Trapped in the Tuamotus

The Tuamotu Archipelago consists of dozens of small islands and atolls. The atolls are the primary reason people like us come here. A ring of land and corral with a lagoon inside accessible by a pass or two cut through the ring. These passes often come with a good sprinkling of caution as the contents of the atoll need to enter/exit though these cuts with the tidal swings and these narrow channels do all that work. Water speeds can get high enough to prevent entering or exiting at the worst of it, and the waves that build up during these flows can be real mean. We, and everyone else, try our best to only use these passes during slack-tides to avoid the worst of it.

The waters inside the lagoons are so colorful and alive it is easy to see how many people find this part of the world a paradise. Unfortunately, the space within each ring of land is filled with “bommies” which are small (and sometimes large) coral spires that stick up from the ocean floor, some reaching all the way up to the surface. Most are large enough to see ahead of time, but some stay small enough and just below the surface to make for seriously hazardous waters. Kerri spent hours upon hours standing at the bow ensuring that we did not hit any of these as we moved between anchorages.

Our first atoll – Raroia – came with great protection from the easterly wind event that we were trying to arrive before in the last blog post. The wind did show up within two days of our arrival. We were lucky to have made a quick escape from the Marquesas when we did as this wind blew and blew and blew. Day after day the wind reached into the 30 knots range, which would have prevented us from making the multi-day passage here. We would have been stuck in the Marquesas if we hadn’t arrived when we did. As it was, we were still stuck in Raroia, but at least we were here, protected by a reef and some palms. We could see the huge waves hitting the outside of the reef, but inside was calm.

A lagoon within a lagoon

We did brave the wind and took the dinghy to shore a few times to explore and even snorkel a bit. After a week of it, we were growing very itchy to move on to explore other places, but we were solidly trapped in this paradise. We could do nothing but wait. The forecast each day just showed more and more wind as far as the forecast would show. It was killing me; knowing our time in French Polynesia was running out and we could not go anywhere.

The wind was blowing hard on the outside of the atoll

Eventually, after 12 days of wind, it mellowed out enough for us to make a move. Our destination was only a few miles away; the Kon-Tiki site where the expedition crashed and came to an end in 1947. In preparation of visiting this locale we watched the modern movie about the expedition, which was one hell of a let down. It was so filled with fantasy and fiction that it forced us to watch the much older documentary. The older was significantly better if you care to watch these men do something amazing.

Yesterday, at last, was the logical day to make our break from Raroria. The wind was finally tapering to a reasonable rate, and quickly so, so if we delayed it would mean that the second half of our 18i-ish hour sail to the next atoll, Makemo, might be with barely any wind at all. But we had just moved anchorages to somewhere where there was so much to explore, and after nearly two weeks of cabin fever waiting out so much weather, we couldn’t just leave here without actually enjoying it first.

So we skipped the best weather window, watching all four other boats at the neighboring anchorage depart, and headed to the tiny motu connected to the reef where Kon Tiki wrecked — the balsa wood raft that, mid-century, a six-man crew drifted from Peru across the tradewinds and currents of the Pacific in a quest to prove that French Polynesia was settled from the East. “Wrecked” is a bit of a misnomer, in this case, as though it did hit the reef, in that moment, it proved its purpose. They made it to this little motu. Today, it’s inhabited by a hammock, a plaque honoring the journey and a large number of nesting white terns and black noobies.

Wading around, there we encountered our first octopus in the wild, then headed over to a nieghboring motu near a shallow pass to snorkel. The shallow snorkeling was the best we’ve had (and we met a second octopus there)!

Today we finally take off for Makemo, and though there’s a chance we might have to motor partway, at least the sea state might be more tolerable, and we got to experience a day here of what we actually came to experience. – Kerri

With the wind event mellowing out, we finally got to make the jump to another atoll; Makemo some 75 miles to the West. The distance between the two atolls meant we could not make it in a single daylight sail, so we opted to make it an overnighter, in which we could take it super easy and arrive at a slack tide of our choosing. While there was little wind forecast for the night, the wind that did show itself kept us moving along nicely. Even quickly considering. We arrived to Makemo just after sunrise, a full 6 hours before our intended time, and as luck would have it at the exact moment we could just slip right through the pass with out any major concern. We would anchor just outside the local village for a day to run to the grocery store for a few items while we could. Then off to an anchorage protected from the next wind event coming in.

