April 29, 2008
We left Taiohae at 7:30AM with Charisma. Beautiful sunny
morning, 18 knots of wind and 5’ swells on our beam, we were rolling 15 -30
degrees, going 7.5 knots. We were headed
for our first atoll, Raroia. Talking with other
cruisers, it seems like everyone is going somewhere different but will possibly
meet up in
April 30, 2008
We had a good night, and sailed 144 miles. Charisma is 8
miles directly behind us. Mike tried to
bag the sails out to wait for them but we still hit 9 knots surfing down
swells. We saw a boat go by last night,
which surprised us as we are sailing farther south than most boats. We hooked a fish at 6:30AM but lost him,
bummer. We tried to reach Charisma on
the VHF with no luck, so we dropped our head sail and reefed our main so we
would slow down enough for them to catch up.
Stu and I spent some time calculating the tides for the atolls, you must
go in at slack as the currents run 8 and 9 knots. It was difficult because we
had conflicting information between books. So we compared our information with
May 1, 2008
We had a good night and stayed within 3 miles of
Charisma. Also I figured out how to
adjust the monitor course, which I should have done long ago. It is pretty easy. We feel comfortable that we should reach our
destination tomorrow morning and have to wait a short while before entering the
atoll. We caught a tuna today, finally,
thank you Jesus! He who supplies all our needs!
It was 15 -20 pounds, big! Stu
filleted it, Mike skinned it and of course I cooked it. What a team we are! Mike showed me how to use the IPod, so now I
will have music on my night watch, another thing I should have learned long
ago. Mike made a lure today with a wire
leader, to replace the one we lost that
May 2, 2008
At 7AM we could see the Atolls, there are two of them next to each other. At 9:30AM we arrive and have to wait until 1:30PM for slack tide to go in. So we heave to and have lunch, as does Charisma and just wait. There are dolphins all around us and the water is such a beautiful color of blue God is truly an artist. We decided the pass didn’t look so bad, so we went in an hour early, Mike thought we could have gone in earlier but you never know and we want to be safe. We threw out an anchor in 35’ of water and decided based on coral we would move, only we were already hooked on a coral head. Stu decided to take on the challenge and dive in to see if he could reach the anchor, he disappeared from sight. But soon we saw him, he couldn’t get it unhooked but he had accessed the situation and had a plan, which we followed and were freed! Such a guy – thanks Stu! So we tried anchoring again between Charisma and Moonbeam, we got a little close to Charisma but they said they could live with it. They came over and we shared a snack. Local guys came to our boat and wanted to trade for alcohol, Stu tried to trade sunglasses, a knife and other things but they only wanted alcohol, so no trading happened, but we did give them a pamplemoose. A different local went to Charisma’s boat and they traded copied CD’s for pearls. Such a deal.
May 3, 2008
I had a splitting headache this morning and Mike had gotten up at 1:30AM with a headache. The wind had picked up too so he went outside and did anchor watch, poor guy. We ended up fine but are definitely close to Charisma. We might move today when Moonbeam leaves. We went ashore to go on a hike, a local guy showed us where to go, there was a road that took you out to the local airport and toured you around. First he introduced us to a guy who had black pearls which Stu wanted to buy. He ended up buying several pearls. Then we all walked the road to the airport which had 27 parking stalls and only 3 cars on the island, and supposedly only one worked. Too funny! We saw locals housing, school, church, cemetery, and the beautiful beaches. Mike picked up some rope he found on the beach, nice. Although while touring the island we were surprised to see so much trash lying on the ground. In the Marquesas everything was so clean. The people seem to be mostly pearl farmers. There was a post office, telecommunications office and a wharf, a ship was due in soon. Only coconut palm tree seem to grow, along with a few flowers. 160-170 people live on the atoll. Very interesting walk. I made pizza with homemade yeast crust for dinner and we watched a movie before retiring. Earlier I asked Stu to throw some bad salami overboard, he called Mike and I up to see, it had attracted about 20 sharks! They snatched the meat so quick it was like feeding ducks at the park.
May 4, 2008
Mike and I and Charisma got up early to go to church. It
started at 7AM, so we dinghy ashore and get there just in time. It is a really old Catholic church, with
rough wooden benches, around 50 people including lots of kids came to church. They were not all that friendly or maybe not forward. Outside after church we talked to the pastor
and then a fellow came up from the Mormon Church and he spoke English. He
talked a few minutes but seemed to be hurried.
The singing was loud for such a small group of people it was beautiful,
they seemed to enjoy singing. They
handed out words for the songs to everyone which helped to follow along. The women all wore dresses and the men wore
slacks or shorts. After our chats we
decided to walk the other end of the island that we did not go to yesterday. We saw an outdoor church, a few homes, and
loose pigs. We have a nice walk and then
dinghy back to the boat. Today we are
leaving at high tide, but we have a little time so we decide to snorkel near
the pass, it was really pretty there. We
threw out our anchor in sand close to shore in 60’ of water. Charisma anchored
a little far from us in 80’ and they decided to move closer to us but there
anchor was wrapped around coral.
