Finally, this is a current post, written and posted in the present right here now. I wanted to bring everyone up to date with our wanderings, right before we drop off the map again for another couple of long passages. We need to be in Australia by November to avoid the cyclone (hurricane) season down here. We have been in the south pacific for three months already; we have less than three months remaining. Examine on the map how far we’ve come in three months and how far we have yet to go, and you’ll see that we really have to get our act in gear.

From Huahine, we intend to sail in more or less a straight line to Tonga, with three possible stops on the list: Palmerston atoll, Beveridge Reef, and Niue. We may stop at all three or none of these. Palmerston is in the middle of nowhere and has only a handful of people living on it. Beveridge reef is even more remote, and unique: it doesn’t actually have any dry land whatsoever–it’s a reef that rises straight out of the ocean floor and comes within a few feet of the surface. It would be surreal to anchor on a reef in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight for hundreds of miles (this will be possible if the weather cooperates). Niue is large enough to have some civilization there, a town and supplies and maybe even internet. But who knows, we may pass up all three and just pop back up on the map in Tonga, 1300 miles west of here. Like I said, we need to put some miles under the keel prontospeed.

We’ve had lots of rain since we arrived here in Huahine. Refreshingly, the island is less developed (i.e. less touristy) than either Tahiti or Moorea. We picked up our last remaining provisions for the upcoming passages, and need only a jerry-can worth of gas for the outboard before we’re all set to go. We’ll probably get out of here in two or three days, weather permitting.

Unrelatedly, my cousin Derek is getting married today, perhaps this very moment, and I feel strange (and somewhat guilty) not to be back home attending. I wish him the very best–congratulations to Derek & Lauren!