I got up early for the last preparations. Started the engines for lifting the anchor. Pulled it up and had to clean the first about 5 m with a brush. Then pulled up more when suddenly the chain blocked. Played the game “release and pull again. Didn’t get up. Used additionally an anchor claw and pulled with the mast winch. Could not get it up.

I’m the meantime my new neighbor’s boat came pretty close to MaRe. That’s because I told them that I leaving. Thus, I hesitated to dive down to see what the situation is. However, my new neighbor offered to dive.

The problem was that the chain was pulled under an old mooring block. With turning MaRe around a bit and some help from my friendly neighbor, the chain came free and the anchor up.

Gosh, I was happy! Thanking my neighbors and bidding farewell, I left the bay.

Outside I had, as expected, around 15 KN of wind from E, a swell of 1.5 – 2 m but pretty short, only about 50 m, and l wind waves of about up to a meter. Not bad.

I put MaRe with the autopilot into the wind and hoisted the main. Went back on course, unfurled the genoa and sailed. As always, since I sailed on the “sleeper”, the race boat in Japan in the 90ies, I enjoy the moment I can switch off the engines, and MaRe is propelled only by the wind.

Coming closer to the eastern entrance of the Canal du Bordelais I turned MaRe in westerly direction. But the wind direction was not that good. I got the wind from more than 150 deg PRT. With that AWA MaRe sails better with only the genoa, because the genoa is too much covered by the main.

As the Canal du Bordelais is only about 3 NM long, I didn’t want to get the main down and up again at the end of canal. So I furled the genoa and pushed about 2 NM with the engines and the main towards the end of the canal. When I started turning S, the AWA became quickly less than 150 deg PRT, and I pulled the genoa out again to sail to the entrance of the bay of Vaitahu. MaRe and I enjoyed the sailing. We passed the Hanamoenoa Bay were we stayed already twice.

Only minutes later I could change the course to enter the bay of Vaitahu. There were only 2 sailboats in and lots of space. Space is what’s needed. Because I could feel the strong wind coming down the long the mountains slopes into the short and narrow valley. I dropped the anchor at about 11 m of water. The seabed is indicated as sand, thus I got an excellent hold. I gave 60 m of chain and the anchor had a firm grip at 1800 RPM backwards. Engines off. I was safe in the bay.

Looking around, I liked the green lush former volcanic slopes. The village of Vaitahu is small and crammed at the very end of the valley just before the shore. I’m curious how it will be when I walk through it.

First I was hungry and are the last bread – tomorrow is bread baking day.

A short rest, and then I went under water to clean MaRe’s hulls. In one and half hour I could do a lot. Tomorrow I’ll do the rest.

After dinner, I was pretty tired, and after a friend called me, I went into bed with my sleeping partner, the anchor alarm on my tablet PC.