Ana and I had been at anchor in Rangiroa waiting for that north wind to kick in so we could sail down to FAKARAVA … I was determined to get down to the south of this beautiful atoll to dive with the sharks. You may recall from our visit to Fakarava last year, our spectacular dive in the northern pass with sharks and mantas … what a terrific and memorable moment that has been for me and I was hoping for a ‘repeat experience’ in the southern pass.
We shared our favourite activity with you in our last blog (Atoll Rangiroa - snorkelling) whilst we waited for this weather window, and when the system kicked to in favour for our departure we took the opportunity with gusto!
The pass through which Impi would exit, Passe de Tiputa still had 2 hours left before slack water but we decided on account of the short spell predicted for the northerly winds … to go for it!
And so, our departure from RANGIROA saw Impi leaving through the cut (pass) on an outgoing tide that raged some pretty impressive swells …
At the helm and concentrating hard to place the boat in the most favourable position, you can only imagine our situation … water rushing out of the atoll to meet the sea which in turn stood these massive waves up on end … waves that peeled over and broke toward us. This is such a strange feeling as the waves kind-of stay ‘in position’ as the current sweeps you through / over them.
Of course we are always looking after Impi and ’the trick' was in the knowledge I had from diving, that the east side of the cut carries enough depth to ‘side step’ the major brunt of these waves … and that is what we did … we worked at keeping Impi to the east of the aligned passage.
Whilst in deep concentration and watching these barrelling waves and swells, I suddenly observed these beautiful dolphins literally leaping meters into the air and darting from one wave face to the next seemed to be having so much fun!
Ana delighted in one particular instance where we were headed across a wave face to ‘side step’ it to the east, when 3 dolphins literally leapt up into the air and ‘side stepped’ us … wow! It all felt so crazy, fast and furious … and to top it all off add to the mix some ‘adrenaline junkie dolphins’.
To our sailing friends going to RANGIROA ... make sure to visit the pass when it is in a fury on an outgoing tide … guaranteed you will see dolphins at play, and they seriously use these conditions to get some incredible hight as they leap and summersault. I really ‘Kicked myself’ for not having set up the Go-Pro camera as we cruised through here, and of course when in these conditions one can hardly scoot downstairs to fetch the thing!
Sailing from Rangiroa to FAKARAVA was terrific as we had north winds strong enough to see Impi getting some 7-8 knots in comfortable conditions … and … of course there was that one particular squall that came through with incredible 8 force gusto … and to spice things up just a little bit more our AIS revealed a 75ft yacht approaching from port side and closing … in the dead of night … and the warning alarms came in to notify us that we were headed for collision … oh man …
Since we were ‘below’ his track and had him to our port side (left) heading on his starboard (right) this meant we had right of way. As we began to close the gap I reached for my binoculars and started counting down time and angles … angle remains constant … and … yeah … to be sure we were set for a 'close shave’.
For interest sake … and this for our non-sailing friends of course, a very BASIC GUIDE we use to establish who has ‘right of way’ in a situation like this where both boats are under sail, is to look at what ‘colour' we see on his boat … and then imagine being on his boat and seeing the colour he would see on our boat. We all know that Port (left) is red and starboard (right) is green, so kind of like a ‘traffic light’ … to see red means ‘stop’ (the other person has rights over you) and to see green means ‘go’ as you have rights over him. Of course there are many factors that come into effect which need consideration, but in this case it was as straight forward as that.
The skipper from this large yacht eventually realised we had a situation ... he and his crew had desperately been reefing sails in and setting up the trim for these sudden overwhelming winds … called us on VHF ch 16 and sounding rather intense asked what our intentions were. Of course I notified him that unless otherwise decided between us, I was holding course and he should alter for avoidance. He sounded rather worried and explained that they were having difficulty in these winds to maintain any consistent speed and were on a course that ‘best fits’ their situation in these conditions … asked if we would please keep a sharp look out from our side and see if we could widen the gap.
In the meanwhile Ana and I pulled in for 3rd reef on both the genoa and the main and continuously kept an eye on this ‘fast approaching vessel’.
In the end we managed to keep a little distance between ourselves at a 'closest point of contact' no more than 200m … quite some exhilarating stuff there!
Other than that the winds calmed down again as the squall peeled off and life at sea became a calm place again!
Ana and I had thought to visit the atoll of Apataki along the way, but as we approached the pass in the early hours of morning, felt to rather give this a miss in favour of getting further south whilst we had the winds and instead head for the atoll of Toau.
Many books one reads about this region, warn of the submerged reef off the south side of Apataki when sailing from the north toward Toau, and I must admit that although these are well charted, this reef does sneak up on one very quickly and subtly, so we learnt to pay good attention here!
We stopped for 3 nights in TOAU at the very pretty ANSE AMYOT on the north side of the atoll. You may recall our previous visit here where Sascha from catamaran ‘Tribe’ took some beautiful photos of Impi from the top of their mast.
Our stay at Anse Amyot was wonderful … well almost …
the last night revealed some very foul weather conditions here, and, although having dived and checked the mooring ball and lines well fixed to the seabed below, felt uneasy as Impi tugged harshly at the rope all through the night. Our concern was a break in the rope … especially with the shallow reef system on our stern … (mooring roughly at 15*48.2233S 146*09.072W).
We had once again, greeted the wonderful couple who live here … Gaston and Valentine … who also surprised us with a number of upgrades and 'add ons' to buildings along the shoreline complete with a new dock … Wow!
I was quite surprised that Gaston remembered me by name.
TOAU … I have written about this beautiful place before (link below) so won’t go into too much detail except to say that it really is a terrific ‘layover’ … you know … get some rest after time at sea and regather oneself before moving on!
Moving on though, is what we did! Leaving Toau was terrific in the morning sun and especially so as we were escorted along for some time by a playful school of dolphin. Ana sat for ages looking down at these beautiful creatures and was so moved by their elegance and intelligence that she felt rather emotional ...
Our arrival at FAKARAVA on the north side saw us sprinting along through the pass, turned port side for the same village we had spent some time at before ... managed to drop anchor in between the various coral heads and so on.
Here we managed to stock up with supplies and get all we needed for our journey to the south.
You will see our more detailed letter from our previous visit here including diving with sharks in the NORTH PASS at this link:
There are two stores we purchase produce from at this little village called ROTOAVA … both are worth visiting. Even though it is tempting to stick with the bigger one, we certainly found the smaller shop called ‘Magasin Rotoava' had some items that were not carried by the other ... some items were less expensive here too!
We will not mention one night where the wind and waves were so dramatic that it saw all sailors on their boats with flashlights throughout the night checking out anchors and so on … this place is well known for its numerous coral heads. We were one of the ‘lucky ones’ to escape chain entanglement around these corals and when we lifted anchor in the morning, saw a number of divers in the water trying to untangle the mess!
Impi was headed for South Fakarava now … sailing down the eastern shore line on the inside of this atoll, we would stop along the way to explore ... and this adventure proves to reveal some terrific spots on this wonderful globe of ours!
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