The passage between Tahanea and Fakarava’s South Pass is only 50 miles but both passes have to be negotiated at the right stage of the tide and in good daylight. We thought we had selected the perfect window with a 4pm departure and then a slow overnight sail with arrival at the south pass at 11am with winds of less than 10 knots. All forecast models agreed, so too did the French Polynesian Metéo.
Everything went according to plan until 6am when we were within easy reach of Fakarava South. But then the wind shifted and started to shriek a little. We pressed on thinking the squall would pass soon but as our average windspeed graph shows it did not abate but blew solidly at gale force with gusts over 40kn. What should have been an easy landfall was now a dangerous lee shore and imagining the wind driven standing waves within the fiercely strong tidal race meant the decision was easy. We altered course to sail up the east side of Fakarava to enter via the north pass but the timing for a daylight entry there didn’t work and so we resigned ourselves to heaving to overnight in the midst of the maelstrom then to creep through the North Pass at sunrise the next morning.
The new plan worked well but Shimshal was shaken about a bit in the confused seas. Sally’s sea-legs performed admirably and a Shropshire Spice’s Swahili curry emerged from the galley despite the pot being thown off our gimballed cooker by a giant lurch - that’s a first for Shimshal!
