To the Society Islands

Tuesday 17th July 2007

Pete…..

We set out from our anchorage in Kauehi (Tuomotus) at about 07:30 and had a real breeze going through the pass out between the reefs. Soon, we were headed towards the Fakarava pass and onwards to Tahiti at a good 7 knots on a broad reach.

After about two hours we were joined by two Sei Whales that were a good 50 feet in length. They checked us out at a distance and then closed in to about 20 feet away, one of them actually dived underneath Nadezhda and we looked nervously at each other and held on tight. The whales stayed with us for about 2 hours until we started down the Fakarava Pass, at which point they wandered off to find more interesting things to do. The whales kept us fully entertained and we shot off numerous shots on the camera that simply came out as patches of wave and sea.

The Head of a Sei Whale

Some of the body






I have been practicing my astral navigation with a sextant and taking sun sights to plot our position. I practiced a bit more astro-nav on this passage and seem to be getting the hang of it now that my spreadsheet works and does not make the calculation errors that I do. Today, my calculated position line from 3 sightings was: 5.8, 0.2 and 2.7 miles away from our actual position! When plotting my sightings on a plotting chart using DR and running fixes, I kept us within 6 miles of our actual position even though the log is a bit fast. I also tried star sights for a position fix but waited a bit long for dawn, at which point, the clouds came and the stars that I had picked were difficult to see. Something is wrong with either the stars that I picked or with my star calculations since the result was very spurious - I shall persevere.

Wednesday 18th July

Not much to report today. The wind died at 22:00 and we resorted to the engine to make sure we have an easy landfall tomorrow.

Thursday 19th July 2007

Pete…..

I am celebrating this morning my first passage by astral navigation. Using position lines from sun sights and then plotting running fixes, my Calculated position yesterday afternoon was only 6 miles adrift of the GPS position. In the early hours of this morning, I used the benefit of a running engine to start-up the laptop and enter the Star Sight calculations into my spreadsheet. As dawn broke and the horizon became clear, I picked 5 stars and did two readings on all of them. I must have mis-took one of the stars for something else since the readings were many degrees out but plotted the position lines of the other four from the brought forward DR position. The common area (triangle) where the lines crossed was tiny and I placed my mark and read-off the Lat/Long. The Lat/Long that Fliss recorded from the GPS at the time of reading the sextant was 17 degrees 19.8 South, 149 degrees 08.4 West. My Lat/Long taken from the plotting chart was 17 degrees 19 South, 149 degrees 05 West. About 2-3 miles adrift.

I am going to celebrate tonight and have my plotting chart framed.

Landfall at Tahiti







We entered behind the fringing reef at Papeete and motored around the inside channel to Taina where we met up with Mariah III and Nomad Life before having a nap and chilling out for the evening.




Friday 20th July to Friday 27th July

It's party time central here.... Friday we had drinks with Graham & Judit (Nomad Life), Saturday night drinks here with Nancy, Steve, Lilly and Rob. Sunday we had a BBQ on Graham's boat and Lilly & Rob cooked a Thai curry for us on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, during the day we have been very busy. I went to the chandlery and bought some new filters and then headed to the engineers to get a service done. They informed me that a professional service is not required beyond the second service and that I can do the service myself and still retain the guarantee. So, the next day, I went back to the chandlers and got some more filters and oil and have now done the engine service.

The local floating bar










Failed (Sawn-through) sheave.


I went up the mast and photographed a failed sheave as the rigger had asked me to. I then went back to the riggers and showed him the photos. At this point, he said that he did not have a rivet gun and was much too busy to do anything. Anyway, he was very polite and spent half an hour saying that we could use the spinnaker halyard and its sheave but that we needed a dyneema halyard that would not chew through the sheave. He did not have any dyneema but we managed to find 10mm dyneema at Taina marina and the new halyard is now in place. Taina marina did a nice job of splicing the shackle on the end and everything looks ok now it is all fixed. I noticed that the headsail had a tiny tear where it attached at the top of the furler and have also stitched webbing to each side and so that is also in order.

We went back into Papeete on Friday to check out of French Polynesia. This still allows us to go to the other islands but we have the necessary paperwork in advance. We were thinking of going on Saturday to Moorea but need to check the forecast since other yachties have said there is "weather" expected for the weekend. Unfortunately, the grib subscription ran out and I have not had time to renew. We shall see.

