The run East from Huahine back to Tahiti was about as expected. We dropped our mooring on the sandy shelf by Fare right at 1800 and motored smartly out of the bay then through the North pass by the village of Fare. Brian, Chris, Sue and David were all still gathered on Taipan where we had just left them, hooting and hollering as we went motored past.
Motoring up around the North end of the island was a bit on the rough side with the wind and swell wrapping around a land mass - the swell partly a function of the rapidly changing subsea terrain close to shore. In about an hour we were beginning to move away from land, pointing towards our distant objective to the East and initially the wind was directly on the bow and a bit stronger than forecast. Motoring single engine at less than 4 knots felt a bit discouraging, as on a 100 mile trip that’s a 25+ hour run. Our light wind flat water speed is closer to 5.8 knots, and I had flight planned for 5 knots so we could arrive at our destination before dark. An after dark arrival would take us to Point Venus on Tahiti, a large bay we’ve entered safely at night. Should we arrive with adequate daylight, more options presented themselves, including a stop at Moorea or proceeding directly to Marina Papeete, close to several places we needed to visit.
Isabel crashed shortly after dinner and I kept an eye on things, soon noting that the wind was clocking a bit to the North. Time to raise the main and get some drive going on! Soon we were motor sailing at closer to 5.5 knots and actually laying a course to Point Venus, but it was still too rough to put the prop in overdrive. Closer to midnight the seas softened, so I put the prop in overdrive mode and we were motor sailing at 6 knots. Onward and upward!
Around 0200 it was time to ask Isabel if she could stand watch for a bit, and I briefed her on the situation and we noted a total of 5 pleasure yachts in close proximity, a couple doing the same as us and the rest heading West. AIS really improves situational awareness and even in good nighttime visibility deck level position lights are difficult to see until folks get fairly close. We’d rather know about you when you’re still 5 – 10 miles away, thank you very much.
Poor Isabel hadn’t managed to sleep at all but dutifully did her thing so I could collapse in a heap. Around 0600 I popped back out and sent her to the rack, then after reviewing the latest weather forecast and pondering the existing conditions made the decision to sail around the South end of Moorea and to Taapuna Pass. It was that or drop the main and pound into the seas to aim for Marina Papeete, as it was obvious we’d now have a daylight arrival. The way the wind was going to pipe up from the East it would have been “not fun” to sail from Moorea to Tahiti later in the week.
Tweaking the course to aim for the South end of Moorea improved our speed and soon we were doing between 6 and 8 knots with the seas just a little forward of the port beam. Nice! As we approached the lee of the island the seas flattened further and the wind got a bit flaky, so the job was to keep the main from flogging. Rounding the South end of Moorea, we were doing 7 knots directly to Taapuna Pass South of the Airport anchorage, our new objective. That would put us close to our major provisioning objective (Carrefour), Tahiti Crew where one of our packages was waiting, and Michel’s comprehensive chandlery where I needed to collect some bits and pieces.
About a mile from the pass both engines were on, the main was stowed and the channel markers were in view. About 100 meters from the channel markers we slammed on the brakes and stopped dead as a large whale wandered very slowly across our path. After a couple of minutes all was clear and we proceeded into the pass, up to the airport anchorage, and found a lovely shallow sandy spot about 100 meters from our neighbors. Average speed just a bit under 6 knots, 20 hours and 108 miles. Easy peasy.
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