South Pass Fakarava

Wizard sailing to South Pass Fakarava

June 14, 2013
9:30am
Morning stop at the market to get last minute banquettes for the trip…and surprise, the storekeeper has saved us a dozen eggs! It is very hard to get fresh fruits, veggies and eggs, so this was a pleasant surprise as she remembered we wanted eggs and saved us some when the freight ship unloaded. The eggs are imported from New Zealand as so much of the food items.  We could sell these eggs for a fortune to other cruisers! But, we’ll be nice and share with our friends.

Today, I had a fruit craving…so bought the apple from New Zealand and the nectarines from Tahiti, paid expensive prices, but worth the sweet taste of fruit!

We also made the tourist purchase of a couple of famous black pearls. There are so many shades of grey to green to black it’s hard to make a choice, but I finally succeeded in finding a special gift each for my family. I think they'll be happy to have a unique pearl grown in Fakarava, Tuamotu!"
Later that night, we joined friends and splurge on a 3-course dinner at the Havaiki Resort and Restaurant.

Dinner with friends, Ella, Sabina, Per, Liz and Joe (taking picture) at Dream Pearls Restaurant

Today we are sailing to the south pass of Fakarava under full genoa (no main sail) with good winds on the nose with 5.5 knots of boat speed. We have a passenger aboard, Francois, a world traveler who wanted a ride south. He had been crew for many boats over the years and recently for s/v Peregrine. He “jumped ship” for a longer stay in Fakarava. We are happy to have him along for his experience and he speaks French!

The channel leading south is not easily understood…there are two channels for the boats to navigate…we see on the chart plotter the shallow coral reefs and some markers very close to the shore…it looks confusing that the channel would be that close to shore, but upon entering we see the navigation markers, red on starboard, green on port, marking the shallow reefs. We navigate through fields of pearl farm buoys or “stations” as they are called, with Francois on the bow and me up a few steps on the mast to get a better view. The shallow coral reefs are easily seen as turquoise colored areas as we navigate away from these spots. (read what happens in my next post about these coral heads!)

S/v Breeze  has followed us to the south anchorage. At first we're sailing along “neck to neck”. We are keeping up with his boat speed because we can point high to the wind. Wizard is healed over and we are enjoying one of the best sailing days ever! It’s comfortable with no waves….oh, there goes Breeze  ahead of us…our lead was short-lived... now, we follow Breeze!

4:30pm
The light is waning as we finish the 25 mile day sail to south Fakarava and anchor west of the village of Tetamanu. It is dicey navigating to a sandy spot without dropping the anchor on coral heads in  this late of the afternoon light..
Finally, anchor down…we  anchored behind an atoll of palm trees and beyond is the breaking reef and beyond is the wide open ocean! I still can’t believe we are here in the middle of the South Pacific anchored in paradise!

June 14
In the Morning, we see that we anchored in shallow turquoise waters (22 ft) among many coral heads called bommies. Hope we don’t snag on one.
Today, is my dive in the South Pass of Fakarava with a group of friends. The Top Dive center guarantees that you will see many sharks or your money back! Oh boy, I can’t wait! (I’m a little nervous!)

Here I am (yellow fins) diving with the SHARKS! We really did see some.

Scuba diving the coral beds among the black-tipped sharks! (they're hiding)

June 16, 2013

The South Pass Dive

What can I say? It was fantastic! I can’t begin to explain all that I saw and the dive experience was incredible.

 First, the Top Dive boat picked us up at our boats valet-style ready with correct sized dive gear!  Now, that’s great service. And because there is a reef between the dive center and the two anchorages; East and west…it was easier for the dive boat to gather us all up. I was scheduled to dive along with Breeze, Set Me Free, and Mimi B. It was fun to go with our friends. John didn’t dive as he's not certified and didn’t want to go through all the training. Although, he has much more experience and confidence in the water than me. He is happy to snorkel and there is plenty to see at the surface.

Our first dive in the pass was a drift along the coral beds. We motored out to the middle of the pass and received our dive instructions. We would all fall backwards into the water at the count 1-2-3-Go! This is really scary at first to fall back over the side of the boat with full gear, and enter the deep blue below.

Immediately my heart beats faster and I suck air! It’s important to settle down and relax to conserve air. As I am a beginner diver, I know I will be consuming my air supply faster than more experienced divers. I constantly watch my air gauge. Four others and I follow the dive master as he motions to drop deeper, clear your ears and relax.

Niki, the dive master

The water clarity is superb to me! The colors are deep blue and the corals are many different colors of the rainbow; pinks, purples, greens and the iridescent blues of the clam openings are indescribable!

Then we see the black tip reef sharks floating past! These are shy and cautious and pay us no attention. I am in awe of the world that I can see. This is the closest I have ever been to sharks…maybe 30 ft? as they keep a curious distance from us. Then we see hundreds of spotted groupers cruising the coral beds. Next week, on the full moon, there is the local phenomenon of the mating groupers that only happens in Fakarava.

All smiles...after the dive!

June 17

Snorkeling The Pass:

Today, Dennis and Barb on Landfall invite me to snorkel drift the pass. It goes like this:

 On an incoming tide you drop into the water off the dinghy and drift while holding onto a rope tethered to the dinghy and then you float along with the current. It is effortless. You float close to the coral shelf among the schools of brightly colored reef fish along with the ever-present black tip reef sharks gliding by! Snorkeling on the surface offers more light to show off the colors of fish and coral. The sharks swim in and out of this shallow zone. Sometimes you see several sharks deeper down cruising along the pass bottom, but then all of a sudden, they are right up beside you! It’s kind of scary but, these reef sharks are supposed to be shy and non-aggressive…so far so good! There is also this pet Napoleon that hangs out on this reef. He is enormous! It’s eyes look a you so knowingly, the big green stripped with iridescent blues is a beautifully sight. For those of you who don’t know, this reef fish can grow to 4ftx5ft.  and some people hand-feed this one small fish, so it stays around the reef. It is a huge, slow cruiser. We drifted three times along the pass until we felt the current going out…so was time to hop back in the dinghy and motor out of the pass or we’d be drifting out to sea! I have to say this snorkel dive was as good as the scuba dive I paid for with the dive center.

While I was snorkeling, John was invited to spear fish with Neville on Dreamtime. He and Carol have lived on their boat in Fakarava for 2 yrs saying this is “as good as French Polynesia gets”! They have cruised all the islands including Tahiti and Fiji and decided this area is paradise for them.  Hope they get some fish for dinner. Provisions are non-existent in this anchorage.  The beer is in short supply.  We will have to make the sail back to the north anchorage by Friday for more supplies .

Camp fire on the beach…with many new cruiser friends…we leave our mark (boat’s name) on the “sud bar” a hanging platform created out of salvaged wood and ropes. We gathered to watch the sunset  and share adventure stories on several nights. 

Friends, Per and Sabina  along on the dive