You actually get sorta used to seeing this.

Hard to add to Ann’s post of yesterday, but I’ll try. We went snorkeling in the pass through the reef again today. So beautiful and so much fun. Basically you motor in the dinghy out the pass into the ocean at slack tide and jump in the water. Slack water doesn’t last very long and very soon the flood tide starts to pull you gently into the atoll’s lagoon. I say gently, it only does this for about an hour before it becomes a torrent and you have to be either very close to shore or out of the water completely or you’ll get swept somewhere inside the lagoon. Actually even that is no big deal since you just get in the dinghy, start the engine and go back to your boat. You only do this on a flood tide. On the ebb, or outgoing tide you’ll get swept out to sea never to be seen from again. This is right on the ocean. 100 yards or so off the entrance it’s 4000 feet deep.

Anyway, as we came in we saw great assortments of tropical fish. It’s like looking at an aquarium except you are part of it. We also saw a big barracuda and of course the sharks that are curious and come over to say “hello”. Ho, hum, just another day.

I guess not all the sharks are friendly. We’ve learned the three signs of aggression. They arch their back, lower their pectoral fins and “rush” you. If a big one does that, it’s time to get out.

As if to punctuate that these sharks are far from tame, the Spaniards in the boat anchored next to us paddled by on their kayak and we asked them why they didn’t join us for pizza last night at the Pensione. They told us their dinghy got bit by a shark, and one side lost all it’s air so they couldn’t make it in. After they continued on their way, we were scoffing at the story saying they probably ran over some coral. On our way back to our boat we stopped by theirs. They were working on the dinghy and we asked to see the “shark bite”. They lifted it up and sure enough, there was a hole about 10 inches across with serrated edges. This was no coral scrape. Soooo….we don’t get to lackadaisical about swimming with these guys. It’s fun and exciting, but we keep a healthy respect for what they can do and stay out of deep and/or murky water where you can’t see what they are up to.

We’re staying here a couple more days, then probably on to Tahiti. There’s a “reunion” of many of the boats that set sail from the US a couple months ago. Probably about 20-25 boats will show up and there’s a couple days of fun-Tahitian music, dancing, feasts and everyone sails over to Moorea for a final day or so of Tahitian games including an outrigger canoe race. The three day party is sponsored by Tahitian tourism and Lattitude 38, so you’ll see a story and photos in the magazine later this summer. Orcinius is leaving tomorrow morning for the north pass of Fakarava. It’s a ten mile or so trip inside the atoll. Fairly well marked but with occasional coral so you have to keep a watch. So, tonight we’re cooking some steaks we’ve had frozen and they’re bringing some baked potatoes of some sort. Ann’s making rum balls for dessert.

Tomorrow we’re doing one last pass dive but this time it will be with tanks! There’s a little dive shop on the edge of the reef (literally, it’s on stilts over the water) that will do a “resort dive” where they give you a quick lesson on the key things you need to know and then you do a half hour 20 foot dive and drift along watching the coral, fish and sharks. They have a small boat that picks you up after you drift a half mile or so. With us in the water will be a Master Diver. He’s our instructor and safety diver. Just us and him. Should be fun!

Position: 16 degrees, 30 minutes south; 145 degrees, 27 minutes west (same atoll as yesterday- Fakarava)

WOW! UNBELIEVABLE!

Our private aquarium

Live coral. Just beautiful!

Fishies!

Standing in front of the dive shack at Fakarava

The dive shack and the pass we dove. Amazingly clear water.

Bob had prepped me for many of the things that we were to see on this great adventure. Some have happened – the green flash, the Milky Way, etc. Others have not happened – the sleigh-ride type of sailing across the Pacific (it was bumpy). But today he was spot on. The Tuamotus has incredible snorkeling!

After a good solid night’s sleep we were picked up by Lisa and John from Orcinius and proceeded back out to the start of the pass at low tide. Like we did in Tahanea, we jumped out of the dinghy and then floated with it as the tide came back in, snorkeling along-side. John had rigged their dinghy so that we had lines to hold onto which Lisa and I welcomed.

