Tahanea

We did an overnight passage from Makemo to Tahanea to arrive at the ideal time to cross the passage. That being said, we left Makemo a bit early because I wasn't keen on crossing the passage in the dark.  The result was a very sporty passage.

We arrived around 9:30 with a 4 knot current carrying us through.  Quite fun!  The skies were mostly cloudy. That made seeing water color changes in the lagoon challenging, so we decided to anchor and wait for sun.  We ended up spending the day at the north anchorage. We did a little exploring but mostly we were tired. I played some music and we went to bed early.

We awoke early and the sun was shining.  We were able to join our friends in the east anchorage.  

Tonight's sunset was beautiful with a nearly full moon.  I love the light on the palm trees, the color of the sky and the moon!

The next morning I went for a walk in the beach while Mike and Rob scouted out launch beaches for kiteboarding. Here are some favorite pics from the walk.

Looking south down the beach

Palm trees in the clouds

Alcyone, Pangaea,Tumbleweed & Shindig

Two terns overhead

Rob and Mike flying the drone 

Looking out onto the anchorage 

Looking out toward the Pacific Ocean

Mike went kiting with Rob and Nancy while I cooked dinner, baked bread, made yogurt, fed a sourdough starter and worked on my paper.

We had a beach party on the beach tonight. Douglas, who happens to be an Eagle Scout, made us a great bonfire after we ate.  Then we went lobster hunting which was not fruitful but fun under the light of the full moon.

The next morning Tumbleweed left for Fakarava.  The wind was marginal for kiting, but I took the opportunity to gear up and practice my kite skills without the board. It was super fun and I feel a little stronger with my kite control.

Shortly after, the three boats headed back to an anchorage just west of the main pass.  We did a drift dive of the pass and saw some large reef sharks and medium-sized black tip sharks, along with all the pretty little blue, yellow and turquoise fish, parrot fish, angel fish, zebra fish, etc. The coral looked pretty healthy, which made the dive that much sweeter.

That evening we had a little party on Alcyone with the three boats and another boat in the anchorage, Pituf.  Birgit & Christian.  They are a very nice, young couple from Austria.

It turns out that Birgit makes jewelry, so the three women made a date with her in the morning to look at what she had.  I bought a necklace!

A Tahitian pearl, naturally. 

We dove the pass again this afternoon with significantly more fish.  It was great! Very size and color of fish were out for our Sunday dive, including the big sharks.  Birgit swam with an eagle ray and saw a turtle. We missed them, but were very happy with our dive.

We had a beautiful sunset tonight, our last night in Tahanea.  We head to Fakarava tomorrow.

First Mate Kate