Bye bye Marquesas Islands, hello Tuamoto Archipelago
Saturday 2 July – 11.00am, anchor up and we are off to the Tuamoto Archipelago, first stop Raroia. It’s about a two day sail so we should be there around lunchtime on Monday.
Monday 4 July – sometime late last night I was off watch and disappointed to be asleep when we sailed through the Disappointment Islands of Tepoto and Napuka around 9.30pm, but you know what, I can’t remain disappointed for too long as when I was on watch this morning I was welcomed with a glorious sunrise!
We have already sailed past Takume atoll which is mostly submerged and we can just see a trail of the tops of the atolls in the reef. We’ve almost reached Raroia and Geoff has timed it perfectly as we need to go in through a pass on the flood tide which is at 2.06pm and it’s now 1.35pm so we’ll just wait 40 minutes and in we’ll go – how about that – timed to perfection!
There’s a few little boats belonging to people the village also waiting to get in, one of them has just come over to say hello and he has two absolutely enormous fish which he says are Napoléon Humphead Wrasses! We got in and anchored but it’s a little rough and we are worried about going ashore in the dinghy as there are so many rocks in the water and it will be difficult to see them coming back in the dark. So sorry Raroia, we only saw you from the boat but it was a good place to stop en route to Fakarava and we had a great sleep before we had to leave for our overnight sail.
Tuesday 5 July – we were up early this morning as once again we had to watch the tide and go out of the pass on the last hour of the flood tide at 7.30am. It’s a 24 hour sail to Fakarava so that is giving us time to get the boat tidied up and ready for Nick, Kate and the boys who arrive around lunchtime on Friday.
Wednesday 6 July – midday – well, we are three miles from Rotoava one of the two main villages in Fakarava. Once again we had to pass in through a flood tide, but we arrived a little late. However, Geoff decided we would just go for it, and we did, and it was absolutely fine (although I must admit I was a little nervous!) – extremely rough on one side, but not so bad on the other. I just can’t get over the enormous contrast between the Marquesas Islands and the Tuamotos – the former islands full of majestic volcanic rocks and lush greenery, and the latter, flat atolls covered in coconut palms, barely poking up above the water and surrounded by coral reefs!
We think we have died and gone to heaven……it is everything you dream about when you think of the South Pacific – sandy beaches, aquamarine water and palm trees! It’s going to be so much fun over the next few days.