Fakarava is known for sharks. Lots of sharks, which they had seen when they dove the pass yesterday. We weren’t sure how many we would see when we were up higher snorkeling, but just in case we wanted to be able to quickly get to the dinghy.

The float through the pass was nice but not too eventful. Down deeper we did see some sharks but none that could be identified. The fun really started when we pulled out of the pass and over to the eastern coral reef.

It was INCREDIBLE! We really did swim / snorkel with sharks! Most were black-tipped reef sharks but there were a few others too. We snorkeled on this coral reef that had all of the wild tropical fish that you see in fish ID books. Stunning colors, huge schools of them, big ones that looked goofy and friendly, little bright blue tear drop shaped ones, and all the while, lots of reef sharks cruising through! Luckily, if you looked hard at them, they went the other way! Just unreal!

While Bob chased reef sharks around to film them I floated in schools of fish which slowly engulfed me. Colors,..amazing combinations with so many variations it was constant entertainment. We finally got out because our extremities were starting to lose feeling. And the reef sharks seemed to be multiplying. Actually some really did have babies with them. Others had the shark suckers we encountered in Raoria on them. And Bob got lots of them on film. Even the ones where he would gently push me towards them and say, “Go swim with them and I’ll get your picture!” Okay, so I did and he did!

We were all exhausted when we got out and tied the dinghy up at what looked like a bar. Turns out it was another Pension but Laurent, the guy working the place, was pleased to have us come up for a visit and the last three beers in his shop until Saturday when the supply ship comes in.

We had a very entertaining discussion; turns out he is actually from New Zealand and was full of very useful information. Not only that, but he speaks French, teaches it too, and was able to give Lisa and myself some great pointers. Including the exact language to say, “No, I don’t speak French. I only know a few words so please do not respond to me in French. Thank you.” He says it works for him with his German girlfriend’s acquaintances and should serve us well. Nice guy.

We also got to tour this end of the island and his Pension, complete with farm – vegetable garden, chickens and pigs. The island also included a very old church made of coral with a mother of pearl altar. Just stunning. (If this sounds fancy, it’s not. It’s all thatched huts with no windows or doors, just curtains. It looks like the set for Gilligan’s Island)

And to finish a fabulous day…the owner of the Pension on the other end of the island made pizza for the sailors who were interested. Most of the boats were in attendance along with the three Tahitians that were on vacation there. It was an evening full of great food in a beautiful setting with lots of fun people to talk to. We are told if you check out Fakarava.com you will see this Pension and know where we were.

Although exhausted, I need to end this blog and get out my Pacific Reef Fish book because we are going back for more tomorrow and I want to know what I’m looking at!

Rainbow off the port bow...

That’s Ann’s take on the day. We didn’t get much else done. It rained much of the day, although Ann found time to do the laundry and even got some of it dried in between the squalls. For my part, I spent a good deal of the day on getting the external disk drive of the computer to run. It has all our pictures on it and the computer wouldn’t recognize it. Very frustrating, but I finally found that the Firewire port wasn’t loading correctly, hence the computer didn’t know anything was connected. Not sure if I fixed it or it fixed itself, but it’s running again, so I don’t care.

We put away all our water toys and the plan is to leave this anchorage at Tahanea around 0200 for the 10 hour trip over to Fakarava, which is about 50 miles away. We need to get there around 1200 due to tides and the need to have the sun overhead in order to see the coral heads as we navigate into the anchorage. Our plan is to get a little sleep, then up at 0130, check the weather outside and decide if we go. Right now there are almost horizon to horizon stars, but after such a rainy day I’m not sure what the night brings. The moonrise is supposed to be 0154 and I want to have at least a little moonlight to go out by. We have our inbound track on the GPS that we can follow back out, but I don’t want to do it completely in the dark. Radar isn’t as useful here as in Mexico because unlike Mexico where you’re worried about hitting the rocks-which radar can “see”, the real hazards here are the reefs which the radar can’t see. And we’ve been climbing around on the coral ashore-I can tell you it’s jagged, rough and tough as cement. You don’t want to so much as bump it. We have reefs around our anchorage that come up to the surface on three sides of us with only a narrow exit and then we still have to get around and through the pass, which is basically an opening in the bigger reef that defines the atoll. Anyway, we’ll see. If the nighttime conditions don’t look good, our other option is to leave tomorrow in the late afternoon and then sail to within ten miles or so of Fakarava and then just heave- to (basically stop the boat) somewhere outside for the night and come in the next day when the conditions are right. Ahhh…island crossings.

