10,000 NAUTICAL MILES!

On a beautiful sunny morning at 1030, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (17 37S, 156 49W), Shelley and I aboard Blowin' Bubbles, completed 10,000 nautical miles since leaving The Royal Hamilton Yacht Club in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada 767 days ago.

This is an incredible milestone made even more special by us seeing our very first whale less than an hour ago! We are pretty sure it was a Humpback, and using our boat as a reference, we estimated her to be almost 40 feet long! For almost 10 minutes she slowly crossed our wake sending up a plume of water every 30 seconds or so... Magnificent!

To put our distance traveled into perspective, 10,000 nautical miles equals 11,000 statute miles, 18,500 kilometers, or for you Jules Verne fans, 3,800 leagues.... We were underway 188 days or 25% of the time. When we were underway (overnight) we averaged 132 nautical miles per day... Not super fast, but respectable....

We are 2 days out of Bora Bora and on our way to the Ha'apia Islands in the Kingdom of Tonga. When we arrive in another 7 or 8 days, we will lose a day. Although not officially crossing the international date line just yet, many years ago, the King of Tonga changed his time zone so that his people would be the very first on this planet to greet each new day.... There is a small possibility we will stop along the way at a small island called Palmerston Island. Part of the Cook Islands (owned by New Zealand) this tiny island was settled years ago by an Englishman, you guessed it, Mr Palmerston. He took 3 Polynesian wives and almost every person on the island today is a direct descendant of him and his three wives. Since the beginning he was aware that interbreeding would cause problems, so implemented strict marriage rules for his families... So far his plan is working...

We will not officially check into the Cook Islands because last year they got stupid with their cruising fees and so this year almost every cruiser is NOT stopping at the cook islands. Hopefully, they will get the hint and come up with something reasonable for us to pay. Our only reason to stop at Palmerston Island will be to hopefully leave some school supplies...

We will post pictures and another blog as soon we arrive in Tonga!

Cheers,
Kyle and Shelley

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