Tuamotu Archipelago
Friday, June 24, 2011
We have been here in Rangiroa for 6 days now and it has been
really nice to stay in one place for a while. Granted 6 days is not
all that long, but it’s the longest that we have stayed anywhere
since La Paz. And what an amazing place this is, especially if you
love being in the water. On land (what little there is, the highest
elevation is 15’) is pretty cool too and on Wednesday we rode
bicycles down to the other end of the motu to the town of Avatoru.
It is only 6 miles but the return trip against the tradewinds, which
were blowing 15-20 knots, was a bit challenging and required
multiple stops for adult beverages.
Yesterday, Bill and I went scuba diving again. This time we started
at the reef, where we previously saw the tiger shark, but then went
into the pass and rode the 5-6 knot current from outside of the atoll
all the way into the lagoon. Early in the dive we were approached by
5 large bottlenose dolphins. Now I am used to being in the water
with
dolphins, but usually I would be on my surfboard or
paddleboard. This
was way different. Here I am 60 feet underwater
and I am surrounded
by 4 dolphins, one of which comes up right next
to me (literally 2’ away)
as if it wants to be petted.(I have some
really
great video of the dolphin that we will try to get posted soon).
They
hung out with us for 5-10 minutes until we started to feel the
current
pulling us towards the pass. Once in the pass, you really get
the sensation
that you are flying as you effortlessly cruise past the
coral heads and
sand patches that form the pass. The only downside is
that it is impossible to stop to get a better look at something. Which
might be a good thing as time of year here is the gray reef shark
mating
season and there were hundreds of them congregated on the
bottom pass.
I am a little bummed as we are leaving Rangiroa and the Tuamotus
tomorrow. I really love these coral atolls and as I mentioned before
I could spend an entire season exploring just the Tuamotus. The
challenge associated with entering and leaving atolls (running the passes)
is so completely overshadowed by the striking beauty of the lagoon, its
peaceful waters, white sand motus, and abundant sea life. Jackie doesn’t
necessarily agree that running the passes is “completely overshadowed” and she
is excited that tomorrow will be our last challenging pass for quite a while. We are
headed to Papeete in Tahiti which is about 200 miles away.
Monday, June 20, 2011
All I can say right now is wow…Bill and I just got back from a dive here outside of Tiputa pass at Rangiroa...and wow. We just had a 12’ tiger shark swim right by us…wow.
Ok, a little background first…but seriously we just had a 12’ tiger shark swim right by us. Yesterday Bill and I decided that we should do a dive with a local dive operator here in Rangiroa. Normally we would just hop in the dingy and go on our own, but conditions in the pass (which is the best place to dive) have been outrageous. This
also leads me to an apology that I owe the stupid tide program as there was a reason that the
current coming in the pass the other day was flowing out of the lagoon when it should have
been going in. Currently there is a huge south swell that is washing over the reefs along the
south side of the atoll. This is literally filling up the atoll and the only places that the water
can escape are via the two navigable passes at Tiputa and Avatoru. When this happens the
flow of water out of the lagoon is stronger than the incoming tide, so the flow is constantly
out of the lagoon. We have also been having 20-25 knot winds that are really stirring up the
pass. Hence our decision to go with some local knowledge.
We visited 3 different operators and went with a group called 6 Passengers. They do two
different dives, one is a drift dive through the pass and one is on the reef outside of the
pass. They can only do the drift dive when there is an incoming current, which as I explained
earlier is not happening right now. So obviously we did the outside reef. So we jump in an
18’ hardbottom inflatable boat, with 2 other divers, a divemaster, a driver and head out into
the pass. Conditions are crazy…6 to 8 foot seas, breaking surf and about an 8 knot outgoing
current. We jumped in the water east of the pass and with the plan to work our way back
towards and into the pass where the boat would pick us up. Underwater was amazing with
only a slight current and no indication of the turmoil at the surface. The reef was really
health with tons of live coral and millions of fish. We saw lots of black tip and gray reef
sharks, several large Napoleon wrasses, a sea turtle that literally swam in to my camera
(we will try to get that video posted), and a huge school of barracuda. I then see something
swimming towards us
from the ocean side of the reef. I saw its square/flat head, straight
line mouth and thought how cool here comes a whale shark. With the visibility so clear and
looking out in to the vast blue of the ocean I could not judge the size of this shark swimming
towards us. As it got closer and I saw the unmistakable stripes, I realized that it was a tiger
shark. It swam so slowly and graciously right in front of us and I was literally mesmerized by
the experience. The only thing that snapped me out of it was seeing our divemaster
enthusiastically shaking her hands above her head. At first I thought she was signaling for us to get the heck out of the water, but obviously she was super excited too. The only other tiger shark I have ever seen was with Bill and it was a dead one off of the back of a fishing boat in Fiji. To top it all off, as we did our safety stop, a huge manta ray came in to the reef and swam right over top of us. Again all I can say today is …wow.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
So its 4am on Saturday morning and we have just hove to about 5 miles from Tiputa pass at
Rangiroa.
