team. We had the sails up once we got abeam Ovaka Island and sailed the rest of the way in ESE winds to Ha'apai. A bit more forward of the beam than I would have liked. I think that we will be keeping track of how much to weather work we do in Tarun when the Braddocks are aboard. I seem to recall a lot of on the wind sailing when they came to Canada. We'll log it this time and see how it all works out. The major highlight of the sail was the blue marlin that we hooked with the new improved fishing rig. I was looking aft and the bloody great marlin is jumping and thrashing around just about 25 meters behind the boat, the length of the line. It only lasted maybe 5-10 seconds then that was that, line broke (300 lb test) and the new lure and line has now become a fashion accessory for some fish. It's amazing how quickly you can spend money fishing. We came up with another lure combination but didn't land anything else. When Tony pulled the line in however before we got to the anchorage, one of the treble hooks had been straightened out, so something hit it. I think we have to use smaller lures to attract smaller fish. We will experiment as we sail south through the Ha'apais'. We did have a great sail, averaged 6.6 knots again and were anchor down between the reefs off Nukunamo Island at 14:20. The passage into the anchorage is straight past a lot of coral and around 20 meters from a reef with breaking seas. Jan couldn't quite believe that we were coming in but once hooked we were well clear of all dangers (the reef is now al least 25 meters away). We will spend today cleaning the boat this morning and then wandering around shore this afternoon. Nukunamo is a deserted island and looks pretty interesting.

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