Day 1 Bora Bora to Tonga via the Cooks – light winds and backgammon

Adina finally fled the nest of easy life in the Society Islands and being stuck in Bora Bora at just before 9am local time on Friday. We’d had two weeks of getting stuck so it was good to finally be on our way.

Traditionally we keep it simple on Day 1 to help our bodies get used to the motion of the sea, but light winds directly behind meant the parasailor (spinnaker) had to go up. We haven’t had it up since our Pacific crossing and given that was a while back we expected to be rusty. But we surprised ourselves and it went up rather smoothly!

The winds have been very light averaging 5-6 knots which is light for the parasailor but it’s sat there valiantly trying to stay up and push 21 tonnes of Adina forward. So a slow start and we get excited if we hit 4 knots speed over ground.

The notorious towable water generator has also been deployed and is working. For those who haven’t followed our adventures before this is 100 feet of cable with a propeller on the end of it which spins and provides energy for our batteries. When it works, it’s great…that’s when it works!

Not much exertion from the crew – dozy due to the sea sickness tablets we always take as a precaution. The backgammon set kindly given to us by Lindsay Cunningham came out. Susie has a 2-0 lead with Tom muttering about using strategy and then losing due to having no luck with the dice to get his pieces off the board. Not competitive.

Dinner was the traditional first night chilli con carne. The sun sets at around 6pm, we eat at 7pm and night watches kick in at 9pm. Three hours on watch and three hours off watch – we aim for times that suit our individual body clocks and keep them fixed each night. The first two nights and days are always a little harder but you soon settle into it. Lots of light from a very bright moon overnight and we kept the parasailor going knowing it would be light and we could see any nasty squalls coming. Wonderful sunrise with the sky salmon pink all round caused by the nearly full moon setting and the sun rising at the same times.

So onto day 2 – forecasts say to expect a big wind hole for two days so will be time to motor and make water. Wind is then forecast to fill in with 10-20 knots of wind. That will get us going – although some rain is promised too!

All well onboard, sunshine, 5 knots of wind and a flapping spinnaker!