We have not had time to see Tahiti but Papeete is not a great place. There are really only two reasons to come here......Customs and Carrefour. Once you find the time when the customs place is actually open, the paperwork is negligible and the only form with any detail on it was the duty free form that allows tax free re-fuelling. We took advantage of this the other day and filled our empty tank and our two DRY water tanks. We were having to ferry water in jerry cans.

Mariah III have re-installed their gearbox and now have a working engine. They brought back the solar panel and said that they really could not have done without it. We are glad to be of assistance but also glad to have the extra charging power again.

Mariah III

Fliss….

I was a little disappointed in Tahiti as I imagined lovely promenades with a rich and colourful café culture. To find this it is a good 50 minutes run from the anchorage by bus and it comes at a hefty price.

I haven’t bought a souvenir at all! All they sell is expensive nasty Chinese imports of local Tikka’s and coffee mugs at £10.

I need a new bikini as they wear our so quickly here but in Papette the price was £50, the material was thin and on the boat it wouldn’t last 5 minutes. As luck had it Carrefour had a lovely one which was only £9.

Saturday 28th July 2007

Pete….

We left Tahiti today since the wind did not really materialise into what was predicted. We decided to take the inside channel back to Papeete since other boats were motoring into the swell on the outside of the reef. We thought that this would give a better wind angle to Moorea but found ourselves close hauled with little wind until about half way across when we got onto a dead run. The waves were coming from all directions, steep and breaking and we motor-sailed most of the way just to keep ourselves pointed in the right direction. A real pig of a sail and we were glad when we turned into the pass into Cooks Bay.

Cooks Bay

We spent the night in Cooks Bay in a very quiet anchorage with a full moon.








Sunday 29th July 2007

Pete…..

This morning, I wound-out all our anchor chain since it was getting twisted and getting fouled in the chute to the windlass. I then cleaned it all as I brought it back in and then had to wash the decks down to get the grime and rust off. We just finished these minor jobs when Nomad Life called and said that we should join them near Opunohu Bay just a few miles West where they were going snorkelling with Rays. We upped the anchor and ran by headsail around the reef and are now tucked inside the reef to the West of Opunoha just a few yards from them. There are just three boats here in this tiny patch between the inner and outer reefs.

After half an hour anchor-watch, we took the dinghy West-bound down a tiny channel to the next inlet - racing to catch up with Graham and Judit. The waters here are brilliant bright blue, the reefs are a mottled brown and the hills rise steeply from the shoreline in big folds.

It was quite a long dinghy ride but we eventually came to a shallow sandy area about chest deep just off the main boat channel where you could see the Sting-Rays silhouetted in the water with their tails dragging behind them. We donned our snorkel and fins and went in with them. They were not scared of us at all - in fact people come here to hand-feed them. The reef sharks were also not afraid of us! It gave me the willies when three of them started swimming slowly towards us with those steely expressionless unblinking eyes. However, they swerved effortlessly and glided away. We were accompanied by about 20 Sting-Rays and, once we had seen them enough, we went to the edge of the channel to watch the sharks that tend to prefer the deeper water. They were about four to six feet in length and quite awesome even though I retain a real respect - especially when they come within a few feet of you.

Fliss and Pete with a stingray







A few other small boats and dinghies arrived. This included a chap with a bucket full of chopped fish. The rays swarmed around and were eating from his hand. Of course, the food attracted a host of beautiful coloured fish of the like we have not seen before and the humans, rays and fish were all circled closely by the reef sharks - utterly, utterly magical.

Unfortunately the pictures all look a bit blue since the colour is bleached underwater. I have played a bit to try and get colour back in but have only been half-successful.

All underwater pictures courtesy of Graham on Nomad Life.

See http://www.nomadlife.co.uk/

The water does eventually start feeling cold and the wind had whipped-up to create a fresh chill and so we eventually retired back to Naz but I think that we will go back tomorrow for another thrilling experience.

Sundowner Time

Fliss….

It was THE most amazing experience ever. When I 1st got in the water Judit said “do you see the shark right behind you” I laughed as all I could hear was Judit laughing nervously.

I was always worried about them but I’m now glad that I have gotten over my fear of reef sharks as it was a truly memorable time.

Pete & I had a very close encounters with the stingrays as they promptly positioned themselves on your chest looking for food, they are so soft to touch and such gentle creatures God knows what Steve Irwin did to provoke the attack that killed him.

We had a 4 foot Barracuda sitting next to the boat one morning and with the water been so clear we could see his long pointed teeth. According to our French neighbour he was friendly but Pete and I decided that we didn’t want to push our luck and we’ll leave Barracudas for another time.