Well, farewell to Suwarrow. Harry and Katu, the current rangers lived up to their billing as excellent hosts. Yes, they are there to enforce the rules and take some money from you, but they do so much more. For instance, Harry catches fish for the regular pot luck dinners - sometimes with the help of others cruisers who he teaches when needed. Katu barbecues the catch and it's shared by everyone.

Katu also shows you how to husk coconuts properly. My skills definitely improved and we learnt quite a few nice tips too. This is Katu showing us how to serve a coconut properly :) The highlight of the snorkelling for me was the first day when we saw Manta rays at the cleaning station. They were awesome in every way! However, time is pressing and have to keep moving, so we left Suwarrow an hour ago, saying our goodbyes to Harry, Katu and the boats remaining: Begonia, Rambusta and Midnight Sun. Geniet Lewe and another boat already left earlier, heading for Samoa. They reckon on 3 days but we'll do it as 4 nights and arrive at dawn on Tuesday. Tuesday? Yes! On this leg we cross the date line and jump from UTC-10 to UTC+13. It's taking a while to get our heads around that!

We have 500nm to go and the parasailor is up. We want to average 5.5-6knots and the wind looks like it'll spend a few days at 10-13knots, then pick up a bit. We will probably be slowing down the last night, but rather that than trying to push on to arrive before dark...