Apsara's Log: Tuamoto Tango
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| Wed, 23 Jun 2004 08:15:45 |
| 15 40.8 S, 143 01.8 W |
| Wind 20 knots, SE by S |
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Apsara has a bone in her teeth romping
toward the "Dangerous Archipelago" at
nine knots. The moon set two hours ago and the sky is clear with the
Southern Cross directly ahead and the winds fresh and strong on the port
bow. This is our third night on passage, we have 400 miles behind us, 80 to
go, and it is just the two of us, taking 3 hour watches through out the
nights and 4 or 5 hour watches during the day. Nancy shortened sail on her
watch from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, furling in the jib and unfurling the stay sail.
So now we are beating along with a deep reef in the main and the stay sail
out. The boat is loving it.
Some 30 miles to the east of us tonight is Rairoa atoll where in 1947 Thor
Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki finally washed ashore in his dramatic attempt to prove
that the Polynesians had migrated from South America. Washing ashore on the
windward side of a largely uncharted pile of coral must have been something;
we are doing all we can to avoid a repeat.
The Tuamotos, part of French Polynesia, are called the Dangerous Islands
because the 76 islands,
stretching 800 miles NW to SE are nearly all atolls and thus are very
difficult to spot until one is nearly upon them.
[Island Sidebar: Atolls are the last phase of an island's life before it
sinks into the sea. Almost all islands are volcanic in origin and in their
initial phases look like Hawaii or the Marquesas - tall rugged lava
mountains fringed by shallow coral if in the tropics. Eventually the high
island mountains wear down or collapse back into their hollow volcanic cones
and the edges begin to sink, leaving a lagoon between the shrinking island
and the coral reef - Bora Bora is the best know example of this type of
island. Atolls have no center land at all, just the big open lagoon
surrounded by the coral reef and small islands, called motos, above sea
level. The donut-style atoll can be dozens of miles across and hundreds of
feet deep; Rangiroa's lagoon, the largest of the Tuamotos is 40 miles long and
20 miles wide - too far to see across]
For centuries navigators have struggled with the strong currents and the
inaccurate charts of the Tuamotos and many ships and sailing yachts have
come to their end here. At 10-15 miles radar may be able to pick out an
atoll with palms. If there are not palms, and often there is nothing but
reef, you might not see anything on radar until the last mile, which at 9
knots we cover in 6 minutes. Today we have GPS and more trustworthily
charts (we can trust the French, right?), but there still can be
inaccuracies of up to a few miles. Tonight, around 3:00 AM we will,
supposedly, pass less than 10 miles from Taenga atoll. We will be watching
the radar closely - hoping for palm trees - until we pick this atoll up or
are safely past it.
We stayed about ten days in the Marquesas, seven of those days in a
wonderful quiet bay called Ivaiva on Tahauta, near the big island of Hiva
Oa. After several nights of poor, rolling anchorages, Ivaiva was calm,
deserted, with a blond sand beach - rare for the Marquesas where most sand
is black and most anchorages have no beaches. The rest was well needed as
we have been pretty much moving since Nancy's parents and uncle joined us in
Bonaire, some three months ago. Since then we have had constant (and
appreciated) guests and crew, but it is nice to have our home to ourselves
for a little while.
Tahauta had some amazing sea life. We swam, on three separate days with
giant manta rays that feed in the bay each morning. The largest of the rays
was 15-18 feet wing tip to wing tip. We also saw sharks and a giant moray
eel with a head bigger than mine. We made new friends of several boats -
Spanish, British, even a couple from San Diego. In general the yachts here
in the Pacific seem to be cruised by younger people, many with small
children. A Swedish family of four adult sons and father on a 39 foot boat
had us over for a welcomed fish dinner. In route to the Marquesas, these
guys caught an eleven foot marlin plus several 100+ pound tuna.
About the time you read this e-mail we should be starting to negotiate the
pass into the Makemo atoll where we hope to spend several days if the
weather and holding ground are fine. Getting inside an atoll can be
challenging since one is basically running a break in the reef. Makemo's
pass is only 100 feet wide and if carefully threaded we should have 25 feet
of water. In addition to finding the correct path through the coral we
expect to deal with strong outgoing current. We will time our arrival to
coincide with "slack water" but due to the continual waves that dump water
over the reef into the lagoon, there is said to always be an out flowing
current. Hopefully, once inside we will find some calm, protected anchorage
but this can not be known until we are inside and see the conditions. The
lagoon is 10 miles across and over 100 feet deep with coral heads that climb
all the way to the surface. We will have to eyeball our way through here as
their are no detailed charts of the lagoons.
We'll spend a few weeks here in the central Tuamotos, hope to visit a few
more less populated atolls before sailing 200 miles to the Society Islands,
which include Tahiti, Bora Bora, Moorea.
Best to everyone,
Scott and Nancy
PS - now 3:00 AM, have passed Taenga which was never visible due to a series
of squalls which Nancy piloted us through while I cowered below, staying dry
and eating popcorn, as captains are wont to do.
..
_________________
s/v Apsara
www.svapsara.com
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