The sharks swim over to the boat to say; "hello"

Black Tipped Reef Sharks. Very stealthy, very cool. We were snorkeling along and about 20 yards away saw the first one sliding among the coral. I swam over with the movie camera and got some film. He was actually a little shy. As I swam over to him, he swam away. I had to watch where he was going and then “sneak” around the coral head to get him swimming toward me from around the other side.

Today was a world class day. Didn’t start that way. Last night was squally and our anchor chain was fouled on a bunch of coral so it was short and didn’t provide any shock absorption. Charisma was rocking like a bronco tethered too close. I was a little anxious about the short chain and got up around 0300 to watch things for a while. Saw some lightning and some big squalls come by but the wind never got over 20 knots, so I went back to bed around 0400 fairly confident that the chain would hold OK and we could unravel it in the morning. Come morning (and a stunningly beautiful, no-wind day) I was able to just look down into the water from the bowsprit and see (you can see 40 feet down to the coral, the water is so clear) that our chain made several 360 degree turns around two different coral heads. One was right under the boat. So after studying the turns and plotting a course to unravel them, we started the engine and went-left 30 degrees, forward 50 feet, right 70 degrees, forward another fifty feet, right another 60 degrees and then back down a bit. OK, that about did it. The chain is laying straight and we’re back to the waypoint I set on the GPS. While we were at it, I also fixed a sheared cotter pin that holds the head-stay to the bowsprit. Our friends on Blue Rodeo reported they had the same issue about a month ago and I’ve been casually looking at all the cotter pins on the stays and darned if I didn’t find this one. If it falls out and the clevis pin it’s holding slides out the mast falls down. Kind of an important piece of gear. Turns out the pin someone put in (Svensens!!) was too small. I put a bigger one in and will continue to watch it. What it really needs is a spacer to keep the clevis pin from torqueing to one side and putting pressure on the cotter pin. I’ll try and fix that in Tahiti, but it might have to wait until New Zealand.

So about that world class day! The wind finally quit completely. We had absolutely flat, crystal clear water. Didn’t take much convincing to get us into the dinghy to go over to the reef about 100 yards away to do some snorkeling. We were a little tentative since that’s where we saw some reef sharks yesterday in a feeding frenzy. However, all we saw there was the most beautiful live coral and tons on fish. Like being in our own, private aquarium. We swam around and through the reef for almost an hour before moving to the reef just off the beach where we swam with Mr Shark.

By noon, we needed a break. Well, we actually needed a beer! It was so hot. But also, since it was such a calm day we decided to finally break out the inflatable paddle board. Turns out Ann is a natural and she paddled around the reef. Bob on the other hand, despite years of windsurfing is less an expert at paddleboarding. It’s going to take a lot more practice before he can paddle more than two feet before falling in. We also got out the inflatable kayaks. The last thing I heard was; “Nice to be back in the saddle!” as Ann took off for a late afternoon cruise around the cove. She loves that kayak.

We’re hoping for more of the same tomorrow then we’ll be off to Fakarava which is another atoll-albeit much larger one about 50 miles to the west. It’s a bit more populated. Whereas this one (Tahanea) has exactly zero inhabitants, Fakarava has some black pearl farms, some dive shops and a few other amenities. Good timing though since we ran out of fresh vegetables today. We’ll be ready for a small store to replenish supplies to get us to Tahiti by about June 20th.

Anchor voodoo and swimming with sharks. A very good day indeed.

Still in Tahanea

Beautiful Day!

The "dock" at Tahanea. The pass we drift dove is in the background

Ann headed for the snorkling spot

It didn’t look like it would turn into such a fun day, since I was up several times last night in big squalls closing hatches and in general checking to make sure we didn’t drag our anchor into the coral. Even during breakfast this morning some black squalls came through threatening to ruin our day. BUT, two good things happened today. The wind has swung around to the north which means the motu that we’re anchored behind is actually protecting us from most of the wind and all of the waves. It’s finally flat water instead of two to three foot waves and a lee shore.

