Monday 12 August Arrival Wakatobi

We've made good time from Banda and with a little help from the engine we made Wakatobi as the sun was setting. However, tropical sunsets are short; one minute the sun is there and then it's gone and it's dark. This is what happened to us, the sun had gone down before we reached the anchorage and the channel through the reef into the lagoon. A boat which had arrived earlier had passed back the GPS co-ordinates which we'd added to the chart plotter (the charts don't have scant details for this part of the world).

Luckily the rally organiser called on the radio and sent out a boat to show us the way in. All fine until they turned their stern to us and they had no light for us to see! I was on the bow with an array of torches with which I tried to pick them out until they went away too fast and I lost them. They came back and slowed down but still it was the scariest, hairiest ten minutes we've had. The channel is short, less than 100m but it is narrow, so narrow I could see the shallows on both sides of the hull and those don't take any prisoners. Poor David's heart was beating hard but we came through with no more than adrenalin pumping and the guys showed us to a mooring ball. We were the first boat in in the dark and the guinea pig. The next boat, Rutea, gave the dinghy boys a torch to shine backwards and the rally organiser came got on board for extra guidance. Not so scary for Rutea.

But we're in. The lagoon is flat, safe and secure (we'll as secure as a mooring line made from string can ever be). At the end of a passage we usually have a 'we're here beer'. Tonight it was we made it G&T.