Rangiroa (Kind Of, Almost) (Tuamotus, French Polynesia)

July 7 – 8, 2012

After an overnight motor, we arrived at Rangiroa.  Again, we had no idea what time the slack tide would be to enter the pass – what’s new?  No one seems to know.  We called on the radio and the best guess was to try in about an hour.  We waited and did.  It wasn’t too bad – not like white water rafting in Fakarava!  There were waves but we were going with them.  Once inside, it’s like a great big lake, really big!  Here are some pictures.

As soon as we got in and anchored, a couple of friends from Seawings came over in their dingy and gave us the bad news: there were strong winds due to start in a few days and not let up for at least a week.  As the anchorage wasn’t very protected if the wind went at all south, and since we didn’t want to be pinned down and trapped on our boat for a week, we made the hard decision to head out the next day without ever going on land at Rangiroa and head for Tahiti.  Here are our friends delivering the bad news – Brian and Juliet.

The next morning, we headed off.  A local gave us this sendoff.

Bye Rangiroa!  Maybe we’ll get to visit some other day. -Rich

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