First land sighting – L’Esperance rock. But there will be no landing today – you can see it is pretty steep and rugged and exposed to waves.
There was a real buzz on the boat as we sighted our first land just before lunchtime, and everyone came up on deck as we circumnavigated L’Esperance, the southern-most of the Kermadecs.
It only took 5 or so minutes to go around the island which is just a rocky outcrop, the remnant of a volcanic crater. There was a good sized swell hitting the island, and it didn’t take Tom and skipper Matt long to decide it was too rough to work today.
But they have scoped out a couple of places where the land team could be dropped ashore and be able to scramble up from, and that is good to know for when we return.
The weather fax shows a big low coming across towards us so we’re high-tailing it north up the rest of the group of islands, heading for shelter in the lee of Raoul.
The other side of L’Esperance – look carefully and you can see some plants clinging to the top of the cliffs. Peter says six different kinds (species) of plants have been recorded here in the past, one of which is found only here: that’s a pretty precarious home!
