Position: 09 degrees, 56 minutes South; 139 degrees, 06 minutes West
Stormy days make pretty sunsets. Big thunderboomers that had gone overhead an hour or so earlier.
After a delightful couple of days at Hananoemoa, we decided we needed to backtrack a bit to stop at Baie Vaitahu. Just a mile or two South, it is night and day different. Where Hananoemoa has low hills, white sand and generally sunshine (between the squalls that run overhead in the mornings), Vaitahu is in a valley at the bottom of a tall mountain (2000′). Most of the time, the top of the mountain is in the clouds so we can’t see it. The rain squalls have come blasting down all day bringing torrents like we haven’t seen since crossing the ITCZ. After a couple hours here, I had to use a hand pump on the dinghy as it had filled at least 1/3rd full of water. It was filled somewhere in the 4 inch range. Combine that with 25+ knot winds blasting down the valley and fanning out into the anchorage and you get the idea. I almost turned around and headed back to the other anchorage, but we wanted to see this place, so anchor it was. Then we rigged the dinghy to go ashore (i.e. put the engine on for the first time since leaving Mexico). I wanted the engine just in case the weather got even worse. I didn’t want to be caught out trying to row an inflatable if the winds picked up even more.
Ashore we went. The actual shore had large breaking waves and rocks, so we opted for the concrete dock. It’s built right over some rocks, so only the top is actually concrete, the sides still being rock, albeit smoothed down from use. It’s also just inside a little point, so doesn’t take the brunt of the waves. However, the swell at the dock was a solid three feet! Basically you maneuver the dinghy up to the rocks/dock where there’s a stair cut into the solid wall. You then have to time it so you get off-one at a time-with the peak of the swell. Initially you’re looking up three feet or so at the bottom of the steps, then for a moment of maybe two seconds as the swell passes through, you are even with one of the steps and you leap off and scramble up while the dinghy drops out below your feet. Time it wrong and, well…that would be a problem. Then the next person does the same thing and it you do it right you’re both standing on the dock holding the dinghy and trying to figure out how to secure it where it won’t smash against the rocks while you’re gone. Usually you would drop a stern anchor to hold it off, but I forgot to rig that, so we just let a bunch of line out and let it fend for itself. It actually worked pretty well, but we decided that today’s stay would be necessarily short. We would just do a “once through” and spend more time in town tomorrow. As with the other places we’ve visited, “town” is a misnomer. While there is a small store, a post-office and a church, there can’t be more than 50 or so people who live here.
Into town we went. It’s a short walk from the dock and while walking we ran right into a torrential downpour that soaked us through and through. The rain running off of the hills turned the bay brown from the silt pouring in. But what the heck, we’re in the tropics, so we just kept going, did our once through and stopped in the store where other than dripping on the floor, we were fine.
Looks like the rain is going to continue all night. Here’s hoping for a nice day tomorrow so we can explore a bit. Depending on weather, from here in the next day or so we’ll have a 40-60 mile leg up to Ua Pou (pronounced; “wa-poe”). We want nice weather for that, so we’ll just hunker down here or if it looks like the weather is lasting more than another day, we’ll go back over to Hananoemoa where the sandy bottom and more gentle hills make for an easier ride at anchor.
Responses: To Jerry; What’s considered hot? It’s 80 degrees F in the cabin right now and it almost seems cool, so I guess we’re getting used to the warmer weather. Cliff; I haven’t used my spear. Ciguaterra is so pervasive in the tropics, we have decided to only eat pelagic fish caught offshore such as tuna, dorado and wahoo. Angela; we actually are seeing your posts. The blog says they have to be moderated, but after a day or so they automatically post. Just remember what you commented on and look back after about 24 hours and you should see the post. We are. By the way – it is very hard to remember that we are in the Polynesian winter season. It is typically 95-100 every day. You take a shower and five minutes later you are sweating. It cools off to about 75 at night but we need to keep hatches closed due to squalls. And we keep the bug screens in so that limits air flow. My point being that we are usually warm to sweating yet at 5:30 the sun is setting. So weird.