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Kauehi Village

We waited for the morning net to finish before leaving the southern side of the atoll bound for the village on the north east side. We’d agreed to go along with Fine Gold so we could double up on spotting coral heads. Collectively, the three of us didn’t manage a good job as we struck one that was one inch less deep than our port keel. Shortly after that moment a squall came down on us cutting surface visibility to zero so we pointed into wind and motored along at less than one knot to wait it out.

Once the weather cleared we were back under way this time creeping along at three knots gradually increasing the speed as the visibility improved. Once we reached the track of our way into the southern area we turned and followed it back knowing we had a clear passage but still keeping a close eye on things until we hit the marked channel. On arrival at the anchorage outside the village we took three attempts to anchor as we were not happy with our positioning on the first two tries but once settled in we were fine.

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We took lunch and rested for a bit. John went off snorkeling with the Bristol Roses who were in the anchorage while Helen & I went ashore. We met a few of the locals around the village who were all smiles and Bonjours which made us feel good being there. They had a pretty church with some unique (to us) decorations made of shells. We also spent some time with a chap who was making jewelry out of oyster shells which looked quite pretty although none were finished and ready for sale.

The town was small and we were done fairly quickly. We pleased a few children by the shore by handing them sweets/candy/bon bons we had in our pockets. Soon we were back aboard Dignity preparing for the evening. We’d promised to entertain Lileth sometime and as they had the same Vancouver 27 as Lileth, we invited Fine Gold over to dinner too. We heard from Jackster on the VHF and learned they’d taken a pounding on their passage from the Marquesas experiencing Force 10 winds at times and Force 8 for extended periods. While reporting themselves as chipper, they’d taken some damage and we felt they could do with some care and attention so we invited them too.

So we ended up with dinner for nine. We can just squeeze this number round our table which is nice. We had a great evening all together and we were glad to be able to introduce Fine Gold and Lileth as you don’t see too many 27 footers out here and they had much to share.

Looking at the tide predictions for the next few days we realized that Thursday/Friday this week were the last two days for a while where we had an afternoon slack tide into Fakarava with enough time to find a spot to anchor while it would be light. Beyond Friday we’d have to do an overnight passage to Fakarava and make a morning slack tide which is less attractive. Fakarava has a lot going for it so we decided to head out this morning. Slack tide was just before 9am but we decided to make the cut around 7:30am against the tide to buy us more time to reach the cut at the south end of Fakarava. We shared our thoughts with others and we ended up leading four other boats out of the anchorage and the pass this morning relaying information about our experience. Transiting the cut away from slack tide was again pretty easy. We encountered a 1.5 knot counter current while staying close to the shore. We experienced a minimum depth of 13ft which we reported to the vessels behind us and those approaching from the outside. The vessels that were uncomfortable with the depth went through a little more to the center saw 3 knot counter currents but all were well.

We are now en route to the southern end of Fakarava. The winds are light but progress is good. Four of the vessels (us, Sea Mist, Imagine and A Cappella) are on their way to the southern end while Bristol Rose are on their way to the north cut where they hope to meet up with Whiskers before they head north.

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