Tuamotu Islands!

 WIZARD  anchored in Fakarava, Tuamotu Islands

June 4
Au Revoir, Marquesas... Bonjour, Tuamotu!
Time to say goodbye to the Marquesas! We've enjoyed over a month visiting 5 different islands, meeting new friends and handing out waiting for repairs!
It's a bittersweet leaving.  Ive enjoyed being in a calm anchorage. I've forgotten what it's like to sail on the open ocean!
We leave under blue skies with crisp trade winds course heading 200T for the Tuamotu.  We've waited for this calm weather window.  All week has been cloudy with rain and huge swells that pushed up from a south low pressure disturbance.
We have other friends leaving for Tuamotu at this time, too. Sailing vessels "Set me Free", "Kyanos", "Osprey" and "Compass Rosey" will be making the passage in the next day or so. It will be fun to catch up with our friends on "Breeze".
My night watch log: we're sailing along average 5.5 knots boat speed with wind gusting to 7 knots.  There are dark clouds on the radar as squalls so we head south to out run them, but takes us off course.

 Our morning glimpse of land. Can you see the atoll on the horizon?  

Coral beach at Fakarava, Tuamotu

June 5
Morning we are sailing downwind as best we can on the genoa out on the whisker pole, light winds 5-10knots. Only need 5 more knots of wind to be gliding along comfortably. In light wind the boat's motion is rolling side to side with the swells. We've checked in with s/v Set Me Free(SMF)...they are 5 miles ahead of us... and they caught a fish...a 25 lb wapoo!  We catch up to them while they land and clean the fish. How do you sail, bring in a fish, clean it and do all that?  We don't fish under way...too much work!. They offer to give us some fresh fish..but, how would we make a mid-ocean exchange?!

Walking the coral reef

June 6
Motoring all night. no wind. Dark starry night over calm seas. No moon. The air still. I talked with "Set Me Free"....we are ahead of them as they has slowed to take care of the caught fish.  Motoring ,we can barely see their running lights in the distance on the port side.
The stars are brilliant...millions and millions! The Milky Way is spectacular! The best I've ever seen it because there is no moon? We take shifts on watch. We sleep for 2-3 hrs then relieve the other.  Without a crew to help in the night watch, we switch off several times a night. It does get tiring. This motoring is noisy, but a more comfortable boat motion than the sailing last night.

Sue and Ella snorkeling the coral reef

June 7
Morning and there's  no wind, no swell only calm seas. Clouds on the horizon. We try to hail SMF(Set Me Free) on the VHF but have no luck. We must be just out of VHF range. I check in with the cruisers net and give Wizard's position. This is helpful information if we were ever to go missing. We can hear from other cruisers on the radio on that the passage to  Tahiti that lots of wind..25-30 knots!  Won't help us. That's  600 miles away. We're not asking for much wind just enough to be able to turn off the engine and sail.
According to the weather satellite picture there was supposed to be 10-15 knot winds at this time.
Today, we do some chores. I made banana muffins.  Enjoyed a little TTT (total tan time). We made water, John fixed a leak in the water maker, again..did some laundry and read about the atolls we will be visiting in Tuamotu. Looks like instead of the atoll, Kauehi we will be making landfall at Mahini. We haven't made fast enough time to make the required daytime landfall when the tides will be slack water for entering the atoll of Kauehi.
9:00 pm-We are sailing painfully slow.. 4 knots in light winds. We've re-calculated and at this rate landfall will be another whole day..240 miles.

Paradise found... the village of Rotoava, Fakarava

June 8
New plan...because of no winds last night we will not be stopping at atoll Kauehi. We needed to make an average of 6 knots to arrive at the entrance of the pass at a slack water tide and we wont make it. So now we go past to another bigger atoll, Fakarava.
Slow we go...we want to go slow to time the day light arrival at the pass. We have slowed the boat to 3 knots! Can you believe it? first we need to go faster, then we need to go slower! It's all about the timing of slack water to enter the passes of these "dangerous archipelagos" as the early sailors called the Tuamotu islands.

Boats hang above the water under shelters. The water is so amazingly clear!  

Next morning at daybreak, we see the lights of boats approaching to enter the pass. One is the Arununi 3, the passenger/ freighter which makes bi-monthly stops to these atolls and two other sailboats approaching the pass according to our AIS ship's locator. We call out on VHF to one boat and ask about the timing of the slack water,and they tell us they called the Arununi who reports the tide is outgoing until 10:30 am...so waiting a couple of hours would be better for the crossing.

 "Well, Capt. John says, "how hard can this be?" and decides to make the pass. It's a large entrance with plenty of depth. We approach the swirling water line that marks the entrance to the atoll. Now that I've done this I can see what the event is...a torrent of water being sucked out of a large lagoon by tidal flow into the open ocean over a shallow reef  called the pass. Think of spilling over a bucket of water and the rim of the bucket is the reef. During the tidal change, the water rushes in or out depending on the direction of the tides. When we approached the water was churning up with breaking waves across the whole narrow entrance!  I could see this with the binoculars! We've  been reading about these reef entrance passes for days, but until you actually see it you can't imagine it!
John says we're going in....OMG!, says me!
 The water is mixed up like a washing machine, boiling with 3ft waves breaking,  across the entrance, the boat's engine fights against the outgoing 3 knots current...the boat rolls with oncoming waves of the shallow entrance and I see that we are not making headway. Capt. John ups the RPMs on the motor  making 1.5 knots against the current. I mark a spot on land to watch and we look stationary in the water not making very much headway going forward! I am getting scared and rush to close hatches as a wave breaks over our bow, and quickly grab a life jacket, while also grabbing the camera to video this wild ride. If I'm going down, I want a picture of this!
I look behind us and was surprised to see the two other sailboats ( Pacific Cool and Hasta Luego, who said they would wait outside for slack water) following us in through the pass! We  made the decision "to go for it "right or wrong, we were committed.  And these other sailors decided to follow us like we knew what we were doing! I wish I had a picture of us three sailboats running the pass together.