May 5, 2008
One week until Stu flies out. We had light winds all night but that is OK,
we will still make slack tide in the light.
Charisma is about 8 miles behind but they should be fine too. Mike got up on my shift to help with fluky
winds. So unfortunately he will be
tired. We had coffee and granola bars to
tide us over until breakfast. We arrived
at Makemo and there is a ‘wind generator field’ on the island. We watched as
another boat Roxy arrived 2 hours before slack tide but decided to go in
anyway. After we watched them we called
them on the VHF and they said they had 5 knots of current and used their turbo
all the way. We decided we better wait
until slack tide to enter. Charisma
decided to go in a few minutes early and report 1.5 knots of current,
we followed and had the same. This anchorage is bigger and better than the last
atoll. The town was bigger and had
stores and gift shops. Stu went to shore
again with Charisma and I snorkeled with Kristen. Mike laid low, he was tired he didn’t get
much sleep. Later Charisma came over for
drinks and then we went to their boat for dinner. We had fish in Thai sauce, it was so good.
However Stu, Kevin and
May 6, 2008
This morning everyone is feeling fine. Apparently they had gotten sick on the fish
before, so now they decided to throw if out – what a bummer. Mike and I went to town this morning and went
to the post office, the computer guy and the postman all spoke English and that
was so nice. And we mailed 5 post cards and used the internet to pay our visa
bill, we wanted to do email but the system quit all of a sudden. The French keyboard is not in the same order
as the
May 7, 2008
Today is windy and we plan to leave at noon for Tahanea our
last atoll and then it is
May 8, 2008
We arrived at Tahanea at 5:30AM just in time for high tide
and dawn, barely enough light to see and watch for coral. This island is uninhabited. There were plenty of sandy spots to drop our
anchor. Since we don’t have dive
equipment it is really important not to get stuck in coral, not to mention the
fact that you are not to damage coral.
We decided to go to shore to see the sites with Charisma once our anchor
was down. There was no sand on the beach, only coral and lava rock. We wore our water socks to go ashore and tour
the jungle. The island was thick with
coconut palms and bush. There were no
trails or paths so we just blazed our own.
There were pools of salt water with small sharks, eels, clams and other
sea life trapped in them. We saw a lot
of colored clams, really pretty. We
snorkeled off the beach, there was more to see snorkeling here than any place
we had been so far. Before dinner we all
went to drift the pass. We took our
dinghies to the opening of the pass on the ocean to catch the incoming
tide. We jumped out of our dinghy with
our snorkel gear and kept hold of the dinghy while snorkeling through the water
with the current pushing us. It was the
most amazing scene I have ever saw while snorkeling. There is lots of colored coral, many
different colored fish including sharks, octopus, eels and many more. We also went through some boiling water which
really made me nervous, I took my head out of the water to see where we were
going but everyone else was still just snorkeling like everything was
fine. It was easier to keep your head in
the water than to be out. We ended up
near shore where there was an abandoned village. Charisma went ashore to check it out but
Stu’s sandals broke and Mike had no shoes, so we got back in our dinghy and
motor back to the boat. The current was
very strong and I wasn’t sure we were going to make it back to the boat, but we
did. Later Charisma came over for an
appetizer type dinner for Stu’s last night with them. We shared pictures with each other and email
addresses. They barrowed 7 DVD’s and
promised to return them when we meet again in
May 9, 2008
We opted to leave at noon, so we could try Charisma’s
Hookah. We had to give them some gas to
run it plus they were out in their dinghy, so Mike split what we had left. Stu did good with the Hookah, going down
about 30’, Mike was uncomfortable breathing past 10’, it takes practice, but he
really enjoyed trying it out. Kristen
and I just snorkeled to shore and back.
It was a really nice day, wish we had more time to stay. As we were leaving and going through the
pass, we took a huge wave over our bow and salt water poured through the open
front hatch and everything got really wet in the forward cabin. The worse thing was Stu’s bed got wet. We only had 5 knots of wind and it was partly
cloudy.
May 10, 2008
Two days until Stu had to catch his plane, hope we make it. We had light winds all night and we were only making 3 or 4 knots, we had planned 6. We hope for more wind today.
May 11, 2008
Still very light winds, so we are motor sailing with our
deadline quickly approaching. We also
have been fishing since we left Tahanea with no luck. We still have around 80 miles to go. Charisma called on the VHF radio and they are
on their way to Fakarava. We saw a power
boat this morning. We spent the morning
studying