Tahiti at last!

20 May 2024

Where am I? 

Latitude: 17°35.1 S

Longitude: 149°36.9 W

How is the weather?

Clear blue skies and light wind.

What am I feeling?

I have a feeling of deep accomplishment after completing the first half of our Pacific voyage, more than 6,000 miles from Antigua. I’m also grateful to our crew for the legs from Galapagos to Tahiti – your skipper is less than perfect and we all make mistakes from time to time. But as a team, we are unbeatable! All 3 of our crew left the yacht yesterday, heading to France, Japan and USA. And of course delighted to welcome Elizabeth and Katie on board with Will to join in a week or so!!

What has happened this week?

A lot of water has passed under our keel since my last blog.

On 10th May, we departed Nuku Hiva bound for the atoll of Rangiroa in the Tuamotu archipelago, a sail of three and a half days. Before setting off in the late afternoon, we completed a number of important boat tasks, partly with the help of Gael, an all around yacht whisperer who lives on a yacht in the bay. He replaced our steaming light which had not been working at all this year – it turned out that although it has almost never been used and is rated for 20,000 hours, the unit was the problem due to water ingress, not any connection or wiring issue. Fortunately I had a spare and will write to Peters + Bey about this as it seems like a product failure.

Gael also resolved an issue with our combination tricolour and anchor light at the top of the mast. This turned out to be a wiring issue which is what we suspected. Both are working normally now. While suspended 60 feet off the deck, Gael also noticed some pretty severe chafe to the top of our genoa halyard so we replaced that with the spare that I carry. The spare was not the right length for our Antal halyard system (Oyster supplied the wrong one at launch) but fortunately it was too long rather than too short, so we have rigged things up adequately for now. I will have a new one made once we get to Australia.

And finally, Gael helped us to rerun the starboard side spinnaker halyard which we had taken down previously as we tried to fix a wrap on our furling gennaker sail. So in 4 important jobs all completed in one morning – well done, Gael!

We then took on diesel at the fuel dock – not a simple manoeuvre in Nuku Hiva as it involves mooring stern-to to a high and forbidding concrete commercial dock with our anchor dropped a couple of boat lengths out. Then lowering the fuel nozzle and its hose down from the dock using our passarelle halyard. We had considered refuelling via jerry can but the logistics involved were complex too and since there was little swell we went for the dock instead. All very well handled by our crew!

The highlight of our sail to Rangiroa was catching, landing, filleting and eating (partly!) a 150lb black marlin – our first marlin ever on Fujin – it took us an hour to bring the fish to the yacht, half an hour to get it onto the aft deck, again using our passarelle halyard and gaff to haul it up over the sugar scoop and onto the boat. We left the fish in the water for some time at the stern to ensure that it was almost dead before attempting the landing as we were concerned about the marlin’s spike stabbing one of us! The fish has been good eating and we have much more in our freezer – we have not put out our lines since…

Rangiroa is the world’s second largest atoll. The water level in the atoll is always higher than the surrounding ocean due to a combination of tidal action and ocean waves washing over the reef. This means that water is almost always streaming out of two navigable passes and this in turn presents challenges to a sailing yacht with potential for significant currents and standing waves. 

We entered via Tiputa Pass and departed via Avatoru Pass and I would certainly recommend this approach to others. We timed our entry to approximately slack tide and found 6 knots of current coming out of that pass – so full engine power was needed to punch through and keep our target line, to the left side of the channel. The right side appeared to us to have too many potential dangers and, indeed, we saw one yacht the following day almost end up on the reef as they exited, keeping too far left going out – quite scary! 

The following day, we rented bikes and scouted out Avatoru Pass, 5 miles north of Tiputa. This appeared to us to be much safer to navigate and we decided to take that option for our exit, Again, the current was up to 8 knots with us but there was plenty of space to avoid some standing waves and exit smoothly.

We had hoped to do some snorkelling at Rangiroa but it was simply too windy during our stay, which was a pity – we didn’t see the atoll at its sparking best. But it was a nice stop on our way to Tahiti. I won’t say too much about our 30 hour run to Tahiti from there – suffice it to stay that it was very rough with us close reaching in 3 metre seas with winds up at 30 knots. Almost impossible to move around due to the unpredictable motion of the yacht. In addition to which, I had not turned around or sealed our 4 forward dorade vents as I was actually expecting to be broad reaching – the result being that we shipped sea water into the forward berth which is now drying out….

But now we are safely berthed at Marina Taina on Tahiti and looking forward to 3 or 4 weeks of island cruising and quiet lagoon anchorages. We have said goodbye to Patrick, Ian and Per (who returns in June with Anne) and welcome back Elizabeth and Katie. Will will join us for 2 weeks as well later in May and early June. It will be nice to do mostly day sails for 4 weeks!

While the Marquesas are islands of untamed beauty, remote and wild, the Society Islands seem more like beauty tamed. Tamed by the reefs fringing the islands, enclosing a calm and clear lagoon and tamed by money and development, some not altogether attractive. Tame or not, however, they are certainly beautiful – the silhouette of Moorea, visible from our berth, is spectacular and I feel drawn to it – after a thorough clean down and reprovisioning at the nearby Carrefour, we will be on our way to explore the Isles du Vent and the Isles sous le Vent!

Fujin out!