[password] pilot25041
[position] 16 40.53s. 154 12.6w
[status] Saturday 17th August mid afternoon ........ another weekend back on the high seas!

We managed to break in to the coconut crabs and extract the wonderful flesh that tasted just like cray fish last evening, we had a nice portion each as an accompaniment to our tuna curry and bottle of red wine ...... after the exertions and excitement of yesterday we were all ready for our beds well before it got too late. We then had a really peaceful night at anchor and during breakfast were trying to decide what we could give our host from yesterday to pay back his hospitality, deciding on some rope and a small head torch. Dirk departed to shore with the gifts whilst the rest of us did some washing and repaired some damage to the mainsail, when Dirk returned he told us that there was a lady ashore who spoke some english and the 'host', although grateful for the presents, would really like some whisky, he was also presented with another 2 large crabs ........ although these were still 'alive & kicking' so we'd need to cook them!

Allan & Dirk were now scrubbing some weed off the waterline & Barry was fishing off the back of the boat using ham as bait, very quickly catching 5 fish and losing a few more that had stolen his bait. Although he had to be careful as the reef sharks were in lively abundance and he didn't fancy catching one of them! Anyhow, a quick search of the drinks cabinet revealed a bottle of Teachers Scotch Whisky, so once they had tired of their 'scrubbing' duties Dirk set off for shore again, with the bottle of whisky and bucket of freshly caught fish to find out if they were edible? Dirk returned a short while later with a large bag of fresh paw paw fruit and the knowledge that the fish were no good for eating only for 'shark food'!

By now it was late morning and time for us to make a move to get through the pass at midday slack water, this we successfully achieved and shortly after clearing the pass, there was briefly a huge whale breaking the surface just off our stbd rear quarter, unfortunately despite having cameras available it quickly submerged and despite our best efforts to locate it we didn't see it surface again. As the wind is directly behind us, we have decided to sail under just the gennaker, to stop the banging from the boom on the pulleys, we have at times seen 14kts breeze which has given 6.5kts SOG, but more generally we're progressing at around 5.5kts, which is a very peaceful and sedate motion. The gribs show the wind progressively decreasing over the next 24hrs, until we have no wind for a further 24hrs, so our progress to Suwarrow we expect to be fairly slow.

The crabs have now been cooked and Dirk has just finishing hammering their shells to extract the wonderful flesh, as we have already defrosted lamb chops for dinner this evening the crab meat will be kept as a delight for tomorrow. Apart from this all is well on Surreal.

Position. 15.00hrs FP time. 554nm to Suwarrow
[speed] 5.5kts
[heading] 287M
[weather] 12knts from east, 0.5m swell from the East, 0% cloud cover, clear sky

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