After the morning net we went ashore for our hike to the top of the nearby hill. At 964ft above sea level we had a great view of the reef surrounding Raiatea and Taha’a as well as Hauhine and Bora Bora in the distance in different directions.
Back down in town we had $2 chip butties for lunch (at least Ben and I did – Helen had a more sensible egg and ham roll). Afterward we went to the supermarket to provision for the next few weeks.
As soon as the food was stored aboard we set sail for the east side of Taha’a to find an anchorage on the reef. We found a vast area in 5 feet of water and despite this being a little shallow for our comfort we entered the area and anchored. As we drifted back on our chain we found the boat bumping on the bottom so we decided to move to deeper water. We pulled up the chain, turned around and grounded on the sand just before the drop off. I raised the head sail to get an extra push but we weren’t going anywhere. We sent Ben in the water to check the situation. He reported that we were more over the bump and only had a little further to go. A little more cycling of the motors and we were off. We later discovered we’d left the water maker on all this time. The primary filter is probably now full of sand.
Once we’d anchored Ben and I spent a couple of hours snorkeling and testing out the new spear gun. Due to it’s length (the spear is 110cm) it’s a lot harder to load but it has a lighter trigger. There weren’t a great deal of large fish around so it took us a while to have a successful test.
Back on the boat we spent the evening finishing off the last 4 episodes of 24.
Today we plan to head inland up the inlet to our SW. We understand the hiking is interesting so we’re looking forward to that. Maybe we’ll get some of the boat projects done soon. All depends on conditions. My turn to run the net this morning as it’s Thursday.
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