All good in Tuvalu 🇹🇻, anchor down, engines off, anchor beer in hand
Anchor beer
Now to find customs and immigration to check in.. 😎
How cool is the name “Funafuti”, even has “fun” right in the name!
Will we be able to walk on solid ground without grabbing for the nearest palm tree?
Looks like we might chill out here for a week or so, looking for a bit better wind forecast. We will be heading south, and the forecasted winds are south east, we will wait for more east than south in the winds.
So time to explore a new place..and of course ponder/investigate the steering repairs.
In the doldrums of the ITCZ, light winds, small seas, gray and mostly overcast. Luckily not much in the way of rain, lots of rain on the horizon in every direction, but we managed to stay dry. Just hot and sticky.
We should arrive Tuvalu shortly after sunrise, which is should help in navigating the reef and make our way across the atoll to the main town to do the formalities of clearing customs and immigration.
We kept the engine pushing us forward to make a Friday arrival as the “word on the streets (internet)” is the official offices are closed on the weekend. So technically we would be confined to the boat till Monday till we could go through the process of clearing in. A stretch of the legs dictated the drone of the diesel we have been enjoying. “Get there, get cleared in!” sounded so much better than arrive and then wait around in quarantine till Monday
On the bright side, batteries and water tanks are topped to the max, but the diesel tank did suffer some loss all in the name of getting there. 🙂
Christine worked magic and has lined up a few options for getting our pieces put back together once we arrive Fiji. Will also ask around Tuvalu if there is any welders equipped for stainless work to see if we can get the drag link sorted and return the port rudder to service.
After a nice siesta out in the middle of nowhere. It was time to finish this journey. Seems I was so hard a sleep Christine couldn’t wake me. Well she did wake me, and I’m not sure what was said, but it was surely something I didn’t understand since she let me go back to sleep, and sleep 2 hours past original time to get going. So if you see me today, thank Christine for my beauty sleep, I obviously needed it.
Final passage sunset
Made contact on SSB in the morning to notify of our position and a time to meet at the mooring with another boater to give us the lay of the land.
We got to follow 2 container ships in the pass this morning, Looks like a busy little place, lots of lights along the shore and quite a few commercial boats inside the lagoon.
Just like the Houston ship channel. Lots of traffic this morning
Over all a comfortable passage, weather wise it was spectacular. Would have been better if there was more (or any sailing) involved, but that might have changed the sea state. I’m sure Christine will have a different opinion, but with the drugs she seemed pretty normal, if that is possible.
Noteworthy: • SPC and ITCZ: I guess it’s possible that you can make it through without too much drama with the right amount of diesel and super slack weather window. Not sure if that’s true or not, but somehow worked in our favor, albeit a longer / slower trip that our normal. • Lost : Tan lines, I’ve looked everywhere they are no where to be found. Something you’ve had for fifty something years and to have lost it. All is not lost, I have it on good authority that civilization brings them back. • Diet : While the boat lost hundreds of pounds along the way, I’m sure I ate everything in sight. Any thing to keep awake, it’s the lack of exercise that isn’t good. A long HOT walk on shore will do wonders for the psyche, after clearing customs of course. • Lost : SSB & Ham radios have been dying for a few years, but the once entertainment and safety at sea is still tapering off. Hardly any boats checking to PacSea net. We did use ours to keep up with a friend that is on his way to Japan. • Lost : A little blood from a drone catch, count your fingers lucky, we we should have practiced that on flat ground before trying it in ocean swell. • Learned : You can motor a long way when you need to, nearly 130 miles per gallon of diesel, by rough calculation. • Lost : More of my sanity not sure how much I have left to loose, seems to be being replaced by senility, or is that just my bad spelling? • Learned : Its frigging HOT this side of the equator, should have installed air conditioning instead of the diesel heaters.
Anchor down (mooring retrieved) and cold beer in hand! Yippie. Off to find the authorities and clear into customs and immigration.