All the kids in Makemo came out to play

Once again, we did get out and about to explore the shoreline and get some snorkeling in, and even a few get-togethers with the other cruisers anchored nearby. We haven’t really been socializing much since we left Mexico, so it was a nice to hang out with and talk to others face to face.

The SUP boards got some use

Beach sunset party

Float party

With a shift in the wind, it was time to either move on or get trapped here for another week or more. We did what everyone else did, moved along to another atoll in the path towards their destination months in the future. Our destination was further to the West, so we had a couple options; an uninhabited and secluded atoll, or the populated and common atoll that everyone goes to. We chose, as we always do, seclusion.

We had a lovely, moonlit, overnight passage from Makemo to Tahanea in light winds on a close-to-broad reach. Smooth sea state, and even with the light winds, we reefed to time our arrival perfectly for first light and slack through the passage. We’ve been here two nights and will move to the other side of the island today, as winds make a 180° turn over the course of yesterday through tomorrow. We’ve seen the clearest snorkeling waters with the most diverse fish here, and finally scrounged up some pear floats to aid in our chain floating woes (one that matched my outfit, one hat ended up cracked and housing an ant colony). But even one is helping prop up the buoyancy issues with our fenders a bit. We’ve found our fenders do great in anything under 25′ depths, but beyond that, they just can’t hold enough buoyancy on their own.

We’re still feeling the crunch getting to the Society Islands and doing what we need to to there before our 3-month visa expires. It seems there are back-to-back Miramus (local high wind system) that only allow us to (comfortably) make a hop, at most, once per week. We’ll probably be skipping Fakarava and heading straight to Papeete. We decided that, if we had to make a choice, this uninhabited atoll was the one we’d want to choose, and so far it’s been lovely. – Kerri

Tahanea atoll was a mere 45 miles away, but once again we chose to do it as an overnight sail to arrive after sunrise instead of rushing to arrive before sunset. Upon arrival we would still have another hour-plus of navigating through the bommies to get to an appropriate place to drop anchor, and they aren’t so visible without the sun high in the sky. Again, the sailing was perfect. Just enough of a breeze to keep our sails filled without having to turn on the motor and arriving at a slack tide to allow an easy entry into the atoll.

Success! A recycled pearl float will help

At Tahanea we took the time to explore the nearby shorelines again. Some just for fun, but some to forage up some pearl floats to “float” our anchor chain above the smaller corrals on the sea floor. We had yet another multi-day wind event to shelter from, so we did – keeping ourselves busy with work and boat projects and the occasional re-anchoring to untangle our chain from the coral below. It wasn’t until the final days that we came up with enough floats to keep the chain above the little bommies under our keel.

At one point I was diving on our anchor to ensure all was good when I turned to see a 4-6 foot blacktip reef shark swimming nearby. We have seen a few of these as little guys near shore, but this was the first one I had spotted out in deeper water, and of near equal size to me. While I have no real fear of these sharks, it did get my heart pumping. As I looked back to see how far I needed to swim back to Meriwether I noticed a second shark about the same size. I wanted to keep my eyes on both, but they were on two sides of my head. I swam back to Meriwether – not looking like a flailing fish as best I could – while twisting back and forth to watch them both. In the end there was nothing to be concerned about [don’t worry Moms] and I boarded the safety of our boat without incident, but it was surprising how the cave-man parts of my brain react to seeing the sharks nearby.

There was yet another wait for the right weather window to start our multi-day passage towards Tahiti. In total, we stay three and a half weeks in the Tuamotus, but only got to visit three of the 80 islands/atolls out here. We might have chosen to visit one or two more if we had the weather in our favor, but time had run out. We were both ready for a new view also. There is only so much white sandy beaches and palm trees one can take and we really did not want to risk getting pinned down by another two week long blow.

So many more photos worthy of sharing, enjoy…