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| classic coral atoll scene |
Our passage to the Tuomotus was 4 days
and 4 nights to reach our chosen destination of Kauehi atoll. The sail across
was fine, starting off in little or no wind and by the end of it dealing with
squally, 30-40 knot winds. I mozzed us when I said as we were just about to
enter the atoll through the pass in the reef that at least we hadn't had much
rain with the squalls. As we motorsailed into the anchorage the skies
thickened, the rain came in and it was grey all around. Not great conditions
for seeing and avoiding the notorious coral heads that are in the atolls. But
we knew it was a pretty easy pass to enter and could see most of what we needed
to see on the chartplotter.
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| Speccy snorkelling |
We celebrated my birthday here -the big 50. I didn’t have the gourmet
experience I was hoping for as there really is nothing but coconuts on these
atolls, but I managed a chocolate brownie 'birthday cake' and we had a couple
over from another boat to share a couple of bottles of red wine. The next
evening a bunch of us got together on a catamaran (aka a palace) and feasted on
fish and salads. Another chocolate cake was produced and I was sung 'happy
birthday'.
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| a new 'do' for my 50th |
After 4 or so relaxing days at Kauehi
we moved on to Fakarava atoll. To ensure we got out the Kauehi pass as near to
slack water as possible, we sailed up to the pass in the late afternoon to
anchor just inside the pass for the night. There were 2 other yachts there
doing the same thing. We had been undecided as to whether it was better to stay
at our anchorage off the Kauehi village for the night and leave at 4.30am in
the morning to get to the pass, or to spend the night anchored inside the pass,
therefore only requiring a 6am start. To our regret we chose the latter. It was
a very rolly anchorage and we got hardly any sleep, mostly because of the worry
about whether the anchor would hold or the anchor rope would chafe, potentially
letting us loose on the reef less than 20 metres behind us. As it turned out we
survived the night, raised the anchor, still in the bucking seas, early the
next morning and motored easily through the pass. We sailed in a south-easterly
breeze of 12-16 knots, with quite rolly seas, the 30nm to Fakarava. As we were
aiming to reach the northern pass of Fakara by about 1pm to get the end of the
incoming tide, we turned the engine a couple of times to maintain an average
speed of 5 knots. We came in through the pass at the expected time and sailed
down to the anchorage off the town of Rotoava, dropping the anchor amongst
about 10 other yachts at around 2.30pm.
As with the previous village we stayed
at and in the Marquesas, the people who live here are very welcoming and
generous. The villages are very clean and neat and while it is hard for people
to grow a garden on the coral base in the Tuomotus, many houses have some
bouganvillea, frangipani and assorted other plants around them.
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| the local boys gave Ivan a fishing lesson |
We hired bikes for a day and rode the
length of the bitumen and beyond. In one direction from the town the sealed
road stretches for 16km and then continues for about another 5km. There wasn’t
much to see along the way other than some houses and pensions and of course the
ubiquitous coconut palms! We enjoyed the exercise though. Because the nature of
coral atolls is that they are circular and narrow, we could usually see either
the lagoon side or the ocean side of the atoll at any one time. The width of
the atoll is probably only about 500m on average. In the other direction from
town, the sealed road only goes for about 3km – to the airport. Most people come
to the Tuomotus for the diving and snorkeling. I came for the chance to ride a
bike on an airport runway – not many places in the world you can do that!
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| another baguette about to be devoured |
After a really interesting tour of a
pearl farm, including the purchase of a belated birthday present for me, we set
sail for Tahiti.
Miss allie pic
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