Ahe Tuamotu 20 June 2024
We woke at a reasonable time and it was a cloudy when we woke. We had a quick breakfast and when shore as agreed to see if we could find a tour of the lagoon. The post office could not help and so we went to the Marie. We met a local who lived here who amazingly spoke English as his mother-in-law had been from California.
We explained what we wanted and he said he would take us but his engine needed some parts from Tahiti. However, he had a friend who may be able to take us and he would let us know. We returned to Stormbird having bought some bread and we had realised over the next few days that when the wind turned Northeast that we may hit some bommies. We therefore pulled up the anchor and moved forward and reset the anchor with a view to accommodating the wind change. This however brought us a bit closer to the other boat moored. We only put out 30 meters of chain this time. However, when I snorkelled again I saw the chain under a low bommie. Hopefully when the wind turns NE – it will free us from the bommie. Even of we had buoyed the chain it would not have avoided this bommie.
We knew we had to replace the joker valve on the bunk room heads as it was backing up so Andy set about this. I was worried about the watermaker as I had had trouble getting the high-pressure pump to work. I set about charging the batteries with the generator which is playing ball at the moment and not overheating. When I went to put the watermaker on it struggled initially and then worked so I filled the tanks. This was an issue we needed to resolve. I text my UK expert who asked me a number of questions which I answered and he then suggested it may be the capacitor. I therefore found a spare and changed it but there was no change so I have changed it back again. I do hope we can solve this as otherwise we cannot make water and we know what that may mean – we have to go somewhere where we can fix it. We cannot do that here.
I decided to text my expert again and explain what we had done and see what he says. We then chilled and read and I fixed a leak in the fresh water supply. We decided to go out for a different snorkel and went behind the reef we are anchored in. This was interesting but a lot of the coral had died and so it was a bit mixed. We returned to Stormbird and I had a call from the man we had met and he said his friend would take us and we were to be there at 7.00am. This was early but not a bad time to go when it is cooler. We want to visit the Peral farm and any other interesting parts of the lagoon.
We hope we can sort the watermaker otherwise that may change our plans. Fingers crossed.
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