Tiare Taporo III at Port Bouquet lat. 21 degrees 40.4' S long. 166 degrees 22.9' E

Well, today was a long one. 42 nautical miles and at 6 knots that's 7 hours. We were concerned at the weather forecast which was for strong SE right on the nose. So, we started at 0600 as soon as we could see our way out of the harbour and we motorsailed in light winds and at times no wind at all. There was also a thick haze which reduced visibility to about 3 miles. As we passed Baie de Nakety we could see a large ore carrier at anchor there and all along the coast there are massive scars in the landscape from the strip mining where the nickel is constantly being excavated. They start on tops of hills and ridge lines and just carve it down. It's impressive to see work on this scale but very sad to see the damage and undoubtedly damage to come.
Just as we came abreast of Thio (the site of the first nickel mine in NC) the wind suddenly piped up to 20-25 knots and whipped up quite a nasty short chop which rapidly became impossible to motorail into at a tight angle. So, we deployed about a third of the genoa and started tacking with the motor at reduced power to just hold us a little higher to the wind. Even with reefed main and minimal genoa we were putting the scuppers under - just as well we only had about 10 miles to go (in a straight line!!). Quite tricky tacking in those conditions and having to put in a number of tacks because several times we found we were heading for a reef. One tack was forced on us because heading across our bow from left to right was a tug with 2 nickel barges in tow. We weren't going to argue right of way so tacked over well before we actually would have otherwise needed to. Very annoying!! The course to steer is dictated by the wind so it was a matter of juggling all that with the physical barriers. However, after about 6 tacks we arrived in the tranquil anchorage of Port Bouquet just off an attractive little beach on Ile Toupeti.
Port Bouquet covers a big area and has a number of good anchorages within it so one can find good shelter in any wind. Lunch, a snooze and then maybe a dinghy trip ashore will round out the day.
Cheers and love again from us......
www.tiaretaporo3.blogspot.com

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