We made it through the pass at Ahe at about 1pm yesterday just after low tide. Our timing
was perfect as we had relatively calm conditions and a 1.5 knot current on the nose. Being
that Rangiroa is only 80 miles from Ahe, we tried to sail here as slow as we could. But we
had 20-25 knots of breeze and even sailing with only a reefed mainsail, we are here a little
early. High tide is supposedly at 6:23am and we are hoping that there will be enough daylight
to enter a little before the high. Otherwise we will have to stay hove to until low tide at
around 12:30pm. The good news is that this is a deep and wide pass with range markers to
help guide you in (so Jake doesn’t have to be up the mast). The bad news is that it is a deep
and wide pass on the second largest atoll in the world and the current/standing waves can be
outrageous. Because of this it is recommended that you enter with a slight current traveling
into the lagoon. If high tide really happens at 6:23am we should be fine. Jackie is just happy
that she doesn’t have to drive through this one. I will update you shortly….
t’s now about 7:30am and we are safely anchored inside the lagoon. It started getting light
about 5:30am, so we headed up to the pass to take a look at conditions. As soon as I saw the
waves on the outside of the pass I started cursing the stupid tide program, the current was
already coming out of the lagoon. We immediately did a u-turn and headed back out to open
water. While we were discussing the situation with Solstice another smaller sailboat started
heading into the pass. Awesome, we have the proverbial canary in a coal mine… and we watched as he almost came to a complete stop about halfway through the pass. We noticed that conditions were rapidly getting worse as the rip current waves on the right side of the pass were growing to about 6 feet. Hoping that we had more powerful engines than the small sailboat, we decided to go for it. As we approached the pass our speed was 7 knots. The waves on the right side of the channel were continuing to grow and expand into the center of the channel. To avoid them
we had to steer more to the left and off of the range markers. As we approached the middle
of the pass our speed began to drop, 6, 5, 4, 3. At the point in the pass where we slowed to
3 knots there were 3-4 foot standing waves. It was actually pretty cool, because the boat
would slow down to about 2.5 knots then you would catch one of the standing waves and surf
the boat down it at around 5-6 knots. Every so slowly we progressed through the pass, the
waves diminished, and the speed went back up. Thank goodness for the smaller sailboat
having the guts to go first, otherwise we would still be out there hove to in 20-25 knots of
slop. Long night, its nap time….
Friday, June 17, 2011
Holy cow…I can’t believe that we have been in Ahe for 3 days already. The anchorage
here off of Tenukupara is located in the southwest corner of the atoll and it is completely
protected from the prevailing southeast tradewinds. The wind can blow 25kts and the
anchorage is still flat as a pancake. It’s a different story though going to the pearl farm
when it is blowing. The Kamoka pearl farm is about 4 miles back towards the pass and is
exposed to the tradewinds. We have had a couple of really wet dingy rides there in the
past couple of days. This is the same pearl farm where Bill on Solstice and I spent a
week back in 1998. It was great to see the owner Patrick and a few of the guys that
were there back in 1998. The black pearl industry has taken quite a hit since then
due to mass production of pearls by the Japanese. There were over 20 people
working there back then, but now only 4 paid workers and a number of “interns”.
The interns get free room and board for working there. The other big change
is that there are so many fish in the lagoon now that they have to hang the
oysters in plastic cages to prevent the fish from eating them.
There were only 2 other boats in the Tenukupara anchorage when we arrived.
One was a 40-something sailboat and the other a 163’ megayacht named Exuma.
Amazingly it only draws about 8 feet, hence its ability to get thru the pass. So
Jackie and I are sitting in the cockpit of Hokule’a, when we see a panel on the
side of Exuma open up and two cantilever beams begin to extend out of the
opening. Then we see what looks like a small Range Rover SUV being lowered
by the beams into the water. It ends up being an amphibious vehicle in which
they motor over to a ramp on the motu (that the locals use to launch their boats)
and drive up the ramp onto a nearby street. Word spread quickly on the motu
about the strange vehicle as they drove up and down the tiny streets. By the time
they were ready to leave nearly every kid in town was running behind the vehicle
towards the harbor to see it go back in the water. It was rather surreal, almost
like a James Bond movie.
Yesterday, Bill and I tried to go scuba diving in the pass, but our timing was off and
the current was raging. We settled for some really great snorkeling in the lagoon,
followed by a trip to the pearl farm to say goodbye.
Jackie of course ended up with some pearls to match the set that I was given by
the farm some 13 years ago.
