Impi: DEPARTING THE MARQUESAS FOR THE TUAMOTU ARCHIPELAGO

This letter is a long one for which I apologise but is necessary since the internet connection is very unreliable and requires that I get in as much news as possible while it lasts. As a result the photos are also 'downsized in quality' in order to get them uploaded ...

Following an incredibly rough passage where we were met by a foul weather frontal system of high seas, gale force winds, pelting blizzard driven rains and the odd roaring wall of unusually massive waves which our auto pilot could not deal with and sent Impi ‘twisting ’ and dropping unwillingly down the wave face in the wrong direction … and … not only during daylight hours but also in the dead of night, we finally made anchor after entering the cut into the atoll of Fakarawa.

LEAVING NUKU HIVA FOR UA POU

But, let me not get ahead of myself here … our news starts with where we left off last with our departure from Nuku Hiva to a small anchorage on the north side of the island … Ua Pou.

Now, let me start by bragging about the huge fish I have been catching … might I add … for those who have been following our news since the early days, that my fishing skills were not quite that great but of late I am fast gaining the reputation for being pretty good at getting these fellas to ‘take the lure’ …

And so, here in the photo below is a wahoo I caught using a simple contraption as we do not own a fishing rod … basically a line attached to a bungee ‘shock chord’ (Bungee doubled to represent 0.5m length) and attached to a hand rail on the boat to absorb the initial impact … this fish caught at 5 knots SOG (speed over ground) and this one caught off Nuku Hiva …

And then again another Wahoo at 5.0 knots SOG just as we entered Ua Pou … the MAGNIFICENT anchorage of Hakahetau …

.... yeah, yeah guys, I know ... why am I posing with this fish instead of Ana ... right ...

And lets not forget about some of the other fish we caught here …

Yeah, around these islands there is an abundance of fish and they seem to love my various sizes of pink and white lures. The bigger the lure, the bigger the fish!

The wahoo we caught as we were entering the bay of Hakahetau was a heavy fella and required quite a bit of tugging and pulling on the line to get it to the rear step. Of course once there … it was a different story all together to ‘land it on deck’.

Since I did not want to gaff the fish, I was forced to lift its head up out of the water and did so bit by bit taking up the strain on the line by winding it around one of the rails at the rear of the boat and then by grabbing hold of the fish in a type of ‘bear hug grip’ held it there whilst Ana proceeded to tie a lasso rope about its tail. I had to smile as Ana, in her bikini, wrestled about on the lower step to get the rope attached … I am sure plenty a fella would have paid good money to watch that going on … Impi all the while rolling about with the motion of the ocean whilst, we, in all the excitement and activity kept a mental and visual note of drift and position …

And so, with our refrigerators well stocked and fish to share with our new American friends Bob and Annette on yacht ‘Tempest’, we entered the beautiful little bay of Hakahetau.

Hakahetau (On Ua Pou) is stunningly beautiful and in particular on this day where we found ourselves in calm water protected from the wind that had swept Impi there … it was truly magnificent.

We found this bay to be beautiful, calm and relaxing … a good spot to prepare for our crossing to the Tuamotu Atolls.

Here we amazed ourselves with the beauty of these incredible ‘rock spires’ which seem to reach for the skies … veiled by clouds one minute and unveiled the next …

LOOKING FOR THAT WEATHER WINDOW AND GOING:

There is no internet connection to be found in this bay and of course planning our route to the Tuamotu was of utmost importance from a ‘weather perspective’.

We had been watching weather grib files for the last week whilst at anchor in the bay of Taiohae on Nuku Hiva and had been amazed at the strength of winds and storms passing over the Tuamotu … it seemed we would be delayed for weeks unless we found a ‘gap’ in the weather …

On Nuku Hiva we had befriended many people and had spent an evening at the home of a fella called Kevin who owns a small company that provides services to yachtsmen there. Kevin is an American who married a local lady and therefore enjoys all the benefits of citizenship here … a man who himself has cruised many an ocean and whose services we as yachtsman are truly blessed to have at a place such as Nuku Hiva …

Anyway, here we were at his home with some fellow sailors discussing weather gribs and looking at the latest information Kevin had kindly downloaded … it seemed we had a window with some steady winds initially and without wind toward the end of our passage … and so the feeling was that we should get moving at a slow pace to allow the storm conditions in the Tuamotu region to calm somewhat whilst enjoying a bit of wind at the beginning of our journey …

Ana and I had decided to make our first move by going to Ua Pou and staying there for the night to allow the weather to dissipate a little before making ‘a run for it’ …

Fellow yachting people also at the barbeque, Bob and Annette decided to sail along with us on their boat called Tempest …

The sail to Ua Pou was terrific and although we had some swell out at sea it really was not bad …

In the photo below … our friends on Yacht Tempest disappearing in the swell …

Our journey from Ua Pou to the Tuamotu was well planned for and our routes had been decide upon … one that would almost be a direct line of travel from Ua Pou to either the atoll of KAUEHI, FAKARAWA or TOAU depending on the time of arrival.

