August 26 – September 14, 2013
We spent about 3 weeks in this beautiful anchorage. This may seem like a long time, but we had several windy days that kept us on the boat. We were learning firsthand that anyone who plans a trip to Fulaga should allow enough time for those enhanced tradewind days when you need to hole up. During this time, we rather enjoyed these “snow days” on the boat, although two in a row might bring on some cabin fever.
When the winds were down, we enjoyed further exploring the area, a few more snorkeling excursions, spending time with our friends on Bright Angel, and getting to know some of our neighbors in the anchorage. (You can click to enlarge/scroll through the galleries below.)
Here, we seemed to naturally wake up very early and enjoyed having our coffee in the cockpit. The combination of cloud cover and pre-dawn light made this a beautiful pastel world, the water changing from cornflower blue to powdery greens and teals. The beaches glowed white, the sandspit especially striking against the colors of the water. We could often hear the distant rumble of ocean waves crashing on the reef outside the atoll.
In the evening we’d return to our cockpit for sundowners and watch the sunset colors, much more fiery than those of sunrise.
This anchorage turned out to be a great place to ride out one particularly windy period we had. We knew it was coming and wondered if we should move back to the more-protected anchorage near the village, but in the end we decided having miles of room and a nice sand bottom was a good bet. We were right; even when the wind got to 30 knots we were comfortable. –Cyndi
