The problem when planning a landfall in the morning
is try to avoid arriving there to early. After
an HF sched with Taumako island yesterday, planned
to get there 7:30am or so and spent the whole night
trying to slow us down!!! Very frustrating when for
once, winds were perfect and we could have sailed
7-8 knots on a NE course from Reef islands to Duffs.
Around the Duffs, there is an outer barrier reef
(visible on the Google earth picture). It is a deep
reef (10-20m, not accurately charted) but waves can
breaks in places is the reef is hit by deep ocean
swells. So no joke there. The reef materialized with
a high concentration of white caps, due to current
but nothing too big to be scary.
As we got closer to Taumako, 2 mile inside the reef,
the lush green vegetation of this high volcanic islands
shaun in the sunrise and some houses appeared behind
pristine sand beaches. The island raises quite high,
300m or so, above sea surface, half volcanic, half coral
plate and it felt like arriving to Macquarie Island
for it looked extremely wild, especially in a strong
southerly wind.
