We arrived at the East Pass when some tidal current was going in, we were pushed with 8-9 knots inside. We continued to the "sandy spit", it actually has a significant reef extending south and gives good protection in easterly winds, which would increase and turn a bit southerly the next days, they said.
For a first night, this, our favorite spot in Makemo, was good, but there is almost no internet. We can get some signal by pulling a phone up the mast and use it as hotspot, but that won't work for our habitual Sunday phone calls. For that we moved to town, by the east pass, and anchored in front of the pier, and didn't even leave the boat.
There is very little to do on a Sunday, and we can hear the choirs from the church, on the boat. After catching up with the moms, and having access to better weather info with good internet, we saw we had to move away from the unprotected anchorage in front of town.
For the predicted SE wind we moved to the East Bight. Again, we were comparing what coral heads we identified on the sat pics and checked / added what we saw with our own eyes. A wonderful motoring day ended in a "blue lagoon", with depths of less than 20 feet, white sand on the bottom, and many coral heads, usually more than 8 feet below the surface. It very much reminded us of the Bahamas..
Since this was probably the last sunny day, we spent that in the dingy, swimming, snorkeling, shelling. Silvie saw what she thought of an octopus upside down, showing its arms and suction cups upward. All from a moving dinghy...
Seconds later, she was in the water with her camera and found two octopi / octopussies ;-)
One was a bit shy and turned pale, while having a flat skin. The second was all dark and showed what octopi can do with their skin, all bumpy and spiky. And they were holding hands!
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| Cute Couple |
Here we spent three nights, the later two the shitty weather rolled in and there wasn't much to do. But we were protected from the wind and had just enough internet to check on weather every so often.
By now, reports from friends in the Society islands (Tahiti -> Bora Bora) were: 7 days of rain, no sun, high winds.
While we were out of the thick of bad weather, we have our own share of tales to tell:
As soon as the weather models showed lightening wind, we thought to head back to town, some supplies are running low. There are a couple Magasins, they have a bakery in town, and an egg farm we never visited but seems good on fresh eggs. Plus the supply ship "NukuHau" is in town from Tahiti, the stores should be fully stocked. The very early morning we thought would be good to leave for town, a big squall came thru.
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| floats in front of us, where they belong, plus "bommies" left&right |
Before, we had no wind for most of the night. Without the floats, the anchor chain would be snaked around the bottom, with just the chain holding the boat in place in such light wind. When using the floats to keep the anchor chain above the coral, it behaves differently. The weight of the chain will start pulling the floats together, and one has 4-5 floats close together with loops of anchor chain hanging from them. All no problem until a wind gust hits from the other side. That morning the gust hit, the boat first leaned and then we heard a sickening, crunching sound that shuddered the boat. Silvie's word was: "SHIT", thinking we are hitting coral with the rudder, which is under the bed where we sleep.
Jumping out of bed, we faced driving rain in the companion way. The boat was pointing stern to the wind, not bow into the wind. Not good!
With both of us on deck (don't ask about clothing), in pelting rain, we saw the anchor chain tightly wrapped along the hull on one side, pointing towards the rudder. And one of our floats coming up the other side of the rudder. Good news: No coral head involved in the crunching noise, "just" chain rubbing at the boat. Not knowing how close the propeller was to chain and float lines, there was no way to maneuver out of this mess using the engine. Silvie donned fins and was quickly able to unhook the float, then the boat started turning back into the wind. A float line had been caught in the gap between rudder and skeg. Whew, what a shit show! That is one big minus point against using the floats for the anchor chain.
Now that we were awake, we double checked the weather and all was a go to anchor in front of town for some provisioning. We left the East Bight and poked our way again 12nm thru the coral heads. The supply ship NukuHau left just when we were close to town, great, so we can anchor close to shore and pier in the light north wind we had. Not being in a rush and after the rude awakening in the early hours, we postponed the shopping for next day.
Internet is great here, and after uploading a bunch of pics, downloading a few more videos, we checked the weather again. Oh Uh! The one model (GFS) suddenly showed strong winds from the south, for late night, to where we are totally unprotected. There was no such wind in any of the other models. Still, better be careful, we set anchor alarm, depth alarm and kept checking the weather.
It started 6h earlier than the GFS told us. By sunset the wind turned south but wasn't strong. The depth alarm went off because we swung around into shallow water. OK, no big deal, let's anchor a bit deeper.
Next change came by 8pm, it suddenly started blowing 28kn sustained, still from the south, gusting close to 40. We hoped for it to be a squall to pass thru. An hour later we were sitting on a bucking Bronco that tries to break the chain. Add driving rain to that for the fun of it. We could hear the chain chafing on coral. A bit later the anchor let loose and was grinding from rock to rock, not getting a good hold. Upping anchor, unhooking the f...ing floats, not losing digits when the anchor is snagging the next rock and the chain is running back out, was a major feat. At least our routine of signals from bow (pitching into the waves) to cockpit worked well.
Wow, that could have gone wrong.
What now? We certainly had a 0.5x0.5 mile area to navigate without coral heads that come to the surface, so we did just that. For hours.
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| Going around in circles, or better, our attempt on five circles |
Taken from an ABBA (hit?) song:
If it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could make it)
If it wasn't for the nights
(If it wasn't for the nights I think that I could take it)
The wind didn't ABBAte, but it turned easterly, slowly. That sandy spit would now give us decent protection. It is 20nm away, downwind, but it is dark, raining, and coral heads are everywhere!
23:30 we made that decision. Turning downwind, without sails, no engine needed, we first made 4-5 knots weaving thru the coral heads not seeing most of them. By now we had 2 tracks to follow, for the second one we had purposely left known dangers at least 50 meters to either side (the first track was much closer to coral heads, which is fine in good light). While drifting downwind, we surely kept staring into the dark night, with rain from behind, and tried to identify the coral heads we passed... and didn't see many.
Later the wind calmed a tad. By three in the morning we were anchored safely, behind that sandy spit. Again, that could have gone so wrong.
