0800 position 31-33S 159-05E. On a mooring off of Lord Howe Island, Coral Sea
Lord Howe Island is a five mile long arc of land with an average width of about a half mile. What's left of the rim of an ancient volcano, the north-south oriented island boasts the world's southern most barrier reef on its concave western side. There are four passes through the barrier reef, three of which have mooring fields installed inside them. We are on a mooring in the southern most field just inside "Man of War Pass", the only pass deep enough to accommodate Van Diemen's eight and a half foot draft. We are currently the only visiting yacht on the island.
Our mooring is at the southern limit of civilization on the island. Further south, Lord Howe's rugged mountains rise majestically to a hight of 2,836 feet. The shear sea cliffs on the southern half of those mountains rival those on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, the highest in the world. There are a few hiking trails in the mountains, but no other access. Most of Lord Howe's 400 person permanent population resides on the northern end of the island where some flat land can be found. The only pier on the island is there, two miles to the north of our mooring. We all piled into the dinghy and powered up to the pier yesterday morning after spending a couple of hours doing laundry.
Ashore we found a beautifully manicured wonderland clearly focused on the island's main industry, tourism. Limited to a maximum of 400 at any time, visiting tourists arriving by plane have a number of hotels and lodges to choose from. Birding, hiking, golfing, diving, snorkeling, sport fishing, or hanging out on the beach are the primary leisure activities. Tourists move about the island primarily on bicycles that can be rented in a number of places. Summer is high season on Lord Howe, and since it is early spring in the southern hemisphere there aren't many tourists here. It hasn't warmed up yet either. We saw a few hardy souls swimming, but the beaches are mostly empty.
The Van Diemen crew did a quick orientation tour of town and then settled in for lunch and WIFI at the Anchorage restaurant. After lunch we split up. Marie and Geoff rented bikes to tour the island, Rob dinghied back to Van Diemen, and I followed Michael up into Lord Howe's southern hills to get some exercise and look for birds. Michael is an avid bird watcher, and he was like a kid in a candy store all afternoon with his bird sightings. Lord Howe is renown for its many species of sea birds. It is the only location where the endemic and endangered Lord Howe woodhen can be found. I believe that is the only species on Michael's "must find" list that he didn't see yesterday. That's OK. He has three more days to locate it.
Michael and I returned to Van Diemen just before sunset tired and thirsty to find the rest of the crew already aboard. All had had a good day.
As the sun set last night the wind started to blow, and it blew hard all night long. Fortunately, the wind was coming out of the east and Van Diemen was protected by the arc of the island in that direction. Unfortunately, the hills of the island caused the wind to accelerate as it rushed down their leeward slopes and slammed us here on our mooring. We saw gusts as high as thirty five knots and our mooring lines groaned and complained under the strain. This wind was a mystery. The gribs did not predict more than eighteen knots of breeze last night. I wonder what it is like here when it really blows? It was quite cold too. The 40 degree F sleeping bag I have been nursing through the heat of the tropics is now the perfect bunk mate since Lori is not here to keep me warm.
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