The thing with this region is that there are many reefs, incredibly strong currents and especially with wind and current opposing one another combined with a strong tide rushing in and / or out of the narrow cuts where one has to enter these atolls … makes for some interesting and challenging sailing conditions where waves can stand like vertical walls whilst the current tosses a boat about.

These currents can be of such strength and speed that smaller boats without the ability to do speeds in excess of 8 knots under power could see themselves in a lot of trouble with no way out except to hope and pray the ‘boiling pot’ flushes them out on the other side ‘right side up’ …

Add to this the many number of coral heads which abound in the atolls, the inaccuracies of charts that require a lot of updating … and lets not forget about our friends who had just placed their yacht onto a reef whilst entering an atoll at night …

We were determined to plan routes to various destinations well spaced apart and to ‘narrow the choice’ as we approached the Tuamotu and would be in a position to determine an arrival in day light hours …

A very good position to arrive at in ‘poor light conditions’ (and winds from the south) would also be on the north side of the atoll called TOAU where there are apparently a number of mooring balls one can tie to and the anchorage lies to the outside of the ‘lagoon’ which means one does not have to negotiate the ‘cuts’ (entrance passages). Anchoring on the outside of atolls here in the Tuamotu is not common as the outer perimeter drops off steeply into the depths of the sea.

Timing the arrival or departure of these atolls is crucial as currents can be incredibly strong here and much advice is given by many people as to how this should be timed, but for us the crucial thing is to know in advance the tide tables and to ENTER on either a ‘slack tide’ (between low and high and visa versa) or when the tide is rising (water moves into the lagoon area) without opposing wind.

Of course, on departure the same applies in reverse … i.e. to be moving through the cut at slack tide or otherwise in the absence of opposing winds one can depart when the tide is dropping and moving out toward the sea.

Needless to say we had spent a great deal of time and effort in planning our passage and had downloaded weather gribs which showed large swells at sea but with light winds … this was good enough for us …

Well … the beginning of my letter explains the conditions we really discovered once out there … it was chaos!

Fortunately our friends on Tempest had an AIS as did we and this enabled us to monitor each others position and speed despite not being able to see each other for the poor conditions and visibility.

The rain and wind was so intense that running the radar was almost hopeless as it filled the screen with a purple reflections from breaking waves all around us …

The wind had picked up so suddenly that one minute we had been cruising along wonderfully with the use of our asymmetric which Ana calls ‘The Beast’, and the next thing we knew was that we were in storm conditions which ripped the head of the ‘The beast’ clean off and sent it down into the sea before us.

Usually this would have a yacht run over the top of it and destroy it entirely but as good fortune would have it I had already headed to the bow to bring it in when the break occurred and along with Ana was able to recover it before any further damage could be done.

This was no easy task as now in driving rain and seas picking up, I found the weight of ‘the Beast’ to be incredibly heavy due to being in the water and the friction of it being dragged in the sea. Ana promptly did the impersonation of an octopus and looked pretty cute clinging to as much sail as possible to prevent the excessive winds from blowing it back into the water. I must say this took quite some courage in these conditions as Ana feared the wind could blow her and the sail overboard and of course all this was enhanced by wind driven torrential rain downpour.

Needless to say, this was to be the start to a very rough and unpleasant passage for us …

By now we were sailing on our main sail which was reefed all the way in and a small amount of genoa which we furled in and out as needed to maintain a similar speed with our friends on Tempest who were keeping contact with us by VHF and SSB.

I had used the Iridium satellite phone to download weather grib files which were not accurate at all and so contacted by email our friend Kevin at Nuku Hiva who got weather information from the French weather station there. Similarly the French meteorologists had also got the predictions wrong.

By now we considered our options to turn around and head back since the storms we had seen days earlier were happening closer to the Tuamotu.

Our plotter screen revealed a Japanese ship destined for Japan that was to pass just behind us and Ana took the opportunity to hail them on the VHF and asked if they perhaps had some indication of what was expected over the next day or two.

Initially the ships radio operator had not sounded keen to share the information with us, but after some charm and persuasion the fella took a liking to Ana and asked her to stand bye whilst he plotted our course to the Tuamotu and predicted the weather along our line.

He then proceeded to read out the wind and sea conditions over the VHF noting the times of day and night we could expect these and had done a weather prediction all along our route.

Ana thanked the gentleman profusely and wished him a pleasant journey to Japan and was greeted in return with huge enthusiasm and he clearly was pleased with feeling that he was able to be of assistance to us.

His prediction was to be ‘spot on’. I mean, how could this be … the gribs had yet again been so wrong … as was the French weather station who are local to this region and here was a Japanese ship which predicted conditions which proved to be impeccably accurate for the rest of our journey … unfortunately so … as we were in for a rough time. However, he had predicted that the weather on our last day would be calm and with little wind which would require the use of our engines, which for once, we gladly hoped for.

The Pacific had proved to be a sea that is not for the faint of heart. Here the seas have proved to command every respect from us … to never underestimate the meaning of a totally calm sea with its splendid glow off beautiful sunset skies … to know and realize that these moments could very well be ‘the calm before the storm’ … to remain vigilant … to be prepared … to observe nature and be in awe of its power and unpredictability.

