Rangiroa - Tuamotu 27 June 2024 -The Wind Increases

The wind was gradually increasing and I got up at 2.00am to see how things were. The wind was howling and we were being buffeted and being moved around by the wind and the swell which had increased with the wind. I had confidence we were well dug in and all seemed good and the anchor alarm had not gone off so I went back to bed.

I woke about 7.00am and Andy and I went ashore about 7.30am to get the bread we had pre-ordered. There were quite a few little waves so we went horizontal into the shallow water where the waves were less and we worked our way round to the harbour. We successfully collected the bread and headed directly back as the waves were behind us. It was a lovely day and the sea looked so blue but this blue was splattered with white from the white horses of the waves. Joyce made fried eggs on baguette which was nice and we had a good cup of coffee.

We spent the morning reading and chilling although I caught up with emails and did some admin. I thought in the circumstances we should put out a bit more chain as this would give us even more weight bearing in mind what was to come and we may have 4-5 days of this weather. Andy and I let out more chain so we had after we had put the snubber on some 80 meters. I felt more comfortable. We saw a large Oyster leave for the south of the atoll and we could not understand why or where they were going. We also saw another boat come in which we had seen at Nuku Hiva.

We decided to go ashore and have a wander and walked up to the passe where there were quite a few waves and the locals trying to surf in the edges (see the picture). We wondered back and the other snack bar which had been closed so far was open so we decided to have some lunch and everyone caught up with their Wi-Fi. The water was quite disturbed and the wind by now a constant 23-26 kts with higher gusts.

We returned to Stormbird and I repaired a leak and the others rested.  We then had more tuna that Tema had given us with coleslaw which was nice. We then watched a film The Secret Lives of Walter Mitty which was fun whilst Stormbird moved around and looked after us in this strong wind. We have a number of days of these conditions.

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