The other thing that was outstanding today is we dinghied over to Orcinius and they hauled anchor and we all took their catamaran (a fifty foot Lagoon) across xxx pass where we came in and over to xxxx pass where we anchored for the day in preparation for a pass dive (more on that below). While waiting for the tide to become favorable for the pass dive we took the dinghy ashore and went for a hike. There’s a couple huts near the pass that are used during copra harvesting season, but nothing else. Well, unless you count the cat. Someone left a kitty cat here. It’s a nice looking young cat, but otherwise looks very healthy. Probably lives on rats, coconut crabs and cruisers. We know of a couple of cruisers who have left food for him/her. We also went shell hunting on the ocean side and found some beautiful sea shells.

But, the pass dive…Basically you take the dinghy at slack or close to slack low water just before the flood and go “outside” the pass into the ocean. From there you jump in the water with the dinghy tied to someone (me) and float into the atoll on the new flood. I have to say, it was one of the most beautiful dives I’ve ever done. We were just snorkeling, but the pass is fairly shallow, so we saw everything you could see by taking tanks and going a dozen feet lower. It was so gorgeous, we did it twice! The second time we rode the incoming current half a mile back to where Orcinius was anchored before getting out. Give Ann kudos for having seen two sharks right at the beginning of the dive and not leaping out in terror. In fact, she didn’t even tell me until we were back on the boat. I’m the only one who didn’t see a shark, probably because I was fumbling with the dinghy line trying to keep from getting drowned. Anyway, tons of live coral, fish-John said they said a Parrot Fish that was three feet long. Orcinius is leaving tomorrow but we’re staying here a couple more days and will likely reposition over to this spot and do this dive again.

We finished the day by having Orcinius over to Charisma for dinner. Ann made fresh baked bread, cornbread muffins and cookies. I made fish chowder out of the Mahi we caught. All were delicious and we enjoyed the evening’s camaraderie after such a fun day in the water. (By the way, don’t tell anyone, but Orcinius is one nice boat-those cats are pretty comfortable)

Tomorrow, if the wind stays out of the north where we’re sheltered by the motu, we’ll dive the reefs right around Charisma. There are several very promising ones. In fact, I was watching a shark feeding frenzy this morning. A couple reef sharks were feeding on 6 inch long fish. You would watch a whole school of a hundred fish leap out of the water followed by several crazed sharks. Boobies would get in the action from the sky and dive for the fish as they jumped out of the water. Fun, exiting!

Expect a further report tomorrow on reef diving progress…

Still at Tahanea

Ann fixing the headboard on the mainsail.

We didn’t do the pass dive today like we thought. Turned out some weather came in during the night. It’s been “close” to rain all day-occasionally spitting-and very cloudy, so we decided to turn it into a boat project day. The one moment of nice weather was at sunset. The clouds to the south of us went away and as the sun set in the west we saw a very green flash. One of the best yet. But by the time we finished dinner and dishes the almost-rain had started again. It has also been windy-a constant 18 knots all day long combined with the two foot waves that come with a five mile fetch from the other side of the lagoon. Yeah, I know-complain, complain, complain. Hopefully tomorrow will be nicer.

Anyway, Ann did the laundry and sewed up a new sail slug attachment on the mainsail headboard. These break about every six months due to chafe. They hold the sail to the mast with three layers of thick nylon webbing. It’s a bigger job than it sounds and took her at least two hours. She also cleaned up after a porthole leak that went down into the food locker (nothing lost since all is vacuum packed) and most important made cookie dough. No cookies for tonight but we’re having Orcinius over tomorrow night for fish chowder, home-made bread and fresh baked cookies! Simple pleasures.

