I am writing this while we are on passage from Makemo to Tahanea. I’m not sure when I’ll send….either in tonight’s emails or in tomorrow mornings batch!!
HAPPY MOM’S DAY TO ALL THE MOM’S OUT THERE!!!!! Hope your day was a special one!!!!
Today is a double celebration on Mystic Moon – Mother’s Day and my birthday. I honestly don’t know what to do for birthdays anymore…..it’s bitter/sweet…..darn glad you have one but darn it, one step closer to the big one…..yes, I’m 59 today…..just think, next year 60…..ugh. OK, I know, quit my whining…..many of you have passed this one, but I think you know what I mean!!!! I actually feel mentally young…..like 39….I was going to say 29 but no one would believe that one, but this body is definitely feeling the age thing…..arghhhhhhh!!!!
Celebrations: We had a nice jerked 1″ thick pork chop from Reba Smith last night, with a 1997 Cosentino Zinfandel to celebrate Mom’s Day…..today, Kathy fixed my favorite breakfast, hot Jimmy Dean sausage, fried egg on English muffin…..eggMcKathy…..with a mango, banana, pineapple, strawberry smoothie…..yummers!!!! PK has a bottle of champagne chilling to celebrate later after we are though the pass and all anchored down!!! Unfortunately, I did not catch any tuna today for sushi…..ugh!! Sometime this week PK will fix my traditional fried chicken birthday dinner….yummers!!!!
Today’s weather is very calm….perfect trawler weather…..5-8 kts of wind and 2-3′ swells all astern….from the NE!!!! About half way we started to get the SSW-SW swells….3-6′, very long period, nice and gentle…..these are the swells that will grow to 10-12′ later this week…..ugh!!!
We left Makemo at 6:30 am……had a little trouble getting the anchor up……we anchored in the middle of a coral field…..which is the case now in most anchorages….I dove the anchor the other day and knew we were hung on several large rocks/coral but not wrapped…..so we did the thrust this way, thrust that way, go backward, go forward…..yes Mystic was dancing this morning 🙂 )))….and viola, we were free.
The anchorage was right near the pass so for 3 days we learned to time the pass. We had high tide at 6:00 am and slack would be 30-60 minutes after…..we went through @ 6:50 am and we had a 1.5-2.0 kt ebbing tide so the current had already changed…..but, no big deal, no whirlpools, overfalls, rapids, etc…..this one was sweet and timed just about perfect….yes!!!
Tahanea will be a different story though…..it’s just about impossible to time two passes on two different atolls in the same day…..we indeed came through at 1:00 pm, 2 hours after low tide….it was a 2.5-3.0 flood current as we thought….we did up to 10.3 kts……but, this was very gentle…..no whirlpools, rapids, or overfalls….sweet!!!! So, the score: MM: 2 , Passes: 3…..we are still down but coming on strong on timing these passes!!!
We are anchored near the pass and hope to do some more diving over the next few days. Right now, we could be here 4-5 days to wait out the approaching weather.
We very much enjoyed Makemo but had to spend 3 days hiding from the wind. The village is nice for what we got to see……we walked the village for about 2 hours Sunday am…..very quiet…..we then had to leave as weather was coming in that evening.
We finally got in two dives…..all we had heard was how wonderful diving is in the Tuamotus…..but we had snorkeled 6-8 different reefs all inside Raroia and Makemo and all were disappointing for the coral but not the fish life. Then we met the Nordhavn Gray Matter (Mark and Christine, from the Bay area too) and they had befriended a French couple on Makemo who had taken them on several dives. According to this French couple, almost all the good diving is around the passes, not inside the atolls. So, we tried outside the NW passage at Makemo and had 2 wonderful dives….yes…….great, beautiful coral and lots and lots of fish!! Many moorish idols, huge unicorn fish, groupers, gorgeous emperor anglefish…well the variety is astonishing! Even found an anemone with a couple of anemone fish in it that were utterly incensed that we were looking at them…..Then Kathy noticed the reason….They had an adorable, maybe 1/4″ black and neon blue baby swimming around inside. Anyway, great dives with even a couple of sharks, grey reef and white-tipped reef, who took a couple of passes around us and then left, thank you very much!
Web Comments:
Cheryl: Sounds like RV’ing is similar to cruising as you wrote…..glad you guys are out and about and enjoying being on the road…..say hi to Richard and Jane for us!!
Craig: So how are those pesky Warriors doing? Rockies? Giants?
Rich and Vana: Just tell us when and where for the…..”One of these days, lobster, steak, vino, cognac and a good cigar”…..we’ll be there 🙂 ))))
Hope all is well!!
“HaPpY BiRtHdAY, sweet John!!”
…wish we were there to share that bottle of champagne with you and PK.
Hugs and kisses.
PJ
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY JOHN BOY! You are going to catch me yet brother :o)
I’m glad to hear the Princess has not lost her touch for fried chicken. My fav too! We finally passed our last 37 degree morning this weekend and hopefully now everyone can get their gardens in. We have had a miserable spring with snow as late and May 2! Can’t ever remember that.
Our Tanner wedding plans are progressing well for the Nov. 9 day. He is also interviewing for a promotion Wednesday that if he gets he will be relocated to Scottsdale. He is very hopeful and so are we. Well alsomost everyone…..mom is a little boo hoo but knows it is a tremendous opportunity if he gets it. Vana officially retired this month and is already feeling better.
We will look forward to another get together hopefully when you get back into the states later this year. Until then safe passages and pleasant journies. Hugs for the Princess… :o)