There was no turning back once we were in the rough current ( John said later, if we turned around in the middle of the pass we would've been  spit back out). The boat rocked back and forth, the engine at full throttle and slowly making forward movement struggling for the calm waters we can see just 300 yards ahead inside the lagoon. There definitely is a difference between the churning pass water and the calm waters inside. What seems like an eternity is only 15 minutes long and we finally break through to the other side into the calmer waters.

Calm waters of  the Fakarava anchorage near the village Rotoava 

If there  are any readers (Rob and Nancy on Shindig) who know the the turbulent waters known as the "potato patch" outside the San Francisco bay, then you will know exactly the scary churning water I'm reporting about.  This  "wild ride" was a first for us.  I was  scared and threatening divorce, while John was grinning with excitement!  Talk about an "adrenaline high- he actually enjoyed it!
The other boats battled through the entrance just as we did. Watching them pitch and roll, I know Wizard was doing the same.  We all had to use more engine power to over come the 3 knot outgoing current.  We later spoke with the captain on  Hasta Luego who followed us in and commented on our bravery (or stupidity) and gave "high-fives"!
 We are not "pass virgins " anymore.  We now have some experience. I would do it differently now that I know what's involved and wait for the correct timing of the tides. That's why they call these atolls "the dangerous archipelagos"...low lying reefs with strong currents have sent many a ship aground! The recommended approach is always in daylight at slack water. Next time.

WIZARD  and BREEZE anchored in paradise!

Fakarava is the second largest atoll in the Tuamotou 30 miles long and 10 miles wide. It's all coral reef enclosing a large shallow lagoon. We chose the north pass, Garuae Pass as our entrance to Fakarava. the anchorage is relatively calm just off the village of Rotoava. There is a lively community here of 900 residents who make their living off pearl farming and tourism; diving. Fakarava is known for it's sharks!

Bike ride in Fakarava-  John, Ella, Sabina and Per at the market

We meet up with our friends on BREEZE. They have been in Fakarava a few days long enough to know the "lay of the land" and dive the north pass. Both Per and Sabina are experienced scuba divers who have "bubbled" in many world class dive sites. They say the Coral Garden dive here is one of the best! Per dove the "Pass Dive" where as an advanced diver, you descend to a depth to drift along with the current, through the pass of the atoll while experiencing the passing fish and sharks! Fakarava is a popular dive destination with divers from around the world and is the main tourist attraction here in French Polynesia with pensions (small hotels) and restaurants to service the visitors.

Riding the one paved road of the atoll and stopping to snorkel along the way.

Which way to go? A colorful map marks all the sites.

Never seen this one...a bump sign!

We rent bicycles for the day and ride the whole length of the paved road (15 kilometers?) enjoying the sites, stopping to snorkel  the coral reef along the way. The bicycle was a great way to see the atoll. One day we explored the south end passing many pensions and stopping at a pearl farm where we
watched how the pearls are surgically implanted with a "pearl starter"(small plastic bead) then put back into the water to "grow the pearl"...it's all very interesting! The black pearls here are beautiful colored in varied hues of grey-green to grey-black.

Pearl farm sorter; stringing small oysters to grow hang on pearl "stations"

Surgically implanted plastic "starter pearl"

Pearl farm technician implanting the starter pearl into a ready oyster

Watching the placement of the hanging baskets of "seeded" oysters

Lunch stop on the beach

Ordering from the "snack shack" window...fish or chicken baguettes sandwiches.

Pension  Relais Marama where you can rent cabins and bicycles, too.

We stop at the snack-shack for lunch take-out on our bike ride.  Just as in the Marquesas, the menu of poisson cru, fish sandwiches, steak and fries or chow mien are the staple meals served at most restaurants. There are limited supplies of fresh fruit, vegetables and eggs.  They come from inter-island freighter once a week.  So, if you don't get to the market after the boat comes, you will be out of luck for fresh foods. That's one of the limitations of living on an island. Also, water is in short supply. We notice all the homes have cisterns to catch the rain water.

Rain water catching cistern on all the homes

Snorkeling in the shallow reef is fantastic and we see a lot of living coral with many colored fish.

Beautiful turquoise fish that live in the coral.

Spikes of coral

We find some great shells, but this one is still occupied, so we put it back.

Since this is the "dive capital" of French Polynesia, I decide to do a "refresher course" on my scuba dive certification...mind you, I got my certification in 1970 when I was 16 years old! Do the math...WHA!...that's 43 yrs ago!
Anyway, no problem said the Top Dive center. They said I just needed a "refresher" course and I could participate in some of the dives around here! Cool. So, I signed up for the Coral Garden Dive, next day. Wow! Just me with the 24 yr old dive master, Manhoo,  along with another couple from Germany. She was an awesome instructor and I felt very comfortable in 45 ft of water gliding over the masses of colorful coral! Truly a once-in-a-life-time experience! We even saw black-tipped sharks swimming in the distance! They are shy and curious and not aggressive, I'm told...still my heart beats a little faster!!

Hearts of coral