Author: Pete
Location: 16°54.429S’ 146°57.237W’
Date: June 2nd – June 4th
June 2nd saw the high wind which had previously swept the Tuamotus and filled our kites in the past days calming. It’s time to head to Tahiti. Liza and Felix have flights to catch and Miranda and I have a good deal of work to do on the boat that we’ve been neglecting. It’s been terrific ignoring minor problems in favor of diving and kiting and snorkeling all in the same day. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? But the TO-DO list grows longer little by little as the salt air and general wear and tear take their toll on everything. We need a week of civilization, or more specifically, a hardware store. A grocery store wouldn’t hurt either.
Made a couple lunches and a couple dinners to have in the refrigerator so no one had to cook in the two day passage. Said goodbye to our friends on Namaste who we’d been kiting and diving with for the week. We pulled anchor without incident. Our three meter anchorage had low, scattered coral heads and we floated the chain to avoid them. We rounded the long shoal finger just inside of the Fakarava pass and exited easily even with 2 knots of incoming current. Outside the pass we put up the spinnaker and ghosted along slowly for an hour, then doused it and motored, then flew the spinnaker again just at dusk. So much work, this sailing life. Now we’re on the downhill run to Papeete. A little rain accompanied us along the way.
June 3rd, our second day on passage to Tahiti trailed behind us like our wake astern. At the end of my watch the wind died and the spinnaker sagged over the deck. I pulled it down and fired up the girls. We motored most of the day in zero wind. Really ZERO wind. The Pacific was glassy, and besides a few gentile rollers lifting the boat there was nothing but our forward motion courtesy of the diesels. The wind filled in come evening, and just before dinner we were again sailing, now on a beam reach. A cargo ship, the Chiquita according to the AIS, steamed by us off our starboard at 18 knots, coming within a half mile. We haven’t seen a real ship in months!
Liza and Felix caught a tuna and cleaned it for dinner! We put it with rice and veggies and sat on deck watching the sky afterwards. Miranda spent some time digging coral out of her knees from kiteboarding into and through the coral ‘bommies’ in Fakarava. Much easier if you just go over them.
Now it’s another gorgeous, cloudless night sailing under a full moon bright enough to put charge through the solar panels!
Sighted Tahiti the morning of June 4th. The tall green of the island and its massive dimension contrast starkly with the low, tiny motus of the atolls we’ve been frequenting. It’s pretty amazing to think that there were islands like Tahiti on all of those atolls, once tall and green, now ground into sand and swept out to sea as the coral reefs build into low motu and remain. Pretty neat geographical evolution. You can really see the scale of geologic time. Don’t blink.
The wind built steadily throughout the night. This morning I woke to the pleasantly rocky ride associated with good wind. We’re up to 15 knots of wind abeam and are nicely making way, topping out at 8 knots. The boat hums happily with a low vibration when we approach hull speed. Feels good to be moving fast; I’m humming too. Funny how one’s mood is so synced with that of the boat. She’s like another entity among us. Like I need one more female personality aboard! (kidding, kidding!)
Cumulous clouds cap the verdant peaks as we round the north side of the island. Eventually buildings spring into view and other boats bounce along the choppy sea. We prepare for making port. Just before we pass between the (backwards) navigational buoys we called the harbor control and were given clearance to enter the port. Were they going to fire cannons at us if we didn’t call? We sidled up to a finger pier in the new municipal marina that’s still under construction without incident, despite my rusty docking skills. I think we just sailed to Tahiti.
