16º 30.428s 145º 27.449w
Fri Jul 12 2019
Wow,
was that a weird movie. Not one I would hunt down and watch again, and as I
recall the young star of the film died shortly thereafter of a drug overdose.
Can’t remember that kid’s name. Anybody? Anybody? jollydogs@myiridium.net
We’re
down at the South pass of Fakarava with our good pals on SV Halcyon, and today
our evil plan was to do several drift snorkel runs through the pass while the
current was running into the atoll. It’s a hoot tooling along at anywhere from
1 to 6 or more knots while just laying there on the surface looking down at all
the creatures. We drive the dinghy out, hop in the water and hold onto the
dinghy painter and “let ‘er rip”. There’s an Excel spreadsheet called the
“tidal guestimator” that we use to determine when high and low slack tide is at
each pass in the various atolls, and it’s generally pretty accurate.
Not
today! We all dinghied down to the pass and quickly realized the current was
flowing outbound at a time when we expected to have at least 1 ½ hours of
inbound current before it reversed. Outbound current generally means “not
great” visibility, and on top of that it’s carrying you out to sea. Not the
most prudent direction to go, especially if the dinghy outboard decides not to
start.
Not
quite sure why the tidal guestimator failed us this time, we decided to make
lemonade and tooled on over to the sables roses (means pink sands) anchorage. A
year or two ago the local government banned cruising boats from anchoring
there, likely prompted by the local resort operators who like to take their
guests over there for a day of relaxation. It’s still OK to dinghy over, but
it’s a heck of a trip to get around a very long reef. Never mind, we went for it
and wow was it worth the trouble.
After
hunting around a bit we selected our own little desert island, a cute little
hunk of sand an coral with some large shrubs and four palm trees. Pretty
quickly we had gathered up a pile of dry coconuts, but Simon was keen to get
some of the young green ones as the water from those is tastier than the dry
ones. He made his best effort to mimick a telephone pole repair man, but his
efforts to climb the trees were thwarted by a lack of suitable footwear. Never
mind, the dry coconuts still had pretty good water and lots of good flesh.
Pretty quickly the beach chairs and hammocks were set up, a snorkel expedition
was launched, and then afterwards we all had a rest (nap) in the shade before
gobbling up a variety of snacks Isabel and Becca had put together.
One
of the more amusing activities today was observing the enormous number of
hermit crabs tooling around in their adopted shell homes. Hacking up a small
bit of coconut meat and placing it in front a hermit crab is good entertainment.
Intially the motion scares the shy little buggers and they hide, but the
temptation to eat fresh coconut soon overwhelms them. It’s fun to give a little
crab a big hunk of coconut and watch them drag it away to their hidey hole or
wherever.
Returning
to JollyDogs Isabel and I drove the dinghy out into the pass to see what state
the tide was in. The current was extremely strong and the eddies really
impressive, spinning the dinghy this way and that when we weren’t propulsing
ahead. It’s obvious that many boats would just be along for the ride on an
outgoing current, including the now nearly stripped Dufour 56’ that was new
perhaps 1 year ago. For some reason the captain thought he and his crew needed
to depart Fakarava atoll via the South pass before daylight and to their dismay
they tangled with a dive marker buoy that has been in the same spot for 10
years. Combine their loss of engine propulsion with the current taking them
along so that they really couldn’t steer a heading while trying to get sails
up, and now there’s a scrapped boat on the reef. She’s nearly stripped;
yesterday John, Simon and I took some tools over and removed some bits and
pieces that we thought might come in handy on our own vessels. About the only
thing left of value on the hull is the mast, standing rigging and the furler.
All expensive kit, but all somewhat challenging to remove safely, and a big
problem to transport the mast. No doubt some enterprising and ingenious
individual will hatch a plan and soon it’ll be fit to drag off the reef and
turn into a dive site.
Oh
yeah – it was River Phoenix. Anybody remember the name of the club?
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