Nuku Hiva-Raroia, Tuamotus

Mike Kalil

Very nice conditions, the winds were a little lighter and we expected. One of the common sea states we have sailed on in the ocean so far. We had an issue with the steering at 3:30 in the morning where the autopilot arm hyper extended and jammed the rudder to starboard. This has happened before well anchoring but I thought it was resolved. Had to empty everything out of the lazaret and free up the jam by hand. We expected the passage to be 3 days but we were going to arrive late in the day at the pass and then be anchoring around sunset. We decided to heave to overnight and wait to come in with good sunlight the next day. We feel like it was the right decision and we enjoyed the time spent hove to.