We are off to Rangiroa tomorrow which is about 80 miles away. We have given up on
the stupid tide program (because we have been timing and measuring tides for the past
3 days) and we think that slack tide here in Ahe is around 12:30pm tomorrow. Jackie
is soooo excited to go thru the pass again….. ( I am being highly facetious of course).
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Jackie's second trip through a pass was a little too exciting...
Our tide program indicated that slack tide would be around the 8:40am low tide. So we had coordinated with Solstice to start pulling anchors at about 7:45am. The anchorage here in Manihi has lots of coral on the bottom and it took Jackie and me awhile to get the anchor free. Just as the anchor was coming out of the water, we get a call on the VHF from Solstice that his anchor is stuck and he needs to dive on it to get it free. I secure our anchor and swim over to Solstice to lend a hand. By the time we get his anchor up and I swim back to Hokule'a it is about
9:15am.
So we were about 45 minutes late getting to the pass. No big deal we thought,
in fact this should be better because the tide should be rising and the current should
be slightly against us (boats, especially sailboats, have better maneuverability when going
against a current than going with a current). So we assume our positions (Jake up the mast,
Jackie at the wheel, and Bill on Solstice close behind) and approach the pass. From a
distance it didn't look too bad, other than it was obvious that the tide was still dropping
and we were going with the current. As we got the point to make our turn into the pass,
the boat was already being sucked into the pass - no turning back now. We had been
motoring at about 6 knots (assuming that we would be motoring into the current) and I
was up the mast telling Jackie which way to steer around the coral heads. All of a sudden
the boat starts to turn sharply to port, heading quickly towards the shallow coral reef
that forms on the edge of the pass. Simultaneously, I hear Jackie scream that she has no
control of the boat. I scramble down the mast and back to the cockpit. I pushed the
throttle up all the way and ran the engine as fast as it would go. After what seemed like
forever (maybe 3 seconds), the bow finally came around and we were once again heading
(albeit precariously) in the right direction in the pass. We kept the engine at full throttle
until we were well clear of the pass. Obviously the current in the pass was greater than 6
knots, hence the reason we lost control.
So at this point we had absolutely zero confidence in the stupid tide program and once our
heart rates got back to normal, we decided that we would have to handle the pass at Ahe
the old fashioned way of watching and waiting. It is only 17 miles from the pass at Manihi
to the pass at Ahe and I spent most of the travel time trying to figure out how I was going
to convince Jackie that the pass at Ahe would be much easier even though it is only half as
wide(85 feet) as the pass at Manihi. We arrived there about half past noon and did a drive
by to check conditions in the pass. Not good - the tide was still on the rise and current
flowing into the lagoon was strong. So we hove to well outside of the pass and planned to
check it again in an hour. At 2pm the current had slowed a little bit but was still too much
to enter. We now were faced with another dilemma in that we would soon be losing the
overhead sunlight necessary to see and avoid the coral heads in the pass. Not really wanting
to spend the night hove to outside the pass, I decided to put the dingy in the water and go investigate conditions in the pass up close. I drove the dingy through the pass and into the lagoon taking depth and current measurements along the way. The current had dropped to about 4 to 5 knots, which was not ideal, but doable. A small squall rolled through while I was in the lagoon and there were clear skies behind it. This meant we needed to enter now or wait until tomorrow. Back to the boat, assumed our positions, throttled up and we made it through the pass without issue. Jackie did note that the shallowest depth she saw was 9' (we draw 6.5 feet) and that our maximum speed over the bottom was 10.2 knots (boat speed plus current).
Once inside the lagoon, it is about a 5 mile trip to the anchorage at Tenukupara weaving
your way through a number of large coral heads. By 5pm we had the anchors down enjoying
the calm and peaceful anchorage in Ahe. Tomorrow we are heading to a black pearl farm
to visit with friends we met here 13 years ago.
Monday, June 13, 2011
So today has been a total relaxation day. No boat projects
at all. Although I did spend
an hour or so this morning helping
another boat free up their anchor from the coral.
The rest of
the day was spent doing a hike and a picnic on the motu and ended
with
another attempt at the hotel for dinner. Although this time
we called in a professional,
a local named Fernando who happens
to be the town baker, a fisherman, divemaster,
pearl farmer, copra
farmer and the minister at the local church. In his spare time, he
also provides a water taxi service from the anchorage. In his 22'
panga with a 100 hp
engine, we made it to the hotel in about 15
minutes and most importantly - dry. The
setting was absolutely beautiful.
The hotel had 12 bungalows over the water and the
bar/restaurant extended
out over the lagoon. We enjoyed one of the best meals we
have had in months.
