Chesterfield Reef

CHESTERFIELD REEF (Taking a break)

Position: 19D53'.080S 158D27'.810E

Countdown to Australia - 450 nautical miles

Saturday, October 29 - Arthur's perspective on our journey so far. 'All I know is it took 4 days to

Chesterfield Reef through some calm weather and some very rough weather and

when we got here we had to navigate through an uncharted reef. If we had

run aground we were the only people here and we are still 450 miles from

civilisation. It was a very real possibility as there were coral bommies

everywhere but luckily we got through.....and then we saw a humback whale

with its calf in the lagoon tail slapping and breaching. A magical moment.

Then we anchored next to a chain of islands enclosed by a fringing reef.

As soon as we had anchored I had a quick check for Tiger sharks and then

jumped off the back of the boat into crystal clear waters to see 2 sting

rays followed by a reef shark and a large turtle. No Tiger sharks. We took the

dinghy ashore and saw a colony of Booby birds with young chicks and picked

up some amazing shells before going for a snorkel with a beady eye out for

tiger sharks. Ian spotted 2 lobsters so tomorrow we might go back and try and find them for our BBQ. Fantastic day...all is good....not yet eaten by a tiger shark. Life is good!.' It was a good decision to break up the passage to Australia at Chesterfield Reef. This place is so remote and amazing except for the yacht that appeared all of a sudden and happened to anchor right behind us on a 14 mile reef after we had been enjoying the solitude for only 2 hours. Luckily it was our friends that we met in Tonga on their yacht called Papillon. We hope to catch up with them tomorrow as we were mutally exhausted from our passages. We told them about our adventures during the day including all the amazing sea birds that are nesting on the island and our shark feeding experiences. I had made ham sandwiches for picnic lunch on the beach but the bread turned out to be old and disgusting. We decided to feed the sandwiches to the fish. All of a sudden a black tip reef shark appeared and ate everything except for the bread including lettuce, ham, cheese and tomato. This proves that even sharks have a discerning palette when it comes to fine food. There wasn't a blog for Thursday or Friday because we were either motoring and miserable or battling huge seas and strong winds.We also discovered a tear in the hem of our main sail which is a sign that we really need to get home and start getting repairs done. Ian and I even postponed our 5th year wedding anniversary on Friday until today so we could toast it with a bottle of bubbly that Arthur kindly provided us with in a calm anchorage. We didn't buy each other gifts. It is the tradition to celebrate the 5th year anniversary with a gift of wood. There was plenty of wood on the beach so we were both happy about that. Tomorrow we plan to get up early and go ashore to find turtles returning to the sea after laying their eggs. We found a lot of tracks and nests today on the beach so hopefully we will get lucky. We are all off to bed now at 9pm to enjoy at least 8 hours of comfortable uninterrupted sleep. Arthur reckons he is going to sleep in tomorrow and not come ashore but I think he is just worried about having an encounter with a tiger shark discerning palette or not.