15 May 2012
You can’t ‘do’ Lord Howe in a long weekend, and to be sure, the Gurus did not ‘do’ the standard LHI list: Mt Gower, museum visits etc. The Gurus did, however, did however, manage to experience the best of local hospitality (including being put up for two nights when horizontal rain made the dinghy trip back to the boat ‘a bit suss’ – thanks Julie!), walked and cycled from tip to island toe, ate fabulous food and educated Bill on the benefits of café life at the Anchorage.
Most people leave by plane. The planes were stopped because of wind, and there we were thinking we could just pop out of the (breaking wave) lagoon. Nuh, said Clive, the legendary harbour master. Give it 3 days, said the local fishermen. Next morning, though, itching to get out in that great breeze, we found an unsuspecting local who reckoned ‘you might just make it’. That sounded like a green light, so fresh sourdough rolls in hand, the gurus set off. Trepidation demanded we break out the life jackets, but it turned out that Resolute was easily up to the task of crashing head on through the waves, breakers either side, and out to sea.
Mike put out the line, thinking it was time to catch the kingfish (as if we’d not eaten enough of it on LHI!). About 20 minutes later, he hooked a 35 kg yellowfin tuna. It was a mighty fight, but Animal and John (Gaffer extraordinaire) prevailed. One stunning sashimi meal later, we’ve a freezer full of tuna, with Mike wanting to jettison everything else to make room for it.
We’re now screaming along, averaging 9 knots comfortably with just the genoa up in 25 knots of wind. Mike cooked up a storm for brekky – scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, sausages and a pot of great coffee. We’re sailing in glorious sunshine and a rather bumpy sea. Resolute loves this stuff, and we sit in the comfort of the cabin watching the boat shrug off the occasional rogue wave, then race down the next one. We’ve seen 16 knots on the log occasionally, and so with any more wind we’ll start to slow her down, but for now we’re keen to put miles in the bank ahead of a forecast wind shift to the east, which could see our progress really slow down quickly.
Love to all!