Fernando picked us up around 9:30pm and we were back at the
boat by
9:45pm with full bellies and still dry. Leaving for Ahe in the morning.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Ia Orana (hello in Tahitian) from Manihi….what an amazing place. I had forgotten
how much I love coral atolls and the Tuamotus in particular. The Tuamotus is
composed
of 78 islands, all but two of which are coral atolls. I could spend years
here. For those that are not familiar with atolls, imagine a ring of small islands with
palm trees and white sand beaches (called motu’s) connected by shallow coral reefs.
Outside of the atoll is typical open ocean conditions, but inside the atoll is a
protected little salt water swimming pool. Twenty years ago most boats tried to
avoid the Tuamotus as they were known as the Dangerous Archipelago. Rightfully so
because their low lying character and changing currents can make navigation through
this area extremely challenging and dangerous. Fortunately GPS, better charting, and
better radar units have made this area more accessible for small boats in recent
years.
The challenge still lies with actually entering the atolls. Most atolls have one or
maybe two “passes” or openings that are deep enough to allow entry for boats inside
the atolls. Most of these passes are narrow, shallow and have obstacles such as large
coral heads and bars that one must steer around. In order to do this, you need good
sunlight overhead and a person (Jake) at least halfway up the mast spotting the
obstacles and communicating (yelling) to the person driving the boat (Jackie) how to
avoid the obstacles. The other challenge is that with every tide change the main way
that water travels in and out of the atoll is through these same passes. Currents can
easily be 8 to 10 knots through the pass, which creates amazing breaking waves, rip
currents, and even large standing waves in some cases. So in order to enter the pass
you
have to wait for what is called “slack tide” which starts around 30 minutes
before and
runs until 30 minutes after the actual high or low tide. So there is some
luck involved here as you hope to arrive at the pass a little before slack tide and at a
time when you have sunlight over head (typically 10am to 2pm). Otherwise you may have
to wait until the next day to try and enter.
We arrived at the pass at about 9 am on Saturday and hove to under the assumption that slack tide was around noon (we have a computer program that calculates tides). We were having a nice breakfast and relaxing a bit when an Aussie voice hailed us on the radio and asked if we needed any assistance. I responded and asked if there was any local information about conditions in the pass and when was the best time to enter. He responded that conditions were ideal to enter now, if we hurried. Not wanting to question local knowledge and definitely not wanting to have to hove to outside for the next opportunity, we started the motor, dropped the mainsail and headed towards the pass. I climbed the mast and we headed in. Bill on Solstice was following close behind since he did not have anyone else aboard to climb the mast. Jackie was a little nervous especially when she saw the “raging river” (as she described it) and the area of 2 foot high standing waves at the end of the pass. This was her first pass transit and she did awesome. Once in the atoll, we navigated around the coral heads to a beautiful anchorage just off of a large motu where I happily sit and write this update…..
PS. As our friends Jim and Emma on Bluesky say…. the best thing after an extended passage is a shower, clean clothes and a good meal on land. The town here is pretty small and none of the guide books we have talk about any restaurants other than one at a nearby resort hotel. So we showered, put on clean clothes and decided (with Bill on Solstice) to go to the hotel for dinner. The hotel was located on the otherside of the atoll about 2.5 miles away and we told Bill that we would swing by in the dingy and pick him up around 4pm. We did consider the fact that we would have to come back from dinner at night in unfamiliar waters with numerous unmarked coral heads and pearl farms. Our game plan was to take the handheld GPS, set a route and mark all of the “obstacles” on the way over in the daylight. We did this, marked 8 obstacles, and arrived at the hotel around 4:30 only to find that the restaurant didn’t open until 7pm, you typically needed a reservation and that the bar also didn’t open until 7pm. Bummer. The other bummer was that we had not considered that the trip from the boat to the hotel was mostly downwind and now we had to travel back to the boat against the 15 knot wind and the 2 foot chop that had formed on the hotel side of the atoll. We arrived back at the boat about 45 minutes later drenched and hungry. So much for showers, clean clothes, and good meals on land ….
Friday, June 10, 2011
You would think by now that we would be used to sailing in 30 knots and 10-12
foot seas. Guess what….we are not. We left Nuku Hiva knowing that we would
have
at least one day of these conditions based on the weather that I downloaded before
we left. However, it was the best weather window that was forecast for the entire
next week. Jackie was very clear this morning that if these are the typical sea
conditions that we are going to have, then we should really spend more time enjoying
the places we visit. Amen! In other words, more time at anchor than at sea. We really
shouldn’t complain too much, because Bill on Solstice is having to endure this on his
first single handed trip. He is doing awesome by the way and we are so proud of him.
We only have about a 100 miles to go and the forecast is for decreasing winds. We
anticipate getting to the pass around 8 am and then we have to wait for slack tide at
around noon before we can enter the pass. I will explain more about the pass and why
we have to wait for slack tide in my next update … from some peaceful nchorage in
Manihi.