Ahe – Rangiroa - Tuamotu –23 June 2024
We were woken in the night by rain so we had to shut the hatches and from the cockpit I watched us moving round in the wind and rain. The other yacht moored was pointing toward the quay and I hoped that they would be ok when the cargo delivery boat was due to come in about 6.00am-7.00am.
I went back to sleep but was woken by shouting and noise and the cargo ship was coming into the anchorage and the other boat was being told to move. The cargo boat had its own type of dinghy with a flat loading platform and this quicky took the bowline to the shore where it was put over a bollard and it whizzed round and then started motoring and pushing the mid-section of the cargo ship and pushed it against the side of the wharf. Morea IV she was called. It had two old derrick type cranes and the first thing they did was to put two forklift trucks ashore and they then used these to move cargo etc about as it was lifted ashore and they took it to shops or from the side of the quay where it was required.
The poor American couple in the other yacht limped out of the anchorage and anchored outside of the channel. We had a quick breakfast and went ashore. The dock was busy and they had set up a market stall selling fruit and vegetables. However, for some reason you had to queue up at a sort of counter in a portacabin and tell the man what you wanted and he laboriously wrote it down in a book and then you paid and were given a sheet of paper of your order and went to the store. When you think of the markets in the UK, France or Italy, for example, they add it up as you order and service is a lot faster. This seemed a bureaucratic way of doing it. You can tell my patient side has not changed!! Unfortunately, the bread shop was closed although we could have bought a bag of 20 large baguettes from the cargo boat but we could never get through all of that. We got some carrots, tomatoes, oranges, cabbages and some cucumber. There was no cheese or yoghurt unless they will be in the shops tomorrow.
The ship unloaded all sort of stuff, drums of oil, diesel and petrol, water, potatoes, flour, rice etc etc and you realise how dependent these atolls (and islands -like the Marquesas) are on deliveries like this. The whole village seemed to be there collecting what they had ordered and boats came from all over the atoll.
We returned to Stormbird and chilled. We looked at the weather and the wind was due to turn to East again by this evening although it would be quite light. We thought we would go to Rangiora the next large atoll along which was about 75 nm away from the exit to the pass of Ahe. In about 3 days’ time the winds are going to increase to 24-26 kts with gusts of up to 31 kts for a few days so we want to get somewhere secure to anchor and there are a number of anchorages there which hopefully will work. We thought we would up anchor about 3.00pm and then go down to the pass again with High Water and slack to be about 5.30pm -just before dark. If we arrived early and it looked ok then we may be able to get through the pass early.
We therefore prepared Stormbird and I had to put a number of things away etc after my watermaker repairs etc. One of the worries we had was whether our chain was wrapped around a coral bommie. Andy and I snorkelled and Stormbird was right over a bommie but this was lower and we had probably about a meter clearance from our keel as the wind had changed direction in the night and brought us in this direction. Whilst we could not see exactly where the anchor was the chain did not appear to be snagged. We decided to pull up 10 meters of chain to pull us forward a bit which seemed to help in relation to the bommie underneath.
It was a beautiful day with hardly a breath of wind and it was a Sunday and you could tell this in the village once the cargo ship departed (see today’s picture) which it did about 12.00noon. We had salad and bread and cheese for lunch and Andy had made a loaf on the morning. We then rested and by 2.45pm we got ourselves ready and just after 3.00pm we upped anchor. It came up easily albeit covered in a sandy type of clay. We motored out of the anchorage and waved goodbye to the village which had been our pleasant home for some days.
We retraced our steps down the channel toward the pass and used the red posts and cardinals to dodge the coral bommies on way. As we approached the pass there was disturbed water inside but some waves on the reef outside. We were some 1.5 hours before slack water and we continued to approach the pass. We could now see the swirls of current and upswelling near the bar which was moving us around a bit. It did not look too bad so I decided to go for it. Andy was on the front and we had our headsets which were working well and Joyce was watching the depth gauge. We started toward the bar and our speed dropped from about 5.8kts to 2.4 kts due to the oncoming current but it was manageable and we slowly edged forward. As we moved forward Andy could see the bottom and I concentrated on steering us through the middle of the bar and as we moved forward the depth began to rise from about 6 meters and our speed increased slowly until we were over and into the deeper section of the channel. We were through and it just shows to remind you that if you do not get there at slack there may be quite a current ripping through these passes.
We motored on through and out into the Pacific again. The sea was relatively calm with little wind -perhaps 2-4 kts. We tried seeing if we could sail but it was too light and variable so we returned to motoring slowly and hope the wind will increase which it is forecast to do later this evening. It was a lovely evening and we watched the sun go down and reflected on our stay.
Ahe had been a lovely and most interesting atoll to visit and we were all quite fond of it and we have many happy memories. It was our first atoll and whilst the pass appeared frightening we manged it. Apparently they only get about 12 yachts visiting a year and we were glad that we had stopped here. We had some great snorkels, visited the pearl farm, saw some amazing coral, experienced some good Polynesian hospitality and saw the most amazing range of colours of the water. It is a special place. We had seen most of what we could but we are glad to be moving on and look forward to exploring Rangiroa.
Joyce and Andy cooked tuna (which Tema had kindly given us) with mash potatoes and the Pak Choy type vegetable. The tuna was excellent and like eating a fillet steak as it was so tender and no bones. We eat it in our sailing bowls in the dark and the moon rose above the horizon but it was orangey red.
We settled into our 3-hour watches again and I took the first watch 5.00pm to 8.00am. We hopefully will have a good night and at some point be able to sail.
Crewing Opportunity Year Two
In addition, in year two I will be going from New Zealand in early January 2025 across to Sydney and up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and probably across the Indian Ocean to Cape Town and I will need some more crew.
If there is any interest do email me at hine.nick9@gmail.com
The blog will continue as we move through French Polynesia and beyond.
If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com I can only upload one picture a day and visit our website www.stormbirdgoesglobal.co.uk