I've been trying to catch up on posting pictures to our blog posts in March and early April. I am finished with the 'On Passage' stuff as far as Easter Island, and Easter Island itself. You can see the final result by clicking here Easter Island. Next is Pitcairn, and a couple of Gambiers posts I haven't gotten to yet. The internet here is R-E-A-L-L-Y slow, and I often get up at 5am to try to get a little better speed.
Our friends on Visions pulled out of the Gambiers almost a week ago, on a nice weather window. We just weren't quite ready. I lobbied strongly to pass on the window and take a few days to just relax. It is tough when my Dave and Bill from Visions of Johanna get together. It's go-go-go all the time!!
We have had a nice round of dinners and happy hours around the anchorage. Dave celebrated his birthday, and all of our group gathered for pizza and birthday cake. (Thanks, Sue, from Infini, for making the cake!!) We haven't remembered to take our camera often, but Dave caught this great picture of a few of the 'girls' during one happy hour in which we had a book swap.
Our friends on Aliisa finally arrived. They left Peru just about the same time we left the Galapagos, but it took them nearly a month longer to get here. They had better luck (or more fortitude) at Easter Island and managed to stay for 2 weeks.
Lauri and Anina are on the last leg of a 6 year circumnavigation. They hope to be in Cairns, Australia by September, where Lauri started from. You can see his adventures on his website at Aliisa.net.
The pizza parlor in town is only open Fri-Sat-Sun, so Saturday after Aliisa got in, we all went in for pizza. It was good--better than South American pizza, but we just about choked when we did the math and found they cost about $11 each for what was essentially a personal-sized pizza.
Now the weather has moved in, and we've got forecasts for 20-35 knot winds over the next 5 days as fronts and highs and lows roll past us.
We are actively looking for a weather window for the next jump--up to the Tuamotus. We have had nearly an unending succession of Lows roll past, bringing mostly NW-ly winds.
It is 450 miles NW to the Hao atoll. Though there are many islands and atolls between here and there, all are either islands with no real anchorage, or a closed atoll, with no pass big enough for a sailboat. We need a 5-day weather window, and looking at the GRIB files, it looks like the first possible departure date is May 4th or 5th.
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