July 8, 2012
We left Toau atoll on Friday afternoon to make the 24 hour trip to Rangiroa. It wasn’t a bad passage with mostly light winds and a lot of motoring. The trip through the pass into Rangiroa was exciting but nothing like the trip out of Fakarava (more on that adventure later). We arrived here to unwelcome news.
It seems the long-range weather forecast is for some very strong winds here and even south to Tahiti. The winds should pick up on Wednesday and blow for maybe a week. We’re faced with either staying here in an anchorage that isn’t ideal, stuck on our boat for a week, or bugging out today to make Tahiti before the blow starts. We are opting for the later.
We’ll leave here at about 3:00 when the tides are right in the pass (we hope) to sail the 36 hours or so to Tahiti. We should arrive there on Tuesday morning. We’re going to try to find a secure marina there, or good anchorage, to sit in though the high winds. We’ll send an update when we get in. -Rich
This is the view of Rangiroa from our boat right now. The hotel rooms you see over the water, as we understand it, go for 1,300 euros a night – and they’re view of us! I like our view better. (Though, I guess if you wrote all the boat expenses down and did the math, we might be paying even more than that for our accommodations 😉
