Tiketite

After the morning’s radio activities we invited Tim and Ruth over from Kamaya. They’d expressed interest in seeing some of John’s photos so John had set up a slide show of some of those that he’d prepared. They were impressed with what they saw. After they left we readied the boat and headed north.

The wind was on our nose and as we were in a narrow channel we motor sailed. Half way to our destination, only 7.5 nm to the north, the genset cut out with a fuel feed issue. It’s been a while since I changed the fuel filters and this was probably the cause. The channel we were in had just turned slightly and the wind had picked up enough for us to tack our way up the channel sailing very close to the wind to keep the boat speed down as we had coral heads to negotiate.

We made our desired spot tucked in behind where the atoll would give us shelter from the northerly wind and swell. On our chart it is named Tiketite. We had hoped to have the spot to ourselves but there was one other boat there, presumably looking for similar shelter.

We arrived in time for lunch. Afterwards, John and I went snorkeling. We’d learned that green parrot fish were good and safe to eat so I hoped to find some of them. As soon as I was in the water with my spear gun I saw a group of small ones so I spent a while following them around. They were quite shy so I never got close enough to shoot. I did see a black tipped reef shark swimming around so our combined presence was the probable cause for the fishes nervousness.

We then took the dinghy over to the nearby low water and waded over to the ocean. We wanted to suss the area out as we had plans to go lobster hunting in the evening. There were a few reef sharks swimming around in a foot of water including one large one which got spooked by John, headed right at me before veering off towards the deeper inland water. It was quite a sight seeing a 4-5 foot shark going full pelt through a foot of water.

Back near the dinghy we swam around in the shallow water. I saw some more parrots and shot one although the spear bounced off it’s scaly side. I followed the group of fish a little further and eventually found the shot fish lying on it’s side having taken quite a bruising. I nudged it and it managed to swim off to a crevice where it hid its head leaving its tail sticking out. I shot it again through the tail this time successfully. Realizing the sharks may now be interested I made it back to the dinghy quickly.

Back on the boat I had a go at cleaning and filleting the parrot fish. It really was too small and would only feed one even if I could successfully fillet it. In the end I used it’s flesh on a large hook which I hand lined over the stern of the boat. Before long I’d caught an emperor sweet lips fish of a decent size which we brought aboard. I gutted it and John filleted it. I hooked another but that one got away. We knew these fish were edible and safe as they were part of our fare when we had the meal together at Manihi’s a few days earlier.

After cleaning the gore from the back deck I now turned my attention to the fuel line. I removed the primary filter and it was indeed full of dirt so I switched it out. Later we ran the genset for the washing machine and all was fine. I also decided to do an inventory of my filters and genset spares. I’d forgotten how many spares I’d bought and we still have more than enough to go for a few years. The thinking being that if we really get some bad fuel and have to replace filters every ten hours, we can still get somewhere to clean up and restock.

We had the emperor sweet lips fish for dinner – fried in seasoned flour – with pasta. Quite delicious. None of us really had the energy to go lobstering so we settled for watching the final Bourne movie.

Today we’ll head further up the coast looking for a spot we fancy spending another night in. It’s possible we’ll make it all the way to the town at the north east corner. The wind is still from the north. We had hoped to be able to sail all the way up the channel which is normally the case in the prevailing ENE winds but the weather right now is all a bit of a mess.