Passage to Manihi, Archipelago Tuamotus

We left Nuku Hiva and L’Archipel des Marquises on May 11^th hoping we will always remember the isolated beauty of these special islands. Though excited for the flat atolls and clear waters of the Tuamotus, I will miss the lush green mountains and the cooler weather up in the highlands of those mountains. I think volcanic islands are really cool. They demonstrate just how dynamic our planet is, and what starts out as a violent eruption from the Earth’s core ends up as lush paradise, sustaining many forms of life.

Jon and I ended up taking five days to sail from Nuku Hiva to Manihi. We stopped our boat and drifted for 8 hours on Saturday in order to slow down and not arrive in the night……These atolls have very tricky entrances and it is best to coordinate our entrance into the pass with slack tide and daylight. Once inside the pass, careful lookout is a must for all the coral heads lurking just below the water’s surface.

The passage was easy, the night watches not difficult, and, we did not see one sailboat or fishing boat the entire journey. We had time to laugh and enjoy each other’s company…..when we weren’t catching fish (see earlier blog).

Prior to leaving Nuku Hiva, Jon made a trade (change, in French) of 5 gallon water jugs for pampelmousse. It’s the grapefruit-like fruit that, though much larger and green, makes the perfect wake up juice for mornings when sleep has been limited to 3 hours. I wish I had my juicer on board. I am left the squeezing them through a colander, but the result is terrific. It’s become a natural part of our mornings.

We thought we might have some heavy weather Friday evening when storm clouds appeared on the horizon. We even saw a funnel cloud and brought in our geneker. It never touched the water and turned into a water spout, but we kept our eyes alert nonetheless. Having grown up in tornado alley, I take funnel clouds seriously whether on land or sea. Nothing serious materialized, but we got long steady rain Friday and Saturday nights, which meant the boat got a fresh water rinse.

The weather ended up being quite fair and the winds were often below 10 knots. This gave us the opportunity we had not yet tried on this boat---to go wing and wing, with the geneker the port side and the genoa on the starboard side. (Usually wing and wing is with the main and genoa sails on opposite sides. We did nicely and it was a lot of fun.