Leaving Tahanea for South Fakarava

[hoops name=”break”]5/17: 9:00am

We left Tahanea today, Friday, 5/17, at 6:30 am. We had been pinned down by high winds for several days and we were anxious to get out of dodge. It was blowing so hard we could not get outside the pass to dive the last 3 days…..there is so much water overflowing into the atoll from the south from the big SW swells that up North here where we are, the water is constantly flowing out…..even on an incoming flood tide…..so we have water flowing NW and winds coming from the E…..you get standing waves at the pass…..like 10-15′ breaking waves all day…..it really is quite impressive unless you want to go out……arghhhhhhh!!!!!! Persephone was here and left the other day for Fakarava south pass…..they skirted the east side of the pass and did ok so we figure we can do the same.

We had been watching the pass and noticing early in the am, maybe 1.5 hours before low tide, the water went fairly slack. So, we timed it right at 6:30 am (low tide was 7:45 am)…..did the coral anchor dance…..thrust this way, thrust that way, go back, go forward and repeat…..finally got the anchor up and off we went!!! It could not have been any better. We stayed on the east side where it was calmer water and we hardly bounced or rocked coming out. It was supposed to be an incoming tide but we had 1-2 kts outgoing current so it was still flowing out…..we were doing 9.0+ kts….whoa…..that was one impressive pass!!!!

Today we have 16-22 kt E winds and we are going almost due west…..we have 5-8′ wind waves short period…..but, it is all behind us so a very nice ride……we are fishing and catching…..another large Mahi…..yes…..fish on the grill tonight…..altho I had my trusty wahoo lure on we don’t seem to be having much luck on the tuna or wahoo…..we hear the tuna are down deep so I might need to get out the downrigger 🙂 )))) There is supposed to be a large long period SSW swell, 6-10′ but we never got it…..yeah….it seems we were protected by several atolls to the west…sweet!!!!

We did do one dive at Tahanea before the high winds came and it was another good one…..lot’s of new fish life, good coral but at some spots it was silted over like from a big storm and there were lot’s of new growth coral. We also did a snorkel…..just ok, and some beachcombing…..not many treasures…..and we took a long and wet dinghy ride to a small settlement by the east pass. Just a few fisherman/copra huts but no people. But, there was this small, freshly painted church….cement constructed, all appropriately decorated…..wow, who knew!!

We did get the new 300 amp Balmar alternator installed…..thanks Tom, Wayne, Mark and Les for your help via emails. It took us 3 tries to get the perfect alignment over many days and the right pulley on but we got it done…..just luv the ER sauna…..90+ deg F…..the Admiral definitely had to help on this job as at times we needed all 4 hands!!!

Another 1000 milestone: We have gone 5000 nm since we left Panama back on February 4th – just ~3000 nm to go until New Zealand…..whoa!!!

5/17: 4:00pm

We are now anchored safe and sound at the south pass on Fakarava…yeah. The pass into the atoll, notoriously a difficult one, was pretty benign…..yes!!!! We timed it to be here around slack between 2 – 2:30 and we got here right at 2:00……no breakers, so away we went……it was still outflowing so we fought a 1.5 – 2.0 kt current but the water was pretty flat so no big deal!!!!

Score: MM – 4  Passes: 3     we are getting the hang of this timing thing!!!!!

OK….off to figure out where and how to do some diving and maybe get a meal out of a resort…..there are 2 on the atoll but not sure if they will serve us or just for guests 🙂 )))