I was awoken by John at 5am for my regular shift. He had experienced some squalls during his shift and from the radar we still had some around us. Just what we wanted as we approached land.
In the light of the full moon I could just make out a line on the horizon – our destination Kauehi. Shortly before dawn I felt we had missed the nearby squalls or more likely, they had missed us, so I made myself breakfast. As I was halfway through my bowl of cornflakes we were suddenly hit by a squall. The wind came up fast and the boat started flying. Both nuts dropped and at least one had a fish on it. I left my breakfast and first looked after the boat by falling off 30 degrees to reduce the apparent wind from the mid twenties to high teens. The downside of this maneuver was it placed us on a course for the shore. The shore was a few miles off but I wasn’t keen on using up our margin in case we had prolonged bad weather and perhaps ran into difficulties.
The dropping nuts had brought John and Helen out. By now we were reeling in a fish on the starboard side which turned out to be a fair sized mahi mahi. Sadly, this one too got away as it got close to the boat. As they do, the mahi leapt into the air shaking vigorously and sufficiently to throw the hook.
Soon the squall had abated and I had the boat heading away from land this time a little off our course to build some more distance from the atoll. The next couple of hours saw the skies clear as we rounded the SE corner of Kaeuhi. We made it to the pass two hours before low tide and three hours before slack (where the water would be practically still). Looking at the pass from a distance the NW third was a turmoil of standing waves and eddies but the SE two thirds looked non turbulent despite moving out quite rapidly.
I decided it was worth trying to enter early as there was room to maneuver if we ran into trouble and the conditions looked manageable. I hoped to be able to sail through but I started the genset so we could apply maximum power if required. We sailed into the pass keeping close to the SE shore. The water was crystal clear and we could easily see the reef at the bottom. Once in the pass we were in three and a half to four knots of counter current. The wind decided at that moment to drop to nine knots and we ended up standing still. We were making four knots through the water but we were in no mood to just sit there and hope for the best. I engaged the motors and pushed us through into the broad expanse of water in the lagoon.
Once inside we were again sailing. In Kauehi there are two main anchorages. The first is the town across a cleared channel from the cut. There is also the ‘southern anchorage’ where we wanted to go first. This is not so much an anchorage but a long strip of land and motus behind which boats can shelter from the wind and swell with lots of distance between each boat. While the channel between the cut and the town is clear of obstructions, the broad expanse of water either side is not. Nor is it all surveyed so the possibility of sailing into coral heads or submerged rocks is a real one.
Still being the morning we could not head directly to the southern anchorage as the sun would be been in our eyes and it would be impossible to see any underwater obstructions. We therefore sailed the cleared channel nearly to the town before tacking and sailing across the lagoon which all eyes ahead looking for hazards. We had to tack twice more before we reached the anchorage. We had spotted a few coral heads along the way which would have done us no good if we’d hit them but we safely avoided each one. There were four other boats spread out across about a mile of the anchorage when we arrived. We picked a spot to ourselves and anchored just before midday.
We soon had lunch and a beer each having been again dry for the duration of the passage. After lunch we dinghied ashore to take a look around the small patch of land we were anchored behind. The land turned out to be a rubble of dead and broken coral which was in no way barefoot friendly. It took about twenty to thirty minutes to walk all the way around our little motu. At each end a shallow reef connected us to the next patch of land. I waded around one of these spotting two small black tipped reef sharks. We’d all decided it was worth building a fire out of some of the dead wood here and perhaps cook our dinner on it. We pulled together some firewood ready for the evening.
We snorkeled back to the boat where I spent a while scraping barnacles off the props and the weeds from the sides of the boat. Then it was time for an afternoon snooze. Later, John and I went ashore to collect more firewood and start the fire. While I was asleep Helen and John had prepared food to be cooked on the fire. The very dry wood was soon aflame and cooking embers building. There we met an Australian couple, Greg and Sheila, from Fine Gold who we’d passed on some info regarding the passage into the lagoon.
Once the embers had built John cooked up the potatoes, sweet corn, burger and fish which we ate back aboard the boat. After dinner we watched the movie Batman – Dark Knight before crashing to a needed sleep.
We now have about two weeks in the Tuamotus. It is a chance to finally slow down. We reckon on staying put where we are for at least three nights before moving over to visit the town for a short while. Our next stop will be the larger atoll Fakarava which has a bit more going on than here.
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