Fakarava

After 500+ miles and a little over a 4 day passage, we made it to Fakarava - our first coral atoll in the Tuamotus. The landscape is dramatically different than it was in the Marquesas. We left lush, green mountainous islands to arrive at very flat coral atolls with shallow, wide lagoons. Entrance into the passes can be very stressful, as the tide currents can be 6 to 9 knots and the trade winds seem to consistently blow at 15 to 20 knots. This can make for some very choppy seas around the passes. All of this with some dangerous reefs lying around as well would make anyone a little hesitant and nervous! But since we had done similar passages in Caicos, I figured Dave could handle this one as well and for our first atoll we chose Fakarava mainly because it has the largest pass in this archipelago. We came in a little after slack tide riding the incoming current and even though it was choppy at the pass, we made it in fine. The pass itself was over a mile wide which we were not expecting. Our anchorage itself is over 70 feet, which is deeper than our comfort zone, especially with blustery winds at night, but all in all has been very nice.

The passage itself was very good as we did 543 miles with a daily average of 130 miles at 5.4 knots (thank you Dave for the numbers)! Trade winds were consistent at 15 to 20 knots from east to southeast right on the beam. Really a great sail, similar to the ones we saw in the windward passage in the Caribbean!

Yesterday for the first time in awhile, Dave and I went snorkeling on the reefs with our neighbors from Moshulu, Jerry and Gail. Along with the colorful reef fish, we spotted a big, black, moray eel poking out of his hole and Dave saw a leopard ray and barracuda. The highlight though were the black lipped oysters that were embedded into the coral itself! Speaking of which, now off to find our own black pearls!

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