Thursday, June 14, 2012

Tahiti Bound

The second group of the French Polynesian islands is behind us. We did the Marquesas first, then we went to the Tuamotu Archipelago, and now, our first stop in the Society Group will be Tahiti. We are currently underway having departed from the pass of South Fakarava (over where we went shark diving) on Wednesday morning. We had a difficult time getting the anchor up. Despite our best effort with two sets of floats, the chain had managed to wrap itself around a rock ledge and it was stuck good. Luckily a nearby boat from Spain had a guy who dove down on it to free it for us. Very nice of him to do so as early as it was and with so many sharks circling because of all the rattling noises we were making with our attempts at freeing the anchor. Then we went through the pass which was much shallower than we anticipated – at one point we saw 12 feet. The tide was coming in and for a while we were barely making 2.5 knots against it. But good ol' Astarte made it through and we were clear of the reefs on both sides.

We've been sailing in our typical very lumpy seas. They are running about 6 to 7 feet, but very close together. Less than a few seconds apart. The good news is we have a pretty steady wind to keep the sails full. We should make the 250 mile passage in two overnights arriving sometime Friday.

The fishing line is in and we are going more than five knots, so hopefully we'll snag something to share with Richard when he arrives. But we'll see – we didn't get a nibble on day one.

Next post from Papeete, Tahiti!

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