Tuamotus Arrival

Hi everyone,

We arrived off Makemo Atoll's eastern pass at 1230 yesterday.  We had to motor from dawn to make the slack water occurring somewhere between 1200 and 1330.  More on that below.  Our noon to noon distances were 116nm by the log and 113nm over the ground.  Overall we'd logged 484nm and 510nm respectively.

Under full sail

Yesterday afternoon the wind finally backed into the ESE.  That made Raroia a beat to windward so we eased sheets for Makemo, changing our destination yet again.  Gotta go with the flow!  Also our arrival time at Raroia would have been many hours before slack tide so we'd have had to wait around.

We use three sources of tidal information.  One is Navionics Boating's built-in tide stations.  The second is SHOM, the official French site.  The third, and our preferred source, is TheFloatingLab's guestimator.  The latter allows user entry of weather conditions over preceding days and accounts for it in producing its output.  Here's the default (no weather) output we used:

TheFloatingLab's guestimate

The above plot indicated we needed to arrive at 1330 for slack water in the pass.  The other sources suggested 1200 and 1230.

We had a great sail under full canvas yesterday afternoon on a beam reach towards Makemo.  Overnight the wind gradually eased and started veering back to the ENE.  By dawn the wind was very light and so the motor went on.

On arrival outside the pass we used the bins to inspect the pass.  There was 'ruffled' water but no standing waves so we proceeded straight into the pass.  We had outgoing current up to 2.5 knots with a few minor whirlpools but no drama at all.  Phew!

Approaching the pass

The worst of the turbulence

In the pass

View of the town from the pass

In the lagoon

Once through the pass we looped around to stbd into the anchorage off the town of Pouheva.  We anchored on the shallow ledge in 8m over sand and rock.  For the first time ever we buoyed our anchor chain.  Thankfully the wind was dead calm by then, and remained so overnight.  The water is crystal clear with fish everywhere.  Locals were catching 1m tuna from the jetty.

Anchored off Pouheva

Zen Again was totally still anchored in the lagoon.  No swell for the first time since Shelter Bay Marina in Panama.  What a feeling!  We met up with our friends on OCC sv Nimue for a walk around town and a pizza.  It's a nice little town.  The locals are super-friendly and they keep their town very neat and tidy.  Great to be in the Tuamotus!

Our next post will be a passage summary.

Trust all's well where you are.