Sadly, we have been alerted to be on the look out for a missing yacht called ‘Itchyban’. The authorities have asked for sailors to be vigilant and in search of this yacht that has gone missing for many weeks now …

My mind was cast back to Andrew and Kayle who were missing on yacht Athena a while ago as they attempted passage to the Tuamotu. The French Navy had spotted them by aircraft, dismasted by rolling seas and storm conditions they were drifting toward an atoll … both men onboard … and we rejoiced! We have not heard where Athena is right now and are hoping to see them somewhere on an atoll … to be able to assist and encourage if possible … but the authorities are not able to explain their location and this troubles us …

ARRIVING AT FARAKAWA was terrific …

We had slowed the boats down for a morning arrival …

And there it was … LAND HO … and dressed in beautiful palm trees it was barely visible for being such ‘low lying land’ … and what a relief to arrive in such pristine conditions.

We entered on the NORTH PASS an hour before slack tide …

There was a clear stream of ‘water rushing out of the lagoon’ toward low tide and in the middle of the cut one could see the disturbance. The procedure is to wait for an hour or so, however, the cut here is very wide and we had heard from our friends that there were no obstructions to the east side of this pass where the water was calmer … and so we carefully entered keeping well to the east …

From here we carefully followed the ‘suggested track’ on our Raymarine charts that proved to be accurate …

Dropping anchor was not as straight forward as we are accustomed to … there are many coral heads lurking beneath and soon our anchor chain was finding itself wrapped around these. I tried re-anchoring in several places and eventually came to the conclusion that there is no suitable spot here … one has to ‘live with it … check the anchor and chain daily and if necessary start the engines and maneuver the vessel to ‘free it up’. Impi is currently anchored at 16*03.534S 145*37.268W

Fortunately the water is calm and clear … the place is amazingly beautiful and although I believe the winds can make the anchorage ‘unsettled’ we are reveling in the calmness and tranquility of it right now and as we have done for the past few days.

The water is so clear I can see the coral heads below and the fish are plentiful including black and white tip sharks, remora and many other species of fish.

This photo is of a reef to our stern at anchor and displays a north cardinal mark (stay to the north of this mark)

DIVING WITH ALL MANNER OF FISH AND SHARKS:

A dive center is located on a nearby wooden dock … ‘Top Dive’.

Ana kindly decided to buy me a ‘very late birthday present’ … something she found difficult to do on account of being around islands all the time and now, here it was … a dive with Top Dive.

We had taken the dinghy being duly cautious of the many unsuspecting and lurking coral heads to the ‘Top Dive’ dock and tied off there.

They had place for me the following day for a dive on the reef at the outer sea wall … a dive that is about 25 meters deep and with little current to speak of.

Top Dive have terrific dive boats with powerful engines which very quickly saw us arrive at the entrance to the lagoon where we were to dive on the eastern side …

Dropping into the water was terrific … it is warm although I was wearing a ‘shortie wetsuit’ of about 3mm thickness. The visibility in the water is terrific and I wished I could have taken my canon camera down with me, however, I had already had one bad experience where the ‘Canon waterproof housing’ was not so waterproof and Canon would not warranty the repair which required us buying another …

In the photo above, a spotted eagle ray cruises between us ...

The dive was so terrific that I opted for a ‘drift dive’ a day later and this required diving with nitrox in the bottles.

This dive was to be one of the most magnificent dives ever … even by the dive guides standards who said it was a very rare and special dive we had had.

Bob took the photo of me below ... clearly enjoying myself ...

Here I was … at about 30m depth swimming along the sea wall (where the land drops down into the depths of the ocean) admiring all sorts of fish including the ‘Giant Napoleon fish’ … (seen in one of the photos above)

And suddenly I find myself swimming along with hundreds upon hundreds of sharks …

These sharks were clearly not interested in us as a source of food … they literally cruised about unperturbed by our presence … black tips, white tips and reef sharks …

Now and then a curious shark would sneak up from behind and glide in close proximity ... send a shiver down my spine ...

The fella above skims past me unexpectedly ...

And of course there are those which swim above ... makes for an awesome sight ...

We observed some transparent yellow fish which cluster together in order to make a shape which appears larger than the sharks ...

Apparently this is a survival tactic they use in these heavily trafficked waters by the 'men in grey' ...

In the distance I observed two huge objects approaching … wow … beautiful giant manta rays …

These magnificent creatures glided toward me and one brushed across the top of my head ever so gently … glided along and turned to repeat the cycle … wow …

The thing about this spectacular dive is that the environment constantly changes as one enters the pass where currents flow at a terrific speed. Here the sea floor becomes sandy and requires one to grab hold of the odd vegetation or coral spike in order to 'slow things down a bit', and even then the water rushes by at a terrific speed.

At one point we found a small canyon and dropped within ... a place where the current passes overhead but is is calm below ...

And here too, we discovered the odd 'sleeping shark' which scuttled away as we approached ... thankfully ...

EXPLORING TOWN:

Ana and Annette had decided to stroll around the village on Fakarawa …

The area is quaint and beautiful although there is not much in the way of buildings and the feeling is most definitely one of remoteness … and of course in that there too is a beauty …