06.66.371S / 127.52.248W – 173 miles and 23 hours to Nuku Hiva. We traded emails with the bonding agent in Papeete, and she advises Monday is a holiday and we will have to wait until Tuesday to clear into French Polynesia. The procedure is to anchor and fly the yellow “Q flag” for quarantene, which means we need to stay on the boat. Given our predicted arrival Monday morning, and the possibility of being stuck on the boat, we decided to “do a lap” around Nuku Hiva which is about 50 miles. It also should present an opportunity to restock the frig with some fresh fish – hopefully a tuna or dorado. Our fishing guru did “advise” that there are Blue Marlin in the area which range from 300 pounds for a small one to 1000 pounds. His advice – if we hook one, turn the boat around and chase it. Hard to imagine landing a fish that weighs more than Christine and I together. We’re ready. Just a few perspectives before we arrive. We logged 2500 miles on the trip to Mexico and exploring the Sea of Cortez and this trip will be 2700, 5200 miles in 3 and half months. Distance to Brisbane assuming some deviation and exploring is 5000 miles, meaning we have done roughly half of our total mileage for the trip, and 6 months remaining. The distance across French Polynesia from the Marquesas to Bora Bora is 1000 miles and we plan to spend the next 3 months exploring. We are gearing up for less passagemaking and more hanging out. A few technical details of which we will post in total after our arrival – we expect to run the main engine 350 hours – over 2700 miles for 7.7k average. We have averaged 3.5gph, and have had the benefit of 1k current for 8 of the 13 days. We have used the cruise generator for cooking and have kept the batteries charged with the solar and engine alternator – we have only run the main generator 3 hours since leaving Cabo San Lucas. Next post will include the landfall report. [google-map-v3 width=”350″ height=”350″ zoom=”7″ maptype=”satellite” mapalign=”center” directionhint=”false” language=”default” poweredby=”false” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”true” scrollwheelcontrol=”false” draggable=”true” tiltfourtyfive=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkerlist=”-6.9192,-137.8669{}cruiseship.png” bubbleautopan=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]