We took an easy day here anchored at our first atoll. We really didn’t do too much of anything. After an easy morning-I made an omelet and lots of coffee-we inflated the dinghy, put on the outboard and went ashore. Not a lot ashore. A small town but no stores. This is mostly a town that houses pearl industry workers. A lot of this atoll is pearl farms. You can see them in the distance and every day around 1530 the workers come back from work by boat.
The best part of the day was tide pooling on the ocean side of the atoll. We walked across-about a 300 yard walk and were on the ocean side. It was low tide, so there was lots of exposed coral. Not too many seashells, but it was like a treasure hunt. Every once in a while you’d see something shining like an opal against the dull white broken coral that makes up the beach. A cowrie! They are gorgeous and we collected a dozen nice ones (with no critters inside).
The other highlight of the day was the arrival of Orcinius. It turned out they decided not to stay longer at Oa Pou but instead just headed down here. We heard them the last couple nights on Seafarers Net, so they were not unexpected. In fact we radioed them last night to set up Mahi Mahi dinner for tonight. So after our tide pooling, we got back to Charisma around 1630, changed, collected the fish and went over to Orcinius for a delightful evening. Cocktails, dinner and good conversation. What fun. Oh, and left over birthday cake – yesterday was Lisa’s birthday!
The biggest challenge for today was coming back in the dark in an inflatable dinghy among the coral. I had established a course when it was light so I had an inkling where we needed to go, but it’s still kind of eerie knowing that any moment, if you are off course, the coral could rip out the bottom of the dinghy. And we have seen sharks in this bay!
We’ve decided there’s not a lot holding us here, and there are much nicer atolls ahead, so tomorrow at first light we’re heading out for an atoll called Tahanea. It’s about 140 miles, so an overnight. Oh well, as Blue Rodeo Mark says; “Nothing’s easy”.
Hard to see atolls…now you know what happened to Amelia Earhart. They flew 2500 miles to hit a tiny atoll (1X2 mi.) in the middle of nowhere. They arrived in the early am with low clouds scudding about. You came in from the water with GPS. Now try to find it from the air through the clouds after 20 hours of celestial nav. Times change.
Of course your anchorage was a similar experience. Good job. Big congrats on the fine fish. Did you bring your fly rod? LOL