Fakarava -Tahanea -Tuamotu 18 July 2024

It was a rolly night and the anchor alarm went off as we were moving around quite a lot. I reset it to 50m draft than 40m and it did not go off again. The anchor had not moved. It also rained in the night so I had to close the hatches. All in all it was a disturbed night.

The alarm went off at 5.45am and it was relatively calm with about 9kts of wind from the Northeast. We had a quick bowl of porridge and the upped the anchor about 6.30am. Luckily it was not snagged on a bommie and came up cleanly. We then headed over to the Southern passe of Fakarava, famous for its sharks and groupers. This meant going round a cardinal marking coral and between 2 green buoys and some red and white markers. There was a shallow patch I had to get over and to avoid hitting the coral before I got into deeper water of the passe. I worked out the best course I could and we were hitting the passe a little before low water as we had to make the passe on Tahanea in time. I saw the depth begin to drop and we edged forward and at the lowest point it hit 3.7 meters (only 1.2 m spare) before we got into deeper water. This was a bit of a relief and  before long we were out of the passe and headed toward Tahanea.

Tahanea Atoll is an uninhabited atoll of the Tuamotu Archipelago. It is located 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) to the east of Faaite Atoll. It measures 48 kilometres (30 mi) in length with a maximum width of 15.2 kilometres (9.4 miles). The southern reef fringing the atoll is wider than the northern one, but the largest islands (mutus) are on the narrower northern rim. Tahanea has a wide and deep lagoon with a surface of 545 square kilometres (210 square miles) . There are three deep, navigable, passes into the lagoon, which are called Motupuapua, Teavatapu and Otao. We are heading for the Teavatapu passe.

Although Tahanea is uninhabited, it is visited occasionally by islanders from neighbouring atolls. Tahanea belongs to the commune of Anaa that also includes the associated commune of Faaite with the atoll of Faaite and the uninhabited atolls of Tahanea and Motutunga.

 History- the first recorded European to sight Tahanea was Spanish navigator Domingo de Boenechea on 9 November 1774 on ship Aguila. He named this atoll "San Julián". Russian oceanic explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen visited Tahanea in 1820 on ships Vostok and Mirni. He named this atoll "Chichagov" .

The wind was relatively light to start with and had moved toward the west so we decided to motor until it was of sufficient strength to get us to the passe by about 2.30pm or 3.00pm. We had 48 nm to go and were out of the Fakarava passe by 6.45 am which was good. We motored for an hour and then tried to sail but we would not be fast enough so we went back to motoring. It was a lovely day and the sea was calm. However, as the morning went on I had a sense that things would get worse and I had also seen the forecast. The sea state began to increase and the wind strengthened a little and began to move more west then a little southwest. After an early lunch we sailed and were doing fine and then the rain came in which reduced visibility and we were only about 10 nm by then before the passe. It took some while for the rain to clear and for the visibility to return.

We then approached the passe and we had seen two yachts ahead of us go through the passe. We noticed that the superyacht Shinkai was here which we had seen on Fakarava. We lined up for the passe which is relatively wide but even though we were about 30 minutes after slack water the water was quite disturbed and we went through the passe with about 2-3 kts against us and a choppy sea. We eased through as another yacht was coming out.

We anchored off a mutu but we knew that the wind would be from the Southwest to start with and it would then move round to the Southeast. We did not have a great deal of protection and it was a little choppy from the wind coming across the lagoon of the atoll. I was glad we got in when we did as about 30 minutes later the rains came again and we had wind up to 29.3 kts. We were holding but it is a bit rolly.

As we had tea and rested we saw a large yacht outside appearing to be waiting to come in. It was called Aquijo and we looked it up. It is 86 m long (275 feet), 14.5 m wide and 5.23 m draft. It is one of the largest ketches (two masts) in the world and worth about $100,000m. She came in eventually and is anchored near us.

We plan to stay here a couple of days to explore and hope the weather will be kind. We had a second night of cassoulet with red cabbage and mashed potato and we are moving around a bit. The picture of the day is looking back at the shore with a rainbow after the rain.

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.  The picture of the day is a grey shark with a sucker fish attached which was swimming round the dive hut!.

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