Rough Catch Up

I hate it when blogs I follow go silent, and here I am pulling the same stunt. Last week I had a technology glitch, but seriously? It’s been a month?

*Passage muffins, aka “use up the bananas and the almost-gone mangoes”*

We were in the Gambiers for almost exactly 2 months before starting the trek back west. The plan had been to make our way back to Takaroa.

The weather gods had other plans.

*Our NoForeignLand tracks, coming from the Marquesas in the north*

A good passage to Hao, taking almost a full day less than the journey to Gambiers. Then a window to get to Tahanea, atoll #13 (a blog post I still have not written), and after a few days there, we headed out the pass to sail to Takaroa.

Our friends on Sailing Totem have a saying - Misery is Optional - and when the forecast northeast winds were actually solid north, stronger than expected, with a bigger sea state than forecast . . . we lasted an hour of bashing our way into it before calling the plan off. Instead, we beelined it into Fakarava, dropping the hook in Hirifa just as the sun went down. In the morning, we reversed course back out the pass and off to Tahiti.

*Sailing out the south pass at Fakarava. Photo courtesy Sophie on LunaSea.*

As I wrote in that edition of Calypso Chronicles, “We bore off, shook the reef, and settled in for a fast sail to Fakarava, mourning the abrupt end to our time in the Tuamotus. Why Fakarava and not directly to Tahiti? We’d left Tahanea heading north, planning a single overnight with probably 3 weeks left to explore the Tuamotus. An immediate pivot to Tahiti would have meant heading south and no more time at all in these low-lying atolls. Instead, we needed one more night of calm and to get our brains ready for the shift (and a slightly longer passage.) We cleared the South Pass at Fakarava at about 4:30 pm, and after a motor straight upwind to a familiar anchorage, dropped the hook in the last vestiges of twilight at 6.

And Monday morning, April 27, up came the hook and off we went, almost dead downwind on a rhumbline course for the tip of Tahiti. “

*North coast of Tahiti: moonset, stars, nav-light-lit sail, and the loom of Papeete, all in one shot.*

We dropped the hook at 10 am in an anchorage that was FAR less comfortable than it had been the last time we were there. Mission? Laundry (in what might be the only self-serve laundromat in French Polynesia), fuel, provisioning. In a stroke of luck, we rented the VERY LAST car available from our favorite car rental spot because it was a holiday weekend . . .

*Pizza dinner. Draft beer. Yes thank you.*

6 hours after anchoring after a 2 night passage, we had done 3 loads of laundry, filled all fuel containers, and managed to get ourselves back ashore to go OUT TO DINNER (what???) for pizza and beer. A friend asked if we’d had any rest time after the passage, and the answer was a resounding NO. We had things to do, and Tahiti needed to be in the rearview mirror.

*Our favorite Champion, near the Airbnb we were in at Christmas.*

*2 runs to Carrefour, a Champion run, a stop at Super U . . . we’re loaded.*

Return the car at 8:30 am, pick up the anchor by 9, and we completed a very efficient and successful 48 hour surgical strike on Tahiti. The disappointment was that we did not get a chance to reconnect with Jeremy’s cousins.

From here it was Moorea, then Huahine, Raiatea, Taha’a, and Bora Bora.