Month: June 2012

Lake Sailing (Southwest Fakarava, Tuamotus)

June 25, 2012

We made the 30 mile trip to the south anchorage of Fakarava today – traveling the entire way inside the atoll. It was like sailing in a great big lake. The wind switched around early this morning to come from the north as predicted and it made for a very pleasant trip. We motor-sailed all day as the wind was pretty light and we needed to run the engine to charge the batteries anyway. With all the turns in the channel, pearl farm bouys, and occasional high spot, I think it was the most vigilant we’ve ever had to be.

When we got to the south end of the atoll, it was a real challenge as it’s not charted well. You have to look into the water to try to see the spots that are too shallow to sail over. Right now, we’re anchored in about 12 feet of water. Our boat draws seven feet (sticks down seven feet underwater). There are rocks and coral heads all around us (called bombies). Being new at this, we had to jump in the water on arrival to see if the bombies were going to hit our keel. We have at least a good two feet to spare over the highest ones.

Such was our cruising adventure today. Another day, another steep learning curve! -Rich

Fakarava (Tuamotus)

June 23, 2012

We got in yesterday after a long, hard passage. Ok, only four days but it seemed long. We’re at a nice, calm, safe anchorage today and loafing on the boat while the wind is still blowing hard. It’s supposed to ease tomorrow and change directions. If it does, we’re going to sail 30 miles to the south end of this atoll. It’ll be an interesting trip as the entire passage will be inside the huge lagoon inside the atoll. We’re told that the snorkeling is incredible by the south pass and that there are tiny islands called motus that we can have all to ourselves. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? -Rich

Underway (still!) (Passage from Marquesas to Tuamotus)

June 21, 2012

We’re still underway from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus and it’s been a long, strange and kind of hard trip so far and last night took the prize for strange. We saw phantom boats on our instruments, I saw phantom lights ahead of us, and there were strange flashes both in the water and on the horizon.

The strange flashes in the water are about the only part of that we can explain. There are creatures living in the water that emit light when disturbed (bioluminescense). Our boat passing disturbs them. But these are not like the tiny bioluminescent plankton we’re used to – these are huge flashes. The individual flashes seem to range from about a six inch disk to an eighteen inch disk. It seems sometimes there may be many together making a flash that is several feet in diameter. Sometimes these greenish flashes are so bright we wonder if they don’t have there little fishy flash cameras out to take our picture as we pass – it’s like a strobe going off.

Maybe this bioluminescense explains some of the other strange things we saw last night but I don’t think so. For now, we’re going with UFO. -Rich