Rangiroa –Apataki -Tuamotu 4 July 2024
The night was again very windy and we moved about a bit. When I woke it was still quite windy but a little calmer and during the morning the wind certainly calmed down.
We had breakfast and noticed that Questral – John Kretchmer’s yacht was preparing to leave and they upped anchor about 9.30am and headed towards the passe. They hang around for a bit and then exited the passe which we watched on our screen and they headed west, we assumed for Tahiti. We looked at the weather again and there had been little change. Today was about 17-19 kts and then overnight it would be the same with gusts of up to 22. Wave height was put at 2meters. We discussed it and thought we should be good to go ensuring we got out of the passe by 3.00pm which was about 45 minutes ahead of slack water. We hoped that with the tide being with the wind and waves that this should be doable. This would therefore mean upping anchor about 2.15pm.
We spent the morning preparing the boat and sorting ourselves out. I charged the batteries which I did not have to do the day before and did some washing. Yes we all have to do it!. Andy got all the juice out of the limes we had as they were going off and we put it in a bottle for future use. We rested and read otherwise and I checked our plan which was to sail from the passe the best course we could from the atoll so we could then tack back to the eastern end of Rangiroa. We knew from the other day that this was tricky as affectively the wind was coming from where we wanted to go. We thought we would see how we went but we may have to motorsail to the end of the atoll to get round it so we could then sail more southeast to get toward Apataki, the atoll we planned to go to some 75 nm as the crow flies. I put in waypoints and as a crew we went through the plan and issues and made sure we were all comfortable.
We had lunch and did some final preparations and the wind was only about 12-15 kts – so it felt as if there was no wind bearing in mind what we had had for days. We then upped anchor and headed over to the passe. Whilst there were breaking waves on the reefs outside, the middle of the passe looked quite settled apart from the current and disturbed water we could see in the middle. We went across to the east side where the current was less and I assessed the situation. I thought we should be ok to go and so we did. I gunned the engine to about 7 kts and headed into the middle of the passe. The speed slowed down to 4.5 kts due to the incoming current but we eased our way though and saw a few dive boats around.
Once through we were into the normal swell which I would assess was about 2-2.5 meters and we put up the sails – reefed main and staysail and made the best course we could northeast. As thought we were sailing slightly away from our course and thought we will do this for an hour and then tack. The wind was about 13-19 kts so a bit lower and with the lower waves less slamming or water came on the deck.
At 4.00pm we tacked and again as anticipated we were heading a few miles along but back to the atoll. We therefore decided to motorsail to the waypoint at the end of the atoll with the main up. We knew that tacking back and forwards in these conditions would take a long time and be uncomfortable. We therefore switched on the engine to take us the 27nm to the end of the atoll, where we could turn on our southeast course. The engine had to work quite hard as we were heading almost into the wind and the waves and with our speed we would arrive between 9.30pm-10.00pm.
I had the first shift 3.00pm to 6.00pm and then Andy took over. He had prepared a dish Sir Robin Know-Johnson had made called Red Lentil Dahl. We had this with some rice which we all enjoyed. I planned to get some rest and Joyce will take over at 9.00pm so we will then be nearly at the end of the atoll. We settled down for our nights watches.
The picture is looking back at the passe at Rangiroa after we had left.
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