For my part, I took apart the tiller-pilot to find out if I could fix it. We have it attached to the wind vane when we’re motoring and it steers the boat, but the other day it make bad noises and gave up. Turns out the (ahem, Raymarine) tiller pilot has a cheap nylon/plastic retaining ring that keeps the motor aligned with the belt that drives the jack screw. The mechanism “ate” the ring, or at least part of it and it came off, which in turn meant the belt fell off its pulley. There’s really no excuse, since when mounted on the wind vane, there is almost zero effort the thing needs to make. It just swings the vane from side to side and the Monitor does the work. I was able to jam the retaining ring back into its mount and it’s working for now. We’ll see how long that lasts. If it breaks again I’ll have to jury rig a Teflon washer to hold the motor in place until I can get the proper part (if they will sell it at all. A stupid, cheap part. Seems very poorly engineered). Anyway, (rant over) after fixing the tiller pilot I downloaded a bunch of photos from the cameras. A very unproductive job but we take hundreds of photos every couple weeks and if we don’t keep after them, the photos get waaay ahead of us and it becomes a much bigger job. Also it’s been three months since I checked the water in the batteries, so I did that and added ½ gallon of distilled water. Charging and discharging every day, they get quite a workout and need to be carefully maintained. Next check- up: September first.

OK, new rant: The B&G multi-function displays that Svendson’s Marine sold me when I bought Charisma are all starting to conk out. These are the displays that show things like depth, boat speed, wind speed/direction, etc. Three out of four of them have lost their night lights, so you can’t see them anymore at night without a flashlight. I reconfigured the last “good” one at the helm so it displays the critical data at night. They also are developing “lines” through the digital displays. Looks like corrupt data. I cleaned all the contacts/connections and there are fewer lines interrupting the display, but I think they need a software update at the very least. Turns out the “state of the art” displays Svensen’s sold me in 2008 were actually 2005 models that were sitting on the shelf and they wanted to sell them to someone as they were getting obsolete. They’ve been problematic since the day they were installed. OK, second rant over.

For dinner, I took last night’s chicken and yam “thing” I made in the pressure cooker and threw it in the cast iron frying pan with some curry powder. Bam! Instant curry chicken. It actually tasted better than it did last night.

So, it’s only 7PM and we’re finished with dinner and both of us are exhausted from boat projects (and probably a little bit of catching up on sleep from the trip here and maybe the fact that the anchor alarm faithfully wakes me up at least once and sometimes twice per night. I have it set pretty tight since we’re right up against the coral and it’s blowing 18-20 all night. Thus, whenever there’s a 20 degree wind shift we drift far enough to one side to set off the alarm). It gets dark around 5:30 local time and at any rate, we’re about ready for sleep.

Hopefully tomorrow some news on snorkeling. There’s a lot of cool stuff here to see-we just need better weather to see it with.

Position: 16 degrees, 50 minutes south; 144 degrees, 41 minutes west

Doesn't get much clearer than this!

Anchored off Tahanea

Anchored off our own Motu

This spot couldn’t be more beautiful. The word “azure” might have been created to describe the color of the water here. We’re in about 30 feet over coral and sand and about 100 yards off a sandy atoll which is covered with palm trees. Azure, ice blue, turquoise all describe the color of the water we are in.

Getting here was a little challenging. After the “exit” from Raroia which was pretty exciting, we had a long day with no wind. We motored. Not fun. Then after dinner a front moved through. By now, Ann was getting some sleep as it was the second evening watch around 0100. I thought I saw some unusual cloud formation, so checked the radar. Red, red, red, across the screen. Darn! Double reef the main, close the hatches, the usual drill. Also per usual just as I finished and was putting my jacket on, it started raining. This wasn’t just a short squall, the rain lasted almost an hour. The good news though is that it brought wind, so we could finally sail.

We “buddy boated” with Orcinius who has joined us on this leg. We sailed the whole 24 hours here within about three miles of each other. Last night Ann and Lisa on Orcinius were on the first evening watches at the same time on their respective boats and played a trivia game over the VHF radio. Anything to stay awake in the wee hours.

