Yesterday at noon we saw our last chance to catch a fish on this passage and approached yet another atoll (our fourth). We surfed close to the barrier reef in rough seas and when the waves calmed down in the shade of the atoll one of the lines finally stretched out and we hauled in a big jack. When we were in the middle of cutting up the fish, we suddenly heard a meowing right next to us–Leeloo who usually stays under deck in rough seas had climbed up to check out what we were doing. Yippieh, sashimi!
At 4 o’clock in the morning we reached Tahanea. We didn’t feel like waiting for another two hours for dawn and as the tide was just right we entered the pass under full sails. Rushing through the pitch-dark night into the atoll felt a bit eerie, despite the wide pass and our GPS tracks that we could follow. The anchor fell at 4.30 in a former anchorage and at 5 we were already sitting in the cockpit with a bottle of home-made bubbly, a late (or early) snack and then we headed for the bunk in the pink light of sunrise.
