Having provisioned for ourselves and several other boats while in Makemo, we enjoyed a rather sporty “hard on the wind” sail to Tahanea on Monday the 18th. Sailing around the Southeast end of Makemo then setting course for Tahanea, we found ourselves pointing as high as possible and still not quite laying the course with full main and jib. The seas were pretty flat with only a little wind wave chop, a result of having so little fetch to the Southwest side of the atoll. The wind strength was as forecast, but a more Westerly than expected. After pondering our navels for a bit, we dropped and stowed the screecher, getting rid of a lot of drag way out on the bow. That configuration change bought us a few degrees of heading and along with a little swing in the wind back to the North, we were soon laying the course and then having to decide which direction to aim to dodge a couple of small atolls between us and Tahanea.
Ultimately, we made Tahanea without having to tack, but during her late-night watch Isabel had to play with various methods of slowing JollyDogs down to avoid arriving at the middle pass of Tahanea before dawn. The “tidal guestimator” had suggested that about 0800 would be slack tide then the water would begin flowing into the lagoon. Given the location of the pass and the North Northwest winds, we wanted to transit the pass on an incoming tide. Arriving a bit before slack tide gave us a chance to observe what was really going on in case the tide wasn’t behaving quite as advertised.
To kill a little time we reached up and down the Northeast side of the atoll, fishing lines deployed, hoping for a tuna or mahi mahi. SV Le Pukeko had been in view during the passage, and they had just reported catching two wahoo, so our hopes were high. Suddenly the starboard side line went tight and the bungee stretched to an impossible length before all went slack. What the heck? We scanned the water behind the boat to see just what sort of monster might have gobbled our little squidlet lure and were rewarded by the sight of a big marlin leaping out of the water and twisting through the air. Wow! That was a great show, and we reckoned the spectacle was worth losing a lure over. Guess we wouldn’t be eating marlin or any other fish today. . .
The pass entry was easy, then we turned to starboard and motored about a kilometer to where our pals on SV Agape and two other boats were anchored. Soon all the folks were aboard and after warm greetings all round we were distributing gasoline and groceries. That task complete, we deployed our dinghy, grabbed our snorkel gear and headed for the West pass to drift snorkel it a couple times. Josh and Rachel from Agape had raved about how many big fish and sharks hung out there; no time like the present to go see for ourselves. We motored out until the water turned a very deep shade of blue, then in we went, hanging on to the dinghy painter and drifting with the incoming tidal current. Looking down, we were first staring down into the abyss, then the subsea terrain began to reveal itself as we drifted into the pass. A very steep wall sloped up to shallower waters and we enjoyed seeing a variety of sharks and large fish in the depths, then lots of colorful reef fish as we washed in towards the shallower coral laden bottom. It was so much fun that we did it all again before declaring both success and “we’re cold”.
After reviewing the weather forecast, we all decided that moving to the Southeast corner that day would be a prudent decision, as we had good sunlight on our backs and light winds, minimizing chop and providing ideal conditions to see bommies. Initially we thought we would be able to sail gently to our destination, but the wind died off so that eventually all boats were motoring along. By 1600 everyone was nicely tucked in at the Southeast corner, and the serious socializing began.
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