Waiting for a weather window

Yet more from Maupihaa

Maupihaa wildlife

Colourful clams 

Freeranger

Morgan & Shimshal

Eyra

Tourterelles 

Adrienne’s house

Great Crested Tern

Maupihaa

We are now safely anchored within the lagoon of a tiny coral atoll 145 miles west of Raiatea. The lagoon entrance through the coral reef is just 20 metres wide and it has a swift current perpetually flowing towards the ocean. Jagged coral on either side of the channel threatens the unwary. Not a place for the faint hearted. 

As we surged through the gap we were welcomed by the squawks of terns and other seabirds who have chosen to make this tropical paradise their home.

It looks like we are going to be here on Maupihaa for a while as the weather windows for our next hop west don’t look promising. 

Today was the perfect day for baking with our solar oven. The light wind meant that the boat wasn’t veering too much enabling us keep the oven pointing at the midday sun. 

With fresh solar oven baked baguettes every 2 days and a good supply of coffee beans it doesn’t really matter how long we have to wait for that weather window to sail 359 miles west to the next speck in the big blue Pacific Ocean. 

We just need to select our desert island discs and pick a few Kindle downloads.

Leaving French Polynesia for the ‘Dangerous Middle’

We are checked out of French Polynesia and are enjoying our sunset mocktails on Taha’a. Tomorrow we sail west to Maupihaa where we will wait for a weather window to hop to Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. Fair trade-winds are forecast for our passage. 

We have lingered longer in the Society Island than we expected as we have had to wait for replacement parts to be shipped and then clear customs. But it’s quite a good place to hang out and we are in the very remote middle of the Pacific!

Yesterday it felt like Raiatea didn’t want to let us go as our anchor chain had woven a tightly tangled web around a loose, large piece of coral which our new windlass dutifully hauled to the surface with the anchor dangling 10 metres below. Untangling it was beyond my SCUBA skills so we called up Farid who came charging over the horizon with Patrick, his dive boat driver. Farid, a Cousteau like character, dropped into the water with a huge flotation bag to lift both anchor and chain to the surface so that he could unravel the knotted chain and set free our boulder. 

After 30 minutes of wrestling (and quite a few dollars) the anchor was shipped and we motored to Taha’a to take on fuel and provisions sufficient to see us to the Cook Islands, Niue and Tonga.

We have loved French Polynesia and its curious mix of French and Polynesian cultures and it’s sad to leave. But the season is advancing and we need to allow plenty of time to choose our weather windows as we hop west through the ‘dangerous middle’.