After leaving in such dramatic fashion yesterday at 0815, we were looking for something a little easier today. We sailed along this island and got to the pass around 1000, which was two hours before low tide and 26 hours after leaving Raroia yesterday. Big standing waves and lots of tide action. No bueno. No way were we going through the pass until things changed. We dropped sails and just floated in the current about ½ mile outside, just loitering for two hours waiting for slack water. It worked. At noon, we decided to take another look at the pass. It had changed from a roaring rapid to a placid lake. It only stays that way for a short time, so we dashed in congratulating ourselves on our developing technique. Atoll entrances can be more dramatic than you really want, so it’s nice to know that we’re able to identify the calm time.

Once inside the atoll, we turned right around a “bight” formed by a coral reef and tucked into a nice spot a little sheltered from the south wind. It’s a little bumpy-about 15 knots of wind and 2 foot wind waves, but not too bad. We’re in sand and coral. I dove the anchor to see what it looked like. It’s butted up against a big coral boulder, so we’re not going anywhere as long as the wind doesn’t shift around. On the other hand, I’m not looking forward to getting it back up, but we’ll deal with that later. Following the chain back to the boat, there are a couple of large coral formations that the chain could tangle on, so I used the new technique of “buoying” the chain so it hangs in the water floating just above the coral instead of dragging on the bottom and wrapping around the coral as we swing back and forth at anchor.

We had Mahi ceviche for lunch and Ann cooked pasta for dinner. We’ve been watching the shooting stars since after dinner. Quite a show tonight. I saw one that I thought was the moon coming through the clouds, it lasted so long. I happened to look at just the right time and though, “Wow, I didn’t know the moon was out so early”. Then the glow turned into “sparks” shooting out the side of the cloud and it burned out toward the water. Pretty dramatic. It seemed so close, I am guessing it might have been space debris. (Jerry, I’ll bet you can find if any entered the atmosphere on this day)

Tomorrow we’ll go explore the atoll (hopefully bringing back some coconuts that we can use for meals and do some snorkeling. This place is so beautiful I imagine we’ll be here a few days or longer, so we’ll likely have more to describe tomorrow.

Left Raroia for Tahanea

Position: 16 degrees, 45 minutes south; 143 degrees, 17 minutes west

We were up at 0600 because this trip is 140 miles and we needed to be out at slack water which was about 0730 (Hide slack). We need to in turn, get to Tahanea by slack water there tomorrow. After doing this one today at high tide, I think we might wait offshore for the low tide at Tahanea. They say it’s best to enter and leave the atolls on slack low water. “They” are right. We got to the pass at 0815 and there were standing waves. It was white water, but fortunately there wasn’t a lot of wind or ocean waves, so not as bad as it could have been. However, if it had been any worse, we would not have gone out. Orcinius is going with us to the same place, so we were following them out and it was quite a thrill watching them hit the standing waves and swerve back and forth with the current. There were boils all around pulling you first left, then right. Turns out, they were in awe as we went through as well. Neither boat thought of getting a picture-which probably tells you how busy we were navigating out through the crazy water. If there hadn’t been a range marker to help identify the channel, I might have gone onto the reef. The interesting thing is the white water was in the deeper channel and you had to go right through the standing waves to get out. The calm water was running over the very shallow reefs on either side. Very counter-intuitive. If you go for the calm looking water, you run aground! Past the calm looking water on either side of the pass the ocean waves were breaking on the reef, so all in all the whole experience definitely woke us up.

The rest of the day has been pretty boring. Very little wind, so we’ve been motoring as we want to make this a one day, not two day trip. Strange wind direction right now. It’s coming from the west. The predominant winds down here are easterlies. We haven’t seen a west wind since dropping below the equator. Oh well.

Dinner was (wait for it)….Mahi! This afternoon, I pulled one of the bags with four fillets out of the fridge. I cut up two fillets and made ceviche for tomorrow. It’s marinating in lime juice right now. I marinated the other two fillets in soy/teriyaki/ginger/wasabi, seared then steamed them and served over rice with the marinade poured over the whole thing. Yum, yum and yum!

Beautiful stars out now as we thread our way through multiple islands on our way to Tahanea. It’s supposed to be a stunning, “classic” South Pacific atoll and we have high hopes to spend several or more days there just playing in kayaks, trying out our standup paddleboard and snorkeling.

We’ll let you know how that goes.