Pitufa.at

Yesterday we had a day with light winds, did hours of sailing, some motorsailing and a few of motoring. We caught a (smallish) yellow-fin tuna, then a torrential rainfall washed down the boat and we finished the usual post-passage cleaning already during the last hours of the trip.

We arrived at 11 pm at the pass and proceeded straight to our favourite bay Onemea. It’s not far from the pass, but there was no moon and the only means of keeping the course in the starlight was to have one eye on the GPS track and the other on the black silhouette of Taravai’s mountainous silhouette–kind of creepy, even though we’ve done the route between the reefs dozens of time in daylight. We celebrated ‘coming home’ with midnight tapas and a few drinks too many… Today it’s pouring down again and we’ve already scrubbed the deck and are now filling up every container we can find on the boat.

Last evening the wind died on us and left us motoring for most of the night. There were a few huffs and puffs between the heavy rain clouds that had us hopefully turn off the engine a few times, but they only lasted for half an hour or so. This morning started grey, again with just a light breeze, but the weather forecast promises some more wind from the NW for today, so we hope for a breeze to take us down the last miles to the Gambier.

Despite the grey skies the ocean has this special dark-blue almost purple colour that I’ve only seen in this area (maybe it’s something typical for the higher latitudes, but we haven’t been further down than 23 degrees…) and the air is fresh and cool. I can’t wait to get back to the Gambier Islands, I feel like I can already smell the pine scent of the islands, but it’s still 70 nm to go

The weather forecast was changing daily while we were planning this trip, but so far it seems that we’ve picked a good window. We’re sailing fast and we’re almost on a direct course to the Gambier. Today the sky has turned grey and for tomorrow a wind shift from the NE to the NW is predicted–we’ll see whether it brings squally weather.

After a comfy start we are now heeling and bouncing over the waves–just as usual. 345 miles to go.

This afternoon we left Amanu and we’re not on the way to the Gambier, where we plan to spend the cyclone season. We have light winds and are sailing along slowly, but comfortably.

Amanu is a medium sized atoll with a small village (200 people according to the mayor). It is insofar special, as a wide reef just south of the village forms a nice anchorage that is protected in all directions except from the S and SE.

Yesterday we visited the cute little village (with a not so cute rubbish dump nearby from where plastic is blown all across the island) and took a look at the pass at its wildest. It looked like something you might want to attempt in a kayak if you’re into whitewater rafting, but certainly not with a sailboat.

We asked some boys who were hanging out nearby and they claimed that slack water would be an hour later. We came back in wetsuits an hour later and really, the pass was smooth, so we snorkeled both sides and marveled at huge schools of unicorn fish and some sharks.

We spent a week in Hao, first anchored outside the dock, later we moved into the harbour and joined our friends on Ednbal and Raynad who were already alongside there. Apart from daily sundowners on the dock with our neighbours and free (!) internet provided by the mayor’s office Hao doesn’t have too many attractions. The ladies at the ‘mairie’ who I asked about anything to see or do, could also come up with nothing (apart from church on Sunday ). Over the past few days several planes a day landed to take school pupils from the big college in Hao back to their homes on the different atolls for Christmas.

Today we enjoyed a lovely daysail from Hao up to Amanu. The wind was steady 12-15 kn from the ESE, the seas were calm (not even the cat got seasick), and the sky mostly sunny. Hao flushed us out through its pass with 3.5-4 kn in spite of a rising tide well after low water. We reached Amanu’s pass 16 nm and 3 hours later where a strong ingoing current and opposing wind caused steep waves inside the pass. Amanu has a narrow pass with a reef that requires a turn at the end, so we waited an hour, sailed further up and down hoping to eventually catch a fish, but no luck there. An hour later we had 2 knots of ingoing current, but no problem entering the lagoon.

We sailed directly down to the southeastern corner as the weather forecast predicts stronger southeasterly wind. We’ll start exploring tomorrow.